Something that is interesting to see in the game Skyrim, when you think about it, is how little of the game is actually about Skyrim. At first this might seem like a very strange assertion, given that the game takes place in Skyrim. However, looking at the circumstances of the lore, you do get a quite different image.

What is the most relevant lore to the setting of the game, as in the specific social conditions we will see the Nords live under in 4E201? Well, it is the White-Gold Concordat, predicated on the rise of the Thalmor and the decline of the Empire, culminating in Cyrodiil’s surrender in 4E175. The Nords were involved in the conflict, but were so reactively. Simply put this means that they were never initiators of anything that happened in Cyrodiil. They were simply called in to help the Cyrods fight the Dominion soldiers.

Okay, so the big picture of the lore is centered on Cyrodiil and Alinor. What about a smaller scale? Well, the most immediate event in Skyrim itself that has shaped the current socio-political climate is the Markarth Incident, the Reachmen Uprising. However, this has fundamentally shaped the present through Ulfric Stormcloak, much more than the Reachmen, who play a somewhat small part in the setting. Specifically, this is the time when Ulfric is stabbed in the back by the Empire and presumably coming to the conclusion that this Empire is not worth having anymore.

Wait a minute… Let’s go back and re-read that last part. Uh-huh. Interesting. Again it seems that the Empire is in the center of the focus here. The rebellion was deal with, by and large, being reduced to hill-dwelling guerilla fighters. A nuisance, but not a major threat. Markarth was back in Nordic control. The net-gain from that conflict for Skyrim as a whole is that a former supporter of the Empire turned against them. Ulfric himself seem to be supportive of the idea of the Empire in general, just not what he sees it to be after the WGC. Much the same can be said for Galmar, and people like Thonar Silver-Blood.

Okay, so the Empire is highly in focus around the rebellion. What would you expect, Tdroid? You drooling [censored] anti-Empire [censored]? Well, I would expect that to be the case. It is just one of the things that makes me reach my conclusion.

Before I get on to that, I want to make one last point on Skyrim itself. The main quest. Dragons are returning, but they seem to have little to no impact on the real setting of the game. Ask yourself this: What is actually on the minds of most people? In most cases, if they are worried, it will be the civil war. This also takes virtually all the attention from the Jarls as well. The larger impact on the game’s setting is the civil war.

Considering that, an element of the civil war we have to examine a bit is the whole stance of “this is just a sideshow”, which is something Tullius will say outright. The civil war is not a priority in the eyes of the leaders of the Empire. The Dominion is the priority. And to the Dominion, the civil war is just another way of weakening the human nations, as long as it rages on. For the time being, their short term goal appear to be to destroy the Cyrodilic Empire, to which end the civil war is just a tool.

This also reflects the lore itself. It treats Skyrim’s setting as an interlude before the next big conflict with the real enemy, between the real participants. You know, the Aldmeri Dominon and the Cyrodilic Empire. Tullius and Ondolemar says as much. It happens to include what I can only call a token main quest centered on the Dragons. However, even this seem to be more focused on what is generally Cyrodilic lore.

Before the release of Skyrim, the Dragonborn was much more heavily geared towards the Cyrods and their culture, with a tradition of Dragonborn Emperors, beginning with Alessia, then through Reman and finally Tiber Septim. It isn’t before the game Skyrim that we get much insight into the Nords reverence for the Dragonborn, in what I can only see as removing differences between the Nords and the Imperials. At the end of the day, regardless of how you cut it, the Dragonborn isnot a Nordic centered cultural aspect. It is a Cyro-Nordic(as in, shared between the cultures, not the old name for the Imperial race) cultural aspect that is far more relevant to Cyrodiil’s culture, and at the point of being irrelevant in Skyrim’s. The Nords don’t have anything akin to the Cyrodilic Dragonborn Emperor traditions.

The main antagonist, Alduin, is, on the other hand, something unique to the Nords. Or he used to be. Now he is described as “the firstborn of Akatosh” by a fellow Dragon. There are many ways this could have happened, when considering that Akatosh is a merged god from both Nordic and elven gods. However, the change of Alduin comes back to the Cyrodilic culture and religion.

With this turn of Alduin, and the changes that have been made to the Thu’um, it strikes me that it becomes harder and harder to find anything that is unique to Skyrim and the Nords, even in Skyrim. The only thing I can really think of is the Thu’um itself, as a cultural tradition. Currently under tight lock and key with the Greybeards, of course, because having more than 5 Nords be unique would be dangerous to the perception that they are much the same as the Imperials. And Sovngarde, which they thankfully have kept free of the non-Nords.

In general, we learn next to nothing about any modern history of the Nords, with the only history lessons being centered on either the ancient Nords, which translates to being little more than a show of how the Nords are so much more like the Imperials now, or on the other provinces. I don’t think I am exaggerating if I say that we have a better grasp of what has been going on in Cyrodiil, Alinor and Morrowind than Skyrim in the time between Oblivion and the game Skyrim. And in the time before that.

