Imperials vs Stormcloaks - Skyrim's Civil War | The Elder Scrolls Podcast #65

[Music] what is up ladies and gentlemen welcome back to fudge ma but this is the elder scrolls podcast i'm scott here with michael and drew as always and today we are tackling the big one we are doing imperials versus storm clerks and as far as i'm aware we're not uh taking any particular site it's kind of like you know circling around all the different ideas and so on and we want to basically discuss both sides the benefits of sides whether it's like their rhetoric or like culture or even their practical elements like we're kind of going to discuss it all but there'll be a lot of like devil as advocate playing here like we don't just want to go like oh yep this side yeah they're the right one they're the good guys or so on because i'm excited to talk about but everyone i i feel like there's a very dominant um sort of imperials are undisputably they're the good guys and everything's great about them and it's kind of like picking the best of two bad options rather than just this we're going full season on ending mode where we're just sitting in the middle listening to all the good points and bad points for both and we're not 100 taking sides i mean my foul more roads are in the wash so can't take that aside i suppose they all suck we'll be getting to in in their own way it's just like voting in general man i can't you know pick between the i think we could start with maybe some like clarifying things but like we've got to understand these societies are like so far removed from our modern conceptions of of morality and so on and like everyone's kind of got this you know idea it's like oh oh frick's a dictator ooh like all kings are dictators what do you think an emperor is you know what i mean like they're like it's an empire it's all dictators even the elder council even the elder council sounds very like corrupt and illuminati anyway when you look there's limited things like there's levels of bureaucracy all around like you know you could think of like the dark elves um and their councils and so on or like the elder council and so on like obviously there's variations at the end of the day the emperor's in charge the kings in charge the y'all or whatever or whoever they um are you know in service to or or vessel of like if we're taking it all the way back both of the factions we're talking about today don't necessarily have an innate right to the place they're fighting for you know like the nords they've obviously been in skyrim a lot longer than the imperials would have been in skyrim but even they you know they they took skyrim from some bloody stuff you know that is grammar guy he had a bit of blood on his hands um so you know there's there's a lot of mess to go through i mean i i suppose a good thing to get out of the way early on is the whole idea of the stormcloaks and how obviously um many of them are xenophobic and and racist types and you know obviously we're not justifying that or saying that's good however i think what a lot of people miss is that so is the empire in terms of their actions maybe not the philosophy that they promote uh but at the end of the day they are you know a bit of like a culture destroying machine like you know a big empire like a colonial a colonialist right on the topic of like colonialism and imperialism that i was thinking about that a bit and like obviously the kind of monty python meme comes up and it's like what have the romans done for us and then you've you list off all these amazing things they've done you know like on top of all the bloodshed um but then in the elder scrolls universe it's a bit different because there aren't really technological advancements you can't be like oh they gave us irrigation and medicine and edu you know that you can't really give them many benefits like when it comes to their imperialism you could maybe make the argument that in black marsh oh they built roads they tried to establish trade routes but in the end it all failed the argonians didn't want it in the first place and then it just became a prison state i suppose at the end of the day you have to think like what's worse and obviously both are bad but on one hand you have you know mistreatment of certain people like especially you see that in windhelm with the dark elves and the argonians or on the other hand going into another province that you know isn't your province with massive force and kind of saying this is how we do things and kind of you have to do things how we do things as well which is what the empire has been doing for a very long time i mean there's all kinds of characters you can meet in the elder scrolls like i remember making the video on the whodunnit quest you know the murder house party quest in oblivion and there's the dark elf there um davisi dran and she talks about neville who is a retired imperial soldier and she basically says like i hate the legion and everything it stands for when those soldiers came to morrowind they persecuted my people and stole our lands neville may not be in the legion anymore but who knows what atrocities he committed so my point is they're all bad guys in a way yeah like it's kind of like to clarify obviously racism is a very bad thing but to believe that racism is exclusive to like just the dark elves or the stormcloaks is so naive the dark elves are some of the most yeah well to top it off actually in terms of he's a point on the on the empire actually but the empire as it is right now is facilitating one of the most racist and xenophobic um cultures in the world through by the thalmor they are you know in alliance with them literally letting them walk around their um their land and as justicia is essentially like a gestapo force trying to come in and um you know take talos worshipers and so on torture them kill them and so on they'll just murder you if you tell them that you're a talos worship or if you go in skyrim to one of the patrols and say i'll worship whoever they want it's a but the point there is it's like so if you're using the the point that like ulfric is racist which is of course true you can't you've got to look at how the empire is also facilitating the same thing you know what i mean it's like because you can't use that if it's like almost like if everyone's racist then it's hard to use there's obviously varying degrees but it's hard to use that as your one and soul barometer of how you're going to judge each faction you've got to k take a more complex view and i suppose we should obviously specify for those in the audience like obviously we're aware that it is uh a different you know you've got racism aka we don't like the elves and then you've got you know anti-freedom of religion which isn't as much racism but it's it's just culture yeah like it's persecuting a way of thinking away tradition it's it's discrimination i guess that's the word we should be using and on the racism topic to throw a bone to the nords as well like this wasn't really all frick's doing but um after the red year the the high king of skyrim decided to cede all of skyrim's claim to solsteim so that um refugee dunmo would have a place to go as well which is which is kind of good like there's there's political reasons to do it as well because it it stops you looking bad if they take it by force and you look weak or whatever but at the same time it's like there were steps made to help the dunmer and honestly i think it's the stormcloaks biggest mistake is being xenophobic towards the dunmer because they're in a they're in a time of need more than ever really in their past and now would be a great time to make an alliance with them to have them on your side to do them favors so then when they regain their power you've got a really powerful ally but i mean that's that's one of the i guess the cons of of the storm cloaks is it it becomes hard to have a a united people when you do discriminate against you know a certain percentage of the population that could otherwise you know be a part of it and be useful for your course um which is where the empire shines right because they'll accept anyone but that's not to say that they all respect anyone yes i know cannon fodder no not just that it's not that i just that like who makes up the imperial council i guarantee its majority imperials or bretons or humans like where are all the khajiit now gurney and stuff down in leon and the poor slums and stuff like it's it's very there's these guys of it's not comparable to to to call like the empire some sort of you know big multicultural kumbaya sort of system it is purely of course practical and advantageous however they they do they can have like a dark elf empress like these things are possible and um they would never happen stormcloak skyrim i guess is my point like the severity it's this we should also classify there that we are talking about two very different organizations one of them is like i guess in modern terms like a an international