"Hircine, whose sphere is the hunt, the sports of Daedra, the greatest game, the chase and sacrifice of mortals..."
now i still agree with you, but that's the whole point, there's no GOOD or EVIL (at least ther should be none) in Tamriel, so why we'r "forced" to consider the campions as the good faction and the silver hand as the bad and opposing one so not being able to join them?
that's y i laugh when some people call skyrim a sandbox , it's a good RPG with more sandbox elements than your usual one, but in the end still "forces" you to play in some way.

edit: meh i can write pretty bad when i try -.-

The entire companions questline seems like it was thrown in at the last minute. I also thought it was strange how a faction like The Silver Hand was instantly villainized, but it's hard to feel empathy when they are nothing more than a hollow, faceless plot device.

The Silver Hand are a pretty twisted bunch, given the things you find in their lairs, and the nature of their leaders. (The fact that they hide in old ruins and more or less act like bandits in all other ways is also telling.) So yes, the Companions are definitely the good guys (relatively speaking) of the two.

Many of us consider Werewolves to be evil ... has got something to do with our "education", i.e. those novels, movies where weres are dangerous, evil beasts, just bent on slaughter and mindless killings.

But: There are also other concepts where werevolves (even Vampires) are portraied differently - just like normal humans, there are bad ones, grey ones and good ones (White Wolf's story-telling RPGs for example).

To me, Bethesda seems to follow the latter concept. There are wild, dangerous werewolves that attack you on sight ... other weres try to grapple with their "curse" and win - or fail. And others, like maybe the companions, have mastered this curse and use it like any other person would use a sword or an axe. The sword is not evil, it is the hand that wields it.

Another one of these topics?
When will people learn to use the search button first instead of littering the forum with this kind of complaining topics?
There's probably a hundred other topics discussing the same damn thing.
Mods really aught to start cleaning house here...

they also kill vampires i saw 3 of them on the way to whiterun when i first started im sure she said i should enquire about joining possibly not i was delarious from midnight launch hehe definately saw them though

Yeah well, you were forced to kill one "innocent" per month as a werewolf in Daggerfall so they were undoubtedly to be considered evil then but lore consistency isn't exactly that important for Bethesda it seems :/

The Companions have a different strain of lycanthropy than the one that appeared in Daggerfall (or in Bloodmoon, for that matter). Kodlak talks about the reasons a bit during the questline. Sinding (from Hircine's daedric quest) is an example of one who... doesn't. There are a few other references to Skyrim's werewolves being different than those of other regions. And if Hircine feels like creating multiple strains of the werewolf beast blood... well, no one can really stop him!

That's not entirely true. The companions value honour highly, and don't take dishonourable jobs. Kodlack himself frowns even upon the revenge you can take upon the silver hand. To him, honour dictates that you've killed more than vengeance would allow.
The companions, while mercenarties, carry a set of values and principle setting them apart from others, and being free =/= being good. Everything costs money, otherwise they'd be living in a cave rather than Jorvaskr.

EDIT: and consistency isn't an issue, the companions did not acquire Lycanthropy via contracting the sanies lupinus virus; they gain lycantropy via a magic ritual using the power of the underforge. As has been said, Sindig is an example of a 'regular' werewolf. He doesn't have control over his transformations and cannot fully control himself when transformed. He is the similar to the werewolves in Morrowind.

That's great but what about your character's eyes? Sorry to nerd-out with the RP, but I wish more people could see that sometimes you want to role play an evil character, or a ruthless werewolf hunter, or a Thalmor, etc. Just because you are a nice liberal chap in real life, doesn't mean you might not want to play an evil, corpse devouring psychopath in a video game. So give us the option.

I am sort of irritated by the fact that the Companions, for all their honour, are actually Werewolves. (The Circle, at least) I guess it does make them a little less boring, but I still found them the most boring of all the guilds, just like the Fighter's Guild was in the previous games. Eventually I cured myself of Lycanthropy, but for some damned reason my "Days as a Werewolf" continues to go up and people still comment about me having fur in my ears.

The Silver Hand are just bandits with silver weapons. Both story-wise and literally.

Yeah, I wanted to join Silver Hands sooo bad. Especially after visiting their fort. During that mission I was thinking "what the hell i am doing here , why am i a monster and why the hell i am killing these guys who are exactly like me - vampire, wolf and other moster hunters"

True. That's why my Altmer battlemage did not progress further in the ranks of the companions and my nature-loving, "shamanistic" Wood Elf hunter will.

