Funny / The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The main game

• The "Delayed Burial" mission at Loreius Farm, most likely many players' first encounter with Cicero.
  Cicero: Agh! Bother and befuddle! Stuck here! STUCK! My mother, my poor mother. Unmoving. At rest, but too still! [...] Poor Cicero is stuck. Can't you see? I was transporting my dear, sweet mother. Well, not her. Her corpse! She's quite dead. I'm taking mother to a new home. A new crypt. But... aggh! WAGON WHEEL! DAMNEDEST WAGON WHEEL! It broke! Don't you see? [...] Oh. Oh yes! Yes, the kindly stranger can certainly help! Go to the farm - the Loreius Farm. Just over there, off the road. Talk to Loreius. He has tools! He can help me! But he won't! He refuses! Convince Loreius to fix my wheel! Do that, and poor Cicero will reward you. With coin! Gleamy, shiny coin!
  • When you have convinced Loreius, try not joining the Dark Brotherhood. When you pass by the farm again while doing other quests, Cicero will still be there, waiting for his wheel to get fixed.
  • Things also get amusing if you choose to lie to a guard to get Cicero arrested. Unless you advance the Dark Brotherhood plotline, you can go back several days later and find that the guard is really dragging their feet concerning actually putting him in a cell; but should you speak to the guard, he'll still claim that the arrest is imminent.
• If you side with the Imperials during the Civil War, Ulfric will be executed in the Palace of Kings. Visiting the Palace after the fact, you'll find that his naked (if you chose to loot his body) corpse is still there. Doubly funny if you managed to execute him directly in front of the throne.
• The Dark Brotherhood questline has plenty:
  • To start, many of the major dialogue choices include at least one option to literally just "Glare Silently" at the speaker. Reactions range from being creeped out, genuinely impressed, or just plain annoyed at you. And it keeps up through the entire questline, becoming something of a Running Gag itself.
  • On the mission to join the Dark Brotherhood, you'll be given the mission from a child, who asks you to kill a cruel old woman who runs an orphanage. Do it and the children will find out. They will cheer.
    • After killing the woman, town guards will start asking if you heard that the old lady who ran the orphanage in Riften was murdered, then speculate that the children there must be heartbroken.
    • Note that during this mission, Grelod the Kind has literally one hitpoint. Anything that deals damage will instantly kill her. This includes throwing things at her, smacking her with a wooden sword, stabbing her with a fork, dropping an object on her, and punching her. Bonus points for punching her, because this will almost always trigger an unarmed killing move, which means a tiny Breton mage or a lithe Khajiit thief will suddenly pick up an old woman and body slam or German suplex her into the floor! Also bear in mind that during this mission, she is out in the open giving a scathing speech to all the orphans about how they're all worthless and will never be adopted. Should you choose to kill her during this speech, you could be responsible for an... interesting event such as, say, a Khajiit wearing nothing but some underthings running up to Grelod mid-speech, picking her up, and German Suplexing her into the floor face first, killing her instantly, before fleeing out the back door. And yes, they still cheer. Nice job impressing upon those lovable little tykes the virtues of wanton murder.
    • One way to kill Grelod is to donate money to Edda the beggar and use a fear spell to chase Grelod out of the orphanage. Edda's AI will chase after Grelod and kill her in defence of the Dragonborn. It's hilarious to think the prophesied Listener of the Night Mother was a just random person who just happened to be around when a beggar stabbed an old crone to death. They can still take credit for manslaughter while Edda gets away with murder and is never recognised for unintentionally liberating an orphanage.
    • It's more hilarious when you interpret the act as the Dragonborn mercifully trying to scare Grelod out of town, only for Edda (to whom they just gave a measly septim) to misinterpret the situation as a terrified, fleeing crone attacking the all-powerful, fearless Dragonborn. Edda then defends the Dragonborn out of gratitude by needlessly killing Grelod. While Edda is killing Grelod, the Dragonborn just watches, completely confused by the entire situation, before returning to Aventus Aretino to confirm her death - only for him to accredit the deed to the Dragonborn and reward them for it.
  • After doing the above mission, stick around and listen to the children talk. Cue one orphan: "Kill one person and you can solve so many problems! I wonder at the possibilities..." Feels good to know you're providing for the future of the Dark Brotherhood with such lovable little psychopaths.
  • During said mission, before you report to Aventus Aretino about Grelod's death, you can attack Aventus for a bounty and this little easter egg gem.
  Aventus Aretino:: Wait! that's not how this is supposed to work!
  Dragonborn: (Likely) Sorry, I'm new to this.
  • One of the just-for-money side quests you do for the Brotherhood has you killing an orc bard, Lurbuk, also known as "The Worst Bard in Tamriel". Your quest giver tells you they got so many requests to kill him they held a lottery to determine which contract to honor.
    • Like most Dark Brotherhood targets, talking to Lurbuk before you attack gives you three options for dialogue. Unlike most targets, though, he'll constantly remain cheerfully oblivious no matter what you choose. The first option, telling him the Dark Brotherhood has come for him, he'll just assume is a joke, but the second, attempting a badass Pre-Mortem One-Liner, he'll take as a request, and the third, standing there and staying silent, will get him to try to break the ice by improvising a "song" about... your standing there and staying silent.
  • Should you spare Cicero, he'll eventually wait outside of the Dawnstar sanctuary for you and, upon seeing you, will mock you for your mercy and tell you that he should be the Listener in a gleeful voice more poisonous than his knives. He laughs maniacally and then... tells you that he's just messing with you and he'll be downstairs if you need him.
  • If you try to enter the aforementioned sanctuary before you're told the answer to the door's riddle ("What is life's greatest illusion?"), your only choices will be:
    "Um....the one where you saw a lady in half?"
    "Being happily married?"
    "Dreams are reality, and reality is really a dream?" ^note This one is actually correct concerning TES worldbuilding.
  • Before that, the first sanctuary asks you, "What is the music of life?" and your answers will be:
    "Um, the lute? No, drums!"
    "Screaming?"
    "Some kind of choir. With chanting."
  • One Dark Brotherhood quest has the player impersonating a master chef... by channeling a very Large Ham and (potentially) a Cordon Bleugh Chef.
    Dovahkiin: DO NOT QUESTION THE GOURMET!
    • Potential ingredients include a sweetroll, Vampire Dust, a Giant's Toe and a gold coin. The amusing thing about this is you can decline to add the poisoned herb and serve the signature stew to "the Emperor" and the other guest nobles to see their reactions... and it's every bit as good as they thought it'd be!
    • Wanna mix a pinch of Fridge Horror to that serving? If a player meets with Balbus either during or after the quest, and still have the Writ of Passage in their possession (ergo, proof that you are The Gourmet), he'll gladly give you a few ingredients "so that you may create another masterpiece". Said ingredients are a bowl of Troll Fat, one spider egg, and the heart of a daedra. So yeah, those options back in the Emperor's kitchen? They weren't far-fetched at all...!
      Balbus: Your food has opened my eyes to the wonders this world can hold!
    • Alternatively, in keeping with a Dark Brotherhood conversation gimmick, you can successfully maintain your guise as the master chef by remaining completely silent throughout the cooking process and the assistant chef will take it as a test without suspicion.
  • Pretty much anything said by the members of the Dark Brotherhood when you first meet them, such as Babette retelling how she killed her last mark (who was apparently a pedophile) or her comment on Arnbjorn's contract on a Khajiit Monk, who apparently was challenging (or annoying) enough that Arnbjorn used his werewolf form to kill them.
    "A big doggie chasing after a little kitten. How cute."
  • When reading Cicero's journal, one entry in particular sticks out: When contracted to kill the Arena's Grand Champion, he decided to pose as an adoring fan in order to get into the champion's good graces.
  • Everyone in the Dark Brotherhood has something funny to say at one point or another. "Well, you know what they say. When life gives you lemons, go murder a clown."
  • The Dark Brotherhood provides industry-leading murder, mayhem, and sarcasm.
    Nazir: Congratulations. You slaughtered an emaciated beggar in cold blood. You are truly an opponent to be feared.
  • Another one from Nazir:
    Nazir: I hear the mining business is extremely cutthroat. And those hours... they're murder. I could do this all day.
  • Even the introduction to the Dark Brotherhood is fairly funny, as you are tasked with killing three bound and bagged prisoners: a mercenary with the sobriquet "the Fearless" who begs for mercy, a Jerkass Nord woman who scolds you, and an Affably Evil Khajiit who's thoroughly unimpressed with his predicament.
  • Go back to the abandoned shack later in the game. If you chose to kill one prisoner or two, the remaining prisoner(s) are simply left in the shack by Astrid still bound and bagged.
  • After you kill your target, you can loot the execution hood they were wearing, then put it on. From a realistic standpoint, everything your character does while wearing it will be based on them relying on their hearing.
  • Most of what Festus Krex says is this, considering he's the grumpy old man of the group. Most notable is his introduction.
    Festus: Do what I do. Walk up to the target, introduce yourself, melt their skin off and run like the wind! Works every time!
    • The best part is that this actually works. You can successfully assassinate a lot of marks by simply going up to them and telling them who you are. They attack you in self-defence, but to everyone else, it looks like they started it... so you get away scot-free.
• During the quest "Azura's Star", you're sent to the inn in Winterhold to meet a mage named Nelacar. You meet him in conversation with the innkeeper; apparently Nelacar did something recently that the innkeeper describes as "like an animal turned inside out and exploded." Nelacar reassures him it was just a "minor miscalculation" that he's already corrected for future tests.
  "This, this is why people have a problem with your college, Nelacar."
• The quest "A Night To Remember". It starts off with a drinking contest with a guy named Sam Guevenne (a.k.a. Sanguine). Next thing you know, you wake up in a temple on the other side of the world map, having trashed the place and molested the holy statuary (it is a temple to the goddess of love and beauty) while ranting about marriage and a goat, according to the priestess yelling at you. You must retrace your steps from there (after cleaning the temple), likely causing more mayhem along the way.
  • Oh, and the player's fiancée? A hagraven. Even better: This specific part doesn't change even if the player is female.
  • It's also possible that you stole a wedding ring from Ysolda, who is a candidate for marriage. Meaning you may have stolen your own wife's wedding ring to give to another woman. And her dialogue doesn't change if this is the case. You were so eloquent in your drunken declarations of love for a hagraven that Ysolda is perfectly willing to step aside and let you two kids be happy together.
  • A part of the quest, as alluded to above, involves stealing a goat you sold to Grok the Giant. While amusing, the real humor comes from not only running from an angry Giant but also a bear and Sabre Cat out for your blood. All of this over one goat.
  • If, at the end of the quest, you ask why Sanguine picked you specifically, he shrugs and, in a drunken slur, admits that he doesn't always think his decisions through.
  • The quest can also become funny if the player wants to marry Ysolda, but deliberately does the quest before marrying her to avoid the implications of doing it while already having her as a wife. It can make it look like that while acquiring a mammoth tusk was enough to make Ysolda consider the player spouse material, their interaction with Ysolda during that quest is what got the player to want to marry her.
  • Another funny fact about the quest: you can actually skip most of it. If you just recover the ring for Ysolda, then hop straight on to Morvunskar to wrap it up, you can completely jump over the other bits. Might be a glitch, but it also might just be a way to deprive your drinking buddy of some of his entertainment.
  • Also, apparently at some point you promised a random NPC ten thousand gold pieces to steal a hat for you. He will eventually accost you and demand payment. This becomes downright hilarious depending on how much time in-game has passed, because if you do the quest relatively early and don't encounter the NPC until quite some time later, you might have forgotten about it and not have a clue why some dude is demanding money from you in the middle of nowhere.
    • Even weirder, this random encounter can overlap with other random encounters. Try talking to this guy about how much money you owe him while a Dark Brotherhood assassin takes advantage of your distraction to land some free hits!
• During the quest where the player has to track down Esbern to his hideout in Riften's sewers, the player finds him and convinces him that they are a friend of a friend, so he unlocks the door he was speaking behind. It takes about ten different locks before the door opens, and after looking inside the player can see each one (and about three or four sturdy chains keeping the door shut). Granted, he is Properly Paranoid all things considered, but that doesn't make it any less funny.
• After you beat Alduin, if you go back to Delphine, she lampshades you riding off to the final battle on the back of Odahviing, a dragon who just turned traitor.
  Delphine: I heard you left Whiterun on the back of a dragon; even for you, that's a bit flashy.
• If you practice your alchemy, the town guards will ask you for an ale. Kinda got it backwards, there, dude.
  • If you get a high enough conjuration skill, guards will ask you if you could conjure a warm bed for them. If you have the mod Frostfall or the Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim, you can conjure up a bed with a master or expert-level spell!
• A random encounter involves a thief ambushing you and demanding that you hand over all of your money. One of your possible responses is to just tell the thief that you "don't have time for this" and walk away. The thief will still attack you, but his astonished shout of "Hey... don't you walk away from me!" because you blew off his mugging attempt is simply hilarious.
  • If you're part of the Guild, you can yell at him for trying to rob a fellow member. His response is basically "...sorry..." Becomes even more hilarious if you're Guildmaster. You yell at him for trying to rob his boss, then get him to hand over all his coin as punishment.
  • If you happen to be in a body of water when he notices you, he'll jump in and try to rob you underwater.
  • You can get mugged anytime, even when/if you're playing as a transformed werewolf, a transformed Vampire Lord, or right after seeing you put down a dragon (bonus points if the bandits are dressed as Imperial soldiers, in which case they may hold up their ruse by helping you). Bandits in Skyrim are either very brave, very stupid, or both.
  • Even better is certain things like Unrelenting Force can cause their AI to bug out and their behavior to reset to normal NPC behavior. This gives the impression the thief wisely realized picking a fight with the Dragonborn was a stupid idea and is trying to pretend the encounter never happened.
