Boethiah's Calling is genuinely unsettling and nobody talks about it

[EbonyWarrior]

Just replayed it on my current run and man, that quest is darker than people give it credit for. Like yeah, everyone knows you have to betray your follower to get the artifact, but the whole thing - the way Boethiah is talking to you through that statue, the implication that you've been manipulated into committing murder for a Daedra's amusement, the follower just... dying because you tricked them into a trap.

Compare that to something like the Mace of Molag Bal quest where at least you're dealing with a clear victim and you know what you're getting into. With Boethiah's Calling, it sneaks up on you. You think you're doing a normal follower quest and then suddenly you're being asked to orchestrate an execution.

What gets me is how the game doesn't really acknowledge the weight of it afterward. You just get the artifact and move on. There's no dialogue option to feel bad about it or anything. Boethiah just laughs and vanishes. Your follower is dead because they trusted you.

Idk, maybe I'm reading too much into it but it's the one Daedric quest that actually makes me uncomfortable in the way I think it's supposed to. Anyone else feel like this one hits different?

 

[DragonbornVet]

Yeah, that quest definitely has teeth in a way a lot of people gloss over. The setup is genuinely cruel - you're not just committing a murder, you're weaponizing trust itself. Your follower dies because they literally believed in you, and Boethiah gets off on that specific betrayal. It's not just "kill this person," it's "make them walk into a trap willingly."

The thing that gets me is how complicit it makes the player feel. Like, you can't just accidentally do this quest - you have to actively choose to manipulate someone. And yeah, it's a video game and the follower respawns or whatever, but in the moment? It lands different than the Mace of Molag Bal quest because you said - with that one you're at least conscious you're doing something dark. Here Boethiah's egging you on the whole time, making it feel almost... fun? Seductive? And then the realization hits.

The lack of aftermath is actually part of what makes it work, imo. A dialogue option to feel bad about it would almost let you off the hook narratively. Instead you just have to sit with what you did. That's more unsettling than any jump scare the game could throw at you.