Okay, so I?ve been reading the Trial of Vivec and he said something that caught my attention:

That reminded me of the Tsaesci Creation myth "And we ate it to become it".

Is there any relation between the way Vivec uses the verb "eat" and the way the Tsaesci use it?

OH!!! One more thing, I remember 946000 using the constellations and the charges to explain enantiomorph to me a while ago, and the way the charges have mortals to represent them, so after reading this
And the other references to the charges of the Thief Vivec employs while kicking Azura?s ass, I think I get a better clue to what 946000 was trying to say

I personally think he was just using "eat" in a malevolent connotation.

I'm not an expert on the Tsaesci Creation Myth (and I doubt ANYONE is), but they're "eat" refers more to the assimilation of "Tsaescence," which I THINK is that essence that helped them become the IMMORTAL. VAMPIRE. SNAKEMEN that they are.

First, http://www.imperial-library.info/fsg/adanorcilarticle2.shtml contains some thoughts about the meaning of "eating" in the Tsaeci language, though keep in mind it doesn't come from a developer.

Second, my understanding is that in the trial Vivec temporarily bound Azura to the mundus in order to temporarily shatter her spirit.

Third, using the constellations and charges to explain the enantiomorph is way too complicated. The enantiomorph is a very simple concept. To figure it out all you have to do is look up the meaning of the word, and then think about how that corresponds to the enantiomorph in TES.

Yeah, I ramble for awhile in this respect http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=847495&st=20&p=12368651&#entry12368651.

Since Vivec is involved... "Eating" makes me think of a certain Patti Smith song.
Eat those summer cannibals, Vivec. Eat! Eat! Eat!

Though maybe not.

Wickedly ironic that mere seconds later, she ended up eating a piece of him!

Nice.

;)

Yeah, but it's wrong-headed.

Hence the "it doesn't come from a developer" caveat I included. I wasn't intending to say that the discussion of eating in the Tsaeci language in that article is correct (or incorrect, for that matter). I included it as something to help foster further thinking on the subject.

Anyways, the word "eating" in We Ate it to Become it seems to connote synthesizing, reorganizing, absorbing, and integrating. Vivec's use of "eating" in the trial seems to connote a display of power, and more precisely, mythic overpowering.

Why go for the obscure examples? There is Boethia eating Trinimac. It's closer to what happened at Hogtinium then what the Tseasci might have done.

Of course!!!! Thank you for that one!

Given Vivec, would you want to know what it means?

Not when you put it like that...

In Greek mythology, eating was also a popular theme. Saturn ate his sons, Tantalus stews his son Pelops, and the House of Atreus are two examples out of many, many more. In this context, however, I'm not sure it actually means that he ate whoever he was talking about, but rather just used it as a war cry or insult, as 946 mentioned.

I agree. I think it meant more like a fire can eat another one or a storm can swallow a much larger one. It was intended to imply overpowering to the point of owning the other person, as if you had eaten them. When you eat something, it becomes part of you, right? So you have ownership of it. In this respect, and forgive me for the metaphor, but "eat" is interchangeable with "pwn". LOL. At least that's how I think Vehk meant it.

Malacath spoke with Trinimac's voice (by swallowing him), Vehk spoke with Sul's, with the chainmail ring in his mouth.

Boethiah swallowed Trinimac, in order to speak with Trinimac's voice to the chimer (not really a criticism, I'm assuming you just wrote the wrong name by mistake). But by eating Trinimac Boethiah also transforms him, producing Malacath. So, there's an element of absorption as well as transformation here.

Or whatever his name is. And since I didn't think at all about that observation, now I suppose that the main similarity there is that both were speaking with the voice of the awful, awful Truth. Vehk wasn't doing anything particularly bad to Sul's memory.

"And we ate it to become it..."

"No word is true until it is eaten."

Sorry. Just rambling.