The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

[[File:oblivion_11.jpg|frame]]

 

 

The game places you in the role of a prisoner, convicted of an unknown crime and incarcerated in the dungeons of the Imperial City. Your imprisonment is cut short by the arrival of Emperor Uriel Septim (played by [[Patrick Stewart]]) and his bodyguards, the Blades, fleeing assassins who are trying to eliminate the royal family. Their escape route just happens to lead through your cell.

What follows is a lengthy quest to save the province of Cyrodiil, heart land of the Empire which spans the whole continent of Tamriel from destruction at the hands of Mehrunes Dagon, the daedric prince of destruction.

 

 

The player has the opportunity to join several factions, such as the Fighter’s Guild, and all have their own storylines spanning several quests.

** Mankar Camoran. He seems to have some respect for the player at times.

** Most people you meet in the Dark Brotherhood as well. They're murderous, bloodthirsty sociopaths, but they're also very charming and chummy. Somewhat ironically, the only one of this cabal of assassins who openly dislikes you is the resident merchant.

** The [[Psycho for Hire|Dark Brotherhood]].

** [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vampires]]. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] because while vampires can easily infect people, the ailment that leads up to full-blown vampirism is easily cured with some prayer or a Cure Disease potion, so the only people who'd let themselves become vampires aren't exactly pleasant folks.

** Additionally, due to a scripting error when you {{spoiler|become Duke or Duchess of Mania/Dementia}} the two groups will greet or refer to you only in the feminine. It's "fixed" in the Unofficial Patch, for those that don't find it entertaining.

** But seeing as both of them come from their respective wellsprings rather than being born, the males aren't really even needed.

* [[An Axe to Grind]]: For some reason, governed by the Blunt skill. The official explanation is that the act of swinging an axe is more akin to using a club than a sword.

* [[Anime Hair]]: Several elven NPCs have magnificent gravity-defying 'dos. For example, [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|Umbacano]], [[Loony Fan|the Ador]][[The Scrappy|ing Fan]], and [[Cool Old Guy|Modryn]] [[Badass|Oreyn]].

* [[Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving]]: Vilena Donton gives you one of these when you complete the last mission for the Fighter's Guild.

* [[Artifact Title]]: Averted... in a manner of speaking. It is the first Elder Scrolls game since ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena]]'' where the actual Elder Scrolls are seen, but they still don't play a part in the ''Main'' Quest, but rather in the [[Sidequest|Thieves Guild quest line]]. {{spoiler|You get to steal one!}}

{{quote|"Hello."

"Hi."

"Bye." }}

** An especially amusing one can randomly occur while sneaking around in Bandit lairs. After the main quest is completed, there's a random chance that certain of the bandits might start singing a song in your honor. That won't stop them from trying to kill you once you're spotted.

{{quote|''"Everyone is talking, but no one has anything to say." }}

** NPCs who are following you have a terrible tendency to get in your way during combat, which often results in your accidentally killing them. Which could result in other NPCs turning hostile on you, or failing a quest, if the outcome depends on a particular NPC's survival. Cue [[Cluster F-Bomb]].

** Some characters have a bad habit of forgetting they need to unlock a store's front door in the morning, even if they have the appropriate key and locked it the night before. Others will end up [[Suicidal Overconfidence|trying to pick fights with]] ''[[Too Dumb to Live|daedra]]'' [[Too Dumb to Live|who just spawned from an Oblivion portal]].

* [[Ax Crazy]]: The Orc in the Dark Brotherhood.

{{quote|"I don't know who the Night Mother is, but she pays me to kill people! My own mother never loved me so much."

"Once, I had a contract to kill a little Nord girl at her birthday party. She asked me if I was the jester, so I replied: "No. I am a messenger of death". Ha! You should've seen the look on her face! [[Would Hurt a Child|She won't be reaching age six]]!" }}

** If you refuse to help Glarthir, he takes matters into his own hands, and starts attacking people in the street with a battleaxe! Not only that, but if you try to convince him that no-one is spying on him, he'll convince himself that you're part of the conspiracy and ''attack you''! [[Too Dumb to Live|Big mistake.]]

** Several leveled spells also count. Said spells are still fairly useful at lower levels even though they're weaker. When obtained at higher levels they become much stronger, but in turn they also cost so much magicka to use that they become extremely impractical.

** This includes the summonable lich, which has an area of effect spell that can demolish the player character if an enemy gets too close.

