The Minotaur as commonly encountered in modern Tamriel is often treated as a savage beast, uncivilized and unintelligent. They are hunted for their horns, hated and feared, and sometimes used as spectacle in the arena.

And yet, if one consults the history books, one will learn that the second Emperor of the Alessian Empire was "Belharza the Man-Bull". This person, I assume, was a Minotaur if only because Alessia is said to have been the lover of Morihaus the Bull. It logically follows that Belharza is a potential offspring of this union, somewhere between man and bull. If indeed Alessia was the mother of the Minotaur race, this would make them holy creatures, would it not?

At the very least, even if Belharza wasn't related to Morihaus or Alessia, he was obviously a being of great intelligence and trustworthiness or he would have never been given the position of Emperor. It just strikes me as very jarring and inconsistent that Tamriel probably had a Minotaur for an Emperor at one point and yet treats them as expendable monsters currently. The only semi-respectable position the Minotaurs had in Cyrodill was to guard a sacred beast of Kynareth, the Unicorn, "first named, last tamed."

There's literally no lore at all at the Imperial Library about the origins of Minotaurs or even if Belharza was actually part man, part bull of it this was a stylistic nickname in the Nordic fashion, so this is entirely speculation. It's an interesting possibility that I don't remember discussing before however.

Do you think perhaps their relegation to savage beastfolk had anything to do with the Alessian Doctrines or the Marakhuti Selectives dancing on the tower?

Looking at how they act in Oblivion, it's no surprise that they're treated the way they are. They behave as nothing more than savage animals, with only enough intelligence to manipulate tools/weapons, and possibly even craft them as well. (How else could they have gotten those war-hammers?)

As for "Belharza the Man-Bull", if it's true that he was a nord, then it's likely that his name is just stylized. After all, I doubt Yngling Half-Troll is actually part-troll Then again...Anything's possible.

Considering we know for a fact that Alessia was having six with Morihaus, a powerful aedric spirit in the form of a giant winged bull, I'd say there's a good chance that Balharza is literally part bull part man.

Perhaps over time, the offspring were creatures of lower and lower subgradients until they were little more than semi-intelligent bipedal beasts. Or at least chiefly instinct-driven.

Heh...actually, the reason I started this topic about the noble man-bull is that I rewatched Princess Mononoke today and there was a line in that film from an ancient forest guardian boar that his people were becoming smaller and stupider with time, and many had even lost the ability to talk. I thought maybe the Minotaurs, like all mortal races, lost touch with the Divine over time and became much less than their ancestors.

It reaffirms my theory that you got the same vibe about them, but at the same time that's very sad in a way. It's also a cautionary tale about what could happen to even civilized races of Elves and Men if they're not careful. Although I have to wonder if this de-evolution of the Minotaurs and possibly other races like the Centaur from Daggerfall was entirely the fault of the races in question or was bolstered by fear and superstition of the Men and Elves, in a similar way that Orcs were ostracized.

Minotaurs being the progeny of an Et'Ada like Morihaus and through proxy, Kynareth would put them in a similar category to several mortal races.

My opinion on the whole Morihaus business is that he was not really a giant winged bull at all, that most of that was simply Alessian Order propoganda and bias based on a powerful hero who most likely was at least aligned with Kyraneth/Kyne, if not an avatar like Pelinal supposedly was. I take the bull aspect of it to mean he was a bull-like man, and given his undoubtably nordic status it seems logical that he would have such a name, like you have already pointed out.

Thus, though I do find Belharza to be Alessia and Morihaus' child, I doubt he was literally half bull. I think it is simply a reference to the fact that he is the son of Morihaus, and was probably a large man in his own right. Though given that the wonderful world of Tes doesn't always make sense, there is usually a reason why, unless it is simply a BATW situation. I would prefer to think that there is at least some logic floating around somewhere, and so applying the bias of historical accounts of this period I conclude that it is improbably that he was a real bull. Of course, I am also of the opinion that Pelinal wasn't a crazy terminator robot from the future, though I do accept that he was a real avatar of Aka/Shor.

The minotaurs probably came from the stereotypical DnD Tolkien origins of the Elder Scrolls, and never got the special attention of the might lore devs. Maybe this requires a monkey truth article

Dude, you're entitled to your own opinion, but someone said something similar a year or two ago and MK swooped down to post "Nope. Giant bull, with wings."

I think he absolutely literally intended Morihaus to be a huge talking bull.

Although a statue marked as "Morihaus" in the cs for Oblivion is of a human male in armor...and he did have a cuirass and a claymore, Lord's Mail and Chrysamere.

So I'm not sure if MK was just being silly or if this is one of those instances wherein his ideas were over ruled by the higher ups in Bethesda and he's bitter about it.

But as I am on team MK I must maintain that I firmly believe dude was a bull with wings.

I'm on the MK side as well, everything is much more interesting and fun.

Anyway, by my understanding and search of the Minotaurs of ES. I would say that IF ol' Alessia is their Mother then it would make them Holy as I see it.
Thou I would love to read more about them since I have always been fascinated by mythological creatures of all kinds.

Maybe they got corrupted by a Daedric Prince or something, or one of the other Aedra got pissed and cursed them stupid.

Or maybe Bethesda didn't really think it through very well and had to retcon their DnD-like presence in Cyrodiil.

Obviously. Minotaurs are just there as a high-level monster to give players are challenge. There's practically Zero-lore on their existence, and I don't even think there's a single quest with them involved.

