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SPOILER INFO
Major spoiler as far as the quest In My Time of Need is concerned. Unless you already know very well who Saadia and Kematu are, please do not read this article.
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In my first game, I sided with Saadia. In the second game (that is, as Deflorator), I was really unsure as to whom to believe. Too bad the quest writer has left his work unfinished – you talk to Saadia, you talk to Kematu, and that's it. There is no way to confront Saadia with Kematu's story. Because of the gaping holes in the quest, I decided that I won't be taken for suckers. Let them fight it out their own way. I shall have no part in it.
After some time, I began having second thoughts. As to the question who was telling the truth and who was lying – I realized the game was giving me no chance of finding that out. But the question relevant to me was – whom I should support at this moment in my game? As to that second question, there were weighty arguments in Saadia's favor:
1. She is a woman, pretty much helpless as women are – her pulling a dagger on me was clearly a laughing matter, and she, a former noblewoman, is leading the modest life of a waitress. Even if she has committed horrible crimes in the past, at the present moment she appears to have neither means nor intention to do anyone any harm. She's a law-abiding citizen who makes herself useful to the community by doing honorable work.
2. The alikrs not just abandoned, but, as it would appear, sneeringly disavowed one of their own (that man in the Hviterun prison) who was "too stupid to get caught". That means the alikrs have no sense of loyalty. They may have a legitimate interest in selecting only the best to serve with them, but nevertheless, decent people don't turn their backs on people close to them. Honorable warriors don't abandon their comrades in arms. The alikrs' behavior shows that they are savage fanatics following nonsensical rules. Even if they are fighting against the Aldmeri Dominion, they're not someone whom I could respect.
So I figured that in the imaginary reality the optimal solution would be to have a serious word with Saadia. (Her refusal to discuss this matter with me was obviously due to the quest writer's sloppiness.) I would tell her that there is no point bullshitting me, I don't believe her story, I think that she is no less dirty than Kematu. But this is Hviterun and I am the thane, and I don't like some shady bandits (they may call themselves mercenaries or a holy order or a secret army, but to me they are a robber gang like any other) harass people in my city. That's why I am going to kill Kematu for her, but she and I will have a life-long agreement that she will, firstly, refrain from doing anything suspicious, and secondly, let me use her body without any grumpiness or back-talk whenever I require it. Either that or get out of my city. And in case she thinks on agreeing to my terms now, but going back on her word sometime in the future, she certainly realizes that I am perfectly able to kill her myself. (I have killed Mikael, a bard at the same inn, inhabiting the room next to hers, haven't I?) And I wouldn't hesitate to wipe her out instantly, should I find evidence of her associating with the thalmors.
My decision practically made, I still got curious and did a web search to find out if the quest has a solution after all. I found this most interesting discussion which makes things very clear.
Firstly, the quest is indeed unfinished and deliberately ambiguous. There is no way to know for sure if Saadia is guilty or not.
Secondly, circumstantial evidence points overwhelmingly at Saadia's being guilty:
1. Hammerfell is hostile to Aldmeri Dominion, so it's not believable that she would have been condemned to death for criticizing the latter.
2. If she was an enemy of the thalmors, it is unlikely that she would have chosen Skyrim (where the thalmors are rather powerful) as a refuge.
3. It is very unlikely that the thalmors would have hired Redguards to hunt down an enemy of theirs.
The third argument is weak. Her story makes it very clear that she is not hunted by the thalmors but by the powers in Hammerfell loyal to the thalmors. Nevertheless, if she is an enemy of the thalmors, the latter should be after her independently as well.
The second argument is not necessarily deciding – it is perfectly thinkable that she found someone who would help her get to Hviterun and she had no chance to escape anywhere else quickly enough, and now she's stuck in Hviterun and it would be too risky for her to travel.
But the first argument is damning. I have to trust the writers on the forums to have told the truth about the Hammerfell-Aldmeri relations, as I am certainly not going to research that. But it sounds credible, because several people said it and no one argued against it.
Overall, there were some very interesting arguments in that discussion which I would like to comment on.
Some people wrote that Saadia pulled a dagger on you while Kematu talked to you in a civilized manner. It is quite amazing how some men (for men they are, of that I am certain) understand people's behavior so poorly that they base their decisions on formal external circumstances. One of them actually wrote "Saadia acts very hostile and aggressive". How psychologically blind can a person get? Is there really a player in the world who actually feels threatened by Saadia in that situation? That dagger thing is comparable to a small child hitting you with a fist. It's cute, not threatening. You laugh instead of taking offence. Saadia's pulling the dagger is an obvious emotional reaction of a cornered, frightened, panicked woman. She knows she has no chance, and once you tell her calmly to put that thing away before she'll get hurt, she apologizes and pleads for your help. Her saying that there is no one she could trust is a rather obvious lie, but it sounds like a normal thing a woman would say to a man whom she is asking for help, so that's not a ground for suspecting her either. As to Kematu being civilized (one retard in the forum siding with Kematu said outright "it comes down to manner[s]"), he is faced with the obvious fact that you have just killed a caveful of rather strong bandits (the ones camped between his location and the cave entrance). He knows he's in big trouble, so he tries to talk his way out of it. Neither Saadia's nor Kematu's behavior has nothing to do with the presence or absence of hostility. To bring an analogy from the real world, when an Italian man is shouting at you and a Japanese man is smiling at you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have more to fear from the former than from the latter.
Someone wrote how it was so suspicious that Saadia knew about one of the alikrs being imprisoned, and how that was one of the reasons to suspect she was a spy of sorts. That is an outright idiotic thing to say. Of course the imprisonment of a Redguard intruder would be town gossip and as a woman working at an inn she would inevitably get to hear it.
It is incredible that several people suggest that the alikrs are kind of honorable warriors, at the same time admitting that they are mercenaries. Mercenaries kill whomever they are paid to kill. They have their useful purpose, but they are very loosely connected with the concept of honor. "The [alikrs] are definitely more organized than a rabble of bandits" is an irrelevant argument. Mafia is very well organized. That doesn't mean they're not thieves and murderes. On the other hand, those repeated references to alikrs in connection with the nouns such as "values", "honor" and "loyalty" remind me of an otherwise extremely interesting book whose author, a British soldier in Iraq, makes a bombastic remark or two to the effect "I'm a proud Brit, I'm a loyal soldier of my country, I will give my everything to do what I'm paid for ". So maybe that is what the English-speaking world understands under honor and loyalty.
My final verdict is that I will (in the imaginary reality) have that talk with Saadia and kill Kematu for her, but not too soon. Let her fret a bit. And I totally admit that if she weren't a pretty woman, I would put this matter to rest. It just is a biological fact that pretty women can provide for us men significantly more value than men or ugly women, so they correspondingly get more from us. It's life.
P.S. In my next game where I played a woman, I followed a different kind of reasoning.
[originally published 2017-02-21]
