You know I have seen a few threads comparing and contrasting the rebellion vs the Empire and they all boild down to people calling the Stormcloaks and Ulfric racist. I actually this time around spent some time going through the Thalmor reports on various people, especially the one on Ulfric. It seems he was broken when he was captured during the Great War. Further even up until recently he has been used as a Thalmor asset for intelligence gathering.

Reading between the lines it is pretty clear that the Thalmor have used Ulfric as a stooge to setup this civil war and thus weaken the Empire, the people they consider a real threat.

I am just curious why during all these other threads this info does not seem to come up?

In the language of the intelligence operative, "asset" refers only to someone or something that is or may be useful, someone whose actions may further the interests of the group for whom the operative is operating. The person is considered an asset whether their usefulness is intentional or simply a lucky coincidence. It does NOT automatically signify that the "asset" is knowingly or willingly conspiring with the operative or their government in order to be of service to them.

The Thalmor consider Ulfric "useful" because the Stormcloak rebellion is causing problems for the Empire by straining its resources, and because having two groups of humans fighting and killing each other is, for the time being, preferable to fighting and killing a united humankind in open war themselves. However if you read the full document you will see that while the Thalmor like the idea of a prolonged civil war that weakens both Skyrim and Empire as a whole, the LAST thing they want to happen is for Ulfric to win, because that would be detrimental to their goals. So unless you believe that Ulfric intends to draw the war out as long as possible and then surrender or willingly lose it, there's no way he's doing what he's doing in order to help the Thalmor.

Bingo. Ulfric is not a Thalmor agent or operative in any sense. It's just that his war, because it divides Skyrim and distracts the Empire, is in itself an asset to the Aldmeri Dominion...so long as it continues. That dossier also pointedly states that a Stormcloak victory would be a bad thing for the Dominion as much as an Imperial victory would be.

Honestly the dossiers make Ulfric out to be a tragic character rather than the war-mongering egomaniac people tend to figure he is. I didn't like him so terribly myself until I found the Thalmor dossiers for the first time and I felt bad for him. He's got the stubborn attitude of a Nord, yeah, but his heart is even more insurmountable. And that's pretty impressive.

Tragic but stupid and certainly a war mongering egomaniac.

There are two other events worth mentioning that help defining his character

Ulfric was captured during the siege of Imperial City. Under torture he revealed confidential information that helped the Thalmor. While the information was revealed under pressure from torture and abuse, we do see other examples of Nords not giving away their secrets (the Grey Mane guy held in Northwatch Keep, for example). It seems he was not quite ready to join the honored ones in Sovngarde. Anyway, I'm not going to judge him for having betrayed his country under torture; actually there is more...

In the dossier, he's described as a "dormant asset". Being "dormant" means that at a certain point he must have pro-actively worked for the Thalmor. This makes me think that the Thalmor coerced him into helping them in exchange of freedom. Maybe they still have his written confession extorted under torture. Of course they don't give it to the imperials (so they can discredit him with the Nords) as a prolonged state of civil war is better than one of the factions involved winning. It might still be useful *if* Ulfric wins so that they can blackmail him.

The second event to consider is Ulfric's behavior in Markath. I'm not talking about the imperial written propaganda but what says certain prisoner in Cidhna mine. The fanatical zeal with which he prosecuted not only the Forsowrn but just about everybody who wasn't Nord aligned makes the whole affair look like it was a carefully planned act of ethnic cleansing. This fact alone is a great indication of the morality of the guy,

Hold your horses there. As I remember, Ulfric seems to be in two minds about Whiterun. Although it's quite obvious that he does not want to harm the Jarl of Whiterun and would rather have him as an ally, how do you know what his real intentions are?

No. Dormant means do not approach. The dossier makes that pretty clear. They had someone engineer the Markarth incident and contact Ulfric, but apparently he doesn't trust everyone right off the bat anymore.

And who did you talk to? The prisoner mentions the Jarl was the one executing people(So does Thonor Silver-Blood's journal) I'm pretty sure Ulfric isn't the Jarl of the Reach.

It's about the events describing conquering of Forsworns by the Nords under the leadership of Ulfric. Ofcourse the Imperials control the Reach at the begining of the game.

So Ulfric fought a battle against the forsworn for a local Jarl. What does that have to do with the Jarl executing children?

