Honestly? It's a story about an absolutely untamrielic Mary Sue character depicted as being perceived as perfect and absolutely brilliant in any regard, super talented and intelligent of course, well-respected by everyone (except for the baddies), drinking lots of wine and having many sexual conquests - while having the mindset and intelligence of a small child, asking where cloth comes from, randomly making roaring sounds, and pretending to be a beaver while chopping wood (a contrast which feels super creepy, by the way; or at least where I come from, someone who thinks and acts like a child getting drunk or having "dates" would be perceived as absolutely questionable).

Also using pronouns that clearly differ from the physical form, which is a rare thing in Tamriel - but still, instead of going by the body shape, everyone knows the correct pronouns immediately and uses them correctly, including enemies.

Put short: There is no logic.

At least the same year also had Zerith-var, whose story was much more mature, provided us with wonderful new lore and absolutely fit into Tamriel. This is what I, and I know also many other people who are here for stories and lore, want to see more of. Not quirky, meme-y nonsense that doesn't even fit into the fictional world and its cultures.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I must not have used Tanlorin all that much, because I don't remember the roaring and pretending to be a beaver. I think I remember the 'so this is where they get cloth' or something.

Lots of weird lines, especially when out harvesting mats, for example these:
"I just love the sound they make. Bwah!"
"No, why? Do you want me to bite you? Rrrrr!"
"Sorry tree, we needed your flesh chunk."
"Do you ever pretend you're a beaver?"

Honestly, I already found Ember's depiction rather child-like. But at least Ember is not talking about getting drunk and "romance" (not sure if a more direct wording would get censored) while showing such a child-like mindset.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Part of it is the dichotomy of Tanlorin's 'hint hint nudge nudge' personality and their childlike 'I am going to pretend I am a big fierce monster!', but also just because Tanlorin is too 'modern' for my tastes.

Indeed. There's nothing that feels Tamrielic about Tanlorin. That character could be put into a story about 2020 New York and would feel even less out of place there.

I'm not saying that there can't be stories and character traits that are both plausible for today's real world and medieval fantasy alike. Great uniserval themes of mankind that occur through all ages and eras exist. Anthropological constants, our shared human heritage and nature. But what we see in Tanlorin's story isn't that.

Tesman85 wrote: »

I don't hate Tanlorin, actually, but the character's infantile writing does grate me at times. I think it's implied that Tanlorin isn't actually at the level of a five-year-old, but only ironically pretends to be like some Gen Z or millennial of our days who fears nothing more than to appear "boring", that is, adult and serious. The character is a symptom of the postmodern fear of seriousness. Even their voice and acting is otherwise good, but for some reason the accent has to be the lazy, annoyingly loose drawl of a modern-day US hipster. Tanlorin is a wasted opportunity.

I'm a millenial. When I was a teen, most of my classmates rather tried to appear more adult than they actually were, because they wanted to be taken seriously and seen as responsible, capable and intelligent by adults (which meant, simply, people trusting you more, and therefore more freedom). No one would have infantilized themselves by choice. It would have been perceived as very, very embarrassing. And as young adults? They were living their lives, studying, some started a business, many were in a relationship. Put short: They succeeded on their path into life. Babbling like a preschooler would have brought them nowhere, neither in academics, job matters nor in personal relationships. It's really a mystery to me how that weird baby talk would appeal to anyone. I don't live in North America, though, so maybe in my culture, things are different. I often wonder if something feels "weird" to me in ESO's writing, that specific plot, or reasoning, or the values depicted there, might just not really work for cultures outside the US (or North America, or the West, or whatever it might be).

Toddler talk aside, parts of Tanlorin's design also come across as annoyingly pseudo-rebellious to me. We also had them here back then: Kids trying very hard to be "special" (while not actually being special). Most often teen girls, and most often those who were horrendousbly boring and had no real talents they could impress anyone with. So, while others got their peer recognition by being able to play guitar, or paint, or being good at sports, or having some interesting hobbies or impressing knowledge, they went all "Look at me! I'm so special! I'm a rebel! I'm not like the others!" They didn't notice no one found that cool. But of course, in Tanlorin's case, everyone applauds and Tanlorin is super capable of everything, and lives that "fulfilled" life with lots of alcohol, parties and sex (which would also be seen as very immature life goals in my culture, by the way), and of course, is also a cool spy and fighting for the correct things which are currently frequent media topics, because it's a silly Mary Sue stereotype/fantasy. Makes me wonder if this writing was an attempt to appeal to a certain young audience, basically providing them with a power fantasy character of what they'd rather be than a boring kid, not understanding that many don't find that cool, but cringe (unless boring pseudo-rebels themselves, probably, but I'm not sure if many of them actually play ESO).

