I just met the dumbest NPC in the whole history of Tamriel

xbluerosesx · July 3

I just started exploring West Weald on my main char. Out of habit, I like to do sidequests before the zone story. So just outside Skingrad, I encounter this NPC named Pim. Silly name but okay. She's a scholar studying goblins. Okay, nothing too weird.

Then she opens her mouth, and it's the dumbest, most bleeding heart <snip> I've ever heard. She thinks goblins are jUsT mIsUnDeRsToOd. From what we’ve seen before in Oblivion and in other ESO quests and dungeons (can't speak for Morrowind, Daggerfall or Arena, haven't played those), goblins have always been a hostile race that can’t be reasoned with, you either attack them or they’ll attack you. Sympathizing with them is like sympathizing with the demons in Frieren--it bites you in the ass.

(For all you non-weebs out there, it's like trying to reach out to the corrupted falmer in Skyrim to come to an understanding, you're gonna end up missing a few limbs).

Even in this quest, when you’re trying to help them they’re hostile. Even if you do somehow agree with Pim the dimwit, you still have to kill them. And the whole time Pimwit is like “dOnT hUrT tHeM.”

The funniest thing is she actually has a few lines where she's trying to reason with the goblins, and they ignore her completely.

If the player character wasn't there, she'd be dead for sure. At no point are you able to (figuratively speaking) slap some sense into her. And the quest ends with the Pimwit going “duuuuurr now humans and goblins can cOeXiSt," like it's supposed to be the good ending. Even though that’s never <snip> happened in-universe, even though her own <snip> worldview gets proven wrong in this very quest.

Everything about this quest was so <snip> stupid. I get having so many side quests, there are bound to be a few duds, but this is the worst one yet. I legit closed ESO as soon as I handed it in. Needed a <snip> drink afterwards.

<snipped for Cursing and Profanity>

MasterSpatula · July 3

Actually, the "what has been done to goblins is horrible and shameful" notion has been in the games since at least the Tribunal expansion for Morrowind, if one had the compassions to notice it in the subtext. There were characters in Oblivion sympathetic to the goblins. In ESO, several characters have shown interest in and sympathy for goblins. There's also a delve in Summerset where it's made pretty explicit that agreements with them have been consistently broken, that their hostility to man, mer, and betmer is due to mistreatment and land theft.

This is nothing new.

A good story has a premise that it attempts to prove. It seems to me that you are in need of the lesson in this story's premise. Sadly, you rejected it out of hand.

On a side note, using bleeding heart as an insult does not reflect well on oneself.

Freelancer_ESO · July 3

"Traditionally, the Altmer have used the goblins to reinforce their armies. Why, I do not know. Rumor has it that Helseth has contracted two Altmer to train his goblin army. If you find these Altmer, it would be a service to rid the city of them as well."

That's from the Tribunal DLC for Morrowind and it suggests that Goblins are in fact capable of being reasoned with.

In Oblivion, you'll run into a Goblin Tribe with a Breton as a shaman.

ESO has other quests that suggest some parties negotiate with Goblins.

Rohamad_Ali · July 3

Keep going, You'll meet dumber.

Elsonso · July 3

There is also a scholar in Stormhaven that studies, and rather idealizes, Goblins.

We often come across NPCs who don't understand the reality of their world. As I recall there is a frog lover in Blackwood who gets eaten. Given the nasties that are in Tamriel, one would expect being eaten to be a common and well understood concept amongst most NPCs.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 3

I think the point is that she's meant to be somewhat naive, while still having a a grain of truth to what she's saying. In Summerset, we learn that the ancient elves and goblins even had trade agreements, and there are various other goblins that cooperate with the more dominant races of Tamriel. They clearly have a society and culture, so it completely makes sense that they would have individual personalities that include cooperation. I think a thoughtful observer in Tamriel would probably be able to figure that out.

My issue is more that many fantasy series are inconsistent with whether their nonhuman characters are intelligent or unthinking beasts, or keep them in some uncomfortable limbo in between the two so that they can be mindless enemies. Ogres in ESO are a prime example of this--it's impossible to make sense of how intelligent or humanlike they could be. Whereas goblins are shown to be intelligent but very territorial (and probably the only goblins who survived were the ones who were suspicious of the playable races), and minotaurs are implied to be very intelligent, but we rarely (almost never?) interact with them.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · July 3

I’m kind of surprised OP hasn’t run into this before. Landal Gevont (Frostvault Dungeon) has a similar worldview to Pim, and this guy went studying goblins as well. There’s also a quest in Cyrodiil where someone is feeding one.

tarponpet · July 4

I am shocked by some of the comments in this posts and the reply. Its like you've never heard the concept of an overly primitive society. Goblins and Ogres are fully sapient beings. A combination of their culture and the situation they're forced into is what makes them violent.

When Altmer first arrived in Summerset, it is canonical that they traded with the native Goblins, this shifted when they started shafting the Goblins.

Primitive races get treated like monsters on Tamriel so must "be" monsters to survive.

You can actually go through this quest without killing a single Goblin if you're smart about. They put all the objectives in places where you don't have to go barging through the middle of the territorial dudes camps who are on edge for reasons explained in the quest itself. I never actually agro'd them when I played.

