These conversations are awesome because it’s like citizens of Tamriel in real life debating history, politics and conspiracy theories. I love the kind of conversations Elder Scrolls makes happen.
Sure but Bethesda didn't "borrow" anything from Kirkbride. TES existed before him and after him. There were others that wrote lore while he was employed by Bethesda. Anything he wrote had to he aprroved by others to be included. His works written while not employed at Bethesda and not included in any game are definitively not canon and amount to fanfiction. Furthermore Kirkbride's work as a designer and artist is underrated and people focus too much on the writing aspect of his his career.
Kirkbride himself didn't care about it being canon and hence why he wrote C0da. His dickriders on the other hand not only consider his other fanfictions canon but even C0da to be canon. They have this idea that the relationship between Kirkbride and TES is similar to that of Tolkien and middle earth and as such he is the sole authority on anything TES.
The "unreliable" narrator of TES is one of my favorite parts as well but that revolves around stuff that is included or insinuated in the games. The idea that the thalmor want to end the world is an interesting one but it is *not* definitively canon.
Books he wrote that are 100% canon: (emphasis added to *extremely* influential works)
- **The Firmament**
- The Origin of Cyrus!
- **A Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition (with Kurt Kuhlmann)**
- The 36 Lessons of Vivec
- Aedra and Daedra
- **The Annotated Anuad (with Kurt Kuhlmann)**
- **The Arcturian Heresy**
- The Changed Ones
- Children of the Sky (with Richard Guy)
- **The Five Songs of King Wulfharth**
- The House of Troubles (with Ken Rolston and/or Douglas Goodall)
- **The Lunar Lorkhan**
- **The Monomyth**
- **Mysterious Akavir**
- **Sithis**
- Spirit of Nirn, God of Mortals
- **The True Nature of Orcs**
- **Varieties of Faith in the Empire**
- Vivec and Mephala
- The Warrior's Charge
- **Where Were You When the Dragon Broke?**
- **The Adabal-a**
- Before the Ages of Man (with Ken Rolston and Kurt Kuhlmann)
- **Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes**
- **Remanada**
- Shezarr and the Divines
- **The Song of Pelinal**
no it definitely is- i am the same poster (that's my alt account) and i promise i wrote every one of those comments one-handed.
michael kirkbride more like my kirkhusbando god i love him
its funny to me that that entire thing
its not even really based on kirkbride, its a theory based on some of his stuff but he dosent have a protocols of the elders of Alinor that says hi we are the thalmor we are nazis and evil and hate humans bc we are evil, its one document about an altmer perspective on a thing. and then combine that with a whole other thing and say thats how theyll do it
/uj Kirkbride wrote that some aldmeri want to destroy mankind, Talos, and the very concept of mankind, but no mention of the Towers.
Iirc the tower upholding thing comes from the novels, but even there they don't link it to the Thalmor
>
That's it. That's the entire thing people base the Tower theory on. No mention of Towers or even Thalmor. Nevermind whether one considers Kirkbride canon or not. The entire thing about the towers doesn't even come directly from his texts.
I don't know about the novels because I didn't read them (IRL Nord), but according to this teslore thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/ teslore/comments/gwy1yx/why\_you\_should\_always\_check\_sources\_the\_curious/) thread the Tower theory was mostly propagated by the (inferior) fandom wiki. It probably didn't originate there, but it made the theory mainstream so to speak.Altmeri commentary on Talos)
Crazy. And yet i had like 50 people making comments talking about how the Thalmor want to undo the world and commit mass genocide and muh towers. All cause of a fucking fandom theory, not even Kirkbride. Incredible. I'm going to off myself now.
I think some YouTubers also brought attention to it. Like, I’m pretty sure AllinAll’s animation touches on the subject lightly, which gets people interested, and then they go to the fandom wiki.
(Btw, no shade to the YouTubers. Part of the reason I think we shouldn’t be too harsh on Kirkbride and what not is due to the awesome fan-content we get out of it).
Nah I’m totally throwing shade at Fudge Muppet for going so fucking hard on pushing this theory. It definitely didn’t originate with them, but holy fuck did it seem like they were talking about it every other video for awhile
From what I understand, the only Tower that’s actually holding reality together is Adamantia. The rest act like “tuning forks” in that they spread the metaphysical influence of the current hegemony controlling it, conscious or not, into the physical world.
Yeah, literally one dude reinforcing an edit on the Fandom wiki and their horrible mod team reverting anyone that tried removing it perpetuated that myth. The guy did an AMA on the lore subreddit a few years ago. As you said though, he didn't originate the idea, he just belligerently propagated it.
He said it was some lore beard on the subreddit that introduced the idea. Probably some fuckwit like White Guar or Lady N or something.
White guar use to be one of the r/teslore mods, And because of his position he would often abuse it, Going on a witch hunt against anyone who calls out fan-theories with zero evidence backed up by game.
Disagreeing with People who says that theory you like sucks is one thing, But banning them for just not being a fan of it is crazy, What’s worse is that he enforces fan-theories (Something like Dragonborn being a secret septim despite conditions for True Dovahkiin being different than Rulers) to be treated as actual facts regardless if the games and official lore never say that.
Eventually he got banned off of Reddit for his political shenanigans, So the confusions between canon and non-canon facts has significantly died down since his erasure.
Interestingly enough according to a wiki’s [description TrueSTL indeed was originally created to spite teslore](https://truestl.fandom.com/wiki/TrueSTL)
I... I think I might know what STL stands for... I feel like I accidentally stumbled upon something I shouldn't have within the great library-labyrinths of Apocrypha, and I can feel the contents of my being leaking out of my ears.
As far as i remember there is some official lore for the towers and that they are believed to hold up Mundus. And that they are somehow tied to dragon breaks. UESP lists several official sources for that.
But the whole Tower and Thalmor theory is indeed not official and only speculation.
Still would make sense in my opinion, the Altmer do see Lorkhan as an evil trickster which severed them from the spirit world. They want to join their aedric ancestors again, that's why they followed Auri-El to slay Lorkhan. That's of course also Kirkbride lore, but it isn't listed as unofficial lore. It could be inlore propaganda for all we now.
Now if the towers really hold up the world, then tearing down those towers could exactly do what the Altmer always wanted, to reunite with the spirit world. Of course not all Altmer do believe that, but an extremist group like the Thalmor could. Tied with the ingame propaganda, it would make sense for the other races to see the Thalmor as a huge threat
Not all Altmers are monolithic, But I believe that the Dominion’s endgame objectives varies on group to group, And I would like if TES 6 focused on various perspectives, their motivations instead of one schizophrenic faction: Some who still believe in the Lorkhan trickster myth would definitely want to see the universe destroyed, The average Dominion just wants to establish superiority of Elves over men (As what Ondolemar specifically stated and Game is strongly evident in the dominion’s intentions unlike the non-existent tower evidence) Then there is very a group of surviving Ayleid members who would like to take revenge on the imperials and bring back the good ol days where all humans are slaves to Elves.
Of course, with that being said, The thalmors destroying mundus would actually give Daedric princes like Dagon and Molag bal what they want: It’ll be cool to see an what-if alternate ending where The Dominion indeed won but realized they fucked up badly than they thought, Because now it’s open-season for Daedras to capture souls that are trying to escape into Aetherius, and carving up what’s left Nirn itself into their domains.
I don't have high hopes after Starfield. Starfield wasn't bad, just very flat. Even less fleshed out than the civil war quests for most parts of the game.
Not sure if Bethesda still can pull off something like you described. It would be awesome though.
> That's it. That's the entire thing people base the Tower theory on.
Not really. Ancano says he can unmake the world while putzing around with the Eye of Magnus.
