The walls of Whiterun’s mighty keep, Dragonsreach hold a dark secret. The implications are interesting to say the least. Please enjoy me throwing my mind at a fairly well known ‘mystery’ within The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
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48 Comments
16:17 Oh yeah, that blade is perfect for Skyrim. A world of darkness in Skyrim.
what if Yarl Balgruuf was using the blade and attacked both his wife and the mother of Nelkir in which he managed to get one while the other managed to run in which after what he did he released what the blade dose
The Ebony Blade and Umbra vs. Soul Edge.
Really want to see that talked about. :3
One idea I like that I'm sure would be the case if the game allowed it, you don't just stand in front of the door, your listening at the keyhole, and mephala is actually whispering through. I also very much like the implication of how she presents herself to the dragonborn. I imagine she can manifest Behind The Door. I don't in that room, or any room, I mean the space that exists behind any door to an empty room
I have an alternative theory.
Irileth brought the blade to Skyrim when she joined Balgruuf’s court as a meme her of the Morag Tong. She and Balgruuf had a son together, Nelkir, making him more of a Breton than a Nord. Balgruuf’s wife found out about it and tried to kill Irileth who killed her in self-defense.
Faraangar was brought in to look at the sword. Irileth, bound by shame, turned over the blade and from then on kept her relationship with Balgruuf professional.
The sword was considered a corrupting influence and they tried to destroy it.
I'm watching this and I'm like. "Omg he killed the dude's mom after she had the kid and he hid the blade to hide he did it." 😮 I'm also high as shit.
Taurean Stream
15:42 Basically how I responded 13 years ago lmao
I wanted to watch this all the way through, but whatever that grinding background sound you're using is terrible.
Bro leave frothar alone lol hes a good kid unlike the other two
Grew up playing Skyrim and never knew the daedric quests have a different marker, i feel so dumb
Balgruuf: Back when i was a little girl in france, we used to pick pretty daisies
Theres also the skeleton under the bridge
Wait, that's the first time I've heard about this cut content! I'd love to hear more about it, this seems quite interesting.
Meh, Balgruf is still my boy.
Rodriguez William Walker Lisa White Scott
Is this supposed to belong, lore wise, to the ebony warrior? Just had the thought because molag baul (or however you spell it)'s mace is called His mace, not a poopy steel mace. Also merunes razor, probably any other daedric weapon is following the same name scheme right? Why not this sword?
Can we talk about the skeleton underneath the bridge into Dragonsreach?
I always thought the yarls children part was cut content
Bet Balgruf killed his wife with the blade.
I can't be the only one who thinks the ebony blade and mail would make more sense being from the opposite daedric prince. Boethia is all about betrayal and sacrifices and bloodlust, and Maphala is all about poisoning people against each other through secrets and sneaking about.
The term Daedric Prince works for both the male and female Daedra.
I wish you had some more “lighthearted” skyrim videos. these are very well done, but I usually watch/listen before bed and they don’t necessarily have the vibes I’m looking for 😂
you are lucky if i see whiterun at level 25 i have other more important things to do
Hmmm 🤔 why not freeze it?
There is a neat theory that Nelkir is also Balgruf and Irileth's child.
Prince there are no Daedric Princesses. They are all genderless and present as they please.
My question is why in oblivion of all the people in the world balgruaf picked farengar as the only other person to have access to the blade sure he is a wizard but he would literally pluck the scale off a dragon for the cuase of more knowledge and power I would not trust that man with a damn toaster and not kill someone in the process
Mephala is a daedric prince. Regardless of what gender they are perceived as, they are all considered as such. It is more of a rank than a status given through lineage. It is somewhat comparable to military ranks, which are not given designations according to the sex of its recipient. They are also known as daedric lords. Basically, they rule over their own realms in Oblivion. But the real important question you have to ask yourself is… Who do the daedric princes answer to? Is there some higher being they answer to? Or is it oblivion itself that drives their motivations? They certainly don't have any fondness for each other. But at the same time, despite their power, they themselves are not gods. Their driving ambition seems to drift in the direction of subverting one other and casting as big a shadow on the realm of man as they can. Perhaps they answer to nobody whatsoever? Just the same, there are some lines they dare not cross. Entering into the realm of Tamriel being one of them. Kinda makes you question why this is so.
Edit: You don't really have to kill 10 people to bring the Ebony Blade to its "full glory". You only have to kill one person 10 times. If you acquire a follower, you can take said follower to the Ritual Stone near Whiterun. I usually get Mjoll the Lioness from Whiterun in The Bannered Mare. After you kill the necromancer there, you activate the stone. It gives you the ability to raise corpses as followers for 1 minute once every 24 hours. Then you just kill that follower. You can use the power the stone gave to raise your now dead follower. Then you kill them again. Then you rest for 24 hours. Then raise them again and kill them again… Rinse… Repeat… Do this until Mephala finally says that the blade has reached its "full glory". I have done this on several playthroughs. Quite effective… And with you being out of sight of anyone that will see you, the other npcs in the game are none the wiser.
Bro, if you had kids they would be gracious, kind, intelligent and perfectly well adjusted, don't you worry about that! =)
It seems another possibility is that housecarl has the blade as a servant of mephala, balgruuf cheated, mephala did her whisper work on balgruufs wife who then tried to kill balgruuf but failed, with balgruuf being forced to kill her in defense. It seems this would also explain all the relevant facts.
