So who is Sithis? : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Tue May 08, 2012 6:36 am

I was playing through Morrowind the other day, when during the Main Quest I came across a book titled Sithis. Now, by this point I am already familiar with Oblivion and the whole Sithis being the backbone of the Dark Brotherhood.
Now here is where it gets somewhat interesting: The book is about Lorkhan at his tricking Sithis into creating the world (which explains Sithis as the embodyment of chaos), but the book also ends with a message from Dagoth Ur.
Also, two questions: What does Sharmat mean?
And what does AE HERMA MORA ALTADOON PADHOME LKHAN AE AI translate as?

» Tue May 08, 2012 10:28 am

Sithis is the corruption of Padomay, the other end of Anu and half of the Godhead.

» Tue May 08, 2012 1:46 am

Sithis is an abstract concept or natural/magical force that is often associated with Daedra and Lorkhan because of their chaotic natures. A tiny sect inside the Dark Brotherhood seems to anthropomorphize him, while really paying tribute to Lorkhan by another name.

The Sharmat is Dagoth Ur.

AE=is
HERMA MORA=Hermaeus Mora
ALTADOON=great power or weapon
PADHOME=Padomay
LKHAN=Lorkhan

» Tue May 08, 2012 12:33 am

Sithis is the corruption of Padomay, the other end of Anu and half of the Godhead.

Very much this. To further help understand, here's a quote from The Monomyth

All Tamrielic religions begin the same. Man or mer, things begin with the dualism of Anu and His Other. These twin forces go by many names: Anu-Padomay, Anuiel-Sithis, Ak-El, Satak-Akel, Is-Is Not. Anuiel is the Everlasting Ineffable Light, Sithis is the Corrupting Inexpressible Action. In the middle is the Gray Maybe ('Nirn' in the Ehlnofex).
In most cultures, Anuiel is honored for his part of the interplay that creates the world, but Sithis is held in highest esteem because he's the one that causes the reaction. Sithis is thus the Original Creator, an entity who intrinsically causes change without design. Even the hist acknowledge this being.
Anuiel is also perceived of as Order, opposed to the Sithis-Chaos. Perhaps it is easier for mortals to envision change than perfect stasis, for often Anuiel is relegated to the mythic background of Sithis' fancies. In Yokudan folk-tales, which are among the most vivid in the world, Satak is only referred to a handful of times, as "the Hum"; he is a force so prevalent as to be not really there at all.

He's not "nothing," rather the NO to the YES, the Chaos to the Order, the 0 to the 1.

» Tue May 08, 2012 4:38 am

Sithis isn't.

The bit at the end is very clearly directed at the Incarnate specifically. IIRC you receive Sithis as a gift from a dissident priest, which makes me suspect that the bit at the end might have been written in by the priest himself. As it stands, it's my favorite creation story retelling.
And HERMA MORA could also be interpreted (and I feel is more correctly interpereted) as meaning 'secret or forbidden knowledge'. That is to say, "Secret knowledge is a weapon of change and deceit.'

» Tue May 08, 2012 11:28 am

AE=is
HERMA MORA=Hermaeus Mora
ALTADOON=great power or weapon
PADHOME=Padomay
LKHAN=Lorkhan

For clarity, HERMA MORA in that instance is used to mean "knowledge" or "hidden knowledge" etc.

Aw, ninja'd.

» Tue May 08, 2012 12:48 pm

Which would be very useful information for the Nerevarine, if you feel that's a good translation. Indeed, "all warfare is based on deception."

» Tue May 08, 2012 12:41 pm

All Tamrielic religions begin the same. Man or mer, things begin with the dualism of Anu and His Other. These twin forces go by many names: Anu-Padomay, Anuiel-Sithis, Ak-El, Satak-Akel, Is-Is Not. Anuiel is the Everlasting Ineffable Light, Sithis is the Corrupting Inexpressible Action. In the middle is the Gray Maybe ('Nirn' in the Ehlnofex).

Some source, I can't remember which, talks about a progression from Padomay to Sithis to Lorkhan. Or so-and-so is "the soul of" so-and-so. It's a line that never fails to mess people because it's hard to apply properly. Makes them say 'oh look, Sithis is a more powerful god than Lorkhan.' Better to stick the Monomyth's explanation, which is nothing but the mutually-confirming intersection of many cultures' myths.

» Mon May 07, 2012 11:33 pm

Deceit is actually the shakiest translated word there. PADHOME almost always means change, HERMA MORA secret knowledge, but equating lorkhan with a relevant concept is tricky. Sithis is all about Lorkhan's deception, which lends some credence.

» Tue May 08, 2012 11:54 am

Some source, I can't remember which, talks about a progression from Padomay to Sithis to Lorkhan. Or so-and-so is "the soul of" so-and-so. It's a line that never fails to mess people because it's hard to apply properly. Makes them say 'oh look, Sithis is a more powerful god than Lorkhan.' Better to stick the Monomyth's explanation, which is nothing but the mutually-confirming intersection of many cultures' myths.

Successive emanations aren't really about which god is more powerful than which. The earlier may be "bigger," in the sense of containing more aspects, but they are also farther away from the Mundus and have less direct influence.

