#I do know there was a reason for it probably something to do with lorkhan but

[dwellerinroots]

On the Nature of Thalmor Support

Originally, this was reblog commentary, but it evolved into it's own thing! Interesting(?) semi-lore-ish musings below the cut! Not included: my thoughts on Getter Romebo Big Brass Boi the Numidium, which boiled down to 'why does numidium two have bones' and went quite nowhere.

As of my years tending to the garden of words, I have noticed an increasingly insidious kind of thought that invades as a weed, not unlike creeping Netchvine.

This thought, if it is to be called as such, conflates all Altmer with the government of Alinor, and Alinor with the Thalmor. Retired as I am from Legionary life, it would be compelling to simply nod my head, agree, and move on. Nevertheless, when allowed to spread, thoughts - like strong roots - bury themselves deep where they cannot be seen, much less removed...

With their influence reaching far, and wide.

I would be willing to confidently state that the highest echelons of the Thalmor either believe entirely in the cause and an end, or not at all - only being interested in their position for temporal power. This is common amongst all authoritarian power structures.

Given the extreme nature of the Thalmor and their end goal, I would assume the latter outnumber the former but everyone assumes their peers are serious, so - the work continues, even though only a few desire the actual outcome.

Amongst the populace, though?

I imagine there is a degree of fanatical support that has nothing to do with prior wrongs and everything to do with hurting people for no other reason - justified or no - than cruelty being good, and for many, enjoyable. This, too, is common.

Nevertheless, it's always important to remember that even if a plurality or a great majority support the actions of a cruel government or force, there are also those present who do not agree, agree but have forgiven, do not care, or would agree entirely but leave us out of this awful business and are horrified at the outcome of their thoughts put into action; as well as many whose loyalties are conditional, and whose ability to be persuaded are necessary for the dismantling of any force, whether one wishes it were so or not.

Even limiting this to only elves who consider themselves Thalmor, there will be varying degrees of support for the actions of the state, just as there are varying degrees of support for any action. Consider; the family who has deep ties to Imperial culture, and would rather not see blood shed, but believes that a network of client states is necessary to secure the 'purity' of independent peoples. You may have two exceptionally long-lived forebears who see the conflict as regrettable, are deeply aware of Thalmor policy as it is guided by religious doctrine, but do not think the repeated spoken and implied end-states are serious. There may also be a much more devoted child, who enjoys the power and privilege that come with being in ascension, and perhaps another relation who is opposed, but whose opposition ultimately plays into the power of the state - their execution proving that 'Imperial' sympathisers are everywhere. Consider; an Altmer who hates the Empire, or perhaps even just one people outside of Alinor. But, this Altmer has no interest in expansionism, let alone policy rooted in religious dogma. They cannot bring themselves to oppose the state, because that means tacitly aiding (real, or perceived) enemies. Nevertheless, they may spread information to Bosmer or Khajiiti auxiliaries, who then return it to us. Yet - in public - they do much to praise the regime, which does help it gain power, as no state (however ruled by force) rules alone. Perfect absolutism, as the philosophers will remind you, does not exist. Consider; Altmer who have travelled far and married into distant families, Beast, Men, or other Mer. They are content to live in peace alone, but their very existence living independently and detached from Thalmor policy is a repudiation of everything the Thalmor stand for. It is thus of vital importance that the state not only destroy them, but their families and relatives, any who can attest that their way of life existed. To do otherwise would allow for the proof that not only is their policy not universally adored, but that it is not necessary. And - if it is not necessary - then many of those whose loyalties are conditional might ask: Are we fools..? In living content and humble lives, this quiet defiance is in some ways more of a resistance and threat than any one act within Alinor. Thus, it is here we see some of the harshest punishments, including extrajudicial assassinations and massacres on ostensibly sovereign soil. Whether these are refugees[1] to the Empire who were attacked for daring to leave, or simply independent souls, it's very difficult to imagine what people living in Alinor think of them at this juncture. I know that goes without saying, but it can be easy to forget that Mer are as complex as any Men or Beast; one can ascribe a motive to a people no more then one can ascribe a name to the ocean or an end to the stars. People, cruel and kind, do evil things all the time; and, sometimes, those capable of great cruelty or committed to what we find abhorrent do good. Kustified or no, these things happen. Understanding why is important - in stories and in history. [1] This is from an Imperial Legate in Skyrim, whose name I forget, but his story sticks with me, about the 'Night of Green Fire.' Sources, biases, etc, but I tend to accept it as true because it tracks with what we know of all movements that seek ideological and doctrinal purity. - Iulius Ennius

[trickstarbrave]

I will give you a shiny quarter if you explain Morrowind to me like I’m five (pretty please)

its is quite difficult given i dont know how complex of topics 5 year olds can understand. but i can try to explain it in the most simple way possible because i explain it regularly to one of my roommates and wife who do not understand elder scrolls lore at all. be warned: this is still gonna be long and weird bc the story is long and weird.

(also excuse the swearing i wouldnt swear like this to a 5 year old)

a long long times ago, some 3000+ years before the game actually starts, there was a dude named nerevar. he made friends with some dwarves (dwemer) who lived underground and united the whole country of resdayn (later renamed to morrowind) to drive out the nords who had taken over. he also had a rly cool ring named moon-and-star, which was magic and let you be really persuasive, but he also enchanted it to kill anyone besides him wearing it so it couldnt be misused. this is relevant later

well he married the queen almalexia and made a big council of important people mostly made up of his buddies. he called it the first council and important people on it were his bestie voryn, his wife almalexia, and two younger friends sotha sil and vivec, along with the king of the dwemer dumac and dumac's mage kagrenac (the dwarves use weird magic with sound. if i go into details this will get very confusing).

for like 200 years because elves live for a long time, everything was pretty alright.

but it turns out the nords were there for a reason. they were looking for the heart of a dead god. the god's name for the sake of the story is lorkhan, but different places call him different things like shor or shezzar. the nords worshipped lorkhan and wanted to bring him back or something (probably, or at least just find it because hey thats their guy). but after 200 years of peace the dwemer found it underground in a volcano they lived in. and kagrenac had an Idea

the idea was to build a really cool really powerful giant robot mecha god (because the dwemer were really steampunk) to protect them. and it would be powered by the heart lorkhan.

voryn, nerevar's bestie, ended up finding out about this and told nerevar "hey the dwemer are up to something weird". and nerevar went "huh? they are?" and went to ask his goddess, azura, who knows a lot of things. azura said "yeah they are. stop them. what the fuck" and so nerevar went to his other bestie dumac.

and nerevar told dumac "hey why the fuck are you building a giant robot god?" and dumac's reply was "nerevar what the fuck are you talking about?" and nerevar, being mad his friend was Lying to him (maybe dumac didn't know. we dunno) because he already had multiple people confirm they were in fact doing that, he told dumac their friendship was over and kicked him off the first council and they went to war.

the details here get fuzzy. the nords showed up and joined in. the dwemer had steampunk robots everywhere. cat people showed up because why not. there were orcs there too. it was a big clusterfuck and there were different accounts of what happened. some people say voryn was fighting alongside the dwarves. some say he was fighting with the nords. some say he was fighting alongside nerevar. its hard to tell.

but most accounts have one thing kind of in common that a lot of the fandom agrees on: kagrenac grabbed their three cool tools to control the heart of a god, banged on it really hard, and then every single dwemer (except for one who was on holiday) vanished in an instant. and everyone was pretty confused by that, not really knowing what else to do. they now had a giant robot, the heart of a god, and 3 tools to wack the heart with to make weird shit happen.

so nerevar, unsure, said "hey voryn watch the tools for me." and left voryn with the tools and the heart. voryn said they should just destroy the tools, but nerevar wanted a few different opinions before just chucking them in lava or whatever. but while he was gone voryn started fucking around with the tools and the heart to see what would happen.

nerevar asked his buddies. almalexia, vivec, and sotha sil said they can use the tools to help resdayn/morrowind. nerevar didnt know if that was a good idea or not, so he asked azura. azura said "fuck no, dont ever do that". so nerevar made his friends pinkie promise him on azura's behalf not to use the tools on the heart.

and then again the accounts get weird here. some say nerevar died in battle against the dwarves/nords. some say voryn killed him. some say his friends (almalexia, vivec, and sotha sil) killed him. but regardless nerevar and voryn died. almalexia, sotha sil, and vivec had the tools. and they decided to use them on the heart and became gods.

this pissed azura off. they pinkie promised. what the fuck. so she made all the elves that lived there into dark elves. almalexia, sotha sil, and vivec became known as the tribunal and said "we dont need you anymore azura fuck off" and became living gods who could help their people and preform miracles! though they needed to take the tools up to red mountain and recharge their batteries on the heart regularly. azura tells them "nerevar will be back one day and beat all your asses" and made a whole prophecy about it called the nerevarine prophecy (reincarnations get the name+'ine' tacked on in the elder scrolls)

also the tribunal destroy voryn's house/family, the sixth great house of morrowind, house dagoth. just destroy it all. kill a bunch of ppl and the others kinda go somewhere else if they lived. because they sided with voryn or whatever and were deemed traitors

a bunch of other shit happens. septim empire rises to the throne. vivec trades the not working robot to tiber septim who makes it work with a bootleg wish version of the heart of a god and takes over. more time passes. its now the third era and its been 3500 years.

the protagonist is a prisoner who is released from their sentence in morrowind because the current emperor wants to use the prophecy to keep a better hold on morrowind politically. the protagonist was chosen because part of the prophecy is being born under a specific astrology sign and not knowing who your parents are. which could be anyone but y'know.

so the protag/nerevarine has to do a bunch of shit and finds out through weird dreams, oh hey, voryn's back. he's calling himself a god and dagoth ur now. asking nerevar to call him back, go grab the tools, and come meet him at red mountain. also maybe get married to or hook up with him or something. nerevarine thinks that's weird and ends up finding out dagoth ur has also unleashed a plague onto morrowind which turns you into scary eldritch monsters. and then one of dagoth ur's minions infects you with it.

nerevarine finds a cure which makes you not go insane and not turn into a big scary monster. but leaves all the cool shit of "you cant catch any other disease" and "you will never age". the never aging and getting diseases thing was also part of the prophecy. cool.

then the nerevarine needs to go to the nomadic ashlanders who live up north where theres a bunch of ash (hence the name) and worship azura (and the two other og gods) and ask all four tribes to name them nerevarine. they all think youre stupid because an outlander (someone not born and raised in morrowind) cant be the nerevarine. but you find an original copy of the prophecy and go "nuh-uh, i can be" and also go find the moon-and-star ring only nerevar can wear. then they go "well shit" and have you go a bunch of quests and then decide you're cool enough to be nerevarine.

then the nerevarine goes and convinces the three great houses you can talk to (the other two are on the mainland) to name you hortator, which is a war lord/classic roman definition of dictator, and it was the title nerevar had. you do some stuff, kill some guys, boom--named hortator.

then vivec hears about this and calls you in and says "well i guess you are the one doing the prophecy huh. look i need you to kill dagoth ur he's dangerous. here's our plan, are you in? i can give you one of the tools of kagrenac, you need to get the other two from dagoth ur's goons, and then kill dagoth ur's weird brothers he has put his power into. then bang on the heart with the tools and cut him off". vivec then teaches the nerevarine how to use the tools.

you can also just like. kill vivec and take the tool. you wont know how to use it tho and if you use it wrong you will take so much damage you die really fast. if you do this you can go to the only living dwarf who also has that disease but hasnt lost his mind and ask him how to use it and he'll be like "UHHHHHH i'll see what i can. fucking do i guess. i didnt make this." and he'll jerry rig it for you.

then you can kill voryn's brothers or not (you'll need to kill at least 2 for the other tools) and then march up to red mountain. dagoth ur will then be like "yo. are you really nerevar?" and you can say yeah or no or idk. and then have a conversation. and then you fight. but after you kill him he's not really dead, so you gotta run up and start wacking that heart while he yells at you to knock it the fuck off. and then he's cut off from the heart, you run away, and he falls in lava and dies.

and then azura shows up and goes "hey thanks man i have some other shit for you to do though". after which you can do some other content or play the dlc.

thats morrowind baby

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

Going on from Trinimac (He's my favorite god of the Elder Scrolls), the way his story goes is interesting.

So.

In story, we know he gets "consumed" by Boethiah and Boethiah takes his form, and talks to people about Truths, and afterwards, Trinimac is diminished into Malacath and Boethiah goes on to lead the Dunmer.

This? This is interesting for several reasons.

( Now for the sake of me not doing a bunch of research, pulling sources, and trying to parse the esoteric deep lore of TES and the manic writings of Kirkbride, I'm sticking with Morrowind's in-game books, such as "The Changed Ones" and "Variaties of Faith". I'll prolly get to more esoteric stuff at a later post? When the thought hits me. )

They know that its Boethiah Talking and not Trinimac.

