Skyrim's Mournful Giant Reveals They Aren't Just Monsters
The giants of Skyrim are amongst the scariest creatures in the game. Their size, speed, and club-wielding place them next to dragons in terms of the most powerful enemies in all of the Elder Scrolls series. However, Skyrim's Mournful Giant suggests there may be more to the game's largest monsters than meets the eye.
The giants of Skyrim are known for herding mammoths. The two creatures share a mutualistic symbiotic relationship in which both benefit from the other. The giants use the mammoths for their milk, which they use to make cheese; the mammoths then receive protection from the giants, who with one swing of their giant's clubs can send Skyrim players flying. However, giants and mammoths also share an emotional bond much like humans do with their pets.
This connection between Skyrim's giants and their mammoths is so strong that when mammoths pass away, giants will hold a funeral-like ceremony for them. This ritual can be witnessed in Skyrim at an unmarked hot spring northeast of Mistwatch. While there, players will find the Mournful Giant watching his recently deceased mammoth lying in a body of water that contains the bones of other mammoths who were brought there to pass on to their flying mammoth brethren. The Mournful Giant will not interact with players even if they walk directly in front of him, revealing a depth to his emotions.
The Mournful Giant highlights an intelligence and heart behind Skyrim’s often monstrous depiction of the giant species. In the book All About Giants from Elder Scrolls Online, giants are described “primitive” and “simple” beings driven to violence from “battlelust.” However, giants host complex rituals and emotions both within the giant community and with other species in Skyrim.
Giants appear to have a long history of creatively expressing themselves in Skyrim. At many giant campsites, patterns can be seen painted on the surrounding environment. Giants also create tattoos by etching these patterns into their flesh, as spiral scars can be seen on their bodies. The patterns even make their way onto cows at giant campsites, who have been painted on by farmers and given as offerings to giants. Whether these paintings are related to rituals or creative expression, they show that giants have an emotional and intellectual capacity that they express through the arts.
Giants also have complex funeral ceremonies for the deceased. On top of the Mournful Giant and the mammoth funeral in Skyrim, giants have sacred burial grounds for their own kind according to the book Giants: A Discourse from Elder Scrolls Online. Giants will go to these burial grounds to pass once they fall ill, and if they die elsewhere, other giants will then carry their bodies to these sacred areas. This ritual shows giants in Skyrim not only have the capacity to form complex beliefs, but also a wish to care for others.
Additionally, giants have a long, intricate history in Skyrim that reveals a depth to their culture. According to All About Giants, giants have been a part of the land of Skyrim ever since the beginning of time. Like the Nords, giants descend from the Atmorans who formed Skyrim’s famous 500 Companions, which shows they share more similarities with the humanoids of the region rather than the dragons and monsters they are often compared to.
At a certain point, giants evolved in divergent directions as well, like the frost giant of Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC or those who moved to the sea and became the sea giants of Elder Scrolls Online. These latter giants are described as being more tool- and group-oriented than their earthbound cousins in Skyrim. While less intelligent than their long lost relatives the Sea Giants and Nords, giants have a long, interesting history connected to intelligent and empathic species.
Despite being called unintelligent, Skyrim's giants are smart enough to participate in trade and recognize when they are being conned. In the quest “A Night to Remember,” players can challenge the character Sam Guevenne to a drinking game in any of the taverns across Skyrim. However, they will quickly black out and wake up to find they have trashed the Temple of Dibella in Markarth. This launches a journey in which players must discover what happened the night before and make amends for the mistakes they made while in their drunken stupor. Eventually, players must make their way from the far west of Markarth back to the center of Skyrim in the small village of Rorikstead, where they find out that they have stolen the goat of a farmer and sold it to a giant.
Once approached, the giant will not be aggressive toward players. This will quickly change after they begin to lure the goat away from the giant, who will then begin to try smashing players with his club. While the giant’s anger may seem more in line with the negative stereotypes associated with his species, his frustration toward players shows his understanding of trading and transactions.
This also explains why Skyrim's giants use chests to hide loot at their camps. In these chests, giants hold more than what might be expected of nomads who do not comprehend the concepts of trade and possession; they host jewels and coins that the giants presumably use for trading like in the case of the sheep in the quest “A Night to Remember.” Again, giants prove themselves to be more like the humans of Skyrim than its monsters. Their concerns regarding trade and collecting items people see as valuable show that they are more intelligent and thoughtful than the mindless creatures Skyrim often depicts them as.
Skyrim's giants may always be fearsome enemies to those who cross them, but there is a lot more to them than their monstrous qualities. Between the Mournful Giant, the funeral ceremonies, and trading systems, giants prove themselves to be intelligent and emotional beings. Though Elder Scrolls' lore continues to depict them as simple, the intricacies of the giants and their culture add plenty to Skyrim.