http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Esbern

Do you think this means he will probably be a nord?

Fascinating. I never knew that...

Then, I don't think I've killed Hill the Tall, and according to that article, Esbern only appears when he's dead.

You know... this is Skyrim. Full of Nords. I do believe the possibility exists.

COOL he is a Nord it seems. But Nords are humans, and don't live as long

Like in the real world, people have the same name sometimes, this is clearly the case here, I am 100 % sure this is not the same guy

I was just thinking they probably based him off the character or added that character in as an Easter egg foreshadowing Skyrim, like M'Aiq talking about dragons.

Not the same Esbern. Nords simply don't live long enough. Now if Esbern was an elf, then maybe. I'm guessing Esbern is just a commonish Nord name.

You know it could be possible that it's a guy with the same name. That DOES happen, you know.

But it might be him. I'd assume being Skyrim that your mentor would be a Nord. It just seems fitting. But you never know.

Skyrim = 200 years after Oblivion. Doubtful it's the same person.

I didn't mean LITERALLY the same person. I meant he might have been a hint at Skyrim.

Interesting! I guess we really won't know 100% if it's the same guy until the game is released and the story is explained in more detail. I suppose it's possible, but there will have to be some lore-specific explanation for it.

That Esbern looks just in the age he's supposed to be in Skyrim, so I don't think it could be him... And why do you think that in Tamriel two people can't have the same names? It's not him, not an easter egg, just a guy called Esbern...

One of those would be mere coincidence, but with both M'Aiq's talk about dragons and this Esbern replacement, this gains possibly a bit more credibility. Good find.

Edit: I've noticed a dev is reading this. I can imagine he's going lmao. :lmao:

Well it could be possible with magic, but who knows for sure.

Dark elves live between 100-200 years without magic assistance, and around 1000 with it. (With Fyr being over 4000)
It's not that far fetched.

Considering that this Esbern was introduced in KOTN, prior to even the release of Fallout 3, I doubt they were far enough long in even the planning and conceptual stages of Skyrim for them to have even thought of a character named Esbern that they would incldue in Skyrim.

They started planning right after Oblivion, and possibly came up with the basic concept even sooner (which would fit with M'Aiq's dragon comment too).

You seriously think that they had already envisioned Esbern, name and all, when most of their staff was being transitioned to develop Fallout 3?

Yeah. It's not a complex concept to have thought of. You don't have to agree with me, but it's entirely possible. I could have thought of what we know of the Skyrim storyline in half an hour, and the character idea for Esbern in a few minutes.

Scary thought, we might run into adoring fan as old.

Thats a good find maybe a hint in it somewhere.

I'd agree that it's probably not meant to be the same person, unless there's something really strange going on here, because Nords just don't live that long, under normal circumstances. It's probably just a different person who happens to have the same name, though it's certainly not impossible that it's intentional, though if it is, I'd say it's more likely that Skyrim is referencing Oblivion rather than the opposite, since while Bethesda may have been making plans for Skyrim at that time, I doubt that the name of your mentor was the first thing they had thought out. And when you hint at future games in the current game, you're probably going to be hinting at events in the story, like how Morrowind suggested there would be problems with the succession and had that cult talking about Daedra invading (While things might not have turned out the same way as players might have initially expected in Oblivion, I highly doubt its a coincedence that these themes later played a part in Oblivion.) and there were some rumors of troubles related to Skyrim in Oblivion as well, though none mentioned anything about the dragons, and the one that seems most related to the story of the game is probably the one I think I heard about the Greybeards talking about the end of the world or something to that effect, and now we suddenly have a prophecy about Alduin returning to destroy the world, although the Elder Scrolls V could have been set in pretty much any province if we go by the rumors in Oblivion, as lots of provinces were having troubles, but back to Esbern, calling a character Esbern wouldn't even constitute as foreshadowing as no one is going to think, upon seeing a character with that name, that it's the name of someone you'll meet in the next game. Foreshadowing would be giving you some actual concrete hint about events that will happen later. It wouldn't explicitly tell you what's going to happen, that's what we call "spoiling", but it would give you enough that you might be able to start speculating on what will eventually happen. Giving us the name of Esbern hardly counts as that.



M'aiq commented on dragons in Morrowind too, though.

When M'aiq talked about dragons, he was referring to the Avatar of Akatosh.

Well, I had assumed that Esbern was going to be a Nord, for the name and the actor. But now I see that, as I thought, it IS a Nordic name.

Maby it is just another guy named Esbern. I can't be the only person in the world named dylan.

Nope, probably another Esbern. Nords don't live for 200 years nor is this Esbern related to the Blades in any way (other than you being the Knight, of course).

There are two Breton battlemages called Arielle Jurard, so I think it's a case of move along folks, nothing to see here.