WMG / The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

The Nerevarine is left-eyed but right-handed.

That's why he or she uses a bow the way a left-handed (i.e. left-eyed) individual would, even though he uses all other weapons right-handed.

Morrowind is a Take That! at the concept of The Chosen One.

Let's start with the opening quote "Each event is preceded by Prophecy. But without the hero, there is no Event.", in other words, The Chosen One's success is a matter of the heroes own ability, rather than being The Chosen One. You are not the only "chosen one" at the Cavern of the Incarnate, all who failed even though they were The Chosen One, because their skills (or reasoning) was not enough. Further it is noticed that it may just all be a set up in a Daedra revenge plot (Vivec will not it is possible in one of the papers he gives you). Finally when you encounter Dagoth Ur you can tell him you are a Self-Made Man and the prophecy has no impact on you. If you do this he thinks highly of you for it.

• Well. Yeah.
  • Doesn't the entire series do this, since you are never forced to follow the main plot?
    • Well, as far as I understand, a hero in the TES universe is a person outside of the powers of fate that truly is free to choose their own destiny. So they can choose to screw over chosen one prophecies all they like.
    • Exactly. They are the Chosen Ones because they're the only who can decide their own fate. That's why you can end up as the leader of every guild in Tamriel.
    • Well in Oblivion you are the only one who witnessed the assassination of the Emperor. And in Skyrim you are the only Dragonborn alive and thus the only one who can stop Big Baddie.

Cliff Racers are Daedra

They are servents of Mehrunes Dagon. Their purpose; distract the adventurers until his armies can invade...

• No they're servants of Sheogorath, used to drive adventurers insane.
  • Suddenly it all makes sense, they're daedra in the service of Mehrunes Dagon to spread chaos who were driven insane after having tea with Sheogorath and are now forced to drive adventurers insane, which will eventually turn them into cliff racers( note the lack of cliff racer eggs or babies ) , who will themselves be forced to turn even more adventurers insane, like a plague far worse than the blight or corprus. The reason the daedra killed Jiub was because he was immune to the insanity and tried to stop Sheogorath's plan before it was too late. Whoa!
  • They could serve more than one Prince. We know that the Hungers, the Golden Saints, and the Daedroths do.
    • This also explains how come there's always more of the blasted things no matter how many you kill, they can't be permanently killed and just come back after a while.
    • Wouldn't that send them back to their realm of oblivion? Unless of course, the crazy guy in IV, mankor camoran, was right and Nirn is a daedric realm owned by mehrunes dagon.

Fargoth is behind everything

Remember that Wood Elf in Seyda Neen? The one who asked you about his ring? He's actually an immortal psychic wizard god who masterminded everything. That ring you found? It was enchanted to alter you so that you would become the Nerevarine! It also altered the artifacts that you would eventually touch (Wraithguard, Keening, and Sunder) So that, rather then destroy the heart, it would send it to him. He is truly The Chessmaster.

The Kefka Burial inside Urshilaku Burial Caverns is where Kefka Palazzo himself has been sealed away.

Tamriel is actually where the final battle took place between Terra Branford and Kefka Palazzo thousands of years ago in Final Fantasy 6. Because of his godlike magic, Kefka wasn't actually killed. Terra merely used her magic and the magic of her companions to seal Kefka away forever. The Elder Scrolls timeline is a point in the rebuilding of civilization after Kefka's apocalypse. Just be grateful the Nerevarine didn't get careless and set Kefka free... right?

• Is it possible that the Heart of Lorkhan is actually the heart of Kefka?
• No.

Divayth Fyr is Malacath

Of the four artifacts that Divayth owns, three are associated with the daedric prince malacath: scourge, volendrung and the cuirass of the saviour's hide. In addition, he is the owner of the corprusarium, protector of the last dwarf and took in an ostracized argonian, all of whom are the spurned people that Malacath is associated with. Not to mention that Divayth does several god-like things, like his creation of life and making a cure for a disease created by a god.

