When I played morrowind unaware of the lore it seemed like Azura was respected by the inhabitants, what with the Azura's coast region and all that. I recently read the Trial of Vivec where Vivec seems to blame Azura for the curse on the Chimeri which altered their appearance to be the current Dunmer. Was Azura the one who cursed the inhabitants of Morrowind? Or is Vivec just crazy? I'm interested and confused by the role Azura plays. And does Vivec really trap her or whatever happens at the end of his Trial?
I know daedra are neither good nor evil, but I would love some insight into the dynamic between Azura and the Dunmer/ Azura and Vivec.

It's generally believed that Azura did curse the dunmer to ashen skin, since both the tribunal and azura claim it to be so.

To understand Azura's motives in Morrowind, you'll have to understand him better. http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-ancient-tales-dwemer-part-11-azura-and-box gives folks a glimpse to her hidden nature. And yes, Vivec really did banish him in the trial. People weren't even been able to get to moonshadow after that incident.

Thank you for clarifying! That's very helpful.
So I'm wondering are there any daedra or deities that align themselves with the Dunmer? Or any race for that matter. To me, 'taking sides' doesn't really seem to be in the nature of the daedra or the nine divines.

it is. there is a huge battle of Men - Redguards Vs. Mer - dunmer and between Auri-El (elves) and Lorkhan (men)

In Morrowind the chief Dunmer deites were Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala.
They were relatively forgotten or overshadowed with the appearance of the Tribunal who took over their domains to some degree.
They sometimes referred to as the anticipation of their respective Tribunal usurper.
Boethiah usurped by Almalexia
Azura usurped by Sotha Sil
Mephala usurped by Vivec

Azura is the prissy, petty, and extremely jealous hot girl in school that everyone seems to love.

Well, going around topless does wonders for one's popularity.

The best part of it is, it could just as easily take the form of a hideous tentacled blob, but I guess she figured out what the Dunmer wanted to see in a "goddess".

Good on you, Vivec. Azura deserved that. Although I guess Azura will have the last laugh, being altogether less mortal than Vivec (without taking CHIM into account, at least).

And all the pieces of the puzzle fall together.

Hellboy- thanks! I knew the Tribunal took over but I wasn't aware it was those three specific Daedra who they replaced. It seems like Azura plays a relatively large role in the lore, but I find beothiah and mephala very interesting. I'll have to look into them more, although I'm afraid there might not be a big place for them in upcoming games that aren't Morrowind-centric. But who knows. I'll be excited to learn more about Nord deities I guess.

While Azura is often blamed for changing the Chimer into Dunmer, I suspect it might be rather an unintended side effect of the Tribunal fiddling with the Heart to make them gods. They forgot to flip the "alter our entire race" switch that Kagrenac had left on.

If anything, if Azura hadn't kept meddling, Dagoth Ur probably would have won.

Hmm this is a great idea too. I kind of like the way the lore is somewhat ambiguous...although I would prefer they didn't just do that to make certain plot elements more believable (unrelated).
This quote from UESP was pretty helpful on the subject:

Nerevar possessed the Dwarven artifact Moon-and-Star, a ring blessed by Azura which lent him supernatural powers of persuasion; because he was the only person who could wear the ring, it also became a means to prove the identity of the Nerevarine. Azura told him that Dagoth Ur's knowledge of the Heart of Lorkhan was accurate. This caused a war with the Dwemer (whose king denied knowledge of the Heart, although only due to his own personal ignorance of the subject), from which Nerevar emerged the victor and the Dwemer did not emerge at all. Later, when the Tribunal of Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil murdered Nerevar and positioned themselves as new gods superior to the old Daedra, Azura cursed the Chimer (making their skin a blackish color and their eyes red, thus making them Dunmer, or Dark Elves) and claimed that she would cause Nerevar to be reborn and that he would make things right again. Later, Azura aided the Nerevarine in defeating Dagoth Ur and toppling the Tribunal Temple (due to the differing accounts, told by various factions and individuals in Morrowind, note that this should be taken with a grain of salt). As a reward, Azura gave the Nerevarine her ring. Though never obviously deceitful, how she always gets what she desires in the end can be portrayed as disturbing.

But this is of course not set in stone either. Azura apparently curses the entire Dunmer race for the behavior of the Tribunal and then goes out of her way to save them from Dagoth Ur? I guess there's no point in trying to decipher the motives of a Daedric Prince.

Her plan was to also remove the Tribunal, not just Dagoth Ur. Destroy all usurpers and get back her fan club.

Ya, I guess that goes back to her petty nature.
DID the Dunmer return to the worship of Azura/Beothiah/Mephala after the destruction of the Tribunal? eh I guess which gods they're worshiping may not be at the top of the Dunmer list of priorities after their land was destroyed and all.

After the Oblivion Crisis, I'd be surprised if they did worship those three.

That's true. I really hope they go into the fate of the Dunmer and their culture when Skyrim is released. I will be super disappointed if they don't include anything more than the super vague references that Oblivion had. If they go to the extent of having a Dunmer refugee camp of sorts I will be very happy, although I think so far there has only been references to refugees in Solstheim.

