The Sad Story Of The Minotaurs

Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:51 pm

bah, Akaviri propaganda.
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Milagros Osorio
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:56 pm

My take is that the beast-races, Khajiit, Argonian, and Minotaur (others?) are all much more closely related to the men and mer than the terms "cat", "lizard" and "bull" imply, so the occasional cross-breeding is not unexpected. Given the well-established rule that the offspring follow the mother for race, it's reasonable that Alessia's children would be of her race, and thus acceptable heirs. Minotaurs didn't start here, they just continued along a variant thread.

It's also likely that the son of a Minotaur would be known as a "man-bull" even if he does not resemble his father. He'd probably inherit some factors other than appearance to justify that.

Lore on Nirn is also going to be the same mix of fact and fiction as anywhere else. Myths and Legends usually contain a grain of truth mixed with a lot of exaggeration, and are created by the victors of any conflict involved, so usually include a lot of bias towards their own heroes.

Actually I have been creating my own parallel explanation (though intellectually disastrous) to the diversity of races. My lunatic view (which I really don't believe in) is that either khajit and argonians are the original inhabitants of Nirn who were conquered by men and mer (timespace travellers), or that beast people were men who were genetically altered (by themselves or by some divine beings) to better adapt their environment (desert and disease-ridden marshlands). If humans were to leave earth someday and resettle on on a new planet (or if earth was to be rendered unlivable) one way to withstand the hostile environment would be through genetic alteration. This crazy theory of mine also includes the notion that the human races are descendants of people of our time/world and the Mer are our distant descendants who have ended up on Nirn through some rift in the time-space-continuum or perhaps Mundus is a creation of theirs into which they escaped the eventual death of our own universe. All of this of course consciously gangraqes the lore in a big way, but as you can see, I really want to believe the Mundus is real. Yeah, it's crazy and I'm crazy too.
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Vicki Gunn
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:35 pm

Doing a bit of thread necromancy: I found in http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/songofpelinal.shtml a reference to "Never did Pelinal counsel Morihaus in time of war, for the man-bull fought magnificently" which implies that Morihaus was a minotaur, rather than simply a bull. So I'm discounting the theory that Belharza was the first. This makes things a little less extreme for Alessia, as a minotaur for a consort would be ... er ... less daunting when they have the head, tail and hooves (in Oblivion, that's up past the knees, but so what?) of the bull, but the rest is kind of human.

I'm assuming that the compatibility of minotaurs with humans and elves remains, if you can get past the irrational aggression. Of course, since all the ones you meet are oxen, they may have a score to settle!
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Kelvin
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 12:21 pm

This makes things a little less extreme for Alessia, as a minotaur for a consort would be ... er ... less daunting when they have the head, tail and hooves (in Oblivion, that's up past the knees, but so what?) of the bull, but the rest is kind of human.


Sorry, guy who thought him up said Bull.

Which already is a less extreme version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shedu
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SaVino GοΜ
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 8:35 am

Argonians can't even inter-breed with men or mer, which implies that they are not truly related to them in any way. Of course, considering how humanoid they look in Oblivion (wtf?), I wouldn't be surprised.


Tell that to the son of Sheen-in-Glade and Count Vitharn. http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/sebookfallofvitharn.shtml
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His Bella
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 11:17 pm

What is this why I never....Oooohh, it's from Oblivion.
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Kitana Lucas
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:05 am

What is this why I never....Oooohh, it's from Oblivion.


No...it's from MK, who is frigging brilliant, and it just happened to make its way into Oblivion because of said brilliance.
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Clea Jamerson
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:18 pm

Looking at how they act in Oblivion, it's no surprise that they're treated the way they are. They behave as nothing more than savage animals, with only enough intelligence to manipulate tools/weapons, and possibly even craft them as well. (How else could they have gotten those war-hammers?)

Shh! Just be glad that, of the various Arena enemies Bethesda has reinstated over the series, the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Monsters#Lizard_Man never came back. :whisper:

You make it sound like they look unusually Humanoid in Oblivion, but that's only in comparison to Redguard and Morrowind. In Arena and Daggerfall they looked like humans with tails and funny skin colors.

The Argonian portrayals are purely artistic license, especially so considering that the first Elder Scrolls game was effectively an interactive medium for Bethesda's own little cliche'd DnD-esque tabletop. Interestingly enough, some aspects of Argonian visuals from the earlier games were later reinstated, for example, males and females always had specific eye colors in Arena, and in Morrowind they followed suit. Oblivion's Argonians I'm just going to blame on sheer developer laziness, although I would like to know why they've all become a hellish orange color.

The Khajiit, well, you can just be lazy and go with the moon cycle concept. Of course the problem here is that the Ohmes and even Ohmes-raht are supposedly meant to be the most common Khajiit outside of their home province. Makes sense, doesn't it? They look more like Bosmer than cats, the other races would find their appearance more appealing. Bethesda kind of contradicts this however with how the Khajiit in each game get progressively more animalistic - in Morrowind, fine, it's a frontier province full of slavers and smugglers and fugitives, but in Oblivion you'd expect most of the Khajiiti to be Ohmes diplomats or something of the sort.
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willow
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:55 pm

I would have honestly preferred Ohmes to the Khajiit we had in Oblivion, provided they weren't too furry.
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Heather beauchamp
 
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Post » Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:35 pm

No...it's from MK, who is frigging brilliant, and it just happened to make its way into Oblivion because of said brilliance.

I was under the impression that MK didn't work on SI. :shrug:
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Elizabeth Lysons
 
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