History Skyrim / TropesHToM

** The ''Dragonborn'' expansion offers an unpleasant surprise for fire-reliant players, as the majority of human enemies are now Dark Elves, who are all 50% resistant to fire, in addition to the fiery Ash Spawn.

* {{Hammerspace}}: The player and those [=NPCs=] which s/he can pickpocket. The player can carry dozens of broadswords and battleaxes and still sprint. Some [=NPCs=] can have their entire inventory removed via pickpocket save for one item. If caught, the NPC may draw a weapon which was never in their inventory. This is also apparently where Khajiit ears and Argonian horns and feathers go when they wear headgear.
** The pickpocket thing is not an example - *equipped* gear doesn't show unless you have perks that let you steal them. More interesting are merchant chests - each a personal hammerspace of the vendor.

** It's actually a RealLife Nordic colloquialism that refers to getting married (because a traditional proposal involves kneeling). You ''do'' never see a guard's spouse, though...

*** In the Thieves' Guild you have [[spoiler:Karliah (Dunmer) and Gallus (Imperial). Karliah herself]] is a bonus example, as her confirmed backstory reveals that her maternal grandparents were this too - [[spoiler:her grandmother was Queen Barenziah of the Dunmer, and her grandfather was Tiber Septim!]]

** Played even ''more'' straight in regards to dragons. On two separate occasions (first in a flashback with Alduin and then with Odahviing), humans have lured dragons to an obvious trap just by calling its name with the Thu'um. The dragons see this as a challenge, and will come straight away.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Several Khajiit (notably caravan boss Ri'saad), as well as Nord trader Ysolde, will lament that the Khajiit are not allowed inside cities, because "some" are thieves and the Nords have unjustly stereotyped them all... But all Khajiit in the game (except for walking EasterEgg M'aiq the Liar, and you if playing as a Khajiit) are thieves, assassins or involved in other illegal activities. '''All of them'''. Generic Khajiit appear as bandits and Dark Brotherhood assassins. [[spoiler:A Thieves' Guild mission shows Ri'saad and the three caravans working under him dabble in fencing and smuggling, and Ri'saad openly sells illegal Moon Sugar and Skooma. Two other named Khajiit are Thalmor hitmen.]] Even J'Zargo, of the College of Winterhold, confesses to being a thief upon first meeting him.

* HarpingOnAboutHarpies: Hagravens are a flightless variation of standard harpies.
* HeWasThereAllAlong: Now and again with [[GiantSpider Giant Frostbite Spiders]] [[CeilingCling hiding in the ceiling]]. Despite how unimpressive they are in combat, being ambushed by one from above will still [[JumpScare make you crap yourself every time]]. Ironically, it's scarier when ''you're'' also sneaking, because if you're just running around openly, it will probably notice you and drop in front of you as soon as you enter the room. If you're sneaking, it probably won't notice you until you're directly underneath it -- and ''neither will you''.

* [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harping On About Hagravens]]: Hagravens are a flightless variation of standard harpies.

** In the quest journal, there is decorative knotwork surrounding the name of each quest. This varies depending on the type of quest (main quests, guild quests, Daedric quests, etc.) For many quests this isn't a problem, but for some of the Daedric quests, [[spoiler: "A Night to Remember"]] being a perfect example, it may not be obvious at first. Finding this out can be a major twist.[[labelnote:example]]like when [[spoiler:Sam Guevenne]] is revealed to really be [[spoiler:Sanguine]][[/labelnote]]

* IOwnThisTown: Maven Black-Briar basically controls Riften, the Silver-Bloods by and large own Markarth, and Kjeld may as well run Kynesgrove. The latter two hold their sway by virtue of owning the mines on which their respective cities depend for their prosperity, while the former holds hers through her close contact with the Thieves' Guild, the Jarl of Riften, and the Empire. [[spoiler:In Maven's case, winning the CivilWar for the Empire will make it official since she becomes the replacement Jarl,]] while the Silver-Bloods [[spoiler: has one of their number as the replacement Jarl for the Reach in case of a Stormcloak victory]].

** This is pretty much what the Empire is trying. Pretending to be a Vichy-esque nation for the Thalmor while building up strength so they can hope to deliver them a more decisive defeat later on.

* JustBetweenYouAndMe: During the Forsworn Conspiracy quest, your investigation leads you to a man who will gladly explain all the sinister details of said conspiracy. When you point out his self-incrimination, he reveals that his servants are Forsworn agents who plan to kill you at the end of the conversation (not that you should be surprised, they pulled a similar stunt when you were talking to the last guy).

