When I first played Oblivion and the emperor tells that his three sons were killed i thought they would all be around 20 years old.... But when I went to the UESP they're supposed to be 56, 55 and 53 when they were killed by the Mythic Dawn... I mean... that's old... an none of them had, as far as my sources go, no wives or children wich I think is very very rare for three potential heirs and nobility.... Wouldn't they arrange a marriage for at least Geldall to secure the Septim bloodline? The UESP only mentioned the name, and age of the three princes.. is there anything else known about them?

I found this quite strange too. Uriel fathered his first son when he was 31, (excluding Callaxes whose birth is not known, though I believe at least roughly a decade earlier than Geldall).

Maybe Uriel was trying to maintain a low profile for his family, given the accusations of the three sons being doppelgangers by Jagar Tharn? Or maybe his sons just didn't get out much.

It's Oblivion. What do you think?

Geldall sold his seman to Sanguine's Buffet of Sensuous Rapture's Big Women. Enmen sired many children in the streets of Cyrodiil (the Imperial City). Ebel married a baron princess of Great House Mot, by whom he stayed true to death.

Given the suspicions regarding the heirs' ancestry (dopplegangers?), which were revived due to political opportunism by the disaffected Elder Council (driven to the periphery by Occato) and fueled by malaise-related hysteria in the streets, the eldest grandson was not put on the path to the throne but instead squirreled away in High Rock while the capital suspended itself in an unusually long period of mourning in hopes that the Tharnatos theorists would die down and the Elder Council could be reassembled without disintegrating in disputes over which claimant was, in fact the eldest. (The eldest grandson or the sonof the eldest son?)

The various councilors and their supporters were hovering just above outright war with each other and had launched campaigns of covert assassination (especially flagrant and publicized transgressions nearly de-legitimatizing the two top contenders)when Kvatch burst into flames a full two months after the Emperor's death. This quelled the mundane conflict and left the entire Imperial apparatus paralyzed before the Daedric onslaught (Mankar Camoran had budgeted three years of destabilization period before his way into Tamriel would open, but Cyrodiil exceeded expectations of disfunction). This lead the Primate of the Temple of the One to seize upon the most likely of Uriel's many bastards (another illegitimate son named Hrol was gathering supporters and Thu-um pretenders in Skyrim) and dupe the Blades into supporting his claim.

But enough re-writing Oblivion off the top of my head. Point is, Bethesda svcks.

If you want to get rid of your frustrations of Oblivion then go somewhere else instead of spoiling it for others....

The simplest answer is that in our world, there would have been arranged marriages long before his sons were middle-aged, and probably a number of illegitimate heirs to boot. But the devs seem to want to move on from the Septim dynasty, and Martin was the only illegitimate heir. We also should move on from the Septims, and expect a different dynasty to be founded (or maybe an existing dynasty will gain more power, I don't know).

If that was the answer I guess you could at least have added that the Mythic Dawn also killed their wives (and mayby even their children, who at would be around 20 could have been killed to)

So much bitterness towards Oblivion, even now! Maybe its some obscure custom of the Empire that the Emperor doesn't father children until he sits on the throne (perhaps to limit dynastic squabbling). Maybe it was fear of Tharn-esque doppelgangers. Maybe they were all spoiled, drunken layabouts who never fathered any children apart from bastards. Plenty of alright lore explanations.

Explanations aren't our job, and most of them svck anyway. Oblivion's plot is indefensible as written. And that's true in several not-really-open-to-debate ways.

Best to rewrite it. Stuff didn't happen word-for-word the way you experienced it in Morrowind either.

As I said, we should move on. It's like debating over whether the Dwemer are "really" gone forever. Both the Septims and the Dwarves are history.

Yeah. okeey it's clear.... The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the greatest game in the history of the universe.... now please move on...


and I agree that the Septims are just history but I'm not suggesting that they do have children... only looking for explanations why they don't.....

Possibly. Uriel ascended to the throne in 3E 368 and Geldall was born in 377. I'm too lazy to look up all the Emperors, as I'm sure even Bethesda wasn't even following any real rules when giving their dates of coronation and birth. However, Uriel VII was born after Pelagius became Emperor, too.

Yeah but that's boring. I like Paws's fanon better, except it needs a more concrete reason for why the Amulet of Kings finds only Martin worthy of rebellion/kingship. Oh and it needs to make Ocato more [censored], because anybody who http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/c/c9/OcatoDaggerfall.JPG must certainly be a master of the realpolitik.

