What is your opinion of the role of the Arena and for that matter gladiatorial combat post Great War in the 4th era? Is it still common? Frowned upon? What do you think?

Probably repurposed as a training ground for the Imperial Legions.

I've just found so little info on how the Areana in the Imperial City and the one in Kvatch functioned in society I have no idea if the main one would still be in use after the Great War. I like your idea blai5000.

I'd imagine that the Thalmor would put those Talos lovin heathens there to against a pack of hungry minotaurs... With nothing but their fists.

Sort of like Rome putting those pesky christians in the Colosseum where they will die a very horrible death by a pack of hungry lions.

The Arena is the purest expression of the shape of the cosmos. The movements of single-minded fighters, reduced to bare instinct and elevated above the gods: these allow those who meld most intimately with the conflict to understand the Aurbis and the drama of every molecule of every body within it, on a level that priests and tower-dancing heirophants can only scratch the surface of in their deepest spore-dreams. The Arena is fate itself, the Arena is the crux of every living thing's potential, and the Arena is eternal.

At least, that's what they said until most of the arenas got burned down, outlawed twice, repopulated with thugs and criminals, razed again, and finally re-purposed as venues for doling out meat-scraps and crusts to asylum-seekers across the provinces, and later podiums for whatever pessimistic doctrine took the war regime's fancy at the time.

(all speculation)