Prince Naemon really is/was a fool!

FlopsyPrince

The fact that his wife was evil and his older sister had the right to the crown, which he only sarcastically acknowledges shows he lacks some marbles in his head and deserves what he gets in the long run.

I finally listened to the dialog at the end of Auridon, after doing it 30-40 times.

spartaxoxo

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

Monte_Cristo

His brown nosing lapdog doesn't help, either.
I'm still unsure whether he knew of his wife's role or not. It's never made clear, which I think was a good touch.

faeeichenlaub

Of all npcs I took weird pleasure in killing him and getting to see him again in new life a afterlife visitation was another here's a big middle finger bud!

There are townspeople who say crap adoring/defending this fool and they deserve a blade of woe.

newtinmpls

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

The conversations in that .. scene are some of the most sweetly painful in the game.

LostHorizon1933

The next dialogue in Elden Root is pretty good, in context.

Blinx

I actually felt sorry for him, imagine your about to become King, and suddenly your sister, who ran off with god knows whom, suddenlly returns, and throws your world upside down, because she's the rightful heir to the throne.
Anyone would be resentful, altho he did take things to the extreme, but this is after his wife had been killed, and he had to go on acting as if all was peachy-the mer snapped, they didn't have prozac in that era.

Snamyap

I heard he turned into a crocodile!

karthrag_inak

So many real world parallels. Such a perspective is most clearly a common trope, yes?

ectoplasmicninja

Honestly, I feel bad for the guy.

Your father dies, your flighty headstrong sister who is next in line for the throne - a great honour to say the least, how incredibly wonderful to lead the Altmer! - just runs away without a word, leaving you to step up. So you gamely undertake the required 3,555 days studying Altmeri custom and ceremoniarchy, do all of the whatever other unmentioned ritual tedium, get halfway through the 88 days of liturgical chanting, and then boom, your sister reappears and everyone immediately ignores you and falls all over themselves to make her queen. After you've gone to all this trouble, after you've had years to come to terms with the idea of being king. You're annoyed, your wife is annoyed because she quite liked the idea of being queen, and frankly a lot of other people are also annoyed - is Ayrenn even taking this seriously? She ran away from her birthright to go prance around the continent with a Khajiit and didn't even say anything!

Then some random stranger rolls up, is super competent, immediately becomes your sister's new BFF, exposes your wife as a traitor - a traitor running a whole secret cabal, under the auspices of a Daedric Prince furthermore - and kills her. Through all of this you have to keep your professional face on and support your sister, but you're seething inside. More than seething. Is this really your life? How did you get here?

The other races in the Dominion keep insisting you all jump through hoops to placate them. The brother of the queen, who was going to be king himself, forced to answer to his wife's killer about some Khajiit embassy? Absurd. The Bosmer have some ridiculous rite with some deathtrap contraption that's supposed to show you your true self. By the time that infernal machine opens, you're thinking, "You know what, surely I should rule. I did all the studying and all the rituals while this immature child was off doing gods know what. How could she be more fit for this than me? Look what she's put me through! Time to show them my true self." Only...it's an ogrim.

That's not even mentioning everything that happens after he dies. The guy doesn't even get a break in death! Poor Naemon.

Sylvermynx

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

Paulytnz

He's a High Elf, what do you expect lol? They are all usually jerks, snooty or a bit crazy in the head.

Lephrel

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

Well, she mostly protected her own image. Having your own brother betray you and turn into a bloated monstrosity is something you probably want to keep quiet.

Haywire30

Paulytnz wrote: »

He's a High Elf, what do you expect lol? They are all usually jerks, snooty or a bit crazy in the head.

You just summed up pretty much every single race in The Elder Scrolls.

Lazarus_Rising

Ayreen runs away has the time of her life, adventuring, seeing everything while her younger brother gets the burden of being a king. Has to learn all the etiquettes of aldmer courting etc. Then when he is supposed to be king, she comes back and just takes it away? If Ayreen is not super selfish then i dont know what

EramTheLiar

As far as betrayals go, his is pretty understandable in terms of "sentient beings are fallible even when they try not to be." I even see it as a bit tragic because it appears in story as if he is genuinely trying to do right as far as he sees it, right up to the point where he says "screw it, I'm going Team Naemon." If one of the things that had happened to him/his family had happened to someone else, he might have just been a somewhat bitter loyal sibling with a drinking problem.

