Technically you can reject Namira...by killing all of the cannibals in the room before they sacrifice the priest. Problem is, it means you fail the quest - making obvious the largest flaw in nearly all of Skyrim's questlines, the complete and utter lack of choice in the matter. Reject Namira, fail the quest. Kill the Dark Brotherhood, maybe two quest stages before it's over because for some reason the Penitus Oculatus already has the passcode and location of the Sanctuary for some reason. And those are pretty much the only ones you even have some semblance of choice for

Well, what do you expect will happen when you kill Namira's cult? Of course you're going to fail it.

Yes, it is annoying to be sure, but there are ways to have a 'good' character kill her. Maybe in a fit of blind rage? Maybe he/she is the sort that takes the law in his/her own hands and decides right then and there that the old crone's gotta go? Maybe he/she once grew up in the orphanage and seeing her again made them decide that enough was enough and end her?


True, that irks me. My current thief is not part of the Guild because I don't want to sell his soul to a Daedra.


Molag Bal is one of the more evil Daedric princes. I could make the argument that he controlled you the same way he controlled the good guy and had you do something unspeakable.


The thing with Daedras is that no matter what you do, they'll find a way to make you theirs. Or so they think.

Hermaeus does that with everyone. The Skall leader's daughter tells you that Akatosh chose you for a higher purpose than that. Basically, the Divines call dibs on your soul.

As others said, you can either just hang out in the cave or slip out through the back entrance and out into the fields.


That's sort of the point of the civil war. Neither side is in the right, both sides have very valid points. Ending it one way or another is actually a GOOD thing as that means less time wasting resources fighting each other and more time building resources for the second fight with the Thalmor. As for the final fight, you can always let the other person deliver the final blow.

I think by that point, the Blades had proven themselves a complete joke and most just start listening to the Greybeards and Paarthunax.

I know of it but for some reason I never turn around and go back into the Underforge, there's just something about running through town and out the front gate.

I mentioned these already. They both svck, particularly the DB since you're doing good. But then unless you're metagaming there's absolutely no indication that killing Grelod would lead to destroying the Dark Brotherhood. That's poor quest design, IMO.

You kill him in self-defense. He attacks you eventually when you don't do anything. You can then ignore Molag Bal or kill the priest of Vaermina(?). No big loss.

You can kill the cannibal right there and solve the problem. Or you can get her to bring out the rest of them and the kill them all.

How? All she did was invite you. She tried brainwashing you into joining her cult. This is one of the few Daedric quests with a "good" route in that you can choose a different outcome by doing what I mentioned above. You "fail" the quest, but for a "good" character, isn't it better that you do? The quest isn't cut off from you. You can still complete it, but not in favor of the Daedric Prince.

Both Neloth and Frea say outright that you have the power to refuse him. Only by going back to his realm and reading his books do you actually give in to him.

You don't have to kill anyone. You're not forced to. Three of the five of the Companions are even working to get rid of the curse. It's stupid how you're forced to gain the beast blood, and there should have been an alternate route, but it isn't necessarily "evil". The whole quest is about purity and corruption, with purity overcoming corruption if that's what you wish. (By healing yourself and Farkas/Vilkas after the end of the questline).

I much prefer it this way. I'd rather this than any unfortunate implications that might come from making one side the obvious bad guy and the other the obvious good guy. It happened with the Thalmor, but that's poor writing for you.

I'd say the Greybeards and Paarthunax would be more of the "good" side. At least they tend to invoke it better. This is another morally grey one, and either side could be seen as "good."

Seems to me that what people are looking for is a justification to do things that would otherwise be seen as atrocious. (Like commiting mass murder and then telling yourself that you made the world a better place by doing so. You may be mostly right but the thing is you still killed a hell of a lot of people who probably had no choice in the matter.) The Blades, for example, truly believe that what they're doing is the right thing. Dragons are, after all, tyrannical by nature and even Paarthunax says as much.

If anything, I'd say it makes for a much more interesting "Paladin" playthrough. As the saying goes: "With kindness comes the risk of na?veté. If left unchecked courage becomes foolhardiness. You must also understand that dedication has no guarantee of reward. If you can't accept any of that, you are not fit to be a Magical Girl hero."

Nobody's perfect. Those that are tend to be boring and uninteresting. I'd rather not play a caricature. Real people make mistakes and it's learning from them and staying true to themselves that makes them interesting. (Or obnoxious, if they're the lawful good kind of paladin.)

Then again, the game reeks of poor quest design, "good" or "bad" motivations aside. And bad writing and/or presentation all around.

