Skyrim Amnesia Problem

In Skyrim, there are nine holds, each with their own jarl. In a typical playthrough, the Civil War questline will cause some of these jarls to be deposed and exiled. Generally, if the Dragonborn sides with the Stormcloaks, then the western jarls who supported the Empire lose their positions and live in exile in the Blue Palace in the city of Solitude. If the Dragonborn sides with the Empire, then the Stormcloak-aligned jarls can be found living in exile in the Palace of Kings in Windhelm. I usually side with the Stormcloaks, but I've taken both routes multiple times.

In my most recent playthrough, I did something I normally don't do: I rushed through the main questline and finished it without starting the Civil War at all. Players who reach a certain point in the main questline before resolving the Civil War get a specific quest called "Season Unending." In this quest, the Dragonborn needs to convince the jarl of Whiterun to help capture a dragon in a trap. But the jarl of Whiterun only agrees to this if both sides in the Civil War can negotiate a temporary truce, ostensibly because it would be too dangerous for this large city, situated awkwardly in the middle of Skyrim and wedged between the two warring factions, to devote its resources to this dragon capture project.

One of the mechanics of Season Unending involves negotiation over control of territory between the Empire and the Stormcloaks. When one side gains control of a hold that the other side previously held, the old jarl goes into exile and the other side's appointed jarl takes over. Because the Civil War can later be completed at any time, this has the consequence that for most starting jarls in the game, it is possible for them to lose their throne in the Season Unending negotiations and go into exile, to learn the identity of their usurper, and then to retake their throne once their side seizes control of it again during the Civil War. The game does not really put much thought into these cases, but some of them are written such that they actually make sense. Some of them are too awkward, though, and I'd argue constitute plot holes. One of them is ridiculous and ruins what could have been a good story with blatant, inexplicable amnesia. I'll go through the nine holds in a rough west-to-east fashion, breaking this down...

Haafingar

Elisif is the one jarl who never gets deposed in the game no matter what, so no worries there. That comes with the caveat that she's a puppet for the Empire and can, if the Stormcloaks win the war, switch to being a puppet for Ulfric at the end of the Civil War. But hey, she stays jarl either way, so no issues for our purposes.

The Reach

So this one is easy on the surface, but actually quite weird. Igmund is the starting jarl and supports the Empire. However, he's between a rock and a hard place. The Silver-Blood family are the wealthiest people in his hold, owning much of the property and with agents of their openly controlling infrastructure that should theoretically be in the purview of Understone Keep. Their eldest family member and ostensible leader, Thongvor, hangs out in the jarl's lobby openly praising Ulfric and Talos and basically calling Igmund an elf-loving, milk-drinking, little bitch for refusing to listen to him about that stuff. Meanwhile, Thalmor actively patrol Markarth and the hold, hunting for secret Talos-worshippers because the White-Gold Concordat empowers them to do so and the Empire isn't allowed to interfere, all while Thongvor flips the bird at them from like 90 feet away. On top of all that, there's an ongoing rebellion in the hold by the native Breton daedra-worshippers, the "Forsworn."

Oh, but the plot thickens! Thongvor's younger brother, Thonar, has the Forsworn's leader held in a prison cell and is secretly using the Forsworn as political destabilizers in order to strengthen his family's position and act covertly against his enemies. To put it bluntly, the political situation presented in Markarth. This doesn't really make sense and leads to an especially awkward questline in which the Dragonborn investigates a "conspiracy" involving the Forsworn, only to eventually realize it's just Thonar ordering their imprisoned leader to write letters ordering his followers to do stuff, which the guy does for no real reason. The writing here needed some revisions, to say the least. Really the entire Forsworn aspect of the game is severely underdeveloped. However, for this specific issue, it isn't really a problem: Ingmund would not be in the least shocked that Thongvor would take over as jarl if the Stormcloaks gained control of the Reach because the Silver-Bloods are so influential anyway and Thongvor has been on a soap box about this constantly. If he was too cowed by the Silver-Bloods to act against Thongvor before the takeover, he'd be unlikely to act against the former jarl after the Empire reclaimed the Reach. If anything, he'd rather deal with a blustering Thongvor than a devious Thonar, assuming the younger brother wasn't already killed by the Forsworn and the Dragonborn.

Is Ingmund's apparent willingness to leave the Silver-Bloods alone even after he returns to power and the Civil War is viable as a plot point? Well, it's a bit shaky, but it's sort of defensible. And considering the far worse story issues with Markarth, I'll give this one a begrudging pass.

