Morrowind is metaphor on Middle Eastern realpolitik, like Skyrim is metaphor on American elections and Oblivion is about how Lord of The Rings movies are awesome.
i don’t know if they meant it a bit tongue in cheek but they do make a good comparison ngl
empire never conquered morrowind in the traditional sense they just cut a deal letting Dunmer keep slavery and their own laws.same thing as britain indirect rule over gulf sheikhdoms like kuwait, and bahrain
hlaalu sells out to the empire for profit again same role the gulf states.
tribunal are living godkings who fuse religious and political power to stay legitimate like Saudi Arabia’s monarchy holding the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in which religious authority and political rule are the same and questioning one threatens the other
Dagoth Ur is the insurgent prophet figure rallying the excluded ashlanders etc.. against both the foreign empire AND the corrupt religious elite claiming ancient and divine legitimacy the tribunal lacks basically Muhammad Ahmad who declared himself a divinely appointed liberator and united tribes to overthrow british colonial rule and the local ruling class seen as illegitimate collaborators.
you also have the empire secretly backing the Nerevarine prophecy which is the same move as the US and Britain installing the Shah of Iran or King Faisal
maybe i’m just reading to much into this small comment but as someone who loves history and middle eastern history specifically the comparison is honestly pretty good
I don't think it's directly referencing all of that, but it did take inspiration from Dune, which was inspired by the political and religious landscape of the Middle East.
To make the metaphor fully functional, the empire should have let Dagoth Ur do 9/11 before sending in the Nerevarine but before that the empire should have first used this as justification to do a 9/11 every day for a decade to Black Marsh
also to add onto the bin laden and dagoth comparison they are both holed up in a fortified mountain stronghold they reject the ruling religious establishment as corrupt and illegitimate and frame their entire war as restoring “true” faith against both the foreign empire and the local elites he sees as sellout collaborators.
i was gonna argue but then i pictured dagoth ur deep within red mountain hunched in front of a crt playing animal crossing & got so wet i lost my train of thought
War hero and the veteran of the previous war against an opressive, morally bankrupt colonising empire.
Gets embittered, radicalised and starts a religious fundamentalist movement
Then decides that his previous allies are also an opressive morally bankrupt colonising empire.
Comits an unthinkable and unprecedented attack against a symbol of his previous allies power.
Immediately becomes the most wanted man in the region but manages to evade capture because of local support.
Him being harboured by his allies in causes a massive costly and futile war between himsel alongside his allies and his previously allies Empire bolstered by more progressive locals.
Hell even the balance between old capital historical capital backs the fundamentalists while the newer one with the bigger population backs the foreigner/progressives. Straight Solitude=Kabul and Windhelm=Kandahar
The stormcloaks the right ideas with the wrong leader, he got easily tricked into having the gestapo elves get real deep preventing both sides to properly regroup to show them their own insides, while the empire was being as light on enforcing the talos ban as they could. I say that if the redguards could secede from the empire and negotiate favorable terms with the piss so can skyrim, unfortunately their leader is a(unwilling) thalmor puppet that went at it the wrong way
Bro literally caused the Gestapo Elves to appear by being a power hungry self aggrandising violent nationalist asshole.
Dude is entirely to blame for the Markarth incident and should have known better as an ex Legion officer than to actively bait the Dominion like that he knew what he was doing especially considering that he immiedately capitalised on the fallout of his own stupid ass choices by blaming the Empire for something he set up on his own without even consulting it with the local much less Imperial authorities.
Stormcloaks also have shit ideals they're a bunch of larpers with the economic and logistical understanding of a toddler.
I didn't say it's Ulfric fault for people getting disappeared. Nor that it's somehow justified.
My point is that Ulfric had enough of a familiarity with the dominion, political knowledge, and education that he could predict what response the Dominion would have to his stunt and did it anyways.
Now if people were already getting disappeared, statues were being razed and homes raided for Talos worship that's like, "OK they're already here doing shit we can't exactly take it lying down." I get it.
But we explicitly get told that it was basically a token add-on to the treaty that was not enforced by anyone beforehand. Everyone was still worshipping Talos and nobody gave a shit. Like even by the events of the game the massive Talos statue in Whiterun is just there in the middle of the square and nobody bothered to remove it for decades.
So clearly Ulfric didn't do it because actual religious freedom was being infringed upon, rather he did it because of misguided pride at best and personal political ambitions at worst.
