» Tue May 08, 2012 11:05 am
Everything is true to somebody in a world made of myth.
Colossus, is it "Borhamu" or "Bormahu?" I thought it was the latter, and see below.
"Akatosh" was the name that humans seem to have used for Auriel, the elven god who is counterpart to, and at one time was, Alduin. There was a bit of a big ole Dragon Break that may have accelerated the split when Alessia re-wrote the traits of Akatosh and caused him to split off from at least one of the other two.
The reason, as far as I can tell, that Dragons don't recall a time when their "father," (someone know what the -u suffix means in Dragon Language, because "Bormah" is their word for father) but humans can is because they are so linked to time. Paarthurnax says that Dragons are somehow "vulnerable" to anomalies. So, for example, a dragon would also not remember a timeline where Vivec was mortal. But humans are more rooted in space (Lorkhanic) so they remember a time when Alduin was Akatosh and Vivec was just an elven hermaphrodite warrior-poet.
I sort of get this vibe reading about the Dragon Cult and how it was benevolent until it reached Tamriel that perhaps this split of Akatosh and Alduin was only Tamriel-wide. Atmorans acknowledged the kalpa cycle as a natural process if a bit of a bummer, so Alduin was a god without a moral tag. Then they, and Alduin, come to Tamriel and are changed because, when Akatosh was retroactively altered by belief, so too were his counterparts.
Basically, go read Terry Pratchett's Small Gods and Pyramids, then take away the funny.