Holy butt-fucking Christ on the cross, how can you be this intelligent and still use a keyboard? Just because the Thalmor didn't achieve 100% eradication of the Empire, doesn't mean they still didn't win the Great War. The Empire lost so thoroughly to the point where fucking Thalmor anti-Talos death squads are allowed to freely roam Skyrim.
If the US fought a war with China, the Chinese managed to take and hold Washington DC for a few years, and the US negotiated a treaty where the Chinese left DC as long as they kept any further activity behind the west shore of the Mississippi, would you consider that a win for the US too?
They didn't win the Great War thoroughly. Shit, if you're looking at it from the Thalmor perspective, it was a hollow "victory".
You got a god banned, but the enemy still secretly worships him behind closed doors anyways. (Elisif and Rikke) Not only that, but YOU have to enforce the ban with YOUR troops, which could easily get them killed by bandits or religious radicals while trying to round up worshipers of this banned god.
You got rid of an order of swordsmen who don't answer to the Imperial government anyways (the Blades pretty much deserted the Empire's cause after Martin Septim died) and the Imperials just replaced them with an equally-incompetent group of soldiers. So that pretty much does nothing, since the Blades were incompetent nitwits anyways. Even back in Oblivion when the Blades were at the height of their power, they easily lost the fucking Amulet of Kings to some Daedra-loving twats shortly after Uriel Septim's pal gave it to them. Them getting banned and replaced probably improved the Empire's chances.
You got a desert province out of the war, that has little value and you're forced to abandon it anyways.
Are all these things worth all the Dominion soldiers lost during the Great War? Keep in mind that the Thalmor Elves kill over half their babies because of their racial purity programs, and the other two provinces outside of the Summerset Isles that the Dominion has are A) the deserts of Elsweyr and B) Valenwood, which they cannot harvest crops or wood from lest the Wood Elves tear them to shreds.
So, from the Thalmor perspective, you lost lots of soldiers to win a "victory" where A) the ban on the god you despise is so weakly enforced that YOU have to enforce it yourself and send your boys overseas where they could easily be killed, B) the Blades whom you banned weren't even part of the Imperial government, and they were easily replaced by an equally-incompetent group known as the Penitus Oculatus, and C) your only territorial gain was a desert with little value that you had to leave anyways. What the fuck did the Thalmor win from the war again?
At this point, the Dominion is actually poorer when compared to the Empire which only has two and a half provinces, since at least the Empire has the rich part of Skyrim, and all of Cyrodiil and High Rock, fertile lands that can breed lots of troops. The only rich part of the Dominion is the Summerset Isles, and the people living there are stupid enough to kill over half their potential army recruits and workforce at infancy.
Also, the Thalmor only came into Skyrim after Ulfric tried to restart public Talos worship. Meanwhile, Imperials like Balgruuf, Elisif, and Rikke keep the Talos worship to themselves or behind closed walls so the Thalmor can't go after them.
Does that seem like a total crushing victory to you? Or a shallow one that actually creates more problems for you in the long run? Again, this is more comparable to the "victory" that the Sith Empire in SWTOR won in the Great Galactic War against the Galactic Republic prior to the start of the game, where all they got was some territorial concessions, then come the next war in the vanilla game, the Republic tore them a new asshole to breathe out of, down to the point where one of the top Darths tells you during the first expansion that the Sith Empire will fall in one standard year.
Why even go to war if everything the dominion demanded was a non issue?
By trying to handwove a loss you make the Empire look like complete fucking retards lmfao
The Empire was retarded for signing the White-Gold Concordat. The Stormcloaks are retarded for not waiting for the next war between the Empire and the Dominion before worshiping Talos in public once again.
Everything the Dominion achieved is shallow and doesn't benefit them at all.
Ban Talos? Sure, you can arrest people who worship him in the open, but how can you arrest someone who prays to Talos in silence before going to his bed? The Thalmor only insisted upon it to piss off the Nords, and Ulfric is a sign that it worked.
Gain Hammerfell-they lost it eventually, and it afforded them no advantages whatsoever.
Ban the Blades? They're incompetent nitwits, the Penitus Oculatus can do their job.
Truly worth the lives of all the Dominion soldiers who died fighting the Empire.
