I am not interested in making a critical thread bent on picking apart every little point and flaw of TES or anything like that. A civilized discussion. I cannot filter the posters so I just implore you to be as constructive as possible with your feedback, as forums tend to have a strong user base who like to argue for the sake of arguing. I would like to come to conclusions, factual ones, without endless arguing please (maybe the mods will not hate me so much for making threads like this one ).

Hello everyone. I am interested in learning a bit more about The Elder Scrolls Lore, but to be quite honest with you I am having a hard time getting "into it" or immersed.

A little background, I have played both Morrowind and Oblivion. I haven't read every book, but I used to read some of them from Morrowind. I don't think I have read any from Oblivion really.

To me, The Elder Scrolls lore reads like Greek Mythology, which is nothing I could ever put faith in even if I lived in Rome (and I doubt everyone in Rome really believed it either). Some of the history I have read, with Gods and Demi-Gods and the like makes it seem as though there are powerful beings just about everywhere. From the Emperor to Vivec to Daedra, you just can't travel places without an immortal demi-god slash god-like being doing something, somewhere. And essentially that is one of the reasons I have a hard time getting immersed into the lore side of things.

I am pretty well read person. I have read the Bible several times, know what most religions teach and their doctrine, and I have also kept up on a few Greek Myths and some of the oldest known "tales" of gods and demi-gods of ancient peoples. Many of the stories I read are so obviously untrue it would be hard to argue for them (and I am decent at debate), even though I do subscribe to a certain faith. However, TES lore seems to take the ancient convoluted and exaggerated myth stories of mankind and make them a reality. My brain really is unable to accept the reality that TES is presenting.

I have a request, if you will, to the forum goers here:

Convince me that The Elder Scrolls could exist. Logically. Build a framework for my mind to exist in so when I see something in the game there is at least some kind of known axiom/postulate I can rely on, or else I'm calling "surrealism" to the whole experience.

A few questions for the lore buffs.

How is immortality defined within TES? Semantically, it can have more than one meaning. I will list the possible answers to my question from my own personal research into immortality in the real world:

1. Immortality means the inability to ever die. It's simply not possible, or impossible. It is widely accepted in most religions that God is the only one with this distinct attribute (however, there are teachings that he has granted the attributed to a select few).

2. Unassailable, almost the equivalent of being immortal except that you are still able to be killed at least by God. You are granted the inherent ability to never need to die, except by the consequence of your own decision that you fully understand beforehand. (A common view of an "Angel" would fall under this definition).

3. Mortal, your life must be sustained from an outside source. However, this does not bar you from living forever, but it makes your future significantly less predictable. It is possible for a mortal to live forever.

Before I go any further I would also like to ask another important question. How do you measure real power in TES?

When I read about all of the Aedra and Daedra and how they are "Immortal" and can never die etc. etc. I have a hard time accepting this supposed reality. For one thing, even logically, it doesn't make sense to have so many immortal beings in existence (see number 1). Where did they receive their power? How is it measured? And what exactly allows them to be immortal? It would be much easier to believe that many of these so-called gods are really unassailable or better yet, mortal with knowledge of living forever (even though they are very powerful).

Their power must be measured, which brings me to another semantic detail: Almighty (I think somehow my thread is turning into a religious discussion! I promise that it won't, because these points I am making have nothing to do with doctrine and everything to do with logic).

You can only have one Almighty being. It's only logical. Almighty means to have "All-Might", and you cannot have two superlative beings each with "All" the might, or everything. It's simply not possible. If you decide to do that in your head, or in a special world where logic isn't important than that area of thought is an obtuse form of abstract that we will call surrealism for our discussion. I cannot exist in surrealism, my brain will just not do it.

So back to the point I'm trying to make, you cannot have every Aedra and Daedra with the attribute "Almighty" attached to them (let alone also the attribute of being [1] Immortal). It doesn't make sense. So how is their power measured? How are they ranked? What is the source of their power? And who do they answer to?



