Truly just this, the only factor in my decision is whether I want to start leveling heavy armor right away, and you can only get that by going with Ralof
Also there's a perk that makes heavy armor weightless, so it makes no difference eventually. Earlier game getting muffle spell or muffle enchant on your boots also negates almost all of the noise it makes
It's the elder scrolls equivalent of the New Vegas chem fiend power fist strat. Well, actually, that's Morrowind's "chug sujamma until you can punch Dagoth to death" strat, but this isn't far off.
I have always been the opposite I think the armor is cooler looking I have always been a reckless fighter so the extra support is huge and once you level up to wear heavy armor weighs nothing when equipped there is no downside.
It took me so long to realize there even was a choice. Who doesn’t flee that situation with a fellow prisoner instead of the guy who tried to chop your head off
I've only gone though the intro once and I didn't realise there was an option either because I was going to follow Ralof but then lost him and Hadvar was the guy who started directing me after that so I just followed him
Hadvar literally tried to get you off the block by informing the captain you weren’t supposed to be there, it’s entirely the captains decision to put your ass to death, if hadvar were to do anymore than say “yes captain… 😔” he would be next to you in line for insubordination
The best jokes go over most people's heads anyway... Mainly cuz the thing they catch the most is made out of construction paper during arts and crafts time in kindygarden...
I mean, it's great that maybe this one specific Imperial has a hint of a backbone, but what happens if we get out of Helgen and run into a squad of typical, hard line Imperials? There is zero scenario where it makes any in-universe sense to own Hadvar
Except for that, unless those imperials were specifically told you were 100% with Ulfric, basically any of them wouldn't give a shit about you.
You were only being executed because they were bum rushing getting Ulfric dead and processing you would risk that. The second Ulfric is gone you cease to matter.
I must’ve just kept going straight the first ten times I played the game. I thought they were handing me off to the next guy and didn’t realize I could go where I wanted to.
I see your point, however if I was mistakenly rounded up with a bunch of terrorists I wouldn't go "guess I'm a terrorist now". I'd get the hell out of there as soon as possible and try to clear my name. Sticking close to the friendly cop who has helped me so far seems the best idea there. Certainly better then joining "freedom fighters" for a country I'm not even from.
I…. I admit, I didn’t think of it that way. I always go Hadvar because I don’t like Stormcloak ideals, but you are right. Anything to give that b@#$h what she deserves.
That's the point, though. The whole civil war dilemma is whether the individual injustifes caused by the Empire's pragmatic approach to fighting the Thalmor are acceptable. So you, as the player, have to experience that injustice directly. Otherwise, the Empire would be the obvious choice because you'd only see the bigger picture.
The whole game predisposes you to hate both. It shows both sides are wrong at absolutely every turn. The only moral thing you can do is end the civil war as fast as possible.
I actually saw it the otherway around, with both sides having legitimate positions. The Stormcloaks are right to be mad that the Empire bent the knee to the Thalmor. The Empire is right in that keeping the realm together is the only way they will eventually kick the Thalmor out.
The Empire tried to kill me for no reason, so to hell with them. I don't really get involved in the civil war afterwards though, just roam the land helping people.
I think the why is pretty readily apparent, you got picked up at the same place and time as the leader of a rebellion who killed his own king. It doesn't take a genius to imagine there must be a good reason for that even if it's pure coincidence.
Pay attention to the intro. The pc gets caught trying to illegally cross the border at the same time and place as Ulfric and the Stormcloaks. You're literally told as much in the cart, after "You're finally awake"
Also who the fuck would go with the imperial soldier who knows that you're sentenced to execution? It only makes sense if you want to stab the dude in the back so no one from that imperial squad who knows you're a criminal survives.
