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SPOILER INFO
Very minor spoiler. This article discusses the behavior of one NPC in Roriksted.
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In the village of Roriksted, there is that farm where an elf woman named Reldith is working. When I spoke to her for the first time, I chose the dialogue option "Your farm is doing very well. You must be proud." To my utter astonishment, she got angry and suggested I was sneering at her and informed me she was indeed proud and rightfully so. I was deeply shocked. Why did a nice compliment get her so hostile?
Eventually it dawned to me – in the English-speaking world today, "pride" is a four-letter word (unless, of course, preceded by the word "gay"). Thousands of new-age books and websites tell us that we have to be humble. To be proud is evil.
The developers of Skyrim are apparently so thoroughly inculcated that they assume "you must be proud" to be an insult. Maybe they even designed the character Reldith to be deliberately provocative. Maybe they think it's an act of great courage to suggest that it's okay to be proud.
Yeah, maybe it is in a country like the USA.
[originally published 2017-10-12]
