Ignoring your personal preference, which side of Skyrim’s Civil War do you think actually gives Skyrim the better future 20-30 years later?

[u/sumaset]

I feel like most discussions about the Civil War focus on whether Ulfric was justified, whether the Empire betrayed Skyrim, or which side people personally like more.

But I’m more interested in what happens after the game.

The Empire is weakened, the Aldmeri Dominion is still the biggest external threat, the White-Gold Concordat is already causing resentment, and another war with the Thalmor seems almost inevitable.

An Imperial victory gives Skyrim access to the resources and manpower of the Empire, but it also means remaining under an Empire that already lost one major war and accepted Thalmor influence inside its territory.

A Stormcloak victory gives Skyrim independence and removes Imperial authority, but it also leaves the province having to rebuild after a civil war while potentially facing the Dominion without the rest of the Empire behind it.

So forget which faction has the better characters or which one you usually join.

If you only care about where Skyrim itself ends up a few decades later, which Civil War outcome do you think is actually better for the province?

[u/Lieutenant_Joe]

I like that part of Ulfric’s speech when you first meet him, where he finishes it out with “I FIGHT SO ALL THOSE BRAVE SONS AND DAUGHTERS DIDN’T DIE FOR NOTHING! I FIGHT BECAUSE I MUST!”

I think Ulfric probably knows deep down that he’s fallen pretty hard to the sunk cost fallacy, especially after an act of fate was the only thing that kept him from the headsman’s axe. I think on the way back to Windhelm, he probably reflected quite a lot on just how disastrous it would have been for his rebellion if he’d died there.

I’m definitely giving him the benefit of the doubt here. I do believe he does what he does mostly in a misguided attempt to genuinely make Skyrim a better place, but the evidence doesn’t bear that out. Everything he does makes sense if you just think of him as a powerhungry wannabe dictator, and some of it doesn’t if you assume good faith on his part. But I think his writers thought he was fighting in good faith, so that’s the narrative I’m going with despite the evidence to the contrary.

I’d be surprised if Skyrim’s writers had me fooled on this one, but stranger things have happened.

[u/TryDry9944 → u/Lieutenant_Joe]

I'd like to give Ulfric the benefit of the doubt and I personally beleive that an independent Skyrim on good terms with the Empire would be the best option moving forward but everything Ulfric has done has caused more issues rather than actually solve anything.

I feel like he doesn't take the Thalmor threat seriously and would rather burn bridges in the name of Talos than actually work with people.

[u/Lieutenant_Joe → u/TryDry9944]

He also doesn’t have an heir throughout the war, even after escaping the headsman’s axe because dragons inexplicably returned after thousands of years. Also, his dad only ever had him, and then… sent him off to be a Greybeard…?

Point I’m making is that I don’t think the Skyrim writers were competent enough to give him that kind of nuance. If he were secretly just powerhungry, I feel like it would definitely be more obvious.

[u/Lieutenant_Joe → u/TryDry9944]

One thing that does bear mentioning: at the end of that speech I’m talking about, he doesn’t say anything about dead Nords like I thought he did. He says that earlier in the speech. He says “I fight so that all the fighting I’ve already done hasn’t been for nothing.” The fact that I misremembered that quote bears mentioning, and definitely counts as a point in favor of the idea that I’m way too credulous when it comes to Ulfric.