Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-24587225-20150902024621/@comment-52.129.122.222-20191008034734

Seems to me that Ulfric WAS indeed collaborating with the Thalmor, but not willingly--he was blackmailed. First they captured him, then they broke him under torture, then they told him information he gave them helped them take the Imperial City and deliberately let him escape; all of this is right in the dossier. Why would they do that? To make him vulnerable to blackmail later. My guess is it was a bit of carrot-and-stick; take Markarth's deal and they'd keep their hands off and let him have his little pocket where Talos-worship was legal, refuse and they tell everyone the "truth" about the fall of the Imperial City being his fault.

If they did that, that would explain why he "became uncooperative", I.E. blackmail didn't work anymore, when they turned around and demanded that the Empire intervene; watching his men be betrayed and imprisoned after they manipulated him like that would have changed him, made him hate the Thalmor more than anyone.

It's too bad they didn't give us an option to show Ulfric the dossier and see what HE had to say about it; maybe give us a choice about how we handled the whole thing. Do a persuade roll; if it succeeds, he stiffens his spine and refuses their next blackmail attempt, and if it fails, he knuckles under and we get to choose to either kill him on the spot or watch the stormcloaks become Thalmor puppets. (sigh) But they didn't do that. Maybe letting us choose would interfere with their plans for the backstory of the next ES game.