I'm beginning to find it harder to hate the Thalmor...

[Lachdonin]

The death of Lorkhan and the events leading up to the Convention are complicated and, it seems, multifaceted. What we know for sure is that Magnus and the Magne'Ge deserted Mundus sometime before Convention and fled, tearing holes in the barrier between Mundus and Oblivion.

 

Then there was a war, known as the Ehlnofex Wars, in which the Aedric entities fought eachother. This is where things seem to get particularly confusing, as it seems the Divines were on both sides as different aspects of them warred against eachother (for instance, Mara was both the wife of Auri'el, and the bed-wife of Shor(Lorkhan) and Kyne being the Wife of Lorkhan and Kynnareth being the lover of Trinimac) but the key players were the Ehlnofey. The Ehlnofey were divided into two factions, the Wanderers, who followed Lorkhan, and the Ehlnofey-Proper, who followed Auri'el. It seems that, in the later days of the Ehlnofex Wars, the Wanderers had already been shaped into the first men by Kyne somewhere near the Throat of the World (my pet theory is at the Skyforge) but the Ehlnofey-Proper did not degrade into the Aldmer until later.

 

Lorkhan was then executed, his heart cut out and his body cut in two and hung in the sky as a reminder of his treachery. This is when Auri'el is said to have ascended to Aetherius, and established the linearity of time.

 

But here's the problem... Shor, Son of Shor is set at the time of the Ehlnofex Wars, before the convention but seemingly after Lorkhan's defeat. Shor-SR, within the Cave, mentions his heart being cut out, while Shor-JR is still up and about doing the fighting. This is one of the major confusing moments in pre-time, because both present and future seem to exist at the same time. The Mer also seem to date Auri'el's rule to have continued past the Convention, which is impossible since he had already left.

 

The general consensus is that each myth only offers part of the story, and that because of the non-linear time of the early Dawn, things get confused. I personally subscribe to the idea that the power of the Ehlnofey during the Dawn, equating to the modern definition of Godhood, allowed them to mingle with the concepts of the greater Aedra. Auri'el then was an Ehlnofey who became an aspect of the Aka-Tusk (mentioned in the 7 Fights of the Aldudagga) and thus became the first embodiment of a time-aspect. He became the beginning of time, the Past, inadvertently creating Alduin who is times end. But he didn't actually escape anywhere, he simply became part of the Aedra that is the Aka-Tusk, still viewable as the Plane(t) Akatosh.

[monganfinn]

We seem to be drifted quite a bit from the original topic :laugh:

Still as Urtel mentioned the Aedra clearly did not want to unravel Mundus, for whatever reason.

That means that the plan of the Thalmor probably goes against their wishes.

Which still is not big reason for us to either sympathize with the Thalmor or disagree with them.

It isn´t as if their is a single species in mundus that is really virtuous anyway and as their social and moral standards are in a state similar to the ancient cultures of earth we also cannot say that the racism many species show and the genocides many commit, is "evil", as the "earth-humans" did just as many transgressions against modern morals.

It still stands however, that the Thalmor want something out of selfish desire that goes against the wishes of the other species and that the Thalmor don´t care about the wellbeing of anyone but themselves or any moral standards of the time in interaction to other species.

I think we can thus all agree that from our modern point of few, they definietly cannot be "good guys". Even if their end goal would profit everyone, they simply go about it wrong!

[Urtel]

Thinking more about this brought some new ideas:

I ve not read c0da (dont want to spoil before it is ready and coloured), so cant talk about what happened after dominion won, but as far as i know, they won, but at the same time failed with their ultimate goal. Which actually is not surprising, considering that even gods cant guarantee outcomes in such events. Now, this only proves how selfish elves are. Thinking they actually can 100% shure succeed. Looks like they never learned the lesson of dwarves, who were a lot more advanced from what we know, and still were very cautious with artifacts. Although not all of them were cautious enough))

Now, how could they predict, that undoing what was done would prevent it from happenning again?

Also, when reverting all things back, they also revert the knowledge of the made mistakes, right? Which means same mistakes can be made... Are they that desperate to try even with no possible success? Sounds like they out of their mind completely.

 

Did they ever thought why Ada agreed to help Lorkhan? Why they where intrested in creating a mortal plane? "Tricked them", huh? Well looks like altmer are the only ones that care and only ones who were tricked in this case...

 

So yeah, i would still say Dragonborn is the exact correct person to wipe them out...

[Kestrellius]

Please don't misunderstand my initial argument; I'm not saying that the Thalmor are good, or that their goal is anything less than genocide. They're trying to destroy the universe; the fact that they're doing so by unmaking it doesn't change that. I was just remarking that it's a bit harder for me now to get that visceral hatred that I originally had for them. But this discussion is interesting. Please, continue.

[monganfinn]

Well I think of most of the species as grey with the Thalmor as crazy fanatics, not necessarily much more evil than the Ayleids who held the huamns as slaves or the Forsworns, let´s face it: yes they are pur sods that are always surpressed but they are also allied with the Hagravens, and with the limited lore I know of them, those really are rather evil eh...creatures? magic mutants? nor the nords whose favorite answer is an axe to the face. That nearly all the species at least once are pictured as the aggressors and more evil ones is in fact quite nice, it´s realistic and refreshing compared to fantasy works like lotr etc where good and evil are clearly separated. Hell, big bad Alduin is in fact hardly more evil than the Thalmor! Both just want to end the world.

[MidbossVyers]

It's too bad that the Markarth and Riften battles were cut from the final game. Or else, we would have seen Galmar kills Ondolemar. http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Galmar_Stone-Fist

[Kraeten]

It's too bad that the Markarth and Riften battles were cut from the final game. Or else, we would have seen Galmar kills Ondolemar. http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Galmar_Stone-Fist

 

Civil War Overhaul restores that content. It even includes the original dialogue recorded for that scene.

[Lachdonin]

Hell, big bad Alduin is in fact hardly more evil than the Thalmor! Both just want to end the world.

Bit of a different deal. Alduin is the End if Time. His entire existence is about ending time so that it resets to Convention and can run again. He's part of a cycle of life, death and rebirth that exists as part of Mundus and opperates at its core being. He also prevents things from running long enough for s#*! like Landfall to happen.

 

The Thamor on the other hand want to break the cycle and escape entirely. They don't want life, death and rebirth. They want the absolute expression if thought that was the dawn.

[monganfinn]

True, but for those caught within plans of either, it would simply spell the end. After all it´s not as if anyone remembers their previous lives after going throught the dreamsleave.

The heroes in Sovngarde would be unaffected by either scenario, right?

[Lachdonin]

There was actually a discussion about that on /R/TESlore a little while back, and the end conclusion was... Probably not. We're not sure where Sovengarde exists. Some sources say Aetherius, some say within one of the moons, but at the end of the day it seems linked to Mundus in a very intimate way. It strikes me as unlikely that it would actually be in Aetherius, dispute the religious claims that it is, because Aetherius is the domain of the Magne'ge, and they don't like mortals being around.

 

When the Kappa changes, everything is reset, and there is no evidence anywhere of any heroes in Sovengarde being From other Kalpas.

 

In contrast, we have indications that the ancestors of the Redguard somehow managed to transition from one Kalpa to this one.

 

But, in all likelyhood, when the Kappa resets, so does Sovengarde. All the heroes kind of poor back into the Big vat of soul-potential that is Mundus.