I was thinking of something while walking. Phynaster taught the Altmer how to live another hundred years by having a wider walking stride, yes? The Altmers' lifespan has been the questioned greatly, if it is indeed 1000 years then why would Phynaster be considered a culture hero? well I may have an explantaion. If the Altmers' lifespan is indeed 1000 years would it possible that the greater walking stride increased the height of the Altmer over time to adapt to the stride??? If so then would that not affect their culture and make them feel more Elitist?? That would then make them feel that he is a hero. Is this possible or am I just blowing smoke??? Just a thought.

Mythically, the gods are giants who shrunk and are still shrinking, and the Altmer do everything they can to stop it.

That's a pretty convoluted explanation.

Altmer are tall because of their attempts to retain their racial purity. Like all the races of Nirn, they are descended from gods, and the gods are typically described as giants, so the Altmer retain more of their ancestors gigantism than others. The shorter walking stride probably points more to meticulous formality than anything else. And the Altmer attempts to extend their age is well documented, both in http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/corpse_preparation.shtml, where "Altmer born into the most respected noble and scholarly families ...research ...finding ways to extend their lives even further, and in the fact that many necromancers are Altmer, including the first great one, Manni.

because?

When you have devolved to gorilla and then mudpuppy, come ask me that again.

can mudpuppies talk? would the walking help contribute to the maintaining the gigantism?

The Dunmer, who split from the Altmer and were subsequently cursed by Azura are of average height. And because the curse never mentioned getting shorter, I wouldn't think that it was an effect.

I blame in-breeding.

No, the Chimer simply walked farther. Walking makes your bones shorter.

That's not a genetic change. I personally think that the Altmer got taller later.

It will be. But jeeze, give it time. Humans are so impatient.

That explains the Bosmer. (/halfjoke)

So the elves and humans will just keep shrinking indefinitely? What about Nirn? Does it shrink with them, or are all men and mer divinely screwed?

The Humans are of different origin than the elves.

Maybe they play a lot of basketball

I had always heard that they were different only in that the humans wanted to stay on Nirn and the elves wanted to go back to divinity, or something like that.

In any case, will the elves just keep shrinking indefinitely?

There's a certain point where all of that stopped a long time ago.

Yes. Humans were also born of gods and giants. See the Aldudaggas for more on that.


Probably not. That would be silly. It's a loss of sacred dimensions. Gods are so very big. People look so much bigger on tv. Heroes seem so much larger in the myths. And people like Adam and Methuselah lived so much longer than we did.

Then are the giants in the games greater forms of elves that became stupid over time?

They're the greater forms of men that became stupid over time.

The Aldudaggas puts it thusly:

Here is why: the Giants came from Old Atmora, up there across the Northern Ice back in the gone-to-twilight-now age of myth... and settled here in the Skyrim, and all along the mountain ranges of our coasts. (Yes, they are our true ancestors-- do not believe your aunt from the university-- and, yes, we were once as big as them-- as tall as THIS-- but that is another story)... [text lost]... and after [the Great Calamity] happened [the clan-things (peoples? tribes? Text seems to indicate mankind as a whole, though that is debateable)]... we were of a kind disrupted... and we Nords fell into fighting and drove our Giant-kin up unto the mountaintops [and we were a wicked-folk for many years]... [until all] things had changed forever. Once the Moot resumed [(unspecified) years later] things got back to a new semblance of normalcy and borders were redrawn and agreed with in beer-talk, and raidings of the merethlands took everyone's mind off old feuds, and pretty soon (well, not pretty soon but whatever) the Giants began to come down from the mountains again. And they were a bit different than we Nords remembered, or perhaps we had forgotten much, but they would not speak to us anymore-- they would only smile in their lazy way, stomp over, and take our stuff.

Although you might not consider it a legitimate source, it still fits the lore, and I expect it to become canon in a few years. There are other sources about the giant state of gods, however, so it's a matter of putting two and two to make... a much larger number.

It's a little physically painful to read that, but I get the gist. Thanks.

Though it has litteral reflections, the idea that the gods were giants basically just reinforces the trope of "greatness lost". Mythologies all across our world also depict the first beings as having gigantic proportions, cf. the Greek Titans, the Germanic giants etc.

Compare the Nephilim to the story Albides brought up.

Going back to the main topic - the logic that Altmer typically live to be 1000 years old is a misconception.

A few nobles and mages do, as with Dunmer society, but this is not their average biological lifespan. If we attribute a lifespan of 200 years or so to them, an extra 100 seems much more significant because that extends their days on Nirn by a third.

Do you understand why the Altmer are taller? It is beacuse the shorter Altmer are exiled/killed/no married and thus only the tall ones pass on their tall traits. Its a common technique in dog breeding.

The Chimer were probebly once tall. However, their numbers were small and thus when a short Chimer was born, he was not exiled/killed but rather married and had children. Thus, as more short Chimer cropped up, the shorter the race as a whole became.




The Nephilim weren't actually giants. The original stories on old Hebrew texts state that the Nephilim were not physically any larger, rather that they could fly and generally had superpowers, but were still the same height as a normal human. The giant thing is is misconception stemming from King James's censorship brigade being horrible translators when they were making the king James bible.