Just how powerful is the DragonBorn?

[formalrevya]

The title itself is pretty self explanatory. and the question is of some interest to me after a debate I had with a friend. For the sake of keeping things simple though, let's focus on things that the dragon born will have accomplished as absolute established lore in future games.

 

1.He slayed Alduin. ((may not neccesarily have permenantly destroyed him, but he did best him in combat))

 

2.Destroyed The progenitor of one of the more powerful vampire races ((it's never explicitly stated that Harkon is the first Volkihar Vampire to exist. Though given his age and the name of his castle, which was his even when he was a mortal man, it wouldn't be unreasonable to believe that he was the first, and strongest of the Volkihar Vampire Clan))

 

3.Killed the first dragonborn in existence. (( technically killed by a daedric prince, but it's safe to say that the dragonborn could have finished him off on his own.)) whose power was arguably on par with his own.

 

If the DLC continuity rules that were established with Tribunal and bloodmon, that continued through the shivering isles, stick, then these are things that he ((or she)) will definitely have done in their lifetimes.

 

Judging by these three things alone, and ignoring examples of other dragonborn's own powers. ((Example 3 would strongly suggest that not all dragonborn are equal in power))

 

Where does he rate in the cosmic scale?

 

I personally feel that if it came down to it, the dragon born would be able to easily throw down with a daedric prince. However like I said my friend disagrees with me.

[luzburg]

nally feel that if it came down to it, the dragon born would be able to easily throw down with a daedric prince. However like I said my friend disagrees with me.

 

Well if he is being set up as a reincarnation of Talos, Lorkhan or whoever then yes probably.

[sgman1]

Well... I'd like to believe from what lore says that a dragon/dragonborn/thu'um master is more or less omnipotent compared to everything that resides on Nirn/Mundus/Whatever save for most other users of the thu'um where it comes down to whoever shouts the hardest/loudest wins.

 

I mean the Greybeards point out that a practiced thu'um user could kill non-thu'um users with just a whisper. The stones on the way to High Hrothgar say some crazy stuff like the thu'um blot out the sky blah,blah,blah and god knows what else. Finally, the dragonborn's song mentions something about his power rivaling the sun itself.

 

Maybe all that is true and the dragonborn can only be bested by another god/god-like being. Maybe it is just an exaggeration and he really couldn't do much harm to anything at the level of the gods/daedric princes.

 

Another thing to consider is that, and I say it now that I am not sure of this but, the gods and daedra are not only omnipotent but omniscient as well as immortal, and if you count the fact that they are simply banished back to their realms to continue their dirty work when defeated, also invincible, in a manner of speaking.

[UrgeNexus]

There is no hard-canon for TES. The hero is whoever or whatever you want hi/her to be, and when the hero is no longer needed he/she ceases to be relevant, they fade off into obscurity. No Dovahkiin is the same and a canon Dovahkiin would only serve to invalidate the choices of most players and go against the spirit of freedom that is at the core of TES games. Now that I have finished my canon-rant, let's get down to business.

 

I personally feel that if it came down to it, the dragon born would be able to easily throw down with a daedric prince. However like I said my friend disagrees with me.

On Mundus? Probably, any sufficiently skilled individual can as the Daedra have virtually no power on Mundus by themselves. In that prince's realm of Oblivion? Not a chance.

 

The princes and their realms are the same, Mehrunes Dagon does not live in the Deadlands, Dagon is the Deadlands and the Deadlands are Dagon. Within their own realms the Daedra are in charge, they are still bound by their spheres of influence and can not act outside their nature, but they have complete control of their own realms because they are their realms. Daedra have no physical form unless they choose to take one.

 

If the Dovahkiin were to somehow get into a daedric realms, there's a number of ways it could go down. Let's for the same of example assume the Dovahkiin got into the Deadlands, realm of Mehrunes Dagon, and challenged the Prince of Destruction.

 

Dagon could choose to appear in a physical form and straight up fight the Dovahkiin. The Dovahkiin doesn't stand a chance in this scenario, as a Daedra can not be killed (In Mundus or Oblivion), certainly not a prince in it's own realm. If the Dovahkin somehow destroyed the physical form of Dagon, so what? Dagon could simply appear as a new one, or ten new ones, or a million. Or not at all, the Deadlands could simply turn entirely into lava, then to stone as the Dovahkiin sank down into it. There's countless ways this could go down and the Dovahkiin doesn't stand a chance in any of them.

 

Is the Dovahkiin extremely powerful? Absolutely. More powerful than a Daedric prince? Not even close.