Ngl I always forget the main quest so I never get around to it until like level 30. I activate dragons and leave them hanging
Maybe Irileth’s past is an explanation for how the ebony blade came into Balgruuf’s possession in the first place
10:37 The daedric princes are canonically genderless they just choose to portray themselves, male or female, but they are all called Daedric Princes
Malphala Daedric Prince of BS
I think the seemingly shortened nature of the quest, the various oddities never addressed around Dragonsreach, and the skeleton in the water might be connected. Who might be able to get a skeleton into the water right outside Dragonsreach unnoticed? Someone who lives there probably could. If the quest was originally meant to be more detailed like Mehrunes Razor's quest, that nearly literal skeleton in the closet would make more sense. The presence of that thing in such a place with nothing directly linked to it being the result of some of the cut content Skyrim has an unclear amount of would be an easy explanation. Maybe it was Balgruuf's wife, the other woman he was with, or some unnamed character in that story who we would have had explained if it had been more detailed.
Balgruff is about 40 or 50 id wager he saw what happened to someone who wielded it maybe even the protagonist of blades he managed to take if off them maybe defeated them and tried to destroy it but couldn't so locked it away
also i always thought his first two kids where irileths his housecarls children with him and nelkeir was some one night stand or the other way around or more likely mephala prince of lies was lying i assume the reason he isn't married is because either he just doesn't want to or because it would look bad to marry a dunmer and his kids don't look half elf is simply game restrictions or laziness
In the culture of proper Nords infidelity isn’t necessarily an issue. Nords of either gender could have multiple partners and any number of children with those partners despite being married and it wouldn’t even warrant a raised eyebrow.
That it caused issue here means that Balgruf and his family are too Imperialized.
I forget where I heard this but there is a YouTube video theorizing that the Jarl did have an extramarital affair with Nazeem.
My image of this mysterious whispering being is forever ruined; as a kid playing, not understanding what I'm doing in this game (yay I can run arround with a sword and kill stuff! And there are dragons, how cool!), when a door required a key to be opened I'd usually use console commands (as mentioned, I didn't understand the concept of Action RPGs, I was like 12 first time playing). When you unlock the basement doors before starting the quest normally, there is a floating cabinet named Whispering Doors (I remember it being Whispering Lady in my language, I'm going of this video). You can interact with it but nothing happens and to enter the room without using tcl command you have to delete it with another command. So I guess devs did it to give the voice a 'body' so it'd act as an npc basically, but thanks to my curiosity and impatience as a kid, I can only imagine the voice being a floating cabinet now.
I think the biggest lie is that Nelkir has a different mother. In my head cannon Balgruff used to wield the ebony blade as a gift from his housecarl from her time as a Mephala worshiper, the Jarl's father bedded Balgruff's wife producing Balgruff's half brother Nelkir and Balgruff slew his own wife and father with the ebony blade and passes his brother as his son. This way the scandal is seedier but Balgruff still seems a decent fellow by medieval standards. I think Mephala influenced the affair to happen as a way of getting a normally honorable man to commit uxoricide and patricide. Loved the video btw.
The blade actuelly does corrupt the weilder of it, especially after prolonged use of it. In ESO (A game i have extentsively played) there is a quest in a dungeon (crypt of Hearts 1 and 2 i think) were we learn of a Elf named Nerien'eth who (with his his wife) ran a school with dedicated (if not loyal) staff and students. The quest tells us however that at some point Nerient'eth discovered the Ebony Blade and it slowly began to change him with each use. The Blade made him believe his wife and their staff were planning to betray him eventually the Blade's ingluence reached a tipping point and Nerien'eth believd that his only true allie was Mephala. This resulted in him takeing up th Ebony Blade and using it for its intended purpose and killed evreyone in the school starting with his wife
Its Prince.
Maybe Balgruf didn't do anything sinister with the sword himself, but Irileth, a reformed former follower of Mephala, recognized it and told him what it was capable of. Maybe Balgruf just drove away his wife, leading to her accidental death, or she minecrafted herself because she found out about his infidelity. Stuff that's bad, but not outright murder, but that's the stuff that Mephala planned, in the cut content, to use to twist the kids into killing him. So much of Balgruf's other behavior paints him as a man with a past, but a man who is honorable now, and I can't imagine he could so completely reform into the man he is now if he used to be a cold-blooded sociopath.
I also definitely think Irileth is one of the assassins she mentions, that she came to kill Balgruf, but came to respect him and became his protector.
"Fair enough, sounds like fun" – Most sane Skyrim player taking a dangerous artifact
I do this quest often (I just use the Deeja + ritual stone trick) bc I tend to collect all the artifacts in every playthrough, but I clicked on this video realizing I don’t know much about Mephala, and have now learned that she’s a messy bitch and loves it, but isn’t necessarily WRONG…but it’s hilarious that she really just stirs shit for her own amusement. Lolol I think I may have a new favorite daedric prince!! I wish I liked the sword itself more, but it’s just not “My” weapon of choice. (and we all have them, don’t lie)
Also, I physically wheezed near the beginning of the video @ “At least, according to this loading screen.” 🤣
A sword of truth and lies… It would work well with a partner in Windhelm.
"Prince" is a gender-neutral title in regards to Daedra. Any title referring to them sort of has to be since they exist well outside mortal notions of gender (their respective planes of Oblivion are their truest forms). Most typically appear either masculine or feminine exclusively when communicating with mortals, but that's mostly so the mortals can easily recognize them. Boethiah bucks that trend by frequently appearing as both (sometimes simultaneously).