» Tue May 08, 2012 2:44 am

Nobody and All of Nothing. Sithis isn't even a what, much less a who. Sithis is a thing that is not a thing.

The Dark Brotherhood makes no sense in this respect, as it is impossible to worship a Not-Being like Sithis.

» Tue May 08, 2012 9:00 am

Don't think so there, bud. Can't be nothing if you're something. And Sithis is a something.

» Tue May 08, 2012 1:16 pm

Don't think so there, bud. Can't be nothing if you're something. And Sithis is a something.

Sithis is a Something Nothing.

It makes sense in my convoluted mind, I assure you.

I generally look at Padomay as apart from Sithis, because Sithis is apart from everything.

» Tue May 08, 2012 1:32 am

Successive emanations aren't really about which god is more powerful than which. The earlier may be "bigger," in the sense of containing more aspects, but they are also farther away from the Mundus and have less direct influence.

I know, and in one source we've got a red-headed middle child of Anuiel-Sithis standing inbetween Anu/Padomay and Auriel/Lorkhan. And it is never explained what this middle step on the subgradient is or does, and it is never referenced ever again in lore. Perhaps Anuiel-Sithis is just a means of describing the order/chaos dichotomy of the univere before the two (in)distinct enties of Akatosh and Lorkhan set the whole Enantiomorph machine into motion again. In that case, Sithis would indeed be the abstract void that lies behind the chaotic devil that is Lorkhan. But he's not a Dread Father. As Proweler said, that can only be explained by a rather unorthodox veneration of Lorkhan as the one who invented mortality, and thus death.

» Tue May 08, 2012 2:04 am

I know, and in one source we've got a red-headed middle child of Anuiel-Sithis standing inbetween Anu/Padomay and Auriel/Lorkhan. And it is never explained what this middle step on the subgradient is or does, and it is never referenced ever again in lore. Perhaps Anuiel-Sithis is just a means of describing the order/chaos dichotomy of the univere before the two (in)distinct enties of Akatosh and Lorkhan set the whole Enantiomorph machine into motion again. In that case, Sithis would indeed be the abstract void that lies behind the chaotic devil that is Lorkhan. But he's not a Dread Father. As Proweler said, that can only be explained by a rather unorthodox veneration of Lorkhan as the one who invented mortality, and thus death.

I take it as a sort of nihilism - they are consciously venerating something they know doesn't care, by killing as a rejection of the phenomenal world.

» Mon May 07, 2012 11:39 pm

So anyway, how does Sithis and Padomay fit into CHIM and the whole idea of the Godhead?

» Tue May 08, 2012 8:17 am

So anyway, how does Sithis and Padomay fit into CHIM and the whole idea of the Godhead?

The same way everything else does? It's all a piece that fell out of place.

Freaklore is wrong. Sithis isn't outside of everything because Anu and Padomay together are everything. Sithis is just an expression of Padomaic chaos. Change (or order) in its pure form is nothingness. It is void, absolute and esoteric just as it is stupidly described by DB NPCs.

» Tue May 08, 2012 12:02 pm

Sithis is the start of the house. Before him was nothing, but the foolish Altmer have names for and revere this nothing. That is because they are lazy slaves. Indeed, from the Sermons, 'stasis asks merely for itself, which is nothing.'

Sithis sundered the nothing and mutated the parts, fashioning from them a myriad of possibilities.

He's the end of singularity, and the start of the [cosmos].

» Tue May 08, 2012 8:38 am

This is mind boggling

» Tue May 08, 2012 3:16 pm

i really, really don't like all this god stuff in TES.
can't we just have aedra and daedra...?

» Tue May 08, 2012 3:45 am

Sithis is the start of the house. Before him was nothing, but the foolish Altmer have names for and revere this nothing.

Or rather, there was Anuiel, which is everything. But Anuiel is a perfectly inert everything that is indistinguishable from nothing("stasis asks merely for itself, which is nothing."), and cannot be anything without Sithis, who "sundered the nothing and mutated the parts, fashioning from them a myriad of possibilities."

i really, really don't like all this god stuff in TES.
can't we just have aedra and daedra...?

We do. Aedra and Daedra are the gods.

They exist as easily understanable spirits beause they are mixtures of the non-sentient esoteric absolutes of Anu/Anuiel and Padomay/Sithis.

» Tue May 08, 2012 1:03 am

i really, really don't like all this god stuff in TES.
can't we just have aedra and daedra...?

No thats boring, stop being boring.

» Tue May 08, 2012 3:10 am

Without the other, the two are indistinguishable. Such is the Godhead's fractured mind.

» Tue May 08, 2012 12:51 am

AE is everything. That's what the singularity is.

» Tue May 08, 2012 9:34 am

Or rather, there was Anuiel, which is everything. But Anuiel is a perfectly inert everything that is indistinguishable from nothing("stasis asks merely for itself, which is nothing."), and cannot be anything without Sithis, who "Sithis sundered the nothing and mutated the parts, fashioning from them a myriad of possibilities."

Very much so. Anything else is just DB crap being spewed. Blame Mephala trollin' the DB.