...but this discussion has to happen somewhere. If not in scourgicus' thread, where I originally posted my thoughts on the matter where it was uncalled for, then here. Excised of my typical inflammatory viciousness, this is what I said:

One can put boxes around whatever particular lore one wants, defined by whatever parameters one likes, but the truth of the matter is that in The Elder Scrolls, there really isn't an impenetrable wall between in-game lore that is exclusively true and out-of-game lore that can never be true and thus can never be considered for discussion.

This isn't even about ideology. It's about the factual record.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-mantia-intercept, an out-of-game lore document, was the direct foundation for the first lore book in Skyrim, the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/book-dragonborn. The ideas in the latter would literally not exist without the former.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/many-headed-talos, an out-of-game lore document, was quoted verbatim in http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Heimskr. Can't get any clearer than that.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/five-hundred-mighty-companions-or-thereabouts-ysgramor-returned, an out-of-game lore document, was the direct basis for the Companions faction in Whiterun; the concept itself was established here.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/magne-ge-pantheon, an out-of-game lore document, was the clear inspiration for the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/exegesis-merid-nunda in Elder Scrolls Online; the former portrays an extremely odd color-based Aetherial society and places Meridia in its number, while the latter references known Magna-Ge and places Meridia in their number.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/vehks-teaching, an out-of-game lore document, was taken from liberally in the same Exegesis of Merid-Nunda I mentioned above. The description of Mnemoli (or Mnemo-Li), which prior to these was oblique to nonexistent in in-game lore, are virtually the same.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/seven-fights-aldudagga, an out-of-game lore document, has two references to its credit - one in the painted cows and swirly aesthetic of Skyrim's giants (Kurt Kuhlmann can attest to the heritage of that), and a mention about the genealogy of giants in the official Emperor's Guide that came with special editions of Elder Scrolls Online, which, again, originated in the Seven Fights of the Aldudagga. I would link this reference, but it hasn't yet been uploaded to TIL.

You don't have to accept everything MK writes. I'll be the first to admit it's often quite up its own ass. I am not saying all of this because I am a slavish acolyte of the Elk. Anything but; I've sparred with MK quite publicly before. But to willfully ignore half a dozen examples of out-of-game work influencing later games and persist in labeling them "fanfiction" is absurd.

I will leave with a Kurt Kuhlmann quote:

"We all try not to take it to heart that only MK can save Skyrim from the trash heap - but I can say that even without directly writing any books, I'd say there's more of his influence on Skyrim than Oblivion. Probably a lot more - if you look at the chapter from the PGE on Skyrim, (pretty sure that was one of his - I can't remember any more who wrote which one, it's Bilbo and Strider all over again), and that chapter is the foundation for the whole setting. And if you look really hard, you might even find a painted cow. (No comment on flying whales.)"

Again, I'm not trying to insult anyone or incite a flame-war. This is an important discussion that needs to had frankly, with all due respect and politeness, for the sake of this forum.

They are fanfiction until they appear in a game. Get a dictionary please.

C0DA is as canon as Argonians being sentient houses who are avatars of Akatosh.

Discussion about what exactly? All the examples you mention as being "out of game", and nevertheless used in games, were written by Michael Kirkbride.

Please don't make aggressive or sarcastic remarks. We're not here to bicker or flame, we're here to have a discussion. That can't happen if people mock each other.

*Sigh*

We must agree that some people prefer a clear-cut black and white world view and philosophy where as others thrive within the various shades of gray. Which of these options will generate a more fruitful discussion is up to everyone to decide for themselves.

... define house.

That depends on whether you enforce such a distinction in the first place. You do. Most lore experts don't, and what I'm trying to do here is explain why that is as clearly as possible.

Bethesda's only stated stance on the matter, in addition to the multitude of times they've used these "fan-fiction" ideas to enrich their flawed portrayals of a Tamriel that does not actually exist, is 'it depends.'

Michael Kirkbride invented Lorkhan and fundamentally upended the entire religious foundation of the Elder Scrolls between Daggerfall and Morrowind. Later, he expanded these contributions in myriad ways, from writing the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes in Oblivion, to the Knights of the Nine DLC and the Song of Pelinal, to the raft of examples I named in my OP. There is no single person who is as important to the religious/metaphysical fiction of TES as him. He is a highly prominent (and thus highly regarded, which is a troublesome and unfortunate matter) author of TES lore. That some of his writings initially appeared in-game, some of his writings were independent and later appeared in-game, and some of his writings didn't appear in a game, is a rather pointless distinction to make in a community whose entire point is to discuss the intricacies of TES lore, independent of any video game. Tamriel is fiction. Whiterun doesn't actually just have thirty people living in it, because that would be ridiculous, but the unfortunate truth is that video games are limited in what they can portray, and thus, as an example, every "city" in every TES game is actually just a small hamlet.