it's funny to say international empire and the other is a coalition of king essentially kings yalls in the eastern eastern skyrim like these are very different sized organizations in terms of scope and and and also the way they function because one one like the stormcloaks rebellion is essentially a an alliance of eastern skyrim who want to you know liberate um the western skyrim and then have their own right to like choose their own high king and let's not beat around the bush that's all freak it's very clearly ulfric it's a very like populist sort of situation there but it's really easy to be it from from skyrim's perspective you know the the political situation during the time of the civil war it's really easy to kind of see the empire in a very positive light because they're kind of they're slightly weak at this at this point they're essentially trying to i don't know they're trying to be the good guys they're trying to be diplomatic and all that you when you think of them you think of a diplomatic uh group but then if you look back in time a little bit you know when tiber septim was around and the tiber wars happened you know what happened if you had a place that didn't want to be part of your empire what if you have somerset who are like yeah no leave us alone oh then you whip out the new medium and just crush their cities and destroy them and subjugate them and bring them under your control by force so it's like if we had a game set there we wouldn't love the imperials probably i think from our like modern perspective like you know in our real world we can look at most empires and be like yeah that's a bad thing like the idea of um going into somewhere slaughtering a place until you have control of it right so like in its inception the empire is not a good it's not necessarily what i'm saying is it doesn't stand on this sort of like moral good i think the reason people think the empire is so good in the elder scrolls is generally because you're on the side of the empire in most the games until skyrim and they're cool yeah cool yes they have the cool factor yeah like there are cool elements about i mean there's you could say that about any faction but you know you you get put through this heroic empire experience you know and they were well you really feel like sorry they're going i was just saying you feel like you're fighting for something good you know you're solving the oblivion crisis or you know whatever it is you're and they were like you know the empire back in the early first era they were founded on really positive principles as well you know you've got this elysian slave rebellion against the elves who clearly had too much you know it is the aliens but they had too much power and there needed to be a revolution and when there was alicia tried to integrate all aspects of society be it elven or human and make something that work together but obviously time passes being the emperor is pretty appealing you get people fighting over it and warring and tons of people dying and then you know also we don't we don't want to go like in terms of like imperial routes it's the first empire so not so much but they turned into one of the most xenophobic zealous bunch of people they became like where where the elysian order became um inseparable from the empire and you know they they were carried out slaughters um of all these elves and all that kind of stuff absolute power corrupts absolutely yeah well there's big problems and arguably even you can look at you know if you want to talk about just it's like principle like inception like tiber septim and there's the whole like arcturian heresy and all of the like things that went on around there in its inception but um you know the septum empire was not um period throughout the third era was not just on this indisputably peaceful better area like you look at some of the horrific civil wars like the war of the red diamond which um which happened and you have all these different um you know there's always problems with succession and so on and it's like not really like our concern but like an empire is dependent on expansion and that's how they fund these great big legions and armies and so on because they need their legion some they need to be doing something you know so they send them off to other countries and provinces to the class and when and when they did run out of civil wars and stuff to do and when they did get to some piece of periods of time of union um they went over to places like akavi and then they started uriel fist out of the invasion of aquify to do so which is just further expansion and so on and you might go like oh well akavis snake people whatever but you are going to a foreign place and you're just trying to conquer unprovoked just going to come well you could go like well then i think i think that's before but you know i think it doesn't help too that a lot of the stormcloaks and nords in general are the pale skin blonde hair blue-eyed types so it almost feels a bit strange to think of them as being i suppose persecuted yeah but the reality is their culture kind of is i mean especially like what you see in windhelm you see a lot of discrimination done by them um as well this is a bit of a side thing but i was just thinking about this before the podcast why are the argonians there i don't mean that in like a rude way as in like go away but like wouldn't they have a much better life somewhere like i if i was an argonian you you you know i love argonians my my brother's too much [Laughter] but if i was an argonian right i would leave there are so many better places for an argonian to be i mean you have an entire province of course if you were born outside of black marsh you might say you don't really relate to it but i would rather go to black marsh and try and relate to it and live in this swamp where you know there's culture and i feel like i belong and i'm respected um and you know i feel safe versus working on the docks and complaining that i get paid a tenth of what a nord gets paid to do the same thing and the i just don't understand from from their perspective why why they choose to stay there and that's like pretty clear in the creation stories as well like the annual ad very very much makes it clear that the corner of tamriel that belongs to the hiss the black marsh is so alien to everything else and like the idea of people from black marsh fitting in anywhere else kind of has never been suggested that it would ever really work properly yeah unless you're born so far outside of it because then when you return black marsh is alien to you um but but still i mean i'd rather live in cereal i don't know i just there's there's so many other places that i would want to pull it back on track a little bit about empire storm clerks i was thinking we should maybe like talk about some like like maybe we should just try and get through some of the sort of fundamental things that like divide it up a little bit because obviously there is sort of the uh economic and like uh practical reasons and then there is all sort of like just their rhetoric and like philosophy and like what they sort of practice and preach and like on one side you've got ulfric and the stone cloak rebellion is very pronoun it is very about the nords and it's about nords force you know skyrims for the nords it's a very they it's they want to you know rule themselves they don't want the empire they don't want influence of the thalmor via the empire which by the way is a very very valid thing i think people often um you know misunderstand that or sort of push that aside but like imagine being someone you know who does like worship house or whatever in in skyrim or you know someone that does and then all of a sudden secret police knock knock bang i'm going to take you away and torch you in a fort until i mean i think an easy way to think about it is just imagine an activity you like being taken away and i know this will sound almost comical but imagine if some force was was you know put in where you live and they said you can't took your xbox what if your mom took your xbox what links would you go no but but seriously like just imagine like things like this or they say no no internet yeah at all in any capacity and you just have to cop it and like you wouldn't be happy about it i know it sounds funny yeah it's a thing with empires in general but especially with the nords who have always kind of been even when they're part of the empire they've always been more like unified with them in that they've always supported each other and the empire has relied on the nords a lot just as much as you know anyone were like would rely on the empire but um yeah like so so the idea is that the unity's like the empire should then protect your values if you're going to be a part of their organization you're going to be strong together you've got to protect the values of the places that you go whereas they're not doing that anymore they're not protecting talos worship