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Am I the only one who thinks the Thalmor ought to get a little different light shed on them? I mean, they were made pretty villainous in Skyrim, which fitted with the story, I guess, but wouldn't you like to see a deeper, more theological (other than the anti-Talos) at large view on them?

What I mean by this is that too many people don't get the Thalmor. Most people who play the game, regrettably, just see them as Elven Nazis (which can be expected of most people who max out every skill, wearing all Daedric armour and have the highest damage weapon), but even those who do take an interest to them don't see them for what they really are. 

What I'd LOVE to see is a "Oh yeah, they probably ARE right..." type of thing. I guess I'm looking for something a little more sympathetic to their cause. After all, their cause does have truth in it.

This is what I want: A deeper exploration of the Thalmor, what it means to be a part of the Thalmor, and how the Thalmor view the world, but in a more sympathetic (though I don't really want a truly sympathetic view) light. 

I'm just tired of all of the "BLAH BLAH ELVEN NAZIS BLAH BLAH".

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I would expect them to be more sympathetic characters in a province where they're allies and not "liberators". It's like how the fans have had a love/hate relationship with the Imperials over the years. That faction is represented very differently from game to game, as should the Thalmor be.

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I agree. Hell, I'd like to be able to join them.

Pilaf The Defiler's picture
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dinmenel wrote:

I agree. Hell, I'd like to be able to join them.

 

Yeah. Me too. I'd love to be able to actually be surprised at how amiable they can be. We got a glimpse at classical Aldmeri belief systems via the enlightenment ritual the Falmer used. Their way of revering Auriel was interesting. I'd like to see a Thalmor type game that goes into the positive aspects of ancestor worship and Aldmeri identity.

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I'm just afraid that when they make a TES: Alinor/Dominion/whatever title, you'll have all of the Stormcloak fanboys yelling "FUCK YEA!!!111 KILL SUM THALMOR BICHEZZ!!!" The very thought just makes me think that, in order for someone to buy a TES game, one should be forced to answer a series of lore based questions.

Oh, I know someone who completely despises the Thalmor, yet absolutely loves the Dark Brotherhood. Now, they aren't your typical person who would first come to mind. They're very educated, but doesn't truly see the Thalmor. They just see them as evil, Nazi-esque oppressors.

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I think a balance is necessary. The best case scenario is a game in Valenwood (or perhaps Elsweyr) where you'll have quite a mixed bag.

Do you join the racist and mundus-ending Thalmor and their man-hating Bosmer supporters? Or the rebellious cannibalistic tribes of the forest? Or do you join the raiding and raping Colovian privateers coming out of Arenthia? Or to restore the ailing and corrupt dynasty of the Camorans?

Or to put it another way...

Do you join the ordering and liberating Thalmor, defending Valenwood against the Colovian menace? Or do you join the tribes of the forest, who simply desire to maintain their unique way of life? Or do you join the valiant Colovian heroes who bravely attack into the heartland of the elven oppressors? Or to restore the old and glorious dynasty of the Camorans, restoring them to their rightful place and tossing out the Thalmor occupiers?

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I'd like to see a game where the DB is presented in a more complex light, too, to be honest. Serving Sithis and the Night Mother could still be elements, but there's room for depth there.

 

Still, that's getting off topic. The Thalmor. Yes. I'd love to see them as actual sympathetic heroes in the next game to throw casuals for a loop. "What's this? We were encouraged to hate these people before. Why do I suddenly sympathize with them?"

 

That's what Oblivion did for the Imperials, after all. In Redguard especially but to a lesser extent in Morrowind they were antagonistic. Suddenly, you see them as actual human beings going about their lives and interact with them on more levels. I'd like to see a game where you do this with Thalmor members. There could even be memorable Thalmor guards with quotable dialogue. There's a lot of potential there for character development and depth of lore.

 

 

edit: Like what if, for instance, their outlaw of Talos worship and their draconian punishment for those who don't comply could actually be saving the Universe rather than ending it? What if we misinterpreted the commentary on Talos? What if that deal he made with Molag Bal (bonus points to the kids who continue to follow the story of Cyrus the Restless) somehow is still in effect and failing to stamp out his worship could mean a repeat of the TESO stuff. I know it's far fetched..but what if? What if the "evil Nazi" Thalmor were the good guys all along?

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Fiore1300 wrote:

I think a balance is necessary. The best case scenario is a game in Valenwood (or perhaps Elsweyr) where you'll have quite a mixed bag.

