I was talking TESV, not TESIV. Sorry if I was unclear.

It's impossible to go against lore because of the way a Daedric Prince looks. They can change at will.

Fatal flaw, the land itself IS the prince. Shivering Ilse = Sheogorath = Shivering Ilse = Sheogorath = Shivering Ilse = ... The person you see in front of you is nothing more than an avatar for mortals to have an image to comprehend. The two are the same. When Mundus was being created, the princes laughed at Shor for daring to ask them to cut off pieces of themselves to create the mortal realm, thus being really weakened. So they made worlds of themselves using leaking magic, so that way they have all their power in their own realm, and are not weakened in the process.

So that makes the CoC the current living embodiment of the Shivering Isles - I still don't see how that automatically also makes him the God of Madness. Also, where is it said that the Realm and the Prince are the same? I'm not a loremaster.

What the hell is a Coc?

http://imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-monomyth has all the creation myths in one book, and mentions this repeatedly. Plus, it isn't by coincidence that as Sheogorath becomes Jyggy, the land itself turns from Madness to Order, Sheogorath is becoming Jyggy inch by inch. The only reason why your throne remained largely untouched was because there was a Sheogorath in-place of Sheogorath.

CoC = Champion of Cyrodiil

Then the (lack of) in-game mechanisms concerning your new role as Sheogorath don't really line up with how it works in the lore, if you ask me. Then again, the whole ending of the Shivering Isles has always seemed rather absurd to me.

Games Mechanics =/= lore.

Obviously not. Doesn't make my point less valid. That has always been an issue with the ending of a questline in these games... upon finishing the last quest and reaching the highest rank (be it Archmage or Daedric Prince), nothing really changes. You can get a couple of people to follow you around or repel a few monsters occasionally at best.

But that isn't what this topic is about, so I'll leave it at that.

Lol, that just has no sense. But being Sheogorath, a no sense situation becomes a possible situation. So yeah, we are sure that something like that will happen. :dance: <- No sense emoticon.

Except there's no crack in the facade. The illusion is perfect, which is a nix on your opinion, because the story-on-its-own-merits couldn't support multiple interpreations. You would be looking to gray ghosts outside the story. What is said, is the player will perhaps grow into the station. So, the only two interdrealions are: the player does grow into the realm, or the player does not. Pick your take.

Some are pulling the events out of context, before they've studied the context, or even given thought to it; or do svidania, sweet-cheeks.

In the context of the main SI questline, you're right. There isn't any evidence in the Shivering Isles that suggests that the Shivering Isles are just an illusion.

However, in the context of the Elder Scrolls as a whole, there IS room for doubt, and the evidence is a simple as this.

"Sheogorath typically manifests on Nirn as a seemingly harmless, well-dressed male, much to the surprise of many mortals. The reasoning behind his appearance is to lead unsuspecting mortals down the path to insanity, the "Golden Road". (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Sheogorath)

After appearing in three games, we can confidently assert that one of Sheogorath's activities is driving mortals insane. Furthermore, the mortals he leads down the "Golden Road" are sometimes not aware of his involvement.

Take, for example, his Daedric Shrine quest in Oblivion. To the Khajiit of Borderwatch, it appears the K'Sharra prophecy is coming true, even though the CoC knows otherwise, because they have access to knowledge the residents of Borderwatch do not.

We experience the Shivering Isles through the eyes of the CoC, and we only have the knowledge the CoC does.

Whether or not the CoC is a prince of madness or a gibbering lunatic is known only to Bethesda, and until they make a definitive statement about it (Which I seriously doubt will happen), there can be no real answer to that question.

Are daedric princes real, or are we just hearing voices when we rub on statues?

I'm pretty sure they're real, seeing as we've been to them. Aka, their realms...Which is also the Deadric Princes. Well we've only been to two (the Deadlands and Shivering Isles), but if two exist then it's highly probably that the others do.

Or are all daedric princes Sheogorath, and are we crazy for traipsing around the deadlands when we could be making babies with Dibella's easy tarts? I know which is less crazy.

I don't get it myself. Being insane wouldn't make you think exactly the same as another insane being. :shrug:

Personally, I don't even like the whole "becoming Sheogorath" thing.


You know, I have often thought, all Daedric Princes are pretty insane. Such extremist behaviour can't be normal. What you say makes sense, but it would be pretty awful. One god... TES is already slowly getting to be more and more like earth.

It looks like there will be no true explination to what happened although it is safe to say that the Champion of Cyrodil is now completely insane... of course he/she/it might have been insane to begin with (seeing as he/she/it is the head of every guild in Cyrodil, carries a couple of tonnes of random junk and also has a habit of killing random people and leaving them as a half-naked corpse in the middle of nowhere...)