Almalexia and Clavicus Vile?

Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 6:48 pm

All right first time poster and lore-noob here. So I've been digesting a lot of the out of game texts for the past two months (don't judge me, I'm a slow learner) and one little detail seems odd to me or not, really depends on how you look at things.

Anyway I was reading "the trial of Vivec" and according to "The Elder Scrolls Wiki" it's the spirit of AYEM that was trapped inside Azura's star and i got to admit it caused me to go Huh?? And not in a good way.

Not that i really care about who she gets with in the afterlife but what's weird is how little this seemed to be acknowledged anywhere at all... or maybe it's just taken at face value I don't know.

So i searched Google for anything featuring them together and nothing, no threads besides two threads which i'm not allowed to link to (both of which contradicts the other so no help there). So i did another search (rule 34) and nothing there either... now that should be solid proof that perhaps the Wiki is wrong but most likely there is some obscure text's that I've missed.

So I don't know if there is a question in all of this or maybe i'm just venting some weird feelings i get about the whole thing but i suppose i wan't to know if anybody else feels the same and what not.

Just the whole "lover who has never forsaken me" thing with Clavicus is just like "What? Really? Isn't he all about forsaking other people for the luls? Or at least offer help in the least helpful way."

And Vivec is standing right there like "I just busted you out of prison skank. How about showing me a little love?".

I'm probably missing some important piece of information so if anybody could fill in what I've missed that be great and please use small words.

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Becky Cox
 
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Post » Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:55 am

The "Trial of Vivec" is only the first of a serie of RP, the "Loranna's RP". You can find more information about it here: http://lorannarp.pbworks.com/w/page/19009041/FrontPage

As for the content of the star, after looking at the archive, I can't find any other indication about it. Every one during the Trial wondered about the content of the star, and when Almalexia come out, it was a big surprise.

You can find the archive of the Trial on the TIL: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives

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Cesar Gomez
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:37 pm

Thanks for the reply!

I suppose your right... meh.

It seems like an unimportant detail at the end of it all. I don't know what i expected but i suppose i'm just suprised that one of the most intimate details about her character is just glossed over lightly and than never referenced at all.

Even in C0DA i find nothing.

Ah well... i guess it just is. Thanks again.

Edit: It's kinda funny how such a simple conclusion leaves me more baffled than any other lore-piece out there. You look around for anything in the elder scrolls series and you get esseys after esseys of information and arguments. But this just is there and nothing else.

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Dj Matty P
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:48 pm

If you read the Trial, nowhere is it claimed that spirit in the Star is Almalexia. It's just a mortal who was a lover of Vile. I even recall MK-as-Vivec explicitly crushing speculation that it was - naturally, since how could he pin blame on Azura for the Nerevarine killing Almalexia in self defense after all? The Elder Scrolls Wiki has tons of misinformation, make sure you check their sources, because you'll find they are completely wrong quite often!

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Sammie LM
 
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Post » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:47 am

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the wiki is just making that up. My guess would be because Almalexia's soul is the most powerful one in TES3? The identity of the spirit is not disclosed during the Trial, and I don't believe it came up during the rest of the RP either.

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Far'ed K.G.h.m
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:14 pm

Well, I imagine you must be referring to http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Vivec_%28God%29#The_Trial_at_Hogithum_Hall, as that is the only mentioning of the Trial exists on the wiki, I think.
As the writer of that article, I'll say that I honestly believed that the Trial was implying Almalexia was the soul stuck in the star, but in hindsight, I can see how that conclusion was quite speculative.
I will delete that line.
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Sarah Unwin
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:58 pm

Wow... this is embarrassing and also disturbing. I personally look up Wiki's as a primary source for any lore of any kind and in my experience they are mostly managed by people with an obsession for accuracy and this is the first time I've seen the contrary. But if what you're saying is true than I have to ask if this is unique to The Elder Scrolls Wiki and if so why? And I don't mean every wiki is trustworthy. It's just that most of them have a pretty passionate staff that keeps out misinformation, only allowing a few mistakes to go unchecked for long. But if by a ton you mean like every four or fifth page or something then there is a problem here.

Also thanks for clearing up my erroneous conclusion. I read a post similar to yours on another forum but that was from 2011 but then the other thread or talk-page on the wiki was from 2014 so I assumed it was more up to date and therefore more accurate.