Falkreath

Siddgeir already deposed the previous jarl, his uncle Dengeir, in a soft coup. The hold was under Imperial control and there was concern that Dengeir was too much of a Stormcloak sympathizer, so they orchestrated the change with the excuse that Dengeir was old and frail and needed to step down for his health. It comes as a shock to absolutely no one that Dengeir is plotting a Stormcloak takeover and reascends to his former position once the Empire are driven out of the hold. And if it's handed over during the Season Unending negotiations and then won back by the Empire, it's no shock that Siddgeir would claim the throne again either. No problems there.

Falkreath's family feud aspect totally justifies the way the in-game mechanics present this. No issues. Easy pass.

Hjaalmarch

This hold is kind of a backwater region with nothing going for it. The initial jarl, Idgrod Ravencrone, nominally supports the Empire, probably more because of the proximity of Solitude and the legion than because she actually cares about the war. She's a weird old mystic who actually makes a show of not being invested in the war. The Stormcloaks can't even find a suitable replacement jarl in the hold capital because it's such a shithole. So they recruit a competent middle-manager in the mining industry from one of the outlying villages in the hold and install her as jarl. Sorli the Builder initially lives in Stonehills and runs Rockwallow Mine. She's not a vocal or notable Stormcloak supporter, and mostly just seems to work for the owner of the mine: Bryling, a thane in Solitude.

Now, I'd think that if jarl Idgrod was ousted in the negotiations and then returned from exile, that she'd banish Sorli the Builder from Hjaalmarch entirely. That wouldn't even really be a spiteful act. It would just be necessary to make sure there was no confusion about who's in charge. Sorli just goes back to Stonehills instead of into exile. However, this could be explained away as either Idgrod being too much of a navel-gazing weirdo to banish Sorli or Bryling, wanting Sorli reinstalled in in her old job running Rockwallow Mine.

I don't think I'd quite give this one a pass, but the problem is pretty minor, and there are potential explanations. Idgrod's aloof nature makes it easy to rationalize what was probably just underdevelopment.

Whiterun

Uniquely, this hold starts out in a neutral position. Whiterun hold is bordered by six other holds, three of them controlled by the Empire and three of them controlled by the Stormcloaks. The jarl of Whiterun initially refuses to take either side, and even if the Dragonborn does take a side in the Civil War, the game uses Balgruuf's hesitation to force the player to advance the main questline to the point that dragon attacks are triggered. Ultimately, he always sides with the Empire, and can never lose control of his hold during Season Unending. If the Dragonborn sides with the Stormcloaks, then Vignar Greymane replaces him as jarl. If Vignar is jarl during Season Unending, he is never made to give up his throne either.

Because of the unique position of Whiterun, it's impossible for the initial jarl to be deposed and then returned to power. He either never loses his throne at all, or loses it to Vignar Greymane permanently. And that means Balgruuf never has a chance to use his power as jarl to retaliate against Vignar's perceived treachery. No problem here because the only way Balgruuf loses his throne is if the Dragonborn sides with the Stormcloaks and takes the city during the Civil War, which goes past the point of no return. Balgruuf is wroth with Vignar as a usurper, but never gets the chance to take his throne back. And the Dragonborn sides with the Empire, Balgruuf never loses his throne and Vignar is just an old guy who hangs out in Jorvasker and talks shit about the White Gold Concordat.

This one gets a clean pass. Technically, there is a wrinkle in the Stormcloak victory scenario involving Balgruuf's children. He has three of them, and they don't move to the Blue Palace with him. If asked, Balgruuf mentions that his children are in hiding from Vignar, but they're actually easy to find within Dragonsreach. This seems to be because Mephala's daedric arifact quest, The Whispering Door, was originally planned to be more involved and to make specific use of these children. In the final version of the game, only one child is involved, and it's pretty cursory. The quest doesn't really make sense if completed following the Stormcloak takeover, but it's a shitty quest anyway.

The Pale

Skald is a staunch Stormcloak supporter, but he's super old and politically volatile and unpopular. Brina Merilis wears her Imperial allegiance on her sleeve, but also has a somewhat popular local following and shows political savvy. She's the obvious choice for the Empire to install as a new jarl. If Skald is deposed in negotiations and then restored in a Stormcloak takeover, it is a bit surprising that Brina basically goes back to her old ways as though nothing ever happened.

Maybe Skald is too much of a self-centered old coot to notice her? Or maybe Ulfric's network finds her presence in Dawnstar useful. She's a public figure with known Imperial loyalty and no actual political power. She's safely contained in Dawnstar and it's not like they don't know whom to spy on.

