Thieves' Guild (Loud and Clear/Dampened Spirits)

Because the next two quests in the Thieves' Guild line dealt almost exclusively with shadier characters, it was paradoxically easier to justify my actions.

Loud and Clear

Loud and Clear boils to corporate espionage and sabotage, and the moral profile of my character doesn't really account for these kinds of dealings (see The Rules of Engagement).  Admittedly, destroying the property of a Thieves' Guild/Black-Briar business partner may not be paladin-like, but there are a few other factors to consider beyond the necessity of advancing in the quest line:

• If done with sufficient stealth, the quest does not demand bloodshed.
• All of the parties involved are willing participants in ethically questionable dealings rather than innocent victims.
• Destruction of a business's property is reversible and open to compensation if need be.

One unexpected side benefit of my earlier procrastination was that my Sneak, Pickpocket, and Archery skills were now high enough that I could actually complete the quest without engaging in battle. I entered Aringoth's house undetected, pickpocketed the safe key, stole the bill of sale, and set fire to the prescribed three out of five apiaries (using my fire-enchanted bow from a safe distance) -- all without battling a single mercenary. 


Dampened Spirits

Dampened Spirits continues the plot of the previous quest; Maven Black-Briar, the Don Corleone-esque head of the Black-Briar Meadery, asks the PC to ruin her main competitor: Sabjorn, the owner of Honningbrew Meadery.  She has an inside man (Mallus) who suggests that I poison the batch of mead Sabjorn has reserved for a special tasting he has arranged with an Imperial dignitary.  The moral quandries here were as follows:

• I didn't know if the poison was lethal.  Given Maven's ties to the Empire, I suspected that the poison was meant to nauseate rather than kill, but I couldn't be sure.
• I was again helping to ruin another neutral NPC's business.  I should point out, however, that my interactions with Sabjorn prior to poisoning the mead indicate that he is both dishonest and mean, and therefore a more palatable target than the truly neutral Aringoth.
• The Honningbrew Meadery lies just outside the walls of Whiterun.  As I had feared earlier, I was now engaged in criminal activity right outside the gates of my favorite city.

As in the previous quest, I decided to complete the objectives, despite my misgivings.  Fortunately, I was right about the poison; Commander Caius got sick, but recovered fast enough to arrest Sabjorn on the spot.  The business itself survived with Mallus in charge, but I still felt apprehensive about any further Thieves' Guild involvement in "my" city.

Did I forget to mention that I poisoned an Imperial Commander?

By now, my actions have clearly led me out of Lawful Good territory.  While my original definition of Lawful Good in the context of Skyrim may be arguable (e.g. killing and stealing from enemies is morally justified), I was now destroying the legally-owned property of essentially neutral characters in order gain a position in an important faction.  At this point, Lothar Ironfoot had taken a pronounced turn toward the Chaotic.

Thieves’ Guild (Taking Care of Business)

After my impressive display of thieving skills in the marketplace, Brynjolf invited me to the Ragged Flagon, the Guild’s hangout underneath the city.  There, he finally gave me all of the information I was looking for; he directed me to where Esbern was hiding and he introduced me to Vex, the Guild member who knew about the Stones of Berenziah.  Eager to advance my progress in the main quest, I spoke to Vex quickly, then set about finding Esbern deep in the Ratways under Riften.  I will detail that adventure in another post.  For now, it is enough to note the delay itself; as I pointed out earlier, my ambivalence led me to postpone the next quest in the Thieves’ Guild line until I finally concluded that leading this third crucial faction was necessary.

In order to become I full-fledged member of the Guild, I would have to complete several jobs, the first of which was to collect three debts from local business owners.  Brynjolf made it clear that he preferred non-violent methods (my first hint that there was more to the Guild than crime), but that I was free to do whatever was necessary.   

The biggest hurdle for me here was the nature of the debts.  If the Guild was shaking down local shopkeepers for protection money, then I really couldn’t justify collecting the “debts.”  If, on the other hand, these were voluntary loans (albeit to a loan shark), I could probably manage to collect the money in a morally palatable way.  Unfortunately, the game provides little clarification on this issue.  Like most of the citizens of Riften, all three business owners seem a little on the shady side.  On the other hand, their complaints about the Guild could be read as an indicator of extortion.  I decided to give Brynjolf the benefit of the doubt.