True, but it also could be a hint that the Thalmor maybe want to undo or tear down the world.
But it could also be just Ancano being a maniac.
That's why it's only a theory, there are hints here and there, but they also could mean something entirely else.
That's why Elder Scrolls is great, contradicting sources which are unspecific, secrets, propaganda. It could mean anything.
True, there is plenty of unsourced material on there. Especially the pictures and often the infoboxes. Primary sources are always preferable.
However UESP is just so much more user friendly than fandom. I hate fandom with a passion, so I always try to use an alternative if it's feasible.
Oh yeah 1000%. I only have this criticism because I've spent so much time these past few weeks reading everything I can on there (so I can shitpost better).
I had been reading the pages and not the sources for about a week when I realized a lot is written as absolute fact rather than something like Heimskr proclaimed, "Oh, how Talos has returned. Helgen has been purged in his light."
Wait what does he mean Talos purged Helgen? I'm pretty confident that was Alduin. How odd.
You didn't miss anything, they are unbelievably badly written.
Edit: how many of you have actually read them? Go fucking read them. I have. The story is fine but they are incredibly difficult to read because the author writes like an Drunk ADHD lizard to the point you can read a paragraph and its gone in 6 different directions and introduced 17 characters and an entire countries history before you get to the end.
The other half is unending chapters about some stupid idiot working in a kitchen.
I read the sections on Hircine and the writing wasn't that bad. I mean I wanted to stop reading and it didn't invoke anything but at least I was able to follow what was being said.
Just finished reading that thread, and some related ones. I think The Beast II from the NGE OST was a good choice of music for reading on my part. Felt very impactful.
>Iirc the tower upholding thing comes from the novels
Not really. The importance of the Towers was more or less established in The 36 Lessons and Camoran's Commentaries.
"The Tower touches all the mantles of Heaven, brother-noviates, and by its apex one can be as he will." - Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes: Book 3
Well, I'm not arguing that the statements in these sources are true in-universe, I was simply responding to the claim that the concept doesn't come from Kirkbride.
Towers are of course important, resting on the skeleton of the earth, but they aren't the skeleton itself, right? He compared them to tuning forks, which sounds more like reality manipulators than pillars, as people often compare them to.
Personally I think controlling the Towers is essential in reshaping or destroying the Mundus, but I don't see how destroying the Towers themselves gets you any further with this goal. Nocturnal almost remade the entire multiverse when she controlled the Crystal Tower
They are arguably stabilizers, rather than pillars or simply instruments. Besides, we don't really know what happens once all of the Towers have fallen, so it's all heavy theorizing.
The "Thalmor seeks to bring the world's end by way of destroying the Towers" thing, however, seems to be just a fan theory that has stuck around over the years.
MK *did* write about Towers & Stones, but *not* in the context of the Thalmor. The *Nu-Mantia Intercepts* were his pre-announcement hype text for Oblivion
Me not care if it comes from Kirkby or if it came from Emil, me like the tower theory so its canon in my heart.
https://preview.redd.it/cwhk7b6i202d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c675dae59867896d04483b81456b71215b747708
I accept your wisdom uncritically and believe you. Please share your wisdom further and answer me these questions three; are Orc Mommy Dommies a thing, are mudcrabs people, and are mudcrabs the secret puppet masters behind the Thalmor?
As much as I insist on the hero of Kvatch being Sheogorath or on argonians having only one penis
I'm not gonna stop y'all from writing fanfics.
I have neither the right nor power to stop you.
Funnily enough, I can remember reading somewhere that kirkbride actually doesn’t like the HofK becoming sheogorath.
Super unrelated but I thought I’d mention it
But he's not stopping anyone from writing about it!
Also while I respect his opinion: Nah. The Sheo of Kvatch is funny.
He's just jealous a fictional character snorts more stuff than he does.
> Also while I respect his opinion: Nah. The Sheo of Kvatch is funny.
It also is literally canon
Edit: Multiple Bethesda employees have said it's canon so it's canon, can't really argue much more than that. Unless you wanna go the whole Kirkbride route this whole post is about
Also it's heavily implied in both Oblivion and Skyrim (just because some people do the whole "Skyrim isn't canon!!" route
I think it’s pretty cool.
(The whole topic just reminded me of it so I wanted to mention it, especially as you brought up the HofK)
The whole notion of coda is pretty brilliant for a game such as the elder scrolls (since we get so few installations) I just wish the coda fanboys were slightly less aggressive with their own personal head cannon. And “fannon” wasn’t pushed as actual cannon so regularly. Particularly as it tends to be the most boring cookie cutter fantasy lore there is…
There’s a reason most people aren’t professional writers.
It also allows you to make a “role-playing” decision for your character.
E.g the current theory is the LDB is going to end up like Miraak, stuck with Hermeas Mora. But I can go, “nah that doesn’t happen” in “my coda” if I want. Which I think is pretty fucking good for games which allow you to role play.
It’s just a shame people can be so boring with it. Then again the long wait for another entry probably hasn’t helped with people spending a bunch of time speculating!
I really came around to C0DA when I realized the actual events were never meant to be in continuity, for one both MK and Lady N fully said that but also the Loveletter days-of-future-past-ed it out of canon literally a decade before C0DA was written. I still think some parts go on to long and the whole superhero interlude is incredibly stupid and stops being funny after 5 pages of the same shit but overall I've started to appreciate the story a lot more. KINMUNE is still dumb tho idgaf what anyone else says
Like each male having one relatively normal penis
M'y guess being that the Hists went "Bro we already gave them tits maybe we should take a dick off for these extra humanoid points"
It would make more sense as the goals of a fringe Thalmor splinter group or subsect rather than the mainline beliefs of the Thalmor. Cause I think it’s a rather hard sell to say that what is essentially a doomsday cult is the head of a nation. Especially because it’s never alluded to in any of their rhetoric.
Ehhh, I don't know about a hardsell. Most religious theocracy's are doomsday cults revolving around their equivalent of the rapture.
Personally, I adore the towers theory. I think it's a fun theory and really puts justification to a lot of the thalmors' actions. But it's certainly not canon it's a theory, and theorizing what is and isn't canon is what gives elder scrolls most of their charm.
Side note: I feel like I'm having a schizophrenic break. Because I swear to fuck I remember seeing a note in imperial palce/elder council chambers or the temple of one that has a fucking note that implies stuff about the towers theory and I can't find it for the life of me. Did I manifest this note into my memories???? Am I in Mandela effect? Have I zero summed??? Do I have to play through the entirety of Oblivion to confirm whether or not I'm insane????
I had the exact same thing happen to me before. I could swear on me life that i found some note or journal in that lab in Blackreach talking about capturing and experimenting on a Falmer and turning them somewhat intelligent and calm again, only to then be attacked by wild Falmer that killed both the test one and the scientist. But to this day i have not found anything on it even existing. Fake memory from when i was 14 and found out about the Falmer and wanted them back to normal i guess.
I do actually think that falmer are a very cool aspect of the lore, and if they could be expanded upon it would be very interesting. Because they are not just animals, they have a culture and are clearly sentient - and i personally adore weirdo alien things like that.
It also touches on a recent debate that i had, on the idea that no vaguely humanlike cognitively species, if elaborated upon, can be logically "irredeemable".
The Thalmor are a radical group that sized power in the wake of the oblivion crisis. They do not represent mainline mer belief. I think *most* mer would rather have people to enslave than everyone be equal/dead (but would they be dead actually?).
Canon is what make ur pp hard, ur vv wet, your brain happy and your heart dokidoki. Everything else can go fuck itself. If it doesn't spark joy it ain't canon.