Of course, I cannot truly support my claim against that one with such limited reliable evidence in a world where giant stompy robots can change the fabric of time. I admit that the idea of a huge talking bull with wings is much more interesting, but I am more logical than creative and prefer to have as much make sense as possible. So by no means am I saying that the idea of him being a literal bull is wrong, it is a personal opinion type thing.

I think I read earlier that those statues are mistaken and should not be considered canon, or at least one of them is. I did a lot of research on Morihaus earlier for a fanfic I was going to do, and that came up when we were discussing a very similar idea.

Well, MK does have a habit of being silly. He makes me laugh quite a bit, at least

They might have also picked up the weapons that they use from adventurers they killed. After all, even the main character doesn't make the weapons he uses himself, just because they know how to use a weapon doesn't mean they know how to craft it as well.

In any case, I suspect that Belharza is simply a human, and the "Man-Bull" thing is probably similar to "Half-Troll" and other such Nordic names, perhaps he had some bull like characteristics, such as being very large or very strong, or very stupid.

As to the union between Morihaus and Alessia, there is no indication that it is in any way connected to the origins of minotaurs. The only reason to even assume it did is the superficial resemblance between the concept and the minotaur's origins in Greek mythology, which doesn't go to prove much, as just because a monster from a particular mythology appears in a fantasy game doesn't mean every detail, down to that monster's origins, needs to be the same as the source material. In any case, we have very little lore on minotaurs in the Elder Scrolls, and most likely the only reason they even appear is a holdover from the series origins in Dungeons and Dragons. So maybe in this topic we've already given the subject more thought than the developers ever did.



Or maybe he could shift between a human and bull form, keep in mind that this is fantasy, anything can happen if the writers say it can.

Did you see his statue in the Market district? It is that of a man, not a bull.

Actually it is not statue of Morihaus, it is a man who was freed by Morihaus and he is pointing to the sky to Morihaus.

Isn't that what the lore forum is all about?

I've been recently wondering if the devs have developed much more lore than they've let on, and MK has simply been leaking it out this whole time.

If this is true, it's a sad fact that the devs didn't end up using, or ignored lore for Oblivion. MK does alot of retcon stuff, and keeps us happy, I'm sure there's some design work and lore discussion that he's built on from working with Bethesda, but stuff like http://imperial-library.info/obscure_text/many-headed_talos.shtml is probably of his own devising (but I wouldn't expect Bethesda to actually take a position on such things, given that it would probably upset the lore community abit if they were to say they didn't accept it as part of their Lore). Bearing in mind, he's probably got some sort of contractual obligation not to actually leak stuff from Bethesda, unless given the go ahead to do so, such as what probably happened with http://imperial-library.info/obscure_text/census_daedra.shtml. There's also the fact, that while we think MK is brilliant, and the lore forum worships him in such high regard, such that he's at God-King status, Bethesda often shoots down alot of what he comes up with (for various reasons), for example, space-travel, Vehkships, a secunda moon colony, etc. You can tell he's been pushing it for years, and rightly so, as it does sound awesome (which I'm sure most of the people who live in the lore forum would agree with), but Bethesda doesn't really let him get away with it, for the most part anyway (we get the odd mention of Sunbirds, etc), because they don't want TES to stray too far from what the casual fan or player would expect from the series (which ofcourse is a huge shame).

Ha yeah...I can imagine Jack Thompson's response if he caught onto the fact that a major character in the history of Tamriel had sixual relations with a bull. "Bethesda has gone too far this time..first their disgusting and unnatural nudity, and now bestiality?"

My take is that the beast-races, Khajiit, Argonian, and Minotaur (others?) are all much more closely related to the men and mer than the terms "cat", "lizard" and "bull" imply, so the occasional cross-breeding is not unexpected. Given the well-established rule that the offspring follow the mother for race, it's reasonable that Alessia's children would be of her race, and thus acceptable heirs. Minotaurs didn't start here, they just continued along a variant thread.

It's also likely that the son of a Minotaur would be known as a "man-bull" even if he does not resemble his father. He'd probably inherit some factors other than appearance to justify that.

Lore on Nirn is also going to be the same mix of fact and fiction as anywhere else. Myths and Legends usually contain a grain of truth mixed with a lot of exaggeration, and are created by the victors of any conflict involved, so usually include a lot of bias towards their own heroes.

Khajiit are mer. Not unlike the Bosmer, their form was wild and unpredictable in the early ages. The Bosmer's form became stable due to the Earth Bones, and Azura bound the Khajiit form to the Lunar Lattice. The Bosmer's Wild Hunt is when they shake loose those bonds and turn into primordial creatures.

Argonian humanoid form is due to licking the Hist tree. If I recall correctly, they get more human-formed the more times they lick the tree - or it could be the other way around, I forget.

In short, Khajiit and Argonians are not "cat people" and "lizard men" resulting from humanoids having six with animals.

Argonians can't even inter-breed with men or mer, which implies that they are not truly related to them in any way. Of course, considering how humanoid they look in Oblivion (wtf?), I wouldn't be surprised.

They look even more humanoid in Arena, Daggerfall, and Redguard.

You make it sound like they look unusually Humanoid in Oblivion, but that's only in comparison to Redguard and Morrowind. In Arena and Daggerfall they looked like humans with tails and funny skin colors.

D'oh! I'd forgotten completely about those older games.

They're Mauloch's children, and real minotaurs are nightmares to behold. All a minotaur is is a deformed human left to die in the sewers of their cities. Some drop them outside forests, while other parents sell them to the Orgies of Sanguine (circuses).