Follow TV Tropes

Following

Skyrim / Tropes U to Z

Go To

Main Page | Tropes 0 to C | Tropes D to G | Tropes H to M | Tropes N to T | Tropes U to Z


    open/close all folders 

    U 
  • Ãœberwald:
    • Hjaalmarch. The entire hold contains a single quaint, rustic town surrounded by dismal foggy swamps and ruled by an old crone with mystical fortune-telling powers; nearby is a large vampire lair with a scheming master vampire; there are no roads, and the overall atmosphere is dark, mysterious and creepy. With Hearthfire you can also build and own an estate there, but your adopted children are afraid to live in this estate, claiming there are monsters in the swamp... and they're right! The random encounters that threaten the estate often include Trolls, Giants or Draugr from the nearby Nordic Ruin!
    • Remember Chauruses, the Big Creepy-Crawlies that can usually only be found deep underground in Falmer infested lairs? One place they do live above ground is in Morthal's swamp, located about three steps from your front door! No wonder Valdimar is the only Housecarl to be a Spellsword!
    • To really bring it all together, there is a mod which inserts a Skyrim-ified version of the Arklay Mansion from Resident Evil. Take a wild guess where they put it...
  • Ultimate Forge:
    • The Skyforge is the only place where Ancient Nord Armor and weapons can be made, and it's the only place where Skyforge Steel weapons can be bought.
    • In the Dawnguard DLC there's a quest "Lost to The Ages" in which your character finds four shards of the incredibly rare material Aetherium, and the legendary Aetherium Forge which is used to turn them into a unique item.
  • Unbreakable Weapons: The Elder Scrolls series averted this trope through its first four installments, all having Breakable Weapons and armor. Skyrim made the switch to unbreakable weapons and armor, along with refactoring the Armorer skill (which in previous games allowed you to repair your equipment) into the Smithing skill, which allows you to create your own weapons/armor from raw materials as well as improve the quality of bought/found equipment.
  • Undead Child:
    • Babette, of the Dark Brotherhood, was bitten at age ten and has been alive and killing for over three hundred years. She is by far the oldest Dark Brotherhood member in Skyrim, and older than all of the events of the 235 years in which the series has been taking place.
    • Helgi of Morthal is a ghost who died in a house fire due to the vampire Laelette causing it for Alva and her master Movarth.
  • Underestimating Badassery: After Cicero gets stabby and escapes from the Dark Brotherhood base, every member of the group in question is confident that his pursuer will - quite literally - eat him alive. This is understandable, given that the pursuer in question is a cannibalistic werewolf and the fugitive only has a knife. When you finally catch up with them, Arnbjorn has been all but gutted, and Cicero is completely unharmed; the only reason Arnbjorn lives is because of his aforementioned condition.
  • Underground City: Blackreach, a Dwemer ruin so massive it has four separate surface entrances, its own Optional Boss, and an entire castle.
  • Underground Level: There are regular caves and mines (often serving as dens for bandits, Falmer, vampires, etc.), ancient Nordic burial tombs, and subterranean fortresses guarded by machines that were built by their long-since-vanished Dwemer masters. There's even a wide-open cavern deep underground connecting three Dwemer fortresses, once the location of the Dwemer city of Blackreach.
  • Unexpected Genre Change: The Thieves' Guild has a few missions in which stealth (the linchpin of a Thief-type character) is not the main focus. Of note is the mission "Dampened Spirits", which is basically you going into a cellar to eliminate rats. You're not sneaking or breaking in (in fact, you have to get permission from the proprietor to even begin the quest), and combat with the spiders and skeevers which infest the underground caves is almost impossible to avoid. Even worse is the Wake-Up Call Boss at the end of the level, Hamelyn, who is difficult to sneak up on because alerting his pets alerts him as well, and if you take on this quest at too low of a level, he can kill you in a matter of seconds.
  • Unexplained Recovery: If you kill certain characters, like the carriage drivers, they are set to respawn after a certain amount of time, causing this trope to happen.
  • Unfinished Business:
    • Skyrim is full of souls that can't move on to the afterlife because there's something left for them to do on Mundus. The two long-dead lovers from the "Book of Love" quest come to mind, or Gallus from the Thieves' Guild quest line. The most detailed example, however, is certainly Katria, a seasoned adventurer who died during her search for the legendary Aetherium Forge. Her apprentice promptly stole all of her research and published it as his own. Katria's ghost has been bound to Nirn ever since, unable to move on until she can track down the Forge and complete her life's work by proving its existence. Only when she and the Dragonborn finally forge the last Aetherium artifact ever can she let go to take her place among the honored dead of Sovngarde.
    • The Dawnguard DLC has you meet the ghost of Katria — a Nord explorer who was so obsessed with finding an ancient Dwemer artifact named "Aetherium Forge", she died while looking for it and got stuck in the mortal realm. If you visit the cave where she died, her ghost latches on to you and helps you if you follow the corresponding quest. Once you do find the Aetherium Forge, Katria thanks you and finally leaves for Sovngarde.
  • Ungrateful Bastard:
    • The Blades will cut off all support if you refuse to kill Paarthurnax. This comes after you save Esbern's life, help them reclaim Sky Haven Temple by literally using your blood, and help re-establish their order with new recruits. They do this despite being oathsworn to serve you.
    • Conversely, the Player Character is this, should you choose to go along with the Blades' plan after Paarthurnax has helped you learn Dragonrend and fight Alduin, both saving your life and giving you the means to save the world. Repaying that with death so that you can command a squad of warriors bent on exterminating his species is pretty harsh. The Greybeards will even call you out on it and prevent you from ever returning to High Hrothgar. It's made even worse by the fact that Paarthurnax won't turn hostile until you actually attack him, meaning you can both literally and metaphorically Back Stab him.
    • In gameplay, you can save Thalmor Justiciars from all manner of threats, from saber cats and bears to vampires, giants and dragons. If you talk to them afterward, they'll still speak to you like an idiot child and issue veiled threats, and possibly attack you if you choose the wrong conversation options.
    • One imprisoned bandit begs that you save him from hagravens. The second he's released he decides to kill and rob you. That is, try, before Dovahkiin one shots him.
    • Paratus Decimius, the Sole Survivor of the Synod expedition to Mzulft. Given that you encounter him as part of the College of Winterhold questline, and that the Synod are less than respectful of the College, it becomes quickly apparent that he's a paranoid dick who only cares about his dubiously-intentioned research. He yells at you for sabotaging it when things don't go exactly as planned, and refuses to accept any claims to the contrary, even though you just saved his ass from a Dwarven ruin full of murderous robots and angry Falmer. It shouldn't be surprising that the game lets you kill him without repercussion.
  • Ungrateful Townsfolk: You just saved the townspeople from a dragon by using your Dragon Shouts. Surely they'll all fall on their knees, thanking you, right? Wrong. At best they'll stand around gawking at you, if not then the guards will warn you to stop Shouting because it puts people on edge (as if the dragon you just took down wouldn't). At worst, you'll actually be prosecuted for whatever damage you may have done whilst trying to take the dragon down.
  • Unholy Matrimony:
    • Astrid and Arnbjorn are Happily Married. They're also the de facto leaders of The Remnant of the Dark Brotherhood.
    • Hert and Hern, the owners of the Half-Moon Mill. They're vampires who lure unsuspecting travelers to their doom by offering them shelter for the night.
  • Universal Poison: The game uses a system similar to that of Oblivion. For example, there are a few levels of basic poison, poisons which reduce your resistance to specific elements at varying amounts, and so on.
  • Unperson: The Thalmor are attempting to do this to Talos (and by extension Shor/Lorkhan). The ramifications have Apocalypse How - Metaphysical Annihilation severity for Men, though Mer would (probably) regain divinity.
  • The Unreveal:
    • Your initiation into the Dark Brotherhood consists of you being presented with three hooded figures; you're told one of them has a contract for their death and you must carry it out, deciding which one you think is the one with the contract. However, you're never told who it actually was and you succeed regardless of who you kill, as the test was about your willingness to carry out the order rather than about your actual choice of target. Given that you're allowed to kill all three and they all have reasons for others to want them dead, it's entirely possible all three had contracts, or even none of them. This is the Dark Brotherhood, after all. If you're over level 5, you have a contract on your head and can be met at any time in a random encounter after that of a Brotherhood Assassin attempting to kill you with a letter from Astrid on them. It's speculated that Astrid's transferring your contract to one of the others.
    • One quest gives you the option to help Saadia, who claims the Alik'r were hired to assassinate her for speaking out against the Aldmeri Dominion, or the Alik'r, who say she actually betrayed Hammerfell to the Dominion. You can help Saadia kill the Alik'r leader and escape, or help the Alik'r capture her. Aaaaaaand... that's it. You never find out for sure who was telling the truth.note 
  • Unspecified Apocalypse: Both examples are centered in Winterhold. The first is Arniel Gane of the College of Winterhold, trying to figure out what happened to the Dwemmer and succeeding, as he uses the Dwemer dagger Keening (the same used on the Heart of Lorkhan by the Dwemer Tonal Architect Lord Kagrenac) and a warped soul gem to act as the Heart on a smaller scale. He disappears in a flash of light, and the Dragonborn gains the ability to summon his shade from wherever he is now. The second is the Great Collapse; in 4E 122, the Sea of Ghosts smashed against the cliffs of Winterhold and plunged most of the city into the depths below, save for the College, the Jarl's longhouse, and some surrounding buildings. Most of the remaining citizens believe that the College caused it or at least could have prevented it, while the College believe it was caused by the destruction of Vivec and the eruption of Red Mountain causing tsunamis that destroyed the surrounding areas.
  • Unstoppable Rage: The Orc racial power, Berserker Rage, doubles weapon damage and halves damage received.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment:
    • Played straight with the random generic thieves and Dark Brotherhood assassins who may appear. Their armor cannot be looted from their corpse. The Summerset Shadows' armor also cannot be looted (except for the group leader, whose armor is slightly different).
    • Also played straight with most Draugr; if they're wearing armor, chances are you can't loot it. You can find it as random loot elsewhere, and the Skyforge can be used to craft brand new versions after a certain story event.
    • Played straight and Inverted by the Giants; whilst you may not be able to pick up their tree-sized clubs, they often drop human-sized weapons and armor that they are never shown using.
    • While usually averted to hell and back, in that you can loot weapons and clothing off someone who literally have been turned to ash by your lightning spells, this is played straight with Ash Spawns in Dragonborn. Justified since their weapons are technically Shapeshifter Weapons.
    • Dremora can't be looted for their armor, though you can craft it or summon it from the bounds of Oblivion using the Atronach Forge, likely right off some Dremora's back.
    • The Keepers from Dawnguard sport full sets of Dragonbone Armor (minus the helmets) which cannot be looted from their remains. Their Dragonbone weapons, however, can be retrieved if your level is high enough.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
    • The Dragonborn's activities are fairly unremarkable to most townsfolk. You can be dressed in Archmage robes or a full set of Daedric armor, and they regard you with the same attitude that they would if you wore simple clothes. Their AI will also remark on dead bodies lying in the street while ignoring a dragon's corpse, or tell you to put away that "dangerous magic" when you just used it to kill said dragon. They also don't notice that you may be riding around on a purple, flaming, skeletal horse. Guards, on the other hand, are programmed to react to your attire and behavior (but still not all of it - for instance, the aforementioned flaming skeletal horse doesn't raise any eyebrows among them). Mostly averted for vampires, however - many NPCs will comment on the paleness of your skin and the "hunger" in your eyes, and turning into a Vampire Lord will turn the population hostile to you.
