The Mystery of the Ebony Warrior - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 

My wife died recently and ur long ass videos have been helping me kinda get thru all this bullshit..thanks. Hope all Is well buddy.

The Ebony Warrior is just a city guard that didn't take an arrow to the knee and went adventuring.

I remember seeing a theory a long time ago that the Ebony Warrior doesn't actually use Dragon Shouts, it's just the closest way in-engine they could represent his abilities without coding something completely new that the player shouldn't have access to. The theory proposed that the Ebony Warrior was a Sword-Singer, who practiced the Way of the Sword, similar to the Greybeards practicing the Way of the Voice. His use of the Thu'um in game could have been intended to be some form of sword-magic that was unique to the Sword-Singers, or the Ansei

There were multiplle times during the intro to the warrior I thought you were gonna so some Spongebob "He's standing there.... menacingly"" route.

I'm studying for a career-altering exam right now, and I have a strict "no gaming while studying" policy because I have no self control; your videos are scratching my Skyrim itch and I thank you oh so much

Ebony Warrior is definately one of the best characters in Elder Scrolls for the main reason that we know almost nothing about him which makes him feel more threatening and menacing.

Late upload to cure your screaming attention span's doomscrolling.

There's a semi popular mod on the Nexus that overhauls the Ebony Warriors fight and gives him a small castle that you take over when you defeat him. Inside of it there are lots of neat world building and lore tidbits about who the Ebony Warrior was and what he accomplished, love that mod.

I like the idea that the Ebony Warrior avoided you, he wasn't finished with his quest. He hadn't overcome the challenges he wanted to overcome. The RU-vidr called Master Neloth had the theory that because him and Nazir use the same face, they're siblings. I'd recommend watching the video because it has more detail than I'm willing to type out at the moment, but here's a light summary; Nazir states that his past isn't all together proud, he thinks that's where Nazir and The Ebony Warrior split.

One of the justification’s I’ve seen for Ebony Warrior being Reyman Ebonarm is that he has some sort of rivalry with Shor and so you being a Shezzarine and therefore a mortal aspect of Shor is why he wants to fight you and then go to Sovngarde and fight you again I guess.

My personal head canon is that the Ebony Warrior is the player character from Elder Scrolls : Blades, the mobile game, main character is formally a member of the Blades which would explain the weapon and magic skills

Sometimes winning too much is a curse which is why the Ebony Warrior wanted to be honor killed by the last Dragonborn

I love The Ebony Warrior and he is my personal favorite mysterious NPC in base Skyrim.

There had only been one full-size Elder Scrolls game. That was Daggerfall and took place in Skyrim. It was about 209,331 square kilometers and took a week to cross

I love how he is wearing Ebony armor instead of daedric armor. I think this is a pretty neat detail. Maybe it's meant to symbolise something.

There’s a hundred obscure warriors and characters from TES lore that I’ve seen people attribute the true identity of the Ebony Warrior to over the years. Some plausible, most predictably nonsense yet somehow still convincing cos thats what this franchise is. I don’t knock anyone who favours one definitive theory over the others. But I think the most likely explanation is that the EW is you, the player, from the future after having exhausted every possibility in this world come to face the only being in creation who can possibly end your long existence - yourself. And the main reason I think this is for meta reasons. The EW is a worn out, tired, empty shell of a person who simply wants it all to end and cannot bear to keep it going. In other words, it’s what terminal Skyrim playthroughs does to a MFer. The lesson of the Ebony Warrior is to savour your experience with this game, touch grass and leave some adventures for another day rather than trying to cram everything you can possibly into a playthrough, otherwise you’ll end up as broken as him yearning for it to end yet unable to actually pull yourself away from the game yourself.

In reality, the Ebony Warrior being your last foe was possibly a hint to where the next Elder Scrolls game will take place; Hammerfell. Afterall, he is a Redguard so this theory makes perfect sense.

12:30 your assumption is correct. In fact Todd Howard has said that skyrim is an artistic rendition of the country and canonically indeed is bigger towns and villages are just as big as the real world.

