Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-109.92.245.62-20131121212935/@comment-17114085-20150113111630

Are you kidding? You must be, because the Thalmor are anything but idiotic. In fact they seem to think at least 3 steps ahead of everyone else. They were able to take over the Summerset Isles after the Oblivion Crisis by saying they were the ones that ended it. They were able to get the Khajiit on their side by saying that they brought back the moons. Even the terms of the White-Gold Concordat, which were the same terms originally given to the Empire before the war, were all planed to cause friction between the human races. They knew the Redguards would never agree to giving away such large portions of Hammerfell and they knew the Nords would be outraged by the banning of Talos Worship.

They also killed all the Blades in their territory before the War, thus cutting off Imperial Intelligence in their territory. They then destroyed the order completely, except for a few members that escaped.

They then planted the seeds for the Civil War by demanding that the Empire imprison Ulfric and his militia after the Markarth Incident, which helped cement his belief that the Empire was nothing but a puppet of the Thalmor.