Trinimac Worship is not picked up again after this, even though he was the strongest and more favored god.

There has been no attempt to turn Malacath back into Trinimac. As impossible as this sounds, I need to point out the power of belief in the Elder Scrolls and the idea of objects and rituals. If you can Break Akatosh, Time itself, you can reverse what happened to Trinimac (who was changed by considerably less strenuous means). If you can mantle the Dead God Lorkhan (Talos), then you can revive the God Knight. ... Nobody has done this, however.

Orismer are then paraih'd from the Aldmer / Altmer, with no attempts to reunite, renegotiate, or anything--just an immediate marking them as no better than Ogres and Goblins. Worse still, if you read "Pig Children", it seems that a lot of the sentience on Tamerial don't like orcs.

Trinimac's story, by his own former people, the Old / High Elves, is reduced to propoganda made against Dunmer worship. And this, is coming from the same peoples who want to return to pre-dawn and despise Lorkhan. You'd think that they'd keep Trinimac worship for that reason, if nothing else.

Boethiah is the deceiver of nations, they're one of the worst daedra to run into given their ruthless bloodthirsty nature, and they're attached to conspiracy and deceit.

... So if they knew it was Boethiah, why listen? Why trust it?

Especially if you know that this Daedric Prince, anathema of Auri-el and Aedra, is prancing around in your most favorite of gods? I'm pretty certain playing puppet with someone else's body is a violation worthy of raising alarm.

There's only one reasonable answer:

It wasn't Boethiah.

Something to note about the Aedra of the Elder Scrolls. They're bound to interpretation. The closest we're gonna get to pre-dawn et'Ada (What everyone was before the creation of Mundus and Nirn, so Before the "dawn") are certain Daedra.

To take example.

Kyne of the Nords, and Kynareth of the Imperials, are of the same "Oversoul" or rather, the same Aedra, but are not the same God. In fact, Kynareth was created / born from Cyrodiilic interpretations of Kyne. Kyne and Kynareth are fully capable of meeting each other as unique individuals, inspite technically being the same person, and potentially, even being against one another.

( Find any Auri-el vs Akatosh argument. Auriel doesn't like Nirn or mortality or probably humans, but Akatosh likes the place and doesn't like anyone fucking with it or the mortals. )

Collective belief will create Gods, provided there's an Aedra niche for them to come from.

( Probably the price of sacrificing bits of yourself to create things, plays into now only having power if someone can perceive you. )

( It also kinda brings in the idea that a Daedra can, in fact, become an Aedra if they are willing to sacrifice parts of themselves to expand the Mundus. Gotta remember that most of them are all Et'Ada, they are fully capable of performing those feats. Daedra and Aedra are just outdated perspectives by Aldmer. )

Anyway.

Why isn't it Boethiah.

Because, following how Aedra work? Boethiah was the Velothi Aspect of Trinimac. But because they were Aldmer undergoing a schism, it wasn't so cleanly defined as Kyne and Kynareth or Stuhn and Stendarr.

The God tore himself, under the schism of multiple interpretations.

And because each interpretation was, in of itself, a live God, and because most of those interpretations didn't fit with the greater popularity...

... Suddenly, your most Favorite God pops up into his Temple and talks about how He was Wrong. Speaks about what the Mundus is really meant to be, and how to work it.

And with that? Because that's a God talking, that's THE God talking, things he says must be true...

That's when you get the massive underlying cultural shift.

Trinimac is branded an oathbreaker, a liar, a hypocrite, and against his own aspect, by the very Aldmeri populace, and the result is that the gods schisms so badly that it divorces itself from the Mundus, and falls to pieces.

Those who still believed in him after this, were changed to Orcs, and were branded just as pariah as their god. And that's how you got Malacath, the only surviving piece and not even that good of one.

Those who believed his new truth, that part walked away as Boethiah, and lead Veloth, and the newly changed Chimer. And in fact, that's where the idea that Boethiah wore him came from, because that was the aspect that survived to keep speaking the new truths.

( There are other surviving fragments, but I'll get into them at a later time. Trinimac didn't completely succeeded in killing his Men-Counterpart )

And though Trinimac is still acknowledged as champion of Auriel, there are no more new worshipers. The truths he spoke were too terrible to return to his old worship. Because why worship what you know are lies?

Of course, as time rode on, Malacath and Boethiah were further and further estranged from their old roots. Boethiah doesn't lead peoples anymore, and Malacath sticks to his strongholds over reigning vengence against people (let alone the Altmer or Dunmer).

But its funny how a certain point of view can make the difference.

ADDENDUM:

And what of Veloth? Well, a dude can't just randomly get visions out of the ether and decide to leave home to go into the wilderness for no reason. Visions, here, are granted by gods.

This schism, it started somewhere. While it ended in the fragmentation of a god...

... It might just have been started by that very god.

There is no greater lie than the lies we tell ourselves, when we know we've done something horrible, to ourselves and to others.

That perhaps, under orders and belief, in a times of war and betrayal, a knight-general over armies killed the shieldbrother of the enemy king, and then tore the heart from that king.

[ down in front of his army and reached in with more than hands to take his Heart ]

Perhaps it was ordered by another king. Perhaps it was justice for lives now forever lost in creation as earth bones. Perhaps it was simply because so he could prove he Could.

[ As their aspects began to die off, many of the et'Ada vanished completely ]

[ shook his head at this, for he was akin to Tsun and did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing ]

And then he was left behind by the new king.

In such grief, its easy to ask... Why. He did everything right. He got Justice, he proved He could. He did everything right, so why?

[ Everything is spoiled, for now, and for all time, and the most we can do is teach the Elven Races to suffer nobly, with dignity, and chastise ourselves for our folly, and avenge ourselves upon Shezarr and his allies ]

Gods aren't meant to feel grief. Perhaps he went a-searching.

Perhaps he consorted with Daedra. Found the xarxes, and read direction. Looked upon Dawn and Dusk, and found beauty. Found the Web, saw the secrets.

( After all, it was murder, wasn't it? When you cut out the heart of a god and kill him perma-dead, leaving only his ghost, that is murder. That is consorting with Mephala. )

[ Know that battle is a blessing. Know that death is an eventuality. Know that you are dust in the eyes of-- ]

Found the Cycle, and he was apart of it. Revenge is always a Cycle. And when your first remembered act is murder, Death becomes your domain.

[ I am alive because that one is dead. I exist because I have the will to do so. And I shall remain as long as there are signs of my handwork, such as the blood dripping from this blade. ]

Perhaps he found himself, in the man he killed to find the now dead king. For after all, if death was his domain, surely he would know where souls go--

[ Died defending Shor from foreign gods ]

-- and merely found himself.

[ fell at sunrise and became replaced by mirrors ]

That perhaps One King over the Other was merely a perspective.

[ would hate the same-twin on the other end of the aurbrilical cord ]

[ I AM NOT ]

Death is merely finding the End, and at the end of it all, was a Tower, and he had the Key.

[ is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other ]

and you don't become sheild-thane god for another god for no one, and not for no reason.

[ the ashen-amalgamation of his sons that had survived ]

When your various dream selves are bound by interpretation, all this means is waiting for someone to tell the knowledge to. Someone who has just the right belief and understanding, that you can reach.

Especially you cannot reach the wandering, because you felled the self that could have talked to them.

[ and swore blood vengeance on the heirs of Auriel for all time ]

That perhaps this all started, because of the grief and guilt of the son who stole his fathers' lives.

[ then ascended to heaven in full observance of his followers so that they might learn the steps needed to escape the mortal plane ]

[ withdrew from the creation of the world at the last second, though it cost him dearly ]

[ dooming him to the underworld ]

[ He was undone ]

And for those who are trapped--

[ cast down their jailer king ]

--but have a chance to escape.

[ the rules of Psijic Endeavor ]

... And he just needed the right ear.

( Sorry for the trippiness. But I do so like writing something that looks like it could've walked right outta "V for Vendetta". Lots o quotes from lots o places. )

[tittytania]

Finding ChristBorg: A TED talk about what happened during the Coldharbour Compact.

Reposted from my tes reddit bc I want to see what y’all think.

I can't tell if I'm a genius, completely insane, or if I'm just late to the lore-party. Time to find out I guess. TL;DR at the bottom.

So it has never been explained what Sotha Sil did during the Coldharbour Compact to convince the daedric princes to not manifest on Nirn without an intermediary, and it probably never will be since the mystery of it all is far too cool. But that doesn't mean I can't read into it like literature and look for meaning in the other texts I can compare it to.

To start, Vivec is based off of the Shakta variation of the half female/half male Ardhanarishvara, where the gold-skinned female half is the right side. Both Vivec and Ardhanarishvara represent unity and duality, and looking at some images of Ardhanarishvara, it's kinda hard to argue that Vivec wasn't based off of them. Kirkbride even confirmed that Ardhanarishvara was the inspiration for Vivec in an AMA. Now, Vivec is part of the god trio the Almsivi Tribunal, along with Almalexia and Sotha Sil. Shiva, who Ardhanarishvara is the avatar of, is also part of a god trio, called the Trimurti in Hinduism. So it would make sense if the other members of the tribunal are also based off of one member of a real world religious triad. I have a shaky idea of who Almalexia could be, but my theory for her god-inspiration is nowhere near as solid as my theory for Sotha Sil, who I believe is based on Jesus Christ.

To start, their characterizations have multiple similarities. Both are one branch of a god-triad, with Sotha Sil as part of the Tribunal, and Jesus as The Son in the Holy Trinity. Both serve as a teacher, with Jesus being referred to as Teacher several times in the Bible, and Sotha Sil giving lessons on magic and Mysticism to the Psijic Monks. Also, both are characterized as wise, patient, and celibate. They both talk about moral and philosophical concepts with their followers, neither Jesus nor Sotha Sil are shown as having a temper or raising their voices, and neither of them are shown with a spouse or partner. Sotha Sil is specifically shown as not caring about the Night Mother's attempts to sexually manipulate him in book seven of 2920, The Last Year of the First Era. Now I know that 2920 is considered a work of historical fiction in-universe, but I don't think that matters in this situation since I'm approaching this as a person reading a text, not as a person living inside the lore world.

In terms of specific scenes that connect Sotha Sil and Jesus, the first I will mention is that they both use a makeshift whip to beat intruding wrongdoers and drive them away, while yelling about fathers. In the Truth in Sequence vol. 8 book, it says that "[t]hrough His will alone, Mighty Seht wound the veins (of metal ore) into god-bronze whips, and lashed the Prince pitilessly," saying "[b]ehold the wrath of lost Ald Sotha! Know death at my hands, false-son of a false-father!" In the Bible, Jesus found people doing sales in a place of worship, and then He "made a whip of cords, (and) He drove them all out of the temple," saying ��Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” (John 2 15-16).

Also, Jesus had close friends and followers who were called his apostles, and Sotha Sil has his own Clockwork Apostles. Sil's apostles reside in the Clockwork Basilica, and while basilica isn't an exclusively Christian term, it is frequently used to describe a type of church architecture, and is a term the pope uses to recognize distinguished churches.

Another similarity that I found was in the plot of Morrowind, where Sotha Sil's death was caused at the hands of Almalexia, who was someone he had once loved and trusted, much like with Jesus and Judas.

The most notable life similarity as it relates to the Coldharbour Compact is that both leave the earthly world in order to make a deal for the benefit of the souls on earth, and then return to the earthly world. This parallel is given extra weight with the descriptions of the scene in the book 2920, The Last Year of the First Era. Sotha Sil returns from Coldharbour by way of someone "rolling aside the great boulder that blocked the entrance to the Dreaming Cavern. This sounds a lot like the scene in the bible of the discovery that Jesus had risen from the dead, where "an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door" (Matthew 28:2). In addition, Jesus said "after He is killed, He will rise [on] the third day," (Matthew 17:23) and after Sotha Sil returned from Coldharbour, he "felt he had been away for months, years, but only a few days had transpired." Perhaps it had been 3?

In addition to the life and behavior similarities, there are similarities in dress. In the 2920 book, Sotha Sil is always described as wearing a white robe or cloak. In ESO, Sotha Sil is shown as barefoot, and wearing a blue sash over his long white robe. In medieval and renaissance art, Jesus is most always depicted as barefoot, and is frequently shown with a blue cloth over his shoulder. In most resurrection art, as well as in almost all 20th/21st century art, Jesus is depicted as dressed in white. While Jesus usually isn't usually shown wearing both the blue sash and the white robe at once like Sotha Sil is, I found one modern interpretation of Jesus that does dress him this way, and several depictions of him in Chinese art that also portray him like this.

I'm feeling almost conspiratorial here, but these similarities are far too many for me to think it's accidental, and therefore I have to think that all of this is meant to suggest that Sotha Sil serves a Christ-figure role in his story, i.e. in sacrificing own life like Jesus did in order to make his deal in the Coldharbour Compact. However I don't think Sil's sacrifice was quite so simple. After he is asked what he offered the Daedra in return for the deal, he states: "The deals we make with Daedra... [s]hould not be discussed with the innocent." This implies that in contrast to the Christ mythos, Sil's sacrifice was not blameless; he did not come out of the deal with his hands clean.