• In a dungeon at Labyrinthian (only accessible late in the College of Winterhold questline), you find a hidey hole for a rogue Conjurer. You find his skeletal remains sitting in a chair, with a Draugr axe embedded at the head spot for the chair, and an opened and empty Draugr casket on the wall behind the chair. The thing is, there's a lightning rune on the only entrance. That unfortunate conjurer was very thorough in making sure the threats stayed outside the room...
• In Riften, you can completely BS your way through a conversation about magic experiments with Wylandriah, the castle's mage. The best part? The nonsense you pull out of your ass will actually help her. Or it would, anyway, if she didn't forget by the end of the conversation just what problem she'd been trying to solve.
• Similarly, when joining the Bard's College in Solitude, your first quest is to find King Olaf's Verse in order to convince the Jarl to allow them to continue burning an effigy of Olaf during a festival. However, once you find the Verse, half of it is smudged and impossible to read. So you and the headmaster decide to pull the other half of the verse out of your ass, making for a spectacularly weird poem. And guess what? It manages to convince Elisif to allow the festival to continue! And as an added bonus, if during the process of fixing the poem you choose the option that includes "(Persuade)", which would usually be the most BS option, you'll improve your Speech skill in the process. Further humor from this tall tale: you may think that saying Olaf One-Eye was a "Dragon in human form" is implausible... but what is the Player Character again?
• In "The Fallen," when you actually catch Odahviing in Dragonsreach and don't immediately agree to let him go so he can take you to the final dungeon, mild hilarity ensues. Farengar, the court wizard, will come out and try to take "samples" from Odahviing. Cue him spewing fire into the sky in rage and Farengar running like a dog with his tail between his legs back into the palace. You can watch the whole thing here.
  Irileth/Olfina: Farengar, very bad idea. Even for you.
  • Farengar explains to Odahviing that he wants to perform a few tests, all purely in the interests of the advancement of knowledge. When Farengar is done talking, Odahviing first turns to you with an expression that screams: "Is this guy serious?" and only then turns back to Farengar to rebuke him.
  • In the same quest, after you Shout for Odahviing, there is a moment of tense silence before the sound of flapping wings can be heard. A guard standing on the porch murmurs "Did you hear that?" It takes about two seconds for him to literally vanish from the frame - Odahviing swoops down and snatches him out of his shield. The sheer suddenness makes it absolutely hilarious. If this happens and you are able to keep your sights on Odahviing long enough, you'll see that he snatched the guard not to eat him, but rather to fling him into the air.
  • If you're very, very lucky and have perfect timing, you can speak to the guard before he gets snatched, and he'll spout one of the standard-issue guard lines. One of them can be the "I used to be an adventurer like you...." line, but Odahviing will snatch him up before he finishes.
  • The correct tense would be "knew" you.
  • At the start of the quest, Balgruuf's reaction when the Dragonborn cheerfully asks to use Dragonsreach to capture Odahviing. Even after reluctantly agreeing to the Dragonborn's "mad dragon-trapping scheme", he still seems unsure whether the Dragonborn is utterly bonkers, Crazy Is Cool, or both?!
    Dragonborn: I need your help. I need to trap a dragon in your palace.
    Balgruuf: I... must have misheard you. I thought you asked me to help you trap a dragon in my palace.
• Wuunferth the Unliving, Ulfric's court mage, offers a very snappy one-liner.
  Dragonborn: Does Ulfric have much need for magic?
  Wuunferth: No, but then I don't have much need for Ulfric.
• Brelyna Maryon from the College of Winterhold will ask the Dragonborn to help her practice some new spells she's been working on. In the process she accidentally ends up tinting the viewpoint green and transforming the player into various farm animals before figuring out how to revert everything to normal. Afterwards, she thanks the Dragonborn for their patience and both agree never to speak of the experience again.
  • While you're waiting out the green spell, take a peek at the Active Effects listing.
    "Everything is green!"
  • Hilariously, her quest chain will sometimes glitch, leaving the directive stuck in your miscellaneous quests to wait until the current one wears off. While this is annoying in the sense that it prevents you from having any further dialogue with her or ever getting her as a follower, it is funny to imagine that the Dragonborn is permanently green.
• Similarly, you can help J'zargo test some scrolls: a variant of Flame Cloak that causes undead to explode. When you return to him, one of the dialogue options is, "Were they supposed to explode? Because they exploded." Doubles as a reference to Fallout 3.
• Sheogorath's dialogue in his Daedric Quest.
  Do you mind? I'm doing the fishstick! It's a very delicate state of mind!
  Now, you're asking yourself, can I use my swords and sneaking and spells and all that? Sure, sure...or... you could use... THE WABBAJACK!
  By whom [were you asked to talk to me]? Wait! Don't tell me! I want to guess! Was it Molag? No, no - little Tim, the toymaker's son? The ghost of King Lysandus? Or was it - yes! Stanley, the talking grapefruit from Passwall!
  • When preparing to go back to his realm, he goes through a checklist of everything he needs.
    Clothes, check. Beard, check. Luggage... hmm... now where did I leave my luggage? (Said luggage is the quest-giver.)
  • Sheogorath's monologue that hints that he may very well have been your character from Oblivion:
    You are the best Septim that's ever ruled. Well, except for that Martin fellow, but he turned into a dragon god, and that's hardly sporting. You know, I was there for that whole sordid affair. Marvelous time! Butterflies (the room where you first meet Haskill), blood (Blood of the Daedra/Divines), a Fox (The Grey Fox), a severed head (Dark Brotherhood quest), ho ho ho! And the CHEESE!! To die for. (What the old Sheogorath used to talk about.)
  • And ol' Pelly is impatient and long-suffering through the whole conversation because he just wants to get back to decapitating people.
    Sheogorath: Oh, Pelagius, what would the people do without you? Laugh? Sing? Smile? (giggles) Grow old?
  • The hilarity starts right at the quest giver! Since the dialogue string that starts the quest also ends the dialogue, Dervenin ends up adding a generic farewell to his speech, occasionally leaving us with this gem:
    Oh, you just don't understand! Without him, I am not free! Without him I am doomed! All of his empire shall fall into chaos!
    [Beat]
    Until next time.
  • The quest giver also explains that you need "[Pelagius's] hip bone," of all things, in order to enter his mind, after which he gives said hip bone to you (actually shown as an entire pelvis in the inventory screen). It's never explained why exactly you need the long-dead king's hip bone to enter his mind, or why the quest giver was holding onto it in the first place, and after the quest is done, you can sell it. It's worth a decent amount of gold, too, which means that you apparently somehow manage to convince a merchant that the bone really was from a former emperor of Tamriel.
• With really good timing, you can kill an enemy who's rushing towards you, just as they're swinging their sword, and they'll go head over heels past you. If there's a wall behind you, they can end up leaning against the wall, upside down. Or if there's a ledge behind you, they can go cartwheeling into the depths behind you. if you've activated Slow Time, you can even turn around and watch the corpse gracefully arc through the air and plummet to crash somewhere far below you.
• Spoken by a random bandit while attacking you, if you are playing as a Khajiit:
  "You remind me of my cousin's cat. I killed that, too!"
  • You can pull this off too, when doing one of the side quests of the Dark Brotherhood, where you're tasked to kill the Khajiit named Ma'randru-jo. You can taunt him into attacking you, and if you're not a Khajiit yourself, your taunt is, "I'll beat you up like a housecat!" And if you are a Khajiit, when reporting back to Nazir after the assassination, he quips that he always enjoyed watching two cats fight back in Hammerfell.
• At any point in the game when you're fighting a Bandit/Forsworn/mob that is capable of human speech, and they start taunting you with something like "Is that all you got?" while in mid-sentence you already killed them in a single blow. Bonus points if you did an execution animation or your horse takes the kill.
• You can decapitate people only for them to shout NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME HERE! as their head flies off.
  • The Enemy Chatter doesn't stop while performing finishing moves, leading to instances were that necromancer will say "It's Probably Nothing..." while you've already grabbed him and are in mid-backstab or that female bandit yells "I'm going to enjoy this!" as you run her through.
  • Conversely, radiant dialogue will often switch back to normal in the few seconds between the player character's death and the load screens. This leads to Bandits or Guards standing over your corpse muttering "It's probably nothing" or "Hands to yourself, sneak thief" before wandering away.
• During Malacath's quest, you have to clear out a cave for a cowardly Orc so that he can kill a giant that's occupying Malacath's shrine. Once you get to the shrine, the Orc tries to bribe you to kill the giant for him, too. You can accept the bribe, or tell him to do it himself. He replies, "Fine. This should only take a second." If you do the latter, watch as he flies through the air due to the famous giant's hammer glitch. Best of all, Malacath's dialogue afterwards indicates that he heartily approves of this.
  • The quest objective being updated with "Completed: Protect Yamarz" as he gets launched into orbit makes it even better.
• After one of the civil war quests, you can find Hadvar, and he has this to say:
  Hadvar: Dragonborn, huh? So, was it your ma or your pa that was the dragon?
• Narfi, the beggar in Ivarstead, is supposed to be a harmless loon. If you complete the quest to learn about his sister's whereabouts, he'll give you three random alchemy ingredients. The randomness will sometimes fly in the face of his harmless reputation...
  Player: Let's see. Human heart. Daedra heart. Briar Heart. Everything a harmless beggar could possibly acquire with ease.
• When you first go visit the Greybeards, there is a frost troll blocking your way. Why kill him yourself when you can let four old men beat him to a pulp?
• Right before you exit the Labyrinthian dungeon with the Staff of Magnus, a lone Thalmor mage tries to kill you to prevent you from interfering with Ancano. He arrogantly boasts that you have no chance of beating him. This, after you have fought your way through a dungeon full of Draugr, skeletons, a skeletal dragon, and a dragon priest. It takes about two seconds to kill him.
  • He also seems to have forgotten that the staff you went through so much trouble to get absorbs magicka, on which he as a squishy Altmer mage relies; once he inevitably runs out of magicka, he tries to punch you to death as he doesn't have a weapon. Truly Too Dumb to Live.
  • Also, if you sheathe your weapon during the fight, he actually stops fighting.
    "I'll let you live, this time."
  • Since this is one of the few conversations for which you're not frozen still, you can straight up run up to him and beat his face in before he finishes his dialogue. Or stealth him with an arrow before he figures out where you are.
• The Soup Spoon of Ysgramor... which is a fork.
  Calixto Corriam: Now, I know what you're thinking — that's not a spoon, it's a fork! No one can eat soup with a fork. Well, my friend, you did not know Ysgramor.
• Some of the guards' comments about what weapon/armor you're wielding are quite humorous. For example, if you're wielding Volendrung:
  Guard: [whistles] That... is a big hammer.
  • or
    Guard: What are you going to do with that thing? Bring a house down?
  • One in particular if you're wielding Mehrunes' Razor, which required you to kill Silus Vesuius after he brought it to Mehrunes Dagon's shrine:
    Guard: [whistles] Who did you have to kill to get that blade?
  • Sometimes they're not very humourous when taken in general, but can be rendered so by context... Like a Rift guard talking about how she, too, prefers one-handed weapons, while she has a Warhammer strapped to her back.
  • If you've destroyed the Dark Brotherhood, a guard may comment that he could have walked into that Sanctuary of theirs and done it himself... but he happened to be, uh, sick that day.
• If you get near enough to an NPC, they will usually make a comment. Sometimes random, sometimes not. However, the comment might not change, regardless of circumstances, leading to things like this gem of a quote from Farkas, the Companion, just after Vilkas ran past him.
  Farkas: My brother Vilkas is the talkative one. He's around somewhere.
• "If I had a septim for every case of Rockjoint or Witbone I've cured since I opened this shop, I'd be a rich woman indeed." This is coming from Arcadia, who easily charges 240 septims for a Cure Disease potion.
• As you near completion of the Forbidden Legend quest to reform the Gauldur Amulet and defeat the Archmage's three patricidal sons in a Boss Rush, the three prepare their weapons as if to attack you all at once... only for the three of them to turn around as Gauldur himself rises from the grave. Their next line sums it up.
  "Gauldur!"
• Farkas, the big werewolf guy you're paired up with in the companion quests? The one who, according to Skjor, has the strength of Ysgramor? He later tells you he can't go on through the rest of a tomb because there are spiders ahead, and ever since you and he went through Dustman's Cairn, he's been terrified of spiders. And then, even later, you can bring him back to the tomb to get his condition cured, and he'll basically admit that it was a really lame excuse.
• Take off your armor in front of non-hostile NPCs. Their reactions are hilarious.
  • In a region of Eastmarch, there's a watery area that includes hot springs, and at the southwestern tip is a camp with a few hunters lounging around with their clothes off in the hot water. The silly part comes if you decide to also take off your armor in their presence - they react to your state of undress the same way as people in a normal town, even if they themselves are undressed.
  • Kayd of Solitude's reaction is so wonderfully blunt: "Naked! Nakednakednaked!"
  • Jawanan in Solitude says "Umm... You got no clothes on. You should get some."
  • Degaine in Markarth is great too. "Either I'm drunk, or you're naked. Possibly both."
  • Being killed as a werewolf may sometimes lead to one of the enemies commenting on your unsettling state of undress.
  • Sometimes, the fact that some dialogue doesn't change when you're naked makes it more humorous:
  Dragonborn: (stark naked) What's wrong with my outfit?
  Taarie: Oh, nothing at all. It's very... nice.
  • Nazeem in Whiterun says "You should put on a cloth sack at the very least. You're making me... unseasonably warm."
• The Wabbajack. Turning a guard into a chicken? Quite funny. Turning a guard into a pile of gold? Amusing. Turning a guard into the very sweetroll they often talk about? Pure hilarity. Of course, when it backfires and turns a (relatively) harmless orc into a Dremora warrior, armed to the teeth with weapons and armor; that isn't nearly as funny.
  • Witness the Wabbajack in action here, where it's used to turn an aggressive Blood Dragon into a bunny, which then simply hops off.
  • Another effect of the Wabbajack, which happens very rarely, makes Sheogorath himself appear and do a little jig.