    • It should also be noted that people react early in the game to your Thu'uming. After you meet the Greybeards, though, word has gotten around; by the end of the main quest, people are numb to it.
    • Joining a faction, such as the Companions, allows you to stay in their headquarters. It also allows you to help yourself to a lot of the items found inside that headquarters. You can walk around in full view of your guildmates, picking up every random plate and goblet and drum and sweetroll you find, and haul them off to the local miscellaneous trader. As long as you only make off with items labeled "Take" rather than "Steal," nobody will bat an eye.
    • In the Dawnguard DLC, many NPCs will likely see Serana carrying around an Elder Scroll on her back, yet no one mentions it. This one, however, may be completely justified; because the darn things are so unusual, the average person likely doesn't know one when they see it.note 
  • Unwinnable by Design: Can happen if you waste too much time in the prologue, as after a certain amount of time elapses from when you start following Hadvar and heading for the Helgen Keep, the dragon will single you out and start attacking you and you only. This results in a short and brutal execution, as your hands are still bound, and he can position himself in such a way that the only escape is through him. Be especially quick when in front of the Keep, as the dragon will land there and immediately torch you dead should you not run the hell away inside the keep.
  • Unobtainium: Among the minerals, there are Orichalcum, Moonstone, and Quicksilver.
    • However, the one that takes the cake is Aetherium, introduced in the "Lost to the Ages" quest chain in Dawnguard. This magic-imbued substance was apparently used by the Dwemer to make some of their most powerful weapons ever, and supposedly the small crest you assemble during the quest is all that's left of the stuff.
    • Dwemer metal can't be made in modern times, because the knowledge to do so has been lost. The only way to get Dwemer Metal Ingots to make Dwarven weapons and armor is to break down chunks of Dwemer scrap metal (usually obtained from killing Dwemer constructs.)
  • Updated Re-release: The game received a Legendary Edition in 2013 that bundles the game with all three major Downloadable Content packs, and for Xbox 360 owners, added new voice-recognition features through Kinect. Another re-release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC was released in 2016 as Special Edition, which bundles all of the DLCs and uses an updated engine seen in Fallout 4 to remaster the game's visuals with enhanced effects, higher resolution textures, dynamic Depth of Field, volumetric lighting, and allows console players access to PC mods similar to Fallout 4. In 2017, the game was rereleased yet again in two new forms: one for Nintendo Switch, adding Amiibo functionality and a few items hailing from The Legend of Zelda, and one for VR (PS4 in 2017, PC/Mac in 2018). Then, in 2021, for the game's 10th anniversary it was rereleased once again as the Anniversary Edition, which bundles all of the Creation Club content and integrates it seamlessly into the game world.
  • The Upper Crass: Some of the rulers fit this archetype. In particular, the Jarls of Winterhold, Falkreath, Hjaalmarch, and The Pale, which are far more rustic or less wealthy Holds of Skyrim, can fall into this.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Averted in general. Every perk, spell, and shout has its uses, including seemingly useless ones. Deadly Shield Bash, for example, is not very useful compared to killing things with your dedicated weapons; but for mages who use shields, it turns them into an effective backup weapon if magicka runs out, and can serve as a workable backup for fighters who find themselves on the wrong side of a Disarm shout. Similarly, Elemental Fury is not terribly useful for someone with an enchanted weapon, but some particularly nasty weapons (i.e. Valdr's Lucky Dagger) don't count as enchanted.
  • Useless Useful Stealth: Averted with a vengeance in this game, in response to criticism of Oblivion. With a character focused on Sneaking, you can avoid setting off traps in dungeons, make no noise even when running, make less noise regardless of armor weight, execute silent combat rolls, and take advantage of the highest damage multipliers in the game. (Bows will do three times normal damage, one-handed weapons six times, and daggers fifteen times as much!) If you master pickpocketing, you can sneak up behind someone and steal all their armor and weapons without them ever noticing you. When combined with other perks, such as Silent Casting, Illusion spells, and the ability to set Rune traps and conjure minions from several yards away, you can take care of threats without even being in the room. And even if you are caught, the Shadow Warrior perk allows you to run away, kneel, and force the enemy to lose your location. If anything, the game went too far in the opposite direction, making sneaking so absurdly overpowered with the right build that the game becomes laughably easy. There's a reason why many people's Skyrim experiences can be summed up by the words "Stealth Archer".
  • Use Your Head: One finishing move that you sometimes use when wielding a battleaxe is hooking the haft behind someone's neck and pulling him towards you as you ram your forehead into his face, killing him.
  • The Usual Adversaries:
    • Bandits. Almost everyone sends you to fight bandits eventually. There's almost always bandits involved.
    • In the Reach, it's Forsworn instead (although a few bandits do still show up). In the Pale, it's usually Giants.
    • Alduin and his long-dead Cult of Dragons uses Draugr (barrow wights, more or less) as their standard mooks, who serve as the Usual Adversaries during the main quest.

    V 
  • Vampire Bites Suck: The feeding bites of your standard-issue vampires are apparently painless. The feeding bite, however, of the eight-foot-tall half-bat Volkihar Vampire Lord? Not so much. However, you can still feed the nice way when you are not wearing the Game Face. The difference is particularly visible by how you can become a Volkihar Vampire Lord in-game. If you are aligned with the vampire-hunting Dawnguard, you get the gift from Serana, who bites you in human form and does her best to make it as painless as possible (in fact, the scene borders on Ship Tease). If you chose to join the Volkihar Clan, on the other hand? You get the gift from Lord Harkon, who bites you in his One-Winged Angel form. This cause you to fall unconscious, and when you wake up, he casually informs you that you were lucky to survive the transformation.
  • Vampire Episode: There's an entire DLC titled Dawnguard focused on vampires. You can either choose to fight with the titular Dawnguard faction to take down the vampire lord Harkon (who is pretty much an Elder Scrolls expy of Dracula, making this also a Fight Dracula moment for the player), or join the vampires yourself (you still have to fight Harkon at the end, however).
  • Vampires Sleep in Coffins: Zig-zagged. It is not required for vampires to sleep in a coffin; some of them, such as Hert and Sybille Stentor, can sleep on a bed perfectly fine. Others, such as Alva and those living in Castle Volkihar and Redwater Den, do sleep in coffins. You can also find several coffins littered all over Broken Fang Cave, although they're not usable. You can, however, sleep in those found in Castle Volkihar and Redwater Den, even when you're not a vampire. With the Hearthfire expansion installed, installing furniture in a house while playing as a vampire character gives the option of adding a coffin in the basement, which can be used in the same way as a bed.
  • Vampiric Draining: In the Dragonborn DLC, this is an ability of the Seekers, a Cthulhumanoid form of lesser Daedra in service to Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge. All of their spells drain or absorb the health, magicka, and/or fatigue of their targets. Additionally, these spells are ranged and home-in on their targets.
  • Van Helsing Hate Crimes:
    • The Silver Hand is a group of werewolf-hunters who don't discriminate between the non-evil werewolves and the ones that threaten villagers. They're also really brutal to the werewolves (and regular wolves) that they do capture. One of their bases is essentially a werewolf skinning and tanning facility. For that matter, they're also hostile to you even if you're not a werewolf. If you wander into one of their forts by accident, they'll kill you anyway. So they're basically bandits who like killing werewolves for sport, rather than because they think it's the right thing to do. One of the common insults enemies use on you if you're a Khajiit is "You'll make a fine rug, cat!" The Silver Hand apparently follow through.
    • According to flavor text, the Vigil of Stendarr has a "kill first, ask questions later" policy regarding vampires, werewolves, Daedra, and anyone suspected of associating with them. In-game, however, they don't appear to do this as much, and don't even care if you prance around them in full Daedric gear. Additionally, the game files have a scrapped interaction where they demand that you hand over a Daedric Artifact if they see you with one.
    • The Blades will insist on you killing Paarthurnax even though he's peaceful and helps you defeat the Big Bad, Alduin. Their only reason is their belief dragons are Always Chaotic Evil and that he should pay for his crimes before his Heel–Face Turn. Even though that happened millennia ago, and said heel face turn is the only reason Alduin and the other dragons aren't still in charge, they will give no quarter.
    • Subverted by the Dawnguard. Although Isran is none too happy about it, he's willing to let Serana live and even enter their headquarters if she helps stop the vampire lord from blotting out the sun. He makes no such accommodations for you should you ever become a vampire, because unlike Serana, he can't exploit you for a possible weakness within Castle Volhikar. That said, once Lord Harkon is dead, he does change his tune and has no problem with her being in Fort Dawnguard ever again.
  • Verbal Weakness: Dragons have no concept of transience. Since Thu'ums make whatever is said a reality, that means they're weak to words embodying transience, which are exactly what make up the Dragonrend Thu'um. The words Joor Zah Frul translate to Mortal, Finite, Temporary, things an ageless being would have no idea or concept of.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:
    • The base game has the Nordic afterlife of Sovngarde, where the Dragonborn confronts Big Bad Alduin for one last time, and can only be reached from the distant temple of Skulldafn. The background music actually chants your title.
    • The Dawnguard expansion has the chapel at Castle Volkihar. It also has a Disc-One Final Dungeon location at the top of the Chantry of Auri-El, featuring a balcony overlooking the entire Forgotten Vale.
    • The Dragonborn expansion has the top of a tower in Apocrypha (the realm of the Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora), which you can only reach by commanding a dragon to fly you there. Appropriately enough, the title of the final quest is "At the Summit of Apocrypha".
  • Vestigial Empire: Ever since the Septim dynasty was killed off in Oblivion's main story arc, the old Empire has almost totally collapsed in on itself; a process that has been spurred on by the Thalmor and the Aldmeri Dominion, who sees the Empire as the biggest obstacle for the implementation of their plans and therefore constantly moves to weaken it by playing on its own internal diversions and other weak points. After two hundred years of turmoil, only the provinces of Cyrodiil, High Rock, Morrowind and Skyrim remain under Imperial rule — and in the case of High Rock and Morrowind, quite nominally, the latter in particular being really just an in-name-only province. Many of your actions in certain quests can either help the Empire or make things even worse. For example, helping the last Blades to restore their order, destroying the last remnants of the Dark Brotherhood (sparing the Emperor in the process), leading the Imperials to victory over the Stormcloaks in the civil war, keeping Skyrim in the Empire, and being a prominent Imperial citizen of the Dragon Blood leaves the Empire in the best shape its been for centuries and maybe, just maybe, able to work itself out of this trope.
  • Victory Is Boring: The Ebony Warrior, an incredibly powerful foe that can only be battled when the Dragonborn has reached level 80 or over. The Ebony Warrior explains that he has done so many legendary deeds and has grown so mighty that nothing is able to pose a worthy challenge to him (the Dragonborn him/herself is liable to feel the same way by level 80). He sees the Dragonborn as his last remaining Worthy Opponent and the only one who can give him the honorable death in battle he needs to enter Sovngarde.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Certain quests requires you to go out and find closure for people (usually by finding the corpse of whoever it is they're looking for). These are entirely optional and have no bearing whatsoever on the story, and many of them have rewards of little value. Other quests can play out differently depending on your response or (in the case of "Blood On the Ice") what you do.