I give this one a narrow pass, but it's definitely underdeveloped. If the Dragonborn never visits Dawnstar until after Skald is deposed, then Brina Merilis is officially jarl, but the game never acts like it because Skald is exiled to the Palace of Kings and is unable to be in position for the introductory dialogue. So it's kinda possible to just glitch this woman out of ever becoming jarl. They should have at least made her dialogue different if she becomes a former jarl!

Eastmarch

Another non-issue, as Windhelm is the seat of power for the Stormcloak rebellion. Ulfric only loses his throne if he is killed in the Civil War. Then the Empire installs Brunwulf Free-Winter as the new jarl, but Ulfric is never in a position to know that, having lost his life before it happened. If the player sides with the Stormcloaks or never finishes the Civil War questline at all, then Ulfric keeps his throne. If he suspects that Brunwulf is an Imperial supporter living in his city walls, he never acts on it. My impression is that Brunwulf wasn't even really an Imperial agent in the first place, but simply the best figurehead the Empire could prop up in Windhelm on short notice to serve as their figurehead for the hold.

Winterhold

This is another hold with glaring unrelated issues. In this case, the core problem is simpler than for Markarth, but arguably worse. The city of Winterhold was destroyed during the Great Collapse, so in true Bethesda fashion, it looks like shambled ruins except for the College. That was almost 80 years ago! So it should be the case that the city hasn't regained its former glory, but that ruins are nonexistent outside of dedicated memorial sites, the city having been rebuilt into something that looks like an undamaged city, not a husk. Because Skyrim renders Winterhold as though the Great Collapse destroyed the city just a year or so ago instead of 80 years ago, there are almost no buildings to speak of and the population of the capital city is small even compared to Morthal! The developers went all-in on making this city a convenient on-ramp to the unaffiliated (despite its name) College of Winterhold, Skyrim's analog to the Mage's Guild.

Korir is an odd jarl. He's a Stormcloak supporter, but mostly he's a College detractor. He's apparently so unpopular with the other Stormcloak jarls that if he is exiled, he moves in with Brunwulf Free-Winter of all people, and isn't welcome in the palace with the other deposed jarls. There is no explanation for this, ever. The Imperial replacement jarl, Kraldar, is one of the least active jarls in the game, but apparently is friend with Savos Aren, archmage of the College of Winterhold. If Korir regains his throne, Kraldar actually does get banished from Winterhold, shrinking is population just a little bit more, but for some reason he moves into thane Erikur's house in Solitude instead of into the Blue Palace. Again, there's no explanation for this, ever. 

Despite how these jarls are boring and somewhat buggy, this one gets a pass. Actually, it's better than that. We have a true case of a usurper jarl being banished from the hold once the original jarl is returned to power.

The Rift 

I didn't save this one for last just because it's the easternmost hold. This one represent by far the biggest problem for Season Unending. Laila Law-Giver, the starting jarl, is aristocratic, but politically aware. She supports the Stormcloaks over the Empire, but openly expresses concern about Ulfric himself. She seems to take an active role in managing her hold and in trying to ensure that the war isn't hard on her own people. She is aware of the crime problem in Riften, but is regularly fed false reports by her steward Anuriel, who was planted by the Thieves Guild and Maven Black-Briar. Despite evidently not being stupid, she is constantly coaxed by Anuriel and Maven herself and manipulated into allowing the crime syndicate to continue its operations unimpeded. Laila remains worried, but trusts that Anuriel, Maven, and her guards have things in Riften under control, and that the rumors are worse than the reality. If the Dragonborn joins the Thieves Guild, it becomes possible to see just how wrong Laila is about all that.

If the Empire gains control of the Rift in Season Unending, Laila and Anuriel are both banished from the hold. Either the developers forgot that Anuriel was a spy or they wanted her cover to really be that deep.  Maven stops scheming in the shadows and actively takes over the city, having used her connections to position herself as the Empire's chosen replacement jarl. Laila expresses regret at how she was played for a fool. She owns her own role in this, lamenting that her complacency and misplaced trust will make things worse for Riften. And then if the Stormcloaks retake the Rift, Maven and her family move back into her old mansion like nothing ever happened and Laila retakes her throne. She does not retaliate against Anuriel or Maven in any way and seems to have forgotten their betrayal.

