Alternate Explanation for Alduin's Presence at Helgen
A lot of people will argue that Alduin somehow sensed the Last Dragonborn at Helgen and went to either test, kill, recruit, or save them. And that's fine; I'm not here to rain on the parade. It's a totally sound interpretation that withstands scrutiny, so if that's what you prefer, we ain't gotta butt heads about it.
Me, though? I like my Heroes to take on their role by choice, not by born traits, so I don't think of the Last Dragonborn as even Dragonborn at all until they absorb Mirmulnir. In my view, the choice, by a stranger among the citizens of Whiterun, to go defend them from a dragon, after having survived Alduin's attack on Helgen, coupled with the ability to actually succeed in killing that dragon, locks the Hero into the role as defined by long-told legend, and that's the moment when Akatosh bestows the blessing. That's the rising of the dragon within the Hero; that's the dragon being born. Accordingly, I regard the term Dragonborn being read as applying from birth as a bit of an amusing confusion from the people of Tamriel. (I find support for this idea as outlined here and here.)
This also fits rather well with the non-hereditary nature of the blessing, which I've outlined elsewhere. If the rulers of the Empire are all truly born Dragonborn, that would mean Akatosh is peering through Time to see who will sit the throne in the future, and blessing them from the start, which is just too deterministic for my taste; so I choose to see it otherwise!
But, since I take this view, I am barred from seeing Alduin as having sought out the Last Dragonborn at Helgen, because they weren't even Dragonborn at the time. But that's not really a problem, because I've always been puzzled about why people think it's odd for Alduin to show up at Helgen anyway. I see no intrinsic need for a destined encounter or an intentional seeking. I think it can be as simple as this:
Alduin went to Helgen because he wanted to kill some humans.
Think about it. He just got sent forward in time by three humans who royally pissed him off and ruined his plans. He's an arrogant, angry god who hates being beaten. Seems only to be expected that he'd want to kill someone after being thrown out of the Time Wound, because that's what he was trying to do when he got thrown in.
Okay, so why Helgen instead of Ivarstead, which was closer? Eh, could be as simple as not wanting to stick around and fight Paarthurnax or the Greybeards. Remember, he did just get lashed by some Tongues, and experienced the feeling of mortality for the first time. Anger and fear were present in his mind. And it could also be even more trivial: Maybe when he decided to leave the Throat of the World, he just didn't see Ivarstead because he was on the other side of the mountain, so he went to Helgen instead.
And why does he attack the player specifically if the player stands around at Helgen? This one's a little trickier, but not much. People argue that since he attacks the player specifically, it means he was looking for the player, but I don't think so. I think this is one of those game-mechanics-aren't-lore things. From a design perspective, he attacks the player so that the player doesn't have the option of letting the scene get too far out of the bounds it was scripted for, so weird, buggy stuff doesn't happen. In terms of lore, I don't think he is attacking the player for any purpose beyond the one driving his attacks on, well, everyone else in Helgen. The player was just the next one to catch his attention as a target.
Finally, some will be inclined to argue that happenstance just doesn't apply to gods and matters that concern them. After all:
> 'The popular notion of God kills happenstance.'
But, frankly, I don't find that very convincing here. My view of the Dragonborn blessing as something bestowed based on actions and circumstances would mean that Alduin didn't do anything particularly significant by attacking Helgen, except, perhaps, to mark any potential survivors as candidates to take on the mythic role of the Last Dragonborn, if even that. If he had attacked Ivarstead, or Whiterun, or Shor's Stone, or Riverwood, the potential result would have been the same: Any survivors might go on to take up the mythic role of the Last Dragonborn. Or they might not. Since Akatosh is looking for someone to bless, in my view, he's going to find someone willing and able to fight dragons in defense of others eventually, no matter who Alduin attacks or doesn't attack. That we happened to be playing a person who would have that option is a matter of it being a boring game if it had been otherwise, not necessarily one of set-in-stone destiny.
So, yeah. Alternative explanation: Alduin was pissed and wanted to do some murders.