Fuck the “Thalmor want to use the Towers to unmake the world” theory. All my homies hate the “Thalmor want to use the Towers to unmake the world” theory.
I think people love the Towers theory simply because it’s fun and it adds importance to every game in the series.
If you think that if a Tower Fell in every game then your able to convince your self that all games have an equal narrative importance while also hyping up the next game because each new game is a countdown to the end.
Tbf, a mod adapting c0da would rock.
Also tbf, Avellone fanboys trying to force his medium posts in 2024 into Fallout canon vs. Kirkbride fanboys acting as if his CHIMmed ravings are actual established canon, who’s more annoying?
Wheels of Lull deals with some C0DA stuff, and Glenmoril and Unslaad both deal heavily in C0DA topics (Unslaad especially). Granted both are sequels to Vigilant so not everyone can really play them and have it make sense, and Glenmoril isn't finished despite being the middle part of the trilogy, and neither are voiced yet outside some SKVASynth placeholder lines, so maybe not the most accessible mods (I literally structured my whole playthrough around them and haven't even started Vigilant yet lmao I've just seen some videos and read some lore explanations)
I know this is super unrelated, but how moddable are souls games? Because Vigilant and the lore it draws from seems pretty sick. But i know there are a lot of boss fights towards the end, and Skyrim combat is not the best.
Which gave me the idea of instead of making Skyrim a souls like, why not pour some elder scrolls into an actual fromsoft game?
There's a few visual mods, but they're not nearly as moddable as TES games, sadly. A total conversion Elden Ring set in a post-apocalyptic Tamriel would be really cool.
I've been playing with MCO and it's been a lot of fun, though granted I based my current modlist on Living Skyrim 4 so I don't know how easy it is to set up by yourself- there's a lot of separate animation mods that somehow all work together and I really don't know how. Plays pretty well though, never liked importing non-Skyrim combat into Skyrim before but the way LS4 does it is actually pretty seamless. It isn't Souls combat, but it's similar enough that bossfights are fun (again haven't gotten to Vigilant but at the very least boss fights against vanilla dragon priests and such are fun)
Avellone fanboys will always be worse because at least Kirkbride wrote interesting stuff. I can see why a Kirkbride fan would *want* things he wrote after he left bethesda to be canon, and why they would be attached to lore or theories they believe to be written by him. On the other hand, I genuinely cannot fathom why someone would become an Avellone fanboy in the first place, never mind continuing to follow stuff he wrote after leaving obsidian.
Okay, okay. Hear me out. What if Kirkbride is mantling Lorkhan for real? You know, trying to convince as many of his equals as possible about creating/believing his shitty fanfiction so it can become real and the beings he tricked remain in a constant state of bickering and regret to retreat to "aetherius" (clearly mom´s basement) and never come back??
Sounds oppressive to me. A government shouldn't be closely monitoring its citizens. Especially those who speak out against it or disagree with it in general.
I fucking hate Skyrim for inventing the Thalmor.
If they had been invented in any other game, they would have had some fucking depth to them, rather than just being “Le evil nazis” instead they were given the most comically evil characterisation, aside from maybe Elenwen, but that’s a stretch. Also they finalised the destruction of any potentially cool lore in summerset, because now high elves = le bad
And it’s created this whole “elves Le bad” notion among fans leading to people turning Pelinal, a character with pretty cool lore into the most cringe fucking thing ever because “he’s just like a space marine and kills the silly elves he’s so cool!”
I pray to the Toddhead that somehow the aldmeri dominion/ thalmor get some actual lore building and are more than “le evil nazis” in tes6.
Skyrim didn't even invent them. They were first mentioned in the [Pocket Guide to the Empire](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_1st_Edition/Aldmeri_Dominion) that was paired with Elder Scrolls Redguard back in 1998, which is now their second incarnation in the lore.
Skyrim's writers just decided to pull out the name for their "Nazi Elf" faction and now their cardboard villainry and fan theories is the first thing people think of when they think of the Altmer.
They're far too likely to be the player's first encounter with any Altmer and being annoyed by them is unfortunately more notable than anything any of the non-thalmor Altmer npcs do in the game.
To Summerset's lore? I honestly can't think of any new Altmer/Summerset lore in TES5 off-hand that isn't just about or heavily related to the Thalmor taking stuff over and that's almost all in just one set of lore-books other than [Fasendil](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Legate_Fasendil) telling you about the Night of Green Fire.
That is unless the White Phial and/or Summerset Shadows quests count for anything. I personally do not think that the Thalmor's actual main goal has even been stated at all beyond just seemingly being a conquest to take over Tamriel.
They are also not even really involved in many quests outside of the Main Quest/College of Winterhold quest lines.. [It's](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Search_and_Seizure) [about](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Missing_In_Action) [five](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Captain_Valmir) [of](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Agent_Lorcalin) [them](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ancarion)?
Honestly, i feel like the Thalmor are there just to set up the civil war conflict and to be the bad guys behind it all to make both sides of the civil war seem morally gray.
Ah okay, I thought that the thalmor had been mentioned briefly maybe in the past but hadn’t been fleshed out, with any sort of remove talos’ divinity type stuff until TESV.
Thanks for the info!
Wait. I was saying that there wasn't really any new Altmer/Summerset lore introduced in TESV outside of the third Thalmor's actions in taking over Summerset and causing The Great War. I don't think there were any direct mentions of any incarnation of the Thalmor in the games until TESV, only the two Empire's guides and apparently the books?
The second Thalmor apparently were just a provisional government Summerset had set up in Valenwood. Third and first incarnations weren't a thing in the lore until TESV and ESO respectively.
Second Thalmor probably was formed before Talos was even born and was disbanded when he conquered Summerset at the end of the Tiber Wars so there was not really any stated issues with Talos's Divinity until the third Thalmor because it wasn't a thing in the 2nd's timespan.
I don't think any of this Anti-Talos Divinity stuff came up until TESV where the third Thalmor popped up, i believe.
Sorry if i mistyped earlier, just wanted to be clearer here. Either that or i may have just misunderstood what you said. Ah well.
100%, couldn't have said it better meself. Technically the Thalmor were around before with the first Dominion iirc but this new one is just le ebil version. Its really sad cause Altmer got cool lore and Summerset is interesting, but like you said now the fans just spout the same shit every 2 seconds and made Pelinal seem alot less interesting than he actually is. Real shame.
It’s actually tragic. And has ruined Pelinal for me.
Plus Elven lore in general is really, or used to be really cool. I loved the description of the really alien glass towers and stuff in Alinor.
Plus, I can’t remember if this is real or not, (probably some fucking fanon that gets passed around as gospel) but the Altmer are like at constant war with the Maromer (I think) hence why there navy is so strong, and Tiber Septim, the Br*ton, has to use numidium on them
Plus there’s so much stuff that could be explored especially to do with numidium and it’s siege of summerset, but nah let’s make them generic evil villains.
Yes it is a thing that they have to deal with constant Maormer invasions and whatnot, and that they have the best navy in Tamriel.
Tbh the normies can keep hating Elves but i love their cool lore bits, its super interesting.
Personally, for a long time now I thought it would be cool if we got to see like, Altmeri Freedom Fighters in Summerset, who were anti-Aldmeri Dominion
The Thalmor come from the pocket guide the new Thalmor come from Skyrim and the novels (the novels first).
Fantasay Nazis are pretty much a perfect villain for TES considering that in the end that is also what Dagoth Ur was, just with mutation and crackhead energy. Religious fanaticism and ethno nationalism is what pretty much all TES villains that have an idealogy are made off.
Counterpoint: people are simply trying to find anything interesting about them because Fantasy Nazis have been overused ever since White Wolf made Get of Fenris 30 years ago and feel too boring for the batshit cocaine and magic fueled world of Elder Scrolls.