Some of the others are awkward, but the Rift? That one just breaks immersion. Based on the character development presented her, a reascendant Laila should be a real threat to the Black-Briars. Sure, we could rationalize that the family are too entrenched and powerful like their Silver-Blood counterparts in Markarth, but this case is different. Maven has Imperial connections and even Thalmor connections. The Stormcloaks aren't going to just shrug and say, "Oh, I guess she's too rich for us to do anything about her. Guess we just pretend nothing happened."

No, in a scenario where the mask is pulled off, Laila has to change. The Black-Briars should definitely be banished at the very least, and Laila should show an entirely different approach to how the city tackles the Thieves Guild problem. Instead, it's like she has amnesia.

The reason that the Rift was handled in this hamfisted way is obvious enough. Maven Black-Briar is involved in multiple quests, especially Thieves Guild quests, and those quests are written to work whether Maven is either a local tycoon and mobster or the jarl herself. But they never bothered to figure out how to make all of those quests work if Maven is a deposed usurper, so they just, well, didn't. They gave Laila video game amnesia.

However, this sucks for storytelling and does Riften dirty. In Solitude, we get a young widow as a figurehead. In Markarth, the conflict is a tense situation with multiple factions making their own power grabs. In Falkreath, we see the war play out between members of one family, uncle against nephew. In Morthal, the conflict is mysticism and portents against pragmatic administration. In Whiterun, we see political neutrality tested under fire. In Dawnstar, we see a military organization choose one of its own veterans to replace a geriatric local ruler. In Windhelm, we can see Ulfric's rebellion either fall and die or graduate to full stewardship of the nation. In Winterhold, we see two old heirs to two old family lineages struggling for power over a husk of a once-great city. But story of the two jarls of the Rift is a story of betrayal and of revelation. When Maven stops lurking in the shadows and actually takes the throne, Laila sees that her trust was tragically misplaced, and that it's now too late to stop it. So if the Stormcloaks retake Riften and Laila gets a second chance? Things would be different. They'd have to be different. And implementing changes for that specific scenario was apparently too much. So instead we just break immersion. 

Stacking mythologies

People my age never actually experienced the 1960's, but have a sort of culturally mythologized version of the shifting landscape of that time. Most Americans around my age were taught a mythological version of 1950's Americana. It was represented as this post-WWII golden age. And the crap that came after it ruined paradise: Walmart, McDonald's, hippies, etc.

So then a lot of these folks came to reject that lionization of the 1950's, to view it as poisonous. They countered with a different mythology, that the 1950's were a time when everyone was racist, when no one was stopping the destruction of the environment, when everything was too expensive, a time of social repression, etc. But they already internalized some of the old myth, and that never really went away. And that includes the reflex against the encroachment of 1960's institutions.

Many of these same people have another myth about Walmart and McDonald's, one born of a 1990's backlash against consumerism. In this myth, Walmart and McDonald's are akin to archetypes of corporate exploitation and race-to-the-bottom capitalism.

The emotional weight of these stacking mythologies worries me. Too many people have taken something with a coherent economic history and mythologized it into a locust swarm. Walmart and McDonald's really did spread very rapidly in the 1960's, for reasons that we actually can know a whole lot about. Instead of trying to learn the real reasons for this, which might be important, they already have their explanation: it's because these are corrupting forces, and they spread across a virgin landscape.

Myths don't always leave much room for nuance, and when you start stacking them on top of each other, there's even less.

Crap from Facebook for December 27th, 2025

This is just my 2¢ as a nonbinary person but I genuinely think that cis people's gender is just as constructed as trans people's. Cis people love to accuse us of having making up genders or artificially modifying our appearance but...the entire makeup, fashion, diet, workout, and haircare industry exists so that cis people can maintain the illusion of two entirely distinct genders with no overlap.

Everybody is constantly doing drag, all the time.

Even though the internet has been inexplicably force-feeding me drivel about gender for the past 14 years, I manage to resist posting the vast majority of this crap on my blog. You're welcome. But this one is pithy and hits the same spot that I've been trying to ignore for too long now, so let's take it down. It'll be easy.

Hey, 2¢ person, the difference between your concept of gender and mine can best be illustrated by the following hypothetical. If we were to go back to any time and any place on the globe and talk to people from any background prior to 2011, language barrier aside, they'd nod along and express that yes, they too know all of this stuff. It's common knowledge. In contrast, if we did the same with you, they'd think you were totally insane.

We might be able to carve out some sort of exception involving ivory tower academics, but probably not. Oh, I can go and read some other pretty bizarre remarks from those guys circa 1990 or whatever, but even those enterprising individuals would be baffled at the notion that haircare or diet are tools used to prop up the illusion of a gender binary.

