History Fridge / TheElderScrollsVSkyrim

* Pretty much no Ward spell can stand against dragon fire or ice breath for very long, not even the Daedric Artifact Spellbreaker. This actually makes perfect when you consider what the breath attacks ''are''. Dragons aren't expelling magic that you cna block out of their mouths, their bending reality to produce it and then launching it at you with their Words. Dragons operate on a [[WrongContextMagic different level of magic]], if you can even call it that, so defensive spells wouldn't cope very well.

* As a possible interpretation for why Miraak would conspire against Hermaeus Mora despite the obvious risks, one should bear in mind that Mora's daedric realm contains every book ever written both past, present, and future. This could imply Miraak found a book that contained evidence that someone has, or will successfully outfox Hermaeus Mora. Given Miraak's ego, he likely was banking on the hope he would be the person written to have (or will be written) done so.

* One has to wonder when getting into Riften, why Brynjolf can manage to talk you into the Thieves Guild even if you've never stolen anything in game or even commit a crime before meeting him. But consider one little thing that he gives you after you become guildmaster: The Amulet of Articulation. It's powers include making ''all'' persuasion almost always succeed and fortifying your Speech Skill anywhere between 5% to 35%. Given he knows how to size up a mark, he likely thought you'd be a good asset to the guild and with the amulet, he could persuade you to join. Of course, you can always walk away and let him deal with things. Afterall, it only makes ''almost'' all persuasion checks succeed.

* It's rather confusing at first, in both ''Skyrim'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'', to find that Skooma has no negative effects on the player when used. That is, until you meet an Argonian fisher in Riften who needs a healing potion to break the crippling habit the drug causes. No wonder [=PCs=] never get addicted to Skooma -- they drink healing potions like mead.

* It's rather confusing at first, in both ''Skyrim'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]',' to find that Skooma has no negative effects on the player when used. That is, until you meet an Argonian fisher in Riften who needs a healing potion to break the crippling habit the drug causes. No wonder [=PCs=] never get addicted to Skooma -- they drink healing potions like mead.

* Paarthurnax's speech in his titular quest isn't referring only to himself, but to [[BreakingTheFourthWall you, the player.]] The "evil nature" of Dragons refers to destruction and domination, and is largely an allegory for the players' tendency to do everything and anything regardless of morality in video games. However, he has resisted the urge to return to his nature through deep meditation and study of the Way of the Voice. The player, meanwhile, is given an urge of their own via the quest; there is no other way to complete the quest but killing Paarthurnax. The quest will stay there until he is dead, no ifs, ands or buts. Which results in a similar situation: Will they stay by their decision to spare him but leave the quest uncompleted, or will they give in and kill him?

* The outermost skills the FighterMageThief categories in the skill perk constellation screen is a skill in one category, but may be highly useful in the other archetypes; Alchemy is in the Thief purview but is often also a Mage discipline, Enchanting is useful for Warrior types who want magic effects but not spells, and Archery gives warriors range power otherwise available only to Mage ranged casters, but is also useful for the Thief purview since you can strike hidden from afar. For the leftmost skills, Light Armor is an acceptable alternative to warriors who want protection but not the negative effects of Heavy Armor, Smithing also includes jewelry and even the that mages can enchant, and Illusion includes muffling and invisibility, something handy for thieves.

** This goes a way in explaining why no matter what, Brynjolf will decide to approach the Dragonborn and offer them a position in the guild: no matter how you got into Riften, you demonstrated a sharp mind that could be used for thievery. Whether the Dragonborn persuaded, intimidated, or paid their way past the guards, they always point out that it was a clear shakedown. If they bypassed it by going through he meadery, they still proved themselves to have a sharp mind by thinking to do so in the first place. And if they pickpocketed the key, then they're either a good pickpocket (obvious Guild material), they're lucky (which the Guild needs badly), or they failed and were immediately arrested (demonstrating a clear understanding of how to manipulate the guards and also the brass ones to try to swipe a key from under their nose).

* While most video ggames have autosaving as just a stock game mechanic, there's a possible in-universe explanation for it in ''Skyrim''. The dragon blood is a gift from Akatosh, the Divine of Time, and he gave it to the Dragonborn because he needs them to use it. If the Dragonborn ends up dying, either by chance or by doing something catastrophically stupid, Akatosh will use his power to turn back time so they can try again, while preserving their memory of what went wrong the first time in the hopes of the event not being repeated. By the same logic, manual saving could be the Dragonborn giving a quick prayer to Akatosh, asking for his protection.

