Pelinal and the Loveletter

Post » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:16 pm

The only thing I can say about the love letter and many of the other "sources" that are used to for sources of several theories that float around:

@DCDeacon I was wondering does bethesda consider the obscure texts and developer comments on the imperial library as actual lore? (This is the first question asked.)

@CCBrandt23 In order: No. It depends. No. No idea. (The first answer is No to the obscure texts and dev comments on the imperial library as actual lore)

That being said, no Pelinal is not from the future and is just the Shezzarine that fought the Ayleid kings. Same goes for the "Seven Fights of the Aldudagga" and the Skeleton Man papers and so on and so forth. Also the Warp in the West and it ended with time once again becoming linear after time was splintered then recombined at the same point to allow for all the events to happen simultaneously meaning that the Underking lived and died at the same time, Mannimarco became a demi-god and was weakened at the same time and so on.

If you want a more definitive source that you can read about the answer, go http://twitter.com/#!/DCDeacon/status/29538547711090688 and read the questions and answers yourself.

Not this again. Your recurring derailing of lore-related threads into debates on the validity of the obscure texts has gotten very tiresome. It really doesn't help your case that you either lied to further your argument, or just got terribly confused. Tengen already posted the refutation, but I'll say it again:
@DCDeacon last question I swear What year did the games dawnstar and stormhold take place on tamriel? thank you if you can answer any 12:02 AM Jan 23rd via web [latest]
@DCDeacon Could you tell us what is the hlaalu cypher for their encoded notes in morrowind it remains unbroken to this day. 12:00 AM Jan 23rd via web
@DCDeacon I was wondering does bethesda consider the obscure texts and developer comments on the imperial library as actual lore? 11:57 PM Jan 22nd via web
@DCDeacon I was wondering if you could tell us about the story that was supposed to be The elder scrolls adventures II: eye of argonia? 11:56 PM Jan 22nd via web [earliest]

@CCBrandt23 In order: No. It depends. No. No idea.
Clearly the first "no" doesn't match up with the question about the obscure texts, as that was the second, unless you interpreted Pete's "order" to mean "in no particular order", in which case it's totally ambiguous and that would be silly. We'll also assume that "order" must mean "chronological order", but let's just rule reverse chronological order out:
If in reverse chronological order...

Q: last question I swear What year did the games dawnstar and stormhold take place on tamriel? thank you if you can answer any A: No.
Q: Could you tell us what is the hlaalu cypher for their encoded notes in morrowind it remains unbroken to this day. A: It depends.
Q: I was wondering does bethesda consider the obscure texts and developer comments on the imperial library as actual lore? A: No.
Q: I was wondering if you could tell us about the story that was supposed to be The elder scrolls adventures II: eye of argonia? A: No idea.
This would make the answer to that question "no", but look at the first two answers. They really don't make sense. Therefore, it's not logical that the answers were in reverse chronological order as opposed to chronological.
And therefore BGS's stance on obscure texts' validity is: "it depends". Which is not "no".

Let me also take the opportunity to go into more detail on how "canonical" the obscure texts are, or at least what I think. They're not as concrete as the lore actually presented in the games and in the book (and future books) is. However, they're written by devs, or ex-devs (MK is technically an ex-dev, but Bethesda still gives him contract work, Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes and KotN being recent examples, and he has talked about how the lore in The Infernal City was a collaborative effort and that he liked the notion of the Nords setting aside their differences with the Dunmer and playing host to them, which suggests he may have had some input there as well) who have worked on developing the lore, which gives them a good deal of weight, moreso than the thoughts of a random forumite at any rate. But sometimes they're not at all intended to be taken seriously as a source of lore, such as Sermon Zero, which was really just Douglas Goodall attempting to imitate the Sermons and nodding to MK's writing aesthetic, nothing more. Aside from those exceptions, it's fairly safe to take them as word of god until/unless the information in them gets contradicted by an in-game source later.
However, when a contradiction happens, there may still be some debate there; for example, the Dragonfires explanation for the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion vs. the Towers explanation for the same thing. A lot of people here consider the explanation involving the Towers to be the better one for a number of reasons, such as a) it ties the events of previous games, especially TES3, in with the plot, B) the Dragonfires explanation opens up a potential plot hole involving how the barrier was maintained during the Second Era, c) the Towers explanation is more comprehensive, in that the same principles that explain the Towers' primary function extend to how they create the barrier as well (consider this anology: before Newton's time, say someone comes up with a theory on gravity that has separate explanations for how gravity works on a planet and how gravity works on the extraplanetary level, but then Newton comes along and proposes his theory that explains both phenomena with the same principles), and d) the actual validity of the claim that the Dragonfires maintain the barrier is stated to be uncertain in the game - listen to Jauffre closely the first time you talk to him. Personally, I'm rather hoping that the Dragonfires' actual purpose was something to do with preventing Alduin from going into World-Eating mode; that would make for a slightly interesting twist.

No one listens to me, I swear. The Landfall != the associated events of The Infernal City.

Well, you did reference a Jedi mind trick the last time you said "no" to that...
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James Wilson
 
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Post » Mon Feb 28, 2011 1:40 pm

Ooh ooh! Can I has multiples?

Let me explain. In Medieval times there were multiple eras we could call a renaissance, where people looked backwards to determine the values and mores of an idealized past and implemented them into current society, until you get to "the Renaissance," which was the biggest of them and eventually led to new things. Perhaps the Ministry falling was in fact a landfall as we understand it in this context, but not "The Landfall."
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Chica Cheve
 
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