Hello there. This is my first Thread here, so i wanted to say "hello.". I did that and it will suffice, as no one is interested in my Life Story.


Sheogorath is, from a Storytelling Point, boring. He is mentally Ill and that's the whole Joke about him.
In the Shivering Isles Expansion, Bethesda gives us Jokes about the "mentally Ill" Subject on a regular Basis. Oh, "Brainpie", what a great Joke. Yawn. "Cheese for everyone!". That is not funny. Have a Character who's insane and have him say line that would be ridiculously threatening if we didn't knew Sheogorath was a Nutjob is, to say the least, cheap.

Haskil is more interesting, although we've already seen this Character type elsewhere: The bored and annoyed Person who manages to keep his sanity with Self Discipline and sheer Force of Will. The supporting Character who patiently goes along with everything the Maincharacter does while any normal Person would have gone insane by then.
This Quality is often found with Maincharacters when they have annoying Sidekicks and somehow manage to force themselves to not kill them.
Sheogorath is a "Pinky" Rip off. Narf!

Haskil's Irony has a nice Quality to it. "Will the Wonders ever cease?" in this annoyed tone with the "i couldn't care less if they cease" Attitude made me chuckle. Haskil is a "Brain" Rip off.

It would have been more funny if Haskil bashed Sheogorath over the Head once in a while for being stupid


My Point is: Jokes about craziness are a bit too easy. You have to throw some random Words in now and then and People will laugh. They will laugh at complete gibberish, which is something that Bethesda actually did: "Gal bursten it!".

Nevertheless, Shivering Isles is an example of something that is almost nonexistent in the World of Videogames as a substantial Part: Humor.
You'll find many Jokes in the Form of eastereggs or something like that, maybe a subtle injoke here and there.

But Shivering Isles is one of the few which has the Humor as one of its defining Qualities.

That said, i want to return to Sheogorath again. It makes me somewhat uneasy to laugh over a Joke about a mentally sick Person. I will not make the Morale Speech here about how you shouldn't make Fun of just about anybody because in the overly sensitive Time we're in, everybody has some touchy Subject.

Jokes about the mentally Ill Characters have always something missing. In his delusions, the ill Person may attack or even try to kill you. Obviously the Character wont have these Qualities, for the sake of the Joke. Being Attacked is not very funny. Mostly.
Now Sheogorath could kill you in an instant in any Way you can imagine and even in some Ways you can not imagine. He snaps his Fingers and your Limps fly off in different Directions. And your Head in three others.

Obviously, they left these Qualities out for the Sake of the Joke. And the next one. And the next one...


My Character wouldn't go there by his free Will. No one would enter the realm of a God who is *insane*.
Well, at least nobody in their right Mind.

Sheogorath is good for comic Relief. You can make some Jokes about him. No one, not even me will care about the Plot hole with Sheogorath being potentially dangerous in the time you'll tell a Joke.
But when you spend Hours with him, that's another Story.


Well, maybe Elderscrolls 5 will have another Haskil Joke.

Wait a minute: In the Next Game, will i recieve the Sheogorath Quest from myself?

That's an Idea for a nice Feature: Have the Next Game scan an Oblivion Savefile where you have resolved the SI Mainquest. The Sheogorath Shrine in the Game will be made in the likeness of your Oblivion Character ;D

Read the Myths of Sheogorath books. He's a trickster. He's not a mad "Man" at all; he is chaos and creativity, Insanity manifest. He takes the form of a human, and appears mad by human standards. His motives are unknowable.

The designers did include plenty of humor in the Isles, and Sheogorath does get played for laughs. Still, he's not intended as just comic relief; read the lore, or attack him with a character not modded to the gills.

Haskill is mad as well, or he wouldn't be in the Isles. We just don't get a clear look at what form his madness takes.

I'm not saying you have to like the way the character was done; just pointing out that the designers weren't trying for Pinky and the Brain.

And maybe the "Myths of Sheogorath" are a trick in itself.
Be that or not, "his motives are unknowable" and the fact that he's a daedric Prince is quite enough to stay as far away as you can from him.

haskil... he went so... dementied, so mad, that he lost all interst in anything really.... thats why he has no personality... (the mono-tone voice)

or something like that i belive...

biulding

Its possible Haskil has a Borderline Disorder. This is the kind of thing diagnosed when the Psychoanalyst wants to go home and doesn't want to think about what crap this Emokid has in his Head.

Borderline is an actual Condition though, Haskil may be a candidate. I like Haskil, he seems more "real" then Sheogorath. Old Sheo pulls the old "Ha, I'm insane!" Joke over and over again.

You know, I've actually met people who tried to convince everyone that they were crazy. Part of what they thought was a scam to get disability. Unfortunately, they did end up actually crazy. Maybe that's part of Sheogorath's trap. People pretend to be crazy to get in (lots of gold and stuff available) and then fall into the web of insanity. Sheo's "jokes" are really a joke on his followers. He's a god. He can be as sane or insane as he wishes. It's his followers who get trapped trying to emulate him.

and just to madman, remember what haskil says right at the start of SI, how you refer to the people outside the door's "disease" when it's just another way of thinking. a way to look at a the citizens of crucible and bliss and fellmoor a bit differently eh, and maybe even the actual world, where people aren't stupid or crazy or brainy, they just think a way foreign to your own mind. Sorry, to delve into philosophy.

ow.. my brain... hexadcimel, and binary arnt that confusing >.>

biulding

ah, well, that just depends on what shade of madness you have doesnt it? : )

The Shivering Isles Citiens don't have a different Way of thinking, they went to wat is medically known as batshit bonkers. With a way of thinking like that the People would hardly be able to function in a society of People like or not like them. Some of them wouldn't be able to survive.
While some People may think differently about the usefulness of Survival, after all, nobody knows why we are here or if it is even by any means a "good" thing that we are here i don't think Bethesda wanted to be that philosophical. They wanted to have a world full of crazy People to pull off the "Hey look we're all crazy!" Joke, which gets a bit old after a while.