User blog comment:Hippogriff12/The Scarcity of Racists in Skyrim/@comment-5280592-20120730061537/@comment-4588723-20120801031428

We’re all biased, the question is which biased opinions are better supported by fact, and the really brilliant thing about the storyline (thank you Bethesda) is that there’s room on all sides of the debate for reasonable conclusions – keyword there being REASAONABLE. That said, the “character study” of Ulfric would’ve been more interesting if it had less conjecture and more accurate data, esp. about his part in the Markarth Incident. The issue there wasn’t Talos worship, it was far more about what the Forsworn were doing to the people of the Reach. The residents of Markarth and the surrounding area still wanted to worship as they saw fit (short of performing animalistic rituals on unwilling victims), and the Talos element was something Ulfric negotiated to motivate continued peace in the hold. It became an issue only when the Thalmor made it clear that their misanthropy was a bigger priority to them than maintaining peace anywhere. It was the Thalmor who manipulated the situation to direct Ulfric’s righteous anger against the Empire’s little paper tiger in the Blue Palace, rather than at the real enemy. When the Jarl of Markarth and the Empire backed the Thalmor intrusion that undid much of Ulfric’s work, he probably figured the High King would be constrained to do the same thing if he were trusted with the plans to reclaim Skyrim for the Nords, so Ulfric assumed the worst and ultimately acted on that belief. This is likely why Ulfric challenged Torygg openly rather than asking for his allegiance privately, with unavoidably violent consequences. Admittedly malleable in his perceptions, he took the extreme route because he was led by Imperial and Elven voices to believe that the High King was willfully against him, and in reality, the younger High King wouldn’t have been allowed by his political handlers to join with Ulfric against the Thalmor, and the rebellion would have shaken out about the same.

I back Ulfric militarily, though by no means do I agree on his every point. He’s passionate to a fault, I agree, but that doesn’t make him impulsive or childish. Actually his campaign is slightly more strategic than Tullius and Rikke’s, but that isn’t saying much. He’s consistently methodical and dogmatic, but still rather misunderstood. Perhaps that’s because sometimes being so opinionated can give the impression that you’re just trying to prove something and people stop listening to what you actually have to say. I think that’s what has happened to Ulfric, and I’m going to end this comment now, lest it happen to me.