Does it bother anyone that every character you will make for Skyrim has some innate magical ability? I have many characters who will never cast a spell but it always annoys me to see the default flame/healing spell in the menu. It's easy to ignore and roleplay your way around it but it's still slightly immersion-breaking for certain characters types.

I normally ignore it, but I can see how it can be an annoyance to some character types.

Lore-wise the explanation is that the sun and stars are actually holes to Aetherius, that leak magic onto Nirn. That's why all people, and some creatures, can use magic.

Gameplay-wise, not really. I just ignore the starting spells when not playing a magic user.

If I'm not mistaken in Oblivion we only got spells if we picked a magic skill as our major, and they'd be specific to that major.

But Skyrim encourages you to be a jack-of-all-trades, so...

That's a negative, Ghost Rider.

All Oblivion characters had a very basic Fire spell as well. I made (almost exclusively) Assassin characters in Oblivion, and they always started out with a Fire spell. Even when I had zero Magick Schools in my "Major Skills" list, there was still the base fire spell and a base healing spell.

IMO, Skyrim isn't encouraging you to be a "jack-of-all-trades", especially not with patch 1.9. You can be what you want, and you don't have to use any Skills that you don't want to use. Just focus on your "Class" skills, and you never have to go beyond that if you choose not to.

Whats funny is, there isn't a way to mod it out, as it would require messing with the Player NPC(00000014).

Or it is that in the elderscrolls world, everyone is able to do magic? It almost seems like it.

Yeah I understand the lore reasoning but I always prefer when magic is a rare gift.

Which, like someone else mentioned, is basically true.

When Mundus was being made, the Aedra named Magnus realized Lorkhan's trick at the last minute. A split second before it was too late, he ripped himself away from Mundus and escaped back into Aetherius. His exit tore "reality", leaving permanent holes where one could see into Aetherius. These holes are known as the Sun ans stars, and through those holes, Magicka constantly leaks into Mundus. This infuses every sentient species and race with the ability to cast basic magicks with a minimum of effort (i.e. the base Fire and Healing spell that everyone starts out with).

I just view it as everyone gets taught how to defend themselves and heal themselves at a young age. After all you can have all your weapons taken from you but magic. You can access almost anywhere.

Which is what I did in the end-- Removed Flames and Healing, and then scripted in a levelling of Skills (I prefer my characters to be more simple); it didn't bother me in the major sense, but yeah it was always something that kind of irritated me since for RP-purposes I kind of see my character's Spell/Stats menu as their "mind" so if it's in there, they know it, and I don't like my Magic-hating warrior knowing magic

It's out of sight and mind enough that it doesn't bother me.

The same can be said about being the dragonborn. We might never use the shouts but they're always there. I would also like to think that with me being the dragonborn that I might have at least some magical aptitude.

The good news about this though is that you can choose not to do the Bleak Falls Barrow quest to trigger dragons. I do this for several characters and the few downsides (not being able to buy Breezehome) don't bother me that much.