or what do you think Bethesda build the Daedras on?

A possible inspiration is Michael Moorcok's lords of Law (order) and Chaos.

And since Tamriel was initlay a campagin world for D&D played by some of the devs, Dungeon and Dragons demons and devils are probably one source - though here it's an opposition of order/stasis versus change/disorder rather than the usual (and a bit stale) good versus evil.

Eh, I personally don't know if you can properly discern that. My guess would just general polytheism.

But that's kinda boring. And I'm not too sure this is even fitting for the lore forum.

Daedra are one of the unique inventions of the ES series.

As for where they came from originally ...the lore of Arena and Daggerfall would be your best indicators. From Battlespire on, they took whatever ideas they started with and ran for a touchdown.

If you look at the whole "summoning date" thing (vs. Oblivion's any-time statues) and the close association with witches covens who could summon damn-near anybody at the correct time of year ....look to lore of witchcraft. If you've watched any two episodes of Buffy, you know there's all kinds of demons who can come to Earth. Many of them are foot soldiers. But there are many demon "gods" to be called upon by medieval Europe's equivalent of goths and emo kids -- I swear, they all wear black and cut themselves!

D&D has its pantheon of many gods and demon-lords. I think it all just mixed happily with each other.

The major innovation is the idea of the Nine minus Tiber (wasn't born yet) having invested in the creation of the world while the Daedra are those who didn't, and that because of this the Gods can die but the Daedra just cycle. Sets up a dynamic tension that mortals must fill.

There may also be some Amber influence, although that is a bit of a stretch.

They're just demons, people.

I would agree with Paw Prints that, yes they are demons.

BUT

I think that the developers took this idea of demons and brought it beyond the traditional view we have on earth. They made them into something a bit beyond what the normal demon is -a brutish beast of pure, malicious evil. The deadra have personality to a degree, and they certainly have character -and seem to have the capacity for good as well.

This in my opinion is likely due to the fact that elder scrolls duality is not Good and Evil like we are used to, but rather it goes back to the old idea of order and chaos, the duality of many ancient pagans -greeks, norse, and east asians all have this idea behind their myths, and their myths you see dont show a line between good and evil like we do.

And this is the genius (or you could see it as the gaping hole) of Elder Scrolls Lore. this idea of chaos and order instead of good and evil basically lets you do whatever you want in game, and gives you tremendous freedom to interpret lore/events from many different angles.

Sorry I got off to a bit of a rant there!

I assumed he meant Daedric Lords. Guess I assumed too much good faith.

More than evil beings, I meant personifications of our faults.

I see.
















then I agree

edit: (I spent much time in thought)

:ooo: Verily, a profound statement. I hadn't thought about it that way.

I know it's a stretch, but then might the Aedra be personification of our virtues?

But then, our faults aren't necessarily bad, and our virtues can, when in excess, be faults.

Ambiguity: I love it!

Or that's how they tend to appear in pop culture. For examples of more subtle devils, see Mephistopholes from Dr Faustus, or the Lesser Key of Solomon, with which the medieval sorceror can summon demons who can teach "Phylosophy and all ye Liberall siences". And as we all know, foreign gods tended to be labelled demons no matter their qualities. Dynamics with the order/chaos thing is little different with TES, of course.

They remind me of the Greek Pantheon, as most of them are selfish, fickle, and love to meddle in mortal affairs. Except their spheres are typically more negative.

The http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/goetia.htm (or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Goetia#Ars_Goetia) comes to mind, as it's supposedly a guide to the various demons in existence, giving them ranks (duke, prince, etc) and describing their spheres, as well as showing how to summon each one. Of course, they likely had many influences. An idea is rarely a single thought, but a combination of many threads which breathe life into the thoughts of old (and the TES series draws from many myths, which I rather like. No one stands to prominence as in other games, where the origins can be fairly obvious.)

