So it seems that I have worked out my entire system on how I will critique everyones blogs. I wil focus on one persons blogs until all of them are properly critiqued, and then move on. Remember, if you have any blogs that you want reviewed, it could be your own, it could be someone else's, just drop me a line and I will always get back to you. But, now it seems the very first person I will focus on is User: Zippertrain85. If you read the last review of his blog, Why the Stormcloaks are right, you know it got heavily criticized and supported for his opinons on the Stormcloaks, as a lot of people are passionate about that sort of thing. I gave it an Average rating and I have seen that he wrote a follow up. So, let's review the living S*** out of it, and commence what will now be known as ... THE ZIPPER SAGA.
"So at the beginning of May I wrote a blog refuting common arguments against the Stormcloaks. Well, their were some points that I didn't refute. So I decided to write this blog refuting them.
"Ulfric and the Stormcloaks are racist"
Yes, their are more racism arguments. A lot of people brought up Brunwulf Free-Winter and his point on how Ulfric only helps Nords who are in trouble as opposed to the other races. First of all, I just want to say, I think Brunwulf Free-Winter is an Imperial spy. How would General Tullius have known to make him Jarl? Some say he is a well respected vertran. I have yet to see proof of this though, but if you have some you're welcome to share it in the comments section. But back to the main point about Ulfric supposedly not helping non-Nords. You can get a bounty form Jorleif to kill a giant that is attacking travelers. Which shows that Ulfric did do something for the non-Nords (I assume travelers are people foriegn to Skyrim). Also, even if he did do this he fails to consider something. That their are obviously more Nords in Skyrim then the other races. Meaning if a Nord village gets attacked a lot of innocent people will be hurt or die. While if a couple of Dunmer or Argonians are wondering around Skyrim less people would be hurt or killed. It's a needs of the many outweight the needs of the few sort of mentality.
"Nobody enforced the Talos worship ban until Ulfric and the Stormcloaks started making a fuss about it".
This does not sound accurate at all. The Thalmor hate Talos. The Altmer believe that they are decended form the Gods. And Lorkhan took this godhood away. So the idea of a man achieveing godhood as opposed to the Elves is very angering to them. Not only that, according to the towers theory Talos is an aspect of Lorkhan and he is what keeps mortals on Mundus (or atleast that's what the Elves believe). Since man were created by Lorkhan and the Gods if everyone stops worshipping Talos his influence on Mundus will deserase, and man will cease to exist (I don't know everything about this theory but correct me if I'm wrong). So with this in mind it makes no logical sense that the Thalmor would not enforce the Talos ban.
"Skyrim doesn't belong to the Nords, it belongs to the Snow Elves"
Yes, at one point the Snow Elves (or Falmer) ruled Skyrim. In the Merethic Era Ysgramor and some other Nedes came from Atmora to Skyrim to escape the civil war plaging the land. They were peaceful stellers, and had a good relationship with the native Snow Elves. But at one point the Snow Elves attacked them. There are two theories as to why this happened, one the Nedes were populating fast and might've outnumbered the Snow Elves in a couple years, which made them paranoid and attacked. Another one is that Ysgramor found the Eye of Magnus, he knew it was to powerful to be used, and decided to bury it away. But the Snow Elves wanted it, and attacked them. Regardless of which one is true the Snow Elves attacked the Nedes out of greed or irrational paranoia. They started a war with them. A war which they lost. You can't start a conflict with another race and then act like you're the innocent victims when they fight back. My point is, the Snow Elves lost Skyrim because of their bad decisions and bully like behavior to the Nedes.
"Torygg would've succeeded if Ulfric had just asked him to".
This is probably untrue because everyone knew Ulfric wanted to succeed. Sybille Stentor even says when Ulfric walked in to challenge Torygg they thought he was going to ask him to succeed form the Empire. Which shows Ulfric's political beliefs were well known to the Solitude court. Meaning that if Torygg truly had any interest in succeeding from the Empire he would've just done it. "
So as with before in his first blog, Zippertrain went down the line of issues people had with the Stormcloaks, and so I will address his issues with their issues down the line as well. First off, we have the infamous Stormcloak racist argument, though it mostly focuses on Ulfric this time around, big suprise Zippertrain, and while I do disagree with the fact that the Stormcloaks are racist hicks, the reasoning presented would not persuade me if I believed otherwise. While his reasoning, and thankfully, Zippertrain looks at it from real world perspective, meanig that he seems to realize that Skyrim is actually a lot bigger than it appears on screen, we just get what our consoles can process, but there must be hundreds of villages around Skyrim, not just that straggling few you see with just four people, and if they really are getting attacked, then Ulfric would divert resources to help them, as Zippertrain is probably right in thinking there are more Nords in Skyrim than other races. But even so, Ulfric could at least help with other Racialm problems. He could probably clear up half of his problems right there if he just threw the Argonians, Dunmer, and Khajjit a bone once in a while. Travelers don't necessarily mean foreigners Zipper. I have taken road trips across America all the time. That doesn't make me Russian or something. You know, in a rush? Sorry. Anyway, the reasoning is not very well written.
