The COMPLETE Guide to GODS in the Elder Scrolls - Elder Scrolls Lore

[Music] the gods of the elder scrolls are potentially the most important factor in how the world of nirn plays out gods have shaped races such as the awesome a done mind bhasma the empires of Cyrodiil flourished through akatosh as protection the aliens came to power through deals with the Daedra the dunmer carved out a home of their own through the Living Tribunal of gods who only achieved their power through the heart of lorkhan who was also a god the Dwemer disappeared because they tried to make a God the civil war in Skyrim is partially happening because some say Talos is a god and some say he is not even the very geography of the lenss has been shaped by gods you cannot escape the reality of gods and religion in the Elder Scrolls they are undeniably real but as is often the case with the Elder Scrolls reality is flexible things can change dragon break skin etc look the Elder Scrolls can be ridiculously complex but it is my job here today to help simplify it also you can digest it as one tidy healthy meal I will link down below videos that we've made that will be helpful in understanding this video topics such as who are the LF a dragon breaks and the Godhead that aside my name is Scott from fudge Muppet and this is the complete guide to gods in the Elder Scrolls you see there are God's the Adria in Daedra but there are also many different interpretations and Pantheon's among the different cultures of Tamriel this video is going to try and reconcile all the differences of the Pantheon's explain the different ideas about creation talk about the gods as planets in their power through worship and then we'll get into a bit of the crazier bits like dragon breaks and retro actively changing the past that kind of stuff so I hope you can get comfy and you have a clear mind because this is going to get a little full-on I've made timestamps in the description to help break it up and make it easier for you to return to certain topics and sections let's get into it we are going to begin with creation the beginning of the universe there are multiple different variations of this but we need to get the gist to understand the fundamental nature of Mundus and the gods at first there were two ever competing forces order and chaos these forces were called Anu and Padme order and chaos stasis and change respectively now these are not gods per se but rather cosmic forces this distinction is important because gods are a personification they have an ego a sense of self they are in an entity with agency cosmic forces on the other hand lack such agency they act as they are as they are meant to act anew a force of order fights against Padme a force for chaos there is no animosity between the two they are simply forces that perform their function in opposition to one another however these opposing forces were equal in power resulting in a stalemate now what happens next is that Anu ends up creating itself a soul or kind of soul and Padme does the same these two pseudo souls as I like to call them are an oil and surface the reason I say pseudo soul is because they aren't quite gods yet they feel and behave more like a cosmic forces in comparison to the gods that you would be familiar with but they're halfway there so it's easier to think of anoi a land surface as the halfway point between cosmic force and God they are the earliest concept of a somewhat conscious entity with this ability to reflect and to be conscious of themselves and oil and sit this instead of being relegated to fighting one another helplessly like the cosmic forces Anu and Padme before them they could come to an agreement a solution they would create the Orbis which is the name for the universe in the elderscrolls but then these two pseudo souls create a soul each for themselves a new incarnation what we would consider the very first gods as we understand the term NOL created Oriole and Sethos created lorkhan Oriole and Lauren marked the transition fully from a cosmic force type entity to a fully conscious entity a personality and ego an actual God as we know them the Orbis was crazy at the time unstable and nonsensical but then Oriel in his first actions decided to create the concept of time which stabilized the universe time exists but not necessarily in a linear way that mortals like you and I understand it consider the space-time continuum how time functions differently in different places within our own universe but since time created some sense of the universe other entities or souls could be born these are the original spirits called via tada the planes of ethereal and Oblivion came into existence as well as places for these at arta to inhabit so I think it's time to recap Anu and Padme exist they are cosmic forces of order and chaos they create themselves a pseudo soul each and oil and surface now these cosmic forces of order and chaos into play and end up creating the Orbis the universe NOL creates itself a soul called Oriole and surface does the same creating lock on Oriole creates time stabilizing the universe and in many more gods aka the ardha the original spirits are born as well as the plains of ethereal and Oblivion cool so we're all up to speed now what happens well the multiple of the a tada were not entirely satisfied with the planes of existence they had to choose from so law Khan used this opportunity to enact his plan Laughlin approached the a