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What do you think of the Thalmor's "goal" to unmake the world

    • 1441 posts
    September 23, 2015 6:02 PM EDT

    For a long time now, fans of TES and its vast lore have been divided about the Thalmor. The main thing, fueld by Kirkbride's outside work on the lore, is the belief that ALL Thalmor wish to unmake the world, in order to return to Aetherius, where they were godlike Aedric spirits. What do you think? Personally, I believe a small sect of Thalmor wish this on the world, while the rest either believe them insane or shun them.

    • 411 posts
    September 23, 2015 6:05 PM EDT

    You know i was literally just thinking about this exact topic. Anyways its impossible to think all thalmor want to unmake the world i think that the leaders of the Thalmor want to unmake the world. And Ancano.

    • 641 posts
    September 23, 2015 6:42 PM EDT

    Why is it impossible?

    • 411 posts
    September 23, 2015 6:43 PM EDT

    Everybody is Different including Thalmor 

    • 641 posts
    September 23, 2015 6:47 PM EDT

    You know, their isn't that many Thalmor and if they were specifically formed to achieve the ultimate Altmer ideal then I don't see how it's impossible.

    • 95 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:04 AM EDT
    They've had enough time to raise a generation surrounded by propaganda to trick them to support unmaking the world.
    However; I'm not quite sold tht they all want to unmake the world. This would explain the actions of Ancano, though.
    • 649 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:24 AM EDT

    I don´t believe they want to unmake world. Sure, they want to return to the past, to become immortal again, but that isn´t goal of Thalmor, but of all Altmeri people.

    So I don´t think that Thalmor´s goal is to unmake the world. Yet I do believe that if they would found a way to Aetherius, to be immortal again, and the world would be the price, they would pay it without hesitation.

    But so far, nothing supports they want to destroy everything. Maybe commit a genocide on the races of Man, but will that unmake world? I doubt that. 

    • 95 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:29 AM EDT
    Now that I'm thinking on it, perhaps Ancano was a bit a radical. Knowing the power of the Eye of Magnus, he may have intended to use it to return the Altmer to immortal beings by destroying the mortal plane. Pure speculation, of course, but it is a possibility.
    • 649 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:34 AM EDT

    Well, he said "I have power to unmake the world." Not "I will unmake the world."  It´s just a detail, but still.

    Also, the game lists Ancano as member of Rogue Thalmor faction (renegade Thalmor - I´m not sure now) so it is possible that he actually didn´t act by orders.

    As for the Eye. There is never said for what he wanted to use it. Just pure powerlust maybe?

    • 95 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:46 AM EDT
    Well...
    I never said I had proof...
    However; if he could unmake the mortal plane and return the Altmer immortality, I'm sure he would. Since a reason is never given, when we know there has to be a reason, only provides more room for speculation. To be honest, I didn't even know he was classified in a different faction, but I have learned that faction organization isn't a perfect indicator of alignment. Bethesda often puts NPCs into random factions. That being said, it is still interesting that he is classified as Renegade Thalmor. I don't think he would have reviewed orders to use the Eye to unmake creation, but I also don't think they would explicitly tell him to, as they have no way of knowing if it would send them back to Aetherius. If anything he'd be going against an order to confiscate the Eye for study in Alinor.
    • 641 posts
    September 24, 2015 4:14 AM EDT

    Why wouldn't they want to unmarked the world though? I mean it's pretty much the only way they are going to get what they want.

    • 1595 posts
    September 24, 2015 4:34 AM EDT

    I foresee this will not end well. Yet I can't resist It's probably a good idea to revisit the actual quote in order to provide context:

    To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison.

    To achieve this goal, we must:

    1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane.

    2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated.

    3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.

    Forget all that "unmake the world", just tell me what you think would happen if Talos worship is suppressed to the point where it is almost non-existent. Remember Gods and Worship:

    It has been theorized that gods do in fact gain strength from such things as worship through praise, sacrifice and deed. It may even be theorized that the number of worshippers a given Deity has may reflect on His overall position among the other Gods. This my own conjecture, garnered from the apparent ability of the larger temples to attain blessings and assistance from their God with greater ease than smaller religious institutions.

