The Companions questline is secretly one of the saddest stories in the game

[RiftenWanderer]

I'm on my third playthrough and just finished the Companions arc, and I'm genuinely bummed out about it in a way I wasn't expecting. Like, yeah, the werewolf curse stuff is cool and the betrayal hits, but what gets me is how Kodlak's whole thing is just... he's trapped. He's been trapped for so long and he knows it, and even when you fix it at the end, all the other members are still stuck with it or don't even care that much.

And Vilkas and Farkas feel genuinely abandoned by the guild leadership. Vilkas especially - he's clearly smarter than most people treating him like a dumb brute, and nobody in that hall is really looking out for him. Aela's the only one who seems to have her head on straight but she's so deep in the beast blood thing that it doesn't matter.

The questline doesn't get nearly as much love as Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood, but I think it's because it's not about power or revenge or anything cathartic. It's just about a group of people who are kind of stuck in this situation and most of them have made peace with it in unhealthy ways. Even the ending doesn't feel triumphant, it just feels like you've put one guy out of his misery.

Does anyone else get this vibe from it or am I reading too much into it?

 

[DragonbornVet]

nah you're hitting on something real. the companions questline is depressing precisely because nothing actually changes for most of them. you cure kodlak and that's it - aela's still married to the beast blood, farkas is still... farkas, vilkas goes back to being a mage and that's supposed to feel like a win but he's still in this dead-end guild with people who never respected him.

the thieves guild and dark brotherhood have this momentum where you're rebuilding something or taking it over or whatever. but the companions? you're just managing decline. kodlak wanted out so badly he was willing to risk everything to cure himself, and the fact that nobody else really wants out is kind of the tragedy. they've all normalized being trapped.

vilkas especially gets me because the questline basically confirms he's too good for the companions and then... he just stays. at least with the thieves guild you can headcanon that brynjolf and vex are actually competent and the guild matters. the companions are just six people in a hall pretending to be warriors.