Tartar with the plan for creation of a new realm called Mundus which they could fill with their own creations some of the antara declined the offer these were called the Daedra which means not our ancestors and to the ones who did accept and took part in the creation were called the aedra which means our ancestors here is where the stories differ as the elves tell the story law Cohn is seen as a trickster and a betrayer who came to the gods and then told him of his plan but yet secret the fact that they would lose part of their power in the process the realm of Mundus was formed and within it the planet of nirn but spirits who took part in its creation did not realize until it was too late some of them however did realize what was happening to their power and chose to abandon the project of Mundus Magnus the architect as well as his followers called the Magna gave fled ripping holes in the realm through to a serious it is for this reason we have the Sun in Stars which all Iike Magica from a furious into the mortal realm the most powerful of the Adria the ones that you would know as the eight Divine's convened at the newly created adam anton tower and decided how they would punish lock on there are a few versions of this and time is also not exactly linear at this point so i will just tell you the crux of it orielle ripped outlaw Khan's heart and shot it into the sea where the island of aden fell and red mountain would grow the eight Divine's committed to the creation of Mundus and completed it losing much more of their power in being reduced to the semi unconscious states that they are in as planets floating around known the other Adric at Arda who were weaker than the Divine's were stuck on known and they became the nfa some sacrificed themselves to become the laws of nature and the elements that bound nirn together but then there were two other groups of Elna FEI the old in the wandering the old ellen fa found el Damaris a place they could fortify and protect a place of order and calm and live as they had before the creation of Mundus these would become the elves the wandering LFA on the other hand who were left to a crazy changing known confusing them and disorienting them afternoon was finished they found themselves scattered with memories lost on all corners of this newly formed world these would become the races of man the fundamental difference between the elven interpretation I just spoke of ends the interpretation of creation by man is the trickery let's look at Shahzad the serie Dilek version of lorkhan it is said that shazar came to the other a Tata and taught them how to be mothers and fathers he was honest about them losing their power but brought the philosophy of sacrifice to create something beautiful to create Mundus the gods of man and beast joined the project and willfully gave birth to their creations relishing in their sacrifice however the elven gods became bitter and disliked their lost power and then turned on shazar for revenge the main difference between elves and man's opinion about the soul of Sethos law can or shazar is whether or not he was a good and honest dude or a trickster and a liar okay so we should all now be on the same page about the creation story whether or not law Conn was a bad guy or good guy depends on really whether you are an elf or a man but let's get back to the gods we are going to tackle all different kinds of interpretations of the gods in the different Pantheon's but first we need to clear up all of the hard facts and necessary distinctions as well as the fundamental commonalities between them all so before creation there was a new and padme the cosmic forces which are always acknowledged in some form for example in the Yakunin pantheon they are combined into Sackett I'll the snake the world's skin who has known on his scales but satyr Kyle is shaped like an aura Boras always eating itself because of its hungry stomach called a Kel aka their interpretation of Padme all of the gods were originally collectively called leotardo the original spirits then exists two classifications as well as an extra little group you have the aedra who gave up their power to create the realm of Mundus and on the other hand you have the Daedra who sat back and watched from the waters of oblivion keeping their power now this is why the Daedra are far more powerful than the aedra it is why you have the Daedric princes still interacting with mortals whereas the Adria influence is subtle rare or limited the Divine's don't interact with you directly like the Daedric princes can there is another group which are somewhat adrià because they helped with creation but they are also the ones who bailed halfway through the process aka Magnus and the Magna Gay the many different cultures of Tamriel almost always recognize a complete distinction between the aedra in the Daedra but then we also have the curious case of gods like orky who combines aspects of Malekith and RK but we'll get to him later the gist is because the aedra have such visceral and personal interactions with the mortals of known they are rarely misinterpreted yes they can take different forms male or female or perhaps they could appear more similar to the race they are speaking to for example sugar ass the sugar cat the Khajiit version of shell Gore F but their spheres what they are about are generally understood and do they have a commonality in all religions of the elderscrolls hircine is the God