My problem today is with Markarth/daedric quest "The House of Horrors" - in short, it made me feel uncomfortable. I think Bethesda went too far. In this post I will be giving spoilers on this quest so stop reading here if that bothers you. I will also add that I'm a Christian, which possibly means that this is more of an issue to me than for many others.

The quest starts when you're wandering around the city of Markarth. There's an abandoned house not far from the entrance gate and when you walk past its door some guy tells you he thinks daedra worship has been going on and asks you to accompany him inside. You go in (perhaps feeling pleased at the opportunity to crack some demonic skulls) and it turns out there is an altar to Molag Bal in there. Molag Bal traps you both inside the house, so your new buddy turns on you and you kill him. You are then ordered by Balag Mol to bring him a priest of Boethiah, as he wants a soul to cleanse his altar.

Now, I'm used to having multiple choices in Elder Scrolls games. I'm used to there being a good option and a bad option. I'm playing a pretty decent guy, so I figured I'd screw Balag over and warn the priest instead. So I went and got him. I was surprised at the lack of a "Balag Mol is trying to trick you!"-esque dialogue option, but not alarmed, and returned to the abandoned house with the priest. Once there, the priest falls into Balag's trap and you are ordered to beat him repeatedly with a rusty mace while he is helpless. I was expecting to be given an opportunity to refuse, to fight back, but there isn't one.

So to finish the quest you have no choice but to do as he says. The torture goes on for some time (you have to whittle away his full health bar three times I think) until eventually you've bludgeoned the poor old guy long enough that he agrees to give his soul to Malag. The daedra in question then commands you to kill the unfortunate chap, again with the rusty mace, so that his surrendered soul can be transmitted to Oblivion.

Being a blindly obedient servant (apparently), you do so, murdering the trapped priest in cold blood as he begs for mercy. You're given the mace for keeps and the quest ends. My criticism is that there is no way to finish this quest without doing these things. Once started, you must either follow it through to its grim conclusion or abandon it mid-way (leaving it forever on your list of active quests).

Doing this quest made me feel extremely uncomfortable and I'd say that Bethesda has crossed a line. The forced beating you give the helpless priest is unacceptable. I was given no warning that this was one of the daedric artifact quests and had no way to hero my way out of it once it started. Skyrim is supposed to be a game you can play your own way. Finding otherwise has left me feeling disappointed.

Thanks for reading all that. Has anyone else had similar feelings or is it just me?

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Edit:

A few of you haven't quite caught my point, so I'll reiterate. I know it's just a game, I know you can choose not to complete the quest. My issue is that it is far too easy to accidentally start a daedric quest without knowing what it is you're getting yourself into. If they all started with you activating a demonic shrine or doing something diabolical then I'd have known to stay away. Instead I kept going with it as I was under the impression that I'd eventually get the option to be the good guy.

This is a case of incomplete quest writing - most players investigate the house on completely innocent terms, so there should be an option to finish/end the quest in a non-evil way. For example, in the quest you do for the daedric lord of the hunt, Hircine (another quest that I started without knowing it was a daedric one), in addition to obeying Hircine's orders (kill the well-meaning werewolf) you also have the option to defy him (team up with the werewolf). There should have been an option like that in The House of Horrors for those of us who are more into fighting evil than serving it.

I have enjoyed the discussion in this thread, forum folks, so thanks for getting in on it. Also: Happy New Year!

I guess all you can really do is deal with it, right? I know what you mean though. There's been several times where i've wondered why they didn't add other options for me to reply with.

It's a priest of Boethiah. I don't like Boethiah anyways.

I didn't feel this way about the quest but I kinda had a feeling that anything to do with Molag Bal would be pretty much evil. He is the Daedric Prince of Domination after all.

Nobody forces you to do that quest, you can leave and never look back. In fact nobody but yourself is responsible for doing Daedric quests in the first place. Dealing with the devil and whatnot.

There is a lot of this "potentially unconfortable" stuff in Daedric quests.

You said it yourself - you can leave halfway. Most of the Daedric Princes are no nice guys (or gals), and won't hesitate to kill or torture, or force their servants to do so. A lack of dialogue in some points is disapointing, but it is what it is.

Do Namira's quest to ease your mind.

lol that's mean

A majority of the daedric quests in skyrim are like this one- they are sick. You will do evil things to get the item. Take it or don't do them. There was a thread recently about whether or not you could rationalize this for a good character....

