Skyrim is a point of contention for me. On one hand, it holds a special place in my heart as the first game I ever used mods on, the game that first got me enthused with the PC, that introduced me to RPGs, the game over which my best friend and I bonded, and to date, the game I’ve put the most hours into, bar none. On the other hand, its role-playing, narrative and character creation hold up poorly without rose-tinted glasses, and are less developed than previous games in the series. So instead of getting caught up in fandom debates, let’s try to be more concrete, and dive deep into what I believe to be one of Skyrim’s worst executed quest lines — and how I think it could have been saved. Strap in, it’s going to be a long ride.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much

The College Of Winterhold is Skyrim’s version of the Mages Guild from previous entries. On the surface, it seems to fit well with the setting themes. Whereas in previous installments, the Mages Guild was a powerful organization with chapters in many (or all) of the major settlements, and dozens of members, the College is a lonesome, desolate place, wrecked by the environment, starved of applicants by a populace fearful of magic, and under threat by the encroaching Thalmor. It makes perfect sense, not only for a province that is much less developed than Cyrodiil of Vvardenfell, but also for a time where the Thalmor have disbanded the major guilds, leaving only isolated centers of learning. It could have been a good world story about fighting back the approaching menace and reestablishing the power of the college, inch by inch. So where did it go wrong?

To start, let’s outline the basic plot of the College questline (discreetly pulls up wiki)(Also, minor spoilers).

You hear about the college and decide to join You encounter a mage at the entrance who will only let you in after you’ve cast a spell. You get a tour of the grounds You join in a magic lesson You go on an expedition to a nearby crypt Shit hits the fan You do some errands You search around the college for information You do what amounts to a bigger, more dangerous errand with a puzzle You fight some magical anomalies You delve into a mysterious labyrinth for an even bigger errand You fight the guy who has been an asshole to you since the beginning

A visual representation of the reader

Snark aside, there are some glimmers of potential here, though they are in the minority. The tour of the grounds and the magic lesson not only get you familiarized with the space and people of the College, but it reinforces that it is an institution of learning. The disappointment here is that these elements aren’t built upon. Your fellow students don’t build on their roles meaningfully, and your only interaction with them is in helping them with one (sometimes interesting) task apiece.There are also no other lessons like the one seen in the opening, thus failing to depict the daily life it was going for.

The Issue:

There are also some more egregious missteps. Before you can join, you must pass a test to see if you have enough magic aptitude to be admitted. The test just happens to be an absolute joke. Because Skyrim doesn’t bring back the guild hierarchies from previous installments, the only limit on how fast you can progress is how fast you can quest. It also means it has no way to create restrictions on your character. There is no chance of a spell failing, and magicka regenerates quickly. And since the spell you are asked to cast has a magicka cost well below the default, any character is able to do so. The desire to allow players total freedom in gameplay as while creating narrative restrictions results in a frontloaded ‘challenge’ that is, under no circumstances possible in the vanilla game, challenging. The ‘true’ test here is one of money. Even if you do have a magic oriented character, you probably made the College one of your first destinations, and as a result, there is a good chance you don’t have the spell needed. The guardian happens to sell that spell for a pittance.

This is the very first interaction a given player will have with the College, and already diverging priorities are tearing the narrative at the seams. The reason why I’m taking so long on this one moment, is because I am going to use it to set up the basic thread for my proposed fix, that will run in parallel to my summary of the plot, and could be done with only minor changes to the content.

The Fix:

There is a simple narrative solution that solves many of the issues in the questline, in fact, it fixes these issues so well I would not be surprised if it had been the originally intended path. In contrast to the previous games, in which the Mages Guild had at least a few quests that related to magic in more than theme, Skyrim’s quests here could be undertaken just as easily by a regular adventurer. That is what I propose. Instead of having to “prove your worth” in a faux test, any player could walk up to the College and offer to help out. After all, the mages and the nearby town live in standoffish fear of each other, and some help guarding the place and running errands without having to expose the students would be greatly appreciated (as well as being a better match for the gameplay). You still get the tour of the grounds, and you spectate on a lesson, or even join in as a guinea pig. Then, when the students go to the crypt for a field day, you join them as security (which you are basically already doing).

This is actually from a mod that addresses many of my issues

This allows for a tradeoff, where any character can go through the questline, just with a different context, and in return, the ‘test’ for the student path can be tougher and more fitting. Ideally, the adventurer path would include the option to take the test at a later date and become a student. Altogether, the existing quests make more sense for a hired adventurer than a proper student. The College is supposed to be concerned with keeping their students from harm, not flinging them out into the world to do their dirty work. It makes more sense for the students to test their spells on and ask for aid from a professional adventurer rather than one of their supposed peers. The quest line becomes amusing when you realize that the teachers should be more experienced and competent mages than you, and must contrive reasons why you, the guy who has literally been here a week, must do all the most dangerous things and eventually become their leader. Wait, shit.

Take me to your leader:

Admittedly, this is an issue that has plagued the Elder Scrolls franchise for years. Rising through the ranks of a faction by performing ever more daring deeds is a well worn trope that Elder Scrolls effectively cemented, and it would make logical sense that you become the leader of the faction after performing the most daring deed and saving everyone. However, it does seem as though Skyrim lost some of the balls of, say, Morrowind, where in addition to peacefully ousting the previous Arch-mage, you could also beat them in a duel to the death, as opposed to the previous Arch-mage falling over dead at a certain point in the plot. However, this issue deserves to be examined more closely. After you become Arch-mage, there is nothing to do. Sure, you can still learn some magic from the teachers, and help out with side-quests you haven’t done yet, as well as radiant quests. But, like other Skyrim faction quests, you aren’t really treated differently by anyone, including other College members. Despite being nominally in charge, you are still the go-to candidate for running errands for your supposed underlings.

This is even more egregious when you realize that without the guild hierarchy, it is possible to complete the questline, not only without a magic focused character, but without casting a single spell besides the ‘test’, so long as you have the right staves and scrolls.

[sic]

This, once again, is something that could be fixed more or less neatly by the adventurer context. While you are touring the grounds in the opening of the questline, your guide, Mirabelle Ervine, tells you that the Arch-mage is so busy with his own studies and closed off from the world that she is effectively in charge of the College. This is a mere hand-wave in the original, but it could be an excellent setup for the true successor of the Arch-mage. In the new context, Ervine ascends to de facto leadership, and you, the meathead that made it all possible, gets promoted to a position of honor in the college. Your overall role doesn’t change a lick, so you’re still running those errands, but you get a neat set of robes that mark you as ‘Protector of the College’ or somesuch. All without having to change the content of any of the quests,

Oh, one last thing. Please note how I managed to summarize and revise the entire College questline with barely a mention of the Thalmor, and none of the Psijics or the Augur. That should speak for itself.