• The first parts of the "A Daedra's Best Friend" quest are extremely funny, particularly when meeting Barbas the dog, who, to the Dragonborn's surprise, talks telepathically with a Yiddish accent. Barbas even calls out on the Dragonborn's surprise by pointing out that dragons and Khajiit exist, so he (Barbas) shouldn't be too unusual. The Reveal, however, changes the tone of things a bit.
  • Even the first hint of the quest is pretty hilarious. When walking into nearly any town in the game for the first time, you're likely to see something terrible. In Riften, you're extorted for money by a guard at the gate. In Markarth, the guards warn you about getting involved with anything just before you witness a murder. In Solitude, you witness an execution. In Windhelm, there's a group of Nords harassing the local minority. In Morthal, a small mob is protesting the presence of a wizard and a child has recently been killed. So (assuming your level is high enough to get the quest) when you walk into Falkreath and a guard steps toward you, it might put you on edge... Then he asks if you've seen a dog in the road. Because the blacksmith wants a dog.
  • When you talk to Clavicus Vile, you have three dialogue options: one saying you simply want to return Barbas to him, one saying you want to end the civil war, and one saying you want power. If you pick the second, he replies that if he were at full power, he'd simply snap his fingers and everyone in Skyrim would die. If you pick the third, he retorts that "you already have more power than most people who aren't immense fire-breathing monsters."
  • Clavicus' proposal for you if you say you want to reunite him with Barbas is rather amusing, mainly due to Stephen Russell's excellent delivery:
    Clavicus Vile: There's... an axe. An incredibly powerful axe. An axe powerful enough for me to have... quite a bit of fun, indeed. If you bring it to me, I'll grant you my boon. No strings attached. No messy surprises! At least, not for you...
  • Talk to Barbas after Clavicus sends you to get the Rueful Axe and he'll tell you its history:
    Barbas: One of Clavicus's little jests. A wizard named Sebastian Lort had a daughter who worshiped Hircine. When the daughter became a werewolf it drove Sebastian over the edge. He couldn't stand to see his little girl take on such a bestial form. The wizard wished for the ability to end his daughter's curse. Clavicus gave him an axe.
  • Similar to the above, the first thing Clavicus Vile does when you speak to him is thank you quite sincerely for murdering his cave full of vampire Mooks. After all, the whole reason they came to him in the first place was because their vampirism was causing them great sorrow and guilt, and they wanted a cure. Well, they got one. Seems Clavicus has his own Running Gag going when it comes to curing supernatural ailments.
• You can play as anything in Skyrim if you're on the PC. A chicken? No problem, the village people now idolize you. A horse? Have fun being targeted by anything and everything. A dragon? The bane of existence sounds fun, right? A sweetroll? Yep. All you need to do is use /tc as a console command, and point at the thing in question. Hilarity ensues.
• One Fetch Quest in Markarth has the local alchemist hire you to deliver a Stallion's Potion to the elderly Steward Raerek. When you deliver it to him, the embarrassed Raerek thanks you and gives you a 750 gold tip for your discretion.
• Fun with voice acting: during the Dark Brotherhood questline, if you kill Nilsine Shatter-Shield in Windhelm, Tova Shatter-Shield commits suicide. Now, every time you meet Torbjorn Shatter-Shield in the streets, he, for some reason, says "My favorite drinkin' buddy!" in that nasal beggar voice... and then, when you end conversation, he bids you farewell in his own, much deeper voice by saying, "Please forgive my mood... I'm still coming to terms with the death of my wife and daughters."
• One of the "Fine Hat" models in the game is a red stocking cap with a furry lining. Wear it with a red coat and give your character a white beard for instant Badass Santa!
• A free tip for anyone hoping to preserve a sense of gravitas during the climax of the civil war questline - when taking Windhelm, don't use the ol' Fus Ro Dah during the final encounter with Ulfric. It's kinda hard for your opponent to die with dignity when his last words are muffled from lying in a crumbled heap face-down on the floor with his ass sticking up in the air. But it adds irony!
  • A similarly funny scene can happen for players who are fond of using the Paralysis spell or a Paralysis enchanted weapon: after disposing of Galmar, a lucky hit on Ulfric will make him freeze into a (usually) awkward pose (such as arms and legs bent this way and that with the head facing off to the side), then keel over. Then while he's down, after hitting him enough until Tullius start talking, one will be treated to a scene of Tullius, Rikke, and the PC standing over Ulfric, who's looking like a fallen Greek statue and, when talking, moving only his mouth and facing the side.
• The story behind the name of the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun.
• The level 100 Pickpocket perk lets you steal the clothes your target is wearing, leaving them walking around in their underwear completely unaware that anything has happened.
  • If you do this with a Forsworn Briar-Heart's briar heart, the resulting theft makes them drop dead. That's not the end of the story. You might be ambushed by some Hired Thugs at a later date, who were hired by the Briar-Heart that got his heart pick-pocketed. He apparently got up, hired those momentary distractions, then dropped dead again. As far as the game is concerned, it counts as a theft.
• Speaking of thugs being hired to kill you, the mechanics of this means anyone who the player can steal from can take a contract out on you. It doesn't matter if it's a random bandit or some kid; steal from someone and they will send assassins after you.
  • One particularly unlucky (or lucky, depending on how you look at it) fellow had a pack of thugs show up at his wedding, naturally resulting in the wedding being completely trashed. The real kicker, however, is that those thugs were hired by the Priest of Mara overseeing the ceremony.
  • Another player had a group of particularly stupid hired thugs show up just as the Greybeards were teaching them Whirlwind Sprint. The Greybeards dispose of the thugs quickly and continue as if nothing happened. Looks like the Greybeards are the only ones allowed to teach the Dragonborn a lesson.
  • One lucky player had a skeever of all things hire thugs to kill them.
    Commenter: What's even better is the skeever developed the ability to write and earn a wage just to pay the thugs, merely because it was so pissed at you. That's pretty incredible.
• In addition to hired thugs avenging robberies you've committed, you may also find yourself targeted by random Dark Brotherhood assassins, with no indication of who wanted you dead. On very rare occasions, the assassin's attack coincides with another NPC interaction that you can't escape - usually the courier. You'll be standing there, waiting for him to give you whatever message you're getting, and all the while you hear fight sounds and see yourself getting hit repeatedly by the efforts of the assassin. At a lower level this can be a problem, since you could potentially be killed; but if you're a high enough level that you're barely taking damage, it can be sort of hilarious to imagine that you're just ignoring the assassin's pathetic attempts to kill you because you want your mail.
• One of the random conversations you can overhear in the Thieves' Guild has Vex yelling at Delvin that the ship they hit was worthless. Delvin protests he was sure he overheard someone say it was a shipment of furs and should be worth a lot. Vex snaps that the individual in question said "firs", not "furs" — it was a shipment of lumber.
• The fact that your character's combat statistics display the number of "bunnies slaughtered".
• The game has a number of quirks related to their mad libs questing system. When you Shout in a populated area, you'll sometimes later get an anonymous letter stating that you caused quite a stir and not everyone is happy to see you back, but the writer wants to help you so go check out location X to find another source of power and kill a dragon. But you can occasionally get this same message after Shouting in, for instance, a tomb filled only with the undead. You can even get this letter by Shouting at Sky Haven Temple, where the only witnesses are the Blades - all of whom are already helping you fulfill your potential as the Dragonborn and slay dragons.
  • You can even get one for the Throat of the World when speaking with Paarthurnax for the first time. Apparently the dragon didn't appreciate getting a Thu'um in the face as much as he claimed.
  • Even better, you can also get one after using a shout in the Soul Cairn... where literally everybody, apart from you and your companion, is a disembodied soul.
  • It's possible to get a letter saying you caused a stir in a Nordic tomb and lead you to a source of power in the same tomb if you somehow missed it the first time; apparently that Dragon Priest/Draugr lord that tried to kill you a short time ago really wanted you to check out something cool before you went, and somehow wrote an entire letter about it while fighting you.
• The civilians' reactions to corpses can be hilarious; no matter whose body it is, they'll all say "Oh, what happened?" in the case of adults, and "Ah! Dead body!" in the case of children. For instance, you can drag the corpse of Roggvir, the guy who gets executed in Solitude right in front of the entire town, into the street. Cue the entire population acting as if the body had randomly dropped out of the sky. Another funny time is when Weylin gets killed at the start of "The Forsworn Conspiracy" - it is entirely possible for all of the town drunks (who use the same voice) to cluster around Weylin and Margret's corpses, simultaneously saying "Oh, what happened?"
  • Likewise, during the quest to rescue a girl from a band of Forsworn and bring her back to the Temple of Dibella, she reacts to every single dead Forsworn (all killed by you, of course, on the way in) your group passes on the way out of the ruined fort, which is both annoying and funny.
  • One Companions quest involves Aela and the player coming across a dead Skjor, where the mood is ruined when she inevitably goes back to Skjor's body and declares, "I'm going to find whoever did this." With "whoever did this" being the half-dozen Silver Hand bandits lying dead all around you.
• By themselves, two-handed weapons are amusing, if only for the sheer brutality. But combine two-handed weapons with a female Breton or Imperial deliberately modeled for minimum weight, and you get to watch this tiny girl who can barely reach the chest of most Nords, wielding battleaxes bigger than she is, running around walloping fools.
  • Most of the two-handed weapon death animations are hilarious for this exact reason. Most of the one-handed weapons have a sense of gravitas and theatrics to them, grabbing the person before sticking them, etc. A greatsword can either net you a humorously overkill cinematic where the Dovahkiin either:
    1. Just hacks away at the unwitting opponent and they collapse in a heap of presumably broken bones and gore.
    2. Even funnier, just swings the sword once in a blow so absurdly powerful it knocks them away like the ultimate bitch slap, or...
    3. Traps their neck with the weapon's handle and headbutts them in the face repeatedly until they die.
• There is a mod allowing you to change the size of your character, including to shoulder-height on the game's kids (at least as the above-mentioned female Breton). One result of this can be seen here, where your character gets turned into a Cute Bruiser, and a finishing kill can end up looking like a Groin Attack.
• The Radiant AI can be pretty stupid when it comes to when lines are appropriate. This can lead to situations like this:
  [after killing an Ancient Dragon, with amazingly no casualties, standing next to its arrow-ridden corpse]
  Riverwood Guard: My cousin's out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty.
  • Or it could indicate guard duty still is pretty boring.
• One of the early main-storyline quests involves an NPC who arranges to meet you by stealing the ancient horn you were supposed to be retrieving. When you finally meet up with her, she ends up giving back the item and then having a conversation with you whilst leaning forwards across a table giving you a good view of her cleavage. About halfway through the conversation, she utters the immortal line:
  "I am not your enemy. I already gave you the horn."
• Time the quests right, and you can get Esbern to state emphatically that until you kill Parthunaax, he and the Blades will give you no aid at all in a tone that brooks no argument. Then ask him how to trap Odahviing, and he will cheerfully tell you anything you want to know with nary a quibble.
• When you get to the portal to Sovngarde, you'll likely have just learned the first word of Storm Call, the most powerful Shout in the game. You see a Dragon Priest, one of the toughest bosses in the game. You'll likely try to use Storm Call on him... and in the process, provoke the two dragons perched nearby, making the situation even more difficult.
• A funny case of possibly accidental Did You Just Scam Cthulhu? towards the Daedric Princes. If you decide to become a werewolf during the Companions questline, you'll technically condemn yourself to hunting with Hircine in his realm after you die for all time. If you get far enough in the Thieves' Guild questline, you'll have to swear yourself to eternal service with Nocturnal. If you do both with one character, you just guaranteed two Eldritch Abominations are going to end up fighting over ownership of an immortal dragon soul upon your death (dragons being the children/physical manifestations/servants of Akatosh, just to add to the hilarity). Take into consideration that, according to Sheogorath in the Shivering Isles expansion, the Princes occasionally have little get-togethers, and the potential for "mommy and daddy are fighting again" jokes becomes endless. It gets better: According to the Spectral Assassin, if you join the Dark Brotherhood, you are meant to serve Sithis after your death; and according to Tsun, Guardian of the bridge to the Hall of Valor, you will be welcome in Sovngarde... And last but not least, Hermaeus Mora also lays a claim on your soul in Dragonborn. And pray to the Nine that the Dragonborn isn't also an Orc, otherwise Malacath also gets involved. John Constantine has nothing on the Dragonborn.
• One of the new kill cams added in the 1.5 patch has you essentially headbutt the enemy to death!
  • Also fun/funny: Killing people by breaking their necks with your shield.
  • One kill cam move has you twirling your sword around several times like a baton before slashing your opponent dead. It's something normally just for show in Real Life, and thus can look silly for some as a finisher, especially when you're using a dagger.
  • Perhaps the most ridiculous finishing move involves knocking your opponent down on their back and simply walking all over them.
  • The special Dwarven Centurion killcam has you going up to the giant steampunk robot and hitting it in the junk.
  • A kill cam move for the Chaurus Hunters shows the Dragonborn dealing with it like you'd deal with a normal insect: by stomping on it with their foot. Granted, they do still finish the job by stabbing it in the head.
• The Word Wall containing the first word of the Shout for Elemental Fury (which is either at Dragontooth Crater, the Statue to Meridia, or Shriekwind Bastion, whichever you visit first) may not look all that funny - unless you can read the Dovahzul words carved on the wall. When translated, it reads thus:
  Here lies Fjoldmod Foul-Air who
  stank as much on earth as
  his body does now in (the) ground.
  • Another Word Wall at Lost Tongue Overlook translates thusly:
    Here lies (the) body of Bard
    Romerius who tried (to) run from some
    Goblins but slipped.
  • And a third word wall, detailing one of the words of Whirlwind Sprint:
    Noble Nord, remember these
    words of the Hoar Father -
    Oblivion hath no fury like
    [a] shield maiden scorned.
• The following letter can be found in Wylandriah's area of Mistveil Keep:
  "Wylandriah,
  