So, a Christ-like sacrifice that isn't quite as pure and selfless as it is in Christianity. What could that be?

My theory is that in order to make the Coldharbour Compact, he sold the lives of Vivec and Almalexia along with his own. Perhaps he told the princes that he knew the tribunal's godhood would end, and in exchange for their cooperation he promised not to tell the other tribunes or make any attempt to prevent his and his companions' demise. (After all, as far as I know he made the mechanical heart for keeping his city functional, not for recreating the divinity the heart of Lorkhan provided.) Or, maybe he offered to do something to assist in bringing the Tribunal down, and losing Sunder and Keening, the tools that helped them maintain their divinity, was intentional on his part. Sil deliberately sacrificing his own life appears to be reflected in Azura's statement after his death. She said "he shed his mortality long ago, and I am certain his death was no small relief to him." Of course she'd know that he let go of his life ages ago if he had willingly sold it to her. Of course she would be certain that he found his death to be a relief, if she'd heard him say so himself when he was explaining why a god would ever offer such a deal.

It would also make sense with Sotha Sil's character, since he allegedly loved the people on Nirn more than Almalexia or Vivec did, and the destruction of Gilverdale could have definitely been a traumatic enough reminder of the destruction of Ald Sotha for him to do something dramatic to prevent it ever happening again. And guilt over sacrificing his friends could have definitely been a contributing factor to the worsening self-isolation and intense depression in his later life. It would also be a definite explanation for why he apparently never met another soul in the 10 years between losing the tools and his death. Not only had he become extremely disillusioned with the imperfections of the world, he had now finalized the deal he made so long ago, and saw no point in continuing to interact with a deeply flawed world he was essentially finished with.

However, I do see some issues with this and how it would work in-universe. Namely the fact that Hermaeus Mora's seekers said the prince received something from every individual on Nirn as part of the deal, which is quite different from what I'm suggesting. A different deal for each prince would also explain why Sil was able to include Clavicus Vile and Mephala in the compact at a much later date. There would be no reason for Vile and Mephala to submit to a collective deal whose terms had already been decided. So if he offered the tribunal's lives as part of the deal, he would have needed to offer other things as well. But for me the most significant in-universe issue I struggled with was that using his death as a bargaining tool would create a massive problem for his ability to enforce the deal in the future. This could explain why both Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon manifested on Nirn after Sotha Sil's death, but since I think they were summoned by qualified mortals that could have been a loophole. Either way, making a deal that is meant to last forever by promising something that can never be taken back in the case of a breach of contract seems extremely short-sighted for someone who claims to be cursed with certainty. Especially considering how many of the princes there were known to be cheats and liars.

Unless, that is, you believe this theory I read about the reason why Sil was completely silent as he was killed. My original belief was that he was silent because he'd seen it coming long ago, and knew that nothing he could have said would have changed Almalexia's mind. And while that would be in character for him, now I'm starting to think that it was because he had already uploaded his consciousness elsewhere. This would fit in with the Christ-figure parallels, due to the Christian belief that Jesus is risen from the dead and very much alive. While Jesus returned to life at the same time he emerged from the cave, the completion of Sotha Sil's death sacrifice didn't happen until long after his return via the cave. While I have found no explicit evidence that he's still around, when you find his body in Morrowind he is shown hanging, with his arms outstretched at his sides, in a sort of crucifixion pose. And after the crucifixion comes the resurrection. Perhaps Sotha Sil is still around somewhere in the gears of his city, and he promised the princes he'd never be present or have any influence on Nirn so long as they kept up their end of the deal. Additionally, the 37th sermon of Vivec mentions Sotha Sil as holding "his swollen belly," carrying "[his] daughter." While Vivec's sermons are hardly ever literal, Kirkbride's comments suggest that maybe Vivec was being somewhat literal in this instance. Regarding this concept art, Kirkbride said "note the cosmic baby growing inside Sotha Sil. While Sotha Sil is dead as we saw in the add-on pack “Tribunal”, the child survived." Perhaps one of Sotha Sil's many body modifications made him able to carry and birth a child, and then he created a daughter through self-cloning or some other method that allows him to have enough influence to enforce the compact.

TL;DR - Sotha Sil has a lot of similarities with Jesus, so he's a Christ figure and therefore his sacrifice in the Coldharbour Compact was himself, and Almalexia and Vivec too, and that also means that he may still be around.

Anyways, thanks for reading and sorry if this sounds like I'm putting red strings on a wall as my application essay to the r/SothaSimps fan club. Also, lmk if I'm missing anything obvious. For me right now Reading Lore On The Bedroom Floor is a bit more manageable than playing the games, and there may be something I've just completely looked over.

[irandrura]

The Elder Scrolls - a disclaimer and rant

I am going to make some posts about The Elder Scrolls, and in particular, its background, setting, and characters. That means that a disclaimer is probably necessary.

Here’s the tl;dr version: yes, I know about the lore. Please trust me when I say that I was really super into it about a decade and a half ago, and I’ve kept an eye on it since. I have read the Michael Kirkbride forum posts. I have read C0DA, The Seven Fights of the Aldudagga, Sermon Zero, the Loveletter from the Fifth Era, and so on. I know the forum roleplays like The Trial of Vivec. I know that Ayrenn is really a time-travelling mining robot from outer space. I think all the stuff I just referenced varies widely in quality, opinions quite reasonably differ on it, and it’s frequently at odds with what’s actually depicted in the games, but at any rate, I promise that I know it.

So when I go on and talk about Psijics – I know, all right? I know. I am choosing to engage with the setting on a level that focuses more on characters, human stories, and, well, the narratives of the games. The TES apocrypha is interesting, but of limited relevance to the things I’m interested in. There are many valid ways to enjoy TES. Okay?

Now, the longer part:

If you haven’t played TES, and… actually, scratch that, for like 90% of people who’ve played TES, none of the above needed to be said. The thing is, when you play a TES game, it is a fairly straightforward elves-and-wizards-and-dragons fantasy setting in the D&D mould. Indeed, the earliest versions of it, back in the 90s, were based on a D&D campaign. So there’s relatively little surprising about it, and “it’s like D&D” will carry you most of the way towards understanding it.

However, TES games are also renowned for containing lots of in-game books you can read, which are often some of the most striking and evocative parts of the games. These are supplemented by a large library of apocrypha: often unofficial material, posted by developers (and ex-developers) on the internet. The most infamous of these writers is Michael Kirkbride, who has some… very unusual tastes and interests, but there are a range of other names as well. In any case, the result is that TES has an ‘expanded universe’ composed of these non-canonical writings. Often canonical texts in-game hint at some of this vast, unofficial hinterland, and sometimes ideas invented in the apocrypha sneak back into the games themselves.

Further, the apocrypha often hints at what seems to be a very different setting to the one directly experienced in the games: one that’s less about warriors and wizards and adventure and more one about divine magic, transcendence, myth, and meaning. The descriptions often seem to be somewhat at odds. This can best be demonstrated with some examples.

For instance, here is Michael Kirkbride’s description of a High Elf warship, written before any game had depicted the High Elf homeland:

Made of crystal and solidified sunlight, with wings though they do not fly, and prows that elongate into swirling Sun-Birds, and gem-encrusted mini-trebuchets fit for sailing which fire pure aetheric fire, and banners, banners, banners, listing their ancestors all the way back to the Dawn.

This is Old Mary at Water.

 You will immediately notice two things. The first is that this sounds really cool. Some of it you need some context to parse (the old elven homeland is called ‘Aldmeris’, hence ‘Old Mary’ as a mocking nickname given by its foes; the High Elves believe that they are literally, genealogically descended from the spirits that created the world at the Dawn), but even so, man, that warship sounds awesome. This Kirkbride guy can write. The second thing, though, is that it is extremely unclear what any of this even means. Given that descriptions… what does this ship look like? Try to picture it! What the heck does ‘crystal and solidified sunlight’ look like? How exactly does a trebuchet throw fire? What?

You might then go on to play a video game where the High Elves are taking part in a war to conquer the continent. If you’re like me, you’re probably keen to see one of these fabled warships. But then it turns out that in-game, High Elf ships look… like this. Or like this.

(Indeed, the High Elves are often a good example of this. An earlier written text, in a pamphlet enclosed with the video game Redguard, described the elven capital of Alinor as “made from glass or insect wings” or “a hypnotic swirl of ramparts and impossibly high towers, designed to catch the light of the sun and break it into its component colours”. Needless to say, should you visit it in a game, it does not look like that.)

After a while, you start to notice that there is very little connection between the world implied by the apocrypha and the world experienced in the games. Kirkbride says that the “closest mythical model” for the ancient knight Pelinal “would be Gilgamesh, with a dash of T-800 thrown in, and a full-serving of brain-fracture slaughterhouse antinomial Kill(3) functions stuck in his hand or head”, and says “Pelinal was and is an insane collective swarmfoam war-fractal from the future”. Indeed in Kirkbride’s descriptions Pelinal seems to have been an ultraviolent schizophrenic who led a wild, genocidal band of anti-elven warriors, was very definitely gay, and who had only a red, gaping hole where his heart ought to be (which in turn is a reference to the missing heart of the creator-trickster deity Lorkhan, whom Pelinal was in part a mortal incarnation of). You might find that really cool or you might find it banal, but there’s no denying that it’s extremely different to the Pelinal whose ghost you can meet in-game. The apocryphal Pelinal is a mad butcher whose closest mythic model, contra Kirkbride, actually seems to be Achilles; the game Pelinal is a straightforwardly sympathetic chivalric knight. This is complicated somewhat by the in-game books being written by Kirkbride and therefore being gonzo bananas insane, so the ‘canon’, such as it is, is unclear – but at any rate it is impossible to deny that there’s an incongruity.

I could go on with examples for a long time. I haven’t even mentioned the most famous – the 1st edition PGE description of Cyrodiil compared to what it actually looks like in Oblivion – or more recent ones, like the gulf between Alduin the mythic dragon who will consume the world and indeed time itself in its terrible jaws and the frankly quite underwhelming beastie you fight in Skyrim. The point I’m making is that there are effectively two TES settings: one relatively down-to-earth, immersive, and depicted in great detail in the video games, and one that’s this absurd mash-up of magic and science fiction and whatever psychedelics Michael Kirkbride has been taking this week.

I write this long disclaimer because it has been my experience discussing TES in the past that people who are mostly interested in the former – in the relatively grounded setting experience in the games – sometimes run into an elitist attitude from people who are interested in the latter. Sometimes fans of the apocrypha can come on much too strong, or gatekeep the idea of being a fan of ‘TES lore’. Any sentence that starts with “actually, in the lore…” is practically guaranteed to go on to be awful.

My point is not that the apocryphal TES is bad. As I hinted above, in my opinion its quality varies extremely widely: there are things that Kirkbride has written that I think are pretty cool (I unironically love the Aldudagga) and there are things he’s written that I think are indulgent tripe (C0DA stands out). Ultimately it’s all about what you enjoy, and I would never try to tell anyone that they shouldn’t have fun reading or speculating about or debating the zaniness of some of these texts. Indeed, as far as online fandoms and video game fan fiction goes, TES probably has the most fruitful ‘expanded universe’ that I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s wonderful. Kirkbride himself has said that “it’s really all interactive fiction, and that should mean something to everyone” and “TES should be Open Source”, which is a position I wholeheartedly endorse – and does a lot to take the edges off some of the worse things he’s said.

Rather, my point is that everyone should enjoy what they feel most interested in, or most able to enjoy. Further, I argue that there is absolutely nothing wrong – and for that matter absolutely nothing less intelligent or less intellectual – about a person preferring to engage with the version of TES most clearly depicted in the video games. Part of this might be defensiveness on my part, because in my opinion what TES has always done best is a nuanced depiction of cultural conflict: this is particularly the case in Morrowind and Skyrim, and ESO’s better expansions tend to deal in this area as well. As such I take relatively little interest in the metaphysical content of much of the apocrypha. For me, Shor, say, is most interesting as the protagonist of several conflicting cultural narratives, rather than as a metaphysical essence.

I would also argue that the most recent game content has taken a good approach by going out of its way to legitimise a range of possible approaches to the setting. The latest chapter of ESO, Greymoor, includes a system where the player can dig up ancient artifacts, and a number of NPC scholars will comment on them for you. This allows the game to indicate in-character scholarly disagreement over issues fans have previously debated. One item shows disagreement over whether the mythical character Morihaus was literally a bull, or a minotaur, or whether he was a human allegorically referred to as a bull. Another one points to disagreement over the possibility of magical spaceships: apocryphal materials have referred to ‘Sunbirds of Alinor’, ‘Reman Mananauts’, etc., as sorts of magical astronauts, but that seems so ridiculous given what we’ve seen in the games as to be easily discounted. I like items like this in-game because they seem to say to players, “It’s okay to disagree over questions like this – no one is doing TES wrong.”