Frankly, people have a strange attitude towards the symbolic importance "Bethesda" in these discussions. Bethesda is not an author. Bethesda is not a person. It is a corporation, not an artist. It employs artists, and those artists create worlds. The real distinction here, I think, is whether one would claim to enjoy "Bethesda lore" or "lore written by Bethesda writers."

Lol, this thread is going to get so locked.

I created this post mostly in response to you, so even though you're being sarcastic and flippant, for the sake of the readers I will take you seriously.

One, I am not an MK worshiper. He once drew me as a disgusting [censored] monster after I publicly humiliated him on /r/teslore. He can be a real [censored]. But I recognize that he created 75% of the relevant ideas I love to discuss, in a particular fictional setting that is Tamriel on Nirn within the Mundus within the Aurbis, so I can't just wave away his existence because he is a jerk.

Calling it "fan fiction", to me, is equating the creator of 75% of TES's currently active religious concepts with a random schmuck who posts uninformed tripe about his Dragonborn killing all the Thalmor. "Fan fiction" is not only an inappropriate label, it is an intentionally denigrating one. It is a value judgment. In contemporary fandom culture, it is a declaration that a given piece of fiction is less than valid. That is simply not the case here, as I have factually demonstrated to my utmost ability.

I'm doing my very best to be as calm, fair, and level-headed as I can be. The mods can still sweep it under the rug, of course, but whether that is a deserved outcome is a different matter.

I kind of view out-of-game lore to exist in something of a 'Schrodinger's Cat' state. It is neither valid nor invalid until it is vindicated or made redundant by in-game events. So individuals can take it as truly canon or non-canon as they like.

The same can be said of much of the franchise's official lore that we do not experience first-hand as player characters in games. Elder Scrolls theology and cosmological history is deliberately ambiguous. Though sometimes frustrating, I think it's a big part of TES' charm. You could speak to 1000 lore-conscious fans and get no completely matching interpretation of the Elder Scrolls universe. The method of delivering wider-universe lore through biased and often contradictory accounts is genius. Evil genius.

Not beating around the bush, the main point of discussion here is MK's stuff. I think some of his writing is great. Just the right level of mystery complimenting some very cool ideas. Some other things, however, I think are so abstract and obtuse that they may as well be dismissed. His releases, to me, sometimes come across as more waffling than cryptic. Playing on the community's innate desire to attribute multiple meanings and implications to anything that gets put out.

One of the fun things about TES lore is, not many of us lore experts care about the word "canon" even before C0DA we each had our own headcanons that meant what we thought of the universe is how we perceive lore and C0DA wasn't even the original source for the idea that multiple dreams aka realities exist, look back at Shadowkey. Nightwielder's whole purpose was to use shadow magic to become one in many aka every version of himself in the multiple universes would have the same conscious and memories but be one being split up in one.

If you want to close your mind to just what's in the games then fine, that is how YOU perceive the TES universe but to us we like to expand on the world in every way, we love making documents and reading documents made by others and adding them into our own vision, our own dream, of the Aurbis of the Elder Scrolls.

Nothing wrong with wanting to expand on a universe and I wish it was a norm to do this kind of thing with many franchises.

I certainly hope this community is mature enough for this discussion.

Let me say right off the bat that I approach these things from the perspective of a UESP wiki editor, meaning I'm heavily attentive to the dichotomy between official and unofficial information. I don't hate OOG; quite the contrary. But respecting the UESP's focus on the official material while including some OOG is a slippery slope. Add too much OOG on a subject, or too little, and it could lead to a war... of edits. I try to find a middle ground, but it's always a tightrope walk.

Anyways, Heimskr's dialogue in Skyrim only quotes part of the Many-Headed Talos, which perfectly highlights the dilemma here: we don't know if it's partial incorporation renders everything in it "official", or if it was cropped for a reason.

The Nu-Mantia Intercept has also become the cornerstone to understanding a whole host of new ESO lore on the Towers.

