"We've never tried that mod from Morrowind!"

"It's too da-"

"Enough. I must try that mod. From Morrowind, if need be. If it's our only chance... so be it."

I forgot the name, its been 2 years since I last played Morrowind, The only names that come to mind are agony and rapture or cm partner,
and of course there is Indiana James

before I start I just want to say this is a completely personal explanation

I feel that since the world of ES is filled with magic/demons/active Gods/ and general wired stuff that makes your jaw drop (unlike or lame boring world) the people of ES have learned to accept the more mundane things like gay people or people who sleep with corpses (necrophilia has a FINE not a death sentence ) or people who like to make out with clanfears (deadra)

so I would say that non-hetro relationships are quiet acceptable but in general they are not flashed about in public since the percent of gay/bi people is usually smaller.

If TES mirrors RL in any way, then I think your perspective is only limited by the fact that Cyrodiil and the Empire is at a cosmopolitan decadent high point and so, socially, is very accepting and inclusive. It wouldn't surprise me if the Mede Empire socially wants to "return to the values that made this Empire great." In other words, "there is my perspective and then there is my sword's."

Doh! I meant Sanguine. I totally pictured Sanguine. I think that I was mulling over my Umbriel thread and so had the name Clavicus stuck in my head.

The Vivec you actually get to see and talk to is far different than the Zeus-like figure of the Sermons. While I don't doubt that Vivec had his bouts of over-indulgence (as he quite openly admits to his own sins and flaws), the Sermons are mostly myths, and some of them, especially the "Vivec and Nerevar God-Adventurers" ones that take place AFTER the Battle of Red Mountain have to be taken tongue in cheek sometimes, anolyzed for their message and lessons as opposed to their factuality. Most of the time, I doubt Vivec even left Vivec as it took considerable amounts of focus to maintain the Ghostfence.

As for Uncle Crassius... I played through the Hlaalu quests a few weeks ago, and I couldn't get the image of Hedonism Bot from Futurama out of my mind.

Oh, and did you know that in case Vivec City was to flood, a Buoyant Armiger could be used as a flotation device?

*rimshot.*

The Ghostfence wasn't erected until middle-3E, when the Tribunal's powers were already waning and they had gone into seclusion (mostly). Before that, I'd completely disagree with you. Part of the allure of the Tribunal was that they were benevolent Gods (like the Aedra) who you could actually see their power at work (like the Daedra). To stay removed from society would've betrayed their original intent.

However, I completely agree with you on the "take the myths of the Tribunal with a grain of salt" bit there.

Vivec's voice is Legion.

His Sermons are truth after the Dragon Break, which is the only timeline we now know. It is mixed with a share of metaphor and does not take place entirely in the corporeal realm, but we cannot directly dismiss it without going back to knowing nothing.

The battle of Red Mountain is sermon 36 and there is nothing after it. "Vivec and Nerevar God-Adventurers" took place a good while before. Or in an un-time after, which hardly counts in your linear, all-or-nothing view.

Believe it or not, there was a reality outside Vivec. The world and all its mysteries do not exist purely at Vivec's whim, nor does Vivec understand everything. He is a warrior-poet. He is not a god. Eternal life (which he never truly had; more augmented than eternal) does not define godhood. The Dwarves used the tools of Kagrenac along with Dagoth Ur and Sotha Sil, but none of them ended up as gods. Honestly, the Dwemer ascended to skin and Dagoth Ur turned into diet-Cthulhu. As for the Tribunal, they have histories, birth places, and many, many, oh so many faults.

Vivec's voice is Legion? What is that? Milton?

I think Vivec had the potential to become an actual god if the Heart of Lorkhan was tuned to the right frequency, but even then, he'd probably end up as Sep or yet another face of Akatosh, heralding a Dragon Break to end all Dragon Breaks.

In short, he's a warrior-poet, like Ulysses. He has a corporeal body while his mind floats out of time. I'd compare him to Shor, but I don't think Vivec was bound to Nirn in the same way but more like Vivec chose to stay on Nirn out of a crazy mixture of egoism, that is the prospects of being a god among mortals and the nationalistic and ethnocentric goals of his mortal past which he can now shape.

he wanted to. Instead, he became the fire of consciousness, which the gods are shadows of.

"His voice is legion" belongs. This is his Water-Face, the one voice of every soul. I wouldn't compare him, because there's only one Godhead.

Suddenly I must think of Thadon boasting about his orgies, and in the house of mania are only three people: thadon, wide-eye and gundlar
I think one argonian would be bore him after a while...

Altering the past is indistinguishable from rewriting the past, except for one big difference; it's possible to see through the latter. As many people did. As I recall, neither of the accounts of the Battle of Red Mountain (one of which was written by mortals and one of which was written by Vivec himself) took place in a seemingly altered past.

One thing has been passed by here here - that the original intent of the devs who created ES was that you should make up your own mind and that nothing is wholly one thing or the other. It follows that sixuality will be a mix too. And it is already clear that the different races eachy have their own morality in oh so many things. That must include sixuality too.

There have been various surverys of preferences in western nations that tend to show only a small percentage of folks are willing to state they are other than hetero ... and I have no reason to expect things to be different in Tamriel. That's borne out by in-game experience. In our own (rl) world it is only the advent of mass-communications that has re-opened the way for same-six partnerships to openly exist - and likely massive levels of overpopulation have played their part too - ref ancient Rome also.

Crassus is a member of a profession that requires some ambivalence in that all themes are explored in plays and literature - whether or not in approval and therefore it is important if you are going to have good performances to have folks who really know what same-gender relations are about = acceptqance. That is not to say that will be/was so true in other areas of dunmer society (if such now exists) or other Tamriellian societies

Note that in ancient greece there was a military order called the Sacred Band - basically boys paired from childhood to fight as partners. They did everything together and consequently shared their sixuality because what was sought was a mutual instinctual awareness and reaction in all circumstances - and that made them deadly in combat. I believe they masy have been Athenian and that would fit with the thespian aspect of things.

(edited to clean up and added sace4d Banders)

Hlaalu is led by a pervert, while the old dunmer guys in the highest ranks of the other two houses and the Temple are dour. I mean, like really dour. Hlaalu is the house most connected with the Empire. I always thought this was a powerful bit of imagery, meant to suggest that the Empire is morally decadent.

This is not to cast aspersions on homosixuality directly, but to tie it inextricably with the fall of Rome in the minds of players. An empire that has lost its austerity is an empire at risk.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/xal-gosleigh-letters say, that it is difficult to find sixually normal Telvanni mage,

What's "normal" anyway?






The fall of rome had absolutely nothing to do with homosixuality. None. I'm appalled by anyone who believes that.

Rereading my post, I screwed up on my pronouns enough that you CAN interpret it that way easily (and thus probably will). I meant that in Morrowind the general depiction of House Hlaalu: short-term focus, profiteering, and a debaucherous nature less apparent in the other houses... all tied ultimately to the Empire's influence... links the nature of that House to the nature of the wider organization which is poised to collapse.

The OP asked how "non-heterosixuality" was treated in the lore of these games, and I think it may be linked with the peaceful era precipitating the fall of the Empire. Nothing blatant, though. No one's going to go there.

From the lack of canon about it, seems like Tamriel has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Unless you are a godlike being. Then everything is allowed.