Tesman85 wrote: »

In fact, I'd like to see a High Elf companion like Wisteria much rather than what we got. Someone competent, intelligent, driven and disciplined. In sum, a character that would embody more traditional Altmer virtues even if his/her story would test and question the value of those virtues. I'd enjoy that. Of course, it would be a bonus if the said companion also would be a pretty lady like W...

My preference would be a male Altmer scholar, but, yes, Wisteria would also have been more interesting than Tanlorin. It's truly a pity that it often feels like companions were designed exactly to not be a typical member of their culture. TES has such a rich lore background for all its fictional cultures, so many interesting characters and stories could be written about exactly that, telling us more about cultural values and differences in upbringing in different regions of Tamriel, through showing us people who grew up in these cultures, and how that might have influenced them.

I think I just realized part of what annoys me so much about Tanlorin's personality.

It reeks, to me, of 'Its just a joke, bro' attitude. IE, nothing is serious, everything is just a joke, and everything has to have a wisecrack attached to it.

My 'fix it' for the story would be to make it so that there isn't a traitor.

IE, the ceythalmor *wanted* us to believe there was a traitor, and left all the clues to make us believe that there was a traitor, in order to get us to turn on each other, so they could strike when we were infighting. Wisteria could be a 'double agent' IE, someone who is pretending to be ceythalamor to feed them information about infighting, and the big baddie would be the person who thought up the traitor angle altogether.

During the course of the quest lines, Wisteria would slowly realize that Tan and her would just never work out, and then slowly realize that both of them are better off going their separate ways.

But, as said, I don't really hate what we got, I just hate Tanlorin. I am not even sure really toning them down would work, it would almost have to be a complete rewrite (and sticking with the they/them, perhaps have tan slowly open up over the course of the quests that they prefer they/them, instead of expecting everyone to immediately know that Tan uses they/them upon first meeting. That way there would be an organic way of everyone realizing that they should use they/them and make it part of the world, instead of it just being another 'we can't misgender this character, even though it would be lore accurate to do so!!!)

I also don't mind having people who aren't 'shining examples of their race', because I do think it is interesting to see what is learned behavior and what is inherant to the race.

But, as Syldras knows, I also want a Male Altmer Scholar, young, sort of awkward with dealing with people, shyish, but growing confident as the quests go along.

Syldras wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I also don't mind having people who aren't 'shining examples of their race', because I do think it is interesting to see what is learned behavior and what is inherant to the race.

I, personally, believe that almost everything is cultural and learnt behavior. Anyway, of course they can show us characters who go against their culture's traditions. That's not unrealistic. But it becomes weird if a character really is the opposite of everything that's common in their culture. Well, maybe even that would work - once. But we see too many companion characters who are untypical, which at some point also gets boring.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

But, as Syldras knows, I also want a Male Altmer Scholar, young, sort of awkward with dealing with people, shyish, but growing confident as the quests go along.

I personally would also take a slightly older and morally grey one, but an Altmer scholar really would be the thing I'd like to see. Also, not a quirky joke, but someone intelligent and more serious.

Oh for sure, I agree about it being boring when every companion is 'I am of this race but I hate everything it stands for'.

I think part of the problem is the same thing we have talked about before, where people get upset about 'problematic' lore, and they want to distance themselves from it.

That petsite I play has a breed of pets that uses hypnosis on their enemies, and sometimes even others who aren't their enemies.

Two days ago someone brought that up as being 'problematic' because it took away the other's 'bodily autonomy'. And there were people agreeing that it was a problem.

So, I think that the writers, at least some of them, want to distance themselves from the 'problematic' lore of some of the races, especially for companions that people will be dealing with much more than they would a random quest giver in the middle of an island/jungle/whatever.

