I defeated Alduin, and before he escaped to the afterlife, he exclaimed he is firstborn of Akatosh.

Now I considered Alduin was the god of the kalpa's-turning, or the cycle of life and death of the world.

The answer became painfully obvious. The dragon who was resurrecting the bones of dragons with men's souls is Arkay the Enemy.

Resurrecting stuff is basically the antithesis of what Arkay is about.

The cycle of life and death. From death, life.

Interesting. I was beginning to think maybe Alduin was a dragon who mantled Akatosh (the first to do so), inheriting his bat [censored] insane tendencies in the process.

But Alduin as Orkey does make a strange kind of sense.

At any rate, I think Skyrim's made its point that Alduin is a dragon who time-travelled, but that doesn't make him the dragon of time.

I remember hearing and being confused than I ever have before! I was, for the longest time, under the impression Alduin was Akatosh. At least I thought that's what Beth had told us. It seems though that Alduin isn't the Dragon of Time but was a Dragon who was forced through time.

And Beth saves their favorite lie for another day, Akatosh.

Huh? I thought Akatosh was the god of statues, judging from Oblivion. <_<

He's the god of Politicking and Mass Deception, in my book.

Time to burn his temples to the ground, and rip the still beating hearts of his followers.

He's pretty clearly not a god, yet. I forget when, but another dragon tells him "we must regain your lordship" which makes me think that he's kinda like an emergency back-up consciousness / life force for Akatosh, who is meant to act a certain way and mantle Akatosh to temporarily bring him back to life so he can destroy the kalpa. During the game, he's just a really powerful dragon.

Whose jurisdiction is this? Back up consciousness? I think a simpler name for this is "son of" or "firstborn." Who is the son of Akatosh? Arkay. Or is it Alduin? Who is the God of the Cycle? Again, Alduin or Arkay. Circle, Swirl, Cycle, Kalpa, Crown...

Alduin was the crown of Akatosh's lordship over the mortal plane. I've considered the implications.

So....It's an Ald son of Ald situation, except the son is actually the Enemy Arkay, or perhaps the other version, Orkey, who did invoke the power of Alduin to eat away the nord's lifespan in myths past.

Well, that's my two cents. Perhaps the crown rebelled against his king, and Sovngarde was our coronation.

Alduin clearly isn't Arkay. In fact, he keeps on spitting in poor Tu'Whacca's face.

Okay, I get it. Akatosh obviously gave birth to himself, raised himself poorly, and thus Alduin grew up to be a giant ass.

How did an artificial god end up being in the Dawn, when it was created in the First Era?

How did gods from the kalpa-yet-to-be pop up and usurp their anticipations in the present?

1st: He's not a god. He's a very big dragon, who became a god at the end of the last Kalpa.

2nd: I'd really like to know how you're getting this timeline, since honestly, I'm very confused about timeline for some of this new lore. It almost seems like there was never any time for the dragon war.

"Clearly isn't" isn't so clear, now. And no, he does not. In fact, he is fulfilling Arkay's dominion. From life to death and death to life.

The truth is, you can't answer any of my questions.

Everyone is the son of Akatosh. He was the first spirit. No sources clearly outline the order in which the other Et'Ada came into being.


Arkay enforces a very particular sort of Life->Death->Life-> death. Necromancy is also life to death to life. Arkay doesn't like necromancy, and what Alduin is doing is necromancy. Arkay enforces the policy of 'everything dies, and from that death new life arises'. Alduin is bringing the exact same dragons back to life, completely avoiding the dreamsleeve. I suppose that, if these dragons died in the last Kalpa, you could then consider him to be fairly Tu'whacca-like, in that he'd be helping them survive the cycles of time, except he's handling the other end of that process. He's not guiding anyone to the farshores, he's (maybe) bringing them back from the farshores. And anyway, it seems a bit silly to say that Alduin is Arkay, when, y'know, Orkey is Arkay.

I see no reason to believe that Alduin was anything more than a very powerful dragon. He did nothing that required he be a god (or any more a god than all dragons are).


The truth is, neither of us were asking questions. We were just making assertions. I realize that I probably shouldn't have been doing that.

He's expressing his annoyance that Akatosh is the "real" Dragon God of Time, despite Alduin having been around in Nordic culture long, long, long before the Nibeneans decided to rebel. Satakal is also like Alduin.

If they thought gods being the same was too hard to understand, then they should have made Akatosh 100% fake.