Many Skyrim players certainly seem to believe they shouldn’t be punished for any minor crimes they commit while adventuring throughout the province.
Perhaps this is a natural way to feel when you’re a prophesied hero on your way to fight some fierce bandits who’ve been terrorising townsfolk or save the world from the dragon menace, but even the Dragonborn isn’t above the law.
That said, one player on Reddit seems to have been dealt a particularly bad hand by Skyrim’s crime stoppers and they might be justified in their refusal to keep quiet about it.
Have you ever wrongly fallen foul of Skyrim’s justice system?
The thread on their plight in the Skyrim subreddit began with a post from the player in question, user CodenameFlux, who posted screenshots of their character’s crime stats before and after fighting the boss at the end of the game’s main story, captioning them: “Skyrim's weird sense of justice. Apparently, I've committed an assault against... Alduin, the World Eater!”
Fellow players immediately attempted to paint a picture of how this unusual assault might have gone down, with user knightfluttershy suggesting that one of Oblivion’s infamously over enthusiastic guards must have found the portal to Sovngarde in order to inform CodenameFlux they’d violated the law.
Meanwhile, user Belteshazzar98 stepped in to suggest a justification for the charge CodenameFlux seemingly faces, saying: “You attacked him during dialogue, which means he wasn't a hostile character so it constitutes an assault. He was just chilling and you decided to attack him.”
User Aegillade insinuated that this mistake is something that other players can learn from, recommending: “This is why you let the villain finish his monologue. You don't wanna be charged with assault right after saving the world.”
On the other hand, user RoriksteadResident suggested that the incident could be a wrongful conviction on the part of the game, explaining: “Yeah, the ‘crime’ counter in Bethesda games is pretty.....inconsistent. Snipe a random dude just chilling at a campfire? It's fine because he is labelled as a "Bandit"! Attack the World Eater, destroyer of all things, during dialog before his hostile tag is set? Assault!”
User Azmaeth shared a similar story, saying: “Just yesterday I got in trouble with the Dark Brotherhood after, get this- I killed Cicero during the mission in which I was sent to kill him.”
Regardless of whether you’ve been accused of an Elder Scrolls crime that you didn't commit, make sure to follow us for more updates on The Elder Scrolls 6 and the wacky world of Skyrim modding.