I don't agree with that, but I can see that being a reason why we haven't gotten really good companions who exemplify their race.

Which is another reason why I dislike Tan, they are pretty much the exact opposite of a Altmer.

What I would have loved to see were some generic stories, much like Tan's, that could basically be any race/sex, with a few tweaks. Let those be for companions that people can personalize themselves, so they can create a companion, and then choose a personality that gives a set of quests. (not going to happen, but I am a dreamer :P)

Then, for the specific companions, like Bastian and so on, have their stories tailored for their races, so that they are examples of what people of that race could be.

That way people could have both types of stories, but if they didn't want a particular generic story, then they wouldn't have to take that one.

Syldras wrote: »

I'm a millenial. When I was a teen, most of my classmates rather tried to appear more adult than they actually were, because they wanted to be taken seriously and seen as responsible, capable and intelligent by adults (which meant, simply, people trusting you more, and therefore more freedom). No one would have infantilized themselves by choice. It would have been perceived as very, very embarrassing. And as young adults? They were living their lives, studying, some started a business, many were in a relationship. Put short: They succeeded on their path into life. Babbling like a preschooler would have brought them nowhere, neither in academics, job matters nor in personal relationships. It's really a mystery to me how that weird baby talk would appeal to anyone. I don't live in North America, though, so maybe in my culture, things are different. I often wonder if something feels "weird" to me in ESO's writing, that specific plot, or reasoning, or the values depicted there, might just not really work for cultures outside the US (or North America, or the West, or whatever it might be).

Toddler talk aside, parts of Tanlorin's design also come across as annoyingly pseudo-rebellious to me. We also had them here back then: Kids trying very hard to be "special" (while not actually being special). Most often teen girls, and most often those who were horrendousbly boring and had no real talents they could impress anyone with. So, while others got their peer recognition by being able to play guitar, or paint, or being good at sports, or having some interesting hobbies or impressing knowledge, they went all "Look at me! I'm so special! I'm a rebel! I'm not like the others!" They didn't notice no one found that cool. But of course, in Tanlorin's case, everyone applauds and Tanlorin is super capable of everything, and lives that "fulfilled" life with lots of alcohol, parties and sex (which would also be seen as very immature life goals in my culture, by the way), and of course, is also a cool spy and fighting for the correct things which are currently frequent media topics, because it's a silly Mary Sue stereotype/fantasy. Makes me wonder if this writing was an attempt to appeal to a certain young audience, basically providing them with a power fantasy character of what they'd rather be than a boring kid, not understanding that many don't find that cool, but cringe (unless boring pseudo-rebels themselves, probably, but I'm not sure if many of them actually play ESO).

I'm not from the USA either but from Finland, but am also a millennial. When I was a teen, childishness was also seen embarrassing, but pleasing adults or being openly intelligent were also marks of shameful "softiness" to most. Coarse behaviour, smoking and drinking were the ways to look "adult" to many. But well, cultures are quite different from each other and differ even very locally - I had the misfortune of living in one of the mentally dullest and most closed-minded of small towns in this country.

But I was talking more about this day and age. There is a definite juvenile bent to the culture. Surprisingly many people refuse to take anything seriously and try to cling to their teenage attitudes. There has for at least a decade been a tendency to glorify mental regression in the undercurrents of the culture. Tanlorin mirrors that, and I agree with your take about the pseudo-rebels. Back in the day I was and still am very amused by these types who try to appear as rebellious and "unique" by rebelling and becoming "special" in exactly the same ways that countless others do and, not coincidentally, by ways that are widely marketed in the pop culture to the benefit of big business (which these so called rebels claim to loathe).

Ilsabet wrote: »

As soon as it came up that there was a traitor in the group, I was like "please don't do the obvious," and then they did the obvious, all while dancing around trying to make us think it was Hyacinth for most of the questline. I think part of the issue is that there just weren't enough traitor candidates - if you assume Tan is exempt because they're our buddy, and also assume that Snapdragon wouldn't off her own husband and be mad about it, we're left with Hyacinth, Wisteria, or the Gardener. Nobody really suspects the Gardener for whatever reason, so our options are further pared down to red herring Hyacinth and predictable shocking betrayal Wisteria.

