So even though the beth writers did it...it's not canon.

Why does it matter if it's in game or not? Infernal City and LoS are not in game books.



You might as well throw out over half of the in game lore then. What's the point of discussing lore if only things that "The Todd" himself says are canon count.

No but Infernal City and LoS are officially authorized materials set in the ES universe.

The trial of vivec has not been authorized by Bethesda.


The fact that some of the people who made the Trial of Vivec work at Bethesda means nothing since they, the writers, do not own the series, Bethesda does. Until Bethesda, the entity, says its canon it isn't.

Casey Hudson of Bioware could write his own Mass Effect novel but it wouldn't be canon until Bioware says it is.

Why discuss lore at all. Nothing can be confirmed. Your position is coming across as, I don't like lore that I don't like, therefore it isn't canon. Even if it's supported by everything in the game, has the approval of the gamesas writers, and is actually referenced in later materials. Guess what. Bethesda doesn't go to every single piece of literature in their games and say "This is canon" or "This isn't canon". So people here speculate based on what we do know. We know that MK was highly involved with the TES storyline and has more insight to the future of the series than you do. His works often gets confirmed by officially sanctioned beth works. I'd trust MK's word over yours any day on what's going on in the ES universe. It may not be canon but it offers good insight on the world of TES and often explains things that aren't so clear.

You do know that MK wrote most of the juiciest bits of Lore, right?

Regardless of his employment status, I feel that he has a better grasp of it than most.

Tell that to Fallout where Bethesda officially stated Fallout 1,2, 3, and New Vegas were canon, while Tactics is semi-canon, and BoS was non-canon. Saying "nothing can be confirmed" is wrong.

Everything in the main games, expansions, DLC, and two books is canon. All the books in the games themselves are canon, in that they exist in the ES universe, but they may be wrong because of the limited knowledge of the fictional authors. And everything that is not in the games/DLC/Expansions?two books isn't canon until Beth says it is.

Seems pretty simple to sort to me.



That's how canon is sorted in every other game series.

Thats it folks. The lore forums are closed. We've got the definite answer to everything right here. Nothing MK says should even be considered. Nothing any forum poster says should ever be considered. All your theories? Meaningless. Speculations? Pointless. All discussion should be links to in game books or events and thats it. Time to go home.

Okay, by "canon" you seem to mean "stuff in the game, whether or not it accurately reflects the truth of the universe," so, a certain in-game book is canon, even if the author is completely wrong about what he/she is reporting. All of us accept that every single in-game book is a part of the universe of the game, and so its presence is canon. But we don't think the content of any in-game book is automatically true, and so we don't take the content to be canon. But this means that as far as canon goes, in-game sources are in no special position when compared to sources that were never explicitly placed into the games.




But here's the problem: We don't accept everything that's stated in the games as official canon either!




This is the problem. The way canon is dealt with in TES is not the same as the way canon is dealt with in other creative works.

Lol that's not what I stated at all.

I love how you over react and imply im saying there is nothing to discuses at all.

It's actually kinda cute watching you imply I said things I didn't.


They hold a special position in that they are in the games themselves while other things are not


everything that is in the games is canon in that it exists, and the vague nature of reporting unknown history leaves a lot to be determined.

However just because some random guy comes along who worked for the company 9 1/2 years ago and writes something that fits into that space doesn't mean we should automatically take it as the truth.


that is factually untrue.

Couldn't agree more. We've been ignoring how other game series do that for how long now? I'm having fun so I see no reason to stop. I don't see anybody here who shares your views. So please, be so gracious to let it go.



Not sure if this has been answered yet but it's a matter of perspective.

To the Nords the destruction of the world is a bad thing so Alduin is a big bad god eating it. To the Elves (most of them) it's a liberation from a prison that kept them from their original divinity. Akatosh is a mix of both.
To the Elves, had Dagon not been killed he'd have become the new jailor, rather then dead old Lorkhan, making an escape impossible. To the Nords, Alduin was merely swatting flies of his lunch.

I will let it go once they learn how canon works.

ES is in so special position when it comes to how its canon works and to think it is, is arrogance of the highest magnitude.

I do not give up on the ignorant simply because they refuse to learn.

As the person who you were referencing when I posted the MK link, I assume I'm the ignorant/arrogant one you are talking to?

If so, I'm still waiting on you to cite where he said that less than a quarter of his work was canon, as you claim he said.

Thanks. :icecream:

Like I said it was a long time ago and trying to find anything more then a year old on the internet can be a pain.

Didn't MK also say that the whole "it's only canon if in-game" is phooey? And that most everybody still toiling at gamesas don't even know who Wulfharth is?

Akatosh comes off as such because he is an Imperial invention. Alessia needed to appease the elves in order to keep her precarious power structure intact, so she couldn't just ban the worship of Auriel. Instead, she transformed him into a deity who likes humans and wants them to succeed, incorporating elements of Shezarr into Auriel. Of course, since mortals can influence the nature of gods in TES, there really is a positive, man-friendly Akatosh.

