Well the Nerevarine did, the Dovahkiin did, the guy in Daggerfall (probably) did... Personally I'll go with after, seeing as Oblivion was released first and SI was released after.

On the topic at hand: I like to do both KotN and SI after the MQ. It leaves a little more life in the endgame, things to do other than say 'whelp, thats that, stabbed Dagon ineffectually in the toe. I cannot officially top that in random Cyrodiliic caves and Ayeid ruins. I'm off for an ale. Or a hundred.'

On the other hand; I someday, moreso now, plan to make a character named PlayerName the generic adventurer who practically becoems Sheogorath as their first act. I'm then going to use mods that give the character his eyes, looks, clothes and cane - and allows use of the 'return to teh palace on death' ability to work in Cyrodiil. Sheogorath has always been a little special, popping up int he most unlikely places like the Aether and Dead Emperors minds, so I don't see any problem with him breaking that paticular compact. It'll be fun actually trying to roleplay the Madgod - I forsee the Whabbajack getting a great deal of use. A shame there are no crossbows ingame, Sheo loevs his crossbow. ;.;


Just my view to those suggesting/implying that something other than CoC =/= Sheogorath is the case.

I know the idea of a mortal becoming a Daedric Prince really drives some lore nuts crazy, but honestly, Skyrim all but screams it in your face that the CoC is Sheogorath. Its pretty much all Bethesda could do without him outright stating it, or using Oblivion save data to morph into you old player character. I love mah lore, but Bethesda get veto power on it, as its theirs. It can be interpreted up and down, back and forth, but the CoC is now Sheorgoth. Its not even a big deal, because effectively, he ABSORBED the CoC over time. The Champion grew into their role. Its how they decided to write him out, same way as the Nerevarine took a trip to Akavir, how the Agent of Peace got a Numidium dropped on them, and how the Eternal Champ- Er, forget about them. <.< >.>

His lines were given in Skyrim to put an end to all the naysaysers trying to find any other explination in my view. It wasn't too long ago that people where theorizing that the CoC was just nuts, that Haskill was really Sheo playing puppetmaster, driven insane and into believing he was Sheo. Others said he was just mantling the Madgod and that a mortal could not become a Daedric Prince, and that he would just age and die.

I think its svcks more for the people who liked their Champions. At least with the Nerevarine, you could pretend the expedition rumor was just that, and continue as that character if you so wished in your headcanon. I suppose if you wanted to stretch it, you could assume Sheo was just watching all the events he mentioned, but that would be a bit of a cop out. As it is, a Champion-come-Madgod effectively seems to have ceased to exist aside from a few memories.


Edit: Uh, wow, sorry for the necropost. I just foudn the topic so interesting I didn't check the dates. ._.

Didn't Sheogorath's voice actor say in an interview that the Champion of Cyrodill used Wabbajack's transforming powers to shapeshift himself to look like the old Sheogorath? I read that somewhere.

EDIT: Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpP92Fi7s_Q

i'm not sure that's what he meant. at least he didn't say it directly. i think he was just linking the wabbajack to being sheogorath, i.e. holding the mantle of sheogorath will eventually turn you into him. or at the very least it sounded like he was saying that the wabbajack transformed him over time and not because he used it on himself. could be wrong though.

I still maintain that it is wrong to outright state that the CoC became Sheogorath.
Truth is that we just do not know.
That portal was open to more people than just the CoC, and anyone could have gone through and battled Jyggalag.
The text Sheogorath has in Skyrim indicates he was aware of the events of the Oblivion crisis and may seem to indicate he was the hero of that time, but its not proof and a myriad of other explanations are possible.

I dont think its wise to take vague hints and fan-think and state that the CoC became Sheogorath without a shadow of a doubt, as the UESP claims. I have had a falling out with the people who maintain that site over this very issue and the conclusion was that the opinion of those that run the site is more important than actual proof, so that is an indication of how seriously lore from that site must be taken.

Bethesda keeps these things vague.
We do not know who the Blades agent in Daggerfall was, nor do we know the identity of the Nerevarine.
The same goes for Sheogorath.
It is fine to state that someone mantled Sheogorath late third or early fourth era, it is conjecture that this was the Champion of Cyrodiil, however likely it seems.

