Regardless, Ingmund's army had been disbanded. I think it's safe to infer that, yes? Otherwise he wouldnt need Ulfric's help. What about the other points I made in that post. d
Do those seem logical? You didn't mention the rest of the paragraph. I want to know what you guys think, even if you think I'm wrong haha. I love these conversations.

Course he would still need ulfric's help. His guards weren't able to fend off the forsworn by themselves. I wouldn't infer that they were disbanded either. Guards pledge loyalty to the Jarl and the hold in Skyrim. Why would Igmund decide, "Hey guys, don't need you anymore. Go somewhere else."?

You seem to be under the impression there's a bounty of people who care about finding the truth. Travelling to Markarth is a long ways for most scholars and a dangerous one likely to end in death via Forsworn. Then we have to also assume there's a large number of scholars that weren't killed when the Thalmor took the IC. We also have to assume that some of the scholars remaining didn't think the report was trustworthy despite having never been to skyrim or markarth. Each of them has their own projects to work on, many are probably involved with the planning for the next war. Then we have to realize that even if they had the gumption to follow through on all of these things, they still have to speak out against the empire and prospectively lose all their funding or be imprisoned. This isn't the Septim empire. The Medes are running a rather shoddy ship right now and can't afford dissent.


As for the rest it doesn't matter because it's already been shown that the jarl was ordering killings. I have no doubt Ulfric probably witnessed some or even all of it, but I doubt he would think he could get away with attacking or killing a jarl.

Yes but he could have withdrew his men. Ulfric had the power in this situation. I'm not saying Ingmund disbanded his guards, but the forsworn would not have allowed an army in their lands, nor would they be able to flee with Ingmund. They'd be scattered, if they existed at all. Ulfric had the bulk of the men in Markarth, and war crimes were committed. Ulfric allowed them to happen. Either that or he helped since, as I said, he was the one with the army. Who could Ingmund call on to commit a massacre? That takes a lot of people, and it takes more people to stop riots, silence people, and keep order while it's going on.

He could call on his guards since they probably regrouped outside the city and then joined in on the second assault...


You're not looking at the issue based on what facts we know, you're looking at it with the intent to turn Ulfric into the bad guy.

Actually I'm not. Honestly. I don't think Ulfric is a bad person, which is why this seems out of character. I just can't reconcile the fact that Ulfric's men were in the majority. You're missing the logical fact that Ingmund had too few men, if any, left. His entire regime was dissolved, his former army was no longer a coherant force. You can't change that in a few days. Ulfric had the only coherant army at the time. Thats why I can't logically say that he didnt play a part in this. Do you see where I'm coming from at least? I know Ulfric is a popular character, and we dont want to think of him as doing wrong, but it's not impossible for him to have a dark past, especially after all he went through.

Edit: And I'm not assuming this about Ingmund's army either. When a government gets taken over, its instituions are dissolved or replaced. Any soldiers left would have either fled, hid, be killed, or just given up (We see in-game that the guards are more loyal to the silver-bloods than the jarl anyway). With a those factors, how many guards do you think were left?Ulfric was the only one with a real army capable of doing these things, or at least stopping others from getting in the jarl's way while his own men did it.

I see what you're thinking. But there's nothing to indicate Igmund's force was wiped out. Just that they had to leave Markarth in the face of overwhelming Forsworn forces. Igmund indicates that he had forces and Ulfric was hired to help them retake the city. Now that the forsworn army is out of the picture, we either have those that surrendered(Which would be incarcerated and unable to act), or people that were original inhabitants and weren't killed by the forsworn during the takeover. If Igmund's forces aren't enough after the uprising, how did they handle things before it?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Thonar%27s_Journal casts some light on the situation as well. I do not want to give away spoilers (click on the link if you want it all), but he says this about a prominent member of the Forsworn: Maybe I should have let the Jarl execute him after the uprising after all.

This means the Jarl was the one executing people after the Nords retook Markarth, not Ulfric.

Keep in mind that the Forsworn ruled the Reach for 2 years after killing Igmund's dad. So Igmund had those two years to hire a new guard/mercenaries. That is plenty of time to put together an invasion force. Given that the Great War had just ended, that would have meant a large number of former soldiers were now looking for work. So I am sure there would have been plenty of people willing to sign up, not just Ulfric.

I edited my post a few minutes before you posted that. It talks about why Ingmund's forces must have been dissolved for the most part. The jarl is the bad guy here, no doubt about it, but Ulfric was there, and his men were majority of the forces. They at least allowed this to happen when Ulfric could have withdrew his men, and at worst he participated to some extent.

So I take it when the Thalmor took the IC, the imperial legion dissolved and scattered.

After the Nords retook the city, Igmund would be the one in charge, not Ulfric. Igmund was the Jarl, the local supreme ruler, and his word is law. The buck stops with him.

Saying that Ulfric "allowed" things to happen makes it sound like he had the authority to countermand or interfere with the carrying out of Igmund's orders, and this would not have been the case. He would have been stepping way out of line to do so.

I'm not even certain it's fair to assume that Ulfric was ever "in charge" of the entire operation at all, not if Igmund was taking part in the effort and not just sitting off on the sidelines somewhere waiting for the green light to come home. The fact that Ulfric was leading a militia that took part in the conflict doesn't necessarily mean he was the one calling all the shots.

Just because the Jarl did not have enough men to take Markarth all by himself does not mean he lacks the men to police it. Igmund's dad could easily and logically have decided to flee with all loyal troops (Which if they knew anything about the Forsworn would have been the vast majority of Nord soldiers) when he saw the enemy on the horizon. Once Ulfric takes back the city with Igmund there is no where as many Forsworn left, due to death in battle or whatever came afterwards meaning Igmund could quite easily have enough men under his personal command to order and carry out the executions.

Igmund did hire people. Those people were Ulfric's men. I'm not saying the jarl had no men at all, but he obviously didnt have enough, so he hired Ulfric. To the person saying Ulfric wasn't in charge: of course he wasn't, but he could have withdrawn his troops at any moment, say, when children were being executed. This would have crippled the jarl's forces. The jarl needed Ulfric and Ulfric was doing them a favour. Even after the battle was won, he still needed an extensive military presence to maintain order just like in real life government-takeovers. I'm willing to say that Ulfric himself may not have done this, but he did nothing to stop it. I think that sounds logical, right? If I helped liberate a kingdom, then saw that kingdom's government massacring the ethnicity that conquered them, I wouldn't help them anymore

Well, this is probably best of told in spoilers:

Yeah, I listened to his story and agree with your other points. The only loose end to be tied is the fact that Ulfric's men were most likely still in the city after Igmund regained control. As I said, it would have taken a good amount of time for a Igmund to rebuild his militia, as it was apperently small enough for him to need foreign aid. Just like in real life, a large military presence is needed to maintain order after a government takeover. So I think it's safe to say that Ulfric witnessed these events and didn't decide to withdraw his men, which he could've done. The jarl needed Ulfric's men there, and if I actually cared that the jarl was killing innocents I'd refuse to help him any further.