Since this text was originally posted, there has been far more resistance to the idea that the Dragonborn isn't born as such than the idea that Alduin wasn't at Helgen to confront the Last Dragonborn. The latter is the main point of this text, of course, but I've received enough of the same questions and counterarguments to the former that I think they bear addressing more visibly. So, here are some comments that encompass those questions and counterarguments, along with my responses:
> > /u/IsaakBrass: > > > > One notable kink in your theory, specifically regarding the LDB only becoming dragonborn after absorbing Mirmulnir. > > > > If you do the Dawnguard questline before the Dragon Rising quest, Durnehviir will call you a fellow Dovah even if you have never fought another dragon, nor been given the title of Dovahkiin by anyone, nor even found your first wordwall. His exact quote when the player asks why Durnehviir called them Dovah: > > > > > "Forgive me, my instinct was to grant you this title. I am uncertain why. Perhaps one day it will become clear to both of us.")) > > > > It seems clear, at least to me, that the LDB always had a dragon inside him; it simply was not brought roaring to the surface until he ate Mirmulnir. > > It's also possible that fighting Durnehviir counts as the mythic requirement, and Aka made you Dragonborn then, if you fight him before Mirmulnir. He is a dragon that you best in combat, after all. He just has the weird thing where he can't die and be absorbed. > > Or I could just say that it's vaguely worded on purpose, and intended to be open to interpretation, on account of the fact that you can complete the DLC with a character that you don't consider Dragonborn, and then go on to complete the main quest with someone else. Perhaps he just meant that you fight like a dragon, and in the moment of his speaking he felt it was the right thing to call you.
> > /u/DynamisEberhard: > > > > If you're not dragonborn until you absorb mirmulnir, then how do you absorb the power of the word wall in bleak falls barrow. I forget where, but i believe an in-game book says something to the effect that "the word walls hum with some unknown power that is perhaps waiting for someoneto come along and unlock it." Even if that is just a gameplay mechanic, people arent just born knowing how to read dragonic language. It takes years of study to read runes. > > > > What the pc displays by knowing what the word wall says, fus, without any previous training or knowledge of the dragon language cant be explained by anything other than an inborn knowledge given by your dragon soul. > > I hadn't thought of the word wall until now, but it's fairly easy to work around: The Hero just saw the runes, not knowing what they say, and then, upon absorbing Mirmulnir's soul, suddenly understood them. I always regarded the lights and chanting and the big text thing to be just a game thing rather than a lore thing anyway.
> > /u/ZanSquid: > > > > I really enjoy this interpretation, and there are some great mods that support it (such as Live Another Life). The only hiccough is absorbing words from the Walls prior to slaying Mirmulnir, and I'm not totally convinced by the "they remembered the words and only understood it later" argument, particularly since under LAL you can learn a great many Words prior to triggering the main quest (and thus the dragons themselves). > > > > Sadly, I don't have anything better to present. So thanks for your efforts in their current state :) > > I can understand the reluctance regarding the remembered runes. Something that helps me to be more comfortable with that argument is thinking about the fact that you're already sifting through memories and knowledge with supernaturally potent forces at work in your mind. Vivid memories of things we normally would have forgotten entirely can surface even in normal circumstances; when you've suddenly absorbed the soul of another, I would think that turbulence would be able to churn up some very surprising things that would otherwise have been totally overlooked. > > And hey, if that doesn't do it for you, well, I did my best :P When it comes down to it, the whole mechanic is already weird and hard to reconcile because if you're absorbing knowledge from dragon souls, you shouldn't need to have read arbitrary words on walls to start understanding the Thu'um better. The dragons already know the words! > > > /u/kingjoe64: > > > > That made me think a lot about Prothean visions. Maybe as you absorb a soul visions of the word go through your mind. Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes you have to meditate on a word. > > That's a really good image for it! > > And yeah, I think I could buy the act of "spending" a soul on a word as meditation, whereas something like the emergence of Fus or Yol is like it just coming to mind and staring you in the face.