So how do we get from Arkay to Trinimac to Malacath? How can one of the Eight Aedra become a Daedra? surely the elven words break down at that point?
Below is a brief summary of my understanding of how they are connected in the sources:
The implication is that Trinimac is the elven counterpart to Tsun, Stuhn and Arkay = TRInimac. It breaks down as follows:
It's convoluted as fuck but Tu'whacca, Arkay, Xarxes asserts that Arkay is a fusion of Xarxes and Orkey.
In turn "Orkey combines aspects of Mauloch and Arkay" (varieties of faith)
We know that Mauloch and Malakath are likely the same oversoul.
We know the connection between Malacath and Trinimac.
Shor, Son of Shor says that Tsun and Stuhn shift with each other and Trinimac as you point out. See it is Tsun grabbing Dibella's hair yet an instant later it is Stuhn dragging her to a tent, then later it is Trinimac leaving the tent.
So Trinimac = Stuhn, Tsun and Arkay.
Arkay is also the Eye of the Thief, his planet is part of that constellation. The Thief's role is that of the rebel, he will always try to take the Tower (St Alessia was born under the sign of the Thief). In elven mythology the King (the Warrior of the enantiomorph) is Auriel.
Lissette raised a good point in another thread: Trinimac in Varieties of Faith is described as a "Strong god of the early Aldmer, in some places more popular than Auri-El." That sounds like the Thief trying to take the Tower. Maybe not intentionally but certainly mythically if the number of worshippers equals divine power.
Wait, what about Arkay? Trinimac, like Tsun, was a warrior's god. Honour, courage, strength and death were his sphere. Wouldn't an Aldmeri warrior pray to Trinimac for courage against death, or too help him deal out death? Not exactly the like the Inmperial Arkay we are used to but Trinimac is an elven god and their pantheon lacks a god of death. Xarxes fulfils the role to some degree:
For the Altmer, Xarxes records not just the life stories of individual Elves, but all the connections of lineage and heritance that bind them together and link them to their ancestors. As nothing is more important to an Altmer than his or her ancestry, it is easy to understand Xarxes' paramount role in defining and maintaining status and stability in Summerset society.
However it is a far cry from Arkay:
He is the god of burials and funeral rites, and is sometimes associated with the seasons.
That seasons thing is interesting. Have you seen his symbol? There is an interesting parallel between Trinimac and Arkay:
Arkay is often more important in those cultures where his father, Akatosh, is either less related to time or where his time aspects are difficult to comprehend by the layman.
Sounds a bit like the claim of Trinimac being more important than Auriel in some places, doesn't it?
In TES nothing is ever easy. One cannot simply (
) compare deities between cultures and get an exact match, but I think Xarxes and Trinimac share the same oversoul which combines to be one of the Eight spokes.
Now this is where scholarly work ends and conjecture begins. In Shor, Son of Shor there is an interesting piece of dialogue repeated on both sides. On Ald's side it is Trinimac who is compared to Tsun. On Shor's side it is Shor who is compared to Ald:
Ald's shield thane Trinimac shook his head at this, for he was akin to Tsun and did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing....
But Shor shook his head at this, for he was akin to Ald and did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing.
We know Ald is akin to Shor. Akatosh is akin to Shezarr and Auriel is akin to Lorkhan because they're brothers. Yet why does Trinimac get to say the exact same lines as Shor? I think that the text is implying they're all (Trinimac, Shor, Tsun and Akatosh) akin to each other and that's why they get the same dialogue - it's the same person speaking in each clan, the only difference is the person speaking is the mythopoeic version for each side.
The idea that Trinimac is akin to Akatosh actually makes sense if we look at Arkay's relationship to The Time Dragon:
Arkay is often more important in those cultures where his father, Akatosh, is either less related to time or where his time aspects are difficult to comprehend by the layman.
Does this make sense so far? So Akatosh is Arkay's dad. Lorkhan is Akatosh's brother. Kinship.
Maybe that combination makes up the Altmeri pantheon verison of Arkay. If Xarxes is funerary rites and ancestral lists, Trinimac is the bringer of death, then the cycle of time and seasons is Auriel.
Enter Shor: Whenever Lorkhan appears in myths it always ends in tragedy for him. It's his story no matter what culture you look at it from. Yet we have already looked at how Lorkhan can be akin to Trinimac so if Shor get's his heart ripped out by Trinimac (the Thief taking the Tower) how could that not effect Trinimac? Well, it did effect him. On a lower subgradient Trinimac undergoes his own transformation and becomes Malacath. His heart is ripped out and rage, vengeance and bitterness fills that void.
Bringing that back to Lissette's theory, this enantiomorphic event is enough for Auri-El to ascend to heaven. This is very neat because it shows the enantiomorph working on multiple gradients: Auriel, Trinimac and Shor (The Warrior, The Mage and The Thief) and also Trinimac, Boethiah and Mephala (The Lover, The Shadow and The Tower).
For all that to even make sense it is necessary to disregard any notion of Aedra and Daedra in the elven sense and embrace a concept of mythopoeia.
