Remember also that the Altmer are very tradition-bound; the fact that they make their heirs spend years studying ceremoniarchy alone is a pretty good indicator of that. So tradition holds that the oldest takes the throne -> Ayrenn is oldest -> Ayrenn is Queen.

Also she was building together the group of people who became a very useful spy network while she was romping around the mainland, so it's not like she's incompetent. Rather the contrary.

But if they are so tradition bound, how could they let her become Queen without spending those years studying?

She just seems like the worst example of what the Altmer strive to be. No sense of responsibility, just coming back and screaming she gets to be queen cause she is entitled to it.

And she barely knows her own culture and people. She just goes through the steps to be crowned like appeasing the ancestors because she HAS to. Not because she actually respects the traditions.

The greatest cure for xenophobia is wanderlust.

The years that Ayrenn spent away, exploring the world and its people are what make her a better prospect for a ruler than her brother ever would be.

People bag on the Altmer because of their longheld traditions and beliefs, if they truly want to make Summerset great again, they need Ayrenn.

Besides, she's firstborn, so she has first claim to the throne, regardless of whether her brother is named heir.

But the Factions don't do anything about the situation with Molag Bal. They just let the guilds deal with it.

So if Naemon was king, nothing would change except one less group bent on fighting for the Imperial Throne.

The Altmer would stay isolationist, and the Khajiit and Wood Elves would be non entities in the ongoing war.

It is insane to me to that someone who abandons her responsibilities and runs off to have a good time is allowed to walk back in and take the throne.

HorrorShow wrote: »

The Altmer would stay isolationist, and the Khajiit and Wood Elves would be non entities in the ongoing war.

...And then they would have all been conquered by the Pact or the Covenant and Naemon would either be dead or acting as a puppet-ruler for the conquerors. So they wouldn't be isolated from other cultures for long anyway, with the added bonus that the original rulers of Summerset would have no say in how it was actually run after that point. I'm inclined to believe the Covenant would get Summerset first, as they seem to have more of a navy, but it's entirely possible Naemon would end up a slave to the Tribunal and wind up Almalexia's new toy.

HorrorShow wrote: »

There are plenty of female characters I like. Naryu comes to mind first thing.

But I hate Aryenn. She ran away from responsibility then came back right when dad died so she could claim power.

Thank you for clarifying your issues with Ayrenn. I'll agree that your stance as stated here is a reasonable one to take on the character. its certainly the opinion of the Veiled Heritance and they do have substantial support among the Altmer traditionalists.

My opinion, as I've stated above, is that she's proven the sapiarchs and the high justicar correct in their decision to support her, in contrast to Naemon, whose only proven that they were right to not give him the throne.

Izaki wrote: »

HorrorShow wrote: »

But if they are so tradition bound, how could they let her become Queen without spending those years studying?

She just seems like the worst example of what the Altmer strive to be. No sense of responsibility, just coming back and screaming she gets to be queen cause she is entitled to it.

And she barely knows her own culture and people. She just goes through the steps to be crowned like appeasing the ancestors because she HAS to. Not because she actually respects the traditions.

Yet out of the 3 leaders she is by far the most capable in every single way.

Jorunn's a little hot-tempered and it doesn't help that he's absent for 3/5ths of the Pact questline and then spends half of the Eastmarch questline out of commission. he's pretty awesome once he's got his mojo back.

Emeric looks like he wants so badly to take a nap and leave everything in the capable hands of the Vestige and his advisors. That's pretty much what he does in Rivenspire and Alikr, and then in Bangkorai he's all active because he's trying to impress an old flame.

Ayrenn is by far the most present and active of the faction leaders and really benefits from the Dominion having the most cohesive storyline of the three factions, with excellent supporting characters that really sell the storyline. Gwaering in Malabal Tor remains my favorite of the Dominion NPCs.

LickingHistSap wrote: »

My main issue with Ayrenn is the fact she has no experience in war or leadership, and because of this she just lets the Aldmeri generals do whatever they want to the 'lesser' races.

That's a really good point. Sure, Ayrenn doesn't act like she'd be okay with the Dominion's actions in Shadowfen, but that doesn't really matter if she doesn't have effective control over her generals in foreign lands to begin with. Her Eyes of the Queen seem effective on Dominion territory, but clearly not in the Pact or Covenant areas.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

I would say it really depends. Harald Hadrada (Harald Sigurdsson) was a Viking King who had a wilder streak than his brothers. The family lost the throne and he ultimately became a Varangian Guard, Mercenary, and eventually a King. There is a lot of history summed up there but the point is that his campaigns made him a force to be reckoned with and gave him a honed army of loyal special forces. Think about this with respect to someone like Ayrenn and her Eyes of the Queen which she built all of those years Naemon was busy learning the art of how to fluff-his-hair-just-so or the proper dances one should make quietly in a secluded sepulcher with his dead ancestors. Pointless garbage. I believe the reason Ayrenn took over was she actually did have more than just flimsy political power.

She shows up with her own outside group of loyal secret police to ensure her claim to power and kill all citizens that speak out against her.

I withdraw my comment about sleeping with the High Priest. Pretty sure now she had Razum dar kidnap his family and threaten to kill them if he didn't support her claim.