so what's the benefit of having a weak empire in charge of you could i just could i just hop in first and say one of the downsides about the um about being part of the empire anyway as you saw in the great war is that when they need to protect themselves the heartland cyrodiil they will pull forces out of your province so you don't even have uh like a guarantee that they will protect you because the second that you know their provinces on the line that they care about more they will you know take their defense away from you and in that defense is there almost in place of your own like if the stormcloaks existed the stormcloaks wouldn't be pulled out to to help you know cyrodiil because they're the storm cloaks but the empire they can be commanded if they're in hammerfell if they're in high rock skyrim they can just be like also like the nords have been while we're talking about like a rager of culture and we were talking about that before but they've become increasingly imperialized and they're to the point where talos which is an imperial god really is their most important thing which you can argue the law reasons for that or what not it should it should be but anyway the point the point is they are just actually fighting to worship an imperial god of the empire that they you know feel a part of and so on and the god who started the empire yeah and one thing i want to quickly address um it leans a little bit more into the practical side but everyone's got this real like oh but you know they've just got to cop it and just take the you know worship in secret or not at all until the empire is strong it does something about it which is 25 years nearly my entire life worth of time justice years have been patrolling through skyrim and and lands and tamriel locking up talos worshippers like how much how long do you think is reasonable to wait and how fair is here's some perspective that everyone in the audience should relate to i suppose with lockdowns but i mean you see how angry and upset people get with with you know oh just another week or two weeks or we're gonna do a month lockdown or whatever 25 years but it it's completely re i don't think it's reasonable to go oh well you know they've just got to wait you know 50 years by their time until it's there it's like the interest of all these individuals the farmer who had their husband kidnapped and and tortured and killed does not care about the empire's larger goals they also consider saga so yeah no i i i agree i was just going to say consider too that men don't live as long as elves so playing the long game in that same way doesn't work for them some people you know if you were 40 and then you're 65 you've spent you know the rest of your life essentially then you die at some point not worshipping your god now obviously we know a lot of uh imperials are nords and they do worship talos just in secret um so there is that view of it but you you can feel how you're you would feel very like culturally oppressed it seems like the red guards and the nords both kind of came to this conclusion at similar times realizing that wow okay so when you've got an empire it kind of weakens all of the sovereign nations all of the sovereign provinces because then you've got this as you said earlier um they can pull out their troops at any time you're like oh crap we didn't really prepare to protect ourselves and now that the empire is too weak to look after its vassal states hammerfell like oh well we're going to do our own thing we've got to protect our own interests and that's fine we expect them to do that because hammerfell the red guards were getting absolutely screwed by the white gold concorder and then obviously they pulled out they fought on on their own and then they got a much better deal with the um with the old mary dominion and really when you think about it from not a gameplay perspective because we didn't see it in game you're like well yeah why wouldn't they do that that makes total sense for them but the stormcloaks are kind of now doing the same thing and if it wasn't for really if it wasn't for some of their xenophobic attitudes that it's really hard to question why they would do it um and then you've got ulfric as well who's kind of got his own personal motivations to push this into action but obviously the people got behind him or a lot of the people have gotten behind him so there's obviously something there beyond his personal gripes um i feel like some hybrid force would be the best obviously like it may never come to fruition um because the incentive might not be there but it would be interesting you know if skyrim had some stormcloak type force of guards who were respected by the empire and kind of just there obviously this isn't compatible with the white gold concorder i'm just speaking more in general terms so then if empire forces are pulled out of skyrim they don't have to take kind of like well you know that that's a crux of guards who can stay behind that's where the foul more i think really nailed it is because they with the empire's weakness they really made it seem like they were in an incredibly strong position and had a throttle on on the empire but things weren't fantastic for them had had the nords and the empire and maybe high rock stuck together and you know maybe like worked alongside hammerfell the old married dominion would be at an impasse they wouldn't really be able to continue you know if the idea is that they're trying to conquer all of tamriel they'd kind of run out of places to go but the foul more are really benefiting from the fact that the empire and the stormcloaks are fighting so they can work elsewhere let them fight it out be distracted you know i think there's there's literally a quote saying that they want skyrim divided and distracted and this just gives them time to kind of wrap around and when they when they eventually do want to take skyrim if that's what they're working towards it's going to be a lot easier after all of this yeah well there's this idea that both sides too are kind of like biding their time and preparing like even the empire uh the idea you get from tullius and ricky and others is that you know they're kind of preparing and they don't trust the thalmor talia says he doesn't trust the thalmor he they're uneasy about the alliance but it's almost like you know if two people were having a fight and they were both just completely like gassed and you're like you know what let's both take a breather yeah and we'll come back and fight when we're ready it's interesting that thalmor actually referred to the great war as um i think the first great war almost like they know there's a second one coming you know it's like the world war you wouldn't be like oh the first world war if you were living then it would just be the the world war so it is interesting oh and i do like though that a lot of um nords tend to actually side with the empire still because i will just dispel there's this idea that the stormcloaks kind of have this massive home advantage and that you know to defend skyrim the empire is not aware of you know the home territory and the terrain and all this and it's like yeah they are like a lot of imperials um as in the legion are nords from skyrim who fought in the great war and have lived their whole life in skyrim like you know they they definitely do understand skyrim tullius may not understand the culture necessarily in the same way but he hasn't been there for long and let's give credit where credit's due talias was there according to hadvar at least for a few months and by the time skyrim takes place he's already captured the leader ulfric and has him on a car on his way to be executed and according to had far he didn't even put up that much of a fight like so much for honor type thing um and if it wasn't for alderweireld coming to save the day tullius would have put down this rebellion in three months yeah it's pretty interesting too i think it's a good point actually a perfect time to talk about um the ulfric the the dossier the thermal dossier on ulfric because people i think you interpret this a lot but one of the things there the thalmor says a note is like they they were there they wanted to intervene and stop the execution happening because that was against their interest they liked the civil war continuing so on and they just really lucked out with alduin's appearance but um one of the things people i think misinterpret because they see the words asset they kind of tend to think like agent or secret agent like like it's an asset to them in the way that him functioning and and you know leading this rebellion isn't is an asset to them it's not like this sort of um like secret agent they're like ulfric you secretly want to help the film or someone he's been tricked and manipulate like in in the prisons he was led to believe the information he gave up after being tortured was critical for destroying imperial city or sorry taking it over but it was actually