of hunt in pretty much all cultures and meirin's Dagon is the god of destruction you get the idea but the aedra are a completely different story they gave up much of their power during creation and as a result they have been left somewhat comatose in an almost unconscious state each of the Adria can be identified as one of the other planets within mondays as I said they don't usually directly interact with mortals they are usually limited to influence only this disconnect between the mortals in the Adria gods has made it so each culture can develop their own ideas about each God and there is no God to just show up and say nah that ain't me whereas the Daedra can clearly interact with mortals and say this is what I'm about therefore cultures can't really impart their own beliefs onto the Daedra besides different names this whole thing gets even more complex when we start talking about worship and multiple God identities but we're going to leave that to later in the video first we are going to talk about the Pantheon's buckle up for a lot of religion we're going to talk about all the gods of all Tamriel ik cultures so let's just begin with the foundational one the one for our basis of comparison the Imperial Pantheon the beginning of the Imperial Pantheon the beginning of the aedra beings known as the eight Divine's started with the slave Queen Alisha who began the first Empire of man in cyrodiil in the year 243 of the first era so what is interesting is that before this there was no zenith or or no kynareth they went by other names worshiped by other cultures seen as different deities the Imperial Pantheon itself is a first era creation for example kynareth the nature goddess was known as kind to the Nords and was the god of storms and warrior wife to Shaw who is their interpretation of lorkhan anyways the reason the Imperial Pantheon was created was to provide a middle ground between those who worshipped the elven Pantheon such as the liberated need exclaims and also the Nords who helped them who believed in their traditional ancient Nordic pantheon Alesia combined aspects of both sets of gods to create a balanced interpretation she is the reason that Oriel the elven god of time became akatosh the dragon god of time because there is no way that the Nords would accept an Elvish god now big heads up right now akatosh is really really confusing because at some point a group called the maro Katis electives actually caused a dragon break apparently to remove the elven elements of akatosh but I don't want to get into that here so you can go watch the dragon break video linked below but also I will be talking about worship later and this will be important then I'm also not going to talk about Tallis the ninth divine yet but for now we have the Imperial Pantheon which consists of akatosh the dragon god of time RK the god of cycles birth and death DiBella goddess of beauty and art Juliana's the god of wisdom logic and magic kynareth the goddess of heavens and nature mara the mother goddess of love and compassion stand are the God of mercy and justice and finally we have zenith are the trader god of work commerce and wealth these eight gods these Imperial interpretations of the Divine's that Empress Alicia are created in the first error are the ones that you are most familiar with there is also shows are considered the lost sibling of the Divine's but remember shazar as the Cyrodiil ik version of lorkhan and lorkhan was killed mostly but the big interesting takeaway here is not a large pepperoni pizza from dominos but the fact that the Imperial cult came much later than other interpretations and was a direct fabrication taking common archetypes which shows that the Imperials don't necessarily have it right but the same goes for everyone I thought that it might be a good idea to talk about the Nordic Pantheon next considering that you may be a little bit more familiar with some of the names from the limited mention in the elderscrolls v Skyrim a more accurate term now would be the ancient Nordic Pantheon as it has been largely supplanted by the Imperial versions of the Pantheon in the fourth era the ancient Nordic Pantheon is far more Nordic in flavor based around their warrior culture their greatest God is sure a bloodthirsty warrior king who sided with the Nords bringing them victory against the Aldmeri oppressors he is what you would consider chief of the Nordic gods and it is sure who created the ethereal realm of sovngarde a utopia for the Nords to enjoy in death after a good life he was eventually killed by the elven gods keine the goddess of the storm is the nordic variant of kynareth keine is one of the most important gods to the north she is the warrior widow of sure and also referred to as the kiss at the end because she leads the souls of slain warriors to sovngarde she is also attributed with being the mother of man and instructing Paarthurnax to teach the Nords the thumb you may start to see a trend here Nordic gods usually have the Nords reflected in their interpretations hence the many warrior gods now look at how they view stand out the god of mercy their version is called stun the god of ransom he was the shield thane of shore and in taught the Nords how to take prisoners of war and why it was beneficial stones brother was son the giant guy that guards the whalebone bridge to sovngarde do nailed the god of hermetic orders runes language and mathematics also associated with magic