Yes, perspective is the key here. Auri-El and Akatosh have much in common and are confirmed to be the same god. However, Alduin is something different altogether. The only evidence that Alduin is the same as Akatosh is the perspective of an in-game author. For all we know, Alduin is some shadow entity created after the formation of Nirn or just the progenitor of all dragons. We just won't know until the game comes around.

In all instances, Auri-El and Akatosh aren't even two separate entities, they are just different names by the Aldmer and the Imperials. However, Alduin is different as well, the only thing he has in common with Akatosh is that he is a dragon and that it "seems" that he can warp time, which we already know that the dragons can already do that as their language is so powerful it can alter time, so it can't be taken as definitive proof that Alduin is Akatosh either.



Where did you get that information?

Also, in my opinion, World Eater is a misnomer. I think his "consuming" the world is just a metaphor for destroying it by fire (and not meaning destroying it as a whole, just the surface) or conquering the world.

No, Sleign, Auriel and Akatosh are not alike. If anything, Auriel and Alduin are more alike, as they both want Mundus gone, both were against the space god, Lorkhan/Shezarr/Shor, and the followers were proto-mer. The only similarity the merrish version and the political move have, is that they're the defenders of altmer, and men, respectively.

The lore of Elder Scrolls has a theme of duality. Et'Ada, Anu and Padomay, Aedra and Daedra. But gods can have dualities without switching between Aedric and Daedric. Alduin and Akatosh is one such example. They are the same entity, but they are two heads of the same coin. Akatosh is the god of time, Alduin is the god of the end of time. They are different personalities, different identities, and different interpretations, but they both empower the aspect of time. The Imperials believe Akatosh is simply their chief god, a dragon, the symbol of the Empire and its protector, destined to make the empire last as long as time itself. The Nords think of Alduin solely as a dragon who must eat the world every time it comes to the end of its lifespan, and then it must be re-formed.

He's like Janus, the two-faced Roman God of doors, time, beginnings, and ends.

No, the nords believe Alduin to be a god, not just some dragon dragon of unusual size. He just happens to look like one, but is a god, though one they won't worship.

Yes, they are alike. Just in Aldmeri lore, Lorkhan is the big bad evil guy who tricked everyone into losing much of their power and severing the Aldmer's ties to the spirit world. Auriel lead an army against Lorkhan's army. If he really wanted the world destroyed (or even had the capability) then he would have already done it. As of now, mortals give the Aedra their power, why the hell kill off your power source? Besides, I'd think the Nine would be happy continuing to pull the strings on their puppets on Nirn. Metaphorically of course.

Also, don't forget that Akatosh was the first god, born from Anu, the force of Stasis. So it is within Akatosh's purview to preserve things as they are. If you think about it, the first time that a spirit of Padomay (Lorkhan) convinced him into going outside of his force and fostered change, he regretted it...deeply. Why would he do it again? Not to mention that time is linear and not cyclical.



Once again, where did you get this information? I don't remember Alduin being referred to as a god, I remember him being likened to destruction of the world by the nords in the book but nothing else. If you could, could you cite where they said he was a god in game lore. I'm not saying that rudely, I really want to know so that I can correct myself if I'm wrong.

Alduin is Akatosh. If viewed in a purely practical way, they might be considered as wholly distinct entities (eg, "who am I fighting?"), but the characteristics of divinity in TES lore are a lot less straightforward than that.

These threads from the Lore forum might contain valuable reading:

• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1156804-who-is-this-alduin/
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1157744-akatoshalduin-in-skyrim/
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1167116-the-nature-of-alduin/

It could be Akatosh himself. It could be an evil side of Akatosh, or an ancient rival.
It could have nothing to do with Akatosh at all. It could be just a planar being that destroys worlds. It could be just a random guy who liked this name.

We already have three different Underkings, I don't think his true identity is going to be clear either...

The quick-and-dirty of it is: Dragon God of Time (Called Auri-El or Alduin) wants to end the world for reasons obscure and probably very sensible to him. The elven peoples saw it as a god thing, the humans saw it as a bad thing for reasons tied up in their various belief systems. There was the aforementioned compromise where "Akatosh" was created by political compromise. The Marukhatis danced on the Tower to accelerate the process by which the collective unconscious belief of the people would make Akatosh fully real. It worked, but there was a period of the Dragon Break which muddied up all the calendars but at the end of it, Time had a third aspect that was the same and yet distinct from the other two.

