That's why i like Oblivion more.
You are just the character who make the machine working, but the real protagonist is Sean Bean Martin Septim.
I don't really like how every guild makes you their master at the end of each questline tho, since you won't be managing them and instead leave them and come back only to steal shit like the #1 best dad in a black family.
Oblivion is also guilty of this and it's pretty bad on each and every occasion, aside maybe of the thieves guild where you kinda deserved it with the final quests.
Skyrim's guild questlines tho are on their own level of bad: they can be all resumed in "the leader of the guild is in a corrupted idiot, he dies, you solve the problem he/she's responsable for and take his/her place", with mages guild being easily the worst one, all of them also have a main villain of sort, if its not said corrupt leader, but they all makes the big electric dudes with a sword from oblivion's DLCs look like Vaas in comparison.
In order form best to worst:
-Piss elf ancano is cunt, but at least you get to learn more about that sentient pile of piss and interact with it when compaerd to any other NPC listed below.
-An even bigger cunt and massive retard is mercer frey, who just like you 1 hour prior to kill him (because written and direcgted by emil pagliarulo is truly a seal of quality) has freely given his soul to nocturnal and now carries a plan so retarded it's no wonder why he wasn't carrying chillrend or use it against you. there's a little of build-up and you get some interactions, but even then it's barebone to say the least.
-The silver hands doesn't even have a named character you can interact with, they are a faction of nameless goons whose only difference between them and any dungeon bandit is the silver sword they carry.
-Commander maro has no appearance aside of that pathetic scene where he reveals that the emperor was a decoy and display he's an insufferable bitch, the fact killing him is demoted to a shitty optional point on the final quest says all.
The only 2 "guilds" that don't follow this modles are also the ones that have only 1 quest to begin with:
-The bard college is just miserable; it gives you the 7123th "explore shitty draugr ruin" quest and then throw 3 filler fetch quests on top of it just to ensure you remember how shitty it is to be a bard.
-You would be expecting an actually good quest (or reward) for killing Paarthurnax, right? well... fuck you! the blade questline is just "forfeit 3 followers and kill a dragon with them"; you can do such quest even before pissing off worst woman 2011 because you didn't wanted to kill the guy that helped you save the fucking omniverse and she gives you nothing if you commit such act. I'm truly amazed by the fact that so many players use console commands to end her and unlike with Fawkes and the ending of fallout 3, no fix has been done to make such character less hateable.