it already fell but you know he is very much like he's wrapped up in all of his like you know pronoun like kind of stuff he's not some secret thalmor agent it's just beneficial for the thalmor in their assessment yeah and they could see that they strategically created this kind of like guilt-ridden person you know by telling him that it's his fault you know he was incredibly pro-empire and he was obviously a lot younger when he fought in the great war and that um and so obviously you would give up secrets being tortured but he would have felt terrible about it especially because you know nords and their sense of honor and pride but obviously you know magical torture and things like this obviously you can break someone eventually and they will give up secrets and now you can almost imagine that he just really really hates the empire but from that different perspective that no one else knows as well the the guilt it's like it's like the perfect storm as well because the the empire you know you can't even blame the family for everything because the empire actively betrayed him essentially you know i'd like it's not the empire as a whole but you've got this yarl of markhav who the reach men who are kind of operating all this time as well they want their own land back to the they want it to be their own land so they they try to take mark off and the yell is like oh well crap i i want to keep this i want to continue to rule this place so let's get ulfric um to come in deal with all of the you know get his hands dirty for us and we'll promise him tell us worship but we know we can't deliver on this promise and then you know oh wow he now hates you that's that's odd isn't it yeah because like yeah the fourth one he literally took macarthur would be like reach controlled without the intervention of all frick and his you know his stormcloaks whose militia had two peaceful years yeah so then he they took but um in that like yeah they've been and all fricks by the way too his rebellion only started recently he'd been continuing on and so on because he actually spent time in imperial jail had to deliver a eulogy for his father's death and stuff from prison and so on and then when he was released he came out and he became yahl but he's been running like peacefully for a while with with things like it hasn't this rebellion's a very recent thing since he challenged um toric which to be fair even if you forget the whole murder part of it because it it is it's i think the more convincing things there it's pretty clear that he did challenge him however the challenge may as well have been murder he had the thormia the sword he was advanced warrior and taureg was a young boy so you can kind of it's like that like technically but like what was torah going to do like you know you know show is weak and not accept the challenge in their old case especially because it's it's not even just that like think about the afterlife too like i mean we don't know all the ins and outs like a checklist of what gets you into sovngarde and what doesn't but you know it would have seemed pretty dishonorable for torig to turn down the challenge so it's you know like you said he's pretty much just saying like you're gonna die um and torig has to be like okay and you do meet um torig in sovengaard um there's actually a quote he has about ulfric um he says when ulfric stormcloak with savage shout sent me here which interestingly aligns with the idea that he was killed with a shout you know how people say it was like torn to pieces with a shout my soul regret was fair elisa left forlorn and weeping i faced him fearlessly my fate inescapable yet my honor is unstained can all frick say the same yeah that's the thing but i think you you can argue whether it was a misstep from ulfric because you do hear from lexical stentor and other people that torig was a big fan of ulfric and would probably have given him what he wanted but i was thinking about it and i think for ulfric it was kind of an optical win because not like not only would he kind of develop his own claim to be the higher king but if he's if he's spouting all of this stuff about the true sons and daughters of skyrim like embracing tradition and worshiping our gods then bringing up this ancient custom of dueling and showing your might to rule very much aligns with everything else that he's been doing whereas if he just goes to the negotiating table with torig it may have actually helped his cause but he wouldn't have seemed like such a great warrior to his followers i think it's pretty good to establish too is that like ulfric is clearly like an egomaniac right he wants to be hiking and all the nords and all that kind of stuff right um but just because there is any egomaniac at the head of and you know is the face of it it doesn't uh dismiss or disqualify all of the grievances that like people part of the rebellion may have it's not necessarily just like it's a face like for example you know the gestapo thermal going around secret police style is really bad and affects their lives you know the ability for them to not worship talos and so on the ability and you know and even strains on the empire like you're talking before but imagine being sent off to fight the thalmors like yeah protect the empire and now you can't even worship you know imperial gods how you how you were used to doing and it's it's they would be incredibly incredibly like for example i think no one i think no one um has a problem with the red guards who who fight the thalmor and have got their own sovereignty and most people are generally approving of that um yet when it comes to the north it's only because it's um you know obviously they've got to push off the empire to do that and then in comes the practical reasonings well oh you know you've got to hold a strengthened empire together but you know you might actually also come to the conclusion potentially that like look the empire is like pretty dying out anyway in ways like they've been slowly receding and failing for for a long time even before the great war happened and the great war happens and then at that too like even if you want to talk about other things like you know whether they're justification or someone the mead dynasty was just started by a warlord who won it's simple as that like there's no there is no sort of like um you know religious element this to support their claim anymore with no murder it it would be interesting to know what tiber septim or talos would actually think of the empire in its current form you know in in morrowind there is this like uh avatar of talos called wolf this imperial warrior and he has an interesting quote which i actually quite like because it can kind of reflect onto the the whole situation but he says um the emperor is getting old don't know how much longer he'll hang on so is the whole empire for that matter getting old that is the emperor and the legions have held the empire together for hundreds of years it's been a good thing by and large but maybe it's time for a change time for something young and new what no idea because i'm old old dog doesn't get new ideas but maybe young folks like you should try some new ideas i don't know could be messy but change is never pretty interesting i i guess we're kind of already on the practical side of things so we could maybe discuss this a little bit more but like one of the main uh like points of contention is people want to argue how much like whether skyrim could stand on its own or whether once the pale past is cleared that the empire will just come in and take over everything so there is there is this note so there's fort new grad is this place it's just run by bandits but depending on what side of the civil war you you choose and win the area for the stormcloaks or imperials come in and then there's a change of some of the stuff in the environment and if the stormcloaks win there's a stormcloak missive and the part i want to talk about says but now i have word of a new imperial force assembling in the south ready to advance on our position as pale pass is clear send rivers and reinforcements or all our gains will be for naught but to me i think i think people kind of go like oh you know hands down they they're going to lose if the if the imperial reinforcements come but the whole like idea that they could even send reinforcements and all our gains are for naught kind of thing i feel like they could hold that land potentially like skyrim is a very mountainous sort of region where it would be hard to move you know huge swaths of army and supplies and stuff that that kind of stuff like in real life has been and can be leveraged to create like he's not together that's like get too political like you know afghanistan and stuff recently it's why that's a massive problem it's this mountainous inhospitable terrain it's very hard to actually exercise proper real control over things in a similar way perhaps you could do the same like for example the yarls are