 

EDIT: As for why Dagon didn't do something like this in Oblivion (The game), I don't know. Probably for plot purposes, or perhaps because the CoC wrecking everything in there pleased Dagon. Laying waste to the Daedra inside Oblivion is certainly very impressive and probably something that would amuse Dagon greatly, even if it did contribute to ending the Oblivion crisis and thwarting Dagon's goals.

 

Honestly I don't even think Dagon cared that much wether he succeded or failed in his invasion. Dagon's sphere does not only encompass Destruction, but also ambition, change and most relevant to my theory here, revolution. Even if the invasion was stopped, it was still a deciding factor in the ruin of the Empire, which will eventualy crumble and give way to something new. You can make a strong argument for the Oblivion Crisis accomplishing exactly what it was meant to, change.

Edited January 8, 2013 by UrgeNexus

[formalrevya]

There is no hard-canon for TES. The hero is whoever or whatever you want hi/her to be, and when the hero is no longer needed he/she ceases to be relevant, they fade off into obscurity. No Dovahkiin is the same and a canon Dovahkiin would only serve to invalidate the choices of most players and go against the spirit of freedom that is at the core of TES games. Now that I have finished my canon-rant, let's get down to business.

 

 

Well this isn't entirely true. The series just couldn't function if there was absolutely no reference to past events.

 

The Eternal Champion, The Hero of Daggerfall, The Nevarine, The Hero of Kvatch, are all people that were established to have existed and played a major role in a pivotal event. They're also referred to as the Destiny Driven heroes because they were absolutely meant to be the ones who accomplished the things they did. If you play the game and you don't delve into that portion of things, then your character can't be that hero, because the hero is stated to have done those things and your character didn't. and people are going to get pissy about that, i'm almost certain of it. But there's nothing that contradicts that logic.

 

So, in this case when I say The DragonBorn. I'm not referring to my spellsword character, or your barbarian character, or whatever character someone else is playing, I'm specifically Refering to the Historical figure of the Dragonborn and things he will have had to have accomplished in his lifetime to be considered that Legend. That's why I specifically went with those three things that can't have been done by anyone else. Anybody could have become the ArchMage, or The Leader of the companions. Only the Dragonborn could have become The DragonBorn.

 

 

sorry if that seems a bit nonesensical, It's 5 in the morning and I've been up all night.

 

As to the part of your post I didn't quote. It's very interesting to read. Though on the matter of Daedric Princes being powerless in Mundus.

 

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/2920,_vol_01_-_Morning_Star I'm not entirely sure which book in the series discusses it, but there was mention made of a battle between two members of the tribunal and Dagon after he had destroyed a city and murdered all of it's inhabitants. The fight managed to severely injure all of it's participants, and this was at a time when the tribunal had the powers of Gods.

 

It seems more like a flavorful retelling than actual fact, but if there's a grain of truth to it then the Princes are not to be trifled with regardless of who or where you are. Still think the dragon born could take one on his home turf.

[NeroAkira]

dragon born beats alduin, dagon=alduin(in nirn at least) therefore on nirn he wins, in oblivion its all about dagon though

[UrgeNexus]

There is no hard-canon for TES. The hero is whoever or whatever you want hi/her to be, and when the hero is no longer needed he/she ceases to be relevant, they fade off into obscurity. No Dovahkiin is the same and a canon Dovahkiin would only serve to invalidate the choices of most players and go against the spirit of freedom that is at the core of TES games. Now that I have finished my canon-rant, let's get down to business.

 

 

Well this isn't entirely true. The series just couldn't function if there was absolutely no reference to past events.

 

The Eternal Champion, The Hero of Daggerfall, The Nevarine, The Hero of Kvatch, are all people that were established to have existed and played a major role in a pivotal event. They're also referred to as the Destiny Driven heroes because they were absolutely meant to be the ones who accomplished the things they did. If you play the game and you don't delve into that portion of things, then your character can't be that hero, because the hero is stated to have done those things and your character didn't. and people are going to get pissy about that, i'm almost certain of it. But there's nothing that contradicts that logic.

 

So, in this case when I say The DragonBorn. I'm not referring to my spellsword character, or your barbarian character, or whatever character someone else is playing, I'm specifically Refering to the Historical figure of the Dragonborn and things he will have had to have accomplished in his lifetime to be considered that Legend. That's why I specifically went with those three things that can't have been done by anyone else. Anybody could have become the ArchMage, or The Leader of the companions. Only the Dragonborn could have become The DragonBorn.

 

 

sorry if that seems a bit nonesensical, It's 5 in the morning and I've been up all night.

 

As to the part of your post I didn't quote. It's very interesting to read. Though on the matter of Daedric Princes being powerless in Mundus.

