Stormcloaks Or Empire (One Of The Three Certainties Of Life)

[veti]

The orcs aren't racist at all, reasoned or otherwise. They're isolationist. They do not discriminate based on racial features, they discriminate based on in/out group.

And if you're an orc, you're in. How is that "not racist"?

Proventus is, indeed, a prejudiced individual. Tullius does not appear to be motivated by racial prejudice, just disdain for those he views as traitors.

Specifically - all Nords:

"You people and your damn Jarls."
"You Nords and your bloody sense of honor."
"Don't you Nords put any stock in your own traditions?"
"Well Ulfric, you can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to... to wherever you people go when you die."

If Ulfric habitually used phrases like "you people" or "you $RACE", you'd be all over it. But he doesn't. Why are you giving Tullius a pass?

Another of his quotes I particularly like: "Without us to keep order, the provinces would fall into barbarism and lawlessness." But you can see for yourself, Stormcloak holds aren't noticeably more barbaric or lawless than Imperial ones. There's no shortage of bandits/etc. in either.

Their entire platform is built on "returning to the old ways". That is, by definition, regressive.

No. Again with the Imperial propaganda. "The old ways" would mean loyalty to the Empire (Alvor: "Skyrim has always been part of the Empire. That doesn't mean I support everything the Empire's been doing lately, but Nords have never been fair-weather friends." Jora: "Talos, who in life was known as Tiber Septim, united Tamriel and founded the Empire.") Loyalty to the Empire, now there's a regressive idea if anything is.

I've already explained why that is.

I've scoured back up through the thread, and I can only imagine you're referring to this:

The corruption being the rleevant part. Maven doesn't believe in Stormcloak ideals, she aligns with the Stormcloaks because she doesn't wanna pay taxes.

... which I didn't address at the time, because frankly I can't see any point at which it touches upon recognisable reality, unless possibly the last five words. Maven doesn't align with the Stormcloaks, she's Imperial through and through, and at least some of Riften's people can see that even before she becomes the Imperial jarl. (Vulwulf Snow-Shod: "That's what happens when you're partners with a corrupt Imperial whore like Maven.") And since when does "corruption" lead to racial harmony and integration? Markarth is just as corrupt as Riften, and almost as bigoted as Windhelm.

In fact, it strikes me that Markarth and Riften might have been designed to be mirror images of each other. They're each the second cities of their respective factions, and the jarls of each seem stunningly oblivious to the fact that their political opponents are also manipulating their local organised crime factions.

But I digress. Your "explanation" of why Riften is racially harmonious is - because it's corrupt? You're going to have to break that down a bit more for me. Besides, now I've got this very distracting image in my mind of Maven Black-Briar as some kind of crusading civil-rights leader, and I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant...

I'll also address this part of your earlier post:

People keep bringing up that last part as if it matters. Bethesda no longer has the balls to have NPCs discriminate based on race and choices. That's it. that's the only reason.

Windhelm is a dirty, mismanaged ****hole on its best day. The non-human races are largely oppressed or absent. Argonians and Khajiit can't even enter the city AT ALL, Dunmer are forced to live in a ghetto, Altmer get by primarily on the privilege of money, and Bosmer and Orcs are entirely absent from the city as I recall.

That's the paradigm the Stormcloaks want everywhere

Except that it's not a policy they implement. Not anywhere. There is no change to the racial mix or treatment of any of the cities when the Stormcloaks take over. And Stormcloak Riften is arguably the most integrated city in the whole country. You can't just write that off as some kind of aberration, because it's their second city. Without Riften there is no "Stormcloak faction", just a single stronghold.

An issue with this discussion is that I cannot draw on the very clear real world parallels at play to illustrate my point, but the talking points you're using are...disturbing in how familiar they are.

If you can't put "real world parallels" out of your mind, that might explain why you're finding it so hard to see what's real in the world we're actually discussing. Maybe the "parallels" aren't as clear as you think.