Elder Scrolls TES Skyrim: A quick 20 hour restrospective

[LarryTyphoid]

Extremely dubious claim or not - Satan is commonly interpreted by Christians as the serpent in the Garden of Eden (or Lucifer).

You misunderstand: I mean that the "Satan" figure of the Book of Job is very likely not the figured referred to as the Devil in the New Testament (who was the serpent in the garden). "Satan" is not a proper name. Maybe traditional church interpretation differs on this point; I don't know the orthodox position (if there is one on this subject), but from what I've seen, this is a pretty contentious point in biblical study and Patrician's take on it strikes of someone who read the story without any context, saw "Satan" in the text of the translation, and immediately jumped to conclusions. It reminds me a lot of an old Bob Chipman video on this same topic, with the same tone of someone who's read Wikipedia articles and now thinks they hold some kind of clandestine knowledge unknown to the masses.

You might say "then he could've said so in less words!", but then you miss the point of his "quick retrospectives". Besides, what he says is interesting, so it is worth listening to despite the extra length. At least in my opinion.

He should stick to tangents that are relevant and actually bear upon the point. I don't mind it being long-winded; I wouldn't have watched 32 hours of video reviews if I did. It was just jarring to hear him launch into this retarded 2008-tier tangent that I've heard a million times from numerous faggots, when he's otherwise on-point.

Just because Daedra started as "shitters who exist only to give the player fancy artifacts" doesn't mean it is not possible to mold them into more interesting characters.

Sure, but if a character is simple and somewhat cliche from the get-go, then there's no use in complaining when that character continues to be depicted as such. Mehrunes Dagon in Oblivion isn't decline, it's just a flat line.

The reason why Satan is not seen as a complex character is because ultimately everything boils down to "Satan bad", which is how Mehrunes Dagon is presented and that was the point Patrician was making when using the comparison.

I video recently and Patrician doesn't even seem to actually criticize Dagon's depiction in Oblivion, but rather goes on to say that Oblivion's main quest is very well-written and that Dagon is a more nuanced character than he appears on the surface. Maybe this was all a thought experiment or something and I missed the point, but honestly it's hard to pay attention to a video 100% for 12 consecutive hours.
At one point he brings up the idea that Judas Iscariot was in the right to betray Jesus because it set the atonement into motion (a concept from the apocryphal Gnostic Gospel of Judas) in a comparison with Akatosh being worshipped for killing Lorkhan - this is an example of an actually good religious analogy that bears upon the point.

 

[Harthwain]

It reminds me a lot of an old Bob Chipman video on this same topic, with the same tone of someone who's read Wikipedia articles and now thinks they hold some kind of clandestine knowledge unknown to the masses.

I think it is the opposite - he uses the knowledge common to the masses to better illustrate the point, which ends up being more clandestine than it should've been.

Everybody in pop culture knows Satan and everybody knows Games of Thrones, so by using them as examples it is easier for him to explain why something in Oblivion/Skyrim makes little sense (or no sense at all) and he flips the entire story of Mehrunes Dagon.

This is a quote directly from his video:

Mehrunes Dagon. I mean, look at the guy: what other impression could you possibly have about him?

His visual design goes back to Battlespire and Morrowind would add many of the more... demonic details to his character. But it was Oblivion that decided to make him bright-red, 50-feet tall and fill the screen with obvious Hell symbolism. Away person, who doesn't know Elder Scrolls, takes one look at this character and assumes everything there is to know about him.

What if I told you that I was about to blow your mind? That I could recontextualize everything about the story and I would come to the conclussion that people have been sleeping on uplifting(?) main quest being one of the best questlines in all of Elder Scrolls.

Source, time-stamped, hopefully (6:06:57):

Spoiler

[/MEDIA]

He also criticizes popular culture in the context of Satan, by the way:

In any event, popular culture first obsess with Satan is a figure who represented evil and then there is an example where you'll end up if you are evil, but at some point the message got corrupted and we're seeing this confusion in modern narrative that Satan is the Lord of Hell, which leads us to Bethesda who - in an effort to make a story about Good versus Evil - abandoned all pretense entirely and converted one of their Daedric Princes into the pop culture icon of Satan, complete with religious revisionism.

Source, time-stamped, hopefully (6:10:52):

Spoiler

I video recently and Patrician doesn't even seem to actually criticize Dagon's depiction in Oblivion, but rather goes on to say that Oblivion's main quest is very well-written and that Dagon is a more nuanced character than he appears on the surface. Maybe this was all a thought experiment or something and I missed the point, but honestly it's hard to pay attention to a video 100% for 12 consecutive hours.

It is the other way around - he does criticize Dagon's depiction in Oblivion by showing how he could've been presented as a more nuanced character than he appears on the surface.

[...] And given that they were willing to pay for not one but three celebrity voice cameos for this one questline you'd think this would've been the priority at Bethesda to make so this was the best questline in the game.

Instead, most people just like to brag that they've never done Oblivion's main quest. And people who do play Oblivion's main quest tend to write if off as a boring and generic story, in large part because you can get all the pieces together for a good story, but if you never actually place them all on the board for the player to see, then the only people who are really going to "get it" are detail-focused nerds like myself.