  Your letter sent to the College of Winterhold was rife with grammatical errors and incomplete thoughts, making them difficult to discern. Could you please clarify the points below for us to ensure we're on the same page?
  
  We have no record of a "cloud emulsifier" device or anything involving the magical manipulation of clouds. Second, we can't send you a sample of the Heart of Lorkhan for experimentation, as no such sample exists. And finally, in the fourteenth paragraph of your letter, you mention a substance called "greenmote." We're assuming this was a simple mistake and you meant to write "greenspore." If that's the case we have contaminated skeever carcasses with the disease available if needed.
  
  We'd also like to thank you for sending us your notes regarding your experiments, we've all had a quite a grand time reading them.
  
  Mirabelle Ervine"
  • Even more amusingly, people who played the Shivering Isles expansion of Oblivion will know that Greenmote is an actual substance—a Fantastic Drug found only in the Isles. Wylandriah definitely seems like someone who would fit in in Mania.
• Occasionally, dragons will screw up their landings, often in Epic Fail level ways, which will almost always treat you to the sight of a dragon overshooting his goal and making a long crater in the ground that usually doesn't end until he bashes his own head in, usually on the nearest mountain.
• There is a letter titled "Until Next Time" which you can grab off of the counter of Haelga's Bunkhouse (Riften):
  Sweet Haelga,
  Last night was the most wonderful night of my life. The things you showed me... the things we did... I could never have dreamt that it was possible. Who even knew that someone could manipulate their body in that manner while wearing Daedric armor boots? You are a true master of the Dibellan Arts, my love... a credit to your religion. Perhaps we'll meet again soon but next time, allow me to bring the trout.
  Your Secret Lover
• After you find the Alik'r prisoner in the dungeon, pay off his fine, and he tells you where to find his leader, he calls to the guards to let him out because his fine's been paid. The guard calls back, "I'm a little hard of hearing." When he finally gets there, after taking his sweet time, the prisoner repeats that his fine has been paid and he should be let out. The guard replies that he's "lost" his keys and that it will take him a while to find them.
• Ahzirr Traajijazeri, one of the numerous books you can find scattered across Skyrim, contains a fairly straightforward description of the Khajiit mentality... then the author hits a section titled "Enjoy Life." It starts with an advisement that, if the reader has not had sex recently, to put the book down and take care of that.
  Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait.
  (beat)
  Good. Welcome back.
• Fighting bands of necromancers can be darkly hilarious. As you kill off each of their companions, the remaining mages will nonchalantly resurrect their fallen compatriots as zombies without a second glance. This is especially funny when using stealth. Necromancers will happen upon a dead friend, apparently think, "Huh, when did you die? Oh well, free zombie!" and enslave their undead former friends.
• There are a couple dungeons where you end up trapping yourself in a room as part of the story. The people with you react as if you're a troublesome child.
  Tolfdir: How in the world did that happen?
  Farkas: [sounding amused] Now look what you've gotten yourself into.
• During the party at the Thalmor Embassy, you have to convince or trick someone to cause a distraction in order to slip past the guards. Most are pretty tame; usually they just walk up to Razelan and accuse him of various things. Razelan indignantly protests he "didn't do anything this time," but the ambassador automatically assumes he's guilty. If you ask Razelan to cause the distraction, however, you learn that it's not an unreasonable assumption.
  • Jarl Idgrod's phony prophetic vision is also the stuff of legends.
• The ending of the quest "Siege on the Dragon Cult". Remember Captain Valmir, the Stormcloak/Imperial spy who told you to get Rahgot's mask for your army? When you return with the mask in tow, you find Valmir... dressed in enemy colors and giving an enemy soldier the exact same speech he gave you. When you, understandably confused, walk up to the pair, Valmir says, "Oh, uh, I can explain..." and then he snaps and attacks you, backed by the equally confused soldier. As it turns out, Valmir was a Thalmor agent, using disguises to fool both armies into giving him the mask.
• Upon entering Riften's jail for the first time.
  Guard: What are you doing here?
  Dovahkiin: It's okay. I'm allowed down here.
  Guard: Oh. Okay, then.
• If you're a strong mage, you may get challenged to a duel. Your follower or other bystanders, however, might not like this idea and decide to get involved, which the challenger isn't happy about. "This is supposed to be a one-on-one duel!" And if anyone decides "to heck with magic" and starts swinging at the guy with a sword, the challenger complains, "This is supposed to be a magic duel! Ma-gic! Y'know, with spells?" He just sounds so pouty about the whole thing. It's also funny if he decides to challenge you in certain locations, such as the entry to Whiterun, where all the guards promptly attack the guy who just started throwing fireballs around. Becomes hilarious if this happens just after becoming The Archmage of the College of Winterhold, when you can be challenged to the duel right in the middle of the bridge of the College. One Curb-Stomp Battle later, the challenger will likely be flying off the bridge with a fireball in the gut, having just been taken to school.
  • Making it even funnier is that the guy may still make those complaints if you decide to summon an atronach or daedra to help, or summon a weapon and then attack him with it. Apparently he didn't get the memo that Summon Magic is still magic. Alternately, if your character is renowned for Conjuration, then he knows full well what kind of spells you use but still considers them cheating, making him come off as an especially Sore Loser.
• When investigating Hjerim for clues to the murders in Windhelm, there are two closets you can investigate. One yields useful evidence. The other?
  This perfectly good closet was left behind for some reason.
  • Speaking of Hjerim, if you purchase it and have it cleaned up after the murder has been solved, be sure to take a good look at your bedroom. There's a table set out with a romantic dinner for two - complete with a large potion of Vigor!
• Jarl Balgruuf's posturing and backpedaling while preparing to defend his city.
  Balgruuf: The outer walls are strong. If we can hold them there-
  Legate Cipius: They have catapults.
  Balgruuf: Dammit, where'd they get catapults? The city walls are already falling apart as it is!
  • During Cipius and Balgruuf's conversation, an Imperial soldier tries to make a report, only to be completely ignored by the two of them. He only gets a word in edgewise when Balgruuf asks for an ETA on the Stormcloak army... and the guy tells him they're already on Whiterun's doorstep.
    Balgruuf: How long until they arrive?
    Cipius: Not long. They're hiding in the countryside.
    Soldier: Sir...
    Balgruuf: Damn it. What's he waiting for?
    Soldier: Sir!
    Cipius: What?!
    Soldier: Sir, they're on the move. They'll be at the gates at any moment!
    Cipius: Why didn't you say so immediately?!
    Soldier: Sir, I tried...
• Upon finding an imprisoned hagraven:
  Dovahkiin: Why should I let you out?
  Melka: Because you're such a niiiice Breton!
  Dovahkiin: Huh? I'm not a Breton.
  Melka: Uh, well, you all look the same to me.
  • It gets better: if the player is an Orc, Argonian, or Khajiit, she'll say "Orc" instead of "Breton". An Argonian or Khajiit Dragonborn responds with, "You... must not have seen many Orcs."
  • Then, as you team up with the Hagraven to free her tower from her rival sister, she guides you and gives you... "useful" advice:
    Melka: "Careful here. There's a trick to this. The trick is... to not bleed to death! (Beat) Ah, there's a lever too."
• When you first enter Volunruud, a Nordic burial tomb, you come across the dead body of a woefully unprepared explorer. Reading his journal reveals he came without bodyguards, and dismisses hiring them as needless. After all, it isn't as though the thousand-year dead will mind if he has a look around...
• At the Temple of Mara, you can get a sidequest to give pamphlets to local citizens, aiming to spread the word of Mara. Some of them respond quite pleasantly. However, some of the more cynical citizens have very humorous remarks if you hand one to them.
  Maven Black-Briar: Excellent! I needed more kindling for my hearth!
  Dirge: I think I have some more of these padding my mattress.
  Hofgrir Horse-Crusher: Had only Mara saved that poor animal...
• The peace treaty during the "Season Unending" quest has plenty of moments. You can easily imagine the Greybeards and Dragonborn both heaving long-suffering sighs at the antics of both sides at the bargaining table.
  • Arngeir doesn't even get through his introductory speech before Ulfric starts complaining about Elenwen being there.
  Rikke: That didn't take long.
  Balgruuf: Diplomatic as usual.
  • "If we have to negotiate the terms of the negotiation, we'll never get anywhere!"
  • Legate Rikke's commentary.
    (after Ulfric says he has something to say): "Here we go."
    (after the line "I'm sure Jarl Ulfric does not expect something for nothing."): "Yes, that'd be entirely out of character."
    (after Elenwen claims "It's not the Thalmor burning your farms and killing your sons"): "She's supposed to be on our side?"
  • Ulfric tells Elenwen to shut up... and she listens. Depending on your choices, it can even be Tullius, meaning he's telling a member of his own delegation, as well as a woman who could conceivably have him killed with her Thalmor connections, to shut up, which is even funnier.
  • It can be funny to watch Ulfric or Tullius squirm as you turn the negotiations against them... even if said negotiations were a completely fair "Markarth for Riften" trade.
  • The fact that you can completely kick Elenwen out from the negotiations is equal parts this and awesome. She pretty much just leaves in an angry huff at being given the boot.
  • In a gleefully sadistic bit of Developer's Foresight, Elenwen loses her essential tag after this quest, meaning that if you don't kick her out of the negotiations you'll be able to follow her as she leaves and kill her.
• The Conjuration Ritual Spell quest, where you summon an unbound Dremora, keep killing and resummoning it over and over, and, for lack of a better term, make it your bitch. It's just really funny hearing a Dremora, scary voice and all, sound scared of you.
  Dremora: I am not yours to toy with!
  Player: I can do this all day.
  Dremora: No, I... I submit. No more. What is your bidding?
  • Even funnier is when Phinis Gestor gives you the quest.
    Phinis: You must summon and command an unbound Dremora.
    Last Dragonborn: Do what now?
  • For even more Dremora-related funniness, take a conjured Dremora Lord to the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon and he'll start praying in front of it. Seeing a Dremora praying at a shrine is a surprisingly funny contrast to their usual attitudes.
• Some of the radiant quests can be hilarious when you combine the quest itself and the location you're sent to. For example, the animal extermination quest from the Companions... you have to wonder, how exactly did a sabre cat get into Erikur's house in Solitude?
  • This also crosses into Fridge Funny territory; especially with the Companions' quests, you have to wonder about how long it took for the whole thing to come to fruition. Using this same quest as an example, think about how far Whiterun (where the Companions are headquartered) is from Solitude (where Erikur lives). First they had to have the cat be in the house; then they had to decide to have the Companions deal with it; then they had to send word to the Companions, probably using a courier who travels on foot. Then they had to wait for someone to be assigned the quest and have that person come to Solitude - and since that person is you and you can Take Your Time, Erikur and Gisli could well have been trying to avoid a sabre cat in their house for months by the time you can be bothered to deal with it. The Solitude guards were apparently too busy. And then you remember that Erikur is a Thane of Elisif's court, and Elisif could have asked Captain Aldis or even General Tullius to send some of his soldiers to deal with it instead of waiting on you. The more you think about it, the funnier and more ridiculous it seems.
