Stormcloaks Or Empire (One Of The Three Certainties Of Life)

[veti]

What part of "they arent allowed to do that" has been unclear? The Thalmor assassinate people sometimes, which is illegal under the treaties, they know is illegal, and acknowledge will cause big problems for them if they get caught. Any time the Thalmor attack someone for being a Talos worshiper? Theyre committing a crime, the same as bandits. Because they don't actually have any sort of authority to make that sort of unilateral decision, and it shows because any time they actually have to operate under Imperial supervision, they defer to and are beholden to the whims of the Imperial forces, like the Justiciar in Markarth who wants to convince the Jarl to arrest a skald for Talos worship.

When bandits wander too close to an Imperial-aligned town, they get attacked by the guards. When the Thalmor do it, they don't.

The business in Markarth is a confusion between factions. The Jarl of Markarth is Imperial-aligned, yes, but he's not part of the Legion and neither are his guards. The Thalmor know that the individual jarls are significantly more unpredictable than the Legion, and therefore harder to control. Igmund, to his credit, has enough basic sense of justice that he declines to sentence a man without any evidence whatsoever, and the Thalmor may hate that, but they accept they have to work with it.

I mean, the Thalmor will certainly come after you when youre just some rando too. I'm not 100% certain but I believe the trigger to start getting the assassins sent after you is just to kill a Thalmor Justiciar or other Thalmor character.

Actually, this one I do know. The trigger is, "reach level 8". (I think it's 8. In that ballpark, anyway.) There is no other requirement.