    • A good example is "Finding Reyda," where at the end you can either flat out tell Narfi how his sister has died and destroy what's left of the poor man's hope, or lie to him and let him hope that he'll see his sister again. Your response has no bearing on how the quest plays out, so whether you want to kick the man while he's down or lift him up (and give him false hope) is entirely up to you.
    • One of the random encounters you find while traveling is a couple who lost their farm to a dragon attack. One of your options is giving them five gold. There is no reward or perk for doing this.
    • The Hearthfire DLC gives players the option to adopt children.
    • Healing essential followers. There's no need to do this (they're functionally immortal as long as you don't kill them yourself), but many react with gratitude when you stop in the middle of battle to treat their wounds.
    • The entry quest for the Thieves' Guild has Brynjolf making you plant a stolen ring on Brand-Shei, which will get him arrested. Or you can throw the ring away and tell Brynjolf you lost it; Brynjolf will still let you into the Guild, and Brand-Shei doesn't go to prison.
    • The path to recruiting Erik the Slayer. You have to talk with his dad to convince him to let Erik go out on adventure. His dad brings up that he does want to for his son, but they can't afford good armor. You can either emotionally guilt-trip him into paying for it... or pay for it yourself. There is absolutely no perk to doing thisnote , but Erik and his father will sincerely thank you for the gesture.
    • While exploring, you might find Frostflow Lighthouse, where a Redguard family moved so the parents could retire, only to get horribly slaughtered by Falmer who tunneled up through the cellar. Once you've retrieved the husband's remains, you can choose to grant him his final wish by throwing his skull into the lighthouse fire so he can watch the sea. While there is a reward for doing thisnote , there's no quest or explicit instructions to do so; you essentially have to read his journal and decide to honor his will entirely on your own.
    • Several of the alchemists throughout the assorted holds are little old ladies who will be ever so grateful to you for undertaking a fetch quest of varying difficulty. The reward you get for doing so is likewise variable, but they're so sweet to the Dragonborn that you probably won't even care; it's like doing a favor for someone's grandma.
    • In the Dawnguard DLC, you'll learn the shout to summon Durnehviir out of the Soul Cairn. While he's very helpful if you're in the midst of battle, you can also just summon him for no real reason, letting him be in Tamriel again for a few minutes to enjoy the sun and wind. He is overjoyed by your kindness.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • Paarthurnax even invokes and justifies this: the will to dominate and gain power at any price is intrinsic to dragons, and as someone with a dragon soul, the Dovahkiin feels the same pull as well. Now whether you choose to resist it, like Paarthurnax himself, or give into it is a different story...
    • Many (though not all) of the Daedric quests require you to be an outright bastard if you want to collect all of the Daedric artifacts. Among the highlights:
      • Boethiah demands that you sacrifice one of your followers to her cult, and then kill all of the cultists.
      • Mephala gives you the Ebony Blade, but its power requires you to use it to kill people who trust you.
      • Namira requires you to lead an unsuspecting priest to a dinner table, then kill and eat him.
      • Vaermina will refuse to give you her artifact unless you kill the priest of Mara who is in the process of freeing Dawnstar from the nightmares she's sending to its residents.
      • Peryite orders the killing of a rogue priest for the crime of trying to cure his disease-stricken followers.
      • Mehrunes Dagon requires you to murder the man who hired you for the quest in the first place.
      • The most cruel of all, unshockingly, comes from Molag Bal; first, he forces you to kill a Vigilant of Stendarr for no reason other than he wants it done. (You have no choice in the matter — even if you refuse to kill him, he will attack you and you'll have to kill him in self-defense.) Next, he has you collect a priest of Boethiah who corrupted his shrine, bring the priest before him, and beat him to death with Molag Bal's mace. Then he revives him and orders you to do it again until the priest renounces Boethiah and submits to Molag Bal. Then, of course, he has you kill him again anyway. And if you want to make it even worse, bring along Serana if you have Dawnguard installed. As a pureblood vampire, she gained her powers directly from him. You can witness her cowering in fear near the altar.
    • You can steal from NPCs or even kill their friends and family and they'll send thugs or assassins, or come after you themselves. You're free to retaliate as you wish.
    • As long as they aren't marked essential to quests, you're free to kill anyone you like, any way you like, and with decent Sneak you can do it in the middle of a town without getting caught. A particular Butt-Monkey for this abuse is the Talos priest in Whiterun; he's connected to no quests and has no significant purpose, but he's quite noisy and never shuts up. So, take cover behind the fence at the Companion household so you're out of sight, take out your bow...
    • J'zargo's quest to test his scrolls of Flame Cloak require you to hit an undead with them. If you don't feel like trudging over to the nearest tomb, you can just kill and reanimate a random NPC as a zombie. If you have Serana with you, you can just test the scrolls on her instead.
    • A mod that allows the killing of children makes this even worse.
    • There are bunnies in the game. Yes, they are cute and harmless. And, yes, you can still kill them. The game even keeps track of the number of "Bunnies Slaughtered" on the stats screen, for no clear reason.
    • Leveling up Enchanting requires a lot of soul gems. The most immediately convenient way to fill these gems is to slaughter the harmless wildlife around Skyrim.
    • What's a good way to level up Conjuring and Destruction skills at the same time? Raise corpses or summon familiars... and kill them yourself.
    • You can continuously burn and heal people (most notably the Torture Victims in the Dawnstar Sanctuary's torture chamber), leaving them in agony but unable to die. It even levels up skills. Evil and practical!
    • Using Unrelenting Force on random people for amusement. Or using it to push a bandit or Thalmor off a cliff or down a hill to break every bone in their body.
    • It's mentioned that giants are peaceful beings who will leave you alone as long as you do the same; just keep your distance and don't bug their mammoths. Some in the wild will just look at you, then continue on their way walking right by you. However, giants have so many uses it's not even funny. Their toes are one of the most potent alchemy ingredients in the game, which allows you to level up alchemy extremely fast and sell the product for lots of gold. Their high health and decent damage make them superb for leveling up magic, weapon and armor skills (damage them, heal them, repeat). Finally, their mammoths yield grand souls when Soul Trapped, and are one of the few non-human creatures that do so (the others are a lot harder to farm). Put simply, a character focused on alchemy/magic/enchanting will be abusing them a lot after a while.
    • By the same token, your trusty steed can be used to grind various skills provided you do very little damage to it. This even works for sneak attacks if you use the right weapon.
    • Characters flagged as essential can't be killed. That means that you can just keep on hurting them as much as you want, so long as you're willing to pay the trivial forty septim penalty for assault. Nothing like announcing your arrival in Solitude by locating Erikur and setting him on fire. Again.
    • You can raise enemies you kill as zombies. As with NPC-raised zombies, they thank whoever returns them to their final rest, implying that undeath is not a very fun state.
    • In Dawnguard, you can steal the clothes from a dead adventurer while her ghost is watching (and she will comment on how you've robbed her of her dignity). In another quest to clear a family tomb, you can loot the bodies of the quest-giver's ancestors. He'll complain, but then decide that your help is worth whatever you steal (which will be everything).
    • If you choose to side with the Vampires in Dawnguard, you get access to a room full of "Vampire Cattle" that you are free to abuse and kill for your hunger or the lulz. Similarly, the Dark Brotherhood questline can end with you buying a torture room... and using it.
    • Zap someone with the Paralyze spell. Once they faceplant onto the floor, cast a Wall of Fire under them. Sit back and watch while they slowly roast to death in their own armor, unable to even scream.
    • Want to teach Braith a lesson and get rid of her? Sneak into her parents' house, wait until all three of them are at home and kill both her parents before her eyes. The girl will obviously be distraught. ("What...what am I gonna do?") It gets worse for her, though, as she will be sent off to the Honorhall Orphanage in Riften, where she will spend the rest of her miserable youth, possibly in the company of Grelod "the Kind" if that old hag is still alive. This might overlap with Disproportionate Retribution, though...
    • When you get the chance to occupy the Dawnstar Dark Brotherhood sanctuary you have the option to purchase a torture chamber. The torture chamber consists of prisoners who have lots of HP, making them useful for grinding weapon or destruction skills. You can also interrogate them to reveal hidden treasure around the map.
    • The "Hitting the Books" quest from the College of Winterhold questline has you retrieving a number of books that were stolen from the college by a mage who wanted to curry favor with a coven of rogue mages, who proceeded to lock him up as a test subject and whose leader refuses to give those books back. You could fight the leader in question... or you could free the captive mage and then trade him for the books.
    • You can adopt children who have been orphaned over the course of the game. Seems like a straight case of Video Game Caring Potential, until you consider that this includes parents killed by your own hands as long as the kid in question didn't witness the murder, meaning you can literally kill people just to take their kids for yourself.
    • One quest requires the player to bring the giver blood samples from each living elf/Mer race. The game will only let the player harvest samples from dead individuals. It's technically possible to get samples from all the non-Falmernote  races by waiting to randomly run into enemies who happen to be right race... or the player can decide they want the sample faster and kill a non-hostile member of that race they know where to find.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
    • The game gives you the option of breaking the hearts of the many potential spouses. Once this is done, they'll never speak to you again. While this isn't too bad for some, for others (depending on who you wronged), it'll rob you of the option to sleep at an inn or buy from certain merchants. The worst, though, is if you did this to a follower; not only will they refuse to aid you anymore, they'll keep all the stuff you gave them, including the Dragon Masks.
    • Like in previous games, committing crimes earns you a bounty and causes the hold's guards to go after you. Typically, your bounty in one hold is segregated from others, so guards in Riften won't hound you for a murder you committed in Whiterun, for example. If your bounty is high enough, however, you may find yourself assailed by bounty hunters who aren't bound by a hold's jurisdiction and will attack you from anywhere.
    • If you are seen killing any of the chickens within the town, all the NPCs in town will attack you on sight despite the low bounty the crime yields.
  • Video Game Perversity Potential:
    • With enough pickpocketing skill, you can steal NPCs' clothes, which can result in entire cities walking around in their underwear. However, NPCs will generally reset their clothing unless you leave them with one item still equipped. Mods, of course, can take this further. This does actually serve a practical purpose with followers; if you steal their default equipment, they can carry that much more loot for you.
    • In addition to having realistic nude mods, the Skyrim nexus mod page has a large portion of adult-themed mods, including one that can enlarge female characters' breasts and give them a more hip-swinging walk (as well as throw in a Girly Run animation for added fun). And to top it all off, a group of Skyrim modders collaborated and created the Sexlab mod, which is a large and robust library of animation scripts for all sorts of acts of sex, along with some voice files, and it even includes a configuration menu. This would allow modders making sex-related mods to focus on their mod's themes (which could range from combat sex and assault, to slavery and slave trade, to mere consensual sex between lovers) without having to create their own animated sex scenes, instead referring to the library for all that. For all its intents and purposes, one can't help but hand it to these guys for this level of programming.
  • Video Games and Fate: Several characters (most prominently Paarthurnax) will talk about how it's the PC's fate to fight Alduin. You can either agree with him, or argue that preventing The End of the World as We Know It is simply the right thing to do and that the next world will just have to take care of itself.
  • Video Game Stealing:
    • With enough lockpicks, any lock the game lets you try to pick will be picked even if you're a novice lockpicker and it's a "Master" lock.
    • You can steal baskets, kettles, and plates without disturbing the items on or in them, leaving those items to suddenly fall to the ground.
    • With enough skill points and the right perks, eventually you can pickpocket the clothes and weapons off of people.