 

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/2920,_vol_01_-_Morning_Star I'm not entirely sure which book in the series discusses it, but there was mention made of a battle between two members of the tribunal and Dagon after he had destroyed a city and murdered all of it's inhabitants. The fight managed to severely injure all of it's participants, and this was at a time when the tribunal had the powers of Gods.

 

It seems more like a flavorful retelling than actual fact, but if there's a grain of truth to it then the Princes are not to be trifled with regardless of who or where you are. Still think the dragon born could take one on his home turf.

Unless I'm entirely mistaken, the 2920 series are historical fiction. They may be based loosely on actual events in-universe, but they can not be considered a reliable source. The author is likely better informed on Daedra than your average peasant, but still probably knows very little about them. I'll admit I haven't read those books in ages though and I've actually been meaning to read them all in order.

 

I'll concede though that I may have been a bit forceful with my no-canon rant there, obviously there is some established canon that is not affected by player choices. What I should have said instead is that TES canon is very flexible and allows for players to have their own personal canon when it comes to their character without really affecting the rest of it. The heroes of other games are mentioned in lore but rarely in any real detail, considering that all the authors in-universe have their own biases or just don't have any real facts on the subject means that conflicting accounts of what, for example the Dragonborn, did or did not do are common and make sense. So instead of saying there is no canon, I should have said that the canon is very flexible.

 

This topic asks about a specific character though, a player character at that, which is why I posted it. The Dovahkiin can be so many different people with such a vast variation of power. My current character is your plain old sword and board warrior, he's got the Thu'um and is extremely skilled in combat, but not much else. He's ridiculously powerful simply because of the Thu'um, but my Spellsword would wipe the floor with him because he's got all of that and magic. The only way to really make a proper assessment of the Dovahkiin's power is to either go with the guy in the trailers, or with a character who has mastered all aspects of the game.

 

When going up against Daedric princes though, nobody really stands a chance. On Mundus I would say anyone with the right skill could do it, because Daedra can no longer manifest with anything near their full power. If you look at Sanguine in Skyrim, or Sam as he calls himself, that's to my knowledge pretty much the best a Prince can do if appearing "in person" so to speak. Daedra usually rely on mortals to influence Mundus, through pacts and trickery, the Oblivion Crisis was an exception and not one that will happen again without a plot device of some sort.

 

In their own realms though, all bets are off. If you go to Coldharbour and call out Molag Bal, the short version is you lose. The long version...well, considering who I used as an example I don't even dare put that to writing.

[AnimeOtaku102]

If you ask Clavicus Vile for the power to crush your enemies during A Daedra's Best Friend, he does give you a bit of a rough estimate: you're almost as powerful as he is, but that's only because half of his power is stuck in Barbas. Not shabby for a mortal who still has the rest of his/her life ahead of him/her to gain even more power.

[Lachdonin]

If you ask Clavicus Vile for the power to crush your enemies during A Daedra's Best Friend, he does give you a bit of a rough estimate: you're almost as powerful as he is, but that's only because half of his power is stuck in Barbas. Not shabby for a mortal who still has the rest of his/her life ahead of him/her to gain even more power.

 

Not shabby for the potential Mantle of the only living God, when compared to one of the weakest of the Daedra who has been crastrated not once, buy twice over the last 200 years.

 

The Dragonborn is powerful, yes. Potentially more so if he IS the new Talos (which remains to be seen). He's at least as powerful as the 7th CoC, maybe even the Nerevarine. He's certianly not a match for a full on Daedric Prince, mind you, at least not on even terms.

[UrgeNexus]

If you ask Clavicus Vile for the power to crush your enemies during A Daedra's Best Friend, he does give you a bit of a rough estimate: you're almost as powerful as he is, but that's only because half of his power is stuck in Barbas. Not shabby for a mortal who still has the rest of his/her life ahead of him/her to gain even more power.

 

Not shabby for the potential Mantle of the only living God, when compared to one of the weakest of the Daedra who has been crastrated not once, buy twice over the last 200 years.

 

The Dragonborn is powerful, yes. Potentially more so if he IS the new Talos (which remains to be seen). He's at least as powerful as the 7th CoC, maybe even the Nerevarine. He's certianly not a match for a full on Daedric Prince, mind you, at least not on even terms.

With regards to mantling, it's entirely dependant on what kind of character you play. If you go by the Dovahkiin seen in trailers and promotional material, then you can certainly make a strong argument for the Dovahkiin following in Tiber Septim's footsteps. Then again, to mantle Talos you'd probably have to emulate Wulfharth and Zurin Arctus as well and I'm not sure how that would work out. The mantling of Talos is a complicated affair, due to the the fact that Talos is not one person ascended to godhood, but several people combined.