So, for years i have always been a knights of the nine fan, but Pelinal kinda seemed like a mystery to me. so, i looked him up.

apparently Pelinal appeared from nowhere (daedra maybe)? and he somehow gained reputation with the gods and humans. he was known to single handedly just walk up to ayleid cities and slaughter every elven inhabitant, men, woman, and infants like it was no big deal. he also had homocidal rages and he often brutaly tortured and killed hundreds of elves. even the poor khajiit who had no interest in slavery or war were pushed to near extinction by Pelinal simply because he mistook them for a mer race.

part of me now wonders if he deserved his horrible death. but am i right that Pelinal is much darker than most know? what is your guys' opinions on this?

Not evil just crazy...maybe.

He was Cyborg/terminator from future with lightsaber for a hand , can't blame the guy really .

And besides thouse elf guys deserved it , and you can't blame him for mistaking khajiits for elves they all look alike.

Depends on the shape of the beholder's ears.

We have had his madness explained to us by MK's C0DA. He felt like "when the Dream no longer needs its Dreamer", which exactly the state in which post-Landfall society was. A perpetual Dragon Break. Pelinal in those moments stopped to perceive linear time acted drunk before every impossibility and crazy thing he saw.

The Knights of the Nine themselves are a bit... naive. They follow the Victorian ideal of medieval chivalry, while Pelinal was the real medieval chevalier.

Good and evil don't really exist in the Elderscrolls. Just like the real world you judge actions based on a moral system. These are fairly aribrary, though allot of them use god as fountain of morality. You could argue that because Kyne set Pelinal into the world it was alright. Though the Elves have their own gods, ancestors, who are on their side and coincidently the same as those of Men. So the whole system tends to break down. Gods as a fountain of morality doesn't work when the gods are both real and shizophrenic. In effect it doesn't matter who was right, only who is still left at the end of the day.

The humanism that you're using to judge Pelinals actions doens't exist in Tamriel. If it did it'd be a thing for men. And men were a kind of domestic animal at the time. That makes Pelinal a major proponent for humanism.

So not evil.

Also Pelinal and Morihaus are allot like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. http://www.aina.org/books/eog/eog.pdf.

While I love Prow's explanation, it's clear and detailed and informative, this one is my favorite.

If it weren't for Tolstoy wouldn't be able to recognize the power of brevity.

the sadist part for the elves is that there were many who joined up with Alessia to win humanity there freedom. you don't hear that part a lot when you talk about the first empire.

Yeah, that happens out here too, in reality. It's actually quite poignant.

I'm an Aylied, Pelinal is nothing but a blight that kills any Mer in it's way!

I'm a Khajiit, Pelinal is the one-man pogrom that Alkosh drove away!

I'm a Cyrod/Nord, Pelinal is the great crusader for justice and freedom!

I might be mixing up my metaphors here, but freedom is Nu-Mantia is "reach heaven by violence." Of course, that last bit wasn't necessarily meant to be taken literally... even though the person who said it clearly took it literally himself...

Either way, wonderful explanation from proweler. In terms of our society, we would view Pelinal as a horrible, despicable being--but since we're not being oppressed by a race that tortures us for the sake of art*, we can never know exactly what was going on in the minds of the people who Pelinal sided with (and of course, getting into Pelinal's mind is an exercise in madness anyway). Interestingly, our own society has plenty of historical figures who would be judged rather harshly by modern standards, but whose importance to society is such that we venerate them instead. It's not like Pelinal's case is something that only a universe like TES could create (in terms of his popularity by later generations, that is; obviously the real world isn't liable to bring us a god-built construct from the future any time soon, or at least, so we can hope).

*Note that we only know this through the propaganda of the Divines religion; it's probable that it happened, but it's not certain that it happened on quite the scale that The Song of Pelinal and The Adabal-a would have us believe.

Hang on one moment. There's an ESO book on this I'm typing up right now.

I saw it on the other thread. Thanks for bringing it up; it was actually a really interesting take on cold-blooded torture that isn't just "for the lulz." It was also kind of squicky, though, and I admit I didn't like that... though I expected it, considering the subject matter.

http://esohead.com/books/1448-masterwork-of-the-inducer