Do you join the racist and mundus-ending Thalmor and their man-hating Bosmer supporters? Or the rebellious cannibalistic tribes of the forest? Or do you join the raiding and raping Colovian privateers coming out of Arenthia? Or to restore the ailing and corrupt dynasty of the Camorans?

Or to put it another way...

Do you join the ordering and liberating Thalmor, defending Valenwood against the Colovian menace? Or do you join the tribes of the forest, who simply desire to maintain their unique way of life? Or do you join the valiant Colovian heroes who bravely attack into the heartland of the elven oppressors? Or to restore the old and glorious dynasty of the Camorans, restoring them to their rightful place and tossing out the Thalmor occupiers?


TESO is testament to the fact that whenever the Aldmeri Dominion is portrayed as bunnies-and-butterflies, it just comes out weird. There was literary precedent for a favorable view of the Empire in Morrowind (not to mention, erm... Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire...). No such precedent for the Thalmor or Dominion. Sometimes, a group is just irreparably douchey.

Fiore's model would work very well, however. The best way to make the AD morally ambiguous is to offset them in some fashion. This would be a good way to do it. Get the story away from Talos and Shor for awhile, and toward Imperials and High Elves both acting like pricks again.

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I absolutely love your idea, Pilaf. Pretty much down to the entire dot. And that's another thing that I just love about TES lore (and even more so if something like what you hypothesized comes to be).

Another thing I would love to see eventually is a complete disassociation of Auri-El and Akatosh. Not a "he's not him" type of thing, but, instead of the draconic Akatosh, we get to see the Merish Auri-El and that whole pantheon (the Altmeri one). Also, a Merish Mara would be interesting to see and learn about. 

I think it would be very intriguing to see cults devoted to Auri-El would do not believe he is Akatosh (and maybe have them even be right to some parts). I mean, there are some lore bits that make me question whether Auri-El and Akatosh are the same (especially the ancestry bit), and having cults dedicated to keeping them as separate entities would seem like a great avenue to explore.

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Auriel is clearly depicted as an Aldmeri king in his statue from Dawnguard.

 

However, Gelebor states that he is the same entity as Alkosh and Akatosh. Gelebor is not some layman or unaware person. He is a Knight-Paladin of the Chantry of Auriel. If Bethesda intends for Auriel to be distinct from Akatosh, they're going about it in an interesting way. The new lore makes the case for and against this.

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Girai_the_Zealous wrote:
Fiore1300 wrote:

I think a balance is necessary. The best case scenario is a game in Valenwood (or perhaps Elsweyr) where you'll have quite a mixed bag.

Do you join the racist and mundus-ending Thalmor and their man-hating Bosmer supporters? Or the rebellious cannibalistic tribes of the forest? Or do you join the raiding and raping Colovian privateers coming out of Arenthia? Or to restore the ailing and corrupt dynasty of the Camorans?

Or to put it another way...

Do you join the ordering and liberating Thalmor, defending Valenwood against the Colovian menace? Or do you join the tribes of the forest, who simply desire to maintain their unique way of life? Or do you join the valiant Colovian heroes who bravely attack into the heartland of the elven oppressors? Or to restore the old and glorious dynasty of the Camorans, restoring them to their rightful place and tossing out the Thalmor occupiers?

TESO is testament to the fact that whenever the Aldmeri Dominion is portrayed as bunnies-and-butterflies, it just comes out weird. There was literary precedent for a favorable view of the Empire in Morrowind (not to mention, erm... Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire...). No such precedent for the Thalmor or Dominion. Sometimes, a group is just irreparably douchey. Fiore's model would work very well, however. The best way to make the AD morally ambiguous is to offset them in some fashion. This would be a good way to do it. Get the story away from Talos and Shor for awhile, and toward Imperials and High Elves both acting like pricks again.

Well, first of all, one views the new Thalmor and Dominion through their own lens. Try to get past the view of them taking Nordic prisoners, etc and try to see the FULL reason behind all of this. Most people think it's just because all Thalmor view the races of men as inferior and a nuisance (though this is true) but they have a much deeper reasoning that I don't think got shown very well in Skyrim. They may be douchey to you, but to some of us, we see much more than what Skyrim showed us.

The first Aldmeri Dominion and the second Dominion are quite different entities. Though they make up much of the same territory as they did before, their mission is quite different. The same is of the Thalmor as well. I hope we don't see them as all goody goody cliche fantasy Elves, though. I love my TES Mer.

