So I'm just curious as to how exactly fate and divine intervention and all that works in the TES world. For example, was the Nerevarine destined to defeat Dagoth Ur, and no matter what he did, he would be victorious? Could the Nerevarine have fought Dagoth Ur naked and unarmed and still have won? Or did he actually need to rely on his skills and abilities to survive, and could have failed had he made a mistake?

Many fall, but one remains.

Depends on the type of hero, I think. Several versions of the Nerevarine have failed before yours made it (that is if we accept that you really are the reincarnation of Nerevar destined to defeat Dagoth, which is arguable). On the other hand, the Champion of Cyrodiil is largely a regular guy/girl who gets thrust into an extraordinary situation, and there are several others who do what he does with varying success. Same thing with the Arena and Daggerfall heroes. The Dragonborn, on the other hand, is almost certainly destined to do whatever it is he does by virtue of being Dragonborn.

From Sermon 11:
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec


There's different interpretations, but I take that to refer to players being able to re-load the game if they die. In other words, "fate" (or the game's code) allows for the "ruling king" (you, the player) to redeem your deaths by reloading, a diagram back to the waking world.

Or, am I crazy?

I love your question. Does the Hero change History, or did History make the Hero? If it wasn't you, would the circumstances forced someone else into place?

The Nerevarine was a curious example; you had prophecy backing you up, but meeting all your failed incarnates proves that attemptors have been churning out of the woodworks. And then, of all things, the prophecy goes back and references those failures too. "It means the prophecy is true!" Or that things have been really bad for a really long time, and Morrowind really needed a real savior. Guh. The argument goes in circles.

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A mysterious voice told me to reload a previous save, or else I'd wander in the cursed world I've made. Got mad because I severed the thread of fate.
Fourthwallbreaking, right?

Ah, TES, where the Fourth Wall is actually in the game.

Cheers! :foodndrink:

I'd always liked to think of it as referencing all the Failed Incarnates. Each one had some kind of flaw that made them Nerevarine-but-just-not-quite, but each failure showed "What Not To Do" (or, just as importantly "Who Not to Be"), until one of the incarnations, your character, finally gets it "right" (I'm assuming that, if you complete the prophecies, your character actually is Nerevar Reborn, or close enough for it to make no difference, since gods and mortals all seem content to line up behind it).



Or it could be a reloading thing, I guess. No worse than referencing the Teeth at the Edge of the World, if maybe a tad boring.

As Hellmouth has said on numerous occasions, the concept of fate and the Elder Scrolls are kind of a metajoke on Bethesda's part. Technically heroes can be in danger, but if they get in a situation that leads to their death, they reload a cosmic save file.