    The point is, one can argue about this until the cows come home but one cannot argue the fact that the governing body of the Aldmeri Dominion are indeed erasing the Upstart Talos from the mythic by enforcing their anti-Talos laws. 

    The world is divided onto two groups: Those who think it's just a coincidence; and those who don't.

    • 1595 posts
    September 24, 2015 4:52 AM EDT

    Where has this "all Thalmor" and "leaders of the Thalmor" concept come from in this topic?

    The Thalmor is the government of the Aldmeri Dominion. Their agents enforce the will of this governing body and we know from many sources how intolerant they are of those who fail in their duties. They are not nice people. While it may be plausible to imagine a Thalmor agent with anti-Thalmor policies working from the inside to bring about change, such a being would be taking an enormous risk and have little support from his or her peers.

    I don't doubt there is a healthy Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiiti resistance movement inside the Aldmeri Dominion, but they most certainly are not Thalmor. Lets make sure we don't assume Altmer = Thalmor because that simply isn't the case

    • 649 posts
    September 24, 2015 5:21 AM EDT

    Erase Talos, remove Man and that third part...it doesn´t sound to me as a unmaking the world but as a...removing of a Time. Everything would be in Stasis and that might mean the immortality.

    • 641 posts
    September 24, 2015 5:24 AM EDT

    Hopefully the succede with the first part.

    • 649 posts
    September 24, 2015 5:26 AM EDT

    I wouldn´t mind getting rid of Men too, to be honest

    • 641 posts
    September 24, 2015 5:27 AM EDT

    Haha well maybe keep the Redguards around, they are at least interesting.

    • 649 posts
    September 24, 2015 5:53 AM EDT

    Nah, they should be the first to slaughter. They eradicated Lefthanded Elves, I can´t stand that

    I´m just kidding. While my favourite races are Mer, I actually don´t mind Men. Well, except for Nords.

    • 641 posts
    September 24, 2015 6:00 AM EDT

    Or did they? The Sinistral Elves may be still around.

    • 12 posts
    September 24, 2015 8:12 AM EDT

    There's zero evidence for it (even for a "small/rogue sect" let alone the whole org,) outside of Kirkbride's work. And Kirkbride... well... the less said about him (let alone his fans,) the better. 

    The heart of the matter is that when it comes to in game lore (which according to Todd Howard is the only thing you should consider official anyway,) only thing close to resembling a case you can make for it is Ancano. However there are a few anomalies:

    First of all it's a quote mine taken out of context. So here's the entire exchange in full:

    You've come for me, have you?, You think I don't know what you're up to? You think I can't destroy you? The power to unmake the world at my fingertips, and you think you can do anything about it?"

    If you take the entire quote into account rather than simply the first few words of the last sentence, it becomes clear what he's doing here: He's threatening you, the player. Not making a declarative statement of what he intends to do. It's basically the mage equivalent of a playground bully saying "Yeah what are you going to do about it, shrimp? I'm bigger than you."

    At best you can make the case that Ancano is simply high on Magnus Magickal Joy Juice, and is acting on behalf of Ancano. 

    Also as pointed out, Ancano (as well as his two flunkies that intercept you in Labyrinthian) also belong to a faction called "Thalmor Splinter Faction" in the CK, and these three are the only ones that do so. Unlike all other Thalmor related factions this one does not list the main Thalmor faction(s) as a friend or vise-versa
    One could speculate that this is to keep the player from being attacked on sight if they do the College of Winterhold quest, yet this is clearly not the case since it's possible to do the Northwatch quest going in guns blazing swords swinging (and by the way, the Northwatch guards are listed as friends to the main thalmor faction and vise versa), yet doing so in no way jeopardizes the main quest if you haven't done diplomatic immunity yet. So why they were doing this is a mystery.
    Admittedly, this isn't very strong evidence as while it is technically in-game evidence it's quite meta. However, it's still curious enough of an anomaly to bring up.