** Thonar Silver-Blood, who was responsible for all the events of the Forsworn Conspiracy quest, gets off scot-free if you choose not to side with Madanach in escaping.

* KickTheDog: A quick glance around the bases of the Silver Hand will clue you in that they don't just hunt werewolves, they capture and torture them, then display their remains as trophies. They also seem to have a hatred for normal wolves as well, as many can be found gruesomely slain in their bases.

* KillSteal: The Dark Brotherhood contacts you after you take on a mission in their name. The contractor was performing a ritual to summon ''them'', but you got there first.

** Late in the main questline, you can [[spoiler: enter Sovngarde]], and among the old heroes are several men and women wearing what are obviously mage robes. One of them is even wearing the College of Winterhold's Archmage vestments!

** The Guard Captain in the opening orders your execution despite not being listed, purely on the basis that you were captured with the Stormcloaks; the other soldiers seem to think it's a bad idea, but can't do much about it.

* LastOfHisKind: In the ''Dawnguard'' DLC, during one of the main story missions, you run into Knight-Paladin Gelebor, who is one of the last, if not ''the'' last, of the Snow Elves - which is what the Falmer were before they became the monsters you encounter frequently in dwarven ruins and caves. He was guarding a sacred place along with a few other surviving Snow Elves, and since they were rather isolated, it took some time for them to hear about the Snow Elf/Nord conflict that drove the former underground. [[spoiler:He then tells you the Falmer, whom he calls "the Betrayed," attacked the temple and overwhelmed them with their sheer numbers, which ended up driving his brother insane.]]

** The guardians of the Eldergleam Sanctuary, associated with nature goddess Kynareth, will kill anyone inside the sanctuary if the tree is harmed - even harmless pilgrims that came there just to admire it and have nothing to do with damaging the tree.

** Played straight with thief-based builds, early on enemies will always catch you Sneaking and your damage output won't be very high. Later in the game with the right perks and contact with the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood for some of their faction armor, your backstab damage does ''30'' times the base, stealth archery shots can kill even dragons in one hit, and with the right perks you're practically undetectable and can safely and patiently take out rooms full of enemies one by one.

** In you have the Summon Dremora Butler ability, you can bypass several gear-removing situations by giving him all your stuff then resummoning him to get it back. This lets you smuggle all your weapons into jail, or get additional gear for the "Diplomatic Immunity" quest.

** The Nahkriin Mask can also become LostForever if you forget to loot it from Nahkriin's remains or if you [[spoiler: rushed to the portal and entered Sovngarde before he removed the staff]] since, again, the dungeon becomes inaccessible after the main quest. To further add insult to injury, if this happens, it will also become impossible to obtain the Konahrik mask, since getting it requires you possessing all 8 Dragon Priest masks.
** If you summon the ghost of [[spoiler:Lucien Lachance]] after joining the Dark Brotherhood, be careful against enemies who can use the Disarm shout. If you drop a weapon which is better than the one [[spoiler:Lucian]] is using, he'll take it, and since he cannot be looted after death, there is no way to get it back.

* MagicalSociety: The College of Winterhold is the primary MagicalSociety and can be joined by the player, but the [[spoiler: Psijic Order]] also make a few appearances during quests that involve the College.

** The Dwemer have developed technologies that have reality-bending powers (or outright reality-breaking powers in the case of [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Numidium]]), so much so that they can use magitek apparati to [[spoiler:divine information from Elder Scrolls, circumventing that pesky blindness problem that the scrolls cause.]] Just casting magic is a quaint thing to them, but they were extraordinary enchanters, and that's the part that makes the "magi" in their Magitek.

* MercyKill: If you kill a bandit who has been raised from the dead by a necromancer, he will thank you as he disintegrates.

* MightyGlacier: Dwarven centurions. You can outrun them without even having to sprint (unless you get caught in their steam clouds), and their only ranged attack is fairly easy to dodge from a distance, but they resist magic, arrows bounce off their armor (if not ''completely'' harmlessly), and that's not taking into account their huge HP pool. And if you try to fight it head-on, you'll have to dodge everything perfectly or be willing to down a ton of potions, since its hammer and axe hit quite hard and the steam blast hurts a LOT.

* MindScrew: The nature of Alduin. [[spoiler: While the previous lore suggested he was Akatosh, he is a physical aspect of time and the firstborn of Akatosh, who is... a physical aspect of Time. So he is his own son.]]

