Why are we fighting Akatosh? : V - Skyrim

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:33 pm

I do hope we actually to get to fight him, he's supposed to be incredibly large, even compared to a regular dragon, so that would make an awesome boss battle.The ending to Oblivion was disappointing, sure it was nice to watch, but it required little effort on the player's part.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:45 pm

Alduin is certainly not Akatosh. Alduin is the time-eater and Akatosh is the king of the Divines. If Akatosh was Alduin then the Dragonborn would have been killed the second he/she was born. Since the Dragonborn is alive and is destined by the gods to perform an important task then that means that Akatosh wouldn't want the Dragonborn killed.

They are the same entity allright.
Only seen from different perspectives.
Because of Alessia's meddling Akatosh was bound to the fate of the Empire. With the Amulet of Kings no more, the Alduin part of the persona is free to fulfill his function. To eat the world, so it can be reborn.
The real question is, isnt stopping the the dragons a bad thing?
If the world isnt eaten and renewed, what will happen to it?

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:53 pm

Mortals will realize the truth. Alduin is big brother!

» Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:02 am

They are the same entity allright.
Only seen from different perspectives.
Because of Alessia's meddling Akatosh was bound to the fate of the Empire. With the Amulet of Kings no more, the Alduin part of the persona is free to fulfill his function. To eat the world, so it can be reborn.
The real question is, isnt stopping the the dragons a bad thing?
If the world isnt eaten and renewed, what will happen to it?

The Gods are chains! Destroy the gods!

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:05 pm

:facepalm: We're fighting Aludin, not Akatosh.

Alduin is akatosh

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:21 pm

Alduin is certainly not Akatosh. Alduin is the time-eater and Akatosh is the king of the Divines. If Akatosh was Alduin then the Dragonborn would have been killed the second he/she was born. Since the Dragonborn is alive and is destined by the gods to perform an important task then that means that Akatosh wouldn't want the Dragonborn killed.

Saying this is exactly like saying the Morning Star is certainly not the Evening Star.

» Tue Jul 19, 2011 12:29 am

Alduin can burn the age of anything right maybe that's how he eats planets. And you know what would be cool the planets that you see in sky just start to crumble and die because of alduin that would be pretty cool.

» Tue Jul 19, 2011 3:17 am

Alduin can burn the age of anything right maybe that's how he eats planets. And you know what would be cool the planets that you see in sky just start to crumble and die because of alduin that would be pretty cool.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:40 pm

if you are relatively familiar with norse mythology... in the real world.
think of alduin as midgarsormr

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:23 pm

I hate the nine and i hope we get to kill them some day

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:41 pm

Well, if it helps, people seem to accept that Lorkhan = Shor =Shezarr, but getting past the idea that Auriel = Alduin = Akatosh can be difficult, due to the [censored] imperial's dilulted and widespread belief, due to politicking and Akatosh being portrayed as a good guy in nearly every game.

Even Tiber got the idea, but knew how to handle it better, by being Talos, instead of instituting Shezarr again. Talos is pretty much a stand-in for Shezarr/Shor/Lorkhan. A much more acceptable deity for everyone, save for the Altmer of Summerset Ilse, who are more hardcoe than the nords are with Shor and their anti-merrish belief.

It's not so much the idea of widespread dilution so much as the fact that Alessia and Marukh made Akatosh so different from his original. Linking Shor to Lorkhan is easy because they are consistent, pro-human, anti-elven, brings the Aedra into creating the world. Akatosh was changed to be less anti-human and to symbolize eternity rather than transience. Once all the pacts were broken, the Akatosh-aspect is like to just disappear into nothing. Not only that, but people got unfortunatelyentrenched in thinking of him as a "good guy," so they react with surprise when they find out they were incorrect.

Are we even sure we are fighting Alduin?

Last i heard that was all speculation just because we are fighting dragons and he is the dragon god of time.

For all we know we could be fighting the Ka'Po'Tun and there leader Tosh Raka (whom is the worlds largest Dragon at the moment)

The devs have said Alduin, since the very first bits of real information in the gameInformer reveal.

Alduin is certainly not Akatosh. Alduin is the time-eater and Akatosh is the king of the Divines. If Akatosh was Alduin then the Dragonborn would have been killed the second he/she was born. Since the Dragonborn is alive and is destined by the gods to perform an important task then that means that Akatosh wouldn't want the Dragonborn killed.

You're looking at it too simplistically. Read the linked Aldudugga. Alduin can't eat the world until Dagon chips it down small enough for him to eat. Also, Time is Time, Alduin and Akatosh are just too ways of literalizing the metaphor of transience and eternity. Also remember that no Aedra is absolute on Nirn. That was always the plan. Shor made several of them take part in creation so that, unlike Daedric Realms that are wholly extentions of a single will, Nirn is a place where people can make decisions and there can ever bee surprises.

But the biggest issue is the idea of Akatosh being good. He was always a destroyer-god as Auriel, but the elves considered the end of the world to be good. So in the Nine Divines, Akatosh retains the position of "good god head of the pantheon" but given the eternity symbol to make the Empire seem to be an eternal and legitimate power.

