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being a fan of the elder scrolls lore is a truly insane experience. you're like "wow. I really dig this 2920, The Last Year of the First Era book. I wonder if there's something else like that". so you go to UESP trying to find who wrote 2920 and you find that it was ted peterson and that he once said "you shouldn't really trust 2920's description of akaviri invaders because the in-game author doesn't know shit about them. he made it up and maybe some other things too"
Clockwork City side quests get behind me, I'll defend you
it is such a choice to have a clockwork apostle view the choice of shutting everything down at the everwound wellspring, and continuing the practice but with "willing" sacrifices, as equal.
it is such a choice to have a group of apostles witness the misuse of the machine minutes before, and be completely unable to foresee the inevitable future of running out of willing sacrifices. in a realm where a good amount of its people are functionally kidnapped and trapped there, not allowed to be citizens, and left to starve and rot in the poverty district. people who regularly ignore the suffering of the tarnished in clockwork city, unable to foresee those very tarnished will be used for the blood sacrifice of letting them have fresh fruit? who would have thought!
sotha sil said "nirn sucks ass, I'm going to improve it" and then built a fucking cyberpunk dystopia. and people call almalexia "the crazy one". ffs.
In light of Douglas Goodall's new lore text, The Soft Doctrines of Magnus the Invisible, I have a new theory to propose: Trinimac, by killing Lorkhan, created death, and by extension Arkay. Hear me out.
“Only the shape-taker's respiration emptied the arc for the thief's eye”
This is a quote from Enantiodromia, the second part of the four-part text. The shape-taker is obviously Trinimac, who is known as such because of the Boethiah incident, and the thief's eye is referring to Arkay, who is associated with the Thief constellation. To me, this quote is implying that the former made room for the latter to exist (made it possible for Arkay to exist). Expanding on this, before Mundus death did not exist, the et'Ada were infinite and without limitations, which is why Lorkhan created Mundus; to teach their progeny, through the application of limit, how to become without limit. I believe that, when Trinimac killed Lorkhan at the behest of Auri-El, the concept was created. I find it highly likely that Lorkhan always intended for death to be invented, but I'm undecided on whether he planned for it to be created by Trinimac killing him. It does fit nicely into the theory that Lorkhan always intended for his heart to be ripped out– this heart is the heart of the world. Regardless, the first death was a murder.
That quote also somewhat evokes an elven ballad from ESO, Folly of Man, which laments the rise of mankind: “You'll learn what the Corpse-God wrought. Even Trinimac didn’t know, with his final blow, just how badly he'd been caught”. If Trinimac did indeed create death, based on everything we know about him, it's unlikely that he did so intentionally.
‘Enantiodromia’ itself is defined as the tendency for things to change into their opposites. Is that not what eventually happened to Trinimac?
On Orkey and Trinimalarkay
Orkey is the Nordic god of death, considered a fusion of Arkay+Malacath by many, and is most known for “stealing the Atmorans’ years”, or shortening their lifespans, which is exactly what Trinimac would have done to every mortal by creating death. On top of this, in Nordic legend, Orkey summoned Alduin who “ate almost every Nord down to six years old”. This is interesting because Alduin is, of course, connected to Akatosh/Auri-El, who ordered Trinimac to kill Lorkhan. Trinimac and Auri-El are both responsible for the death of Lorkhan, and both Orkey and Alduin have stolen years away from the Nords/Atmorans.
So who is Orkey? Is he Trinimac? Isn't Tsun Trinimac? Yes and no. For a long time people have tried to equate Trinimac/Malacath with Arkay through Orkey, and while I don't believe they're the same being, it does seem likely that they're connected. Arkay was created unintentionally by Trinimac through the murder of Lorkhan, and their relationship is somewhat similar to Peryite and Akatosh or Lorkhan and Namira. They are connected but Arkay is still ultimately a separate being. The Nords combined Arkay (‘death’) with his creator in an attempt to explain how he came into existence. This would explain how Tsun (who is theorised to be the Nordic equivalent of Trinimac) is present in the Nordic pantheon alongside Orkey, and how Trinimac is present in the Altmeri pantheon alongside Xarxes (who is theorised to be the Altmeri equivalent of Arkay).
And finally, tri-nymic and Arkay, Zenithar and Stendarr.
“Trinimac is probably one of the least understood underpinnings of the whole pantheon. I like him that way, but I would study Mithras if you really want to find out more” -Michael Kirkbride
To summarise, Mithras was a Greco-Roman god, inspired by Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war. Mithra was part of the Ahuric Triad, along with Ahura Mazda (the creator deity, god of the sky), and Apam Napat (god of water). Although this may be boring, I believe tri-nymic is simply a reference to the Ahuric Triad. The Ahuric Triad reminds me of Padomay, Anu and Nir as well. Padomay is, of course, Lorkhan and Anu is Auri-El. What if Trinimac is Nir (the catalyst, the first possipoint)?
