Serana's questline gets way more tragic if you actually read her dialogue

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

I just finished Dawnguard again and something hit me that I missed on like three previous playthroughs. Serana's whole thing isn't just "vampire wants to be cured" - she's genuinely trapped between her mom's obsession with Oblivion and her dad's indifference, and the only person who actually asks her what she wants is you, a stranger she met in a cave.

And then the game just... lets you make that choice for her at the end. Either she becomes human and loses everything she's known, or stays a vampire and basically admits her parents were right to keep her locked away. There's no good ending there. I always thought the questline was fine but honestly it's kind of devastating once you actually parse what she's saying between the lines.

Does anyone else get genuinely uncomfortable with how the game handles her agency? Like Harkon and Valerica are both using her as a pawn and the "solution" is just... having the Dragonborn decide her fate anyway.

 

[NordOfSolitude]

Yeah, the more you sit with it the worse it gets. Harkon's whole plan hinges on her, Valerica hid her away "for her own good," and then you show up and she's immediately latching onto you because you're the first person in centuries who treats her like a person instead of a tool. That's not romantic, that's just... depressing.

The cure thing especially - she never says she actually wants it, right? She just keeps talking about being tired and wanting the pain to stop. You can interpret that as "cure me" but it's way more like she's exhausted from being trapped and used her whole existence. And then if you cure her anyway, she's stuck as a human in a world that's moved on without her, no magic, no strength, nothing. If you don't, she stays with you out of what - gratitude? Obligation? The game frames it like a win but it's kind of hollow.

I think that's why Serana hits different on replays. First time through you're just trying to save the world from vampire apocalypse. But once you know the story, you realize the questline is actually about how even "good" solutions can trap people. Nobody in that narrative - not her parents, not Harkon, not even you - actually gives her a real choice. You just pick which cage she ends up in.