The first debt I collected came from Keevara, the Argonian innkeeper.  In my pre-Guild procrastination, I had helped her boyfriend, Talen-Jei, assemble an engagement ring, so I felt bad about having to lean on her.  Still, Keevara is not a very pleasant woman, and I had a sure-fire, non-violent method to get the money.  Talen-Jei had told me how worried she was about her family, who lived on a farm just beyond the Morrowind border.  As soon as I mentioned them to her, she handed over the money right away.  I suppose that what I did was technically a threat, but I never went beyond implying that I knew of her family’s whereabouts nor did I have any intention of doing anything to these people, so I think I remained in the grey on this one.  She fulfilled her obligation without anyone being harmed in any way.  I must admit, however, that Talen-Jei’s habit of alternately thanking me for helping me with the ring, then berating me for what I did to Keevara is rather distressing.

The second debt was easier on my conscience.  Bersi Honey-Hand, the owner of the Pawned Prawn, caved as soon as I destroyed his prized Dwemer urn.  I have a much higher tolerance for destruction of property than I do for other kinds of violence; things are merely things and can be replaced, and if this thing was so important, I would think that Bersi would have stopped me well before I destroyed it.  I threatened to break it, then I hit it several times, thus giving him every opportunity to pay up before I shattered it.  

The final debt was easier still.  Haelga, owner of Haelga’s Bunkhouse, is pretty clearly a madam and/or a prostitute, and, as I found out by talking to some of the girls in her employ (including her niece!), not a very nice one at that.  Threatening to drop her statue of Dibella down a well was all it took to get her to cough up the money.  Given Haelga's profession and disposition, I had no qualms about collecting from her.

In case you missed the "pretty clearly a madam and/or a prostitute" part.

Without a doubt, my behavior in this quest was the most "grey" it has been so far in this playthrough.  While I had certainly done some questionable and even some bad things, this quest presented a very murky picture for me.  Unlike previous quests in which I had to decide whether or whom to kill, this quest asked whether I would commit nonviolent acts of a potentially criminal nature against people with whom I had no real quarrel.  Were it not for my desire to join the Thieves' Guild, I doubt that I would have engaged in these actions.  While I could dismiss Riften as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" (with apologies to Star Wars fans everywhere), I feared that I might have to commit more serious crimes in places that I actually loved, such as Whiterun.

Not surprisingly, the next few quests pushed my boundaries a little further.

The Thieves' Guild (A Chance Arrangement)

For the moral agent, the Thieves’ Guild questline provides a veritable minefield of ethical problems.  I almost did not join the Guild for precisely that reason, but as I revealed in a previous post, I thought that joining was necessary for completing the main quest and that the Dragonborn should tie together as many factions as possible; while I was mistaken about the first point, I still stand firmly by the second.

Joining the Thieves’ Guild involved going to Riften – a town so rife with corruption that the first guard I met tried (unsuccessfully) to shake me down before I even passed the gates.  Once inside, I met a proud warrior name Mjoll the Lioness who lamented the dissolute influence of the Guild on the town, and vowed to bring the thieves to justice.  Eventually, I asked the right person the right question, and learned where I could find Brynjolf -- a friendly, high-ranking thief who could lead me to Esbern (the former Blade who would help me defeat Alduin) and who could provide the information I needed in order to solve the mystery of the Stones of Barenziah I kept finding all across Skyrim.   Brynjolf’s help, however, came at a price: I needed to help him frame a Dunmer merchant named Brand-Shei who had been making trouble for the Guild – the same Dunmer merchant whom I had helped with a personal matter just the other day.

The task was designed to not only eliminate a potential threat, but also to test my Sneak, Lockpicking, and Pickpocket skills.  While Brynjolf distracted the shoppers in the marketplace, I was to break into a jeweler’s strong box, steal a necklace, then plant the necklace on Brand-Shei – all in broad daylight.  When I completed the task, the town guard arrested Brand-Shei and Brynjolf gave me the information I needed, and then invited me to join the Guild.

