It has been on my mind for a while so I decided to make this.

why wasnt Ulfric killed in helgen?

what I would have liked it to be is- Ulfric is first to the block and killed. the dragon then attacks and you escape helgen. Ulfric has a son who is 20 or something and too young to lead the rebellion so Galmar does most of the stuff.

I know bethesda let Ulfric live because.... The Civil War but wouldnt the legion want to kill Ulfric first or would the legion want ulfric to watch his soldiers die before killing him.

I think the latter would be more probable. The Imperials would want to hurt Ulfric in every way possible before chopping him up. I'm sure watching the soldiers that fought for him die before his eyes, while he was defenseless and could do nothing about it, not to mention it was his turn soon to him, that would be quite a blow. Besides, it wouldn't feel right if he wasn't there, and the mysterious son part would be no use if Galmar took over anyway.

Common sense would say that he never should have made it to the wagon to take him to Helgen. The only reason for a public execution is to make a political statement, whereas a quiet and discrete disappearance, with nothing further heard, unsettles people. Mysteries are easier to control than martyrdom.

Alternatively if his death isn't public, you can't prove you killed him. Someone carries on in Ulfric's name, or someone attributes other SC movements to Ulfric, and you still have a head on the beast.

Let's not pretend Tullius wasn't going to kill Ulfric then and there. That was the entire reason he stopped at Helgen.

What makes me smile about the Helgen scenario is that the legion tie the prisoners hands in front of them.

How easy would it be for them to free each other on the carts, overpower the drivers and leg it!!

Not to mention the fact that all Ulfric has to do is reach up, remove his gag and "It's Thu'um Time!"

I doubt that Tullius and co. had to prove anything. With no Ulfric, there is no one to lead the rebellion...they would need someone else to stand up and take on the leadership...and I'd suggest that they would probably be fighting and arguing amongst themselves so much that the rebel forces would fall apart fairly quickly.

The whole point of killing him and leaving his carcass to rot and be eaten by the beasts of the forest is to highlight that he is just a common murdering criminal, not to imbue him with any aura of martyrdom. If you want to prove he died like a coward who surrendered, you off him, then let the lower ranked underlings go...they'd pass the message on soon enough. But before you let them go, you pass it around that one of them was a lagger who tipped off the empire to Ulfric's whereabouts...that solves the problem of not executing them...the Stormies will do it for you.

the SC still has leaders. Galmar comes to mind. Skald.

In GoT, the Lannisters and Freys kill men they believe to be Berric Dondarrion, but the Brotherhood without Banners carries on and the Lannisters have to try to expunge rumors that Berric is infact immortal. Ulfric could fall into the same category if his Stormcloaks were clever enough, and there's nothing to really say they wouldn't be. Especially since, according to lore, Stormcloaks specialize in guerrilla warfare.

Unless of course the ropes binding their wrists also passed around their waists, preventing enough freedom of movement to do those things. I know such bindings aren't shown in the game, but in reality it's what you'd do (or to re-phrase that: It's what I'd do if I were the one tying the ropes......! ), along with having tethers around their ankles to hamper their movement and stop them from trying to run.

I don't disagree that they have leaders, but remember that Ulfric is a Jarl, with his eyes on the prize of the High Kings throne...none of the existing Stormcloak leadership has any claim to the throne as commoners...and I doubt any of the Stormcloak supporting Jarls would support a commoner claim to the throne, much less allow their men to fight for one unless there was a tangible kick back, such as getting the throne for themselves...once that little game starts, it's every jarl for themselves and the devil take the hindmost.

The current run-through I'm in I have just finished Alduin, and haven't yet taken sides in the civil war, but thinking about it the more I've come to realise that as Dovakhin-Alduin Killer, Thane of most of the Holds, Member of House Telvanni in Morrowind, Harbinger of the Companions, and otherwise a well-known man about town, my Dovakhin could just about raise the banner of insurrection himself and not just take Solitude and the High King's throne, but march on the Imperial City itself and re-establish the empire under a true dragon blood emperor. First step would be to issue the rallying cry throughout Skyrim and demand Ulfric swear fealty or die. Tullius might be in an awkward situation if most of his troops were swayed towards a real living hero in the mold of Talos himself tearing up the white-gold concordat and offering a real empire again.

That's incidentally what I thought that the civil war expansion was going to be if you started out neutral or allied with the Empire.

It does make sense.

I've felt for a long time that the next game in the series could almost be a 'semi-expansion' of Skyrim/Oblivion along this theme, sort of like 'TESV and a half'.

As it stands, if a player follows the sequence that I have, it's an almost logical progression to that end. The people and leaders of Skyrim see the pc as a person to be reckoned with, a real legend come to life type, plus the dragons all know him/her as the defeater of the world-eater, and some of them are swearing fealty, plus the pc has an (albeit limited) control over them. I tend to think that both the Stormies and Legion would be seriously weakened if a pc dovakhin raised the banners, although I'd also suggest that perhaps one or the other of Ulfric or Tullius would have to die...my money would be on Ulfric, as swaying Tullius to your side would assist in swinging the non-Skyrim troops and Legions over to your side for the march on the Imperial City and, ultimately, either the war with or occupation of the Thalmor lands.

