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konahrics · 10 months

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I hate how much potential the Dawnguard DLC had and how shallow it ended up being.

TES doesn't usually deal in black & white, good vs evil. Imperials aren't better than Stormcloaks, the Companions aren't inherently good or bad, etc. But then the Volkihar vs Dawnguard conflict happens and it's just... would you like to rid the world of evil vampires?

Normally that's the part where you have to weigh the pros and cons of whichever side you'll take, but are there any pros to the vampires' side? You have to essentially sell your soul to Molag Bal to get a power that's kind of worth it sometimes, to live in a castle that houses actual human cattle and no one likeable except for Serana, who'd still be there if you'd taken the Dawnguard side anyway.

Besides Harkon's (stupid and self-destructive) plan, what objectives do the Volkihar have? Once the main story is over, the game just throws fetch quests at you. They don't actually do anything beyond existing.

And the fact that you fought for these vampires to exist is particularly frustrating because they're shallow and unlikeable. At least some of the Dawnguard members have a backstory: the young man you meet at the entrance to Daybreak Canyon who's scared of Isran, the Orc who wants to avenge his wives, the guy who might speak to Arkay, etc. The vampires get Nothing (except for Serana... who sides with the Dawnguard if you do). There's a former member of House Dres. Vingalmo and Orthjolf bicker. Valerica is admittedly an interesting character, but that's kind of it. Most of the vampires in the castle have almost nothing to say, unlike some of the Dawnguard who you actually go recruit yourself and have their own personality. Which is a shame because i wish that once you've sided with the vamps, you'd actually get incentive to stay. There are many reasons why someone might want to be a vampire (did they get taken in by the Volkihar in an uncharacteristic act of good will, and are now unshakeably loyal? Are they a disgraced noble looking for revenge? Do they think vampires should work with mortals rather than against them? There's potential dammit! Have some diversity!) but the only reason all of the Volkihar vampires have is to sit in the castle, drink blood all night and proclaim their loyalty to whoever's the leader.

Speaking of leaders! Isran is an interesting character who fights for a good cause but sometimes goes to extremes and pushes his own allies away; Harkon is a dumbass who thinks blotting out the Sun would be a good thing and who will 100% backstab you the moment he doesn't need you anymore or you become a threat to him. Actually, you can't trust anyone on the vampire side. Finishing the DLC as the leader of the Volkihar sounds both exhausting and unrewarding, from an in-character POV. Also, why isn't Serana the new leader after she helps you kill her father??

There's so many things that have me believe that DLC is meant to be played on the Dawnguard side, which kinda sucks. It's nice that they offer a way for the player to be evil, but the evil plotline is boring, and good vs evil isn't what TES is good at anyway.

TES could have done what it usually does, and does well, which is a nuanced conflict (while keeping the Volkihar somewhat monstruous, because they are.) A Dawnguard who's trying to destroy vampires but whose methods are extreme (Isran literally has a torture room in the game and makes Serana wait for you there) vs the Volkihar who are torn between obeying Harkon like they have for millenia even though his plan is self-destructive, or overthrowing him and facing the Dawnguard menace weakened. If you side with the Dawnguard, congrats! The Volkihar are no more, but without them around cull their numbers, vampires are popping up left and right. Destroy them and cure their victims before they turn. If you side with the Volkihar, once you've destroyed the Dawnguard, you have to fix the problems Harkon allowed to fester while he was obsessed with the prophecy. Stop other clans from encroaching on Skyrim and refill your depleted ranks, and choose how thralls should be treated.

At this point i'm just rambling but i'm so smad about that DLC. I love vampires but they're so 2-dimensional compared to everything else in the game. I'd happily play through the Soul Cairn every time if the rest of the story was engaging. Ok not happily but i wouldn't complain as much.

#skyrim #skyrim dawnguard #dawnguard #Thoughts(tm) brought to you by: some custom followers react badly to the PC joining the volkihar and i wish being a vamp in skyrim...#...wasn't synonymous with becoming evil #house Ravenwatch probably didn't exist when DG was written but i wish the PC could have the same sort of philosophy #my favorite skyrim oc is a vampire but making it so in-game makes him appear evil by default bc there's no nuance

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baebeyza · 6 years

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Morrowind Tribunal: Bad writing?

I recently re-did the Tribunal main quest and refreshed my memories about the events and since my friends, who I spammed about this, don’t actually play any TES games, I thought I might share my thoughts here in hope someone would be willing to share there thoughts on this with me in return. Let me start this with confessing that I have a huge crush on Morrowind’s new King Hlaalu Helseth, but not everyone feels the same way about him. I can see why a person who tries to kill you at least 3 times, a ruthless manipulator and deadly alchemist who could teach Molag Bal how to scheme, wouldn’t be so popular. But in the Tribunal main quest you still have to side with him.