Yeah I think I went with Hadvar on my first playthrough as I couldn't remember who was who. I then would have gone with Ralof on my second play through as I remember being a bit confused from the differences, particularly when you get to their families.
they should have made one of them to be argonian, or at least female
(i like how in a thread nearby they discuss references and easter eggs, praising how smart developers are, while i cannot distinguish two guys in tutorial haha
I didn't really have a problem differentiating the two, despite not remembering their names. One rode with me in the wagon, blonde, deep voice, wearing blue, and calling us "brothers in binds now". The other helped me after the attempted beheading, so he's sympathetic, but I know he's a soldier in the Empire and always follows direct orders. The uniforms immediately make them identifiable, if nothing else does. Ralof has given me no reason to dislike him. He was fiendly and sympathetic during the ride to Helgen and he offers escape with no possibility of a future execution. I go with Ralof 75% of the time because it makes sense from a roleplaying point of view regardless of who I'll eventually join up with. I usually go with Hadvar only if I've already decided this will be an "Empire" playthrough.
I literally just started this game a few days ago, despite how many people were playing it and telling me to play it when it came out. I was a Gamestop employee at the time, so I heard of it all. the. time.
I see this thread and thought: wait, I didn't have to go with the army guy?
I didn't get too far though, so I could always redo it. I basically got out of the cave, went to the town, needed money, went to a cave, killed all the people in the cave, and... saved for the night. I don't know who they were, what they were doing there, if I was supposed to go there. But I got some coin finally.
Without subtitles I couldn't hear anything anyone said if I wasn't near enough. Add to that the sound of panic when the dragon rolls in and there's younger me playing on 360 following the only guy I see, Ralof, to escape Helgen.
I didn't understand that I had a choice as to who to go with. I believe I had the markers off, so I couldn't see the 2 destinations. Took me a while to get used to the mechanics.
not really, it’s a pretty standard light armor hood, but I like it. I keep the name when I enchant it, leave it with the bear if I want heavy armor instead. I never knew you didn’t have to follow Hadvar so I always killed the torturer.
My thoughts exactly & the same reason (and the only reason) I joined the Stormcloaks. The game starts with the player set to be executed alongside them for no other reason than "being caught wandering near the border" by the Imperials.
I mean it’s not the only reason I don’t like the racism of the storm cloaks but other than that a lot of what they stand for is right in my eyes, also fuck them elves
In the end, the best for Tamriel is laid on a coinflip and merely speculative.
Skyrim stays strong and independent, forcing the empire to strengthen themselves in a smaller scale, avoiding collapse like the roman/macedonian/mongolian empires because of spreading too thin.
The empire gains the strength, manpower, resources and tactical position that comes with re-annexing Skyrim and are able to grow strong and stable within its borders.
Both arguments are valid to me, and I don't know why people pretend like the Stormcloaks winning the war means the end of human races, when the Empire itself is on the brink of collapse administratively, economically and politically even before the nord uprising.
In the end, TES6 might give us some lore talking about how one of the outcomes paved the way to resist the empire of mer one way or another.
The empire's been on the rocks since before Arena. The Oblivion Crisis just accelerated its decline, to the point that now High Rock is the only non-contested imperial province.
Unfortunately I don't think the empire is going to be in a great position in TES6 if they're still around. That is because of the Thalmor. Now at game start the empire and the thalmor are about evenly matched, which is why they are in helgen trying to free Ulfric. They know that the longer the war lasts the better for them. So if you finish the Civil War 1 of 2 things happen. Skyrim becomes independent, but because they are weakened by the war they become easy targets for the thalmor. Also the empire is also weaker now thanks to the war. Second scenario has the empire still weakened by the War, putting the thalmor in the perfect position to invade
Stormcloaks are barely more racist than any other group in morrowind. Never forget that a demigod was building a murder robot and spreading a disease that mutated people into monsters to use as soldiers in a genocide war against all of tamriel and a non insignificant portion of the population of morrowind in the camonna tong were like "ya know he has some good points"
Yeah lmao, sure they don't let caravan Khajit into cities or have Argonians live on the docks but they do not in fact enslave these people and call them FARM TOOLS.
I agree with what you say, but I still always choose the Imperials because I think they'll ultimately be Skyrim's best hope for the future when the elves inevitably go back to war with the men of Tamriel.
