Rank the Deadric Princes in order of Evil

[Pentigan]

I'd rank Peryite a tad lower than most of the other "evil" daedric princes, he's more of an organizer of the daily running of the Oblivion Realms rather than someone actively trying to convert Nirn to his control.

 

That puts him about 5, with Molag taking third behind Dagon and Jygallag (Counting him at least by taking his Greymarch actions as his pre-Sheogorathing actions).

 

Old!Sheogorath (pre Shivering Isles) would be sorta mid-range with New!Sheogorath (After Shivering Isles) dropping a few notches closer to Good.

 

Possibly surprisingly, I'm putting Malacath quite low, mostly as he's only really concerned with looking after the Orcs.

 

Not entirely sure where to put Meridia, she's arguably more elusive than Mephala. All that's really known is that whatever her plans are they do not involve the undead.

[luzburg]

Not Daedric. Also wtf? You go there in the game lol.

 

 

Check the rumors/lore about him, it's quiet interesting.

...Shor/Shezarr is Lorkhan. An Aedra.

 

In many ways hes neither if I remember right. Hes of the same original brood of spirits as the Aedra and Daedra but I'm not sure he fits in either category

[Enatiomorph]

Not Daedric. Also wtf? You go there in the game lol.

 

 

Check the rumors/lore about him, it's quiet interesting.

...Shor/Shezarr is Lorkhan. An Aedra.

 

In many ways hes neither if I remember right. Hes of the same original brood of spirits as the Aedra and Daedra but I'm not sure he fits in either category

...Shor/Shezarr is Lorkhan. An Aedra.

 

 

And again, Daedra have no concept of good or evil. So they cant be ranked.

 

Also, I see people want to rank Mephala and Boethiah as evil. Guess these people never played Morrowind.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Enatiomorph

[Moraevik]

Well, I can't speak for everyone else, Enatiomorph, but I think I mentioned in my post that I was restricting my listing to the Daedra as they're presented in Skyrim. If this were relative to Oblivion I wouldn't rank Boethia as very high on the list, at least not based upon his quest in that game which was a contest with his "chosen", and was simply an exercise in combat expertise. Since this is the Skyrim forum I left out anything I knew about the Daedra from earlier games.

 

I would like to know, though, exactly why you think the Daedra have no concept of good or evil. You simply stated this as a self-evident fact and it certainly isn't self-evident to me. I'll admit I know next to nothing about the Lore of this game (and really don't care much about it, either), so it's possible your take on this is actually "official knowledge", but I've never read it anywhere before this.

 

In my opinion many of the Daedra are painted in much darker colors in Skyrim than in previous games. I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the developers or it's just an artifact of having only a single "instance" of interaction with the Daedra in each game, notwithstanding Shivering Isles, where Sheogorath is actually quite likeable as opposed to his (in my opinion) quite evil action within the main game (the prank on the residents of Borderwatch).

 

luzburg asks a fair question about the ranking of Peryite. I'll try to answer it from my perspective. I don't see him as "the personification of the answer to overpopulation, culling humanity for the good of the planet" as luzburg does. My formal education is in biology and I've studied population dynamics and the results of pandemics. Disease is what Peryite is all about (at least in Skyrim). Natural diseases tend to cull out the weakest individuals in a population. Epidemics do not, and neither do infected individuls wandering about the world and interacting with people (one of the causes of epidemics). They leave only those individuals who are insulated from the vectors of the disease or who have a very strong natural resistance to them. They don't just keep populations in check. They decimate populations, reducing the genetic variability and, ultimately, cause much more harm than simple starvation due to overpopulation.

 

Peryite seeks to spread disease without regard to long-term repercussions. At least based upon what I know about him from Skyrim, he doesn't care a twit about humanity and like most Daedra are simply "in it" for the fun and games and his own personal power trip. This Peryite is very different than the one alluded to in earlier games in which the sphere of his influence wasn't, to my knowledge, including "pestilence" except as an oblique reference by some people to him as the "Lord of Pestilence". What this has to do with his officially stated purpose as keeping the "order" of things is tenuous at best, at least in my opinion.

[luzburg]

luzburg asks a fair question about the ranking of Peryite. I'll try to answer it from my perspective. I don't see him as "the personification of the answer to overpopulation, culling humanity for the good of the planet" as luzburg does. My formal education is in biology and I've studied population dynamics and the results of pandemics. Disease is what Peryite is all about (at least in Skyrim). Natural diseases tend to cull out the weakest individuals in a population. Epidemics do not, and neither do infected individuls wandering about the world and interacting with people (one of the causes of epidemics). They leave only those individuals who are insulated from the vectors of the disease or who have a very strong natural resistance to them. They don't just keep populations in check. They decimate populations, reducing the genetic variability and, ultimately, cause much more harm than simple starvation due to overpopulation.

