» Tue Jan 01, 2013 4:57 pm
I have to point out the Aedra are past their phase of "Mortal death", as they are one of the destination for mortal souls that pass the phase of mortal death. If we consider the dreamsleeve a recycle device for the mortal who never reach their mortal death, then the Aedra should not be in the dreamsleeve, or the whole Aedra-Daedra-destination becomes pointless, as even if one joins Aedra he is still in the dreamsleeve.
Yet still the Aedra are dead. Those in Aetherius are only pieces who are "believed" to be there, a core for the mortal souls to aggregate. If the groups of mortals don't believe these cores in Aetherius, then they don't, but still these are outside of the dreamsleeve. By this it is flexible to say whether a certain plane of Aedric aspect is in Aetherius or Mundus, as it merely depends on how mortals believe.
I'd say the dreamsleeve is not the whole part of the metaphonic Dream of the Godhead, and the Dreamer is beyond the dreamsleeve. In fact, I'd like to link the dreamsleeve to all of Arkay, Mnemoli and Vaermina: Aedra-Magne-Ge-Daedra trinity of minds and memories. Just to think reaching Aetherius is similar as reaching Oblivion, a way seems to be liberity but in fact not, that even if succeeding escaping Mundus-dreamsleeve system the soul is still in the system of the Godhead, and by that Vehk teaches mortals to reach Amaranth to bypass the whole Godhead system.
And I don't like the idea that the Aetherius is in fact inreachable to the souls. Magne-Ge and Aedra differed much less than we had thought before, as in Magne-Ge pantheon the whole Y signs are Aedra and Lorkhan and the blue star, that who wander in Mundus which is called the blackhole, while C signs and M signs "true" Magne-Ge that residing in Aetherius except for Meridia.
Edit: This reminds me that in Vehk's Teaching and the Wheel Model it lacks the definiting position of Aetherius. only "what is left is Aetherius", yet in the Wheel Model it is hard to say where this "left" really is. Maybe the boundary between Mundus and Aetherius is "vague" in the Wheel Model, due to the connection of Aedra-Magne-Ge, so Vehk only defines Aetherius "what is left", non Oblivion and non Mundus.
If we look into the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, the existence of Devaloka in Hinduism is more or less the similar place as the Aetherius in the TES world, only the Aetherius gets mixed up with the concept of Heaven as a final destination in common belief, that in both Hinduism and Buddhism souls in Devaloka are still destined to re-enter the Samsara. The Buddhism teaches mortal to jump out of the whole Samsara, Devaloka included, a similarity of Psijic Endeavor to the original Aldmeri belief.