The Pride Of Ulfric Stormcloak

Ulfric Stormcloak is a character with surprising depths. On the face of it, it's easy to dismiss him as a cardboard cut-out designed to resonate with certain our-world political viewpoints. In fact, as I hope to argue here, he fits the stereotype of the Tragic Hero: A great man brought low by a single crippling flaw. In Ulfric's case I think that flaw is his pride, and oddly perhaps, his sense of honour.

Let's start by recapping the basics: twenty seven years prior to the destruction of Helgen, Ulfric fought in the Legion against the Dominion. He was captured and interrogated by Elenwen, and eventually broken. He told the Thalmor everything. In return, the Thalmor told him how his information had been crucial to the Dominion taking the Imperial City. This is known to be a lie - by the time Ulfric cracked, the Imperial City had already fallen. But Ulfric didn't know that.

Now, from an Our World perspective, it's very easy to be forgiving of Ulfric here. It is generally accepted that with a skilled interrogator, everyone breaks sooner or later, and Ulfric should be honored for holding out as long as he did. And that is entirely fair. However, I would like to invite you to see things as young Ulfric must have seen them.

Ulfric was young and idealistic, raised on tales of the ancient Nord heroes. I think he believed in his heart that he had betrayed the Empire he swore to serve. And that's where his pride and honour start to work against him. You see, a man less honorable than Ulfric might, on his escape, have simply returned to the Legion for duty and pretended that he had never betrayed the Empire. But Ulfric could not do that. Having turned his coat once (as he undoubtedly thought of it) he would not compound his dishonour by doing so a second time.

And a man less proud than Ulfric might have returned to the Legion and confessed all. He might have submitted himself to Legion justice and hoped for leniency, compassion and understanding. But Ulfric could not do that either. He had made his bed and now it was upon him to lie in it. Not for Ulfric grovelling and pleading and begging for mercy - he'd done quite enough of that for one lifetime. He would live his life on his own terms, and it that meant being on the wrong side of the Empire, so be it!

And so here we have the Young Ulfric, not yet "Stormcloak", yet already in his heart in full rebellion against the Empire. Everything else flows from this moment.

On his "escape" from the Thalmor, Ulfric doesn't return to Windhelm, but adventures around the Reach. He acquires followers, even then the charismatic leader, and eventually involves himself in the Reachman occupation of Markarth. In this he is serving the Thalmor interest. Perhaps he is unaware of their plans, but there is also an element of direct contact involved.

I've written elsewhere about the possibility that Elenwen and Ulfric had sexual relations. Essentially, Elenwen takes advantage of a newly broken Ulfric's vulnerable mental state and seduces him. Just as he is not yet Jarl of Windhelm, so she has yet to become First Emissary, and while she looks to be about of an age with young Ulfric, she is in fact much older and finds it easy to manipulate the young Nord.

Later when Ulfric begins to make a name for himself in the Reach, Elenwen engineers things so that they have an apparently chance encounter. Her story is that just as Ulfric has become disenchanted with the Empire, so she has parted ways from the Thalmor. She is disgusted and sickened by the things they made her do, she says, and spins some tale about how she doesn't deserve Ulfric's forgiveness for the terrible things she has done, but maybe, just maybe...? Ulfric, of course, falls for it hook, line and sinker and so Elenwen joins his growing band of adventurers.

Now let's stand back from this scene for a moment and look at the wider strategic situation from the Thalmor point of view. The Great War has been disastrous for the Dominion. In the short term, they got all the concessions they wanted out of the Empire. However, the Empire is unlikely to make more than a token effort to enforce the prohibition on Talos worship, and while both sides are rebuilding their forces for a renewal of hostilities, the fecund humans are likely to be ready long before the Dominion. So they need two things: they need a way to compel the Empire to allow the Thalmor to police the terms of the Concordat, and they need something to bleed the Empire's strength while the Dominion rebuilds without interference.

Elenwen looks at Ulfric's adventures in the Reach and sees a way to kill two birds with one stone. And so she gets herself a detached duty, arranges for her cover story and goes out to find Ulfric. Once she finds a way into his bed, it's not hard to guide his ambitions.

Eventually, Ulfric's band of followers becomes more like a mercenary company than a band of adventurers, and Elenwen subtly suggests that he might be able to liberate Markarth. And so they talk to Hrolfdir, Jarl of Markarth. Elenwen stays firmly in the background but encourages Ulfric to make free worship of Talos one of the conditions of his aid. She doesn't offer any concessions or guarantees - how could she, she's no longer with the Thalmor, after all. But she does encourage him in the belief that the Dominion are unlikely to ever find out. And since she is in a position to talk convincingly about the weaknesses in Thalmor Intelligence, Ulfric buys it and persuades Hrolfdir.

So the city is liberated, and shortly after that Elenwen finds a pretext to disappear for a while and reports to her superiors in the Thalmor. They then lodge a formal protest with the Empire and the Legion has the unhappy job of reclaiming control of Markarth. And here again, Ulfric is brought low by his sense of pride and honour. He promised free worship to the people of Markarth and he aims to keep his word; and even if he wasn't, he's not going to open the gates to the Legion just on their say-so. Before he ceded control of the city, he wanted the Legion to guarantee those same rights of free worship. Of course, the Legion can't agree to that. It would risk a return to war with the dominion, and the incident would certainly spell the end of a promising career for the Legion commander who agreed to such terms.

We don't know for sure how Markarth fell. There's no account of the action, so it was probably peaceful in the end. Perhaps loyal citizens opened the gates to the Legion while Ulfric was elsewhere. But Ulfric was seized and accused of willfully violating the terms of the Concordat. There would have been a Thalmor contingent there to full justice done. We can imagine that Elenwen might have been among them. She has just given the Dominion the leverage it needs to demand that the Thalmor be allowed to police the terms of White Gold, and started smouldering a spark that will eventually be fanned into the Civil War. Imagine her standing there, newly promoted and wearing her full Thalmor regalia. We can only imagine the depth of betrayal that Ulfric must have felt.

From there, Ulfric goes to jail, and is eventually released after the death of his Father and he takes up his role as Jarl. Ulfric at this point has a real dilemma. He has seen perpetrated, has helped to perpetrate! a great injustice upon his people. The Empire will do nothing, not that he would go begging for their aid. The Thalmor are are treacherous and deceitful and there is nothing to be gained from talking to them. But unilateral action will only invite reprisals against Windhelm from the Thalmor and their Imperial puppets. If action is to be effective, it must be the action of Skyrim as a whole.

His opportunity comes with the death of High King Istlod. A moot is called to confirm Istlod's heir Torygg as the new High King and Ulfric uses the moot as an opportunity to canvas support for an independant Skyrim, and soon thereafter challenged Torygg to a duel and killed the young High King. Ulfric's supporters claim he was acting in accord with Nord traditions, his political opponents accuse him of murder and the Civil War, long simmering, finally erupts into open violence.

I said Ulfric was a tragic figure: the Great Man brought low by a fatal flaw. And at this point he has indeed been brought low. We see the man who should have been one of the Empire's ablest warriors and statesmen reduced to again serving the cause of his most hated enemies. He cannot be unaware of how his rebellion is bleeding the Empire, or that the Empire are the best hope anyone has of defeating the Dominion. But pride and honor have closed off all his options. Attempting to unify Skyrim under his rule is very much a "least worst" option, but it is the only one his pride will allow him.

And win or lose, I think that knowledge will eventually destroy him.

[edit]

Corrected an inaccuracy about Ulfric's duel with Torygg.