Civil War

While the Civil War questline presents a variety of gameplay challenges and opportunities, its moral component boils down to one choice: to side with the Empire or with the Stormcloaks.  As I hinted in some previous posts, I had been leaning toward the Imperial side since the opening quest, but did not fully commit until well into the game.  I visited Solitude to hear the Imperial argument from General Tullius, then traveled to Windhelm to listen to Ulfric Stormcloak’s side of the story.  Not wanting to rush into anything, I set about earning the title of Thane in as many Holds as possible, which gave me the opportunity to listen to sympathizers on both sides.  While everything I heard and experienced ultimately led me to join the Legion of the Empire, the choice was by no measure easy. What follows is a breakdown of my considerations in choosing a side.

The White-Gold Concordat

There is no question that the Stormcloaks’ disgust at this egregious treaty is completely justified.  The fact the Empire would allow the Aldmeri Dominion to dictate religious practices within the Imperial Provinces is utterly outrageous, and permitting the Thalmor free reign to enforce the ban on Talos worship almost defies comprehension – which is exactly the point.  Having gained the upper hand after fighting the Legion to a standstill, the Dominion was in a position to ask for anything; why, therefore, would they demand a purely ideological concession (rather than another material or strategic one)?  The answer lies in the ultimate goal of the Aldmeri: total domination of Tamriel.  Because they could no longer afford to wage direct war with the Empire, they had to find a way to use the peace to their advantage.  They had already separated Hammerfell from the Empire; if they could sever Skyrim as well, they would effectively cut off the Empire’s supply of skilled warriors.  What better way to drive a wedge between the Imperials and the proud Nord race than by forcing the Empire to outlaw the worship of their apotheosized ancestor?

Ulfric’s primary error is in taking this bait, thereby weakening not only his beloved Skyrim, but the whole of the Empire as well. As I have suggested before, the ideal scenario would be a untied Empire biding its time, rebuilding its forces, and focusing the Nords’ righteous indignation on the real enemy in preparation for a renewed assault on the Dominion.  While I concede that I have yet to hear any Imperial representative suggest such a strategy, there is a strong possibility that this plan is being kept under the tightest of wraps in light of the Thalmor propensity for espionage.  However, even if the Empire did simply roll over to save itself, Skyrim only stands to lose by divorcing itself from Cyrodiil and High Rock.

Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak vs. General Tullius

Because I am playing with an eye toward moral agency, I have to consider not only the moral claims of the warring sides in the Civil War, but also the ethics of the men and women who represent each party.  One of Bethesda's major accomplishments in this game is the creation of morally complex antagonists; both Ulfric and Tullius possess a melange of admirable and lamentable traits, which makes following either one far more complicated than a simple good/evil split.

Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak of Windhelm is obviously the aggressor in the conflict, but his rationale carries a legitimate claim to justification.  The Concordat is a direct violation of the freedom of religion that we in the West tend to view as inalienable.  Furthermore, his speeches reveal him to be a man haunted by the soldiers who laid down their lives at his side during the Great War, and a Jarl unwilling to insult their memory by acquiescing to the Dominion's blasphemous demands.  While not an blatant zealot (such as Heimskr, the street preacher of Whiterun), Ulfric cannot separate his worship of Talos from his love for Skyrim, seeing the abandonment of the former as a betrayal of the latter.  Despite the accusations of his Imperial foes, Ulfric does not appear to be acting out of an inflated sense of self; even his most extreme actions, such as the killing of High King Torygg, come from a deep passion for Talos and for Skyrim.

He did, however, kill the High King.  The question of whether the killing was part of a legitimate challenge according to Nord tradition or a flat-out murder is in some ways irrelevant.  Instead of making his case and biding his time, he plunged his homeland into chaos on ideological grounds.  Furthermore, one cannot ignore the fact that using the Thu'um against an opponent who did not possess that power is tantamount to attacking an unarmed foe.  Throughout history, many honorable men have allowed their devotion to a legitimate cause to mutate into a kind of monomania that excuses any evil in the service of that cause.