The one aspect of this that disturbs me is that all of those people in the past would be wrong about something here, because, most likely, you actually aren't totally insane. Oh, you've got issues. But you've been able to become acclimated to a society in which posting this unhinged crap online is relatively normal. The Overton Window has shifted so far that your position, one which would have been a clear sign of some pathology for most of human history, is now just annoying.

Crap from Facebook for November 17th, 2025

I just heard a discussion about the biggest military recruiting tool, and I froze.

While I was on active duty, I said this to anyone who would listen. And almost nobody did.

Here it is--

We give soldiers and sailors something America won't give its citizens: steady income, healthcare, and food security.

That is called "Socialism."

We go into impoverished neighborhoods and sell this socialism to the poor.

Many see that as their best option.

Then we send these young people to the far reaches of the planet to push the letter of capitalism in an envelope of democracy.

The Soldiers of Socialism.

Stupid statements about socialism are so commonplace that the old phrase "a dime a dozen" constitutes overkill, even with inflation. This isn't the first time I've encountered "the military is socialism." More typically, I see "public works is socialism." The thing about these silly big-tent arguments that makes me sad is that they actually aren't part of the normal socialist playbook. You wouldn't catch a dyed-in-the-wool revolutionary spouting this crap. Converted bourgeois nepo-babies, academic misanthropes, or actual impoverished proles don't think to try to achieve socialism by redefining it to include everything. No, this talking point always comes from cringeworthy normie liberal progressive types who drifted politically from "democracy" to "democratic socialism" and who have never had to contend with these issues seriously.

To these people, the horrors of actual socialist regimes don't even count because that wasn't real socialism anyway. In their minds, socialism isn't bad stuff like gulags and secret police. It's good stuff like public libraries, and the only problem is that there isn't enough of it. Good stuff scales infinitely, so we just need to promote more of it and everything will be good, not bad. It would be silly to include the bad stuff, so we just wouldn't do it.

This isn't some exaggeration on my part for comedic effect. They are 100% that naive. I know because I've met them. I've spoken with them, sometimes at length. Actual socialists see them as useful idiots, while quietly holding them in contempt.
 

Crap from Facebook for September 19th, 2025

This one is a screenshot of text in a white field that is itself set against a photo of the Sonoran Desert, with several saguaro cacti and what appears to be a palo verde tree off to the side. Not sure why it's the background image for this, but here we are. I'll quote the lines from the screenshot in green and post my own commentary beneath each on... 

If I say, "ketchup is the worst," that's just an opinion.

A wrong opinion! But yes. 

If I say, "people who like ketchup are idiots," that's bullying.

No, that's still just an opinion. It may also be an indicator that you're French.

If I say, "because I don't like ketchup, no one should be allowed to have it," that's oppression.

No, that's also an opinion. Also you're an idiot. Also, I didn't just bully you there. 

If I say, "people who eat ketchup are dangerous and must be controlled," that's racism, bigotry, or fascism.

Definitely not. And I should probably do a separate post about idiots calling everything "fascism" without knowing what the word means, since I see that all the damn time. But racism? With which race do you associate ketchup?

If I say, "anyone who defends ketchup should be silenced or locked up," that's the destruction of free speech and democracy.

Wrong again, idiot. Expressing your idiotic opinions about your desired outcome for ketchup proponents is practicing free speech. It is not destroying it. And you haven't stripped a single person of a single vote, no matter how strident your anti-ketchup stance might be.

This one was so silly that I almost didn't bother to post it. But something about the idea that hatred of a sauce is "racist" tickled me enough to linger on it. Oh well. 

Lone Wolf Adventures

In 1994, my parents arranged to transfer my sister and I from the nearby elementary school (less than half a mile from our house) to another one in the area (about two miles from our house). And so I started third grade in the classroom of Mrs. Hornreich. Due to administrative rearrangements with crowded classrooms and relocation of some classes to new "portable" accessory buildings, I was soon moved out of the main building into the trailer classroom of Mrs. Meskill. And it was in Mrs. Meskill's class that I was introduced to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. These were quite popular among my classmates at the time. I don't recall exactly which ones I read on my own, but there were several. We also did group playthroughs in class.

