Silver Hand - Good or Bad guys

[Kamuizin]

First of all, i know this must have been a hit topic for ages in Skyrim, but then, i checked the forum and last focused thread on this was in 2019 and even so barely touched the subject.

That said, this is a theorical discussion, so every oponion is welcome.

From my pov, the silver hands are the good guys into a whole and the companions are a complex bunch of characters.

Concept: First of all there's a need to define a werewolf in ES universe, like vampires, they're changed humanoids that fit a desire of a Daedra Lord. So, the same way Molag Bal made Vampires, Hicine made werewolves, and just to specify, Hicine isn't any goody two shoes, if i have to make a comparison to D&D Hicine is pretty well near Malar (God) character.

Behavior: Werewolves are wild and savage, lost of control is a pretty common ocurrence among them and while they will not attack companions normally - based on their familiarity with their scent -, the same can't be said about other people. In one of the silver hand quests, for example, there's a living werewolf locked that, if you free, will attack you on sight.

Overall: Silver Hands are, like the Vigilants of Stendarr, but focus attacks on were beings (werewolfs, bears and etc...) they're a bit more zealot apparently.

Game structure: Silver Hand behaves like a bandit group, but that look to me more as a bad and lazy script from the game developers than reason to take them as evil.

Lorewise: There's a theory with some ingame lore to sustain it that the Silver Hands are a branch faction of the old Companions of before, which is the reason for their focus in collect Wuuthrad fragments and there's a banter of the group about the companions being shameful in the eyes of Ysgramor.

I personally thought the faction deserved an alternative approach (maybe with Creation CLub, who knows), but what are you ppl thoughts on this?

[Kamuizin]

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

The OP completely misses the point......
The question isn't whether the Werewolves (or any other weres) are evil, it's whether the Silver Hand are good.....

If they had just left the Companions to form a rival guild then fair enough, hell you could even make a case if they only people they targetted was the companions and werewolves....
BUT they are bandits, they openly rob members of the public to fund their group, this marks them as evil..... end of story.....

whether they are fighting a greater evil is irrelevant. they themselves are evil not good guys.

You see, i would like to know how i missed the point, the Thread title is literally "Silver Hand - Good or Bad guys".

[nidkitty]

Messaggio originale di Kamuizin:

Messaggio originale di Ragnarokia:

I think you are misusing the term "most likely", while it is possible the Silver Hands are scientists who are searching for a cure for werewolves, I think its safe to assume there are other options which are more likely.

It's all assumption in the end, cos Bethesda never cared to explore indepth their existence, which is for me the hugest flaw of the Companions quest line.

I actually agree, it feels very rushed, I believe more thought and story line could have gone into the silver hand, and the werewolves, however I guess, it's each to their own. I personally became both werewolf and vampire, but preferred being just plain old Nord. I found it all a little too much to keep on top of keeping "fed" etc, but it was fun.

I'm a pansy though, I play on easy, and enjoy time spent wandering, and side questing, so when the silver hand and werewolves quest lines were a bit rushed it was a shame.

I still love the game though 💓

[Nova Solarius]

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

Real animals kill to eat... None kill for the sake of it.

Cats.

[Shadow]

Messaggio originale di Nova Solarius:

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

Real animals kill to eat... None kill for the sake of it.

Cats.

Wolves do as well. So do regular dogs. Had some animals killed by a wandering coyote some years back too. Bears have a well deserved reputation for being dangerous and grumpy also. Plus not a year goes by where someone doesn't get gored by a buffalo in Yellowstone. Moose can be pretty dangerous too.

[Arthur two sheds Jackson]

would had been more interesting if it was companion vs vigilant, at least the vigilant have some depth to them and they do hunt werewolves but beth prefered to have a foe conveniantly only tie to the companion quest so they would not have to work on consequence and repercussion so came the bandit call the silver hand

[Shadow]

Well it's not like the silver hand's existence as a separate, more bandit like entity doesn't make sense. There's hundreds of reasons why they might not be affiliated with the vigilants, including just forming independently with no knowledge of each other.

[Eternie]

If you research in some of the Skyrim Lore to learn what happened with former leaders on the Companions there are hints as to what happened and why the Silver Hand were created. searching UESP Lore silver hand

This whole topic was developed as a character study in Classic Skyrim as a thread with an ongoing story that progressed over 4 years from 2014 written by Skyrimnut
Straag Rod ...

[Black Hammer]

The "good or bad" has to be considered in context.

The Nords are somewhat chill on violence in general. There are Nords entirely chill with their previous king being Shouted apart because a clean fight's a clean fight and while it'd be inappropriate for a regular joe to murder the king, the dragonborn and the king are both people of an elevated class. Not all Nords are this pragmatic, but you get some dialogue that implies even a few detractors of Ulfric take more umbrage with his politics than that specific act.

In view of this, the Silver Hand are somewhat cautious in most of their violence towards the Companions. Luring them out away from crowded places and loading up on weapons designed to kill werewolves suggests they're not really fanatics (they want to succeed, not die), and that they would rather avoid civilian casualties caught up in a werewolf's frenzy. Also, their familiarity with the Wuuthrad stuff is just one of several connections between them and the Companions.

