I hope Bethesda Makes Alduin impressive or at least imposing enough to inspire awe.

To be honest the appearance of Umaril, sheogorath and Jyglagg did not do justice to their status as Daedric Princes.

Mehrunes Dagon was excellent as was Martin when he turned to Akatosh.

Now I am not saying every endgame boss has to be sixty feet tall, but they do need to inspire fear and awe equivalent to their reputation


I hope they do something with Alduin to make meeting him at the end worth it

You saw him in Oblivion. I bet they'd want to make him more impressive this time round rather than less. He'll be pretty big.

as Dragonbone said. Im sure he`s impressive.

on another note: how can you critisice Sheogorath? he was awesome!

Must be twice as big as Deathwing!

Well Umaril was Ayleid sorcerer not Daedric Prince
Sheogorath and Jyglagg looks awesome, not all need to be giants.

As said already, Umaril was not a Daedric Prince. He was an Ayleid with some degree of Daedric power.

Daedric Princes are also able to choose their own shapes and sizes. Sheogorath being twenty feet tall wouldn't exactly be fitting.

The Avatar of Akatosh =/= Alduin

He's large enough to eat all of Nirn. And it's not going to be a bunch of nibbles, but at the very least, giant chomps and the whole place at most.

sheogorath achieved his aura through dialogue

Akatosh is not Alduin.

Akatosh is the living representation of a god. Alduin is an actual dragon which we've never seen.

No, Alduin is Akatosh is Auriel. Also, Akatosh is nothing more than a political move, the god of time reinvented when Alessia became the first emperor of Cyrodiil. Before Akatosh, the only version perceived of the god of time was against Mundus as Auriel and the world devourer Alduin. The mer saw the god of time as Auriel, the dragon time god who fought for the mer, fought against Lorkhan, and is against Mundus. The nords saw the god of time as Alduin, as a world devouring dragon, and favored by the mer. All of this happened during the Dawn Era, when time wasn't linear. Once time became linear, the events that happened somehow had to fall into place, and as such, the different perspectives became the god of time, creating different personalities of the time god.

But, in order to understand the gods, you must realize that belief shapes them. This is where Akatosh comes into play. He was a political move, created by Alessia in order for the former slaves to hold onto their merrish religion, without pissing off the nords who helped liberate them. Through the power of belief (and the intervention of the Selective) the god of time became Akatosh, the preserver and good guy everyone here knows. Because of the power of belief, there are now 3 aspects of the god of time, who is the same being.

Lets look at another god who has 3 different perspectives, the god of space and the creator of Mundus. This god goes by the names Lorkhan (mer), Shor (nord), and Shezarr (Cyrodiil). Before Alessia, it was just Shor and Lorkhan. The mer saw Lorkhan as a trickster who robbed everyone of their coolness, awesomeness, and immortality with the creation of Mundus. As such, he was punished by Trinimac and had his heart removed. Then comes Shor, the god of space who created Mundus as divine mercy. The purpose of Mundus was to help mortals reach individual ascension, to become something greater than the gods were. This is something Vivec heartily agrees with. And then there's Shezarr, the Cyrodiilic version created as a way to make a Shor-lite.

I love how in every one of these threads someone or several people will rant about how Alduin is Akatosh, yet there's nothing in lore that states this OUTSIDE of the reference Nords use for Alduin resembling Akatosh. It states in the TES Wiki that this is a SUPERFICIAL resemblance, not a genuine connection. Until Bethesda says otherwise, I'll keep believing that.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/superficial

Superficial means "apparent rather than real.", which guides us down a very different path.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usYavIyHRlg, followed by justifications.

No one knows what Bethesda plans to do lorewise. I'm sure as months carry on we'll see for certain, one way or another.

The question is: which one is for real out of the three, and which one is merely a misinterpretation/fabrication/corruption? Auri-el, Alduin, or Akatosh?


edit: Personally, I want Alduin to appears as a freaking brobdingnagian dragon-shaped nebula which erases/disintegrate everything on its blackened path.

