As I've come to understand, MK's writing style is meant to be highly lucid/subjective/vague/whatever. Any of my attempts to study TES lore is just a machete-hacking battle through confusion script to try and form some kind of general idea of what the mythology's trying to portray.

So,

Are any of the sermons meant to be taken literally, as a stylized version of what happened, or are they completely fictitious and religious parables designed to teach a moral lesson? Or are they simply just a medium to give that secret message that the Tribunal are guilty of murdering the Hortator?

MK's writing is...lucrative?

Edit: Ah, I see. Well, as I see it, MK's in-character metaphysical belles lettres exist to give us insight into character (especially the madmen-on-the-cusp-of-godhood guys who factor into a lot of TES plots). The sermons do not relate the truth, but Vivec's personal truth, thus revealing his character. Really, if in-game texts were food, MK's stuff would be tuna-fish tacos, delicious and nutritious, which is to say that they provide interesting flavor while supporting the narrative.

Autocorrect.

Both, I think. They're a literal, stylized version of what happened designed to teach a moral lesson.

Note that the mythical nature of the world of TES means that the sermons can very well be both mythological metaphor/exaggeration AND literal truth.

The Sermons contain a great many things. I'm sure all of the items mentioned in previous posts are represented in it in some form. With regard to style and lexicon it is certainly the most baroque of MK's works, but that doesn't mean it's all smoke and mirrors. All of it carries meaning (i.e. it is not just meant to sound impressive), with perhaps some details being personal additions of the author.

If you want an answer to the question "how should I read all this", you'll get a complex answer. It's not a historical narrative. It's also not complete fabrication. Some things are as they happened, some things are as Vivec would have liked them to happen, some things are as Vivec made them happen, some things didn't happen. What's important to remember, though, is that it's all meaningful. If Vivec gives a certain version of history, if he fabricates something, if he twists history, it's because it is meant to show something. Basically, whatever the text says is the result of Vivec exercising his prerogative as a writer.

It is a historical narrative for a history that didn't exist until Vivec ascended was my understanding.

Also, in sermon fifteen, what the hell is the Sharmat saying?

You phrased that well.

As for Sermon Fifteen... I see a lot of the Lorkhan theme in it, especially looking at the line "older than music" through the lens of the recent discussion about the relationship between the "doom drum" and time, and the bit with the moons... But parts of it confuse me, like

and I think any anolysis I perform of the sermon would be too mechanistic and myopic.

Come to think of it, considering "Reach heaven through violence", could "beware the crime of benevolence" simply be a warning against passive stasis, suggesting that change and conflict are necessary for philosophical progression?

"Phlogiston"... good word. MK never fails at conjuring up those. I wonder if the world will be dephlogisticated calx when Alduin is done eating it.

At first I thought he had written Phlegethon, which would have made much more sense, since is one of Hades' rivers. The texts having overt typos ended before Morrowind, right?

I've seen a few typos in Morrowind, but not entire words.
And pholgiston does fit the context of burning, destruction, murder.

They're at their best half-truths, as they depict Nerevar alive during Vivec's post-ascension deeds and leave out the part about Vivec getting his powers from the Heart.

The Sermons were written by Vehk the God, who did not kill the Hortator.

True, but he did deceive the people into believing Vehk the God and the Hortator were alive at the same time.

What don't you understand? It's completely straightforward: The world/culture you know is a house of cards, and I'm going to tear it down.



No it doesn't.

Regarding the murder of Nerevar: Does no one see that the Sermons are, in part, meant as a justification for that murder?

Yes there's the hidden message, which contradicts the other information in the Sermons (which in turn contradicts more reliable accounts of their ascension), but until Vivec pointed it out, it seems to have gone unnoticed among the Dunmer.

That's not what I mean. The actual text itself, not including the hidden message, indicates that Vivec got his power from the Heart. It also indicates the Tribunal murdered the Tribunal.

Granted, it doesn't say any of that explicitly, but it's all there.

In the first 7 or so Sermons, Vivec is an egg, and for most of those the egg is inside a Dwemer Simulacrum. So what http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-egg-time was connected with a Dwemer Simulacrum? And while in egg-form, Vivec even says he "crushed a world in his left hand," and meets a spirit which will "bring about the end of the world."

Also, it's been speculated in the Lore forum by Nalion and others that the Sermons weren't aimed at the faithful, they are meant for the Nerevarine to show him the true nature of the world, and his origins. It's been speculated that when Vivec accessed the Heart, he changed the timeline so that he existed as a god before his mortal birth. Thus he's able to say that Vivec the god didn't murder the Hortator, it was the mortal Vivec. However, I'll defer to Dumbkid and others in this thread as the more veteran Lore members if I'm mistaken.

But if he changed the timeline, why did the truth regarding his ascension endure? And if he could, why didn't he just change the timeline so Dagoth Ur never got ahold of the Heart?

Did he change the timeline or did the timeline change to accommodate him?

These questions betray a misunderstanding. Although I predict this will clarify nothing for most of you, I offer it anyways:

I will leave it to others to find where I have written all this before. But when Vehk the mortal reached into the Heart, he ceased to be anything except for what he wished to be. The axis erupted. There was an exact cracking, an instant of pure Aurbis, his hands burnt black by that ever-nil of static change, and Vivec the god who had never been had always been. A whole universe swelled up to legitimize his throne... as the old universe, where Vehk the mortal still lapped up Godsblood, warped itself to accept its new equivalent. And like all things magical it simply could not happen, could not Be. Red Mountain was the intersection of the Is-Is Not as it was of old, its center point, and it did not hold. And so the Dragon, having broken, saw fit to heal, turning into the world you know. Except now Vivec the God was alive before his own birth, which had, in fact, really happened in the death of the last universe. Hard to grasp in three-dimensional thought? Why, of course it is. And so that is why some semblance of my anguished personal reconciliation found its way into my own scripture. Why did I leave the Nerevarine two accounts of his death, one that I could have easily erased from the minds of my own people? Because he is Hortator, GHARTOK PADHOME AE ALTADOON DUNMERI, my lord and king in this world and the last, and as Vehk and Vehk I murdered him, then raised him, then taught to him to know, and so would I have it when he came to me at last that he decide. I give you this as Vivec.

Perhaps, but I think I'll stick to the more plausible theory that the Heart granted Vivec the power of a god, and he and the other two of the Tribunal deceived the people into thinking that that they achieved their godhood through their deeds, but predictably, the truth of what really happened got out, despite the Temple's attempts to silence it.

Edit: On that note, Almalexia gave the people the impression that she was the literal offspring of Boethiah. That'd fly with the Dunmer, who not only have great respect for her word but also believe that the Daedra are their ancestors, but it doesn't stand up as well when examined.

That's not cool enough to be lore.

What is the difference/relationship between the fiction and its subject? The Sermons themselves give the answer; look to how the Ruddy Man was killed.

"The sword, treated as a delicate meal, is the Symbolic Collage. It serves you well in the first half of life. Name one dynasty that knows this not…The true sword is able to cut chains of generations, which is to say, the creation myths of your enemies. " (Sermon 23)

Says you. I personally prefer a nice mix of mundane and mystical instead of using "a wizard did it" for every single thing.

"A wizard did it" is a handwave. These aren't handwaves. These are lore that makes it explicit from the ground up that we're not in Kansas anymore, and that we're in a world that is fundamentally different from the real one when we're talking about Nirn.