Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-173.85.106.116-20180604063350

Watching my wife play, playing myself, and our different experiences with Lydia... it dawned on us...

She's one of the few partners you can't move into their place because she has no home... ... she took a position and swore her life to.... being a HOUSEcarl. ... as you're out adventuring, she's one of the most dejected-sounding characters you'll ever see, always rushing, almost suicidally into combat, as if she just wants her life to end (and is even notorious for her life ending in a myriad of ways)... ... but if you get a home, kids, have her basically become a housewife, her personality does a complete 180 and she's the happiest person ever, and will enthusiatically take care of orphens...

Putting 2 + 2 + 2 together... She was an orphen who grew up on the streets. Her one wish and desire in life was to live in a nice warm house like everybody else she saw. Figuring she could never get it on her own, she swore her life as a housecarl to the Jarl, and finally she could get a roof over her head. But she was a fighter, she had to learn how on the streets... but she never learned to be presentable, making her an embarassment in court since she wasn't so great in social skills, so one of the saddest days was when she was kicked out of the one warm home she ever knew, and forced to follow this upstart Thane. That wouldn't have been so bad... it would have been fine even... if it wasn't for the fact this Thane had no home. She was homeless once again, and honorbound to follow this Than and carry his/her burdans. Eventually the Thane may get a home, but it's small...much more cramped than the Jarl's and still a step down... until the Thane, the Dragonborn, proposes... and she realizes... she's no longer homeless, or some long term guest in someone else's home... she IS home... it's her home... and her deepest desire... a place to truly call her own... has come true.

And then the dragonborn adopts orphans... orphans who had it even rougher than her... and her heart breaks... she remembers her life on the streets, and she will happily given them the happiest life she can give...

Once it dawned on me that this is who she was and what she was doing, Lydia transformed from being the most bland follower in Skyrim, to being one of the most heart-wrenching. She's not lacking personality or story... it's that the world has beaten the happiness out of her, but the dragonborn is, in the long run, the one chance for her one simple dream to finally come true. 