People see enantiomorphs in everything nowadays, and while there are certain questlines in which there is clear justification for it, there are others where the event is probably not as important as advertised. Enantiomorphs are echoes of the first conflict between Anu and Padomay, so it's not a surprise to see them happen now and then, but there's no reason to see them under every rock. It doesn't help that the standard set-up for a questline is the questgiver, the player, and the antagonist (who is often in a position of power that needs to be brought down)--that is, they can be considered Rebel, Witness, and King regardless of the validity of the term "Enantiomorph" in this instance.
True Enantiomorphs, because they echo a metaphysical truth, can lead to godhood, or at least open the door to achieve it. The most important Enantiomorphs of Mundic history (not including Convention itself) are the Red Moment and the murder of Wulfharth. In both those cases, the Enantiomorph gave certain people the opportunity to become gods, but those people actually became gods through other means after the fact: ALMSIVI used the Heart, Tiber (possibly) used Numidium/CHIM/something else.* Someone (I don't remember who, sadly) very recently posted a theory that taking part in an Enantiomorphic event is a prerequisite for achieving CHIM, though I dispute that because only one member of ALMSIVI seemed to achieve it and the rest got no additional benefit from it.
Enantiomorphs are also identifiable because they require a catalyst, which is a concept that I sometimes have trouble remembering or identifying. As far as I can tell, the catalyst is what the victor of the Enantiomorph (the Rebel) obtains after the event. ALMSIVI and Nerevar fought over the Heart; Tiber and Wulfharth were essentially fighting over control of the Empire; Aka and Lorkhan fought over ruling Mundus. If there is a catalyst over which the Dragonborn and Alduin are fighting, there might be an Enantiomorph in this case, but I don't know of any such catalyst off the top of my head. The civil war, too, provides the catalyst of controlling Skyrim, but I don't think there's anything metaphysical about concluding a civil war by killing the enemy general, to be honest (there's this wonderful idea of future legends relating to "Tullius Stormcloak the Dragonborn," which sounds cool but nonetheless doesn't appear especially metaphysical to me). I know there are other examples of possible Enantiomorphs in Skyrim that I'm less familiar with and cannot comment on, so I'll leave them to the side for now.
It is generally assumed by forumgoers that the Dovahkiin is a Shezarrine, an aspect of Lorkhan. That isn't something that occurred because the Dovahkiin fought against Alduin, but was something inherent in his or her being before the fact. As for mantling Lorkhan, remember the Lorkhan was the King in his own Enantiomorph, whereas Aka was the Rebel. The fight between Alduin and the Dragonborn is an interesting reversal with this in mind, but I don't know what that means in metaphysical terms other than that it assures us that our character is probably not mantling Lorkhan during the battle. Lorkhan's place in the other Enantiomorphs is actually just as confusing, considering that (as far as we have determined) all three people taking part in the Talos Enantiomorph were Shezarrines, and there was a great deal of Lorkhanic (or at least Padomaic) influence in the Red Moment (which contested control over Lorkhan's own Heart, complicating things even further).
And then there's Numidium. The two Enantiomorphs I keep bringing up here occurred in the context of Numidium activating at about the same time. The Red Moment occurred during or after the Battle of Red Mountain, and the activation of Numidium by the Dwemer almost certainly caused a Dragon Break that rewrote a good portion of the battle's history in fifteen-and-one different varieties. Then ALMSIVI used the Heart, which was Numidium's power source, in order to become gods themselves, which probably broke the Dragon again. In the Talos event, Tiber betrayed Wulfharth specifically to trap his soul to act as a pseudo-Heart of Lorkhan in the hopes of powering Numidium once again. Based on what we know of the Altmer continuing to fight Numidium in future eras, we can assume that Numidium once again caused a Dragon Break during the siege of Alinor. We know for a fact that, when Numidium was activated again in High Rock during the events of Daggerfall, a Dragon Break occurred that may or may not have been directly responsible for allowing Talos to achieve godhood--this time by handing the Mantella (the pseudo-Heart I mentioned above) to the Underking (who was probably a mix of Arctus and Wulfharth, one of whom--and possibly both--lost their soul to the Mantella when betrayed by Tiber). In other words, meddling with the Heart or the Mantella after the actual Enantiomorphic event seems to be just as important as the event itself. That said, this is all theory on my part.
I personally think that either Skyrim has overplayed the Enantiomorphic idea by putting it in practically every questline, or we as a community are too invested in seeing Enantiomorphs wherever we can for their own sake. There are just too many Enantiomorphic questline endings to be believable, as far as I'm concerned (again, going by lists compiled by players who are more familiar with the intricacies of the questlines that I so far haven't played--which is most of them). While I am willing to accept some of these events due to their apparent metaphysical relationships, I just can't do the same for many of the others.
*Tiber's a weird case because his godhood rests on something like three different things at once, so there's no way to decide which of these things is the "real" reason for his ascension.
» Sat Dec 14, 2013 5:59 am 