Funny thing is that I came to similar a conclusion the first time I read the trial but I assumed I must have read something wrong or missed something when I read the Wiki's summary instead of using common sense and thinking for myself. Well nobody's perfect.

Also which line is it that Vivec says no to the whole concept because I keep reading the archives but I seem to keep missing it for some reason. Either I'm just blind or stupid.

It seemed like a fairly common mistake when I researched the subject. I don't know how it became such an accepted conclusion but it's nice to have it cleared even if I look like a bit silly now.

A well an honest mistake right... you probably fell in to the same trap as I did. Hopefully some other newbie will find this of help.

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Janette Segura
 
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Post » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:35 am

The wikia is getting better by leaps and bounds, but it's generally considered a not so great source for lore articles. I think there was just less oversight for a long time, leading to a lot of speculation, plagiarism, and just plain making things up. Like I said, it's gotten a whole lot better recently.

If you're looking for a solid lore wiki, you'll be interested in http://uesp.net. It's the oldest fansite that's still around, and generally an excellent source (especially if you remember that a wiki is inherently filtered).

Wikis are, by their very nature, not primary sources. Anything on UESP, or Wikia, or any other article site you will find has been interpreted and written by a real-world author, one who may be misinterpreting something, forgetting something, putting their own bias on something, etc. Even the most well sourced and fact checked wiki will be written by people. For primary sources, you need to look at primary sources -- books, dialog, art from the games. http://www.imperial-library.info/ is TES' repository for all sorts of primary sources, and UESP also has a library of books found in games.

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JD FROM HELL
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:10 pm

Right of course... silly me forgetting the most basic rules of writing high school papers. Haven't been involved in academia for a long time I tend to forget that people makes mistakes all the time. UESP seems nice and a lot more informative thanks for the links.

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Fiori Pra
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:13 pm

Lady N might be right that it's getting better, but that wiki in particular has developed a reputation for having mistakes. I'm not really sure why it was so much more prevalent than on UESP. I think maybe the elder scrolls wiki community was just less stringent about sources and tended to include more speculation and interpretation from the editors? For example if you look at the discussion page for that article, you can people asserting that Alma was in the star without sourcing the claim. I know UESP has policies about sourcing, and even has specific formatting requirements for citing out of game texts and such. Elder Scrolls wiki is maybe more blasé about it? I've actually seen them cite UESP as a source!

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Laura Elizabeth
 
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Post » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:37 pm

There's not very many people on TES wiki who are well acquainted with the lore, and even fewer who explain it through source material. It also seems apparent that most people on the wiki either don't know how to source pages, or are unwilling to put the effort into looking for sources to begin with.

It's no secret that TESwiki attracts alot of people who are new to the TES games. I can't also help but think that the reason the UESP isn't seemingly as well trafficked as TESwiki is because of its name. When new people see "Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages", they may end up thinking well the other one most be the official one then.

What discussion page are you talking about exactly?

We're allowed to use any source with a notable amount of credibility (anything that has to deal with a developer).

I've never seen an article on TESwiki that blatantly sources the lore interpretation of a UESP editor (though I have seen some TIL scholar posts used as sources before, I'm honestly not sure if our wiki allows that). That being said, I have put a side-link on a source that directs to a UESP Daggerfall quest page because it had a important quote on it that I didn't feel like writing an entire quest page just so I could have the quote on TESwiki, I should probably get rid of that too.

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Chris Ellis
 
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Post » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:32 am


I'm much more acquainted with the UESP side of the aisle, and even then, I don't know all the details (IRC is the bane of the histiographer). I've actually done quite a bit of research into this over the past few years because ... well, I'm a hopeless geek, I guess that's the root cause. But that's it, in a nutshell: the UESP content has been given greater levels of care and scrutiny over the last decade.

This superiority has largely been the result of the UESP's head start in documentation, as exacerbated by the circumstances described below. The situation could quickly change if the UESP doesn't continue to attract knowledgeable contributors. TL;DR. Loopy on pain meds.

Spoiler
When the UESP switched to the wiki format in 2005, it brought with it a decade's worth of peer-reviewed TES guidance, as well as a well-rounded group of knowledgeable and loyal contributors. When the Elder Scrolls Wikia started circa 2006(?), it had next to nothing, as far as I know. Because the Wikia was desperate for content, many questionable additions went overlooked for years, even into the present day. TES fans typically went to a wikia page, fled in disgust, and found a relatively informative UESP page instead.

