For a while now, since encountering her really, I have had a crisis of faith concerning the benevolence of Meridia. It is true that her hatred for undeath is, for the most part, congruent with the interests of most mortals and she does not seem to intervene in the lives of mortals beyond acknowledging her active worshippers and coercing mortals to destroy false and un-life in her name. But, I've always found it troubling that her passionate dislike of undeath would likely drive her to seek the destruction of some of the more friendly (non-evil!) undead personalities we have encountered in our various incarnations in the Elder Scrolls universe; Serana, Count Janus Hassildor etc.

Meridia, Lady of Infinite Energies, is infamously enigmatic, but in order to truly get to the root of why an allegedly 'good' daedra like the Lady of Light would wish death upon such people of notable integrity, I tried to explore what drives her and what it is she seeks to achieve through her mysterious machinations.

I think the fundamentals of Meridia's motivations lie in her speculated status as a 'fallen' Magne-Ge, one of the Aedric beings who fled with Magnus into Aetherius before their essence could be consumed to fuel the birth of the Mundus. The Magne-Ge are defined by their rejection of Lorkhan's grand scheme. Once they understood the heavy price that Mundus' creation would come with, they washed their hands of the project. As far as they are concerned, I think, the mortal plane should not exist at all. I think it is this non-acceptance of the Mundus which drives Meridia.

I don't think that Meridia is actually a 'champion of life' at all. She may be the prime-enemy to undeath, but I think she perhaps hates life too (life in the Mundus, at least!). I think, like many traditional mer, she probably sees mortal life as a prison for souls, rather than a sacred incarnation or blessing, so her contempt for undeath probably comes from a disgust at the idea of unnaturally extending a soul's imprisonment in the Mundus and prolonging the inevitable suffering all mortal life must endure before they can be released to the Aether (or Oblivion) in death. This is why I think she is an enemy to Molag Bal and why she sided with the Ayleids against the humans championed by Pelinal Whitestrake, supposed avatar of Shor, architect for the prison of souls that is the Mundus. Mer want out and to experience infinity, men are content with the finite now.

I think maybe Merid-Nunda's hate for the Mundus went beyond the simple abandonment of Lorkhan's plans and that, unlike the other Aedra who fled creation, she sought to take a more active roll in tearing down the vale of tears that Lorkhan had weaved. To that end, the 'illicit spectra' that she allegedly worked with were perhaps Daedra who, like her, sought to undo the fabrics of mortal reality (for better or worse). Maybe Princes like Molag Bal, Padomaic embodiment of destruction. And, for her abandonment of the Magne-Ge party line of non-intervention, she was banished from their ranks and exiled to the realm of the other non-ancestor divines, the Daedra.

To summarise, I think that, by and large, Meridia has mortals' best interests at heart, she just thinks that they need to hurry up and die naturally so they can escape the mortal coil that shackles their souls to a life of pain and suffering! After that, they can truly begin to live.

Think I'm maybe on to something here?

Most mortal souls just go through the dreamsleeve when they die and are reborn into Nirn, a process known as the Arkayn Circle I believe. Basically meaning that mortals are normally stuck in Mundus.

It is true that many souls do enter the speculated Dreamsleeve, to then be recycled into another life in the Mundus, but this reincarnation offers those souls another chance to escape the mortal realm and enter Aetherius. I think that is something that Meridia (how I interpret her) would abide.

It would be interesting to know if the Aedra and Daedra are aware of any planes of existence beyond the Aurbis. They, like so many mortals, may not be aware of the possible existence of a Dreamsleeve. If Meridia and others were aware of (and adhere to) this concept and that of the sleeper and the dance of Anu and Padomay, I wonder how this would affect their behaviour and approach to us meek and meagre mortals.