she turned an entire race grey because three of them disobeyed her.

She gave them a benign skin condition.

How terrible of her.

No, seriously. Meridia supported a race of insane elven sociopaths, Molag Bal is Molag Bal, Dagon has tried to blow up the world at least thrice before Oblivion happens, Peryite uses Mundus as a chemical test site, Sheo dropped an asteroid on Morrowind because reasons. How is Azura's reminder of the Tribunal's betrayal, a harmless skin condition, even comparable to the antics of her fellow Princes?

Hell, only the Aedra are more benign, and they're dead. The most sentient of them is a world-eating dragon, and other gods include the most powerful evil wizard ever, and a Saiyan dance between one decent wizard who got horribly shafted and two absolute jackasses.

Our Mistress Azura is constant. Ever just, ever stern, and ever loving. The Tribunal deserved what happened to them, as did the Dunmer who falsely worshipped them.

What a nightmare of misinformation and aggressive ignorance, this thread.

It turns out that not every situation has a clear-cut good guy and bad guy. Vivec and Azura both had defensible justifications for some of their actions, while also doing obnoxious things as a result of their divine egocentrism. Holding a rock over the heads of an innocent populace in order to Stockholm Syndrome them into never not loving you is bad (and if that Muppet idiot pulls out his atrocious and meaningless apoptosis and necrosis line again, I'm going to burst a blood vessel). On the other hand, punishing an entire ethnic group for the actions of three of its leaders is also bad. Is that so hard to fathom? I know tribal allegiance goes hand-in-hand with ignoring or downplaying the flaws of one's own side, but that's exactly the human fallacy this story is intended to deconstruct.

I've said my piece about Azura and Vivec on a more important lore forum than this, so for now I'll just join the chorus in addressing the egregious inaccuracies in the OP post with a few basic facts.

Dagoth Ur's existence is the indirect result of ALMSIVI exploiting the Heart of Lorkhan according to the principles of Tonal Architecture.

Had ALMSIVI instead freed the Heart, by randomly smacking it with Sunder and Keening like the Nerevarine later did, Dagoth Ur never would have emerged in the first place.

The divinities of ALMSIVI and Dagoth Ur are inextricably linked; Dagoth Ur can never be defeated without unbinding the Heart, and to unbind the Heart is to unmake ALMSIVI.

Dagoth Ur is a delusional, solipsistic egomaniac who wishes for the spiritual transformation of all sapient minds and bodies in Tamriel into his slaves.

ALMSIVI is not strong enough in 3E 427 to defeat Dagoth Ur on their own, an act which, as stated above, necessarily means the end of their own godhood. Almalexia is too deluded to sacrifice her power, Sotha Sil is too indifferent, and Vivec is too weak, owing to the lack of Heart access and years of Ghostfence maintenance.

Deny any of these principles and you're fooling yourself in order to give someone in this story the undeserved benefit of the doubt. Don't make the mistake of thinking there's a blameless good guy here, be it Azura, Vivec, Dagoth Ur, or anyone else.

I'm having trouble taking this comment seriously.

I don't even like Azura, but it seems to me some people go to pretty bizarre lengths to paint her as a villain.

The fact that the Dunmer sorta wear it as a badge of honor makes the point sorta moot. Its also possible Azura wasn't particularly responsible for that in the first place.

they also worship the guy who blackmailed them into loving him. i don't think the dunmer have a good track record for well formed opinions.

The Dunmer just don't have a good track record period when it comes to worship. They're either bowing before three people who did not follow Rule 22 of the Evil Overlord List, or just being full blown Daedra Worshipers. I mean, we can argue the merits of various Princes all day (Personally speaking, I'm most "comfortable" with Clavicus Vile and Peryite. Clavicus is transparent and surprisingly blunt ("He wanted a means to end his daughter's curse, and Clavicus gave him an Axe!"), and Peryite's mission statement is also straightforward and blunt. I guess I prefer the Princes that don't have cause to disassemble their motivations.), but the Elephant in the room is the Dunmer as a people and a culture have been wildly mislead since the days of Veloth.

The thing with Azura is that her response to ALMSIVI breaking the vow they made to not use the heart of Lorkan is not just "turn the skin of an entire race a different color", it's also, "let me go reincarnate the guy who can actually (permanently) fix the problem (Dagoth Ur) the three of you just created, because you'll never be able to stop him without my help". She doesn't just leave the Dunmer people to die when Dagoth Ur comes back, which she could have very easily done.

Though to be fair, had Azura not stepped in, another Prince likely would have if only because Dagoth Ur's plans would inevitably cause conflict with them.

I suspect had Azura done nothing, the corruptive and volatile nature of corpus would have drawn Peryite's attention.

Indeed. In fact they seem quite pleased that it sets them apart from other elves.

As Mdnthrvst points out, this entire discussion entirely misses the point that clear-cut good and evil is entirely lacking in Morrowind. Dagoth Ur's intentions are benevolent--but unfortunately he wants to benevolently turn the entire world into corprus creatures. The Tribunal's intentions are self-serving and self-agrandising--yet in the midst of their arrogant godplay, they do actually do quite a bit of good for Morrowind--and yet their divinity still comes from profane rituals that are inherent in the creation of the Sharmat in the first place. And Azura is a Daedra, with all that implies, albeit certainly one of the more reliable and least petty of the Princes. (She's not faultless, but I still don't understand the malice against Azura that is rampant in the fanbase.) It's also worth recalling that everything we know about the death of Nerevar and the birth of Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal comes from three sources; two of them are highly suspect and the third is second-hand. There are no reliable sources in this debate.

And all of this is irrelevant, because without the Nerevarine, Dagoth Ur wins and Tamriel gets to share in the enlightenment of the Divine Disease courtesy their loving Sharmat. If that sounds like a happy ending to you, then yes, the Nerevarine was evil for interfering with the devil's generous plans to uplift all mortals to his apotheosis.

Gee, you must be a really swell guy!

Important? Dude, it's a video game. Elitism about a video game is actually crazy (only slightly more crazy than actually learning the lore of a video game, but still). Everything you posted is totally on point, but for the love of god drink some coffee or something and calm down.

Maybe I had just the right amount of coffee, but I kind of enjoyed the hyperbole and wise-asserie.

Md is the champion of elitism. Pay no mind.