He tells us the Nine Divines are tricksters who vilify Lorkhan. Except they don't. Shezarr is treated as a good god in the Imperial pantheon, though he is not officially worshiped. Instead he seems to assume everyone shares the same world view with the Mer and just changed the gods names, and added a few Nordic (who are pro-Shor) to their "Lorkhan-hating" pantheon.

Now, this does not ruin his entire argument. He could say "Men proved more difficult for the gods to trick, so they simply treated Lorkhan, Shezarr and Shor as he is known to them, as a dead hero who surrendered his heart!"

Shame, too, as I would have liked to hear his reasoning on the different views on Shor, the Aedra, and Mundus.

His Commentaries certainly portray the Aedra as usurpers. He believes the Aedra wear Lorkhan's flesh, to hide malefic intent and keep mortals down. For Mankar, it's not about freedom, so much as putting himself on top, no matter the loss of others.

Otherwise, too little disk space?

I just find it strange that he talks to an agent of the Empire as if the Imperials had a bunch of Altmer beliefs (they worship the same gods, but give it a mannish spin such as their view on Shezarr). It just seems as if he was a villain written for a game that takes place in Summuerset.

Well, his argument is we mortals don't know the wickedness of the Aedra, but Dagon and his book can tell us all about their evil ways. Dagon can set us free, if only we let him inside. :icecream:


Edit: He isn't a well presented villain, I agree.

All Hail Lord Dagon. :bowdown:

His commentaries clear it up, but his speech is supposed to be his big moment where he reveals his intentions. Then he talks to me as if I'm an elf. I would think he might say what I said in my first post: "Men proved more difficult for the [Aedra] to trick, so they simply treated Lorkhan, Shezarr and Shor as he is known to them, as a dead hero who surrendered his heart!" except more poetically.

There's an allegory I can't wholly remember the name of, but it's perfect for the Mythic Dawn. I think its about a lion in a cage, that asks an old man passing by to let him out. The old man asks the lion if he's going to eat him, and the lion says no. The old man sets him free, but the lion eats him. Sometimes gods of destruction are all they appear to be.

I think there are two possibilities here.

Either his final speech was incredibly poorly written, not proofread and put in the game by mistake, or Mankar is just completely insane.
Most of what he says makes no sense. He attributes the wrong planes of Oblivion to Daedra.
There is other wacky stuff such as the Mundus being a plane of Oblivion.

I choose to believe his is insane as that is less boring, but I fear its just sloppy writing, possibly a first draft, that got in by mistake or time constraints.
When I was younger I read a lot of marvel comics and they actively encouraged fans to explain away apparent inconsistencies using logic and lore. In that tradition I choose to believe he is not only duplicious and a liar to the last, but also demented.

If I remember correctly, MK wrote the speech to either "Get into mankar's head" or as a rough draft, and it was used even though it wasn't ready.

I whole-heartedly refuse to believe that anything Mankar said was a mistake or poorly written. I choose to believe that everything he said was intentional. The Mythic Dawn Commentaries were beautiful and held so much meaning. Mankar Camoran speaking to the player in Paradise was the climix of the game. If they weren't going to proofread anything, or there wasn't enough disk space for anything, I'll be damned if they cut out the biggest speech of the entire game instead of, say, a couple NPC's lines about what they think of Leyawiin.

To the OP, I don't see why this is an issue at all. Mankar Camoran is speaking to the player from the perspective of the Mer. He's trying to convince you of his beliefs. He calls Lorkhan a dead trickster because that is what he believes, not what the Imperials believe.

The lines about the Daedric Princes and their Realms I think were intentionally like that to point out to the player that Mankar Camoran was a bit crazy and didn't truly understand what he was talking about.

Yeah, but that makes him problematic as a villain. He talks to the player as if the player's character was raised to believe that Lorkhan was dead trickster. If you play and Altmer or Bosmer, this makes sense. A Nord or Imperial? Not so much.

This is the province of the Imperials. If he wishes to tell them their religion is wrong, he should get it right.

He should. And you'd think if he was so adamant about Daedric Princes, he'd know the correct names of the Princes' realms. But he doesn't. Because he's deluded and crazy.

They cut a lot, but I'm not talking about cutting, I'm talking about planning. His speech wasn't poorly written, but I felt it was too late. No doubt Mankar believed Dagon was Liberator. My impression of the Aldudagga is they were supposed to have been in Oblivion, and having them would have given his claim dimension, beyond the mad rants of a cultist. Something like this came too late:



Re-written for the Argonian scholar or an Azura worshiper, this would have been perfect. It's Mankar's philosophy, but from another source.

Who's to say that the (Elven) Divines don't villify Lorkhan?

And what is the common perception of Lorkhan, anyway? Perhaps those of us who like to split hairs on the lore forum have a greater sense of the mannish heritage of Imperial religion than the average Imperial subject (or player) would have. Shezzar is pretty well buried within Talos, the Empire, etc. The most obvious message of Imperial propaganda is 'Empire=Dragon', with 'Nine Divines=Gods of the Empire, who co-exist harmoniously' following shortly thereafter. I'd say that 'edurance, invincibility and everlasting legitimacy' (Varieties of Faith) are more visibly important than that troublesome trickster. From the Monomyth:

Subtitled "The Psijiic Compensation," "Mythic Aurbis" was an attempt by Artaeum apologists to explain the basics of Aldmeri religion to Uriel V in the early, glorious part of his reign. It quietly avoided any blame or bias against the Lorkhan-concept, which was still held in esteem by the Cyrodiils as "Shezarr", the missing sibling of the Divines.