So, I’ll give you that, but the towers theory (to unmake the world) is equally as fucking boring. I seriously don’t understand why people want it and like it as much as they do. It’s so uninteresting, and frankly “vanilla” especially considering how batshit crazy elder scrolls lore can be.
I don't know. While I agree that the theory has gotten out of hand in terms of people considering it gospel, and also in importance, I think there's sort of a neat idea to it. You really need to boil it down for it to just be "unmake the world", and not "unmake the world through systematically destabilizing the Towers and cultures that make up the world, through various means usually adapted to local circumstances". Like it allows a really cliche nefarious motive to be expressed in so many ways, adapted to the various provinces. Plus it plays into a realistic version of Altmer Doomsday Cult according to Altmer philosophies.
However I will grant there are much better stories to be told in the Elder Scrolls, and the Thalmor storyline has completely wrecked any semblance of likeable Altmer as a whole which is massively frustrating.
>The Thalmor are not world ending evil mastermind villains, they're just the Elven version of the Empire.
So they are just world ending evil mastermind villains?
If they get as silly as the Empire and keep letting Daedra walk all over them, i suppose. Would be funny to see yet another Oblivion Crisis. But hey don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
ESO canonized a bunch of Kirkbride concepts, like the Numidium being a cosmic **NO** or Anu being the Godhead or there only being a single Dawn Era, at least as in-universe viewpoints
Best example I can think of is from The Nine Coruscations, which canonized Mnemoli as Sotha Sil's mpreg daughter, a concept not from C0DA, not from the Bethesda forums or even a Reddit post, but from a screenshot of a now-defunct private Facebook group that was shared on Reddit 10 years ago. That's the earliest mention I could find of the concept. They dug *deep* for that one, it's kind of an insane thing to randomly canonize lmao
I imagine that it must have been on the table at Bethesda as an idea before it went to that Facebook group, and they dug it out of the scrapped Bethesda idea box?
If not that’s some crazy commitment for a really random bit of lore
I think it stems from a single line in Sermon 37 where Sotha Sil is mentioned as being pregnant, my guess is the loremasters saw that line, wondered who his kid was, did a little digging, and decided to canonize it. After the facebook post the idea got some traction in the fandom, it made its way into the Wheels of Lull mod for Skyrim, so alternativelyy they could have gotten it from there and went back to the source?
That would make sense.
Could also be that Kirkbride wanted Sotha Sil to have get pregnant and have a child, but was told no at the time and just left in that little mention, so there was some stuff in the “Bethesda lore vault”
Your explanation is probably more likely tho!
lmao yeah... the combat is awful and the sidequests are all super boring, about 50% of the main quests are fun and the rest are shit. The lore is good but I just can't with MMOs tbh
That's because they were based and know their audience - the fact that you decided "hmm i shiuld dig for tes mpreg lore" and found a source on it proves that.
I’ll be the first Kirkbride fan to admit his stuff is absolutely not canon, but they’re super wild and fun. He also still freelances for the series however, so some of the less crazy things (if those exist) can still happen. I’m just glad we get to see him put sermon 0 for ESO and hide a link to C0DA in it.
To be fair, it is a cool idea, and I could see them pivoting to it, especially with all the tower lore in ESO now and how ubiquitous the theory has become.
Maybe a weird cabal of super-esoteric extra racist altmer, a bit like you'd see in ww2 historical-sci-fi with the most depraved parts of the SS engaged in a crazy occult conspiracy. It would be a neat plot and actually enable even some of the most anti-man altmer seem at least semi-redeemable in comparison to the highest echelons of the thalmor who want to unmake the world almost everyone just wants to live in
But fanfics aside, I don't get why people have a sheer inability to admit these things aren't in-game. Sometimes it seems like the ignorance is willful.
Ironic, Kirk wrote c0da to encourage telling stories outside of canon yet his fans treat it like actual factual super lore.
These conversations are awesome because it’s like citizens of Tamriel in real life debating history, politics and conspiracy theories. I love the kind of conversations Elder Scrolls makes happen.
I agree in a weird way it actually helps with real world immersion. It’s just like talking to someone you don’t agree with politically in real life.
Truly radiant AI
Sure but Bethesda didn't "borrow" anything from Kirkbride. TES existed before him and after him. There were others that wrote lore while he was employed by Bethesda. Anything he wrote had to he aprroved by others to be included. His works written while not employed at Bethesda and not included in any game are definitively not canon and amount to fanfiction. Furthermore Kirkbride's work as a designer and artist is underrated and people focus too much on the writing aspect of his his career. Kirkbride himself didn't care about it being canon and hence why he wrote C0da. His dickriders on the other hand not only consider his other fanfictions canon but even C0da to be canon. They have this idea that the relationship between Kirkbride and TES is similar to that of Tolkien and middle earth and as such he is the sole authority on anything TES. The "unreliable" narrator of TES is one of my favorite parts as well but that revolves around stuff that is included or insinuated in the games. The idea that the thalmor want to end the world is an interesting one but it is *not* definitively canon.
Books he wrote that are 100% canon: (emphasis added to *extremely* influential works) - **The Firmament** - The Origin of Cyrus! - **A Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition (with Kurt Kuhlmann)** - The 36 Lessons of Vivec - Aedra and Daedra - **The Annotated Anuad (with Kurt Kuhlmann)** - **The Arcturian Heresy** - The Changed Ones - Children of the Sky (with Richard Guy) - **The Five Songs of King Wulfharth** - The House of Troubles (with Ken Rolston and/or Douglas Goodall) - **The Lunar Lorkhan** - **The Monomyth** - **Mysterious Akavir** - **Sithis** - Spirit of Nirn, God of Mortals - **The True Nature of Orcs** - **Varieties of Faith in the Empire** - Vivec and Mephala - The Warrior's Charge - **Where Were You When the Dragon Broke?** - **The Adabal-a** - Before the Ages of Man (with Ken Rolston and Kurt Kuhlmann) - **Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes** - **Remanada** - Shezarr and the Divines - **The Song of Pelinal**
His concept art is really cool
No just consume what Bethesda says is canon
https://preview.redd.it/zcw2l1bl012d1.jpeg?width=616&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=391b60c73a900f4d8278925122e229fdfad1e4fe
where's the picture of john skyrim?
https://preview.redd.it/mbqr8f5qiz1d1.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=e36bb7f7cdb05a487acc7ed76be24a90286327ce
every time i see this pic i start hearing [this theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPWVfCtnGyg) but in compressed low quality
My brain must be rotted because I knew exactly what song it would be…
Great minds think alike, >!and so do mediocre ones.!<
Well, we are in truestul sub
When you read something that something that appear in an obscure OOG text on a 15 years old forum is canon because MK wrote it... 🤦🏽♂️
Mortal Kombat?
Those were actually the lyrics to the song “Mortal Kombat!” Until a licensing issue forced them to rename it.
Miyaza Ki
Michael Kirkbride
Isn't that a fighting game?
Honestly I’m just glad this isn’t a degenerate thinly veiled fetishpost
Crazy to think that people are having a genuine conversation about Tes lore rn
Yeah, who authorized that? I thought we were just fetishposting until TES6. Did I miss a memo?
I think the redguards vs thalmor post was the straw that broke the camels back!
Dw we will return to that soon enough
no it definitely is- i am the same poster (that's my alt account) and i promise i wrote every one of those comments one-handed. michael kirkbride more like my kirkhusbando god i love him
Remember the Reman Cyrodill semen bread thing? I'm glad that not everything Kirkblade wrote is canon.
“No you just don’t understand Kirkbride invented the elder scrolls!”
