I have seen a lot of conflicting messages, and it seems like they are the same person, but they are also different. Could someone explain what is going on, and why the god who saved the day in Cyrodiil is destroying Skyrim?

no? Akatosh is a god in lore
the dragons i think are just based off him

There are two interpretations of the same god. From what I understand, the gods choose what form they take, and typically conform to what the mortals see them as. While the Imperials view Akatosh as a heroic god, the Nords view him as sinister and destructive. Therefor, Akatosh will save the world from Mehrunes Dagon, and Alduin will eat it.

Probably not? I don't know anything for sure.

According to the UESP, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Alduin is the Nord variation of Akatsosh.

I believe they're the same entity and it makes sense if you think about it. Since the Amulet of Kings has been destroyed Akatosh doesn't need to honor the agreement that he had with Alessia meaning he can do whatever he wants to do.

In short, mortals' beliefs mold the gods' personalities and personas. Imperials see Akatosh as a benevolent protector, and so he is; Nords see Alduin as the alpha and omega, who destroys this world, and then creates the next, and thus again, he becomes that. And yet, both of them are the Time God, and thus are the same person, while being completely different.

What they said; although it was Martin Septim who saved Tamriel from Mehrunes Dagon. He simply used Akatosh's avatar, that was infused within the amulet with Akatosh's soul (as well as every past emperors soul). So it wasn't actually Akatosh who magically appeared to defeat Mehrunes.

Its conflicting.
There does not seem to be any clear answer right now.
But I do think it would be cool if akatosh turned out to be Alduin.

"No, Dragoneborne I AM AKATOSH!!"

"No, that's not true THATS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!"

I know Martin was the one who defeated Mehrunes Dagon, but i had always thought that Akatosh had transformed Martin into his avatar, and given him the power he would need to defeat Mehrunes.

Okay, in a nut shell:

Akatosh is depicted in Imperial lore as a dragon. In ancient times, the dragons - of which Akatosh is one - ravaged humans and elves, wreaking havoc the world over. Dragons were very much a destructive, deadly force.

Akatosh made a covenant with St Alessia. The details of that covenant and how it came to be are left somewhat ambiguous, but Alessia's blood was mystically joined with that of the dragons. Akatosh produced the amulet of kings from his own heart, and Alessia led her people out of Skyrim and into Cyrodiil where they became Imperials. The Nords were the humans who remained in Skyrim, rather than becomming Imperials. The two provinces and people have always been closely linked, though. The Nordic interpretation of Akatosh is Alduin, the World Eater. The destroyer of the World.

Akatosh is the god of time, and from the Imperials' point of view, their patron and protector. Alduin is also the god of time, but is the END of time; the force which will devour the world. They can be and very likely are the same being, with two different aspects, each necessary and equally real.

Another aspect of this covenant between man and Akatosh was that Mehrunes Dagon and Oblivion would not be able to enter the mortal world so long as the dragonfires burn, and an heir of the dragon's blood sat upon the throne. That covenant was broken in TES IV, 200 years before Skyrim.

200 years after the events of Oblivion crisis, as far as anyone knows there are no more Dragonborn. You play as the one who is, very possibly, the last in all the world. The dragonfires are gone. There hasn't been a dragonborn on the throne of the mortal world for 200 years. The covenant has been broken. Akatosh/Alduin and the dragons are no longer bound by the ancient treaty, and may now once again ravage the world.

That's my interpretation of the canonical texts in TES. However, there are also texts at the Imperial Library website which go further into the metaphysical aspects of this, which are hotly debated as to whether they constitute canon or not. The reason for the debate is that they do not appear in any of the games, but were written by Bethesda's lore-writers all the same.

One such text speaks of how the world has been created and destroyed many times over. It goes on to say that every time the world is consumed by Akatosh (to be subsequently recreated,) Mehrunes Dagon is always there to try to stop it, and Lorkhan is always trying to hide from Akatosh. Mehrunes Dagon once, many cycles ago, tried to hide a bit of the world each time it was consumed, so that each time it was recreated the world would be a bit larger. His plan was to eventually make the world so large that Akatosh's belly would burst when he ate it. Akatosh discovered this however, and damned Dagon to Oblivion. He could only ever escape Oblivion, if he succesfully destroyed every bit of excess world he created.

