Anonymousnot sure if something in particular prompted this ask or if you’re just spitballin ideas at me (either is fine but if there’s context i have No Idea What It Is, sorry)
i’ve mostly thought the draugr were made and kept willingly during the time of the dragon cult as undead workers and soldiers and servants for the dragons & their priests (an undying and unquestioning army has its perks, probably scares the hell out of most dissidents, and also it’s handy to have your own personal scale-scratchers on demand when you’re a dragon and can’t reach all yer itchy bits)
and then after the priesthood was ousted & the dragon war happened, the tradition stuck anyways as a method of burial (maybe a tether for the soul to be called back to nirn temporarily, maybe as effigies for the Dawn War at the end of time that rip through alduin’s guts and get the next cycle of the universe going), though certainly it seems like the tradition died out eventually
i don’t think they were so much Cursed or Punished or anything, and at some point in the past the majority of nords followed dragon worship before dragons started getting too greedy and overbearing
i think they’re basically just really simple meat robots who do what they do because they were “programmed” for it and don’t know any better. that’s how i rationalize it anyhow
though certainly the dragon priests themselves have something else going on, and definitely the tombs with priests in ‘em i think the draugr are being, if not directly controlled by the priest, then certainly guided and influenced by ‘em. the priests probably turned themselves into messed up turboliches because either they knew the dragons would come back some day or they planned on coming back regardless to grab power for themselves again