    • It's possible when fighting Briarhearts to steal the Briar Heart with which they replaced their human heart. Doing so kills them instantly and leaves a gaping hole in their chest. That's right - not only can you steal the clothes off their backs and the weapons in their hands, you can steal the hearts from their very chests.
    • Pickpocketing a paralyzed NPC as they're getting up skips the usual success/failure check (but not perk requirements), letting you take whatever you want with no strings attached. And yes, this means you can kill a Forsworn Briarheart by nicking him with a dagger dipped in paralysis poison and then ripping the Briar Heart out of his chest.
  • Video Game Vista: The game features two:
    • First, after escaping from Helgen's tunnels, the player-character will have the eastern half of the Falkreath Hold arrayed before them, with sights like Lake Ilinalta, Bleak Falls Barrow and its mountain, and the valley between the barrow and the Throat Of The World directly in your line of sight to give the player a taste of the scope of the game.
    • Second, if the player-character is following the game's main story after escaping Helgen, they will head to Riverwood and be asked to head down to Whiterun to inform Jarl Balgruuf. Following the path north out of Riverwood will eventually take the player to the edge of a ridge that overlooks Whiterun Hold, a massive plain with mountains in the distance and the hill on which the city of Whiterun itself is built, revealing the true scope of the game's world.
  • Viking Funeral: The Companions hold one of these for Kodlak Whitemane following the Silver Hand attack on Jorrvaskr, burning the body on a funeral pyre at the Skyforge. This actually unlocks the ability to forge a certain type of armor there.
  • Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Happens as a result of a "feature" that is almost certainly a bug in the game. Unique NPCs don't "level up" with the player, being stuck at the level they were first spawned (unlike Oblivion or Fallout 3, where key NPCs would automatically level up to match the player). Two key NPCs, Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius, are spawned at the very beginning of the game. As a result, when you finally face one or the other of them at the end of Civil War questline, they're stuck at their minimum level and are easily dispatched by a mid-to-high level player. After several months, they finally patched this during the first DLC release. The engine now re-calculates the NPC's level each time they get loaded in a new cell.
  • Villainous Incest: Maven Black-Briar is head of a family that includes Hemming, Ingun, and Sibbi Black-Briar. Hemming is indisputably her son. He may mention in conversation that Ingun and Sibbi are his children; Maven is listed in the Creation Kit as their grandmother. However, Maven explicitly calls Ingun her "favorite daughter", and both Ingun and Sibbi refer to her as their mother. Maven has no husband; Hemming has no wife. It's not hard to do the math, especially since both kids sound like Borgia expys - Sibbi is in prison for a murder even his mother/grandmother found unnecessarily heinous (though more from the bad publicity than the act itself), while Ingun, the only remotely pleasant member of the family, is fascinated by alchemy and its more lethal applications.
  • Villainous Rescue: The dragon at the beginning shows up just in time to save your character from being executed. Said dragon is Alduin, who is there to try and kill you.
  • Villains Never Lie: Should you express doubt as to whether you can trust his word, Odahviing claims that although he doesn't always reveal the whole truth, he never lies.
  • Villain Song: Revealed at the end of the Dragonborn trailer, there's a second version of "The Song Of The Dragonborn," dedicated to the First Dragonborn. It sounds much darker and more terrifying than the one dedicated to you. And it should, since they're actually the same lyrics, twisted and warped to reflect his menace instead of your heroism.
  • Violation of Common Sense: During the "Discerning the Transmundane" sidequest, you watch Septimus Signus get disintegrated when he tries to read the Oghma Infinium, and you only have Hermaeus Mora's word for it that the same thing won't happen to you. Common sense would dictate that the Dragonborn leaves the book right where it is and hightails it out of the cavern. But if you do that, you miss out on a 5-point increase to six of your skills and the associated level increase.
  • Virile Stallion: Invoked, the Stallion's Potion increases stamina by 20 points for 300 seconds and it's part of a Sidequest where it must be delivered to Raerek for his "special problem".
  • Visibility Meter: The game make use of an eye symbol that replaces your aiming crosshair at the center of the screen when you go into stealth mode, which opens wider the more attention you have drawn from enemies and other creatures. When the eye is fully open, you have been detected. Stealth is crucial for those who play thieves (who steal from others) and assassins (who kill people from stealth), though it's fairly useful for most players.
  • Visible Invisibility: The game uses a mix of distortion and translucency to indicate invisibility. Since certain spells, such as Muffle and the various ____flesh defensive spells, are indicated by glowing outlines of the player, you can get some strange video effects by combining these spells with Invisibility potions or the Invisibility spell.
  • Visible Silence:
    • At one point, after freeing Orthorn, your response to one of his lines is "..."
    • Also, "(Remain Silent)" is still a speech option in the Dark Brotherhood questline.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot: In the Dragonborn DLC, you can allow the wizard Neloth to perform experimental spells on you. One of them apparently turns your eyes into tentacles, judging by the shocked dialogue between Neloth and his apprentice. You can't see anything - the screen is entirely black, as you're blind - but you can hear Neloth's apprentice retching in the background after commenting that he's going to be sick.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Used spectacularly by Peryite's Afflicted, who vomit toxins as a ranged attack.
  • Vortex Barrier: A magical blizzard surrounds the peak of High Hrothgar; stepping into the gale will kill you in seconds. After learning the shout Clear Skies, you can use it to break through the storm to reach the top, where you discover that the mysterious leader of the Greybeards is in fact a dragon.

    W 
  • Waiting Puzzle: One of the Thieves Guild missions involves taking the Skeleton Key back to Nocturnal. After getting to her inner sanctum you have to fall into a death trap hole and wait for two or more minutes until finally the game pulls out the key and unlock the floor.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss: Several.
    • Sahloknir. Put off "A Blade In the Dark" long enough, and when he crawls out of that burial mound, you're going to have an Ancient Dragon when you may be only high enough of a level to be fighting Blood or Frost Dragons.
    • The Draugr Boss at the end of Bleak Falls Barrow. This is probably the first boss monster the player will encounter in the game, as well as the first opponent who will provide a challenge, unless you are unlucky enough to encounter a bear or a sabre cat on the way to Whiterun. The Wounded Frostbite Spider fought before you receive the Golden Claw is surprisingly tough as well.
    • Some dungeons, including a notable few on Solstheim, have particularly high level enemies that will spawn there. For example, upon running across Saering's Watch, where you obtain the first part of the Bend Will shout, you can be only level 30 and find yourself surrounded by Draugr Deathlords and Draugr Death Overlords, when you're used to fighting Restless and Scourge Draugr. Even on the lowest difficulty setting, be prepared to start chugging potions.
    • You can initiate "The Blessings of Nature" as soon as you first set foot in Whiterun, and the very first thing it asks you to do is to kill a hagraven. If you're not careful, it's entirely possible to get blasted to kingdom come by its fireballs before you even get a chance to see the damned thing, and getting in melee range will introduce you to its razor-sharp talons that can ruin the day of anyone not wearing heavy armor. You also need to fight your way through several witches to even get to the hagraven, which can be a challenge in itself. And then, unless you take a specific option that the game never even slightly suggests, you'll have to fight a bunch of Spriggans later, which can murder you even harder than the hagraven and can regenerate once to boot.
    • Hamelyn, the guy squatting in caves underneath the Honningbrew Meadery. Up to this point in the Thieves' Guild questline, your jobs have been burgling, extortion, pickpocketing, and arson - usually with specific instructions not to kill anyone or cause more harm than is necessary. Then WHAM!, they hit you with this guy. Surrounded by an army of skeevers and spiders, Hamelyn boasts impressive fireball spells and is nigh impossible to sneak to or past at lower levels (if you alert his "pets", you alert him as well). There is absolutely no warning that this guy is part of the mission, making it highly possible you didn't bring the right gear with you. Good luck with that. It's even lampshaded. The guy who hired you for the job knew about him, but he didn't want to scare potential recruits away. Would you have taken the job, if you knew what you were in for?
    • Going to High Hrothgar at too low of a level may result in the frost troll near the monastery serving as one of these. Fortunately, the troll is slow enough that you can outrun the thing if you can't outdamage it.
    • Mirmulnir, the first dragon soon after you Bring News Back from Helgen's destruction-by-dragon. True, you have the Whiterun Guard as backup, but seriously, you just left the First Town, Riverwood, not twenty minutes ago. By the way, the dragon you fight isn't the same dragon that attacked Helgen.
  • Waking Up Elsewhere:
    • Once you reach a certain level, the next time you enter a bar you'll find a nice guy named Sam who challenges you to a drinking contest. Regardless of where the party starts, you wake up in Markarth, having trashed the Temple of Dibella (and fondled the statuary) in a drunken stupor. The quest that follows indicates that your alcohol-fueled adventure led you across the breadth of Skyrim.
    • If you pose as a Dark Brotherhood assassin and kill Grelod the Kind for Aventus Aretino, the next time you sleep, you'll wake up in a locked shack in the middle of nowhere, to have a little chat with a real member of the Dark Brotherhood.
  • Walk on Water: Ahzidal's Boots of Waterwalking, found in the Dragonborn DLC, allow the player to walk on water or any other body of liquid (such as Apocrypha's poison tar and the lava in the Aetherium Forge). The enchantment is unique to the boots and can't be removed. The DLC also introduces Potions of Waterwalking, which give the same effect for a limited time.
  • The Wandering You: While there is a fast travel feature, as well as the option to take carriages to all hold capitals, the game still largely requires the player to walk to most destinations. This is also the best way to trigger random events, which often come in the form of battles (such as a dragon attack, or a vampire ambush).
  • Wanted Meter: Bounties are separated by holds: being wanted for a crime in Whiterun will have no bearing on your status in Riften, for instance (although, if your bounty is high enough, the hold may employ bounty hunters to apprehend or kill you, regardless of your current location). In addition, there are a few additional means to deal with bounties, such as flaunting your status as a hold's thane (but only if your bounty doesn't exceed a certain amount) and using a Pacify spell to stave off guards non-lethally so you can escape. If you take a side in the realm's civil war and conquer a hold for your side, all of your bounty in the hold will be nullified.
  • War Arc: A major plotline in the game is the conflict between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloak rebellion led by Ulfric Stormcloak. The player is free to help the Empire quell the rebellion or the Stormcloaks fight off the Legion and have Skyrim become an independent nation.
  • War Is Hell: Very firmly in effect. Veterans of the Great War are haunted, fighters on both sides of the Civil War are becoming that way, many characters have lost family members, former friends are at odds, and the common people are either trampled in the struggle (like the folks in Dragon's Bridge) or left to fend for themselves because the majority of money and manpower is going to the war effort (like the people of Shor's Stone).
  • The War Just Before: The game is set 21 years after the Great War between the Tamrielic Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion, which cost The Empire the province of Hammerfell, and forced the ban on the worship of Talos throughout the empire. It's still fresh in many characters' minds, and everyone knows the current peace isn't going to last.
  • Warmup Boss: Mirmulnir, the first dragon battle. He is simply a level-appropriate dragon, but the player has Irileth and the Whiterun guard as backup. Should the player skirt the main story until they are level 80, fighting the dragon won't be that hard. Should the player rush straight to this battle and be only level 3 or 4, he still will be phenomenally easy.