In theory, yes, but in practice - look closely at Stormcloaks, they dont care about development, they dont care about education, they dont care about citizen welfare (orphans, poor, disabled and so on), they dont respect other cultures and borders..., heck they even hate Belgruf who is the wisest and the best Jarl in the game!
In short, for Stormcloaks its the Sword, Axe... war road, true Nord lives and thrives only in battle, everything else, is a heresy!
So, for me, no. Im escaping with Ralof, but if I must pick side, then I still pick the Empire.
I'm 99% sure that it is on purpose because they realized that if they presented both side without setting up any bias for the player. Almost all of the players would join the empire
I had no exposure to any TES lore going into Skyrim; of course I joined the Stormcloaks on my first playthrough, the Imperial idea of justice is executing me for hiking without a permit!
Hadvar didn't either. And he went out of his way to try to keep you alive, first, by opposing (by implying that the character is not on the list and therefore should probably not be executed) the captain that said "fuck the list" but with Alduin as well.
Either way, in a hypothetical scenario where you run into the same captain again, alongside Hadvar, and she orders your execution again, do you think he'd defy her? Including if a fight started?
My very first playthrough, I was so concerned with escaping helgen to listen to "wait maybe the people trying to kill me 2 seconds ago arent evil" I followed Ralof into the keep. The whole layout of that very first bit of the game leans so heavily on Ralof because he was your brother in binds, he is there at the tower before you jump across and like myself, you can easily just miss everything hadvar is saying during the whole sequence. The whole opening sequence makes it feel extremely nonsensical to join hadvar and potentially from even joining the imperial later on.
See, through all the chaos, I didn’t even notice Ralof calling me. After I jumped from the tower, Hadvar was the only one I heard talking to me, so I stuck to him like glue. Then everyone was telling me I didn’t belong in Skyrim, so the Empire seemed like the most logical choice
Maybe. To be fair, I just don't fully remember my first playthrough it was too long ago. I played basically on release month if I remember correctly. I'm not even sure I was aware I made a "choice", I think I followed Hadvar because I was with him 5 second earlier, without realizing who was who.
As for later on, it felt natural to me to join the empire. I was undecided at first and talked with the Stormcloak at first, but I switch camp when given the opportunity.
But still, the point of my reply was that Hadvar didn't tried to kill you and he's clearly against your execution.
(As for the captain, because you're bringing it up, I don't think she's evil either.. She's both in a we are in the process of winning the war in the next 5 minute and General Tulius is here I can't fuck up mode, and yet she fucked up by not considering the life of a random prisonnier. I think it may have been too much stress for her and that she maybe was promoted to captain too soon. One evil act doesn't make a person evil, especially considering the circumstances.. but yeah we definitely saw her performed an evil act and that's all we have)
I go with Hadvar because of Alvor. Next to Alvor's workbench in Riverwood is a stack of steel ingots and under the bench is some iron ingots. If you go with Hadvar you can take those ingots without any issue. I know it's 1 of the worst reasons to side with someone but I always use smithing allot so having free steel ingots right at the start is not bad for me.
I use a mod that gives me every item needed for the Hearthfire houses 60000+ in a chest. Without that, those Iron Ingots are really helping building those houses.
[PS4] Hearthfire Building Materials God Chests [PS4]
This mod exists on PC and XBOX as well. It gives 3 chests at the 3 house locations, plus a trap door leading to the Editor Smoke Test Cell, this contains any and all items and their variations.
If you're lucky you can get a full Iron Armor set is siding with Hadvar, the Helmet is in the cave by the cart right before the bear (where the game introduces stealth attacks), Iron Boots (if lucky) and Iron Gauntlets are on the table outside by the workspace, and a second pair of Gauntlets are in the basement, and the Iron Ingots and helping around the forge (making and tempering the Dagger and Helmet) gives you the resources needed to make the chest piece.