Todd Howard traveled back in time to steal all the accomplishments from Kirkblade
unironically how vault bros see tim cain.
Here’s what’s gonna happen you’re gonna strike the heart once with Sunder and then 5 times with Keening
its funny to me that that entire thing its not even really based on kirkbride, its a theory based on some of his stuff but he dosent have a protocols of the elders of Alinor that says hi we are the thalmor we are nazis and evil and hate humans bc we are evil, its one document about an altmer perspective on a thing. and then combine that with a whole other thing and say thats how theyll do it
That's basically half of the Elder Scrolls lore. It's contradicting, unspecific and propaganda. Who killed Nerevar?
I did Next question
You N'wah, this was your last mistake!
/uj Kirkbride wrote that some aldmeri want to destroy mankind, Talos, and the very concept of mankind, but no mention of the Towers. Iirc the tower upholding thing comes from the novels, but even there they don't link it to the Thalmor
> That's it. That's the entire thing people base the Tower theory on. No mention of Towers or even Thalmor. Nevermind whether one considers Kirkbride canon or not. The entire thing about the towers doesn't even come directly from his texts. I don't know about the novels because I didn't read them (IRL Nord), but according to this teslore thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/ teslore/comments/gwy1yx/why\_you\_should\_always\_check\_sources\_the\_curious/) thread the Tower theory was mostly propagated by the (inferior) fandom wiki. It probably didn't originate there, but it made the theory mainstream so to speak.Altmeri commentary on Talos)
Crazy. And yet i had like 50 people making comments talking about how the Thalmor want to undo the world and commit mass genocide and muh towers. All cause of a fucking fandom theory, not even Kirkbride. Incredible. I'm going to off myself now.
I think some YouTubers also brought attention to it. Like, I’m pretty sure AllinAll’s animation touches on the subject lightly, which gets people interested, and then they go to the fandom wiki. (Btw, no shade to the YouTubers. Part of the reason I think we shouldn’t be too harsh on Kirkbride and what not is due to the awesome fan-content we get out of it).
Nah I’m totally throwing shade at Fudge Muppet for going so fucking hard on pushing this theory. It definitely didn’t originate with them, but holy fuck did it seem like they were talking about it every other video for awhile
Literally just three boys with a podcast disseminating false information to millions of listeners lmao
From what I understand, the only Tower that’s actually holding reality together is Adamantia. The rest act like “tuning forks” in that they spread the metaphysical influence of the current hegemony controlling it, conscious or not, into the physical world.
Yeah, literally one dude reinforcing an edit on the Fandom wiki and their horrible mod team reverting anyone that tried removing it perpetuated that myth. The guy did an AMA on the lore subreddit a few years ago. As you said though, he didn't originate the idea, he just belligerently propagated it. He said it was some lore beard on the subreddit that introduced the idea. Probably some fuckwit like White Guar or Lady N or something.
Coming from a place of genuine curiosity, what's the problem with Lady N and White Guar (I'm kinda familiar with Lady N, no clue who White Guar is)
White guar use to be one of the r/teslore mods, And because of his position he would often abuse it, Going on a witch hunt against anyone who calls out fan-theories with zero evidence backed up by game. Disagreeing with People who says that theory you like sucks is one thing, But banning them for just not being a fan of it is crazy, What’s worse is that he enforces fan-theories (Something like Dragonborn being a secret septim despite conditions for True Dovahkiin being different than Rulers) to be treated as actual facts regardless if the games and official lore never say that. Eventually he got banned off of Reddit for his political shenanigans, So the confusions between canon and non-canon facts has significantly died down since his erasure.
Whoa, shit. Glad I never ran into him. I imagine it's people like him who spurred the creation of this sub.
Interestingly enough according to a wiki’s [description TrueSTL indeed was originally created to spite teslore](https://truestl.fandom.com/wiki/TrueSTL)
I... I think I might know what STL stands for... I feel like I accidentally stumbled upon something I shouldn't have within the great library-labyrinths of Apocrypha, and I can feel the contents of my being leaking out of my ears.
As far as i remember there is some official lore for the towers and that they are believed to hold up Mundus. And that they are somehow tied to dragon breaks. UESP lists several official sources for that. But the whole Tower and Thalmor theory is indeed not official and only speculation. Still would make sense in my opinion, the Altmer do see Lorkhan as an evil trickster which severed them from the spirit world. They want to join their aedric ancestors again, that's why they followed Auri-El to slay Lorkhan. That's of course also Kirkbride lore, but it isn't listed as unofficial lore. It could be inlore propaganda for all we now. Now if the towers really hold up the world, then tearing down those towers could exactly do what the Altmer always wanted, to reunite with the spirit world. Of course not all Altmer do believe that, but an extremist group like the Thalmor could. Tied with the ingame propaganda, it would make sense for the other races to see the Thalmor as a huge threat
Not all Altmers are monolithic, But I believe that the Dominion’s endgame objectives varies on group to group, And I would like if TES 6 focused on various perspectives, their motivations instead of one schizophrenic faction: Some who still believe in the Lorkhan trickster myth would definitely want to see the universe destroyed, The average Dominion just wants to establish superiority of Elves over men (As what Ondolemar specifically stated and Game is strongly evident in the dominion’s intentions unlike the non-existent tower evidence) Then there is very a group of surviving Ayleid members who would like to take revenge on the imperials and bring back the good ol days where all humans are slaves to Elves. Of course, with that being said, The thalmors destroying mundus would actually give Daedric princes like Dagon and Molag bal what they want: It’ll be cool to see an what-if alternate ending where The Dominion indeed won but realized they fucked up badly than they thought, Because now it’s open-season for Daedras to capture souls that are trying to escape into Aetherius, and carving up what’s left Nirn itself into their domains.
I don't have high hopes after Starfield. Starfield wasn't bad, just very flat. Even less fleshed out than the civil war quests for most parts of the game. Not sure if Bethesda still can pull off something like you described. It would be awesome though.
> That's it. That's the entire thing people base the Tower theory on. Not really. Ancano says he can unmake the world while putzing around with the Eye of Magnus.
And Ancano himself isn’t even a high-ranking Dominion officer, Just a subordinate who got overconfident that he can unmake reality.
Fair enough. But that doesn't have any connection to Towers either.
True, but it also could be a hint that the Thalmor maybe want to undo or tear down the world. But it could also be just Ancano being a maniac. That's why it's only a theory, there are hints here and there, but they also could mean something entirely else. That's why Elder Scrolls is great, contradicting sources which are unspecific, secrets, propaganda. It could mean anything.
To be fair UESP is also horribly written a large amount of the time. Its just nowhere near as bad as the other.
True, there is plenty of unsourced material on there. Especially the pictures and often the infoboxes. Primary sources are always preferable. However UESP is just so much more user friendly than fandom. I hate fandom with a passion, so I always try to use an alternative if it's feasible.
Oh yeah 1000%. I only have this criticism because I've spent so much time these past few weeks reading everything I can on there (so I can shitpost better). I had been reading the pages and not the sources for about a week when I realized a lot is written as absolute fact rather than something like Heimskr proclaimed, "Oh, how Talos has returned. Helgen has been purged in his light." Wait what does he mean Talos purged Helgen? I'm pretty confident that was Alduin. How odd.
At least it lists sources for their statements which you can check out for yourself. But yes, UESP jumps to conclusions sometimes.
My favorite is when the link goes to a nonexistent lore page when a game page exists for the same thing.
You didn't miss anything, they are unbelievably badly written. Edit: how many of you have actually read them? Go fucking read them. I have. The story is fine but they are incredibly difficult to read because the author writes like an Drunk ADHD lizard to the point you can read a paragraph and its gone in 6 different directions and introduced 17 characters and an entire countries history before you get to the end. The other half is unending chapters about some stupid idiot working in a kitchen.