I think that is everything for now. I am making this thread because I like civilized debate about things, and I want to believe the world of Tamriel and The Elder Scrolls but I think I need an intelligent person to help me get immersed into the world. I'm not willing to read volumes of lore if I have already dismissed the framework for belief elsewhere. So I need a reason to believe what I'm reading.

It is a comforting fact, in some ways, that the lore intentionally contradicts itself depending on the person representing history to mimic the real life practice of documentation. Which means that if there is some sort of lore "fact" out there, it may not really be true anyways.


Also I need help really understanding a few strange things I never really could allow myself to believe. Just to start in my first post I will bring up the Heart of Lorkhan.

A heart? Like a heart of flesh and blood? Is that supposed to be a power source? Or am I reading it wrong, or interpreting it wrong? Sorry but, if that is true I need to file that away in the Greek Myth end of the lore. I would much prefer that gods and demi-gods received their power from an invisible place that we just don't yet understand (although I don't like pulling that card without some good writing), than bring something like an ancient body part into the equation. The sun produces 390 million million million watts a second. Now that's a decent power source imho.


Also, are there any others out there like me? Are there some lore points that you find hard to swallow?

Well, I reckon the best way to immerse yourself would be to set your preconceptions aside and try to understand everything as is with some accounting for the fact the material is not completely reliable.



How do you measure power anywhere? Nobody has ever seen much of a need for it.



I suppose you haven't read the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-monomyth but the contours of it's myths feature a process in which the interplay of two elements create a mirade of ideas / spirits / et'ada. Eventually these et'Ada learn how side-step mortality. Then some et'Ada create Mundus, actually die and become the Aedra who also appear to be immortal. Though some might say that Nirn itself is another et'Ada, albeit an almagalm of many et'Ada.

Now this its a bit of a gnostic affair and it doesn't fit very well your first or second assumption. The two elements aren't much of a god and it's impossible to say if they are mortal or not. The Aurbis being their interplay means that if they die, we wouldn't notice.
Likewise the et'Ada are tricky. You might say that they are unassailable because they can not die, but having to sidestep death doesn't quite life up to that.
The nature of Mundus makes your third assumption shaky. Mortals being lesser version of et'Ada seem to go through the same process. Except when they die, they forget.

So it would appear that immortality merely means you do not forget who you are. Which isn't that strange when taking the Altmeri Monomyth in which the world is seen as a conciousness that attempts to know itself.



Being almighty in itself is a contradiction.

Suppose I have a machine that can ask an all mighty being a question. I will then program this machine to ask the almighty being what this machine will output. When the machine gets it answer, it will output the opposite. Which ever answer the almighty being gives, it will be wrong and can therefore not be almighty. It might smash the machine out of frustration but that just proves the point.



I don't believe the Aedra or Daedra are considered almighty. So I'm not sure what put you up to this argument in the first place. But like I said before, unlike the stars there isn't much to be gained out of ranking the et'Ada. I suppose you'll have to think of them as a collection, e.g. a group of similar things without a natural ordering.



Keep in mind that this is a world based on myths, myths and ideas have power. You'll have to think symbolically. It really helps.

Your problem is not with TES lore, its with religion in general. I'm not going to argue anything real-world, as that is illegal, but TES is a fictional universe and part of that fiction is accepting crazy stuff as true.

Repost from earlier in the month:



In other words, set your preconceptions aside and enjoy the ride.

Sherlock does.

How is immortality defined within TES?
Everything in TES is part of a singular Mad Godhead. there are varying levels of how much of the Godhead your soul takes up, but many (most?) of tese parts are infinite. (willing suspension of logic required here) any infinite soul is immortal, and a Finite soul is mortal. Immortal souls can still die, but come back retaining their memories and in the same body, were as finite souls come back in a different for, wiped clean by the Dreamsleeve. This explanation is somewhat wrong, as Aedra have infinite souls but are mortal, but that is all tied into what Mundas is and would require a rediculously long, off-topic, rant.

How do you measure real power in TES?
The size of your soul or your subgradient. Basically; how much of the Godhead you make up.


