When it comes to Winterhold, we're all scratching out heads about the Eye of Magnus and its possible connections to other veins in TES lore, or Arniel and Keening, but no one's touched on something that frankly makes less sense (to me at least) than http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec-sermon-fourteen; namely the Augur of Dunlain. Is this just not-that-interesting in general? We're told that he used to be a student at the college, was fairly talented, but a bit on the power-hungry side. I don't really understand how 'power hungry' and 'restoration' go together in a necessarily bad way, but that could just be because my grey-matter is failing. What really bothers me about the Augur is that we have no idea what he/it is, or how he/it came to be, save by some ominous reference to an accident. Is the Augur of Dunlain some remnant of the student, some window through which that spirit can interact with the world/be contacted, or something made from the being that was once Dunlain?

He/It does not appear to be undead, or at least, any variety of undead that we've run across, but then what is he/it? A being of pure magic? He/It is able to see the (potential) future that members of the Psijic Order cannot, at least regarding events surrounding the Eye. It isn't really clear whether is because of what-ever-the-hell the Augur is, or because the Augur is so close to college, literally and in terms of its spirit/events.

I can understand why this isn't a major question, but it's bugging me. Thoughts?