the December King said:
I'm gonna go with that barmaid in Skyrim, Delphine, who was actually some sort of assassin/super thief or something- a Blade, If I remember correctly. I mean, I like not being the only one doing things in a game world, it makes the place feel alive. But wasting my time by ruining one of my quests, just to derail me, order me around and brag about how you could kill me easily... I pummeled her head into her ribcage as soon as that dragon she wanted me to kill was defeated, and I'll be honest, I only went that far along with her because I assumed I had no choice. I might even have borfed the main timeline, I dunno- I stopped following the plot at around that time to just run around and have fun, and haven't been back to that quest since.
I mean, I appreciate what was being set up, to some extent- showing me I'm a little fish in a big pond, there are other parties involved, etc. And, if I had been playing what I considered a more cerebral character, I would have rolled with it, and accepted my role as not really fully understanding the politics at work behind the scenes just yet. But as a giant, bloodthirsty barbarian Argonian wielding a war-hammer? It was all the attitude that some of the NPCs in that game spout, you just want to smash them... and so, when given the chance? Not gonna shrug it off, say thankee. Besides, I get enough of being thwarted and outdone by people in real life!
Oh fuck yes. Fuck Delphine. It always rubbed me the wrong way how the game goes out of it's way to talk about how much of a badass Delphine is, but to never actually show it. They don't even explain
how she does the stuff the game says she can do. Not to mention her entire attitude towards the fucking Dragonborn. The only person capable of stopping the dragons for good.
And I could
tolerate all of that and still kind of like her. Up until she asked me to kill Parthurnax for no reason other than simply because one, he is a dragon, and two, he used to work for Alduin. Despite being one of the few reasons Alduin, and the entire dragon apocalypse, was stopped not once, but twice, she wants me to kill him. And if I don't? "Well fuck you Dragonborn! The person my entire order and way of life was formed around. Fuck you for not bending over backwards to do what I ordered you to do! Get the hell out of my sight.
My people won't help you any further until you do this."
And even despite all of that, it also comes down to how pointless Delphine is. Did we
really need the Blades? I know the game made us side with them, but did we really have to? Did they really play that big of a roll in the grand scheme of things? And even if we truly did need the Blades for some parts, did we really need Delphine specifically?