It's funny how Bethesda wrote pretty much this same debate inside their own books:

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/where-were-you-when-dragon-broke-complete-version


So go ahead and discuss whether or not Akatosh is also so-and-so, but if you get the urge to prove it experimentally, don't. I don't want to have to wait a thousand years for Skyrim to come out.

Go right ahead, Zero_Phoenix, I don't wish to get into a giant argument over whose interpretation is correct or not, while jabbing with petty insults. I interpret what was written, in addition to outside material written by devs, and ex-devs still hired as freelancers. You seem to be an in-game person. Fine by me. We'll likely see a semblance of truth in Skyrim.

All three of them are real.

Kinda like http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.deviantart.com/download/111505065/Epic_Fire_Dragon_Render_by_FoxMcCarther.png&imgrefurl=http://foxmccarther.deviantart.com/art/Epic-Fire-Dragon-Render-111505065&usg=__dcOh1VGg0hW9uaJ3wrivbhNaN-c=&h=900&w=1440&sz=2712&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=fJfdHALG8gFQTM:&tbnh=129&tbnw=206&ei=OdhaTe_7IIzc4wbqgd3ICw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Depic%2Bdragon%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D810%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=601&vpy=94&dur=400&hovh=177&hovw=284&tx=210&ty=135&oei=DdhaTf6WGYmLhQeu8vTgDA&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0

What can change the nature of an Alduin?

I agree with Hellmouth's interpretation of Alduin/Akatosh/Auriel, and I won't add anything to the debate except to say that there's no reason Bethesda couldn't incorporate that into Skyrim's plot; especially as there will presumably be several factions or individuals who side with the World Eater, and they must have motives beyond wanting to end up in the stomach acids of a schizophrenic über-entity in dragon shape.

Anyway, I've no idea how Alduin could be presented in game. A unique, colossal dragon is the most obvious (but not necessarily disappointing) possibility, and I'm sure he'll be a lot more imposing a presence than Dagon was either way.

We only saw Akatosh. We haven't seen Alduin yet sorry.



Well Umaril wasn't a daedric prince, he was an ayleid king. Sheogorath took his form as a humanoid form, Daedric princes don't have to be huge. Jygalagg was pretty impressive imo.

Going on what people have said about Sheo and Jyggy, a daedric prince could, if it wished, to look like a http://www.themudflats.net/wp-content/uploads/kitten.jpg or http://images.epilogue.net/users/terrozonia/Azathoth.JPG. But, they keep a form that's more symbolic of their sphere than anything else. This is also why Sheogorath looked very modern in Daggerfall, not to mention had a pocket watch which has yet to be invented on Nirn.

i loved sheogorath! i love TES because of that amazing lore, i love the oblivion gates and all the daedric princes, how the hell anyone can come up with somenthing as amazing as that 10 thousands years lore the elder scroll have, and im sure alduin, as part of the amazing TES lore, definitly its not going to dissapoint, doesnt matter if hes as big as a mountain or as tiny as a bosmer. lol. from now on i believe everything bethesda do, i've seen the oblivion making off, and in there todd howard and the oblivion team talks about how they wanted us , the player, to fell about the villains(mankar camoran, mehrunes dagon) and everything they wanted us to fell i felt is amazing, ALDUIN its going to be very deep, he , like the daedric princess, doesn't know the mean of the insanity, or violence, or happyness, thats why they are extreme, and, often dangerous, alduin is a DRAGON, another point for awesomeness!

This is exactly it. Daedric Princes can take any form they wish, but they tend to have their own taste of what that should look like. It's usually representative of their personality.

Well, since we've already seen one aspect of the Dragon-God of Time, however limited by the game's individual engine, we have enough to go on to make some assumtptions. Think back to the majesty of when we saw the Akatosh-aspect fight Mehrunes Dagon. Now imagine that, very angry, and pointed at you in an aspect of Destroyer instead of preserver, and a Destroyer who is very hungry at that. In a better game engine built to handle much bigger things than Oblivion was.

No reason to see the Dragon-god of time again, we have Alduin, The World-Eater to deal with. Also if you haven't realized that World-Eater doesn't literally mean eating the world, then you take things too much at face value.