I was just wondering...

How original is the Telvanni architecture?
Was Bethesda really that smart to come up with one of the most charming and beautifull fantasy styles of all time... or were they heavily inspired by others?

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The Dark Crystal.

Nothing is completely original - everything is inspired by something else.

Telvanni architecture is completely unoriginal, a cheap knock-off of the fungal towers found in my back yard.

But seriously. They looked at a mushroom. Even if other people did make mushroom towers before Bethesda it doesn't imply in the slightest that Bethesda was inspired by them - its perfectly possible for two different people to arrive at the same concept on their own.

Happens a lot more than people believe. Example, aluminum was made cheap by two scientists at the same time, born on the same day, and died the same day. They were also best of buds.

I always thought that the mushroom homes for blue people was based of the smurfs.

Wizard towers aren't original,I don't think wizard towers made out of living trees (or in this case mushrooms) are either.
I have heard of it before but ive read so much cheap fantasy novels that its not really a suprise.

When I played Morrowind, I was actually just able to immerse myself in the fantasy of the whole setting, so the whole mushroom and fungal concept I thought was really cool. Perhaps it's been done before on numerous occasions, sure, but I think Bethesda gets a A+ for originality when it comes to the actual concept put into existence.

They stole it from The Smurfs.

Or... I dunno. It's a folklore thing. Elves living in mushrooms and so on. The concept's been around since at least Victorian times. Bethesda just made it cool.

IT WAS THE SMURFS!!!

Where else are their blue elves besides in LoTR?

The post-modern conceit. Generally speaking I disagree with you, as there is a lot of ground yet to be tread in a lot of different areas. In this case, though, I have to agree with you.

Shadowbane XDDD.....mmm world of warcraft XD

Humans do not exist in a vacuum, and as such all our ideas are influenced by (/based on) our experiences. Even if we do not purposely borrow ideas, they will still work themselves into our work from our subconscious memory. It is impossible to make up something on the spot because our imagination relies on our experiences, which rely on our shared existence.

No. The skeksis and the Telvanni behave almost identically, and the Morrowind announcement sketch by MK conjures the same imagery as the Emperor's tower in the Dark Crystal. It's ok to give credit to the source.

Haha. You know Aristotle himself, all those days ago, said originality is dead. If it wasn't dead then, then it surely is dead now.

Well, he was wrong back then about originality being dead back then, so there a big chance that we are wrong now. I think it's mostly the arrogance many generations have had that theirs is 'the last one' at least in things of advancement or originality, sure I think most people will think that we haven't reached the technological limit (if there is any), but for example in art many people will say that 'everything has been done by now' and I think many people have said something before and then it turned it wasn't.

And by the way, I think 'all those days ago' is a bit of an understatement

Here's a test. Think of something original. Anything at all. Try a monster. If you can conceive an original creature then you win the debate.

In fact, you don't even have to come up with an original one, just point out one that was original at some point - surely that shouldn't be so hard. I'd disagree with the statement that originality is dead, though only on the grounds that originality was never alive to begin with.

Well, yes I missed to say that what I said is only if you don't see originality as unexisting like you do and Lady Nerevar did some post ago. You are essentially right of course, all ideas are based on experience and stuff, so there is no true originality. However you can't deny that there is some sort of originality (well, sure you can still deny that ), so sure there is no true originality but the originality that does exist, the one that distinguishes Tolkien in his time from many fantasy settings today, hasn't died and probably never will.

Sure the Dwemer are no way fully original, they are still basically 'Tolkien High Elves dressed up as and influenced by ancient Mesopotamians with relatively advanced technology', but they are some of the most original Dwarfs you will find in a fantasy RPG. Dwemer aren't even the best example, there are far more original concepts in fantasy settings but it's a good example for an Elder Scrolls discussion. Whether or not originality actually exists there is a huge difference between 'taking a standard Tolkien like fantasy setting and altering a thing or too' and actually coming up with stuff that you can call original (I mean, they have made a word for it, it would be a pitty not to use it for stuff only because true originality doesn't exists.)

