Shout Out / The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Although it came out after Skyrim, the Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard film The Cabin in the Woods has been known about for years beforehand, due to a troubled development schedule (filmed in two dimensions, converted into 3D because we did the time warp back to the 80s somehow, and then MGM went bankrupt, leading to the film being shelved for a while). In Skyrim, you can find a book called The Cabin In The Woods. Appropriately, the film itself is made out of shout outs.
• Occasionally in bandit hideouts, it's possible to find a corpse riddled with arrows, with an apple balanced on his head.
• Sweetrolls are almost impossible to not encounter in Skyrim. Of all things, why would a Bethesda Softworks title, particularly an Elder Scrolls title, have sweetrolls as a food that heals 5 HP? Also, some guards, when met with eye contact, ask, "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll?"
  • Sweetrolls have been a Running Gag ever since Arena, where the scene acted out in Fallout 3's CharGen dungeon is only merely postulated in CharGen (as it is in Daggerfall and Morrowind too).
• In Ivarstead, an irate Nord woman is named Temba Wide-Arms, making for a gag name alluding to the Tamarian phrase "Temba, his arms wide."
  • At one point during the Stormcloak campaign, Galmar Stone-Fist calls the Thalmor "pointy-eared bastards".
  • The book Great Harbingers details several prominent past Harbingers of The Companions. The first non-Nord to assume the illustrious title was a Redguard named "Cirroc the Lofty." Cirroc Lofton, an African-American actor, portrayed Jake Sisko (who, ironically, was not a martially apt character such as a Harbinger like Cirroc the Lofty would be) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
  • Urag gro-Shub on the Elder Scrolls: "But at the same time, all of it is true. Even the falsehoods. Especially the falsehoods."
    • The above is also a reference to Malcalypse's statement from the Principia Discordia.
• Athis, when asked why he joined the Companions, replies, "Fortune and glory, friend. Fortune and glory."
• In some dungeons, there are treasures resting on pressure plates that trigger a trap when you pick them up. Even better, you can even switch the treasure for something else of similar weight if you're fast enough and avoid springing the trap.
• The writers of the official strategy guide clearly had a lot of fun thinking up quest sub-headers. "Hadvar's Heroes", "The Windhelm Scream", "This Means War!", "A "Shaggy Dog" Story", and more.
• In the Abandoned House in Markarth, after it becomes apparent there's a daedric influence in the house, items start flying around the room and the chairs get stacked up in a pile on the dining table.
• Wuuthrad's reforging is a shout out to the reforging of the sword Gram from Norse Mythology.
• One of the loading screens has a Nord wearing blue war paint and hefting a claymore. There's even a preset for male Nords that looks like Mel Gibson as William Wallace.
• Delvin Mallory, a Thieves' Guild contact in Riften, is suspiciously similar to both Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham in accent, appearance and mannerism. His voice and manner of speaking can also be seen as an homage to London Gangster films.
• Star Wars:
  • The Bleakcoast Cave north of Winterhold is filled with frost trolls and a hallway has a skeleton frozen upside-down in the ceiling over other bones and a sword.
  • Lucien Lachance channels an evil Obi-Wan Kenobi — he's a ghostly robed figure who guides the player and at one point makes reference to a great disturbance in something. In one mission for the Dark Brotherhood, he'll say: "There is a disturbance in the Void."
  • "I find your wolfish grin... disturbing."
  • If you talk to Imperial soldiers while wearing a Stormcloak uniform, they'll question you about it. One of your dialogue options is to state that you are, in fact, a Stormcloak — to which they call you "Rebel scum".
  • The potential follower Erik the Slayer can be overheard complaining to his father, Mralki, that he would rather be adventuring than farming: "But I don't want to be safe! I'm not afraid of the dangers out there. The only thing I'm afraid of is wasting my life on this farm." Mralki replies, "Yes, that's your mother's side of the family talking. Just stay on for one more season, that's all I ask."
  • When raiding Korvandjund, Hadvar states he prefers a straight fight to sneaking around, like Han when they were disguised as stormtroopers.
  • Ask Tolfdir about the Augur of Dunlain during the College of Winterhold questline, and he'll reply, "Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time," à la Ben Kenobi.
  • Lydia or any follower with FemaleEvenToned voice would occasionally say. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
  • After "Animal Extermination" has been completed, the person who's house you killed the animal in will say "I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me!"
• Cynric's a hooded Master Thief with the distinct cool tone of Stephen Russell. Sounds distantly familiar...
  • The Draconic word for thief is 'tafiir; compare to "taffer" in Thief, which is a catch-all insult/swear word. It helps that several members of Thief's crew worked on Skyrim, most prominently writing the plot for the Thieves' Guild storyline.
• The quest "A Night To Remember" is basically The Hangover in Skyrim. In fact this video makes a silly comparison between the quest and the film.
• A centuries-old vampire who looks like she's about ten? That sounds familiar somehow...
• In the highest point in the game world, one can find a one of a kind Notched Pickaxe. It gives a boost to smithing, the closest skill to mining/crafting in the game. It's well known that Todd Howard and Notch are close friends and fans of each other's work.
