When I started playing Skyrim, I got the quest in Whiterun to look into the 2 fueding families. Eventually, the Thalmor were mentioned. This was the FIRST time I'd ever heard of them. it hadn't been mentioned at all by any NPC before that, or in any books I'd gotten then. I had to go onto the Wiki to find out who the heck they were.

Since the great war and the current civil war in Skyrim make up significant parts of the story, I would have hoped a group like the Thalmor would get a pretty good introduction early on, to make sure that the player knows about them. I mean, my main reason for going onto the wiki was to figure out exactly what had happened since Oblivion. While those facts aren't exactly mandatory to the game, I felt completely disconnected to anything in the game relating to the great war and the civil war, since it was all out of context.

Only once I got to the Wiki and found out about the Thalmor and the Aldmiri Dominion, and the White Gold Concordant did the nature of the conflict become clear to me.

For such important parts of the story, they sure left a lot of ways for me to stay ignorant of it all.

Just sayin...

If you do the Main Quest, the person talks about the Thalmor a lot.

The Thalmor are mentioned in the opening cart ride. You learn about them more as you play and talk to people.