** The player, at the end "Knights of the Nine." You think that merely getting hit repeatedly with a magic sword and lightning bolts, then falling thousands of feet onto the ground, and being proclaimed dead by all his friends who personally saw his mangled body can keep the Divine Crusader down? Bah!

** In Camoran's Paradise you'll probably notice that ''everyone'' there pops up again if you kill them. Created to be a paradise for his followers, there is no lasting death there. Of course, for many of them there is a sting there.

** The giant slaughterfish, who shows up in one of the dungeons you explore in the Thieves Guild questline, but chances are you won't ever see this one if you don't fully explore the place.

** There's also the Uderfrykte Matron at Dive Rock.

* [[Bring Help Back]]: You can do this by getting reinforcements from the other cities when Bruma is besieged by a Great Gate (but only after you close the gates threatening ''their'' cities, naturally). It's an optional quest, though, so you can just [[One-Man Army|do it all yourself]] instead, if you prefer.

* [[Bring It]]: Attempt to/Fight an ogre with your bare hands and it may make this gesture.

** If you put an actual chainmail shirt on a female character it turns into a [[Mini-Dress of Power]].

* [[Cold Flames]]: The Will O Wisp enemies.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: Mankar Camoran. To A lesser degree, The Gray Fox.

* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: J'skar, the lovable Khajiit prankster of the Bruma Mages Guildhall, is shown to only be really good at invisibility. {{spoiler|When Mannimarco attacks Bruma's guildhall, his invisibility mastery is what makes him the sole survivor.}}

* [[Dead Star Walking]]: [[Patrick Stewart]] as the doomed [[The Emperor|Emperor]]. There's even a mod that replaces Uriel Septim's head with Patrick Stewart's.

* [[Dem Bones]]

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: The climax of ''Shivering Isles'' pits you against {{spoiler|Jyggalag, the Deadric Prince of Order}}.

* [[Different As Night and Day]]: The friendly, helpful Dark Seducers and the arrogant, antisocial Golden Saints.

* [[Empty Levels]]: Leveling up in a manner that is remotely intuitive - say, by choosing your main skills as those you expect to use often and leveling up when you have the option on the assumption that gaining a level will make you stronger - will result in a character's abilities increasing minutely while the enemies around you transform from annoyances to nightmares. Many people just bypass the whole aggravating "leveling up" process by never sleeping.

* [[End of an Age]]: It is heavily implied that by the time of the next game, the Empire will be over. [[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|As for the answer to that...]]

* [[Escort Mission]]: A few, but by far the most annoying one is the quest The Wayward Knight. Farwil Indarys, your escortee and complete [[Leeroy Jenkins]], will run into battle against enemies far stronger than he, and even worse will completely ignore environmental dangers. He'll even follow enemies off cliffs!

* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Lucien Lachance is quite popular among fangirls. "Hot damn!"

* [[Evil Counterpart]]: The Order of the Black Worm, to Necromancy in general. The Blackwood Company is essentially what the Fighters Guild would be like if they didn't have a shred of morality or decency.

* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: There's a shop called Rindir's Staffs. It's owned by Rindir. He sells magical staffs. Imagine that.

* [[Faceless Goons]]: Dremora, Aurorans, and Knights of Order tend to wear face-concealing helmets.

* [[Fake Difficulty]]: Dependent on the difficulty you're playing on.

** Countess Alessia Caro despises the beast races. Her speech towards you if you play a Khajit or Argonian barely even tries to disguise this. {{spoiler|She also has a secret [[Torture Cellar]] made specifically for Argonians}}. [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Which makes it so]] [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|much fun to kill her]] [[Asshole Victim|over and over again.]]

** One minor NPC has a hobby of fostering discord between Argonians and Khajit. If you talk to him and you happen to belong to one of those two races, he'll tell you a member of the other race insulted you behind your back.

** The first character you meet in the game, Valen Dreth, has a different set of insults for you depending on the race you've chosen.

* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: [[The Elder Scrolls]] loves this trope.

* [[Freudian Excuse]]: {{spoiler|Bellamont,}} the assassin who betrays the Dark Brotherhood has one in the form of his dead mother. It's a bit more justified than most Freidian excuses simply because {{spoiler|it was, in fact, the Dark Brotherhood who killed his mother.}}

* [[Game Mod]]: Enough of them to build several whole new games. In fact, several mods are there for ''just that purpose''. Sadly, [[Sturgeon's Law]] is in effect for many of them.