All three of them are Time and nothing else, but they seem to be something else based on where you look at them from.

From http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-varieties-faith-empire, in Alduin's paragraph:

Not only do they acknowledge him as the God of Time, they place him within the pantheon (though not at the head, Shor's too cool for that).



If that were true, understanding separate in terms of facets differentiable in more than just name, then the Selectives would've had no need to dance on their Tower.


Why wouldn't Auriel destroy the world? Dunno. Maybe because he was too busy fighting his Mirror-brother(s).
EDIT: Or maybe, seeing as it makes little sense for Time to end at the beginning, the conditions for world-eating weren't yet met.
As to the nine gaining definition through mortals, there'll be mortals again once the dawn's returned. It's not like they're gone forever. Kalpas, remember? We made it to destroy it to make it to destroy it to make it ...


Because of the enantiomorphic relationship. And also because Time, in its very definition, is change. What does Time do, in its very nature? It allows there to be a unity of continuation by which things no longer remain the same.
EDIT: Or rather, Time, by its very nature, allows for the negation of things locked in stasis.

Read the first sentance of your second link...

"Alduin is the Nordic variation of Akatosh..."

A theory I was really interested in was that of the amulet binding Akatosh to help mankind. "On her deathbed in 1E 266, [Alessia] was sainted by Shezarr (in some stories Akatosh), and her soul placed in the central stone of the Amulet of Kings. The Covenant between gods and men was made here." (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Alessia) The theory indicating that back in this time period Akatosh's main motive was to use mankind to regain his strength, and that of the other gods, by having them instate him as the chief god of a new religion. His original deal with Alessia was to aid her in overthrowing the Ayleid slave-drivers in exchange for creating a new religion centred around him. Since gods are bound to the mortal realm, it is the prayer and belief of mortals that give them strength. At the time of Oblivion Akatosh would have been made significantly stronger from centuries of worship, but is still bound to protecting man and mer through the amulet. By convincing Martin to destroy the amulet (and after removing the pesky Mehrunes Dagon from Nirn) he is now free of his charge as protector, and able to act against man and mer once more.

How much of that actually stands up to scrutiny... I'm not sure. But it's always intrigued me as a good explanation as to why he would seemingly 'help' mortals during the end of Oblivion, and then attempt to destroy them during Skyrim.

Wow, nice theory you got there, Darkstorne. A real nice trope of Evil All Along, with a puppet master thrown in.

As I understand it Akatosh/Auri-el/Alduin was created from the interaction of Anu and Padomay, stasis and change. This means that he has traits from both as the spirit of time.
From Anu: He allows other spirits to exist by maintaining a linear, stable flow of time in which they can exists. He is stasis, he maintains things in existence.
From Padomay: He moves time forward, moving the spirits narrative lines along, changing them. He is change, he changes and transforms the things he influences.

I would wonder why he's helping men in the first place. Auri-El has a nice comfy position in the Merish pantheon, so why not help them instead? Tons of followers, plenty of worship, and they even have the same goal... to break free of the mortal prison.

I would ascribe to the idea of Akatosh truly trying to help men. Don't assign Alduin's motives to Akatosh, and vice versa. Akatosh was created by Alessia as a protector of the status-quo, and that's what he is. The status-quo is now broken, Akatosh's power has waned, and this allows Alduin to show up.

Plus, if the Seven Fights is to be believed, Alduin cursed Dagon to destroy that which he snuck over from previous kalpas as the Leaper King. How would that work if he makes it so Dagon, who's more than willing to do what he's cursed to do, is blocked from entering Mundus due to his own pact with Alessia? "I want you to destroy these things, but I won't let you in to destroy them"?

I personally believe that the Alessian Order is largely responsible for Akatosh's benevolence - I don't think they excised the merish elements of him out at all, I just think that they forced the pro-man elements of Akatosh to the forefront and left Auri-El/Alduin... comatose, maybe would be the word? Incapable of acting, at least, so long as Akatosh was still a prominent deity and the pact with man was still in place. So I think that's why, now, Alduin is back to eat the world and is decidedly not pro-man anymore: the element of him that was Akatosh was either destroyed or at least rendered impotent as a result of the destruction of the Amulet of Kings. He's not the one running this Dragon God of Time anymore.

