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SPOILER INFO
No spoiler, really, just the description of a bug in the Skyrim game which I think you'll want to know how to deal with.
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If you have had followers in Skyrim, you have surely noticed how those dumb pieces of skirt love to stand precisely in doorways so that you can't pass through. I mean, regular NPCs do it as well, but that is not a big problem because soon they will go about their business. But your follower thinks that as long as you are near (which you are because you want to go to the other room), her place is precisely in the doorway.
I am especially allergic to that, as I had a girlfriend in the real world who was near-perfect otherwise but had the annoying habit of constantly getting in my way like cats do. What made it worse – when I gave to understand that I wanted to pass, she wouldn't step aside. Instead, she sensed telepathically where I wanted to go, and took a couple of steps in precisely that direction, so after I had taken a couple of steps, she was again blocking my way. It was so irritating.
Now, she wouldn't stand in a doorway forever like Skyrim girls do. It's just that the Skyrim girls' persistent blocking of my way reminded me of that girlfriend and that's why it got me more furious than many other annoyances in Skyrim.
It came to a head in one of the dungeons where there was a small room with a locked door. I unlocked the door and went in. When I wanted to exit, I found one of my girls blocking the doorway. When you are in a bigger room, you can walk into the farther corner and that usually makes the follower in the doorway move a little, so you'll get a chance of rushing past her before she will block the doorway again. But here there was no room to go anywhere. Changing the stance to sneak did not help. Hitting her did not help. She would whine, but not budge an inch. I can hardly imagine a sillier way of dying – you stand in a little room in a gods-forsaken dungeon full of dead creatures, doomed to slowly die of thirst because of a person who is eager to do anything for you apart from moving away from a doorway.
Of course I could have gained exit by beating her to death, but I chose to reload a recent save and go in and out of that room so quickly that neither of my followers had the time to block the doorway.
But at that point I realized that the problem had become intolerable. I needed to find a solution. In Fallout, there was a right-click choice of non-aggressively pushing a person away from your path. There is nothing like that in Skyrim. So I began to search forum articles.
Apart from platitudes ("move to the farthest corner of the room" – and what if the room is too small, smartass, and don't you think I figured that out on my own?) and nonsense ("change to sneak mode, then she will move a little" – no, you fucking moron, she won't), there was one brilliant advice. Shout! OMG. That dude's a genius. Remember that first shout you learned, and with all the pomp and fanfare accompanying it, you thought you were a superman now, only to find out that that supposedly world-shattering gift was completely useless in combat? Well, it has a use after all – when you cast that shout at your follower who is blocking the doorway, she will actually move aside and you can get past!!!
That was amazing. I wonder if the gods (or elves or dwarves or whoever) created that shout for precisely the purpose of clearing doorways of stupid chicks. At any rate, it is just perfect for it.
Much later I accidentally came across another, arguably a simpler solution. Hold down W, moving into the follower. You won't be moving forward because she is standing in your way. Nevertheless, hold the W key down. At the same time, move your mouse a little to the left and a little to the right. After a few seconds, she begins to hesitantly move. Continue holding down W and shaking the mouse left and right, and eventually you will get past her.
What I still don't understand is: WHY THE FUCK did the Bethesda rat bastards make them stand exactly in the doorway in the first place??
It is also astonishing that none of creators of those follower mods with their elaborate arsenals of commands haven't bothered to do something about this so frequently occurring and so annoying bug. Most mind-bogglingly, I have seen a couple of mods that make it possible for you to determine a minimal distance your followers have to keep from each other (even separately for various situations: combat, non-combat, IN DOORWAYS), but at the time of reposting this article, there are still no mods that would let you order your followers to keep a certain minimal distance from you.
So, praised be the Eight-and-a-half for giving us Unrelenting Force, one of the few dragon shouts there's actually a meaningful use for!
[originally published 2016-11-08]
