We all know about Mankar Cameron and his ideas on Tamriel being another realm of Oblivion. I'm sure there has been threads like this before but I want all the proof in one place.

Statements made by Mankar Cameron:

How little you understand! You cannot stop Lord Dagon. The Principalities have sparkled as gems in the black reaches of Oblivion since the First Morning. Many are their names and the names of their masters: the Coldharbour of Meridia, Peryite's Quagmire, the ten Moonshadows of Mephala, and ... and Dawn's Beauty, the Princedom of Lorkhan... misnamed 'Tamriel' by deluded mortals.
Yes, you understand now. Tamriel is just one more Daedric realm of Oblivion, long since lost to its Prince when he was betrayed by those that served him. Lord Dagon cannot invade Tamriel, his birthright! He comes to liberate the Occupied Lands!

Ask yourself! How is it that mighty gods die, yet the Daedra stand incorruptible? How is it that the Daedra forthrightly proclaim themselves to man, while the gods cower behind statues and the faithless words of traitor-priests? It is simple... they are not gods at all. The truth has been in front of you since you first were born: the Daedra are the true gods of this universe. Julianos, Dibella and Stendarr are all Lorkhan's betrayers, posing as divinities in a principality that has lost it's guiding light. What are Scholarship, Love and Mercy when compared to Fate, Night and Destruction? The gods you worship are trifling shadows of First Causes. They have tricked you for Ages.
Why do you think your world has always been contested ground, the arena of powers and immortals? It is Tamriel, the realm of Change, brother to Madness, sister to Deceit. Your false gods could not entirely rewrite history. Thus you remember tales of Lorkhan, vilified, a dead trickster, whose heart came to Tamriel. But if a god can die, how does his heart survive? He is daedroth! TAMRIEL AE DAEDROTH! "This Heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other." You all remember this. It is in every legend. Daedra cannot die, so your so-called gods cannot erase him from your minds completely.


I'll add whatever evidence is stated to this list.

Current Evidence Linking Tamriel to Oblivion:

1. A very materialistic fact, Daedra Hearts and Skin have the same alchemical properties as Human Hearts and Skin.
2. Tamriel can be linked to the other realms of Oblivion via gateways. There are apparently magical barriers to stop this, But Peryite's Shrine Quest proves how Peryite can open a portal to his realm of Oblivion and there is also The Strange Door to The Shivering Isles which remains open forever.
3. Despite being in different realms, Daedric Princes can communicate to you via their shrines.
4. Mehrunes Dagon was able to materialise himself in Tamriel.
5. There are many Daedric relics which can materialise in Tamriel through the will of the Daedric Princes.
6. Mankar Cameron states that Tamriel is actually called Dawns Beauty and was lost to its prince, Lorkhan. Looking at all the other realms of Oblivion, Dawns Beauty does seem to make a complete set of realms.

The differences between the pocket realms of oblivion and the mortal world of mundus is purely academic, except for the fact that the mortal realm REQUIRES death of its occupants, and has no ruling deity-- It was made in simulation of the greater aurbis, and thus holds mythical significance.


That's the only real difference. Otherwise, all realms of the aurbis are made of the exact same metaphysical "Dream stuff."

But Mankar stated that It's prince was betrayed by those who served him. Therefore its ruling deity was killed and Tamriel was taken over by Julianos, Dibella and Stendarr. Its prince was named Lorkhan and Tamriel is actually a realm know as "Dawns Beauty".

Tamriel literaly means "dawn's beauty", but that is not the name of the WORLD--- the mortal world is called Mundus, or Nirn.


Tamriel is the continent on which the gods walked when they created the mortal world. The mortal world is literally made from the dead bodies of divine beings.

Lorkhan was the inspiration for the construction of the mortal world, and Magnus the architect who made the plan for it. It is supposed that lorkhan purposefully chose to have his heart removed, given that accounts of Auriel's attempt to kill him was mocked by lorkhan's heart, claiming that it (the heart) could not be destroyed, for one (the world) was created to suit the other (the heart.)

It is quite arguable that the world, and even his own betrayal, are EXACTLY what Lorkhan wanted.

So in that case it's possible that he wasn't even betrayed.

Razbo:

You have to keep in mind that this is something were there isn't enough information to confirm things one way or another. Essentially we're dealing with view points. Mankar might be right in some aspects and twisting others but probebly no more then the various Monomyths twist things around.

Though it is useful to keep in mind that the Aurbis is one universe and that the same rules apply everywhere unless there is something to change them forcefully.

1. In essence both Aedra and Daedra are the same, they were changed by various events and have different histories and this sets them apart but they're also all the same sort of et'Ada.

2. Likewise despite being constructed from parts of several Aedra, Mundus is governed by the same metaphysics as every other plane(t). It is afterall just a ball of et'Ada, quite like every other ball of et'Ada.

