Which does mean that he isn't actually part of the Thalmor, but doesn't mean that he wasn't one of their tools.

But what if the Thalmor were really Mankar's tools? All that destruction and racial purification and stormcloak rebellions is bound to allow Mehrunes the Razor to manifest on Tamriel eventually. It's the perfectly insane contigency plan.

Feasable, but I was just only pointing out that Mankar actually being a Thalmor agent is a bit of a stretch. Him being used by the Thalmor is even less so, I can see them though patting him on the back and rooting him on hoping his antics would majorly disrupt the empire and Summerset, giving them a chance to seize power. But I can't help but think "The Thalmor are responsible for every catastrophe." is a bit bland.

I think it seems that the general opinion regarding Thalmor are that they are engaged in the most ridiculously massive http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit, or they aren't at all. More likely it's the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GambitRoulette kinda thing, like most other plans.

For unnecessary use of tvtropes, I hereby condemn you to death by atmospheric incineration.

I little indulgence in kitchy crass trivia isn't too bad a thing.

But, beyond that, fine, I'll submit. I shouldn't have done it.

But judging some of the general opinions of the Skyrim playing community in regards to the Thalmor, on here and other boards, it does does seem they simply are trope villains, and that the devs simply ripped the in-game Thalmor from a page of tvtropes.

I'll grant the possibility that Mankar was some kind of Thalmor asset, but I think it more likely that his project was simply a perversion growing out of the common Altmeri preoccupation with the Dawn.

Conspiracy theories are fun, though. Also: 'Dawnguard' sounds flippin' scary.

Looks scary, too.

Here's hoping this junk makes it in, and we're not left with another Knights of Fighting Big-Bird in Chapelcrofts DLC.

Haha, that would be such a turn off , that or something totally unrelated.

If the votaries and attendants of the future LoreCon had our way, players unfamiliar with such things might suffer temporary intracranial hemorrhaging.

Hey now, we got Pelinal and the first in-game mention of kalpa's outta that one.

Granted, the literature was entertaining.

We can have a little bit sometimes.

Come to think of it, KotN really opened the gates on nearly all of the post-PGE1/Intercept Ald Cyrod weirdness.

Validation.

I hope Dawnguard will open even more gates of weirdness.

Well you did work on KotN....

One is missing. What happened to the 0wl?

The nords frowned Jhunal and he went to join the Cyrodiilic pantheon and adopted the alias Julianos, would be my guess.

I see it as a bittersweet moment in TES. For me, it was the point where the fluffy, gloriously obtuse mythos and the in-game assets first became sundered in my mind. The Commentaries seemed of the same world as Oblivion, but KoTN was the point where I would read a book, and then play the game, and the disconnect between the two became gaping. A happier way to look at it is the moment when our bit of TES became Tamrielic archaeology. Which, y'know, is still pretty cool. The fact that the Songs were seemingly of a different world to Nu Cyrod was sorta part of the aesthetic - just as valid as Morrowind's total immersion.

Wake up; Listen.

Varlavavarda,

My circles are troubled by misgivings against our task. Do not mistake this as heresy or sedition, for no Mirrormer is so loyal and fervent an adherent to The Thalmor Endeavour as I. Remember youngling, whilst you were still but egg and seed in your clan’s invitreum, I was present at Alinor on that fateful day without measure, spilling over still into the tangent planes of present moment. I witnessed the horror of It as it approached, over the Eastern mountains with the Sun in cruel jest of our most cherished liturgical tropes. It opened its brass maw and spake Oblivion, folding time and space into a sithical sideshow of humiliating prone postures to invite profane entry. Tearing and bleeding ensued, and the mythic carnage stank the milieu with the death of world orders, long coming, but impossible to have scryed. Crystal-Law fell along all its sideway axes and I cradled the fading impossiponts of dear friends in my hands. In under an hour, which lasted twelve centuries, Nu-Man’s thugs had boots on our throat cobbles and had taken to their mannish crafts of looting, pillaging, and [censored].

So understand that deviance is farthest from mind when I ask: Why do we invest ourselves so in attempting to strip away the storied armor of the most girt rogue in our gallery?

Especially when his mundexical anticipation remains so thinly protected.

Wait, so it was really Numidium who destroyed Crystal Tower, and not Daedra? Intriguing.

Numidium destroyed everything at some point somewhere.

Maybe only the carcass of the Crysal-Law survived. Then the Daedra toppled it.

Maybe it was rebuilt.
Or, maybe because Numidium was time-travelly he destroyed it during the Oblivion crisis.