Note the 'still', which implies that this may no longer be the case. Remember that 'Knights of the Nine' was about resurrecting a cult of Shezzar, and exploring the foundations of the Empire, which are otherwise little discussed.

I think it's possible that Mankar (or an ignorant CoC) would have had sufficient reason to regard the the Empire as standing in for Aldmeri dominion- in a vague mythical sense, at least.

Mankar told the CoC his Imperial gods were the liars and deceivers, hiding in disguises - the Divines - made from the flesh of Lorkhan.

Oblivion was my first ES game, and it would have been nice to have the Monomyth, or Varieties.

because they stopped caring about making it an rpg and started caring about it being hack and slash

ES has always been an action oriented RPG. I don't think that's why Mankar's a weak character, nor why important books are missing.

Exactly. Mankar is so single-mindedly absorbed in his homebrew-occulta that he's basically blind to notion that there exist etic cultural mores quite different than his own. He fancies himself a scholar, sure, but his fanaticism ensnares his cunning, makes him ignorant and nothing more than a lunatic possessed of poetic wit. Hence do the Blades bid you "keep your eyes open".

So you're saying the Imperials might have adopted a more Aldmer world-view?

In that the gods are on their side, yeah. But in the sense that Mundus is an evil prison that must be destroyed, doubtful.

Everyone thinks the gods are on their side. I mean Lorkhan as trickster without the whole "Mundus needs to be destroyed," like the Skaal.

I doubt it though. I agree with Haute and Velorien. Mankar is too arrogant/crazy to understand not everyone thinks like an Aldmer.

Camoran is definitely carrying some baggage. What I was getting at, I suppose, was that what the Empire represents and the nicities of official doctrine might be slightly at odds. To the extent that the Septims are anathema to someone like dear Mankar, who places himself in opposition to all things Aldmeri- especially if he happens to believe (rightly) that Imperial culture is a substantially Aldmeri/Altmeri product.

@ Hoon Ding
What I meant was, the Aldmeri-derived divines may well loathe Lorkhan- and the Empire placed them in its pantheon, with their leader as its patron and Shor all but forgotten. If it weren't for the Marukhati Selectives breaking Akatosh, I'd say that Lorkhan's enemies had the last laugh. Of course, the pendulum may be about to swing the other way.

Did you know that: Vivec and Mankar share the same opinion on the Aedra?

Compare:





Of course you have to know what the Aedra are lying about. It's a cover up Scully.

Thanks. I've only recently gotten around it reading the Sermons and haven't read that one yet. I find it interesting that even cultures with positive views on Lorkhan show the Aedra as not talking about His intentions. The Nordic gods seem to just follow his orders.

So it seems, when they wear his flesh.

I think the key concept to understanding the Aedra is what exactly the Maruhkati did when they broke the Dragon. I remember phrases such as 8 stars falling to earth and Mannimarco's "where do you think I learned my mystery?" MK and others have been asked about this issue, but 'mums the word' insofar as I have seen.

Here's the quote:

"How do you think I learned my mystery? The Maruhkati Selectives showed us all the glories of the Dawn so that we might learn, simply: as above, so below." - Mannimarco.

Lends itself well to Mankar's "the gods aren't really gods" rant. Also the interesting phrases, "Cyrodiil became an Empire across the stars" and "all the folk of Tamriel during the Middle Dawn, in whatever 'when' they were caught in, tracked the fall of the eight stars. And that is how they counted their days" are also present. The hand-off of the Chim-el Adabal (ala the car keys to the White-Gold Tower) from the Ayleids to the Empire also seems to indicate something of a transition in divine influence/power, but that's a bit of a different issue.

There are 3 possibilities that I can think of:

1. The Aedra are very much their old selves, and have simply squirmed their way into man's pantheon. If this is the case, Mankar is essentially correct. The Maruhkati broke the Dragon, but failed to make any lasting change, and fell to earth.

2. The Maruhkati replaced/modified the old Aedra through CHIM, hence their lasting addition beside Shezarr within the pantheon as loyalist versions, and Mankar doesn't know what he's talking about/is speaking from a outdated, Merish point of view.

3. The Maruhkati replaced the Aedra, but some of their old essence still hangs on (ala Pelinal, Wulf, Talos, Dragonborn, etc for Lorkhan), hence the return of Alduin in Skyrim, basically as a really pissed version of Auriel, as seen through Nordic eyes. This is my favored interpretation, though, obviously, I may be wrong. However, it allows for both the Mannish and Merish perspectives to be true, as well as supporting Mankar's perspective that no matter how you slice it, the current Aedra are stopgaps and replacements for the true god of the Mundus.

(Edit) Ahh, almost forgot:

"Accounts of the Middle Dawn are the province of the Empire of Men, and proof of the deceit that call themselves the Aedra. Eight stars fell on Tamriel, one for each iniquity that Lorkhan made clear to the world." - R'leyt-harhr