** Some of the more renowned mods include Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (removes leveled enemies in favor of hand placed, as well as other tweaks), Deadly Reflex (A complex combat overhaul), Martigan's Monster Mod (adds literally ''hundreds'' of new monsters, many of which are hand made) and The Lost Spires (Lengthy quest mod with a complex story about the ancient history of Tamriel).

** Don't forget Kvatch Rebuilt, which sees the burnt town restored and, well, rebuilt. Trade And Commerce lets the player own a shop to sell goods through rather than having to sell everything to stores. Then there are mods which completely rewrite lore, such as A Path Of Dawn which lets the player join the Mythic Dawn, and many, many mods which expand on the Dark Brotherhood. Player homes, armor display mannequins, weapons and armor and even tweaks to the crime system, merchant system... beautification mods, mods to make the game run better on lower-end systems, level uncappers... if you can ask for it, there's a good chance a mod exists for it.

* [[Get Into Jail Free]]: A sidequest involves getting yourself imprisoned to gain the trust of an inmate, who you are told has hidden a stash of treasure somewhere.

* [[Giant Mook]]: The Xivilai, massive daedra who wield [[An Axe to Grind|battle axes]] and [[Drop the Hammer|warhammers]] in ''one hand''.

* [[Gladiator Subquest]]: The Arena.

* [[Godiva Hair]]: The mermaid statue in Anvil.

* [[Horned Humanoid]]: The Dremora.

* [[Horny Devils]]: The Dark Seducers' name implies this, but it really isn't true. [[Good Is Not Nice|" Seductive" they sure as heck ain't]]. [[Fetish Fuel|Unfortu]][[Hot Amazon|nately]].

** Oh, and you do get a statue of your character built (it's essentially a copy of your character model at the time the quest was completed but stone textured).

*** Which is modeled with the most valuable items you have with you when you do this. There is a very nice and thus valuable dagger you get from the Brotherhood, which will take precedence. It just looks silly - full regalia, big armour, giant shield, ramming a 3 inch dagger [[Stab the Sky|into the sky]]...

* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: While you're not able to carry an infinite amount of stuff, you can pack several hundred pounds worth of stuff into an invisible pocket. Each item has a weight value, and based on your Strength stat, you can carry so much stuff(1 point of Strength = 5 pounds of encumbrance). Warriors who raise strength can carry more things(up to 500 pounds with a max 100 strength), and spells/effects such as Feather exist to lighten your load even further. Also, being highly skilled(Expert or Master rank) in either of the Light or Heavy armor attributes decreases the weight of armor you have equipped- at Master skill rank, heavy type armor will weigh nothing when worn. It's possible to actually have more items in your inventory than you can carry, but you will not be able to move, and negative effects such as Burden or Drain/Damage Strength can lower encumbrance. The only visible items in your total inventory are whatever you have equipped at the time.

** But this largely seems to affect the player only. NPCs usually only carry a limited stock of goods and rarely pick up anything, and even Burden spells are rarely effective to keep them in place.

* [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]: {{spoiler|The Grey Prince}} invokes this on himself.

* [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten]]: The final step to being initiated into the Mythic Dawn is to murder a prisoner as as sacrifice to Mehrunes Dagon. {{spoiler|If you try to infiltrate them, you'll be presented with an Argonian they've captured. It's up to you if you want to save him and blow your cover, or [[Shoot the Dog|kill him to keep the ruse]].}}

* [[Impossible Item Drop]]: Sometimes common enemies carry random valuable loot.

* [[Impossible Thief]]: The Dark Brotherhood agent that asks if you want to join will ''always'' appear when you rest, even if this rest will take you into a dream world that needs a special amulet to enter.

* [[Infinity-1 Sword]]: Umbra. Not quite as spectacular as the Plus Ones, but is the best one-handed weapon in terms of damage and can Soul Trap, and you can get it even if you're fresh out of the tutorial... of course, killing Umbra to get her sword and gear will be nigh impossible unless you're well prepared.

* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: Several, as befits the series. Some examples:

** The main quest contains many claims the empire is in chaos with the Emperor's assassination. The game fails to show any actual chaos outside of Kvatch.

** An advertisement for the Red Diamond says it has the best guards, but it in fact has no guards. In fact, it's one of the easiest and most profitable places to rob, as it's the only store with inventory of any value that respawns (due to being in containers that are easily opened with the easily stolen key).