• It's the Imperial ending of the Civil War questline. Ulfric is trapped and has finally been cornered by Tullius. Windhelm is burning down around you as the Imperial soldiers defeat the last Stormcloaks. Tullius approaches Ulfric, drawing his sword..and delivers this gem.
  Tullius: Well, Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die?
  Legate Rikke: ...Sovngarde, sir.
• When you pose as the Gourmet during the Dark Brotherhood questline, you are required to put on a chef's hat. Should you not take it off, you are treated to scenes of your character killing things in a chef's hat. The killshots become less badass, to say the least.
• During the quest to become Thane of Dawnstar, you must kill a giant. If Skald is still Jarl, he offers this bit of sage advice.
  Skald: I'm counting on you.
  (Beat)
  Skald: Try not to get stepped on.
• If you jump onto a bed in Old Hroldan Inn, that super-serious, adultlike boy may comment, "I'm not allowed to climb on the furniture."
• While meeting Paarthurnax for the first time, you can decide to play his questions straight... do so, and you get treated this delightful little subtle gem:
  Paarthurnax: Do you know why I live here, at the peak of the Monahven, what you name "Throat of the World"?
  Dovahkiin: No. Dragons like mountains, right?
  Paarthurnax: Hmmm... True.
• During one of Delphine and Esbern's random conversations in Sky Haven Temple, Esbern says that he's writing the modern history of the Blades, and he asks Delphine what she wants it to say in her part.
  Delphine: "I survived"?
• A bit of random dialogue after completing the College of Winterhold quest line:
  "Have you seen Mirabelle? I know she's dead, but I thought she might still stop by and say hello."
• In a random atmospheric event, Vipir the Fleet tries flirting with Sapphire. She responds with this gem:
  Sapphire: Ah yes, Vipir "the Fleet." I think you're the only one foolish enough to name himself after his bedroom prowess.
  • The actual story of how he got his name is also funny: He and Vex were double-crossed during a job in Windhelm and were being pursued by the guards, and ended up separated. He exited the main gate and ran all the way from Windhelm to Riften, on foot, only to find that Vex was already there, having arrived hours before. Vipir had forgotten that they had had horses in the stables.
• If you take Delvin the Elder Council Amulet under Astrid's orders before joining the Thieves' Guild, he'll start the conversation super-ominous and serious, at which point your character states they're with the Dark Brotherhood, causing him to instantly backpedal in a rather amusing fashion.
• A line by Bendt, the chef in the Bard's College, parodies the player's tendency to Talk to Everyone. Remember, there are exactly zero items of interest in this section.
  Bendt: You found the Bard's College kitchen! Congratulations!
• It is entirely possible to play as a Deadpan Snarker - there are quite a few amusing dialogue lines. Possibly the earliest is this:
  Balgruuf: So. You were at Helgen? You saw this dragon with your own eyes?
  Dovahkiin: Yes. I had a great view while the Imperials were trying to cut off my head.
  • Balgruuf's response is almost as funny. It's the genuine surprise in his voice that sells it. You can tell he really wasn't expecting that.
    Balgruuf: Really? You're certainly... forthright about your criminal past.
• After finishing "A Cornered Rat" and exiting the Ratway with Esbern, if you fail to kill all the Thalmor, they follow you out. This results in all of Riften, from Madesi to Balimund the blacksmith to even Maven Black-Briar, taking up arms to butcher the Thalmor. After they are all dead, everybody just goes back to doing their thing as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. Then again, considering where Riften's allegiance lies, they probably do this often offscreen.
• The "Throw Voice" shout lets the player throw their voice somewhere as a distraction. This also provides the only voice-acted lines from the Dovahkiin (other than grunts and Dragon Shouts), most of which are childish insults like "Hey, skeever butt!" and "Hey, melon nose!" Made even funnier if you imagine the context in certain situations; e.g. a Draugr is wandering around a crypt when suddenly he hears, "You're ugly!" and immediately rushes to the source of the sound with homicidal intent. He may be a reanimated shambling corpse of a long-dead dragon cultist who now resembles a mummified skeleton with rotting flesh, but, by the Nine, nobody calls him ugly!
• Phinis Gestor's lecture on College policy is somewhat amusing. Highlights include:
  Urag has asked me to remind everyone to please return materials borrowed from the Arcanaeum in the same condition as you received them. If this is impossible due to misuse or accident, Urag recommends finding a replacement copy to deliver to the Arcanaeum. Failure to do so will result in paying, in Urag's words, "a blood price." I did not ask him to elaborate on that point.^note For the unfamiliar, a "blood price" is an Orcish tradition in which a criminal either pays a wronged party a certain price in goods, or bleeds until they're satisfied. Considering Urag is a Scary Librarian whose Berserk Button is damaging books, the implications are grimly funny.
  While Drevis appreciates the spellcasting skill that went into somehow cramming several hundred apples into his pillow... He would ask that it please not happen again. He has suggested that, should he find out who is responsible, he is well versed in making things disappear permanently.
• The "Big Strong Man" NPC dialogue that randomly takes place among a group of NPCs consisting of several women and at least one man, where the man tries to impress the ladies by hoping he gets referred to as such, only to get hilariously rebuffed and laughed at, and he sulks off, calling them "harpies".
• An unintentional one: in French, "Fus Ro Dah" can easily be misheard as "Pousse toi d'la", which means... "Get out of the way."
• One that's easy to miss, but amusing when you see it. In Fort Dunstad, a group of bandits are running an illegal Skeever fight ring. If you go to the second floor, you'll find several cheese wheels, one of which has been sliced, with the slice itself laying next to it. Where's the funny part? The fact that a woodcutter's axe is embedded into the table between them.
  • Fort Dunstad also features a slightly subtler one: there's a tavern on its premises called The Stumbling Sabrecat, which has a sabrecat head mounted over the fireplace, with a wine bottle in its mouth. It helps that the head is slightly skewed to the side, which manages to make the long-dead cat look like it's drunk.
• Faldar's Tooth is a random bandit hideout near Riften which has some very subtle humor in a Villains Out Shopping way:
  • When you first get there, the bandits try to sic the guard wolves on you with the expected stereotypical dialogue.
  • Then you get inside and learn they're running a wolf fighting pit only to come up behind two of them who are placing bets.
  • Then you get to the kitchens and read the dialogue of their cook, who's apparently a Supreme Chef but no one appreciates his grilled leeks because they all want meat, which they don't have because they're too busy placing bets. So he decides to give them their meat... cue the kitchen proper and a metric ton of dog meat clearly taken from the wolves with which they've been pitting fights.
  • That same chef is now dead in a cage. Judging by the way his corpse is lying, he starved to death with a plate of grilled leeks placed near the cage, just out of reach.
  • Even funnier: the grilled leeks the bandits rejected actually restore more health than the dog meat (which can't be cooked).
  • And immediately after that, you ambush a bandit about to sit down on the fort's shitter.
• When you brawl, one of the lines screamed by your follower is "Twelve Septims on the big one!" However, they will say this even if your opponent is a Nord or an Orc, and you are not playing as either of those. They literally bet against their own ally. All the better when this is Lydia or another housecarl betting against their own Thane.
  • This line can appear in non-brawl fights as well, especially if it's in a settlement and a brawler NPC gets drawn in by coincidence. This can lead to bystanders apparently betting their money on anything up to and including a dragon.
• In Fort Greymoor there is a sweet little old lady named Agnis who cooks and cleans for the bandits, she sweetly explains this to you right while you're in the middle of slaughtering them! Agnis gets even funnier. She states she doesn't even keep track of who owns the fort anymore. She just tells whoever takes over that she "comes with the place."
• Just outside Markarth, the guards at the entry might tell you, "Welcome to Markarth, the safest city in the Reach." The very first thing you see when entering the city for the first time is a man trying to murder a woman in the market. Then again, considering that the Reach is crawling with bloodthirsty Forsworn, calling Markarth the "safest city" is not exactly wrong...
• "Looking for my husband Nazeem? Check the Jarl's backside. That's usually where he stuffs himself these days."
  • Sometimes the player can wander into the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun and find Nazeem's wife complaining to one of the priestesses about him, mentioning that she doesn't want to leave him while the war's still going on. The priestess sympathizes with her... then comments that if/when the war does come to Whiterun, there's a good chance Nazeem might 'accidentally' be killed in the chaos.
• White River Watch is a cave that serves as a home to a bandit group. Who do they set to guard the entry? The boss's blind uncle. He'll even mistake you for his nephew the first time you walk past him (no matter your race or gender). Said blind uncle is also sitting by a desk with a book on it. All the book's pages are blank.
• The Companions, respectable and honorable warriors though they are, provide quite their fair share of funny moments:
  • Probably due to a bug, but when you first visit Jorrvaskr, Athis and Njada are engaging in a fist fight. Sometimes before the fight ends, Athis will run around every corner of the place, tripping over everything on the ground while Njada gives chase, spouting insults at him.
  • Become Harbinger of the Companions and marry Farkas. He'll warmly welcome you home and, upon being asked if there's work for the Companions, immediately go back to his gruff self to tell you to go out into the world and bash some heads in. There's also the possibility that you'll come in from a long day of dragon-slaying, wearing armor made entirely from dragon parts, with a box of dragon bones and scales somewhere in the house, and he will ask you if you've ever seen a dragon before, because he never believed in dragons... even if you take him to kill one with you, and he stays behind with the corpse so he can describe it accurately to Vilkas.
  • Marrying any of the Companions and then running into them on the road. Apparently they just carry homecooked meals with them in case they happen across you in their travels like it's a completely normal thing.
  • Ria of the Companions can boast about how she killed a bear today, and ask you if you've killed anything. Odds are, even by midgame, you've offed at least one dragon that day.
  • When first joining the Companions, you have to spar with Vilkas to prove your warrior's mettle. Once you've done that, you run another short fetch quest, then bring a shield to Aela the Huntress. She asks you if you think you could take Vilkas in a real fight. One of your answers is, "I don't care for boasting." Aela's response depends on your Dragonborn's gender. If female, she remarks, "A woman who lets her actions speak for her. I knew there was something I liked about you," with utter sincerity, some admiration, and perhaps just a bit of Les Yay. If male, her response is, "Ah, a man of action," positively dripping with sarcasm. You can just hear the unspoken "because we don't have nearly enough of those around here."
• Getting killed by a city guard. Once the combat is resolved they go back to their normal dialogue, which, spoken over your corpse, tends to end up as deadpan snark. "Can you brew me an ale?" indeed.
• Even better: getting killed by your spouse (say, if you accidentally aggro'd them if they were your follower), followed by a generic line. "Hello, my love." *SHUNK* "Back from some adventure, I'd bet."
• The fact that, during the Thieves' Guild quests, on Mercer's desk in his house you can find a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid. Seems he was keeping himself busy...