EDIT: Seriously? Bada$$ is censored? Isn't that a compliment nowadays?

This right here.

If any sense went into it, all three princes would already have children of their own, and probably more than few bastard children. BUT, Oblivion needed Martin to be all that was left for it's little plot.

Heartfire 1, 3E 433
The Imperial City, Cyrodiil

EMPEROR AND HEIRS BURRIED

His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Uriel Septim VII and all the members of the Imperial Family, who perished tragically to the hands of assassins unknown on the eve of Harvest’s End, were buried today during the early afternoon hours in the Sovereign’s Spire of the Green Emperor Way with highest Imperial honors. Besides the friends and relatives of the Family, members of the Elder Council, and the highest representatives of the Imperial institutions, more than seventy diplomatic delegations from all parts of the Empire observed the funeral. The final homage to the late Emperor was also given by representatives of various guilds, religious communities, and independent organizations as well as by numerous individuals of the public and cultural scene of the Imperial City. Thousands of citizens accompanied the last direct descendants of the Septim bloodline, hallowed heirs of divine Talos, in a vast procession the likes of which has never been seen in the history of the Empire. The gathered people covered every step of the way the procession was to take with tears and flowers.

The procession left the Imperial Palace in the early afternoon. The members of the Imperial Guard carried the thirty coffins to the Temple of the One, where Archbishop Danor Valodius performed the Rites of Passage. The procession moved on towards the Green Emperor Way just past noon, reaching it from the west side two hours later. After the official funeral ceremonies were completed, the citizens were allowed to approach the entrance to the Imperial Tombs and leave flowers and candles as tokens of grief and loyalty.

The Elder Council issued a special decree by which from this day forward, the 1st of Hearth Fire will be observed as an Empire-wide day of mourning, and named the newly established holyday “The Day of Tears”.

From the Collection of Special Editions 4E.2
Reprinted with the kind permission of the Archives of the Black Horse Currier

Interesting. Thirty coffins, eh? I think I read a newspaper like this while playing "Oblivion" but I skipped over the number of coffins. Or was this written by Lady Olivia?

It was written by her. You can find all of the Black Horse Courier Issues http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/black_horse.shtml

Nice one Olivia.

I guess all you can do is read between the lines, because there is never any mention of Uriel's grandchildren.

So, either the three heirs were all infertile. They may have been doppelgangers (as suggested by a line in Morrowind) or else Jagar Tharn placed some curse or spell upon them when he was posing as Emperor.
Morrowind game rumor:-- "Uriel Septim is sick, and wizards say his heir, Geldall Septim, and the younger Septims, Enman and Ebel, are just doppelgangers placed in the household during Jagar Tharn's tenure as Imperial Battlemage. They say the Guard charged a mob demanding destruction of the false heirs...lots of folks were killed."

The other explanation is that the Mythic Dawn invaded the Imperial Palace and killed the three sons along with their families. I don't think the assassination is ever really described. Did the Mythic Dawn just sneak into the palace at night and slit everyone's throats? Or was there some sort of large scale battle in the palace?


. . . I like Lady Olivia's funeral notice. Uriel never did get that tomb did he? Perhaps Mannimarco ran off with the body.

http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/cosades_visit.shtml

But as a rule, nothing in Oblivion's story is actually told beyond what you can see with your eyes. Todd Howard has stated that they embraced a Show Don't Tell philosophy. Immediate and visual. Think a Wishbone adaptation of a classic novel.

Thank you, syronj, Prow, Iliana. My point was that all the direct heirs could have been killed as well. Of course, I don't think the authors of the game meant us to think so, because the event of such magnitude would echo too loudly even for the most mediocre writer to ignore. What I'm saying is that it could be a feasible out-game explanation.

It just seems odd how they were basically swept under the rug. Were they even in Cyrodiil when they were attacked?

I don't want to move on from the Septims. I like the Septims.

Isn't there some splinter group of the Septims somewhere, that didn't recognize the reign of Katariah and her descendants?

Most royal families have oodles and oodles of relatives with some plausible claim to the throne. Even IF all of Uriel VII's sons never had offsprings, I find it unlikely that we are done with the Septims. Remember, too, that Septim ceased to become a family name after Katariah and had truly become something of a title (like Caesar).

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ahem....

Yes. There are cadet branches of the Septim dynasty. Most of the Septims weren't even direct decendants of Tiber.