Do I Have Anything Interesting To Say Today?

No. Because I’m playing Skyrim. That’s why.

Although, while I am enjoying the game, I feel there is at least one thing that I should point out. This is the typical “strong man” character model for Skyrim.

Do you see those arms? Do you know who had arms like that?

He's got two tickets to the sword show

This guy. Who, by the way, had all the benefits of modern medicine (including steroids), an excellent diet, and weight-lifting regimens to use to get those (fabulous?) arms. I can assume that the characters in Skyrim or wherever did not. I don’t know, maybe they have magical anabolic steroids or something, but my money would be that Arnold would have the better body. I could be wrong, though. Dragon dong might be an awesome way to pump up those muscles.

But when I see characters that look like that all over the place, I have a problem. My problem is not that you encounter men like Arnold while playing Skyrim. I am ok with there being super-strong and stylized Nordic warriors. Hell, the Germans and Gauls were known to the Romans to be particularly strong and well-muscled. That’s not my problem. The problem is that ALMOST EVERY MAN looks, not strong, but like Arnold. The entire male population (unless you’re a mage, and who wants to go out with a weedy, no sync-kill mage?) looks like they can bench press a Volkswagon. The guards at Whitehall look like they eat barbells for breakfast and could choke out a dragon with their thighs.

I don’t care that much because it is a game, but it’s worth pointing out. Much like movies are portraying a reality that actually isn’t, games also portray environments that are completely created. The designers really wanted the characters who populate Skyrim to look like hulking he-men, which is worth keeping in mind. How we shape our imaginary worlds does suggest how we’d shape our actual world if we so could. Oh, and of course this applies to women too. Have a bar wench.

The best part is when you see females wearing clothes like this in a blizzard

Just some free historical consulting for Bethesda: pre-modern peasants and even warriors tended…not to look like Arnold or Swedish babes.

That peasant is two seconds away from power-bombing King Arthur

That said, Skyrim is awesome. And if you’ll excuse me, I think Whitehall is under attack from dragons.

Again.