I always thought one of the reasons Ayrenn is so insistent on protecting his reputation is that she feels her actions - especially her time adventuring instead of being a proper heir - were at least partially responsible for putting him under the pressures that eventually made him snap. I mean if I spent 3-4K days preparing for something because my sibling was supposed to do it and didn't show up, and then showed up after I'd done most of it... there would be no healing that rift.

I'm pretty sure being turned into Undead Naemon wasn't in his will, so I don't blame him for that part.

Mythgard1967

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

I wanted Cadwell stuff out of my gamelife so I completed this as well...but I really didn't like killing Naemon. I agree with what @ectoplasmicninja posted on this...it was aligning to my thoughts on this. Ultimately, I did it to complete it and get the dyes and motifs...and its why I hated the character that completed it. I would never have helped the queen and I just try to pretend that they held my family (my other characters) hostage unless i did it.

drunkendx

Fun fact: his wife was daedra worshiping traitor.
He was butthurt over her execution.
He failed as a king.
If he led AD instead of Ayrenn, it would be a matter of time before his wifey would give all of AD to molly bolly just for bit more powah.
Ayrenn is more fit to rule since she's orders of magnitude more open minded than your average altmer.

WolfStar07

And she was only more open minded because she spent time traveling without class and race barriers. She was groomed from birth to be queen. That she was able to be crowned pretty quickly after returning shows she had already done all the studying and training necessary, so absolutely no sympathy for her brother- the spare- having had to do most of it too. And don't forget, her father died and she had to run a kingdom. That's an enormous pressure, and history is littered with examples of people being forced into that situation and handling it poorly.

spartaxoxo

Lephrel wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

Well, she mostly protected her own image. Having your own brother betray you and turn into a bloated monstrosity is something you probably want to keep quiet.

No. She clearly loved her brother and was saddened by his actions.

spartaxoxo

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

You could see both sides of the Veiled Heritance? I thought it was pretty one dimensional faction myself.

Sylvermynx

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

You could see both sides of the Veiled Heritance? I thought it was pretty one dimensional faction myself.

No, both sides of Naemon. I didn't have any issue dealing with the Veiled Heritance or his wife whatever her name was. Yes, the faction was so one dimensional it was disturbing....

starkerealm

drunkendx wrote: »

If he led AD instead of Ayrenn, it would be a matter of time before his wifey would give all of AD to molly bolly just for bit more powah.

Mehrunes Dagon. She was a Dagon cultist, not a Molag Bal cultist.

starkerealm

Monte_Cristo wrote: »

His brown nosing lapdog doesn't help, either.
I'm still unsure whether he knew of his wife's role or not. It's never made clear, which I think was a good touch.

He knew. Whether he knew before Skywatch is up for debate, but it's likely. You can't prove it, if we could, he would have been dragged off by Raz for treason. But, based on his actions afterwards, yeah, he had to know what his wife was doing... or be incompetent and bumbling.

VaranisArano

Ayrenn is 27 in ESO, and there's a portion of her propaganda that makes a big deal about her preferring to give the Ruby Throne to an elven infant than to a human (because she is ridiculously young to be the high queen.) She's repeatedly shown to be naive, overly idealistic, and blind to the downsides of her plans.

Naemon is her younger brother. So, I estimate his maturity accordingly.

I don't particularly like Naemon. He's a snot to the Vestige. He's also a tragic figure nonetheless.

Because Ayrenn left, he spent over a third of his life studying Altmeri custom and ceremoniarchy in preparation for becoming monarch, only for Ayrenn to show up and snatch it away. By Altmeri standards, he's the trained heir.

Ayrenn means well, but she not only yanked the rug out from under his feet, she's now dragging him around on her triumphal procession through Auridon in an exercise of rubbing it in that he's not king stunning naviety.