For the rest of the game the NPC's will refer to you as one, and if you have not killed the Merchant she has dialog about this.

This.

Seriously? That couldn't have been intentional.

Yep.. I wanted to know why that guy was standing out there the whole game..

Disgusted when I found out. Just walked away.. For the rest of the game she had dialog about it.. yep.

OK, take this one alone. Just being a werewolf is the evil and if you don't become one, the quest stalls just as it begins. This is like saying you need to become a vamp to complete DG. Even if there were a cure, it's not what you can do and be an RPG good char.

Sure, you can skip the Daedric quests, the TG, the DB and the civil war but when what? You got the main quest, the rather weak Mage Quest and many misc caves to rummage through. You can argue that you don't even have the main quest because to complete it, you need to burglarize the Thalmor Embassy ending up killing many who object to you breaking and entering.

Just nods.

Except being a werewolf doesn't instantly make you evil, people who can resist the bloodlust and manage to have normal lives. You can be good and be a werewolf just like you can be good and be a vampire. The two don't negate each other.

Exactly. Add to that the main antagonists being werewolf hunters who are little more than bandits. The comparison to the DG is a stretch.

Doesn't meant that I like the fact that you're forced to become a werewolf to continue the questline, but it doesn't make you "evil" if you do. This is why I avoid the rigid morality classifications. They're restrictive and very unrealistic.

Even Oblivion's "good guy" factions were less than good if you looked beyond the surface. Considering who the Knights of the Nine revere, I'd place them right next to the Dawnguard in terms of morality. You pretty much have to work behind the scenes in the Fighter's Guild and break regulations. The whole mess with the Mages Guild was caused by one ass-hat that was intolerant of Necromancy because he was a white-knight [censored] (I hate Traven). Just because it has a nice shiny coat doesn't make it any better.

If you're actively avoiding quests by metagaming, then maybe you're forgetting one of the prinicples of RP? Then again I could be biased. Most of my characters only do one to two major questlines, if any, regardless of morality. (Even my "evil" characters wouldn't do the Dark Brotherhood) I guess I just hate caricatures.

Only with some odd moral acrobatics does this argument hold any plausibility. IMO, if to survive you have to feed off blood/cadavers, there is already a significant taint on your goodness. And both conditions trace back to an evil souce; there is inherent evil in them. Perhaps you may find it a kind of "good" to fight the taint once you have it, and I guess that is the kind of rationalization the Companions have, and that some of you here are arguing for. But it is better not to have it in the first place.

What is more, even if you think you can find a moral redemption in these conditions, in a game there is no reason to make them intrinsic to a quest line. I for one have no desire whatsoever to be either a werewolf or a vampire. I find it repugnant. I think this kind of added condition should remain optional, for those who are interested in them. If you enjoy playing that way, fine. But let it remain a choice, not a condition for major guild advancement.

All right, fair enough. Not everyone wants to play morally grey characters and that's fine. TES should be about choice and freedom, not being forced to doing something you don't want to do. I certainly don't like being forced to unleash the dragons and walk around with a dragon soul in me every time I want to do the civil war. I hate that. I also hate how the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves' Guild can be found so simply. For the former, go to Windhelm and wait for a guard to bring it up to you. For the latter, go to the bar in Riften and Brynolf will invite you into the guild.

That is the thing with some of the quests in Skyrim. The choice comes down to, "Be Evil and complete the quest" or "Do up to that point and drop the whole thing."

Do or Do Not for so many quests is not a choice, i my mind.

Want to play a "Lycanthropy hating" fighter? Steer clear of The Companions.

Want to play a thief and not a thug? Steer clear of the Thieves Guild. Steal a ring and plant it on another, quite "thievish." Shake down shopkeepers for "protection money", quite thugish. No continuation if you do not do this.

Have sympathy for the Thalmor? Better not do the Main Quest.

Skyrim is dark, no doubt. And as I said before, some dark (or even gray) is great... for CONTRAST. But without the white, we can not "play our way."

Yeah, I don't see it as "You have to be evil" but as "you have to play our way and like it." That's the problem I see with Skyrim but I think I'm repeating myself now.

Like I said, bad quest design is rampant, as is obnoxious handholding, and apparently believing that the players are unimaginative while feeding us lame narratives.

I can't entirely agree with the OP. Assassins for hire, thieves, and most Daedric Princes are what they are. I see no point in trying to write storylines for them that provide the mental gymnastics required for good characters to justify their involvement with them.

That being said, I do agree with some of the subsequent posts that a little more balance would have been nice because it definitely seems like good players get shorted a bit when it comes to the major questlines.