Personally, I'd give the Thalmor the opportunity to step down and accept one of two options - either they surrender government of the Isle to a more 'pro-empire' group, or they maintain government under Imperial oversight. If they didn't want to do either of those, I'd offer the dragons the Somerset Isle as land of their own, if they laid it to waste...any survivors would be welcome as part of the empire so long as they swored fealty to the Emperor and settled in Empire territory. Those who lived on in a ruined Mer land would soon find out what dragons can be like as overseers.

Both of them have to die because both of them are capable of dying. If you're a Stormcloak, Ulfric could be killed in an attack or by an assassin. Incidentally, he gives you his sword which by Nord custom makes you his brother. So you can take up his position as Jarl of Windhelm if you're a Stormcloak. Tullius is already dead, and you march south, conquer the Empire and turn your sights toward Elven shores.

I'd be Jarl of Solitude by default. Eli would be Mrs Dovakhin (at the point of a sword, if necessary), and by default, I'd have the High King's throne.

Either way, it's an interesting scenario, and one that I would have liked to see Beth have a shot at. It has the sort of mature politics and moral choices that really need to be pushed I think. As we've discussed, who to rub out, forced political marriages, genocide of an entire land if they won't bend to your will. All the sort of good stuff that we miss out on.

Edit:

I'm thinking that even the thought of absolute power is already corrupting my dovakhin, lol.

Because this is a game.

Wouldn't the more accurate question be: How did Ulfric wind up in Helgen in the first place?

This is a man who can Thu'um, yet somehow, pathetic guards we can take down with an iron dagger managed to bound and gag him?

All the while no Jarl can be defeated, even with the Ultra-Deluxe, New and Improved, Can Defeat the Mightiest Dragon escapee who finds they're a Dragonborn can not?

The better question is:
Whose boobs was it that Tullius was staring at that he let that Captain behead an unknown person first instead of Ulfric?

It is clear that Tullius head wasn't clear: there was a proven, 100% proud Stormcloak leader right then and there. After all the gung-ho of hunting down Ulfric and bringing the peace back, Tullius deliberately let him escape by way of not executing him first? And Tullius didn't mishear: the Captain called you out twice, and he explicitly called you by your race, which is even more jarring if you're a very recognizable race such as Khajiit/Argonian

Being surrounded and outnumbered 5 to 1 will do that to you.

I think Tullius wanted to kill Ulfric last so he could watch his followers die before him. It's the easy way out if Ulfric goes first. As for the player character, that was pretty much the first plot hole in the game. Tullius clearly did not intend you to be executed, yet he was there all the time and seemed perfectly okay with it. I also think it was out of character for him to execute a seemingly innocent Imperial citizen, one coming from Cyrodiil no less.

Not played the game yet, I see.

Well, when you learn to Thu'um, you'll see this isn't going to be a problem.

Oh can you shout unlimited amount of times? Thats amazing, you must have the super ultimate DB edition. It also comes with 360 degree unrelenting force that goes for almost a mile.

Now this is interesting.

How many of you Stormcloaks would actually follow an SC Jarl for High King if you weren't in the running?

Ulfric wasn't killed in Helgen for one reason: PLOT.

PLOT kept him from being executed first, PLOT had him miraculously survive an attack that, like, three other people survived, despite likely not having ANY kind of gear on him after being caught by the Imperials.

I find the whole Helgen scenario trite and plastic but only with the benefit of hindsight after playing the game through.

Tullius captures the rebel leader and the future Dovakhim just happens to be in the same cart

Tullius does not dispose of Ulfric-who knows the motivation, maybe he was being saved for the Imperial city or Thalmor-all speculation.

The Dovakhim is saved by Alduins appearance.

A superbly manufactured sequence of events that lends itself to some higher power (Psijic?) (Talos) manipulating events on a grand scale.

Too artificial to be anything else.

Such a thing would make a LDB's race canon. which would turn the heads of everyone. It's the same reason all previous, titled and nameless uber-heroes met ambiguous fates.

It's the reason The Nerevarine never became ruler of Morrowind. Why the CoC never took over the Ruby Throne, and why the LDB never becomes Jarl;/High-King/Emperor.

LDB's going to met their mysterious fate, never to be heard from again. And their identiity is going to be forgotten, so the future will only remember their most know deeds(MQ with some vague references to the events of Dawnguard and Dragonborn likely) and that's it.

Problem is that with no head on an pike the stormcloak officers might claim he was still alive. One of the reason they raided Bin ladens hideout instead of bombing it. (yes other reasons from intelligence to avoiding civilian causalities.)

However they only need to return the head to Helgen. It would be some danger of either their return would be hit by an stormcloak rescue raid or he got rid of the gag/ managed to escape.

Benefit of an execution is that everything is done by the book, its also an less heroic way of dying than battle, it would also give more credit to the commanding officer in helgen.