and the clever men is the ancient Nordic version of the Divine Juliano's mara of the Nordic Pantheon is very similar to her Imperial counterpart in fact most people of Tamriel include Mara as a God of love and marriage making her the most universal god among the cultures however in the Nordic interpretations she is considered to be the handmaiden of kine de Bella was also included as the goddess of beauty before akatosh the Nords considered that a Droog entity to be elder one the world eater al Dolan was seen as the god of time both a creator and harbinger of their apocalypse he's associated with CalPERS and that it is said that he destroys the universe for it to begin anew however when we play Skyrim we year of Alduin as the firstborn of akatosh implying akatosh and him are not one in the same but i'm gonna talk about that some other time the final god of the ancient Nordic Pantheon to talk about is or key the lone god of the Nords and god of mortality this is one of the most curious cases where both Adric and Daedric elements have been conflated and combined into a single God the Adria R K and the Daedra Malekith are both mixed to create this Nordic interpretation called or ki the old naka or ki is said to be responsible for either Nords don't live as long and/or keys people are called the orcs now the simple way to solve this is to treat or ki as r k but associated with the orcs but not directly being Malekith as well in nordic stories or ki is a bad guy likely why they tossed in the orcish elements to demonize him further and make for a more exciting story but my reasons for believing that the Daedric prince is not actually involved in or ki is because they have another name for the Daedric prince called Moloch the orcish god so the best way to look at or key is the demonized version of RK with some orcish elements to make him seem more evil but that is not implying that he is literally malacath instead Malekith is called Moloch a separate entity by now you've probably realized that religions and gods are incredibly complicated and when you add in different interpretations which pretty much always happen you have a lot of work to do look at the real world Abram ik religions they all have the same core God with many different interpretations prophets or scriptures you have the Jewish faith the Christian faith with its many divisions Catholic Anglican Protestant and it's orthodoxies plus many more as well as the Muslim faith with its many groups like the Shia and Sunni plus the many many more point is all of these religions and interpretations all have the same root talking about the same God of Abraham but many different versions in the same vein all the different cultures of elf Nord redguard Imperial etc are talking about the same age rich entities just very different versions in one culture the aedra standard is the God of mercy and justice in another he is the God of rain anyways let's move on to the elven pantheon where it gets a little more interesting because the elves were once the old Elna Fae the ones who could maintain the calm and order in out Maris during the hectic changes of a newly born urn the elves one of the most important distinctions between man and elf is how they understand their own mortality men usually said as a gifts from the gods they have been given life and the elves usually see it as a prison a trap set by law Conn who robbed them of divinity fundamentally the elves are very aware of their origins once being at ara remember the a tada were the original spirits they lost their power during their creation of mundus the most powerful were the Adria but the others became the Ellen of a while the other illness a became part of an urn or the wandering the old illness a found al Damaris where they could create what would become elven society a place of calm and order where history and memory could be preserved because elves are aware of their original forms as LFA and before that via tada the elves worshipped all of their ancestors but after the aldmer were lost from al Damaris and found the summerset isles they would soon begin exclusively worshiping only the greatest of their ancestors creating elevated importance for them becoming their gods now this is one of the main reasons that the climber left the summerset isles who would become the dunmer day today still venerate all of their ancestors so it's important to remember that the elves consider all of the Adria as their ancestors which is what the word Adria actually means our ancestors so greatest among them their most important God is Oriole known by the races of men as akatosh but they kind of become separate it gets fiddly but let's stay on track Oriel is the elven god of time and king of the aldmer most Ultima and Bosma claimed direct ancestry from this God there is Magnus the architect of man descend god of magic who fled at the last moment of creation creating the Sun trinamic the strong god of the old ma was Orioles right-hand man and night he was eventually eaten by boethiah and transformed into the Daedric prince Malekith zark sees is the god of ancestry and secret knowledge who began as a scribe to Oriole he keeps track of all Aldmeri accomplishments big and small we also have Mara goddess of love but to the elves she was the wife of Oriole Stender God of mercy is there but in early legends he is seen as an apologist of men there is also Sara bein the God ancestor of magic and also financed