Although not directly related to the Civil War, Ulfric's record as Jarl of Windhelm did not sway me to his side, either.  First, not only did he seem largely unconcerned with the serial killer running loose in his Hold, he had no comment when the killer turned out to be his own court wizard.  Second, when the boy Aventius Aretino was in his hour of need, the childless Ulfric decided to send him back to an abusive orphanage in another Hold entirely, instead of perhaps adopting him and gaining an heir for himself in the bargain.  Lastly, his treatment of the Dunmer was utterly deplorable.  While it is true that I never heard him utter any racial epithets himself, I cannot ignore the fact that he consigned the Dunmer to a ghetto and allowed the racial harassment going on in front of his own palace to go unchecked.  None of this should be a surprise, however; a quick perusal of the Markarth Incident raises the question: if Ulfric was willing to wage a nearly genocidal campaign against other races of men (Breton/Reachmen/Forsworn), what can we expect him to do to the non-human races?  Add his experiences as a prisoner of the Aldmeri Dominion to the mix, and we have a recipe for a racially-intolerant Jarl whom I could not follow in good conscience, regardless of his other virtues as a warrior and a leader of men.

As much as I liked Jarl Ulfric personally, I found his political views impossible to support; quite the inverse is true of General Tulius, whose repellant personality failed to dissuade me from the Imperial cause.  Tullius is a culturally insensitive boor who routinely, if unwittingly, insults his faithful Legate Rikke's homeland with dismissive comments such as:

What do you mean, "You people"?

Nevertheless, Tullius is on the right side of this conflict.  The Empire had a hard choice: sign a treaty that insults the Nords and defames its own progenitor, or risk annihilation after a long and bloody war with a seemingly implacable enemy.  While it may be noble to sacrifice one's own life for religious freedom, committing an entire Empire to that cause is another story entirely.  Tullius, who is no fan of the Thalmor,  understands that signing the Concordat was the bitter pill that saved the Empire.  What Tullius lacks in personal magnetism and tact, he makes up for in judgement.

Perhaps the best indicator of Tullius's leadership qualities is his second-in-command, Legate Rikke.  A proud Nord "daughter of Skyrim," Rikke bears Tullius's slings and arrows for the good of the Empire, and in return, Tullius looks the other way when Rikke expresses sympathy for Ulfric's cause or lets a "Talos guide you" slip out.  Rikke agrees, as I do, with the justness of Ulfric's outrage, but believes, also as I do, that a unified Empire is the best solution to the Thalmor problem.  That Tullius is willing to overlook the fact that his most trusted lieutenant is not only clearly violating the Concordat but also is apparently an admirer of his enemy speaks volumes about his priorities.

This tendency among supporters of the Empire to ignore the most offensive element of the Concordat is one of the main reasons that I feel good about my choice.  Yes, the Temples of Talos have been closed in Solitude and Markarth, but beyond that, no one seems to be enforcing the ban.  Balgruuf lets Heimskr preach in front of his Shrine all day every day in public.  Tullius knows that Rikke worships Talos, but says nothing beyond "Excuse me?"  In fact, the only character who ever reported any Talos worshippers was, well, me -- which I did in order to gain Ondolemar's trust, then promptly assassinated him and returned the Amulet of Talos to Ogmund.  The Imperial laxness in enforcing the Concordat beyond the bare letter of the law undermines Ulfric's claim that the Empire has become the lapdog of the Dominion.

Rikke and Balgruuf the Greater

The two characters I most admire in the Civil War quest both side with the Empire, which certainly influenced my decision.  I have already mentioned the long-suffering yet formidable Legate Rikke who, unlike Galmar Stone-Fist, her Stormcloak counterpart, resists the urge to demonize her opponents.  I cannot say this strongly enough: the fact that Rikke sympathizes with the Stormcloaks but grudgingly fights against them because she believes they are wrong is evidence of a moral character that approaches Kohlberg's Principled stages (5 and 6).  Galmar, on the other hand, relishes the prospect of savaging the Legion he and Ulfric once served.  Even if I sided with the rebellion, I would find Stone-Fist's taunts about "Deadking Torygg" tough to abide.

