Shor son of Shor Questions : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:46 pm

Is Shor his own father? Or is Shor father of Shor a reference to Padomay?

Magnar (Magnus?) was replaced by mirrors, what does that mean?

"Tsun took her by the hair, for he was angered by her words and heavy with lust. He was a berserker despite his high station, and love followed battle to his kind. "You weren't made for that kind of thinking," Stuhn said, dragging Dibella towards a whaleskin tent, "Jhunal was. And no one should be speaking to him now." Tsun eyed the Clever Man who had heard him. "Logic is dangerous in these days, in this place. To live in Skyrim is to change your mind ten times a day lest it freeze to death. And we can have none of that now."

Really confused on who's doing what in this paragraph (Tsun vs. Stuhn). Were they somehow the same entity? It mentions that they are "shifting." And in the last paragraph, it is Trinimac that leaves the tent of Dibella. Is Shor's tribe the same as Ald's?

"House of We," a reference to the Magna-Ge? The house definitely sounds like the convention at Adamantine Tower.

And then Ald son of Ald is described almost word for word like Shor son of Shor

And what is the war going on below them all while Shor/Ald talk with themselves/fathers?

» Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:28 am

The answer to all your questions: they're all mirror images of each other. The same, but inverted and changed by belief.

And what is the war going on below them

The linear Kalpas, i.e. our current world. The setting of the story is nonlinear Dawn.

» Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:49 am

Lady Nerevar

Why not do a layman's paragraph by paragraph interpretation of Shor Son of Shor?

I already gave it a shot and would like to see someone else's take on it

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1160383-shor-son-of-shor/page__st__120__p__17263919__fromsearch__1#entry17263919

» Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:27 am

The original http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/921446-world-eating-101/page__st__100 had some comments good comments on the text iirc. The http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1160383-shor-son-of-shor also had some stuff on the subject.

Why not do a layman's paragraph by paragraph interpretation of Shor Son of Shor?

Purely practically? It's crunch time; I've got 15 deadlines in the next 3 days. Later, I'd love to. I recall promising to try something for the 500 too.

[edit] A good quote about it by Quimper:

In this piece, the Dawn Era is portrayed as a war between a variety of divine clans, rather than individual gods. Thus within what has traditionally been imagined as a single god, there are aspects of all the other gods; within the identity "Shor" there is a Kyne Shorsdotter, and, by implication, within "Kyne" there is also a Shor Kynesson, and so forth. Thus, the fractal and recursive nature of the mythos is demonstrated even more literally than ever before.

The repetitious nature of the mythical history is emphasized by the nearly identical phrase given to Shor-son-of-Shor by Ald and by Shor the father. I would not attempt to rephrase the advice in a way that captures its nuance, but it argues that by adopting their roles as the dichotomous gods, they will never be able to escape their cyclical reality, the endless kalpas which are always the same but only slightly different. First, Ald cautions Shor that by ushering in the new, he will begin that same war over again, and it will all end the same. Then, Shor reminds Shor that, by fighting against Shor's meddling, Ald will have to fight that same war as well. They are doomed to repeat "the awful fighting" for all time unless someone breaks the mold.

At the end of it all, Shor makes the same choice he has always made - "And the awful fighting began again."