That said, I am reasonably positive that I’m in the minority here, because I am in the camp that usually says that legends exaggerate, and so Morihaus probably wasn’t a bull and magical spaceships don’t exist. This is not a popular position. My reason, of course, is that I think tales are more likely to grow in the telling rather than shrink, and I have a dozen of what I think are hard-to-deny examples of this happening in TES (e.g. heroic narratives of the War of Betony are very different to the grubby reality you uncover in Daggerfall, or Tiber Septim is almost certainly from Alcaire rather than Atmora). However, this means that I openly take an opposite methodology to Michael Kirkbride. Kirkbride was once asked by a forum poster whether some in-game writings are exaggerated. His reply was: “I prefer, "It is very possible, as is the case throughout this magical world, that some of the exaggerated claims made about some subjects pale in comparison to the Monkey Truth. ZOMGWTFGIANTFEATHEREDFLUTYRANTS."”

Needless to say, I find this implausible, and it means that, for example, I interpret the Remanada as an obvious piece of propaganda, inventing a story about Alessia’s ghost in order to retroactively explain why Reman, probably born the son of a hill chieftain with zero connection to the previous dynasty, really has imperial blood. This is a very different but in my opinion more historically plausible take than Kirkbride’s, who has a naked thirteen year old Reman standing atop his harem and slaughtering recalcitrant followers.

I’m not saying that my approach is objectively correct. It’s all fiction – and as Kirkbride said, TES is open source. The only thing that matters is what you the reader, player, or interpreter find the most interesting. For me, that means generally favouring what is seen in the games over the developer apocrypha, which I can take or leave.

At any rate.

I’m going to go on and make some more fannish posts about stuff in ESO that I liked.

Just… if it’s relevant, be aware that I am familiar with the zany stuff. Some of it I like, a lot of it I don’t like, and I feel no obligation to use it if I don’t like it.

There. Disclaimer over.

[razaks-wheel]

[Adyn finally talks to Vivec after completing the Fourth and Fifth Trials.]

---

Adyn ascended the steps to Vivec's palace once more. This time, they had an invitation and even a key, but that did not stop them from feeling apprehensive. Why would Vivec be willing to lift the curse on the Nerevarine? Was this some sort of trap? Vivec had said that they would discuss everything in detail at their next meeting. They hoped ze still had that intention.

They cautiously entered the chamber. Just seeing their god again filled them with a multitude of emotions: excitement, fear, relief, dread—gods, they really just wanted a hug, but they pushed the thought away as potentially situationally inappropriate as they knelt before Vivec.

"Thank you for inviting me, muthsera."

"Rise, Adyn," Vivec said. "Of course you may have a hug."

They laughed with some embarrassment as they stood and went into Vivec's open arms. How could they have forgotten that ze could hear their thoughts?

Vivec held them close. Adyn was surprised to detect some sadness, almost a loneliness in the hug, but then they realized that this could be Vivec's first hug in years as well. But maybe it was even deeper than that. Maybe ze actually recognized them as hir old friend.

"You have your worries, and we will talk about them, but first, know that I am proud of you, Adyn. Look how far you have come in these past months since returning to Morrowind. Even a few weeks ago, you said that the Fourth and Fifth Trials felt impossible. And yet, here you are, Hortator and Nerevarine."

"Here I am," Adyn repeated softly when Vivec released them from the hug and returned to hir sitting hover. "I guess we have a lot to talk about. I've been trying to keep you updated through my prayers, but there's just...so much."

"There is, my Buoyant Armiger. Let me address your most central concern: Yes, if you fulfill the Nerevarine prophecies—and I do have faith that you will—the Tribunal will lose access to our source of divine power, relying only on what little we have stored up. Yes, we may even die. And, Adyn, I urge you to see these prophecies through to the end regardless. We understand the risk and accept that it is necessary. We cannot fight the Blight on our own. You will not be our enemy by fulfilling the prophecies, but our champion."

Of course they had already suspected that the risk was that great, but to hear it so plainly hit them like a territorial kagouti.

"Why?" they whispered after a moment. "Is there really no other way?"

"None that I am aware of," ze said. "Dagoth Ur must be defeated; that is not negotiable. He cannot be killed unless he is unbound from the Heart of Lorkhan. The only way to do that is to free the Heart from Kagrenac's enchantments. Doing so will break the Tribunal's connection to the Heart as well. I can see no other way." Ze seemed to detect their continued concern and said, "Speak freely. We won't accomplish much of anything here unless you do."

"I just don't get it," Adyn said. "I mean, I get it, but it sucks! I'm supposed to go kill my ex from a mysterious past life that I didn't even know about a couple months ago, and in so doing, I may or may not kill my gods, and that's apparently fine. And for some reason, I'm supposed to be better suited for this job than my actual gods are, because you upset Azura four thousand years ago. Is this supposed to make any sense?"

"I understand that it must be a lot to process."

"And what happens if I come back and find you dead? And everyone knows it's my fault? And the Temple, and the Armigers, and my House all hate me? If I come home from 'saving the world' and suddenly I have no friends, no family, and no gods?"

"The higher-ranking clergy already know of the plan and the possible outcomes. They would not fault you. Few others would even learn of the Tribunal's death for a long time."

"That's...really not much comfort."

"I know. I'm sorry, Adyn. The path of the Nerevarine is difficult and lonely, but you must follow it."

They sat down on the cushions on the floor, and Vivec floated a little lower to match their change in height.

"Can I ask you something?" they asked.

"Please do."

"How long have you known that I was the Nerevarine?"

Vivec contemplated hir words for a moment and began slowly, "I recognized you as a Hero—an agent of prophecy—from the moment you arrived on the Temple's doorstep. We did not know which prophecy was yours, but of course we had our suspicions. But it was only when you felt compelled to leave for Cyrodiil that we knew for certain."

"Why didn't you kill me?"

"I will admit, we considered the possibility, but killing a child would have caused some dissent among our faithful, and we were already struggling to keep our people's faith. I could have arrested and killed you for 'desertion' when you were to leave for Cyrodiil, but by then we had realized that the time had come, and we needed you alive."

"So you just raised me, kept me that close to you, knowing that someday you might have to kill me?"

"As I have said, 'Treat your enemies well and your friends better.' I did not know which you would be, and so I opted to treat you like a friend." Ze looked at them closely, probably reading their faint disapproval. "Before you think to judge me, consider where I learned such reasoning, Neht."

They sighed and closed their eyes, focusing on their ever-clearing memories of their past life. Sure, they remembered training Vivec in the arts of diplomacy and intrigue. Ze always had a knack for the subtler aspects of interpersonal webspinning, even if hir skills were coarse and needed to be refined for council politics. These thoughts were blasphemous, Adyn knew, but they were also their truth. Why was Vivec pushing them like this?

"Are you testing me?"

"Usually," ze said with a smile. "In what regard?"

"Testing to see how far my faith goes? Testing to see how long I can entertain Tribunal canon in the face of memories that contradict it?" they said. "Sometimes I believe you understand that I'm loyal to you—in my heart, anyway, even if my path doesn't show it—but other times it feels like you're probing to see if I'm really the heretic everyone says I am."

Vivec made a contemplative hum, lowered to hir feet, walked over to the cushion next to Adyn's and sat down.

"In that regard, no. I am pushing you to understand and accept your newfound duality. I know that you are a loyal subject of the Tribunal; I do not need to test you for that. But you are resisting the knowledge that you are also something else—someone else. You can be multiple things simultaneously, Adyn. You can be my Armiger while also being my old friend and mentor. You can accept Tribunal canon while knowing firsthand that there are parts that are fabricated. You can be our champion while also being our downfall." Ze took Adyn's hands in each of hirs: one gold and one gray. "You must accept this duality, because it is your truth. To continue pushing it away will break you—it's already breaking you."

Adyn took their right hand back to wipe their eyes and then returned it to Vivec's. Ze was right: it was breaking them. "But how can I accept all of that? It's hard enough to admit these things to myself, and you want me to admit in your presence that I remember who you once were, and how you got here? That I recognize your lies? And you expect me not to fear for my life?"

Vivec raised an eyebrow and said with a small smirk, "Well, now I will question your faith, if you think I cannot handle the dual nature of a Buoyant Armiger who is also Nerevar Reborn."

"No, I didn't mean—I just—"

"I jest. Here is the truth: You will have to lie to some and show only one side of yourself at a time. Among the citizens of Morrowind, you will be Adyn Rothreni. Hide what you know as Nerevar and uphold Tribunal canon. Step light, stride far, and act as a Buoyant Armiger must. Among those of the Sixth House, you may choose to be Nerevar, and suppress Adyn. But to yourself, and to me, you will be honest. Embrace your duality. This I command of you as your god, and ask of you as your friend, if you would still view me as such."

"Understood, muthsera," Adyn said softly. "And...okay, Vehk. I will do my best. For my friend."

A look of great relief washed over Vivec's face, and soon transformed into a bright smile. Ze squeezed their hands and said, "Thank you, Adyn-who-is-Neht. Now, let's discuss the plan of attack."

[tonal-modulator]

from the 40 questions of oc development part 2 post: 36. for Bthunkagr? also question #40 if you're up for it? idk

36. How stubborn is your oc? Are they easily convinced of the opposite opinion, do they not agree but let it happen anyways? Or do they cause conflicts with their inability to budge in their decisions?

Bthunkagr likes to make decisions based on as much information as possible. She's relatively slow to come to a conclusion in the first place, but once she's there, she's unlikely to move unless she has a very good reason. She's not always going to feel good about her decision, especially if there's not an obvious moral option, but she'll at least be able to say that she put enough thought into it. It can definitely lead to conflict, the biggest example being the entire war that broke out after she told the Chimer about Kagrenac et al.'s plans to use the Heart of Lorkhan for potentially catastrophic means.

40. Are there any habits your oc has picked up from people around them? Do they know where they’re from? Does your oc try to stop themselves from doing it?

I think she probably spins tuning forks on the table/surface in front of her and probably had a tendency at one point or another to put tools in her mouth for safekeeping. Not sure who she learned them from though, if anyone. I think she def kicked the mouth thing as quickly as possible, but she probably still spins forks unless there's something important going on that requires silence.

[bitchwhoreofastorm]

boethiah/trinimac lol

He's growing on me, Trinimac thinks miserably, stroking back Boethiah's hair. The notion has a few meanings. For one, Boethiah loves to lay on him as of late, climbing about him like a creeping vine until they're all entangled with one another; for two, Boethiah's greatly increased in power since they first met, no doubt due to Trinimac's patient tutoring; for three, Trinimac's just grown damnably fond of the Padomaic. They're supposed to be training at swords, but after spending so long pummeling each other into dust Trinimac's fallen to the ground and Boethiah's made himself quite comfortable atop him, chin resting on his chest, peering up at him with the most frustrating mockery of a grin.

For the most part their little affair is a secret, but out here, somewhere in a half-formed meadow on the edges of the Grey Maybe, they're lonely enough that they can be affectionate. It's a pleasant change of pace-- here, in this company, Trinimac doesn't have to care about appearance or stature. He needs not stand tall and proud, because Boethiah will only try to swat him down if he does. He need not wear Auri-el's gildings like an albatross, or take pains to make sure he looks proper, and indeed, his skin is pale grey today, ashy beneath Boethiah's roaming bruise-covered hands. Even his demeanour is relaxed, his words casual and unpretentious, and he does not fear to use words such as want or desire or whatever coarse, crude, Padomaic turns-of-phrase would get him laughed at in court.

Behind Boethiah's head, concepts-not-yet-sentient blossom in stunning auroras, forming a breathtaking backdrop for the dark spirit. "You should smile more often," Trinimac murmurs.

Boethiah cocks his head to the side, leaning his face into Trinimac's hand there. "You should give me more things to smile about."

"Have I given you something to smile about now?"

Boethiah's grin broadens, and he turns his head, kissing Trinimac's palm. Trinimac is without his armour today, and Boethiah takes advantage of the vulnerability by touching him all over.

They are not always lovers. They argue sometimes, bitterly, and Trinimac loves Auri-el too dearly to ever be devoted to another, and Boethiah has an awful tendency to grow bored. They understand this in each other, however. Trinimac is not jealous when he sees Boethiah trying to woo Azura. He's sure Boethiah isn't jealous when he himself dances with the other Anuics. The only exception to this is Lorkhan, but it is not jealousy that pains them over Lorkhan, for jealousy is too small and frivolous for someone like Lorkhan; at any rate, they never mention Lorkhan, unless their arguments grew bitter indeed. Nonetheless, Trinimac appreciates these moments when they can agree to abide each other, and highly appreciates when that abiding takes this form. He likes how Boethiah touches him, as if captivated by the differences between them. He likes it most when Boethiah can't seem to find those differences. When he and Boethiah spend hours together, searching in vain for those differences, he likes it very, very much.

