Alright, after about 200 hours spread over three characters, I finally got around to finishing the Main Quest (and glad I saved it so long because wow was it underwhelming). I'm still confused about the return of the dragons and Alduin's motives though -- not to mention the player's motives for killing him. Am I correct in understanding that no one was "responsible" for bringing Alduin back (as Delphine and the Thalmor assumed)? And that the only reason for his return was that this just happened to be the moment in time that he was sent forward to when ancient Nord dudes/dudettes used the Elder Scroll? That seems so unbelievably haphazard and random.

And what are Alduin's motives in resurrecting the dragons? Some sort of domination/revenge/whatnot? That's never made particularly clear in the MQ...Paarthurnax says that he became arrogant in his power, but doesn't give any examples of arrogance whatsoever. In fact, the only things I get to witness Alduin doing are: 1) saving me from being executed by disrupting a kangaroo court and 2) resurrecting his dead buddies, which let's face it, if we could resurrect long-dead friends, who wouldn't do that? He seems downright likeable to me from the evidence presented, and I don't see the slightest reason to kill him.

Oblivion's MQ was pretty bland, but at least it made sense. Sheesh.

Aside from that bit where he wanted to enslave everyone, eat their souls, and destroy the world so a new one could form.

Its kinda like the Matrix, and Alduin is Neo, except, not good...

Yeah I saw that somewhere before from people who know the lore better than I. But in the actual main quest in the game, there isn't any evidence given for that, and Alduin certainly never says so much as an "I will enslave you all!" All Alduin ever does is point out to the player that he's arrogant for trying to take on a dragon as old as time, which seems like a pretty solid argument in my book. I mean, if Alduin's really trying to enslave everyone and destroy the world yadda yadda, why don't I ever actually see it?

I really felt bad for killing the guy at the end. Seemed like a crappy way to repay him for saving me at Helgen.

Also...was I correct in understanding that he's only back because this is when the "time wound" sent him to? There's no other force at work there, right?

Oh holy crap, I totally just realized I put this in the wrong forum.

*cries*

Well, so much for that. If a mod sees this, could you please move it to the Skyrim Spoilers forum?

Yes.


Not to worry, they fixed it.

He didn't try and save you at Helgen....he swooped down to attack the village and burn it down with the obvious intent of killing everyone and everything. You just happened to be one of the few who survived, and it just happened to occur right as you were going to be executed. Not sure how to put this any other way....he's a world eater. He wants to conquer the world for the dragons, and on the off chance he gets wounded in Tamriel, he goes to Savngard to feed on the souls their and prevent people from eternal happiness in the warrior hall. He arrogantly flaunts his power over the order dragons and races of the world, as both Paarth and Odhaviing will tell you.

Resurrecting his "friends" is no more a means to an end then a necromancer raising the dead to battle for him.

Well, jeffreybar didn't really say he thought Alduin TRIED to save him at Helgen. No matter how you spin it though, Alduin DID save your toon....

Alduins saving you at helgen is kinda like you being in your car stuck on a railroad track and a tornado slams a dumpster into othe back of your car. Yep your safe, but what about the people on the train that derailed? not a perfect anology tornados don't think.

Who cares? They were Imperials.

In all seriousness though, I think my primary complaint here is that the case for Alduin being the dude destroying the world and/or enslaving everyone is just not made very well in the game. It's one thing to have some character toss it in off-handedly in a conversation, but if you're telling a story, you have to actually show the action happening, and I didn't get that. In Oblivion, you had a 300-foot tall god stomping on the Imperial City. That was a pretty strong case that something had to be done. Alduin got smacked around and ran off like a little girl to nurse his wound. Least convincing "world eater" ever.

Still, it's a pretty (and mostly fun) game, and I'm sure I'll come back to it (especially once the overhaul mods have had their way with it). But meh on the main quest.

Eh well, I'm never much on MQs in games anyway. The GAME is what's fun, not dancing to the devs string-pulling.

I'm trying to recall if I had seen it in the game (books, etc - although I think the Greybeards tell us about it) other than the loading screens, but the point that dragons are immortal (unless the Dragonborn absorbs their souls) and want to enslave/destroy mortals was made clear to me. That being said: I guess we don't actually witness the dragons carting humans off in cage-wagons, but that's probably a rendering thing.

