Concerning Skyrim - Dragons, Unicorns and Refrigerators

This article is largely concerned with Skyrim (sometimes known as The Elder Scrolls V or TES V), and from its paragraphs a reader may discover much of its character and a little of its history. (All apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien here…).

Before this November, if you would have asked me what my favorite video game of all time was, I would have given you the pat answer I’ve given everyone since late 1998: Metal Gear Solid. Now, some 24 years later, my answer to that, rather substantial, question has (finally?) changed to Skyrim. (All apologies to Hideo Kojima here…).

When The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was initially released back in 2011, I played the hell out of it – 300+ hours as I recall. I was sucked in this fantasy world because, right out of the gate, it made me feel that I was literally playing one of the Dungeons & Dragons campaigns of my ill-spent 80’s youth. I remember having that exact thought quite distinctly as I plowed through the first dungeon teeming with treasure and undead draugrs.

In fact, I couldn’t help but design my character to look like (and play like) my original D&D character, the mighty CILRAN! He was an elven fighter/magic user (called a spellsword now, I believe) of great repute, so why not “resurrect” him for this new, digital adventure?

Cilran and I slayed many a dragon and consumed many wyrm souls as the Dragonborn, but, ultimately, there were other games to play (and write about), so I had to move on from the ice encrusted peaks of Skyrim, but I reminisced about my time there quite fondly… and quite often.

Fast forward to this past October where I’m reading a PR missive about the imminent release of the Skyrim: Anniversary Edition, and I’m wryly smirking because, as almost everyone knows, Bethesda (the publisher of Skyrim and many other fine games) has released and/or ported Skyrim to just about every video game system under the flippin’ Sun in the past 10 years. Hell, I’m still waiting for a version for my toaster oven and the SmartScreen on my refrigerator.

Skepticism and snark aside, I must admit that I was most intrigued by this “Anniversary Edition”, and my brain immediately started thinking of all the cool stuff I could do in this play-through that I missed out on in my first go, ‘round a decade back. So, when November 11th 2021 rolled around, you can bet your bottom dollar where I was: downloading Skyrim via Steam.

Judging by the pictures, Jerry spent most of his time in the game enjoying the views. – editor.

In the time between reading the Anniversary Edition press release and the game coming out, I thought about Skyrim quite a bit once again. I even joined the r/skyrim subreddit just to whet my appetite until this “new” version was released. And let me just say that this is more Skyrim than a grown-ass man can handle, as I was much like Ralphie in A Christmas Story while in the grips of his Red Ryder BB-gun frenzy.

And speaking of the r/skyrim subreddit, I reached out to the members there to pick their brains on what makes Skyrim an experience like no other – something you just can’t put down. Some of the responses mirrored my own, others were just practical, and others still were quite surprising, poignant, and emotional.

So, the conclusion I came to leading up to this version’s release, and from reading all the fantastic comments, was that I was going to do just about everything the opposite way I did the first time around. I was going to play the game backwards, in essence, or be like Seinfeld’s George Costanza when he has an epiphany about his faulty instincts, so he decides to do the converse… and it works.

I made a small, female Breton as my character – I named her TWATWAFFLE more as joke than anything, totally eschewing a traditional hardcore fantasy moniker like GUTRIPPER or LANDSTRIDER. Twatwaffle used almost zero magic, didn’t craft, build, farm, brew, or make a damn thing, used mostly hammers and bows as weapons, saved the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild while shunning the Companions, Werewolves, and Vampires, found and destroyed all the Dragon Priests (and their wicked masks), bought every property that was possible to buy, told both the imperial Empire and the rebel Stormcloaks to go to Oblivion, found all the Stones of Barenziah, then the Crown of Barenziah that they festoon, ignored all the nasty Daedric Princes and Divines that were possible to ignore, hunted down and slaughtered all four “secret” bosses (The Reaper of the Soul Cairn, Vulthuryol of Blackreach, Karstagg the Frost Giant, and the Ebony Warrior), became a thane of every hold, stayed single, adopted a couple kids, and just did a helluva lot more random exploring (and screenshot snapping) on the back of Kara, the unicorn, rather than being tied to the static locations and quests on the map.

The thing that I found though that stayed the same in both of my play-throughs, oddly enough, is just how much this experience feeds into my OCD and/or hoarding tendencies. I won’t leave a room, castle, burial mound, or a dungeon chamber until I’ve searched everything, and every chest in the various, scattered domiciles I own throughout the world are filled to the brim with all kinds of gems, treasure, weapons, armor, books, skulls, potions, and knick-knacks.

It’s odd because I’m not like that in real life. At all. Only in video games – RPG’s specifically. Do I need therapy for this? Or is playing the game itself all the therapy I need? As in, I can do the “abnormal” stuff in the virtual world, so it doesn’t creep into my real life at any time. The mind boggles…

Anyway, once the final “secret” boss fell (the Reaper… I left him for last because I despise traversing the Soul Cairn) a few days ago, I’d had enough. The time had come for this “Warrior of Opposites” to put aside the trusty Nightingale Bow and grand Volendrung War Hammer that had served my noble avatar so well, and move on to other things, other games. That Tunic looks pretty damn cool.

All said and done, I clocked in 326 hours during this jaunt through the world of Skyrim – over 630 hours all told in my two tears through the game. I’m pretty sure that’s the most I’ve ever played any video game ever, and I know full well that there are many Skyrim fanatics out there that dwarf that number, have played as a plethora of different characters and found every nook and cranny this icy world has to offer, but damn… I still put in quite the effort, no?

It is my sincere hope that the Skyrim community can say to me with little to no hesitation: That’ll do, Jer. That’ll do.

Then Sovngarde can call me home. Finally.