her the hero god of the Ultima of course there is law can seen as the betrayer and the missing God but a very important God called every god of the forest and spirit of the now is worshipped by the Ultima Bosma Falmer and Brett and alack if free was the first of the LFA the first earth bones if free was also the God who made the green pact with the Bosma of Valen would so far I've talked about the ultimate gods gods of the summerset isles but there are some differences between the Bosma and Ultima the Bosma worshipped many of the same gods but they also worship RK like the Imperial version God of birth and death as well as a god called Zen the god of toil which is their version of the divine is NFR they also worship the moon gods Joan enjoyed as well as banned are the bandits God in addition the Breton's with their elven heritage have a mix of both man and mer Pantheon's generally aligning with the imperial COTS beliefs of the eight Divine's I guess I ought to mention the other types of elves that fall outside the typical variations of the elven Pantheon the races of myrrh that worshipped the Daedra so the orcs or awesomer were trina-- max ancient followers who were turned into orcs when boethiah ate trina mac and turned him into malacath as you would all well know the orcs worship their God at the Daedric prince Malekith some however do hold on to the worship of trinamic the Kaymer who were led by the prophet velov left the summerset isles with the help of what they call the good Daedra boethiah mephala and Asura the Karma settled morrowind and would continue their practice of ancestor worship including worshiping parents grandparents great-grandparents etc their family trees essentially but in addition they worshiped the three good Daedra there are also four Daedra collectively called the four corners of the house of troubles which are to be placated and appeased rather than worshiped they are often considered the testing gods they are Malekith who tests for physical weakness share gorath who tests for mental weakness Marin's Dagon representing the inhospitable terrain of Morrowind and Molag Bal who tries to ruin the purity of Dunmurry bloodlines of course there is also the millennia long stint of the tribunal of living gods the tribunals defiance over the three good Daedra is the reason that the Kaymer were cursed and transformed into the dunmer but since the end of the third era the dunmer have reverted to the worship of the good Daedra being called the Reclamation's rather than the worship of the now dead or disappeared elm alexia of a vaca and sotha sil but with that aside let's now move on to the two other Pantheon's of Tamriel that have particularly unique interpretations beginning with the occurrence aka the race of man you know as the Red Guards if you are familiar with Red Guard history then you would know that they come from an entirely different continent called you khuda hence they have in an entirely different pantheon of gods yet many can be connected with the aedra Divine's now there is a distinction to be made there are two political sites to Hammerfell the crowns and the four bears crowns are more traditional and still worship that you current Pantheon whereas the four bears basically worship the Imperial Pantheon with some yogurt and flavor names and such so let's begin with the Akutan gods and draw all of the connections so firstly we have statical I mentioned before that he is a combination of the original cosmic forces Anu and Padme he's also pointed out to be similar to al Derwin in some respects he's also called the world's skin because the worlds rest on his scales SATA kyle is a serpent eating itself eventually it reaches its own heart and that marks the end of the universe but then it sheds its own skin and the universe begins again every time this happens everything dies and it begins again however this was until the spirit called Rutger also called tall Papa figured out a way to survive the process this process was called walkabout and rooked cassette the stars in the sky to show the other spirits how to do the same rope to go by the way is the Yakuza of akatosh Oriel eventually though there were too many spirits to keep track of so Rob's kur creates sap from the dead skin of the past worlds to help him regulate the spirit trade SAP is the Akutan version of lorkhan sep being the dead skin of the serpent Santa Karl is driven mad by its hunger and in his madness he convinces some of the gods to help him make an easier alternative to the Walkabout this of course is the world as we know it and the spirits who followed SAP become trapped here to live their lives as mortals SAP is punished by tall Papa for his transgressions but his hunger lives on as a void in the Stars a non space that tries to upset mortal entry into the far shores which is the Yakunin afterlife there are more nuanced details to this but perhaps I will talk about them in another video this video is already big enough next we have to work out the tricky god you couldn't God of souls to Walker before the creation of the world was the god of nobody really cares not my words that's actually a direct quote from a book in game when tell Papa undertook the creation of the Walkabout to akka found a purpose he became the caretaker of the far shores and continues to help redguards find their way into the afterlife to walk his equivalent would be RK in the imperial pantheon Zenith IRAs also represented