User blog comment:Thedoucheinthenorth/Should a city-sized Winterhold have been in Skyrim?/@comment-5423369-20121104165329/@comment-5423369-20121105172456

Yes it was because it was already established in lore that this event occurred and that this event devastated the hold and really showing that this event happened would have set it apart from the other cities other than a smaller Dawnstar clone with a Mages guild in it and would have made the city interesting to see and explore and most likely open up some new quests in rebuilding or wandering the city scavenging through the belongings of the dead to hear their story to hear the a premonition of what it was like before the event when Windhelm was still whole.

if the Oblivion Crisis made mistrust to magic users in the college then this event not only solidifies their mistrust but perhaps turn it into hate for it since it was the only thing that survived in the city and also given the Dunmer immigrants their bad reputation in Skyrim tho it may not look like it this was a great contribution to the mistrust of the nords because this was a more recent thing in their history.