The name, though, does seem to come from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28mythology%29 (demon is a bit more limited, being only evil. Daemon, though, can be either or in between). Take away the -mon and replace it with -dra, and you have Daedra.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeva seems even closer, though, and the Zoroastrian version seems similar to the Daedra:
"In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon, the daevas are 'wrong gods' or 'false gods' or 'gods that are (to be) rejected'."
"In the Younger Avesta, the daevas are noxious creatures that promote chaos and disorder."
"Although the daevas are clearly identified with evil (eg Yasna 32.5), they are not identified as evil. They deceive mankind and themselves but they are not aka mainyu"

Also, though it's a bit off topic, the similarity between Clavicus and Clavicula made me wonder. Though Latin isn't a part of the TES world, it may have been used when making the original name, as in Nocturnal.

Clavicula: (small) key; vine-tendril; pivot; rod, bar, bolt (for door)
Vile: cheap, common, mean, worthless

Clavicus Vile: the common key? It makes some sense as he resides over rituals and pacts.

Of course, from what I gather, the Daedra's actual names are unknown, as they use nicknames or whatever people assign to them instead. TES apparently picked up the myth about divine names having power (the reason why the figure of God in Judaism and Christianity never gives them his real name, only allowing them to call him, "I am that I am" or "YHWH," usually shortened to just I AM or replaced with other names and titles like Adonai/Lord.)

:P
Oh, if only. But even MK does it.

From the links:

The second spirit is a Duke called Agares, he is under ye power of ye East and cometh up in the form of a fair Old man riding upon a Crocodill, very mildly, carrying a goshawke on his fist. he maketh them runne that stand still, and fetcheth back ye runnawayes. he can teach all Languages or Tongues presently, he hath the power also to destroy dignities, both supernaturall & Temporall; & cause Earthquakes. he was of the order of Vertues; he hath under his government 31 Legions &c: & this is [his] seale or Character wch is to be worne as [a] Lamen.

A crocodile rider! -> Mounted Daedroths. Awesome!

Though is it me or do those occult demons lack any sort of thematic ordering in their abilities and government? It's all a bit ramshackle.

obviously

Naughty angels, shorely?

They can be seen as fallen angels in some ways, in their ultimate selfishness and pride. (I'm not speaking from belief, myself.)

It's the Aedra that have fallen, and the Aedra that have rebelled. The Daedra, ironically, remain static and true to their original nature.

What was in my mind is that Angels is really too loaded a term, just as is demons. Heh, then again, Daedra and Aedra are themselves loaded terms, both stemming from Aldmericentric conceits. I always liked the Dunmer way of just calling them 'spirits' - though they confusingly name them 'ancestors' too sometimes, but I think that isn't meant to be taken in a straightforwards literal sense. 'Spirits' works fairly well though.

Of course, didn't you see how insipid Cyrodiil was under control of the Nine Divines religion? You didn't have that problem in the Shivering Isles or Daedra-worshipping Morrowind.

There are a mumber of middle eastern influences as has been noted below including Molag Bal and Baal for example

But the essential concept of the D&D campaign makes great sense of much of it. Because if you take part in a D&D campaign, even if your character is supposed to be outright evil you're going to play that character as you - which basically humanises the whole process. And then add in the sources that each player or the DM chose for each character.

With the 8 1/2 divines, maybe there was a player who was missing at the time the game began, but who was expected to return from wherever, some days or weeks later.

The Amber novels are about a family of semi/immortals who created a nest of Order within the larger expanse of Chaos. The plot revolves around the forces of Chaos , the Oblivion equivalent, trying to get into Amber, the Nirn equivalent.

Those from Chaos are represented as fiends, and look like fiends as do the Daedra, which turns out to be not quite accurate over the course of the multibook storyline.

The more chaotic realms look suspiciously like the Daedric realms from TES.

What I found most interesting is that with the Shivering Isles expansion pack, we find that a daedra lord (which is considered chaos) can have a duality too. The Aedra supposed to represent order too, I'm not denying that, but what does it mean when one daedra is now order and madness? I may be missing the point, but it did happen (the split of his personality) when the whole of Nirn was being formed into order, so maybe that has more to do with it? In any case considering that the order and chaos can now be in a daedra... it may mean Nirn's number is up.

This is all conjecture, I'm sure, but maybe someone will like to add to it.