Still playing Skyrim. And I’m interested to report that the game is actually better than I remember, on balance. But I’m kind of fascinated by what’s going on with Lydia, mechanically and narratively.

Lydia is the first follower who gets shoved in your face just by virtue of following the main quest. There are others you can pick up earlier, but not without finishing errands (for Faendal and Sven), by forking up a pretty big chunk of change for the early game by hiring Janessa, or by going out of your way in some other manner. If you’re completely new to the game and you’re just powering through the main story as it’s presented, she’s the first option for a follower that the game highlights for you in giant blinking neon lights. And as a quest reward, she’s mechanically kind of a godsend at that point in the story; a doubling of carry capacity, an excellent meat shield and distraction, a way to extract utility from weapons and armor you don’t want to use yourself. More subjectively she provides the impression of a stalwart ally or companion in what can be a very lonely worldspace to exist in. There’s very little reason not to take her with you, and once you have her, the majority of companions being equal, there’s very little reason to get rid of her until she stops level scaling.

Despite the mechanical utility Lydia provides at a crucial point, and the resultant likelyhood that you’ll haul her along for the ride, she’s only a couple steps up from the companion cube. She has no specific, non-fungible impact on the narrative beyond demonstrating Jarl Balgruuf’s favor. Her deferral to you is automatic; if someone is actively paying her a salary to help you defile graves, cut deals with every deity on the continent and invade the afterlife, it sure as hell isn’t you. It isn’t clear what her gig under Balgruuf was before she was assigned to you. She has no personal narrative. She has no personal side quest. One of her biggest inklings of personality is when she expresses vague dissatisfaction with being treated as a pack mule, but then she does it anyway.  She’s party to world-shaking events and political upheavals, but she’s present purely in her capacity as your appendix, so reality simply treats her as your plus-one. 

She’ll block doors you’re trying to get through, and she’ll get mad at you if you push her out of the way. She’ll charge into battle or set off traps while you’re trying to sneak. She’ll microaggress you with stock Nord dialogue while pulverizing your enemies, a plurality of whom are also Nords. She’ll distract bosses long enough to buy you breathing room for a healing spell or a potion. You’ll kill her by accident with an ill-timed area-of-effect spell, roll your eyes, and, ultimately, probably reload your save. Because she might only be a couple steps up from a companion cube, but the whole gag with the companion cube is how ridiculously low the threshold is for the audience to get genuinely attached to something in a video game. A thin character invites apophenia. Behaviors that are purely downstream of dev thoughtlessness will still imply character traits if taken at Watsonian Face Value. In this case, inexplicable undying loyalty, reserved comments on impressive landmarks, and comical stoicism in the face of some of the weirdest events it’s conceptually possible to encounter.  So here’s to weird, underbaked companions in Bethesda Games, and everything we can project onto the void they provide. And Here’s to that related genus of character- units in squad-based tactics or management-sim games with permadeath mechanics who last long enough and accumulate enough equipment, skill points, etc. that they become your Special Little Guy despite otherwise lacking any deliberate character traits.

Dragonborn: They hate me because they want to be me

Lydia: Or because of the atrocities you commit

Dragonborn: You shut the fuck up

someone get this girl a hairdresser please

dragonborn accidentally stumbles upon a lil guy who turns out to be a demiprince and becomes dadborn to said lil guy, thoughts?

Oh I have some thoughts

The Dragonborn, in fact, went into eight more caves before he got back on track.

Lucien: "Must have been a lot of bad stuff to make someone turn to banditry. I feel sorry for them."

Lydia literally after Lucien said that: "Bandits are cowards."

Erandur: "Bandits deserve no mercy. They would steal from their own mothers if given the chance."

Teldryn: "Damn bandits are worse than the vermin that invest the ashwastes back home."

Me: "Okay guys can you stop ganging up on Lucien?"

Awwwww Lydia.

mods that let your followers revive you

When the whole team is resistant to cold, except for you

Lydia

My partner is playing Skyrim and he keeps referring to Lydia as Labia

LYDIA: I am sworn to carry your burdens.

DRAGONBORN: Here is all my student loan debt.

Lydia my beautiful door-blocking wife 💙

capturing odahviing is much easier without followers. lydia, stop knocking the dragon out, he needs to be able to walk to the trap

Ik I already posted part of this, but here is the full character sheet all together :]