In 1997, the arrival of new housing developments had pushed that elementary school to capacity and my parents were informed that the school could no longer accommodate the transfer. So my parents looked farther afield, to a school that was about seven and a half miles away. My mother would end up working there serving lunch for twenty years, but that wouldn't be until later. So my final year of elementary school was spent in the classroom of Mrs. Johnston. The school library at "Grass Lake" was somewhat modest, but it did introduce me to Redwall among other things. But Mrs. Johnston also maintained a few bookshelves in her own classroom, a little classroom library. And I have to say that her taste was better than the school library overall. This was how I discovered The Chronicles of Prydain. It was also how I discovered the Lone Wolf gamebooks.

The book Mrs. Johnston had was Castle Death, the seventh book in the series. Once I opened it up and figured out what it was, my immediate comparison was to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series. But this book was different. You tracked information with pen and paper. You had equipment. And your choices from one book could carry over to another. I loved the idea.

I played through Castle Death a few times. The school library didn't have any books from the series and I didn't see them on the shelves at the Covington library. I placed a hold on The Caverns of Kalte. It was the first time I saw a KCLS book with a "CS" sticker as its home library location (Central Storage). I was a bit confused at having my Magnakai powers taken away, but I quickly got up to speed. I died to the Helghast and became obsessed with getting my hands on the Sommerswerd. Eventually, I found Flight from the Dark somewhere. And then I also found The Jungle of Horrors. But I figured out that I needed Fire on the Water in order to get the Sommerswerd, and I couldn't find a copy of that book anywhere.

I kept the idea of getting back to this series in mind, but left it alone just because it was too difficult to find copies of the books. Eventually, I discovered Project Aon, which allowed me to play through the entirety of the Kai, Magnakai, and Grand Master series all for free. So I did. And at long last, I obtained the wonderful Sommerswerd. I imagine that I still have the paper note sheet somewhere, buried with other old documents.

Last year I noticed that paperback "Definitive Editions" from Holmgard Press were available for both the Kai and Magnakai series on Amazon. So those immediately went on my wishlist. My brother got me the books for Christmas. Actually, I think two people independently got me the books as a Christmas gift and I returned one set. I left the other one in its plastic seal for several months. I didn't know whether to dig into them and play through these new editions myself or try to run some kind of game for someone else. I'd thought of running a campaign taking others through the books on the Casual Players Alliance or through some Discord. Wasn't sure if there'd be any interest in that. And I was focused on my Heinlein juveniles project anyway, so the Long Wolf books sat there.

About six weeks ago, I decided that it might be a fun project to run ChatGPT through the books. I had to do a lot of typing in order to transcribe the longer passages, but that was good practice for me anyway. There have been some problems with this approach, but I actually have had fun with it. ChatGPT's only death so far was in the Tarnalin sections of Fire on the Water, which I consider to be probably the deadliest part of the whole series. Now we're well into The Kingdoms of Terror.

After Robot-Brain obtained the Ornate Silver Key in The Caverns of Kalte, but then passed by the room with the locked chest containing the Silver Helmet, I thought, "Hey, I would have done a better job there. Let's start a parallel playthrough. So now I've got two separate instances of Lone Wolf, both in The Kingdom of Terrors.

I'm not trying to pitch these gamebooks (although I do recommend them). I just wanted to post about an interest of mine that has been seeing a bit of a resurgence lately.

Crap from Facebook for September 17th, 2025

Should I even bother with this one? Probably not, but I'm annoyed at the moment and it's certainly crap I saw on Facebook. Here we go...

The misinformation surrounding Charlie Kirk is astounding - and I’m not talking about average people sounding off on social media - I’m talking about the bullshit being spread by major news outlets and so-called liberal journalists.

I’m looking at you, Ezra Klein.

While Kirk’s shooter was obviously overly steeped in internet whackadoo memelord culture - the “normies” don’t have a clue about how internet culture works at all.

It's extremely telling that some people can't look at what this shooter did and simply note that it is totally evil and profoundly messed up. Instead, they seem to think that if they can fit this individual into some specific bucket, they'll win a prize. You won't. Every sane person who sees you do this is thinking the same thing. 

Charlie Kirk wasn’t someone who was looking for honest debate. He was a political operative spreading hate and divisiveness. When you show his fans his racist, sexist or bigoted rhetoric - they defend it by saying “That’s not (racist, sexist, bigoted) - it’s true.” And that was his goal.

The word "operative" is fun here because it sounds sinister, like he was a spy or saboteur of some kind. But you get plausible deniability because technically "operative" can also mean anyone who does something, and that applies to anyone. So yeah, that's fun.

