Davis Aurini, the bald half of the Sarkeesian Effect brain trust, has famously declared himself “a huge white nationalist on paper.”
The candid photo above, which I definitely did not assemble using photoshop ten minutes ago, reveals that this is not entirely true. He is, in fact, a tiny white nationalist on paper.
NOTE: When I say that I “definitely did not assemble [this photo] using photoshop ten minutes ago,” this should be taken to mean that, yes, I did in fact assemble this photo using photoshop ten minutes ago. I spent a few minutes of this lovely spring day crudely photoshopping a swastika armband onto a puppy. This is the sort of sacrifice I make for this blog.
“If you talk to Hadvar’s uncle in Riverwood, he talks about how it wasn’t a big deal until Ulfric raised hell about it. Then the Thalmor had to come in and enforce it.”
I don’t think we’re meant to take Alvor entirely at face value; the Elder Scrolls series has always been good at providing multiple interpretations of events (but not brilliant at resolving them). What Alvor said is that the Empire didn’t really enforce the ban – people were still worshipping Talos in secret (which is still a form of religious oppression, even if the enforcement was lax).
What he doesn’t say is that the reason Ulfric was “raising hell”; the Forsworn Rebellion had taken Markarth as part of their independent kingdom of the Reach, and the Empire seems to have promised the Nordic militia under Ulfric free worship of religion in Markarth if they took it back. He does so (brutally, if you believe the book “The Bear of Markarth”, which has an obvious pro-Imperial slant), then refuses Imperial troops entry unless the promise is granted, which it is. It’s at this point the Thalmor get involved, demanding the Empire enforce the Concordat, and Ulfric is arrested by the Jarl of Markarth. I’m not surprised that he might have been radicalised by the events of the Markarth Incident.
On the *other* hand, if you read the right documents the Thalmor consider Ulfric an “asset” since he was taken prisoner during the Thalmor-Imperial war, though it seems more for his strategic value rather than any information he may have given to the Thalmor under duress. That said, they apparently kept in contact with him from some indeterminate time between the White-Gold Concordat and the Markarth Incident, after which he becomes “uncooperative”. Maybe the Thalmore were manipulating Ulfric into what would become the Markarth Incident?
Elder Scrolls lore is fascinating, even just the political stuff.