Earlier in my forum life I might have agreed with this, but I've come to conclude that, while on a technical level multiple people could have completed the narrative of SI, the game itself, which contains the narrative, only allows one person to do so. That person is always Ms/Mr Prison Cell, who talks to the Emperor in a prison cell. It's never joe-bob of Cheydinhal, It's never the poisoned paranid or the humble argon trader, or the UNC commander, It is always the prison cell gal (or guy). As Such, the only person who the game allows to be Sheogorath is also the only person the game allows to be the Champion of Cyrodiil.

Besides, If Sheogorath says "I Was there for that whole sordid affair" in reference to Martin turning into a dragon god, well, I'll believe him. It's too crazy to be a lie.

But that only really makes sense if you view Oblivion as a game instead of a world.
I dont think that is wise, otherwise you get into logic such as "The Imperial city only has 50 people living in it" or "No way those tiny farms can support an entire province".
The game should be seen as a representation of the world.

While it is true that in the game Oblivion only the prisoner can become the Madgod, this is for gameplay reasons I would suppose more than anything else.
I dont think that back then, or even now for that matter, technology is advanced enough to have the player vie with several other contestants, or have an NPC do the questline if the player decides to go main questing instead.
It might also be boring. What good is a game if you cant be the hero?

Lorewise I dont see any restrictions to, who knows, the Argonian cellmate of the prisoner going through the portal and ending up defeating Jyggalag, or Farwil Indarys even, who has a penchant for running through portals leading to unknown realms.
The portal was an open invitation from Sheogorath to enter his realm and therefore, solid proof being absent, it cannot be assumed with 100% certainty that the prisoner became the Madgod.

As for him being there, this can be taken literally but then still does not mean he is the prisoner. He could be one of the many in the supporting cast.
He could also be talking metaphorically. The god of madness is present in any mortal mind, and presumably more so during those hectic and confusing times.

Old Sheogorath would have never helped Pelagius work through his issues.

A flawed comparison. The narrative and the world at large are not the same things. If the game doesn't let you have multiple start points, then by this game mechanic it also informs the idea that the narrative only ever starts in one place and with one character. To give a comparison, Geralt of Rivia will always be taken to Kaer Morhen at the start of the witcher, the Lone Wanderer will always live most of his life in Vault 101, and the Courier will always be shot in the head. There's no alternative ways to the start the game, and thus this narrative and gameplay choice informs us that these are the adventures of this one specific guy, in this specific situation. This isn't X3: Terran conflict, where the player character could be the poisoned paranid, the argon patriot, the terran fighter pilot, or the humble merchant. (and thus, one can seriously debate which of those people did which plots) Oblivion has one start, and thus there can be only one protagonist. To give another example, In Dragon Age Awakening, there's two different people who could of done it. Either the Orlesian Warden or the Warden from the base game, but that choice only exists because Awakening allows you to start fresh off with the Orlesian Warden. A gameplay choice made at character creation informs the narrative.
See above, you are missing the point. The gameplay choice of allowing only one protagonist who starts in one specific place informs the narrative that the prisoner is the only hero of Oblivion and it's DLC and expansion.
Lore wise, there are restrictions. First off, that hypothetical cell mate empirically does not exist. Secondly, Farwil Indarys is simply never even implied to have known about the niben portal. It requires abuses of game to conclude he is a candidate. While the portal was an open invitation, the game strictly narrows things down so that the only possible protagonist is the Prisoner. It is important that you cannot start in multiple places.
Assuming he is talking metaphorically is an absurd neglect of obvious authorial intent.

I disagree on several key points.
You assume that the only person to pass through that portal is the prisoner.
Since the portal was not in the prison, but on an island in the centre of the province, this is manifestly not so.

I also disagree that there was no hypothetical cellmate. This is unknown, as it is not mentioned anywhere that there was or was not.
The game is not the world.

Why would Farwel Indarys not know about the portal?
Hes a noble with access to all sorts of information.
Cyrodiil sports a newspaper.
That he does not know in game is putting the cart before the horse. The game is not the world and in the world of Oblivion there is no reason to assume a well-off man cannot afford to be well informed.

