The Living Gods EXPLAINED - The Tribunal: Almalexia, Vivec & Sotha Sil - Elder Scrolls Lore

[Music] surely you have heard of the false gods the three pretenders the tribunal the three who stole the holy seats from good Daedra supplanting their worship their adoration for thousands of years the Living God kings of morrowind ruled the land bringing about a Golden Age almalexia sotha sil and vivec also known collectively as arms avi were loved by the dunmer people and in return for this love they granted progress protection and prosperity it is no wonder the three Daedra referred to as the good Daedra were so easily replaced but it is a deception the prosperity the protection it was given but not earned the dunmer did not suffer they were no longer forged in the trials of overcoming adversity a philosophy inherent in the teachings of Elif in the good Daedra Asura queen of dawn and dusk boethiah Prince of plots and mephala the webspinner as they are named were responsible for the departure of the Prophet fell off from the summerset isles they were responsible for the Karma settling in res Dane now known as morrowind they were responsible for the dumbest form of ashen skin and red eyes and it is they who would be responsible for ending the Golden Age of the dunmer resulting in punishment and suffering a dire lesson for the Dark Elves what is up ladies and gentleman my name is Scott from fudge Muppet and today we are looking at the tribunal of living gods especially in contrast to the three good Daedra that preceded them in retrospect they may be called pretenders demoted to me Saints but let us not forget that for most of dunmer history they were regarded as the true and rightful gods of the dunmer people first the essential information you need to know is that after the Battle of Red Mountain after the death of Lord in Doral nerevar leader of the Karma he's three advisors his tribunal his Queen almalexia and his two advisors sotha sil and vivec used the tools of kagrenac and stole divine power making them the living gods of morrowind as they betrayed the word of nerevar xerus champion Azura cursed the karma pea turning their skin gray and eyes red making the dunmer she also spoke the prophecy of NER Avars return to right the wrongs of the tribunal the tribunal with their newfound power could deny the curse of ashen skin and they defied the Daedra they led the dunmer people to greatness they supplanted the worship of the traditional Daedric princes and they became the focus of all dunmer theology the tribunal temple became the ultimate power of morrowind now of course you could imagine that taking the place of the good Daedra would be no easy task I mean there are many who would downright refuse to worship or acknowledge their divinity and in fact the ash Lander tribes were amongst such groups well the tribunal did something clever like real religions have done a little thing called integration you see in the real world if you were to look at Christianity for example one of the reasons it was so successful is because it had a more one-size-fits-all approach a religious explanation that can encompass others when in the process of converting other cultures instead of downright denying important local deities they incorporated them into the Christian canon and Saints it is a much easier transition to come to the realization that your gods are in fact Saints or powerful spirits that lie under the greatest god of Christianity rather than flat-out denying local mythology and folklore well in a similar way the Tribunal smoothed over their ascendancy to godhood by positioning the good Daedra as the anticipations of themselves let's read a few passages from the book absolutely named the anticipation it explains it very nicely the Daedra are powerful ancestor spirits similar in form and substance to the tribunal blessed be their holy names but weaker in power and more arbitrary and removed from the affairs of mortals in old times the karma worshipped the Daedra as gods but they did not deserve this veneration for the Daedra harm their worshippers as often as help them the advent of the tribunal blessed be their holy names changed this unhappy state by the apotheosis the tribunal blessed be their holy names became the protectors and high ancestor spirits of the Donmar and bade the Daedra to give proper manner a and obedience the three good Daedra boethiah Asura and Mufasa recognized to the divinity of the triune ancestors blessed be their holy names the good Daedra are known to the temple as the anticipations since they are the early ancestral anticipations of the loving patronage of the tribunal the anticipation zs-- are the daedric lords boethiah mephala and Asura what a spin you can see have a tribunal position for themselves defining the three Daedra as cruel but necessary masters for the climber to be free but now it is time for a more loving and caring type of leadership to usher in a time of prosperity the tribunal temple maintained to this perception for thousands of years and to be fair the tribunal were more compassionate than their predecessors but not all the houses share the same level of devotion the great house in Durrell was the most deeply rooted in the temple hierarchy their members dominated the priest caste as well as the ordinator 's the temple warriors and protectors the great house retirin were also one of the more pious houses