• This quote by Archmage Savos Aren (which is also the page topper for Wizards Live Longer): "What you learn here will last you a lifetime. Several, if you're talented."
• At the beginning of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, Astrid abducts the Dragonborn in their sleep. Normally, this would be straight up Paranoia Fuel... unless they happened to be sleeping at an inn or a crowded city, in which case you have to wonder just how the hell she managed to carry their body without being seen. It crosses into Beyond the Impossible if they were sleeping at the College of Winterhold, Jorrvaskr, or Fort Dawnguard!
  • If you're playing with the right mods installed, Astrid can kidnap you from the palaces of the Jarls themselves, from a flying airship, from High Hrothgar, from across the border in Cyrodiil or Hammerfell, from the Summerset Isles, from pocket dimensions of Oblivion, or even Sovngarde!
• Playing through the beginning of the game again and following Ralof provides a dialogue option asking if Alduin was working for the Stormcloaks. Ralof almost laughs in your face and chuckles, "I doubt even Ulfric could pull a dragon out of his back pocket." You'll never want to call Odahviing or Durnehviir more.
• In the Stormcloak side of the Civil War questline, the dialogue option when you return the Jagged Crown. The idea of your character skipping up to Ulfric Stormcloak, brandishing an ancient artifact, and cheerfully informing him that he owes his friend a drink, is just amusing.
  Dragonborn: Here's the Jagged Crown. I believe you owe Galmar a drink?
  • Even funnier: the quest immediately prior had Galmar sending you off to kill an ice wraith to prove your worth to the Stormcloak cause. When you return, Galmar is surprised that you survived, and states that he owes Ulfric a drink. Gives the impression Galmar and Ulfric are treating the whole damn Civil War as one gigantic drinking contest.
• Making small talk with Corpulus Vinius, owner of the Winking Skeever.
  Dragonborn: Why is this place called the Winking Skeever?
  Corpulus: Well, as it turns out, I had a pet skeever when I was a boy and he used to wink.
  Dragonborn: I guess that's as good a reason as any.
  Corpulus: I thought so.
  or
  Dragonborn: You kept a skeever as a pet?
  Corpulus: They were smaller back then.
• Fihada, the fletcher of Solitude, has a gem when you ask him for arrows that can take down a dragon.
  Fihada: But, of course! Will you also be needing the bow that shoots rainbows? Or the quiver that dispenses beer?
  • Even better, thanks to Level Scaling and the fact that arrow quality is just one factor in archery damage, it's possible that you've already killed a dragon or two with a bog-standard iron arrow you picked out of a post back in Helgen, making the Dragonborn's request not nearly so outlandish as Fihada takes it.
• With a little luck, a Dragonborn can kill a dragon with a knife and fork. Not a knife as in one of the game's many BFS options; just a standard table knife. There are a few scattered throughout the game that can be equipped as weapons and are treated as daggers - with a base damage of 1-2. But there's nothing like killing an Ancient Dragon with a table fork. Bonus points for puns about the Dragonborn eating the dragon's soul.
• Take Jordis, or any companion with Corri English's "FemaleYoungEager" voice, somewhere like Skybound Watch Pass, or Crovangr Cave, or some other Nightmare Fuel location and she will remark, "I don't like where this is going." You don't say?
• J'zargo starts most of his dialogues with his own name. If you try to skip his dialogue, it will sound like "J'zargo J'zargo J'zargo J'zargo J'zargo..."
• Sneaking around with a dagger enchanted with Paralysis is worth the trouble getting for the sheer hilarity of the different poses one can find their opponents freezing in if the enchantment sticks on a killing blow. Bandit sitting on a ledge? They freeze hunched over, and slowly tilt over the edge. Draugr standing stock straight in an alcove? They bounce a little before falling on their faces. Falmer staring right at you but can't hear you? If you're lucky, they might freeze, then spring up like one of those little plastic flip toys before landing back on the ground.
• In Whiterun, asking Belethor, the general goods trader, what a Breton is doing in Skyrim yields this gem of a response:
  Belethor: Isn't it obvious? Why, the wonderful weather and hospitable people, of course! Not to mention my great fondness for dragons and petty political power struggles. Ah, but without a doubt, the most compelling feature of this frozen wasteland is the volley of inane questions leveled at me on a regular basis!
• If a dragon's health drops low enough for an NPC to kill in one hit, they can play special kill animations just like the player. There's nothing like watching a hold guard climb on a dragon's head and slash it to death. Even better after hearing this line from them:
  Guard: Got to thinking. Maybe I'm the Dragonborn, and just don't know it yet.
• Joric has a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid, Vol. 2 under his bed. While the game implies that he inherited the psychic abilities of his mother (Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone), the fact that this young child reads porn offers another interesting interpretation to his strange behaviour...
• Captain Aldis from Solitude requests to bring him the book The Mirror. While there are several copies of the book in the game world, the objective explicitly points to an owned item lying in the royal bedroom of Windhelm's Palace of Kings. To clarify: to please an Imperial officer, you need to steal a book belonging to Ulfric Stormcloak himself.
• When talking to Brunwulf as anything other than a Nord, you can go full Boomerang Bigot on him:
  Brunwulf: You one of those "Skyrim for the Nords!" types?
  Non-Nord Dragonborn: Yes. Outsiders like me have no place here.
  • It's quite easy to read this line as dripping with sarcasm. What adds to the humor is that Brunwulf completely fails to pick up on it.
  • Or it could easily be read as "You guys can have this frozen hellhole to yourselves." Especially if you're fresh out of Helgen, since the first two things that happened to you in Skyrim were nearly losing your head and nearly getting toasted by a dragon.
• Using Meridia's Daedric weapon Dawnbreaker can be both this and an Oh, Crap! moment. When you kill undead with it, it might cause a shockwave which turns or destroys undead nearby. This could result in the boss of a particular dungeon fleeing you in fear. But if you're not careful, you might cause the destruction wave in rooms where there are tons of draugr, meant to awaken one or two at the time. And now you need to fight everyone at once.
  • Furthermore, there's nothing stopping you from wielding the Dawnbreaker as a vampire. Naturally, this means you will set yourself on fire with the shockwave.
• While the situation it's in is otherwise not funny at all, after locking yourself in the Night Mother's coffin during the attack on the Falkreath sanctuary in the Dark Brotherhood questline, you wake up to Nazir straining to open the thing and complaining about Babette not helping. Babette responds dryly that she's not exactly built for manual labor. After getting it open, Nazir asks you if you're all right; if you choose to remain silent, as you can for most conversations in the questline, he assumes you've suffered a head injury.
• During the "Book of Love" quest's first phase, you can choose to pair Fastred up with either her current love Bassianus or her previous boyfriend Klimmek. If you choose Klimmek, you have to tell him to be more straightforward with his affection, though he doesn't quite understand what you mean at first.
  Dragonborn: I think Fastred prefers assertive men.
  Klimmek: What did you call me?
• One random encounter consists of Imperial nobleman Plautis Carvain, his wife Salonia, and their bodyguard wandering around Skyrim, trying to make their way to Vittoria Vici's wedding in Solitude. Not only do they never make it to the city, they somehow end up in Windhelm instead. Additionally, if you do the quest "Bound Until Death", you can encounter them again as a Brick Joke: this time around, Plautis will be wearing rags in place of his noble clothes, Salonia will be barefoot, and their bodyguard will be missing. Listening in on their conversation reveals that they managed to run into quite a bit of bad luck during their travels.
  Salonia: I hate it here. Those were my favorite shoes, ruined and for what? We never even made it to the wedding.
  Plautis: Wha... Your shoes? We get robbed by bandits, my clothes torn to shreds by some giant cat, our bodyguard eaten by a dragon... And you're worried about your shoes?
• Stealth in Skyrim is infamously broken, and nowhere is it more hilariously obvious than when using high-level Illusion magic. A mage with Muffle, Invisibility, and a passing amount of Sneak skill can crouch-walk through a dungeon without anything inside being the wiser. And while enemies will certainly notice you if you're standing under a Candlelight spell, they'll only react if they can see you under that Candlelight spell. Which leads to the spectacle of bandits or draugr paying no attention to a floating ball of light silently drifting through their encampment.
• Ancano, the Thalmor emissary to the College of Winterhold, can be found at night sleeping on a bed in what looks to be a storeroom, filled with barrels and junk. Presumably, the College didn't have enough rooms to house a Thalmor emissary, but if you sign up, you'll be given a quite nice room of your own. The obvious implication is that the college staff stuffed Ancano in a store room because they don't like him. Who can blame them?
• In the penultimate quest for the Thieves Guild, you get trapped in a chamber that slowly starts flooding with water. Your companions are freaking out, as should you be... unless you're an Argonian, in which case that whole 'drowning' thing is kind of impossible since you can breathe underwater. You can just imagine the Dragonborn being "well this is kind of a you problem" to your allies.
• With the right abilities and items, it's possible to complete the entire College of Winterhold questline without learning and casting a single spell^note The questline is more about dungeon crawling than actual magic gameplay, and the few instances where you must use magic can be passed with scrolls, staves, or daedric items (e.g. Spellbreaker counts as a Ward during Tolfdir's lesson).. At the end, you're the Archmage, who's supposed to be at the head of a magic school...
• Several pieces of dialogue can be heard as part of ambient conversations in the Civil War camps, but this Stormcloak-specific response to a complaint really stands out:
  Stormcloak: Go tell the commander. I'm sure the boot in your arse will take your mind off your troubles.
• When you get to Ivarstead, talking to the local bartender will get you warned not to go to Shroud Hearth Barrow as people have been seeing phantoms there and an adventurer, Wyndelius Gatharian, had gone missing there a year earlier. Being a player character you go, and encounter a spectral man who warns you to leave. A short dungeon and some traps later, you confront Wyndelius Gatharian, and discover that your weapons, spells and poisons seem to be working just fine on this "phantom". After he's dead, you can read his journal. Wyndelius had come to Shroud Hearth Barrow in search of the Sapphire Dragon Claw, which would open up a chamber allowing him to find a great treasure. After encountering Wilhelm, the bartender in Iverstead who warned him about the phantoms in the Barrows, Wyndelius decided to cook up the phantom ruse to keep any of the local yokels from interfering (using a potion to make himself look all shimmery and phantasmal) but after a year of desperately searching the Barrow up and down for the Claw and finding bupkis, he started to go nuts and believe he really was the spectral guardian of the barrows. And he would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you, rotten kid. Okay, actually, he would've been stuck in there forever regardless, but no one would've known. Oh, and the kicker? When you bring evidence of Wyndelius's deeds to Wilhelm, he says he can't believe everyone in town was tricked and that you deserve a reward. The reward? The Sapphire Dragon Claw. Yes, he had it all along, and would probably have given it to Wyndelius if he'd only asked about it.
• One combat line Thalmor soldiers can throw at you if your character is a Khajiit: "You remind me of my cousin's cat. I killed that, too!"