Where did they receive their power? How is it measured? And what exactly allows them to be immortal?
look at above answer

EDIT: Oh, and to convince you that TES could exist, think of the 10th dimension, the infinite combination of every possible timeline's infinite possible diversions. So, in theory, on a different plane of existence from us, EVERYTHING exists.



Lorkhan/Shor/Shezzar is the second highest subgradient of the Godhead, tied with Alduin/Akatosh. So he is infinitley more powerful than any god of a lower subgradient, and his 'divine essance' in his hear can power multiple infinite souls.

I will have to give that another shot!

Although I hate being the guy who reads something and wonder what the writer intended when he wrote it. This happens in conversation with some people or especially tests (e.g. if somebody asks you, "Is your favorite color blue or red?" The problem lies in the question, not the answer. If you ask somebody that question you are assuming that they have a favorite color, and that it must be either blue or red. However, most persons who ask it really mean, "which do you prefer, blue or red?") If I'm reading a book of history or lore, I don't want to be the guy who must always question the meaning of the lore in contrast with it's intended meaning (which is obscured by semantics, or inaccurate representation). Which seems to be the direction I'd need to go in if the framework isn't sound.



I wasn't very specific when I asked that question, hoping that somehow it might conjure a few possible answers to talk about.
Measuring a persons power might be dubious at best, but generally speaking you can take figures in history and define characteristics about them like power and attribute elements to those characteristics.

An example would be a King. Although born a man with all the usual attributes of a man (dieing, using the bathroom, needs to eat, has a mother/father etc.) he is significantly more powerful than normal men. He has authority, either by the will of another person or by inheritance. Lets say he commands an army of 10,000 troops (men). That is one way to measure his power, a commander of 10,000 men. How far does his Kingdom border reach? That is another way to measure his power, who does he influence and where does his authority take place.

I suppose one difficulty I have, bringing up the points about immortality and almighty power is that when measuring a gods power it usually just involves the formula: God X, Y, Z are just about omnipotent, but they are resisted by God Alpha, Beta, Gamma and there for have limitations on what they are allowed to do to mortals. In TES the Daedra (and Aedra I assume) have lessor servants, but this hardly seems to be a true measurement of power. The way some of the books read, you'd think that none of these gods would need any servants since half of them (or perhaps all of them) have their own universe to occupy. That's a lofty position, and would require a completely different sort of being to produce a universe.

I suppose at this point, most people stop anolyzing and just go along with things, and accept that it must be above understanding. The problem I have with this sort of representation is the level of creature/being you are if your creating universes vs. doing battle with a mortal (and some other things that they do that I can't think of atm). To some it may all blend together, you have a god-like being and he made a universe, has some creatures at his command but he is still subject to certain laws. But to me there are plot points that are blatant anomalies, sort of like looking at a picture of a war between two parties and one group has swords & knights and the other has tanks. They both have war weapons, but one side is obviously in another league. You cannot go about producing a universe, which has roughly 1 googol particles (10¹⁰⁰) and intelligently assign all of them order and still have problems dealing with mortals like the Emperor of Cyrodiil. Your in another league, your in a league so far away that you don't even have a human form. Human forms are lame to you.


I haven't read it, I appreciate the recommendation.


A good definition. Especially if your consciousness remains the same throughout the stream of time.




I understand your statement, my rebuttal:

To be almighty, by definition, is to have all power.

Conceptually it is possible for one person to posses all the power of reality. That is in essence what it means to be almighty, to possess all the energy in the cosmos to command at your will. That is what we are talking about when I say almighty. This isn't a religious discussion, and please don't bring it up unless it's needed.

Your illustration Proweler is presented to produce a desired effect, that it cannot be possible to possess all power because any person could devise a scenario to contradict the person with all power. But the premise is based on the faulty assumption that you are out of the control of somebody with all power. In practice it would be impossible to outwit or maneuver yourself into a position greater than the person who already possessed power over everything, see the logic here? There is an interesting saying about this very thing (as it's brought up here and there in scholarly Q & A), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox. The answer that is often given, to our amusemant is "Yes. He first creates a rock he cannot lift. And then he lifts it."



