Heh, I forgot about that one.

Also...

CTHULHU FHTAGN I'A YOG SOTHOTH I'A NYARLATHOTEP

Sorry, just now noticed your signature.

When pray before his statue an receive a blessing to whom do I owe the honor?

Mephala.

It may not even be an actual altar. Think about it like this: If you prayed to a statue of St. Veloth, is he actually looking down from Aetherius and granting you a blessing? How about the Tribunal Altars? In Morrowind they were all still alive, so there's no way they'd be able to personally bless every single pilgrim who offered up 35 gold at every altar.

In the case of most altars, I think they're enchanted to grant blessings to anyone that fulfills the "if and then" prerequisites, Morrowind's being the offering of 35 gold. Most likely, that ridiculous altar to Sithis was probably enchanted to give out blessings to anyone who prayed to it.

Part of your theory sounds blasphemous to me.

I could subscribe to a theory that says the God's could have set up a system to bless their worshipers. But to assume they have no effect in the Elder Scrolls world sounds highly unlikely.

However, if Mephala is willing to bless those who are praying and giving tribute somewhere else that makes her the coolest God in Oblivion. She's in essence aiding those who are doing nothing in return for her.

Web-Spinner. It's all part of the plan.

Now that I think of it, the Sithis statue actually looks like puppeteer.

The statue, as someone pointed out but I can't remember who atm, that it's more like Shor.

What does Shor look like? I always imagined Shor as just a Nord Pelinal or some sort of snow-scarab.

most people draw the shor parallel since the statue has an empty void where it's heart should be.

Grim reaper. Lorkhan created the *mortal* plane. Shor God of the Underworld.

Empty chest. Had his heart / divine essence ripped out.

In a cage of bones. In some myths Lorkhan was sentenced to walk Mundus forever. Mundus is held together by the Earth bones.

This is the first I've heard of an Underworld in TES.

So I'm guessing that Shor springing into existence when Lorkhan's heart/spark is ripped out is mirrored by Zurin Arctus mantling Ysmir the Underking when his soul is blasted out of him?

Easier now to understand why the Cyro-Nordics love Shor now, as a Mundus-bound et'ada responsible for the mortalizing of the Aldmer.

1) Read Varieties of Faith in the Empire. It's just a epithet but still.
2) No, Shor == Lorkhan. No fancy stuff here. Lit: "Lorkhan (for that is what they called Shor in Resday)".
3) I reckon the Nordic love for Shor has more to do with him being on their side.

Shor is Lorkhan's name to the nords, Shezarr to the Cyrodiils, and Lorkhan is merish. Go read the http://imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-monomyth and http://imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-varieties-faith-empire

I know about Varieties of Faith in the Empire, and I had always assumed that Shezzar was another aspect of Lorkhan. How else would you explain Shor having no heart and Lorkhan "disappearing" after his divine spark was removed?

And I'm pretty sure that the author of Varieties of Faith mentions something about deities reviled by the Aldmeri being championed by the Nords simply because of the whole enemy-of-my-enemy thing. If Shor/Shezzar is hated by the Aldmer, he's obviously going to side with the Cyro-Nordics. It was only until the beginning of the Alessian period that Shezzar was worshiped by the Nedic people, forgoing "Kill All Elves" dogma for the political correctness of Diet-Shor.

Exactly! You can worship anything and anything can be a god to you. I remember my college english teacher telling us that this one girl wrote a paper about religion, and her religion was based on her toilet, as that is what she worshiped as a god. No joke! She really wrote a paper on the religion of worshiping her toilet. Whether she was kidding or not, I'll never know.

Well, ever heard of the phrase "Praying to the porcelain goddess," tes96?

No, I most certainly 100.01% have not heard that phrase.
Have you ever heard the phrase "the big black bug bled black blood"? Or "I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit and on the slitted sheet I sit"?

My porcelain teeth offer prayers to the porcelain maker, Yog-Porceloth.

Well, I ditched the porcelain goddess, as she is too snooty, and made offerings to the plastic void.

Back on topic...no offense to the prophets of the great Porclinius Malferus...

I have often wondered about the whole Anu/Padomay thing. I have a theory that, from one persective, all the gods (and Daedra and mortals) are all splinters of Anu; that is, that Anu has splintered (him?)self in an effort to understand what he is - hence the is/is not division we call Padomay/Sithis. Thus there is truly only one God, or more specifically, one Being - Anu. We are all Anu and Anu is all of us. Trippy.

But what if Anu's division took on a kind of life of its own? So that in dividing himself Anu created other Beings, the first of whom is Padomay/Sithis (and let us not forget Nir), setting into motion actual creation - by which I mean we are not Anu but our own Beings. Self-reflection became an act of (unintentional) creation. The creation/birthing of Time (Akatosh, Anuiel) somehow codified new Beings; perhaps Anu exists out of Time (as it would appear does Sithis, but perhaps Sithis has found a way back into Time, at the very least through his agent Lorkhan?).

I don't know; help me esteemed Lore masters. Am I nuts here. God I love this stuff...

You're thinking of Anu in merish light. In reality, it's the Godhead, whose mind, in a schizophrenic dream of sorts, fragmented into two pieces. Then those pieces fragmented, and so on. Then I heard something quite interesting. Think of the aedra and daedra as the fragmented concepts within the dream of the Godhead and mortals as the Godhead who interacts with said concepts, or something along those lines.

Also, think of the two forces, Anu and Padomay, as infinity (Anu) and 0 (Padomay). When 0 and infinity come together, variables, so that something isn't 0 years old, 0 feet tall, infinity inches long, and so on.

The Horror in Porcelain?

Yes...Porcelain is eldritch abomination skin cells, after all.

This is what I think: Sithis is a Dadric Prince and he is no diferent than any other Daedric Prince (except in the way he is). Lets look at Merunes Dagon for a bit. He is considered to be the God of Destruction and Revolution, but in reality he doesn't only represent these things, he IS these things. He IS destruction and he IS revolution. If this is true then it means the Daedric Princes aren′t so immortal after all (although they would still be pretty hard to kill). Since Merunes Dagon IS these things then that means that if every concious thing in all existence would stop worshiping him a thinking (and believing) in the concept of "Destruction" and "Revolution" then Merunes Dagon would simply vanish due to the fact that he doesn't exist (this is a theory anyway). A better and more realistic example is...Zeus. Is is the god of lightning. If all the Greeks and Romans stopped worshiping him and stopped beliving in the concept of lighting the Zeus would simply vanish. Why? Because he would no longer exist (I think this was a better example because Zeus was actually created by people where as, in Oblivion, Merunes Dagon was already in existence before man. Yes there are tales of Zeus′s birth which took place before the birth of man, but who created those tales?Man. And since the Elder Scrolls is a game, everything a god did before Man is a fact and not a myth). Anyway, my point is that Sithis isn′t only the representation of "Nothing" he IS nothing (and amoung other things, but were not going to mention those now...). This is why he isn′t considered to be a Daedric god, because he is "Nothing" and does not have the need to be worshiped by others.

I hope I made sence. It′s pretty confusing for me too since this isn't the easiest of topics and if there is something wrong here please tell me so I can correct it on this and later posts.

THX!!

SITHIS IS NOT A DAEDRIC PRINCE! HE IS THE SOUL OF PADOMAY! Saying so is of great ignorance and misinterpretation. Read the Monomyth.