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Please sell me on Sheogorath
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Finedaible✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Sheogorath's shenanigans are annoying, yes, and he is undeniably the most terrifyingly powerful Daedric Prince as well. ESO just doesn't quite capture the same charm as previous titles though. The original Mages Guild quest is perhaps the closest.
For me, i think the allure was more about the brief fleeting moments that we get to see through the madness. Akin to the Folium Discognitum, there are nuggets of impossible knowledge within Sheo's ramblings. He casually resurrects people from the past and makes casual references to events that haven't even happened yet - or at least events that have not happened to us yet. He has uncanny knowledge about everything. Makes me wonder if his madness is really random whimsy or if he just experiences time in a non-linear fashion. Is he even bound by time? Could this 'past' version of Sheo be in essence the same Hero who mantled the powers of the mad god in the future? There is an element of mystery surrounding his nature and origins that keeps me mildly curious.
Unlike some of the other Princes - like say Dagon or Molag Bal - who would be content to simply destroy or assimilate Tamriel and ultimately exhaust their influence, Sheo cultivates his influence. Ultimately what do those other Princes have to gain in the long run if they were to succeed? Seems to me that Sheo understands the cosmic game better than they do.3 -
AdonisJorge✭✭i do not think that i can sell him but is my favorite Daedric Prince because he is unpredictable, he turn people inside out just for fun at the same time he cares about Pelagius Septim, btw i liked his personality on every TES game.1 -
Ei8htba11✭✭✭✭✭Imagine Sheo as a character similar to the Joker (Heath Ledger or the actor in Gotham). He has a plan, and to the player it often doesn't make sense because he's playing 3d chess with Tamriel and the Daedric realms. Sometimes personable (when it suits him) , always dangerous (like one wrong word could get a nasty outcome)..
That's my own personal imagining, but something along those lines could rescue him from the comedy role he seems to be stuck in currently3 -
katanagirl1✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There are a few regulars here on the forums that really like Uncle Sheo, and I guess the guys at ESO took that as meaning everyone just adores him too. I can’t stand him, and I was greatly dismayed that one of the two new quest lines revolves around him. (I wasn’t too thrilled about another TG questline either, even though my main character does thieving.)
I’ve been unhappy since the chapter format got put in the trash bin and with recent events I guess I will be okay with them just keeping the light turned on at headquarters. I hate to say it, but I would almost ask for zero new content rather than what we are getting this year. There are still a few things I have not done yet in dungeons and trials. Maybe future content will be better.
EDIT: typo
Edited by katanagirl1 on July 28, 2026 7:45PMPS5 NA7 -
Northwold✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I liked him in Shivering Isles (Oblivion). There was a real sense of incomprehensible threat there that owed as much to the realm as to the character. I think a character like that needs very careful writing and in every appearance since, well, he hasn't had careful writing and has just come across pantomime villain. I also really don't like that his voice acting often makes him even more pantomime. Sheogorath works when he is dangerous. His random whims aren't just meant to be funny, they're meant to be scary because he's so unpredictable. But instead he's played as a joke.3 -
ajkb78✭✭✭✭✭He hasn't used the cheese joke nearly enough. You won't go mad until you feel like you've been bludgeoned to death with that joke... Over and over and over...
To be far under the wackiness there is a genuine nasty thread of sadism, he does inflict ultraviolent madness on entire towns and one of the key NPCs in the mages guild quest, so you see him furthering madness at both personal and mass casualty scales, and given his origin story I kind of think the wackiness is part of *his* torture, because Jyggalag sure would hate to be trapped in that personality. So, yeah, on the surface he's kind of annoying and amusing in equal parts, but looking deeper I think he's pretty well written.2 -
MasterSpatula✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭While I don't necessarily agree with the OP's intense dislike for Sheogorath, I do find him a bit overrated. But beyond that, ZOS has really, really forgotten the concept of "less is more" when it comes to this character."A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility." - Aristotle3 -
Hymzir✭✭✭✭✭
✭I won't. Sheo is the most trite and shallow character in ESO. His portrayal has never been deep or even interesting to begin with, and the ESO writing has flanderised him even more. Endless repeats of the same gag about cheese...
His appearances in earlier TES games were okay. Kinda pointless and random, but eh, whatever, he's supposed to be the embodiment of madness.