Ebony Warrior is useful for getting duplicate weapons out of your inventory. I seem to always stack up sun swords and cash in on Ebony Warrior's love of disarming me lol

Finished my first playthrough earlier tonight, along with the dark brotherhood and most of the thief’s guild and this is just what i needed. Working my way through with perfectly suited content will pair perfectly!

I remember back on PS3 I had an unpatched version of Skyrim, I didn't have Internet at the time, I used an Ogma Infinium exploit to reach Lvl 81, and almost as soon as I walked out of Breezehome I encountered him The next time I reached 90 legitimately with an Argonian Assassin build on PS4s special edition, and defeated him By shouting him off the mountain

My personal theory is that he is actually the protagonist in the Elder Scrolls Legends game. Which is why he's never really mentioned. It is worth noting that the first deck you earn in that game is a deck filled with redguards which is all about equipping arms and since this guy is quite armored. It makes sense.

Yeah alright, that last bit had me laughing like a mad person.

Best morning in a while. Waking up and having breakfast enjoying a Fizhy rambling about Skyrim. Thank you ❤

was waiting for you to cover this, wonderful work

The Ebony Warrior being a hint to TES 6 would make sense, considering the culture surrounding High Rock specifically. Maybe a Red Guard that was raised in High Rock. That could be a hint to both locations being present in the next game.

At this point, ES6 is chilling with Half-Life 3 - and other long desired video game sequels - sipping margaritas on a quiet beach off the shores of Development Helheim.

That VA has a pretty good track record, i remember picking his voice for the Male Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition. He sounds the same in that tho so it truly breaks the immersion 😂

In reference to your point about Ebonarm, he has actually started to be referenced again in Skyrims creation club content, no guarantees that means anything but it is still somewhat notable. Also I imagine he probably would get brought back to some degree if we got a Tes 6: Hammerfell

Love the skyrim content lately

Its important to remember that the dragons ruled all of tamriel. So the ebony warrior could have been fighting the dragons outside of skyrim.

3:35 "He's just standing there... *menacingly!"*

Brother I’m not even 30 seconds into the video but I NEED to know what sky mod you’re using for that night sky at 0:07. Pretty please?

In one of my playthroughs I made myself ungodly overpowered with the fortify restoration potions and had a sword that could to like 200 million damage, I went to fight the ebony warrior thinking it would be a cake walk and when I went to hit him I died instantly 😂 I didn’t realize he could reflect damage and was super confused when it happened

I think it's interesting that on the topic of the Ebony Warrior, Ebonarm isn't mentioned in a lot of the videos on him. There's a lot of contradicting and possibly retconned information(it seems he isn't really mentioned chronologically after Daggerfall, so the Dragon Break may have a hand in this?) but there's a few theories that link them together. First being that Ebon Arm is a (presumably redguard) individual that is one of the manifestations of HoonDing(aka the redguard god, which further complicates things as all gods are descended from the two main god entities, almost like a family tree of an almost mitosis-like origin?). The other I recall reading *somewhere* is that the Ebony Warrior is a being that gets 'passed down' from victor to victor, as in whoever defeats him becomes the next Ebony Warrior, as you can also fight him in Morrowind and win. He may also still be a god of some sort that exists to 'test' the current 'hero' of the game's story. I believe I read an idea(or I suppose it's a fact? don't know much about HoonDing in the lore) that he's akin to talos but for the redguard, or at least a similar being, that is an 'enemy' of the Daedra, although in that case they could just be a physical manifestation of one of the gods(perhaps Talos), as they do appear physically(for example in Morrowind) to test mortals. I always thought the 'Ebony Blade' he his said to have wielded(and was fused to his arm) was the Ebony Blade Mephala gives you(and you can get it in all main Elder Scrolls games I believe) but I read somewhere, while fact checking myself, that he isn't exactly a friend of the Daedra so that's not likely.

Yet another awesome Elder Scrolls Lore channel to add to my huge list! Many thanks!

My favorite character to play in Skyrim is The Glass Warrior. Which was from a super old Fudgemuppet video. Basically roleplaying as The Ebony Warrior's younger brother.

I hope Fizhy will Cover The Elder Scrolls 6, when it releases in his retirement age.

