QUESTION: Do Daedra believe in Gods?

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:03 am

I know Daedric Princes are considered as Gods. But do the Daedras (servants) call them Gods? Or do they call them something else?

Also, if a servant is serving under one Daedric Prince, would this servant believe in the other Daedric Princes or just his own master?

I am working on a story where a Daedra servant is going to discuss about Gods.
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Lakyn Ellery
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:07 am

I know Daedric Princes are considered as Gods. But do the Daedras (servants) call them Gods? Or do they call them something else?

Also, if a servant is serving under one Daedric Prince, would this servant believe in the other Daedric Princes or just his own master?

I am working on a story where a Daedra servant is going to discuss about Gods.



Well, seeing as all the Daedric Princes and the Nine Divines actually have noticible effects on the world and sometimes communicate with Mer and each other, I don't think belief has anything to do with it.
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james tait
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:53 pm

There are a lot of books about the lesser daedra. They don't have gods - they don't prey. They accept some Lords as masters (example: the Dremora often served Mehrunes Dagon, but not always). Maybe they call them gods, like the Seducers on the Shivering Isles, but the meaning of "god" is not the same as for mortals in Nirn nor humans in real life. With god I associate immortality and power. These are things, which both - lesser and higher daedra' ve got. "God" is in Oblivion more a title than a status.
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Marion Geneste
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:04 am

There are a lot of books about the lesser daedra. They don't have gods - they don't pray.

The kyn do have worship benches though.
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Charlie Ramsden
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:43 am

I think they maybe atheists and have never had a need for a god or gods. Or, they worship sithis to some degree seeing as their closer to sithis's side of the universe.
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OJY
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:36 am

I think they maybe atheists and have never had a need for a god or gods. Or, they worship sithis to some degree seeing as their closer to sithis's side of the universe.

No, that's dwemer who are atheists in a world with known gods. I have a feeling they don't worship their masters as gods, but as how one would probably worship their king.
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louise fortin
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:05 pm

Walter:
I'm confident that the lesser Daedric see Daedric Princes as masters or kings, considering all Daedra are immortal...
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Agnieszka Bak
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:34 pm

No, that's dwemer who are atheists in a world with known gods. I have a feeling they don't worship their masters as gods, but as how one would probably worship their king.

I'm not sure 'atheist" is the right word in a world where gods regularly and visibly interact with the greatest of the mortals. They simply did not believe that the power of the beings that we (and most in-game people) would term 'gods" possess is something outside the reach of mortal beings. And of course, they were proved right to some degree by the Tribunal.

But as for the daedra, believe, no. They know. Worship, no. They serve. often willingly but not neccessarily so. Zarrexaij seems to have stated my general opinion: they serve and respect them as a vassal serves and respects his or her king. However, who is to say that one immortal being, any Dremora, could not in the space of eternity eventually surpass another, say Mehrubnes Dagon, in power and eventually usurping his place. may not have happened yet, but eternity is along time and the rules aren't the same for daedra as mortals.
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Sarah Edmunds
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:47 am

Thanks for all the replies. Definitely helps me understand more about the Daedra and the Gods.

I didn't know ALL Daedra are immortals. Then how come they can be slayed? Do they just resurrect somewhere else?
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Julie Serebrekoff
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:28 pm

Thanks for all the replies. Definitely helps me understand more about the Daedra and the Gods.

I didn't know ALL Daedra are immortals. Then how come they can be slayed? Do they just resurrect somewhere else?

Yeah that's pretty much it. They get flushed down the cosmic drain into a terrifying and painful abyss for a while then get spat back out, usually changed somehow from who they were before.
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Veronica Martinez
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:21 am

Pigeon atheism?

No, no. Daedra are spiritual beings, drawn to their master-Princes by virtue of those "Princes" simply being of a more powerful spiritual stuff. They have a free will tempered by this innate Daedric sense of proportion in regards to the supremacy of Daedra lords. They are prone to change "alliance" between each other, being temperamental and aggressive or transient and dishonest. In Battlespire a strange situation of warring factions was almost present, with some Dremora seeing themselves almost as supervisors and caretakers of Dagon's destructive itinerary. Despite this suspiciously mundane representation of the Daedras' relationships, it would not be completely correct, I think, to reduce all Daedric relations to purely arbitrary natures, and not understand that as spiritual beings, they must surely have spiritual relationships that go beyond the mortal imaginings, what we see "in-game."