The other character who swayed my choice was Balgruuf the Greater, the Jarl of Whiterun.  Unlike Legate Rikke, Balgruuf has no real love for the Empire; his primary concern is the welfare of the people in his Hold.  As much as he hates the Concordat, and as much as he resents Imperial interference, he lambasts Ulfric for throwing Skyrim into chaos.  He knows that the Thalmor are the real enemy and, above all, he really wants people to focus on that pesky dragon problem.  He remains neutral as long as possible, because he knows that his decision will hasten a full-blown civil war.  When he finally chooses a side, it is because Ulfric forces his hand;  Balgruuf makes no secret of his reluctance to garrison Imperial troops within the walls of Whiterun and makes it abundantly clear to Tullius that he has no intention of giving up control of his Hold to the Legion, even as he sides with the Empire.

Rikke and Balgruuf demonstrate that one need not love the Empire nor agree blindly with its actions in order to see that seceding from the Empire would weaken Skyrim and further strengthen the Aldmeri Dominion's hand.

The Death of Ulfric Stormcloak

Once I chose a side, the individual quests in the Civil War line were morally simple. A band of Legionnaires and I would take a fort from the Stormcloaks, then I would be called in to do a more stealth-oriented quest (lean on a Stormcloak sympathizer, steal plans, etc), then take another fort, and so on.  There were very few serious ethical decisions to make until the end of the Battle for Windhelm.

The final battle of the Civil War took place in Ulfric's own Hall.  Legate Rikke, my Solitude housecarl Jordis, General Tullius and I faced off against Ulfric, Galmar, and a small band of Stormcloaks.  After Galmar fell, we forced Jarl Ulfric to surrender.  When Tullius offered him the chance to face the formal execution he had escaped after the dragon attack on Helgen, Ulfric refused, saying that he wanted me, the Dragonborn, to have the honor of killing him.

To be perfectly frank, I had no desire to kill Ulfric; as I said earlier, he is a good man with a bad idea.  Ulfric's death, however, was inevitable, and I sympathized with him enough to spare him the humiliation of dying by Tullius's hand.  In fact, when Tullius offered me his sword in order to do the deed, I refused.  Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak of Windhelm was a great man who committed great crimes, and his death needed to reflect both of those realities.  I therefore decided to kill Ulfric in the same manner he had killed High King Torygg -- a Dragon Shout.  A fitting end for one of Skyrim's greatest warriors.

No One Escapes Cidhna Mine

This quest, which is the follow-up to The Forsworn Conspiracy, presents a number of moral dilemmas and questions that extend well beyond the confines of the game.  Along with In My Time of Need, it stands as one of the best opportunities for robust consideration of moral agency in Skyrim, and gaming in general.

After my arrest in the Shrine of Talos, I found myself in a cell deep within Cidhna Mine:

This is one of the few quests that, once started, must be completed.

The Orc jailer informed me that I would have to mine in order to earn my freedom, so I got to work.  Having learned that the best way to deal with an unfamiliar situation was to talk to people, I began speaking to the various inmate miners in my area.  As it turned out, I happened to be in very close proximity to Madanach, the "King of Rags" and leader of the Forsworn.  I jumped through the prerequisite hoops, and was eventually granted an audience with Madanach in his private cell.

Neither my readings nor my various encounters with the Forsworn had prepared me for what happened next.  Madanach, far from being a madman or savage, articulately recounted his history of the Forsworn. Taken together, the history books and Madanach's lectures paint a tragic picture of a complex people:

Madanach the noble savage.