3. Mortals being weaker imitations, creations or children of the Aedra, they aren't that different from lesser Daedra either - even though we have a more sophisticated soul collection mechanism.

So In this sense Mankar is right that Mundus is yet another realm in Oblivion. Mundus is a realm and it's surounded by Oblivion afterall. But his claims of ownership and the origins of Mundus are a little less credible.


CP:
In some myths have gave himself up willingly even and continues to wander his creation.

Though for what it's worth. Lorkhans divine spark granted the special sort of divinity that allowed Nirn to continue existence without the other divines. So in that sense it still is Lorkhans realm.

Lorkhan envisioned a new kind of collaborative divinity, and he didn't want hegemony. Camoran willfully ignores this, and looks at Lorkhan (a being that is functionally a daedroth and conceived a realm in oblivion) with tunnel vision. He is not a Daedric Prince because Mundus is imbued with his spark but not his flesh. In the sense that this spark is incorruptible whereas the contributions of the Aedra destroyed them and caused them to go native, it is his realm.

Yeah... what he said.

Excellent answer btw.

Not quite. As I understand it, the Daedra are purely Padomaic entities while the Aedra contain mixed essences. Or so the Anuads tell me, both http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/anuad.shtml and http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/anuad_paraphrased.shtml versions.

Well, if you look at jygallag, you might wonder how static a daedra can be.

What's in a word? Oblivion, Nirn, Tamriel?

There are different ways to look at things - sometimes it is appropriate to define things by their similoarities and somethimes by their differences.

In this case see Weird's and paw-print's stuff first - The difference is How Nirn is Made, What Nirn is Made From & Of, and The Nature of Their Inhabitants. Then you decide if that is enough to justify using a different word to describe these realms.

But if that is not enough then consider how you get from Tamriel to other continents on Nirn and how you get from Tamriel to Oblivion.

Rather like the difference between Earth and Space and Mars and Eta Casseopeia amd Andromeda? See they are all made form the same stuff, but they are distinct = why we have different words for them. If beings from Mars or another star or Galaxy invade Earth we consider them to be alien invaders, right?

However there is a potential fly in the ointment here - re the Leaping Deamon = he and the Greedy Man may know what they added to Nirn, but does anyone else other than the Dragon? So if the Obscure texts are Lore then it becomes very difficult to identify what was originally Nirn and what was added later by the Leaping Deamon and the Greedy Man - and also we have another question = where the **** did they get it from?

Does this mean that if all the Towers are destroyed Tamriel might float up into the void or 'translocate' to a previous location? Now that would be truly momentous - and is that what Dagon is actually trying to achive according to certain of the Obscure texts?

What is change? Daedra are Padomaic, not creatures of chaos as such. Jyggalag is change. He merely always changes into the same thing. Predictable, structured change is still change; I think of Jyggalag not as a creature of stasis, but as one of ordered change. He is the Daedroth who counts and directs every change.

Ah, but the Anuad doesn't cover the whole story. If you compare it to the Monomyth you'll see that in the second half of the fight, the role of Anu and Padomay are similair to those of Lorkhan and Auri-El. So it should be taken metaphorically.

In the Anuad the Aedra weren't 'created' untill Mundus was made, but the spirits that made Mundus were certainly there and these I was referring to by Aedra and Daedra because there aren't any other names. These spirits were Lorkhan who is aligned to Padomay and the other et'Ada who aligned to Anu. Hence Mundus and the resulting Aedra are a mix of both.

It's true that the Aedra as they are observed now aren't the same as those original spirits. After they ascended to Aetherius mortal believes recreated them as spirits here on Mundus - see the Light and Dark for more. Hence they're never the same in any culture because their appearance and governance is a flexible identity in a ball of sentient schizophrenia.

Though you can also take this into Mankars argument and he'd tell you they were never real in the first place, merely being the rebellious servants of Lorkhan with illusions of grandeur.

In other words, they were assimilated by the Grey Maybe, which, of course, is a mix of Padomaic and Anuic essence.

1: Can't refute that... However, Mortal souls lose their memory upon death, Daedric souls do not. That's why mortals "die" and daedra are "banished". Therefore there is a significant difference with the animi between mortals and daedra, and thus is actually evidence that Tamriel and the rest of Nirn is fundamentally different from daedric realms.

2: The fact that gateways can be linked means nothing. Sheogorath opens a portal as well; apparently the act of inviting others into their realm from the Mundus doesn't violate any pact or meet interference from the Limnal barrier. Moreso, IIRC, the limnal barrier was meant primarily to keep Dagon out, which is why he had to tear it down.

3: I don't see the significance of this to the Mundus being a daedric realm.

