ScrollsOfTamriel
New Member
The Greybeards genuinely fascinate me and I feel like the community sleeps on them. Like, everyone talks about the main questline being straightforward fetch-quests, which fair, but the actual lore around them and what they represent is kind of brilliant in a way Skyrim doesn't always spell out.
They're literally monks who've taken a vow of silence to master the Voice, right? And the game just treats them as quest-givers, but if you actually read their dialogue and pay attention to how they communicate, there's this whole thing about restraint and discipline that contradicts everything the Dragonborn is supposed to be about. You're this guy who's supposed to be this legendary hero, and they're just... patient. Waiting. Teaching you that power without control is worthless.
Plus Paarthurnax is sitting right there on the Throat of the World, and they're fine with it. They don't care that he's an ancient dragon war criminal. They just accept it. And the Blades show up later all furious about it, and the Greybeards are basically like "yeah, we're not doing that" without even raising their voices (literally, they can't). That's such a weird moral stance for NPCs in this game to take and I don't think it gets talked about enough.
Anyone else find them weirdly compelling, or am I reading too much into what's basically a tutorial?
They're literally monks who've taken a vow of silence to master the Voice, right? And the game just treats them as quest-givers, but if you actually read their dialogue and pay attention to how they communicate, there's this whole thing about restraint and discipline that contradicts everything the Dragonborn is supposed to be about. You're this guy who's supposed to be this legendary hero, and they're just... patient. Waiting. Teaching you that power without control is worthless.
Plus Paarthurnax is sitting right there on the Throat of the World, and they're fine with it. They don't care that he's an ancient dragon war criminal. They just accept it. And the Blades show up later all furious about it, and the Greybeards are basically like "yeah, we're not doing that" without even raising their voices (literally, they can't). That's such a weird moral stance for NPCs in this game to take and I don't think it gets talked about enough.
Anyone else find them weirdly compelling, or am I reading too much into what's basically a tutorial?