We all know that it takes a black soul gem to recieve a soul as "large" as a humanoid. Elf, Orc, Man, Argonian, khajit.


But I was playing skyrim and I used a soul trap dagger on falmer (I have sneak 100, I have insance dagger damage...I am the ghost the falmer fear)

anyway, a grand or greater soul gem captured a falmer soul. I think it was a common soul I got.


anyway, this would mean that the falmer have not just physically devolved but spiritually devolved. It is kind of sad, as they were enslaved by dwemer.

You can read that into it, but really it's just a gameplay limitation. Falmer are set up as creatures, which can be trapped in any gem, but humans are NPCs, which require a black gem.

from a game mechanic perspective, you are right. But the fact is that the game designers could have chosen to code them with the same code as playable races. I don't know exactly how coding works, but ostensibly when player races were created they assign a soul gem value to each. when they decided to classify falmer as creature, they were making them less than humanoid.

the falmer were elves but now they are creatures with creature sized souls.....seems sad. and seems to imply that it would be hard for them to reform.

it would be cool to see a mod where you meet and talk with falmer and maybe help redeem them.

it is obvious they gave them creature souls. I don't think they just thought "non playable race means non humanoid" I think it was a nuanced decision.

I think it's simple: they no longer worship or believe in Arkay, thus they get no protection from having their souls tampered with (of course we don't know that, but it makes some sense). A bigger implication would be if the Falmer fit in common- or greater-sized soul gems, as it would imply Falmer souls somehow "shrunk" from their days as a proper mer race (with man and mer normally having grand-sized souls, and you need a gem as large as or bigger than the type of soul being captured to fit; you can't fit a grand soul in a greater or common gem, even partially).

This is what I was thinking as well.

I'm pretty sure most Dunmer don't worship Arkay either, yet I can't capture their souls...

It's probably more a gameplay mechanic thing. In Morrowind you could capture the souls of Vivec and Almalexia and I'm pretty sure both of those were still "Dunmer/Chimer" in a way...

Theological implications of inability to Soul Trap Oblivion (and indeed Skyrim) Dremora?

It's gameplay.

Golden Saints in Morrowind needed Grand Soul Gems (and were like, the only creatures to give Grand souls). In Oblivion, you need Black Soul Gems.

Have they somehow degenerated, too?

This.

I don't believe we can assign a lore reason to this, no matter how watertight it is. From my perspective, it comes down to gameplay reasons. Sure the Falmer have creatures souls now, but they could feature more prominently in an up coming DLC or a future game, that, for gameplay reasons they're granted proper souls. Its all at Beths whim I'm afraid.

Hunchbacks make you inhuman!

Inmerin ? lol

Yes well, the Dunmer are still sentient, intelligent forms of life capable of being recognized by Arkay.

It's like a backwards working of what the Orcs did. They used to be beasts, then they took hold of their dignity and raised themselves up to people. The Falmer did just the opposite, though with a rather large nudge from the Dwemer in that direction. So there you go, blame the Dwemer.