all native so they've they've got their own like localized kingdoms or control but those have traditionally like bent the knee to type septal talos or someone and cooperated but if they decide not to um it's not like entirely possible that they could just have some there could be this skyrim that is independent that is able to defend itself i don't think in some giant all-scale war with the thalmor but in the same way that the the red guards were able to leverage their their terrain and you know their fighting spirit and whatnot they were able to stop the thalmor from taking their land i'd almost picture it like the eastern front you know i'm not there's no allegory there i'm not comparing any groups to nazis or or stalin or anything but like simply the german armies having a lot of momentum being the superior army in this battle or this series of battles but then the land just takes its toll and a an army that's more disorganized can end up just completely routing you and and causing you to you know retreat back to familia land and i feel like that would happen in skyrim if you couldn't get them to come to the negotiating table yeah it's more i i think i think people forget too that it's not like uh for a stormcloak victory to go ahead that they have to then take cyrodiil now take the summerset isles and march all the way to eleanor killing all elves in our way like they can just take skyrim and live in skyrim and defend skyrim it's a lot easier to defend from that kind of province than it is nor do they even need to to go on and take other provinces and it's actually interesting but if you take the other side at fort newgrad uh the imperial missive is there instead and it says pale pass is all but closed due to avalanches in the mountains we need more support or our garrison will not withstand another attack now we don't actually and this is why these debates go on and why if you were watching this podcast hoping to end up with some solid 100 outcome you're going to be disappointed um because there is a lot of interpretation and i mean that's what makes it interesting that's what makes it fun so we don't know the size of the imperial forces that are on the other side they could have massive amounts to just send through and just clean up skyrim easily if they want to or it could be much smaller we just we just don't know yeah we just don't i just um yeah it's one of those things it's just one it's i think at least the way i'm approaching a lot of this like sort of question and so on is i think a lot of people approach the stormcloaks as it's like case closed there's nothing redeemable about them they're the bad guys and they wouldn't be able to win or withstand anything anyway and i just think both of those are highly debatable and it's not as clear and the empire is not this holy sort of or great kind of thing from a from a both moral and even a practical perspective like um yeah and considering i mean the gum so i was just gonna say the am on the empire's side like if i were to pick which one would be stronger i probably would side with a like a reunified empire but i agree with you in the sense that it's not black and white it's not even like 70 30. it's like you just don't know yeah i think the empire has a lot more experience at governing lands um i mean obviously but it's empire two in in that uh like you know this is the thing an empire is by is a is almost like a collection of like you know foreign lands and so on under one ruler whereas those individual lands can have their own interests even like you know the kingdoms of hyrule currently are under the empire but they too could have similar concerns and so on and most of them i think the reason people do and even when there are um conquest in groups uh conquesting empires that come into a land the ones the natives that generally end up siding with them it's usually from a practical perspective like you know look at the things we can get the trade we can get the security you can get and those things are all arguably true like they're very like they can be good things but you know like if you play the elder scrolls adventures red guard it wasn't it wasn't a pleasant experience the red car is getting taken over by type of septum um you know it's um it's a complex issue yeah and i'll say it's also a shame that the the nords have kind of been diminished somewhat in the law over time especially with the whole kind of like dragon's retcon and and and shouting and things like that because when you hear about all of the old legends of nords and fighting against you know dark elves or you know orcs or whatever it may be all the enemies that nords have had they had tongues and you know like they could like blow down siege walls with shouts and things like that and and imagining those kinds of nords defending skyrim from you know an old mirror dominion invasion makes you think like wow like you know they could have a chance and and that's how you look at all law right like oh well if this group was so much more powerful then they would have just taken over everywhere but they didn't so obviously they weren't like we know we've often talked about with the dwemer if they just had these super um uh superpowers essentially and could just alter physics and do what they want then they would have just won in all cases which isn't true but it's it's just a bit of a shame to think now that the nords don't really have that ability and it's such a special thing limited to a special few i mean there is of course the whole idea of the dragonborn and whoever the dragonborn sides with that that's massive if if dragonborn is a stormcloak asset then the stormcloaks can definitely stand their ground if it's an empire thing then the empire will win it is basically the tipping point i think considering all these circumstances like with this civil war there is no way the empire want to be fighting it they they don't want to make enemies of the nords they don't want to make enemies of the red guards and i mean in an ideal world they wouldn't have kind of turned on the empire for letting them down because at the end of the day the empire want to be able to stop the threat of the of the altmeri dominion but they don't have the strength to do it currently and really the only reason they're really fighting against the nords is because they have to you know the family's not going to let them let you know what you're just going to let skyrim worship these gods that you've promised us you wouldn't let them worship etc etc so they're kind of yeah their hands are tied in this situation and were they powerful enough to say no to the white gold concordant then they would be fighting alongside the red guards and the nords again to deal with the old married dominion because they're the great threat not not any of the others yeah and i mean they were um mead was criticized for that i think by the red guards who believe that you know if he just kept on trying they actually could have won without making that deal i believe it for sure but but who knows it's hard to make in the moment we just like that judgment call even like even if in retrospect you could go like you know oh you know even if you could go yeah you know there's a pretty good chance they could have won in the moment it's hard you don't have all that information there's lots of stuff going on you've just barely got back the imperial city and there's this massive war going on it's kind of like you've been asked the empire has been diminished greatly too like even all the blades having their heads you know yeah they're taking it all over the floor like their spy networks are destroyed the empire is in a procurement skyrim the little symbol in the front the little dragon symbols cracked and yeah it is a crumbling empire and i think because this is the thing people often ask what side are you on are you an empire supporter a storm clerk supporter and i just think i don't know i i'm on the side of whatever character of build i'm playing as role playing i don't really have a side for me because i don't live in the elder scrolls universe but i think when i think about elder scrolls six you can think about what would make a better story and i think having the stormcloaks gain more control could be more interesting you've just got more factions and parties going on and new alliances that could be made between different groups but i'd be curious to hear what you two think do you think a stormcloak if they win um alliance with the empire is actually like possible i mean you were just murdering each other i know the enemy of my enemy is um my friend but it's i don't know it's all very fresh i suppose sorry you go sorry i was just i was gonna i just mean um i think that what's more likely is not an imperial thing if if i think if solach skyrim really does become completely stormcloak controlled and independent that i think that high rock would soon follow suit um and would and follow just that they're cut off by land