Elder Scrolls: VI

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Chris
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Joined: 04 Sep 2011, 08:33

Re: Elder Scrolls: VI

Post by Chris »

Thunderforge wrote: 23 Jun 2018, 00:38 One thing that has always distinguished The Elder Scrolls from other fantasy worlds in my mind has been that, like the real world, there isn't always an exact answer to what is true, especially in terms of religion. Did Tiber Septim ascend to godhood? Are the moons the corpse of Lorkhan? Are there gods beyond those that the Imperial Cult recognizes? Nobody knows definitively.
Sure, it's not really an issue to have vagueness or ambiguity. The problem comes in when people outright deny what can be shown in lore because they have a crazy idea that there's no evidence for in lore, and it's just as valid because it's wholly up to interpretation.

Like people who try to say Vivec didn't murder Nerevar because of some timey-wimey multiple reality nonsense with infinite godhood, even though no other gods are shown to have that kind of existence, it doesn't mesh with what we see in the games, and we have a statement straight from Vivec admitting yes, he murdered Nerevar.

It gets even worse when people find some interesting nugget buried in the lore, misinterpret it, then refuse to understand what they got wrong about it because it's totally up to interpretation so they're right anyway. Or because they read an interpretation on something and really like it, and they stick to it religiously even when the developer who created that thing says that's not what it meant. It just becomes a popularity contest to see who has the most popular idea, disregarding any facts that can be shown or any logic that can be reasoned.
Contrast this Middle Earth where you can read the The Silmarillion and the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, which tells you without a doubt that Eru Ilúvatar is the single supreme god and the Valar are subordinate gods to him.
I don't see a problem in stating as fact that in the world of MIddle Earth, Eru Ilúvatar is the single supreme god and the Valar are subordinate gods, if it's not a topic that needs debating among readers. Things like that help to set anchor points where everyone has common ground, which is useful for debating other things that are worth debating. It also helps with understanding the stories being told, and the characters involved, if you can assume things about the setting they occupy.

Consider in Skyrim, the amount of complaining there was with Alduin because there was no solid understanding of his place in the cosmology of the world. People got upset with Bethesda because they didn't stick to what was previously said about him, even though those same people praise the unreliable narrator that gave us the only information we had on him in the first place. We got different interpretations in the game, but because what we saw didn't fit the most popular idea and didn't instantly become the most popular idea, people were up in arms.

I kind of liken the problem to the DragonBall Z effect of an indefinitely continuing series. You don't want to commit to how big or important something is in the grand scheme of things, because in time you may need something even bigger and more important to keep progressing the series. In the case of DragonBall, the story is barely recognizable as a continuation of the things that came before the current story arcs, let alone what it originally started as. You can see similar occurrences in shows like Stargate SG-1. It ultimately makes me wonder if it's even worth considering it to be the same the setting if it's going to change so much just so it can keep moving forward.
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Thunderforge
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Re: Elder Scrolls: VI

Post by Thunderforge »

Chris wrote: 23 Jun 2018, 02:24 Sure, it's not really an issue to have vagueness or ambiguity. The problem comes in when people outright deny what can be shown in lore because they have a crazy idea that there's no evidence for in lore, and it's just as valid because it's wholly up to interpretation.
Most fandoms have this problem :)
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