Welcome to part 2. We start about 8 minutes into the Odgrub video- but don’t worry,
you haven’t missed any of the storyline. I’ve just been building up Lydia’s purpose,
trying to make viewers like her, and have been progressing with the main storyline as
it gives Odgrub plenty of opportunities to slaughter everybody, which has been one of
the main appeals of this series so far. He’s now off to arrange a peace council,
which I thought was brilliantly suited for Odgrub since he’s anything but.
Some people said it was hard to know what was the director’s commentary in the first
video and what was the actual video- just know that if you can see my FACE in the bottom
left corner of the screen then it’s the director’s commentary.
These speedrun segments never take as long as they look like they should- you can run
across Skyrim in about 20 minutes so these are actually some of the fastest parts of
my video to make. I thought they were some of the most fun parts of the first video but
by this third instalment I feel they’ve been done before and I did my best to limit
their use in this video, as well as adding a twist to it by having him fast-travel the
last 10 metres or so to play into Odgrub growing old
and tired.
I love Skyrim as a game, but its writing isn’t a part that interests me. The main stories
have always been weak in Elder Scrolls games and I’m quite similar to Odgrub in that
I skip most of it. Hopefully other players can also relate to Odgrub’s rush to skip
dialogue scenes. You don’t NEED to have played Skyrim to understand or to enjoy these
videos, but I think it helps because you’ll ‘get’ more of the jokes and jabs I make
at the game. In a way I think these videos show what Skyrim is better than most reviews
do.
This fight scene did go on for a bit longer but I cut it. I’ll show you the rough version
here. I had him killing all of the troops outside, as well as a drawn-out courier part.
I thought long and hard about keeping this in, especially since the courier gets his
revenge later on by freezing Odgrub during the Ebony Warrior fight, but it interrupted
the flow of the sequence and I felt would have bored some viewers. Plus by this point
I knew I had to get started on the video’s story as soon as I could or this video would
inflate to some ridiculous length like 30 minutes or more!
And now for the final conventional speedrun segment. I’m normally pretty good at running
across Skyrim- even with the HUD disabled. But I did mess this one up by going the wrong
way and it went on for longer than I wanted it to. I’m so bored of speedrun segments
let’s just skip this one. DID YOU KNOW that back in 2011, I uploaded
a series of Odgrub videos to Youtube? I thought that Skyrim would become a rather popular
game and wanted to upload content for it early on. The videos never got more than a few hundred
views, but they followed the original Odgrub’s adventures. A lot of them were rather boring,
showing the marriage and orphanage stories and I decided the series didn’t live up
to my youtubing standards so I removed most of them. I won’t be reuploading them anywhere
because they are the lowest effort Skyrim videos on Youtube- which you can get away
with when the game’s first released and it’s as good as Skyrim is- but not 8 years
later and certainly not on this channel, which prides itself in producing high-quality, grown
up content that doesn’t stoop to toilet humour. You guys are better than that.
Although having said that, I have borrowed from a few of these videos since- but not
this one. This is only the second time I’ve ever seen this bug but I’m pleased it showed
up when it did! It reminds me of the Radiant Raiments scene from Odgrub’s first video,
where the game messes up and Odgrub has to try and fix it somehow. I particularly like
how they all went after Lydia in this scene and how she just stands there looking a bit
confused. I felt that joke missed the mark, but I’m
not sure how because Odgrub solving problems by bashing things should always be amusing.
Any way, a lot of you noticed the Ebony Warrior in this scene. I couldn’t believe my luck
when he showed up at the right moment and missed like that. I knew I had to include
it in the video, but worried at the time it might make him seem weak or rubbish, but I
think his inclusion is subtle enough to act as a tasty easter-egg for observant viewers.
This one DID work as a pantomime joke and the chat spammed EBONY WARRIOR for a while
after this scene. And onto yet another speedrun. By this point
even Odgrub was tired of doing them- not that he’s a real person- and I thought fast-travelling
out of sight of Lydia nicely shortened this sequence, as well as hinting that he might
actually care what Lydia thinks about him. It also shows that HE knows how frowned-upon
fast travelling is. And it’s funny because we know that Lydia still ran all the way to
the mountain. Poor Lydia. This is one of the first changes between the
published youtube version of the video and the final final FINAL one- if you look closely
enough you can see I forgot to disable resample in this scene, since I simply slowed down
a speedrun segment which I deliberately enable the resampling for to give it that blurry,
speedy effect. But it looks bad when played back at normal speeds.