[Valden21]

Messaggio originale di Kamuizin:

Messaggio originale di SpeedFreak1972:

never done those quests have you .... you can find murdered innocent people in their hide outs.

You presume too much. This isn't power ranger with black and white hard pressed on you, world has shades of gray. Everyone can be good or evil. The civil war is an excelent example, as both parties have reasons for their position, and are also guilty in several aspects.

Besides, Murdered Innocent - corpses you find - are most likely people infected with lycantropy that they killed. Torture that you describe may very well be research to create a definitive cure for lycantropy or even autopsy to understand their biology better, so they can be more effective in fight.

This isn't nowdays society, due process, right of contradictory and ample defense, human rights, this all don't exist in Skyrim. We can't mess our society morality into a game based on a magical middle age era.

To the point, i did the quest tons of times, more than i can ever count, but i never made a question of morale before, i just hack n' slash all of them normally. It's just happened to me yesterday, the moral questioning.

I'm not the only one with this question, there's a Mod called Dawn of Siler Hand that make possible ally yourself with them and fight the Companions, for example.

Torture's evil, no doubt about it. As shown by what you find in-game, the Silver Hand does this to anyone it captures, including kids. I repeat, they torture kids. Any organization with does that CANNOT be good; at best, they're going way overboard, and at worse, they're just as evil and savage as they imagine lycanthropes to be.

The reason they do this is because they're out of their minds with paranoia about lycanthropy, and that kind of fear produces fanatics. If they even get an idea that someone in a nearby village MIGHT be infected with lycanthropy, that village get put to the torch. They don't even investigate, as the mere rumor is enough. Because of this fear, they hate the Companions, even though it's only the Circle that are werewolves; most of the Companions are not part of that sub-group.

[alexander_dougherty]

Messaggio originale di Nova Solarius:

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

Real animals kill to eat... None kill for the sake of it.

Cats.

actually cats have behavioural reasons stemming from their wild ancestors, who needed to kill when they could and build up a larder for when they couldn't catch anything..... It's just we have eliminated the need for them to store the kills.... Scottish wildcats actually kill less and store extra kills in this manner.

[alexander_dougherty]

Messaggio originale di Kamuizin:

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

The OP completely misses the point......
The question isn't whether the Werewolves (or any other weres) are evil, it's whether the Silver Hand are good.....

If they had just left the Companions to form a rival guild then fair enough, hell you could even make a case if they only people they targetted was the companions and werewolves....
BUT they are bandits, they openly rob members of the public to fund their group, this marks them as evil..... end of story.....

whether they are fighting a greater evil is irrelevant. they themselves are evil not good guys.

You see, i would like to know how i missed the point, the Thread title is literally "Silver Hand - Good or Bad guys".

Because you are asking if they are good or bad based on the fact they oppose the Companions.

They are obviously Evil because of how they behave, the fact their enemy may or may not be evil does not affect how evil they themselves are.

It would be like arguing that a group of Yakuza are good guys because they at war with a group of the Mafia.... it doesn't work because both of them are criminal groups who terrorise regular people, the fact they fight each other changes nothing.... (this is hypothetical by the way)

[Kamuizin]

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

Messaggio originale di Kamuizin:

You see, i would like to know how i missed the point, the Thread title is literally "Silver Hand - Good or Bad guys".

Because you are asking if they are good or bad based on the fact they oppose the Companions.

No, i didn't. Here's, bellow, my exactly phrase on Op:

"From my pov, the silver hands are the good guys into a whole and the companions are a complex bunch of characters".

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

Messaggio originale di Kamuizin:

You see, i would like to know how i missed the point, the Thread title is literally "Silver Hand - Good or Bad guys".

They are obviously Evil because of how they behave, the fact their enemy may or may not be evil does not affect how evil they themselves are.

It would be like arguing that a group of Yakuza are good guys because they at war with a group of the Mafia.... it doesn't work because both of them are criminal groups who terrorise regular people, the fact they fight each other changes nothing.... (this is hypothetical by the way)

I tend to disagree, because "how they behave" is up for too much assumptions, but it's ok, both sides have shallow evidences to justify them as good or evil. About them being criminals in behavior, that's more on the lazy work of Betsheda than anything else, as stated before.

[alexander_dougherty]

It's a Bethesda game, unless you have a source inside bethesda who can tell you the Silverhand is more than a bunch of bandit, all you can use is the stuff in the game.

[Qua2ar]

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

It's a Bethesda game, unless you have a source inside bethesda who can tell you the Silverhand is more than a bunch of bandit, all you can use is the stuff in the game.

The silver hand are heroes, you are just to ignorant to see it, they found out about the werewolf stuff and the connection to the companions, and said: NO

[alexander_dougherty]

Messaggio originale di Qua2ar:

Messaggio originale di alexander_dougherty:

It's a Bethesda game, unless you have a source inside bethesda who can tell you the Silverhand is more than a bunch of bandit, all you can use is the stuff in the game.

The silver hand are heroes, you are just to ignorant to see it, they found out about the werewolf stuff and the connection to the companions, and said: NO

and raid settlements to fund their campaign, that is not the work of heroes....