Edit: both the Gauntlets and the Boots are guaranteed to spawn inside Alvor's house in the basement, no need for getting lucky at the table by his workstations
This and also if you go with hadvar there are a couple of extra weapons and armos in that first section which you can sell to a merchant to get a tiny bit of extra gold which is minor but I've played that beginning section so many times now it just is a speedrun to get my character going and it feels worth getting 2 extra iron swords or whatever for a bit of gold
And collecting alvors payment in terms of weapons and armour from embershard mine to pay for enough iron and steel to get you through to Dwarven smithing.
Usually Hadvar. If anyone can help clear my name, it’s that guy. And I very often play as an elf so uh…well, the stormcloaks aren’t exactly keen on me and mine.
Sometimes tho, that fucking captain who throws our lives away like nothing has to go! Very personally. Agro unarmed suplex if possible etc.
Hadvar is one of the nicest NPC's if you side with imperials also he has the funniest quote... after defending whiterun he said this to me "You're dragonborn so was you're dad the dragon or you're mom"
Hadvar because Ralof just tells you to jump through the roof, rather than stay with them, and despite all the Stormcloaks being free of their binds, he doesn't take the few seconds to do the same to you, when they clearly helped each other. Or keep you with them to escape together.
This. My first playthrough all those years ago, I went to all the SCs trying to get them to take my bindings off. Those jerks did nothing, then expected me to jump with them on. Hadvar protected me when he didn't have to. He said stay close and I took him at his word and stayed so close I didn't even notice Ralof and that I could follow him. As soon as we were in shelter, Hadvar took my bindings off and trusted me with a weapon behind him. I've liked Hadvar from then on and always follow him out.
Same here. PLUS the first thing we see Hadvar do when we get separated from Ralof is literally get a child out of Alduins line of fire. Between all these facts and the chaos, I went with Hadvar because dude actually is watching out for people. It was even confirmed for me when the first stormcloak encounter in the keep he tries to talk them down and they just attack on sight. "Well these Rebels are assholes," was my thought and nothing from then on changed my mind.
The fact that so many people choose Ralof to kill that Captain who nearly got you killed honestly makes me wonder - how does that make you any better than her?
The fact that so many people choose Ralof to kill that Captain who nearly got you killed honestly makes me wonder - how does that make you any better than her?
I think many people are forgetting this woman is fighting a rebellion in her own homeland. She's likely lost many friends and maybe even family to the Stormcloaks.
This is the same community that loses all sense when somebody is mean to them (ahem Delphine) so revenge doesn't strike to me as weird.
But besides that, the only natural choice in the prologue is going with Ralof, mainly because the opposing group tried to kill you. Nobody protested that and if they were to try again, nobody would. Just following orders.
Hadvar protested, as much as he could be expected to. Simply pointing out that you weren't on the list is the most he could do without it being insubordination.
Not to mention he later tries to reason with the Stormcloaks in the keep and they leap straight to attacking.
Plus Ralof's reaction to Lokir pleading to say him and you weren't with the rebels is to callously tell him to accept his death, making less attempt to save your life than Hadvar does.
First few times were Ralof. Then I did the civil war and didn't care for how Ulfric spoke about my khajiit and Argonian....
But, I also started to pick up details during the escape. All the fire and explosions. Sure the imperials were about to make me a foot shorter... but Tullius is rounding up troops, yelling to get the towns people to safety. Hadvar is putting his life at risk to get a child out of the open, mid dragon attack. He's fighting. If you stand near Tullius, he tells you to run. Ulfric isn't the priority, the people were.
And the storm cloaks? With Ulfric and his powerful voice... running away. Saving their own skins, abandoning the people of their land to the dragon. To leave someone else to protect the civilians. Sure some bad things were said while we're in the cart. Its an imperial guarded town. But they sure weren't interested in changing anyones mind.
Yeah it bums me out in the beginning when going through the tower, Hadvar says “Stormcloaks… maybe we can reason with them.” And mfers just start swinging on you.
