The first time I played through the Dark Brotherhood quest line, in its entirety - I had made sure to not read online about it so it was totally new to me fyi - was emotional in many ways for me. I've had a few happy moments in games like Kingdom Hearts, quite a few scary ones when I played through the Silent Hill games (couldn't finish one of them because of that actually; though I came pretty close to finishing Silent Hill 2, my fav of the series actually), but never the mix of intense emotions as I had when playing through the Dark Brotherhood quest line in Skyrim the first time. Warning now: there will be spoilers as I talk about this.
When I was stopped by the Solitude guardsmen on the balcony outside of the Emperors place, after doing the deed so to speak, and they told me Astrid had betrayed me and not only that, but that I'd gone to all this trouble only to kill a fake. I was in shock, disbelief and angry all at once. Once I finally managed to deal with the guards and I came back to the Falkreath Sanctuary to find Festus outside with arrows in him - someone my character, an assassin mage as well, had grown very close to - I was horrified and disgusted. And then I was sad because assassin or not, an old man did not deserve a death so painful. Even my character on her contracts made sure the kills were done clean, quick and as painless as possible. Why make someone suffer for something that is just business? I mean I get that the guards were angry at the attempt on their Emperors life but it wasn't even successful and Astrid had even sold me out to make sure of that. It should've been enough.
I remember being terrified of not being able to find the two surviving members of the DB. I remember the mad scramble to make sure, absolutely sure, even though the place was falling down around my characters ears and the fire was burning all around her, that her other dysfunctional family members were in fact dead. Then finding their bodies.. I was so sad. I remember after all was said and done, everyone moved to Dawnstar, irl I actually took a few days off to try and think if there was any way around that happening, any way to prevent it. I looked it up to check. Of course being on PS3, there was not. So I actually had my character take a few days away from everyone, and off adventuring even, to grieve. She hunted both with bow and arrow and in wolf form, and slept in inns if they were close or under the stars if there was a bed roll nearby. She spent some time in nature. After a little under a week off, she finished out her grieving by walking from Lakeview Manor to the old, now decrepit, Falkreath Sanctuary. She took as many arrows out of Festus as possible, and tried to get him down, but to no avail. She paid her respects him by leaving deathbell flowers in front of his makeshift grave, then by placing a few fire runes around to make sure no one defiled his body. She placed deathbell flowers in front of the black door and next to all the DB members bodies. She stayed a moment by the door to say goodbye. Then she left and hasn't gone back. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to move the bodies to even bury them at sea, so that had to do. I've recently found out about Ash Guardians - not sure if this is only in my game or what, may be a glitch - but they actually stay in one spot and guard it. I may have her go back and place one to guard the Falkreath Sanctuary, making it an unofficial tomb of sorts. Rather fitting methinks. But my point is, this was one of the only games where I've ever gotten so emotional during quests. And so far the Dark Brotherhood playthrough was the most emotional over all for me. A close second would be the main quest line.
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