Finally, I am a big fan of @ayem's theory that Trinimac was always padomaic. Trinimac pretended to be anuic– and tried to be anuic– so that he could serve Auri-El, but ultimately he could only be Mauloch. The Roads seems to be about how one can only be what they are, which is a recurring theme in The Elder Scrolls.
“Hue is governed by momentum. As much as manifold Meridia loves the Blind, even orphans cannot change their color.”
This quote is obviously about Meridia, but I think it also applies to Trinimac. There are also countless parallels between Meridia and Trinimac: they were both champions of more powerful gods, they both tried (and failed) to be something else, and, in my opinion, Meridia assumed Trinimac's role as ‘warden’ of Nirn after his ‘death’.
Narratively, I think Trinimac accidentally creating death is a very important moment in his story. It's the moment that proves to him, without a doubt, that he will never be able to escape or erase what he is. He tried to be something static, unchanging, and yet he created death– the final destination, the unavoidable end. What is death if not the ultimate transition? No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape your nature.
Some more random thoughts:
In Nordic legend, Alduin/Orkey's curse is thrown onto the orcs by Ysmir Wulfharth, who is believed to be a Shezarrine. I feel like this could be a reference to how the orcs were also transformed/suffered when Trinimac was defeated by Boethiah (who hoped to avenge Lorkhan).
Additionally, Malacath's realm is the ashpit and ashes are associated with death.
roman mithras.
born from a pile of shit rock. the center piece of the cult is the sacrificial murder of lorkhan the bull.
I feel it in my heart that mk, being a huge gnostic nerd, saw that image in some book about mithras and passed out. because omg! the gnostic demiurge
Making Talos worship and its outlawing a major part of the Skyrim story is absolutely batshit to me. The Nords shouldn’t fucking care. Having Ulfric be trying to bring back the old nord pantheon would be more impactful I think and would muddy the waters more bc the empire was OBJECTIVE WRONG to do that. But is it actually going to help the ppl of Skyrim to fight the empire in a civil war while the thalmor is a threat?
But with Talos worship it’s like. Why isn’t the empire more mad about it??? Talos was their guy. Why are they like “bah, stupid nord customs” This Is Your Guy. Are you insane??? This is your guy in your pantheon. You are the ones who made them worship him by force. But now suddenly they’re willing to die on this fucking hill?? It would make more sense if the thalmor demanded the worship of shor/shezzar/lorkhan be banned and the empire agreed to throw Skyrim under the bus to save their own skin.
But no the Nords gotta believe in Skyrim because a creative director decided that he imperial pantheon is Objectively Correct so now all the “important” guys have to believe in it. But we can throes in uhhhhhh Talos controversy.
the empire doesn't care that much about tiber-talos because they're in their flop era. for them talos is inseparable from the empire. the empire is a flop -> talos is a flop.
the nords care about two things 1. tiber-talos vs. the elves 2.talos is the god of men, the ascended human. given that, talos is VERY similar to shor 1.0 [before the Alessian reforms]. shor 1.0 is also kind of a flop. he can lose a battle, but he always comes back. which makes his cult very revanchist in nature (and a big "fuck you" to the elves). the thalmor is freaking out about talos for the same reason. for them the ninth god of men = lorkhan in a trenchcoat.
i just think decades/centuries of brutal imperialism enforced state imperial religion being forced on the nord people is a better reason to tell the empire to get fucked than "they won't let us worship our shor in a trenchcoat god". bro just start worshipping shor again. what is the thalmor gonna do?
true, but they weren't trying to find a safe loophole in the concordat. the point was to piss off the elves.
Rise up, children of the Empire! Rise up, Stormcloaks! also slapping shor 1.0 and ysmir onto tiber septim was easier than undoing many years of the imperial cult propaganda. for a lot of people shor is still just a dead god & ruler of the afterlife realm. and skyrim nationalists urgently needed a god to put on a banner
Making it Talos is contrived and annoying and makes it more thematically disconnected from the larger plot with alduin (ancient nord mythological figure to be feared)
Ulfric is going to use a centuries old tradition of challenging the high king to a death match, something no one has done since long before the empire instituted the imperial pantheon for worship, all for an imperial god. Because “well shor is just a dead god”. Kyne is right there.
