Sorta like how the Nerevarine was supposed to rebuild Morrowind and become the new Khan.

That was a prophecy, not history (or alleged history, if we want to be careful about this). We have, apparently, three historical figures who have been called Dragonborn, and who created an Empire (at least one of whom even used a dragon for his Imperial banner). There aren't any similar historical facts or legends available for the Nerevarine. So I repeat, both characters have a completely different background, and you can't simply compare them and say "but it worked for the Nerevarine". The Nerevarine didn't even exist before Morrowind, he didn't have to follow any rules.

The Nerevarine existed many times before Morrowind, at least six, they were all just full of fail. There is Nerevar himself for historical context.

The point is, just because an individual is supposed to do something doesn't mean that they have to.

You're mixing up ingame "before" and real-life "before". In real-life, there was no lore concerning the Nerevarine before Morrowind came out (or at least, before information on it started coming in). (Yes, maybe there was something on Nerevar, but Nerevar and the Nerevarine are two completely different persons with two very different goals.)

The point is not the one you're stating. The dragonborn is as of yet not supposed to do anything. But we can derive from history what would be the most probable thing - always keeping in mind that this might be exactly what the developers won't do. But even if they don't do it, they have to reference it. They can't just pretend it never happened. And that's the difference, and the reason why the Dovahkiin can't be compared with the Nerevarine. And that is also the point here. A lot of stuff worked for the Nerevarine because he was a completely new piece of lore that was introduced by Morrowind, and the simple argument "well it worked for the Nerevarine, why shouldn't it work for the Dovahkiin" doesn't take that into account.

But we still don't know if that interpretation of the caRvings is even accuRate. The one on the far left looks like an old man with long hair to me, not a woman.

Until we know moRe, the dovakin is still "a new piece of lore". The dragonborn could mean anything. Could even be literal, who knows?

I'm not mixing up ingame and real-life "before's", for the simple reason that in the post of yours I responded to you were comparing ingame history with ingame prophecy. The facts of lore being existent before the development of the games is completely irrelevant to the discussion occurring between my post and the one I responded to. If you want to use that as your argument, do so, don't bring up that the Nerevarine was determined by prophecy while the Dragonborn has historical precedent, because that's a different discussion - the former is one which I couldn't have become confused in, because it was never one I was having.


It's of note here that Dragonborn has a wide variety of meanings in TES. The Nerevarine carried the title as well. And in case you missed Oblivion, Bethesda can just pretend anything didn't happen.

The discussion about the race of the dragon born and how Dunmer would expect the Nevarine to be Dunmer while the Imperials would expect the Dragonborn to be Imperial and the Nords would expect a nord reminds me of how so many depictions of Jesus show him as very European in appearance, when he would have actually been middle-eastern if he existed.

Same for God. Why would a god be white?

Perhaps the prophesies about the Dragon Born are wrong or deliberately misleading. Some ancient prophesies are, you know.

Perhaps this whole Alduin/Akatosh thing is similar to the split personality of the god of madness/order in the Shivering Isles. So Akatosh chooses a hero, turns him/her into dragon born in order to defeat his other half- Alduin.

Also, why do people insist on being the main hero guy anyway? We are constantly playing the hero in games. I rather like the fact that Beth relegated us to 'errand boy' in OB. It meant that, if I wanted to, I didn't have to help Martin at all and go and do my own thing. Personally, I preferred that the focus wasn't on the player for once.

I would not be to quick to say that the player will not be DragonBorn. I think that since the Septim line is dead a new reincarnation of the dragonborn will come.
I do think that the carving prophecy in the trailer is just that a prophecy and not a guarentee of who and what race the dragonborn is.

Both Alduin and Akatosh are gods of time. Akatosh himself is also the amalgamation of the Nordic Alduin and the Elven Auri-El. Aka does have a broken mind, but his counterpart is Lorkhan, who has taken part in the Dragonborn's destiny.

Well I hate to bring it up again but in Morrowind you were the Nerevarine and it diddnt force you to do the main quest either, hell most of my friends diddnt even know there was a main quest line.

But really when it comes down to it did you think that the main quest line in Oblivion was interesting? A good quest line and especially the main quest line should be interesting enough to make you want to follow it and see it to its conclusion, the fact that you would rather ignore it says a lot about the quality (or lack thereof) of the main quest line.

