I tend to play Stormcloak characters. I have my reasons, suffice to.say I just don't think this Empire is going the right way about things. This is fine, I accept the pros and cons of this situation, all bar one. To complete the Civil War you must help Jarl Balgruuf with his dragon problems, which put you in a situation whereby you are given the title of Thane, and granted a great level of power within the Hold. In this you have no choice. You must do these acts to continue the war.

Of course that puts me in a position of trust with good old Balgruuf, he's a good guy, I've helped him and he's helped me. We're buddies. So then can I not council.him to.support the Stormcloaks? Why is my only option at this point to backstab and betray him?

I know he makes his own choice, but I'd really like to be able to use that little bit of political power at this point.

I felt bad for betraying him too, but there's really nothing you can do about it.

Well just Goes to show...Ulfric Is a stupid idiot....Read his dossier...

For such a stupid idiot you guys like to portray him as this amazingly intelligent thalmor agent working to destroy mankind.

And unfortunately the situation with Balgruuf may have been caused by the empire. You can hear Tullius telling Rikke to lie to Balgruuf about Ulfric's intentions.

You're my forum hero.

I know he ends up in the Blue Palace. Maybe there'll be a mod to restore him to his Hold by finding evidence of that deception. That'd be awesome!

You don't swear any oath of fealty as thane. I didn't even ask for it- just did the guy multiple favors, so if he wants to reward me that's his choice.

I did feel bad about having to attack Whiterun, and about how bitter he is toward you afterward, but this is how internal power struggles go. As a Talos worshipper himself, he's just picking the wrong side. He knuckled under to the Concordat and to Thalmor kidnapping people from his city, but he'll draw the line at Ulfric? That said, I still respect him probably more than any other jarl apart from Ulfric. It lends to the quality of the civil war setup that there are competent, sympathetic people on both sides.

Nah, I crushed the Stormscum into dust. Betraying Balgruuf (who actually seems to be the only person that cares about his people) just felt... not right.

He does ask the Legate to embellish the letters, but it wasn't a lie to get Balgruuf to accept Imperial help. Legate Rikke has intel that Ulfric is planning to besiege Whiterun, the embellishment would be for convincing Balgruuf that this will take place and he will need Imperial aid to protect the city.

You hear about Ulfric's plans when you visit him, he wants to try diplomacy first because he respects Balgruuf but Galmar talks about attacking Whiterun itself and making these plans for if Balgruuf doesn't choose to side with the Stormcloaks.

Yes but there is a difference between having plans to attack (which most armies have plans for many different strategies) and actually giving the order to do so. The embellishment might have been misleading and putting them on a collision course.

Anyway, I agree, I felt horrible for the poor Jarl, he was a good one after all and deserved his title. It is a real pity you couldn't convince Ulfric to show him mercy after the war.

What do you expect Ulfric to do? Put someone in a jarlship who wants his blood? I think he shows him quite a bit of mercy considering Balgruuf sits around afterward talking about how he's going to see Ulfric's head on a pike. Ulfric let Elisif keep her jarlship, so he would probably have let any of the imperial jarls do so as long as they swore oaths to him.

At least you don't have to kill him

You might want to think about the sequence of events a bit more.

EDIT: Not to mention the reason WHY he left Elisif in charge.

Well i dont follow the empire anymore cuz i play an redguard and if u dont know the redguards of hammerfell dont follow the dominion and therefor i chose the stormcloaks cuz of the thalmor and the hate redguards have for them. I do wish i didnt have to betray balgruff but atleast he didnt die at the end of the whiterun siege but i did want to kill his thane dark elf.

It's for the best. It can be painful to stab someone in the back but if it's going to help the community, then go for it.

Indeed, he's easily one of the most likable characters in the game. I felt like a little [censored] when he gave his speech upon losing the battle.

What annoyed me is when you talk to the new legion Jarl afterwards he gives you the same speech the original one did about making you Thane, giving you a weapon, and allowing you to buy a house. They could have at least made the dialogue different so I don't feel like the old Jarl never existed.

The worst part of this.

He has no idea where his kids are anymore. Even if they were a bit spoiled. I never was able to find them after the battle.

Or, you could just explain yourself.

Obviously he knows Elisif is an empty frock and can be controlled. Falk Firebeard thinks it was to demonstrate temperance. But it actually IS temperate. So is letting jarls who resisted his assault and threaten his life to continue to foment that opinion.

Especially the one consorting with daedra. :/ Who knows. I doubt the Stormcloaks would kill children. As Balgruuf says, they'll be ransomed if anything.

The more I read these threads the more I'm convinced both sides are unworthy of my character's help. The only problem is leaving the civil war ongoing helps the Thalmor, who are clearly the arch enemies of any decent civilization in this era.

I suppose it's good that Bethesda has through the design of this stoked discussions like this, but it's a very hard choice for sure. It's like the Stormcloaks' short term goals are less horrible but the Empire's long term goals (pretending to embrace the ban of Talos to buy time to regroup to defeat the Thalmor) are better for the whole of Tamriel.

I think this topic is pushing me more towards the Empire though. I wouldn't want to betray this guy, even if Whiterun is a haven of bigots.

Yeah, I felt a bit bad about this too, I like Balgruuf the Greater. He's a strong Jarl, really cares about what's going on in his hold & so on. Hopefully this'll be fixed by the community in January--although we should have been given an option to persuade him by default.

This, he gets tricked by the empire into thinking Ulfric just wants to take everything from him, I love when people acuse Ulfric of being a biggot when tulius is the bigest of them.