User blog comment:ShawnCognitionCP/The Empire vs Stormcloaks, the most likely answer/@comment-9062114-20140611211441/@comment-12599067-20140613215634

Canuck, serving for the Stormcloaks has always been optional for the people of Windhelm. Just because he's not forcing a group of Dunmer who live in the slums of Windhelm (who may or may not pay taxes, depending on exactly what is written in the Treaty of the Armistice) to join his personal army makes him non-oppressive? They really don't earn all that much money for their jobs anyways, so even if they don't pay taxes, I don't think that's as great as you're painting it out to be. You think they keep their septims in a jar at home? Every coin is spent on food and drink, or something to keep the fires going in their cramped homes. If that's the kind of oppression you want, then by all means, take it.

Sure, they self-govern themselves, but 90% of Windhelm's population is Nordic, and the Nords do not like the Dunmer all that much. Most of what they trade is most likely traded with the other Nords, just as the Stormcloaks in Whiterun don't buy from Adrianne because she's an Imperial. They have basically nothing to trade or build with, and although they try, they can't make enough coin to support themselves in oppressive Windhelm. So they try to appeal to a ruler who lets his people be as oppressive to other races as his wish, they attempt to at least get some minor changes in Windhelm, but Ulfric just turns them away. Does it truly take that much to at least request that his citizens lay off on the Dunmer? All he needs to do is ask, and from there it could hopefully snowball so that most of the Nords will treat the Dunmer with some respect. And yet Ulfric refuses to get off his throne and even try to ask his citizens to play nice.

You truly think Agrenor wasn't harrassing the Dunmer? Sure, sure. Just like how the innkeeper of Candlehearth who tells a Dunmer Dragonborn that they "should probably just move on" isn't harrassing them. May I remind you that a ruler's subjects reflect his or her true strength as a ruler, and so far, I've yet to see anyone in Windhelm that can prove that Ulfric is a good ruler, save the Captain. I am not basing the Stormcloak's actions on those of Rolff, Elda Early-Dawn, etc., I am basing Ulfric's true worth as a ruler on his rather distasteful subjects.