• When asking Farkas if everyone in the Companions is a werewolf, he'll say, "Not everyone. But all the Circle are. It's a secret to everybody."
  • The remains of a high elf clad in a familiar green tunic and hat can be found at the bottom of a mammoth trap. Possibly doubles as a nod to the original Final Fantasy's Link tombstone.
  • The quest "Forbidden Legend" has you reforging an ancient amulet that was broken into three fragments — named Courage, Wisdom, and Power.
• Along the trade road in Whiterun, you can find an overturned wagon of cabbages.
• One of the loading screens has an orc covered in blood, wielding two war axes, who looks a lot like Kratos. The provided gameplay tip is about the orcs' berserker power.
• During peace negotiations in "Season Unending," siding with the Empire or Stormcloaks might prompt Ulfric or Tulius to deliver this gem:
  "Don't hand me a mug of sheep's piss and tell me it's mead/Colovian brandy."
• Aside from using many of the same archetypes as the North and being about dragons returning:
  • The giants having mammoths may seem a bit familiar.
  • In Dawnstar, you can meet an old soldier of the Legion named Horik Half-Hand.
  • In the Dawnguard DLC, there are armored dogs you can recruit. One is named Bran, and looks a bit like a direwolf.
  • Come across Imperials and Nords fighting and you may hear, "Send Ulfric my regards." Now, who are the Imperials and Nords (who are based in Winterhold) supposed to be again?
• The mammoths have four tusks, much like the oliphaunts in The Lord of the Rings movies.
  • The design of the frost spiders, with their particularly large upper jaws, is also quite evocative of the movies' Shelob.
  • Look at the Elven class of Light Armor in Skyrim. Then, look at the armor worn by the elf armies in the The Lord of the Rings films.
  • And Dragonsreach has a fair bit in common with Théoden's hall of Meduseld, and they both owe a fair bit to Heorot, featured in Beowulf, which is also a real place.
    • Jarl Balgruuf is basically Théoden's Expy, with his brother Hrongar being a different version of Eomer and (if the bits mentioned in the fridge section is true,) Lydia being a version of Eowyn.
    • This, in turn, basically makes the Dragonborn, in a sense, an Expy of Aragorn, both in experience and mentality (in-lore, one of Aragorn's feats noted by other characters was joining armies of Gondor and Rohan under a pseudonym, but people still recognise him as one of the Dunedain Rangers. The Dovahkiin can also join the Imperial Legion and Whiterun army, especially during the Siege of Whiterun. Not to mention many other similarities).
    • The whole city of Whiterun is definitely based on the Rohirric town of Edoras. Its silhouette when looking from the path to Riverwood resembles Edoras' first shot in the movie The Two Towers, its symbol shows a horse's head on the top half, and the Whiterun Guards wear a yellow uniform, when one of Rohan's colors was that same gold (if a little bit darker). The clincher is that Edoras is described in passing as having a stream which rises from in front of the door of Meduseld and flows through the whole town to exit by the gate: it's such a minor detail, the fact that Whiterun has the same thing must be intentional.
    • The dead white tree known as the Gildergreen recalls the White Tree of Gondor.
    • In Angarvund, the treasure that Madresi Dran was seeking consists of a broken sword hilt, a skeletal hand, and a gold ring — almost certainly a reference to Sauron's first defeat.
• In the Twilight Sepulcher, you can find the remains of a couple of thieves named Nystrom and Anders, and the former's journal references "night is the new day" and "the ghost of the sun".
• "I understand you're an elf who knows how to get things."
• Mercer prying the eyes out of the giant Falmer statue in the final Thieves' Guild quest bears a surprising resemblance to the cover of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook.
• The troll-slaying guide also authored by the adventurer Finn may be a nod to the Finnish metal band, Finntroll.
  • This could also be a reference to the "Saga of Finn," a poem sung by a bard in Beowulf.
• In Winterhold, Nelacar was doing a magical experiment. It ended with the creature turning inside out and then exploding, which could be a reference to either Galaxy Quest or The Fly (1986).
  • Also at the College, J'zargo asks you to test a spell for him. It makes the targets explode violently. When you return, you can mention this by saying "Were they supposed to explode? Because they exploded."
• Lars Battle-Born in Whiterun informs you that his funniest pastime has been "tipping the cow in the backyard." Cow Tipping is a recurring gag in the Fallout series.
• The master-level Destruction spells' third-person casting animation mimics the Kamehameha wave. The Lightning Storm even has the classic blue.
• While exploring the Soul Cairn in the Dawnguard DLC, one of the random trapped souls may say, "Death is but a door, time is but a window. I'll be back."
• English students may recognize High Hrothgar. However, it's technically not limited to Skyrim; it was introduced with Redguard back in 1998.
• One of the quest rewards is a book of ancient forbidden knowledge called the Oghma Infinium. The book's cover also appears to be made out of patches of skin from various races of Mer.
• Towards the south of Markarth, there's a reference to "Three Billy Goats Gruff" here.
