Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-25343239-20150319182007/@comment-260563-20180409063949

Blademaster Jauffre wrote: To be fair, you are doing the exact same thing for the Dominion.

He practically is. So many things point to the Dominion having so many shits on their own, but the guy keeps acting like the Dominion is like Emperor Palpatine when in reality, it's more like Tywin Lannister: ruthless to a fault and unable to cultivate the maximum potential from their allies. Whereas Palpatine was able to come to power through goodwill and fool people like Anakin into supporting him, Tywin committed enough atrocities that anyone who can resist him does, and his dynasty began falling apart the moment he kicked the bucket.....while Palpatine's Empire, in both canons, lived to fight another day even after he died.

To bring the allegory home, the Thalmor are easier to defeat because of the fact that they've established that they can't be trusted. Massacres in Valenwood, atrocities in Cyrodiil, the torture and killing of Talos worshipers, down to the point where the Redguards fought them and won. While the Stormcloaks and their Leeroy Jenkins strategies will ensure them getting thrown into a dungeon at best and dying in excruciating pain at worst, other factions that can fight them while using their brains, like the Redguards or the Tamrielic Empire, have proven that the Thalmor can be beaten decisively.

The Thalmor have racked up too much infamy, and any Crusader Kings 2 player can tell you that such a thing is a very, very bad thing for any wannabe conqueror. Too much infamy means nobody trusts the Thalmor. The Dark Elves don't trust them, the Nords don't trust them. The Argonians, Bretons, and Imperials don't trust them. The Nords hate their guts. On the other side, Wood Elves and Khajiit don't seem to be ready to die for the Thalmor. So the next war will end with the Thalmor getting their asses fisted unless some outside factor gives them a break. And relying on outside factors to save your ass is not a good thing, because if they don't........well, I don't need to tell you what will happen.