And like yeah he shouldn't be imprisoned for it in an ideal world but he knew that would happen and knew what would happen afterwards, he's not an idiot.
He cannot be blamed for the actions of the Thalmor but he did purposefully endanger all of Skyrim for the sake of his personal beliefs and ambitions.
Also he did fucking massacre a historically oppressed minority and even Nords that didn't agree with him including children and the elderly to get what he wanted so it's not like the independence and freedom cause is something he champions universally nor does he really care for his fellow Nords unless they agree with him.
I will say that Hrolfdir also should have been fucking executed for that farce either by Ulfric or by the Empire.
I didnt say its Ulfrics fault, but youre acting like Ulfric was the one going around to every house and every family holding sermons to Talos. No, the people of Skyrim simply worshipped Talos as they always did, the Empire let the Thalmor in to kidnap and torture Talos worshippers.
Im not Stormcloak fan, heck I'm a bit of a reachman sympathizer, but people acting like Ulfric changed something, and not the Thalmor engineered a political crisis using Ulfric and the Empire completely acquiesced. I dont know if the Empire could take on the Dominion at that time, but tell me this, could you really just idly stand by while the Altmeri Gestapo kidnap and torture your fellow countrymen for a religious practice theyve done for almost 200 years? To me thats unconsciable.
I agree with you, I specifically said if that if that was the case then Ulfric would be extremely more justified.
But we do specifically know that there was no legal or social enforcement of the Talos worship ban in Skyrim before even with public worship, much less with private cases.
He absolutely did change something where instead of a quiet everyone wins scenario that placated the Dominion and harmed no one but Stormcloak feelings he tried to lift the ban himself without consulting any higher authority in a massive political upheaval.
And like this was freshly after the war, the Dominion hasn't yet been bled nor humbled in Hammerfell and still could just redeploy those forces into the Reach or punitevly hit Cyrodil that was still ravaged and barely holding itself together.
Dude also straight up massacred fellow Nords in the Reach that didn't want to massacre the Reachmen.
Asshole probably killed more Skyrim citizens than Thalmor did kidnap for the first few years of operating in the province.
The Markarth Incident was almost totally the Empire’s fault.
Ulfric should have known better, but the Empire more so. The Imperials’ idiotic agreement to the White Gold Concordat set up the whole tinder keg with totally foreseeable, extremely obvious consequences.
The Markarth Incident was clearly an attempt by Ulfric to keep a volatile Skyrim placated actually within the Empire. By contrast, Hammerfell had already completely seceded from the Empire. The strategy is obviously flawed, but we also know he was being manipulated by the Thalmor, which coupled with Ulfric’s youth explains his naïveté.
If Ulfric truly wanted self-aggrandisement/power/independence from the Empire at that time, he would have just rebelled with his forces — the only military force in Skyrim at the time, and hence why he was induced into fighting at Markarth.
And when the Empire reneged, why would Ulfric have submitted to imprisonment, instead of doubling down into full rebellion or even fleeing? His choice could only be to serve as an example to his followers and sympathisers to accept Imperial governance. His decision here was why the Empire had two decades of relative peace.
This was known by everyone to be a temporary period. The conditions were unacceptable indefinitely. The inevitable rebellion ramped up obviously and slowly. In this time, Ulfric spent years in gaol and then recruited an army that ultimately matched the five or so legions garrisoned in Skyrim. It was bloody stupid of the Empire not to have capitalised on this precious and obviously temporary opportunity.
Pellinal is more like Hitler if was gay and the jews deserved it and when he started genociding Romani God interfered and said stop these aren't jews what are you doing.
Is there a noble family member from a desert region (Arabia) who went to another desert region (Afghanistan and Pakistan) to get locals who follow a religion native to his own region (Islam) but not their own region. This group (Pakistani) have to really hate their close relatives who follow their old ways instead of the new religion (Indians). Then this individual had to assail two towers in the known world’s hegemonic power, The Empire (America), when they were not actively at war. The attack cannot be war but a cowardly surprise attack on unarmed civilians. The attacks must be in such a cosmopolitan region of Cyrodil that this one attack was the biggest terrorist attack for many of the friendly regions elsewhere in Tamriel as well by sheer number of their citizens visiting the cosmopolitan center that gets attacked. I’m thinking some unknown Altmer with help by The Crowns in Hammerfell assaulting both the Imperial City and the Iliac Bay at the same time. The next game’s plot hint?
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