On the subject of scale, it's mentioned in the Pocket Guide to the Empire that the distance from Mournhold to Red Mountain is 150 miles, confirming that the canon size is indeed much larger than what is shown in the games

Loving the Skyrim mystery’s keep up the good work

The Thuum is usually exclusive to Nords as a gift from Kyne, so a redguard learning it to this extent is fuel for the dragonborn theory.

I knew that dang orc would appear.

You know what the funny thing is pretty much all the games you've talked about I've never played but I love watching your videos for how you talk about the games even if I have no interest in them in fact watching you is what made me want to play Red Dead Redemption 2

OK when I tell you I've been falling asleep to these every night 😅 I've rewatched the assassin one like 4 times and never made it to the end. And it's not because they're boring, but the combo of Skyrim soundtrack, information on an extremely comforting game, plus your voice? It's a perfect combo. You should make one of those "4 hours of Skyrim facts to fall asleep to" vids 😅

Excellent narration. I've never played Skyrim or any Elder Scrolls game and know nothing about the lore. But you've explained everything perfectly. What I don't understand is how you've come to the conclusion that the Warrior is a Redguard? I'm assuming different races have distict features in Skyrim?

Im just as invested in this series as i was at the peak of the Rdr2 vids, that why i love fizhy Hes keeping his hustle alive!! Hit us with some fallout lore too if you feel like it Imma keep watching anyways!!!

I almost wish the Ebony Warrior was a deadra. It would make sense of his towering size, also the deadra have a culture built around honor and power. Also, let's not forget the deadric prince or lord (I forget which) who decided to be a pirate before he was imprisoned for a spell in the College of Winterhold's midden.

In addition to Ebony and Tsun, another character in TES lore shares the great size: Lyris Titanborn, half-Giant Nord woman seen in ESO as a major character. She has a companion/love interest in Sai Sahan... a Redguard. So we have a game set in one time period, where a giant Nord woman is in love with a Redguard, and a game set a thousand years later, in which we have a giant Redguard obsessed with going to the Nord afterlife.

While I don't think it answers much of anything, I always had a headcanon that The Ebony Warrior is a title he obtained long before he became the ebony clad mountain we know, but he got the name in reference to being a Redguard that fought with the heart of a Nord, likely across the entire northern coastline of Tamriel, and he just took to the name and made himself into something of a legend with it and the armor.

So what everyone seems to forget the player character has a past before the opening cart scene. It wouldnt be unreasonable to assume the ebony warrior knew the player character pre opening cart scene. That would explain the "it is time" quote. This perhaps also explains why we'd know the location of the last vigil. I.E the icon didnt need to show on the map until it was time

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing the Creation Engine 100th anniversary game, it might ever come out before ES6

The only time I've leveled up to 80 & he spawned in Whiterun there was a vampire attack right as he started to approach and he stopped in his tracks and cowered in the street - he didn't help to take out the vampires at all.

Your note about the level requirement... Yeah I did not know this guy even existed for a long time bc you can play many hours of this game, do almost everything and still be aways off. Tho nothing substantial is missed if you never meet him it seems. I think it's kinda lame they just give you a quest marker for the vigil despite framing it in a vague way. It would have been preferable if you had to figure it out maybe by trying to learn stuff about the warrior.

The ebony warrior is the friends we made along the way.

the ebony warrior being the last fight you'll battle in the game, and he being a redguard represents how after finishing skyrim, tes 6: hamerfell would come out but by killing him and letting him access sovngarde, he goes to the afterlife of the nords, the people of skyrim so more skyrim, symbolizing how tes 6 never came out and all we got is more skyrim again and again.

My headcanon was that he is Cyrus The Restless. Some tales say he fought Vivec so he's likey been through Skyrim once or twice on his way to Morrowind.

He never had a storm atronoch any of the times i’ve fought him & he always gives the player the First hit

The orc at the ending was a wonderful ending

The Ebony Warrior: "I want to go to Sovengarde." people: "but he is a Redguard!" me, beating the main story as dunmer: "One doesn't exclude the other"

I’ve often thought it’s be cool if the ebony warrior’s face always matched that of the player, just to add more confusion if anything.