Personally, I was never a fan of The Shivering Isles take on Sheo either, but it was tolerable as its own thing. Its own iteration on the concept of madness. It helped a lot that the rest of the Isles were such an incredible experience. And it wasn't about repeating gags either. There was method to his madness and hidden meaning behind his antics.
Was not happy to see him in Skyrim continuing to pull the same shtick. I hoped the quest to reveal some new facet about him, or give an alternate and nuanced take on insanity. But nope, just more of the same. At least it was only one fairly forgettable side quest most of my characters have ignored over the years.
ESO Sheo is the worst by far. Just repeats of the same old tired jokes and antics. In fact, I find him the most predictable, stable and unsurprising character in all of ESO. It's always the same garbage with him. It feels as if the devs have compacted the idea of a Daedric Prince of Madness to a handful of gags that are now considered part of TES product identity. That it won't 'feel' like TES if Sheo isn't screaming about cheese.
I routinely skip all his dialogue, never pay any attention to the garbage he is spewing and go do my own things or alt-tab and watch YouTube while his cutscenes play.
It's not even that I hate this caricature of the character; it's just that I find it utterly overdone and boring at this point.
As for the new "vacation" quest... I'll coast over it as fast as I can and do it only as much as I need for any rewards and such, and then will happily forget the thing even exists.3 -
Cin_Vhetin✭✭✭Don't care for the whackjob wabbajack at all.Better a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war. - Japanese proverb
You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass. - Warren Buffet3 -
Sheo alone is not that interesting. I think part of Sheo's charm is that he rules a complex and bizarre realm, the Shivering Isles. But somehow ZOS has forgotten that part, where has it gone?
I never got to play the shivering isles expansion, couldn't afford the expense way back then and I just never picked it up at a later time.0 -
AzuraFan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Glorious_Platypus wrote: »I never got to play the shivering isles expansion, couldn't afford the expense way back then and I just never picked it up at a later time.
If you ever feel like replaying Oblivion, Oblivion Remastered includes Shivering Isles.0 -
Fischblut✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I don't have any special emotions about Sheogorath... but in ESO he is "Joker" for my "Harley Quinn" character, so I hope there will be some interesting visual options in upcoming quest line
https://youtu.be/JwuhaRQzN68 1 -
BretonMage✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I liked him in Shivering Isles (Oblivion). There was a real sense of incomprehensible threat there that owed as much to the realm as to the character. I think a character like that needs very careful writing and in every appearance since, well, he hasn't had careful writing and has just come across pantomime villain. I also really don't like that his voice acting often makes him even more pantomime. Sheogorath works when he is dangerous. His random whims aren't just meant to be funny, they're meant to be scary because he's so unpredictable. But instead he's played as a joke.
I agree with you about the acting (and of course the writing). It's really exaggerating the cheesiness so much that it overwhelms everything. Something needed to bring a sense of real threat to his character, and they just.. haven't. I think it would have been better if they kept his voice neutral but with an unhinged edge. (It would also be a lot less irritating.) Unsettling cadences; subtle, unexpected changes in rhythm, I don't know.
I somewhat enjoyed Shivering Isles until I met Sheo. He just made my eyes roll and frankly, that was when I lost interest in the DLC. His character worked a bit better in the Borderwatch quest because we didn't see him.0 -
Sheogorath is my favorite, but I understand and respect that he's not everyone's cup of tea. I enjoy villains and obnoxious jackasses, idk what else to say. Make no mistake, if I met Sheo irl, I wouldn't hesitate to defenestrate that sumbitch.
That said, I also feel like what I enjoy about Sheo is what he could be, rather than what he is. He's been dumbed down and flattened into a caricature of himself. ESO is not the place for complex or nuanced characters, which on its own, isn't necessarily a bad thing. In such an environment, Sheogorath is best employed in small doses, and at arm's length. That way, those who don't like him don't have to put up with him for too long. And those who do get just enough of a taste to fuel our fanfics and unhinged rambling Discord conversations.
Having played through his questline on the PTS already, here is my spoiler-free take:
If you already don't like Sheogorath, this story won't change your mind. If you do like Sheogorath, this story might change that.2 -
BardokRedSnow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭tomofhyrule wrote: »I hate Sheogorath.
He’s the prime example of a character who could have been interesting once upon a time, but his personality was completely replaced by a one-dimensional joke because of sledgehammer writing and the desire to keep moving in the direction of a single joke because some people found it funny. After all, if something is funny once, it will definitely be more funny if we bash people over the head with that joke and give them nothing else, right?