4: After tearing down the Limnal Barrier meant to keep him out. Dagon materializing simply means that he has the power to physically manifest himself without avatars while the Aedra cannot.

5: That is also due to the fact that the Daedric Princes have enough power to physically manifest themselves and the Aedra don't; not because of Mundus being a daedric realm.

6: Mankar Camoran was Dagon's tool and was fed all sorts of information to do Dagon's deed. Some of his musings in the Commentaries are great, but all the crap about Dagon is merely attempted justification for mass slaughter. And again, just because an ayleid bastard saying whatever his daedric master makes him say insists that Tamriel is a daedric realm doesn't necessarily make it a daedric realm.

Curiously, it seems to be that Daedra cannot use this gate to pass into Mundus, if the Golden Saint and Dark Seducer escorts are any indication.

That was well-written, Madcat, but it reminded me of the three Aedric avatars that you can meet in "Morrowind": John Hawker, Wulf, and Mara's avatar. Do these avatars count in the same way? I wasn't sure.

Or we could take the Monomyth metaphorically instead.



Well, if we then grant that the Aedra only came into existence upon the creation of the world, and prior to that spirits of a different nature existed, then in what sense are Aedra and Daedra the same? Aedra are defined by their participation in the creation of Mundus, and the Daedra by their lack of participation in the same. The terms have no meaning prior to the existence of Mundus; and after it is created, there are substantial differences of essence between Aedra and Daedra, in that as you said the Aedra are a mix of Anuic and Padomaic energies while the Daedra are not. That is a distinct difference, is it not?



Then why bring the original spirits into it at all? For your original point ('In essence both Aedra and Daedra are the same, they were changed by various events and have different histories and this sets them apart but they're also all the same sort of et'Ada') to be true, there must exist a certain continuity of essence between the Aedra we see now and some of those original spirits. If the essences changed with creation and new beings were incarnated, then where's the continuity you need to make that claim?

Conveniently provided by Lorkhan, who's heart is purely et'ada fashion, and also provides Nirni with a stable quasi-divinity it requires to remain stable.

Out of curiosity, can we be sure that the creation myth is how it happened? I mean, it's not like there were any witnesses to it all.

Considering that the myth is repeated no less than 5 times by some WIDELY divergent cultures, including the Redguards, the odds of it just being a story dwindle to the point of absurdity. While the possibility exists, that possibility seems VERY small.

How does the presence of Lorkhan and his continuity of identity have any bearing on any supposed identity between the Aedra-become-Earthbones and those original spirits that sacrificed their divinities to create Mundus?



We don't. We have no idea whatsoever. We are essentially anolysing myth. You make certain assumptions or you can't do anything. From a practical standpoint I'm certainly skeptical of the vast majority of all thise mythical claims. But there's a time for skepticism, and a time to entertain certain postulates and see what they tell you.

Metaphores are like abstractions, they take out the details, they don't add it.



I was explaining that while the terms have no meaning, I was used the term Aedra to refer to the Anu alinged spirits before the creation of Mundus untill they left and were recreated by Mortals.

As you can see thats too much of a mouth full. Hence I just say Aedra and assume everybody understands the context.



Mundus is made from parts of cut of et'Ada, the remainders left to Aetherius and are unchanged except for the parts that they lost. You can call them cripples now. That should satisfy the continuity.

The after images mortals created, they are new and unrelated.

Are you claiming no metaphor can be more complex than the thing it describes?



In that case there'd be no problem.



So we have two distinct, if mirrored, pantheons? The original et'Ada that participated in the creation of Mundus who still exist minus the Earthbones that were cut out of them, and the Aedra that were echoes of those et'Ada created and worshipped by mortals but which otherwise have no connection to the original spirits?

Doesn't that overcomplicate things a little?

Owh don't be silly. You're not describing WWII in terms of good and evil either.

Most myths describe a period of time where there were spirits mucking about in the Aurbis without the existence of Mundus. In these the Aurbis was made by interplay of Anu and Padomay. That means every action is part of this interplay and can't be ascribed to either of them.



Yes and quite a bit.

It serves to explain how the gods were able to leave Mundus in some myths, all die in others, and yet appear to be present on Mundus. After all how can those gods be real after people have seen them leave or die?

It isn't something that can be explained by assuming they rule from a distance because unlike the Daedra who do, the Aedra are depicted differently in each culture. Showing a distinct lack of their input.

So that leads to the conclusion that what is being worshipped now is shaped by the people but based of the original memories. This resonates with the old story from Daggerfall:



Although it does include the Daedra with this as well but other myths more clearly describe them as being changed by the creation of Mundus so taking them together in one origin story isn't too far out.

It is certainly less complicated and more elegant then assuming any of the Myths is wrong because then you'd have to explain why people were so wrong but never noticed.