There are many thing we only know from the perspective of a Tamrielian author. Yet that alone is not quite enough to denounce, say most of the Brief History of the Empire. You'd need to find another source that disagrees.

Or to phrase it another way, why should I accept your perspective of that of an Tamrielian author?

Thanks for pointing out the god of time part. However, it still comes down to only one in-game author which could (and most likely does) have a convoluted view because he is just a mortal drawing lines between gods between multiple pantheons across Tamriel.

However, personally I find that the view that the god state in TES is too idealized by some fans. Some fans just make gods in TES too enigmatic and omnipresent. I think people are just seeing something deeper in the gods than it really is. If anyone has seen the South Park episode about Butter's writing a dirty book, that's a good example. Everything we know about the gods is pretty straight forward. I would be more inclined to agree with their omnipresent and multifaceted view of gods if Akatosh, Auriel and Alduin all started fighting each other over the Ur Tower but that just won't happen because they are all the same being. According to the beliefs of those that have overcomplicated the gods, you could see all three of them together because gods can be three different beings at once, which hasn't been shown at all. Really, the only thing they have capability of is shapeshifting and projecting avatars. They aren't really omnipresent beings that some people believe them to be, where they can be any number of separate beings with different personalities and so on. I just don't see it. But that's my interpretation of the lore. (Just to be clear, I interpret by the in-game lore. I know the view of gods in TES represented here is because of the writings of Michael Kirkbride but they just aren't official lore until they make their way into a game)



But time doesn't change anything. Time is constant. What fosters change are events in the universe that causes change, such as asteroids crashing into planets. That isn't the cause of time, it is the cause of forces of change. Now if you take a sealed vault and make it a vacuum with no corrosive materials or weathering and you set an object like a sword in it and seal it for eternity, that sword will not change because time went on. Now if you allow moisture into the room, then the sword will begin to rust, not due to time but due to the moisture. If anything, time keeps change to a minimum. If change is limited to a time span, then change will be limited instead of happening all at once.

That's really why I don't think Alduin is Akatosh. I won't say it as fact that Alduin isn't Akatosh, just as I implore that no one say definitively that Alduin IS Akatosh, because we really can't say it for sure as we have very little real evidence of that, meaning the only evidence is in the "Varieties of Faith" which is written by an ingame author which has been stated by game developers to be fallible, just like in our world when someone tries to chronicle history, it won't always be right. He may have just referred to him as the god of time because he believed that he was right about the correlation when he may really have nothing to do with him. We just won't know until the game comes out.

I don't have a perspective other than that we shouldn't say it as definitive truth when we don't really know. When someone asks "Is Alduin really Akatosh?" then we should say "We don't know BUT there is evidence that says he might be". That's all I ask people do.

Yes, the author correlates them but you also have to take other evidence such as it's nothing like Akatosh to do this, it's against his and the other Aedra's interests that we know of and that it's against his very nature. We still need to wait and see and until then we should just say as I said above, "We don't know but there is evidence that says he might be" if your for the idea and "We don't know but what we know of Akatosh it doesn't seem like he is Alduin." if your against the idea.



That's another good point that doesn't add up with Alduin and Akatosh, though the Seven Fights of Aldudagga aren't actually lore in any of the games. It may be put in Skyrim but until them they are just fan fiction. Even then if it is put in the game, it's obviously written as a nordic fairy tale and not a chronicle of history, which can be seen by the way it is written. Besides, Mehrunes Dagon was one of the original Daedric Princes, which goes farther to show it is just a fairy tale, a fairy tale I would like to see added to Skyrim seeing as it is a Nord fairy tale.

That's a very smart way of looking at things in reality - but in TES, the significance of metaphor and metaphysics really can't be overstated. What time means to people, and in a mythic sense, is more what defines a spirit being (if not an entire world) than something like entropy.

That's my interpretation, anyway. The setting's ambiguity is one of its strengths, I think; and particularly in a single player game, we're all free to maintain personal versions of the setting in our heads (and our save files).

If Alduin and Akatosh end up being separate it will be because Beth wanted to attract more sales by making the game more familiar and understandable for casual players, much like Cyrodiil being turned into a forest.

Daedric princes can change. If that story is to be believed, then what Alduin did to Dagon is no different than what the rest of the Daedra did to Jyggalag. I wouldn't rule that possibility out.

