Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-76.97.80.106-20130811163656/@comment-70.176.41.208-20140611012453

It's obviously set up as a lose-lose scenerio, you are choosing the lesser of the two evils.

In this case the bullies vs. the b**ches.

I don't need to go into Ulfric, or what an overbloated, egotistical, racist oaf he is... but in my opinion he is the lesser of two evils for one reason.

The Empire are liars... they say they will fight the Thalmor, but they have lost. They let the Thalmor come in and arrest their own citizens, torture, and murder them... even children. It's horrific... just listen to the Thalmor themselves tell you that the Empire "does their bidding" as they are going door to door and arresting people based on "suspicion only".... the Empire is allowing the Thalmor to run a freaking inquisition. Worse, the Empire is emplying their own torturers and inquistors under the bidding of the Thalmor.

The Imperialist argument is that "Join us so that we will one day stand up to the Thalmor!" Huh? You never wil! You can't stand up to someone when you are already their b**ch! It's like Theon's (Reek's) sister expecting him to stand up to his master. Too late, he's reek now, he's the b**ch, he has surrendered in order to survive. Once you surrender to survive, you will never fight back - you will only carry on the fantasy in your head that you might one day fight back, and sooner or later even that will go away. The Thalmor have beaten the Imperials, they are allowed to operate in whatever way their please within Imperial Borders, doing whatever they want...

How many people that are under someone's thumb, have you heard say "One day I will..." but they never do, they won't ever stand up, because once you let someone roll over you, it gets easier and easier to just accept your fate. The Empire has accepted their fate by allowing the Thalmor to torture and murder their own children based on belief and "suspicion of belief" in Talos, and that is extending into other arena's

When you play out the Imperial side, after the victory, the first thing that happens is that the Thalmor move in and start arresting and torturing their "list" of people. Graymanes? Toast... Hod and Gerdur and their son? Thalmor bait. There is even a storyline in Windhelm where the priests are trying to get the aid of the thieves guild fence to get them out before the Thalmor come and put them under the inquisition... which of couse, made me feel guilty as heck! Man, I thought I was fighting for the Empire, but all I was doing was enabling the Thalmor to keep acting as they wish with no resistence.

In the end, the Empire is the greater of the two evil choices.. which is a hard pill to swallow, because I really despise Ulfric...