Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-109.92.245.62-20131121212935/@comment-73.31.167.162-20151203015306

Avustaja wrote: The part where it mentions about Helgen being an exception to their 'hands-off' policy', what did they mean, exactly?

I can think of two things right off the bat:

- They had an ambush party waiting somewhere to give Ulfric a chance to escape.

- They were responsible for Alduin's appearance in Skyrim.

Both scenarios, in my opinion, are valid. On the former, they are quite crafty buggers, they can make it look like it was the stormcloaks' doing, and on the latter, they dabble with magic and stuff.. it's a little too convenient for Alduin to just appear at the same place where Ulfric is about to be exeuted. I must point out that I haven't delved deep on The Elder Scrolls mythos, so, If my scenarios run counter to the canons, I apologize.

Alduin is on a quest to 'catch em all'. One of them is the player's soul. Alduin showed up to get your soul when you got executed, but him showing up caused enough chaos for you to survive. The thalmor didn't cause Alduin to show up, and interestingly the thalmor automatically assume that it has something to do with Ulfric and the civil war, when in fact, Alduin is there because of you. Ulfric being saved was just a coincidence.

Had you NOT been the dragonborn, Alduin wouldn't have shown up and you would have simply lost your head, Ulfric would have been saved from the chopping block by a Thalmor coordinated attack on Helgen, and the Thalmor would then regain control of Ulfric as a Thalmor agent. (He might hate them, but they would have just saved his life, and from then on he could have been much more easily manipulated by a skillful handler.)