• Couple problems: first, the Cuirass of the Savior's Hide is associated with Hercine, not Malacath. Second, daedric lords, at the time Morrowind takes place, cannot manifest physically in Mundus, period— when summoned, they are able to invest only their awareness and voice, as they do when you activate their shrines to get quests from them. Third, the daedra, having by definition refused to invest any part of themselves in Lorkhan's creation of the World, are incapable of the creation of life. Fyr certainly has some thematic associations with Malacath, though, no doubt about that, but he isn't the Prince himself.
• It's more likely that Fyr is actually the hero of the Battlespire game, as he possesses or has close links to several of the artifacts from that game(Savior's Hide, Daedric Crescent, ect.).
  • Of course, that begs the question of why a four-thousand year old Telvanni mage-lord would have done a stint in the Imperial Battlemages (the organisation, not the position) during the Simulacrum...
    • Who said that Fyr was joining the Battlemages? A respected and powerful Telvanni wizard would probably be more than welcome to study at the Battlespire if he sought to maybe learn some different types of magic.
    • Maybe it was actually his middle daughter-wife, Gamme. The only one not present in the tower when you arrive.
• Most likely, he simply agrees with the ideals that Malacath represents.

Dumac the dwarf king was a demi-prince of malacath.

He's repeatedly referred to as "dwarf-orc" and "Dumalacath" in books. Nerevar his chimer counterpart was said to be the son of boethiah. The final fight between the two in some versions of the story parallel the battle between beothiah and trinimac.

Dagoth Ur and Nerevar were lovers

Some of the actions that Dagoth Ur takes toward the Nerevarine start to make a lot more sense. For example, telling the Nerevarine that he really wants to have him/her back while sending sleepers and the corprus disease, evidence of an abusive relationship. This would also help explain why Dagoth Ur is so desperate to have the Nerevarine, even if the player takes the path of not actually being a reincarnation.

• Voryn Dagoth could be the Ho Yay counterpart to Almalexia, even as the wife of Indoril Nerevar she may have just been The Beard (they didn't have any children).

Gaenor acquired the Skeleton Key

One of the greatest mysteries in Morrowind is the Bosmer "entrepreneur," Gaenor. He starts out as a lowly level 1 pauper who constantly begs the Nerevarine for money. Then, over the course of three days, he becomes a level 50 warrior, decks himself out in a full suit of Ebony Armor, and gets an insanely high Luck Stat that makes him almost Nigh-Invulnerable. How could he have possibly have accomplished all this in such a short amount of time?

The Thieves Guild questline in Skyrim provides the answer. Over its course, we find out that Nocturnal is not only the Daedric Prince of night, but of luck as well. Likewise, whoever bears Her artifact, the Skeleton Key, is gifted with an immense amount of luck that will make all his/her endeavors profitable. It also has the ability to unlock everything, including human potential. So by getting it, Gaenor quickly became immensely rich, powerful, and lucky.

Oh, and the Skeleton Key you can get in Morrowind? Not the same thing. That's not the Skeleton Key of Nocturnal, that's just a skeleton key, a special key that can open most any lock that just effectively acts like a high quality lockpick.

Vivec is a crack RPF writer.

Come on, this is the guy who wrote the 36 Lessons of Vivec where he paired himself with freaking Molag Bal. He's probably got some Nerevar/Dagoth fanfic lying around somewhere.

And on a similar note, he probably runs ff.net too.

Almalexia acted the way she did in Tribunal out of guilt and a need for revenge.

This turns Almalexia into a Draco in Leather Pants, but bear with me. One thing that struck this troper as odd was how Sotha Sil was described as a reclusive introvert, and yet was able to convince an entire nation of people that their skin turning to ash was a good thing. Sure, maybe it was his new god powers that let him do it, but Sotha Sil was a powerful wizard even before godhood. What if he used a mass charm spell on the new Dunmer people to help him calm them down? Even without his god powers (as some sources say the Dunmer curse was put on the Chimer before the Tribunal's ascension), he was powerful enough he might have been able to do it.

Almalexia killing Sotha Sil and wanting to kill Vivec doesn't make much sense in the game, but in the Trial of Vivec it's implied that Vivec killed Nerevar in order to have Almalexia. Therefore, taking that information and the paragraph above, what if Vivec had Sotha Sil used a charm spell on her to make her turn on Nerevar? Especially as Nerevar is painted as a saint (if a naïve one) who has the best of intentions and couldn't hurt a fly. If Almalexia genuinely hated her husband, or if Nerevar was actually a bad person, wouldn't she have had him portrayed as much worse in the history books? What if she found out what Vivec had Sotha Sil do, and the Tribunal expansion was all about getting revenge? As for her turning on the Nerevarine, they DO say that guilt drives you mad...