Either Estre is as young (and stupid) as he is, or she's the older of the pair using him to lend legitimacy to her rebellion. He doesn't have a great relationship with the rest of his family as a counterbalance - I mean, this is his opinion of the holidays: "I swear, it's like being home for New Life Festival. The family's been drinking since noon, and everyone wants you dead."

Oof.

We also don't find out until later that he's being manipulated by yet another person he trusts: Vicereeve Pelidil. Pelidil is also part of the Veiled Heritance and raises Naemon as a lich after he dies in order to continue to strike back against Ayrenn.

When we last meet Naemon in Heart's Grief, he seems to believe that he is the rightful king of the Isles. He's not, obviously, but it's really not hard to see why he thinks that. He's the trained heir, and people he trusts have been manipulating him to oppose Ayrenn. (Also as we see from Summerset, from a tradionalist standpoint, Ayrenn is a terrible high queen, even if she is the rightful ruler.)

Anyways, he's one of the Old Life spirits now, so I guess Varanis Arano wishes him some peace in Aetherius.

alberichtano

ectoplasmicninja wrote: »

Honestly, I feel bad for the guy.

Your father dies, your flighty headstrong sister who is next in line for the throne - a great honour to say the least, how incredibly wonderful to lead the Altmer! - just runs away without a word, leaving you to step up. So you gamely undertake the required 3,555 days studying Altmeri custom and ceremoniarchy, do all of the whatever other unmentioned ritual tedium, get halfway through the 88 days of liturgical chanting, and then boom, your sister reappears and everyone immediately ignores you and falls all over themselves to make her queen. After you've gone to all this trouble, after you've had years to come to terms with the idea of being king. You're annoyed, your wife is annoyed because she quite liked the idea of being queen, and frankly a lot of other people are also annoyed - is Ayrenn even taking this seriously? She ran away from her birthright to go prance around the continent with a Khajiit and didn't even say anything!

Then some random stranger rolls up, is super competent, immediately becomes your sister's new BFF, exposes your wife as a traitor - a traitor running a whole secret cabal, under the auspices of a Daedric Prince furthermore - and kills her. Through all of this you have to keep your professional face on and support your sister, but you're seething inside. More than seething. Is this really your life? How did you get here?

The other races in the Dominion keep insisting you all jump through hoops to placate them. The brother of the queen, who was going to be king himself, forced to answer to his wife's killer about some Khajiit embassy? Absurd. The Bosmer have some ridiculous rite with some deathtrap contraption that's supposed to show you your true self. By the time that infernal machine opens, you're thinking, "You know what, surely I should rule. I did all the studying and all the rituals while this immature child was off doing gods know what. How could she be more fit for this than me? Look what she's put me through! Time to show them my true self." Only...it's an ogrim.

That's not even mentioning everything that happens after he dies. The guy doesn't even get a break in death! Poor Naemon.

Massive agreeings. It is easy to judge someone from your back seat, but seriously, imagine yourself in his shoes. Not envious at all. He did what he thought was right, but was also supported by a daedric cultist wife and an extremist sycophant for an advisor. Ouch man, just ouch.

VaranisArano

starkerealm wrote: »

drunkendx wrote: »

If he led AD instead of Ayrenn, it would be a matter of time before his wifey would give all of AD to molly bolly just for bit more powah.

Mehrunes Dagon. She was a Dagon cultist, not a Molag Bal cultist.

Both. She was a Mehrunes Dagon cultist, then makes a deal with Mannimarco, as detailed in the Mehrunes Spite delve.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Mehrunes'_Spite

That's why we encounter her in Coldharbor later.

alberichtano

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

You could see both sides of the Veiled Heritance? I thought it was pretty one dimensional faction myself.

No, both sides of Naemon. I didn't have any issue dealing with the Veiled Heritance or his wife whatever her name was. Yes, the faction was so one dimensional it was disturbing....

True, but to be fair it was the least one-sided of the antagonists of the three flags main stories. I barely know what Angoth wanted (or why he is suddenly so "nice" when you meat him in the deadlands). And Jorunns brother mostly just seemed to be very angry for reasons. :P
The Veiled Heritance actually had an agenda, a goal, a political ideology, albeit a rather simplistic and cliched "bad guy" one. Sadly one I see way too much of IRL.