* [[Irony]]: It is revealed that Gaiden Shinji, whose "The best techniques are passed down by the survivors." quote started ''Arena'', was '''not''' a survivor. People still think he is amazing though.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Lord Lovidicus, an Imperial nobleman, and Luktuv gro-Malog, an Orsimer (aka Orc) woman.

** Mazoga the Orc, [[Character Development|at least when you first meet her]]. She takes an exceptionally rude and peremptory manner with you and Weebam-Na, and [[They Call Me Mister Tibbs|insists]] that you address her with her self-given style of "Sir Mazoga".

* [[Jerkass Gods]]: A few of the [[Our Demons Are Different|Daedra]] [[Eldritch Abomination|Lords]], namely [[Person of Mass Destruction|Mehrunes Dagon]], [[The Chessmaster|Boethiah]], [[Lawful Stupid|Jygg]][[Light Is Not Good|alag]], and [[Blood Knight|Mo]][[God of Evil|lag]] [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|Bal]]. However, not all of them: most of them are [[Blue and Orange Morality|just really weird]] rather than evil, and some like Azura and Meridia actually seem [[Dark Is Not Evil|nice]]... [[Good Is Not Nice|Sort of]].

* [[Karmic Death]]: In one ending of the Umbacano questline, {{spoiler|[[Hoist by His Own Petard|Umbacano is killed by the evil Ayleid powers he sought to control]].}} In the other, ''you'' kill him.

* [[Kill'Em All]]: There are lots of scripted NPC deaths in the game. Let's leave it at that.

** Played straight in the Who Dun It quest.

* [[Knight Templar]]: Jyggalag and his Forces of Order.

* [[In-Game Novel]]: Tons. Most of them aren't full length novels, but some are.

** This actually defaults to "one ingame hour is equivalent to ''two'' real life minutes", and can be easily changed via console, at least in the PC version.

* [[Irrelevant Importance]]: Once you get your hands on them, quest items are eternally stuck in your inventory. The game will never ever let you dump quest items. Even if they've already served their purpose and the said quest has been completed.

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Some can experience issues with this, particularly on lower-end systems. Especially if one has a lot of mods in their game.

* [[Locked Door]]: Probably the most egregious example is with barrels. Just how do you lock a ''barrel''? And even so, why can't you just take a mace to it?

** Alternatively, use Wabbajack, then wail on the poor Daedric Prince. Cue [[I'm Melting|melting]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|god]].

*** By "melting god" the refer to the fact that the Mehrunes Dagon character has no proper death animation programmed, and as a result of dying, the skeleton literally gives way and the 3D character model simply collapses to the ground. This will effectively happen with anything that has no proper skeleton installed, but is quite visible here just because Dagon is so damn BIG.

** A popular mod, "Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul", replaces this system with objective levels for enemies and loot, making player leveling meaningful.

* [[Luck Stat]]: [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The Luck attribute]].

* [[Mirror Match]]: One of the bosses in ''Shivering Isles'' is a shadow clone of your character with all your attributes, skills, and spells.

* [[Money Spider]]: Sometimes generic enemies (rats, mudcrabs, imps, wolves) will be carrying a small amount gold.

* [[Mordor]]: The appropriately named Deadlands, Mehrunes Dagon's realm of Oblivion.

* [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate]]: Relmyna Verenim.

** An earlier quest has another cave full of trolls that will probably get him (and you) knocked out instantly. It's considered a better idea to go into the cave beforehand and kill them one by one first.

** In the "Where Spirits Have Lease" quest, you end up playing right into the [[Monster of the Week|monster of the sidequest's]] hands. Thankfully, you're able to correct your error immediately afterwards.

* [[No Bulk Discounts]]

* [[No Ending]]: Aside from the fact you can continue playing after the game is over, the fact that the Uriel Septim line {{spoiler|has ended}}, the game finishes with a major question unresolved. {{spoiler|Who will be Emperor?}}

* [[No-Gear Level]]: Happens during Sanguine's shrine quest, where you cast a spell on the Countess of Leyawiin and her company that causes them all to be stripped naked. It also causes the player to lose their equipment and entire inventory, so you've got to face the guards unarmored and unarmed.

* [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]]: The lizard people, Argonians.

** The females of the three Daedric races (Dremora, Golden Saint, and Dark Seducer) and other lesser Daedra (Flame Atronachs, Spider Daedra) have breasts, despite the fact that Daedra cannot produce life.