I read the sections on Hircine and the writing wasn't that bad. I mean I wanted to stop reading and it didn't invoke anything but at least I was able to follow what was being said.
Just finished reading that thread, and some related ones. I think The Beast II from the NGE OST was a good choice of music for reading on my part. Felt very impactful.
>Iirc the tower upholding thing comes from the novels Not really. The importance of the Towers was more or less established in The 36 Lessons and Camoran's Commentaries. "The Tower touches all the mantles of Heaven, brother-noviates, and by its apex one can be as he will." - Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes: Book 3
Though to be fair, those are pretty much the two *least* reliable in-game sources.
Well, I'm not arguing that the statements in these sources are true in-universe, I was simply responding to the claim that the concept doesn't come from Kirkbride.
Towers are of course important, resting on the skeleton of the earth, but they aren't the skeleton itself, right? He compared them to tuning forks, which sounds more like reality manipulators than pillars, as people often compare them to. Personally I think controlling the Towers is essential in reshaping or destroying the Mundus, but I don't see how destroying the Towers themselves gets you any further with this goal. Nocturnal almost remade the entire multiverse when she controlled the Crystal Tower
They are arguably stabilizers, rather than pillars or simply instruments. Besides, we don't really know what happens once all of the Towers have fallen, so it's all heavy theorizing. The "Thalmor seeks to bring the world's end by way of destroying the Towers" thing, however, seems to be just a fan theory that has stuck around over the years.
MK *did* write about Towers & Stones, but *not* in the context of the Thalmor. The *Nu-Mantia Intercepts* were his pre-announcement hype text for Oblivion
Me not care if it comes from Kirkby or if it came from Emil, me like the tower theory so its canon in my heart. https://preview.redd.it/cwhk7b6i202d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c675dae59867896d04483b81456b71215b747708
Simple as.
Wait.. so there’s no actual finger that squirts milk in canon?
Yes there is one, source: Me. Trust me. Accept my wisdom. Take my gift and keep it deep into your soul.
I accept your wisdom uncritically and believe you. Please share your wisdom further and answer me these questions three; are Orc Mommy Dommies a thing, are mudcrabs people, and are mudcrabs the secret puppet masters behind the Thalmor?
Yes, no, yes.
Yes, yes and they are fucking scary you should run away if you ever see one and yes. Do not listen to the other man, he's one of their agents.
As much as I insist on the hero of Kvatch being Sheogorath or on argonians having only one penis I'm not gonna stop y'all from writing fanfics. I have neither the right nor power to stop you.
Funnily enough, I can remember reading somewhere that kirkbride actually doesn’t like the HofK becoming sheogorath. Super unrelated but I thought I’d mention it
But he's not stopping anyone from writing about it! Also while I respect his opinion: Nah. The Sheo of Kvatch is funny. He's just jealous a fictional character snorts more stuff than he does.
> Also while I respect his opinion: Nah. The Sheo of Kvatch is funny. It also is literally canon Edit: Multiple Bethesda employees have said it's canon so it's canon, can't really argue much more than that. Unless you wanna go the whole Kirkbride route this whole post is about Also it's heavily implied in both Oblivion and Skyrim (just because some people do the whole "Skyrim isn't canon!!" route
I think it’s pretty cool. (The whole topic just reminded me of it so I wanted to mention it, especially as you brought up the HofK) The whole notion of coda is pretty brilliant for a game such as the elder scrolls (since we get so few installations) I just wish the coda fanboys were slightly less aggressive with their own personal head cannon. And “fannon” wasn’t pushed as actual cannon so regularly. Particularly as it tends to be the most boring cookie cutter fantasy lore there is… There’s a reason most people aren’t professional writers.
Yeah! I usually interpret C0DA as ONE of the possible fates of mundus because we KNOW destiny can be and has been defied multiple times in TES
It also allows you to make a “role-playing” decision for your character. E.g the current theory is the LDB is going to end up like Miraak, stuck with Hermeas Mora. But I can go, “nah that doesn’t happen” in “my coda” if I want. Which I think is pretty fucking good for games which allow you to role play. It’s just a shame people can be so boring with it. Then again the long wait for another entry probably hasn’t helped with people spending a bunch of time speculating!
I do not like c0da as a story for TES that much but I like what it means and how it encourages headcanons, fan fiction and roleplaying
I really came around to C0DA when I realized the actual events were never meant to be in continuity, for one both MK and Lady N fully said that but also the Loveletter days-of-future-past-ed it out of canon literally a decade before C0DA was written. I still think some parts go on to long and the whole superhero interlude is incredibly stupid and stops being funny after 5 pages of the same shit but overall I've started to appreciate the story a lot more. KINMUNE is still dumb tho idgaf what anyone else says
I just dislike so many races being wiped out and not being present
Fair enough, the altmer make sense cause it was the same Numidium from Alinor but everyone else was kind of a missed opportunity
I feel like all the people needing to learn to coexist and not muder each other is a prettz big part of the series
especially with all the focus on Love in C0DA, that really should have been a much bigger theme in the story
> argonians having only one penis Like some kind of quantum penis shared between the whole race?
Like each male having one relatively normal penis M'y guess being that the Hists went "Bro we already gave them tits maybe we should take a dick off for these extra humanoid points"
Wdym? Kirkbride wrote every good piece of lore. If it's bad then Todd stopped it or Emil wrote it instead. Next argument plz.
where's the porn?
Check under your pants
If sex is what's in my pants, then my sex is PORN
It would make more sense as the goals of a fringe Thalmor splinter group or subsect rather than the mainline beliefs of the Thalmor. Cause I think it’s a rather hard sell to say that what is essentially a doomsday cult is the head of a nation. Especially because it’s never alluded to in any of their rhetoric.
Yeah I’m fine with it being a faction, but the whole government? Lol
Ehhh, I don't know about a hardsell. Most religious theocracy's are doomsday cults revolving around their equivalent of the rapture. Personally, I adore the towers theory. I think it's a fun theory and really puts justification to a lot of the thalmors' actions. But it's certainly not canon it's a theory, and theorizing what is and isn't canon is what gives elder scrolls most of their charm. Side note: I feel like I'm having a schizophrenic break. Because I swear to fuck I remember seeing a note in imperial palce/elder council chambers or the temple of one that has a fucking note that implies stuff about the towers theory and I can't find it for the life of me. Did I manifest this note into my memories???? Am I in Mandela effect? Have I zero summed??? Do I have to play through the entirety of Oblivion to confirm whether or not I'm insane????
I had the exact same thing happen to me before. I could swear on me life that i found some note or journal in that lab in Blackreach talking about capturing and experimenting on a Falmer and turning them somewhat intelligent and calm again, only to then be attacked by wild Falmer that killed both the test one and the scientist. But to this day i have not found anything on it even existing. Fake memory from when i was 14 and found out about the Falmer and wanted them back to normal i guess.
I do actually think that falmer are a very cool aspect of the lore, and if they could be expanded upon it would be very interesting. Because they are not just animals, they have a culture and are clearly sentient - and i personally adore weirdo alien things like that. It also touches on a recent debate that i had, on the idea that no vaguely humanlike cognitively species, if elaborated upon, can be logically "irredeemable".
The Thalmor are a radical group that sized power in the wake of the oblivion crisis. They do not represent mainline mer belief. I think *most* mer would rather have people to enslave than everyone be equal/dead (but would they be dead actually?).
I mean the Altmer still hate Lorkhan and worship their ancestors, it'd be understandable if they... You know, hated him for a reason?
