Recently, I have a seen debate amongst users on this forum in regards to the Champion of Cyrodiil being the person who mantles/becomes Sheogorath in The Shivering Isles main quest. Some argue that it is not and that there is no evidence to support this claim - Whilst others suggest that, as in The Elder Scrolls III, the events that transpire in the expansions (Bloodmoon and Tribunal respectively) are meant to occur to the character who is indeed The Nerevarine (Or main character, if you will). Is it the same case in The Elder Scrolls IV?

In short, is the Champion of Cyrodiil the new Sheogorath canonically?

Yes, it is cononical, because it is truthful. Whether or not our CoC became Sheogorath is up to us though, and that has been a Bethesda tradition. The Nerevarine was not necessarily involved in Solstheim, just as they were not necessarily Archmagister of House Telvanni. I believe the same can be said for the CoC, in Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine.

I don't buy the argument that the CoC is actually Sheogorath for a few simple reasons:
1. No mortal has ever become a Daedra before, and the very nature of deadra is antithema to mortals
2. You never once hear any prayers or summonings
3. You don't get any powers which work in Tamriel
4. You don't have a beard

In essence, the new Sheogorath is not actually a Daedric Prince, but rather a governor of the Shivering Isles who is blessed with a new outfit and some new tricks.

Those aren't serious reasons, right?

If you complete SI's story and pray at the Sheogorath alter, Haskil tells you that praying to yourself is madness. If you pray at the alter before facing down Jyggalag, Sheogorath calls you himself. There are no restrictions for mantling Daedra, that I'm aware of; but there are restrictions on Daedra in Tamriel. The mainquest of Oblivion focused on restoring those limitations.

That statement isn't an argument, it just means "this hasn't been tried yet." If a dead god that refuses to stay dead can be mantled, so can a prince. In this case, Sheogorath used his window of opportunity to mold a mortal into a new Sheogorath, because mortals are, for the most part, free from predictability.


Do you mean antithesis or anathema?


Could be that no one gave your shrine some cabbage, some yarn, and a soul gem on your summoning day or while it was raining. You still could pray to yourself after SI.


Of course, Tamriel isn't you. Tamriel has limitations on those who are from Oblivion. Even MD wasn't completely there at the end of OB, that was just an avatar.


Game mechanics


Then what is Talos?

"This hasn't been tried yet" is an argument. Granted, not a particularly strong one, but it does rely on the absence of precedent.
Why do you believe that a Prince can, just because a dead god can? A dead god may very well be able to simply because he is dead and therefore does not currently have an avatar.


Actually, either would work, but anathema is a bit closer. Mortals are "set apart" from the Daedra in many ways not the least of which being their antithesis relation of predictability versus unpredictability.


Yes, you could pray to yourself, but considering that you actually had followers at the shrine, and that there were many other shrines which we can assume also had followers, I find it hard to believe that they never once attempted to contact Sheogorath.


Which would make you nothing but an avatar as well, yet if you run out of HP in Tamriel, you die... very unDaedric of you...


A cop out, but I will allow it.


Not a Daedric Prince.

arguments 2-4 are nothing but game mechanics. no one ever really prays - they equip a token and stand on their knees for an hour or two. for daedra, they don't even do that, limiting their worship to walking around the shrine and sitting on benches waiting for adventurers to come along. would you prefer to receive random crazy ramblings at the end of SI? you don't get any powers because the power to make people crazy would be hard to impliment (and because of the mundus/oblivion barrier, which was only slightly torn during the invasion). you don't have a beard because no one has a beard.

as for mortals becoming daedra: malacath.

Didn't Umaril become a Daedra? His spirit manifested in Oblivion and surely that makes him daedroth? Or.........

As I replied to Hellmouth above, "game mechanics" is a cop out used when there isn't enough supporting evidence one way or the other. You can't use it as a reason that you are right and I am wrong, rather you should just say "I don't have any evidence supporting or rejecting your claim, so this is purely opinion".

As far as Malacath, I prospose that he did not become a Daedra, rather an unmanned Daedric sphere enveloped him.

no, game mechanic is that little thing that separates games from lore. unless you'd like to imagine that there aint no children in all of Tamriel you have to accept that the game simply can't contain everything that is real. i'd say Trinimac becoming Malacath, when combined with what we know about mantling and other divine processes, is more than enough to at least entertain the chance that its possible that the CoC became Sheogorath. Really though, the fact that the game pretty much declares it outright ("you can't pray to yourself") should be enough.

No, but he's pretty much a :
In essence, the new Sheogorath Shezarr is not actually a Daedric Prince Shezarr, but rather a governor of the Shivering Isles replacement who is blessed with a new outfit and some new tricks.