But heck yes- I feel uncomfortable. They are intended to make you feel uncomfortable and squeamish. This was in response I believe from gamers who believed earlier daedric quests in Morrowind and Oblvion were too sugarcoated.

I have reservations about gaming "In Cold Blood", but that's what people wanted. As a parent it's these kind of things that will create restrictions on when and how my younger children play the elder scrolls. As it should be- I believe the series is rated mature.

Do you want to have fun or do you want it to bite or both?
That's the decision bethesda faces every time it makes a new game. In Fallout, we expected it. Elder Scrolls?

and your hunger

Seems appropriate, given the quest and it's background material (participating in a conflict between "demon gods" of Domination/Enslavement and Plots).


And see, this is where you lose me. The quest is "House of Horrors". You encounter sinister voices that drive people to madness and violence. Etc, etc, etc. Pretty darn obvious that the evil sounding voice actually belongs to an evil being. So yeah - not really a surprise that it leads you to evil tasks.

And I really don't see this "forced". Because, personally, I have no problem with leaving a quest in my log, either as a note of something I might do (quests that I haven't chosen to start) or as tasks unfinished because I disagree with where they're going. There's no "force" here. You DO have a choice - you just chose not to take it.



(also, I'd swear I read a remarkably similar post (in length, subject matter, poster mentioning being Christian, etc) a few weeks ago. Deja vu?

I'm pretty sure you're given the option to refuse/walk away at any time... It's your fault you did it.

Good guys get entangled into things they want nothing to do with. Speaking outside of game mechanics, if a Daedric Lord forced you to beat that guy to death multiple times, who are you to say no? Even if you are good, bad things happen. You can't always do 900 quests a "good way" and have zero stains on your shirt. That's life. Even the divine Talos killed a guy.

I accept that the quest couldn't have ended with me killing Balag Mol. All I wanted was to team up with the priest of Boethiah (signified by us jumping up into the air and high fiving) and together wreck his altar, cleansing the house and banishing the salty daedra stink from it.

I agree with the above statements. I have not tried but I think when I next do the quest on my new character that will seek out the priests who are dedicated to eradicating daedra worship and see if they say anything about it. Whenever anything with Daedra are involved I expect it to be bloody and evil.

I don't recall being able to leave. Once you enter the house I believe it becomes a kill or be killed situation.

I did this on my first toon, realized what was going to happen once inside a ways and reloaded to the save entering mark arts. Had to replay only a few minutes since that's about the second thing that happens in the city.

I happen to have that mace and still use it. It might bug you that your only option is to abandon it halfway if you don't like it. But the priest you killed was a follower of the Prince of deceit and assassination amongst other things. So most likely not a nice guy himself. Furthermore, you could have seen something like this happening when you were pitted against the other men upon entering the house.

While I certainly don't sympathize with the OP, I will agree that this is just another case of poor depth design on Bethesda's behalf, and they need to shift their attention to the actual game instead of the way it looks.

Don't do daedric quests then. No one forces you too.
In my opinion, this game lacks sadism, it's too child-friendly.
I'm sure the mods will save me though, as always.

I find it more irritating most of them do not have an option to "sabotage" the Daedric's whims, like we can with Mehrunes Razor, or the Skull of corruption.

It's a game? Also nobody is forcing you to do that quest or any quest in the game, and when I entered the house the first time Molag Bal told me to kill the other guy but I didn't have to and I walked out without killing anyone.

Chiming in as an Athiest. I quit my character rather than complete this questline. I'm not even comfortable playing it with my assassin character. I find it one of the more disturbing quests I've seen in gaming. It's just so "ho hum" about killing people. Even the Dark Brotherhood seems to have an ethics about assassination and a reason for doing it. The quest you're talking about is pretty poorly presented.

Well in the start of the quest it's kill or be killed, so that's unstoppable. But the later half where you're supposed to go and fetch the priest isn't something you have to do...

I don't play good guys.. I play more agnostic/earthy characters most of the time. They still say no, because they think independently, and don't want much to do with "hoaky" crap. They're not even that keen on divines.

Conan was a character like this. Han Solo in Star Wars. That kind of thing.

You are not the only one.

http://grindingdown.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/being-nice-in-skyrim-means-even-to-daedric-princes/

I still have the indisposable mace in my inventory and the quest in my journal, incomplete. And it is not the only quest which I had to walk away.

PS. @Teppup&bobjim123, I failed Namira's quest. YAY!!! I bet you didn't know that is possible.