I don't have a direct reference so you have me there. However from what I have read in the past books and what I mentioned earlier many have the appearance of being nearly or completely omnipotent in a cosmos of other likened beings.



I love symbolism, but I am not sure where to employ it in TES lore.



Trying to enjoy "the ride" for me can be as difficult as reading a color book, if that's all the lore is asking me to do

By "Mad Godhead" you mean some sort of intelligent ether? Further it seems by your description that the original "Godhead" which is essentially the infinite particle, has part of it's existence literally inside other creatures to produce consciousness? This consciousness wouldn't be separate by your saying that someones soul "takes up" part of the infinite particle. Seeing how that is the case in TES, when one "dies" he just loses the shell of his represented existence, only to reunite with the infinite particle and be reborn into another bodily manifestation?

If that is the case, where do the "finite souls" come from? And what makes them finite?

I will have to read about the Dreamsleeve, but it's function for "finite souls" really just affirms that no soul in TES can really die, they just lose their memory like Proweler mentioned. It's much more desirable to retain your memories.

That's actually rather interesting if it's true. If the Dreamsleeve is "wiping memories" from the consciousness of transitional souls I wonder who or what this machine would be? A most interesting character is possible here for lore.

So by an Aedra having an "infinite soul" I will assume that you mean they cannot lose their memories to the "Dreamsleeve", and by mortality I will assume that you mean they manifest bodies that are slain and must be reborn. How is that different than the "immortal soul" you described earlier?

So the souls manifestation (or body) does actually represent finite existence, and the more power you receive from the "Godhead" the increase in finite power for the body. That essentially means that, lore wise if I am stating things correctly, only one "Godhead" or person has infinite power and all other representations are finite. That's good, because that is a logical scenario.



I don't like String Theory and sometimes I pretend like quantum mechanics doesn't exist. So that's my rebuttal for that... :whistling:


Who is the highest 'gradient' or the "Godhead" ether you mentioned?

Okay, I think this has the potential to be (and is already beginning to be) a very good discussion. I want to emphasize, however, that we really can't answer your queries in a direct way, because it isn't obvious at all that the "answers" are directly available in any of the source material. All the "answers" we get seem to be, at least to some extent, metaphorical. Since a metaphore doesn't have to be perfectly isomorphic with what it represents, you might find problems with the metaphor that aren't problems for the reality. But all we have to work with is the metaphor! (Actually, several, seemingly conflicting metaphors). (But keep reading, I'll come back to this).

Another issue is that some of the problems TES lore deals with aren't obviously easy to answer even in our world. Think of the old problem "where did the universe come from?" Or "is reality infinitely divisible or does it contain certain fundamental, indivisible objects?" As far as I'm aware there isn't an answer to these problems in the real world which garners general philosophical consent. (Kant didn't think they could be answered at all!) If we have trouble with these questions as regards the real world (and they're very old questions), it should be no surprise if the answer in the ES world can be difficult to swallow. So, I'd advise for some issues, just make as much of what is presented you can make sense of, and then build off that.

Okay, now I want to turn more specifically to your questions. You ask about immortality and power. I think you're over anthropomorphizing divinity in TES. "Gods" in TES have sort of a dual nature: they are in an important sense "persons," but in another important sense they are concepts. Are concepts mortal or immortal? See, that very question is problematic.

You also ask about the Heart of Lorkhan. There is (what I take to be) a flesh in blood heart buried under Red Mountain (though it's post-Morrowind, post-Infernal city status is unknown). But the Heart of Lorkhan is the Heart of the world, both in the literal sense (material heart for a material world), and in the metaphorical sense (imbues the world with life-force, etc). Again, we have the merging of an animate thing (anatomical heart), and a concept (metaphorical heart).

So earlier I said that we've been given the metaphor (or even, many metaphors), but not the reality that the metaphors correspond to. So here's the proposal (you already know what it is): reality is the metaphor.

(That's not strictly true either, but it's helpful to say why not).