One of my theories is that his invasion of Earth was actually an attempt to destroy the excess, and that the modern interpretation of him being responsible for the sphere of destruction is a direct result of his NEED to destroy part of Nirn (Tamriel itself perhaps being the excess?) in order to liberate himself. Likewise, in this interpretation, Akatosh is neither good nor evil. He is simply time itself, and just as time in this universe had a beginning, it must have an end. Akatosh can therefore easily also be Alduin; two faces of the same being; beginning and end, creation and destruction.

You also have to understand that the gods in TES lore can exist in multiple levels, and in varying forms. They can be both a large, primal force such as "time," while also taking a more definite form, such as a dragon, in order to undertake their work.

I've tried putting my thoughts together into something coherent, but I fail, so I'll just put out some points:

-Akatosh/Alduin are the same entity.

-They're different aspects of the same concept.

-Research Egyptian or Hindu myths to understand Aspects a little more. ie: Bastet/Sekmhet or Thoth-Hermes.

On the specific topic of why he saved the world when he was planning on destroying it later anyway, I dunno. Maybe it just wasn't "time" yet? Or maybe he didn't want some upstart daedra like Dagon to try stealing his thunder? My personal theory is that Alduin will destroy not the physical "Mundus", but the paradigm of the "world", as it is, and Akatosh will start a new one. Doesn't really matter why he's doing it though, in my opinion. People are gonna die no matter the reason for it. Scaly-butt's goin' down.

-according to UESP

Nords have a different world-view. A hostile environment, breeds hostile people, breeds hostile gods. That's all.


@Vam Akatosh is a modern amalgam of Auriel and Shor. When Alessia determined which god would reign in her pantheon, she was pressed to venerate Shor/Lorkhan by the Nords, and for his faithfulness in the Rebellion. However, the Nedes still loved Auriel. So, she married qualities of the two gods, and this is Akatosh. Then, she convinced the Nords, Shor would have his honor; and she named him Shezarr, the Spirit Behind Human Undertaking.


Edit:
@Mani The http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-monomyth and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth help to understand.

"Sources are pointing to yes"

They're the same person. It's not like he's essentially good though, he's just doing what he wants.

I see two possibilities.

One: Akatosh and Alduin are different aspects of the same god. Technically, Alduin came first--Alessia created the concept of Akatosh when she started the church of the Eight Divines; he was a mix between the Aldmeri Auri-el and the Nordic Alduin. I think it's probable that the human concept of a god (or aedra, in technical speak) actually directly changes it, so when people started believing in Akatosh, that god diverged into two aspects (three, if you count Auri-el, who also preceded Akatosh). Seeing how Talos ascended, the Tribunal became immortal and gained god-like powers, and the Numidium was made immortal, it wouldn't be totally unprecedented for men or mer to affect or achieve godhood. It's even possible that Alduin was just a particularly troublesome dragon that was immortalized through years of Nordic storytelling.

Two: Both pantheons exist--the Imperials' (i.e. the Nine Divines) and the Nords', which consists of some of the Nine, lacks some, and has some that the Nine lacks).
It would explain why we see both Akatosh (in Oblivion) and Alduin (in Skyrim).

Thanks bro quite concise and well written.

Chur chur

/thread

As a side note, the whole religion of the 9 is nothing more than a compromise between the merish and nordic pantheon, in which all of the 9 are goody goodies. In fact, Akatosh is the most different Akatosh of the Akatoshes. You have Auri-el, the merrish Akatosh, who is against Mundus and is buddy buddy with the mer, as they fought against Lorkhan. Alduin, the nordic Akatosh, who is a world devourer and a the bringer of the new kalpa. He's not very liked, and Shor (the nordic Lorkhan) helped out the nords.

With Akatosh, he's a pretty nice guy, doesn't hate Shezarr, and isn't against Mundus. He's still a god of time, but the god of being a giant pansy time.