* MoneyForNothing: Money is terribly easy to obtain once you've gotten on your feet. Chances are you'll come out of any given location at least 1000 septims richer for it, and that's not counting the loot. But that's just the beginning. You can exploit the crafting system to make bows worth thousands of septims from dwarven garbage and petty soul gems, or buy an alchemist's entire inventory then sell it back to them for a profit as potions. It even levels your skills at the same time. And if you've completed the "No Stone Unturned" quest, it just gets ridiculous. The reward for that quest is a permanent and quite significant increase to the chances for finding gemstones in containers. That means ''every container'' starts forking out pretty stones worth hundreds of septims. It comes to the point that the very few things that you need to buy (or are simply more efficient to buy in bulk than go trekking for) are easily worth just forking out the tiny amount of gold. In fact, the real problem late in the game is that merchants are ''too poor''; they only keep between 1000-3000 septims on hand at a time, forcing you to trek between several towns if you need the cash. The "Investor" perk doesn't help much, either, only adding a measly 500 septims to the pot (unless you exploit the mechanics by reverse-pickpocketing more gold into their inventory, which increases the pot). This trope is probably why player housing is disproportionately expensive (albeit a one-time purchase) and skill trainers charge up the wazoo at higher levels; you can afford it.

** The ''Dragonborn'' expansion has an optional sidequest that costs roughly 10,000 gold to complete, since you have to keep paying miners to dig out areas of the dungeon it takes place in.

** Dragons drop valuable Bones and Scales, which are some of the most expensive loot in the game. In addition they usually carry coins on them...as well as armor. Three guesses at how the dragon got them, and the first two don't count.
** Ash Spawns normally drop ores, which can range from the valuable and rare Ebony ore, to common but still valuable Gold Ores. At higher levels, they can also drop flawless gems which can sell for several hundred each, making Ash-Spawn-hunting a very profitable venture.
** Gargoyles have ores and gems of varying values as well.

** Can be done with hilarious results against [[spoiler: Lord Harkon from ''Dawnguard'' before the final battle while he argues with Serana.]] Because the player isn't "conversation frozen" as is usual for boss battles in Bethesda games, while they're talking you're free to walk up behind [[spoiler: Harkon]] with your Assassin character, bring up Mehrunes Razor or the Blade of Woe, and backstab him for massive damage. [[spoiler: Harkon will immediately teleport to his "boss battle" starting position and just as immediately turn into red ash.]]

* MontyHaul: The quest where you retrieve a special Bonemold formula for Glover Mallory in ''Dragonborn'' is an unintentional example. You can sneak in the location with the instructions from behind, avoiding a mildly-challenging dungeon, so getting to the location is the only part that presents a challenge. As a reward, Glover lets you take his old gear and supplies from his basement stash, which includes a valuable, unique set of armor and many precious gemstones, which is worth several thousand gold alone. However, everything in there respawns twice a week, allowing you to farm it indefinitely.
* MoonLogicPuzzle: The dwemer machine holding [[spoiler:The Elder Scroll]]. Two buttons rotate a large globe on the ground with various rings and lenses on it, a third button rotates lenses hanging overhead, and a fourth button which can only be pressed when the alignment of the pieces are right and unveils the objective item in the machine. Attempting to understand what is actually happening as you press the buttons will likely just confuse you, you understand you have to align ''something'', but what and how? The game developers appear to have assumed you won't understand and will just be pressing buttons at random, because that's actually the way to do it.[[labelnote:the solution]] press the second button until the third button activates, then press the third button until the fourth one can be used[[/labelnote]]

* MoreThanMeetsTheEye: Many characters. Some are not human despite looking human, some have murderous tendencies while being seemingly innocent on the outside. Babette appears to be a young girl but is [[spoiler: a vampire assassin centuries old who not only kills as a member of the Dark Brotherhood but sometimes kills in gruesome ways, then laughs about it when retelling the tale]].

* MuggingTheMonster: Unsurprisingly, the many thieves, robbers, bandits, and brigands of Skyrim share the traditional RPG thug deficiency in being able to tell that the guy they're about to accost is in fact, walking on a road made of the bodies of everyone s/he has mangled, even if they are wearing armour ''made of dragon bones'' and carrying a bloodstained greatsword. One random encounter even includes a dialogue option that says "I just don't have time for this." in response to getting mugged. Yes, you can essentially tell the muggers that ''you're too busy to be robbed right now''. [[TooDumbToLive They attack anyway.]]