The moral ramifications here are obvious.  I committed a crime and sent an innocent man – one whom I had befriended earlier – to jail. What follows is a list of rationalizations:

1. I (mistakenly) believed that I needed to join the Guild in order to complete the main quest.
2. I (mistakenly) believed that I needed to complete the crime successfully in order to join the Guild.
3. I figured that Brand-Shei would eventually be found innocent or simply allowed to serve a short sentence and be released.  I was wrong, but this appears to be a bug; he is scripted to leave the jail after 10 days, but he has not left to date (several in-game weeks later).
4. I figured that, if the above turned about to be incorrect, I could break him out of jail.  Wrong again; even when I open the door, he won’t leave.

Sorry, dude.

All four rationalizations are troubling. The first is a purely utilitarian argument: sacrificing one man’s freedom for the greater good.  The second points to a desire to please that trumps conscience: assuming that Brynjolf would reject me if I didn’t succeed.  The third softens the first: Brand-Shei would only suffer a minor inconvenience relative to the greater good.  The fourth suggests that I would be willing to break another law in order to “undo” a previous crime.  The most galling aspect of the whole affair is that all four rationalizations were based on faulty information.  I other words, if I had paid attention better, I could have avoided the Guild entirely, and if I had chosen to fail Brynjolf’s task (as I had already done in several Daedric quests), I could have joined the Guild without framing poor old Brand-Shei.

Not surprisingly, the next few quests further complicated matters.

Anniversary Update

I started playing Skyrim about a year ago, and, given the fact that my posts have fallen far behind my actual playing, I thought it might be worthwhile to write an anniversary post with some content that never quite fit into any of my previous posts.


One of the most significant developments for me came about six months ago when I started to let my eleven year-old son play.  Even though the game comes with an M rating, by June I felt that I had a sufficient handle on the game's content to permit my son to play under my supervision.  While I wasn't going to force him to copy my playstyle, I have occasionally required him to explain and/or justify his actions, which has led to some fascinating debates.  What follows are some of the more valuable aspects of his playthrough.

The Character

Before I let him play, my son had already formed some strong preferences.  In contrast to my "ranger" playstyle (predominately Warrior, with enough Rogue to specialize in Archery and Sneaking), my son expressed an interest in running a "battlemage" character (primarily Mage, with enough Warrior to survive without magic).  Accordingly, he chose an Altmer character in order to take advantage of the High Elf racial benefits (extra starting Magicka and enchanced Magicka recovery).  I helped him choose an appropriate Altmer name ("Erefor"), then assigned him his first narrative task.

Because every PC, regardless of race, gender, or playstyle, begins the game as a prisoner of the Empire, facing execution for sneaking across Skyrim's closed southern border, the role-player has to create a believable backstory in order to explain his predicament.  My backstory was easy to compose; a Nord returning to Skyrim needs little explanation.  My son, on the other hand, faced a more complex project.  Why would a non-Thalmor Altmer travel alone to Skyrim in violation of the Imperial order?  I was impressed with the depth and inventiveness of my son's answer.

Erefor, having grown up under the Aldmeri Dominion, became a member of the Thalmor in order to serve his homeland with honor.  Over time, he grew disillusioned with the goals of the Dominion -- in particular, their obsession with the eradication of Talos worship seemed pointless and wasteful.  When Erefor voiced his objections to his superiors, the Thalmor rewarded him by stripping him of his position and gear, beating him senseless, and dumping him just inside the Skyrim border, where he was discovered by the Legion.  This backstory not only explains Erefor's presence in the game, but also demonstrates a nuanced understanding of character motivation and a clear moral standpoint -- particularly for an eleven year-old player.

The Civil War

Although I was not shocked that my son and I ended up on opposite sides of the Civil War (the contrarian apple doesn't fall far from the tree), his rationale surprised me a bit.  When Erefor joined the Stormcloaks, I challenged my son to provide one good reason for an Altmer to join an army of Nords who hate his kind and wish to drive them out of Skyrim; he gave me three:

1. The Empire tried to execute him for something that wasn't his fault.
2. The Empire had acquiesced to the Thalmor, who had betrayed him.
3. Freedom of religion is an absolute.  The Empire relinquished its right to rule when it forgot that.

The first two are personal, Stage Two moral reasoning, but the third demonstrates Stage Four abstract fundamentalism.  Erefor sided with Ulfric in order to protect the religious freedom of people who harbor a distinct prejudice against him, and who practice a religion that he not only does not practice, but that he actively disputes.  As a left-leaning Catholic, I have to admit to a certain pride in my son's rather progressive rationale...but I stand by my original decision to side with the Empire.