Oblivion's depiction of the sudden appearance of the Aedric dragon-god was problematic, simply becuase any representation of the divine is problematic, especially when the divinity is thought to be far-removed, platonic and in essence, an essence. The man-gods of ALMSIVI combined these hallmarks nicely, and we know the Daedric Princes were well aware of their existence and even deferential, at times, to them. Such an immediate relationship between the Aedra and Daedra is not present, but I am sure there is a relationship, or some understanding between these two "pantheons," one that goes deeper than mortal imaginings of either.
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barbara belmonte
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:49 am

My friends,

We have, up to this point, only three possible points of evidence to determine our issue of whether the daedra worship a higher being or beings.

First, we have the "worship benches" in the Deadland Sigil Towers of Mehrunes Dagon, where the Dremora and other daedra are present, although none are shown in what we, as mere mortals, comprehend as penitent postures. That is to say, we don't find them apparently praying there, instead being girded for battle. However, who knows what the Prince of Destruction accepts as worship from his daedric followers?

Second, we have the Auriels (Golden Saints) and Mazken (Dark Seducers) being shown in positions of worship. (http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/images.gamezone.com/screens/31/5/57/s31557_ps3_9.jpg) However, it should be noted that in the Shivering Isles, neither the Golden Saints nor the Dark Seducers truly worship Sheogorath, instead dealing with him as one would deal with an absolute monarch, not a god. In fact, those calling Sheogorath a god are considered "Zealots" for going so far. The Zealots claim "The self-proclaimed Zealots of Sheogorath believe our liege lord to be not just a man of mysterious and wondrous powers, but a living god." (http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/sebookzealotry.shtml)

On the other hand, the book http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/sebookhereticalthoughts.shtml makes a distinction between a god and a Daedric Prince when it says "Our Lord, Sheogorath, is but a man. He is only flesh and blood, not a god, and certainly not a Daedric Prince."

Sheogorath's Chamberlain, Haskill, is quite unambiguous as to whether the PC will become a god. (http://www.imperial-library.info/tsoo/si14.shtml)

Dyus, Jyggalag's Chamberlain and Keeper of his Great Library, also states that the PC becoming the new Sheogorath is an apotheosis, which is the ascertaining of godhood. (http://www.imperial-library.info/tsoo/si13.shtml)

Third, in the Shivering Isles, Arden-Sul and the Flame of Agnon from the Altars of Despair and Rapture are shown as being worshiped. Arden-Sul has his own Altar and everything.


Yours in the Scrolls,


___The Word Merchant of Julianos
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Imy Davies
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:15 am

And everyone knows that Arden-Sul is a stand-in for Sheogorath... or perhaps the indistinct mass o' power that is Madness.

I think that the closest thing the Daedra have towards believing in Gods is their healthy fear of the Void, of Sithis. Yet we have no information on whether or not they personify the Void like the Monomyth or the Dark Brotherhood does.
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alyssa ALYSSA
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:25 pm

Well to day that daedric creatures believe in a God is kind of stupid, but Dremora who are actually a race. They may believe in the Daedric princes as Gods. Not so much as like they pray to their Gods just respect for them for being all powerful.
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sarah
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:20 am

I think they maybe atheists and have never had a need for a god or gods. Or, they worship sithis to some degree seeing as their closer to sithis's side of the universe.

Sithis is only worshiped by the Dark Brotherhood at this point in time. Sithis is more than that, but every time I ask about it, I get an explanation that makes my head explode, so I'll leave it at that :P
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Chloe Botham
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:47 am

The actual reference of god indicates a being of uttery supremecy that is often submitted to and worshipped. I'd imagine that the word 'god' in TES is thrown around quite a bit and quite freely, with its usage changing amongst the Daedra. For the mortal races though, it seems quite defined as to what gods are and who they are.

As for the Daedra, it doesn't seem to be a question of whether they belive in gods, but rather, do they choose to submit or acknowledge a higher daedra as one?
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Andrew Perry
 
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