There actually is a choice - even if it's the one we don't like: Don't progress with the companions, refuse to become a were. Right, you cannot join the Silver Hand ... maybe a mod or a DLC can rectify that.

Why's everyone so angry on werewolves? It's not like it's the end of the world now. Plus if one of them wouldn't have turned into a WW during the ambush, another valuable member of the Circle would have been killed. I think people's issue is that they stereotype the werewolves as the ''bad'' guys. But why don't we do the same for vampires?Babette is a 200 or 300 years old vampire and yet she's an amazing character.

Oh my god, really? We get one questline as an example of not having an option to join the otherside, and suddenly there are no branching quests or meaningful choices? There is an abundance of them. Sure, the Companion questline is not an example of one, but that doesn't mean there are none.

Honestly, I always thought it was weird that the Silver Hand was basically a group of bandits, that would attack anyone on sight, regardless of if they were a werewolf or not. And yeah, I can see wanting to join them, but the Companions are a thousand times cooler, lycanthropy aside. I don't see it as any real loss. It's more of a loss that there are no feral werewolves running about.

Yeah, I was sad. I have a character who's an honorable mercenary type, perfect for the Companions, but also a proud Redguard, proud of the blood of her father, proud of her heritage, proud of her humanity. Distrusts magic, hates evil, hates corruption.

Then these guys go, "Hey, we're honorable mercenaries too! Just to let you know, if you want to work with us, you have to drink monster blood and become a abomination of warped humanity. Oh, and renounce whatever beliefs you had before and pledge your soul to this one Daedric Prince. Don't worry, he's cool."

Um, yeah. Kinda had to walk away from that. At least there's still the occasional bandit hunting mission from bartenders to make me feel like a mercenary.

Or you know, we actually like to play characters with some personality. My altmer is a purist snob and views werewolves as beasts that should be killed out of principle, their morality doesn't factor into it, merely the fact that they're corrupt abominations by their very nature.

Every one is the good guy, from their own perspective. From some one else's perspective, they're the bad guys.

It's sad that 90% of humanity seemingly lacks the intellect or sophistication to understand this simple concept. There are so many interesting things going on in Skyrim that are completely wasted because people can only see the world in terms of black hats and white hats.

Yep, that was my reaction too. I do a couple quests for them on my Paladin, they seem like alright guys, a new fighters guild of sorts. Then I find out Farkas is a werewolf and the others are secretly werewolves. I'm a bit troubled by this, not really that comfortable helping a gang of Hircine's servants kill some werewolf hunters. The Silver Hand seems to be hunting the wrong werewolves though or for the wrong reasons, because the Companions seem to have their curse under control. The last straw though, is when right after Kodlak tells me about werewolf souls are placed under Hircine's jurisdiction and power, they tell me to take on the curse myself! My character has no RP reason to accept a curse that would make him an abomination and risk his connection with his god, Stendarr. Especially after Kodlak just told him of the reason why being a werewolf is not so great. Their talks of honor rang hollow to me after that, what honor is there in changing into a beast through a Daedra's curse to fight your foes? I haven't continued the quest so far, and doubt I will with this character.

Hopefully we'll get a nice DLC adding some quests for the Vigilants of Stendarr sometime in the future. They seem to be a grey faction through their uncomprimising zeal, but they do protect people from supernatural beasts and worship the same god as my character, so maybe I can reform their ways by joining them and becoming a leader in the faction. Teach them that mercy and forgiveness is one of Stendarr's key aspects, though defense of the innocent is important as well.

I doubt we'll get any development for the Silver Hand except through mods though. They may as well be bandits the way Bethesda portrayed them, which is pretty annoying.

Haha, yeah. I was like, "So let me get this straight. You want me to literally sell my soul for ... what? The chance to live with you guys, be marked for death by monster hunters, and keep doing a dangerous job for crappy pay?"

It was a let down in so very many ways. Beast for itself loses all utility past a certain point other than traveling (seriously, no one thought that damage and health should continue to be boosted to make it viable past level 25?).

The way the entire quest line grinds to a halt if you don't do the ritual, the inability to turn around and hunt the companions like the monsters they are, etc etc.

It was just...mediocre.