Lore Question: Mephala, Boethiah & The Night Mother (Help!)

[Grandchamp1989]

Hi Everybody :laugh:

 

I have a question regarding the lore of The Elder Scrolls Skyrim - specifically about the difference between Mephala and Boethiah.

 

On my current playthrough I'm playing as an argonian assassin. I've completed The Dark Brotherhood questline and I'm currently The Listener.

 

The Dark Brotherhood follow the teachings and guidence og Sithis and his wife The Nightmother. However, if (as a DB assassin) you'd want to pledge your faith to a Daedra things suddenly gets tricky.

 

There's a conspiracy theory about The Night Mother really being Mephala in disguise. if you look at what she represent there's good reason for this. She represent:

"Mephala is a Daedric Prince whose sphere is obscured to mortals, also known by the names Webspinner, Spinner, Spider, and the Anticipation of Vivec."

 

Mephala helped forming the assasination group og Morag Tong from which the Dark brotherhood sprung to life as an alternate assasination group who revered The Night Mother instead of Mephala.

 

You could make an argument for Mephala being the Daedra closest to The Dark Brotherhood... Until you read about Boethiah:

 

"Boethiah (also spelled Boethia) is the Daedric Prince who rules over deceit, conspiracy, secret plots of murder, assassination, treason, and unlawful overthrow of authority.^[1] Boethiah is also known as the Prince of Plots,^[2][3] Deceiver of Nations, Queen of Shadows, and Goddess of Destruction."

 

Daedra of both assasination, plots and queen of shadows. Boethiah too sounds like a proper candidate for a faithful assassin to worship! Then I started to think.. What if I started doing the Dawnguard questline and sided as a Vampire Lord. Then Molag Bal would likely be the best candidate for worship. he represent:

 

"Molag Bal is the Daedric Prince whose sphere is the domination and enslavement of mortals. He is known as the King of Rape^[1] and the Harvester of Souls"

 

He is a real nasty piece of work. Truely evil (My character likes evil) and the creator of the first vampires! Harkon himself got a shrine of Molag Bal in his castle. But then you learn that Molag Bal and Boethiah are arch enemies so it's a question of picking either one..

 

Feedback is much appreciated.

Please don't give me an answer like "ignore the Daedra's, live on your own terms". I'm curious as to which Daedra seems like the best candiate lorewise.

[Oubliette]

The Dark Brotherhood are a pretty blasphemous lot, they don't really worship anything but their love of killing things and getting paid. None of the Daedric Princes is truly good or evil either. So feel free to pick who ever your character wants, or attempt to ply all three - that seems about right for a DB assassin imnsho.

[megatronfrey]

Hmm this is a tricky question,

Mephala too me is more about lying and killing those who trust you the most, or watching while others do so due to your lies, I feel the morag tong sprang up do to her whispering lies not so much that she created them.

Boethiah in my opinion would be the best choice for an assassin because he/she is more in touch with the assassinations and plots to do so, always trying to cause harm and is considered one of the most evil daedra.

Now with Molag Bal just because you do become a vampire lord and should worship him doesn't mean you have to because technically your a half-breed mongrel (Harkens words) and don't really have to worship him, only Harken and Serana and Valerica have to considering they are direct descendants of him.

 

That's all my view :) hope it helped

[fifteenspades]

I would advise playing Morrowind and seeing just how vastly different the Morag Tong and Dark brotherhood are and see who you should worship from there.

[Lachdonin]

'Night Mother' is actually a title for the matron of a Morag Tong guild-hall. This implies that the Night Mother (who we know was Dunmer, and the Morag Tong is a Dunmer institution) was once a member of the Morag Tong. The main difference between the Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood is that the Tong are primarily related to the structure of Dunmer politics, a position appointed them (supposedly) by Mephala herself, while the Dark Brotherhood are free-range assassins who care nothing about the teachings of the Spider and only about killing.

 

There is definite rivalry between the Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood, to the point where they basically kill each other on sight. The Dark Brotherhood believes the Morag Tong to be dogmatic fools who refuse to recognize the significance of Sithis, while the Tong view the Dark Brotherhood as common murderers. Since the Tong is devout to Mephala, i don't think the Spider Queen.

 

Likewise, Boethiah isn't a good fit, because the attitudes of the Dark Brotherhood are outside his/her primary nature. Boethiah is about putting yourself before all others, being the absolute best you can be and doing anything you have to in order to get to the top. Murder, conspiracy and such are only part of Boethiah's order of the day if they serve to advance ones power and station, and Boethiah is just as accepting of compassion and charity for the same goals. The Brotherhood, on the other hand, is about absolute service to the Brotherhood, the Night Mother and to Sithis. Service isn't something that Boethiah abides.

 

Which puts things more in Molag Bal's quarter. But then, he's about subjugation, not necessarily killing, which means worshiping him would be more about breaking the will of your prey until they submit to their death... Something that some Dark Brotherhood agents may indulge, but for the most part, they'd just rather kill the target and move on.

 

Still, it's worth noting that Sithis is the personification of Padomay, the eternal force of chaos, and as such is the 'father' of all Daedra (in the same way that Anui'el is the 'father' of the Aedra). The worship of any Daedra is a service to Sithis (except maybe Meridia... jury is still out on her origins).

[GlassDeviant]

Why worship a weak newcomer like any Daedra when you are already a servant of Sithis/Padomay, who predates, and contributed to the creation of, both Aedra and Daedra, and is also known as chaos, one of the two ultimate forces of the TES universe?

 

[Grandchamp1989]

Thank you guys for your great answers. You have some very good points. While you could make an argument about worshipping Boethiah and maybe Molag Bal, they just doesn't fit nicely on a diehard Brotherhood assassin. Back to worshipping Sithis. We really do need a Sithis Shrine like they had in dimhollow crybt in Oblivion. Assassins gets sick too, and need to pray to the dread father before a kill. (Gotta love roleplaying).