    Not to mention this is entire line of thought is a huge fallacy: taking a pre-supposed conclusion and looking for evidence to support it, rather than looking at the evidence and drawing a conclusion, and that's not how good investigation works.

    With that in mind let's also consider the fact that there are other, much more down-to-earth political reasons for banning Talos. And no it has nothing to do with the reasons that Heimskir yells about: Simple buttmaddery for sharing the heavens with a man. Otherwise you'd see them trying to hunt down Arkay heretics, yet this clearly isn't the case. 

    You see, at the close of the 2nd era, Tiber Septim made a peace treaty with the Aldmeri Dominion. Then not even the next day, he used Numidium to basically mass murder millions of Altmer simply so he could add the dominion to his kingdom.

    And if you think it ended there, guess again. Even in the fourth era, Talo's followers continued his legacy with Proxy wars, while the Blades (who coincidentally happen to be Talo's biggest fanboys, surpassing even Ulfric and his ilk) commited a great many acts of Terrorism. Something the dominion put up with for a whole 149 years before they finally decided they were sick of the Empire's and the Blade's shenanigans and decided to take the battle to them instead.

    You can read all about this in Vix's article: Altmer Part 4 History of the High Elves

    To compare, it would be like if Osama Bin Laden took over the US by nuking most of its cities and then after he died the entire middle east declared him a God that sits at the right hand of Allah.
    ...You could be pretty sure that if the US ever got back on its feet, it would be doing everything it could to stamp out Osama Bin Laden worship.

    So I must ask, what is more likely? They want to ban Talos out of some goofy conspiracy theory to destroy the word, or because of geopolitical reasons and because it has a long history of spawning humanocentric terrorism, and because (at least in their eyes) nothing good can ever come of it? Occam's Razor tells us its the latter.

    And let's be very very honest here: If their whole plan was this rather silly idea of trying to make people not believe in Talos by declaring it illegal and arresting people for worshiping him, they're doing an rather piss-poor job of it.

    • 12 posts
    September 24, 2015 10:55 AM EDT

    .... But for the sake of argument let's take this passage seriously for one minute. Let's assume... yes, someone in-universe wrote this, and it's not just the musings of an ex-beth developer.

    That however does beg the question: Who wrote it? When? And most importantly, WhyThe truth is we don't know the answer to any of these.

    It's all too easy to assume that a member of the Thalmor wrote it, higher up or otherwise. Yet from what I see this simply does not add up. Why would any member of the Thalmor want to write something like this? Who are they expecting to read it? Certainly not their enemies. Their people? Then why doesn't this appear or why isn't this mentioned by anyone? The higher ups? Again, if this was meant for the higher ups, why don't we find anything colaborating this sentiment in Elenwen's private collection while we find plenty of information on Delphine and the Stormcloaks? And what exactly is the point of writing this, then? Wouldn't you just be preaching to the choir?

    Even if we were to not outright dismiss it as being non-canonical, for all we know it could just be fictional gibberish written by the Stormcloaks or the Blades or even a hyperactive Talos worshiper in whiterun for the sole purpose of spreading anti-mer propaganda and misinformation and fearmongering. 

    This theory carries about as much validity as anything else. Moreso perhaps since the motivation is defiantly there. 

    • 1441 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:07 PM EDT

    I also think the reason for them banning Talos is the fact they do not wish to see a human, especially one who kind of using a magic, reality altering nuke on their people, become a god, even if all evidence points to him doing so.

    • 641 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:16 PM EDT

    But what about the other manish gods?

    • 12 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:32 PM EDT

    Yeah, exactly. Again, if it was a problem with a human being a god, they'd go after Arkay cultists too. 
    ... They don't.

    There's also the whole issue that Talos is basically a stand-in for Shor/Lorkhan (Why do you think there aren't any Shor shrines in Skyrim?), who is basically Satan from the Elvish perspective. 

    • 404 posts
    September 24, 2015 1:47 PM EDT
    Yeah Arkay was a normal shop keep that be came Divine of live and death. Talos did ordered a nuke like device for war.