User blog comment:Spritydove/Deeper Thought into the Civil War/@comment-152.133.14.7-20120709134516/@comment-5135631-20120709212723

In fairness Sgt. s.s., since I am the loyal Stormcloak and devout Talos/Shor worshipper (in the game, I'm a staunch athiest in real life, the irony), you could be counted as an Imperial sympathiser since you have admitted your preference towards the Empire and dislike of Ulfric Storrmcloak.

The title of Jarl is important, but I was just saying that possibly we could have a society in Skyrim that is more centralized, but at the same time more decentralized. Have you ever heard of 'Game of Thrones'? I pictured a society more like that; A few powerful families/holds rule the largest regions of the realm, there are nine holds in Skyrim yes, and the only trouble with centralizing power is the different geography/culture of each Hold. For example, it would be quite hard to picture Haafingar and Hjaalmarch as the same hold, but I still think my idea should be considered to a point.

As for OP, you have rasied some excellent points that have made me reconsider the difficulties in centralizing power in Skyrim, and that's good, because I like to think I'm open-minded. But surely one must consider that centralizing power could have some pros? I mean, yeah, in real life power is quite decentralized, for example, England, my home country, has at least 50 counties, but would it be like that in a Medieval type society like Skyrim? Every Lord of a large region would have vassal Lords, popularly called 'Bannerman', for example, the Lord of the North-East may rule from York and have different bannermen in Newcastle, Middlesborough, Durham etc. I haven't really noticed this in Skyrim, there's like one Lord in the hold and that's the Jarl. In a way that's good though, because it's probably easier for people from working class backgrounds to gain prominence through hard work.

However, as far as I'm concerned, combining holds would make power from the High King more effective and quicker to utilize, but it may also give particular 'doubleholds' more identity, though this is a hard thing to actually say, because when you think about it, each hold has a different emblem, different uniformed hold guards and a proud Jarl, regardless of how good/evil they might be. That was my only peeve about taking a side in the civil war; I joined the Stormcloaks, and whenever we took a hold the original hold guards dissapeared, apart from in Eastmarch, The Rift, The Winterhold and The Pale. However, it may have been even worse if you joined the Empire, as genuine uniformed soldiers wearing completely inapropriate colours would turn up.