When I rode "the wagon" again for the start of a new game, I noticed Ulfric had a "gag" on. I know we've discussed how shouts go through full helmets with the face covered. Some say, "Shouts are magic, not impeded by anything covering the face." Others say, "Shouts are a physical force that should be reflected back at the user if the face is obscured."

Now, one could get picky and say Ulfric's shouts are different from Dragonborn shouts, being a "simpler" form of the shouts.

Does the gag around Ulfric's mouth do any good at the beginning?

Should a Dragonborn be able to shout with a full face helmet on?

What do you think?

I think the gag is similiar to plugging a gun barrel. I think a full faced helmet for a Tongue is not a good idea, but think of the money using Yol can save on shaving

The gag should prevent proper enunciation of the syllables, rendering any shout ineffective.

As for full-face helmets, does your character have something to hide?

Absolutely not. I'm playing an Orc.

Do they make full face "hide" helmets?

Yeah, but it's hard to get the full face hides. Much more difficult to remove from the animal.

I always thought of the shout as an activator and the actual power doesn't come from the users mouth, but rather begins a little ways out. Otherwise, full helm or no, a good Fus Ro would blow out your teeth and a Yol would leave your mouth so scorched you wouldn't be able to say anything for weeks.

A question I always had about Ulfric's gag is "why is he still wearing it when his hands are tied in front of him?"

Good points! And another great observation about Ulfirc. I forgot about his hands

I just had a new(?) dialogue choice with Fagengar: "What do you know about Shouts?" He says they are a "form of magic" that projects the power of the thu'um. Then he refers me to the Graybeards

I kind of support Ghastly's point, that if you can't proununce it right (like a gag would prevent), it would probably stop the magic...

But the thread title made me think of 'actual' impairment. Like, what if a dragon had got injured in battle and had a chunk of its lip cut off? Or if the Dragonborn had been born with half a tongue or something... Given you have to 'known' the essence of a word to use it, I would guess it is at least partly mental rather than the word. So, I would suppose that the exact pronunciation would not be 100% necessary--maybe instead of shouting 'Fus!" you could say "Fuus" of "Fues" and still get the same effect because you know the word you are saying, and what it should do.

Ulfric knows the gag is meant to impede his ability to say the word, so maybe psychologically he thinks he can't, and so the shouts do not work properly because the mental aspect is not there; with a full helm, though, our Dragonborn knows they are still pronouncing the word 'correctly', so just use it without thinking about the consequences? (And then bring in the 'it starts a bit past them that EA suggested, and problem solved...)

It's CHIM for sure, don't even bother questioning it.

Ulfric does not have all that many shouts.

He probably just shouted a "disarm" at the king who did not know how to react.. Maybe following that with a "fus ro dah"

Ulfric was a little boy when he went to the Graybeards. He talks about it if you ask him.

As far as the gag stopping anything.. Maybe.. If it kept his lips closed and his hands were behind his back and not in front.

As it is in game he could just reach up and take it off..

Closed helm might have the same effect.. If we were playing it that way but we aren't..

I think performing a fus ro dah with a full helm on will rip your face apart, likewise performing a fire breath burning your face.

I always thought Ulfric was just afraid to use his hands to remove the gag... I mean, his soldiers are all still bound, and while he might get off one shout, I doubt he'd live to get off a second one... and his hands would STILL be bound.

It might depend on what the shout was. Become Ethereal might get him out of the cart and into the woods before anyone could stop him, and there's a Stormcloak camp not all that far from Helgen.

I don't think he knows Become Ethereal. I've only seen him use unrelenting force and first word disarm.

You also have to consider how Ulfric came to be bound and gagged in the first place. Since he knows, he'd be expecting the same to happen again if he tried to remove it.

And it doesn't take him long when Alduin turns up, and the odds have changed.

Did Ulfric power his shouts by meditation? It's not as though he had dragon souls to absorb. Also, there have been suggestions that there haven't been dragonborn for quite some time (recall but not sure but they said an age)

I always assumed the gag was stuffed inside his mouth and held in place by the rag you see tied over it. That’s how I do it. Never noticed the hands in front, though.

Do you do this on a regular basis?