as zet the god of farms more while the teat god is the Akutan fertility goddess fundamental deity in the Akutan pantheon and favorite of all tall Papa's wives maurois is always betrayed as forearmed so that she can grab more husbands more why is the same entity as Mara into other Pantheon's even her marriage to the time God is the same in the Yakunin pantheon tava the bird God is the Yakunin equivalent of kynareth and as for the rest of the gods they don't exactly line up for comparisons to the eight Divine's on see is the Yucatan war God moon ding the make way God and one of hunting's avatars diagonal is the Oracle code of the sideways blade there is also the saint of the sword called lucky daughter of tall papa whom they worship so anyways that basically up the Akutan pantheon it's actually one of my favorite and I would be keen to dedicate a video to all the nitty-gritty details but right now we have to talk about the furry cat gods of the Khajiit now Khajiit are a funny Bunch they don't conform to the eight Divine's and they don't draw strong lines between Adria and Deidre they also naturally as cats themselves interpret many of the gods as cat-like as it is only natural first important god al Kosh the dragon king of cats and you guessed it he is the Khajiit version of Oriole slash akatosh slash tall Papa we also have Mara the mother cat wife of al kasha and like most interpretations of Mara love fertility etc that's all her sphere riddle thar is the sugar God or the two moons dance the cosmic order dat revealed to the Khajiit by the Prophet rid Theory data of the main riddle Thor is more so a cosmic force or set of guidelines rather than a God but then again he has had avatars so that implies some level of personification / godhood you also have the moon gods Jodie and Joan who are very important and determine the very biology of the Khajiit through the lunar lattice there is surrender the run to the God of mercy aka stand our of the Imperial faith Kenneth II God of winds is their version of kynareth they also worship band are the Bandit God like the Bosma do Rajan is the purring liar the thief God most famous burglar in history who became worshipped as a god Madras is the cat's eye the Khajiit version of Magnus popular with magicians Asura is the Daedra Asura who in legends was involved in the creation of the Khajiit from elves Shigure earth is the skooma cat mad God and equivalent of Cher gorath her scene is the hungry cat who is her scene the Daedric prince Sangan the blood cat is the god of death in secret murder sangan's worship is hidden from cat's eye for who can control the urges of blood now what is interesting is that by name he would seem to relate to the Daedra sanguine but secret murder and death seems to be more closely related to mephala but they know her a separate entity it's one of the stranger cases where the dangerous interpretation actually differs substantially there is also Namira the grace darkness who is the enemy of the living this is the Daedric prince that we know as Namira but in their religion she takes on a significant role finally law qaj is the Khajiit version of lorkhan seen in a variety of ways but not strictly good or bad like men and elves view locum so ladies and gentlemen those are the main Pantheon's of the many people of Tamriel far more complex than just the eight Divine's plus Daedra as part of this complete guide and in order to provide a preface understanding of how many different cultures view the Gods I had to explain the gist of each pantheon the takeaway from this is to understand too that the gods of the Elder Scrolls are not simply the eight Divine's every interpretation is more or less valid because the gods cannot be truly known the actual truth of the gods is hard to discern and that may be because they are all true we are about to get onto some intense topics of the metaphysical so buckle up we are going to be talking about worship and its functions and with some theory I'm going to help reconcile all of this information into a singular framework that it makes sense okay here is what we know within mundus there is a planet called known where Tamriel and all of the other continents are there are also two moons Masser and Secunda there are also eight planets which are the bodies of the Adria the eight Divine's now these aren't literally the bodies they aren't spheres but this is how us mortals perceive them anyways that isn't too important back to the planets now for the intent and purpose of simplicity I'm going to use the Imperial Pantheon as the baseline to describe each Adria even though other interpretations are potentially as valid so as it stands there are eight planets akatosh Arcada Bela Giuliano Skinner F Mara stander in Zenith are these entities exists they are factual but they don't necessarily exist as mortals interpret them so keep this in mind now all of these gods we have talked about are worshipped by someone gods want this worship it makes them more powerful so the more mortals that worship that God the more power and influence they have this is the fundamental reason why the Thalmor are trying to prevent Talos worship Talos is real his feats and accomplishments marked Tamriel he changed Cyrodiil from a land of jungle into fertile grasslands his aspect called wolf appears in morrowind and his shrines give blessings he is a factual entity but by denying him by telling people he is not real by people ceasing