DLC

Dawnguard

• With Dawnguard, you can get a killcam where you stab people with a crossbow. Not with a shot from the crossbow. The crossbow itself, with a loaded, unfired bolt in it.
• When you first meet Isran, try asking him what he plans to do about the vampires. He will note that he needs to fix up the fort, since a vampire could walk right in the front door as it stands. This becomes darkly hilarious if the player ends up joining the vampires or is already a vampire. Also a Brick Joke, since it's exactly what Serana ends up doing later if you side with the Dawnguard.
• Serana has unique companion AI that lets her use workstations and sit down like other NPCs do. This can lead to situations where you're talking to a merchant, and Serana walks around behind them to sit down on a bench or go to use an alchemy table. Like, "I can see you're going to be a minute, I'll just keep myself busy."
  • Because there are no restrictions on Serana's AI interactions, this can also lead to some odd scenarios, such as her assuming a meditative stance at Arngeir's prayer tower at High Hrothgar, sitting on a chair that someone just died in and whose corpse still occupies it, or walking up onto Solitude's execution block during Roggvir's execution and casually using the grindstone while a man is beheaded right behind her.
  • During one quest, Quintus Navale will need to use the alchemy lab in the shop before continuing the scene. If Serana is present, she can end up hogging the alchemy lab all to herself, forcing Quintus to stand there and wait for her to stop fooling around.
  • In another quest, you run into an Almost Dead Guy near the entrance of a cave, who gives you a word of warning before dying. Serana will then proceed to sit down on the floor next to him and copy the same "almost dead" pose.
  • Try visiting Aventus Aretino with her at some point...
  • Take her to Kodlak's funeral. The powerful and noble warrior lies dead atop the Skyforge, which will serve as his funeral pyre. In the middle of his eulogy, Serana walks up to the forge, starts stoking it, and then hammering out a piece of steel. Apparently, that sword had to be made right now.
  • Her vampiric ability to raise corpses comes in handy at times. Unfortunately, she doesn't care what corpse she uses - leading to you charging into battle with an undead goat ally at your side. Or a chicken.
• In the quest "Lost to the Ages," you have to assist the ghost of a dead archaeologist named Katria to achieve the goal she died trying to accomplish. As you explore the Dwemer ruin, you find her corpse. If you choose to loot the corpse and take the armor, leaving her naked, Katria's ghost will complain that you could have at least left her some dignity.
  • In that same quest, after you retrieve the Aetherium Crest, the tower begins to rise. Your next objective? Stand clear.
• In the Forgotten Vale, downhill of the frozen lake, there's a waterfall that leads into a dark pit beneath a glacier. When you approach it, Serana warns, "Careful, here. If you fall down that thing I'm going to have to drag you out of... wherever it leads." Should you jump into the water and go down it, you'll experience one of the highest freefalls in the game, and end up in Darkfall Grotto, the dark cave deep underground swarming with Feral Falmer that you had to go through to reach the vale. Serana has this to say:
  Serana: Ugh. I told you!
  Serana: Next time I say to please not go over the waterfall, maybe you'll listen to me.
• In the Soul Cairn, one of the souls has this to say:
  "All I said to Potema was I thought she looked a little portly in that gown. How was I supposed to know?"
• In the quest "Chasing Echoes," you can ask Serana if her mother Valerica had anything to do with the small army of gargoyles that have undoubtedly been pestering you up until that point. She'll offhandedly mention that Valerica had a thing for magical constructs - and then immediately adds that it's not what you're thinking.
• What's Serana's reaction to seeing Auriel's Bow? The super-powerful legendary bow that both the Dawnguard and the vampires have been seeking, and the thing that you've spent almost the entire questline trying to acquire?
  Serana: It's... not as shiny as I imagined...
• Serana's mother, Valerica, has the second volume of The Lusty Argonian Maid on one of the bookshelves in her laboratory where you access the Soul Cairn. Make of that what you will.

Hearthfire

• With Hearthfire, you can adopt children from the Honorhall Orphanage, though only after you've killed Grelod the Kind. When Constance asks you for your occupation, you can list any number of "jobs" - i.e. Thief, Mercenary, Assassin, Dragonborn. In the last case she'll initially think you're taking the piss, but then quickly realize you're serious.
  • One can only imagine what would happen on "Bring Your Daughter To Work Day."
  • Most likely... this!
    "Go, my children! Fight my battles! Remember, you cannot die!"
• One of the potential random encounters to be had at the homes you build is with a giant, who wanders over and kills your cow. Seems like the easy solution would be to not buy a cow in the first place, right? But occasionally, the giant will show up anyway, and stare into the empty cow pen in complete bewilderment. This is possibly a glitch, as entering and leaving the house prompts the giant to start attacking the house instead (forcing you to kill it), but it's pretty hilarious to look at its confused face up to that point.
• If you've adopted two children, you can sometimes walk in on them exchanging Volleying Insults.
• Sometimes when you talk to your daughter, she mentions that she went fishing with your spouse and will say "This time I'll make sure they catch something", which is hilarious if her adoptive parent is an Argonian who can theoretically just dive and grab fishes because they can breathe underwater, and even moreso if it's someone that works on the docks like Scouts-Many-Marshes.
  • May go into Heartwarming, though, as it can be interpreted as the spouse pretending not to catch fish so their daughter can feel superior.

Dragonborn

• Lydia gets new dialogue in the expansion, a good portion of it snark.
• You can take your followers with you. When you pick up and start reading a Black Book, Farkas just sighs and says, "I can't believe you do that on purpose."
• The story behind one of the inns, The Retching Netch, is pretty funny and you even get to make comments during it. To summarize: the bartender witnessed one of his regular patrons stumbling around naked and holding a bottle of alcohol. A netch — a giant flying animal resembling a cross between a cow and a jellyfish — idly drifts by. The drunk cheerfully tells the netch to "have a drink!" while throwing the bottle at it. The bartender was surprised to see the bottle never hit the ground... because the netch absorbed it, immediately started flying lopsided, and soon hurled... SOMETHING... all over the drunk.
• A quick way to determine one effect of a new ingredient is to eat it, in which case its first effect will take effect on you. Consuming netch jelly, whose first effect is Paralysis, results in your character being paralyzed and doing a Face Plant once you leave the menu.
  • Even better, this actually has a practical application: while paralyzed, you don't take fall damage. So you could survive a jump off a cliff by eating netch jelly just before hitting the bottom, and then watching your stiff body bounce off the ground before the Dragonborn gets up completely unharmed, possibly in mid-air.
• One series of mini-quests involves helping Neloth with his experiments. In one such experiment, he casts a spell on the Dragonborn which is supposed to create an "eighth silence". The screen goes black and you can hear Neloth arguing with his assistant. It quickly becomes clear that the Dragonborn is blind because their eyes were replaced with tentacles.
  Neloth: Try... wiggling them? (beat) No, don't shake your fist! [...] And I see now that your tongue is also... well, it's probably best if I don't say.
  • To add to it, you can hear Talvas saying, "I think I'm going to be sick..." and then retching in the background. Poor guy.
• One of the random encounters is a mage attempting to fly. He casts his spell, and rockets straight up into the sky shouting, "It worked! I'm flying!" ...and then he plummets straight back down again. Doubles as a reference to Morrowind, where another mage was attempting the same thing. He ended with the same fate.
  Wizard: It's working! I'm flying! I'M REALLY FLYING!! HAHAHAHAHA!! [starts to rapidly descend to Soltsheim] What?! OH! OH NO!!
• If you go to sleep on Solstheim before cleansing all the All-Maker Stones, you may go to bed for the night in an inn... and then wake up on the opposite side of Solstheim working on a stone's shrine!
• On top of one of the towers in Bloodskal Barrow, right next to a hole in the floor, you can find a note that reads:
  Look, Meryn, I'm not arguing that these towers are falling to pieces, but I think you are exaggerating about the planks falling ou————
• There is a cave called Benkongerike which is filled with Rieklings (little goblin-type creatures). About halfway through, you find their porn stash: about 15 copies of The Lusty Argonian Maid in a little alcove... along with some dirty linen wraps.
• Neloth - the things he says and does. Comedic Sociopathy at its finest.
  • His snark when you tell him you're not his servant. He tells you in a voice just dripping with sarcasm:
    Neloth: Please, oh hero of Skyrim. Please find Varona. I shall be ever so grateful.
  • Even the quest log for finding Varona can be hilarious just in itself:
  * Find Varona
  * Tell Neloth that Varona is dead
  * Find a new steward
  • In a Black Comedy sense, Neloth's utter failure to give a shit about Varona's death.
  Neloth: Where's that lazy steward of mine? Varona! No, wait, she's dead. Drovas!
  • Another Deadpan Snarker moment: in Nchardak, if you pick up all the cubes instead of putting them all on their pedestals, you'll flood the room, and then:
    Neloth: I'm quite sure the boilers will not work while they're underwater.
  • If he comes upon a dead body, he may comment, "Hmm. I'll have to get someone to bring this back to my lab."
  • In Nchardak at one point, he chooses, for some reason, to jump off a bridge to a lower level (even though it's high enough to take fall damage), rather than doing what any sensible person would do: take the stairs.
  • He apparently likes to swear by the Daedric Princes. One entertaining example is, "By Malacath's toenails, where did that come from!?"
    • When Neloth is fighting, if he gets hit enough times, he may utter in a very pissed tone:
    Neloth: By Malacath's hairy knuckles, you will pay for that!
  • To his apprentice: "You still need to give me that skin sample." One wonders how much skin.
  • When you've increased your Enchanting too high for him to teach you, if you ask him to do so, his response is the closest he comes to giving you a compliment.
    Neloth: I can, but I won't. It wouldn't do to have you become better than me.
  • Neloth initially doesn't do anything to stop people from building shrines around Solstheim's element stones... because he just wants to see what happens when they finish!
  • If you brought Frea along in Nchardak, the normally respectful woman will get gradually more annoyed with Neloth and begin snarking back at him.
    Frea:(after Neloth tells you to get the last cube without him.) Finally. We will not have to listen to his complaining.
    Frea:(Neloth tells you that the water is rising) Thanks for the warning.
• Pretty much everything about the Rieklings. For starters, even they get sucked into Miraak's shrine-building project, complete with one who just bows down to the stone all day long. Then there's the "Chief of Thirsk Hall" quest if you ally with them.
• At one point you can find a cave full of various bits and pieces, from kitchenware to jewelry. Deep inside there is a group of Rieklings worshiping a trader's cart, complete with an effigy of a horse pulling it.
• Cindiri Arano, the wife of Raven Rock's second councilor, gives you a quest to retrieve a valuable family heirloom from a shipwreck. This "valuable heirloom" turns out to be a signed copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid complete with a hand-written dedication from the author, Crassus Curio himself.
  • When one thinks about it, such a book must be very valuable by Skyrim's time. Humans don't live that long after all, and Crassus has been dead for over a century, at least.
• There's an abandoned house not far from Raven Rock inhabited by two bandits. There's a copy of (surprise surprise) The Lusty Argonian Maid, some potions of vigor and stamina, and bloody rags.
• There's a quest to get a man a bottle of mead. Depending on your level, he can pay upward of 1500 gold to you for it (compared to bounty hunting quests where the Jarl of a province will pay a whopping 300 gold to have you kill a dragon). Apparently, that man really needed a drink.
• One unmarked quest has you distributing free drinks to drum up publicity for the Retching Netch. While most people who don’t want it just tell you so kindly, one resident says, "No! I can’t! It may be poison!"
• After you converse with Hermaeus Mora in the DLC questline, Neloth sums up the Daedric Prince's pettiness:
  Neloth: Hmph. What secrets could [the Skaal] have worth keeping from old Mora? Sounds like a bargain to me. Hermaeus Mora learns some fascinating new ways to skin a horker, and you become the second most powerful Dragonborn that ever lived.

Creation Club

• The very existence of the "Dwarven Armored Mudcrab" addon is silly enough to get a chuckle, it helps that it's free.
• In the "Alternative Armors - Dwarven Mail" addon, there's a dead Bosmer "Arena Fan" from Cyrodiil, now why does that sound familiar...
• In the "Netch Leather Armor" addon you receive a hunting party sketch from some Rieklings. Their drawing skills have to be seen◊ to be believed.

