PicoBlog

In this short article I will discuss symbolism in the famous opening scene of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in an attempt to explore the symbolism of The Elder Scrolls in general and hopefully synthesise what I’ve written on it before. I will also draw on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for comparison, but since this is part of a series about Skyrim, that will be the emphasis.

The Skyrim opening scene is quite lengthy (to the annoyance of everyone who’s replayed the game several times). It opens with the player sitting in a horse wagon with three other characters. You just woke up and your fellow captive informs you that you had apparently tried (presumably illegally) to cross a border and was ambushed by Imperial soldiers along with a group of Stormcloak rebels, which includes him. The second person in the wagon with you is a horse thief and the third person is Ulfric Stormcloak himself, bound and gagged.

Together you are carried to execution where each captive is named and identified by Imperial officials before being lined up for beheading. This is “the end of the line”, your new friend says darkly. You’re in a small village called Helgen (as in hell/death). A different Stormcloak soldier gets beheaded before you, but then just as you lay your head down for your turn, a big dark dragon appears and rains fire and brimstone down on the village. In the chaos you are are freed and are presented with the choice of escaping with either the Stormcloak captive, Ralof, or an Imperial officer, Hadvar. 

While I was too young to play The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, I did play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. And a quick Google search will also tell you that all three games begin with your character being somehow imprisoned. It’s a convenient way to start an RPG game like this because it allows you to convincingly “start at the bottom”; you have no resources, no past skills or even a backstory. In both Oblivion and Skyrim the opening scenes present themselves as a turning point in the character’s life, an opportunity to repent and start on a clean slate. And this is completely by grace, because by all indications you were supposed to be imprisoned for life in the Imperial City in Oblivion until the emperor needed an escape route that happened to go through your prison cell, and by all indications you were supposed to be beheaded in Helgen in Skyrim until the dragon appeared. In both cases what frees you is a tragedy of terrible consequence. A tragedy that paradoxically both participates in the breakdown of the surrounding world, as well as in giving you a new productive role in it. In Oblivion the emperor is assassinated, and you are tasked with carrying a divine artefact of his to safety, while in Skyrim obviously the dragon (who we later learns is called Alduin, the world-eater) marks the return of the dragons, and you are tasked with informing the nearest town of this news. 

The pattern starts with an impending restriction (imprisonment) of you by the establishment unto death, hitting rock bottom, so to speak, and then follows a larger fractal breakdown, which breaks open the shell of your personal doom and allows for new opportunity and a new beginning. A kind of resurrection. In fact it reminds me of Christ’s own death and resurrection. He is persecuted by the establishment, captured, pinned down, and then at the final hour the tables turn and He is resurrected. Then follows the conversion of Rome out of her paganism and destruction of the Temple, forcing Israel into a reform. And so the new cosmic body of Christ, the Church, is founded. Christ is therefore like a seed that is buried under ground (restriction), and when the time is right, the seed breaks open (tragedy) and transforms its surroundings by blossoming up into the new world. And the new world is the body, the consequence, of that dying seed. Is this not analogical to what happens in The Elder Scrolls? Our champion, once persecuted, breaks up out of the grave of doom and around him the world falters only to be rebuilt by him. While the game starts at the player’s rock bottom, it is also rock bottom for the country. The appearance of both the dragons and the Dragonborn therefore go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. The virus and the vaccine. The problem and the solution.

Is it really safe to say that your character is an image of Christ in the context of the main storyline of the game? I think so, in the sense that to do any good at all is to bear Christ in the world by definition. Of course you can do any manner of suspicious things in The Elder Scrolls, including joining The Dark Brotherhood of assassins and The Thieves Guild, but within the context of the main storyline you do play the role of a messiah, saving the country from demise. And as we will see, drawing this comparison will help us immensely to understand The Elder Scrolls as long as there are two things we don’t forget. Firstly not to go too far and too literally with the analogy, and secondly not to see it as a moral statement. I’m not trying to say that The Elder Scrolls is wholly Christian any more than what something like Harry Potter or the MCU are Christian, and yet, that doesn’t stop them from expressing (deliberately or not) Christian patterns (as well as pagan ones, clearly).

Like the Dragonborn, Christ saves His people not merely from a political demise at one point in history, but from a deeper existential demise that’s symbolic of a basic spiritual weakness (sin). I’ve mentioned already in several places that the dragons symbolise the coming of the “end times” and they are similar to demons, principalities of the heavens that come down and destroy the world. If we assume that the Dragonborn is an image bearer of Christ (in his very blood), then indeed it’s no surprise that his persecution signals and coincides with a deep spiritual sickness and division in Skyrim, just as the persecution of Christ was a sign of the hypocrisy and faithlessness of the Jews at the time. They couldn’t recognize their own saviour, but mistakenly saw Him as a charlatan, a heretic, a liar and blasphemer, a stumbling stone, to use the words of Scripture. They tried to get rid of Him. Likewise the Dragonborn is recognized as a marginal person, he is unaccounted for, a trespasser (sinner), someone who crossed a line he wasn’t allowed to based on the conventions of the establishment. He is thrown in with the rebels and thieves and sentenced to death because he can’t be meaningfully integrated by the system.

