The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Umaril the Unfeathered has spiky-looking things coming out of his shoulders, which are almost certainly unfeathered wings. But the name itself is reminiscent of The Unfettered, and it does make a certain sort of sense, considering the sort of things he's guilty of by the end of the questline.
• The idea of male and females having varied stats is for many blatant sexism, but note that the Imperials, apparantly a more civilised people have less disparity between the two. Likely, the stats reflect how the people are raised. Men raised to be stronger, etc.
  • Factoring in the numerous body mods, many aimed at making female characters naked, which only serves to make more players play as female characters, this is almost a Player Punch move.
• The logo of the game becomes especially appropriate if you know the Daedric alphabet. At first, you might assume that it's supposed to be a stylised Oblivion Gate, but that particular symbol happens to be the Daedric rune corresponding to the Latin letter O. Now, name a word that starts with O.
  • Some editions of the box actually have the same cover as the Mysterium Xarxes, the book that the Religion of Evil uses to open a portal to "Paradise".
• The Artificial Atmospheric Actions and inherent Weirdness Censor in Shivering Isles actually looks a lot more... justified given that everyone in there is insane.
• At first I felt that PC's actions were... underappreciated. I mean, I am The Hero, so where's my glory, why don't I get to become The Emperor and stuff? And then it kicked me: PC is not The Hero, he/she is The Lancer to Martin. Which is actually refreshing, considering how we play prophecised heroes before and after.
• The inability to draw weapons while on horseback seems like a cheap copout at first, but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. The most practical weapons to use on horseback are polearms. This has been demonstrated throughout history, as most cavalry units were armed with long weapons, not swords, maces, or axes. And polearms also happen to be absent from the game.
• Sheogorath, the Lord of Madness, has his realm destroyed at the end of every era. Then he rebuilds it, again and again, hoping for a different result. This might be familiar to some as the definiton of insanity as formulated by Einstein.

Fridge Horror

• In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, when you first join the Dark Brotherhood, you can talk to your new "family members" to get tips for your first contract. One of them, a large, friendly Orc named Gogron, will happily recount the time he "had a contract to kill a little Nord girl at her birthday party." He ends the story with a wistful chuckle and a comment that "she won't be seeing age six." Now, that's pretty horrifying on its own. The Fridge Horror kicks in when you realize he said he had a contract to kill her. Meaning someone had to deliberately arrange for the murder of a five year old girl.
  • Even more horrifying. The person who arranged the contract was probably the relative of a child that girl didn't invite over to the party. (Like the child came home crying because she wasn't invited to the party, relative (who probably wasn't all that sane to begin with) got pissed and arranged to have that girl killed as payback.)
    • A step further: to put a contract on somebody, you have to assemble a complete human skeleton and perform a dark ritual. Generally, this is achieved by robbing graves.
  • While the Dark Brotherhood are already Complete Monsters, they get even worse if you're familiar with Elder Scrolls backstory. It's bad enough that they willingly commit murder to appease a God of Evil...except Sithis isn't even a God of Evil. Sithis actually refers to the void - they're talking about killing people in the name of a non-sentient absence of being. If they weren't past the Moral Event Horizon already, they certainly are now.
  • Also in Oblivion, joining the Mage Guild requires you to visit all seven branches of the guild across Cyrodill and earn a recommendation from each local guildmaster, usually by performing some minor service. However, in Cheyindal, things get a little weird: first, the PC overheards snippets of conversation mentioning how odd the water tastes; then, Guildmaster Falcar gives you the job of retrieving a magic ring from the bottom of the nearby well; then, you're told by one of the other local mages that Vidkur,the last prospective guild-member who was given this job, has mysteriously vanished. Finally, you enter the well yourself, and find Vidkur's drowned corpse sunken deep in the reservoir; apparently, the ring is enchanted to weigh down the wearer to the point of immobility. Fridge Horror A: the whole mission was an attempt to murder you and Make It Look Like an Accident. Fridge Horror B: the locals have been drinking water laced with Vidkur's decaying flesh.
  • Numerous upper-class houses in the game have mounted minotaur heads on the walls - in fact, in one of the Dark Brotherhood quests, you have to rig one to drop on its owner as he sits under it. However, the upgraded version of the minotaur enemy is called "Minotaur Lord", implying that minotaurs have some form of organisation. So, "respectable" people in Cyrodiil display the heads of sentient beings on their walls?

Fridge Logic

• How are Argonians driven crazy by Hist Sap in the Fighter's Guild questline? According to the lore, they're immune.
  • Supposedly the tree the sap was taken from was "sick", and by extension the sap itself was plain bad. It might also explain the names of the two Argonians that tend to the tree; Sings-Like-Thunder and Hears-Voices-In-The-Air. One NPC expresses his surprise at the end of the related quest if the PC is an Argonian that was driven mad by the Hist sap, which he or she will be.
    • You'd make a fitting champion for Sheogorath, then.
• If necromancy is legal in Cyrodill, only banned by the Mages' Guild, aren't many of the anti-necromancer quests basically murder?
  • The enemy necromancers you see, the guys with the red skull-and-crossbones on their robes who are referred to simply as "Necromancer" when you select them, are the Order of the Black Worm, Mannimarco's followers. Presumably there are good-natured law-abiding necromancers elsewhere in Cyrodiil, you just don't deal with them in any quests.
    • Falanu Hlaalu is heavily implied to be one.
    • Falanu i snot implied to be a necromancer, she's implied to be a necrophiliac
  • What I always wanted to know is why you can openly buy necromantic spells from guild mages.
• How are ships supposed to sail up the Niben to Bravil/Imperial City? Leyawiin blocks the opening into the sea.
  • When it's high tide?
• Did the Blades really plan to escape the assassination plot on the Emperor by escorting him through the city, across the Imperial City Isle, into the prison's cells, and through a maze of goblin-infested tunnels to a sewer exit that opens marginally closer to the edge of the island than the prison itself?