From our interactions with the Fourth Era Thalmor and the conditions they establish in the White-Gold Concordat, it is made clear that many mer choose not to recognise the legitimacy of Talos' claim to godhood and see the humans' inclusion of Talos into the Divine Pantheon of convention, the Eight becoming Nine, as an ultimate blasphemy and an affront against the Aedra, whom many Aldmeri consider to be the ancestors of Mer. The idea that a member of humanity could achieve equal status with the original Aedric beings seems to be, as Heimskr puts it, "inconceivable" for many of the more misanthropic of Tamriel's mer.

But, this elven indignation regarding the notion of men being equal to mer is nothing new. Though her intentions seemed earnest and her motivations pure, Queen Ayrenn's formation of the first Aldmeri Dominion was largely inspired by the belief that the races of men were simply too immature and volatile to be allowed to control large portions of Tamriel (even though Mannimarco, a high elf, is the one holding the cosmological door open for Molag Bal!).

From the hilariously disgruntled annotations found in our copy of the Pocket Guide to the Empire (First Edition), we also see that the previous high elven reader harboured quite a deep resentment for the scribe responsible for compiling the guide and likely humanity generally at the dawn of the Third Era.

I bring all this up to highlight that a belief in elven supremacy has been a current running through Merish-thought for a long time. Elven resentment for humans was probably at its highest at the time of the founding of the First Empire and I've been wondering, how did those elves who considered humans to be so beneath them and lacking in divine warrant explain the creation of the Dragonfires?

Legend has it that Akatosh infused the Amulet of Kings with a portion of his power and bestowed it upon Alessia, leader of humanity's rebellion against the elves, promising that so long as her heirs (the Dragonborn Emperors of Men) wore the amulet, he would defend Nirn against the threat of Oblivion and the Daedra Lords.

The events of TESIV: Oblivion (and ESO) more or less prove that the Amulet of Kings and an Alessian heir holding the throne to the Empire of Cyrodiil are essential for ensuring that the daedra are unable to invade the mortal realm in any serious capacity. So, how do the haughtiest of elves explain Akatosh, chief divine, entrusting humanity with such a grave responsibility? Would they have shrugged the legend off as superstition? Did they perhaps maintain that Akatosh was a separate entity from Auriel, the 'true' lord of the divines, so the 'real' gods hadn't given humanity anything noteworthy?

Do we have any lore extracts giving us insight into the Al(d)tmeri reaction to the stories of Akatosh's covenant with Alessia? If not, how do you guys think elven supremacists responded to the legend?

I suppose by the time stories of the Amulet of Kings reached the Summerset Isles in the First Era, enough time would have passed to dismiss them as hearsay and manish tall-tales, so that would explain elves of that time not recognising humanity's part in the divine scheme of things. But, how would misanthropic elves of the Third and Fourth Eras explain away the importance of the Dragonfires in the wake of the Oblivion Crisis? A lapse in heavenly judgement?!

I'd love to know more about the kind of mental hoops they'd have to jump through to continue pooh-poohing humanity!

Aren't you putting too much emphasis on the Merrish disdain for the mannish races?

I think the Thalmor despise humans not because they just think them in any way inferior. That may play into it. But it's far worse: the Thalmor have identified man as the bars of the material cage that is the Mundus.

I never bought into the "the Thalmor don't recognize Talos because they can't stand the fact that a human achieved Divinity" thing.

It's far more sinister. The Thalmor recognize Talos perfectly well. Only that recognition makes their acts against Talos meaningful.
Talos and the Sons of Talos (read: humans) are fortifying the Mundus. They are the Ehlnofey which forgot the world of the imperishable spirit which came before Convention. The Al(t/d)mer remember.

At least that's how they see it.

From that point of view, using mythopoeia as a weapon and aiming at Talos worship is a sound tactic.