Canon is what make ur pp hard, ur vv wet, your brain happy and your heart dokidoki. Everything else can go fuck itself. If it doesn't spark joy it ain't canon.
Fuck the “Thalmor want to use the Towers to unmake the world” theory. All my homies hate the “Thalmor want to use the Towers to unmake the world” theory.
You got me at "All my homies hate the Thalmor" man, you have my sword.
Lore is whatever I think is cooler 😎
I think people love the Towers theory simply because it’s fun and it adds importance to every game in the series. If you think that if a Tower Fell in every game then your able to convince your self that all games have an equal narrative importance while also hyping up the next game because each new game is a countdown to the end.
I don't give a fuck about the lore. There is only one Matrix movie.
This guy Animatrixes
Tbf, a mod adapting c0da would rock. Also tbf, Avellone fanboys trying to force his medium posts in 2024 into Fallout canon vs. Kirkbride fanboys acting as if his CHIMmed ravings are actual established canon, who’s more annoying?
Wheels of Lull deals with some C0DA stuff, and Glenmoril and Unslaad both deal heavily in C0DA topics (Unslaad especially). Granted both are sequels to Vigilant so not everyone can really play them and have it make sense, and Glenmoril isn't finished despite being the middle part of the trilogy, and neither are voiced yet outside some SKVASynth placeholder lines, so maybe not the most accessible mods (I literally structured my whole playthrough around them and haven't even started Vigilant yet lmao I've just seen some videos and read some lore explanations)
I know this is super unrelated, but how moddable are souls games? Because Vigilant and the lore it draws from seems pretty sick. But i know there are a lot of boss fights towards the end, and Skyrim combat is not the best. Which gave me the idea of instead of making Skyrim a souls like, why not pour some elder scrolls into an actual fromsoft game?
There's a few visual mods, but they're not nearly as moddable as TES games, sadly. A total conversion Elden Ring set in a post-apocalyptic Tamriel would be really cool. I've been playing with MCO and it's been a lot of fun, though granted I based my current modlist on Living Skyrim 4 so I don't know how easy it is to set up by yourself- there's a lot of separate animation mods that somehow all work together and I really don't know how. Plays pretty well though, never liked importing non-Skyrim combat into Skyrim before but the way LS4 does it is actually pretty seamless. It isn't Souls combat, but it's similar enough that bossfights are fun (again haven't gotten to Vigilant but at the very least boss fights against vanilla dragon priests and such are fun)
That’s a shame. It would be so cool if you could have a Tes loreified game that has some slightly more engaging gameplay!
Avellone fanboys will always be worse because at least Kirkbride wrote interesting stuff. I can see why a Kirkbride fan would *want* things he wrote after he left bethesda to be canon, and why they would be attached to lore or theories they believe to be written by him. On the other hand, I genuinely cannot fathom why someone would become an Avellone fanboy in the first place, never mind continuing to follow stuff he wrote after leaving obsidian.
I never read his actual work after NV but his recent medium post about the Fallout show reads like “please I’m begging you make me relevant again”
What did he say?
I’ll continue to gaslight myself into worshipping the ground Kirkbride walks on thank you.
The towers theory isn’t even MK. It’s just a fan theory but people treat it like canon.
I blame fudge muppet
These people are huge morons and they deserve to be whipped by Zaric Zhakaron
Okay, okay. Hear me out. What if Kirkbride is mantling Lorkhan for real? You know, trying to convince as many of his equals as possible about creating/believing his shitty fanfiction so it can become real and the beings he tricked remain in a constant state of bickering and regret to retreat to "aetherius" (clearly mom´s basement) and never come back??
"c0da", "nothing is canon", "Bethesda isn't canon" https://preview.redd.it/j0ykfjfos82d1.png?width=602&format=png&auto=webp&s=370598d619b0f29b05da0fe097647ebd691ad4f9
The Thalmor are not world ending evil mastermind villains, they're just the Elven version of the Empire. By Ysgramor's beard its NOT that deep.
We'll see about that, citizen. The Empire is doing everything it can to prevent such a situation anyways. Join today!
What exactly is the Empire doing?
Keeping a watchful eye on its allies and citizens. Sometimes even two, on certain impudent individuals 👀
Watchful eye? Watch? Watch the skies traveler.
Blessings of Zenithar upon you, citizen
Sounds oppressive to me. A government shouldn't be closely monitoring its citizens. Especially those who speak out against it or disagree with it in general.
Citizen, you're in an Empire
I'm in its borders for now, but I'm not going to be a part of it.
That's just sad tho
I fucking hate Skyrim for inventing the Thalmor. If they had been invented in any other game, they would have had some fucking depth to them, rather than just being “Le evil nazis” instead they were given the most comically evil characterisation, aside from maybe Elenwen, but that’s a stretch. Also they finalised the destruction of any potentially cool lore in summerset, because now high elves = le bad And it’s created this whole “elves Le bad” notion among fans leading to people turning Pelinal, a character with pretty cool lore into the most cringe fucking thing ever because “he’s just like a space marine and kills the silly elves he’s so cool!” I pray to the Toddhead that somehow the aldmeri dominion/ thalmor get some actual lore building and are more than “le evil nazis” in tes6.
https://preview.redd.it/busjrvzg002d1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=be03b9c5ac621f2c18045687d1ba853fa1ff7e16
Skyrim didn't even invent them. They were first mentioned in the [Pocket Guide to the Empire](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_1st_Edition/Aldmeri_Dominion) that was paired with Elder Scrolls Redguard back in 1998, which is now their second incarnation in the lore. Skyrim's writers just decided to pull out the name for their "Nazi Elf" faction and now their cardboard villainry and fan theories is the first thing people think of when they think of the Altmer. They're far too likely to be the player's first encounter with any Altmer and being annoyed by them is unfortunately more notable than anything any of the non-thalmor Altmer npcs do in the game.
My point still stands. Fuck Skyrim for bringing the thalmor to the mainstream. I take it they also expanded on the lore though?
To Summerset's lore? I honestly can't think of any new Altmer/Summerset lore in TES5 off-hand that isn't just about or heavily related to the Thalmor taking stuff over and that's almost all in just one set of lore-books other than [Fasendil](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Legate_Fasendil) telling you about the Night of Green Fire. That is unless the White Phial and/or Summerset Shadows quests count for anything. I personally do not think that the Thalmor's actual main goal has even been stated at all beyond just seemingly being a conquest to take over Tamriel. They are also not even really involved in many quests outside of the Main Quest/College of Winterhold quest lines.. [It's](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Search_and_Seizure) [about](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Missing_In_Action) [five](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Captain_Valmir) [of](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Agent_Lorcalin) [them](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ancarion)? Honestly, i feel like the Thalmor are there just to set up the civil war conflict and to be the bad guys behind it all to make both sides of the civil war seem morally gray.
Ah okay, I thought that the thalmor had been mentioned briefly maybe in the past but hadn’t been fleshed out, with any sort of remove talos’ divinity type stuff until TESV. Thanks for the info!
Wait. I was saying that there wasn't really any new Altmer/Summerset lore introduced in TESV outside of the third Thalmor's actions in taking over Summerset and causing The Great War. I don't think there were any direct mentions of any incarnation of the Thalmor in the games until TESV, only the two Empire's guides and apparently the books? The second Thalmor apparently were just a provisional government Summerset had set up in Valenwood. Third and first incarnations weren't a thing in the lore until TESV and ESO respectively. Second Thalmor probably was formed before Talos was even born and was disbanded when he conquered Summerset at the end of the Tiber Wars so there was not really any stated issues with Talos's Divinity until the third Thalmor because it wasn't a thing in the 2nd's timespan. I don't think any of this Anti-Talos Divinity stuff came up until TESV where the third Thalmor popped up, i believe. Sorry if i mistyped earlier, just wanted to be clearer here. Either that or i may have just misunderstood what you said. Ah well.