routes completely and i i just feel like the sense of you know independence and stuff around and a weakening empire as well you no longer have like nordic armies to call upon for your legions i feel like the empire would quickly be restricted to just cyrodiil and i think if anything you're more likely to get like a coalition of of you know the skyrim and hammerfell and perhaps high rock kingdoms looking after um the you know men yeah to add to that i think the the imperials almost need to be humbled a little bit and and consider maybe maybe it's time to have a kingdom and not have an empire maybe it's time to you know because they always do as we've said before they end up looking out for their own own interest first and foremost you know the white gun white gold concord it was signed because they were in immediate danger even though skyrim high rock and northern hammerfell weren't in immediate danger and so maybe if they weren't trying to impose their force on the other provinces then they could be a kingdom and they can align now with the red guards with the bretons with the nords and perhaps that's the best way forward maybe even you might even have sort of what i was i was trying to i was mentioned before i forgot to bring it up but like how the empire is also is kind of like a uh an entity that's kind of above just nations because even even with um cyrodiil itself you've got all of these different counts and so on that that have before functioned more as kings or so on and they've got their own cultures and so on and then if you've even got larger groupings such as like you know the clovians versus nibbanese and the clovian estates before have literally been separate to the empire in the case of the times of of of the elysian order so you know maybe something like the clovian estates seceding and something is very possible or or likely you know what i mean like there's all kinds it is interesting not to be a fear monger but um if bethesda loves the elder scrolls online so much it would be very scary to think if they were like let's do ebonheart packed again because the dark elves are kind of in the dark like you know that they've obviously had all kinds of problems with the argonians and the well actually there's why you definitely shouldn't do that i don't think they'd be lying with the argonians anytime soon um but yeah i think i think something too important like at least this is my take on like one big take i think is that it is understandable and justifiable for someone to believe in either side there are perspectives and ways it also depends on what you value like it's very easy to say well i don't care about religion so therefore freedom of religion or behavioral worship talos or something is important but you know in in the same and there's plenty of ways to go back and forth on that and also just because you're part of one doesn't mean you're complicit in all of its of its um behaviors or or crimes or whatever and and that's a flaw of ulfrix because he totally would disagree with you um i think ulfric sees his own weakness in surrendering that information in the empire and he hates that part of himself and then therefore hates the empire you know how like you can do you know what i'm talking about psychologically like he hates that weakness of bending to the thalmor with the white gold concord because it's a reflection of what he did on a deeper level he did that and therefore to compensate for that it's almost as if he's being way more brutal than he needs to be because he never wants to be weak again right and so he he goes and does the mark hath incident and it's this could be imperial propaganda because there's a text written by an imperial scholar but it basically says you know ulfric was saying if you're not with us you're against us and he had everyone who didn't help him doesn't mean they helped the enemy but didn't help him can i just also say that let's not pretend that the imperials the empire doesn't do the exact same you know they would absolutely invade a territory are you gonna are you gonna bend the knee not buy off with your head like same deal no no no it was after he captured it i'm saying ba like imagine you go in and capture a city and then you have peaceful civilians there it's like you didn't help me shopkeepers yeah the empire i would guarantee absolutely the empire has done very similar things and get rid of people that are undesirables because you're dealing with like the native population of richmond there that have forever been a problem for the nords right and they've always been fighting over when they come in it's like they want to get rid of the discipline it's not justifying it but it's it's most definitely let's be real we're all on the same page that they're both it's bad my point is that like ulfric is incredibly brutal almost to a fault i mean it would be interesting if if he had actually tried to talk to torig and you know ask for independence i think anyway a lot of the stuff with the with the actual debate it's better to like yes the lead is important but it's also like there are so many interests and like all of the up for example the stone club rebellion is like led by ulfric but it is still in alliance with these other yales that are independent in their own right and rule their own yeldoms but they they are an alliance what's going to happen is if he takes over skyrim then there is going to be a moot held where he's clearly going to be made king but then he will become king of the lens sovereign song but he's but um you know in the same way that we don't it the morality i guess of titus me doesn't reflect the entirety of the empire or whatever like we don't use that as the the judgment because you'll go like all freaks are a racist fanatical egomaniac and then it's like yeah but like that doesn't immediately you know yeah emperors can be like that too exactly um i guess the difference is from a practical perspective i don't know if this is just vibe but i can't imagine the stormcloak cause doing as well without ulfric to rally behind whereas i can see you know as canon which it definitely or probably is where the dark brotherhood murder the emperor um i can see him being just replaced with a new emperor perhaps a better one um whereas i can't see that the same like oh all freak's dead we all rally behind yeah stone fist like he really is kind of like uh very important to the cause which makes the cause more vulnerable like i said talius was there for three months yeah um or a few months whatever that means and rounded up all freak and almost had him killed like yeah goodbye leader of the cause which kind of really holds it together in terms of people's marriage yeah absolutely well once i i would i feel like it would be it would be different once if he succeeds in the rebellion because then it's no longer a rebellion he then you know they take over and then the king is elected and that king would be him and then there would be like lineage and other kinds of things yeah for sure it's sovereign state but like that's the other thing too i feel like people want to you know another part of debate is is you know the right to self rule or like sovereignty or so on because like obviously the skyrim skyrim is you know they say like they're they're a vassal of the empire and so the empire you know exercises power over them and says you know you guys come here and come fight for our land against the thalmor or whatnot so on and that's just and you know part of the trade-off is you know you get the benefits of being in the empire and so on but then when they are undermined by that very same empire you can see people's grievances and that's why i think it's very like and that's why it's fun to come out from a role-playing perspective it's like who are you in the world like it's very hard to see if you you weren't you know if you were a nord and you know you'd had people taken by the by the thalmor or you've even like you know you you were a veteran of the great war and you gave all of this only for them to turn your back on you you can absolutely see how their their like plight is sympathetic and so on but also in the same way you can absolutely see the same thing from from the empire's perspective you know it's not i just think people reduce it to such uh there's there's one or the other good about it it's like it's really complex and you're dealing with like you know fan a fantasy world and where it's all kings and barons and so on it's so far removed from our you know yeah exactly it's it's hard not to like turn all fantasy to like to make it allegorical and like oh you know you've got these blond-haired blue-eyed ones you know who you know they're racist yeah we don't like them but you know a different group looking out for their own interests and that's fine it's like everyone in this situation is looking out for their own interests and if anything like really at the end of the day it's not it's not imperials versus stormcloaks