I tried to use cloudier, darker scenes for this video to mirror the darker plot, but
by this point I was like ‘screw it’ because nice weather looks so much prettier. I upped
the contrast to criminal levels in these scenes, similar to the Markarth intro in the second
video. Nobody noticed there! For anybody unfamiliar with Skyrim, this is
the most boring bit of the game. Every Skyrim player will agree with me. You have to sit
and watch people talk for ages- you can’t even skip dialogue!- I got bored simply doing
it for this video. But you know what? I think a lot of Odgrub’s best sequences are during
random scenes like this. It doesn’t need to further the plot which gives me extra freedom
to take the piss- and no scene shows it more clearly than this one, where I mock the important
leaders discussing important topics around the table.
It might also be a profound insight into how Odgrub perceives other people in Skyrim. Maybe.
Also, people ask me why Odgrub sided with the Imperials rather than the Stormcloaks,
and my response to that is that it was the first option he encountered so he picked that
one, but the truth is he doesn’t give a damn about either side. And neither do I.
I cut this battle short because it was very similar to the Greybeard battle from earlier.
But I did want to see all these people tumbling off the side of the mountain- doesn’t seem
fair that they can waste so much of Odgrub’s life and get away with it. Plus it highlights
a real problem with Skyrim’s story. The game lets you do whatever you want, and yet
forces your character to arrange a peace council. Even if you’re Odgrub! So it only makes
sense for the peace council to become a fight! You see what I did there? I found a way of
moving on from the crowd-pleasing classic Odgrub content, and onto the actual story
for this video. And it only took me 13 minutes. I love this clip of Lydia triggering traps.
One day her clumsiness will be the end of her…
But yeah hopefully this passes as classic Odgrub content on your first viewing, but
I hoped to use this to transform Lydia into a character you might actually like. Anybody
playing Skyrim grows attached to their companion. It’s not like they’re amazing warriors.
They pretty much serve as portable treasure chests. But despite all their flaws and limitations,
everyone grows fond of them and feels terrible when they die. Probably bad enough to load
their last save, even if it means having to do a whole mission again.
I learned my lesson with companions in Guild Wars- I had this pet cat or something and
grew fond of it, but then my friend said that the bears were the best, so I got one of those
instead and realised there wasn’t much difference. My friend was like ‘oh well I didn’t know’,
and that was that, but to me I felt I had betrayed my original pet. I felt so bad about
it I started the game again! It feels so good to get that confession out
there. But yeah, EVEN Odgrub isn’t completely heartless. I decided that there was only so
much I could do with his story if he remained a cold-blooded merciless killer and decided
that the ONLY thing I could think of that could justify a change of heart was to have
him kill his companion. We know Odgrub. We know he kills everybody.
Even Lydia can’t evade his blade forever. And I want for people to feel bad about her
death because, well, we’ve only laughed at everyone that Odgrub has killed so far.
CHILDREN HAVE DIED! Of course, I don’t want to hint at that
yet. Instead I disguise their relationship as… urgh, a LOVE story. I hate love stories.
They always feel forced. But I thought that pretending this would become one, building
it all up, only for Odgrub to kill her, would satisfy fans of Odgrub and also ultimately
lead to his redemption. In case I didn’t make it obvious enough: Odgrub doesn’t have
romantic feelings for Lydia. That’s going too far. That’s not Odgrub. But she is his
friend. His only friend! And surely that’s as good an excuse as any for him to feel bad
about killing her.
In case you hadn’t realised, Lydia’s sarcastic-sounding ‘carry your burdens’ line is a dank meme
in Skyrim. And there’s the accidental fish-eating sequence
for this video. It’s one of my favourite running jokes in these videos, but it’s
only really funny if it’s shown and not explained… so I’ve ruined it now.
Now this next sequence is either the most beautiful or most gay part of the video, depending
on how you feel about Lydia falling in love with Odgrub. It’s not just Odgrub- all players
treat their companions like dirt. I know you do too, don’t try to deny it. So the only
explanation I can think of for why they remain faithful to players is because they’re secretly
madly in love with them. Enough to overlook the abusive and frankly unacceptable way that
they’re all treated. I know what it’s like to be in love with someone who doesn’t
love me back. But rather than to feel sorry for me, I think I got a pretty good deal.
It’s like they painted everywhere they went with a strong nostalgia that only I could
feel… and I guess for unlimited present-day nostalgia on-tap whenever you want it, carrying
dragon bones and being blasted off cliffs occasionally isn’t too bad a price to pay.