No

I don't want to attribute this to you, but this bit of your post brought a thought to mind. Probably a crazy thought - I don'nt know the lore well, so there might be some decisive arguments against this. It's also pretty half-baked, and I would like to think about it more, but here's the basic idea:

Roughly, instead of seeing Alduin as some sort of metaphysical superpower, he might be just another dragon. One among many, but perhaps the most powerful among those. But perhaps during the wars between Mer and Men, the Mer somehow, for some reason, had dragons as allies (at least effectively, if not officially). One of these dragons was Auriel, who was legendary for the damage he wrought amongst the humans. Over time, this dragon became mythologised. To the Mer, he was an object of worship. But for the Nords, he became Alduin, the world eater, a figure of fear and destruction.

Now, I'd need to check this, because I don't know. But it seems like what would refute this theory would be if the Mer worshipped Auriel prior to the wars between Mer and Men. Is that the case?

I'd be eager to hear any thoughts - even if it's just why this is completely wrong.

I still say no, but there are those that say he is. The problem is that the only lore that correlates them as the same is the book on the Religious Varities in Tamriel. In the book, it loosely ties them together. Basically all the information that says they are the same being is from the non-canon information of Michael Kirkbride. Otherwise, all the official information we know of Alduin says that he is nothing like Akatosh. I say that they are different entities but could be correlated in some way, like he could be some dark aspect created when Nirn was finished being created, but he isn't some over dramatization of godhood that Akatosh can be countless people simultaneously.



People keep misinterpreting the agreement between Akatosh and Alessia. Their pact wasn't that she gets to control Akatosh or dragons, that's not it at all. The whole pact was because Alessia was leading a slave uprising against the Ayleids and even though the slave races had help from Skyrim, they couldn't beat the Ayleids, their powerful magic and their endless armies of undead and Daedra from Oblivion. So Akatosh made a pact that as long as people worshiped the eight divines (now nine) and as long as one with the blood of Akatosh coursing through them wore the Amulet of Kings, he would keep Oblivion sealed from Nirn. The divines get their power from their worshipers, so basically the exchange was that the people would give the divines power by worshiping them and Akatosh would help the slave races beat the Ayleids by cutting off their daedra armies.

I think the "god" as a divine role is separate from "god" as a name and persona and character in stories (the former being closely tied to a single aedric realm and set of concepts). Auriel is Akatosh is Alduin in the sense of being a manifestation of the divine nature of Time, but that doesn't mean they're the same consciousness any more than

Just like Vivec or Tiber Septim, the dragon gods may have once been mortals who happened to assume godhood in the same mythic role. That doesn't mean that an attack on one isn't an attack on all personas (see: previous mild spoiler). However, the lore suggests that there have been attempts to destroy one of a god's aspects while leaving the deity intact -- it may have gone very badly for the Marukhati Selective (they were trying to remove Auriel from the Time God rather than Alduin), but such a thing at least is considered possible by theoretical metaphysicists in the TES universe.

Akatosh is a god. Who is to say he cannot fulfill multiple roles beyond the comprehension of the races? Is it so hard to believe that Akatosh can fulfill various roles to maintain balance and order in the world of Nirn?

This interpretation is of gods is a little over the top though. Omnipresent gods are just boring and just are a bit ridiculous imo. There is also no evidence of this in any of the lore. Now, gods can have avatars but those are just representations of them that don't have their true power within them. Also, there is no evidence that a god has had multiple avatars at the same time. Gods technically stay in one place, avatars don't count as them leaving where they are, they are just a physical representation of them, not actually them. Examples are of the avatars of the divines in Morrowind for one, it wasn't the gods but it was avatars of them.

I'm of the opinion that the beliefs of men and mer can alter or even create aedra, and possibly daedra. (I find the idea of daedra changing a bit more far-fetched, however. Aedra, in their participation in the creation of Mundus (or its existence, as with Talos), opened themselves to change. Daedra have a sense of permanence to them.) I think Akatosh appearing, then Alduin, is merely a shift in faith from one prominent religion to another, or, possibly just a flare in worship of Alduin that gave him the strength to emerge.

That being so, I don't think it's too hard to believe that somewhere in the past or future (what with 'gods' transcending time and whatnot), Akatosh, Alduin, or Auri-el couldn't simply change his mind and assume a different role. Mortals, being as limited as they are, would likely feel the need to make a distinction, especially if multiple aspects are present at the same time. (Again, the aedra and daedra transcend time, so who's to say a future or past version of one couldn't coexist with a present version?)

In any case, you really have to hand it to the Elder Scrolls. Those things are uncannily accurate!