Sheo was in Morrowind, but his existence amounted to three quests: you needed to deal with the minion he summoned to bother Azura’s priestess, you made him an offerring for a Temple quest, and then the only one where you interacted with him directly was him telling you to kill a netch with a fork for the lulz (and then he inexplicably gave you Hircine’s artifact). That was it.
He was even in Daggerfall, where he would randomly pop up on the wrong summoning day and task you with killing a mage in a dungeon while saying a bunch of non-sequiturs. Again, that was about it.
Guess what though: cheese was not involved or mentioned. That came from Oblivion’s quest, and it wasn’t even the point. You just had one step in that quest where you had to steal stinky cheese and put it in a pot to draw a bunch of rats to a town (before they poisoned the rats and then you had to kill the sheep before Sheo made flaming dogs rain from the sky). But since then, they were like “omg cheese is so funny!”
I hated Shivering Isles. It was really where we went from “Prince of Madness” to “Prince of omg so random and funny!” and it really took away from the character. That was where Sheogorath essentially became the Alice in Wonderland expy he is today, and that really meant dropping (or at least severely minimizing) the dark sides of Madness in general. It’s the same way a lot of media with DC’s Joker is more about the clown part and his murderous side is sanitized under fifty layers of joking: It’s more corporate-friendly to not talk about him as a psycho and then people love to think of him instead as a joke. One which I think ran its course about 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority here. It seems Shivering Isles was the template for “how to write Sheogorath in the future,” and that just meant leaning into everything harder and harder.
Skyrim’s and ESO’s initial version were both at minimum forgettable, in that you could do their quest and then move on. But then he popped up in Cyrodiil (offerring Malacath’s artifact for some reason) and shouts at you every time you walk by. And now they’re shoving him back in again - a whole story that you know is going to be 90% cheese and lame jokes.
I had to roll my eyes when they first announced “Sheogorath” as a feature for 2026. I hate him. I hate that he’s the “easy” way to make a joke. I hate that his personality is shallower than most of the returning characters we’ve had in ESO on their second pass. But I’m sure there are people who are like “oh boy, my favorite character is back! Cheese cheese cheese cheese cheese!”
2026 as a whole was not made for me personally. I only want two things from ESO: new Group Dungeons and new Classes, but I’m getting neither (and seemingly ESO will not be making either of those ever again…)
TLDR Millennial writing basically. He was good in Shivering Isles, for Shivering Isles. Hes not really supposed to be a front running character and is too easy to fit in for bland content that will be inconsequential filler with quirk chungus humor.
Thats my expectation anyway but guess we'll see.Edited by BardokRedSnow on July 29, 2026 2:59AMZos then: Vengeance is just a test bro
Zos now: Do you want Vengeance permanent or permanent...3 -
Soarora✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I like him. But of the games I have experienced him in— Oblivion, Skyrim, ESO, Legends, and Blades— I only really like him in Oblivion and I hate him in ESO. Legends I don’t quite remember but I think he acted decent in his storyline. Blades? No. Skyrim I have mixed feelings on in that I do really enjoy how he is clearly the HOK but he doesn’t have quite the same flair as Oblivion.
But why do I like Oblivion Sheogorath?
Simply put, because he is scary. He exudes power. He doesn’t make any sense but in that sense, he is powerful. He brings you in, acting like a friend just to slap you with the most horrific acts of violence said with a smile. He is as Demented as he is Manic yet plagued by memories of when he was Order— his Achilles Heel.
It’s less-so a sense of liking Sheogorath specifically as much as a preference for Daedra and how, honestly, they generally are not written with the intensity they deserve. But Sheogorath was… once. Once a beautiful example of Princehood, now a joke beaten dead into the dirt. He is not cheese. He is not the fishstick. He is not butterflies. He gets into your head, he claims it. He is Madness. And Madness is scary.[PC/NA] Dungeoneer (Tank/DPS), Semi-retired Trialist, and amateur Battlegrounder (DPS) with a passion for The Elder Scrolls lore.
