I know a lot of people don't follow "canon" but whenever I play the game properly I play as "Trailerkiin" (Nord preset 1), the guy from the trailers and the background of this site. I'm always wondering what choices would be considered canon which is why this interested me

I've recently started doing a canon playthrough of Dawnguard, following the Dawnguard faction questline as joining the Volkihar seemed far too evil to me to be canon. I'm at the point where you are about to enter the soul cairn and Serana suggests either soul trap or becoming a vampire lord to enter. I chose soul trap and I noticed that even though you are not a vampire lord, during the conversation with Valerica she says the words "Whether or not you've become one of us in order to survive the soul cairn you're still a vampire hunter at heart" basically talking to you as if you ARE a vampire lord even though you are not. It is clear what she means here and this to me pretty much suggests that the Dragonborn IS meant to become a Vampire Lord at this point lore-wise. It's way too much to be just an oversight or a mistake by the programmers surely?

If the ending of this trailer is anything to go by I think it's a possibility:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZqXKZOS2jQ

What do you guys think?

I think you mistake what Valerica says.

"Whether or not you've become one of us in order to survive the soul cairn you're still a vampire hunter at heart"

"Whether or not"

"or"

I thought that at first but in her mind the only way to survive the soul cairn is to become a vampire lord is't it? So in this context she is alluding to the fact that you have become a vampire lord.

The Trailer character is not the canon character (unless you want it to be), none of the Trailer characters are, they are only supposed to be representative of the PC.

again, no, she says that because SHE is a vampire lord and probably assumes only an idiot would choose losing power over gaining it.

She is basically saying "Even though you've became one of us to survive the soul cairn, you're still a vampire hunter at heart".

Consider this example:-

- Someone tells you they believe in god

- You respond with "Whether or not you believe in god you have to admit the theory of evolution is still valid"

This shows how "whether or not" applies in the above context and in the context that Valerica uses it i.e. to suggest that the Dragonborn IS a vampire but she still dislikes him

she says OR, she never says that, ever if you are not a Vampire lord. and yeah, your example is terrible because the THEORY of Evolution, is still just that, a Theory, but i would rather not get into a argument about that.

Vampire HUNTER.

She is saying rather you are a vampire or not... you are still like the DAWNGUARD whom are vampire HUNTERS.

She's accusing of you being a danger to her daughter.

But it would be obvious to her whether he is a vampire lord or not. He's right in front of her.

she says OR, does not really matter what you THINK she means, she SAYS or, which means there is no canon.

Almost as terrible as your reply. The example isn't important. Get over it. I was simply using it to demonstrate how that might be applied to a sentence.

Yes but in the context of this sentence:-

Whether or not you've become one of us in order to survive the soul cairn you're still a vampire hunter at heart

The words "Whether or not" can be replaced easily with "Even though" it seems to me at least because the fact is he is right in front of her and she can tell if he is a vampire or not

no, no it cannot, they mean two different things. Whether or not means "even IF you did". Even though means "just because you did it"

Hmm maybe. So do you think in this case it could be taken that she can't tell if he's a vampire or not just by looking at him?

IMO, she probably know the difference and also the knows the only 2 ways that a living person can get into the soul cairn. IT is basically "I really do not care which one you chose, i STILL do not like you.

You may be right even though she should really be able to tell due to the glowing eyes and mouth slit that Vampire Lord's have which is what led me to believe what she meant but I suppose that could be overlooked

It either means that she, like Serana, understands that for a mortal to enter the Soul Cairn they must either be partially soul-trapped or become a vampire. I think it also means she's too stupid to look into your eyes and tell whether or not you're a vampire.

But it's most likely Bethesda just being lazy and not putting in the algorithm to recognize whether or not you're a vampire and to generate dialogue accordingly.

Yes to be honest I think that likely sums it up right there. Especially when you consider this is a game in which people throughout skyrim talk about Dragon attacks before you've even got that far in the questline for them to be occurring ha.

Come to think of it there isn't actually a way for you to cure vampisim via serana or any other Dawnguard related method so I don't suppose it would be canon in that case.

When they are talking about Dragon attacks, they are talking about the attack on helgen and just because the PC does not see any dragons does not mean they are out there.

You still do not seem to get it, there IS no canon for something like this, you also do realise you can go get cured by Falion, right? Very little in TES has a set canon, the MQ being completed is the ONLY thing that can be considered completely canon, that and the COC becoming Sheogorath.

I think when we read about this in the next game, Bethesda will have the Dragonborn opt for the soul-trap rather than becoming a vampire. It is like you said, there isn't a way to cure vampirism through Serana or the Dawnguard, so it wouldn't very likely become canon.

That also bugs me! Out of my dozens of playthroughs I have only done the main quest once and every time I see the couple on the road who claim to have lost their house to a dragon attack I go, "Um, nice try, but I don't share my wealth with swindlers." I especially hate it when guards say, "What is it? Dragons?"

actually, it will likely never be brought up again, except for POSSIBLY a passing reference to the Dawnguard and the Volkihar clan. VERY RARELEY are specific things, especially choices brought up ever again. For example, we know teh COC became Sheogorath (Sheogorath is a Daedra and technically has no gender, meaning the COC could be male or female), but we do not know what side of the Island he/she chose (seducers or saints) as it is never talked about. Bethesda tries to keep it so open-ended that, for Daggerfall, a game that had multiple MQ sides to choose from that completely changed the ending and were incompatible, they chose ALL of them at the same time and said "time broke". The only endings that are not chosen are the 2 where Tamriel is destroyed.

Nope I'm afraid you're wrong there. Khajit merchants actually mention that the dragons are causing danger on the roads.

Actually that's debatable because we do not yet know if anything is canon or not, hence the reason I placed the word canon in quotations in my first post. For all you know in the next game the dovahkiin could indeed be revealed to be the nord from the trailers in the same way it is alluded to that sheogorath is CoC.

No, I meant when we read books in TESVI that are about the whole Tyranny of the Sun prophecy and the fate of the Volkihar Vampires.

they will likely never be mentioned, not even in a book.

Why do you think that?