Hi, I played every TES game since daggerfall and I have a few questions about the divines:
1) In Daggerfall every divine has its own temple and iirc they didn't always get along with each other. Since Morrowind they are worshipped together as one big, happy family. In my opinion it makes sense in morrowind, since imperials are trying to spread their religion there etc. But what about Cyrodiil? While every town has a chapel named after one divine, they are still worshipped together. Did something happen that made everyone worship divines together or is it just rewritten lore.

2) In Daggerfall the divines were worshipped in temples, with naked chicks, booze etc which resembles worshiping in ancient Greece. In Oblivion they are worshipped in chapels and it seems to be in a very pious, conservative way. No naked chicks, the priest(ess)s seem to be living almost in poverty like the monks in middle ages. Again, why the change?

3) In TESIV the divines appear to be always good. Iirc, in daggerfall that wasn't the case.

Long story short, my question is: why did the nine divines receive a total overhaul. They used to be so much fun

Anyway, thanks and sorry for any typos, English is my 4th language.

By the Nine Divines! Assault! Assualt! LOL. I think they needed a overall pure good faction for players who liked to play as the good guy. Or maybe they took the stuff out from Daggerfall to avoid any unwanted media attention. They were trying to make Oblivion T rated I'd say that would be the major reason.

In terms of lore, it can be explained by the fact that Cyrodiil is a whole different province.

In real life, it was probably budgeting/time concerns. The groundwork for a Daggerfall-like system is already there, its just the peripherals that were not implemented.

Well...just to comment on TES III, they worshipped Daedra am I correct? You also here that in Oblivion. "Daedra arent all bad, in Morrowind they worship Daedra."

The Dunmer worshiped three Daedra: Azura, Mephala, and Boethiah. They also had three antagonistic Daedra: Sheogorath, Malacath, Molag Bal, and Mehrunes Dagon. The rest were essentially ignored.

Cyrodil, trying to be the more "civilized" of the nations, attempts to cast a more pious, conservative, and overall, more dominant church. They try to use it like Constantine did with the xian church.

I think that there were originally eight divines. Then, they added Tiber Septim as the ninth and created a new religion that honors all nine aedra.

It's pretty similar to the transition from Roman paganism into Roman Catholicism that occured during late antiquity.

Except that whereas Catholicism is very much monotheistic, the Imperial Church is undoubtedly polytheistic. There are superficial similarities in the way the churches are built, including the stained glass, and in the titles and garb of the clergy but under the surface these are two very different systems.

I would say that the Imperial church in TES IV represents that halfway point, where the Roman leadership was trying to make a move to monotheism, but the common people were still very attached to a pagan belief system.

I'm willing to bet that, in TES V, Martin Septim represents the one true God and the aedra will devolve into something similar to the saints or angels.

And the truth is that, if you really study the old religions, you'll find that Catholicism has a lot more in common with Roman paganism than it does with 1st-century Christianity. The holidays, the rituals... pagan through and through, and even the Byzantine image of Jesus is based directly off the statue of Zeus.

No.

Agreed

How much do you want to bet? I"m willing to throw in 2 thousand dollars on that.

Yeah, going to do the same here. Hell, I'll also throw in my whole off-shoot legion in there.

My reasoning is this: In Daggerfall, everyone hates somebody else and everything is political because that is simply the way that region works. In Morrowind, we only see the "Imperial Cult," the missionary branch with no time or resources for political infighting. In Oblivion, well, that's where the Emperor lives, and his presence likely causes less overt infighting, which is why there are multiple chapels but no fighting. Not to mention, nothing unites people like a common enemy.

Off the top of my head, I assumed Bethesda wanted a good guy/bad guy relationship between Aedra and Daedra, rather than the mixed relationship with good daedra and bad aedra. I'm sure it's a fan thing.

As someone who pays close attention to history and has noticed how closely the history of the empire in Tamriel follows the history of the Roman empire I would love to take all these bets and watch you eat your words.

I love when someone just says, "no" with absolutely no explanation why. The reason is usually that they have no explanation other than their own closed-mindedness.

U mad, bro?

This ain't the real world. This is Tamriel. Following that closely to real history is boring and therefore wrong.

Boring and therefore wrong is the one and only reason we need. That is law here.

For someone who pretends to know so much, I'm amazed you didn't know that.

You make a good point, kind of. That it's boring to just copy history instead of being original.