So how do we get from Arkay to Trinimac to Malacath? How can one of the Eight Aedra become a Daedra? surely the elven words break down at that point?
Below is a brief summary of my understanding of how they are connected in the sources:
The implication is that Trinimac is the elven counterpart to Tsun, Stuhn and Arkay = TRInimac. It breaks down as follows:
It's convoluted as fuck but Tu'whacca, Arkay, Xarxes asserts that Arkay is a fusion of Xarxes and Orkey.
In turn "Orkey combines aspects of Mauloch and Arkay" (varieties of faith)
We know that Mauloch and Malakath are likely the same oversoul.
We know the connection between Malacath and Trinimac.
Shor, Son of Shor says that Tsun and Stuhn shift with each other and Trinimac as you point out. See it is Tsun grabbing Dibella's hair yet an instant later it is Stuhn dragging her to a tent, then later it is Trinimac leaving the tent.
So Trinimac = Stuhn, Tsun and Arkay.
Arkay is also the Eye of the Thief, his planet is part of that constellation. The Thief's role is that of the rebel, he will always try to take the Tower (St Alessia was born under the sign of the Thief). In elven mythology the King (the Warrior of the enantiomorph) is Auriel.
Lissette raised a good point in another thread: Trinimac in Varieties of Faith is described as a "Strong god of the early Aldmer, in some places more popular than Auri-El." That sounds like the Thief trying to take the Tower. Maybe not intentionally but certainly mythically if the number of worshippers equals divine power.
Wait, what about Arkay? Trinimac, like Tsun, was a warrior's god. Honour, courage, strength and death were his sphere. Wouldn't an Aldmeri warrior pray to Trinimac for courage against death, or too help him deal out death? Not exactly the like the Inmperial Arkay we are used to but Trinimac is an elven god and their pantheon lacks a god of death. Xarxes fulfils the role to some degree:
For the Altmer, Xarxes records not just the life stories of individual Elves, but all the connections of lineage and heritance that bind them together and link them to their ancestors. As nothing is more important to an Altmer than his or her ancestry, it is easy to understand Xarxes' paramount role in defining and maintaining status and stability in Summerset society.
However it is a far cry from Arkay:
He is the god of burials and funeral rites, and is sometimes associated with the seasons.
That seasons thing is interesting. Have you seen his symbol? There is an interesting parallel between Trinimac and Arkay:
Arkay is often more important in those cultures where his father, Akatosh, is either less related to time or where his time aspects are difficult to comprehend by the layman.
Sounds a bit like the claim of Trinimac being more important than Auriel in some places, doesn't it?
In TES nothing is ever easy. One cannot simply () compare deities between cultures and get an exact match, but I think Xarxes and Trinimac share the same oversoul which combines to be one of the Eight spokes.
Now this is where scholarly work ends and conjecture begins. In Shor, Son of Shor there is an interesting piece of dialogue repeated on both sides. On Ald's side it is Trinimac who is compared to Tsun. On Shor's side it is Shor who is compared to Ald:
Ald's shield thane Trinimac shook his head at this, for he was akin to Tsun and did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing....
But Shor shook his head at this, for he was akin to Ald and did not care much for logic-talk as much as he did only for his own standing.
We know Ald is akin to Shor. Akatosh is akin to Shezarr and Auriel is akin to Lorkhan because they're brothers. Yet why does Trinimac get to say the exact same lines as Shor? I think that the text is implying they're all (Trinimac, Shor, Tsun and Akatosh) akin to each other and that's why they get the same dialogue - it's the same person speaking in each clan, the only difference is the person speaking is the mythopoeic version for each side.
The idea that Trinimac is akin to Akatosh actually makes sense if we look at Arkay's relationship to The Time Dragon:
Arkay is often more important in those cultures where his father, Akatosh, is either less related to time or where his time aspects are difficult to comprehend by the layman.
Does this make sense so far? So Akatosh is Arkay's dad. Lorkhan is Akatosh's brother. Kinship.
Maybe that combination makes up the Altmeri pantheon verison of Arkay. If Xarxes is funerary rites and ancestral lists, Trinimac is the bringer of death, then the cycle of time and seasons is Auriel.
Enter Shor: Whenever Lorkhan appears in myths it always ends in tragedy for him. It's his story no matter what culture you look at it from. Yet we have already looked at how Lorkhan can be akin to Trinimac so if Shor get's his heart ripped out by Trinimac (the Thief taking the Tower) how could that not effect Trinimac? Well, it did effect him. On a lower subgradient Trinimac undergoes his own transformation and becomes Malacath. His heart is ripped out and rage, vengeance and bitterness fills that void.
Bringing that back to Lissette's theory, this enantiomorphic event is enough for Auri-El to ascend to heaven. This is very neat because it shows the enantiomorph working on multiple gradients: Auriel, Trinimac and Shor (The Warrior, The Mage and The Thief) and also Trinimac, Boethiah and Mephala (The Lover, The Shadow and The Tower).
For all that to even make sense it is necessary to disregard any notion of Aedra and Daedra in the elven sense and embrace a concept of mythopoeia.
So if you both think that it is specific enough that these two threads can run in conjunction then go for it!