"So?" Trinimac presses, "What did I give you to smile about?"

Today is one such day of few differences, he thinks, for his ashy skin is nearly the same shade as Boethiah's dusky hands, one of which is now splayed across his chest, the other wrapped around the hand he holds to Boethiah's face.

"You think I'm going to tell you?" Boethiah teases him, smiling still. "No, let's make a game of it. You tell me why I smile."

"A game? You're spending too much time with that scion of Lorkhan's."

"Don't blame Clavicus for your being boring. That's Auri-El's doing."

Trinimac tugs at Boethiah's long hair. He wears it loose today, against the brilliance of the birthing spirits above them it's dark as ink. "I didn't say I won't play," Trinimac points out.

Boethiah's smile broadens and he kisses Trinimac's palm once again. "So guess. Why do I smile, Auri-el's champion?"

Trinimac arches his head back, staring hard at the sky as if deep in thought. "Hmmm," he says, drawing it out.

"Well?" Boethiah creeps fowards. Trinimac can see the red glint of his eyes near the base of his vision.

"What makes you smile, Boethiah? You like violence. Perhaps you smile because you got to duel me today, and you nearly won."

"I did win."

"The rules of Honour state--"

"The rules of Honour only exist because you hate losing to me. I had you on the ground crying mercy. I won. Anyway," Boethiah leans forwards, pressing his forehead to Trinimac's, and that inky hair of his falls around them like a shroud, "That's not why I'm smiling."

"Perhaps you're smiling because it is a beautiful day," Trinimac offers. "And this is a pleasant moment in the Grey Maybe."

Boethiah pulls an exaggerated face. "How simple do you think I am? I'm no lover of Kyne's, I don't grow giddy for the weather."

"I don't think you're simple at all," Trinimac says, and he means it.

"I'm not smiling about the weather."

"I know."

It's just the two of them in here, blocked off from the world by Boethiah's hair, as if he's created a tiny realm for only them. Trinimac, reaches up and takes a handful of those inky locks, creating a breach through which a cool wind blows.

"You never mentioned my prize," Trinimac points out.

"Hm?"

"A game needs a prize. What do I get if I win?"

Boethiah blinks, considering that. "What do you want?"

"I do not want--"

"Oh, shut up, Trinimac. You do want! You desire more strongly than anyone I know." Boethiah says it with ire, but he's grinning still, and he presses his nose to Trinimac's cheek. "Tell me what you want as a prize."

"Hmmm."

"Accursed stubborn beast! Fine," Boethiah nuzzles his cheek, "If you cannot guess why I smile, I win the game, and I deserve a prize. Since I am not repressed as you, I can say there's a great many things I desire."

"What do you desire, Boethiah?"

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough, because you're doing terribly so far, and I'm sure to win."

Trinimac guides Boethiah's gaze back to his own and looks at him seriously. Boethiah's body is hot and heavy on his, heavy as guilt, because Boethiah has a point: Trinimac desires far too much for someone in Auri-el's court, and at no point is it more obvious than when Boethiah touches him. Boethiah has this damnable propensity to awaken in him feelings he'd discarded in the dawn of the dawn era: greed, a want of praise, a need for glory, a craving for triumph and a desire to win. This latter desire to win, burning hot in his chest beneath Boethiah's palm that lays between their bodies, prompts him to participate in this silly game a little longer-- his brow creases and he gives it real thought.

"You're smiling because I look foolish," Trinimac supposes, "Lying on the grass like-- what do you always call me?"

Boethiah laughs. "A bearskin rug. And you do look foolish, but you always look foolish, and I am not always smiling. That's not the reason."

"You're smiling because you're under the impression you won our duel."

"I did win our duel, and I've already said it's not that."

"You're smiling because something pleasant happened to you lately?"

"Hmm, not quite."

"You're smiling because you had a nice breakfast."

Boethiah laughs again, and it's a terribly beautiful sound, such that Trinimac wouldn't mind losing this game if only to hear it again. "You're bad at this!" And he kisses Trinimac's cheek.

"Yes, probably." Trinimac tangles a hand in Boethiah's hair, and considers for a long moment.

Boethiah kisses his cheek again. "Well?"

"I've got it!" Trinimac uses his grip on Boethiah's hair to guide their gazes together again. "I know why you smile."

Boethiah tilts his head into Trinimac's palm. "Why is it?"

"You smile because you're happy."

An expression of incredulity crosses Boethiah's face, and he stares at Trinimac for so long that Trinimac is convinced he must have won, and that Boethiah is utterly surprised by that.

Glowing with triumph, he taps Boethiah's cheek. "That's it, isn't it?"

"That..." Boethiah's brow furrows, "Technically, yes, I smile because I'm happy, but-- that doesn't count!"

"Yet it's the reason you're smiling! I win."

"But you haven't determined the reason I'm happy, which was the whole point of the game!"

"The game was to say why you're smiling. Those were the rules. See? I hang out with Clavicus too."

"You're terrible!" Boethiah goes to get up, but Trinimac pulls him down, and he doesn't resist; despite the feigned ire, Boethiah is smiling still, and when he hides his face in Trinimac's shoulder, Trinimac fancies he even hears laughter, and feels a hot glowing mirth wash over him like a pleasant wave.

"I win, I win," Trinimac sings out. "I get the prize!"

"You won on a technicality! Again!"

"A win is a win is a win, Boethiah! You must be mindful of the rules."

"The rules are made for idiots like you, who cannot succeed without them!"

"Who's the idiot, vanquished foe?"

Boethiah nips him on the neck, only to kiss the spot apologetically, and then he props himself up so that he's looking into Trinimac's face again; there's a certain softness there, between the two of them, and when Trinimac cups Boethiah's face any pretense of competition melts away.

They are the same in this-- they both crave victories, but a life of fighting grows hard and painful. This tenderness makes better warriors of them both, Trinimac reasons. Though it's a secret, and though Auri-el would hate to know of it, the secret-keeping is in itself a game, a game with as sweet a prize as any.

"So," Boethiah murmurs, pressing their foreheads together. "What reward do you want, cheat?"

"I'll think of something in a minute," Trinimac replies. Truthfully, he'll probably drag it out as long as he can, spend hours trying to come up with something, knowing fully well that Boethiah will stay with him until he does.

He pauses, and then looks at Boethiah with a genuine curiosity. "Actually, I want to know the answer you sought. Why are you smiling?"

He had expected resistence, but Boethiah's expression softens, and he slips a hand up, resting a finger beneath Trinimac's chin.

 "Because you've been smiling this whole time,” says Boethiah, “And it's beautiful to look upon."

"Oh. I have?"

Boethiah kisses him, and he finds that, for once, the Padomaic has told the truth: with his lover's mouth on his, Trinimac feels clearly that his face is stretched so wide in a grin that he can hardly return the kiss, and the aching in his cheeks tell him that he's been beaming all this time.

"See?" Boethiah whispers against Trinimac's ear when they break away, "You were smiling. You should smile more often."

[dumbfinntales]

I’ve done everything I felt like was worth doing in Morrowind and gotta say, despite its age it was really fun. Certain things took some time getting used to, like no conventional fast travel or having to find your own way but in time I started to really enjoy these aspects. To a degree, at least.

Let me start by saying that the combat is a little bit stupid, alright? Your fatigue and weapon skills play into whether or not you can hit things. You really need to dedicate yourself to a single weapon type because if you try to pick up a weapon that you got only 10-20 points in you ain’t gonna hit a damn thing. Hitting things and just seeing your weapon go through them is frustrating. I mostly used the Long Blades and eventually got the skill to 100 and I rarely miss, except if I’m out of fatigue. But still this system is pretty dumb and I’m glad they got rid of it later on.

Morrowinds world is amazing. I have no idea what happened between this game and Oblivion, because Oblivions open world is dull. But Morrowind is fascinating and very different. The world is full of interesting locations and fun encounters with colorful characters. Like all those naked Nords that have been tricked by witches, what a coincidence that there’s so many. Or the famous flying mage Tarhiel. This game also has something revolutionary. Loot. Loot that isn’t randomized, like in Oblivion and Skyrim. There’s set loot in each cave and ancestral site that you can find and it made exploring them fun because you wouldn’t know what riches you could come across. You’d think that making loot random would create the same effect, but nope. When you explore dungeons you just get random garbage. In Morrowind I’ll never forget when I ventured off to a random tomb and found a few pieces of the Orcish armor in a chest. That armor is there ALWAYS, it’s not random. Finally I was able to ditch my ugly mould armor and rock something much cooler. So yeah, exploring the dungeons in this game felt a lot more fun and satisfying than looting randomized chests with soulgems in them.

But my favorite part of Morrowind is just how utterly broken the game is. There’s so many systems and little things you can exploit to basically ascend to godhood. Who needs the heart of Lorkhan? Create a spell for 100% magick resistance for 1 sec, cast it and put on the boots of blinding speed and BOOM! Now you’re Sonic the hedgehog speeding across Vvardanfell. Not to mention alchemy and enchanting. Enchantments in this game rock. You don’t need to recharge them with soulgems (you can), they recharge on their own making enchanted items actually useful. In future games I’d always run out of charge after killing a couple enemies and then run around with an empty weapon for several hours until I was able to charge it at an NPC. I get why the self recharging items changed, to balance things, but y’know. I liked that system in Morrowind. Enchanting equipment and rings was great too. I made a ring for flying. And a shield that can open any door in the world. The possibilities are limitless!

Morrowind also has in my opinion the best main quest out of all the Elder Scrolls games. Everything involving the Sixth House, the tribunal and Dagoth Ur was so utterly fascinating. And cool. The lore this game provides is just so fucking cool. I especially fell in love the Almsivi. In past games the main story is kinda there. They try to be grand and flashy, but end up being a little short and underwhelming. The story in Morrowind doesn’t rush you and it isn’t necessarily a world ending disaster. Daddy Dagoth is just up to no good and you, as Elven Jesus need to go teach him a lesson about spreading dangerous diseases. After you beat up Dagoth Ur and the heart he’s hoarding you become a hero and everyone loves you after spitting on your face. Seriously, when you start the game everyone fucking hates your guts.

The game is rad and all, but there are a few things that weren’t so good in my opinion. For one, the directions. I was fine with no quest markers when the directions that were given to you were informative. At the start of the game the NPC’s would go into detail about where you need to go. Later on? Just head South from here and you should find it lol. Then you proceed to run around aimlessly like a chicken until you emotionally collapse and consult a wiki while crying your eyes out. I did this multiple times because fuck giving me good directions, right? The Bloodmoon expansion was the fucking WORST in this regard. I had to look up everything because all the directions I was given were vague as fuck and I just spent more time hopping around like a bunny rabbit. And a second thing. The quests. I’ll be honest with y’all, many of the side quests are just boring. Especially the faction quests. I completed three factions in this game, fighters guild, house Redoran and the east empire company. All of them were just you doing busy work until some climax where you need to kill the former leader, or replace them for whatever reason. Compare this to the faction quests in Oblivion where they tell a larger story. Not all of them are super interesting, but at least they’re better than what we got in Morrowind. Hell I’d go as far as to say that Skyrim did factions better. Yeah, get mad. There were very few side quests worth remembering. Most of them follow a boring routine and they never stray from a safe path. At least try to tell some kind of a story when you send me to kill a bunch of bandits in a cave. There were a couple neat quest in the game, but that’s just it. Neat.

So yeah. Morrowind is one strange RPG from 2002 and probably the most beloved entry in the TES franchise, and I can see why. It’s quirky, it doesn’t hold your hand and there’s a lot to roleplay. Plus it’s just damn fun with good lore. I’m glad I gave the game a chance. Morrowind gets YOU N’WAH out of ten.