Let’s direct our attention now to the three characters in the wagon with you on your way to be executed. I have presented a case for seeing the Dragonborn as a Christ figure, and in a previous post I also argued that Ulfric Stormcloak is a sort of “antichrist” figure, or rather, anti-Dragonborn. He’s a shadow of the Dragonborn. While the Dragonborn focuses on the deeper problem, which is the dragons - that is, conflict, death and chaos as such - the anti-Dragonborn works on a more shallow (earthly) level. He effectively deceives the people by appearing to be the Dragonborn and king while perpetuating division. (Again, you can read my case for that elsewhere.) So for this reason it’s no surprise that your journey as Dragonborn starts alongside him as well as with the dragons. They symbolize the same chaos on different levels and where else would a shadow be if not clinging to the feet of its master?

In the first diagram above I put Ulfric Stormcloak and the Dragonborn on the same vertical plane relative to the other minor characters because they are more of consequence in their destiny in Skyrim. The vertical plane is related to identity and the horizontal plane is more related to function and support. Since Ulfric can use The Voice, just like the Dragonborn can, he is gagged in the opening scene. This is both intuitive and practical since a leader’s strength is in his ability to communicate with and thereby instil his will in his subjects. To stop the Stormcloaks overall, the Empire knows they must silence and exterminate Ulfric, and then the rest will scatter.

The two minor characters in the wagon are perhaps somewhat analogous to the good and bad thieves at Christ’s sides on the cross. The Empire was looking for the Stormcloaks, who are trying to “steal” the control of Skyrim from the Empire. But the horse thief sees himself as only being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Surely he doesn’t deserve execution? He can’t gather the courage that the Stormcloaks have in their mission and communion, and foolishly tries to escape by running away in plain sight, bound and all, and is struck down by an arrow. But Ralof stands his ground, faces death bravely, and his life happens to be spared. Coincidence? If you remember from the scene, once you climb off the wagon an unknown Stormcloak soldier is executed before you. He is extremely straight and even urges them to hurry with the execution. Perhaps we might argue that symbolically this is like Ralof himself facing death bravely, and indeed dying, only to be resurrected with you as you escape together, much like the good thief on Christ’s right hand.

Maybe I am biased here, but the whole thing really does remind me of the story of the crucifixion of Christ. Perhaps General Tullius, who vows to bring down Ulfric Stormcloak to restore peace among his people, is an image of Pontius Pilate. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing by trying to execute you; he is only trying to get to Ulfric (Barabbas). And then perhaps Hadvar, the Imperial officer who befriends you, is like the Roman soldier who pierced Christ’s side but then converted. After all, Hadvar is tasked with naming the prisoners, “pinning down” who they are. (Interestingly, the moment he tries to name you, you get to actually create your character.) Then finally comes the great ancient serpent itself, the devil, who thinks he can account for God and devour His creation. But like Christ, the Dragonborn survives. And not only that, because this is only the beginning.

In this essay I’ve withheld going too much into the civil war, the duality presented by General Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak, the Empire and the Stormcloak rebels, the centre and the margin. (Perhaps it deserves its own article.) I don’t think it’s that obvious who is the rightful “winner”. Ulfric looks the part but he is a rebel and a revolutionary, while the Imperials have the lineage but they are weak and compromised. According to the game itself, it doesn’t really matter which side you choose to support, it’s a separate quest line anyway, and if it’s left alone a time will come in the main questline where the Dragonborn arranges a temporary truce between the two sides to focus on the dragons. This is what Christ does too, he reconciles opposites and brings them into a higher purpose, from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (where brother is against brother) to the Tree of Life. The civil war is a lower questline and although it features tremendously in the opening scene, being everyone’s main concern, it’s not interrupted by a dragon for no reason…

In closing, I know I went into a lot of depth, but I’ve learned not to be shy with beginnings and endings because chances are they contain strong mythological images that have a lot of power over the rest of the story. Indeed, the opening scene is brilliant in setting up so many of the aspects of the game: the conflict between the Empire and the Stormcloaks, hints of the distrust of elves and suspicion of the integrity of the Empire, the Nordic temperament, the racial reality in Tamriel, the climate and atmosphere of Skyrim and finally the biggest problem, dragons.

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