  • Warp Whistle: The game uses the same system as Oblivion, except that the player cannot fast-travel to major cities immediately. However, they can rent rides between these cities on a horse and cart for a price that feels expensive in the first couple of hours, but quickly becomes nominal. Once the cities have been discovered, the player can fast-travel to them like any other location. This seems to have two mild benefits: it makes the player feel they have to "earn" the right to visit each location, either through effort or coin, and it allows players following a "no fast-travel" rule to move between cities without spending about an hour on the journey.
  • Warrior vs. Sorcerer: The Nords are a Proud Warrior Race, and in recent years at the time of the game have become distrustful of the College of Winterhold and of mages in general. Part of this is due to changing attitudes about magic by the Nords, who have come to see magic as a more "dishonest" way of fighting and entry to Sovngarde is restricted to those Nords who die honorable deaths. Members of the College typically have a disdainful view of the local Nords, but aren't going out of their way to antagonize them. Ironically, if the Dragonborn ventures to Sovngarde as part of the game's plot, Tsun will welcome you warmly as the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold if you have earned the title, and lament that the Nords have stopped respecting "the clever craft."
  • Was Once a Man: The Augur of Dunlain is a talking vortex of magic connected to some sort of place from whence it can summon shades. It also is able to sense intent and see through time to some extent. The Augur was once a student of the College of Mages who was overzealous in his pursuit of the deepest arcane lore.
  • Wax On, Wax Off: The Axe Man, originally appearing in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, describes Torik's menial tasks which then are used to kill his abusive uncle. Unlike in Morrowind, it is not a skill book.
  • Weakened by the Light: Sunlight stops vampires regenerating health, stamina and magicka, something non-vampires can naturally do.
  • Weaksauce Weakness:
    • The concept of mortality and temporary are this to dragons. See Brown Note.
    • Forsworn Briarhearts are dangerous boss-level mooks.... and they'll drop dead without any fight whatsoever if you manage to pickpocket the briar heart out of them. Easier said than done, of course; they're one of the most perceptive human enemies in the game.
  • Weapon Jr.: In the Hearthfire expansion, you can buy wooden swords for the children you adopt, and the kids will then train with them if provided with a training dummy. However, you yourself can also equip the silly things, purely for fun. Or humiliating enemies.
  • Weapons-Grade Vocabulary: Dragon Shouts all have unique effects: projecting a wave of force, breathing fire, freezing enemies, making oneself intangible, revealing the life essences of every living thing in the area, etc. Every dragon shout can be used in some way as a weapon or fighting technique; the lore explicitly states that when two dragons fight, it's literally a contest of words.
  • We Are Everywhere: What the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves' Guild end up becoming, if you join them and complete their questlines. The Thieves' Guild will gain agents, fences and allies in every major hold, and part of your job throughout the questline is to put the fear of the Nine into people by breaking into their houses, framing them, or destroying their assets. And in the Dark Brotherhood, you single-handedly prove that no one, not even the Emperor himself, is safe from them, and to drive the trope home, random guards will whisper "Hail Sithis" as you pass them.
  • We Buy Anything: By default, only general goods merchants act like this. Others will only buy items of the type that they sell. But the Speech tree has a perk which lets you sell anything anywhere.
  • Weight and Switch: Various pressure plate traps abound in the dungeons of the game. However, a fast player can swap out the treasure with something of equal weight. Whether or not it works depends on how good you are.
  • Welcome to Corneria:
    • The game goes out of its way to give guards massive repertoires of random dialogue, but it still gets repetitive after you've played the game for a while. The other citizens have a much more limited set of greetings. However, even the limited dialogue is given variety, since while characters may cycle through the same sets of lines, different voice actors give different intonations to the lines. For instance, when you ask to see a wizard's wares, they may say, "So, you wish to master the arcane arts?" Some say it with a sense of approval of your choice of craft; others sneer the line at you as if they don't think you have what it takes.
    • Tilma the Haggard, in Jorrvaskr. You can't have any meaningful dialogue with her; she cycles through four or five lines of this sort, and never says anything else.
  • We Need a Distraction:
    • When you infiltrate the Thalmor embassy during a party, you need to have someone cause a spectacle so you can sneak out of the party and into places you shouldn't be. Depending on other quest progress elsewhere in the game, a variety of people you've met can be asked a favor to do so for you. The distraction will usually consist of the person doing you the favor walking up to Razelan and falsely accusing Razelan of either saying something nasty about one of the Thalmor/Ulfric/Empire factions, making a disparaging remark about elves, or making a lecherous comment about women; Jarl Idgrod, however, has great fun faking a prophetic vision. If you're asking Razelan himself to distract everyone, he gives a sarcastic toast about everyone being in bed with Elenwen, "figuratively speaking," and if you're asking Erikur, he hits on a serving girl and gets her sent to the dungeons.
    • The opening quest for the Thieves' Guild also involves a bit of this - Brynjolf distracts the crowd with a sales pitch for "Falmer blood elixir" so that you can snatch a ring and plant it on an innocent bystander.
  • We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Invoked by Rolf the first time you enter Windhelm, when you find him and another Nord bullying a dark elf.
    Rolf Stone-fist: Maybe we'll pay you a visit tonight, little spy. We have ways of finding out what you really are.
  • We Sell Everything: Stores will only buy what is relevant to their business. However, if you pick the "Merchant" perk in the Speech skill tree, you can sell any item to any vendor (such as selling produce to a blacksmith, for example).
  • Wham Episode:
    • During the main questline, after your first fight with Alduin, you learn that he hasn't been defeated, he has simply retreated to Sovngarde, the Warrior Heaven of the Nords, to recover his strength... by devouring the souls of the honored dead.
    • After the Season Unending quest, where you have to broker a peace deal between the Empire and the Stormcloaks until Alduin is dealt with, the leader of one of the two factions related to dragons in the game drops a bombshell in your lap by revealing that they know about the leader of the other faction, a dragon who at this point in the game is your single greatest ally against Alduin, and cutting you off from all support from her faction until you kill him, which will permanently cut you off from all support from the other faction if you do this. And no, you can't persuade or intimidate her into seeing things your way.
    • During the Companions questline, while you were out doing a quest for their leader to get a cure for his lycanthropy, the werewolf hunters that you'd been pursuing revenge against for the last few missions for killing one of your own decide to launch a direct attack on the Companions' home base of Jorrvaskr, killing the leader.
    • During the College of Winterhold questline, a Thalmor agent takes control of the Eye of Magnus, and kills the Archmage effortlessly.
    • In the Dark Brotherhood questline, the father of one of your victims sends a small army of Imperial soldiers to wipe out the entire Dark Brotherhood.
    • During the Thieves' Guild questline, you are betrayed by the guild's headmaster, and it is shortly afterwards revealed that he has stolen all of the remaining money the guild had left, and is personally responsible for the guild having been in constant decline for the last few years due to having stolen a powerful artifact from the guild's patron goddess.
    • In Dawnguard, you meet up with one of the few surviving Snow Elves of Tamriel, those who were not twisted into the horrific Falmer by the Dwemer.
  • Wham Line:
    • Delphine drops one at the end of "Season Unending". You're all done with the treaty, at least one side is satisfied, you know how to trap a dragon, and you're good to go... when Delphine walks up to you and drops this line.
      Delphine: There's one more thing. We know about Paarthurnax.
    • From exploring the Thalmor embassy:
      Thalmor Dossier: Ulfric Stormcloak: Status: Asset (uncooperative), Dormant, Emissary level approval.
    • And while investigating a series of political murders in Markarth:
      Corrupt Guard: You want to meet the King In Rags? You'll have plenty of time to chat him up in Cidhna Mine.
    • Another one from the Dragonborn DLC.
      You didn't think you were the only one? He was the first Dragonborn!
    • The priestess at the beginning delivers one to players of the previous installments who have become familiar with the pantheon of the Nine Divines.
      As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you.
      Stormcloak Soldier: For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with!
    • Throughout the game, the only things you hear about the Dark Brotherhood are that they went extinct and are Shrouded in Myth. Then you hear rumors that a boy named Aventus Aretino ran away from the orphanage in Riften, returning to his old home in Windhelm to perform the Black Sacrament and contact the Brotherhood. When you walk in, he thinks you work for them and asks you to kill Grelod the Kind, the head of the orphanage. If you do it, then about a day or so later, you get a note from a courier. Which has a black handprint on it and two words.
      We know.
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: One quest starts this way. After a drinking contest, you wake up in a temple in Markarth... which might be over a hundred miles away from the city you started in. Along the way, you apparently stole a goat and sold it to a Giant to pay for a ring, seduced and proposed to a Hagraven, then finally ended up at the temple, whereupon you trashed the place and molested the temple statuary. If you wander for a while, you'll meet a guy to whom you offered 10,000 gold for going into a bandit camp to steal a hat. Considering the fact that your drinking partner was the Daedric Prince of Debauchery, there's a very simple explanation for this.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Snow Veil Sanctum has a Nordic Puzzle Door for which you never get the corresponding Dragon Claw. While Mercer is able to unlock said Puzzle Door as part of the Thieves Guild questline thanks to the Skeleton Key, Karliah doesn't have the same abilities as Frey since she doesn't have the Skeleton Key, so she had to have found the claw for the ruins at some point... yet she doesn't have it, nor can the player find it anywhere.note 
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
    • Sentient beings have a different kind of soul that needs special soul gems to capture, and basically comprise the player races. It can be very odd to discover that that Falmer who was just attacking you with a bow or even magic is basically considered a "creature" for the purposes of Soul Trap. Giants are also considered "creatures" in this regard, despite displaying sufficient intelligence to build fires, use weapons, farm mammoths for their milk and, if Sanguine's daedric quest is anything to go by, to understand the concept of a trade.
    • One possibility is that the difference between "white" and "black" involves not merely sentience, but the ability to choose to be good or evil. Thanks to the Dwemer, the twisted Falmer don't really have this choice anymore - they are universally evil, loathsome raiders, slavers, and cannibals. Giants, conversely, may be too mentally simple to make the choice; their only concerns appear to be guarding their mammoths and the territory they live in, they are uninterested in anything outside their territories, and they don't even look at you as you walk by, while other NPCs at the same distance usually will at least look in your direction. If this guess is right, it casts Vampires in a new light. Other undead have "white" souls - no choice in whether to be good or evil. Vampires, however, have black souls. They don't have to be evil. And some, like Serana and Hestla, aren't.
    • With the Hearthfire DLC, one of the rooms you can build for your house is a trophy room, which you can fill with taxidermy displays of various creatures, including Falmer, hagravens, and draugr. Nobody seems to find it particularly odd that you've got stuffed specimens of various (mostly) sapient races displayed alongside more common fare like wolves and bears, however.
  • What the Hell, Player?:
    • The Greybeards will call the player out on killing Paarthurnax, especially after all the help he gave. The Greybeards will also refuse to help the player any further, seal the entrance to their fortress with an unpickable lock, and if you manage to get out onto the courtyard while one of them is meditating, they might hit you with a Thu'um shout and throw you off the side of the mountain.
    • A couple followers will say this whenever you do something they disagree with and can even abandon or attack you (or both) if you do something particularly heinous.
    • Jarl Balgruuf will deliver this if you side with the Stormcloaks and sack Whiterun. And if Lydia is your follower, he gives one to her too! The other Jarls you overthrow in the war will give you this treatment if you visit them in exile. Their kids and housecarls are all there too. This does get noticeably weird when you drop off bounties for which they hired you. You are a good-for-nothing traitor one line and then suddenly it's a pleasure doing business with you the next.
