Greetings fellow prisoners,


every day i check these forums and I see people bashing the blades, what does everyone have against them?

People don't like the sight of a strong woman.


Nord, Breton, or otherwise.

I don't consider Delphine and Esbern The Blades. The organization of the Blades has either gone very underground in some other province or it has petered out, and Delphine is some zealot who has taken things in a direction of her own. I am not very good at creating completely fictional characters for myself, so unfortunately my character knows more about the 'real' Blades than she does since I am the reincarnation of someone who has joined the Blades twice before. I could enlighten them if only they'd listen... And it's just plain odd (or psychotic) that they don't listen to the Dragonborn.

I'm spoken for, ya know, so don't get any ideas!

OT: People hate the blades because they want you to (REDACTED)

oh they don't follow the dragonborn, they order you the player around, and they force you to decide between the greybeards and themselves.

My latest guess is that people think the Blades have to serve them and be like an army of cowardly and boot-licking followers to the dragonborn.

Nobody every questions why they get free housecarls for being a thane, but people do question how the Blades can stand up to them and make demands.

you could say the exact same thing of The Dark Brotherhood. the night mother says your the listener early on, but you continue to get orders from Astrid and whatever the other guy was. and they make you kill the emperor

so by what you just said, everyone should hate the dark brotherhood just as much as the blades

I think the "ordering" around vibe is only partly true. Part of it is the writer's fault. Almost everyone orders you around, yet no one gets all fussy about it. Join the Companions, join the Thieves Guild, etc.. They all treat you like crap.

Secondly, you can't really roleplay a blade that knows more than Delphine. She seems to be following old Blade traditions. There's a book.. a dossier.. on dragons that Blades members in the past wrote about. They wanted to kill Paarthurnax, but thought it'd be too dangerous to directly confront the greybeards. And they weren't Akaviri specifically. They were imperial Blades. They refer to the Akaviri in the book as their predecessors. So these are Blades who are saying the same thing as Delphine and Esbern.

But when it comes to killing just for the sake of killing, the DB are not hypocrites.

Here let me tell you why. At first it's "We are sworn follow the Dragonborn."
Then it's "Sorry bro, kill this dragon or we won't welcome you."

Arngier makes a similar mistake too, when you ask about Dragonrend. Another Greybeard stops him.

Wrong. The Blades are sworn to protect and serve the Dragonborn, NOT to order them around. It's the key to their ideology- the fact that Delphene pretty much tells you to kill the leader of the Greybeards or you're dead to them is a pretty damn big breach of contract.

its the same with every faction, any radiant quest after you become to head of said faction (Companions, Thieves, etc) does the exact same thing

You never had a friend stand up to you. This is all they do. They are for once not as brainwashed and obedient as the rest of the NPCs but they stand up to you for what they believe. That is what you need to see.

Because right off when you first meet the "Last blade" (Delphine), she's already a condescending bossy old hag who treats you more or less like a common beggar and naturally just assumes you're too stupid or too eager to please to bother countering her command. The other "Last blade" is some whimpering old guy who hung out in the sewers and just waited for the world to end, that is, until you go down there and convince him "Hey, stop feeling sorry for yourself and help".

Fast forward past the points of needlessly proving yourself over and over and come to the final breaking point, where after convening a peace council, Delphine confronts you and says "Hey, these Greybeards....their leader is a dragon. Kill him or don't bother talking to us ever again". A dragon who sat solemnly on a mountain for over 5,000 years, peacefully educating lesser mortals (like Tiber Septim) on using the thu'um. But it doesn't end there....no, once you entrap a dragon, embark to skuldafen, go to sovgarde, and finally slay alduin and return......the Blades can only say "Neat, so....is Paarthurnax dead yet? You know, because that's the important part".

No Delphine, he is not dead. And you know what? I would almost welcome him to turn evil, if only to first direct him to destroy sky haven temple and wipe out you and your miserable old war buddy.

Both sides want to direct your overall agenda. Pick your poison.

QFT.

Not disagreeing with you...

Better, instead of "picking your poison" do you need to have your own agenda!

Arngeir doesn't put any pressure on you at all to take up their agenda of The Way of the Voice. And if you offer of your own accord, he is wise enough to see that their lifestyle is not for you or your destiny. I assume it would only come down to not speaking to you if you kill their leader... kinda understandable. And beyond that their leader is a unique individual who has helped the whole planet by helping you to stop the world from ending (whether or not the world should end is another matter).

I don't care. If they are sworn to serve me then I expect to have Delphine bring me Nord Mead anytime I please and have her whip Esbern three times a day.

I cannot argue with that.

Well.. I feel like I'm put in a straitjacket either way. The implications of each side take me in directions I don't exactly want to go.

If I side with the Blades, then that means I must also pick a side in the Civil War.

If I side with the Greybeards, I can have the peace summit which I'd prefer - except... I'm indirectly sort of enabling the Greybeards overall attitude of pacificism on my character's personality. I like pacifism, but I hate Arngier's brand of it. He's the type who wouldn't mind to just sit around while the world ended. And if I side with the Beards, I'll definitely be a Dragonborn urged to sit on High Hrothgar and be forgotten, lost in obscurity, a pale shadow to every dragonborn who came before me. It's [censored] depressing.

While I simply walked away from the Greybeards was all this talk about an ending of the world, the prophecies, etc. all just things above my head. I am no god and I do not meddle in the affairs of gods or believe in foretold prophecies. I fear no death, I fear no end of the world, but I fear dragons, for they are real and they can be slayed.

Well.... as Cecilff is so fond of saying.... the kalpa will end. Eventually. It's SUPPOSED to end. Supposedly. So - if your (or my, or anyone's) Dragonborn decides to assist the kalpa's ending NOW (as the Greybeards seem to think is correct) instead of later.... it's probably a viable option. Well it IS a viable option for one of the "pushmepullyou" factions in this game.

I have a real issue with games which do this sort of thing - now, admittedly I LOVE the open-world TES games, the ability to just do whatever the hell I want to do without following any given predetermined course. The issue is that I never get why game devs and writers seem to want to do these flaming emo sorts of stuff like "save the world" or "be sure you choose the right side in the civil war".

Which is pretty much why I do one toon through the MQ in these games, and then tell the rest of all that to take a hike. I get enough of that sort of emo stupidity IRL thank you.

I really want to fus ro dah Delphine off the edge of her Sky Haven home. Can this be done? I know she'd live, but can you shout her off the top? It would be so much fun to do this.