And yeah, it's never really adequately explained why Wisteria turned traitor, since "I did it for Tan" doesn't hold up all that well, and I think there's an indication somewhere that the traitor has always been a Ceythalmor plant in the Garland Ring, which would have meant Wisteria was on their side before she ever met Tan.

If I were doing my own rewrite, I would have made the Gardener the actual baddie, using his money and influence to set up the Garland Ring as a "terrorist" organization that could be framed for the Proxy Queen's assassination to show the dangers of progressive thinking and the influence of outsiders, thereby spurring public sentiment toward Altmer-first policies and cementing the culture of elitism that mostly benefits him and his peers.

Wisteria could still be tangled up in the wrongdoing, perhaps having stumbled over the Gardener's true plans and having been blackmailed into helping him (using Tanlorin's safety as a bargaining chip) and then gradually getting more and more culpable until shame forces her to start rationalizing what she's doing as actually being for Tanlorin's benefit because this is the only way they can be happy together. In the end we wouldn't have to kill her (the big boss fight could be reserved for the Gardener), but she would end up with an appropriate jail sentence and Tanlorin would have a reason to cut her off as a potential love interest after everything she's done.

But um... what we got was okay too I guess.

I actually feared all the way until the reveal that the writer would make the Gardener turn out to be the traitor. It would have been a Lord Bacaro situation all over again (and thus boring), and suited the writer's obviously wokeish attitude by making the male authority figure nefarious. I'm glad that cliché at least was avoided.

Your version still sounds good in that it is more logical than what was actually presented! Also, it would have had more psychological depth, ethical shades of grey and plot complexity.

Tesman85 wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I think I just realized part of what annoys me so much about Tanlorin's personality.

It reeks, to me, of 'Its just a joke, bro' attitude. IE, nothing is serious, everything is just a joke, and everything has to have a wisecrack attached to it.

Well put! Exactly the fear of seriousness that I wrote of earlier. That kind of writing is self-defeating, if the product isn't supposed to be a pure comedy. Why would the audience take anything seriously if the characters themselves won't? In this, again, Sharp-as-Night's story is stunningly superior. The writing takes itself very seriously which is approriate, yet still manages to inject small moments of comedy to lighten the mood momentarily without taking anything away from the weight of the story.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

My 'fix it' for the story would be to make it so that there isn't a traitor.

IE, the ceythalmor *wanted* us to believe there was a traitor, and left all the clues to make us believe that there was a traitor, in order to get us to turn on each other, so they could strike when we were infighting. Wisteria could be a 'double agent' IE, someone who is pretending to be ceythalamor to feed them information about infighting, and the big baddie would be the person who thought up the traitor angle altogether.

During the course of the quest lines, Wisteria would slowly realize that Tan and her would just never work out, and then slowly realize that both of them are better off going their separate ways.

Yes, that could have a good story too. After all, "The Traitor" is so overused a trope that a twist of there *not* being a traitor would be refreshing!

That is what I was thinking.

Put clues out so that the player can come to the conclusion of 'hey guys, I think we are being played, and there isn't a traitor' or, if the vestige isn't the type to pick up the clues have an alternative of letting them choose someone as the traitor, and then that person has to prove their innocence (could even have been Tan, and the quests were figuring out the person responsible, and proving their innocence of not being a traitor and figuring out how they were getting inside information and so on.

I tried to keep an open mind about Tanlorin but their personality was too much for me and I abandoned one of her companion quests and decided to move on to Azandar - who is also quirky but not as bad.

I don't think I'll ever go back to finish the Tanlorin questline, but from the quests I did do…

Tanlorin's theme of "I'm not like other Altmer" while being effortlessly desired by all around them was just too much for me.

Yeah, I also tried to keep an open mind, even though from everything I heard about Tan before I got them, I wasn't really expecting to like them, but then their whole personality is just, nope, not my tastes.

I don't mind 'quirky' personalities, but, I also don't want everything to be turned into a joke or feel like the character is looking down upon my character (especially when I am high level), which means Tan is sitting around somewhere, probably wondering why I immediately dropped them after I finished their quests.

