So, I have this weird thing of listening to videos while I'm working...
If and when work will actually let me do such a thing.
Among the the plethora of videos in that collection were a few created by Camelworks in his Elder Scrolls Detective series, including Did Emperor Titus Mede II ASSASSINATE HIMSELF?
On a side note, while I like the commentary that he presents, I'm afraid I find his introduction a little too annoying for my tastes, and thus recommend you fast-forward a minute to skip it.
Getting back on topic, I had a bit of an epiphany in the form of two questions:
Why would Titus Mede II go through the trouble of getting Goldbrand?
More importantly, what did Titus Mede II give up to get it?
This all might be silly, but take into context what Goldbrand actually is: a Daedric artifact.
As far as I know, just about every Elder Scrolls game where Daedric artifacts are acquirable items (especially during and after Oblivion), the Daedra that are correlated with them sends the player character on some kind of quest: my point is, Daedra just don't give up the artifacts without some degree of compensation.
Now, the first question can be easily answered: by virtue of it being a Daedric artifact and how powerful they are in the Elder Scrolls universe, then it's no wonder why Titus Mede II would want that kind of power at his disposal when trying to take back a city (see Battle of the Red Ring), but you can't expect me to believe that a Daedra would care about the affairs of mortals, much less politics.
The answer to the second question came to me when I was watching the video you see above:
I believe that the manner in which Titus Mede II assassinated himself was part of the deal that he made with Boethia to get Goldbrand.
On a moral level, as the video explains, I get why he would do this, but don't you think it's kind of odd that Titus Mede II (ironically) would do all of the very things that define who Boethiah is - the Daedra of (and I quote), "deceit, conspiracy, treachery, and sedition."?
As far as I know of Boethiah, (as a Daedra) doesn't care about mortals or what happens to them, but rather action (read Boethiah's Proving). So, at the very least, the underhanded-ness that Titus Mede II did later on would, at the very least, be amusing to her, because anyone in game were none the wiser.
I imagine that the deal Titus Mede II made with Boethia was something akin to getting Goldbrand right then and there on the condition of his own soul, unless a conspiracy was part of the deal itself. To kill two birds with one stone (giving the Empire a chance to be saved and winning Boethia's favor) he had himself executed in the following manner.
There is only one problem with this theory: according to the Battle of the Red Ring, it actually wasn't Titus Mede II who went into battle, but rather The Forgotten Hero in Elder Scrolls: Legends.
To quote, "After informing the Emperor of Lord Naarifin's plan, the companions went to the Imperial City Arena,
posing as gladiators in order to infiltrate the city. After their
infiltration, they went through crypts until they reached the White-Gold Tower.
Inside Lord Naarifin's study, they learned that Lord Naarifin had used
the Orb of Vearmina to track the Imperial army. Lord Naarifin and Reive,
however, arrived at the study and the companions had to fight them.
Reive had been granted Goldbrand by Boethiah to destroy the companions."
Assuming this is true, that would mean that this theory crumbles into pieces.
Instead of making a deal with Boethia himself, chances are that The Forgotten Hero actually got their hands on Goldbrand through Reive, and it was one Daedra to another before it fell into the hands of mortals.
Nevertheless, I wanted to talk about it because the ambiguity of the theory kind of made sense to what makes Elder Scrolls interesting. Rather than outright saying that Titus Mede II had set up an assassination against himself, I feel like they should have done the same thing here. That way, it would be up the fans to talk over what Titus Mede II actually did and what that actually says about his character.
Oh well, at least it was an interesting thought.
