I'm sure you've all been over this countless times before, but I was thinking today, and I suddenly realized a pattern to the "Enatiomorph" stories. I already accepted they came in threes, but I didn't realize who those three necessarily were. I apologize if this post seems unstructured; I'm still trying to figure this out.

So, you've got Nerevar, Dagoth Ur, and the Tribunal. And then you've got Wulfhearth, Zurin Arctus, and... I can't recall the third. Taolos? Tiber Septim? And then you've got Auri-El, Lorkhan, and... Trinimac?

So Dagoth Ur betrays... maybe. Nerevar kills him, but is himself removed shortly afterward (one way or another). The Tribunal become the gods.

So Lorkhan betrays... maybe. Trinimac kills him, but is himself removed shortly afterward (one way or another). The Aedra (lead by Auri-El) become the gods.

Both of these stories have other sides to it, maintained by some other people.

And I don't know the Talos story well enough... well, I don't know it at all! I do recall in Daggerfall that Zurin Arctus was looking to regain his heart, which was the Mantella... but then other stories say Wulfharth was the Underking?

Does this structure work? Does the Talos story fit in with this structure?

Not sure how Wulfharth and Zurin interact, but I know Tiber backstabs Zurin and becomes Emperor, so he'd be equivalent to the Tribunal and the Aedra in these comparisons.

On the other hand, if Zurin's soul powered the Mantella, wouldn't that be like Zurin having Numidum's body?

I can't stress this enough; The Arcturian Heresy isn't accurate. Its a heresy.

Lorkhan doesn't necessarily "betray." He just "tricked" at the most. If anything, Aka-tosh betrayed LKHAN.

Also, an important note is that the events involving Tiber Septim happened before his apotheosis; he didn't become Talos until the Warp of the West.

I'm not even too sure the Tribunal were even involved in a Enantiomorph collectively; they apotheosed through separate means. Remember that a witness is involved; Alandro Sul, an individual present at the events of Red Mountain, is the witness. I also feel Enantiomorphs employ four instead of three, in this case Nerevar who slays Dagoth and is in turn slain by Vivec, with Alandro being the one to record it all.

I'm probably wrong though; the original Enantiomorph involved only three: Anu, Padomay, and Nir; I still haven't FULLy figured out what the Red Mountain Enantiomorph is.

Like 946000 said the structure of the Enantiomorph is a bit different than you describe. Technically an enantiomorph is just two things that are mirror images of each other. In TES however the enantiomorph concept deals with 4 beings. There are two beings that are the enantiomorph, sometimes referred to as the king and the rebel. Then there is the female principle that the two halves of the enantiomorph fight over, this doesn't necessarily have to be a woman but it is the source of the king and rebel's strife. There is also the shieldthane/witness who witnesses the events take place and is maimed in some way, physically or spiritually, and records the events that took place in the betrayal. The shieldthane is also sometimes the instrument used to enact the betrayal.


I've seen this posted before, maybe it was by you though, but that isn't what the name of the book implies. It isn't saying "hey this book right here is heresy, don't believe it!". It means that the idea that Zurin is the Underking is heresy.

You are overlooking the fact that it would be rather silly if a book wanted to label itself as heresy. More likely is that the book's title refers to the heresy inherent in older theories of the relation between Septim and Arctus (in which there was no mention of Wulfharth).

By the way, who says a heresy is "inaccurate"? As far as I know, a heresy is just one dogma that's in conflict with the dominant, orthodox dogma. To say that a heresy isn't accurate, is to say that orthodoxy is valid (by definition).



I can never keep these official terms straight, but this helps. I've been working on a theory, even thought it's not all hashed out.
Basically... I'm trying to synchronize the four roles in the enantiomorph, to the three guardian signs (Thief, Mage, Warrior), plus the Serpent. There's a few ways you can fit them together.

The rebel-betrayer is usually the Serpent (mobile/threatening constellation) or the Thief (naturally).

The king-defender is usually the Warrior.

The female-principle could be the Mage (knowledge/magic) or the Serpent (wily trickery).

The sheildthane/witness can be the Thief (stealth/watching), the Mage (scribe/knowledge), or the Serpent (hidden observer).


Sometimes, they seem almost to fit together, but never to my satisfaction. The other idea I've tinkered with is to drop the Serpent from the equation, and let the female-principle be a wild card of one of the Charge signs, possibly limited to one of the Charges under the king-defender Sign's domain.

Feel free to mess around with it - it's not quite done...

Thank you for the comments. I am starting to understand this, and the "four persons" model, specifically the fourth person, was what was missing. I still think the conflict at Red Mountain, though the Tribunal ascended by means other than a "mantling," still played out that conflict in a way. I'm going through Morrowind again, and I'm going to study the Battle closer than ever before.

Nobody commented on Trinimac as a vital part of the story. Could I be correct in that?

Three people, not four. An interplay between two players with one to witness.

Yo, in the Red Mountain Enantiomorph, is Lorkhan's Heart, or perhaps Lorkhan himself, the "female" piece in that one?