The most I've seen is a loading screen note about the dragons trying to enslave humans in the past and would again given the opportunity. *shrug* And this is worse than the Thalmor, HOW? An enslaved humanity is still a LIVE (for the most part....) humanity. The Thalmor and their Aldmeri overseers want to make sure there is NO humanity at all....

I'm sure we'll get a chance to take on the Thalmor (either in an expansion or a new TES rev) - they are just to big and hated.

Well maybe. Because you need to take into account Beth's inimitable need to never do "pick a side - good or evil"....

Well, in Fallout 3 we could choose Megaton or Tenpenny Tower, we could side with the Slavers or kill everyone in Paradise Falls, I think we could choose whether to fire up the water purify or destroy it, let the rich asses keep Tenpenny or turn it over to the Ghouls, and we crippled the Enclave (destroyed it? I know the Enclave soldiers kept appearing (like the dragons here), but IIRC story-wise we cleared the Enclave out of the DC area). But most of y'all would know better than I because Fallout 3 and TES V are the only Bethesda games I've played.

I don't play the Fallouts. I have too many memories of a time when we were taught how to (hopefully.... maybe) survive an atomic bomb. I really can't deal with the Fallout games. So no clue what they do at all.

Alduin doesn't want to enslave humanity according to Paarthurnax.

He believes his brother's return signals the end of the world.

I think he knows him best.

I was only talking about the "dragons" specified in the one loading screen bit. Then again, we don't actually know what "eater of worlds" means, do we? It may mean very different things depending on who is discussing the label. For instance, it might mean "getting rid of every non-dragon in Tamriel". Or it might mean actually causing the world to "go dark" - the way the moons did. Or it might simply be rhetoric from those (like the Blades and the Thalmor) with very mundane but in their own viewpoints "special" conspiracies.

And while I think Paarthurnax is a pretty good joe as far as huge old dragons go, I'm not sure he's very clued into "today" from his millenia spent in meditation to curb his nature, from atop the highest mountain in Tamriel. Yeah, the view from the top is forever (if you shout the mists away) - but you really can't see the ants very well from there. Not to mention that his knowledge of Alduin (or any other dragon really) is those same millenia old - and just how sharp do we assume his memory is now? In fact.... perhaps his memory isn't sharp at all....

Oh, don't mind me. I'm just doing my usual "devil's advocacy". I think it's fun to look at things from "both sides now"....

But yes, it's deliberate that the affairs of mortal wars:

Stormcloak vs. Imperials
Thalmor vs. Humans

are basically nothing to the gods. It's like Melrunes Dagon's invasion in Oblivion. This HUGE world-changing event that occurs independently of mankind's own petty politics.

Well, he was sent forward in time by an Elder Scroll. That's pretty heavy in itself. Before now, we didn't even know they could do anything except infallibly record history and show possible futures, while causing their readers to go blind. Having a pro-active affect on the world (under the will of one "wielding" it) came right out of left field. I highly doubt it was a simple matter of "the scroll sent him forward x number of years." Unbelievably haphazard, random, boring... and therefore wrong.

Paarthurnax says dragons have an instinctive need to rule and dominate. It's something he fights every day, and something even the dragonborn experiences. The stone tablets leading up to High Hrothgar also make it clear that dragons used to rule over mankind before the Dragon War, when Alduin was banished. I think it's pretty clear that Alduin wants to reclaim his position as supreme ruler over dragons and mankind.

Resurrect long-dead friends, then immediately send them to kill you and terrorize the countryside (I doubt he takes kindly to you re-killing his lieutenants and taking their souls, preventing him from re-resurrecting them). Leveling Helgen, killing all those innocent people (women and children included) who had nothing to do with your execution, wasn't exactly an accident on his part...

Understood. Fallout 3 (and I assume all in the series) are kinda' depressing and dark.

Not I suppose moreso than actually having your second grade teacher spend a lot of time explaining the sorts of things that could happen if you were x miles from a ground zero event, and so on. But I definitely do NOT need it in a game. Games are what I do to get AWAY from RL.... even RL 60 years ago....

Yeah, you should probably avoid the Fallout series because I'm pretty sure you'd see graphical representations of what your teacher described.

Alduin was a terrible antagonist period. He could have been interesting, but overall I never felt anything towards him. I care about as much about him as I do a random bandit, which is very bad. A good antagonist should either make you sympathetic toward them if their intentions are noble despite their actions, or extreme hatred towards them if if they are evil and do things to wrong you and other people. Alduin is neither of those, he's juts a plot device, not even really a character.