[ansu-gurleht]

ok fellas lets put on our metaphysics and cosmology hats. well, you can, i guess, but admittedly, mine is permanently fused to my scalp. i’m always down for some good ol’ cosmic bullshit.

so i wanna break this up into two parts, i think. i’ll break down what i think is the overall structure of the aurbis, and then i’ll talk a bit about how i think it works.

ok! part one! first of all, we got the aurbis. the aurbis is basically just, everything. it includes aetherius, mundus, oblivion, nirn, etc. it might also expand beyond aetherius? but i think that’s just The Void, so we won’t worry about that. nothing interesting really happens in The Void.

so what’s aetherius? it’s god city, god central, super mystical being heaven. it’s where various heavens are located, like the nords’ sovngarde, and the redguards’ far shores, and khajiit’s sand behind the stars, and the imperials, uh, less imaginatively named “heaven.” it’s where dead people of all kinds hang out, and chill with some gods, like the magna-ge, led by magnus, who all left mundus b/c they didn’t like it and chilled in aetherius instead. except they left a bunch of holes in mundus, like they just forgot to close the door behind them after they left or something. on the bright side, all those holes (which we call the sun and stars) give us the magicy magic stuff from aetherius, where everything is magic, probably.

ok, “magicy magic” is not what it’s called. it’s called creatia! it’s basically the substance of pure creation, what everything that ever existed is made of. except it needs to be given form and purpose to actually be Things. otherwise it’s just Stuff, not Things. basically the whole purpose of making the mundus inside of aetherius was to turn some Stuff into Things, b/c lorkhan thought it was a good idea and most people agreed at the time. 

so “mundus” is everything inside of aetherius, in like a bubble. (a lot of how this stuff works is bubble-based. aurbis is a bubble in the void, mundus is a bubble in aetherius, planets and planes and stuff are bubbles in mundus, etc.) but there’s actually a lot of empty space in the bubble, b/c at first they (here referring to the et’ada, or primordial spirits) couldn’t quite make up their mind on what world they wanted to make, so they made a bunch, but then scrapped all that and used some of the leftover pieces to make nirn. so at this point nirn’s just this little ball in space, not a lot going for it. not even an atmosphere! (fun fact: air just doesn’t exist in the elder scrolls! dunno why! just doesn’t!)

but then the et’ada get together and try to liven up the place. except they’re like, “woah, all this creating makes me feel like i’m dying,” b/c they kinda were. here’s the thing: everything’s made of creatia, even the gods. and y’know, equivalent exchange and all, so to make a World with Things in it, they had to use up some of their power. 

this was generally considered to be a bad thing, and lots of people got mad at lorkhan, who really just expected them to be more dedicated to this project. i really don’t think he intentionally tricked anybody. he just had an idea for a fun thing to do with/for his friends, getting enlightened and stuff, and maybe omitted some of those finer details at the beginning b/c he knew nobody would go along with it if they knew. but he wasn’t being malicious about it, no matter what those darned elves say.

so everybody got together on top of a big ol’ tower to talk this through, b/c it was time to buckle down and decide what to do now. that lil chat was called convention, and was basically the first important thing to ever happen. it was actually kind of the first thing to happen, too, b/c one of the members was like “hey, let’s make linear time a thing” and so it was. 

anyways, all those et’ada were sorta split five ways about this. some, like magnus and the magna-ge, just flat out refused to stick around and give up any of their power, and ran off and became stars. some, who would be later called daedra, didn’t wanna give up any power either, but they kinda had a vested interest in the thing at this point, so they went out into oblivion, where there was a bunch of leftover, unused creatia, and they made their own little planes and proceeded to screw with the world for funsies.

on the other hand, some folks were still gungho about making this world, and were willing to sacrifice themselves completely to let it survive and prosper. those would be the earthbones, who literally just gave up themselves and established a lot of nirn’s physical laws. some folks also thought this was worth saving, but also didn’t wanna die. so they gave up a little bit of their power, but kept the rest of it. those are the aedra!

(fun side note: the aedra are the other planets in mundus! we know at least akatosh, julianos, and arkay are stationary, b/c they make up part of some constellations. arkay has a little buddy orbiting him called arkay. there’s also the planets zenithar and kynareth, who might actually move, but we don’t know for sure, i guess. also, zenithar has a buddy orbiting him called mara, and MARA has a buddy orbiting her called dibella.

(what i really want to get at here is that while the planets are absolutely the divines, i believe it’s only part of them! hence why they’re kind of in the middle of the road between the earthbones and the magna-ge. i think they left those planets behind to sort of be their eyes-and-ears on nirn, and also probably to help stabilize it, but after that, they took what they had left back to aetherius. maybe through the sun, but also maybe the planets are sort of like, if they were peaking in on us from aetherius. so what we see as the planets is just what little of them is in the way of the hole. but anyways!)

the rest of the et’ada went a similar route to the earthbones, except they didn’t sacrifice anything really. they just kinda decided to live on nirn! they’re the ehlnofey, who eventually become the mer and men of nirn. (presumably all the beast races and stuff were just already there, or somehow imported from somewhere else [the argonians might literally be transplants from one of those leftover worldbits nirn was made from]).

ok, one last thing. i think nirn orbits the sun, so isn’t really the center of mundus. it’s the metaphysical center, b/c it’s what mundus exists for. but i just can’t wrap my head around how the sun would be said to rise through constellations during their seasons if nirn wasn’t moving around it and changing its perspective on the sun. maybe it’s possible somehow in a nirn-centric model, but i just don’t know how.

ok! that’s wraps up what i think about the cosmology of the series, i think. i’m actually going to make a separate post for the metaphysics, for two reasons. 1, this post has gotten long enough already, and 2, ho boy do i have a lot to talk about there. you might notice that it’ll probably be pretty different in tone - sure, i could describe all that stuff in my usual plucky sort of way, but this kinda stuff always just works out better when you take a bit more of a serious tone. i’ll undoubtedly get a bit poetic about it too, b/c it’s damn good stuff.

anyways! keep your eyes peeled for that! all sorts of stuff about towers, reality, chims, time, etc!

[spectral-cervid]

Theory: Voryn killed Nerevar, Not ALMSIVI

We have a lot of “Foul Murder Didn’t Happen” theories floating around out there but this is my personal take on it. I still don’t know if I want to make this my chief theory but after a lot of tired rambling with @boethiah I had to make this an official post

It’s gonna be a little long so...buckle up.

So as a lot of you know, council-era Voryn Dagoth was much different from Dagoth Ur. Voryn was a pragmatic, caring and quiet mer with this inexplicable warm energy about him. He was a good person, he never tried to take sides in the council and always sought a route with the least deaths. He was also deeply, deeply in love with Nerevar.

So if you told someone he would eventually be a mad nationalist hell-bent on turning the populace into flute-faced horrors, I don’t think anyone would believe you and I personally don’t blame you.

We need to start well before the battle of red mountain and the events of the Heart Chamber. We need to understand that the heart of lorkhan could very easily corrupt people, twist them- whether it be due to a weak will, a strong vice, or… Something else. Going off another theory-- that every shezzarine seems to have an accompanying Dragonborn (Alessia & Pelinal, Hjalti & Zurin), it stands to reason that with two shezzarines-- Nerevar and Wulfharth --There were two Dragonborn individuals-- Who most likely seem to be Almalexia and, you guessed it, Voryn.

There’s a pretty high chance that the un-diluted, prolonged exposure to Lorkhan’s Heart was all kinds of havoc for Voryn’s mind. It tends to throw your qualities and traits way off-proportion, exacerbating insecurities and anxieties, making very deep wishes or ideals rush to the forefront, loud and impossible to ignore. Throw in the idea that as a dragon-blooded mer, all of this came in even more off-kilter as it should have been. He started thinking in dimensions and scales that were impossible to translate. Remember that ALMSIVI had each other to ‘load-bear’ the burden of divinity. Voryn didn’t.

So… Now we have Voryn, left alone in the heart chamber with Lorkhan whispering sweet, insane nothings into his ear. Before Nerevar even returned, the heart was already making it hard for him to think clearly and rationally. All his small, normally rationally-coped-with insecurities were being thrown way out of proportion. His anxieties were suddenly amplified, and they echoed in the silence. What if they just planned to leave him there, what if this was a trap or a plant? What if Nerevar planned to use the tools anyways?

He clearly wasn’t quite well by the time he told Nerevar he wouldn't give the tools back over. He probably looked to be on the verge of, or even between, paranoid breakdowns or panic attacks. Both of them worried the other had had a sudden change of heart, that they had hidden intentions, that they planned to betray the other now.

Neither of them wanted to fight the other for it. They loved each other. Dearly. It started half-hearted, warning jabs and desperate pleas to stop, to give up. The more emotional it got, the more heated the fight grew, without either realizing it. And the stronger Lorkhan’s grip got on Voryn’s head. And before he had even realized what he was doing, Voryn accidentally dealt to Nerevar a likely-mortal wound.

Of course, the trauma response is just about instant. He just killed his love. His Nerevar. His Hortator. He drops the tools in horror and falls back, seeming to succumb- What was probably more of a mix of exhaustion and a mental-breakdown-induced collapse of 'what the hell have I done'. Neht manages to take the tools away from him, and retreat a short ways, where he's found by ALMSIVI. Soon thereafter, he bled out in their solemn company.

“But Asher,” you cry, “Dagoth Ur says that Nerevar betrayed Voryn, not the other way around!”

Thanks for noticing! Trauma, however, is a funny thing. Sometimes when an event is too much to handle, we block out the memory entirely. And other times, our brain changes the details, purposely alters what it is we remember, just because the truth is too much to process. It’s a reaction of “No-- This can’t be what happened. It must have been like this.” So it’s quite likely that after coming to, Voryn’s horrified, Lorkhan-laced mind came up with an idea that certainly, Nerevar had attacked him instead. That’s what that horrible ache in his heart was, the inexplicable distraught tear that went deeper than any of his wounds. That’s why he’d blacked out.

This also supports why House Dagoth was immediately vilified for their horrible treason, and why Voryn never understood it- Why it all felt false, like spun lies (which it partially was, albeit they wound up being a lot of self-fulfilling prophecies as well).

[dankar-camoran]

Mehrunes Dagon and Lorkhan

I’m definitely not one of those smart lore people who has a lot of detailed and interesting headcanons about the daedra, but I do have one take that I don’t think I’ve seen anybody else post about.

TL;DR: Mehrunes Dagon stans the hell out of Lorkhan and sees him as a sort of creator/father/precursor figure.

Forgive me if this gets confusing, I’m trying to put down a mess of thoughts as they’re brainstorming in my headspace.

“Mehrunes Dagon, whose sphere is Destruction, Change, Revolution, Energy, and Ambition.” I’ve seen it said that, because both Destruction and Ambition are his things, that’s why he’s the Prince so focused on invading Mundus and wreaking havoc; it’s an ambitious goal, and it’s the only way he can ever cause lasting destruction. But that’s just scratching the surface.

Before Mundus, the et’Ada could not die, at least, in any truly lasting fashion. Permanent destruction was impossible, and the concept of it probably never even crossed the minds of many beings.

Then Lorkhan became the agent behind the creation of Mundus. A realm of mortality, and endings. Where things could die, and be destroyed. The creation of Mundus allowed Dagon to know himself and his sphere, and have a theater in which to act out his functions.

Lorkhan’s plan encompassed pretty much every single thing under Mehrunes’ sphere: an Ambitious idea that takes an enormous amount of Energy and allows for lasting and permanent Destruction, leading to a Revolution among the et’Ada and forever Changing things in the Aurbis. Dagon now had a reason to be, and he owed it to Lorkhan

Mehrunes was forever grateful to Lorkhan for this, but it was clear that many of the other et’Ada did not feel the same way, specifically those who assisted in the creation of Mundus, and were now limited and mortal, victims of the very ideas that Mehrunes realized in himself. So they ripped out Lorkhan’s Heart, deciding to make him a victim of the mortality that he had brought into being.

When Lorkhan’s Heart was torn out and shot across Mundus, Red Mountain formed where it landed. And Dagon took this as a sign, and forever associated himself with natural disasters such as volcanoes and fires and earthquakes, seeing them as Lorkhan’s sign to him that Destruction, bringing about the End of something, was a core principle of the Mundus.

and it might even go further than that. Consider Big Homie Mankar’s speech to the Hero of Kvatch in his Paradise: “Tamriel is just one more Daedric realm of Oblivion, long since lost to its Prince when he was betrayed by those that served him. Lord Dagon cannot invade Tamriel, his birthright! He comes to liberate the Occupied Lands! “

Lorkhan being considered a Daedra is a take that’s been explored before, but I’m here to focus on that particular word used by Mankar near the end: “birthright.” To Mehrunes Dagon, Lorkhan made Mundus with him specifically in mind, or at least, with his sphere in mind.

Consider how Mundus is so often defined as the Mortal Realm, the place where nothing is indestructible. Destruction doesn’t always come in big and flashy forms like fires and floods and wars, but simply involves that something be rendered in such a fashion that it can never be remade back into what it was. Something that was only truly possible in the Mundus.

In Dagon’s mind, Lorkhan made Mundus specifically so that there’d be a place where things were finite, and that Lorkhan wanted to leave the “ownership” of Mundus to Dagon if/when he died, because Dagon’s sphere encompassed all of Lorkhan’s goals in creating Mundus.

And god damn it there is more I want to say about this but this is all a jumble of shit and I know that there’s also the idea that Dagon came from Lyg and Meridia factors into it too, and I have no idea how to put it all together, I need someone to shoot ideas off of, fffffff.