Followers

Another area of difference between my playstyle and son’s concerns the role of the follower.  For me, followers are like colleagues: we partner for a specific purpose to achieve a specific goal, and once the quest is complete, we go our separate ways.  

I have a number of reasons for using this model – some pragmatic, other more role-playing oriented.  On the practical side, unless I am heading into a large battle against multiple opponents (Civil War, Dawnguard) or situations in which I am likely to be ambushed and outnumbered (Blackreach, In My Time Of Need), followers often get in the way more than they help.  Some of them don’t sneak well, and my Ranger/Rambo style of play suffers when a follower starts tripping booby traps.  From a role-playing perspective, I get nervous unless my follower is clearly prepared for a dangerous quest.  My first follower, Sven, was a nice guy, but I wasn’t sure that a small-town bard was really prepared to go dungeon-delving, so I didn’t employ him until after I cleared Bleak Falls Barrow, and then only to help me loot the bandits and draugr I had already killed.  My housecarls, on the other hand, are trained bodyguards, so I have outfitted each with specialized equipment to help me with certain types of quests – Argis the Bulwark, for example, is my Dwemer ruins partner, and therefore I have given him Dwarven equipment enchanted with fire damage and shock-resistant magic (especially useful against Dwarven automatons). Furthermore, if I'm being honest, I have to admit that I like the "lone hero" narrative for my character.

My son, however, has yet to dismiss his first follower, Faendal.  He sided with Faendal during A Lovely Letter because, as a Bosmer, Faendal might well have the same antipathy toward the Thalmor as Erefor.  My son has really enjoyed having a follower NPC, so his playthough has become a "buddy adventure" starring Erefor and Faendal.  On a practical level, Erefore is essentially a Battlemage archetype, so his desire to create a small army makes sense, as doing so maximizes power and minimizes risk.  During dungeon crawls, for example, he continually casts Conjuration spells (mostly Flame Atronachs) so that he has at least two allies backing him up at all times.  While I would find that kind of playstyle chaotic and difficult to follow, he finds it rewarding and reassuring; each successful quest is a kind of team victory.

Crime

I have noticed an inconsistency in the moral aspect of my son’s playstyle, specifically around the issue of crime.  Generally, he plays a Chaotic Good character: benevolent and compassionate, but with little patience for the rule of law.  If he needs to increase his Pickpocketing skill, for example, he sees nothing wrong with lifting a few gold coins or a sweet roll from the town guard [in fact, I tortured him during my Thieves Guild quests by stealing the required item in order to fulfill the objective, then replacing it with an item of equal or greater value], but he criticizes his friends who arbitrarily kill shopkeepers and other non-hostile NPCs.  The inconsistency arises when he does something that violates the (admittedly unarticulated) moral code of his character. 

An instance of this contradiction occurred during our separate playthroughs of Scoundrel's Folly.  The stage in which the Dragonborn follows Gulum-Ei into the East Empire Company warehouse in Solitude was very challenging for me as a moral agent.  The warehouse guards, all mercenaries (as opposed to Solitude town guards), were immediately hostile to my presence, but I could not justify killing them; they weren’t doing anything wrong, and, my good intentions notwithstanding, I was in fact trespassing.  Through a combination of high Sneak skills, Invisibility potions, and a well-timed Battle Cry, I managed to navigate the warehouse without a single drop of blood spilled.   My son’s character, however, lacked the skills to avoid detection, and found himself in a battle fairly quickly.  When I pointed out that he had just killed a bunch of guards who hadn’t done anything wrong, he reminded me that playing with moral agency is my project, not his.

What interests me about his answer is that he didn’t even attempt to justify his character’s actions, which, while difficult, was not impossible.  Instead, he distanced himself from the moral aspect of the game and razzed me for taking it too seriously.  I suppose, given his age, I should have expected his reaction; a child’s first forays into moral abstraction (Stages Three and Four) are frequently marked by rigid absolutism, which makes moral dilemmas very hard to negotiate.  Faced with mutually exclusive choices – murder the guards and fulfill the objective, or spare the guards and fail the objective – he opted out of the exercise; killing the guards no longer mattered because it was “just a game.”  By excusing himself from the moral task, he inadvertently highlighted the power of the game as a moral laboratory.