the buoyant armatures are a retirin dominated group in dedication to vivex specifically house la lu is devoted when it pays our stress supports the temple as long as it condones and protects its slave trade and house tel vani cares the least with many of the major laws more concerned with power than piety now that you understand the context the gist of their ascension and the dominance of the tribunal temple let us look at each of the tribunal members individually first almalexia she believes her tales implicitly as does everyone else the capacity for deception appears limitless she shows lies like a master gardener sow seeds and the harvest of trust and adulation is breathtaking Judas cope almalexia does what she does because she cannot do otherwise it will not end well but then even the best endings rarely bring joy almalexia I am lover warden lady of mercy mother of Morrowind boethiah is her anticipation and in her godhood she retains the golden skin appearance of the climber standing out amongst her people she is the protector of the poor and the weak the greatest source of sympathy compassion and forgiveness her temple city is named morn holds the City of Light and Magic also known as the city of gems it is the most ancient city of Morrowind located in the heart of the deshaun region surrounding her grand temple city is the greater city named in her honour called almalexia of course by the time of Skyrim I am is long gone and the city has suffered many cataclysmic events but his slowly being rebuilt before her godhood has a mortal all those years ago almalexia was the wife of the Lord councilor in Doral Nara var whom she may or may not have conspired to kill with favicon sotha sil but regardless after her divinity she became a consort of vivec a bit of salt in the wound for Nara var regardless of her potential ill actions towards her husband and her ego maniacal tendencies she really did provide for her people there are countless acts of her kindness bestowing her blessings said to do extraordinary things such as protecting people from the physical elements of chronic diseases she also created children's tales and fables with the intent of nurturing the morality of her people a more tender and accessible format as opposed to the teachings of vivec which at times sound insane some of such teachings of almalexia contained in the book homilies of blessed almalexia such as the tale of sotha sil on the scrip young sotha sil while playing in the egg mines saw a number of scribbs in a deep shaft and he began to cast stones upon them snickering as they scattered and scattered until one of the scribbs lifting its head up in agony cried out to sotha sil please please have mercy little boy for what is sport to you is suffering and death to us and so sotha sil discovered that the idle amusements of one may be the solemn tortures of another almalexia may be a teller of children's stories but not mistake her compassion and sympathy for meekness almalexia is fierce in battle with sotha sil she fought against the Daedric Prince meirin's Dagon who was rampaging through morn hold and banished him and then era Vereen knows all too well her power almalexia began going mad with the loss of the heart of lorkhan her fading divinity diminished her mind and she would murder sotha sil and attempt to kill the naira vereen wearing her war mask and brandishing her blade of blue flames her blade is hopesfire twin blade of true flame a Dwemer sword gifted to her by du mech dwarf king during the times of the Kaymer Dwemer alliance her depleting power however and underestimation of the narrow reign led to her demise so you already know the fate of sotha sil but you don't know his story his accomplishments highly and whatever the people need me to be a guardian an oppressor for some distant sofas ill set father of mysteries magician sorcerer tinkerer clockwork god architect of time and binder of oblivion Azura is his anticipation the wizard mystic god of the dunmer is the hardest to know often reserved and introspective dealing with the transcendent and metaphysical rather than the worldly concerns of the dunmer people in defiance of Azura and narrow warszawa sill was most enthusiastic about using the tools of kagrenac to achieve divinity when Azura cursed the karma with transformation into the dunmer he had the power to resist but instead chose to take on the ashen skin and red eyes in solidarity with the people he taunted Asura directly claiming her time as a god is over and that he along with the tribunal would care for their people Sothis ill had always been curious in perfecting and this led him after his newly attained godhood to begin construction of his magnum opus he saw known as flawed and he sought to perfected his answer was the clockwork City a redemption he looked to none other than the Dwemer for inspiration the most advanced race to ever exist he created many Dwemer like automatons constructions and even dabbled internal architecture but for this reason the enigmatic sotha sil remained so to the dunmer people compared to the publicity and grandeur of vivec and elm alexia however he was once invested in the affairs of the done mark perhaps even more so than the rest of the tribunal he was said to have felt the stress of each of his people and he protected them cared for them actions likely deriving from his own traumatic childhood the destruction