The Nords’ culture is another thing that is never explored in the game. We have a few references to the Jarls having the right to challenge the High King, which isn’t that unique, given the normalcy of duels in TES in general, and we get a nice little thing with the exchange of the Axe between Balgruuf and Ulfric. Minor, almost incidental, details and nods to them being a warrior people.

However, on the other hand, the religion has drastically been reduced, and replaced by the Imperial Divines. It is to the point when you find it to be a relief that calling Talos Talos isn’t another part of Cyrodilic culture being used instead of the Nordic one, and that there isn’t enough difference between the Imperial and Nordic version of Dibella to really tell them apart, unless someone specifically calls her “the bed-wife of Shor”. At best, we have 3 Nordic gods remaining. Ysmir(as Talos), Mara(the Handmaiden of Kyne) and Dibella(the one who barely isn’t the Imperial Dibella even at a good day).

Tiber Septim having created the Empire is used as a justification for its continued rule, which doesn’t strike me as a particularly Nordic concept. It was Ysgrammor’s line that was to rule Skyrim. After it died out, it was up to the most suited of the lords remaining, and the power changed hand to the one who showed himself the better ruler and protector of their lands. There is no Dragonborn right to rule in Skyrim. Only Dragonborn ruler I can think of was Wulfharth, the Ash King and the Storm of Kyne. That Talos created the Empire and was Dragonborn, and thus having the right to rule, is a distinctly Cyrodilic concept, not a Nordic one. I’d argue, with the Jarls having the right to challenge the High King to a duel to the death, this tradition is glaringly antithetical to the very traditions of ruling that exists in Skyrim.

Yet, both the Stormcloak leadership and several pro-Empire NPCs seem to hold to the idea that Tiber Septim’s Empire had the right to rule Skyrim. The Stormcloaks simply doesn’t accept the current Empire as the same one, as a result of the White-Gold Concordat. They do not deny such rights, which they should by their own traditions.

Maybe I am not being fair. What about the guilds in Skyrim? Two of them are native in, and restricted to, Skyrim. The Companions and the College of Winterhold. The Dark Bortherhood and the Thieves Guild are hardly venues for Nordic culture, but what about the guilds unique to Skyrim?

What about the Guilds unique to Skyrim? The Companions is a questline I can say is not about any other people, with a straight face. That is a fair point. However, even so, the Companions are not used to flesh out any of the Nordic culture. They are kinda just there. Mercenaries with a fancy name and origins, but with no actual impact on Skyrim’s culture as portrayed in Skyrim. They’re just stuck squabbling among themselves about the Beastblood, and with the Silver Hand about the Beastblood. They’re not taking anything away from a Nord centric narrative, but they aren’t adding anything either. I would think that a group dedicated to upholding Ysgrammor’s legacy would be a bit more involved in politics and society, but instead they effectively distances themselves from it.

The College of Winterhold, on the other hand, is so deep in the rest of the lore’s focus on Cyrodiil and the Dominion that it is not even funny. The main antagonist of the story is a Thalmor agent, and the Plot Device used to defeat him is found through assist of the Synod, one of the Imperial mages guilds left, and the Psijic Order, a non-Thalmor Altmer mages guild. The College of Winterhold, much like Skyrim itself in the Great War, is simply reactionary to the actions of the other factions centered in Alinor or Cyrodilic culture.

On the other hand, with the addition of Dragonborn, the Dunmer receive a whole new take on their gods, the Reclamations, and the Heart Stones of Red Mountain become a thing of Telvannit interest. The Imperial influence on this storyline is twisted into serving the Dunmer’s narrative, not the other way around, with the Heart Stones making an Imperial General come back to life and attack a Dunmer settlement. They are also given a new social order, with the change of the Great Houses, when Hlaalu is no longer one of them. Another Imperial influence twisted to serve the Dunmer narrative, instead of the other way around, and letting them distance themselves culturally from them.

The Orcs have more innovation too, with the inclusion of the Strongholds, and added context for their lives here. Their social order is fleshed out, as is their connection to Malacath in the quest “The Cursed Tribe”, much more than the Nords are. Adding a new name for the king and his nobles is not the same as adding layers to their social order.

I ask you this: What in Skyrim is really about Skyrim and the Nords? Very little, as far as I can tell, and even less of importance. It is about Cyrodiil, about Alinor, or a mixture of the two. Its primary focus, through the setting, is not the Nords themselves, but to act as a prelude to the larger, more important conflict between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion. Something that also infects the main questline, as if arbitrarily adding the Dragonborn as just as revered a figure in Norduc culture didn’t already do enough to smear a Cyro-Nordic core to it. It doesn’t even seem to make an attempt to hide this. They use the same exact “Plot Device” as they did in Oblivion; the Dragonborn. Uriel and Martin Septim, and now the Player.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is not about Skyrim. Not in any substantial way.