HorrorShow wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

I would say it really depends. Harald Hadrada (Harald Sigurdsson) was a Viking King who had a wilder streak than his brothers. The family lost the throne and he ultimately became a Varangian Guard, Mercenary, and eventually a King. There is a lot of history summed up there but the point is that his campaigns made him a force to be reckoned with and gave him a honed army of loyal special forces. Think about this with respect to someone like Ayrenn and her Eyes of the Queen which she built all of those years Naemon was busy learning the art of how to fluff-his-hair-just-so or the proper dances one should make quietly in a secluded sepulcher with his dead ancestors. Pointless garbage. I believe the reason Ayrenn took over was she actually did have more than just flimsy political power.

She shows up with her own outside group of loyal secret police to ensure her claim to power and kill all citizens that speak out against her.

I withdraw my comment about sleeping with the High Priest. Pretty sure now she had Razum dar kidnap his family and threaten to kill them if he didn't support her claim.

Well the issue would have been up in the air anyway and caused quite the stir. She has the rightful claim without the training and Naemon has the training a proper Altmer should have. The fact she has a paramilitary force backing her certainly doesn't hurt and I'm sure military advisors would have had a say. This is at least what went through my mind as I played the story. Much of Elder Scrolls games though are in the eye of the beholder and require reading between the lines on things. This lack of hamfisted storytelling is something I appreciate about the series. (Although I do find that Naryu has become a bit hamfisted).

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Well the issue would have been up in the air anyway and caused quite the stir. She has the rightful claim without the training and Naemon has the training a proper Altmer should have. The fact she has a paramilitary force backing her certainly doesn't hurt and I'm sure military advisors would have had a say. This is at least what went through my mind as I played the story. Much of Elder Scrolls games though are in the eye of the beholder and require reading between the lines on things. This lack of hamfisted storytelling is something I appreciate about the series. (Although I do find that Naryu has become a bit hamfisted).

But she doesn't have the rightful claim anymore. She left and the King declared Naemon the heir. She was not presumed dead, she had her claim stripped from her for abandoning her people and duties.

HorrorShow wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Well the issue would have been up in the air anyway and caused quite the stir. She has the rightful claim without the training and Naemon has the training a proper Altmer should have. The fact she has a paramilitary force backing her certainly doesn't hurt and I'm sure military advisors would have had a say. This is at least what went through my mind as I played the story. Much of Elder Scrolls games though are in the eye of the beholder and require reading between the lines on things. This lack of hamfisted storytelling is something I appreciate about the series. (Although I do find that Naryu has become a bit hamfisted).

But she doesn't have the rightful claim anymore. She left and the King declared Naemon the heir. She was not presumed dead, she had her claim stripped from her for abandoning her people and duties.

Yep, and Henry the First declared his daughter Maud to be his heir and yet her cousin Stephen was crowned and ruled for almost ten years.

Is the High Justiciar in the game? Need to pay him/her a visit.

*preps Blade of Woe*

Ayrenn is the rightful queen, and is a well fleshed out character with her own motivations and faults. The issue isn't that she's a bad character or a bad person, she isn't.

The issue is that she isn't a good wartime leader, at all.

There's rebellion after rebellion within the Aldmeri Dominion. Hell, her own brother even tries to usurp the throne, which is partially Ayrenns fault. She never showed any remorse or apologized to him once for stealing the throne out from under him after all those years, which he comments on all the way back in Auridon.

She cobbled together the Aldmeri Dominion and rushed into the War for Cyrodiil almost immediately, under the assumption the alliance less than a year old would be the best option for ruling an entire continent.

Ayrenn delegates almost everything outside of Dominion territories to her generals due to her inexperience with war, which leads to some pretty messed up stuff. (See: Shadowfen)

Ayrenn isn't a bad character by any means, and she is fairly straightforward and trustworthy, shown by the Orrery, but that doesn't mean her ideas are good.

Saying she's a 'Mary Sue' or that she 'slept with a priest to get the job' is kind of insulting, because she's really well written, but there are definitely issues with her leadership.

Ayrenn's history tells us why. As a youngster, it was noted by her teachers and parents that whenever she went out on field trips she came back with a notably greater education. Her birth was surrounded by circumstances of import that pointed at her being destined for a great rule, and they were watching for signs supporting this. She was quick, clever, determined and had a drive that did not lead to any doubt about these portents.

When she was supposed to be installed in school, where she would be sequestered in studies, she took off. Granted, that was unwise and impetuous, but we are talking about a prophesied, destined, special snowflake here, and that would explain why, when they couldn't find her, they did not declare her dead or disown her but instead just quietly installed her brother in school as an understudy and made him legally eligible just in case.

She did not run off to go play. She ran off to go adventuring. She trained in the arts of war, she learned about, and excelled at, the diplomatic ways of other cultures. She learned the ways of stealth, she made contacts, she basically took an extended educational field trip to go powerlevel herself because she knew that sitting in a classroom was not the effective way for her to learn what she needed to be queen.

If she'd stayed, she would have stagnated, and been wasted with court intrigue and puffery and gossip and been immersed in snotty racist stuff that would have done her ill. She SAW these things, and she made the decision to avoid the useless crap and go do what was needed so she'd be fit to rule.

The reason they accepted her as queen when she came back? They knew she was doing this. It may have been against tradition, but remember, they had warning that she was weird and different, and that this was a *good* thing. They were expecting her to excel, and the stars told them to let her do what she needed to do for her people. When she came back having taken several levels in badass, they recognized this as what she was meant to do, and no longer needed Naemon to step in as a pinch hitter.