Long ago, there was a group of indigenous people who inhabited the land between High Rock (Bretons) and Skyrim (Nords).  While Breton by ethnicity, these people called themselves "The Reachmen" to distinguish their culture from that of their neighbors on either side.  What divided them from their Breton kin was their worship of the "Old Gods" -- an animistic religion that predates Divine worship.  Being a small ethnic group, the Reachmen often found themselves used as pawns in the struggles between High Rock and Skyrim for control of the silver mines in their mountainous homeland. At the time of the Great War, the Empire considered The Reach to be one of Skyrim's holds -- a fact that the Reachmen begrudgingly accepted. When the Empire "abandoned" The Reach in order to focus on fighting the Aldmeri Dominion, the Reachmen saw their opportunity to take back their land.  They ruled Markarth relatively peacefully for two years under the leadership of their king, Madanach.   

The Empire, now under the peace provided by the terms of the White-Gold Concordat, decided to take The Reach back from the Reachmen.  The deposed Jarl offered Ulfric Stormcloak and his men an exchange: retake The Reach for Skyrim, and Talos worship would be be permitted in Markarth again, in spite of the Concordat. Ulfric's brutal tactics, including torture and the killing of non-combatants, drove the Reachmen from the city; thus the Forsworn were born.
  ["The Markarth Incident", as the uprising and its end at Ulfric's hand have come to be known, was also the ember that sparked the Stormcloak Rebellion. Once the Thalmor discovered Talos worship in Markarth, they cracked down on anyone who violated the terms of the Concordat.  The Jarl was forced to arrest Ulfric ("The Bear of Markarth") and his men -- an act the Stormcloaks saw as the worst kind of betrayal.]

Madanach himself was captured and sentenced to die, but Thonar Silver-Blood, seeing a unique opportunity, intervened.  In exchange for allowing him to live out his life as a prisoner in Cidhna Mine, Madanach agreed to use the Forsworn as Thonar's personal strike force.  Thonar allowed Madanach to communicate with Forsworn operatives in order to eliminate Thonar's enemies and business rivals.  The King in Rags agreed to the deal; Thonar could protect himself from Nord rivals and Imperial curiosity, and the Forsworn could still  launch "terrorist" attacks against a select group of their Nord and Imperial oppressors.  Furthermore, Madanach would be alive to plan his eventual betrayal of the Silver-Bloods.  Such was the arrangement I had disrupted by helping Eltrys uncover the truth.

As part of my education, Madanach instructed me to find and speak to another Forsworn prisoner, Braig.  Briag's story was very hard to listen to:

You don't want to hear the rest of this story.

I was now faced with a twofold dilemma, the first part of which concerned my association with the Forsworn.  Now that I had heard more of the story, I could not dismiss these men and women as just another group of bandits or necromancers.  Even if their tactics could not be excused, their case still had merit.  If I could make a case for them with the Emperor, I would -- but that was not where we were.  Still, I wasn't ready to throw my lot in with a group of terrorists.  Moreover, I suspected that, as a Nord, the Forsworn weren't going to do me any favors once we completed our escape; this was a temporary alliance for a common goal, and nothing more.  It also occurred to me that Madanach's revenge was not going to end with Thonar; he would most likely continue his campaign of terror against the people of Skyrim, and I would most likely have to kill him at some point in the future, my sympathies be damned.

The second part of my dilemma was the "price of admission";  in order to prove myself to Madanach, I had to kill Grisvar the Unlucky, a thief and skooma addict that Madanach had identified as a snitch.  While I had killed quite a few bandits and necromancers by this point, Grisvar seemed more like a cowardly low-life than a threat, so I didn't feel justified in killing him.  Once Madanach ordered me to assassinate him, I began to look for alternatives.

The entrance to the only escape route could not be picked; even if I still had my lockpicks (along with the other gear the guards took from me), the gate required a key, which Madanach alone held, or so I gathered from the note I successfully pickpocketed from him.  The key itself was nowhere to be found -- not in Madanach's personal inventory nor anywhere in his cell.  Therefore, even if I wanted to try the route alone, I couldn't.  I was, quite literally, stuck:

Sorry, Grisvar.