* Another possibility for the Book of Fate: the book is blank to the Dragonborn because it's blank to ''everyone''. There's a good chance he just took an ordinary blank book and claimed it was a legendary artifact; [[SerialKiller it would be far from the most morally bankrupt thing he's done]].

* Nord culture bears more than a passing resemblance to dragon culture. For example, they both believe that AsskickingEqualsAuthority (hence Ulfric's claim to the throne) and that [[NoTrueScotsman "True Nords (or dragons)]] [[HonorBeforeReason never back down!"]] Nords even have a watered-down version of a Shout as their racial ability. This makes perfect sense when you consider that the Nords' ancestors were ''ruled'' by dragons.

* An [[GoodBadBugs amusing]] yet [[NotTheIntendedUse practical]] exploit is that the Paralysis status negates fall damage, so paralyzing yourself before you hit the ground by eating Netch Jelly (the only alchemy ingredient with Paralysis as its primary effect) will save you. But it makes sense course something from a Netch would negate fall damage; Netches don't have legs and float everywhere. Falling from dangerous heights isn't exactly something that a Netch would ever have to worry about.

* An [[GoodBadBugs amusing]] yet [[NotTheIntendedUse practical]] exploit is that the Paralysis status negates fall damage, so paralyzing yourself before you hit the ground by eating Netch Jelly (the only way to paralyze yourself) will save you. But of course something from a Netch would negate fall damage; Netches hover everywhere.

** In another meta example, you can ''also'' cheat-power the Ebony Blade by repeatedly resurrecting Deeja with the Dead Thrall spell, which seems rather inexplicable because Deeja never has a single positive interaction with the Dragonborn (threatening to stab the Dragonborn if they try to talk to her outside of her mission, and fighting them to the death during said mission). But, [[EnsembleDarkhorse Deeja is fairly popular in the fanbase]], with her fans often upset that they aren't given a choice to NOT kill her. It's as if Mephala predicted how liked Deeja would be, making one of the easiest and least evil ways to power up her artifact be killing someone that a good chunk of players wish they could save, over and over again.

** While they may not have been able to respond at first due to not having a Listener, Astrid confirms that the Brotherhood did become aware of Aventus. They simply choose not to respond since he couldn't pay

* Mercer Frey gets through doors that need keys despite not having the keys himself - he even picks open an ancient Nord puzzle door that would normally require a special sculpted dragon claw. No it's not because he's that good, it's because ''using an artifact of Nocturnal'', ensuring you don't find out by tossing off remarks about the locks just "having a trick" to them that you're too inexperienced to know.

* At first, I found it odd that in ''Hearthfire'', you can give your kids real daggers, as in the Ebony/Dragonbone/Daedric ones; the ones you probably use to slit people's throats. As I stepped outside and promptly got attacked by a Legendary Dragon and 2 giants at the same time, it occurred to me: this is [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] [[GrimUpNorth SKYRIM]]; the land of [[BearsAreBadNews super-aggressive and deadly bears]], [[SpidersAreScary spiders]] [[GiantSpider bigger than said bears]], [[EverythingTryingToKillYou territorial giants, all sorts of wild creatures, draugr-filled tombs every few square miles, bandits plaguing the countryside, vampires and skeletons hiding amidst the shadows]], [[UpToEleven and that's not even listing them all]]. You can give your kids actual daggers, because, in the land of [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Sky]][[GrimUpNorth rim]], [[HadToBeSharp you're never too young to know how to defend yourself.]]

* Even worse about Elenwen - if you give Markarth over to the Stormcloaks in the negotiations, Ondomelar's possessions can be found in a casket. That's right, Elenwen didn't even object enough to ask for time to pull her men out of what would turn into a danger zone, taking the BadBoss aspect UpToEleven. However, DummiedOut content shows that Ondolemar's death is [[TheArtifact a leftover]] from earlier in the game's development, where all cities could be taken through sieges; specifically, he would be killed by Galmar during the Stormcloaks' siege of Markarth and Elenwen most likely couldn't warned him beforehand.