• Although it should be pointed that whether or not Tribunal did kill Nerevar in the first place is ambiguous at best.
  • Vivec placed a statement that he murdered Nerevar in the 36 Lessons, hidden in code.
    • Considering the other content of the 36 books, I wouldn't exactly consider it a reliable source. Just because it was written by a god doesn't mean it isn't absolute nonsense.

Vivec wasn't the anticipation of Mephala...

... He was the anticipation of Sheogorath. To be more accurate, his goal was to challenge the dunmer people by invoking their most significant mental weakness, their blind faith (which was sheogorath's role as part of the house of troubles). As such, he provides them with obviously false religious materials. Most obviously, there are the 36 sermons, but there is also the naming of lie rock (in which the ministry of truth resides). So far, the dunmer haven't actually caught on yet, much to his disappointment.

• The terminology is the other way around (the official line is that Mephala was the Anticipation of Vivec — she came before him, after all), but other than minor quibble, an interesting theory — and it certainly makes for interesting implications given that Lie Rock was supposedly sent by Sheogorath.

The Mudcrab Merchant was an aspect or servant of Sanguine.

He's drunk and has alcoholic beverages on hand. Makes perfect sense.

For whatever reason, Mara is absurdly powerful during the events of Morrowind.

This is why she can send Ama Nin as an (admittedly noncombatant) avatar with no problem to go about healing people (and getting kidnapped by winged twilights) when it took Akatosh some severe questlines a bit later in order to kick out Mehrunes Dagon during Oblivion.

• That really had to do more with Martin shattering the Amulet of Kings to become Akatosh's avatar than anything else, though. And he only did that because it was the only way to combat Dagon.

Every explanation for how Nerevar died and the events surrounding this are true.

When the Tribunal used the heart to become gods, it's suggested that this resulted in two timelines being merged. In one timeline, they were always gods, and in another they were mortals who became gods. They remember being mortal, and have mortal histories, but at the same time remember always being divine and have divine histories.

I suggest this extends further than those two timelines. Every explanation for how Nerevar died is one timeline. Explains why no answer has any more evidence, and why all have people in history who claimed to have witnessed them: The merging of timelines means they all happened simultaneously, Nerevar died of his wounds on the slopes of Red Mountain and Nerevar was also murdered by the Tribunal during a ritual to summon Azura. Every contradiction in every account happened, they just all happened simultaneously.

• Very likely considering something like that has happened multiple times in the history of Tamriel (it's properly called a Dragon Break; the most well known one was at the end of Daggerfall, where all the contradicting endings happened simultaneously, but there are other examples in the lore). The Tribunal retconned the universe so that they have always been gods, but there are multiple possible timelines where they used to be mortals, all of which could have merged together with the new timelines as a result of said retcon. The battle of Red Mountain is also connected with the cretaion of Numidium, which tends to cause Dragon Breaks by simply existing, making the theory even more likely.

The Ash Vampires are the Dwemer.

Compare the Dwemer to the Ash Vampires. Also note that at least four out of seven Ash Vampires in Vvardenfell are located in Dwemer structures, with the others residing in what were likely to be Dwemer citadels at some point in the past. It's possible Dagoth Ur's family could've intermingled with the Dwemer during the period in which the Chimer and Dwemer were allies, thus explaining their 'kin' relation to Voryn.

• Five are in Dwemer structures, but the remaining two are in what was likely not Dwemer citadels (Mamaea is a cave system without any sign of a ruin and Kogoruhn was a House Dagoth citadel and part of the general Chimer/Dunmer stronghold system). This aside: the Ash Vampires may not be Dwemer per se, but it is close to explicit that Dagoth Ur and the intelligent parts of the Sixth House are emulating and following in the footsteps of the Dwemer in more ways than simple picking up the 'make a Brass God' plan, and it is indeed quite possible that there were intermingling with Dwemer during the First Council — and as relics of that time, the Ash Vampires would be more aware of it than any modern-day descendants.
• It could just be that the Heart of Lorkhan has that effect on the appearance of anyone who lives close enough to it and/or experiments with its power for long enough (as both the Dwemer and the Ash Vampires did). If nothing else, the continued existence of (the House Dagoth Councilmen who would eventually become) the Ash Vampires after Kagrenac erased the Dwemer from existence suggests that the Ash Vampires were not Dwemer (originally, at least).

Kagrenac struck the Heart of Lorkhan once with Sunder and five times with Keening.