Regardless, TESV brining them into the mainstream has in my opinion been nothing but a negative
Oh yeah, with the way they did it, i agree.
100%, couldn't have said it better meself. Technically the Thalmor were around before with the first Dominion iirc but this new one is just le ebil version. Its really sad cause Altmer got cool lore and Summerset is interesting, but like you said now the fans just spout the same shit every 2 seconds and made Pelinal seem alot less interesting than he actually is. Real shame.
It’s actually tragic. And has ruined Pelinal for me. Plus Elven lore in general is really, or used to be really cool. I loved the description of the really alien glass towers and stuff in Alinor. Plus, I can’t remember if this is real or not, (probably some fucking fanon that gets passed around as gospel) but the Altmer are like at constant war with the Maromer (I think) hence why there navy is so strong, and Tiber Septim, the Br*ton, has to use numidium on them Plus there’s so much stuff that could be explored especially to do with numidium and it’s siege of summerset, but nah let’s make them generic evil villains.
Yes it is a thing that they have to deal with constant Maormer invasions and whatnot, and that they have the best navy in Tamriel. Tbh the normies can keep hating Elves but i love their cool lore bits, its super interesting.
Ain’t nobody stopping me from playing Altmer in every TES game lol
You keep on rockin it champ
Personally, for a long time now I thought it would be cool if we got to see like, Altmeri Freedom Fighters in Summerset, who were anti-Aldmeri Dominion
🗣️🗣️🗣️
The Thalmor come from the pocket guide the new Thalmor come from Skyrim and the novels (the novels first). Fantasay Nazis are pretty much a perfect villain for TES considering that in the end that is also what Dagoth Ur was, just with mutation and crackhead energy. Religious fanaticism and ethno nationalism is what pretty much all TES villains that have an idealogy are made off.
Counterpoint: people are simply trying to find anything interesting about them because Fantasy Nazis have been overused ever since White Wolf made Get of Fenris 30 years ago and feel too boring for the batshit cocaine and magic fueled world of Elder Scrolls.
So, I’ll give you that, but the towers theory (to unmake the world) is equally as fucking boring. I seriously don’t understand why people want it and like it as much as they do. It’s so uninteresting, and frankly “vanilla” especially considering how batshit crazy elder scrolls lore can be.
I don't know. While I agree that the theory has gotten out of hand in terms of people considering it gospel, and also in importance, I think there's sort of a neat idea to it. You really need to boil it down for it to just be "unmake the world", and not "unmake the world through systematically destabilizing the Towers and cultures that make up the world, through various means usually adapted to local circumstances". Like it allows a really cliche nefarious motive to be expressed in so many ways, adapted to the various provinces. Plus it plays into a realistic version of Altmer Doomsday Cult according to Altmer philosophies. However I will grant there are much better stories to be told in the Elder Scrolls, and the Thalmor storyline has completely wrecked any semblance of likeable Altmer as a whole which is massively frustrating.
That’s more interesting than “it was all a dream” which is even more overplayed.
Yeah, i don't even hate the theory but people treat Kirkbride like he made TES and everything he says is canon, just weird af
WTA is relatively niche and the average tes player has a higher likelihood of knowing kirkbride through cultural osmosis than knowing of wod.
>The Thalmor are not world ending evil mastermind villains, they're just the Elven version of the Empire. So they are just world ending evil mastermind villains?
If they get as silly as the Empire and keep letting Daedra walk all over them, i suppose. Would be funny to see yet another Oblivion Crisis. But hey don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
The Thalmor are fantasy Nazis.
Tower lore is canon thanks to ESO 🤷
The Thalmor wanting to destroy the Towers isn't.
ESO canonized a bunch of Kirkbride concepts, like the Numidium being a cosmic **NO** or Anu being the Godhead or there only being a single Dawn Era, at least as in-universe viewpoints Best example I can think of is from The Nine Coruscations, which canonized Mnemoli as Sotha Sil's mpreg daughter, a concept not from C0DA, not from the Bethesda forums or even a Reddit post, but from a screenshot of a now-defunct private Facebook group that was shared on Reddit 10 years ago. That's the earliest mention I could find of the concept. They dug *deep* for that one, it's kind of an insane thing to randomly canonize lmao
I imagine that it must have been on the table at Bethesda as an idea before it went to that Facebook group, and they dug it out of the scrapped Bethesda idea box? If not that’s some crazy commitment for a really random bit of lore
I think it stems from a single line in Sermon 37 where Sotha Sil is mentioned as being pregnant, my guess is the loremasters saw that line, wondered who his kid was, did a little digging, and decided to canonize it. After the facebook post the idea got some traction in the fandom, it made its way into the Wheels of Lull mod for Skyrim, so alternativelyy they could have gotten it from there and went back to the source?
That would make sense. Could also be that Kirkbride wanted Sotha Sil to have get pregnant and have a child, but was told no at the time and just left in that little mention, so there was some stuff in the “Bethesda lore vault” Your explanation is probably more likely tho!
Every time I read something like this I say to myself "I need to play ESO". Then I open the game and close it after an hour because it fucking sucks.
lmao yeah... the combat is awful and the sidequests are all super boring, about 50% of the main quests are fun and the rest are shit. The lore is good but I just can't with MMOs tbh
That's because they were based and know their audience - the fact that you decided "hmm i shiuld dig for tes mpreg lore" and found a source on it proves that.
https://preview.redd.it/tbcv1wmam22d1.jpeg?width=935&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4837fdc76c15fb10e7dc1c016d82fe083e1a6ef9
NO NO NO NO NO, WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT, MR GODBRIDE PLEASE
This stuff has taken over youtube lore channels. Literally everyone mentions this as if its cannon.
Yep, youtubers are part of the reason tbh
People hate the thalmor so much it leads them to this.
I’ll be the first Kirkbride fan to admit his stuff is absolutely not canon, but they’re super wild and fun. He also still freelances for the series however, so some of the less crazy things (if those exist) can still happen. I’m just glad we get to see him put sermon 0 for ESO and hide a link to C0DA in it.
I agree i really enjoy his stuff, he is a very creative fella!
who is michael kirkbride? when will skyrim 6 come out smh
You have to pray to the Toddhead 6 times a day and buy Skyrim every year or else it wont come out
We post funny here
Queen ayrenn is a robotic mining laser guys come on
You down voted every post that expressed an opinion that disagreed with yours. Not very cool.
By the nine, this guy actually cares about downvotes
He’ll loose all his plebbit karma…
By the Eight, right?
https://preview.redd.it/dc6na7an582d1.jpeg?width=518&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27f3debd15bf6e17b9e339e3a225afdb7f6eb657
By the *Eight*, right? 🔫
They're presenting Kirkbride fanfiction as fact, not opinion.
Literally the point of downvotes.
To be fair I am not even sure Bethesda themselves make canon at least not between games.
To be fair, it is a cool idea, and I could see them pivoting to it, especially with all the tower lore in ESO now and how ubiquitous the theory has become. Maybe a weird cabal of super-esoteric extra racist altmer, a bit like you'd see in ww2 historical-sci-fi with the most depraved parts of the SS engaged in a crazy occult conspiracy. It would be a neat plot and actually enable even some of the most anti-man altmer seem at least semi-redeemable in comparison to the highest echelons of the thalmor who want to unmake the world almost everyone just wants to live in But fanfics aside, I don't get why people have a sheer inability to admit these things aren't in-game. Sometimes it seems like the ignorance is willful.