And pretty much what LN said.

In that case we have to split "game mechanics" into three separate categories:
1. Things that are impossible to make in the game
2. Things that are possible, but held out for cultural/political/image reasons
3. Cop out arguments used to defend positions that otherwise have no basis.


First, what exactly do we "know" about mantling?
Second, becoming Sheogorath does not automatically mean becoming a Daedric Prince, especially considering that Sheogorath was essentially a "prison persona" for Jggylag.

Considering the volume amount of discussion and material about mantling, and all things related to how to become divine, I'd gander to say you should answer this, so I know where you stand.
But here's the short version of what it basically is: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, it's a duck. Tiber was the most recent mortal to do this, prior to the CoC.


I'll break this one down for you:
Sheogorath = Shivering Ilse
CoC = Sheogorath
Therefore
CoC = Sheogorath = Shivering Ilse = CoC = Shivering Ilse = Sheogorath.

Remember, the realm of the prince is the prince. They saw the creation of Nirn, laughed, and used leaking creatia to make a big world of themselves, so they don't have to weaken themselves like the aedra did, and have lots of fun.

Thus we don't actually "know" anything regarding it other than that we know who to accept as having completed it.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sheogorath wasn't around at that time (nor was Malacath).

My CoC didn't become Sheogorath. You can't prove that the CoC became Sheogorath but you can't prove he didn't either. It's up to the player.

But nobody can say "The CoC became Sheogorath." because he might have he might not have. You can't say for sure either way.

I'd avoid the royal we, for it just might be you who doesn't really know, or choose not to accept what information we have been given. Seriously, there are a lot of books that explain it, anyone who has beat SI has already seen someone become divine, and anyone who read the material about Tiber/Talos would surely know what they did was practically an instructional pamphlet on how to mantle a divine. Those sources are as good as we're going to get, unless you are asking for a dev to put out an instructional booklet on how to mantle a god. Hell, I think even Vivec talks a little about mantling.


So. They both made worlds of themselves once they came around. Sheo just hijacked Jyggy's, which was permanently taken over by the CoC at the very end of SI.

Sir-Stabs-Alot: i suppose thats true. However, the main quests of the games/expansions are completed by someone, so if not the CoC then some other hero.


fixed that for ya

During the main quest of SI, the CoC (or another hero) follows the same path as Sheogorath does on a regular basis - he fights off his alterego, Jyggy, to regain his realm. We know that Arden Sul* did this prior. It is also an enantiomorphic relationship, with Jyggy (rebel) conquering Sheggy's realm (king), thereby becoming the king only to be defeated by a hero (rebel), who then becomes a king of the isles, and therefore sheograth. rinse, repeat, see akatosh/lorkhan, tiber/underking, etc. for further instructions.

*this guy is a thesis paper waiting to happen

Not quite. I have no problem with what Bethesda did, rather it is the assumptions by some people on this forum that their interpretation of what happened is the only good one, and the constant overuse of the "game mechanics" argument to stifle dissent.
Ordinators, the lot of you...

You really seem to be harping on the "game mechanics" bit, when I only used that to say that no one has a beard. Really. If you honestly believe that isn't game mechanics, than this whole thing is pretty much going to end up as if we were in an http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

For the non-English speakers:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/debate

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harp (item 8)

Since there is a back and forth occurring in which both sides refer to "game mechanics" it is in fact a debate. Additionally, I acknowledge that you only referenced it once and I gave you a pass on that one (the beard).

lets completely ignore the game for a second and pretend the whole storyline is http://www.imperial-library.info/tsoo/si01.shtml.


I give you Haskil:

It doesn't get much clearer than that. There is also Jyggy's declaration shortly prior:

(Notice delicious enantiomorphic reference)
I could go on. Theres really no arguing against clearly stated dialog.

"thats a copout!" "no, THATS a copout!" "Your saying that my copout is a copout is a copout!" "well, YOUR MOM is a copout!" is a middle school cafeteria, not a debate.

Walter:
To this entire topic, I'm just going to leave this here because they are extremely relevant to this discussion:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpilepticTrees
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual

Precisely. But, the question was: is the Champion of Cyrodiil the new Sheogorath canonically?
Yes. Cononically, truthfully, the CoC is Sheogorath. It is canonical, for the Champion to become Sheogorath, just as it's canonical for them to be the Gray Fox.

fix'd because It would be more accurate to say that the CoC is Sheogorath, just like how the CoC is canonically supposed to be the CoC

But where exactly is it said that the CoC is Sheo or the Gray Fox. It didn't say so in my game. I wasn't either