User blog comment:Zelron/Soul Stealers in Solstheim (A modest review of The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn)/@comment-1786741-20121222030501/@comment-3492791-20121222201637

The connection between Miraak and his Cultists is never made. For all we know his cultists are just groupies that like to think they are enacting Miraak's will. The only real thing special about them is that apparently they aren't indoctrinated into working the stones.

For the most part people don't actually seem in any harm. He his making them act against their will to build his temples, but it is never even touched on how these temples were aiding him, or even what they were for. To be totally honest most of the people working on the temples were actually being protected by the cultists.

He stole dragon souls from you, but you're also dragonborn, so you're stealing souls from the dragons themselves. He is no worse than you in that regard.

When you first meet him, and he basically throws you to the ground in a perfect opportunity to kill you, he has no interest in doing so and simply dismisses you back to mundus. Only when you meet him the second time does he claim that taking your soul is required for his return. That is we might refer to in the business as a plot hole. It was simply a matter of mundus that they made him want to kill you in the confrontation, as to make him the bad guy and not you.

I'm not implying that Miraak isn't a "bad guy", but his characterization was horrible.