to believe in him his power wanes and he will eventually be insignificant I will link a video down below about the Thalmor plot which goes into all of the intricacies but I want to talk about worship the Daedric princes who remember are Daedra which means not our ancestors meaning they did not take part in the creation of Mundus therefore they retained their power have active minds and ego they have agency whereas the aedra are somewhat unconscious comatose having given up much of themselves for creation because of this they are interpreted in many different ways as we have discussed this is where worship has power imagine the planet the entity the aedra itself the essential core of what the godly being is it exists now imagine each interpretation of that God as a personality now just for a moment accept the idea that each entity has a multiple personality disorder with each of its multiple personalities being an individual interpretation that is worshipped by mortals made real by collective belief for example let's look at standard Standa in the imperial pantheon is the god of mercy and justice in the Nordic Pantheon he is stoned god of ransom in a Khajiit pantheon he is stranded the runt God of mercy and in elven Pantheon's he is stand our God of mercy and compassion but also seen as an apologist to men all of these interpretations are the multiple personalities of the same core being they are all true the belief in and worshipping of an interpretation would empower a certain personality the interpretation can be imposed on the a trick entity because it is unconscious unlike the Daedra which have a direct agency the way in which the unconscious Adric entity is worshiped affects how it behaves or which personality of the multiple is strongest there are questions you may have now for example Martin Septim becomes an avatar of akatosh and defeats Marans Dagon at the end of Elder Scrolls for oblivion so then surely akatosh as a dragon is the correct one we'll consider this consider that chronologically if we walk back to the beginning of the first error the idea of akatosh the time dragon did not exist akatosh and the rest of the Divine's as a concept were created by Alessia after the serie Dilek rebellion of slaves so if you went back to the start of the first era Oriel was the god of time the ultimate of the Bosma the eyelids the Dharini the Falmer they all worshipped Oriel and only knew of him as such I mean you can actually find Orioles bow the very same bow used to shoot law Khan's heart into the sea and also Oriole shield surely this must mean an Oriole is the true version well no clearly not because akatosh appears at the end of the 3rd era as a fiery dragon it would seem that the truth of the matter is that they are both real different interpretations / personalities which at different times in history have been worshipped more or less making the aedra entity more commonly take on the form it is believed to be a very good example to look at is the idea of lorkhan by the Nords he is known as Shah and sure created the ethereal realm called sovngarde sovngarde is 100% real we have been there in elderscrolls v skyrim so does that mean the Nords have it right but what about all we know about law kaan the Nords can't be right can they but then there is also the far shores of the Akutan ethology the Redguard afterlife which is a real place and is vention - as part of a quest in ESO the caretaker of the far shores is to occur the you coudn't version of RK but does that mean the you current version is the correct one do you see the problem we have evidence for the existence of multiple different gods from different Pantheon's from different mythologies of different cultures that all simultaneously exist the existence of akatosh does not dismiss the existence of Oriel the existence of kine does not dismiss the existence of kynareth the existence of sure does not dismiss the existence of lorkhan we are then forced to accept the fact that they are all true and all have evidence for their own interpretations existence now within the framework of a Drake entities with multiple personality disorder this starts to make a lot more sense then when you consider that the worship of these personalities increases their power things start to make even more sense you may need a while to digest these ideas before we move on but if you find this framework and way of thinking useful then we may be ready to move on but before we do I will leave you with this interesting notion if we accept the proposition to be truth then that means that mortals through worship of certain interpretations shape the gods and help determine how the gods use their Adric influence which in turn helps shapes the events of Mundus this notion comes with the realization that it is a two-way street mortals affect the gods through worship and gods then affect mortals back so if my society collectively begins worshiping the adrià entity akatosh as a time dragon rather than an elven deity called oriole then eventually the aedra entity the core of the god will have the akatosh personality take over and the oriole personality will diminish this explains why for example that while Oriol seem to be dominant throughout mythic history the idea of akatosh becomes dominant with the rise of the first Empire and over time the personality shifts but Oriel is still real just a lesser part of the Adria entity I hope this is making sense I feel