it's falmouth versus stormcloaks essentially you know it's like imperials are just there because they're the puppet they've got no power they're being their hands are being forced and at the end of the day everyone really should be turning their attention on the real problem well that's the thing like the thelma like indisputably it's kind of like you know if the thelma will get in they are they are probably the worst of all on the closest tomorrow evil like i mean even amongst their own kind they have these strict cast structures and they their whole religion and faith and culture is based on a structure of like betters and lessers and that's how they you know formed their very own pantheon it's only the um the the ancestors worshipping the ancestors of their betters like so and you know even in valenwood and so on they carry out like like cleansings of like you know bosnia that they see inside fury or who aren't politically aligned with them it's like and but they're the most discriminatory groups well maybe not the most but almost the empire all of the empires capitulated to them um in both the outlawing of talos and allowing of um thalmor to ju um to police their own lands um in order to keep in line with that agreement and it's that you you couldn't think to think about is that okay i was just wanted to finish this just that you could um potentially you could you could make the argument that that kind of thalmor encroachment will only get worse and and more you know intertwined with imperial politics and that's and you know you could argue it's like well then yeah you'd absolutely want to be free of them you could argue that now but yeah for sure and i mean that that's also i was going to say a spy network for the foul more i mean like think you you know you talk about oh the nords have the um the kind of home ground advantage or the home field advantage but the thalmor have been there for a very long time walking around you know getting looking over it all and they they would know all the land they've got outposts you know up north near solitude and and all kinds of things and i mean you even see their spy network being used like uh with melbourne and the khajiit assassins sent to like take him out and you have to rescue him um and that's that khajiit is out near windhelm like they're you know they've got they've got skyrim on lock in and you know not to mention that every foul more person you talk to is absolutely insufferable like just talk to ankano once and i think the moral of this story and what we can all agree on is whether you whether your characters tend to join the imperial legion or whether they join the stormcloaks we just hate we just hate the foul more don't we at the end of the day we all agree on that yeah it's but then you could even get into why the thalmora um being angry yeah well i mean if if i were to justify if i were often you know say you've been around for hundreds of years and your grandparents were around when the new medium destroyed your homeland um you'd probably uh not be well then it's all type of septum so it just goes round and round it's always the strong one so it's all perspective it all comes back to perspective it does because some of them like obviously othellmore's all rooted in in like what is essentially like mythology or theology to them or whatever but it's a more of a spiritual argument their justified hatred against the races of man being like the weaker souls yadda yadda whereas i feel like what we tend to do and probably should do is is exist more in the realm of material and like actions and things that are like happening more so rather than like the sort of out there things so you know what the implications i mean i suppose the difference in the elder scrolls world is that all that stuff but it's not necessarily true their version of events they're they're just that's the problem like their justification is that you know we were locked up from um in mortal flesh bound by law khan and law khan gathered his armies weak assault which he called men to fight against us and this is why we're better than them and then they started worshiping only their greatest ancestors and that justifies their caste and all that kind of stuff it's like that is purely a religious kind of thing perspective it's not 100 confirmed truth and in contrast to you know men that believe they were created by gods and and and you know they enjoy mortality and so on so but whereas when it becomes something more material and grounded we can talk about like you know whether it's just like you know are the other nords being like racist and so on um you know are there yeah well not the nords broadly the storm cloaks it's more like even more so i guess it's fairer to say even windhelm like at least with argonians a great quarter it's a very windhelm a greater you know specific problem but that's also like you know let's not pretend nords in other areas can't be um you know uh racist or discriminatory on and you know then you bring in all discriminations of of like of reli of um religion and freedom of religion and stuff as well hey a wise argonian once said why do khajiit lick their boss yeah well i mean that yeah like this no i just mean in the sense that this stuff is everywhere yeah show us updates i think it wasn't his name show us a perfectly pure group or race or anything in the elder scrolls and you know we'll support them but there's none exist yeah there's no there's no moral arbiters in the elder scrolls i mean look at the empire they came in tomorrow end and they're like you know what let's sign a deal we'll get the new medium and you can keep your slavery and so on with no regard for it they're like whatever they're obviously not you know it it's all incentives and perspectives and interests and so on that that all vary greatly but um yeah it's it's yeah it's a heart it's a hard one to talk about but i i do think generally the discussion there is this sort of very non-critical view of the empire which i think there should be more of um i think to be honest though because there was a person there there was tj supertramp who says i'd love to hear your honest-to-goodness opinions on which side you'd each take in analysis yada yada basically explain like what we would actually take and i think um obviously this largely depends on perspective or so on but let's assume you're even a naught and you're an audience guy like me personally i think i'd probably be pro empire because i would enjoy a larger trade network i'd love i'd rather like let's not have a civil war can we just have peace like oh chill so on and me personally i'm not religious so it might not play but arguably if i was in elder scrolls universe perhaps that might be more important and so on but like i don't think i'd want to join a rebellion who's already i guess it's already risky chances to fight against an empire or so on and go off and die you know i'd rather sit there with a law book and uh yeah write terms and stuff i pretty much agree exactly with that like if i was being completely honest i'd be a conscientious objector and just i'd be too basically because i'd be too much of a cow and like i'm not gonna die for a cause maybe maybe you'd maybe you'd feel different if your family was like just you know killed for being talos worshippers but that's that's why i find these questions a bit difficult to answer because you are in you're going imagine if you were a nord but then you're not like you're just putting you're but your life experiences so far seem to feel like they're just the ones that you've had already like they're not like the skyrim life experience like having your family murdered yeah yeah but that's not um that's not all of them of the because half of skyrim like the whole western side is completely um i i just feel like the like i said before it's nothing is certain and the stormcloaks absolutely have a case um but from all the research i've done i feel like the the chances of beating the thou more at least to me weigh slightly more towards the empire and so i feel like i would be more like the rickey type who's like you know you can be a proud nord but i still think the empire has the best chance of getting us out of this and i've fought alongside ulfric and now he's become this kind of like you know egomaniac type and it's not the kind of skyrim that i want yeah yeah but then oh sorry guys oh well you know how in season on ending you can like you can send you can send what's her name wait what's the founder agent's name okay yeah you can send her away like ideally if i were in that position to make that decision i'd send her away try to get them to be like look we're all here you're both pretty powerful let's shake hands turn our attention kill her immediately let's do that now and then you know that's like that's the ideal circumstance but see this is another thing i i guess if you want to expand a tiny bit further is that i i don't think there is a uh as much