** Lycathropy nets you a powerful beast form and associated perk tree which can match a lot of the threats in the game. It also has a far more mundane use: disease immunity. Even if you never use the beast form, having this trait does away with a number of very annoying status effects that come from skeever bites and Nordic tomb traps, not to mention completely protecting you from garden-variety vampirism, which requires a black soul gem to cure.

** The New Gnisis Cornerclub, a Dunmer tavern in the Grey Quarter of Windhelm, is named after Gnisis, one of the cities in [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]], where Dunmer hail from.

** Neloth in ''Dragonborn'' is not impressed if you tell him you are head of the College of Winterhold.

* HandicappedBadass: Hakon One-Eye; Skjor; the Dovahkiin, if played as one-eyed or blind.

** During the Companions questline, [[spoiler:Kodlak wants to be cured of his lycanthropy so his soul can go on to Sovngarde instead of Hircine's realm. Following his death in the assault on Jorrvaskr and the revenge on the Silver Hand, the Circle of the Companions gather at the Tomb of Ysgramor in "Glory of the Dead" to cure his lycanthropy posthumously by casting the Wolf Spirit out of his soul with the aid of the head of a Glenmoril Witch and then killing it. Following the quest in question, you can cure not only your own lycanthropy, but take quests to cure Farkas and Vilkas, two of the other resident werewolves of the Companions. All you need to do is wipe out the entire coven of Glenmoril Witches and bring back all of their heads. Aela, on the other hand, is quite fine with being a werewolf, and doesn't want to be cured.]]

* HereThereWereDragons: Fans that pay attention to the background lore raised some eyebrows when their presence was confirmed, as dragons were said to be an endangered species few in number, kept alive by the Empire only in return for helping them in war. The game eventually explains this, and the fact that they're returning is mentioned from the start; [[spoiler: [[BigBad Alduin]] is bringing all of the dragons ''back to life.'' Apparently the dragons' souls still survive unless they're absorbed by a Dragonborn, so the ones slain by non-Dragonborn people (such as the Blades) simply need their bodies rebuilt.]]

* HighlyConspicuousUniform: Most NPC groups and nearly all player-joinable factions have a specific, unvarying and often rather conspicuous uniform worn by the NPC's that the player can obtain. While this makes sense for the military factions (Imperial Army, Stormcloak Rebels), even groups that logically wouldn't have a uniform (such as the Thieve's Guild and the Volkihar vampire faction) still have a uniform. Lampshaded in some of the guard's comments, where (for example) they will recognize you're a member of the thieves' guild by your thieves' guild uniform.

* HoneyTrap: In Morthal, there's a female vampire who seduced a man into being her guardian while she and her master, Movarth, plan the town's destruction. Her seduction is so thorough that if you try to convince him that she's evil, he'll fight you to the death before letting harm come to her. Even factoring in the power of Vampiric Seduction at her disposal, [[ImpossiblyLowNeckline the way she dresses]] makes it not hard to see how she convinced the poor guy to become her Thrall.

* HornyVikings: The hero can opt to be the classic "horned Viking" using the horned variant of the Iron or Steel helmet (the other standard Steel helm is more like the real Viking's headwear) when using heavy armour or the Scaled helmet in light armour.

* HungryWeapon: The Ebony Blade is your reward for helping the Daedric Lord Mephala, and she urges you to use it on those you love the most so that the sword can absorb their essence and grow stronger.

* IconicOutfit: The horned helmet worn by the PC in the trailer. Also, generally speaking, all the official art and images of the Dragonborn be it male or female will depict the character wearing an Iron Helmet, Studded Armor, Iron Gauntlets, and Iron Boots; and usually bearing a sword (either with a shield or dual wielding blades).

** There is another one, Lu'ah Al-Skaven, the insane necromancer in Ansilvund. Her husband died years ago; but unfortunately for her, there is not much left of his body because it was burned. Instead, she wanted to use the Draugr bodies of the legendary lovers Holgeir and Fjori to be vessels for her and her late husband.