Which reminds me, think I need to get Azandar and Sharps quests done before I lose access to that area.

Syldras wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

So, I think that the writers, at least some of them, want to distance themselves from the 'problematic' lore of some of the races, especially for companions that people will be dealing with much more than they would a random quest giver in the middle of an island/jungle/whatever.

I think that's possible - though there's such a vast and diverse amount of Altmer and Dunmer lore (for example) that could be built upon in companion character design, without needing to ever touch on topics that people could be upset about. One could make a story about an Altmer seeking their personal way to Alaxon without mentioning the topic of race once. One could do a Dunmer companion storyline about the Tribunal Temple, or the Clockwork Apostles, or the Redoran honor codex, without the story involving slavery at all.

I'm not talking about deliberately acting like these things wouldn't exist in these fictional societies; I just mean that there's so much cultural background lore already, that dozens of detailed, lore-appropriate stories could be told about these cultures, in a natural, plausible way, without even coming across some potentially offensive topic.

Though it's a general problem, of course: People finding fiction offensive (not only talking about TES, but generally about today's fiction writing). And I'm not talking about thinly veiled propaganda stories that obviously only serve to legitimize something about the current real world - but fantasy stories taking place in a different world, in some past, medieval time, to tell us stories about a different universe as entertainment (and, if we're lucky, also evoke thoughts, but that's a different topic).

Where does this tendency come from to barely see a fictional story as more than a mirror of the current real world anymore (I don't think it has always been that way)? In both directions, even: Players complaining about the morals of a fantasy story taking place in a pseudo-historical world not aligning with their 21st century real world morals. But also writers (no matter if book authors or writers for movies or games) shoehorning their 21st century mindset and problems into some fantasy story taking place in a different world where it doesn't fit in at all. It's like there's no understanding anymore of what fantasy fiction originally meant: Fictional stories about a world that's not the real one. Obviously with people, cultures, morals and mindsets that are different than the current real world. That's actually the very aspect that makes fantasy interesting as a genre.

It honestly feels strange to me that some people relate everything so closely to the real world now. It just doesn't make sense?! What we see in TES is a medieval-ish and quite archaic world, so why would one expect the cultures and beliefs there to conform to 21st century ideas and values?! If one wants to draw comparisons, looking at mankind's history would make much more sense (and if one knows at least a tiny bit about history, parallels are easily noticeable). Why don't many people seem to aware of this anymore? Bad education? No knowledge about history? Lacking media literacy? Lacking literacy in general? Seeing how some people seem to relate everything they see somewhere, to only a handful of everyday topics they concern themselves with, makes me wonder if they simply suffer from a very, very small horizon. So everything that doesn't fit in these very narrow boxes is immediately rejected.

I completely agree! But, sadly, too many people just look at the surface.

I think part of the issue, at least, is that people are looking too much for representation, so they feel that every story *must* have a character that they relate to, and once they find that character, they can't separate themselves from that character. Which means that the world must then align to their moral values.

I don't know how active you are in fandom spaces (not just writing, but just in general talking about games/stories), but there are a LOT of people out there that cannot stand to have anything negative said about their favorite characters, and they dislike it when people like characters they hate.

With the internet, it has given those people a voice where other people will be able to hear it, and, sadly, those people like the above paragraph are usually so vocal, they chase out the more reasonable voices, leaving that particular space an echo chamber. Then other people, especially younger ones who don't have as much experience, find those spaces, think that is how things SHOULD be and that it is normal, and they begin doing it, and it starts spreading. The people who view things more reasonably often just don't want to engage (because there is often no winning with that type of person) and so, go elsewhere.

Then, you have writers who also see those echo chambers, and think 'well, everyone wants it this way' or, worse, they come from those echo chambers, and they write stories to make sure that those people from those chambers, the ones who seem like they are the majority opinion, because they have chased off others, like the stories.

Then it swings back, to where those people in those echo chambers, find a character they feel represents them, and then realizes that *oh no* their character might not be the upright hero they thought, and they start looking deeper and realize that their favorite world isn't as utopian as they thought (at least in regards to their belief system) and ...they can't handle it. So, they complain more, which then gets other people to agree that they need more representation in this world, and that this world is too dark or too 'immoral' or too whatever, which then makes it back to writers, especially newer ones.