This whole sick affair is notable enough that I figured it would bring out the weirdos. But in principle, anyone who is in the business of deciding that they get to tell me the unstated goals of others, of the people they do not like and are actively being critical of, is itself worthy of "Crap from Facebook."

The whole “Prove Me Wrong” setup that made Kirk famous wasn’t really about proving anyone wrong. It was about creating content. Kirk mastered a specific type of performance that looked like debate but functioned more like a carefully orchestrated show designed to make his opponents look foolish and his positions seem unassailable.

That's how a debate is supposed to work, you buffoon. If you're not trying to make your own position seem unassailable and your opponents appear to be wrong or "foolish" then you're not practicing debate. You're doing some other, different thing.

The basic formula was simple - set up a table on a college campus, invite students to challenge conservative talking points, then use a combination of rhetorical tricks and editing magic to create viral moments. What looked like open discourse was actually a rigged game where Kirk held all the advantages.

But like I said, some of the videos I've seen myself weren't the ones filmed or edited by his team, but were footage recorded by others. And many of the others were longform, showing entire exchanges with no cuts.

First, there’s the obvious setup problem.

Kirk was a professional political operative who spent years honing his arguments and memorizing statistics. He knew exactly which topics would come up and had practiced responses ready.

So he was prepared? You know that's good, right? That's not a bad thing. It's not cheating or underhanded.

Meanwhile, his opponents were typically 19-year-old students who wandered over between classes. It’s like watching a professional boxer fight random people at the gym - the outcome was predetermined.

Well, some of his interlocutors were professors. And from what I could tell, an aspect of his agenda was to try and reach the hearts and minds of young people going to college or considering going to college. The venue makes sense and speaking with students, including young students, makes sense there. You're trying to make it sound nefarious.

Kirk used what debate experts call a corrupted version of the Socratic method.

You made that up just now, you lying fuck.

Instead of asking genuine questions to explore ideas, he’d ask leading questions designed to trap students in contradictions or force them into uncomfortable positions. He’d start with seemingly reasonable premises, then quickly pivot to more extreme conclusions, leaving his opponents scrambling to keep up.

You're describing debate tactics and trying to make them seem somehow bad or wrong. This sort of thing has been done for millennia. Read a damn book or something.

The classic example was his approach to gender identity discussions. Kirk would begin by asking seemingly straightforward definitional questions - “What is a woman?” - then use whatever answer he received as a launching pad for increasingly aggressive follow-ups. If someone mentioned social roles, he’d demand biological definitions. If they provided biological definitions, he’d find edge cases or exceptions to exploit.

Oh, I actually saw a bunch of videos with him doing that. And the reason he did it so much was because the interlocutors, almost invariably, didn't answer the simple question. Seriously, that's it. It's obvious that's the whole reason he did it.

This is like the easiest tactic to defeat in the world, and almost every single person he talked to immediately proceeded to play tic-tac-toe by leading with an edge play. Incidentally, this is one of the only parts of Kirk's agenda that I particularly found useful: exposing to the world the propensity for members of university communities in America to utterly flounder at a tactic that shouldn't even work in the first place.

If Charlie Kirk had asked me "What is a woman?" I would have offered him a dictionary definition and asked if there were any other common nouns that every English-speaker knows that we needed to review. What is a triangle? What is a cloud? What is a book?

It's not some super-elite debate trick. It's a trap with no bait in it, which is not armed. And he kept setting it on the floor and watching as they immediately armed the trap and then stepped into it.

The goal wasn’t understanding or genuine dialogue - it was creating moments where students appeared confused or contradictory.

Ah, the Oracle of Goals has spoken.

Kirk also employed rapid-fire questioning techniques that made it nearly impossible for opponents to fully develop their thoughts. He’d interrupt, reframe, and redirect before anyone could establish a coherent argument. This created the illusion that his opponents couldn’t defend their positions when really they just couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Those are also good debate tactics. Incidentally, I don't doubt that he employed such tactics. But also, the person writing this drivel is relying on conveying the idea that not only are these things bad, but also that they were Charlie Kirk's bread and butter. And from what I can recall, a more common tactic of his was to just let people dig themselves into rhetorical graves. He didn't need to interrupt or redirect. He gave them a platform to make fools of themselves, and that was all it took.

The editing process was equally important. Kirk’s team would film hours of interactions, then cut together the moments that made him look brilliant and his opponents look unprepared. Nuanced discussions got reduced to gotcha moments. Students who made good points found those parts mysteriously absent from the final videos.

