It struck me as odd, till I thought about it.

You take a mage to prison, yet they are not as penalized with their weapons removed. It barely affects most of them.

Now considering how little modern nords care or know about magic, it doesn't surprise me that mages don't get gagged or given anti-magicka cuffs to prevent spell casting (like morrowind)

It just made my hesitation to do certain quests go away, where my warriors and thieves are in a bind in Markarth... my mage is going to be just fine!

That's one of the reasons why Mages are my favorite archetypes out of the 'big 3' (Warrior, Mage, Thief). Unlike the other two a Mage's power come from within him/herself so they are much harder to 'disarm' then someone with physical equipment.

To address your concerns, have you looked into any mods that weaken Mages in prison?

Not really, as it seems most guards are likely to kill a spellcaster rather than try to subdue them... (unlike how they react to the dragonborn)

Though they do react a lot less favorably to magic use it seems, I can sheath a weapon and give up... but spell/shouts are a lot harder to avoid being killed over (accidents happen... there was a bug on the nose of the last one that got shot in the knee)

Haha, its true. But on a general level they aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. One would think that in a world full of magic there would be some sort of prison/defense option available in major cities for dealing with mages, anti-magic cuffs or prison cells with anti-magic wards or something. But no its just more iron bars and threatening with big manly axes, not something a great deal of mages would care about. Wonder what history would have looked like in reality if there was magic, warriors would be a lot less of a player in history

It makes total sense. Although i try to play along as though i am wearing anti magic cuffs or something.

Cannon fodder, look at the forgotten realms books (zenthil keep especially)

I just remembered something else, Mark/Recall are spell effects in the TES universe. So basically a mage could play along with the guards, get thrown into a cell, and just teleport away haha xD

Haha, its true. I miss Mark/Recall...and Tinur's Hoptoad....nostalgia moment...ahem, what were we saying?

You still have your Thu'um as well.

Pffft! I'd gladly trade the thu'um for all the spells we had in Morrowind - they featured far more utility and made the game a lot more fun.

Hmm, I seem to remember this being a problem for the Imperials as well. And the Dunmer. Almost seems like it is a gameplay thing, irrespective of the lore on the subject.

B-b-b-but STREAMLINING!

True, though generally I just roleplayed it as the local mages put a binding on my spell usage more as I view it as a design oversight. Skyrim I can't really convince myself of the same roleplay argument though. In general though it is just a design flaw, nothing really lore oriented.

Holy crap yes, spells in Skyrim are lame compared to what we used to have. I was rarely a mage class but almost every class I had used utility spells for so many various applications, not in Skyrim though, nothing useful to use. The Thu'um is boring compared to those previous spells.

agreed

If you want actual lore on it, there is a reference of sorts to mages easily being properly imprisoned in Morrowind. The slaves had a "Drain magicka" enchanted bracer on them, which while in gameplay was an insignificant enchantment to stop a [player]mage(3 pts IIRC), in lore this supposedly stopped slaves from being freed by magic. Given the commonplace existence of magic, I doubt most prisons, at least in major settlements like Whiterun, is without means to properly imprison a mage in lore.

Yeah I remember the slave bracers, used to collect them from all the freed slaves. Agreed that lore wise they probably could potentially have something. It was just easier to imagine in those games with a more prevalent presence of magic. Though I suppose a fair argument could be made that the court wizard could set something up, so yeah I can see a pretty valid argument for it in Skyrim.