Current GM of Hard Dungeoneers
Tanks: Sorcerer - Necromancer - Templar
DPS: Frost Warden - Stamarc - StamDK - Hybrid NB Healer
Ex-Healer: Warden - Arcanist
Dungeons: 34/34 HMs - 28/28 Tris4 -
disky✭✭✭✭✭
✭I think that with good writing, they absolutely can make him more interesting, they just have to lock in and do it. Give him a fall from grace, give him something that makes you care about him, if you're the type of person who is capable of caring for daedric princes. It would have to be a substantial bit of content and it would have to actually hold you in a dramatic grasp. Otherwise he's just the whimsically brutal cheese guy forever, but If that's what ZOS wants to do, that's also fine, I think. Not everything needs to be for everyone, and so I don't feel like you necessary have to be convinced, you just have to find the part of the game you like more. But I agree, he's not particularly compelling to me either.2 -
katanagirl1✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭He hasn't used the cheese joke nearly enough. You won't go mad until you feel like you've been bludgeoned to death with that joke... Over and over and over...
To be far under the wackiness there is a genuine nasty thread of sadism, he does inflict ultraviolent madness on entire towns and one of the key NPCs in the mages guild quest, so you see him furthering madness at both personal and mass casualty scales, and given his origin story I kind of think the wackiness is part of *his* torture, because Jyggalag sure would hate to be trapped in that personality. So, yeah, on the surface he's kind of annoying and amusing in equal parts, but looking deeper I think he's pretty well written.
You need to go to Cyrodiil right now. Just stand at the gate for a while.
PS5 NA2 -
Oceanchanter✭✭✭The only thing I like about Sheogorath in ESO is the potential of having butterfly-themed cosmetics.
ZOS has the technology to make skill styles themed around it, and I have a lot of patience...
...unless it ends up a challenger reward for veteran dungeon like Grand Healing, Seawater is.1 -
Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Oceanchanter wrote: »The only thing I like about Sheogorath in ESO is the potential of having butterfly-themed cosmetics.
ZOS has the technology to make skill styles themed around it, and I have a lot of patience...
...unless it ends up a challenger reward for veteran dungeon like Grand Healing, Seawater is.
There are already some similar themes in game. Honorfeather springs to mind, though it is bird themed. They are locked behind crates though, with some available for gems/seals when the crates are active.1 -
AVaelham✭✭✭✭Doing he new questline right now and I'm getting lower tier Marvel humor whiplash, especially after just finishing the Thieves Guild's Daggerfall questline. Can the God of Madness also be the God of Wasted Potential?
Is this the same game that gave us the Sotha Sil dialogue or Orsinium? We're only getting two storylines this year and you've wasted effort on...this. It's giving your average Lady Clarisse Laurent and Stibbons quest but pepper with lolrandom.4 -
Recent✭✭✭✭✭
✭I can't stand the dude, he is as annoying as a hot poker in your eye. I despised him in the shivering isles. I steer away from any guilds that include him as their theme or name
I love cheese and i love butterflies but i dont relate those to him.
I dont find him in any way amusing, he grates on my nerves. I try to avoid doing the training quest in cyro where he teaches how to use the volendrung hammer.
Im selling him to you as the most annoying character i have ever encountered in a game 😆Edited by Recent on July 29, 2026 10:43PM6 -
DenverRalphy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭LOL! There was one part in the new Sheo questline that made me pop off a hard gut laugh. I had to take a moment to rewind the past 15 or so seconds to make sure I didn't miss anything. It was a well timed delivery that I didn't see coming!
I won't post the particulars yet because It's waay too early to post it even with spoiler tags, cuz I don't want to ruin it even for those who don't mind clicking on spoilers. I did clip the video though.
[edit] Couldn't help myself and posted the video further down.Edited by DenverRalphy on July 30, 2026 12:41PM0 -
IZZEFlameLash✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Surprise surprise... the quest line ended up being annoying wild goose chase with mentions of cheese, skipping rope with a body part every second like all his quest lines are.Imperials, the one and true masters of all mortal races of Tamriel0 -
Kendaric✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I hate Sheogorath so much that I basically always skip any quests that involve him. Sorry, but I can't stand whimsical characters.2 -
Aliniel✭✭✭✭✭He's plain and simple annoying. There's absolutely nothing funny about him. All his "jokes" are very much repetitive. Tasteless humor comparable to all the rainbow-colored outfits you see on some players.
I mean I get it - it might have been fun the first time he appeared in the Elder Scrolls. A contrast to the serious order of business going on. But constantly repeating the same things over and over is just pathetic. If you can't come up with something new, then it might be time to replace the storyteller.
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