Reflection

Despite its M rating, Skyrim has been a useful and rewarding point of connection for my son and me.  It has allowed us to have conversations about religious tolerance (the Thalmor), drug addiction (skooma), racism (the Grey Quarter), and many other topics that can be utterly daunting in the real world.  In the low-stakes setting of a video game, moral issues can be considered and debated without the emotional weight of personal history and anxieties.  I hope to continue the conversation for a long time.

Dovahkiin Leadership Models: The Unifier

After I had been playing Skyrim for about six months, I began to notice a pattern in the major questlines.  I began the Civil War line as a recruit, but finished as a Legate in the Imperial Legion. I began the Companions line as a "whelp," but finished as the Harbinger. I began the College of Winterhold line as a student, but finished as the Arch-Mage.  By completing each questline, I became the leader of the relevant faction. Even though my suspension of disbelief is sufficient to allow for dragons and magic, I was having a hard time understanding how I, a stranger in Skyrim just a few short months ago, could be rising to leadership roles within all of the major factions in the province. Each of the people I had replaced had spent years climbing to his position, and each of them held only one position, but I had garnered three in less than an in-game year. Furthermore, I could not help but notice that leading one group did not preclude membership in others. I therefore began to look for meaning in this strange situation.

When I looked at the Tamriel presented in Skyrim, I found a possible answer.  In the aftermath of the Great War, the Emperor's hold on Tamriel was slipping. Having abandoned Hammerfell and narrowly surviving an uprising in Skyrim (thanks, in no small part, to Yours Truly), the Septim dynasty was reeling.  The current Emperor seemed to have little of the qualities that defined the progenitor of the Third Empire, Tiber Septim.  When I reflected that Tiber Septim had himself mastered the Thu'um as I had, I realized that there was a distinct possibility that the Dovahkiin was destined to be the next Emperor.

Further support for this hypothesis comes from the aforementioned amassing of diverse leadership roles. The current Emperor had seen his Empire not only assaulted from the outside by the Aldmeri Dominion, but torn apart from the inside by conflicts between among factions and races.  It would make sense for the successor to be a unifier -- one who ended the Civil War, one who leads both warrior and wizard, one who is both a true Nord and a friend to other races.

This realization led me to one of my most difficult decisions in this game: whether to join the Thieves' Guild.  My original intent had been to avoid the Guild entirely; I was trying to play a morally conscious character, and associating with known criminals seemed to run counter to that playstyle. But then I found myself in a quandary. In order to find Esbern (the next step in the main quest), I had to talk to Brynjolf, a member of the Guild. Furthermore, in order to complete No Stone Unturned, I had to speak to Vex, who, according to Thieves’ Guild lookout Maul, would not talk be willing to speak to me unless I were a member of the Guild.  I procrastinated on this decision for a long time, but when I realized the need for a unifying leader in Skyrim (and eventually all of Tamriel), I concluded that I would indeed join the Guild, regardless of my misgivings.

Another factor leading me to Guild membership was the structure of the game itself.  In accordance with its fantasy RPG heritage, The Elder Scrolls develops characters within a triangulation of archetypes: Warrior, Mage, and Rogue.  This triad hearkens back to the pencil-and-dice Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, in which the three main character classes depend primarily on the distribution of six attributes: Fighter (Strength and Constitution), Magic-User (Intelligence and Wisdom), and Thief (Dexterity and Charisma); other classes arise from combinations of these archetypes.  Since AD&D, fantasy games have been dominated to one degree or another by the holy trinity of combat, magic, and stealth, and Skyrim is no exception; even the main skill trees are structured in this three-faceted arrangement.

The three fantasy archetypes have been apotheosized in thecelestial background graphic for the eighteen skill trees available in the game. 

In other words, the game seems to invite the development of a leader who embodies the best of all three archetypes, and the in-game world seems to require a leader who can bring disparate factions together.  Becoming the Master of the Thieves Guild would therefore be (for me, at least) less of an exercise in criminal ambition and more of an attempt to bring together the most powerful forces in Skyrim in preparation for the inevitable fight against the Aldmeri Dominion.