I don't see why so many people assume the dragonborn is from a certain line. The Empire has been ruled by a dragonborn since Alessia, and both the Remans and the Septims had no relation to Alessia. So the idea that the dragonborn must be from a certain bloodline is unlikely. The most plausible scenario is that you begin the rise of a new dragonborn unrelated to any previous dynasty.

I hope so... I definitely want to be the DragonBorn. It just worries me that in the trailer, and now in the new poem we deciphered yesterday, that the DragonBorn is consistently referred to as "he". It also worries me that we won't be able to customize our player character and that wouldn't even seem like a TES game if that were the case... Oh well, I'm sure I'm fretting over nothing!!!

I'll second this (BTW: see Cipher 8's thread v2.0 for a good prediction of the background story).

Prehaps Akatosh/Alduin created the dragonborn to stop him from destroying the earth by showing him that the old world is still worthy. Similar to the whole Messiah thing only instead of being sacrificed you must BATTLE!

The Nerevarine is referred as a "he" in Morrowind, in the prophecies and history book. But it's just a title, like Dragonborn. The title doesn't have a gender, but using "it" isn't nice when talking about somebody.

As far as we know the Dragonborm can be a descendent o someone you copuled with during Morrowind or Oblivion game (that s only valid if you end up being the neveranine in Morrowind, or surviving SI) so for all i care it could be an half kajhiit, half Orc blooded one.

I think I didn't make myself clear. I enjoyed the main quest in oblivion. I completed it twice. But the fact that I was a sidekick, not the hero meant that I could role-play better. I have saves in Oblivion where I only got so far in the main quest as saving Martin from Kvatch because my character decided that it was too risky to get involved and had too little reward. Another character had no love for the Empire and refused to help on principle. See where I'm going? I played Morrowind too but I was far younger and didn't appreciate it as much. The only reason I didn't do the main quest on Morrowind (ever) is because I got lost once (quite frankly the populous of Morrowind were terrible at giving directions) and had far too much fun just running around finding things.

If I were to play Morrowind now, I wouldn't have as much fun roleplaying characters because I'd feel forced into the role of 'divine saviour'. Maybe it's just me. Don't get me wrong, Morrowind had strengths and Oblivion had weaknesses. They've been gone over countless times but on this factor, I preferred Oblivion.

And yes I role-play games. I am that much of a loser.

I'd hate to be the Dragon Born. Really. When playing Morrowind, it felt so awkward and anticlimactic to run around learning about the Nevarine only to be told after merely delivering a letter that I was actually the Nevarine. It's like "Hey, kid, you're actually Jesus! Who knew?"

I want there to be a better feel for my place in the game though than the "This ain't your story kid" feeling I got from Oblivion. I want there to be a misunderstanding of what the prophecy says, like maybe the role of the Dragonborn isn't actually the thing that is supposed to defeat the threat, or maybe it's more of a title to be held by many people, and I can become the "Dragonborn" in some climactic sequence.

Maybe it would involve getting swallowed by a huge dragon, only to slice my way out of it, so in a sense being "born" from the dragon?

...

Actually I really like that idea. That'd be epic.

I agree, as strange as it may sound, one of the first things that made Oblivion unique and special to me was that you WEREN'T the ultra famous, destined, one-and-only, etc. guy. To me it had nothing to do with whether or not you felt compelled to do the main quest (cause in the end i WANTED to see where this was going, and the drama felt so much more real and epic) it was about you being the right man for the job, not because, oh, your born with supernatural powers or destiny and so basically you can't loose because, hey, your the hero. Your the right man for the job because of your strength of character.

I think that really came out with your interactions with Martin Septim. Yes, he's the "hero", but that just goes to show you that TRUE heroes are the ones you never hear about, plus, when you talk to Martin in private, he recognizes that he needs you, that you ARE the true hero, and he relies on you because your just that selfless a guy. I know the facial animations could've used some improvement in Oblivion, but Beth took care when they animated martin. Go back, play it again, and watch Martin when he asks you to do something. You can almost feel the guilt in his eyes and in his voice because he recognizes that he asks so much of you that you'll never been truly recognized for. He understands and feels a little out of place as emperor, not simply because of all the responsibility, but because he's being attributed with all these fantastic abilities and feats that he knows aren't really his doing.

