It's because it's a power fantasy in a world where no one is competent enough to even use the toilet unless the "Legendary Dragonborn of Old" aids them in their quest. Otherwise everyone stands around eating moldy bread wanting any old stranger to help them out.
......
Again the Dragonborn is only competent because Bethesda wants you to be, they WANT you to have that power fantasy of being a badass.
This is the story of 90% of all videogames ever.
No shit Sherlock! That's what I was telling you before.
It is a trope. One that is very often used in books, comics, movies and gaming. Why? Because it is simple. And it works. If done well. The difference is, you don't do it well, you just end up with garbage like
Jupiter Ascending, if done well, it's an ultimate hit like
Star Wars - A new Hope/The Empire Strikes back/Return of the Jedi.
I won't even go into the fact that it is way to short, as a quest line
I would really like for you to actually do that. Do a 'Lets play' even I am curious just how fast you can get through this 'short' questline without using TGM, with a mage character, and at a level most people would do them at.
No clue, probably a couple of hours with fast travel. Obviously it will take more time if you're on foot/horse, but, just runing from A to B and clearing dungeons ... well. Probably one day under normal circumstances? No clue how long it took you. But I definetly could finish it pretty fast.
It is for the most part a short quest-line as far as the number of quests goes and when you consider that most of it is just kill, kill, kill - not that Skyrim is short of kill-this-fellah/creature, fetch-me-that quests, you can probably finish them relatively fast. In Skyrim the player is like the dog for everyone, runing after every treat. After already 8 quests, you're the master chief of the college.
You neglect to consider you learn many things on the way to completing the questline. To enter the College you only need to know a basic Fear spell so it is basically open to anyone with an ounce of magical skill. But once inside you do have access to learn mostly everything because there are trainers for all magic skills in the college.
But you don't need them. You could completely finish all of the quests without ever using even one single spell, except for that one time where you have to enter the college really and 1 or 2 spells while attending "lessons" - for the first and last time, because you're the chosen one, remember? Chosen ones, don't have to train in the arcane magic, they just do this chosen one
stuff, and win the prize. Which is part of the whole problem.
There is never ever a situation where the game would place some sense of role playing on you, because Bethesda literaly designed the game/quest in a way that you literaly can't fail, no matter what build or path you chose. Same reason why the COmpanions, all about honor, comrade ship and other Klingon stuff will accept you even if you're the craziest psychopath murder thief that ever existed in all of Tamriel, because Kodak the old fellah, think's you're a nice dude cuz, chosen one! And than you start to murder everyone, cuz you're a psychopath, but since the game won't let you fail, you can come back later and still finish the companion-quest-line.
Are you telling me that it is unheard of that:
> someone with barely any magic knowledge goes to attend college to become wiser of the arts
> becomes wiser by training with all the various NPCs there
> does fairly large questline for the college involving deadly magical artifact
> becomes leader when it is you that saves the college/world and the previous heads die?
Because it isnt to me. This isnt comparable at all to helping a guy fighting raiders that after decides you should be general.
Have you heard about someone becoming the super-duper-master-leader-of-all-time of the Jedi Order without ever studying Jedi arts? No one forced you to study it, right?
Completely irrelevant, and I am not sure what you are getting at here. Skyrim is the story of the Dragonborn. I dont remember choice ever being a big thing in the TES series. I dont remember being able to side with Dagoth Ur or take control of the Numidium myself? Choice was in older Fallout games, rarely ever in TES. Different games, should not be compared.
Skyrim isn't the story of the Dragonborn. Skyrim is the story of that guy who's doing the laundry for everyone because no one else ever cared about doing it before YOU showed up.
I never played Dagerfall, but just from what I can read it had about 4 or 5 different endings. Morrowind was the game that completely abandoned that concept, for ... simplifying the whole narrative I guess. Anyway, the whay how the world, NPCs and factions treated you was a lot better in Morrowind than Skyrim or Oblivion. Infact, a lot of people and factions would become rather hostile if you showed up as the Nerevarine. But you are right, already Morrowind started the trend of dumbing down the Elder Scrolls - I guess? I can't tell it, I never played Daggerfall or anything before Morrowind. All I know, that Mororwind was not seen as the best Elder Scrolls game ever by old fans.
But I am not going to waste more words on that matter, watch this video, it describes EVERYTHING perfectly. Seriously, it's just 32 min. of your time.