Even if you don’t do the quests from his right-hand man, the story forces you to take his side at one point. quick summary: You need the weapon of his champion and said champion will not hand it over to you unless you agree to be Helseth’s spy. Now what I want to discuss is, why? Actually being a spy for Helseth doesn’t change anything, since it only pays off after you defeat Almalexia (thus ending the main quest), which, depending on when you did the “Helseth’s champion” quest, can involve multiple quests between.

You being a spy doesn’t alter any of them. The funny thing is also that if you did the “Make sure Helseth doesn’t have any enemies” quests at the start, you get told by Barenziah to do the quests for the temple and working for them, just so that you can end up at Helseth’s side again later. And it’s that switching of sides for apparently no reason that makes the overall story feel really weird, especially because you aren’t really given a reason as to why you have to side with Helseth in the end. I mean sure, Helseth is way better choice than Almalexia, but you don’t actually find that out until right at the end when she tells you that. So when you side with Helseth, it’s not because you don’t trust Almaleixa, it’s because he doesnt trust her and thinks she’s evil. And...I hate to admit it, but I feel like Skyrim’s DLC Dawnguard made a better storyline about two opposing sides. (Skyrim having a better written plot than Morrowind, what a paradox!) You either side with the vampires or you side with the vampire hunters, altering the main quest in places and adding unique quests to each faction. But even if some parts of the main quests are altered depending on your choice, the overall story is the same - Harkon is the evil guy that needs to be defeated, whethre you sided with him or not. I feel like Tribunal could have been better, if it had a similiar structure - you actively choosing to side with either the temple or Helseth, without switching sides from one quest to the other. Imagine, you decide to side with the temple and do the quests that are anti-Helseth, + adding a way to aquire the piece of the Blade from Helseth’s champion that doesn’t involve becoming Helseth’s lackey. Not actively involving Helseth at all afterwards perhabs, just like how the Dawnguard doesn’t get involved heavily the moment you choose to be a vampire in the Skyrim DLC. Or you side with Helseth, adding something that would actually make a player want to do that, because you know, he tried to kill you. I mean something like him actually making up for that or simply offering you more than the temple does, actually convincing you that Almalexia shouldn’t be trusted anymore. You know, just make the guy a bit more likable, or at least give good reason early on why he has a point. You don’t really get sympathy points when the first interaction you have with someone involves an assassination attempt, okay? (unless this someone is me, but whatever) And than you can be his spy and do the temple quests that lead up to the final confrontation with Almalexia. That all being said, I still feel the need to actually defend the Tribunal questline we got at the end, if one can look at it from a different perspective. As I said, there isn’t much about Helseth or anything he does and says that would make someone actively side with him and if the game didn’t force us too, I doubt many people would. This doesn’t have to a be writing fail though, as it could exactly what the writers wanted - the player not having a choice. Actively being manipulated by a King so you do his bidding and help him get rid of his foes, so he can actually rule as the King of Morrowind. Afterall, if you ask the people from the temple what they think of him, they say that they dislike him, because he tries to actually do something as the King, while before it was a nothing-title. The previous King was a fool who never did anything, Helseth is not and he does strive for power and to have say in Morrowind’s future. When you as the player defeat Almalexia, the Tribunal is almost destroyed and with them the ruling force of Morrowind, giving Helseth more power (He really does significant stuff as the King afterall, like making the grand council a thing again and abolishing slavery. I doubt he could have done that, if the Tribunal was still in charge). Plot- and lore wise it’s basically a story about Helseth manipulating the hero in order to gain more power and for that you actually need to work for him at one point. And you got no choice than to be used by him for his own personal gain. You might be the Nerevarine, savoir of Morrowind, but he still got you in his strings. Now this is close to the Dragonborn DLC of Skyrim - the one person who benefits from the entire plot is Hermaeus Mora. You can totally despise him and actively tell him that too, but it doesn’t change the fact that you work for him at the end, doomed to take Miraak’s place while Hermaeus Mora not only got a new dragonborn servant, but also the Skaal knowledge he was after. You can’t oppose him and the story makes that clear - you have to sacrifise yourself for Solstheim because you need the help of a daedra prince who is also a fucking dick. And this is what I think they were going for in Tribunal: Helseth is a fucking dick who wants to kill you and only when that fails thinks “Well they might actually be useful for me, gotta manipulate them somehow.”, but in order to fulfill the main quest, you need his help regardless of what you think of him. He might be the villain in any other szenario, but in this context he’s the lesser evil compared to the other person, who really needs to be stopped, since they would cause way more harm. He have to side with the evil King to defeat the evil Goddess, who will wreck way more than the King ever could. And also quite nice is the notion that you, while being the most powerful person out there, are just a tool for another one, a person who has the might to say: “What are you compared to me?”

#Morrowind #the elder scrolls #tes #skyrim #dawnguard dlc #dragonborn dlc #miraak #tribunal dlc #almalexia #hlaalu helseth #hermaeus mora #discussion #skaal

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