    • Paarthurnax actually gives a surprisingly subtle one to the player if you chat with him about the nature of being a dragon. He notes that dragons have an innate desire to dominate, kill, and destroy, and being a Dragonborn, so do you. You feel those same urges to conquer and kill and steal and amass power too.
    • In Dawnguard, Serana doesn't appreciate the notion that "trading equipment" probably means "carry all this heavy stuff I don't want to lug around personally."
    • Lydia will give you a similarly deadpan line when you trade equipment with her. Unlike Serana, she does lose her snark after following you around for a while.
    • Also in Dawnguard, during the "Lost to Time" questline, you encounter the ghost of a woman who was searching for the Aetherium Forge. She can accompany you on your quest and, along the way, you discover her dead body. If you strip the armour from her corpse - as many players inevitably will - she complains about you not allowing her any dignity.
    • Kill Endarie, and Taarie will send thugs after you. Visit Radiant Raiment, and she'll greet you with a low tone and glare.
    • Doing the Thieves' Guild questline has you extort money from Riften shopkeepers, usually by threatening their loved ones or smashing valuable goods. Shopping at their stores afterward will have them treat you with noticeable venom, usually ending with them telling you to get out.
    • While Ulfric and Rikke are arguing ideals at the end of the Battle for Solitude, if you suggest that they simply kill her and be done with it, Galmar Stone-Fist, of all people, will quite flatly and angrily call you a cold bastard.
    • In the "Hillgrund's Tomb" quest, a Dark Elf necromancer defiled a family tomb and is raising a Nord's ancestors into Draugr. The Nord (being too scared to go alone) asks you to help him. As you go inside, if you try to loot a chest he says, "Hey! Those belong to my family!" Then he sighs and (begrudgingly) lets you keep whatever stuff you find as long as you help him.
    • Even Clavicus Vile seems to think that the Dragonborn asking him for more power is a bit ridiculous. He'll still take you up on the offer... by threatening to vaporize you.
      Clavicus Vile: So, what's your heart's desire? What kind of deal can we strike?
      Dragonborn: The power to crush all before me!
      Clavicus Vile: Really? Power? You're a Dragonborn; you already have more power than most people who aren't immense fire-breathing monsters.
    • If you have your spouse and adopted children living in Vlindrel Hall in Markarth, almost every single available spouse will express concern for the kids' safety, and probably for good reason. The only exception are the orc spouses, who think the city not being safe is a good thing as growing up there will make the kids "sharp".
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Most Nords in Skyrim speak with some attempt at a Scandinavian accent of varying quality, while others sound Russian (especially females), some sound Scottish (Brynjolf in particular seems to be trying for a Sean Connery impersonation) and the guards speak with a thick German accent that veers back and forth between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hansi Kürsch. In general, it seems like Skyrim native accents wander across various parts of our world with a reputation for being cold and grim.
  • What's Up, King Dude?: Played with.
    • Ulfric Stormcloak says that "only the foolish or the courageous approach a Jarl without summons" after you do just that, and Irileth is none too happy when you barge into Dragonsreach to speak to Balgruuf early in the game. You can simply walk up to many of the other Jarls without any repercussions. However, in the cases of Ulfric and Balgruuf, the extra caution is probably justified - Ulfric is a wanted man who has already had one close encounter with the headsman, while Balgruuf is attempting to stay neutral in the civil war while ruling the most strategically important city in Skyrim. It's not inconceivable that someone would try to assassinate either of them.
    • Faleen also stops you the first time you try to approach Jarl Igmund. Also justified, since his hold is full of Forsworn rebels that killed the previous Jarl (who happened to be Igmund's father). However, if you do the "Book of Love" quest before approaching Igmund, Faleen recognizes you as trustworthy and lets you pass.
    • This seems less glaring after the player is formally recognized as Dragonborn, what with being a mythic legend come to life and getting their own royal-ish title carried by Tiber Septim himself before them ("Stormcrown").
  • When Life Gives You Lemons...: When you're sent to go deal with Cicero, Festus Krex has this to say.
    "When life gives you lemons... Go murder a clown."
  • Whole-Plot Reference:
    • "A Night to Remember" is a homage to The Hangover; the Dragonborn wakes up after a drunken stupor and has to find their missing drinking buddy, all while cleaning up the mess they left behind throughout Skyrim. They even got engaged in all the drunkenness - to a Hagraven, no less.
    • The Dawnguard DLC's main plot, especially if the Dragonborn sides with the Dawnguard. A vampire lord is trying to permanently blot out the sun to free vampires to walk during the day so he can subjugate humanity. His estranged daughter is out to stop him at any cost, and joins an organization of vampire hunters to that end. Sounds like BloodRayne II, doesn't it? Harkon and Serana even look rather like Kagan and Rayne, except Serana is a brunette while Rayne is a redhead. The icing on the cake? Laura Bailey voices both Serana and Rayne.
  • Who's Laughing Now?:
    • The situation between Morrowind and Black Marsh. The former has been raiding the latter for slaves for centuries, but now that Red Mountain has erupted, devastating a large portion of Morrowind, Black Marsh has turned the tables and is invading them.
    • Subverted by Isran in the Dawnguard expansion. He spent years trying to warn everyone about the vampire threat, criticized the Vigil of Stendarr for being too soft, and was called an extremist for it. When the vampires finally do strike and the Vigilants are overwhelmed, however, he reacts only with a cold I Warned You and expresses genuine sympathy for those who lost their lives.
    • In "Awakening", you can find the journal of a Vigilant who was mocked for believing that Dimhollow Crypt had connections to ancient vampires and was thrilled to have finally found proof. Unfortunately, he's killed before he can rub it in everyone's faces like he wanted.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
    • Frostbite Spiders for Farkas in the final Companions story quest. He points out that this is due to a close encounter with them in an earlier quest.
    • In the fort ruins of Harmugstahl, you come across an adventurer who decides enchanted spiders wreathed in a frost cloak are too much; he already was creeped out by regular spiders.
  • Why Won't You Die?: At the beginning of the game, during the attack on Helgen, the various Imperial soldiers can be heard yelling several variations of this.
  • Wicked Witch: Witches appear as enemies, but Hagravens fit the typical description a bit better. The Glenmoril witches count when you learn what they did.
  • Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: This is effectively the Thalmor's long-term strategy: use Ulfric Stormcloak as an Unwitting Pawn to start a bloody civil war and drain the Empire's resources so when the second war eventually kicks off, their exhausted human enemies and "allies" will fall easily. The Dragonborn can intervene on either side and bring the civil war to a decisive conclusion, thwarting the Thalmor's plan: if the Imperials put down the rebellion, they consolidate their hold on Skyrim and High Rock and can rebuild for the war they know is coming; if the Stormcloak rebels win the war, it results in a Thalmor-hostile independent Skyrim and an empire that, while battered, can finally stop wasting time with Skyrim and ready for the coming war; and in either case, the winning side will have the aid of a One-Man Army Physical God.
  • Wintry Auroral Sky: The sky often features auroras on clear nights. You can also create your own with the Clear Skies shout.
  • With Lyrics: The theme tune of Skyrim is described by the developers as a "barbarian choir singing to the Elder Scrolls theme in the draconic language" (with an English version of the song also written for the audience's benefit), supposedly the prophecy of the Dragonborn:
    And the scrolls have foretold/of black wings in the cold/that when brothers wage war come unfurled!/ALDUIN/Bane of Kings,/ancient shadow unbound,/with a hunger to swallow the world!
  • With Us or Against Us:
    • Ulfric Stormcloak is like this. In the words of Jarl Balgruuf:
      Balgruuf (paraphrased): "To not fight with him is to side against him!"
    • Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun is desperate to try remain neutral in the conflict. When first asked what side he supports, he replies "Whiterun's." He eventually is forced to choose, however and lends his support to the Empire.
    • After a certain point in the main quest the Blades discover that the Dragonborn has been working with Paarthurnax, who is a dragon and the former right hand of Alduin, and they refuse to cooperate with him any further unless he kills Paarthurnax for his past crimes against mankind. The player doesn't have to do this to finish the main quest, but the Blades cannot be convinced to let their grudge go.
      Delphine: "It's your choice Dragonborn: us or him."
  • Wizard Duel: If your magic skills are at a high enough level, you may encounter a "challenger" in your travels who wishes to duel you with magic. This rarely plays out straight, though, seeing as how there's nothing stopping the player from simply FUS RO DAHing him over the castle walls and watching him plummet to his death, or simply drawing your huge greatsword and cleaving him in twain the second the duel begins. And that's if the guards don't intervene first: apparently, no-one told the challenger that the Nords don't like the idea of someone flinging fireballs around in the castle walls. (This encounter becomes particularly hilarious if you happen to be the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, a position you didn't claim by being a magical weakling.note  It also gets funnier if you drain his magicka with a load of lightning magic or magicka poison. He whips out a tiny dagger and starts wailing on you with it, and then when you pull out your own weapon and do the same, he starts bitching that it's supposed to be a magic duel, fought with magic).
  • Wizarding School: The College of Winterhold, the only place in the game where you can learn master-level magical spells. The College's relationship with the rest of Skyrim is strained, first because the Nords are a Proud Warrior Race that Does Not Like Magic, and second because the College is one of the few structures in Winterhold that was not damaged when most of the city fell into the sea in the Great Collapse, which the locals blame on the mages' experiments. It doesn't help that the College has no ban on things like necromancy or conjuring atronachs, and beneath its dorms and lecture halls lies a veritable dungeon containing monsters and the aftermath of dangerous rituals - the College questline even involves uncovering a potent magical artifact that summons a flood of arcane monsters to menace Winterhold and nearly destroys the world. But Nords do appreciate the Restoration school and enchanted weapons, so they'll always have a use for the College, if nothing else.
  • Wizard Workshop:
    • In the major cities such as Whiterun, Solitude, Markarth, Riften and Windhelm, the local Court Mage will have a private room or area for them to conduct research, make alchemical potions and enchant items.
    • The Arch-Mage's Quarters in College of Winterhold is easily the most visually impressive Wizard Workshop in the game. An entire garden full of alchemical ingredients with an alchemy table ready for use. An enchanting table with multiple soul gems around the entire room to enchant or refuel enchanted items. It really is a workshop worthy of the The Archmage. As an added bonus, the Arcanaeum (Wizard Library) is just one room away.
    • Just about every purchasable house can have workshop with the upgrade is bought. The reason for "just about" is because the Breezehome in Whiterun doesn't come with an enchanter table, only an alchemy lab. Even then, if you want to have your kids live here, you'll have to get rid of the lab to make space for their room. The DLC Hearthfire includes two options as tower additions to your house. The Alchemy Laboratory has fancy lab equipment and plenty of Eye of Newt stockpiles for potion-making, while the Enchanter's Tower has an Item Crafting altar and display cases for your creations. Academically-inclined characters can pair them with a library tower.
  • A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:
    • Occasionally you will come across a group of bandits or thugs dressed as Imperial Soldiers claiming to be in some special operation and demanding a "fine" for intruding into a "restricted area" (i.e. their modus operandi for robbery). You'll know their jig is up by the hesitancy of their words, or better yet, during or after the Civil War questline and you reply with "I'm with the Imperial Legion and you're not" if you're on the Imperial side, or "Gee, only three Legionnaires against a Stormcloak? Hardly seems fair" if you're with the Stormcloaks. Another clue is the presence of some bodies of dead Imperial soldiers with their uniforms missing.