[trickstarbrave]

What do you think would have happened if Nerevar survived Red Mountain? How would the Chimer treat him?

i think i've mentioned this before but. i think it would have gone uhhhhhhh bad.

see before nerevar, the chimer and dwemer did not get along. the chimer were typically quite religious and worshipped the good daedra. the dwemer didnt actively worship any daedra or aedra; they had no need for it and would at times actively antagonize their chimer cousins' gods to prove the gods were fallible.

but the dwemer had a lot of power behind them in terms of machines and a lot of land, stretching underground between vvardenfell to the heart of skyrim. and the chimer were currently being occupied by the nords for reasons they didn't know. if nerevar wanted to truly drive them out he would need to do more than just unite resdayn but ally himself with the dwemer to bring them into their cause and fight united. which a lot of chimer probably didn't like. they didnt get along with the dwemer at all and the chimer and dwemer did not see eye to eye. but they came around to the idea because nerevar basically said "look. dumac and i are friends despite our differences. we have a common goal. if we can be friends and work together, you can tolerate the dwemer and learn we can be so much more if we set aside our differences."

when the dwemer were found to be making the numidium it was seen as a huge betrayal. not just of nerever, but to every chimer. this was proof the dwemer could not be trusted, at least to them. i dont personally believe kagrenac had any ill intentions making the numidium besides personal defense and basically as a way to prove they could do so even if they wanted to. we dont know if tensions between the chimer and dwemer were rising or if this came out of no where either. but i cannot stress enough how dangerous the numidium is: it is catastrophic if used incorrectly. in c0da it has literally destroyed nirn and made it inhabitable. this is like finding out your allies who live on the same land as you have made fucking nuclear weapons "just because" and then have actively denied having it and call you insane for saying they did. it looked like, to the chimer, the dwemer were intending to annihilate them.

which then brings into question nerevar. nerevar was the most hurt by dumac denying the existence of the numidium (again we dont know if he knew or not, he could have been ignorant to what kagrenac was doing), and nerevar was the one who rallied them into war against the dwemer. the war of the first council was absolutely horrible. house hlaalu, one of the founding great houses of morrowind, lost almost all their warriors. entire families were wiped out. the dwemer machines were decimating people. we dont know what exactly kagrenac did to the heart of lorkhan--maybe it was a last ditch effort to power the numidium and wipe all the chimer out, maybe it was to try and help the dwemer escape to a higher plane of existence, maybe it was something else entirely. but they all vanished. the war was officially over--except now there might be nords and orcs also involved i guess so there may be stragglers theyre dealing with on that front.

if nerevar survived entirely, i think it's very obvious what would have happened. because it was his idea to ally with the dwemer in the first place, it would be seen as his fault the war of the first council happened. sure, they probably wouldnt have driven out the nords, but by this point i think a lot of chimer would have probably believed there was another way of accomplishing it without giving any power to the dwemer.

sermon 11 talks about this actually in the 36 sermons i think:

There is once more the case of the symbolic and barren. The true prince that is cursed and demonized will be adored at last with full hearts. According to the Codes of Mephala there can be no official art, only fixation points of complexity that will erase from the awe of the people given enough time. This is a secret that hides another. An impersonal survival is not the way of the ruling king. Embrace the art of the people and marry it and by that I mean secretly have it murdered.

here vivec is talking about how people's opinions always change. a true king understands people cannot be fixated on one thing forever. if your people love say, skooma, loosen legal restrictions. then people can have more and more. but take care to introduce a new, more potent drug, in a way murdering the skooma trade people so beloved. (analogy from the new whirling school who discusses the 36 sermons in more depth)

and nerevar is a folk hero: the mer who united the great houses of resdayn. the beloved warlord. the champion of azura. the son of boethiah. man who embodies the ideals of the good daedra. he has enamored his people, their biggest fixation and pride. what happens when he has fallen?

vivec knew (or perhaps later reasons) that killing nerevar was the best way to keep control over the people. make him a martyr, a saint, a hero. then move on to something else. and while that is probably exploitative, i can't help but see some of the logic in it. because without that, uhhhhh it would have gone to shit. the people would have all blamed him, and wanted nerevar's head on a pike. they would blame him for all of the deaths in the war of the first council, because there would be no war of the first council if nerevar had never made the council in the first place. maybe the dwemer would have never found the heart and made the numidium if he didn't give them the power and resources to do so.

and then the great houses, who were already only barely united, would dissolve into infighting and old rivalries, especially with new power vacuums being opened up within the houses and larger government. people would be fighting and killing each other for petty squabbles, and also because: there is a fucking giant world ending weapon in that mountain they want to get their hands on by any means necessary and figure out how to power.

as much as i hate to admit it, killing nerevar and becoming gods might have in fact been the best outcome. otherwise i do think the chimer would have wiped themselves and at least half of tamriel out (if they didn't cause landfall entirely). nerevar would have died by the hands of a mob, or lived in exile and disgrace, being blamed for the fall of his people. with the tribunal they control the tools of kagrenac, keep the secret of the heart of lorkhan, and guarded the heart. by introducing new living gods who could preform miracles they shifted away the anger enough to keep people from outright trying to destroy every other faction in morrowind/resdayn. they made that anger productive, and made a new scapegoat with house dagoth (which. also was shitty of them).

i think killing nerevar was a mercy. preserving his legacy and honor rather than letting him live in disgrace. keeping the peace of their people. protecting them. it was horrible, yes, but there was no real solution where everyone was happy and no one dies. not in this story. i have speculations on if the tribunal knew that at the time or not, or if they were motivated solely by personal gain, but it is the truth.

maybe there were other ways out and other ways the story could have played out. other solutions where nerevar could keep the peace and stop the fighting. but after the tribunal used the tools (called "the red moment") history kinda rewrote itself and the world shifted so that was the ONLY outcome that ever could and would exist. so it is impossible to say. maybe circumstances in a different timeline could be more favorable, but i doubt it.

tl;dr: the chimer would have wanted nerevar fucking dead and then killed each other and potentially a bunch of other people with their in fighting and race to get to the numidium. nerevar would die or live in disgrace being branded as the man who was responsible for the downfall of the velothi people. the chimer were petty and rude and violent and vengeful and would not have taken it laying down.

[cwnannwn]

Tagged by @queerbeerz, thanks friend!

Answer 11 questions, tag 11 people. write 11 questions for them to answer

1. Favourite stand-up comedian?  I’m not much for stand up comedy usually, but Cameron Esposito is one that I like a lot.

2. Would you rather live in the Avengers Universe or Batman’s universe? Hmmm, Avengers I think. Higher chance of property damage, but no homicidal clowns. Bad side tho, no poison ivy or oracle or kate kane either. 

3.Favourite dinosaur? Don’t do this to me man. How can I pick just one?! Alright, I can do this. Excluding the very unoriginal choice of Tyrannosaurus, because it was the first non-avian dinosaur i can remember seeing, my pick is Sinosauropteryx. It was the first non-avialae dinosaur to be found with feathers, making it a very important find. Plus, the way it’s fossil ended up setting, there is something very sad about it. I can’t really explain, but this tiny dinosaur is just amazing. Runner up is Therizinosaurus, in virtue of existing.

4. Do you have a zombie apocalypse plan? Oh yes. Mostly getting out of the city as fast as possible, taking some supplies with me, and into the vast banhados around here. Far enough to keep away from the worst of the zombies and people, but close to small cities so I can resupply when needed.

5. Worst movie you’ve ever seen? Worst as in technically worse or worse as in movie I liked least? If the first, it’s probably one of the many z-list horror movies i watched when I was younger. There were some real gems there. If the second, probably suicide squad. It pissed me off way too much.

6. Favourite bird? How can i choose between all my many feathered and angry children? Don’t let the others know, but it’s a a tie between the common raven and the cassowary.

7. What’s your dream car? A Lamborghini. For no other reason than it was my fave car to play on Need For Speed. i’m not much of a car enthusiast.

8. If you had to give up one food/drink forever what would it be? Soda. All of it. Trying to do that now actually.

9. What song(s) would you want played at your funeral? Quoth the Raven by Eluveitie. I want a mosh pit in my funeral, while the song gives thanks to who I hope is gonna help me on my way.

10. Current OTP? Hollstein. Such a good ship, even with everything against them. Can’t wait to see more of them in the movie (while fully ready to ignore any plot-related bullshit that is most likely going to arise).

11. Do you like your middle name?  I don’t have one, but I have three surnames? I like them all well enough.

My questions: 1. Favorite show you’ve been to? 2. What’s the first game you remember playing? 3. Least favorite class in high school? 4. What place do you wish to visit at least once in your life? 5. If you could have a chat with any figure in history, alive, dead, or not necessarily human, who would it be? 6. Alive or dead, who would you like to repeatedly punch in the face? 7. Fave horror game? (or movie if you don’t play) 8. Which character of any media do you identify with most? 9. Favorite Mythology? 10. Which ship you just can’t stand? 11. Favorite megafauna/any large mammal?

I tag @explosionshark, @the-lunar-lorkhan, @hetaliaelizabeth, @laurahhollis, @marzipanandminutiae, @melimegreenleaf, @kaichimokki If you guys want! And anyone else who’d like to play, consider yourself tagged.

[gaykarstaagforever]

@thesnowprince

Talk about replies to old posts! 😁 Good to see Verizon hasn’t nixed the old blog yet, at any rate.

Also, note before my reply that I don’t give a shit about TESO or anything it has done to lore. Skyrim messing up Nord history is hard enough to shoehorn in, I’m not even bothering with Joss Whedonesque half-sarcastic retcon fanfic shit from HO Scale Morrowind. I don’t even know a lot of that stuff and don’t really feel obligated to learn it.

And as I just made a model train reference in 2017, so I should probably get started.

The reason werewolves work in TES is because werewolves are just a variety of people transforming into animals, and the TES universe is already one populated by people who do that with magic. And there are also preexisting intelligent beast-races. Werewolves are just a variation on a common aspect of that world, so they fit into it.

The problem with vampires is that Bethesda couldn’t seem to figure out what kind of things they are in the first place, for most of these games. Are they a living race on the mortal plane like elves? Are they a magical monster, like liches or zombies? Or are they the result of an infection, like Blight victims? They basically made them bits of all that, and it was pointless and desperate.

So is there then a type of thing already established in the lore that they could be 100%, so that they could be added in under that heading and find a role in the complexity of the universe?

Obviously, yes, but Bethesda only just figured that out in Skyrim, and then tripped over it in their glee to put Buffy vampires in the game. What they are, or can be, are thralls of a great power. Like the dragon priests / draugr for Alduin, or the various mutilated monsters that served Dagoth Ur / The Heart of Lorkhan, or the dremora / lesser daedroth that serve the Daedric Princes. And that’s what they tried to do in Skyrim in making them the thralls of Molag Bal, and that should have worked.

But to do that, they would have had to explain why any particular thrall is needed by the power in question. What do they specifically do, and why can only they do that? Otherwise, why wouldn’t something less specialized be used? And vampires in TES literally can’t do anything that 15 other things that aren’t vampires already do to varying degrees. And Molag Bal has no good reason to have them doing most of that for him in the first place, given what he’s supposed to be.

To make them work as thralls, Bethesda would have to radically change their skill set to make it unique to them and of greater value to Molag Bal (once they figure out what he’s doing with them in the first place; best of luck, it makes no sense). The vampire lord transformation is a start, but it’s basically just a shitty temporary beast-man transformation any wizard human or elf could do, and even then it doesn’t seem in any way more effective than Molag just employing Khajiit or Argonian battlemages. So vampires really have to become flying mini-dragons with life-draining shouts, or fully ethereal ghost-people who could clip through enemies and geography or take people over from within, with unlimited agency, or be able to split themselves into three different intelligent animal forms at the same time, or something like that. Something big and unique and useful, that would also be fun to play.

They would also need to get rid of the sun allergy crap and the need to drink blood crap, because not only does that suck to play, it limits them in a universe where we don’t see other creatures’ similar limitations. As in, you don’t have to play eating or pooping or Argonians needing to stay damp or Khajiit hating the cold in these games. It’s just implied that they somehow are dealing with it when they step into an inn. Sleeping is a feature, but that’s only traditionally to level up and now just to make time pass. Vampires shouldn’t be screwed by “real” limits when no one else is, just to get traditional vampire crap in the game.

Yes I realize that a vampire that doesn’t drink blood or hate the sun is basically not a vampire. But maybe that’s goddamn why they don’t belong on this universe / these games - they aren’t consistent with it, as what we know as vampires. That’s my point.

Besides the thrall thing, I think I posted way back on the old blog about the theory that the people of Akavir were humans or elves that had all become vampires. That could work, in that vampires could be a new playable base race, like a human / elf with night vision and strong unarmed attacks and various natural blood magic-type powers, and they could only regain health by draining it or some kind of unique blood potion. But then they are otherwise just a playable race. And Bethesda would have to explain what they are and how they got there. I guess it could be some kind of disease or parasite spread from mother to fetus. But then why hasn’t anyone used advanced magic to cure it? And why doesn’t it seem very widespread? Maybe if the vampire race is just some kind of civilized Neanderthal human / elf variety, a predatory, carnivorous species. But then again, where do they come from, why haven’t we seen them before now, and why didn’t everyone they prey on wipe them the hell out during the TES Stone Age?