Think discworld, only dead serious and with some things at the very beginning that are always the same no matter what the belief is.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:09 pm

As someone who likes to play Dunmers, I say we fight Akatosh because he made the Psijic endeavor that much harder and trapped us all on Nirn. Then he iced the cake by deceiving us into believing he's our ancestor and a benevolent deity.

Dunmer reject the Aldmeric religious traditions. They see Nirn in a manner similar to the humans, although they don't worship the Aedra at all, instead engaging in ancestor worship and veneration of various Daedric Princes.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 5:52 pm

Dunmer reject the Aldmeric religious traditions. They see Nirn in a manner similar to the humans, although they don't worship the Aedra at all, instead engaging in ancestor worship and veneration of various Daedric Princes.

"Similar to" meaning, so far as I know, that humans say that the world is a 'testing ground" where those whose lives and deaths are worthy get to go to awesome, valhalla-like afterlives. Dunmer say a testing ground in more a "if you play your cards right you get to be the entire universe and that's [censored] awesome." /gross oversimplification.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:55 am

He's the good guy to me.

Aludin and I will probably join sides and eat the world together.

It's spelt 'Alduin'. How many times?

» Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:23 am

As far as I can tell from my reading and brushing up on lore in anticipation of Skyrim, Akatosh has always been a nice god, looking out for the people of Nirn. So why would he try to destroy it? I mean, he drew blood from his own heart to save Nirn!

One idea I had is that he's angry with Nirn, because the Septim bloodline has died off and war has broken out, his sacrifices going in vain. What do you guys think? It all seems very confusing. It's really making me wanna get my hands on the game, all that new lore to read about and learn!

EDIT: I had been operating under the assumption that Akatosh = Alduin. I know very little about Alduin, so I was basing my knowledge off of Akatosh, however reading your comments I realize they are more... well counterparts of the same god. So that brings up another question: Why so much conflicting lore, and will this all be explained for us in Skyrim?

Maybe Akatosh/Alduin is like Phoenix of the Marvels Universe?

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:56 pm

Are we even sure we are fighting Alduin?

Last i heard that was all speculation just because we are fighting dragons and he is the dragon god of time.

For all we know we could be fighting the Ka'Po'Tun and there leader Tosh Raka (whom is the worlds largest Dragon at the moment)

http://i748.photobucket.com/albums/xx121/Donnikun/Facepalms/godzilla-facepalm-godzilla-facepalm.jpg

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:47 am

Okay, lets clear this up with a clean little point chart.

1. Alduin=Akatosh
2. In Elder Scrolls lore, no daedra/aedra is exclusively good nor bad. They act just like people and are capable of both good and bad actions. They can make alliances with mortals (a la Allesia) but are not bound in any way by their beliefs.
3. Lorkhan trapped Alduin (and the other Aedra) in Mundus against their wills.
4. Alduin made a pact with Allesia that he would guard the dragonborn of the Tiber Septim line.
5. The Septim line has ended and the Amulet of Kings has been broken.
6. Alduin no longer has an alliance with men and can now think exclusively for himself.
7. Being imprisoned (and tricked) by Lorkhan is enough to make anyone angry, and although the Aedra ripped up Lorkhan, they are still trapped
8. Alduin wants to escape.
9. The best way to escape is to destroy his cage.
10. Alduin is trying to destroy Nirn.
/
Is everything cleared up now? Good.

Dangit, did anyone even read this whole easily-readable explanation? Or was it a waste of time?

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:21 pm

Dangit, did anyone even read this whole easily-readable explanation? Or was it a waste of time?

Saying that Alessia was a god to any degree was a very poor start. I did not read further.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:03 pm

Saying that Alessia was a god to any degree was a very poor start. I did not read further.

........ It doesn't say that... It says that there was a pact with Alessia... GODDANGIT CAN ANYONE READ HERE!?

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:18 pm

........ It doesn't say that... It says that there was a pact with Alessia... GODDANGIT CAN ANYONE READ HERE!?

Apparently not.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:48 pm

Apparently not.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/126/314/3cd8a33a.png?1306264975

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:09 pm

Dangit, did anyone even read this whole easily-readable explanation? Or was it a waste of time?

Sorry for not having enough personal time to always dig through threads consisting of more than one page and reading every single post.

» Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:31 am

Sorry for not having enough personal time to always dig through threads consisting of more than one page and reading every single post.

I accept your apology and hope you'll do better in the future.

Here's your http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg (assuming you haven't already gotten one)

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:31 pm

........ It doesn't say that... It says that there was a pact with Alessia... GODDANGIT CAN ANYONE READ HERE!?

Meh. Still phrased poorly enough to put up a barrier to my continued reading. Don't blame me.

» Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:34 pm

Remember, in the TES universe, belief (true belief) can shape reality. That is most probably how the persona of the imperial good Dragon-God was born, and then made the pact with St.Allesia (I've always loved that name). Then the collective danced, removed some aspects from the new persona that resembled that of his elven self. The Dragon broke, and ( I believe ) this made the new persona somehow weaker so that when the pact was broken, and Martin smashed the amulet, the last of that persona's essence carried out the last of the task it was created for.

At least thats the pet theory I came with just now.
So in a way, we are fighting with Akatosh, but also not.