I wasn't a "fan" or anything, but sometimes videos of his made it into content I watched or listened to elsewhere. Some of these videos were 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or even longer of uncut footage. I'm sure that a lot of meticulous editing was used for YouTube shorts and such, but longform examples were (and are) readily available.

What’s particularly insidious about this approach is how it masquerades as good-faith debate while undermining the very principles that make real discourse valuable. Kirk wasn’t interested in having his mind changed or learning from others - he was performing certainty for an audience that craved validation of their existing beliefs.

I mean, you're writing a hit-piece on a guy who was just assassinated. You don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to good-faith debate.

The “Prove Me Wrong” framing itself was misleading. It suggested Kirk was open to being persuaded when the entire setup was designed to prevent that possibility. Real intellectual humility requires admitting uncertainty, acknowledging complexity, and engaging with the strongest versions of opposing arguments. Kirk’s format did the opposite.

Charlie Kirk did not invent the phrase "prove me wrong." And it's essentially always been a challenge, not an earnest expression that one believes one is about to be successfully proven wrong.

This style of debate-as-performance has become incredibly popular because it feeds into our current political moment’s hunger for easy victories and clear villains. People want to see their side “destroying” the opposition with “facts and logic.” Kirk provided that satisfaction without the messy reality of actual intellectual engagement.

And what do you provide, vulture?

The broader damage extends beyond individual interactions. When debate becomes about humiliating opponents rather than exploring ideas, it corrupts the entire enterprise of democratic discourse. Students who got embarrassed in these exchanges weren’t just losing arguments - they were being taught that engaging with different viewpoints was dangerous and futile.

Dangerous. Interesting word choice there.

Kirk’s approach also contributed to the broader polarization problem by making political identity feel like a zero-sum game where any concession to the other side represented total defeat. His debates reinforced the idea that political opponents weren’t just wrong but ridiculous - a perspective that makes compromise and collaboration nearly impossible.

I'm open to the idea that the "Turning Point" approach might have some serious flaws or exacerbate problems that I'd rather see tackled in some other way.

But nah, this argument doesn't work. If Kirk's thesis is that universities are brainwashing students, and he engages with students (and faculty, for that matter) and seeks to publicize this and expose the purported brainwashing, one cannot attack his thesis on the grounds that he is "contributing to polarization."

The most troubling aspect might be how this style of engagement spreads. Kirk inspired countless imitators who use similar tactics in their own contexts. The model of setting up situations where you can’t lose, then claiming victory when your rigged game produces the expected results, has become a template for political engagement across the spectrum.

I'm sure his team appreciate you giving him credit for inventing something that he didn't invent at all. Dork. 

Real debate requires vulnerability - the possibility that you might be wrong and need to change your mind. Kirk’s format eliminated that possibility by design. His certainty was performative rather than earned, and his victories were manufactured rather than genuine.

Spoken like a true loser.

The tragedy of this approach is that college campuses actually need more genuine dialogue about difficult political questions. Students are forming their worldviews and wrestling with complex issues. They deserve engagement that helps them think more clearly, not performances designed to make them look stupid.

Oh man, I hate this crap so much. When I began attending a university, I had zero interest in the notion of "forming my worldview and wrestling with complex issues."

So to every pretentious twat who believes that adults are studying at universities so that they can form their worldviews, I invite you to go fuck yourselves.

Kirk’s assassination represents a horrific escalation of political violence that has no place in democratic society. But it’s worth remembering that his debate tactics, while not violent, were themselves a form of intellectual violence that treated political opponents as objects to be humiliated rather than fellow citizens to be engaged.

There's no such thing as intellectual violence, you stupid, idiotic, moron.

I’ve turned down every podcast and interview request that’s come my way in the past few months. Two reasons. First, I have zero interest in making myself the story. Second, and more importantly, I’m not some oracle with instant answers on demand.

I actually have no idea at all who this person is, nor what the context for that statement is. I mean, I'm satisfied that this person is contemptible and that any podcast involving this person is worthless. But that's about it.

Podcasts and debates aren’t designed for real intellectual work. They’re built for entertainment. Serious thinking doesn’t happen in a soundbite. It requires time to wrestle with ideas, to sit with them, to test them against reality. My first reaction isn’t always my best one - and I’m honest enough to admit that. What feels true in the moment often crumbles under reflection. That’s why I’d rather write than perform.

Name one serious idea. Give me a single example of your "real intellectual work."

Because while I also make my living from creating content - I refuse to mistake performance for truth.

You make a living from this crap? What? How?