The Creation Myth of Tamriel is simplified to the extreme already in "A Children's Anuad" but if you want an even simpler version I suggest the classic children's book "The Little Red Hen."

Granted it's not a perfect anology of Lorkhan and the et'Ada but there's a ring of parable.

I disagree! I believe Cyrus is the easiest to follow. The characters were framed properly, and visualized. Maybe the most abstract piece of the myth are the abstract Dwemer, who built and abstractiture, to raise them down to the place that is not a place. In fact, they only constitute a piece of the mythos, because they aren't part of it, nor were they really ever.

The People of the Root should be nextly abstract, but they're already wearing shoes and aprons. So maybe not. And they sound like greeks, which is more funny than non-mysterious. So that helps.

Throwing some ideas around here.

I would venture to say to the OP that a portion of your frustration probably arises from reading these here forums and seeing people argue -- and not just argue, but full on demean, fight, and insult each other -- and not understanding why.

Like so many here, I got involved with the lore when I encountered Morrowind. Even when I first started playing the game, I was the type of player who went through it very slowly and cautiously, reading every book I came across carefully, aware that I was not actually understanding what I was reading. However, I have only now, years later, reread through enough of the books and various archived forum postings to develop any semblance of "understanding" regarding the Elder Scrolls universe. This is not because it is ambiguous; rather, it is because it is alarmingly specific -- in contradictory ways. It has never been particularly difficult to ascertain, for example, which deities correspond to others in the various pantheons -- their names and forms are undeniably similar -- but it is frustrating to accept that a deity from one pantheon performs a contradictory action in a correspondingly different pantheon.

However, this is what makes this body of work so beautiful -- it requires us to set aside notions of things "making sense." These games would not be as interesting if they did. Without intending to provoke discussions of Morrowind vs. Oblivion, I can, I think, objectively state that this is one of the reasons many felt disappointed with the lore aspects of Oblivion: there just wasn't the same level of intrigue. As much as our nature yearns to know the "why"s, there is something deeply, deeply satisfying about saying "I don't know"; It makes us yearn more, and there is such beauty in the yearning.

Now back to what I was saying earlier about the forums being a source of frustration.

You mention this elite caste of loremaster. I acknowledge others have devoted more time and effort into understanding lore, but they are not an elite class above me. They've just prioritized their hobbies differently than I. That having been said, I, too, have felt the sting of inadequacy when attempting to pose questions I feel are unanswered or even new ideas I feel have been unaddressed by the lore community. This is in part due to the reasons previous posters have mentioned -- the resources are available online, etc., etc. However, if you are like me, I find that people are my most valuable resource, in life and online. They often answer questions quicker than I can find them, or if I encounter a particularly difficult text, others often have insight where I did not. It becomes discouraging and difficult to appreciate lore when your own remarks or questions are brushed aside or derided as ignorant. But as a point of advice, I say this: Do not let this stop you. Do not let heated debates here diminish your own conclusions. If we approach lore as literature (and I think this is a good approach), there is room for interpretation. You're allowed to disagree personally, though dogheadedly insisting on an opinion here will get you nowhere (particularly if you don't have good sources to back your opinion up). If there is ambiguity in the lore, it is only the ambiguity of artistic interpretation. As others have said, this is not the downfall of ES lore -- it is its crowning achievement.

It's 5 AM and I've just written an emotional essay. Hope this makes sense.

Pentirei - nice post mate, I can see what you're saying, and I agree. As I aknolwedged before myself, it is probably this 'mysteriousness' whicg generates so much interest in it in the first place.

Yeah anyway I seem to have pissed people off with my haphazard musings, which I didn't want really, I was just trying to generate some discussion on this idea of ambiguity which I thought had alot to do with the lore, and perhaps alot to do with what makes it so interesting/frustrating for different folk. Sorry if I offended people, really didn't intend to..

Is it me or have there been more threads about the lore community and the nature of the lore rather than the actual content of the lore itself on here lately?

We're all getting so meta in our postmodern age.

When you start to run low on content to discuss, there's nothing left but to discuss concept as a whole.

Though actually that doesn't seem to be the case - more along the lines of "I don't like this so I'm just gonna question it's basic validity." It's been going on ever since Oblivion, maybe before, but I don't ever remember anybody questioning canon or the nature of lore way back when - probably because we were just figuring it out for ourselves. Understanding the Monomyth used to be enough to make you a guru.

Ah man. Now I need a time machine, go back when Morrowind was released, and I would have been the hottest [NUMMIT] here

Likely you'd be shot down for being way too out there. Especially since nothing really clicked until we got the Numantia Intercept.

They'd as soon believe he used a time machine.


But you still wouldn't be as cool as Albides. Nobody can.

All love to Albides, but Nigedo was and still is the first inductee into the Whirling School.

On-topic: Apologies for the patent dismissal. I was being Scottish or Filipino or both, because I'm both. In all modesty, I think the title of the thread is sideways. It should be "Does the lore and, by extension, its adherents exist because of its ambiguity?"

Hey, you're that guy! oo:
Anyway, I like my idea (obviously) that you can decide from multiple accounts on what you believe happeded in some occasions. And lore is ment to be confusing (I think) that's what makes it unique.

It's ambiguous because Bethesda and it's writers, full-time, freelance, past and future, like us and respect us enough to not club us over the head with the backstory, which is a common mess-up.

The ambiguity does not only make TES lore intresting but also real life. Personally I'm very intrested in the God-head philosophy, because that gives me different things to think about when it comes to real life aswell. A diffrent angle on a philosophy I already love, god comunicating with god.

That's the great thing with it, the lore, the storys are REAL LIFE, (if you understand me right) it's right there, in front of you on the screen. That's why I at least had to join here (hello everybody! ), you can do of it as much as you want with it, go as deep as you wish. Take your side if you wish (as you might do in other things in life) or just leave it.

I like to learn from it, and see some resembles to other respects in my life. Kind of an archetype thing, that gives you strength and character when you need it in real life situations.

Use all the cheat's you want, create your own background story to you character, use the tesConstruction set and alter the world so no one longer could recognize it... som people would say that that's cheating and not "real", not the "real TES. But what would not make it real? Just another way to play the game? I can not hear the NPC:s complaining anyway.

Break the dragon and take it as you want it

And btw. i love how the TES lore just surrounds the games, especially tes3, even if you do not read one book. It's just there. It makes the alien world of Vvardenfell real, even if the NPC:s standing at the same spot all the time, or the animations are deficient from time to time.

You can feel it, it's in the air, it is.. the love! :wub:

The love and the care for the game, from the makers.