I've been thinking about Snow Throat. The Tower of Skyrim, it's identified with High Hrothgar. What is its stone? And after the conclusion of the Oblivion Crisis officially closed off Oblivion, why do we care?

I'm starting to think that the events of Oblivion touched off a new era in the relationship between the Towers and the World, on during which the forces of the Dawn become increasingly desperate, vicious... and ultimately meet complete failure and disappear from history. Interpreted a certain way, both the Oblivion Crisis and this recent matter with Alduin appear to follow a similar pattern, previously unknown.

In Cyrodil, it was White Gold Tower, the Amulet of Kings, and the lit Dragonfires that held back destructive beings from another place. The Mythic Dawn forced the Tower "offline" by interrupting the ritual (hmm...), seeking to tear down the wall completely. Martin Septim, Dragonborn Emperor, brought this to an end by destroying the stone completely, but creating a NEW circumstance that holds the Daedra out of Mundus in a more permanent fashion. I am proposing that White Gold is not merely "offline" now... it is, today, nothing more than a tower of stone, and it doesn't have to be any more than that, not anymore.

In Skyrim, High Hrothgar was also an important location in the elimination of incredibly destructive mythic beings: the Dragons. It is presumably where Kynareth, through Parthanax, taught men to Shout, allowing them to defend themselves. It is also the location where Alduin was tossed into a time unknown, and the time-would persisted. I propose that the time-wound itself is the "stone" of Snow Throat, the Tower by which Skyrim was made safe for mortals and made mortal society possible.

When Alduin came back through, presumably the time-would closed, destroying the "stone" and placing all Skyrim, once again, in mortal danger. Alduin may not have come to eat the world, but he most certainly did come to end Nord society as we know it, and possibly end all human life... and afterlife.

But this time, Alduin wasn't cast out by well tutored students of the Way of the Voice. Rather, he was actually slain, by a Dragonborn. And so, once again through the actions of a Dragonborn, a crisis involving the return of highly destructive mythic beings was brought to a more decisive, lower maintenance end through the actions of a Dragonborn. Today, I propose, High Hrothgar is nothing more than a really high mountain... and that's all it needs to be.

Did the Covenant between Akatosh and Allesia, perhaps, prefigure a coming Covenant, a more permanent one that does not hang by a string?

Interesting theory, though traditionally it is considered an Elvish practice to build a Tower. Additionally, the word order for the final few lines of the Dragonborn prophecy indicate that the Tower falls and then Alduin returns, so from this perspective it is unlikely that Alduin's return was the cause of the fall of the Tower, though whether it is an effect of the Tower's fall is a different matter.

Also, Hrothgar wasn't exactly the site for the "destruction" of the dragons, as many of them persisted for several era's, and even in the immediate aftermath of the Dragon Wars, there were still plenty dragons around. Finally, I understood High Hrothgar as the site of the Greybeads' monastery, while the Throat of the World was the site of Alduin's defeat.

Dragons survived until the Third Era, Talos had an ally named something like Naalfingaaringrar.

Nafaalilargus.

There was also a book in Cloud Ruler Temple, Atlas of Dragons I believe, which detailed several dragons, some of which were documented in the 2nd and 3rd eras.

For a moment, I thought I must have mistyped. But I never said dragons were destroyed at High Hrothgar, only that Alduin was temporarily defeated there, and it is at High Hrothgar that men presumably learned to shout (for it is where they continue to learn to shout).

As to tower-building being an elvish practice... wasn't High Hrothgar as Snow-Throat as one of the known towers generally accepted as truth? That was the impression I had.