Having vampirism be just a shitty disease is lore friendly, which is why they did that in Oblivion. But let us all remember how super fun that crap was to play. It is literally just a negative then, an inconvenience no one wants. Which is why in Oblivion it made little sense that so many vampires seemed to love being vampires, because they were just mundane idiots with an annoying infection that inexplicably made the human ones live a lot longer. Again, for the human victims, lore friendly, I suppose. But with zero gameplay benefits.

You just can’t throw traditional Dracula into TES. It can’t work. A vampire has to be made into something else to fit, and at that point it’s not a vampire anymore, so why even bother?

But there are so many other native means of doing gothic horror / Lovecraftian terrors in the TES universe, it’s not like we lacked for stupid old skool vampires. Morrowind is freaky enough with the Sixth House / Blight monster stuff. Oblivion has the isolated forest / Ayleid creepiness. Skyrim has the Falmer and Dwemer ruins and dragon tombs. Bethesda should have spent more time doing unique TES horror stuff, if they wanted, instead of forcing random movie monsters into it just to do it. It just can’t work in any satisfying way.

unit220 said: 

And I thought I was the only one who thought that whole DLC’s plot line was a mess!

When I first played it through way, way back, I thought, “This whole thing seems really rushed and kind of bullshitty,” but then I told myself that was only because I probably wasn’t paying very close attention and must have missed some stuff. Plus at that time, I wasn’t Captain of the T.E.S. Lore like I am now, so I figured that even if I hadn’t missed stuff in the DLC, maybe I just didn’t know enough about the universe in general.

But now I’ve replayed it with fresh eyes and YEAH, it’s kind of a mess.

The core plot points are okay and could have been made to work, but it’s like someone went in at the last minute and cut out half the dialogue that would have made it make sense.

And I still say the biggest problem with it is just that TES vampires SUCK, and they always have, and until that problem is fixed, there’s nothing interesting you can really do with them. So now they’re the soul-disciples of Molag Bal on Nirn - fine, that’s a cool idea. But you can’t just SAY something like that. You have to answer all the questions that immediately raises about how they work, why a daedric lord would do something like this, and why this is the first time we’re hearing about this, when up until this point, the whole thing was caused by a swamp virus and was always considered a game-ruining CURSE you had to figure out how to get rid of.

Plus, and you may remember or you can check my tags, I know I did some huge rant post ages ago about traditional Western vampirism not making any goddamn sense in a universe where half the population is either part animal or can already live to be 2000, and people can raise skeletons to plow their fields if they don’t feel like working. Vampires are just out-of-place and boring in this kind of world. They didn’t fix that in this DLC, and they KNEW they didn’t fix it, which is why 2/3rds of their vampire DLC is about killing mutated elves inside a glacier.

They sort of fixed werewolves. But werewolves first showed up in Morrowind: Bloodmoon, and they ALWAYS fit more sensibly into this universe and had clearly positive game-benefits. So giving them a separate skill tree to reward use was just the next logical step. They really should have sat down and worked vampires in the same way in Dawnguard, completely redo them if necessary, make them fit the lore more rationally and actually be FUN TO PLAY. They took exactly one step in that direction, and then gave up.

If they wanted to do a DLC about Snow Elves, they should have just done a damn DLC about Snow Elves. Or, hell - they could have done a thing where it turns out the Snow Elves were actually Altmeri or Ayleid VAMPIRES! Which would explain why they lived isolated up in the cold, and had white skin, and the Falmer would be some strain of elfin Nostferatu, etc. Now THAT would fit into this universe, AND it would have been really interesting. But they didn’t do that. So here we are.

[bastardsunlight]

RANT AHEAD!! ❤

Friendly reminder: Ulfric invited the dark elves into Windhelm after Vvardenfell threw a shit-fit and displaced a fucklot of ‘em—and he’s not been on the throne of Windhelm long--maybe fourteen years. That bit is important. One of the dark elves you speak to in Windhelm (one of the well-off ones) says that it’s basically due to the dark elves’ lack of willingness to actually engage in the Skyrim way of life (clinging to their Morrowind ways of living—not culture, they’re obviously free to worship whomst the fuck ever in Windhelm) that keeps them impoverished.

 There are TWO nords in Windhelm who’re shitheads at the dunmer and, confirmed by a dunmer NPC, all they do is get shitfaced and stumble through the gray quarter at night, yellin’ crap—rude, but honestly, the Dragonborn can beat one of ‘em down and they lay tf off. They might be representative of Windhelm nords, but then the dark elf who is well off should also count as representative of how to be successful in a new country. He left the gray quarter and made a life for himself, which any of them can do, because it isn't actually confirmed to be a law that the dark elves have to stay in the gray quarter. One elf says “they won’t let us live outside that slum” but another elf, who lives outside the slum, says that the dark elves who live there are essentially oppressing themselves--much like the subject of this rant, every citizen of Skyrim will have a different perspective. 

Galmar Stone-fist, Ulfric’s right hand, is the one who tells the DB this, saying something along the lines of “he invited them here, but I wish he’d asked the rest of us first”. Meaning Ulfric DID defy some potential racism in order to offer asylum and shelter to the dark elves (I say potential, because ofc it could just be that life in Windhelm is tough enough without opening its gates to refugees). He stuck his neck out for elves. That’s a canon truth. The fact that you, a DB of ANY race, can literally join the Stormcloaks and rise in the ranks without a problem sort of negates the “racism” argument, if you are using in-game facts and mechanics. “Oh, but the player character has to be able to join either side” yeah that’s true--a lot of stuff in the game is set up for the PC. All the Stormcloak soldiers are human, but hey guess what? So are the Imperial soldiers. 

So miss me with that “ulfric is a racist” thing. That’s so simple, so very very simple and a really shallow interpretation of Ulfric’s character. Has he done no wrong? PFF fuck no. He killed a man in an argument over ideals and what a proper Skyrim should BE. Elisif is a widow ‘cause Torygg couldn’t best Ulfric, but the fight itself was fair, according to canon—members of Elisif's own court (which she doesn't rule, btw, Falk Firebeard does) confirm it. So riddle me this:

Is it wrong to desire liberation from a small, centralized government, who is under the thumb of an even more removed dominion of some folks who are slowly but surely killing all religious dissidents in your country because one of your gods makes them squirmy? [cue crusade banners]

The aldmeri dominion (and thence, the thalmor) are racist motherfuckers. The idea of Tiber Septim becoming a god is anathema, not only because he is mortal, but because he’s a HUMAN. Lorkhan et. Al. are elven gods, elven concepts, elven ideas—the other eight divines are Aedra, which were of the same nature as the Daedra ‘til they created Nirn. Now, could it be that the Aldmeri Dominion would balk against an ELF becoming a god? I can’t answer that. But the blessings of Talos work. They confer healing and shit on you, so I hate to break it to ya, elves, Talos is a god. [cue Heimskr’s speech “WE ARE BUT MAGGOTS, WRITHING IN THE FILTH OF OUR OWN CORRUPTION]

Engaging in religious oppression is the overarching theme of the Aldmeri Dominion. Conquering the Empire allows them to keep suppressing the worship of Talos. Talos is a human who became god--he was a nord, in fact, and the FOUNDER of the empire. He is a legitimate god whose presence upsets the elves because he was mortal. Is that racism? If they’re pissed because he was man rather than mer? Yes. If they just find the idea of an ascendant mortal anathema, still a tentative yes. Oppressing the beliefs of a people is a from of racism. 

The Nords came to Skyrim from Atmora thousands of years ago and they got along fine with the snow elves ‘til they unearthed an artifact in Saarthal. It was at that time the falmer felt they had no choice but to attack. Ysgramor lost his son(s?) and thus mounted a counterattack, driving the falmer to retreat into the waiting arms of the frankly shady dwarves, who promised asylum, but enslaved them. This is NOT a metaphor for the oppression of native peoples in the United States, so don’t like, try and make it one. The falmer struck first, the humans won and thus the Nord people are the oldest native residents of Skyrim--we’re talking millennia, here, people, not a century, but literal thousands of years that Skyrim has been human, specifically Nord, land. 

I mean, Tullius is kind of racist if you really feel the need to go there (I don’t, but see Imperial side dialogue before you kill Ulfric “wherever you people go when you die” in which Legate Rikke, a Nord herself, reminds him “Sovngarde, sir.”). That’s how racism works. People will say shit that disrespects your culture or way of life, but if you’re close to ‘em, they don’t see it as a problem, because they don’t see you as “like all the other ____.” Now, Tullius doesn’t justify himself to Rikke because he is her superior officer, but it just goes to show that, for being the imperial rep in Skyrim, he gives very few fucks about the culture. Now, is this most likely because he is tired and does not want to be there? Yep. Does that excuse him? Only if Ulfric’s belief in his own cause excuses him. The empire is a puppet for the Thalmor, thus Tullius is a puppet of the thalmor as well and if you don’t think that destroys his pride as an imperial soldier (same as Ulfric?????), well, maybe it’s time for another study in human nature.

Yes, it’s true that Tullius prioritizes the safety of the citizenry at Helgen. Ulfric doesn’t. 1. Ulfric is prolly a little pissed, 2. He’s just been arrested for beating a dude in a fair fight, 3. He has NO troops, and 4. He’s trained with the Greybeards; he understands what a dragon can do WAY more intimately than Tullius and he knows better than to get in the way of that fire. Skyrim is a rough fuckin’ place and the addition of dragons doesn’t help. Neither man backs down from the civil war, either, so don’t bother with that angle. “Oh Ulfric didn’t stop civil warring to fight dragons” yeah nor did Tullius. Methinks being the commander of an army is not so simple as “okay guys let’s stop fighting and be bffs”. Tullius is there on orders he doesn’t want to follow, but Ulfric also doesn’t seem like he WANTS to tear Skyrim up--he feels it is necessary, same as Tullius feels quelling the rebellion is necessary. It’s all in your perspective--and yes, I’ve played the Imperial questline; I was a high elf and it made sense, story-wise.

Aligning with the Empire means aligning with the Thalmor. Aligning with the Stormcloaks also means aligning with the Thalmor. No matter what, you’re either directly serving them or their interests. If this bothers you, you understand the desire for an independent, sovereign Skyrim. 

Ulfric does what he does because he just spent however the fuck many years fighting against the aldmeri dominion (after, mind you, leaving the training of the greybeards to stand up for an ideal), fighting FOR THE EMPIRE, hoping to keep the lands of men a separate, sovereign land unto themselves, with their various provinces and governments under the empire. He was NOT opposed to the empire until they bowed to the white-gold concordat, an agreement which promised peace (a good thing yes?) in exchange for dropping the ninth divine, Talos, Tiber Septim-become-god (religious persecution, and please recall this isn’t just “take down all shrines of talos”—this is literally hunt down and root out talos worshippers in their own homes [markarth quest]). While Ulfric is being tortured by the Thalmor, his countrymen are being forced to bow the knee to the Summerset isles and a people who have no real idea how life, commerce, and politics in Skyrim should and do work, all because they’re opposed to the worship of the LEGITIMATE GOD Talos.

The Thalmor convinced Ulfric that the information he FINALLY gave them after being tortured actually helped them take the Imperial capitol. It didn’t, of course, the capitol had already fallen, but he carries that guilt. That’s canon, too. He carries the guilt of thinking it’s his fault the Empire lost the imperial city (the first time--they took it back during the battle of the red ring like one or two years later) which, btw, the Aldmeri dominon started, for the record.

Lemme remind you that many of the citizens of Skyrim thought Torygg was a bit of a weakling, as well, that he was content to bow to the empire’s wishes, the wishes of the aldmeri dominion, without seeking a better position in trade, taxes, etc. for Skyrim. Is that a reason to kill someone? Well probably the fuck not. But you know what? These are fantasy politics and it wasn’t as if Torygg was caught off guard. They were dueling. [cue Yu-Gi-Oh! opening]. So the empire captures Ulfric and is gunne behead him—and well y’all played the opening.

I’m only saying this because I cannot cruise the Ulfric Stormcloak tag without seein’ this garbagio and it’s killin’ me. Is he a sweet cinnamon roll who can do no wrong? No. Are the stormcloak’s skyrim’s third reich? Also fucking no??? It is just my own observations and interpretations of the events and dialogues in-game which lead me to this conclusion. Skyrim has a right to secede from the Empire which serves the Aldmeri Dominion more than it serves its own people. Don’t forget that the Aldmeri dominion is engaged in active oppression of a legitimate faith. Don’t forget that Skyrim staying allied with the Empire doesn’t strengthen the Empire for some speculative, future uprising. Don’t forget that it’s unwise to apply real world politics to a fantasy world with such completeness that you cannot recall the actual details and parameters OF that fantasy world.

I mean at the end of the day, it’s a videogame, right? So… grain o’ salt.