Pegging down the Red Mountain enantiomorph is hard, all the more so because it probably doesn't exist. The Tribunal... a guy, a girl, something in between. But they are the Three in One! But it was they that betrayed Vivec, and Sul witnessed. Five people, three roles? But remember how they ascended, reenacting the slaughter of Lorkhan with the tools? Who witnessed that one? Does any of this matter? Or if it mattered, did it even exist except for 'one Red Moment?'

Don't shoot too high on this one, just keep an eye out and understand.

You do realise that quote shows four roles and not three. Unless you consider the two halves of the enantiomorph as always being one person.

Female/Land/Freedom catalyst for birth-death of enantiomorph)/(enantiomorph with requisite betrayal)/(Witnessing Shield-thane who goes blind or is maimed and thus solidifies the wave-form; blind/maimed = = final decision)

ALMSIVI is Enatiomorph too, now?

Why? Seht could have used the tools regardless of Ayem and Vehk.

I'm not too sure they're in one; the whole "redoing Lorkhan's death" idea makes a lil' sense, but I'm not totally convinced by it; how the hell could Ur do it on his own?

I'm not so sure about all this talk of Red Mountain enantiomorph.

But re-doing Lorkhan's death is the only thing we can be sure about. They're Allurleirah's words, but MK liked them. So it's one good way to think of it.

The Tribunal and Voryn used the tools, and the tools manipulate myth. They didn't do it on their own Academy Award-winning acting skills.

Perhaps I'm a little slow today, but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.

We have from the quote,
1. The female principle
2 and 3. The enantiomorph itself
4. The witness/shield-thane.

But you seem to be interpreting it differently.

I'm reading it in the punctuation. The roles are denoted by parentheses, with examples of their variations separated by slashes. The descriptions of the three roles are bolded, italicized and underlined. Four roles just doesn't make sense to me, when three is so often the watchword. Two to interplay and one to witness. Order and chaos are opposites or counterparts just as male and female, so why can't the Female principle be a player?
Anu, Padomay, Nirni and- what?

When I talk about a Red Mountain Enatiomorph, I'm not talking about ALMSIVI. In my mind, Vivec, Almalexia and Sotha Sil represent not three parts of an Enatiomorph, but rather the Aedra... sort of. Their people were also changed, cursed, and so I'm leaning to representing the three as being, kind of collectively, the "Trinimac" of this story. The "three" in this story, to me, are the three sides of the conflict: Nerevar, Dagoth Ur, and ALMSIVI... and maybe Dumac even fits in there somewhere. (I've even toyed with the notion that the Dwemer, having disappeared before matters were finished, could be the Magnus of this story!)

I know it looks like I'm really stretching here. Indeed, I am. But I feel like I may be on to something, and I'm hoping I can straighten this out as my knowledge of the events at Red Mountain increases. Particularly troublesome is the Nordic contribution to the narration, the only account that has Wulfharth present, to my knowledge. (The Acrturan Heresy also has that, but I suspect they draw from the Nordic tradition.) Another subject I think could be useful is any conflicting accounts of the events at (or of, if they take a different mythic form in other stories) the... what was it called? Where the Aedra came together, Trinimac killed Lorkhan, and so on. It could be there is a structure, not only to the story in general, but also to the relationships of opposing narrations. I know Man had, prior to Allessia's day, a different take on the whole Auri-El/Lorkhan thing, but so far as I can tell, it's not nearly so well documented as the Altmer version.

And then there's the whole matter that people keep going back in time and changing the stories... What a mess.

That deserves a cup of tea.

Alright I gotcha now. I agree that it would seem to make sense that way, with a male/female principle making up the halves of the enantiomorph and in fact quite a few religions work just like that. When the female principle emerges, duality appears with it: light-dark yin-yang order-chaos.

The difference in TES is the male principle is split in two, and makes up the enantiomorph. The female principle is separate and is what the two male principles fight over, she causes the conflict between them. The example you posted is case-in-point, reread the Annuad. Anu and Padomay fight over Nirni's affection with the result of them dragging each other "out of time". While as Vivec says, "love knows [that] never happened" the Annuad was still written to illustrate at the highest level the conflict between the two halves and their fight over the female. Just because the witness in the story isn't obvious doesn't mean you should go reassigning the players you know. I do have my own theory on who the witness aught to be in that case but I have a feeling soMe are Known to groan when I say it so I won't.

Yes. Hah

So, how does this female principle affect the Tribunal? The Tribunal didn't fight over each other. Not as if they ever needed to.

Phew. Such choice.

Don't you dare. You have to say it now. I'm already groaning over Wulfharth/Hjalti?Arctus/? anyway.

I just no Vivec was watching...
Were they fighting over Zurin's soul, or the souls of the Dwemer?

But I did say it, you just didn't hear it.
"soMe are Known"

That was a very conspicuous typo. I almost fixed it in the quote.
But now my Fourth Wall is hurting worse than Vehk's second aperture.