Striking the Heart of Lorkhan once with Sunder and five times with Keening unbinds the Heart, erasing anyone bound to it out of existence. This is how the Nerevarine is supposed to eliminate Dagoth Ur and any remaining Ash Vampires, but it's also how Kagrenac (intentionally or not) eliminated the Dwemer.

There are way more undercover Blades agents on Vvardenfell than the ones shown by the game.

Caius Cosades and his motley band of half a dozen low-ranked spies on the western half of the island are nowhere near enough to actually keep tabs on everything important going on, let alone support the Nerevarine adequately on a mission as dangerous and unpredictable as the one they embark on. Cosades also outright says at one point that it wouldn't surprise him if there were other Blades agents on Vvardenfell that even he knew nothing about. Most notably, the organization has at least three glaring faults:

• They have no Dunmer agents. Having natives work for you is the key to understand and successfully infiltrate a foreign society, doubly so one as alien and inhospitable as the Dunmer.
• They have no operatives in Vivec or any Telvanni territory. When the Temple and House Telvanni are the two most unpredictable organizations on the islands, this is a huge disadvantage.
• They have nobody who infiltrated any of the Great Houses. The Emperor and his staff must have known that fulfilling the Fourth and Fifth prophecy would be borderline impossible without support or at least approbation by the Great Houses. Sending a foreign ex-criminal to obtain their approval without anybody to speak on their behalf is an incredibly bad move.

Therefore, it is highly plausible that there are other, more discrete, agents in the game, possibly posing as members of other organizations, to help out and keep track of the Nerevarine from the background. Notable suspects include:

• Crassius Curio: He acts as the mentor of a Nerevarine who joins House Hlaalu from the start, and otherwise seems to mostly stay out of the rivalries plaguing the rest of the House's upper ranks. He also tries to convince the Nerevarine to maintain a high and positive reputation. Most notably, there is one point in the game that stands out. If the Nerevarine follows his advice and has Odral Helvi arrested for ebony smuggling, Curio remarks that "Helvi now is on a prison ship; just like you [the Nerevarine] when you came to Vvardenfell." At first glance funny, at second glance it begs the question of how Curio knows that.
• Turedus Talanian: It is impossible to influence House Telvanni directly without obtaining a high rank in the organization, but it is also impossible to obtain a high rank without earning the other Telvanni Lords' suspicion and enmity. Talanian as Master Aryon's chief of mercenaries and seemingly personal advisor is in perfect position to report on and subtly influence the House's movements without arousing too much suspicion. He is also definitely a former Imperial soldier himself.

Dwemer become one with Sithis, or were consumed by it.

• Consider this: Dwemer were obsessed with rejection of everything in order to use this to improve themselves and their society. What if Kagrenac's use to unmake themselves were the last straw? There are also repeated mentions of "Is not", which is how Sithis is known.

The Tribunal were all crazy from the start

Azura claims that mortals inevitably lose their marbles when they gain divinity, something backed up in Tribunal when Almalexia goes on a murder spree, but this guess is that the events of Tribunal were simply said insanity crossing the line from 'Crazy Sane' to outright 'Ax-Crazy'.

• Almalexia's brand of insanity is denial; she believes so hard in her merciful 'Mother Morrowind' image that she can't accept the truth that she got her power in an act of betrayal (and quite possibly murder) and that the reason she wanted to be a god was because she liked being adored and praised. For the most part this worked very well because she wanted to really be a benevolent deity and so did her best to play that role, but when her waning powers forced her to confront the truth, she decided to repeat the situation that first granted her divinity- betraying an ally to rise above them and become a beloved goddess- with the other Tribunal members instead of Nerevar.
• Sotha Sil's insanity was in part his reclusiveness and in part fatalism-caused depression, as per his characterization in Online. His desire to redeem the world through his Clockwork City (and hinted desire to escape to upload his mind to a part of reality he didn't understand so he could be a scientist again) kept him somewhat functional and allowed him to come to terms with his role in Nerevar's betrayal by viewing both it and his subsequent godhood as necessary evils that he deeply regrets.
• Vivec's promiscuity and habitual lying are part of his own brand of insanity, but since he at least knows he's lying even if he can't stop himself, this allows him to strike a balance between Almalexia's denial and fragile worldview, and Sotha Sil's honesty and depression, which also means he can acknowledge his role in betraying Nerevar. It also might have helped him achieve CHIM, since CHIM is basically all about lying to the game that you're a PC.

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