Source, time-stamped, hopefully (6:18:34):

Spoiler

[/MEDIA]

 

[NecroLord]

You want nuance and depth from the Daedric Prince of Destruction?

 

[Funposter]

You want nuance and depth from the Daedric Prince of Destruction?

His spheres also include change, revolution and ambition.

 

[NecroLord]

True.
But he seems more fond of destruction,so I guess those are his secondary spheres.

 

[markec]

Nobody has ever played Battlespire,

I did play it and finished it, its a flawed but still a great game and easily one of the most underrated games of all time.

 

[Jaedar]

But he seems more fond of destruction,so I guess those are his secondary spheres.

Or Bethesda aren't very good at making the most of TES setting. A remote possibility, but one we must reluctantly consider.

 

[NecroLord]

But he seems more fond of destruction,so I guess those are his secondary spheres.

Or Bethesda aren't very good at making the most of TES setting. A remote possibility, but one we must reluctantly consider.

You mean the Michael Kirkbride lore? Yeah,it's some pretty crazy stuff,so can you really blame Bethesda for not making the most of it?

 

[whydoibother]

You mean the Michael Kirkbride lore? Yeah,it's some pretty crazy stuff,so can you really blame Bethesda for not making the most of it?

Oh for sure Skyrim should've started in a Paris cafe, where the player and a God eat croissants and talk about football.

 

[Funposter]

But he seems more fond of destruction,so I guess those are his secondary spheres.

Or Bethesda aren't very good at making the most of TES setting. A remote possibility, but one we must reluctantly consider.

You mean the Michael Kirkbride lore? Yeah,it's some pretty crazy stuff,so can you really blame Bethesda for not making the most of it?

The Kirkbride background lore is really the least of it. The big loss was Ken Rolston taking a back seat during the development of Oblivion and Douglas Goodall leaving Bethesda just before the completion of Morrowind, since they were the people doing the bulk of the quest writing. You know, the stuff that the players actually interact with and which grounds the world and makes it feel like a real place.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Where is the "borrowed Skyrim for free" option?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Jewthesda doesn't let you buy the DLC for the old Steam version (non-Legendary) of Skyrim anymore. I might have to change my vote to three times... but then again, the first time, my mom bought it for me at GameStop, so I don't think that should count.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Jewthesda doesn't let you buy the DLC for the old Steam version (non-Legendary) of Skyrim anymore. I might have to change my vote to three times... but then again, the first time, my mom bought it for me at GameStop, so I don't think that should count.

It's on steam. Just not in the search. Here are the links.

Skyrim

Dawnguard DLC

Hearthfire DLC

Dragonborn DLC

That being said, it's probably never going to go on sale so you might as well just do the SMART thing and torrent it.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I think I will buy it again. After all, as an avid CRPG fan, it is my duty to financially support Bethesda incline.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I think I will buy it again. After all, as an avid CRPG fan, it is my duty to financially support Bethesda incline.

You should be buying Morrowind if that's the case. Skyrim isn't even an rpg. It's a roller coaster.

 

[NecroLord]

I think I will buy it again. After all, as an avid CRPG fan, it is my duty to financially support Bethesda incline.

You also get Arena and Daggerfall for free,I believe,if you purchase certain games on GOG.
Haven't played either Daggerfall or Morrowind in quite a long while,I intend to rectify that.

 

[Butter]

Arena and Daggerfall are free to download on Steam as well.

 

[BruceVC]

When I finally play Skyrim AE I am going to make a 100 hour video for people on Codex, I look forward to members watching it and commenting

 

[Ryzer]

When I finally play Skyrim AE I am going to make a 100 hour video for people on Codex, I look forward to members watching it and commenting

So what are you going to play? A stealth archer using magic? Or a stealth archer using one handed and two handed weapons or a stealth archer?

 

[BruceVC]

When I finally play Skyrim AE I am going to make a 100 hour video for people on Codex, I look forward to members watching it and commenting

So what are you going to play? A stealth archer using magic? Or a stealth archer using one handed and two handed weapons or a stealth archer?

I typically play a Battlemage type class in ES games so I will probably stick to that?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I actually did buy the Special Edition on a sale, but I immediately got a refund upon booting the game up and seeing microtransaction advertisements on the main menu. That's a bridge too far. My Skyrim purchase count remains at two.

 

[Tavernking]

If you can't get your idea across in 20 seconds you're wasting my time, can't imagine how bloated a 20 hour retrospective would be. Seems this guy is trying to catch onto a trend set by other extreme-long-form reviewers. It's stupid

 

[Silverfish]

The worst part is that he doesn't have any ideas to get across. The video is mostly a recap of the various questlines and some observations cribbed from other, also needlessly long, reviews. The pretty obvious goal was to (attempt to) impress with the "ultimate" or "definitive" analysis rather than bring some new perspective or interesting angle to the discussion. Though, to be fair, since the whole project was covered by paypigs, there are worse ways to spend a year of your life.

 

[Morgoth]

Imagine there are retards who spend more hours watching a video of a game than actually playing the damn game.

 

[Harthwain]

The worst part is that he doesn't have any ideas to get across.

He is actually proposing different solutions and possibilities when pointing out weak points of the stories or systems.