TES isn't that original actually, and Oblivion hasn't been a step forward either, yet it has some very original, non standard things in it's lore, at least compared to other big fantasy settings. Sure there are even more original ones out there, some of them where mentioned in the Orc discussion in the General TES forum, but those are not very well known. TES has both a relatively high originality and popularity so I hope it will improve the more generic, standard fantasy parts of it (not completely rewriting the whole lore of course, but just making Nords, Altmer and Orcs for example a bit more unique for example, stuff like that), I know that wasn't the discussion but that would make TES better I think.

So sorry for keep using the word original, but it's just more practical to call things original then... well, ...not calling it original but still mean the same thing...

I think 'distinct' or even 'fantastic' is a better word here than original. TES certainly has been moving in that direction. Orcs are a nice subversion of the brutish evil barbarism trope, as they actually have a civilization and are one of the more technologically inclined races. Their fight for recognition as a peoples and a country also draws various real life parallels. I also love how they turn the "orc were made from elves" trope on its head - instead of being corrupted, they changed when their god was eaten and subsequently pooped out :laugh: The Nords are starting to be developed as more than vikings - notice their increasingly complex mythology and the abundance of Indian (vedic?) references. The Altmer are likewise not just your stereotypical high elves, though it is easy to confuse them for such.

What comes up here is the distinction between games and lore. Lore can be as complex as it wants, but it becomes largely meaningless if the games ignore it for a less faceted approach.

So it's possible to create something without any influence from anything else? Impressive.

Well sure, the Altmer selective breeding and infanticide makes them more then just the generic High Elf, that's for sure, and I agree that they, and the other races I mentioned aren't as generic as many other races from other fantasy settings. Yet, if you compare Altmer, Orsmer and Nords to Dwemer and Dunmer and the difference between them and Dwarves and Dark Elves in other settings they can be improved quite a lot. Because even though they have, as you pointed out, quite some interesting lore about those races, they still are more generic than other parts of TES lore.

The step from Arena to Daggerfall and from Daggerfall to Morrowind was great, though Oblivion was kind of a stagnation. The whole Jungle retcon, and the lack of true difference between the Colovian and Nibenay areas and the people living in there was a bit of a step back, but it had other things to make up for it. Yet I wouldn't really call it a step forward, or atleast not a step as big as that between TES I to II and from II to III, but I'm optimistic about the future and because TES V will probably be Skyrim I'm sure the Nords will get a nice boast of uniqueness

Of COURSE it's possible to create something truly original. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have cars, jets, and CD's. We'd be stuck with, well, nothing. You can't advance without an entirely new idea, and we've obviously advanced. So if that's true for technology, I think it's fair to say it's true for art.

Okay, wait. How are these things truly original?

Cars? Jets? Humans have been refining transportation for ages. We've had horses, chariots, wagons, boats, carriages, and more for centuries. So a car is a refinement of the entire concept of a vehicle, which we've had ever since the bronze age. Same with a plane - plus, we have obvious inspiration for flying because birds happen to exist. Insects exist. How are these concepts original? They're the culmination of technological development through the industrial revolution and beyond.

CDs aren't original. People have been working on ways to record and play back music for centuries. We've been developing new and more efficient ways to store information in anolog and then digital form for decades. CDs are again the culmination of technologies over a period of time - it's not a truly original or new idea, but a repackaging of an old idea.

My point was that people don't invent things out of the blue. No one lives in a vacuum, no man is an island, etc. While we can constantly rearrange existing ideas into new configurations, we're still starting with a saturation of cultural influences that cannot be ignored. Please find an example of something that was created without any outside influence, something that has no conceptual connection to anything else that's ever existed. Technology that is not built on concepts and technologies that came before?

People didn't pull those out of thin air. They are all based on an exploration of science and an observation of the world. Notice also the drawings of Da Vinci, who drafted machines that were not invented until the 20th century during the 16th.