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?

Of course he's a nice little dragon god. But it's just what he does. He recycles the place every once in a while. :mage:

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

Think of Akatosh as Dr. Jekyll and think of Alduin as Mr. Hyde.

Aludin = Akotosh.

:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

As far as i know, Alduin is what the Nords call Akatosh.

Akatosh is not your friend. In fact, Akatosh is nothing more than Alessia's policking, in order to keep the merrish religion, but have it mannish (in a way) so that the nords don't stomp on the Cyrodiilic's Stockholm Syndrome's asses. In the merrish, and nordic belief, the god of time (Akatosh to the nine) wants to destroy Mundus (the mortal realm). But, with this world, belief gives power, so Alessia's politicking created the third persona of the god of time, Akatosh. But do not be fooled, Akatosh has originally been anti-Mundus. In fact, the 9 are nothing more than biters and liars. Even Vivec is in-line with nordic belief, but even more so with Shor being the mortal's ally in making sure mortals are able to reach a higher state, while everyone else wants status quo, or even worse, go back when mortals were just lesser spirits and the gods were super awesome kick assers. To note, this belief is EXTREMELY blasphemous with the altmer, who believed that everyone was super awesome immortal gods, except for men and Shor/Lorkhan/Shezarr is nothing more than a dike trying to make everyone weak.

This game is finally offering the original mannish belief of the gods, at least with Akatosh, now known as Alduin, as the antagonist and the original belief.

I can relate to Akotosh a lot. Or at least I wish I could...

Whaaaaaaaaaat? naawwwwwwww...

Yep. Think of Aldy as Aky's spilt personality. In one, he's nice. In the other... well...

What? No. Nords call Akotosh something else. Nords call him Aludin.

BUT he is indeed the same deity.

As is you had a huge bad case of multipersonality disorder, because one person thinks you are a liberator, another thinks you're a mad devourer, and the other thinks you are benevolent?

A big golden dragon god. Who wouldn't want to be that? But, sure. I'd accept to take his place.

Exactly what lore sources is this being drawn from?

We don't even know that we are fighting Alduin/Shor/Akatosh.

My lore is coming all from books in the Imperial Library (I told myself I'd read every book in there).

EDIT: The in-game imperial library, not the site.

Of course, there's the other side of the story that Mehrunes Dagon was actually an ally of Shor, but Akatosh/Alduin/Auriel forced him to be the giant dike that he is today. However, that does make be believe a dev story, and somewhat of what Mankar said. As for in-game sources

In-game;
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-varieties-faith-empire
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-mythic-dawn-commentaries (yeah, I known, Mankar was kinda crazed, but wasn't too far off)
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-song-pelinal (same guy who, pretty much, created the lore of TES today)
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-thirty-six-lessons-vivec

Dev posts
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/nu-hatta-intercept
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/seven-fights-aldudagga
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/shor-son-shor-full

Heh, fooled me for a second.

Alduin is considered "The Norse God of Destruction" I can assume he's not the good guy.

He's the good guy to me. Aludin and I will probably join sides and eat the world together.

Nords arent exactly known for their intelligence. Probably confused akatosh for another dragon or just think since his form is dragon he is evil.

Definition of Variation: A change or difference in condition, amount, or level, typically with certain limits

So, it's not exactly the same thing, but, the same thing? I mean Alduin is the Nordic version of Akatosh, but he's the Nord's Akatosh, so i'm guessing that he's not exactly Akatosh, but related (mainly probably by a religious standpoint.)

Don't hurt me, please, i'm just a NOVICE! Or, last time I checked on my account thing (which IDK how that whole "leveling" thing on here works) I was, and i'm also an ES Lore noob, but I looked it up and it did say he was the NORDIC variation of Akatosh, so yeah.

alduin eats the world and a new one is created its a cycle there could have been a whole world before the one we played in and another before that and that and ya you get it thats how i always made sense of it

Akatosh is nothing more than Alessia's [censored] politicking. He came way after the originals, who are Auriel and Alduin (mer and nordic, respectively). Both early versions are anti-Mundus, with the merrish one being a "liberator" as in destroying the prison, known as Mundus, the other being a mad devourer of kalpas, which the nords see as Alduin. All three are the same god of time.

With the mer, they see him as returning them back to The Dawn (Mankar also wanted to go back to this, but used Mehrunes Dagon as the guy, as MD also wants to go back when he was the Kind Leaper Devil King, and when mer believed they were super awesome immortal gods). The nords see Alduin as a giant reset button, and see Mundus (the mortal realm) as a testing grounds to reach the higher state of being (Vivev and, if I'm right, the Yokduans also believe).

The dwemer are weird, in that they have the merrish idea, but go a step further by going beyond The Dawn and head right to the when EVERYTHING began, but not kill the world.