as for example i don't think that they would allow eastern skyrim to secede like imagine if that was a possibility okay okay you four eastern holds you're not part of the empire but you can't come and like you know attack the other uh holds and have them um you know secede but i don't think the empire wants that they're like hell no the you know you're not succeeding at all so i don't think they'd ever come to that sort of agreement which is you know interesting because perhaps that i and you know like we've sort of talked about i think season unending is a sort of more interesting um political layout just for like story reasons but you know then the empire's still got if the empire still has solitude and white run and all of that and then well say the empire just suddenly said right now you know like during the the midst of the civil war we're going to let you worship talos would that do you think that would be enough to de-escalate everything and bring the storm cokes around i think that would de-escalate a lot like you might sort of see things like you know maybe ultra might even throw some shade being like you know this has happened before or whatever and they might not trust it immediately or so on but like i feel like he would be that generally the the people would be not you know emboldened to fight against their brothers and sisters if they can actually well then you maybe wouldn't have to worry about parts of skyrim seceding from the empire maybe you'd have you know that that whole crisis would be averted simply by giving back talos worship and and pushing out the just issues because i think amongst the i think the big thing amongst the populist really is is like how is like being in the empire infringing on their you know you know rights or whatever it's basically the talos thing but outside of that the whole idea of the sort of vague kind of like you know return to sort of true ways true nord we need a strong king kind of stuff only works on top of the talos stuff for the most popular i think otherwise i think that'd be because they still have their higher king you know but before all of the problems arose even if they were a very imperialized culture yeah but yeah that's the thing it would be more epic if they weren't so imperialized by the time of skyrim yeah because you know it just feels weird when they're fighting for our old traditions and it's like the only guy you meet who is is like um you know the kind quest and he's like in the is it froakie's shack yeah and it's like there should have been 20 times more people like him it's it's funny though in some ways it it's like not decide like not desirable but like and you know it is a cop-out post because they didn't they weren't going to um implement it but imperialization um does make a it's an interesting case that like you know how like all like religions and cultures and stuff developed and people kind of like cherry-pick the things they want like i want the ancient custom to duel and so on and this is what makes a true nord like not the rest of it and so on but um did you guys have any other areas to talk about in particular or like i'm sure that we're going to be told there's things we missed oh there are like we could easily part two this stuff i mean like you know you know maybe that is a good idea sorry to interrupt i just yeah like reflect and then pause yeah because then people like add in and we can respond to some people's like comments and stuff and sort of think about them more and could talk about like the further ramifications after the the resolution of the conflict depending on who wins yeah for sure i mean i i was even going to say just to add about talias um he is doesn't seem to care that much about the nords and i suppose that's another feeling that you would have like he cares about skyrim in general but i mean like just to quote and it's good that he has ricket there to kind of guide him and again i know he hasn't been there for long but i mean here are some quotes when he's like you nords in your bloody sense of honor or like you know um he he has these kinds of things there's a few quotes like that well don't you nords put any stock in your own traditions um that's ironic like well yes it is he was talking about the jagged crown with that one um i'm just looking at such a huge page of quotes and i can't find the ones i want but he has that general attitude of like the nords traditions oh this annoyance i have to deal with um like ah couldn't you just can you bow down yeah yeah like some sometimes but in other ways he's also very competent so and that's the perfect thing it's this bunch of flawed characters flawed ideologies flawed kind of macro situations with the great war and the outcomes um there's no clear-cut answers to this like some people believe and that's what we love about the elder scrolls world is that there is so much interpretation to be done because yeah you can it's hard you can't everyone sort of has this sort of holier than now like up in the sky like completely disconnected from perspective sort of view of things but that's not a real you know a real account one um actually ex one extra question um someone asked on twitter um but whether we think and i think this is important for the future discussion but whether we think the empire is the same entity that tiber septim founded um i'd probably uh like me personally i'd probably argue closer to no like i don't think uh that that's why i said what would he think before yeah what would he think of the empire today like is it his empire well i'd say i'd say no because it's not related to the dynasty but even like i mean there's even arguable things how the septum dynasty doesn't even descend from tiber septim it's actually descends from type septum's brother via his uh niece um but that because the line gets basically broken at pelagius when he gets assassinated by the dark brotherhood but early in the third era but um one thing to sort of uh think about is you know there is no sort of religious element to your justification as emperor like a lot of like you know before you were ordained by the gods you know they've been packed with akatosh you've got dragon blood you are ordained by the gods so even the septums that did come after they were like blessed or whatever with the dragon blood to continue they could wear the amulet of kings but there is no such sort of religious kind of divine justification either for the mid me dynasty may as well just be as good as any other king or other organization how about the dragonborn becomes emperor yeah it's good yeah the only way that the only reason i guess that wouldn't work is just because of all the races everyone's picked it's like you there's a g we don't know what race the emperor is but he's gonna be important for the story going forward it's also kind of funny too but everyone generally is very opposed to the idea that might makes right and then whatever you should you know only the mightiest should rule and so on but then when it comes to the last dragonborn they're like oh well he's really powerful and you know he's dragonbone well he should rule what does he know about rolling you know what i mean or he or she like exactly it's like absolutely absolutely but i mean it is it's the same thing it is what it is i think what help is for people trying like you know get down to like the some sort of something consistent sort of criticism put yourself in other people's shoes and then try and build a can a coherent philosophy around it that doesn't have holes in it looking at all the different things because yeah i totally agree people jump from uh empire's bad because this and the stormcloaks do the same thing stormcloak's bad because this empire does the same thing yeah it's literally it's like you know imperialism and like colonialism this is all really really terrible but oh but i love it when the septum empire does it oh but but if the empire from star wars does it it's bad it's bad like it's like you just pick and choose your empire depending on who you're told to like it depends what music is playing in the background like you need to be critical of it all and like to really get you know a good perspective all right that sums it up pretty well yeah definitely get down into the comments and like you know respond to some of our takes and and all of that kind of stuff and just some extra points that we haven't talked about because i reckon a part two could be really good responding more specifically to your guys comments and we can explore those ideas more and so on but yeah all social media links down in the description as is a link to our patreon and our merch if you want to help support the channel and we look forward to nerding out with you all again very soon

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 96,624

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Id: nYTFD2yM0A4

Length: 68min 36sec (4116 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021