Indoril Nerevar, how we miss ye

Post » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:30 am

Indoril Nerevar, great Chimeri king, who made peace with the Dwemer in the days of Resdaynia. The public story, well known, is of the beloved ruler, slain in battle against the treacherous Dwemer who schemed against the Chimer who had called them friends. The secret story, less hidden now, is of the unequaled hero betrayed by his closest advisers. After all that has happened, you still fail to understand who killed Indoril Nerevar.

I speak to the scattered tribes. I speak to the broken houses. I speak to a people crushed by the last remnant of the love of God. I know my skin is not bruised like yours, nor my pride so wounded, nor my people sundered. Yet I too am a student of the Lord of the Middle Air, and can speak with thunder on occasion.

This is not a judgment. I do not delight in your tears and your bitter inquiries. But once you know the truth about your ancestors, perhaps then you will understand.

The Chimer hated the Dwemer. Even Vehk in the moment of his greatest weight, when he was most pellucid, was happy to be done with them:

“If I did believe they existed, I would be in no hurry to make contact with them. They may, with some justice, hold the Dunmer race responsible for their fate. My intuition is that they are gone forever -- and that is perfectly fine with me."

In his sermons Vehk claims for himself responsibility for the initial allegiance with the Dwemer, so as to turn back a mutual foe. Perhaps it is for his vanity that he claims this, or perhaps to protect his old master, or both. Whatever the case, even in this Vehk hints at who really orchestrated the allegiance:

“Nerevar said, 'I have traveled out of my way to warn you of the deceit of our enemies, the Dwemer, but I have learned much on the journey and have changed my mind. This netchiman's wife you see at my side is a sword and a symbol and there is prophecy inside. It tells me that, like it, we must for awhile be like he is and, as a people, cloaked in our former enemies, and to use their machines without shame.'

“At which Vivec spoke aloud, 'Boethiah-who-is-you wore the skin of Trinimac to cleanse the faults of Veloth, my Queen, and so it should be again. This is the walking way of the glorious.'“

We know in truth that the allegiance was not one ALMSIVI could ever truly accept. For that they deceived the Horator, even in the name of Azura, because of their hatred for the Deep-Folk:

“Two heroes, one from the Chimer and one from the Dwemer, Indoril Nerevar and Dumac Dwarf-Orc, made peace between their people and together ousted the alien invaders. Then these two heroes worked long and hard to maintain that peace thereafter, though their counselors thought it could not last or, worse, that it shouldn't. Nerevar's queen and his generals-- Almalexia, Sotha Sil, Vivec-- told him to claim all Resdayn for his own. But Nerevar would not listen, for he remembered his friendship with Dumac. There would be only peace.

“Until Dagoth-Ur arrived. House Dagoth had discovered the source of the profane and secret power of the Dwemer: the legendary Heart of Lorkhan, which Dumac's people had used to make themselves immortal and beyond the measure of the gods. In fact, one of the their high priests, Kagrenac, was building a New God so that the Dwemer could claim Resdayn for their own.

“The Tribunal urged Nerevar again to make war on the Dwarves. Nerevar was troubled. He went to Dumac, his friend of old, and asked if what Dagoth-Ur said was true. But Kagrenac and the high priests of the Dwemer had kept their New God secret from their King, and Dumac said the Dwemer were innocent of any wrongdoing. Nerevar was troubled again and made pilgrimage to Holamayan, the sacred temple of Azura, who confirmed that all that Dagoth-Ur said was indeed true and that the New God of the Dwemer should be destroyed for the safety of not only Resdayn, but for the whole world. When Nerevar went back and told his Tribunal what the goddess had said, his queen and generals felt themselves proved aright and again counseled him to war. There were reasons that the Dwemer and Chimer had hated each other forever.”

We know the Dwemer meant neither harm to the Chimer, nor threat to the world. As such you must understand: ALMSIVI doomed Nerevar long before he ever ventured beneath Red Mountain. I will not stop you from cursing your old lords and demanding justice, but warn you against it. I know you will not listen. If you did, perhaps this would not have occurred.

When ALMSIVI murdered the Horator, they did not act without acquiescence:

“Evaporating in a throng of thunder
Of red war and chitin men,
Where destines
Take him further from our ways
The heat that we have wanted
And pray they still remember,
Where destines
Clothe the distance,
Glad in the golden east that we saw it now,
Instead of the war and repair
Of the oblivious fracture
A curse on the Hortator
And two more on his hands”

By slaying him they saved him from a far greater betrayal. They made him into a martyr, symbol of a golden age, beloved King, and so made his return inevitable:

“All motifs can be mortally wounded. Once slain, themes turn into the structure of future nostalgia. Do not abuse your powers or they will lead you astray. They will leave you like rebellious daughters. They will lose their virtue. They will become lost and resentful and finally become pregnant with the seed of folly. Soon you will be the grandparent of a broken state. You will be mocked. It will fall apart like a stone that recalls that it is really water.

"There is once more the case of the symbolic and barren. The true prince that is cursed and demonized will be adored at last with full hearts. According to the Codes of Mephala there can be no official art, only fixation points of complexity that will erase from the awe of the people given enough time. This is a secret that hides another. An impersonal survival is not the way of the ruling king. Embrace the art of the people and marry it and by that I mean secretly have it murdered.”

And that is why ALMVISI murdered the Horator, and why he returned an outlander, and why Vehk left Lie Rock suspended above his own resin and mortar skeleton.

This is not a judgment. I do not delight in your tears and your bitter inquiries. But once you know the truth about your ancestors, perhaps then you will understand.
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Raymond J. Ramirez
 
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