Not as much of remove them as destroy their power source, which by the time the Nerevarine showed up they had already been hopelessly cut off from.

Sometimes I wonder if Sheogorath was manipulating them all this whole time. Dagoth Ur goes nuts and formulates a plan that the Tribunal cannot thwart without going along with Azura's plans, Almalexia goes nuts and kills Sotha Sil then dies fighting the Nerevarine, and finally Vivec blames Azura for it all, making a scene and disappearing shortly after, causing Landfall to finally happen.

I think you give Sheogorath too much credit.

I'm just speculating, but the fact remains that he gets what he wanted, he has the last laugh and avoids any of the blame. And now someone else is Sheogorath.

I still wonder what his motivation would be. Given that he is the mad god, there would still be some method to his madness nonetheless and I see no reason in particular to invoke Sheogorath in this way.

Azura may or may not have turned the Dunmer gray with red eyes (which is admittedly pretty cool) and promised to send Nerevar's reincarnation to undo the Tribunal's actions. Sheogorath's reaction was to redirect a small moon towards Vivec City.

At the same time, it's nothing more than wild mass guessing, and it is more likely than not that Sheogorath did not play everyone against each other in an elaborate scheme to exact disproportionate retribution on the Tribunal.

Wait, Sheogorath directed the moon towards Vivec City? I was not aware..
I better brush up on my lore some more.

Compared to other Daedra, I think she's less destructive to individual people's lives. Mehrunes Dagon likes to destroy things, Molag Bal likes to [censored] and corrupt and cause misery, Sheogorath likes to mess with your mind and may or may not kill you. And Malacath is a party-pooper. Mephala's a heartless schemer, Boethiah's an anarchist, and Azura is a bit of a meddler (I think she has Nirn-envy, she seems to like having people like her). So, yeah, I guess on a scale of destructiveness and cruelty toward mortals, she's more toward the middle of the spectrum. That doesn't mean she isn't/can't be destructive, it's just that the incidences of destruction are less frequent than some of the other Daedric Princes.

And then there are other Princes who don't seem to have much to do with Nirn, like peryite and Vaermina, but that could just be a lack of game-lore (since it's really through the games that the Daedric Princes have been fleshed out, rather than through books). Yes, there were shrines to most of the Daedric Princes in TESIV (whereas TESIII had shrines to the House of Troubles, Boethiah, and Azura), but they weren't convincingly influential (unlike Azura's role in TESIII, Dagon's Role in Battlespire and TESIV, etc.).

That's just my impression about her and the Daedra. They seem to enjoy meddling in the Mundus every now and then, but I bet they have other Oblivion-y stuff (politics, power games, etc) to keep them occupied. Except Dagon, who I guess is trying to destroy a bunch of stuff so he can stop being Dagon and be something else - Demon Leaper King? I'm a bit hazy on that part.

I guess Azura has a more vested interest in Nirn what with her involvement with binding the Khajiit to the Lunar Lattice. I wonder why she did that. Do you think she was almost convinced by Lorkhan to create Nirn? But she didn't want to give up her power? And yet she liked the idea of having her own creation?

EDIT: If you've ever watched Babylon 5 (sci-fi show), I guess you can think of the Daedra as like the Vorlons and Shadows. They aren't really good or evil, they just have different ideologies about how to help the "lesser races" achieve their maximum potential. One way is through nurturing and a mostly hands-off approach. The other methods is to have the lesser races fight each other in a Darwinian contest: the winner evolves stronger and better. In that sense. I imagine the Daedric Princes have their own ideas about Nirn. Maybe Azura has followers because she likes attention and regards them almost like pets. Maybe Sheo has them because they are amusing and keep him from getting bored. Maybe Dagon likes them because they are tools to help him achieve his goals.

Alaisiagae, I would say the daedra have such fascination with mortals, as they're short lived, but full of change, ambitions, and delights. The daedra, on the other hand, are highly static. Also, this passage from The Monomyth helps


In essence, yes they have total Nirn envy. Also, the daedra don't really give a [censored] about mortals, they only interact with them for entertainment.

To gnaw at creation. He may have a finger in everything like Mephala, but he hardly engineers everything.

Why do you guys always forget Azura's sphere? She is Transition. Some of the Aldmer broke their old philosophy and became the Chimer. Azura helped them truly become Chimer. Then later, the Chimer started worshiping the Tribunal, representing another racial change (cause race=philosophy, mostly). Azura then had to mark that distinction. She was angry that her position was usurped and so she manifested it as a curse, but she would've been bound to mark the transition either way.

It's also why she plays such a big part right at the end of the 3rd era in the deactivation of Red Tower. She is pushing Transition upon Tamriel and the Dunmer peoples. Change of that sort can sometimes be welcome and nurturing (like half of Azura's personality) or it can be tumultuous, petty, and seemingly wrathful (like the other half). She is what she is.