of his house at the hands of meirin's Dagon which was also a likely motivation for his hatred of the Daedra but his obsession with the clockwork City would eventually distract him from such affairs sotha sil was also known to have spent some time amongst the sick monks on the Isle of Artyom teaching some of the new mages even at one point made eight of the Daedric Prince's adhere to the rules of a pact stating they would not respond to summoners not setting foot on Tamriel who knows what he could have accomplished had he not been betrayed by almalexia but alas there is another god of the tribunal that we must speak of but that craves rideable freedom the death of all limits and restrictions he wishes to be all things at all times every race every gender every hero both divine and finite but in the end you can only be for Veck the vech vech warrior poet and guardian god king of Vardhan fell his anticipation is mephala and his skin is half done ma half karma representing the duality of the dunmer spirit the ever vigilant protector of morrowind against the dark gods of red mountain vivec is a character shrouded in metaphor contradiction and confusion but it is these things that are at the core of his character he embodies duality he's a hermaphrodite part male part female he is part climber part dharma he is both valiant Knight and protector while also devious murderer and rogue he is much like his anticipation in those respects mephala is also referred to as the androgyne and embodies dualistic features listen to this passage from the book Vivek and mephala as known in the West ma Fowler is the demon of murder sex and secrets all of these themes contain subtle aspects and violent ones assassination and genocide courtship and orgy tact and poetic truths mephala is understood paradoxically to contain and integrate these contradictory themes and all of these subtle undercurrents and contradictions are present in the dunmer concepts of avec even if they are not explicitly described and explained in temple doctrine the dunmer do not envision Lord vivec is a creature of murder sex and secrets rather they conceive of Lord of avec as benevolent King Guardian warrior poet artist but at the same time unconsciously they accept the notion of darker hidden currents beneath vivexx benevolent aspects vivek himself was a prolific writer of history poetry and philosophy he was considered the authority on many esoteric and metaphysical concepts such as the walking ways paths to achieving divinity vivec was also a great hero of the dunmer repelling akaviri invasions drowning them in a summoned flood or feeding the riemann empire on multiple occasions and using his diplomatic skills to enter the very same fourscore war there are a great many tales of his more mythological battles such as battles with the ruddy man and we can't forget his powerful spear Matra which has some curious origins you could say vivex ultimate fate is unknown whether he was killed or simply disappeared his absence was felt nonetheless by the dun month through the various cataclysms that came after what's interesting to note however is that vivexx somewhat engineered his own downfall he knew what had to be done the 36 lessons of vivec primarily act as a guide for the narrow Vereen he did not know who the narrow Vereen was so he made these lessons public and he knew that the prophecy must come true in order to defeat the char Matt de Gotha but the caveat to that is the resulting loss of the Tribunal's divinity which resulted in Alma Lexia going mad killing sotha sil and almalexia being killed by the narrow Vareen vivec is now but her memory for the dunmer people along with the rest of the tribunal now mere saints demoted from their position of gods and replaced by the good Daedra once again aptly named the Reclamation's for reclaiming their positions as the true tribunal of the dunmer faith but it's interesting to consider that the whole thousand-year long stints of the god Kings the Golden Age of the dunmer proved to be a great lesson for them for there is utility to suffering and the dunmer have suffered much since the beginning of the fourth era I highly recommend you check out the video by drew on the siddik endeavor and why the dunmer will rise again it's really well done its link down below in the description and it expands further on the ideas I just mentioned thanks so much for watching guys I hope you now have a functional understanding of the tribunal gods of morrowind of course these characters are very deep and do not worry we'll be talking about these guys individually at some point I've thrown around the idea of doing an analysis on the 36 lessons of vivec and explaining it all in layman's terms but that may take a long while let me know if that interest you guys give the video a like for the blessings of arms of e subscribe to fudge a muppet for more in-depth lore videos my name is Scott from fudge Muppet and I'll be back to nerd out with you again next time [Music]

Channel: FudgeMuppet

Views: 474,364

Keywords: skyrim, elder scrolls, morrowind, morrowind lore, skyrim lore, elder scrolls lore, almalexia, sotha sil, vivec, tribunal, dagoth ur, dunmer lore, fudgemuppet, living gods, chim

Id: Vqd6Smm6Vu4

Length: 16min 48sec (1008 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/dylan415uk]

I would love to know exactly how powerful they were during their height.