I'm under the impression that the dossier states "He was made to believe the information he gave was important in sieging the Imperial City"

The problem being what is this information? Is this "information" a real piece of information?

Forsworn was brutally executed by Ulfric and his men.

Proof? Cause all the written records(Save the imperial propaganda spiel) and the local accounts say it was the jarl.

I think that the "certain point" at which he was not dormant was when he was their prisoner and they had tortured him to the point where they could actually get information out of him. He wasn't dormant when he was talking to them and providing information, but I see no reason to believe that he continued to do so once he was out of their clutches. Obviously they misled him with regard to how "helpful" he was to them, leading him to believe that his failure to withstand the torture had given them something that was instrumental in their success in taking the Imperial City. They probably hoped that this would make him feel that his ties to the Empire were irreparably severed, that once having "turned" it was impossible to go back and that he had made an irrevocable choice between them and the Empire. "You were disloyal to them, therefore now you can be loyal to us or have no friends at all." That sort of thing.

But I think Ulfric found a third option, which in his mind, at least, is loyalty to Skyrim as Skyrim, not Skyrim as an Imperial province that must be defended and protected out of allegiance to the Empire.

And I agree with the previous poster that reading the Thalmor dossier, at least after I read it again closely and thought about what it was really saying, made him seem like a much more tragic figure deserving of my sympathy and understanding. WIth my Stormcloak characters I always RP that when I return to Windhelm after finding the dossier I give it to him so he knows that I know and don't hold it against him that he once failed to hold it together as a young man undergoing such a horrible ordeal. Generally by that time my PC as been in more than one Thalmor dungeon, so... yeah. I know what they're capable of and I'm not gonna second guess anybody's inability to withstand that.

Even Captain freakin' Picard admitted that when the Cardassians* were torturing him, he got to a point where he would've told them anything to make it stop.




*May not actually have been Cardassians, since it's been a while since I've seen that. But whoever they were, they were not nice people.

Not sure what that has to do with the Thalmor dossier... ?

You don't exactly kill a person without it counting it as "executing".

But I find the self confession of a Jarl more trustworthy than a book. I mean, dang man, people don't admit guilts they don't commit without pressure from special agents

Talk to the people in Cidnha Mine. Whether you believe them or not is up to you.

As has been explained, in this line of context, "asset" means something of value that is useful rather than being an ally. Also, flipping the dossier on UESP, they never established direct contact and just let him be as a dormant asset. In laymen's terms, they don't want him dead because then the Civil War ends and then the Empire's burden is lessened but they're pretty much never directly speaking or communicating with him.

And yeah, safe to say the torture probably warped his mind and the shame of coughing up information as he was tortured probably is a driving force behind his zealous nature. Even so, the source of the information you're using, the Bear of Markarth, is indeed a propaganda piece. But yeah, I see where it gets kind of gray. One side says Ulfric, the other says it was Jarl Igmund, the back and forth is just politickin'.
Not trying to be a smart here but what other written/local things maybe in UESP or some such say it was the Jarl? The only thing I can remember reading was that it was all Ulfric in the Bear of Markarth but I comb over the in-game books a lot so yeah.

I did.

Braig: "I was arrested for just talking to Madanach. But my little Aethra didn't want to see her papa go. She pleaded with the JARL to take her instead. And after they made me watch as her head rolled off the block, they threw me in here to dig up their silver"

As for the written proof that the jarl ordered the executions

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/thonars-journal

Madanach is becoming unruly. You'd think that 20 years in prison would calm a beast like him down a bit. Maybe I should have let the Jarl execute him after the uprising after all.

Also this link here. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Bear_of_Markarth

Yeah it's contradicted by just about everyone, and every other written piece of evidence in the game. It's a propaganda piece to placate the Thalmor.

But Ulfric was working for the Jarl carrying out his orders.

Ulfric captured forsworn(As evidenced by Nepos and Madanach still being alive) then turned the city over to the jarl as was part of their deal for the free worship. What happened after then was the jarl's doing.

That sounds like propaganda too. All we know was that he was involvd in the incident, secretly with the Jarl without consent from either the Imperials or the Thalmors.

Eyewitness accounts are propaganda. Nice. Even the personal journal is propaganda.

Thank you! /paws through