What annoy's me though, more than their lunacy and hypocrisy, is the fact that I was really looking forward to interacting with the Esbern character before Skyrim was released. So disappointing, I don't even want them redeemed or for them to have a change of mind in a DLC now, I just want they're essential status revoked in a patch, so that the unwashed masses can Fus Ro Dah them off the cliff, when they dare look me in the eye and disrespect my sensibilities.

Yes I feel that strongly. Their naiveté is a festering open wound on my otherwise enjoyable, care-free existence lol

What annoy's me though, more than their lunacy and hypocrisy, is the fact that I was really looking forward to interacting with the Esbern character before Skyrim was released. So disappointing, I don't even want them redeemed or for them to have a change of mind in a DLC now, I just want they're essential status revoked in a patch, so that the unwashed masses can Fus Ro Dah them off the cliff, when they dare look me in the eye and disrespect my sensibilities.

Yes I feel that strongly. Their naiveté is a festering open wound on my otherwise enjoyable, care-free existence lol

I believe there is a console command along the lines of "setessential 0" that would be right up your alley.

Personally I didn't begrudge Esbern and Delphine so badly for their demand that I kill Parthurnaax that I wanted them dead, though I did wish I had the option of dissuading them.

It's just a touch hypocritical that they want to nab Parthunaax for ancient crimes, yet the Blades outright flaunt their ties with people who were at least hangers-on in a bloody, violent invasion of Tamriel.

Delphine also gave me indigestion when I ate something at her inn.

You think that's bad. She woke me up in the middle of the night, yelling at me for sleeping wrong.

I just went in snooping around, and I had to buy a sweetroll before she let me use the restroom facilities(that smelly bucket in the corner).

Delphine is one of the worst written characters I've ever experienced in any game. Then again, maybe her mind snapped after seeing how the Blades got thoroughly owned by the Thalmor and being on the run for 30 years.

Delphine is one of the worst written characters I've ever experienced in any game. Then again, maybe her mind snapped after seeing how the Blades got thoroughly owned by the Thalmor and being on the run for 30 years.

How can the minds of men come undamaged through the fiery wrath of Anu? The blades are senile, as would any survivors of the Thalmor be. That any humans could still be capable of basic thought after being exposed to the wrath of the Thalmor surpasses belief. Just look at Cicero.

It is true that Esbern even makes more internal sense.
Esbern was marketed before release as a pivotal character. I just do not get that.
The man is a joke. You could do everything without him if the main quest only allowed you to skip the whole Thalmor red herring.
Sheesh and I thought Oblivion had poor delivery. Delphine? Superfluous, there for plot delivery, deus ex.

I love TES a lot but even I am struggling to make anything passable of this mess.
It is just a poor storyline, poorly delivered.

These days people know how to build a story. Its not a secret. There really is no actual excuse to like this apart from being a real fan. Skyrim.. no, it does not have a good story.

This should probably be in the Skyrim spoilers section, or at least have spoiler tags around it.

my bad im new :/

Geez this makes me look like I hate the game, which I don't.

There's a difference between seeing something and copying it and coming up with an idea independently without knowing something already existed. It happens all the time. I just hate how people always jump at the chance to accuse someone of plagiarism.

On the subject of the Blades. They're useless now. I'd argue that they've been useless even before the Oblivion Crisis. It was their uselessness that allowed the Oblivion Crisis to continue. They didn't want to scratch their fancy suits of armor and put knicks in their katanas, so while the CoC, Martin, Jauffre, Burd, and a handful of city guards fought the endless hordes of Daedra outside Bruma, the Blades were content to sit tight in Cloud Ruler Temple, doing nothing, guarding a building instead of guarding the man who the building was built for.

The next TES thing I'm gonna write (and hopefully use to breach the ranks of t0) will be from the point of view of a Cloud Ruler Temple Blade who was damned with the rest of his comrades at the Temple by Talos for locking the gates and staying behind the ramparts during the Battle of Bruma instead of following Martin and the Hero of Kvatch to fight the Daedra. For their cowardice, Talos denied them the salvation of Aetherius, leaving them mindless ghosts who still go about the empty motions of sharpening their blades without intending to fight and polishing their armor which they refuse to sully in combat.

My protagonist was spared this fate so he may pay his debt through servitude to humanity and the Empire. He acts as an aetherial informant to t0, forwarding them dreamsleeve transmissions concerning history and Imperial matters when they ask for it. While he can send transmissions ad semblio, it was Hasphat Antabolis who offered the Temple a restored, Dwemer-built Quasi-Wailing Earthbone-Reactive Typographer or QWERT. With this device that attunes directly to ebb of the Dreamsleeve through 9'th-dimensional imaginary scarab-vectors under the metamathematical Law of Potential-But-Never-Quite-Really Earthbones (which states that Earthbones that might have existed can still be used for basic divining purposes), confraters of the Temple can typograph instant inquests to the cursed ex-Blade, whereupon he can reply with a normal dreamsleeve transmission that is instantly de-wailed and memographed in a non-encrypted, (to save time of course) readable format.

But because he is also determined to help the Empire regain its honor and ensure the posterity of the last great Empire, he also helps t0's equivalent and nemesis society, the often-misguided, comically blundering (but still good-hearted and well-meaning) Imperial College of Double-Standards and Mnmeasures, which seeks to learn and catalog the innumerable oddities and existential anomalies within the Empire and far-beyond. Their crest: A man in a Colovian fur hat grasping nine arrows in his right hand and angrily shaking his fist at a puffy cloud with his left, under which is their motto, "If It Isn't Broke, Someone's Lying to You."

I dont hate the game either, but I come from Daggerfall and Morrowind.
What for me is unswallowable is that those games were made for and by people who like to play games.
And that Oblvion and up are made by people who know games but do not play games.

I will probably never get that feel back. That feel of: Here is a world, enjoy.
Now the endless replayability has been removed in favour of a mechanic and a gamestyle that does not support multiple playthroughs. The thousands of hours of Morrowind are 200 of Skyrim. People say thats a lot.
Not compared to Daggerfall.
Somewhere the gaming side of TES has lost its soul and I am just really happy that here on the lore forum people are still active in expanding the stories.

awesome. i love how you write in the style of 36 lessons of vivec.

Besides my disappointment with Delphine and Esbern, my only bone to pick with Skyrim's MQ is that the dragons are undeniably evil, when there have been little to no accounts of dragons ever behaving in such a manner.

Also as much as I love having the Thu'um it feels like a stretch to have it originate as the Dragon language when again the only evidence pre-Skyrim was that it was associated with Ysmir at one time.

I've never played Daggerfall, and I don't know if I'll even be able to, as I've become so used to the easiness of games today.