Another fun theory: He's the Blades agent from Daggerfall. That agent, who has no canonical name, without any "special birthright," managed to fight against incredibly powerful enemies and navigated Aetherius (an insane feat for just "some dude") and caused a massive Dragon Break. I like to think that the agent, after the adventure, might have even become immortal. Imagine living hundreds of years after accomplishing such a feat. You'd probably be tired of life and want release at some point.

Damn as a new gamer to the elder scrolls and especially skyrim, i didn't know about this, it's cool

I always like to bring up how mixed-race children work in TES. Since the child is always the race of the mother, if I had to pick a theory it would be that the Ebony Warrior was the bastard son of a Nord hero in Sovenguard and he's lived a Nordic life hoping to reunite with his father there.

My headcanon: Ebony Warrior is just a chad and the reason that Dovahkiin knows exactly where the Last Vigil is that Dovahkiin is also a chad and real recognize real

Thanks Fishy, really enjoy your videos, weather gaming or history etc, seem like a good bloke to do to the pub with 😂 Anyway just wondered if you ever played the mass effect series? The one gaming series that for me matches elder scrolls for storytelling. There is deep lore and would be really interested to hear some content based on Mass Effect.

The theories of the ebony warrior are always a joy to hear

He could be meant to be a parallel to the Dragonborn a final challenge presented by Akatosh so to speak. There's also rumor that he's a dragonborn from from the other side of a dragon break that got stranded when you opened the elders roll to learn Dragonrend

The ebony warrior is what makes me hope ES6 introduces subraces to the playable races in the game. Like certain nords can have individuals classified as half-giants or part akaviri or atmoran. while maybe some redguards have strong yakudan ancestry, or some orcs are ogre/goblin kin, maybe some elves are part dwemer. We already know that there are differences between argonian tribes, and that khajit are heavily influenced by the moon cycle they are born under. It would, imo, keep the game from getting stale. Also, lorewise there's already a precedent for it.

A Lore explanation to him is easy in MY point of view, i think that he IS "other player", here is the Deal of Lore on the Elder Scrolls, every main game, happens on a "Dragon Break" basically, this in universe mechanic is use to justify why the Protagonists of Elder Scrolls can Champion of every Deadra, can be the Master of every Guild and in this case the Thane of every city, the Time Lines Break, and here is the Deal on you Get to the Max LV, you killed a Ton of Dragons and Alduin that are linked to time, you have an elder scroll with you that also is linked to time, what I think is that the Ebony Warrior represents other time line of the infinite Time lines of the Dragonborn, he can know where is every shout because he looked for every shout, he know were you used, because he see it a lot of times on the time lines, and he is a red guard, because you can choose anyone to start.

"At last, Sovngarde" He says as his soul is sucked into a gem.

When we get elder scrolls 6 in 2082 I would to see a reference to the ebony warrior but not have him as boss again,as I feel that'd ruin his character Surely the dragonborn would've defeated him. But perhaps we could see a book or a journal describing a tall man in full clad ebony armor who challenged the domain in the city of white run

Hes just Todd's character from play testing

Since races are born from the mothers, the redguard mightve had a nord father and wanted to follow him into sovngarde. Post Script. More than likely to tell him about his life and adventures.

Simon is really fun to defeat. Redguard, good.

My theory is that he is the dragonborn in an another timeline, story goes on as normal. The problem is that he defeated everybody. He becomes way too powerful for anyone or anything to kill him. He goes on different timelines and eventually finds us, the player. Idk I just thought it was interesting

Is it possible that the Ebony Warrior once wore the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and that's why nobody ever mentions them? If we assume the Ebony Warrior's path mirrors the player's path... then they must have joined the thieves guild at some point. That would explain the lack of information in lore.

What if the Ebony warrior is just the implication of another person in universe that has done things like the Dragonborn, The Hero of Kvatch, or the Nerevarine, maybe even one of these heroes that's retired. Does it really matter who it actually is? The fun part about this quest is that its the perfect open ending to a game that lets you make your own decisions about almost everything.

