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Elder Scrolls Canon

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Joined: 05/20/2016

What's with all this fanfiction and fan theory, such as C0DA and such?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwbqmW2nsVM&t=140s

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Joined: 05/20/2016

Also could Bethesda fix this?

Tailin Sero's picture
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Joined: 01/25/2014

I too think that fan fiction has too much influence on the lore, but I wouldn't say it's broken. There are a many things Bethesda should "fix" in terms of lore, but it's mostly their own mistakes.

Lady N's picture
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Joined: 06/26/2010

TES lore is the way it is by design. Fan interpretation and out of game materials have existed for as long as the series has - there is nothing to fix. 

Here's the only official lore master on the topic

All the lore in the game is delivered from the standpoint of people in Tamriel. In that way, Elder Scrolls is different from most fantasy campaign worlds, right? I mean, the typical paradigm, you know - George RR Martin with Westeros, Tolkien with Middle Earth, the familiar D&D worlds of The Forgotten Realms or the world of Greyhawk - those all have histories and backgrounds that are all laid out and they’ve all got some lore-daddy who decided everything and everything is ‘this is how it is’, so everything works within the envelope of things that are already decided.

Elder Scrolls - Tamriel - does not follow that paradigm. In Elder Scrolls, all lore is delivered not from on high by revelation, but from people who live their lives in the game, in the world of the game, and based on their beliefs. So that does two things for us: It means the lore always carries not just information about what the person is talking about, but also information about the person and their culture. Because the way the lore is delivered tells you how they believe things actually work in the world.

What this means, of course, is that people have different viewpoints - these viewpoints sometimes contradict each other, and so sometimes we have players saying “alright, this person believes that, and that person believes this other thing, but which one’s the real thing?” Well... it’s not a world like ours. In a world like ours, where you can sort of trust in science and say “well yes, people have different beliefs but I know there is an objective reality.” This is a world of myth. This is a world where reality is actually changeable, where the Divines can change not only what happens going forward, but what has happened in the past. So, you know, the idea there is an objective reality behind all these different people’s opinions is not necessarily the case in the world of Tamriel. So listen to what all these different people have to say, make up your own mind, make up your own beliefs about what happened and you’re as liable - since you’re playing in their world and you’re playing a character in their world - what you think happened is as legitimate as what that NPC thinks.

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Joined: 05/20/2016

Yes I understand the unreliable narrator but what I'm also very worried about is the community's influence not only on new fans to the series but also making the expectations incredibly hard to meet, a fan of... let's say Dragon Age wouldn't know what's going on. Getting two or more explanations for one thing they would probably ask quite early on which of those answers were correct not understanding that A there is no consistency across games and B the community's answers are often derived from there own head cannon/speculative fanfiction. What i'm saying is that we either need to collect a couple of timelines in a different with links to that if the user wants to learn more or Bethesda Game Studios need to reboot the franchise which is not happening. 

Could someone do this please? I'm asking as a person that's been looking into the lore full year now and I haven't even got pass researching which timelines do the different races believe in, which version of events do they say happened that contradict another races?

Tailin Sero's picture
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Joined: 01/25/2014

Vahlockbrith wrote:

What i'm saying is that we either need to collect a couple of timelines in a different with links to that if the user wants to learn more or Bethesda Game Studios need to reboot the franchise which is not happening. 

https://www.imperial-library.info/content/tamriel-timeline

Vahlockbrith wrote:

I'm asking as a person that's been looking into the lore full year now and I haven't even got pass researching which timelines do the different races believe in, which version of events do they say happened that contradict another races?

Start by researching the in-game lore, then move onto OOG lore. But it seems like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. Regardless, join us on Discord and if someone tries to use OOG stuff in an argument just shout "FAKE NEWS!" at them. XD

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Joined: 05/20/2016

Thanks, and what I meant was could we please do a set of timelines in each races POV? Sorry if I sound argumentative I don't mean to :(

TLDovahkiin's picture
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Joined: 08/18/2015

I think the timeline is a combination of all POVs and once you learn about each race you will see it and see which is which. I think TIL is the place for lore which you seek.