Skyrim may be over a decade old at this point, but Bethesda's open-world RPG is so dense that players and the community still discover new things all the time. The mod community is alive and well, and many still return to the wartorn country of Skyrim for another playthrough as The Last Dragonborn from time to time. Now, one fan has discovered something odd about Skyrim's Dragons, particularly citing Mirmulnir as an example.
For those who don't keep up with the individual names of Dragons outside Alduin and Paarthurnax, Mirmulnir is the dragon players face early on in the game. It is the dragon that attacks the Western Watchtower of Whiterun and the first Dragon players will kill as part of Skyrim's main storyline, the one that teaches them that they are Dragonborn.
As pointed out by Redditor Darth-Yslink, the UESP Wiki lists Mirmulnir as having the Sneak, Block, One-Handed, and Archery skill trees that Skyrim players have access to; indeed, a quick search also reveals that most, if not all, of the named Dragons of Skyrim have hidden abilities—these four, in fact. Some try to rationalize in-game, counting a dragon's breath attack as archery, noting dragons can probably block damage, citing claws to justify one-handed skills, and including sneak because Mirmulnir was not one of the dragons killed by Skyrim's Blades faction. One player even jokingly cites M'aiq the Liar, who says that dragons are invisible and sneaky.
However, among the common Reddit jokes, there is a seemingly serious answer. Redditor floofandmemes says it's likely to do with the way Skyrim's engine is set up, with it being a hardcoded factor that makes some skill mods impossible like new skill tree additions (at least, until relatively recently). It would make sense if certain enemies like Dragons were required to have skills, and since these four repeat among the various Skyrim dragons, it would make sense that Bethesda just plugged them, with justification or not.
It's still an interesting tidbit about Skyrim either way. Imagining a dragon sneaking around the country, wielding a shield to block attacks or a bow to make ranged attacks, or just straight punching people, as is how these Skyrim skills are leveled up, is still quite the hilarious image. While this is certainly a discovery unknown to many, modders and various others may have already realized this for some time, and that really only speaks to how large the community remains.
Skyrim is available now on all major platforms.
Source: Reddit