** Most of the offenders in this trope have been avoided, though. In particular, you can gleefully jump over fences.

** This is the entire schtick of the daedric prince Clavicus Vile. He takes an unholy glee in twisting whatever somebody wishes for to the greatest possibility of homicide [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment possible]]. Somebody asks for a cure for [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent his daughter's lycanthropy]]? Give 'em an axe. A group of vampires want an end to their undead misery? Have [[PlayerCharacter somebody]] appear and slaughter them all. [[PlayerCharacter Somebody]] wants an end to the CivilWar plaguing Skyrim? Do absolutely nothing and let the dragons kill both sides of the fight. The only thing that keeps him honoring a deal at all and not just killing everybody is [[BigFriendlyDog Barbas]], the manifestation of his conscience.
** This is also the case with the Ideal Masters in the Soul Cairn. Necromancers attempt to bargain with them in an attempt to raise powerful souls, but more often than not the necromancers find themselves trapped in the Soul Cairn instead. For just one example, the dragon Durnehviir made a deal to act as a guard for Valerica until she died. He's immortal, so this seems like a good deal. What they neglected to tell him is that [[spoiler:she is too]].

* JokeItem: The Wooden Sword from ''Hearthfire'' DLC. Justified in that it is a toy, though it is funny when you beat a bandit to death with it. Still odd since you can give your children real daggers, even Daedric/dragonbone ones, as gifts. ''Dawnguard'' lets you dual wield a knife and fork.

* KamehameHadoken: Combining two of the same Destruction spells into one overcharged shot, right down to the pose. Lightning Storm and Incinerate especially invoke the TropeNamers in performance.

** Mikrul Gauldurson, a named Draugr boss, is aided by a variety of non-Boss draugr. Kill him before the others, and they all drop on the spot. If you're really fast with your bow, you can actually kill him before he even gets the chance to ''summon'' them during the second fight.

**** At least, that's what the guide and the in-game lore-book regarding it says. However, dragons in Skyrim don't *have* forepaws. Their upper limbs are bat-like wings, and the 'claws' at the end of the wings aren't shaped like the marks. Which leaves them making the marks with their *feet*, either while hovering, or carefully standing on one foot.
* InfantImmortality: Usually played straight, though a few child deaths occur in the storyline. A man in Morthal has recently lost his child as well as his wife to a house fire; a man in Cidhna Mine had his young daughter [[OffWithHisHead executed]] before [[KickTheDog he was thrown in]]; and in Falkreath, a little girl was mauled to death by a werewolf. However, none of these ever happen onscreen, and children are invincible to any of your in-game attacks.

* InsistentTerminology: The description of High-King Torygg's death. Pro-Stormcloak characters are quick to point out that Torygg was killed in a duel that met the requirements of Nord tradition, while pro-Imperial characters consider it to be murder and argue that Ulfric's use of the Thu'um prevented it from being a fair fight.

** If you use cheat codes, you'll find that some walls have an invisible barrier that extends some distance above the actual wall (the Thalmor Embassy for example, which you're supposed to infiltrate as a party guest), but if you jump high enough you can get in and break the quest.

** The top tier Perk for Pickpocket, "Perfect Touch" allows the player to pickpocket items that [=NPCs=] ''currently have equipped.'' However, the perk does not work on essential characters (i.e. characters who are needed for quests and therefore can't be killed), thus allowing players with the Perk to know that a character is special because their clothes can't be stolen.
** In the quest journal, there is decorative knotwork surrounding the name of the quest. This varies depending on the type of quest (main quests, guild quests, Daedric quests, etc.) For many quests this isn't a problem, but for some of the Daedric quests, [[spoiler: "A Night to Remember"]] being a perfect example, it may not be obvious at first. Finding this out can be a major twist.[[labelnote:example]]like when [[spoiler:Sam Guevenne]] is revealed to really be [[spoiler:Sanguine]][[/labelnote]]

** Note, however, that opponents who are not automatically hostile to you (like bandits) and are fighting you for a non-faction related reason (say, someone who caught you pickpocketing, attacked, then received a beat-down from you) sometimes *will* stop fighting when they scream "I yield!" IF you sheath your weapons at that point. Otherwise, they will eventually stagger to their feet, see you still have a weapon drawn, and resume the attack at a sliver of health (often with heroic, agonized gasps like "No... Not... Like this!"). Amusingly, if they do stop fighting because you sheathed your weapons, they will frequently quip things like "Well, I guess you've had enough, then," as they walk off.

* {{Jerkass}}: A fair number of characters qualify, what with FantasticRacism in such abundance. Rolff Stone-Fist, who you meet upon first setting foot in Windhelm, certainly does -- you know you're dealing with a Jerkass when their EstablishingCharacterMoment is plain old FantasticRacism. Fortunately, you can beat the crap out of him.

** Thonar Silver-Blood, who was responsible for all the events of the Forsworn Conspiracy quest gets off scot free if you choose not to side with Madanach in escaping.

