Hey guys! Just wanted to share something extremely.....well I dont know what to call it. I walk into Windhelm for the first time on my new character to see the opening script you always see. After the stormcloaks harass and threaten to violate the dark elf woman, she turns to me, apperently thinking I'm a nord and says, "Do you hate the dark elves? Have you come to bully us, and tell us leave?".

I am a dark elf.

Ummm.........what? Is this supposed to happen?

Dunmer have a long history of hating each other, just look at the great houses.

Error in the coding

Bethesda skimped on the dialogue because hiring voice actors makes it harder to cover all the bases than text based dialogue

Better get used to it.

Lazy VA/writing

you are a nord

btw. you are also a warrior and you hate magic

Good one haha. She acted like I wasn't even a dunmer though.

I know, right? I've only heard one race specific dialogue and I've been playing since November 12th

i remember my first playthrough... i was an argonian and as the woman in windhelm added that they also hate argonians, i felt like the game recognized me.

i was so wrong

Well, guards and bandits have specific lines for khajiits that i usually play, but the general populace is oblivious. I remeber in Oblivion khajiit NPCs had special greetings for khajiit PC, "Greetings clan-mate" if they had high disposition, and "It's scent is unfamiliar" otherwise (i think).

Skyrim took sveral steps backwards in everything but graphics and world design

Why write in all this racial strife if we can't play any part in it? I think there should have been small perks and drawbacks to playing every race. Khajiit would need to do a small quest to get papers and get allowed into the city, altmer should get somewhat different dialogue from nords and thalmor, dark elves should have a misc quest involving their treatment in windhelm etc. Like I said before, why CREATE this racial strife and then make us feel so disconnected from it?

well most of the dunmer in windhelm moved to skyrim after the eruption of red-mountin and dark elfs born in morrowind are known to be dikes to any race besides other morrowind born dunmers

Then why would she say "Do you hate the DUNMER"? She's being general here. There's no excuse: the game doesn't recognize your race here. It's the exact same thing she'd say to a nord. And the houses have been mostly dissolved according to Brand-Shei, and the dunmer in Windhelm dont have any house disputes. Quite the contrary in fact.

Edit: Nor does she even know what house I'd be from, or if I'm an ashlander, or outlander or native.

Are you a vampire?

Oh come on.....don't tell me that being a vampire means no one will ever know what race I am. Though I guess I'm not missing much since no one notices either way haha

This is a plausible answer.

In real life we have a phenomenon called internalized racism (or as sociologists and psychologists term it, internalized oppression), wherein an oppressed group adopts the attitudes and behaviors of the group oppressing it. The question "Do you hate Dark Elves?" posed to a Dark Elf, could very well be deliberate on Bethesda's part.

In Oblivion and Morrowind, vampirism was handled by a magic effect that altered the player's or an NPCs appearance; in Skyrim, the change is handled by altering the player's race. This allows for a vastly improved appearance, but most dialogue only checks if the player is the non-vampire race.

For example, you cannot harvest the blood of a Dark Elf vampire for Septimus Signus because he actually isn't the DarkElfRace, but the DarkElfVampire race. If you hit him with Wuuthrad, he'll take the normal amount of damage, et cetera.

As someone whoss becoming a psychiatrist, I'll admit that's true. However nothing else in the dunmer's situation in Windhelm points to that. In game books, dialogue, and their own cornerclub suggests that they stick together and have a more or less amicable relationship, with little house strife (the houses are mostly defunct) and no self-loathing. I need to invoke Occam's Razor here and say this was not intentional.

Well that.....really svcks. As I said though, I guess I'm not missing much either way. Race means nothing to the player unfortunetly. Thank you for clearing that up.

my firsr charater is a dark elf and i can remember walking into widhelm for the first time and some guy was stood infront of the pub right infront of the main gate and he he started abusing dark elfs so i was like 'wtf? do i know you? are u aware of who i am? do u want me to fus ro dah u across windhelm?' then as i went to walk off he said sumet else so i turn to him, 'FUS-RO-DAH!!, he flys across windhelm, i wait for him to stand up, launch an arrow into his face and pay off my bounty bcus it was well worth the 1000gold lol

but then everywhere i went in windhelm i jus got racially attacked and i fought it was cus i murdered a innocent guy on my debut entrance to widhelm lol which id never done in any other province bcus the residents werent racist bastards lol

but with my 2nd redguard character i soon realised that windhelm jus hates dunmer in general lol

Ah, the opening in Windhelm...
I beat the living crap out of those two every time I go into that rotten rock pit.
"Hey stop that!" A guard says.
"Thane. Screw off."
"Right sir, carry on."

It is REALLY annoying.

Bethesda!

Not everyone plays a Nord! Stop assuming otherwise.

It's adorable when you yell at them like you can command them.

You say "when" as if I do this annually. Besides, I'm not commanding.