But, I'm just noticing a pattern and making an educated prediction. I mean, Daggerfall was old Greece and Persia, Morrwind was 1st-century Israel, and Oblivion was so Dark Age Europe. There's a noticeable progression that follows real history.

It only makes sense, to me, that the new emperor will move the capitol east and overhaul the religion. I guess we'll see.... eventually.

Besides, there are no original ideas anymore.

Theres really no pattern here, just regional change and real-world generalizations. Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion are each separated by roughly 10 years, hardly enough for a complete religious change to take place over a whole continent. Martin did not defeat Dagon - Akatosh defeated Dagon. Martin is a vehicle, nothing more.

Besides, Tamriel already had its Christianity with the Alessians. Didn't end too well.

This I'm ok with and it makes sense.

If you don't see the same pattern that I see, then that's fine. Want to join the bet?

But anyway, I really saw a ton of ancient Judea in the culture of Vvardenfell. The temple would be the sanhedrim, the three houses would be the three sects. Hlaalu is so the Pharisees. The ashlanders would be the pagan nomads and possibly zealots.

Vivec the warrior poet is like David the warrior poet. The shrines everywhere look a lot like the shrines that the Hebrews liked to stick everywhere. Yadda, yadda, I'll add more if I can think of it.

For Daggerfall, which I'm not as versed in-- Breton religion and politics were very Greek and at least Redguard architecture was Persian. The whole Iliac Bay is shaped like the Mediterranean. Rather overtly so, I believe. Wayrest is where Palestine would be and happens to be controlled by the Dunmer...

How did the Alessians allude to Christianity? Just out of curiosity.

The Alessians worshiped one Godhead and had the rest of the gods as saints, just like Christianity does. They were very good at adapting their religion to the local cultures' and at appealing to the common people. The concept of the trinity isn't quite there, but they do have a prophet in Marukh and a virgin-mother in Alessia. They also have the culture of fasts which was prevalent in early Christianity and still is in eastern Orthodoxy. The Alessians were also a theocracy, vaguely comparable to the Church in the middle ages.

As for comparing Vivec of David and Morrowind to Judea, the problem is that you are dealing with universal themes and personages rather and specific events. The http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarriorPoet found in many cultures and religions. An overarching temple (that is a theocratic form of government) was very common in the ancient world, as were different political sects. Shrines are omnipresent anywhere there is religion. There just aren't enough specific details to support a comparison.

- snip -

All that is news to me because I never read about the Alessians.


The temple in Morrowind worships the Tribunal (trinity) and inducts it's important figures into sainthood as well. So, there's a little more Christianity, now that you mention it. I'm turning around with the idea of Vivec, because now that I think of it, his personality and history is drastically different from King David's.

But as for the general situation in Vvardenfell... the shrines: this is what the http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://s3.hubimg.com/u/1909090_f260.jpg&imgrefurl=http://hubpages.com/hub/Baals-Influence-on-YHWH&usg=__GUqwGr1-tXfqLM15G_-kKwchey8=&h=565&w=260&sz=40&hl=en&start=25&sig2=mF2IRRglzdZgYNSEyCPX4w&zoom=1&tbnid=Q4mExiYuSBaodM:&tbnh=139&tbnw=64&ei=uSepTOewCMWBlAfxkJG-DA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcanaanite%2Bshrine%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1235%26bih%3D706%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C316&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=967&vpy=285&dur=1945&hovh=331&hovw=152&tx=71&ty=179&oei=rSepTMXHCsOAlAfi_fi3DA&esq=2&page=2&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:25&biw=1235&bih=706 would have looked like on old semitic shrines. Not directly "Jewish" but it's a Canaanite shrine and the Hebrews were a variety of Canaanite. As I said before, the shrines in Vvardenfell are very much like the Hebrew shrines. Not the fact that they exist, I mean the fact that the artwork is based directly off of them.

The whole political situation is very similar. I mean, it could be compared to the situation in Britannia, as well, but then look at King Helseth...

King Herod was a half-Jew, resented by his people for kissing the ass of the Romans. He built Caesarea as a tribute to the emperor and I believe that the Imperialized palace in Mournhold is an allusion to this. King Helseth, remember, is a half-Dunmer, resented by his people for kissing the ass of the Imperials.

Morrowind is the easternmost edge of the empire just like Judea is the easternmost edge of the empire.

The dissidents are treated by the temple in the same way that the zealots were treated by the sanhedrim. Ok, that last one's a little more vague, but I'll try and thin of more specifics.

EDIT: I was also thinking that Halamayan can be compared pretty closely with Masada... maybe.

I agree.