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Yes, I believe what Gelebor states. I don't think anyone can doubt a Knight-Paladin of Auri-El.

Though I'm not doubting him, this bit of information just keeps blowing wind in the wrong way for me. In books relating to the Psijiics, we are told that they split from the rest of the Aldmer/Altmer because they started worshipping their better's ancestors. This includes Auriel. That's where I'm curious. From what that source said (I can't remember it at the moment), it sounded as if Auriel was indeed an Altmer/Aldmer who ascended to divine status.

But thank you very much for that wonderful image! I'm so happy to see that Auri-El is finally starting to get some spotlight and not being overshadowed by Akatosh.

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Yep, as MK said, the First Dominion Mer have become the Safeway/airport-bookstore Elves. Almost makes me miss when they were just plain evil.

Anyway, we'll see what TESO does with them in the long run before TES VI.

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Stopping in to say that I'm currently in love with the idea of the War of the First Council. It's just so Iliad or Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I'd love to someday read an epic written in that style about the events of the war, not just its crazy time-busting ending.

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A sympathetic Thalmor would be terrible. Especially in that it would miss the point.

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Michael Kirkbride wrote:

A sympathetic Thalmor would be terrible. Especially in that it would miss the point.

 

I don't want to get into this whole argument again, but here's a question: how is a Thalmor whose motives are sourceless, inexplicable, and unbreachably unapproachable (i.e., Voldemort-style pure-evil villains) more interesting than a Thalmor with motives that are obscure, questionable, and undeniably harsh - but understandable to those willing to try?

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Michael Kirkbride wrote:

A sympathetic Thalmor would be terrible. Especially in that it would miss the point.

Isn't it an oft-repeated storytelling maxim that in order for a villain to be as good as he possibly can for the plot, you have to be able to sympathize with him or at least understand him on some level? A completely alien villain is too easy to hate IMO. I'm not saying they should be nice guys or anything. I'm just saying at the very least they should be eloquent about their goals - almost persuasive. The old "The devil is far older than you and better at debating" shtick.

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They don't have to be "Voldemort-style pure evil" to be alien and wholly unapproachable, which I think is plenty interesting.
They really aren't evil anyways, just diametrically opposed to a worldview which we might find to be more natural.

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the2crow wrote:
They don't have to be "Voldemort-style pure evil" to be alien and wholly unapproachable, which I think is plenty interesting. They really aren't evil anyways, just diametrically opposed to a worldview which we might find to be more natural.

 

Right. From their point of view, they're the good guys. They need to come across that way, even if their goals and motives are alien.

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dinmenel wrote:

Michael Kirkbride wrote:

A sympathetic Thalmor would be terrible. Especially in that it would miss the point.

 

I don't want to get into this whole argument again, but here's a question: how is a Thalmor whose motives are sourceless, inexplicable, and unbreachably unapproachable (i.e., Voldemort-style pure-evil villains) more interesting than a Thalmor with motives that are obscure, questionable, and undeniably harsh - but understandable to those willing to try?

I doubt it though, the Thalmor truly don't care about it's own people, it just wants power, remember that it went silent seventy years prior to the Great War. To this day there is no knowledge of what has happened in the Summerset Isles and Valenwood. Furthermore one-hundred years prior to the great war, Artaeum disappeared once again, and no has seen a Psijiic priest until the events at the College of Winterhold. Which actually had to do with a Thalmor agent attempting to gain a powerful weapon for the Thalmor. 

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ChildofKyne wrote:

dinmenel wrote:

Michael Kirkbride wrote:

A sympathetic Thalmor would be terrible. Especially in that it would miss the point.

 

I don't want to get into this whole argument again, but here's a question: how is a Thalmor whose motives are sourceless, inexplicable, and unbreachably unapproachable (i.e., Voldemort-style pure-evil villains) more interesting than a Thalmor with motives that are obscure, questionable, and undeniably harsh - but understandable to those willing to try?

I doubt it though, the Thalmor truly don't care about it's own people, it just wants power, remember that it went silent seventy years prior to the Great War. To this day there is no knowledge of what has happened in the Summerset Isles and Valenwood. Furthermore one-hundred years prior to the great war, Artaeum disappeared once again, and no has seen a Psijiic priest until the events at the College of Winterhold. Which actually had to do with a Thalmor agent attempting to gain a powerful weapon for the Thalmor. 