If MK said that then I am at a loss for words.

Anyone so power-mad that he can claim that works made a 3rd party not part of the company can be canon needs some SERIOUS re-teaching of how stories work.

I guess all those books made by random 3rd parties set in the Star wars universe are canon now? I should write a story set in the LotR universe IT MUST BE CANON BECAUSE I SAID SO. Ohh yeah and now voldemort actually won and took over the world in Harry Potter, doesn't mater what the books said as long as a random 3rd party says it it MUST BE TRUE.

Chris Avellone needs to [censored] slap him a couple times to knock some sense into him.

So, according to you, "stories work" solely on the whim of the people who legally own the property? I'm sorry, but some of us believe in people called authors and artists and in their ownership (intellectual, if not legal) of the stories they tell. We're not talking about a random fan's fanfic here, we're talking about the people who made this universe continuing to play a part.

I'm starting to think that your own grasp of the nature of narrative is quite spongy and loose.

Your examples are inapplicable. Those are flat out contradictions made by an ignorant person. Of course they're non-canon. MK's stuff, however, fits nicely into established canon without major factual contradiction and is furthermore written by someone with an intimate knowledge and stake in the TES fabula. Apples to oranges, amigo.

The people who made the universe are Bethesda, the lore writers/game designers/concept artists are agents of Bethesda.

While they are in Bethesda's offices, doing Bethesda's work, and getting payed by Bethesda, they are a part of Bethesda.

Had they made the ES games on their own free time THEN the games would belong to the writers, however they did not.

MK never said his works were canon.

However, what he says still seems to end up in TES games. MK has been ranting about how the Altmer want Talos gone, and now they have gotten Talos worship banned in Skyrim. They might not be "canon" but Bethesda certinlly seems to look at them for lore/inspiration. Pete Hines even said "it depends" in regards to the obscure texts.

This is what I don't understand from Candlejack's rants. If a co-author of a body of work wants to provide insight, context, or additions, that helps the readers discern likely interpretations of the work. The insight is narrow since it might not respect the contributions of all the co-authors, but it can still be useful. Candlejack seems to want to turn authors into cogs. Once a cog is not part of the machine, it can offer nothing of value.

If a co-author wrote something to clarify something else in the larger work I would consider it canon because he is a co-author and has the right to determine canon.

However Kirkbride is not a co-author.

The only author in ES is the entity that is Bethesda Softworks who works through its employees.

As has been pointed out to you in another thread, dear CandleJack, Bethesda has designed TES lore to be open to interpretation. This is not us fans deeming ourselves "too special" to pay attention canon. It is us fans appreciating the freedom that the game designers themselves -- your Holy Priests of ES Canon -- have given us.

Do I think the lore forum sometimes smacks of unintentional arrogance and intellectual superiority? Absolutely. But it is also the one place you can find interesting, wonderful new ways to look at the game world. MK is a consistent source of such meaningful perspectives, and, as a contracted writer of Bethesda's, I respect his work.

Because you seem intent on having the last word, I will not argue the point further with you, except to say this:

I reject your sense of sanctimonious Canon. It is not, and never has been, applicable to or appropriate for this fiction.

They are, actually. George Lucas said that there's basically three levels of canon to Star Wars: the original movies are the main canon, then the extended universe is also canon but is not his personal canon, and then there's fanon, which is non-canon. You seem to be confusing licensed in-universe novels with fanfiction.

For how this relates to TES, Greg Keyes' novels are official canon, but fanfiction is not.

Besides, there's practically no concrete canon to the TES universe. Most of what we know is taken from books written by in-universe authors, who are fallible (and therefore aspects of certain books may be false; the ravings of Mankar Camoran are an excellent example). The lore forum basically exists to debate what in-universe information is true and what isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon

"When it comes to absolute canon, the real story of Star Wars, you must turn to the films themselves — and only the films. Even novelizations are interpretations of the film, and while they are largely true to George Lucas' vision (he works quite closely with the novel authors), the method in which they are written does allow for some minor differences. The novelizations are written concurrently with the film's production, so variations in detail do creep in from time to time. Nonetheless, they should be regarded as very accurate depictions of the fictional Star Wars movies. "

Also from George Lucas as himself
There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe.


There is only 1 REAL Star wars canon. everything else falls into levels of licensed fanon

Candlejack, this isn't Star Wars. Argue from TES standpoint. Bethesda's PR director, Pete Hines said "it depends." Should we ignore Pete Hines? MK's influence shows up in Skyrim, such as Altmer not liking Talos. I don't give a [censored] about what George Lucas says, because it has nothing to do with this argument. George Lucas did not write TES. He is not the God of (the concept of) Canon.

Give a recent source on Bethesda saying Kirkbride is full of [censored]. Give me something that contradicts it, since we've already listed stuff that supports what MK says.