Through my time playing Oblivion, then going back to Morrowind, I gained a certain image of Skyrim from the descriptions of in game books and nord npcs. I imagined Skyrim to be geographically similar to how it's portrayed in the game, but I imagined its inhabitants to much more....wild. Reading texts on the nords, I always hear mention of clans and barbaric warriors wandering the land in constant combat with each other and the land itself, with horrible monsters like the uderfrykte rampaging through the land. Yes, I figured there was a central government, cities, and civilization, but I imagined that the heart of nordic culture was in its glorious barbarism, with scattered tribal villages and isolated mead halls filled with norse-like warriors. Going to Bruma in Oblivion and talking to the nords there painted them as a people who were just barely civilized, and proud of it. A people who were fierce and free. The province in TES:5 is interesting and beautiful, yes, but it just seems so....structured and civilized at times. Of course there's a civil war going on, but nothing about the nords makes them seem like the feral, brutal, warriors I imagined them to be. What do you guys think? Is Skyrim tamer than you expected?

They act how I figured they would act. They act more or less how they did in the last 2 games.

If you notice, most of the books and texts on nord culture is written by non-nordic people. That kind of skews their perception a bit. The nords in bruma...I didn't accept them as "true" nords, since they obviously were in imperial land.

I'm not so much talking about the nords themselves so much as their descriptions of their own people in their homeland. The nords we saw in Cyrodiil and Morrowind were very imperialized. Yet they talk about traditional skyrim ways like they're totally different. For example, a nord in bruma claimed that marriage didnt exist in skyrim and that the concept was seem as backwards imperial thinking to them.

True, but they seemed to know what "true" nords acted like back in Skyrim. And the ones that were born in skyrim and lived in bruma seemed a lot more interesting in certain ways. I guess I just assumed their culture was more outlandish than it was. In reality it's not so different from Cyrodiil or High Rock

Marriage as in the Nine divines didn't exist in Skyrim according to them, but Mara is a diety that is found in almost all of the pantheons and Maramal refer to Mara as the handmaiden of Kyne, which is a god of the old ways. I was surprised how large the Nine divines were though, and it seems they have become the leading religion the last 200 years. Not really sure what the explination is.

Other than that, no I wasn't much surprised. I weren't expecting, in the words of Olfrid Battle-Born, "peltwearing axe-draggers". I expected a people who have thier political scheming, their commoners and their differences and that is what I got.

yes and no. well it is the fourth era,things have changed, i want m?re villages like skaal or the meadhall thirsk skyrim needs a king too.

Well Alga in Bruma specifically mentions that nords dont believe in Mara-style weddings, but other than that I see your point. I guess I was just expecting too much haha. Maybe in the last 200 years things got more civilized?

i expected it to be more like solstheim.

yea skyrim is not what i pictured it to be either,tbh i think the devs spent more time on the graphics than they did on the inhabitants and so it seems a lil shallow to me imo.

Yeah, this is basically what I was expecting / hoping for. I like seeing all the cities and commoners, but I was expecting more of the barbaric side of nordic culture too, along with the mead halls and skaal

well,actually wich nord talks about mara style weddings in skyrim,isnt that guy a redguard,also i get that uber nord feel here and there. also like how ulfric talks about bringing back the old nord way.

Yeah same here.

Two nords: Honmund and Alga. Dont mix nords up with redguards. I AM a redguard! I take offense to that ;]

I was expecting to find Nords living in Strongholds, not just Orsimer. I was dissapointed in finding that the Jarls homes were not the Meadhalls. Ivarstead is a perfect example of a Village that should have had a mayor who did rule from the Inn Meadhall.

Not a mayor, a chieftan! That's what they're called in in-game books, once again illustrating the culture they were supposed to have. You make a good point about the meadhalls. Namely: where are they? There's only one in all of skyrim as far as I can tell. Are the inns supposed to be meadhalls? Then where are the chieftans? Why dont they call them mead halls anymore?

I pictured it being more built-up than the kind of portrayal they had in Solstheim. Before Skyrim, I imagined the typical Nordic city would be like a large fortress-like city-state of grey stone and huge walls. Windhelm ended up being pretty close to that. I guess I got that mostly from how the cities looked in Arena; they changed a lot of the places since then, but compared to the other provinces I never really changed how I saw Skyrim.

you expected the culture and the atmosphere to be more aggressive , thats the great thing about reading books is that everyone has there own interpretation of how the world is like in the books.
i expected there to be more nords within the mead halls though .... not just a hand full of 5 ppl .
and i guess i expected more bosts and singing within the halls as well , nords yelling , getting drunk , singing , clinking the pint's together , and a small brawl in the corner .
but thats what ya get i guess , i still love the game

Not just more aggressive, but "primitive" in a way. A good way. I imagined a more built up version of Solsteim, with tribes and chieftans and wandering nomads and infighting between the clans. I expected and was hoping there'd be some civilization as well at each hold's capitol, similar to what we got in the game, where the more imperialized and / or "civilized" nords lived and where all the outlying clans would meet to discuss politics with the jarl. I also expected to see more meadhalls, and for them to have more importance than is shown in the game. Seriously what happened to all the meadhalls?

As far as wild and uncivilized go, the Nords don't necessarily qualify but the Forsworn do. And they do have chieftains in the form of Briarhearts, they're just not called chieftains. Also, doesn't Skyrim take place several hundred years after Oblivion? Cultures can change tremendously during that amount of time.

I don't know the lore all that well, just throwing some ideas out there.