When was Serana locked away?

[BrettM]

Damn, I knew her comments in game suggested she's old but to think the first era is quite long. But does this also mean the dwarves has also been gone that long? I mean she comments on the ruins being in such a state and that they wouldn't usually leave them like that.

Yes, the dwarves have definitely been gone that long, since we have solid information proving it. The Dwemer vanished in 1E 700 during the Battle of Red Mountain at the end of the War of the First Council.

 

If Serana is truly unfamiliar with the fact that the Dwemer have disappeared and expected to see a Dwemer city in its normal, inhabited state, then that puts an upper limit on when she was placed in the crypt.

[txgamer97]

Actually, most people probably due have free will, as most people are not relevant to the overall history of the world. That is why there is a sovengaurd (did I spell that correctly?) for brave nords, or the after-lives of the other races. Their are cases in which people don't have free will however, and those are the ones that do have an effect on the world.

[drdim]

Apparantly one of her other dialogue lines in Dwemer ruins is

 

"I always wondered what the dwarves actually looked like. I hear they're like elves, but with beards."

 

It's evidence that she was around after the dwemers left, supporting the "between first and second era" theories.

 

It also does not contractict with the other dwemer dialogue:

 

"Is this a dwarven city? I can't believe they'd let it get so run down."

 

Given the fact that dwemer ruins are still quite autonomously functual in the game, they must have been in a much better state back in the first and early second era and and maybe even appeared as almost new back then. She just has them in much different memory.

[TheVampireDante]

Apparantly one of her other dialogue lines in Dwemer ruins is

 

"I always wondered what the dwarves actually looked like. I hear they're like elves, but with beards."

 

It's evidence that she was around after the dwemers left, supporting the "between first and second era" theories.

 

Could be she just never met any in person.

 

I doubt the Volkihar clan had much interest in then Dwemer since it would have been a nuisance to enter one of their cities since access was via the elevators and those would most likely be guarded by their automatons and soldiers as a form of "gate guard". Not to mention the Dwemer's own general lack of interest in having visitors (you don't trap your hallways if you want strangers wandering around). Plus any Dwemer that did travel between their outposts may have been easily mistaken for other races depending on how they dressed. From a distance all anyone would see would be is men with a beard, quite common in Skyrim in any age... You'd have to be closer and they would have to have their heads uncovered to show any obvious differences (brow line, ear shape, perhaps skintone).

 

Sidenote: Blackreach looks the closest to a "city" in it's design (compared to the general scope and size of Skyrim's other cities) - as the other Dwemer ruins appear more like outposts or "factory" setups.

[BrettM]

Could be she just never met any in person.

I would have to agree with this. If she knew that the Dwemer were gone, why would she think they had any ability to prevent their cities from getting run down? They could only maintain them if they were still around somewhere. Apparently Serana thinks the Dwemer have a choice in the matter and does not realize that the entire race vanished.

[drdim]

But why is this then in past tense?

I she thinks the dwemers are still around, wouldn't she say "I always wondered what the dwarves actually look like." ?

 

And with the "they" in "I can't believe they'd let it get so run down." she could as well mean the general public. Although it's a bit far fetched to think someone should be actually responsible to maintain the dwemer legacy, it could be some general gripe anyone could easily say without thinking about it to much. Like someone would say "they shouldn't have kept the forests better state" when you see a forest affected by acid rain although you should know very well that forest rangers themselves can't do much against acid rain when you actually think about it.

 

Also there is no comment of curiosity of her why there are no actual dwemers in dwemer "citys" anymore.

 

I think this is evidence enough, that she knows very well, that the dwarves are gone.

Edited May 4, 2014 by drdim

[TheVampireDante]

I've said "looked" instead of "look" when referring to someone at times - usually in the case of a TV actor that's only ever shown up under heavy makeup and prosthetic addons - or perhaps a voice actor.

 

Then someone point them out in another show and that could be what I say in reply "Huh, always wondered what they looked like."

[Lachdonin]

There's also the fact that Serana is surprised by the fact that Cyrodiil has an Empire. Let alone has had 3. If Serana WAS around after the Dwemer had disappeared, she would have had to have lived through almost 500 years of the Alessian Empire, which included Skyrim and Highrock.

 

Her confusion over the state of the Dwemer ruins, combined with her lack of knowledge about Cyrodiilic Empires, indicates an early 1st era date for her entombment.

 

Even then, if you want to break down the speech patterns...

 

"I always wondered what the dwarves actually looked like. I hear they're like elves, but with beards."

 

The use of 'would' is somewhat ambiguous, which could imply a past tense. However, the later use of the present tense, in "they're", as in They-Are, indicates that the Dwemer were still around. Had she been knowledgeable about their disappearance before hand, she would have said "I hear they were like elves".

[pegueng]

Dang.. all I was looking for was some way to find a console command to lookup what follower flags I have attached to my character, for not being able to follow Serana into the backdoor to castle Volkihaar and look for her mother in the garden. She implies that I still have a follower connected although the ones I know of are presumably detached. using UFO with all the addons and also Follower compability and having Vilja around. This philosophical thread is rather interesting to read. One would hope that Bethesda would have a complete character sheet filled with timelines and whatnot, but on the other hand they might just have different ppl writing the dialogues and therefore have these lapses in grammatical forms. Haven't played farther than that with Serena so I haven't heard all dialoges with her as yet. Hmm, wee bit off thread this one, sorry for that.

[ilikecheese1337]

But why is this then in past tense?

I she thinks the dwemers are still around, wouldn't she say "I always wondered what the dwarves actually look like." ?

 

 

"Last night, I heard about a new species of rat, and wondered what it looked like." In that sentence, I'm talking about last night. In hers, Serana is talking about the time before she was locked away.

 

Warning: I'm going to go a bit linguistics-nerdy.

 

There are two verbs here: "wonder" and "look", in the sense of "have an appearance".

It's a content clause, so since Serana uses the same sequence ("wondered", "looked"), she's talking about the Dwemer having an appearance at the same time that she's wondering - namely, before she was locked away and before the Dwemer disappeared. Serana would be grammatically incorrect to say, "I wondered what the Dwemer look like". You would be correct if she were to say "I wonder what the Dwemer looked like", because then she would be wondering after the Dwemer had looked.

 

What may be confusing is the example, "I always have wondered/I've always wondered what the Dwemer look like". It's a weird little distinction, but it's to do with sequence, not tense. "I have done" is the same sequence as "I do", because they're both rooted in the present, if you see what I mean.

Edited May 6, 2014 by ilikecheese1337