Sylvermynx

alberichtano wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

You could see both sides of the Veiled Heritance? I thought it was pretty one dimensional faction myself.

No, both sides of Naemon. I didn't have any issue dealing with the Veiled Heritance or his wife whatever her name was. Yes, the faction was so one dimensional it was disturbing....

True, but to be fair it was the least one-sided of the antagonists of the three flags main stories. I barely know what Angoth wanted (or why he is suddenly so "nice" when you meat him in the deadlands). And Jorunns brother mostly just seemed to be very angry for reasons. :P
The Veiled Heritance actually had an agenda, a goal, a political ideology, albeit a rather simplistic and cliched "bad guy" one. Sadly one I see way too much of IRL.

By the time I got to EP in Cadwell's Gold, I had finished the AD quests which culminate in Reaper's March - while I wasn't thrilled with the whole Ayrenn-gets-queened thing, or the Silvenar/Green Lady situation, I was truly deeply impressed with the whole quest cycle in Reaper's.

Getting through the EP quest lines was grim and gruesome and totally unfun, and I'll never do any of them again - so I don't have any real memory (or WANT one!) of whatever went on with Jorunn and his brother. I got through all that as expeditiously as possible, just to get it over with.

alberichtano

Sylvermynx wrote: »

alberichtano wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Yes. He was very unsuited to his job and got what he deserved. He frankly deserved worst because despite trying to betray his sister, she still protected his image after his death.

I was pretty ambivalent about killing him. I could (as always) see both sides (it's actually a real problem, not only in game, but in RL) and didn't want to be the "actor" there, but really, one doesn't have a choice - and by that point I just wanted Cadwell's crap out of my game life....

So I did the deed, and then what Ayrenn did made me cry. So.... I'm a sap I guess.

You could see both sides of the Veiled Heritance? I thought it was pretty one dimensional faction myself.

No, both sides of Naemon. I didn't have any issue dealing with the Veiled Heritance or his wife whatever her name was. Yes, the faction was so one dimensional it was disturbing....

True, but to be fair it was the least one-sided of the antagonists of the three flags main stories. I barely know what Angoth wanted (or why he is suddenly so "nice" when you meat him in the deadlands). And Jorunns brother mostly just seemed to be very angry for reasons. :P
The Veiled Heritance actually had an agenda, a goal, a political ideology, albeit a rather simplistic and cliched "bad guy" one. Sadly one I see way too much of IRL.

By the time I got to EP in Cadwell's Gold, I had finished the AD quests which culminate in Reaper's March - while I wasn't thrilled with the whole Ayrenn-gets-queened thing, or the Silvenar/Green Lady situation, I was truly deeply impressed with the whole quest cycle in Reaper's.

Getting through the EP quest lines was grim and gruesome and totally unfun, and I'll never do any of them again - so I don't have any real memory (or WANT one!) of whatever went on with Jorunn and his brother. I got through all that as expeditiously as possible, just to get it over with.

I have long felt that the EP storyline, even more than the DC one, is not a real solid story. It is a bunch of short stories between different regions. While AD is about Ayrenns ascent and the conflicts it raises (or touches upon), and the DC one is about the preservation of the Covenant and to a smaller degree the insecurities of the Great KIng, EPs quests are just... well, intermezzos. Stuff happening in the different regions with little that keeps them together.

EramTheLiar

alberichtano wrote: »

I have long felt that the EP storyline, even more than the DC one, is not a real solid story. It is a bunch of short stories between different regions. While AD is about Ayrenns ascent and the conflicts it raises (or touches upon), and the DC one is about the preservation of the Covenant and to a smaller degree the insecurities of the Great KIng, EPs quests are just... well, intermezzos. Stuff happening in the different regions with little that keeps them together.

The EP storyline has the strongest opening (Bleakrock and the attack) but I agree that it doesn't really have a strong through line. If anything it's "a very shaky alliance slowly learning to get along." As Sheogorath points out, they hate each other.