Multiple

• If you meet the triggering criteria for Dawnguard (reach level 10) and Dragonborn (meet the Greybeards) at the same time, it's possible to start them simultaneously; it's also possible to get the letter which starts the Hearthfire quest at the same time, depending on where and how you leveled up (you receive the letter at level 9). You might enter Whiterun and be greeted by Miraak cultists and Durak (the Dawnguard recruiter) at the same time. Durak might give you his pitch immediately after the cultists finish their dialogue and are attacking. You can finish the conversation with Durak while your companion and the town guards slaughter the cultists in the background and never engage them yourself. So after they mock you for a false Dragonborn and threaten to prove it by killing you, you don't even deign to fight them yourself and let the local fuzz deal with them instead. If you also got the Hearthfire letter at the same time, a courier may be waiting for the end of the fight (or killed by a stray fireball...)
  • Depending on how several quests and events always trigger when you arrive in town, it is entirely possible to fast-travel to a town and find a line consisting of cultists, thugs, a courier bringing you letters, Durak, a vampire, and a wizard challenger all queuing up to chat and/or get into a fight with you.

Good Bad Bugs

• A programming bug during development resulted in crime-reporting chickens◊. Sadly, this was corrected.
  What's that, Cluckles? Timmy's in the well?
• One of the very first things you see in the game: when you arrive in Helgen, the horse who pulled your cart clips its head through a stone wall during its idle movements once it stops. Yup, this is definitely a Bethesda game.
  • Assuming you ever get there at all... (Search 'skyrim horse cart glitch' for more hilarity / Eldritch Abomination horses...)
• Giants can knock the player a good 5,000 feet into the air. Other characters, too. Nothing like standing at a safe distance to watch a bunch of idiot bandits disappear, one by one, into the clouds...
  • Now with sound effects.
  • Now with appropriate theme music!
  • This bug ended up being so popular that it became a Running Gag in the series.
• How to ride a horse
• You can sometimes see the Headless Horseman ghost running after his ghost horse.
• Occasionally a courier will appear in nothing but his skivvies and a few odd pieces of gear. Despite this, he'll still hand you the letters and run off without ever bringing up his lack of clothes. Now that's dedication.
  • Even better: the courier can nonchalantly deliver you a letter while you're fighting Odahviing on the great porch!
  • More funny bugs relate to the Letter from a Friend they often deliver. They may mention that you caused quite a stir in places like Apocrypha, where the only thing around are Eldritch Abominations. Additionally, if you explore an area that has a Word Wall but don't get the word, you may get a letter saying you caused quite the stir in (place), and then advising you to look in that same place for a word of power.
  • The courier can also deliver letters to you while underwater. Yes, he will say his usual lines.
• This famous case of cloning: meet the Louis Letrush Brothers.
• Sleep Walking is one thing. Ever heard of sleep spinning? Ask Phinis Gestor. Or Enthir.
• Visit the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun, and sometimes the two patients there (a wounded solder and a sickly farmer) aren't always lying down. Instead, they seem to be afflicted with some kind of dancing sickness.
• Sometimes the ragdoll physics don't act nice, and bodies might end up jiggling about and such after dying. And then there's this.
• The notes from Hired Thugs are just ripe with potential hilarity. Bugs include getting thugs sent to you by characters you haven't even met yet, dead characters (one hysterical version of this is a Forsworn Briarheart sending the thugs to kill you from beyond the grave, because you stole his Briar Heart) and even animals (the Death Hounds of Castle Volkihar, for example).
  • A posted comment at one of the Elder Scrolls wikis reports that not even Dragons are exempt from this. And even in that case, it's not just any dragon...
  • The same wiki forum reports other hilarious cases, such as:
    • Members of the Dark Brotherhood (including the Night Mother)
    • Ghosts
    • Pelagius Septim III
    • Children
    • M'aiq the Liar
    • Your own spouse
    • Yourself
    • Lord Harkon and family (including Serana, even while she's your current follower)
    • Other Hired Thugs! (yes, apparently they can send themselves)
    • There have even been reports of objects (such as Alchemical Labs and workbenches) sending Hired Thugs.
    • Farengar Secret-Fire can send Hired Thugs after you, and they can even attack you in Dragonsreach of all places - where every guard, Irileth, Jarl Balgruuf, and even Farengar himself will come to your aid.
    • If you steal from the Greybeards, Paarthurnax will be the one to send Hired Thugs.
• Letters of inheritance are another rich source of glitchy hilarity. Suffice it to say, the system isn't terribly well-polished.
  • You may receive letters of inheritance from generic enemy NPCs who you probably killed yourself. The Divines only know how did a random Bandit manage to include you in his will between trying to mug you and getting his head bashed in by your warhammer.
  • It's not unheard of for players to get inheritances from NPCs who are still alive (most commonly essential ones). Getting a 500 gold inheritance from, say, Farkas while he's standing right next to you must be exceedingly awkward.
  • Players have also reported getting inheritance letters from things like conjured Fire Atronachs, Draugr, and Dwarven Spiders.
• Similar to the above examples, a random side quest in Dawnguard may have you rescue a captured friendly NPC from a vampire nest. However this system is just as bugged so you may rescue anyone from bandits, characters from the opposite side of the Civil War quest or even Thalmor soldiers(even if the Thalmor have reached a point in the game where they are sending assassins after you!)
• One rare glitch is seen if you have Barbas as a follower; he'll randomly attack NPCs in Dragon Bridge. This includes Clinton (a kid), and seeing as Barbas and Clinton are both invincible, Barbas will chase him forever.
• While the Unrelenting Force shout is already a major source of humor, the Ice Form shout has its own hilarity when combined with the game's already buggy ragdoll physics. Because this attack does not outright kill the target, if the said targeted unit still has some health left after the effect of the shout subsides, the result is a hilarious case of No One Could Survive That!. Observe.
• Skjor's "Bodysurfing" Technique. Aela's comment somehow hilariously makes sense in the scene.
• A user on TES wiki reported a child wielding a battleaxe. (See http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:780272) He even has proof on his deviantArt account. http://sta.sh/015h5va75ipp
• Dragon Priests are among the scariest and deadliest foes in the game. However, a rare design flaw apparently overlooked by the developers can make one look rather silly. Because they were designed to be hidden in coffins when concealed or idle, thus in a prone position, it seems the devs never thought to properly put one in a chair, resulting in this awkward situation◊ (one of the objectives in the "A Taste of Death" quest, which can happen if you do the quest at a high enough level; the seat is normally occupied by a Draugr Deathlord, which does have a proper sitting animation).
• If you enter Morvunskar any time after "A Night To Remember," you may find Sanguine fighting with the enemies. It seems the Daedric Prince of Hedonism isn't bad with a blade.
• Sprinting into an NPC will make them angrily tell you to watch where you're going. If you kill an NPC with a two-handed sprinting attack, they might give you the same warning... as they're falling over dead. Doubly hilarious if they're aggressive, meaning they'll go from taunting you one second to berating you in an annoyed tone the next and then dead.
  Bandit (As your greatsword shears their torso in half): What's your hurry?
• Completing "In My Time of Need" by delivering Saadia to Kematu and then killing both of them after receiving your payment (Hey, at least one of them was lying to you. Why take chances?) may result in you receiving a Letter of Inheritance from Kematu. Apparently he still considered you a great friend after you greased money from him and then killed him immediately, and saw fit to leave you even more money.
  • Also, if you hire one of the mercenary followers in order to sacrifice them to Boethiah, they'll leave you an inheritance as well, even if you've never spoken to them even once prior to hiring them and then immediately fast traveled there. Sadly, the amount you receive is less than you paid to hire them, or else it would have been even funnier.
• At the end of "Death Incarnate", you're supposed to kill Astrid, who's been burned to a crisp and is moments away from dying. Healing her in any way will automatically kill her. Failing a reverse-pickpocket, however, causes her to immediately get up and attack you with the nearby Iron dagger/Blade of Woe, prompting Nazir to attack her in turn, completely ruining the dramatic moment in the best way possible.
  Astrid: Hey!
  Nazir: Hey/Where'd you come from?
• It's possible for an NPC to forget whether or not they're swimming, which can lead to... interesting results. As the comments say, skooma is a hell of a drug.
• The Ice Form Shout does not play nice with the physics engine. Hitting an enemy with it on a slope causes them to slide down, bounce off the ground, and start spazzing out in the air because the game doesn't know how to calculate its momentum properly.
• During the battle of Whiterun, Ysolda has a script which forces her to lock herself in her house until the danger is over, which makes sense. What doesn't is that said scripts fires without checking if the place she currently considers her home is still in Whiterun: she's one of the available spouses, and the Dragonborn can move their family in another town. From an In-Universe perspective, Ysolda learned her hometown was in danger, and then decided to flee the relative safety of her current home to travel through half of a dangerous land in order to sneak inside a besieged town.
• This player somehow had a (non-hostile) Frost Dragon showing up as one of the guests for their wedding, inside a (now) cramped Riften temple. A Frost Dragon that had the voice of an Argonian.
• Bacon_'s YouTube channel catches moments like these in Skyrim VR, usually accompanied by the Dovahkiin's exasperated hand gestures. Highlights include a guard asking what manner of sorcery he can cast, while floating in midair herself; A khajit who happened to be present at Roggvir's execution casually wandering up the steps and triggering the guards' combat state while the Dragonborn frantically tries to tell him not to; and other AI bugs or otherwise hysterical blunders.
• A Whiterun Guard tries fast traveling for the first time...

Bethesda & Valve

• In a contest, in exchange for getting every Bethesda game free for life, a person who was due to have a child on 11/11/11 (Skyrim's release date) would have to name their child Dovahkiin. The disclaimer is as goes:
  "Any reward for completing this quest will not ultimately justify the potential teasing your child could — and probably will — endure over its lifespan. Bethesda Softworks is not responsible for your parenting. You may gain experience points for completing this quest, but you will not care at 3 am on a work night. Completion of this quest may also result in decreased desire to play video games and/or function as a human being. Consult with your friends before embarking on this quest; while it may not start in prison, it probably ends there."
  • And someone actually did it.
• At the end of Bethesda's first Skyrim podcast, concept artist Adam Adamowicz talks about an idea he suggested for an "Elf Grinder" trap:
  Adamowicz: It's kind of like a Cuisinart or a disposal in a sink, specifically for grinding up elves into a fine, purple, glittery powder. 'Cause they deserve it.
• The Skyrim Creation Kit launched, as well as Steam Workshop integration. Valve themselves made a mod for Skyrim. What does it do? SPACE CORE! See it here.
  • Even better, they actually produced new lines specifically for the mod, most of which are pure gold.
    "Dad, I levelled up"
    "That's nice, son."
    "Dad, are you dragons?"
    "Yes, I am ALL the dragons."
  • Another gem.
    "Some call me space junk. Me... I call me treasure!"
  • And better still, you can craft a unique helmet with it.
  • And that you can find Wheatley floating around the perk constellations.
  • Even the new loading screens that come with it have ridiculous texts. For example:
    Space is the thing you see above Tamriel when you're walking around outside with your head tilted back.
  • And:
    Space Spheres, also known as the Spheriphem, are natives of space, and will cajole adventurers to help them return to that comforting void.
  • From the mod's description:
    Also, since Skyrim was the only major release of 2011 without Nolan North in it, you should consider this mod a patch to fix that problem. You can now feel free to include Skyrim in the "Nolan North" section of your video game library, which is to say, your video game library.
  • And lastly, if you've really had enough of it, it's even possible to send it back out into space, with the help of a giant's special talents. It even goes Squee (complete with Doppler Effect) once it's been sent flying.
    "YEEEEEHAWWwwwwww...!"
• A moment from the Making of Skyrim video that came with the collector's edition:
  Mark Lampert: You've come all the way to Skyrim, you're at the tip of the continent here. The guys are big and burly and have beards, the women are big and burly and have beards, and everyone's handy with an axe.
• "Loading Screens. By your mom." A mod by the game's development director Ashley Cheng that changes some of the loading screens that are hilarious Take Thats towards the player.
• After Skyrim for Nintendo Switch was announced and released, fans joked that Todd Howard would try to get Skyrim on every piece of hardware imaginable. Then for E3 2018, Bethesda joke-announced Skyrim Very Special Edition for Amazon Alexa (as a voice-controlled Text Adventure), the Etch-A-Sketch, Motorola pagers (in the form of text prompts), and Samsung smart fridges (where in the midst of the action, Keegan-Michael Key uses the Ice Form Shout and ice cubes spill out of the dispenser below the screen).
  • As it turns out, Bethesda actually did it. It's 4.6 stars on the store.
• The v1.2 patch note has a bug introduced that "Dragons occassionally flying backwards."

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