And for that I respected him deeply, even as a fictional video game character. At the battle of bruma I fought right next to him, why? Because the fact that he recognized me, when everyone else was looking at him, made him my in-game emperor, a man I could truly respect. Its like in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is the King, and in the end everyone attributes the victory of good over evil to him, but thats why (especially in the movie) its so dramatic when he bows before Frodo and the rest of the hobbits. Because they are, up to that point, the TRUE unsung heroes of the conflict. (mind you... i have no desire to be relegated to a frodo-like role when I know there are people like aragorn having all the battle-tastic fun, which is where Oblivion did a great job of balancing)

I think deep down we all know that the true heroes never get there stories told. I mean, just thinking of real world examples of this I think of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetary. Even our government recognizes the fact that most heroes in war are forgotten, and THAT makes is real, THAT makes it dramatic, THAT makes it epic, and THATS what makes us care.

Personally I don't care if we're the dragonborn or not, the point is I don't want people bowing down to me everywhere I go unless I've EARNED it. If i were making this game, yes, you'd be the dragonborn, but unlike in Morrowind very few people would come to know it until the very very very end, after you'd basically saved the world, except for maybe a handful of close companions. Or, you'd spend the whole game absolutely sure that someone else is the dragonborn, who you follow to defeat... whatever the bad guy is, only to watch him get killed or to realize at the last second that its been you all along.

Or just forget all that. I dunno. The point is, me getting all the glory doesn't make me feel like a hero. Its what I do that makes me the hero.

The one exception to all this is that I wished that made you have a LITTLE more role in defeating Mahrunes Dagon, like you have to soften him up or break some artifact anchoring him to our world, and THEN akotosh sends him back to oblivion. It was a little anticlimactic. Still epic to watch though, even from the sidelines.

Dragon put eggs..afaik.
Now why a dragon would swallow you without chewing ? Its like trying to eat an a pound of onepiece meat covered with tissue/leather/metal without chewing. And sincerely if dragon eat human with armor, do you really thing you would survive painlessly long enought in a crumpling crushing acid/fire/both filled environemnt to cut your way out ? LOL
You ll probably look like a sausage in your stomach even if not chewed your way screwed.
Now Dragons Polimorph right, It could be your mother or father had some relation with some bipede race and then you are Dragonborn, or it maybe that Emperor septim lineage liked to go AWOL more than we assume and have a pletora of dragon blooded running around Tamriel. Sincerely this last idea is lame, enought septims, time for a new name.
Since Akatosh is a dragon, since he is a dragon in his akatosh avatar, it may very well be that your of is lineage, henceforth Dragonborn, and have no relation at all with the (lame idea) dragons we will be battling.

BOOM. If I could express it better, I would.

Have you read Brian Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy by any chance? If you haven't I suggest you do. I think you'd enjoy them.

This is a fantasy game. It's no problem for that kind of thing to occur in a fantasy game.

And on top of that, this is AGAIN a fantasy game, so it's no problem for the character to survive that.



And it doesn't matter how the hell dragons are born, the term "born" there is a metaphor.

This could actually done as a side-path. Would be very interesting. If not, I'm sure a mod will do it.

Regardless, I doubt we are the dragonborn. As people stated, we have to have a variable name and race, and dragonborn has to have a constant name and race.

TheMiniMoon, on 07 January 2011 - 03:50 PM, said:

I agree, as strange as it may sound, one of the first things that made Oblivion unique and special to me was that you WEREN'T the ultra famous, destined, one-and-only, etc. guy. To me it had nothing to do with whether or not you felt compelled to do the main quest (cause in the end i WANTED to see where this was going, and the drama felt so much more real and epic) it was about you being the right man for the job, not because, oh, your born with supernatural powers or destiny and so basically you can't loose because, hey, your the hero. Your the right man for the job because of your strength of character.

LOL it couldn t be less true.
Right at the beginning you got the emperor saying i ve seen you in my dreams:

OMG IMZ the freaking zero right away!!!

And beyond that you always begin as the dung of the fly which landed on the dung of the horse of the bad guy who died n the first minute of the movie in TES serie.

Actually Oblivion is the first time it splahes it in your face.
In DF your just a messenger, In MW your a realesed prisoner that have a dream " many stands but one remain" and you discover your the candidate No 156446489416875446598 since the cult is killing neveranines monthly.And you don t even need to complete MW to go to the expansions.

I too wanted to see the end of the main quest, but it was out of boredoom and to free space on my hard drive for something more interesting like a defrag program.