u/Sad_Morning5910

I revised this after posting it the first time and getting cooked for using a huge wall of text, sorry I wrote it in a rush while I was on break at work 😭.I also wanted to say that someone last time said this was common knowledge to a lot of the sub, sorry didn’t know. I mainly just see people on TikTok and other Social media platforms just summarize Ulfric and the Stormcloaks as just racist fanatics and figured it was a pretty big part of the fanbase, still posting this anyways though 😼. Maybe we can have discussion as to which side is right and wrong this time?

I believe the Stormcloak rebellion has been heavily misrepresented by Bethesda and misunderstood by the player base, mainly because Bethesda didn’t fully flesh out the civil war for a variety of reasons. The causes for this rebellion go all the way back to the creation story, and all Bethesda provides to explain that is some one-off dialogue that gives only the tiniest fraction of context, along with a few books that don’t fully explain it. Instead, you often have to rely on the wiki and other games.

I’m going to start by saying that all of the races of Tamriel are never truly going to get along, and the Septim Empire only made them tolerate each other. The Mer believe they are descendants of the Aedra, while Man—the human races—are descendants of Lorkhan, who tricked the Aedra into giving up a massive amount of power to create Nirn. Because of this, the Aedra absolutely hate Lorkhan.

Out of all the playable races, only the Khajiit and Argonians are actually native to Tamriel. Yes, even the Snow Elves were colonizers. The reason why Talos is such a huge deal is because Lorkhan was believed to be lost—the “missing god”—but Talos mantled him, meaning he essentially took over Lorkhan’s role.

So now you have an Empire established by the God of Man himself, who conquered all of Tamriel using the Heart of Lorkhan, aside from Morrowind, which he struck a deal with. After that, you had blood descendants from the brothers side of this literal god ruling over the Empire, blessed by Akatosh—the head of the Aedra—with the gift of the Dragonblood.

This all ends with Martin Septim sacrificing himself to defeat the Daedric Lord Mehrunes Dagon. After that, the Mede dynasty takes over the Empire and proceeds to run it into the ground. The Empire understandably prioritizes Cyrodiil during the Oblivion Crisis and its recovery, but because of that, the Thalmor are able to take over the Summerset Isles.

The Empire then proceeds to exploit its provinces heavily while refusing to properly govern or support them, all while allowing the Thalmor to expand their influence. This leads into the First Great War, where the Empire is getting overwhelmed and ultimately sells out Hammerfell to the Thalmor to save itself.

So what do the Nords of Skyrim get in return for helping the Empire? They get the outlawing of Talos worship, along with Thalmor Justiciars—agents from another province—roaming freely across Skyrim. You could argue that Ulfric made things worse because of the Markarth Incident, but the Empire still handed Ulfric over to the Thalmor afterward, proving they were willing to betray Skyrim just as they did Hammerfell.

To summarize the reasons behind the Stormcloak rebellion:

First, the outlawing of Talos. The Empire—no longer ruled by descendants of the God of Man—has banned its own founder and allows his worshippers to be hunted, tortured, and killed.

Second, the Empire has become corrupt, exploiting its provinces while refusing to support them.

Third, the Empire has a history of prioritizing Cyrodiil and betraying its own people, as seen with Hammerfell, Skyrim, and even Morrowind during the eruption of Red Mountain, which left Skyrim to deal with the majority of refugees.

Fourth, the Redguards proved that the Thalmor can be resisted without the Empire, and Skyrim itself is geographically separated from the Thalmor by Cyrodiil.

Fifth, the Markarth Incident, which fully pushed Ulfric toward initiating the civil war.

And finally, how does the Empire respond to these tensions? Instead of negotiating or attempting compromise, they send their best general to completely crush the Stormcloaks and reassert total control over Skyrim.