This trinity has been around since Arena, and seems to crop up a lot:

Tribunal
Warrior = Almalexia
Mage = Sotha Sil
Thief = Vivec

Talos
Warrior = Tiber Septim
Mage = Zurin Arctus
Thief = King Wulfheart (?????)

Modern Aldmer
Warrior = Dunmer
Mage = Altmer
Thief = Bosmer

Iliac Bay (?????)
Warrior = Daggerfall
Mage = Sentinel
Thief = Wayrest

Okay, I may have made up the last one, but what are your thoughts on the trinity?

Wulfharth is the warrior, and Tiber is the thief. The rest are coincidence, if anything. There was no enantiomorph in Daggerfall's time, and 'modern aldmer' is only game mechanics. Its also an oxymoron, but I know what you are saying, so I don't count it as a big deal. just something to keep in mind

It's really too limiting a way to look at the Tribunal anyway. If anything Vivec was more a warrior poet than a thief. Almalexia was more like a paladin than a warrior and Sotha Sil is like a techno mage. True you pretty much pegged the larger archetypes, though. A Bard is closer to a Thief than the other two and so forth.

Pegging the archetypes was the point. I mean, paladin is splitting hairs, and techno mage is still a mage.

Redoran = warrior
Telvani = mage
Hlaalu = thieves

The devs took the old D&D's archetypes and turned them into something much more interesting.

Heh, DnDs archetypes? That's more like critical builds, mage builds, and Paladin/Sorcerer/Monk. Lol.

I remember making such a stupid post concerning Arctus, Tiber, and Wulf a long time ago...ugh I'm still mad at myself for that crap.

well they are the prime constellations. and at the root, they are the three basic classes in rpgs for adventurers. there aren't any skills that can't fall under those 3 roots.

No skills not under it in TES. I believe every skill is classified as Combat, Stealth, or Magic.

But the three constitute a poetic or even symbolic way to categorize things.

Essentially, the tendency to the three to crop up together is probably the result of Bethesda playing around with archetypes that tend to show up in most fantasy RPGs, and indeed, many works of fantasy. I could probably count many fantasy works where the main group had at least one warrior, one thief type character (Though if the story doesn't want to include "heroes" with obviously illegal professions, other character archetypes with the strengths stereotypically associated with thieves in fantasy might have.) I suppose there's some logic to it, as those three character types can serve vital roles in any fantasy party. The warrior fights at the front and helps keep the enemy's attention away from the squishier members of the cast, the wizard on the other hand can support others with magic, and is also the one to turn to if the characters need to solve a problem that can't be dealt with by mundane means, the wizard's knowledge of the arcane also allows him to become http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitleaddc1oe7?from=Main.MrExposition when it comes time to explain prophecies, curses, demonic possessions, and other things that lean towards the mystical or esoteric. The thief is of course there so that the cast has someone to turn to if they need someone who is good at dealing with such obstacles as locks, guards, and such, or really, whenever they need someone sneaky. In the case of the three Great Houses, though, I think it's mostly so that all three basic character archetypes get equal oportunity if they want to join a house. The same goes for the three basic guilds that can be found throughout the series. Once again, there's logic to that, if you're going to categorize characters by those three archetypes (and while the Elder Scrolls isn't as clear cut in this regard as most RPGs due to the way it's class system works, which makes it so that most classes other than "pure" mages, warriors and thieves are actually some form of combination of two or more archetypes, it still fits, considering how it divides all skills into magic, combat and stealth.) and are to start creating joinable factions aimed at specific character types, it only makes sense that each character type get at least one guild.

Not so. The concept of the enantiomorph, the tribunal etc were all devised after the three archetypes. No doubt they were created with the three in mind and in reference.

I thought that was given.


By the rest, I meant Daggerfall, Sentinel, Wayrest and Dunmer, Altmer, Bosmer. Those are a coincidence, if I'm not mistaken.

I would say no. The thief, mage and warrior are a classic DnD thing, so at least in the elves' case it was intentional. Perhaps not for the City-States.

I don't understand the relevance of this "enantiomorph" (not sure how you came to that term, so I'll just call it a trinity) to classic DnD. By the time Arena had come out, DnD had already released its second edition five years prior, which split classes into four categories, Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Rogue, and Rogue didn't necessarily constitute "Thief" per se, because Bard also fell under the rogue category, which is a caster. I doubt this trinity is intentionally present in the TES universe. In Arena, all you did was choose a class from the entire list. In Daggerfall you chose a class or made your class, and if you made your own, you only chose primary skills, major skills, and minor skills. It wasn't until Morrowind the concept of Combat, Magic, and Stealth was introduced during character creation, and it was just as quickly removed in Oblivion. As far as birth signs, you're choosing three out the thirteen birthsigns they offer (these birthsigns weren't even available until Morrowind). Is there even somewhere that suggests the Mage, Warrior, and Thief are the "prime" constellations?



But how does warrior-poet translate into Thief?

As far as modern Aldmer go, what about the Orcs?

That just leaves Talos. I don't wholly understand the concept of Talos. I can't find any significant lore on how Talos came to be. All lore I've found seems to simply suggest that Talos is Tiber Septim's birth name, and Ysmir (Wulfharth) is his Nordic name. Even if this suggested trinity does exist within Talos, that wouldn't seem like a lot to base the trinity itself off of. It takes two points to make a line.

EDIT: Yikes, I need to wake up first before I post this kind of stuff. They didn't remove Combat, Magic, Stealth from Oblivon. ^^

http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/firmament.shtml

Well then I stand corrected.

EDIT: Although, can anyone point me to some significant Talos lore?

It won't ever translate to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_%28series%29, but speech craft and personality are also part of the thief skill set. So it translates just fine to swindler, conman or lair.

The teachings ascribe a few more metaphysical meanings to Thief.

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/vehk_teaching.shtml

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/nu-hatta.shtml and http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/arcturian.shtml is also important.

Given that the triad is one of the most consistent themes throughout the series, I wouldn't say that anything that can make a logical case to fit the triad would be a coincidence. Especially since this is fiction and you can ascribe whatever meaning you want from it. Or as much as the constraints of the material will let you.

In any case, even if this is intentional, I don't think its fair to say it's used because it's a trend in other game lore or mechanics. The only franchises I recall ever using this trinity are Diablo, but that changed as soon as Diablo 2, where there wasn't even a thief-like class until its expansion, and DnD, which, by the second edition, had also changed this, as said before. Most other franchises use a split usually containing Ranged as separate, usually not including Stealth, and sometimes even differentiating between casting classes. Just my thoughts.