 

Peryite seeks to spread disease without regard to long-term repercussions. At least based upon what I know about him from Skyrim, he doesn't care a twit about humanity and like most Daedra are simply "in it" for the fun and games and his own personal power trip. This Peryite is very different than the one alluded to in earlier games in which the sphere of his influence wasn't, to my knowledge, including "pestilence" except as an oblique reference by some people to him as the "Lord of Pestilence". What this has to do with his officially stated purpose as keeping the "order" of things is tenuous at best, at least in my opinion.

 

No, I said that he culled humanity for the good of the natural world, not for the good of humanity. He is the Daedra of order as well as pestilence, so he probably sees the control of mortal pupulations as a part of his aspect. Thats just my view of what he does, I don't think its anywhere in the lore.

[Enatiomorph]

 

 

I would like to know, though, exactly why you think the Daedra have no concept of good or evil. You simply stated this as a self-evident fact and it certainly isn't self-evident to me. I'll admit I know next to nothing about the Lore of this game (and really don't care much about it, either), so it's possible your take on this is actually "official knowledge", but I've never read it anywhere before this.

It is known. Go to the lore forums. Go to the IL. Though you dont need ES lore to understand a god that has achieved Zero Sum has no sense of a mortal morality. Not to mention all gods (Aedra/Daedra/Mantled/Divine Simony) are AE, the amnesic Godhead.

 

There is no ranking the Daedra, it is a mortal's folly to do so.

Edited August 18, 2012 by Enatiomorph

[InuyashaFE]

 

 

I would like to know, though, exactly why you think the Daedra have no concept of good or evil. You simply stated this as a self-evident fact and it certainly isn't self-evident to me. I'll admit I know next to nothing about the Lore of this game (and really don't care much about it, either), so it's possible your take on this is actually "official knowledge", but I've never read it anywhere before this.

It is known. Go to the lore forums. Go to the IL. Though you dont need ES lore to understand a god that has achieved Zero Sum has no sense of a mortal morality. Not to mention all gods (Aedra/Daedra/Mantled/Divine Simony) are AE, the amnesic Godhead.

 

There is no ranking the Daedra, it is a mortal's folly to do so.

 

Agreed on the lore, hell, just go to the UESP or something, I'm sure they say the same thing.

[beeblebub]

what is daedric? is it some sort of DLC?

[Javalin]

what is daedric? is it some sort of DLC?

 

If this is a serious post.. Daedric - Either the set of Daedric Armor which is the strongest through out the Elder Scrolls games. Has a demonic look to it... The Morrowind set still looks the best; Oblivion butchered it, and Skyrim made improvements. But Morrowind is still better.

 

Daedric = Daedric Princes

[denar9072]

1 Dagon

2 Molag Bal

3 Boethiah

4 Vaermina

5 Namira

6 Peryite

7 Mephala

8 Clavicus Vile <- At this point there's a jump in how "reasonable" they are.

9 Nocturnal

10 Hermaeus Mora

11 Hircine <- At this point, they're destructive, but really just keep to themselves

12 Malacath

13 Sanguine

14 Azura <- only "good" one.

 

I missed out Sheogorath and Meridia because; Sheogorath is just unpredictable by definition, I don't think you can "rank" him along the others - and Meridia because she's largely quiet (I should read up on her more, really) who just really, really hates undead - by coincidence, so do most people. As long as there are no undead, she's happy. If people liked undead, I'm sure everything about her would seem a lot different.

...Shor/Shezarr is Lorkhan. An Aedra.

 

In many ways hes neither if I remember right. Hes of the same original brood of spirits as the Aedra and Daedra but I'm not sure he fits in either category

...Shor/Shezarr is Lorkhan. An Aedra.

 

 

And again, Daedra have no concept of good or evil. So they cant be ranked.

 

Also, I see people want to rank Mephala and Boethiah as evil. Guess these people never played Morrowind.

Well, I never did play Morrowind, but have you checked out Boethiah's quest in Skyrim yet? You can read a book one of her followers carries, which has a bit of quest-unrelated lore, and I find it hard to see Boethiah even in just in a good light after that (and also her demands during the quest are... less than noble). And the conditions for unlocking the powers on Mephala's artifact also fail to impress. And then there's all the things that they have dominion over, like "secret plots of murder"...

 

EDIT: Also, isn't the reason that people in Morrowind loved Mephala and Boethiah because they sucked up to the Tribunal?

 

I can appreciate the whole "no concepts of good/evil" thing, but maybe we could make up a slightly different definition of evil for the question here, where it is just their extremity, pleasure and tendency to cause destruction for the sake of destruction. It's what I used. It's kinda like, you can't say the weather's good or evil, but you can say it's nicer to feel a breeze than be in a storm (except in this case, the storms are angry, jealous gods with unclear intentions)

 

I thought that there was accepted "controversy" over the status of Lorkhan as an "Ancestor" and he sort of fell into his own category... Aside from the rotting corpse moons, does he even still exist? He tricked the other Aedra and is the reason why the mortal plane exists, but he didn't help make it (and even later, his "divine spark" was torn from him and destroyed).

Edited August 20, 2012 by true_kajex