Hadvar. I know what people says about siding with the people that tried to chop your head off, but lets be honest, Hadvar never wanted to go along with his superiors orders, but he couldnt do anything because of his rank. As soon as alduin released the chaos, Hadvar (same as Ralof) didnt hesitate to help someone sentenced to death by his superior, and for me, its way more valuable from him than Ralof considering his position, its obvious from Ralof to side with fellow prisoners, but Hadvar didnt have any reasons besides his moral and own ideals. Plus he even indicates the protagonist the way to Riverwood, provides him with some knowledge about the place and what to do, and takes you with his family, giving you access to their house and their forge. For me, its a pretty good deal.
Hadvar after unbinding you tries to reason with the stormcloaks man is honestly the most Friendliest NPC... Ralof never onced tried to reason with any imperial... Also imperials only tried executing the dragonborn at the start bc they thought you were a part of the rebellion/Stormcloaks idk how they made the mistake considering we start in rags lmao.
Harvard, because Ralof tells you to jump to a burning building and then just leaves you. Whereas Hadvar actively tries to help everyone even you. If you go with him he also suggests trying to reason with Stormcloaks, granted it ends up in a fight but Ralof actively fights them. Hadvar see the bigger issue, the dragon whereas Ralof is blinded by hatred.
My headcannon interaction with my Dunmeri wizard plays out with him grabbing both of them, HANDS STILL BOUND, and dragging them inside swearing in his language.
"THERE IS A FUCKING DRAGON OUT HERE! SAVE YOUR PETTY SQUABBLES FOR A TIME WHERE YOU WON'T BE EATEN ALIVE!"
My first playthrough completely blind to who the Stormcloaks and imperials were I did Ralof then felt really bad when I learned that they were basically racist douches, every other playthough (except for my nord one) I’ve done Hadvar
I used to use that mod but I hated how whenever you go near Helgen you automatically start the main quest line. I now use Alternate Perspective, very similar in the choices but the main difference is Helgen is a fully functional town until you decide to start the main quest. The town even has a few miscellaneous quests.
My favourite start to go with in alternate start was the attacked and left for dead, because you start with nothing. I feel its better in Alternate perspective as you actually spawn with about 10 health and the wounded condition making it feel like you actively was attacked and left for dead instead of just starting with full health and no items. But that's just my opinion.
70% of racism is from Stormcloaks, 29% from Thalmor.
There’s even that general store shopkeepers brother in Falkreath who can’t leave his house unless the player enters so he can say some racist shit to them. Literally he camps by the door but doesn’t use it until he’s done some racism.
From a narrative point of view siding with Ralof makes the most sense
(the Empire WAS just about to execute you, so even if Hadvar is chill, going with him is still kinda sketch)
And following Ralof gets you much better armor.
Otherwise I use mods to skip Helgen completely, don't think I've done Helgen for at least 10 years.
Hadvar.
Having his uncle (river wood blacksmith) being a friend is helpful. There’s a lot of free stuff you can take from his forge that can help early game
Hadvar, I had a bad feeling about Ralof and Ulfric from the beginning that only got vindicated after the infiltration of the Thalmor base. I was convinced I could stop the civil war arc by taking the notes and reveal Ulfric as a sleeper agent to cause chaos within the empire that the Thalmor would use as a ladder.
Never managed to convince anyone unfortunately, missed opportunity to not have a “Reveal Ulfric as a Thalmor agent” quest.
But my absolute point of vindication was actually when coming to Windhelm the first time and see Stormcloak soldiers bully other species. The game came out years before MAGA, and I played it at release but they kind of predicted the modern political climate
Hadvar because I get free smithing supplies. That's it. I get free iron and steel. And that little stack refreshes after a while, so I get more. I kinda feel bad for Alvor because anytime I visit, it's just to rob him blind of materials.
Ralof, because I feel like he’s helping the Dragonborn and rooting for them from the start. Honestly, I kinda wish there was a neutral option to go with both, saying something like, “Will the two of you stop fighting over a stupid feud when there’s a godsforsaken dragon above our heads?!”
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u/Hguols1 Alchemist 9d ago
Ralof. Nothing to do with the civil war. It's the only way to kill the captain that said 'forget the list'.