And the circle keeps going.

I do think part of it does tend to come from a lack of understanding about history. Not only have people grown up with stories that fictionalize history (not just for propaganda purposes, though that is there, but just like historical romances), but, now with things like tiktok and reels and etc.., everyone wants to make a name for themselves, so they will try to 'revolutionalize history' by 'uncovering' a secret that 'goverment/patriarchy/*they*' don't want you to know. Some of it is actually truthful. Some of it absolutely isn't. But, people take it as absolutely truthful.

As a slight example, today I found out that the Director of the Incredibles, did the voice of Edna Mode. I hadn't known that, I thought it was an actress that had done it. So did my brother. Instead of just taking that reel at face value, he went and looked it up, and it was actually correct. But, I have also run across others that aren't. Wrong dates, white washing someone, wrong names and so on.

So, these people don't have the historical literacy to know that 'no, X wasn't just a Y problem, but pretty darn widespread' but they also don't have the media literacy to be able to go 'hey, this is a good story, even though it doesn't align with my values.'

Most people, that I have heard, don't care to actually learn about history, because they find it boring. Which is why they don't bother to actually research it or actually take history lessons in school, which to be fair to a lot of people, history in highschool (at least the US and when I went through school back in the 90s) is often an extremely boring drone of 'so and so did this in the year of XXXX and so and so did that in the year of YYYY' rather than actually learning about history. Basically a list of names and dates. Most people are so put off by that that they don't bother sticking around until college level history classes where you get deeper into the actual history and go beyond the most famous names and dates.

Sadly, most people today, I have found, and this might have always been the case, just you didn't often run into this type, don't actually want to learn, they just want their biases confirmed. This is another aspect to why they want the worlds to conform to 21st century morality, because they don't want to, horror of horrors, potentially find themselves sympathizing with a baddie! (unless that baddie has the acceptible motives for being a baddie). They might find themselves liking a character or race that they absolutely shouldn't like, according to 21st century morals at least. They might actually learn that many things aren't simply black and white, but that there are a lot of pesky shades of gray about these subjects.

Then there is the aspect that people want to use these games as an 'escape' from the 'real world', which I can sympathize with, as I often don't want to read yet another author's diatribe about some character they have deemed the bad person in the story, and that character's motives match 1:1 with whatever real life person or group the author doesn't like.

But, while I will just roll my eyes and move on to the next story or game, many of these people don't want to do that, so instead of moving past it, or focusing on the good parts of the story, they want to change the things they don't like, that prevent them from escaping the real world, so to speak. Which, means making the worlds bland, because any conflict has to either have an absolutely obvious good and bad person, with the good person having no unacceptible flaws, and the bad person having no redeemable qualities (unless we get into villain redemption arcs, those tend to be popular), or has to be so bland, to not accidentally mirror any real world conflicts/issues, past or present.

As I have mentioned, one of the pet sites I play deals with this, where any sort of conflict that can be related to a real world concept needs to be sanitized to make sure that it isn't 'insensitive' to a minority group.

AScarlato wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I don't know how active you are in fandom spaces (not just writing, but just in general talking about games/stories), but there are a LOT of people out there that cannot stand to have anything negative said about their favorite characters, and they dislike it when people like characters they hate.

I'm active in BG3 communities, and I see this a lot there. People really take those characters quite seriously, to the point where one girl claimed she changed her IRL name to "Astarion" and had close to breakdowns over disagreements over that character.

Fortunately I haven't run into that for ESO characters. If it has, I am completely unaware of it. The most heated discussions I have had over ESO is usually about people feeling very strongly about Jakarn. But that is still a far cry over what I see in other fandoms.

Yeah, I haven't run into that over ESO yet, the most I have heard of was years old discourse over the Civil War in Skyrim and being an Altmer, but I wasn't active in those spaces during that era.

But yeah, I have seen it in several different fandom spaces. People get a favorite character and pity the person who doesn't like that character.

It reminded me, just now, of a post I saw on reddit, that I replied to, about how the person didn't really see anything appealing about deserts.