like I'm explaining the plot of the movie split it is for this reason that the truth of the Elder Scrolls is so hard to discern because the nature of the universe itself is somewhat flexible that as well as an unreliable narrator doesn't make it easy have a look at the Dragon breaks video in the description you'll see how and free-flowing the orders can be so in this section we are going to further explore some crazy ideas mainly revolving around retro actively changing the past I think this will be best started off with an example that punctuates the case we won't dive into Kim but let's focus on the aedra entity of time that goes by many different names akatosh or al Rob dagur al kasha originally let's say this entity is worshipped as Oriole the elven God using the framework I previously discussed the elves worship Oriole and this gives strength to the idea of Oriole the interpretation or the personality you could say Oriole exists and so did the things he did like using his bow to shoot law comes heart into the sea then comes along Alessia and she comes up with the idea of akatosh she has a rebellion starts an empire and now you have a lot of people worshipping the same Adric entity of time but they call it akatosh and akatosh is a dragon akatosh is not elven the aedra entity of time now has two interpretations aka two personalities at the same time the elves worship Oriel and the men worship akatosh but the elves and men also believe in different mythological histories the men believe that akatosh with shazar was willing to sacrifice themselves for creation whereas the elves believed oriole was tricked by law can make a shazar into the scheme of creation so which of these stories is correct well before akatosh there was only Oriel so it would be safe to assume that the elven version is correct or are we safe to assume that over time people worship akatosh more and more Oriel becomes less popular and over three empires of man you have widespread akatosh worship making akatosh the stronger personality of the aedra Kensit ii of time as shown by his dragon avatar in the end of the third era into oblivion but now you may say well it doesn't matter the past is still the past but what about sovereign guard then you see sovereign guard was created by shor the Nordic interpretation of law con but sovereign God is real so doesn't that confirm sure as the true interpretation including his history and origins but that doesn't line up with now I'm confused I'm just kidding at the point I'm trying to make is that time isn't and can't be consistent certain things all had to have happened even if they contradict and if you watched our videos on Dragon breaks you would know that this has happened in Elder Scrolls history a weed situation where the time God's passes out and the time line splits into multiple scenarios but is somehow reconciled and rejoined into a single timeline this creates precedents for multiple versions of creation all being true simultaneously so law Conn is a betrayer in trick star while also being shazar who taught the aedra to become mothers and fathers while also being sure who built sovngarde and died fighting against the elves what this all comes down to is the idea that perception is reality but taken to a fantastical level this means all perceptions even the ones that exist at the same time aka Oriel akatosh and rubbed gar all real and all the time God at the same time this whole idea is what gave birth to concepts such as coda within the internal framework of the elder scrolls things like kim calpers dragon breaks etc can all ultimately lead to the conclusion that your own head Canon is true the game is kind of canonized headcanon if that makes sense it's essentially what the elder scrolls are they're timeless metaphors for fantastical and mansion nation ladies and gentlemen I think that is a good note to end on and I hope what I presented you with is a somewhat satisfying conclusion the framework of the aedra entities with multiple personalities reconciles the fact that there are multiple cultural versions of each god that are all proven to be real in some respect and the existence of dragon breaks also allows for the reconciliation of multiple creation stories and mythological origins it's easier to imagine multiple different truths or timelines or versions of reality all coming together and converging at a single point and that is the games you play where many truths exist if even contradictory anyways thank you guys so much for watching or all the way through please do give this video a like if you enjoyed it religion ecology and gods are some of my favorite topics in the elder scrolls as well as other fantastical worlds of imagination in addition to even real-life religions and mythologies I am so grateful to be able to share this passion with you guys and I'm very keen to see what you guys think in the comments below thanks again for watching this video my name is Scott from fudge Muppet and I'll be back to nerd out with you again next time [Music] you

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 1,227,864

Rating: 4.921659 out of 5

Keywords: skyrim, elder scrolls, elder scrolls lore, gods lore, skyrim lore, aedra, daedra, imperial pantheon, yokudan gods, nord gods, elven gods, auriel, sithis, elder scrolls gods, elder scrolls religion, kahjiit gods

Id: wyYHu9ulSRA

Length: 44min 37sec (2677 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019