 

Technically, it doesn't even want power. It wants to end physical reality, apparently. But that doesn't mean it doesn't care about the Altmer. Like I said, from the point of view of the leadership of the Aldmeri Dominion all their goals are just and righteous. They're very much a Red Crusader type archetype. They should come across as genuinely thinking they're doing the best thing for everyone and being perplexed that anyone would see them as anything less than their saviors. Of course they're damn wrong and their goals would end the world as we know it; the trick is portraying them as genuinely believing they're the protagonists of this narrative.

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Could you give me links to that? About them wanting the world to end. This isn't meant to be rude I just haven't read that anywhere, the only reason why I have my beliefs about their goals is what Thalmor in Markarth said.

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the2crow wrote:
They don't have to be "Voldemort-style pure evil" to be alien and wholly unapproachable, which I think is plenty interesting. They really aren't evil anyways, just diametrically opposed to a worldview which we might find to be more natural.

 

I don't think it's interesting. I think it's trite, shallow, over-done, and insulting to the audience.

 

I don't think they're evil, either, for the record; it just seems to be how Eyesore wants them portrayed. Good and evil are just phenomena caused by mortal mental stress. Voldemort only seems 'evil' to most people because Rowling gave us essentially none of the explanation as to why he was that way. Understanding is the difference between villains and tragedies.

 

Quote:
They should come across as genuinely thinking they're doing the best thing for everyone and being perplexed that anyone would see them as anything less than their saviors. Of course they're damn wrong and their goals would end the world as we know it; the trick is portraying them as genuinely believing they're the protagonists of this narrative.

 

I agree, but what if they're not wrong? What if ending the world as we know it isn't a bad idea? They should have reasons as to why it's not.

 

 

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dinmenel wrote:

the2crow wrote:
They don't have to be "Voldemort-style pure evil" to be alien and wholly unapproachable, which I think is plenty interesting. They really aren't evil anyways, just diametrically opposed to a worldview which we might find to be more natural.

 

I don't think it's interesting. I think it's trite, shallow, over-done, and insulting to the audience.

 

I don't think they're evil, either, for the record; it just seems to be how Eyesore wants them portrayed. Good and evil are just phenomena caused by mortal mental stress. Voldemort only seems 'evil' to most people because Rowling gave us essentially none of the explanation as to why he was that way. Understanding is the difference between villains and tragedies.

 

Quote:
They should come across as genuinely thinking they're doing the best thing for everyone and being perplexed that anyone would see them as anything less than their saviors. Of course they're damn wrong and their goals would end the world as we know it; the trick is portraying them as genuinely believing they're the protagonists of this narrative.

 

I agree, but what if they're not wrong? What if ending the world as we know it isn't a bad idea? They should have reasons as to why it's not.

 

 

Actually she kind of did, Voldermort hated "mud-bloods", no? But he was a mudblood, I think it's not that he hated mudbloods, he hated what happened to him, and he didn't want to happen again, to anyone. He didn't want someone to be excluded by their family for abilities they didn't even know they had. He was scared in reality, an unloved child who didn't want people to suffer like he did.

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I don't think that sympathetic was the best word to use for them. I couldn't exactly find an appropriate word to describe what I'd like to see. Pilaf pretty much hit the nail on the head, though. What I don't want to see us a typical Nazi-esque villain. I want to see something that we can understand them wanting ad that it is more than just the typical "Elves hate humans trope."

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On another note... Jyggalag anyone? Seriously though what happened to him? He is a Daedric Prince, hell he had two centuries to get ready... Did he create a new Oblivion realm? It bugs me that they made a whole Add-On about Jyggalag and we don't see anything of him. 

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Tauryon wrote:
the typical "Elves hate humans trope."

 

Is that a trope?

 

Not seeing them as a lesser race, or childlike inheritors, but actual hate? Some examples?

 

 

dinmenel wrote:

I don't want to get into this whole argument again, but here's a question: how is a Thalmor whose motives are sourceless, inexplicable, and unbreachably unapproachable (i.e., Voldemort-style pure-evil villains) more interesting than a Thalmor with motives that are obscure, questionable, and undeniably harsh - but understandable to those willing to try?

 

The Prism Extract is a good example of motives "that are obscure, questionable, and undeniably harsh"... so why you bringing up Voldemort?

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Considering another race to be inferior is a form of hatred. It's discrimination and discrimination is usually caused by hate. 

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ChildofKyne wrote:

Considering another race to be inferior is a form of hatred. It's discrimination and discrimination is usually caused by hate. 

 

Yeah, that's not going to fly. That's Earthtok.

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(My idiocy here was to great to keep here, to save your eyes and minds I decided to delete it.)