** Mikrul Gauldurson, a named Draugr boss, is aided by a variety of non-Boss draugr. Kill him before the others, and they all drop on the spot.

* LastOfHisKind: In the ''Dawnguard'' DLC, during one of the main story missions, you run into Knight-Paladin Gelebor, who is one of the last, if not ''the'' last, of the Snow Elves - which is what the Falmer were before they became the monsters you encounter frequently in dwarven ruins and caves. He was guarding a sacred place along with a few other surviving Snow Elves, and since they were rather isolated, it took some time for them to hear about the Snow Elf/Nord conflict that drove the former underground. [[spoiler:He then tells you the Falmer, which he calls "the Betrayed", attacked the temple and overwhelmed them with their sheer numbers, which ended up driving his brother insane.]]

** Alduin, the BigBad of the game, is [[spoiler: not only supposed to be the dragon god Akatosh's "son," but also]] an "aspect" of Akatosh. The explanation is fragmentary at best. One fan theory says that the dragons are "fragments" of Akatosh based on a line from a developer in-Universe text, and that he was the first to split making "sons" of Akatosh just the way they explain it to humans.

* LogicBomb: In the "Yellow Book of Riddles" one of the jokes has this as the punchline.

--> What must you do to stay alive?

** In you have the Summon Dremora Butler ability, you can bypass several gear-removing situations by giving him all your stuff then resummoning him to get it back. This lets you smuggle all your weapons into jail, or get additional gear for the Diplomatic Immunity quest.

** A Word Wall containing part of the Call Storms shout is located in the final dungeon of the main quest. If you didn't get it before [[spoiler: entering the portal to Sovngarde]], too bad; there's no way to get back to the dungeon.

*** In the Thieves' Guild you have [[spoiler:Karliah (Dunmer) and Gallus (Imperial)]].

** This is also the case with the Ideal Masters in the Soul Cairn. Necromancers attempt to bargain with them in an attempt to raise powerful souls, but more often than not the necromancers find themselves trapped in the Soul Cairn instead. For just one example, the dragon Durnehviir made a deal to act as a guard for Valerica until she died. He's immortal, so this seems like a good deal. What they neglect to mention is that [[spoiler:she is too]].

** You can also get an alchemy tutorial, an enchanting tutorial and an archery tutorial from various [=NPCs=] specialized in these disciplines.

* KamehameHadoken: Combining two of the same Destruction spells into one, overcharged shot, right down to the pose. Lightning Storm and Incinerate especially invoke the TropeNamers in performance.

* KarmaHoudini: The Black-Briar family. Their head, Maven, is connected to the Thieves' Guild, the Dark Brotherhood and the Empire, and runs a powerful mead-brewing plant. She's so rich and powerful that she's untouchable by authorities, and the Thieves' Guild mentions that ''nothing'' happens in Riften without her express consent. If you side with the Empire, she gets named Jarl after they conquer the city, and she even says the title is a formality and that she's always been the one running the city. Riften is a WretchedHive, since even the city guard are in Maven's pocket. The houdini part is that she's marked as essential, so you can't kill her, and there's no quest to bring her to justice. The worst thing you can do to her is steal a horse, and she genuinely doesn't care about that; if you choose to rat out the man who asked you steal it, she'll tell you to go on with the theft. Of course, destroying the Dark Brotherhood under her nose and becoming Thane will make her begrudgingly respect you as she hands you the title of Thane of Riften (which is seen as AFateWorseThanDeath).

*** One particularly delicious KarmicDeath, after the quest, he is no longer essential, so you can cast a Frenzy spell on him and let the city guards, who he's got in his pocket, kill him.

** Hermaeus Mora kicks the dog in a big way during the second to last quest of the Dragonborn DLC's storyline by [[spoiler:killing Storn Crag-Strider]].

** In the expansion ''Dragonborn'', once you've awoken the ArcVillain Miraak (also a Dragonborn), he will teleport in and absorb the soul of any dragon you try to kill.

**** At least, that's what the guide and the in-game lore-book regarding it says. However, dragons in Skyrim don't *have* foreclaws. Their upper limbs are bat-like wings, and the 'claws' at the end of the wings aren't shaped like the marks. Which leaves them making the marks with their *feet*, either while hovering, or carefully standing on one foot.

* The Ebony Blade is your reward for helping the Daedric Lord Mephala, and she urges you to use it on those you love the most so that the sword can absorb their essence and grow stronger.