    • Can also occur in the Dawnguard DLC, where you can get beckoned over by some Vigilants of Stendarr while on the road. Approach them, and it'll turn out that they're really vampires who killed actual members of the Vigil, and are wearing their clothing. They'll even raise those same Vigilants from the dead to fight against you.
  • Words Can Break My Bones: Thu'ums are incantations made in the language of dragons that have a variety of powerful effects, from blowing a hapless bandit across the room to conjuring deadly lightning storms. So powerful are they that all but one of the Greybeards, who have spent their entire lives mastering Thu'ums, must keep silent, less they accidentally kill someone simply by speaking. This is illustrated at one point when another Greybeard merely whispers, and causes the room to tremble.
  • Words Do Not Make The Magic: The Thu'um. It is possible for ordinary mortals to learn it, though it takes a lifetime of training and effort to master it. Anyone without that training would not be able to make the Shouts do anything. The Dragonborn can take shortcuts because he/she has the soul of a Dragon, and even the Dragonborn has to study the words of power and absorb the souls of other Dragons first. Ulfric Stormcloak himself was taught by the Greybeards to learn the ways of the Thu'um but used what he knew (the Unrelenting Force shout) to assert himself as the "true" High King of Skyrim and reestablish Skyrim as independent from Imperial puppet kings. The thing about Dragon Shouts is you have to understand deeply what they mean, not just the translation but the real very essence of the word.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Gormlaith Golden-Hilt was a Nord heroine who had a very "hands-on" approach to dealing with dragons. She was famed for killing four of them in a single day, one after the other. To highlight how powerful Alduin is, in the quest where you exploit the time-wound, you watch through a flashback as he kills her easily, even after being weakened by the Dragonrend shout. The other two heroes with her barely fare any better against Alduin and are forced to use an Elder Scroll to cast Alduin outside of time, settling for a temporary victory.
    • The Dragonborn DLC offers a an example on a meta level. Seekers, a Cthulhumanoid form of lesser Daedra in service to Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge, are practically designed as a counter to the "stealth archer" build which is well-known for its dominance in Skyrim. A stealth archer attempting to take out a Seeker will find its physical damage resistance absorb most of the damage of the initial stealth shot, while the Seeker then either quickly moves in for a close range fight or fires off powerful spells which home-in on the target, even if undetected.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: When Paarthurnax asks you why you want to stop Alduin from destroying the world, one of the dialogue options is "I like this world. I don't want it to end." It's quite telling that this conversation takes place at the Throat of the World, which offers the best view in all of Skyrim, with an aurora thrown in if it's nighttime.
  • The World Is Not Ready: What the Monk from the Psijic Order says about the Eye of Magnus at the end of the College of Winterhold questline. Apparently the Psijics are keepers of such things.
  • World Tree: The Eldergleam, a tree considered sacred by many Nords, and from which the Gildergreen in Whiterun is descended from. It also seems to be at least semi-sapient.
  • World of Badass: Every race in Tamriel qualifies as badass in some way or another, but Nords are strong contenders for the most badass race on the continent. Skyrim is a land where deadly predators prowl the wilderness and warfare is a near-constant and accepted part of life. Nords are (aside from Orcs) the least magically inclined race on the continent and lack the martial skill and sophistication of the Imperials and Redguards, but they regularly contend with bears, sabre-toothed cats, giant spiders, werebeasts, vampires, trolls, giants... in the past they also had to fight genocidal elves and dragons as well. Tamriel is a really dangerous place by any measure, and yet Skyrim makes the rest of it look like a beach resort. No wonder the Nords that aren't dead are so hardy.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • The first dragon you fight will actually compliment the bravery of the Dovahkiin and how noble it is to be brave before the final moments of his life.
    • If you choose to kill Astrid during the Dark Brotherhood "initiation", her final words to you are to compliment you on your skills.
    • In Sovngarde, Olaf One-Eye claims that the bard Svaknir was a worthy opponent, and that he hopes that Svaknir will make it into the Hall of Valor so that he can greet him as a friend.
    • The final step in the quest for the Deathbrand treasure has you fight the ghosts of Haknir Death-Brand and his crew. While it looks like a standard boss fight, if you read the book, you realize that it is the final test to see if you are worthy of wearing his armor and carrying his swords, since none of his crew were able to defeat him and thus none were worthy to succeed him.
    • On a lesser note, one of the combat taunts of the generic "Male Drunk" voice type seems to imply this.
      Drunk: I'll raise a cup to your grave.
    • Occasionally you'll meet an Old Orc on the road seeking one, as he is too old to lead his tribe or take a wife, but does not want to die lying on his back. You can fulfill his request. Amazingly, this old orc past his prime and armed with only an ordinary metal axe can put up a surprisingly tough fight against a legendary dragonslayer (and possibly also the chosen mortal champion of Malacath - seeing as Malacath is the god of underdogs, this is doubly awesome).
    • The so-called Snow Prince, who led the Falmer in their war against the greatest warriors of Atmora. At the Falmer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Moesring, he fought the five hundred-strong Companions of Ysgramor with such skill and ferocity that he nearly turned the tide of the battle single-handedly and they developed a strong respect for him. He slew many of the Companions that day, and only fell in battle because the anguished daughter of one of the slain Companions threw her mother's sword, and it found purchase in his chest. The Atmorans constructed a grand tomb for him and sent some of their warriors to protect it from grave robbers.
    • Ulfric Stormcloak versus an Imperial-aligned Dragonborn. When you deliver his axe back from Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun, he will muse that he regrets you chose the wrong side. His dying request when the Empire corner him in his palace and win the Civil War is that the Dragonborn should be the one to execute him. If you find him in Sovngarde and defeat Alduin, he will renounce his hatred of you and praise you as a hero.
  • Wreaking Havok:
    • Use the Unrelenting Force shout in a room full of loose items (tankards, food, etc.). Go on, it'll be fun! Extra fun if you shout all three words, as you can include people and creatures in that list!
    • Enemies ragdoll when they die (or get hit with enough force, like a destruction spell with Impact or FUS RO DAH) and can get knocked around by objects, including swung weapons. Thus, sideways swings with weapons that kill an enemy can knock their bodies aside, even off ledges and over railings. Nothing quite like literally batting an enemy out of your way with a warhammer.
    • Bones from defeated skeletons will bounce off the floor and damage you if you sprint into them.
    • Guards (and presumably anyone) can be clubbed by a giant and launched into orbit. Here's video proof.
    • Dawnbreaker, a sword that you receive as a quest item, has the power to cause an explosion that throws literally everything (items, enemies, people, dogs) around in a blaze of insanity.
    • The bones of dead dragons will go flying when hit with a fireball, firebolt, or resurrect spell.
    • Go on, use Courage indoors. It is a non-damaging buff spell, and yet the area of effect makes things fly off the shelves.
    • Hitting creatures with a paralyze effect can very rarely cause them to fly off into the stratosphere, as if they'd been KO'd by a giant, and eventually fall down to their death a short ways off.
  • Wrestler in All of Us:
    • The unarmed combat finishing moves include a chokeslam, a suplex, a three-quarter nelson choke, and what appears to be a powerbomb. Apparently the Dovahkiin has been watching Monday Night Raw.
    • There is also no proper constraint as to how one can use these finishing moves, which means even an old lady in a fistfight can suplex a man in heavy armor with ease.
  • Wretched Hive:
    • Riften, home of the Thieves' Guild. On first approaching the city, the guards try to shake you down for a "visitor's tax", and the third thing (usually) that happens once you're inside is being recruited for the Thieves' Guild. Ironically, certain events and quest dialogues indicate that Riften might be better with the Guild than it would be without it.
    • Markarth, a mining town run by the corrupt Silver-Blood family and former site of a native rebellion whose surviving members are imprisoned in the mine and totally aren't murdering people in the street in broad daylight. And it's home to a cult of cannibals and a shrine to the Daedric Prince of Domination, Molag Bal. What's more, Riften at least has a few friendly faces to greet; with very few exceptions, everyone in Markarth who isn't a cannibal or crook is a jerk.
    • A minor example compared to the other two, but Windhelm is not only very segregated, with the dark elves mostly restricted to the pejoratively named Grey Quarter and the argonians living in the docks since they are not even allowed inside the city's walls, there's also a serial killer on the loose and a boy trying to contact the Dark Brotherhood on top of that.
  • Written by the Winners:
    • Following the Dwemer's disappearance, the only groups in positions to know much about the Dwemer were the Dunmer (having been turned from the Chimer) and the Nords, both of whom warred with the Dwemer and wouldn't have had any reason to say anything good about them. In the years that followed, the Dwemer would be demonized by the Dunmer and popularized by ahistorical tales like Marobar Sul's Ancient Tales of the Dwemer series. Not helping matters is that their language was quickly lost after their disappearance, making it impossible for anyone to read the Dwemer's own records. (A means of translation was discovered around the time of Morrowind, but was apparently lost again by the time of Skyrim 200 years later.)
    • In another backstory example, The ancient Falmer (Snow Elves) were nearly exterminated in a war with Ysgramor and his 500 Companions from Atmora. As part of destroying all traces of the Falmer culture in Skyrim that he could find, Ysgramor also destroyed any evidence of anything that happened other than what his official histories record. For instance, he claims that the Falmer attack on Saarthal was "unprovoked". However, surviving records of the Elves claim that the attack was in response to repeated "provocations and blasphemies" committed by the early Nords.
    • Between Oblivion and this game, the Thalmor took credit for ending the Oblivion Crisis which brought them great support in their homeland. They assassinated Potentate Ocato 10 years later, irreparably destabilizing the Third Cyrodiilic Empire. Under their leadership, the Altmer quickly seceded and annexed Valenwood in order to reform the Aldmeri Dominion of old (and to give them a buffer state between their homeland and Cyrodiil). They then took credit for resolving a crisis with the moons that brought them Elsweyr, homeland of the Khajiit, as a client state.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy:
    • The Stormcloaks initially believe that the dragon at Helgen is controlled by the Legion, while the Legion believe that the Stormcloaks woke up a dragon to aid them in the war. Both believe it's far too much of a coincidence that it showed up right as Ulfric was about to be executed. The Blades think the dragon was awakened by the Thalmor and meant to prolong the civil war by saving Ulfric's life, and the Thalmor believe it's the Blades stirring up the Dragons too. All of them are wrong. It showed up because of you.
    • The Silver Hand, a group of bandits who market themselves as werewolf hunters, carry potions of cure disease, presumably to prevent themselves from being infected with lycanthropy. This would be considered a smart move... if the disease that creates werewolves or other lycanthropes - Sanies Lupinius - actually appeared to be readily spread by any werewolf in Skyrim. In-game, the only way to become a werewolf is to drink the blood of one in a ritual induction into the Companions' inner Circle, and the aforementioned Sanies Lupinius makes no appearance. However, cure disease potions would be extremely useful when fighting vampires, who have a high chance of infecting oppenents with Sanguinare Vampiris during combat.

    X 
  • Xanatos Gambit:
    • The White-Gold Concordat. The Great War between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion ended with the Thalmor government demanding that the Empire ban Talos worship throughout the Empire. If the Empire refused, fine; the war would continue and it'd end with a Pyrrhic Victory for either side. If they agreed, they'd piss off several of their outlying human nations (especially the Nords of Skyrim) and ensure civil war throughout the Empire for decades, keeping it weak. This is explicitly outlined in several dossiers you can steal in the main quest (especially the one on Ulfric Stormcloak) in which the Thalmor say that they don't want either side to win the war just yet... not until the Empire has weakened themselves considerably.
