Who was this guy, exactly? Because I heard a few bandits talking about Arvel, but I'm not sure if he's the leader of the pack or not...?
Anyone got any clarifications/ideas?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Arvel_the_Swift

Here is a somewhat similar thread.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1463981-bleak-falls-barrow-bandits-a-thought-occurred/#entry22797467

He's just a thief.

He's that Dunmer whose caught up in the web, who holds the Golden claw.

And if you're lucky, the one that takes a spring-loaded spiked wall to the face as well.

He's a naughty, naughty Elf who needs a sword somewhere... unpleasant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35WwSDYyYU

If he somehow manage to survive all the Draugr and traps and doesn't see you, what happens?

Impossible. UESP made sure of this. He will eventually die.

It may be possible though....

I'm pretty sure he's scripted to run into the trap and get spiked wall'd.

Though I'm wondering what would happen if I console commanded all three words of unrelenting force and blew him safely past the trap... Perhaps even force his health to like 1,000 to ensure I can keep him from being killed by the Draugr...

I might try this for SCIENCE!

Please do. Try everything you can. Is there a way to disable the trap entirely?

Well, I could try and "disable" it with the console effectively making the whole thing just vanish.

Just need to see if I have a save that far back on my recent character...

Let me know how that goes. Hopefully he doesn't just drop dead from scripted death or something. Although it would be a little funny.

Maybe if he gets past the trap, he will activate the normally dormant Draugr right down the hall.

DO IT! Though something tells me he might just end up standing there like an idiot.

Am working on it now. Will take pics if anything "interesting" happens.

Drop an arrow on the trap trigger so it won't, uh...trigger.

I'm just going to give him 5,000 health points.

The Draugr that is sleeping in the room after the Wall Trap always wakes and kills Arvel if He survives in My Game. I have not seen Arvel survive the Wall trap in a long time.

So after a bit of testing... I was very disappointed with the results.

I gave him a few thousand health points, and helped him kill the first batch of Draugr. He seemed quite grateful, the little ****. He then runs to the trap and gets hit by it(survives because I gave him 5,000 health points). After finishing the stagger animation he then stands still for a few moments, and then immediately becomes hostile.

I then turned ai detection off. After losing sight of me, he then proceeds to run through the spike trap again(survives). The third time he manages to dodge the pressure point by a few inches. Runs past the second batch of Draugr(ai detect still off) and then walks right into the swinging blades. Because of the absurd amount of health I gave him, he survived long enough for me to run past and close them. Then... He just stands there...

So...

http://i.imgur.com/akysrV9.jpg

Conclusion: The Gods have deemed him truly unworthy of life.

http://i.imgur.com/dr1t30B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uRWDN9t.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/bFuqP8i.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aBf5Jbk.jpg