* [[NPC Scheduling]]

* [[The Nudifier]]: In ''Oblivion'', there is a quest for the Daedric Prince Sanguine which requires the Player Character to cast the spell "Stark Reality" at a dinner party. The spell strips everyone in the vicinity to their undergarments. The Ring of Disrobing in Shivering Isles has a similar effect.

* [[Obviously Evil]]: {{spoiler|''Kalthar.''}} Seriously, he has black, messy rat's nest hair, a near permanent scowl, [[Big Ol' Eyebrows|thick eyebrows]], and he's a [[Jerkass|colossal dick]]. Oh, and he's a Necromancer.

* [[Oh My Gods]]: "By the Nines / Nine Divines!"

* [[Pressure Plate]]: You see these a lot in forts and Ayleid ruins.

* [[Psycho Serum]]: Hist.

* [[Randomly Generated Levels]]: Like Daggerfall, Bethesda built the non-quest non-Oblivion dungeons out of existing dungeons pieces and randomly spliced them into a "new" dungeon that gets used for every copies instance of that dungeon. Unlike Daggerfall, you [[Bizarrchitecture|aren't busy getting lost]], and the dungeon pieces are are much more distinct looking, making it very noticeable (Indeed, there were a few instance of "leftovers" from quests in some dungeons in early versions). Additionally all spawns and loot are randomly chosen from leveled lists.

** The terrain is also computer generated through simulated soil erosion. It sounds neat, but it is very noticeably featureless as a result.

* [[Retirony]]: Grommok in the Shivering Isles quest Baiting the Trap. Direct quote from his journal - "We're going to head north and explore the area around Niben Bay today. I hope that something else like this turns up on our adventures. Then I'm going to retire!". Depending on the players actions, {{spoiler|he either dies or goes insane.}}

** Enforced in the Dark Brotherhood quest Permanent Retirement, which requires the player to kill a newly retired Imperial Legion commander who spent his life investigating and interfering with the Dark Brotherhood's 'operations'.

* [[Rouge Angles of Satin]]: Anvil's resident [[Butt Monkey]], Norbert Lelles, is the proprietor of a shop whose sign is misspelled to read "Lelles' Quality Mercandise", which draws many amused comments from various NPCs.

* [[RPGs Equal Combat]]

* [[Vendor Trash]]: Copious amounts of it.

* [[Vicious Cycle]]: The Greymarch. Also, the fate of the Ascended Immortals in Kamoran's Savage Garden/Forbidden Grotto.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: The game allows you to kill any non-essential characters in the game (although this may result in you failing quests that you haven't even started), and essential characters can just be knocked unconcious over and over again.

** The sheer amount of videos on [[YouTube]] about killing certain people (or yourself) in Oblivion is astounding, but admit it, starting random rampages and mercilessly massacring the guards and citizens of Cyrodiil is ''fun''.

** The game's own tips suggest killing your own summoned creatures to trap their souls for enchanting.

** In the "Shivering Isles" add-on, the paranoid duchess of a city gives you the task to uncover a conspiracy against her, bestows the title of "Grand Inquisitor" upon you, and lends you her torturer. Then you can either take a direct route to find the conspirators... or let your tourturer zap annoying NPCs.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: {{spoiler|Kalthar}} in the Mages Guild questline.

* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: Oh so much.

* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: One Dark Brotherhood quest requires you to assassinate a man who's allergic to honey; your handler suggests tricking him into drinking a bottle of mead, which paralyzes him, making him easier to kill.

* [[Wham! Episode]]: Through the last three games, the Emperor has been the [[Big Good]] who the player has been doing all the missions for. In this one? He dies. At the end of the tutorial mission.

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]] - Larger than ''Morrowind'' <ref>By raw square footage anyways. Morrowind's design makes traveling in a straight line impossible without levitation, and it implements a large vertical component not present in Oblivion</ref> but still far smaller than ''Arena'' or ''Daggerfall''.

** [[Law of Conservation of Detail]]: The size comes at the cost of much of the detail gained in ''Morrowind''. Almost everything not quest related is generated from random lists in place of ''Morrowind'''s hand placed loot, and like ''Daggerfall'' dungeons were <ref>that is, they are the same in every game, but initially created in this fashion</ref> randomly generated by combination of existing parts instead of hand crafted and the world is largely flat.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Bethesda]]

[[Category:The Elder Scrolls]]