Dark Brotherhood- Evil

Thieves Guild- Evil

Companions- Not really evil in my opinion, but I can certainly understand why somebody wouldn't want to be a werewolf even temporarily. I really wish that hadn't been forced on us in order to go anywhere with that guild.

College of Winterhold- Nothing likely to offend anyone's morality here (unless you're a Thalmor supporter), but it doesn't make much sense for non-mages to bother with.

So for good players who aren't mages, that only leaves one of the major guilds as even the slightest possibility. The DLC helps this a little bit by adding the Dawnguard which most players will view as a morally good organization objections of a few avid vampires notwithstanding, but it still doesn't entirely balance things out. Just a little bit more content for players with a strict sense of morality would have been welcomed.

Not if you call Eola a monster and kill her right on the spot in the hall of the dead. There's dialogue to tell Brother Verulus about killing a cannibal which he thanks you for and that's the end of it. Any "good" character shouldn't agree to help a cannibal and if you choose the dialogue I mentioned, she attacks you so you have to put her down.

Lisbet still has the "you were a the feast of Namira" dialogue even if I kill Eola on the spot and I encounter a random cannibal on the road who calls me Namita's champion. Kinda surprised the unofficial patch didn't fix that.

I would really like the "destroy the dark Brotherhood to be more complex questline . They also really should not have teased us with Mjoll's speech when you first meet her. I was positive there was going to be a questline to help her out and destroy the thieves and bring down the Blackbriars.

It sounds like some of the people here who want "good" options for the main questlines want to be able to complete the quests, gain the exp, and get the loot while still being able to say they acted "good". If your motivation is to acquire exp, or loot then you are text book "Neutral Evil"

The Companions are mercenaries who take jobs for money, they are not Paladins but you can still progress through and cure them of their lycanthropy. You do not have to kill as a werewolf, unless you want a more powerful werewolf. If you want the power then you are "Neutral Evil" This appears to me as being a questline that a "good" character can complete.

The College of Winterhold is definitely a questline that a "good" character can complete.

The Dark Brotherhood are evil, they kill for money, the members are psychos who joke about their victims begging before they kill them. There should not be a way for someone to join the Dark Brotherhood and act in a "good" way. I agree that there should have been a way to get the destroy the brotherhood quest without having to kill the old lady to start it.

The Thieves Guild are evil, they are a criminal organization that commits arson, theft, blackmail and extortion. Good people do not steal. Fallout new Vegas did this well with Karma, there was lots of good loot just laying around but taking it would hit your Karma. Your choice - take it and be bad but more powerful, or leave it and be good but less powerful. There is a mod that lets you destroy the Thieves Guild.

The Daedric quests are all pretty evil, the Dawnbreaker one definitely fits as a "good" quest, as does Azura's Star and the big hammer you get from the orcs.. The rest pretty much require you to betray someone or do some other equally evil act in order to get the loot. This is as it should be. The Molag bal house is a bit of a trap, but the Vigilant will attack first if you wait. You still have to talk to Molag Bal at his temple before you get out but you can choose to not bring the priest back.

If you want all the shiny loot you need to get your hands dirty. This makes you "Neutral Evil", motivated by personal gain.

That's strange because she doesn't have that dialogue in my game after killing Eola and I'm on Xbox.

First of all, I don't know where you get the crazy idea that gaining experience, equipment, or goods is an evil act. Good characters can gain all of these things too -- there is nothing inherently evil about it. In the course of doing good, you gain at least as much experience in life as you do by doing evil -- that it is not evil experience does not make it any less of an experience. Nor is caring for oneself in any way an evil act in and of itself. Gaining wealth and equipment for one's own benefit can be done in ways that are morally good, or it can be done in ways that are morally evil -- not to mention the good or evil that you do with your resources once you have them. A character's gain is only "evil" if it is acquired in evil ways and then put to evil uses. So your definition of "Neutral Evil" is a narrow and faulty one.

Secondly, from the perspective of consumers who have purchased a free-form open-ended RPG, and who want the maximum enjoyment from the game, those of us who enjoy playing good characters should be able to enjoy the game as much as those who play evil characters. It is a matter of having equitable game content and game development. There is nothing evil about me wanting to have, say, 60 hours of game content (or whatever the game advertizes) from a game that advertizes that much content, and have that 60 hours of content actually be compatible with my Character. But when the content that my character can legitimately play is only 15 hours, there is something wrong with that.

Well, it happened to me as well, which is why I raised the issue. I killed the woman in the tombs right away, and turned the quest back into the priest. But after that, I have run into cannibals who are so happy to see me because they consider me to be one of them, and chosen by Namira. It's gross.