Interwoven with this is that TESWiki gets a preferred position in most search engine results (I'm not sure exactly when this started; I assume since around the time the TESWiki started). This search engine manipulation is ultimately a great benefit, as it greatly inflates the TESWiki's traffic. But if you wave a turd in someone's face, they're going to have remarks to make. And for many players looking for TES info, the Wikia was a big fecal log being waved right under their noses. Thus, the site quickly developed a reputation, leading to caustic sentiments like http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_Wiki?diff=3013&oldid=2835 (clearly he's a female hygiene product, but he got his point across ... ). This general aversion to the TESWiki meant the UESP continued to attract more and better contributors, on average, for much of the last few years.

However, many newcomers familiar with formatting on other Wikias were naturally inclined to contribute to TES Wiki rather than adapt to UESP formatting and slightly more complicated (but superior!) namespace arrangement. There were also just your typical "brain drain" events: a would-be contributor suffers some perceived slight on the UESP, abandons the site, and ultimately goes on to contribute positively somewhere else. With the aforementioned search engine manipulations and network of affiliates, the TES Wiki was the natural place for these alienated people to go.

These factors, combined with the gradual introduction of cosmetically-altered (or outright plagiarized) UESP content, kept TES Wiki afloat. Really not trying to offend here, just stating a fact. If you think I'm off-base, try comparing revision histories of corresponding pages across wikis. A pattern will emerge, I assure you.

I think the schism over OOG has likely also caused some brain drain from the UESP. Some old debates on the UESP over the matter can be found http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki_talk:Lore/Sources_for_Lore_Articles. Contributing to a wiki long-term can become incredibly aggravating for a wide variety of reasons, and sometimes good-natured people Rage Quit in a spectacular fashion. This seems to be what happened circa 2008 in the debate over sources. A lot of UESP contributors wanted all of Kirkbride's work, along with Hogithum Hall, hosted on the wiki and disseminated on the wiki pages. And they wanted all or nothing, unwilling to compromise for the sake of people who disagreed. So they stopped contributing (and probably went to contribute elsewhere).

A side note I find fascinating but which you would probably wish to skip: the ongoing differences in TES coverage by the two wikis are mainly the result of editors preferences, not policy. On paper, the two wikis approach OOG content in an almost identical fashion (until recently, at least). But UESP editors are just naturally more conservative because the more "liberal" contributors Rage Quit in the days of Oblivion. Most of the major contributors the UESP retained held the same apprehensions over OOG, and they attracted more people who were similarly inclined. It's just cultural; newcomers to both wikis just follow the tone set by others, for the most part.

As mentioned, TESWiki's approach to OOG seems to have changed recently, in that I noticed they've started hosting OOG content directly. Apparently they want to replace not only the UESP, but TIL, too!

Implicit in the UESP's policies on OOG, I think, is that TIL was out there. If TIL had not existed (but the unofficial stuff like Nu-Mantia was floating out there), I believe the UESP's whole approach to unofficial developer content would have been different, perhaps drastically different. I see their roles now as largely complementary, even symbiotic in some respects, rather than in contention with each other. But I don't know if TESWiki's scope is quite as accomodating. It seems to me like the aim at this point is to do everything the other two sites do, just not quite as good as how they do it.

But, hey, at least TIL gets an acknowledgement when TESWiki relies on its content...



Really? I've never seen that ... although God knows that I should have more than once! Edit -That's the irony of it: as I understand the copyright issues at play, TESWiki could essentially copy-paste entire UESP articles, so long as they give credit. That's all that is required, a cite. I can't imagine how many cumulative years have been spent rewriting UESP articles just to avoid giving this small accomodation.

No offense intended to any individuals with the above. I've met many TESWiki contributors who do not svck. :wink: Ironically, that's actually the only reason any of this irks me at all: some ... ALOT of MOST TESWiki editors are really great! I don't mean to denigrate all the fine work which has been done there. It's a testament to how much we all love this series. But I come from this premise: the TES community would be better off as a whole if all the TES wiki-gnomes out there were coordinated on one project, instead of wasting our limited time creating and maintaining duplicative coverage across two sites. Better coverage, a better-informed community, better discussions, and ultimately, hopefully, better games. But that's just me. Peace.


Edited repeatedly because, wow... let me emphasize again, the pain meds.
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Kayla Keizer
 
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