I think that love is a rather selfish emotion and one of the poorest excuses to be nice
to somebody. And that’s another reason why I think that Odgrub’s redemption should
have come from a friendship rather than romance. This Skyrim song sounds most like it belongs
in Lord of the Rings, so I’m happy I got to use it in this sequence. I also got to
use a huge number of slow-motion clips here. This was all captured at normal speed, then
I used painfully slow software to create new frames between each of the existing ones in
order to make it look smooth even when slowed down. If you look closely enough you can spot
the artifacts- at the start of the Odgrub video you see the dragon’s snout do something
rather weird. But it looks okay in motion. The beauty of 60 FPS video is that each frame
is more similar to the one before it, which makes it easier for the computer to add yet
more frames between them. It makes me wonder if this is one of the reasons why Peter Jackson
insisted on filming the Hobbit at 48 rather than the standard 24 FPS. If you remember
any of the cheesy-looking slow motion scenes from Lord of the Rings then you’d probably
understand why he’d want 48 FPS. Still didn’t save the Hobbit trilogy from being an utter
disaster.
Sorry, I went off topic there! Lydia loves Odgrub despite how she’s treated. It’s
a tragedy. And while Odgrub clearly doesn’t give a shit, he does give a piss!
I’ve lost the making of this sequence but just picture me in the middle of the night
pouring water out of a bottle outside while filming it. I like to think people were watching.
This scene is weird… but it was fun during the premiere as I don’t think anybody really
knew how to react to it. And that’s this video’s jump-scare. I
originally intended to have more sneak-dream-attacks in this video but, bit like the speedrun segments,
I got bored of them and just wanted to move on with the story.
Now how do you go from Odgrub having a nightmare, to being mad enough to kill his best friend?
I don’t think this transition works if you think about it too much. Luckily, Odgrub doesn’t!
Having him as the protagonist lets me get away with murder. I thought that maybe some
people would overthink things and suspect Lydia of being the Ebony Warrior in disguise
or something, but I thought that by openly showing that Odgrub was accusing her in some
way then it would kill that plot-twist and would make people pity her more.
And then, after all this, I show her being all compassionate and concerned for Odgrub
as he goes mad. Just to twist the knife when he betrays her.
And even after all this I thought the transition was too abrupt, so I later went back and added
the massacre in the tunnels. I had no plans for this bit so just spent a few hours butchering
everybody in different ways until I had some cool looking shots.
And now for the most important bit of the whole video! I think now’s a good time to
show another one of Odgrub’s videos from 2011. See if you can spot
the similarities! I had been planning this sequence since November
last year. I was so excited about finally getting around to making it, but with it was
more worried that it wouldn’t live up to the idea I had for it in my head. I’m not
sure where the Oblivion trailer music came from, but once that became part of the plan
for it in my head I couldn’t get rid of it.
You know it’s coming. So I drew this scene out as much as I could. Also I had to disable
AI after the trap had been triggered to stop Lydia from stepping back when Odgrub got too
close to her. I dubbed in the ‘bad feeling about this’ line because how could I not
have that there. And using the mace nicely mirrors the first kill this series showed.
The Oblivion trailer shows up a few times in this video, actually- I closely quote some
of Patrick Stewart’s lines earlier in the video, as well as after Lydia’s death.
Every Odgrub video has had Lydia saying her ‘burdens’ line as something plummets off
the top of the mountain. Second video it was Lydia herself. And in the first video it was
Odgrub and I just put it in there because it sounded right, but now I’m pleased I
did because it looks like this betrayal was planned since the very beginning of Odgrub’s
story! …which it wasn’t. Just lucky chance. With hindsight, Odgrub’s petty soul-stealing
and weapon binding sequence looks like a poor excuse to enable the rest of the plot, but
actually that came first and the plot followed. I really wanted the most cold-hearted death
for Lydia I could imagine and went from there. But Ebony gauntlets were chosen as the item
last-minute because I wanted the video’s title to literally refer to Lydia, among others
in this story. She’s now literally a warrior made of ebony.
And then these clips are a bit like those at the very start of the video… but without
Lydia. Because she’s DEAD.
Sorry I don’t know what came over me there. But Lydia’s death sequence was perhaps the
most scary part of the premiere for me to watch because the chat’s reaction to her
death would determine how the rest of the video was received. If people didn’t care
for Lydia and were all like ‘begone thott’ then Odgrub’s redemption wouldn’t have
worked and this video would have been an utter disaster!
Luckily, people did seem to care for her. In fact, I’ve had comments from people who
stopped liking Odgrub after he killed her. This is great! You’ve finally seen Odgrub
for what he is! It’s just unfortunate it took you 3 videos and hundreds of innocents
dying to figure out that Odgrub’s an evil person. And just to confuse things more, killing
Lydia eventually turns him into a good guy. If you’re unsure whether you should like
Odgrub or not then I don’t blame you. So there you have it. The consequences of
Odgrub’s behaviour have finally caught up with him and he’s got to some how make everything
right with the 20 or so minutes of screentime that remain. And he’s also got to complete
Skyrim’s main quest. And he should probably get around to fighting the Ebony Warrior at
some point as well.
It’s all sounding about as rushed as Game of Thrones season 8