What is the definitive reason that the prisoner has to be the one who went through the portal and defeated Jyggalag?
A lore reason, something in the world, not a gameplay reason of something in the game.
I do not think there are any, unless I have overlooked something.
The portal was there. It was an open invitation smack in the middle of the Imperial province and for all we know Divayth Fyr heard about it via dreamsleeve communication and decided to smite an obscure Daedra and mantle one himself.

As for authorial intent, no again I disagree.
I would say its a bit of the opposite actually, as Im not assigning any authorial intent but rather taking things at face value and there is nothing in the text of Sheogorath in Skyrim that allows one to objectively conclude as a certainty that he is the CoC.
There is also nothing to conclude there arent any hidden layers, double meanings or metaphorical godspeak.

There may be hints, there may be suggestions, but there is no proof and I believe that this is intentional, as TES events are always ambiguous when it comes to the player characters.
To say: and in the last year of the third era the Champion of Cyrodiil, who also was the Gray Fox and the Archmage, became the madgod, goes against the principles of TES lore in my opinion.

There are events we can say happened with carying degrees of certainty but I think it is unlikely from a storytelling point of view, from a realistic point of view and simply boring and therefore wrong to conclude that the hero character was the head of All guilds and performed All great feats achieved during the timespan of the game.

Thats right. I mean the Madgod helping to make someone...not insane? Or at least not a tormented bag of crazy? Then again, the Madgod isn't going to make a whole lotta sense in the first place.

You make false assumptions about what I assume. The game manifestly proves multiple people pass through the portal, I do not dispute that. I am arguing that only one person is the protagonist. Pay attention.
If there is absolutely no evidence for something, there is no reason to believe it's there. Stick with the null hypothesis when 0% of everything supports a hypothesis.

THe Black Horse courier does not report on the portal. Besides, this is irrelevant. My argument is that only one person is allowed by the narrative to be the protagonist, and that narrative is informed by and presented via the game Oblivion and its mechanics. As a result, Oblivion's forced prison start means that only the Prisoner can be the protagonist. These irrelevant possibilities do not phase nor address this argument.

He's the only protagonist in the narrative who can. The Narrative doesn't give anyone else besides the prisoner an opportunity to play hero.

Considering we're talking about something that occurred in the game, and not merely described in the lore, we have to consider the gameplay a tiddly bit, as the gameplay informs and shapes the narrative. In this case, Oblivion only allows for one protagonist to complete it's adventures, and that is the prisoner. The player can never be anyone else but the prisoner.
Not with his dialogue alone, but with the context of SI it is clear who he really is.

Personally, I don't think it is boring and therefore wrong for the PC to do literally every quest. Might not make the most sense, but it's not boring. There's a lot of crazy to get from just rolling with it.

See, and that is where we disagree.
I dont think the narrative says that.
The game Oblivion starts in a dungeon. Fine.
The story of Shivering Iles would have been the same if it had been the prisoner from the dungeon, Farwil from Lleyawin or Divayth Fyr from Vvardenfell.
That the game has the limit of starting in a prison does not and should not imply that that is the only way the story can go.

Again, it is putting the cart before the horse. It is making the story subservient to the game.

The story is that a hero went through the portal to defeat Jyggalag.

That the game Oblivion starts in a dungeon is just happenstance. Its incidental.
It does not prove by a milestone that the prisoner became Sheogorath.

There are simply too many unknowns.

I think we might need to agree to disagree then, since I don't think our views are reconcilable. I feel that gameplay is an essential informant to a game's narrative, and that things like "starting in a dungeon" matter.

I think that would be best

I work under the assumption that the current Sheogorath is the Champion of Cyrodiil. The dialog he has in Skyrim supports it well enough. Also, when the Champion of Cyrodiil killed Jygalag, he ended the curse that was put on him by the other daedra. Jygalag should be back to just being Jygalag, and I think that he gave the Champion of Cyrodiil the "privilege" of being Sheogorath. Therefore, Shivering Isle, IMO, had to have come after the Oblivion crisis.

.