This is all just justification for the out of universe assertion than the imperial pantheon is objectively correct and everyone remotely good has to worship it. And it’s blatantly obvious it doesn’t really make sense. “It’s not supposed to make sense” it clearly is supposed to. But it doesn’t. It’s thematically disconnected from the other questlines in the game and the average player is simply not supposed to think about the years of imperialism Skyrim was subjected to and instead go “yeahhhhhh Talos!!!” That they honestly probably didn’t even want to explain. Like how they didn’t want the companions to have a questline at all and just make it 100% radiant quests
Anything the worship of Talos narratively can accomplish you can basically just do with shor and kyne and the rest of the nord pantheon. It would even do it better in some aspects because the imperials keep acting like the nord worship of Talos is backwards, stupid nord superstition they made up and refuse to give up because ‘tradition’.
love kyne with all my heart, but it would be even harder to de-sanitize her than shor. talos slaps because he's just the right god for everyone in skyrim. are you an empire supporter? worship talos. are you a nord nationalist, who loves the old myths in which the gods (shor) or half-gods (ysmir) walk the earth and wreck shit? consider talos. all that aside, it's nor fair that skyrim gets blamed for stating that the nords love talos. ya'll forget about kirkbride out of game texts and morrowind generic dialogue.
Making Talos worship and its outlawing a major part of the Skyrim story is absolutely batshit to me. The Nords shouldn’t fucking care. Having Ulfric be trying to bring back the old nord pantheon would be more impactful I think and would muddy the waters more bc the empire was OBJECTIVE WRONG to do that. But is it actually going to help the ppl of Skyrim to fight the empire in a civil war while the thalmor is a threat?
But with Talos worship it’s like. Why isn’t the empire more mad about it??? Talos was their guy. Why are they like “bah, stupid nord customs” This Is Your Guy. Are you insane??? This is your guy in your pantheon. You are the ones who made them worship him by force. But now suddenly they’re willing to die on this fucking hill?? It would make more sense if the thalmor demanded the worship of shor/shezzar/lorkhan be banned and the empire agreed to throw Skyrim under the bus to save their own skin.
But no the Nords gotta believe in Skyrim because a creative director decided that he imperial pantheon is Objectively Correct so now all the “important” guys have to believe in it. But we can throes in uhhhhhh Talos controversy.
the empire doesn't care that much about tiber-talos because they're in their flop era. for them talos is inseparable from the empire. the empire is a flop -> talos is a flop.
the nords care about two things 1. tiber-talos vs. the elves 2.talos is the god of men, the ascended human. given that, talos is VERY similar to shor 1.0 [before the Alessian reforms]. shor 1.0 is also kind of a flop. he can lose a battle, but he always comes back. which makes his cult very revanchist in nature (and a big "fuck you" to the elves). the thalmor is freaking out about talos for the same reason. for them the ninth god of men = lorkhan in a trenchcoat.
i just think decades/centuries of brutal imperialism enforced state imperial religion being forced on the nord people is a better reason to tell the empire to get fucked than "they won't let us worship our shor in a trenchcoat god". bro just start worshipping shor again. what is the thalmor gonna do?
true, but they weren't trying to find a safe loophole in the concordat. the point was to piss off the elves.
Rise up, children of the Empire! Rise up, Stormcloaks! also slapping shor 1.0 and ysmir onto tiber septim was easier than undoing many years of the imperial cult propaganda. for a lot of people shor is still just a dead god & ruler of the afterlife realm. and skyrim nationalists urgently needed a god to put on a banner
Making Talos worship and its outlawing a major part of the Skyrim story is absolutely batshit to me. The Nords shouldn’t fucking care. Having Ulfric be trying to bring back the old nord pantheon would be more impactful I think and would muddy the waters more bc the empire was OBJECTIVE WRONG to do that. But is it actually going to help the ppl of Skyrim to fight the empire in a civil war while the thalmor is a threat?
But with Talos worship it’s like. Why isn’t the empire more mad about it??? Talos was their guy. Why are they like “bah, stupid nord customs” This Is Your Guy. Are you insane??? This is your guy in your pantheon. You are the ones who made them worship him by force. But now suddenly they’re willing to die on this fucking hill?? It would make more sense if the thalmor demanded the worship of shor/shezzar/lorkhan be banned and the empire agreed to throw Skyrim under the bus to save their own skin.
But no the Nords gotta believe in Skyrim because a creative director decided that he imperial pantheon is Objectively Correct so now all the “important” guys have to believe in it. But we can throes in uhhhhhh Talos controversy.
the empire doesn't care that much about tiber-talos because they're in their flop era. for them talos is inseparable from the empire. the empire is a flop -> talos is a flop.
the nords care about two things 1. tiber-talos vs. the elves 2.talos is the god of men, the ascended human. given that, talos is VERY similar to shor 1.0 [before the Alessian reforms]. shor 1.0 is also kind of a flop. he can lose a battle, but he always comes back. which makes his cult very revanchist in nature (and a big "fuck you" to the elves). the thalmor is freaking out about talos for the same reason. for them the ninth god of men = lorkhan in a trenchcoat.