By the way, here's another response to Proweler's Anti-Almighty argument:

Suppose there's Alfred, who is almighty-until-proven-otherwise, and Bill, the omniscience-flunking machine. Whenever someone succees in guessing Bill's output, Bill changes his output in response to the guess (for all I care Bill doesn't even have to know someone actually made a guess, but he might).

Alfred is challenged to guess Bill's output. So Alfred is about to guess output 1, but then realizes (Alfred is omniscient, remember), that if he guesses 1, Alfred will output 2. So Alfred is about to guess output 2, but then realizes that if he guesses 2, Alfred will output 3, and so on.

Now, either it is logically possible to know and state an infinite series, or it is not. (I'm giving the latter option because some people might think it's not logically possible, but that being almighty just means being able to do whatever is logically possible).

If it is logically possible to know and state an infinite series, then Alfred can know and state the infinite series of Bill's outputs. But that means Bill can't flunk Alfred, because Bill will never give an ouput Alfred gets wrong.

If knowing and stating an infinite series is logically impossible, then Bill can only return a new output for Alfred's guess a finite number of times, but then all Alfred has to do is guess one more time than that, and Bill is beaten.

double post [NUMMIT]-up. sorry

I can throw in my thoughts on the Aedra/Deadra being "Almighty". You have to think of the Deadra, at least, like the gods from Greek mythology, which you seem to be familar with, at least to some degree. The Greek gods aren't all powerful beings. They had certain spheres that they controlled (Zeus had the sky, Hades the Underworld, etc.). While they had complete dominion over that specific area of life, they didn't have that much contol over areas outside of their sphere, if any at all. So they aren't "almighty" in your sense of the word, and neither ae the Daedra.

Now, I'm not quite sure how to consider the Aedra. I'm not familiar with their full history, but they don't have as much visible power as the Daedra do, because of the life-force they used to create Mundus. In fact, I'm not 100% sure they are even still around. They closest things we have to proof regarding their exsistance are aspects that appeared in Morrowind (Wulf, Jon Hawker, etc.) and the alter blessings in Oblivion. Morrowind's "aspects" could just be mysterious mortals who were misinterpreted by Lalatia Varian, the Oracle of the Imperial Cult of that game. And the alters in the churches of Oblivion could just be enchanted alters.

and Alduin's epic battle with Dagon is...?

What are you asking?

it was in refernace to broken-scale's disbelief in regards to the Aedra.

allegory.

OP doesn't really grasp the concept of a fantasy world, does he?

Ait, going to attempt to answer some of this.

The Godhead is essentially the same http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godhead as in all (or at least most) real world religions. He is the original force who creates or out of whom the world is created. He is most evident in Christianity, where he is the Father of the Trinity, and in Hinduism, where he is Brahman. In TES, he is the supreme consciousness who, due to his isolation, has become schizophrenic and splintered himself into a multitude of personalities. The first of these were Anu/Padhome, and then they splintered into Sithis/Auriel, the Aedra, Daedra, men, etc. The http://www.imperial-library.info/content/loveletter-fifth-era-true-purpose-tamriel provides a good explanation of this, you should check it out if you haven't already.



Unlike Father of Christianity, he does not (cannot?) directly control the world*, and neither can his initial subgradients. Akatosh and Lorkhan are the first to have actual power over the mortal realm, since they are the highest beings to partake in its creation. As has previously been stated, each god only controls their own realm. Furthermore, some of the Aedra actually sacrificed parts of themselves to create the world, and as such have little, if any, power remaining. Although my memory of Greek myths is rusty, I believe Gaia to be a suitable comparison, as she is the earth but does not directly control it.

A 'finite' soul is therefore anything thats not the all-encompassing Godhead. However, this terms is horribly flawed, as all people are essentially just hallucinations of the Godhead and all are the Godhead. This is what makes CHIM possible: you realize that you are everything, and therefore nothing (as you are no longer individual), but manage to hold on to the concept that you are your own person.

The Dreamsleeve isn't a machine or a person, its an undercurrent/dimension running through the world. Another part of the Godhead's consciousness, the eternal creative aspect if you will.