Ok, so I honestly have never heard this second argument before. I mean, yes, of course the Thalmor hate Talos. For the first few sentences, Zipper explains that. Until he starts not making any sense anymore. I try my best not to be a grammar nazi, because it seriously annoyes the heck out of some people, but the way these sentences were worded were just wrong, so the rest of the paragraph doesn't even make sense to me. Take a look.
"Not only that, according to the towers theory Talos is an aspect of Lorkhan and he is what keeps mortals on Mundus (or atleast that's what the Elves believe). Since man were created by Lorkhan and the Gods if everyone stops worshipping Talos his influence on Mundus will deserase, and man will cease to exist (I don't know everything about this theory but correct me if I'm wrong). So with this in mind it makes no logical sense that the Thalmor would not enforce the Talos ban. "
Ok, so the Towers theory was always sort of ok to me. It was one me and Madman97 could both readily accept and even openly support. But I don't think Talos being an aspect of Lorkhan had anything to do with that. I was under the impression the Towers theory had something to do with like, Towers being some sort of Mundus stabilizer, and each tower had a heart or a center, like the Snow Tower being the Throat of the World, or the Red tower being the Red Mountain, and the herts being like the Heart of Lorkhan and Alduin being the Snow Towers heart, or the Eye of Magus, or maybe even the entire Nordic Culture, or some S*** like that, but I didn't know we were bringing in mantling. I have no idea why Talos is the one keeping Mortals on Mundus as it is said. I don't why not worshipping Talos would just kill everyone. I think Madman97 made this argument once when someone mentioned that people worshipping actually gives a god its power. Well, I'll repeat that here. IT"S NOT PERCY JACKSON. It's not. People think Sithis would be all powerful, but I don't see his symbol plastered all over th streets and cathedrals. If the worship thing is to be believed, Sithis must be the weakest god in existence. Or the All-Maker how about. Even more of a wimp. And then Zipper states it makes no sense that the Thalmor would not enforce the ban. Well, that entire paragraph just made no sense to me. I think what he was trying to say was that the Thalmor wanted to stop the Worship of Talos because I think it has something to do with the towers. I don't know, Im the best in this stuff either, but my own thoughts aside, as they probably got off track, the paragraph was just crappily written and phrased and it confused me. Plus, it really had nothing to do with why the Stormcloaks are better. I get it, yeah, the Thalmor are essentially evil. I thought we were talking about Imperials and Stormcloaks here, not Thalmor and Stormcloaks. Moving on.
Alright, so another argument that has nothing to do with the Stormcloaks. Specifically, it has to do with the Atmorans and their war with the Snow Elves. Contraversal for both sides? Yes. Stormcloak related? No. I'm not a Nord fan, but this is a ridiculous argument against the Nords anyway. Sure, the Nords were descended from the Atmorans, but so were practically every other Men race in Tamriel, so its pointless arguing for or against it. A pointless argument.
Toryyg was not the strongest of kings, but I am sure he meant well and wanted to guide Skyrim through these troubling times. I think the point of this paragraph was to explain why Ulfric killed Toryyg, because apparently his notions were known to the court in Solitude, and Toryyg I guess refused. Still, Ulfric could have just slapped Toryyg around a little instead of just outwrite killing him. I remain unchanged in this department.
The last two paragraphs I thought just had completly nothing to do with the matter at hand, so I decided not to show them all, but I will tell you the premise. Ulfric is bad leader because he got captured at the beginning of the game, and Ulfric was acting childish at the meeting of High Hrothgar.
So, did this blog succeed. The Verdict is, (Drum roll please)
....
FORGETTABLE!
Final Word. Sorry Zippertrain, but this blog was just not up to snuff, even by your last ones standards. And it showed in the comments to. Only generating a third of the amount the first one did, this one was just a crappy sequel to the original. The writing is poor, the execution was still the same as the last, but ultimatly boring, the arguments really have only Ulfric that connects it with the Stormcloaks, which is my main problem. The Title is WHY THE STORMCLOAKS ARE RIGHT! Not WHY ULFRIC IS RIGHT. The only reason this thing didn't get an Atrocious rating was because, like before, Zipper knew where the arguments mostly went to. There is barely even mention of the Stormcloaks however, and if I want to be convinced to like them over the Imperials, I need arguments for the STORMCLOAKS, NOT ULFRIC! But, like before, there is a silver lining. Zipper tried. Even if he didn't succeed, he at least tried. He just needs to try harder. Blog Critic out.