Like a month or two after I replied about how I thought they were at first talking about desserts, then realized they weren't, I generally agreed with them, as I am more of a plains/forest type of girl, I got a reply from someone who was posting on nearly every comment about how people were such idiots for not seeing the appeal of deserts, and how anyone could appreciated green places. I replied, and a few days after that, they replied again along the same vein. I am really hoping that they were being facetious, because if not, well, they are exactly this type of person, who cannot stand to see anyone not like what they like. (I went back and forth a bit with that person, waiting for their next reply)

Syldras wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Most people, that I have heard, don't care to actually learn about history, because they find it boring. Which is why they don't bother to actually research it or actually take history lessons in school, which to be fair to a lot of people, history in highschool (at least the US and when I went through school back in the 90s) is often an extremely boring drone of 'so and so did this in the year of XXXX and so and so did that in the year of YYYY' rather than actually learning about history. Basically a list of names and dates. Most people are so put off by that that they don't bother sticking around until college level history classes where you get deeper into the actual history and go beyond the most famous names and dates.

So it's elective and only starts in highschool? Where I live, history is a normal topic of the curriculum from first grade on. In the very first years of elementary school, it were more or less mixed lessons - partly history, partly geography, partly natural sciences - general world knowledge, basically. But from third grade on, it was actual history lessons (and geography also got seperate lessons; and then, but that's much later, from 10th grade on, there's also extra lessons for economy, society and law, including the evolution of laws, and the historical background for these developments). Or to put short: Learning about these things was basically unavoidable. It went chronologically, starting with prehistory, then Egypt, Greece, Rome, Middle Ages... In middleschool it went on with Renaissance, Enlightenment (an era that could need a revival), lots on the French Revolution, and once we reached highschool, we were at about 1900, so Second Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, etc., and when it came to newer history, a bigger focus on our own country, though other countries' history also still came up in language/literature lessons. And it was always more about developments than about people's names or dates.

It isn't elective, and we had history throughout school, but it was still pretty boring, and I *liked* history. But, to give an idea, the history class was taught by one of the coach. (my school was small, K-12 was on the same campus, and we had two coachs, high school and jr high.) For all I know he could have had a history degree, but not sure of it. I just know that, as said, it was rather boring and pretty much a list of dates and people. Sure, we had discussions about developments and things like that, but never really indepth and again it mainly boiled down to 'the industrial revolution started in this year, in this country and spread'

It is like the saying about leading a horse to water. You can force students into a class room, but you can't make them actually learn. Especially when it is memorization, and they can simply memorize most things and forget it after the test.

Generally, when discussing literature, we also always learnt about the historical background of the era when the work was written - the society, beliefs, habits and morals of the time, etc. These things are necessary if one wants to be able to interpret a work reasonably, which was the main content of language-related classes from the start of middle school on (apart from theory - giving us the tools for analysis first): analysing, understanding the context, interpreting. Which of course also teaches people the skill to openly contemplate and analyze a narration - both on content of the story, as well on its construction as a literary work.

I guess growing up like that - being used to see stories as a thing to analyse, and always to consider historical context (context - very important) when doing so - is also one of the reasons why it feels so outlandish to me to see people getting all dramatic about, well, a medieval society in a story actually having issues typical for a medieval society. It hasn't been like that 15 years ago, has it? At least I can't remember that.

We also got that for literature, but again, as said, while you can put a student physically in a class, you can't make them actually learn the material, especially when they aren't interested in it.

The other day on reddit, someone was saying that English Literature was useless, because it doesn't teach anything useful, because the skills used to analyze fiction don't translate to other areas, such as media literacy.

Like, yeah, I rolled my eyes at that, because it absolutely does!

But, it is another class where many students, especially teenagers, think it is just boring, because they want to be doing other things. They don't want to sit in a class and learn about Shakespeare or read the Red Badge of Courage, or learn about why Dickens wrote what he wrote. They want to be playing ball, or hanging out somewhere else. Basically any non-school subject.