As complex as that may sound, its really the simple explanation. As Dumbkid mentioned, gods are as much concepts as they are 'people.' As Prowler mentioned, the beliefs of mortals can impact the nature of gods: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/shor-son-shor is a great example of this, where each race of peoples has their own concepts of the same god.

*this isn't wholly true, but theres not enough space to go into the intricacies of theology.

Unacceptable


Then why are you sweating about not being able to get into it? You want to immerse yourself in the world, but you don't read any of the books? Good luck on that.


Welcome to the wonderful, fantastic world of mythology. The point of mythology, sir, was to attribute unanswerable questions by attributing their causes to the works of gods. Fantasy games create actuality out of what wouldn't exist in the real world.


And you are pretty poor written person.


Congratulations?


Congratulations on figuring out that Greek mythology isn't real. It must have been an uphill battle to prove that one.


You do realize sir, that TES is a game series, and that none of it is real. You don't have to believe it's real to get immersed in it, you know.


The Universe is infinite. Logically speaking, the TES universe has a 100% chance to exist at some point, somewhere in the Universe.


Immortality exists in TES in several forms:
-Tribunal: Infinite life by the power of the Heart of Lorkhan but still able to die physically.
-Lorkhan/Shezzar/Shor: Immortality by way of Jungian universality.
-Talos and God of Worms: Immortality through apotheosis to godhood.
-Chim: Immortality through absolute transcendence of self and space/omniscience/potence
-Daedra: Immortality by design; elemental Form of stasis.


The same way anyone anywhere measure real power;:

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
Everyone you meet
All that you slight
Everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come

Hey, be nice now. The guy came to us saying his knowledge isn't complete but wanted to learn and discuss. That's no reason to bite his head off. A good part of these forums is to understand and learn.

What I find funny about this thread is that while the questions asked are no different than some of the inane stuff we get (which Daedra Lord is most powerful?), the way it's asked has produced some of the most well-thought out responses in a while.

Unfortunately I have nothing else to say that hasn't already been said. I'll ponder on this and see if I have anything substantive to add.

And come back to life instantly if the Heart's still intact. Assuming Vivec doesn't lie.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/meeting-vivec

If we take "The Trial of Vivec" as semi-canon, Vivec has moved on to Aetherius (a type of heaven) but will return in some distant year of the Fourth or Fifth eras (according to the "Loveletter", which speaks of Twice-Vehk's return: "The C0DA broke when Twice Vehk appeared again from Aether, but they captured enough of Him to render the words stable again."

The quote reminds me of something I once read, though I don't remember where I came across it: If God exists, he doesn't live from moment to moment the way mortals do, but in all times simultaneously. (I don't believe, myself, but it's a memorable concept.)

Aside from what the other posters have already written, I have the impression that you, Seven Dragons, are unable to (yet?) suspend your disbelief regarding TES. TES (and any other work of fiction) invites you to temporarily substitute current reality for another reality (the reality which the work of fiction offers you). It is up to the "user" of the fictional work to accept the proposed reality of said fiction or not, which means to suspend one's disbelief.

An example:
In practically any action movie, there's a scene where a car gets set on fire and then explodes in a giant fireball. In reality (outside Hollywood), cars don't simply explode when set on fire. They just burn (surprise!). But most of us are more than willing (or don't know better) to believe that cars explode in movies, because a.) it's cool, b.) it looks pretty and c.) everyone likes explosions. The important things is that what happens must look plausible/believable in the framework that the fiction offers - and not in the framework our "reality" offers.

TES invites you to substitute its reality for your own. How far you want to follow this invitation is entirely up to you. For some it's just a pretty-looking action-filled computer roleplaying game where you smack monsters and beat a giant demon in the end. For others, it includes a rich world with its own history and for some it's a world with philosophical, mythical, cultural and social views which can show, reflect and/or even influence "reality" through its users (us).

Oh, and for convincing you that TES is real: Smacking your head with the game box should do the trick.

Hehe, Pink Floyd.

Immersion is not really something you actively work for. Either you get into it or you don't, it's all about aesthetics and tastes.

/\

agree, but i cant resist a chance to flaunt my lore skillz

How many people actually witnessed that battle?