"The last people to expect you to get this far are Bethesda, themselves." or whatever you said, really makes me wonder how many Skyrim playthrough a have been started vs completed. Honestly, I probably have one of the best completion rates in the world, because I don't think I started more than 2, 3 tops, and I beat at least 1 if not 2. I may have literally done 2/2. (To be clear, I don't 100% like Mortym or MortismalGaming even when I 100% by my definition. It's exceedingly rare for me to have all Achievements/trophies and have the game say 100% or 240% or whatever like Arkham Knight. Especially if you don't actually need every collectible or something. So I consider "completing" the game to mostly be completing the story, though I think I do happen to have every Achievement on Xbox 360 Skyrim at least) I'm gonna guess Skyrim is one of those game where many people never even beat the game once, but even IF they do, they likely start dozens of playthrough a and only beat the game like probably not even 10% of the time.

Maybe the real ebony warrior was the friends we made along the way

I think his backstory is quite simple. He's just a regular human trained himseld to the pinnacle of human accomplishment, not an incarnation of a god, or an overpowered follower or creation of one. The game world is much smaller and toned down than in lore, so its fairly reasonable to suggest that he has indeed always been around in the current events of the game but due to skyrim logic, he just only appears when he becomes relavent for pragmatic reasons.

Funny, I’m watching this as a lvl 79. Sounds like a new permanent thrall is going to present itself soon

It would be cool if losing to the ebony warrior permanently sent your character to sovngarde

I can't imagine beating him fairly I used mods to level up beyond lvl 80 and I used an enchantment that freezes opponents. I added poison and beat him in seconds coz everytime he got up I froze him again

This is going to sound out landish but I believe the ebony warrior is the og dragonborn from the original release of Skyrim think about it he knows more than one shout a geat that only a dragonborn can usually achieve he spawn's around the original max level his gear is technically late game stuff and he doesn't spawn in the base game only after the dlc are installed

He has to be the player from another time line, Skyrim takes place in the middle of a dragon outbreak. So I think it makes sense.

In my head, the ebony warrior is kind of you… the devs know that once you max everything out you’re pretty much done with that playthrough so the ebony warrior is sort of an end of life crisis for the Dragonborn. You have become undefeatable so the only thing left to fight is yourself. The lore doesn’t mention another Dragonborn existing at the same time as you besides mirrak. The ebony warrior wasn’t in another province. He was in Skyrim leveling up, chasing quests big and small because he did everything you did since he is a version of you. After everything the Dragonborn has been through their mental health wouldn’t be top notch. That ptsd plus the knowledge that their life is at its end (nothing left to do in the game) could cause them to experience this battle with a version themself. Being drawn to sovngarde regardless of race would be caused by the fulfilling life lived in Skyrim.

The Ebony Warrior is Fred from Accounting. He likes to LARP on the weekends.

Maybe the Ebony Warrior is depressed and needs therapy if he feels he wants to die. :c

Since he turns out to be a redguard, is it too much to hope that we learn about him in TES6?

Soul trapping the Ebony Warrior is THE ultimate dick move lol. The only thing he wanted, was for his soul to go to heaven, yet he gets trapped in a soul gem to be used like a battery 😂

soul trapping the ebony warrior is crazy 😭

2:20 damn im sorryy okay!!🤦🏼‍♂️😂

Thank God! I can finally sleep

It'd be funny if the whole time the ebony warrior was just a nod to what online would look like

despite his power, and display of honour, the ebony warrior was not worthy of Sovngarde

I played hundreds of hours of skyrim but I never encountered the ebony warrior😔because I can't play till level 80 that's INSANE lol😅

I still remember the first time I ever ran into the Ebony Warrior. Was playing on 360 ages ago, sometime after the Dragonborn DLC had released, and was running around Windhelm like a madman with ridiculously OP gear just killing everything that moved. A bunch of guards had done some damage to me, so I went to level up for the free heal, exited the menu and took out the guards, Round a corner around Candlehearth Hall to see more guards and this guy all charging at me. Bonk them all good, only to realize who I'd just killed. Needless to say I chuckled for a good long while, then reloaded my save.

Any one try to kill him before completing the main quest story to see if he's in sovngarde

I think it’s the Devs hinting the next game being in hammerfell

Ebony warrior in my game was a Nord