But if it is added into the game, then it will be recognized as legitimate lore and not just a book of fables, unless they outright state somewhere "No, this is all wrong." Bethesda might not even be able to though, if it was written by a non-employee that brings up the whole mess of fair use and credit.

It isn't against the interests of the Aedra to assist in the destruction of Mundus - it would, in fact, be quite in their interest because they aren't happy with the overall state of things - that they all got together and tore Lorkhan's heart out at Convention is a pretty decent proof of that, I think. They were deceived into thinking this was some great thing they were doing, but what it ended up doing was tying them to something they didn't want to be part of, in exchange for the type of existence they had enjoyed and been quite happy with pre-Nirn. In fact, Akatosh is unique in representations of the Dragon God of Time for being interested in the continuation of man and Mundus - he's not the same as Auri-El or Alduin, who are in fact much closer to each other than to Akatosh. For Auri-El to be viewed as a God the mer like, he has to be interested in the destruction of Mundus - anything that supports the continuation of it is diametrically opposed to the merish view of existence. Likewise, Alduin has that same aspect - end of the world - but the act is viewed as a bad thing, and has the cyclic nature of the Kalpas added on to it.

You are right though that the authors in TES are capable of being wrong, but I don't think there's any book in the game that contradicts that author's assertion that Alduin = Akatosh = Auri-El, so there's no reason at all to think he's wrong or mistaken except general skepticism. If there is a book that suggests Alduin might be a separate entity (and I would be glad to rescind my statements if there is) then that casts the shadow of doubt on both claims - which one is right? There's just not much reason to take the statement that authors can be wrong, and then apply it to lore that isn't internally contradicted by other writing or in-game events.

Which isn't to say that Beth can't decide that they don't want Aka = Alduin and make him a separate entity, but I would be really quite disappointed if they did do that - one of the things I love about TES is the ability for different cultures to have wildly different opinions on the same entities, with the Akatosh/Alduin/Auri-El issue being one of my favorite examples of that.

Edit: for spelling.

I read the news paper today. It reported a shooting. Did that shooting really happen? I wouldn't say that is the definitive truth, we don't really know. I know there is evidence that says there might have been a shooting though.

If your news paper is half descent, it's silly to reason like that. This is a game and it's trying to convene a message. So you can put a little trust in the author.

Nevertheless you haven't been asking for people to stop stating that Akatosh is Alduin as the absolute truth. Rather you've been asserting that Akatosh is not Alduin. For which you do need people to stop considering the Tamrilian perspective as absolute.

I'm sure you've noticed that the Aedra do not have a homogeneous representation. The Nine are decidedly Imperial, civilised, yet the Yokudan pantheon is different, survivalists, unwilling to tolerate frivolity, likewise the Nordic pantheon, rather sturdy. At the same time these cultures share myths that have the same common themes, they share gods that are different but have the same common theme.
It is because of this common theme that it is believed that all pantheons are based on the same divines, albeit differently remembered, interpreted. http://www.imperial-library.info/content/shor-son-shor-full gives a nice illustration of this idea.

With such a schizophrenic identity, most of which projected, I don't think you can assign a coherent motive. And really, what motivation does Time have?

In the Altmeri Monomyth there was a time before Time was born. There were things before Time was born. It was a chaotic time in which things changed and didn't last. The coming of Auri-El changed all that. Auri-El has upset the status quo as much as Lorkhan did. One might even say that Lorkhan came to reverse what Auri-El had done. After al Mundus in which things don't last and ever change bears a close resemblance to that time before Time.

It's interesting to consider that while Daedra are often championed as the bringers of change, they themselves seem to be unable too. Rather they accentuate Auri-Els influence on the Aurbis, from a chaotic swirl of Anu and Padomay to an Aurbis that is split into Oblivion and Aetherius. Each properly aligned. Even the chaotic scheming and power struggles of the lesser Daedra are unchanging and compulsive in themselves.

This is also what sets Lorkhan apart from the Daedra. Where there Daedra merely drive on their actions until they fall into Oblivion, Lorkhan seeks to return to the flux.

If it is Lorkhans goal to introduce constant change, then Auri-El must desire to the opposite, introduce a constant. Mundus is not a constant.

Though at the same time, where the Aedra are concerned, their existence as the impressions created by people is very much tied to Mundus. I imagine there will be an internal struggle.