There are clearly many people who believe that canon=official material, and nothing beyond this canon matters. Imagine trying to explain to someone all about the Towers, but without relying on Nu-Mantia. Kirkbride's OOG works has provided the blue print upon which the games are still building in this matter and many similar subjects. That's why, if you really want the person you're speaking with to best comprehend the issue, ignoring Nu-Mantia altogether would be ludicrous.

The hardest, fundamental issue to deal with when it comes to OOG (i.e., Kirkbride) is that it's not clear what reasons the developers had for the piecemeal incorporation of the works at issue. I can only speculate that some parts of them may have included concepts the devs were actively excluding from the official TES world. Memospores, Akatosh's spaceship, etc., etc. Maybe these things have been considered and rejected.

Now, generally, when new official material irreconcilably contradicts established lore in big ways, we've come to expect that the matter will be addressed. But if new ESO "Tower Lore" contradicted information which only appeared in Nu-Mantia, I would expect no explanation. That's the only difference, in my opinion, between official and unofficial sources. If they completely take a dump on established in-game lore in a new game, I think people like us should be throwing fits. But if all they do is contradict a long-standing OOG suspicion, that's entirely their prerogative.

A musician must harmonize with the notes which have already been played, and make her own plans on where she wants to take the melody. True fans will not begrudge her if she departs from their expectations, so long as the music is good.

Long story short, OOG should be regarded differently, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

Actually that stance is how you should treat ALL lore, even the stuff in games because half the time it could be wrong. For instance do you consider every book as correct? If so why? Misinformation exists, even in Tamriel and what about the opinions of mortals?

You can ask a religious person if their religion is right and they'll say yes, you can ask an atheist if they're right and they'll say yes, you can ask an agnostic if they're right and they'll say it's possible. Multiple viewpoints but which one is right? This is the vagueness that is TES lore which makes it another reason why it's great, you can't take everything for face value.

Very well put. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to make such subtle allowances and distinctions.

Hopefully, this thread will call to attention the fact that some of you just need to agree to disagree.

The FanFiction Forum was renamed to the Community Creations for a reason. There are two suitable places for each type of discussions. That's the way the forum is designed, and we tried to cater as best we could to everyone's idea of Lore.

We understand and appreciate the wide spectrum of Lore and head-canon, but the topic seems to easily cause people to ignore the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/724862-forum-rules-and-general-information/, and any topic that consistently does that earns the annoyance of the moderators.

Keep it constructive, and it's all good.


The type of problems I'm talking about......

Read the rules.

Yes, there are different perspectives in game. That is the kind of stuff I love in lore. But there is a difference between an account made by some author ingame and set in stone lore. For example, Alduin being the World-Eater is set in stone lore, it isn't just part of a possibly false account. And a lot of OOG stuff like MK's stuff is the kind of set in stone lore which could possibly be contradicted by ingame stuff and not just accounts.

Not really, MK doesn't write as himself but as a character, thus they can easily be as wrong as any mortal in the world. The documents are there to help expand our viewpoint, not set things in stone.

A lot of his stuff isn't written as a character.

Alduin only appears in the Nordic pantheon, though. The Redguards for example think that Satakal will eat the world. Is Satakal Alduin? Is Alduin Akatosh? Is Satakal Akatosh? Who is Auriel?

Is the Alduin we see in Skyrim the Alduin from the myths or is he just a Dragon which mantled Alduin's mythoform?

I think even regarding something relatively definite like Alduin, there is some ambiguity.

Aye. I was thinking of books in particular when I said, "The method of delivering wider-universe lore through biased and often contradictory accounts is genius. Evil genius.".

The only lore we can say is absolutely factual is that which we witness (and create) first-hand in the games. Whether as the Nerevarine, Hero of Kvatch, Dovahkiin or whoever. Even then those events are subject to retroactive changes depending upon the next games handling of our historic escapades.

Alduin is either the first son of Akatosh or Akatosh himself, depending on whether he's lying or not. I believe he refers to himself as Alduin.

He does.

But ingame Alduin's bias is just as big as Dagoth's bias in Morrowind for example.

Well, to be a bit more accurate, the different Time spirits embody different things.

Auri-El embodies the beginning of Time.

Akatosh is Time's maintenance, its continuation, and the present.

And Alduin, of course, signals the end of Time. Which of course is just the resetting of a cyclical process known as the Kalpic cycle.

And I would like to point out that even what the player experiences isn't always 100% reliable. Per Mdnthrvst above:

Also consider the Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild quest exclusivities towards the end of their respective quest lines in Morrowind.