    • The Skyrim Civil War itself is this for the Dominion, who helped orchestrate it: if the Empire wins, the Empire will be drained by the conflict and the ban on Talos-worship will be upheld. If the Stormcloaks win, the Talos-worship-stopping goal will be hampered, but the Empire will be effectively ended. If the conflict keeps going, humanity's brightest and best kill each other in droves without the Dominion having to lift a finger.

    Y 
  • Year Outside, Hour Inside: The passage of time in the Soul Cairn is described as 'strange' and a vampire apparently survived there for sometime without blood to feed them, while hundreds, if not thousands, of years passed.
  • You All Meet in a Cell:
    • As per Elder Scrolls tradition, but this time you actually do learn why you're imprisoned. You accidentally stumbled into an Imperial ambush while crossing the border, being mistaken for a rebel Stormcloak. The Noodle Incident becomes "why were you crossing the border?" instead of "why were you thrown in jail?" Also, both Imperials and Stormcloaks will assume you were a criminal before then, but both sides will pardon it. General Tullius will mockingly say he's sure it was a misunderstanding. Ulfric, on the other hand, is more cautious and impresses upon you to leave any possible criminality behind, if it was ever there.
    • The comment from Hadvar for your selected race does give one option to fill in blanks for most of the races (and some later dialogue trees, unrelated, give you options to choose from about your past). To wit:
      • Argonian: You're believed to be an emigrant from Black Marsh who has come to work in one of Skyrim's maritime industries.
      • Breton: It's surmised you are on the run from a badly executed court intrigue plot in High Rock.
      • Dark Elf: Morrowind has gone to hell, and you're fleeing for a hopefully better alternative.
      • High Elf: You're either a stray Thalmor, or considered an anti-Thalmor emigrant.
      • Imperial: Like the Dark Elves, Cyrodiil has gone to hell (or has been implied to be not much better than Skyrim), and you're implied to be seeking a relatively better (or at least different) alternative.
      • Khajiit: Thought to be a trader who got themselves in trouble with their badly timed border crossing.
      • Nord: Left ambiguous, but you have apparently decided to return to the land of your birth, at the worst possible time.
      • Orc: You're thought to be a member of (or wanting to join or rejoin) one of the Orc strongholds in Skyrim.
      • Redguard: Much like the Argonians, you are surmised to either be a sailor from Stros M'kai (the setting of Redguard) or a mercenary looking for work in Skyrim.
      • Wood Elf: Thought to be an emigrant from Valenwood for reasons unknown, but possibly related to the Thalmor occupation.
  • You Are a Credit to Your Race: Athis, a Dunmer member of the Companions (a band of warriors who live by traditionally Nordic values) notes how Skjor, a senior member of the group told him that "even an elf can be born with a heart of a Nord". Athis remarks that Skjor probably meant it as a compliment, and one of the books available in the game reveals that he actually did; he was quoting a previous Companion, who was talking about the first Elven Harbinger. Back then, this was the sign of a major improvement, as Nords are well-known to be rather xenophobic, especially against elves. Skjor was comparing Athis to a previous Harbinger, so he really meant it as a major compliment, but this ended up sounding a bit racist in the recent context. For his part, Athis is more amused than anything and simply rolled with it.
  • You Are in Command Now: In the Winterhold College, you go from greenhorn student to arch-mage after the previous arch-mage is killed by his deceitful advisor, you singlehandedly ends a world threat, and the Psijic Monks back you. Among the Companions, you start as a fresh Shieldbrother/sister and end as Harbinger after avenging the previous Harbinger's death (which you indirectly caused), reforging their prize artifact, and ending a curse. The Thief Guild sees you join as a simple cutpurse and end as Guildmaster by killing the previous Guildmaster after revealing his treachery, joining the Nightingales, returning an incredible Daedric artifact, and restoring the guild to its full glory. And you join the Dark Brotherhood by inadvertently stealing one of their hits and end up leading them after legitimately assassinating the previous Matron, proving that you are the Listener, performing the greatest and most elaborate assassination of the era, and bringing the Brotherhood back to its glory days. Unsurprisingly almost all of these involve the deaths of the original leaders of the groups.
  • You Are Not Ready: The reason why Master Arngeir doesn't tell Dragonborn about the true nature of their destiny at first:
The Dragonborn: Surely there's more you can tell me.
Master Arngeir: There is indeed much that we know that you do not. That does not mean that you are ready to understand it.
  • You Are the Translated Foreign Word:
    • "But there is one they fear; in their tongue, he is Dovahkiin: Dragonborn!"
    • Paarthurnax does this a lot, throwing dragon words into a conversation you can otherwise understand. Sometimes there is the impression that it's a difficult concept or one with no direct translation... but often he just says something in Dovah and then translates it.
      Paarthurnax: Ro fus, the balancing of force.
    • With other dragons, like Odahviing, there's a bit more justification to it, since they haven't had much reason to speak Tamrielic in the past, they keep slipping into Draconic. And since they recognize the player character as a dragon, they naturally assume he/she would also know Draconic.
      Odahviing: Zok frini grind ko grah drun viiki, Dovahkiin. Ah. I forget. You do not have the dovah speech. My... eagerness to meet you in battle was my... undoing, Dovahkiin. I salute your, hmm, low cunning in devising such a grahmindol: stratagem.
    • Done yet again by Durnehviir in the Dawnguard DLC. Once you defeat him in the Soul Cairn, along with gaining the ability to summon him, he also bestows the title of Qahnaarin on you, meaning "The Vanquisher". As the first individual to ever manage to best him in combat, his bestowal of this title is a telling sign of his respect for the Dragonborn.
    • The Greybeards similarly do this during the ceremony where they declare their formal recognition of the new Dragonborn.
      Greybeards: Meyz nu Ysmir, Dovahsebrom. Dahmaan daar rok!: You are Ysmir now, the Dragon of the North. Hearken to it!
  • You Can See Me?: Drevis Neloren, the Illusion instructor at the College of Winterhold, asks you this the first time he is met.
  • You Fool!: Arvel the Swift says this to the Dovahkiin after being rescued from a spider web... by the Dovahkiin, who will have inevitably killed most of his buddies and the giant poisonous spider that was about to eat him. Assuming you don't kill him yourself, he'll charge through the temple, waking every enemy and triggering every trap. One of these things will get him eventually.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
    • Standard operating procedure among most of the Daedric Princes. In several of their quests, you're expected to kill some of their followers because they decided you're more worthy of their attention. A few of them also make no attempt at hiding the fact that you will be replaced if someone else more worthy comes along (most notable with Hermaeus Mora). One of them has you do this, then sics some enemies on you as a parting gift.
    • Not counting the Daedric Princes, many of the people you previously helped will try to pull this on you. Arvel The Swift is probably the first (if the Draugr failed to kill him), but others include Chief Yamarz in Lagashbur, Jaree-Ra and Deeja in Solitude, and Mercer Frey, which also doubles as He Knows Too Much.
    • Paarthunax, as far as the Blades are concerned. And they demand that you take care of it for them.
  • You Have Researched Breathing: Werewolves have to learn the "Savage Feeding" perk, which itself sits behind three other perks that must be unlocked before it, in order to eat non-humanoid corpses.
  • You Know I'm Black, Right?:
    • Some people in Windhelm tend to talk vaguely about "damn Dark Elves and Argonians"... even if your character is a Dark Elf or an Argonian. And bordering on Too Dumb to Live when playing as an orc specializing in heavy armor:
    Guard: Orcish armor? Used to have a set of that. Ugly and strong, like those who forged it.
    • Heck, even your followers can do this.
      Lydia: Skyrim belongs to the Nords!
      Non-Nord Dragonborn: ...
    • If you're a pro-Imperial assaulting a Stormcloak fort, you may hear "Ysmir curse you!" One problem with that curse... you are Ysmir. It was one of the monikers the Graybeards bestowed to you in their anointing ceremony.
  • You Need to Get Laid: One in-game book in, Ahzirr Traajijazeri, is an examination of the Khajit view on life. Partway through, it informs the reader that if they haven't gotten laid recently, they should put the book down and go take care of that.
  • You No Take Candle: How the intelligent (well, less dumb) Rieklings on Solstheim communicate with the Dragonborn.
  • Your Head Asplode: Among the more brutal finishers in the game is the werewolf's double-claw power attack, where they lift the poor target off the ground and pop their head like a grape.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
    • One quest has the player traipsing deep within an undead-infested tomb to retrieve the legendary Horn of Jurgen Windcaller. At the end, you finally reach the coffin itself, to discover nothing more than a note from 'a friend' telling you they've already taken the Horn, and want you to meet them.
    • Later on the main quest you learn the Dragonrend shout to defeat Alduin, find an Elder Scroll to summon him and engage him in an epic battle atop the Throat of the World. Great you just beat him! Oh wait, he flew away and it turns out he can only be defeated in Sovngarde.
    • One quest has a kid who was summoning an assassin to kill an evil orphanage director who beats and starves the kids and even refuses to let people adopt them. So even though you aren't an assassin, you can kill her anyway, the kids rejoice and the one who issued the quest gives you his most prized possession... quest over right? Actually it turns out that since you weren't an actual assassin, you took a mark that was rightfully theirs and they are pissed. So it's either join their guild or die, or take down the entire guild killing them all. Regardless, joining them starts an entire long chain of quests which ultimately ends with you killing the Emperor of Tamriel himself.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!:
    • Done by you. The central concept of being The Chosen One is that you can absorb the souls of dragons to grow in strength.
    • At least three different Daedric princes do this in-game. Molag Bal claims the soul of one of his rival Boethiah's adherents. Both Hircine and Nocturnal lay claim to the Dovahkiin's soul, if he or she decides to remain a werewolf or finish the Thieves' Guild questline.
    • The Soul Trap spell and related enchantments allow you to steal the soul of nearly any living being and trap it in a gem, provided you have a gem large enough to hold the soul. The basic spell gives you a sixty second duration to kill the target, while the duration of enchanted weapons can be anywhere between one and sixty seconds, the former being useful if you can kill an enemy in one or two hits (sneak bow attacks, for example).
    • And then there's the Dragon Shout from Dawnguard called Soul Tear. Doing Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Soul Tear deals 300 points of damage, soul traps the victim, and then resurrects them. This is taught by Durnehviir in the Soul Cairn. It kills anyone under level 100 but takes 90 seconds to recharge. It's completely worth the wait.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters:
    • The Empire sees Ulfric Stormcloak as a vicious, racist extremist who abused his Thu'um ability to murder Skyrim's High King, while the Stormcloaks see him as a valiant hero, fighting to protect the Nord way of life and deserving of the crown, who legitimately defeated the prior High King in a lawful challenge. They both have a point.
    • Taken even further with the Forsworn, who want revenge for the massacre of their people at Markarth and independence for the Reach, but are seen as terrorists by the Stormcloaks.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Invoked, appropriately enough, by a mage standing guard outside the College of Winterhold.
    Faralda: The way forward is treacherous, and the gate is closed. You shall not gain entry!
  • You Shouldn't Know This Already: The game contains twelve Treasure Maps, which are readable notes feature a crude map showing the way to a treasure. A treasure only spawns if you pick up its related Treasure Map once.note 

    Z 
  • Zip Mode: Like Oblivion, the game requires you to visit a location before you can fast travel there. There are also carriages that will, for a price, take you from any major city to any other major city to make it easier.

Top