Rolf...the idiotic racist of Windhelm. At first I loved him from a story perspective. He made me feel the hatred in Windhelm, and the oppression of my Dunmer friends. But when I had enough of his ranting and tried to fry him to death with a lightning spell and trap his soul in a black soul gem I could keep in my house as a trophy...I learned he was essential.

I heard he's needed for a stormcloak quest, but if I join the imperial legion, which forfeits those quests, will he still be essential? I mean, I'm never going to need him, will I?

Edit: sorry for the typos in the title. I'm on my phone.

It doesn`t matter what side, he is essensial either way, everytime.
~setrace darkelf

also i dont think he is used in any quest ( at least, none that iv found and had the disposition to do), damn essentials

Join the legion, go through the cival war quests and eventually he isn't essential.

Immortal NPCs... gotta love them.

And I feel the racism in this game isn't good enough.

Would be nice if playing on master difficulty would disable essential tag on NPCs. Or be able to do it through a checkbox. With some message if you kill someone needed for main quest like in Morrowind. This was fun, and running around slaughtering every people you didn't like eventually had an effect.