So I've been thinking about the Dragonborn questline, which is a bad thing, because the more I do, the less the actions of the antagonist, Miraak, seem to make sense.

For those of you that haven't played Skyrim's last DLC, you venture into Apocrypha via Black Books scattered about the island. If you die in Apocrypha, you are just spit out of the Black Book and get to try again, rather than getting a game over. This isn't just a gameplay mechanic. It's integrated into the story, with Miraak having his Seekers kill you when he first meets you and sending you back to Solstheim.

So if dying is all it takes to escape Herma-Mora with your life, why didn't Miraak just kill himself?

I'm assuming he didn't because he entered Apocrypha via a different means than we do, and thus killing himself would just mean he'd be dead with his soul permanently trapped in Apocrypha. However, we do find a Black Book that leads us right to him in his Temple, which might mean that's how he escaped Vahlok.

Moving on from that. Later, it's revealed that Miraak needs to absorb your soul in order to escape Apocrypha. What exactly is so special about your soul that he needs it to escape Apocrypha, vs all the other Dragon souls he has at his disposal or may steal from you? Also, if he needed your soul, why would he have allowed his Hive Mind to send Cultists to try and kill you in Skyrim, where he'd have no chance to absorb your soul?

Also, how did he start ensnaring minds on Solstheim again, and how did he manage to get a dragon that was under his control out of Apocrypha/Take over a dragon that wasn't living in Apocrypha?

Even more importantly, if Miraak needed your soul, why didn't he just kill you right when he meets you, rather than just sending you back? He risks letting you grow in power by letting you leave, and it's not like he needed your help to get dragon souls. He has a dragon insta-kill Shout!

Lastly, if dying in Apocrypha isn't really dying, but just getting sent back to Nirn, then how exactly is Miraak going to be able to absorb your soul if he defeats you?

Can anybody fill in these plot holes for me?

Exactly. If he needed your soul, why did he send you out when he had the chance to kill you the first time you met? That was his downfall as the rest of the DLC is you following in his steps to get back to him.

The whole Dragonborn DLC was a letdown for me. Being ol Herma Mora's slave... getting the Skaal leader killed... I felt like such an ass by the time it was over. For a non daedra worshiper like myself, the story was hard to accept.

I'll honestly say aside from the MQ for Dragonborn, I enjoyed the rest very much.

I don't think in the beginning he needs to absorb our characters soul thats why he sends his followers to kill us. As for how him defeating us means he can absorb our souls whilst every other time we are sent back to Solstheim that I leave to story mechanic. Of course I am just guessing here.

Alright, I'll give it a shot. I'm just as confused and annoyed as you, so most of this is me trying very hard to fill in these plot holes with things I barely believe myself.

This is like 90% of Skyrim and its expansions.

My guess is that he was dragged into Apocrypha in a way that is now impossible due to our good friend Martin Septim's sacrifice at the end of Oblivion. Notice that he doesn't have the book in his possession, so he probably didn't enter Apocrypha in the same way we did, nor would he be able to leave that way either.

They'd probably drag your corpse all the way to Solstheim and then...dump it into Apocrypha somehow? Or maybe he'd absorb the soul in the same way he does to dragons you kill.
Alternatively, he was counting on you to chase him down to Solstheim and waited for the final moment to absorb your soul so you could be at "full power" as he put it before the final confrontation. He was fattening you up, in a sense. Though then he goes around stealing your souls... Maybe he's worried you'll get too powerful?

Someone probably found the book in his temple and were enthralled by him, then his influence began spreading since then, eventually leading to a cult and his takover of Solstheim through corrupting the All-Maker Stones. Remember, cleansing them was supposed to slow his takover of Solstheim, but not entirely as the stone above his temple (the one with a completed shrine) was still corrupted.

Covered above. It was stupid of him to let you grow in power, though. Got a little too powerful for him.

Even I can't [censored] an answer for this.

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To add to this list of concerns, how in the hell did he plan to escape if a Dragonborn never showed up or if they died in a remote area where their body wouldn't be found? Was he planning on just ruling over Solstheim from Apocrypha had we not shown up? Did he have another way to escape but found using our soul to be far easier or faster? Did he anticipate the return of the dragons and a Dragonborn with them and decided now was the time to act?

I don't think Miraak has spent his time in Apocrypha wisely. Rather than gaining all the forbidden knowledge of the world, I think he decided to sit around eating Lurker and Seeker Pies for about 5000 years.

Mora specifically mentions that if Miraak escapes, he'll continue to spread Mora's influence through the world. I'm left wondering why Mora thinks this will happen, when Miraak clearly has no interest in helping Mora. Why would he spread Mora's influence if he's so desperate to get away?

Also, if Mora wanted his influence to be spread, why wouldn't he just let Mora go thousands of years ago? I understand the Dragon Fires and the Oblivion Crisis might have stopped him, but he the rest of the Merethic Era, and all of the First and Second Eras.

Also, also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's curious as to how Miraak learned he was Dragonborn. Sure he was a priest, and picked up on the language pretty quickly, but he wouldn't be able to shout without a dragon soul (though that's probably a gameplay mechanic), and they aren't exactly known for dying naturally.

Stop thinking about Bethesda's 'writing' in Skyrim or your brain will explode, especially if you try to decipher the Thieves Guild questline.

Maybe we could have asked Miraak himself about these plotholes if we actually had more than 2 minutes to talk with him.

