User blog comment:Draevan13/Ulfric's suspicious Thalmor Dossier/@comment-5558140-20121209052441

you picked that dossier apart very meticulously, and parts of it could definetly support your theory, but cannonically it just wouldn't make sense for him to have been working willingly for the thalmor to begin with. they had an idea of what they wanted to use him for as soon as they figured out he was a jarl's son. elenwen, his interrogator, planted the idea in his head that it was his fault the imperial city fell when he spilled the beans, which in a way cemented not only his hatred of the thalmor, but also his need to be a sort of messiah to the nords, a true leader, as maybe a way of seeking some kind of redemption. when the report refered to him as an "asset" i believe that he was considered an asset to the thalmor due to his willingness to openly defy the white-gold concordat, which allows the thalmor to put pressure on whats left of the imperial empire to put him down or risk further war. which translates into the imperials fighting the nords, not the elves, which only benefits the thalmor. not to mention he was already fighting the elves in the great war, so he probably couldn't have been an agent before then. i only see your theory playing out if somehow ulfric was so desperate to escape capture from the thalmor that he accepted an offer to work for them in exchange for his release. it does, however, say that he was "allowed to escape" which means that they didn't just walk hom out the front door, so it also makes that possibility much less likely. and during the markarth incident, it was the empire who recended their promise to him to allow free worship of talos, not directly the thalmor, so its also unlikely that he only hated the thalmor after the markarth incident, its really only increasing his hatred for what he see's as the empire's cowardice for accepting the concordat in the first place. and, ulfrics character in-game is portrayed as an infallable and fearless leader who truely believes in his cause, not someone who has a dark secret to hide. its obvious that whoever wrote the civil war storyline left a great deal up to player speculation, which is fun, but it's also sort of annoying because they aren't really giving us solid plot details to go on.