At least with things like math, there are often real world applications that the teachers can point to, that aren't abstract, and go 'this is why we need math!' so students sort of learn, though with calculators and now phones, even those were often ignored. Science was often fascinating so that would keep many of the kids interested. But literature? Many kids don't see how it can be useful outside of wanting to be a librarian or writer.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

But, while I will just roll my eyes and move on to the next story or game, many of these people don't want to do that, so instead of moving past it, or focusing on the good parts of the story, they want to change the things they don't like, that prevent them from escaping the real world, so to speak. Which, means making the worlds bland, because any conflict has to either have an absolutely obvious good and bad person, with the good person having no unacceptible flaws, and the bad person having no redeemable qualities (unless we get into villain redemption arcs, those tend to be popular), or has to be so bland, to not accidentally mirror any real world conflicts/issues, past or present.

I think in a game series with that scope that TES has (or just ESO alone), it's not possible to avoid absolutely everything that could remind of the real world - no, even a fantasy world needs a few elements that are anchored in the real world somehow, otherwise no one could relate to it somehow. Also, when the story is about a whole world with different cultures, with a history stretching over several millennia, conflict is unavoidable. So there is war, oppression, xenophobia, inequality, etc. It's, sadly, part of a living world. And it's the very essence that TES is about: the history of Nirn, with all kinds of wars, invasion, atrocities, plagues, famines... It's so central about TES, it seems absurd to me if people want to see that gone. Why play a TES game then?

I completely agree.

But so many people are basically looking for things to be upset about, and want to not be reminded of things in 'their escapism' that they don't want to have any of that nasty real world parallels in their nice world. Or at least, it boils down to they don't want to see it in their nice world, unless it is lauded far and wide as the absolute worst things to happen and everyone who is good is against it happening again, and only the 'mean' people want.

So, if there is a hint that the people they have deemed the 'good guys' once participated in something they don't like? Well, they want it removed.

Basically they want cardboard cutouts of good vs evil, according to THEIR moral compass. If they deem X is good, then X always has to be good. If X is deemed bad, then no good guys can engage in X, condone X, or even be ambivalent towards X. X must always be the most evil thing anyone can do, and only the evil people do X.

It isn't exclusive to TES, and as said, I haven't seen a lot of this type of discussion about TES specifically. But, it is brought up enough in other fandoms, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't bleeding over into TES, especially in the idea of 'well, we want to sell this game, so we want it to be as appealing as possible, and these topics aren't considered appealing, so lets minimize them as much as possible' Especially for 'front facing' characters that the players are going to interact with often.

It is why we do see 'crowd favorites' time and time again, because the writers know that just adding them will give a boost, because people like them. It is also likely why those crowd favorites don't even seem to grow in any sense between one adventure and the next. Because if they grow too much, they might change what people like, and thus make people upset that their favorite characters are no longer the way they liked them. The more often a player is going to interact with a character, the more they are going to remember that character, so they don't want 'good guy' characters to really suffer from 'oh no, this character might actually be morally grey!' or have done bad things in their past that they aren't appropriately sorry over.

I like some returning characters, others not so much, but they are a selling point to me. More than a sea of "one and done" quest givers whose names I can't remember and only a few stand out as memorable.

I also disagree that they don't really grow. Some feel like they are starting to now that they are willing to move time ahead. Azah seems to have grown in his new role. Gabrielle instead of mostly talking about quest objectives had a moment in Solstice where she reveals her feelings to the PC about Darien. I'm not sure if she does that for all characters or just those with a history with her but it felt like she opened up more than in the past and there is some progression in the PC's friendship with her. Darien's moments of doubt in Solstice deepened the character for me. He expected to act as he always does but wasn't able to that questline.

I'll be curious if they do something similar for Quen since she's returning and if she will grow in some way as well.

Of course it's not like they grow into entirely divergent personalities, since they are still the same people after all.

The character that did suddenly (and mostly optionally) change a lot is actually the Vestige if you pick some of the new dialogue options. I feel very odd using some of them when most of our dialogue for X years was just asking basic questions, stating the obvious, and stating that they have forgotten everything that they had witnessed moments ago. It's taking some getting used to picking some of these personality shifts. I did just get that dreaded non-optional Vestige line where the vestige states that they were busy "rescuing prisoners and stuff" which made me cringe. I'd hope lines like that are fully optional for the "funny" personality options moving forward.