The Meaningless Marriage Quest
Here’s how dumb marrying is in Skyrim:
1) You have to buy a magic necklace for 200 gold. Once you do, you’re eligible.
2) Find a stranger, who says all of the other identical things that strangers do. Ask them to marry you. They may require you to kill somebody first.
3) A ceremony later, you’re married! To someone with zero personality! It’s like marrying a Kardashian.
My question: Who the fuck finds this satisfying?
I mean, okay, I adore the romance-trees in Bioware games, where after a lot of talking and conversation trees and exploring the personality of a well-written character, there’s an option to go to romance. That’s fine, because I’m invested in that person, and am, if not attracted, at least understanding who this person is that I’m committing to.
But why even bother in Skyrim? There’s nobody you talk to often enough to really know who they are. I married my hireling, a fellow magic college student, and the only thing she ever did to me was to cast two botched spells on me. Why would I want to commit to her in any way? What do I know about her?
Likewise, in Fable, I can marry and have kids, but you know what I know about my wife? She’s really amused by my amazing arm-farting skills. As is every other fucking woman in town. I can stand in the town square, farting and dancing, and I’ll have a flock of enamored women and men surrounding me like chickens.
So why even bother? Why would you marry some personality-less entity, who looks like one of a thousand others like them? Are these games trying to say that marriage really is about just getting service (since you can pay 500 gold to hire a sidekick, or just marry them) and pumping out indistinguishable children? It’s not even like the Sims, where these people express at least people-specific quirks, it’s a set of completely interchangeable idiots you can marry, or not, and marrying doesn’t change a thing in your life.
Look. I want to fall in love in games. But it’s with people, not sprites. I don’t even understand why they’re bothering to put in these options if they’re so poorly done, or who they really appeal to.
I completely agree, this is actually my great problem with the whole elder scroll series. The main point is that I should be able to do anything I want in those games but every time I tried to play them I simply didn’t find anything interesting. Who cares that I can marry virtually anyone, give me three or four interesting people with whom I can form a relationship!
I still remember the boredom of Daggerfall. 2000 dungeons? More like 2000 procedurally generated all the same dungeons. I want story and epic, not endless fuff.