• The story of Olaf One-Eye and Dragonsreach is reminiscent of a Polish folk tale about the founding of Krakow, which states that the first king of Poland took the throne when he slew a dragon and built his castle around its lair, out from which the city of Krakow was built.
• In the quest in which the player (has the option to) obtain the horse Frost, you will also receive Frost's lineage papers. Upon reading said papers, the player will discover — among other things — that Frost's father was Sleipnir. Sleipnir was Odin's horse (and Loki's child) in Norse Mythology.
  • The quest name and the horse are both references to the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening".
• For one of the quests in the College of Winterhold, you need to make contact with the Augur of Dunlain, a former student. He was the brightest mage of his age, but after a horrible accident, he took to hiding in the tunnels beneath the college.
• After fighting Frostbite Spiders under Helgen, Hadvar will sometimes comment, "What next, Giant Snakes?"
• One of the Dragon Priests is named Volsung.
• Belrand, a mercenary you can hire in Solitude, appears to be a homage to Minsc from Baldur's Gate.
• There are two references to Arthurian Legend in the game: The Lady of the Lake and The Sword in the Stone. A certain mod takes the Shout-Out and runs with it.
  • The legendary king of the Reach known as Red Eagle is also a fairly obvious Expy of Arthur.
• College of Winterhold quest line. Crawling through an old underground complex. Disembodied, creepy, deep voice of a monster talking to you. One of the things it says that you can actually understand? Something to the effect of "You are not Savos Aren." S. Aren. Saren?
  • Given that he constantly refers to him as only Aren after, and the fact you only see Savos in this quest as a shade, it might very well be a sneaky reference to another old archmage who's only encountered as a shade, Nielas Aran.
• The Dragonborn DLC features seven black books linked to the resurrection of an ancient evil.
• In Dragonborn, there's a set of elemental powers. The Water one is called Waters of Life. "Waters of Life" is part of a recurring quote and motif in Bethesda's Fallout 3, which is due to Revelations 21:6 ^{The verse?} I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely. being the major theme of the game's main quest.
• Hermaeus Mora himself is a walking (or floating) shout out to H.P Lovecraft and Eldritch Abominations in general, including Apocrypha, his realm of forbidden knowledge, and his fish-man underlings.
• The Dawnguard DLC contains several nods to the Underworld series:
  • The Vampire Lord transformation looks like Markus's hybrid form from Evolution.
  • Serana shares several traits with Selene and Sonja. The names and looks are similar; also, they each have a strained relationship with their fathers.
  • Harkon's voice actor seems to be channeling Bill Nighy in his role as Victor.
  • A display case in Volkihar Keep contains a Ring of Remedy, a Hagraven Claw, a Daedra Heart, a Sabercat Eye, and some Dog Meat, which parallel the pieces of Dracula that Simon Belmont had to gather in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
• Dragonborn adds a book titled Confessions of a Dunmer Skooma Eater.
• Labyrinthian is accessed by placing the striker into an ornate door knocker and then knocking, as Sarah does in Labyrinth.
• In Endon's house in Markarth, you can find a piece of cheese cut into the shape of Pacman chasing garlic to a bowl of glowdust◊
• One of the random books you can find around Skyrim, Palla, is an extended reference to Lolita, particularly the famous opening lines.
• Instead of barking, Barbas sometimes just says "woof".
• Although the context of the game makes it make sense, longtime Elder Scrolls fans who are also creepypasta fans might get a fright if the first time they hear "Watch the skies, traveler" is at night, thanks to the famous "Jvk1166z.esp" creepypasta. It's unlikely Bethesda hasn't heard of it themselves.
• Hermaeus Mora's Apocrypha is a huge library where the shadows can kill you.
• Inside the Dwemer ruin Alftand, there's a Khajiit named J'darr, a survival of an expedition who have been driven to madness due to Skooma withdrawal. While hallucinating, he may call the Dragonborn "smoothskin" before attacking.
• The name of Embershard Mine may seem randomly chosen, unless you've played Torchlight and are familiar with the magic-fueling mineral Ember, which comes in shards and comes out of a mine.
• During "Laid to Rest", you have to speak with Helgi, the ghost of a little girl hiding out inside a burned-down house, and during your conversation she makes an offhand remark about losing her "dolly". The Darrowshire questline in World of Warcraft heavily involves conversing with the ghost of a dead girl hiding in the wreckage of her house and one of the quests has you finding her lost doll for her.
• The Braidwood Inn in Kynesgrove is likely a reference to the Braidwood Inn from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
• One of the perks for the Conjuration skill tree is called Dark Souls. This perk gives reanimated corpses more health.
• Guards may say, "I fear the night. Because the vampires and werewolves don't." This is a reference to Dwarf Fortress, where the descriptions of werebeasts, and many other night creatures, ends with "Now you will know why you fear the night."
• The deranged skeever-breeder in the meadery cellars is not only named Hamelyn, but his journal's ramblings read like Tamriel's answer to the Ratman's Notebooks.

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