I followed Madanach's orders, joined the escape and together the Forsworn and I fought through giant spiders and long-forgotten Dwemer automatons to a secret exit into Markarth.  Before we emerged into the city, not only did I get all of my gear back from one of Madanach's followers, but I also received enchanted Forsworn armor from the man himself, in thanks for assisting the escape.  Once we got outside, Thonar and several of the Markarth city guard were on hand to greet us.  A fight quickly broke out, and before long, Thonar and his men were dead.  Fortunately, the battle took place in the wee hours of the morning, while most of the citizens were still in bed. 

 

From a moral perspective, I had a great deal of trouble with this quest.  While I sympathize with the Forsworn, I cannot abide their practices, neither military nor religious.  The best possible scenario would most likely be for the Empire to negotiate with the Forsworn to establish a secure homeland for them while fairly compensating the Nords who probably be displaced by such a move.  I don't normally think it wise or just to haggle with terrorists, but it seems clear in this case that the Empire in general, and the Jarl of Markarth in particular, created the Forsworn through their inexcusable treatment of the Reachmen.  I have also not forgotten that Madanach ordered me to kill a non-violent man in order to prove myself to him; I might agree with his condemnation of the power structure in The Reach, but I resent him using my relatively powerless situation in order to manipulate me as he had been by Thonar.

My ambiguity became most obvious during the battle between Madanach and Thonar.  Because I could not fully support either side, I did not participate in this battle at all, preferring to stay on the sidelines and make sure no innocent Markarth citizens got pulled into the fray.  Although I hated Thonar for his callous and deadly manipulation of the Forsworn, I could not tell if his guards were crooked men in the employ of a corrupt buisnessman (like those in the Shrine of Talos) or honest peacekeepers protecting what they thought was an important citizen, and so I did not want to engage them.  Furthermore, while I hated Thonar enough to kill him, I was not keen on helping the Forsworn spill more blood in Markarth.  While this particular Forsworn "cell" might continue to see me as friendly, I wanted nothing to do with terrorists after we broke out.

After completing  No One Escapes Cidhna Mine, I did some research on other approaches, and I discovered a few disconcerting facts about the way Bethesda set up this quest:

1. Madanach's key does not spawn as an inventory item unless you kill him.  In other words, the only way for me avoid killing Grisvar would be to kill Madanach and take his key.  One problem with that scenario is that Madanach's crimes, as grievous as they are, seem to be a direct result of Ulfric's (and, by extension, the Empire's) injustice toward the Reachmen.  Like Ulfric, Madanach comes across as an honorable leader making unjust decisions on behalf of his people, rather than as a self-serving criminal.  I will kill him in the future if I have to, but I'd rather not.
2. An additional concern is that, had I killed Madanach at any point before we exited the mine, Thonar would have rewarded me with an enchanted item of his own.  I would not have enjoyed receiving anything, be it equipment or thanks, from such a scumbag.  Although I did not wish to help the Forsworn in their fight, I was glad that they killed Thonar.

In this quest, Bethesda forces the moral agent to make some unpalatable decisions.  Even if the player sides with the Forsworn completely, they will never stop attacking the PC in random encounters, and they are not a joinable faction.  Even if the player sides with the Silver-Bloods completely, the PC still has to break out of their prison.  Moreover, there is no peaceable solution to this quest; the only way to avoid killing Madanach or Grisvar is to stay stuck in the mine, thus suspending the game indefinitely.  Therefore, the situation presented in this quest incorporates many of the features of a true Kohlbergian dilemma: it is dichotomous, and there is no creative way out; the player is forced to violate at least some moral precepts in order to complete the quest.

By now, the parallels between this quest and current issues in geopolitics should be readily apparent.  The Forsworn's physical appearance reflects some stereotypes of Native American garb, which only highlights the similarity of their plight ("foreigners in our own land") and religious practices ("the Old Ways") to those of their real-world counterparts:

The Forsworn of No One Escapes Cidhna Mine

Their tactics and rationale raise the question of the legitimacy of terrorism -- a very present debate in the Middle East, where some governments are considering bringing members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban to the negotiating table.  Another facet are the obviously Celtic names of the Forsworn characters, which evoke the Troubles of Ireland and tentative reconciliation between the IRA with England.  Because the Forsworn feel familiar but only exist as fictional constructs in a computer game, the player can engage with them and fully consider them without all of the baggage of the player's own real-world political views -- a remarkable achievement for a game.