I'm almost willing to bet money that Dragonborn was conceived by one person, before it was handed off to Writer A. But then somebody got bored and tired of waiting, so they told Writer B to start writing it, and then gave the job to Writer C, because he forgot he gave the job to someone else. And then on the way home he found a dog, and decided to see if it could write a good story.

Then, when all four drafts were written, the writers delivered them at the same time, and they got upset when they learned that their version might not be the one that made it into the game. So they compromised and unbound their drafts before throwing them into the air, and they pieced together the main quest from there.

I'm exaggerating for comedic effect, but it doesn't change the fact that at its root Dragonborn's MQ doesn't feel like a cohesive narrative, planned out and written by one person or a writing team, but either as several people working together but never actually talking to each other or communicating in any way, or by someone who had a decent enough concept, but just wrote whatever came to mind and never thought to go back and make sure it all flowed naturally and made sense.

Pretty much this.

I'll give it a try on some of the questions but can't guarantee it will make sense.

1. Cultists find out there is another Dragonborn and get in a tither because THEIR dragonborn is working to come back to Nirn and try to kill you without Miraak's blessing. (My thoughts when they faced off against me and I found the note on the cultists body.)

2. The character has only a small foothold in Apocrypha by using the Black books and is 'banished' back to Nirn as a Daedra is banished back to their realm if defeated. (I know it's a stretch)

3. The character's cleansing of the stones is limiting Miaak's chances of coming back to Nirn but the power you wield which is made up of more than the sum of just having drgonsouls and shouts but also the gift of the dragon blood like Miraak is capable of unbinding Mora's tentacles which hold him in Apocrypha, perhaps by taking the character's place on Nirn after you gain enough power to actually go fully fleshed and prepared into Apocrypha. (Once again I'm reaching here)

Make of it what you will, I won't pretend to be an apologist for the plotholes.

I think you have pretty much nailed it on the head there.

I laughed hard at this *ahem*

Like others have said, you've hit it right on the head and I hope beth gets some better writer's.

This hurts my brain more than TES Lore.

Did you even pay attention to what was said by the chick after you get back from finding the first book in Miraak's Temple? She said that after reading the book, something happened to you. You were still there, but she could see through you and you wouldn't answer or respond to her.

In short, only your mind and some of your essence are transported to Apocrypha, not your entire being.

Miraak is trying to get back, yes. But as deduced by following the story, he's also trying to keep what he's doing secret from Hermaeus Mora. He's trying to end his deal with Mora and escape back to Tamriel. It's very possible that he didn't discover that he needed your Soul until you are about done with the MQ, therefore he would have kicked you out the first time you meet him out of his own ignorance. It's not like he can exactly go and ask Mora what he needs to escape his deal with the Prince.

And if your mind and Soul are the only things transported to Apocrypha, then that's all Miraak would need to absorb to gain enough power to escape. Then, your body back on Tamriel would probably just collapse into a half=there husk should Miraak win.

It's all there and explained or easily deduced from the conversations and dialogue in the MQ, you just have to pay attention to it.

This plus the possibility that Dragonborns are connected in a way not yet understood which is why it took the emergence of the Last Dragonborn for Miraak to gain some power...perhaps a bit of every soul you absorb also goes to the other living Dragonborn and thus he slowly gets stronger and able to start bending wills of those on Nirn.

Very possible that he only discovered that he even could absorb your Soul. As the Dovahkiin, you do have the body of a mortal, but the Soul of an immortal Dragon. Goft of Akatosh and all that...

But the fact that Miraak was still trying to escape Apocrypha without Mora knowing means he has to research this stuff on his own. It's understandable that it took him 5000 years to find the right clue. Then he figures it out between your first meeting and the final showdown, as much is hinted at in the dialogues of Dragonborn.

Look at us trying to make sense out of nonsense and poor storytelling...headcanon ho!

How do you know that the seekers killed you when you first met Miraak? i thought they just magically transported you and beth got lazy with the spell effects.

I'm pretty sure they said "hey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KICszQNDUOA was pretty cool. Let's do that." Everyone cheered and brofisted and body slammed and chanted "USA! USA! USA!!!" in approval of the proposition.

Then one guy at the far end of the board of directors said "but guys, the New Vegas team spent a good year foreshadowing and alluding to Ulysses and working on making sense of his backstory! We've only got a couple months to write one for our guy and we've never even mentioned his existence before!"

Lord Howard looked upon this peon with discontent, shook his head quietly and then slowly reached down to hit the forbidden red button, sending the peon's seat falling into the tiger pit as flames and screams of pain shot up out of the hole.

"So no other objections?" Lord Howard asked. And everyone was quiet. And thus, Miraak was born.

The keep blasting you again and again with their attacking spell for what feels like hours, while your character reacts to it as if it hurts. It may have just been them not bothering to come up with something new though. They apparently thought it made sense for Miraak to incapacitate your character, regardless of gear or build, with sparks. Surely Ice Form or Paralyze would have been a better call?

That's not so much paying attention as trying to handwave things, which is what I'm looking for. I'd expect a guy who has spent millennia in the largest library in existence to have a more thought out plan. Not realizing that absorbing a dragon soul from a person who might have (depending on when you do the DLC) killed Alduin is beneficial to him regardless of whether or not he needs it makes me think we're not really dealing with the next Sun Tzu.

I know that we're tethered to Nirn when we enter Apocrypha through the Black Books, which is why I noted that Miraak's method of entering may have been different, though I still think it might have been possible for him to have escaped through the Black Book we find in his temple. After all, it takes you directly to him, which was awfully contrived and a waste of a good opportunity to explore around and then stumble upon him rather than just getting dropped off behind him.