Cooperharley · July 4

The only NPC dumber is our player character in main story dialogue :P

Prophet_of_Malacath · July 4

xbluerosesx wrote: »

Then she opens her mouth, and it's the dumbest, most bleeding heart <snip> I've ever heard. She thinks goblins are jUsT mIsUnDeRsToOd. From what we’ve seen before in Oblivion and in other ESO quests and dungeons (can't speak for Morrowind, Daggerfall or Arena, haven't played those), goblins have always been a hostile race that can’t be reasoned with, you either attack them or they’ll attack you. Sympathizing with them is like sympathizing with the demons in Frieren--it bites you in the ass.

Goblins wear clothing (and even have a motif, Coldsnap Style)
Goblins use tools (weapons, staves, even using Dwemer scrap for metal)
Goblins domesticate animals (kwama, durzogs, spiders, etc) for food, materials & guards
Goblins engage in religion (Muluk the Blue God, Malooc, etc)
Goblins wield magic (as per every Goblin shaman we meet). In fact, in older games, we see a finely enscribed crystal-and-rune obelisk made by western reach goblins; goblin cavern teleport; goblin houses underground.

Visit King Haven Pass and you'll see a whole quest of how the goblins were natives - and made treaties when the Altmer arrived - only to then get enslaved or eradicated.

In fact, visit Rivenspire - NE region - Breagha-Fin cave. The "Emerald Chalice" quest is about a whole tribe of goblins... who were previously human refugees afflicted by a curse.

In short, goblins are a sentient race that has been persecuted to the point that - like minotaurs (see Emperor Belharza the Man-Bull, son of Empress Alessia and Morihaus) - they often go hostile because they repeatedly have been raided & massacred by "civilized" races.

Fun Note:
If you actually help her & complete the quest, 2 out of 3 goblin tribes in West Weald will become non-hostile to you. Sometimes those "naive" folk are right.

Tyrvarion · July 4

As said before the notion that goblins aren't meant to be vicious monsters is very old established fact in TES and this quest is nothing strange in comparison to what we've seen in the past. Bah you can talk to some and help them rebel from being enslaved in Auridon earlier. In Skyrim you can befriend some as well. And even in tes 3 we see Dunmer seeing them as something more than vile beasts, even if they wish to further the abuse. As a whole the quest is a fun callback to the goblin tribes mechanic with their totems from tes 4.

The example from Freiren is ridiculous one, because the whole point in that show is that the Demon's nature is to hunt people down because that's what their species evolutionary history made them for. Goblins on the other hand are just simple (far less simple than you claim though, and anyone who knows an ounce of old lore would know) and territorial, and with clear history of being target of attacks of other races.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · July 4

Prophet_of_Malacath wrote: »

Goblins wear clothing (and even have a motif, Coldsnap Style)

Primal too.

Prophet_of_Malacath · July 4

Something also has to be said about awareness of material.

For example: ORCS

There are antiquity maps that confirm Orcs lived in Stormhaven.
There are Ayleid journals that recount Orcs living on the Bjoulsae half a thousand years before Wayrest was even a fishing village.
There are ruins (like Scalecaller Peak) that are Orcish in style - yet grow stalagmites. Orcs lived in the region so long ago their structures are becoming caves again.
The Pale Order ring tells us Rivenspire had vampire-knights whose symbol was a noose and boar, running around killing non-Breton ethnic minorities.
Why a boar? Well Bretons also wrote "The Pig Children"
In Hammerdeath Arena, Bretons rent out a space to celebrate the holidays with that quest where they kill the King Boar every year.
Other books, like "Orcs: the Vermin Among Us" call Orcs job-stealing, daughter-defiling, immoral, unclean, etc.
Ironically, we then see Breton contraband like "Orc Sweat Cologne" as an aphrodisiac.
And while racists blame Orcs as "job stealers", we see Orcs in Auridon fled the Covenant because they're "always sent to the front lines" (to die first) and otherwise used as slave labor. Breton nobles use orcs, then encourages the angry mobs to blame the orcs for job losses.
The ambassador to Betnikh who just met us openly advises that the Orcs should just be genocided off the isle.
In Rivenspire, we learn that Ranser had hundreds of assimilated city orcs mass-executed "just in case".
In Wrothgar, the Pale Watch has been there over a hundred years to kill Orcs - and when King Emeric offers them amnesty & gold to return home, they kill the messenger instead, because hating Orcs is more important to them.
Or consider "Orcs are stupid" stereotypes - when in TES3, Orc men were as intelligent as any Nord or Redguard; and Orc women had the same intelligence as Dunmer, Imperials, etc.

And this is barely scratching the surface.

So every time someone suggests (like you do with Goblins) that Orcs are always raiding, starting problems, etc, etc? The point is to realize "oh wait, maybe the folks who said that are racist". Because the lore continually gives us examples that these are persecuted peoples who've been killed or chased off their lands.

As I tell Orc-stans:
* They burn your city and then claim your refugee camps are proof you live like animals
* They burn your libraries and then claim your children are imbeciles
* They take your lands and then claim your presence is an invasion force

Even old lore includes goblins & ogres alongside orcs - as ex-slaves from Summerset that built the first Orsinium.

Goblins are in the same camp. TES is full of old races who've been persecuted (or even exterminated altogether) and instead of asking "oh wait, are we the baddies?", folks jump the bandwagon by ignoring the copious amounts of lore given us.

Prophet_of_Malacath · July 4

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Prophet_of_Malacath wrote: »

Goblins wear clothing (and even have a motif, Coldsnap Style)

Primal too.

Excellent point. Plus the fact that Reachfolk wear it as well.

So anyone who criticizes "Primal" should then also agree that "welp I guess humans are primitive savages too". lol