The Forsworn Conspiracy

This quest and its "sequel," No One Escapes Cidhna Mine, represent some of the most morally and politically complex gameplay in Skyrim. For the sake of clarity and efficiency, I am going to focus on the issues at play in these quests, rather than on a blow-by-blow plot summary. If you would like more information on the individual steps of the quest that I might gloss over, please consult the wikis in the right-hand column.

I had encountered some Forsworn before this quest began.  They behaved in an manner indistinguishable from bandits: immediately, unrelentingly, inexplicably hostile.  I therefore assumed that, while there might be more to their story (as the in-game book The "Madmen" of the Reach insists), it would add up to something no more complex than a network of Hagraven devotees. I could not have been more wrong.

After Weylin's obviously political assassination of Margret in the Markarth marketplace, and the subsequent failed cover-up, I spoke to one of the other bystanders, Eltrys, who suggested that we should meet later at the now-abandoned Shrine of Talos to discuss the day's events.  I complied, and he revealed that he knows that the Forsworn murdered his father, a mine owner, for reasons he could never figure out, and that these Forsworn attacks have been going on for years, but no one ever does anything about it. He asked me to investigate both Margret and Weylin in order to get to the truth.  As usual, I agreed.

As a result of my nosing around Markarth, I discovered that nothing was as it seemed.  Margret, as it turned out, was an Imperial agent sent to investigate the Silver-Bloods, the family that owns a profitable silver mine (and half of Markarth, according to some townspeople).  Weylin the miner was in fact a Forsworn sleeper, assigned to kill Margret by Nepos -- a Forsworn operative with ties to the Silver-Bloods.  When I confronted him, he admitted that he takes his orders from Madanach, the Forsworn leader imprisoned in Cidhna Mine, which is owned by the Silver-Blood family and acts as the main prison of The Reach.  I found the final missing piece when I spoke to Thonar Silver-Blood, though not the way I intended.

Thonar was not at all interested in speaking to me and kicked me out of the Treasury House moments after I met him.  As I was leaving, one of the Treasury House employees, yet another Forsworn attacked and killed Thonar's wife; in the ensuing skirmish, the attacker was killed along with several of Thonar's personal servants.  Shaken by his wife's sudden, violent death, Thonar confessed that he has been using Madanach and his men for his own personal gain.  Apparently, when the Silver-Bloods needed someone to disappear, Thonar employed Forsworn to carry out the deed in order to prevent suspicion from falling on his family.  Now, however, the arrangement seemed to be coming apart.

Having connected all of the dots, I returned to the Shrine of Talos to report my findings to Eltrys.  Unfortunately, I discovered Eltrys lying dead at the feet of three Markarth Guards, who promptly informed me that my sniffing around had won me a trip to Cidhna Mine on a murder charge.  Normally, I don't fight Guards, as they typically represent law and order in the game.  In this case, however, they were operating in direct contradiction to their duty as well as to any acceptable moral code: 

Clearly, we're past "No lollygaggin'" here.

Furthermore, I suspected that Eltrys might be carrying important information himself, so I attacked the guards, quickly looted Eltrys's body, then yielded to the reinforcements who rushed into the shrine in response to the attack.  Thus began No One Escapes Cidhna Mine.

On the surface, the moral concerns of this quest seem simple; I was trying to uncover the truth in a town run by a powerful and corrupt family, so all of my sneaking, stealing, and brawling served a just purpose.  Even killing the "dirty" Guards seems defensible as they had framed me for a murder they had committed themselves. The wild card was Madanach, the "King in Rags."  Getting to him and hearing his story seriously complicated this two-part quest.