I posted this on SB, but I'll repost it here.
It's been ages since I made a post here (I've been focused on other things, IRL, other projects, and what time I do have for respect stuff is focused elsewhere), but with Skyrim's 10th anniversary here, it's fair time I wrote something I've been meaning to write for ages. I'll hopefully address the Anniversary edition with later posts, but first I'm going to tackle something that needs to be tackled.
Is Michael Kirkbrides works canon to TES, and how important is he to it's writing? Honestly, people have been going around Kirkbride the wrong way, so it's time to straighten that all out. While I'm at it, I'll also cover several other points, such as how the interpretive lore works, objectivity and Death of the Author.
Kirkbride and his involvement with The Elder Scrolls Kirkbride is a writer who has written many of TES's stranger (and controversial texts). Maybe people have questioned if his writings after leaving Bethesda in 2007 are canon. Some people have gone as far as to dismiss his works, and say that Bethesda tried to distance themselves from him and his version of TES. Such an argument requires looking deeply into TES's metahistory (as in, the history of the development of the series itself) To give the shortest answer to this, we will refer to Pete Hine's answer; "it depends."
Primarily answers on the validity of various lore texts, but also a post on Argonian reproduction
www.imperial-library.info
Pete Hines forum archive posts said:
Does Bethesda consider Obscure Texts and developer comments as "actual lore" or "canon"? (24/11/11)
It depends.
That's it, I could honestly end it there. Needless to say though, that won't get it out, so we're going to have to dive deeper. Another quote that often comes up in regards to Kirkbride is Douglas Goodall's comment that books published in-game take precident over "ramblings on the forum."
en.uesp.net
Interview with Douglas Goodall said:
Books that are actually published in one of the Elder Scrolls games have precedence over ramblings on the forums.
I will return to this comment later, but from the above two, things in the games take precident over things on the forum, and out of game texts depend on each whether they'll be put into the games or not. So then we have the question if anything after Kirkbride wrote after leaving Bethesda in 2007.
In which case the
Coloured Rooms (first mentioned in
Imperial Census of Daedra Lords, appeared onscreen in base-game Online),
painted cows (first mentioned in the
Seven Fights of the Aldudagga, first appeared in Skyrim),
Khajiit Lunar Colonies (I can't remember if these were the 2nd Pocket Guide to the Empire,
C0DA or something else, but they were OOG, and they first appeared in Online, and later in Elswyer Online),
snow whales (first referenced in the Aldudagga, I believe). All of these examples are first hand, onscreen places and moments that you can actually visit and see. There are of-course many other in-game references via books and items flavour text, in which case the list would be way longer.
I myself have dozens of pages in this very thread which make note of how each of ESO's new installments would have direct references to Kirkbride's OOG works (in
Morrowind Online, in
Clockwork City,
Elsweyr and
Murkmire are some examples). I could be here for ages listen them all, so I'll just some up; if Bethesda/Zenimax thought that Kirkbrides work was "overrated fanfiction" then why do they keep including it in all their games? Not just books or NPC dialogue, but major questlines too.
People do like to ignore Online though (they shouldn't though; it's canon, and they've repeatedly been shown to work with Bethesda and Pete Hines has appeared on their streams), so let's focus on Skyrim. This is the game everyone comes back to, no matter how many installments of ESO or Legends or Blades are released. What was Kirkbrides influence on Skyrim. Remember the first famous cart trip?
Before you even take a single step, before you even make your character, Ralof says the following line...
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim said:
Ralof: Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this.
We have our first refence, and our first siting, of the infamous Thalmor, who have taken over the Empire and are in the process of taking over Tamriel. The Thalmor, their objection to the worship of Talos, their plans to take over Tamriel are all made clear in Skyrim, but they did not initiate in Skyrim. The Thalmor, their opposition to Talos & the Empire, and their plans for Tamriel, were all first introduced in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition.
en.uesp.net
The Pocket Guide to the Empire is a booklet that came with the physical edition of Redguard, and contains information on the different races and provinces of Tamriel from an Imperial persective, but has a Thalmor writing sidenotes about how what was written was Imperial propaganda, and even a few footnotes which after the events of Skyrim, are a bit
sinister in retrospect.
However, we need to contemplate who wrote the Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition. Not the in-universe writer (that was the Imperial Geographical Society with footnotes by one "YR"), but the person who wrote it in the real world. It was Michael Kirkbride, along with Kurt Kuhlmann and Todd Howard. We'll go more into Kirt Kuhlmann later, but with the Pocket Guide to the Empire in mind, let's see Kurt Kuhlmann has this to say on Michael Kirkbride and his influence on Skyrim.
A variety of posts on a variety of topics
www.imperial-library.info
Kurt Kuhlmann said:
We all try not to take it to heart that only MK can save Skyrim from the trash heap - but I can say that even without directly writing any books, I'd say there's more of his influence on Skyrim than Oblivion. Probably a lot more - if you look at the chapter from the PGE on Skyrim, (pretty sure that was one of his - I can't remember any more who wrote which one, it's Bilbo and Strider all over again), and that chapter is the foundation for the whole setting. And if you look really hard, you might even find a painted cow. (No comment on flying whales.)
According to Kurt Kuhlmann, without what Kirkbride wrote in the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Skyrim would not be what it was. As far as to say Kuhlmann believes that Skyrim would be garbage without his influence. He says there are painted cows in the game (a reference to the Aldudagga), and comments that he has no comments on flying whales (although the bridge in Sovnguarde tells another story). Kuhlmann then goes on to say that they originally planned to have the Stormcloaks questline have you bring a painted cow to the giants to make a alliagence with them, but at least the painted cow survived.
Kurt Kuhlmann said:
It's a damn shame the Civil War mission to befriend a giant by bringing him a painted cow didn't survive... but at least the painted cow got into the game.
Now, for a Bethesda staff who says that Skyrim would have been trash without Kirkbride, and that it's a "damn shame" that more of Kirkbride's direct content wasn't added to the game, does that really scream to you that Bethesda don't like his works, and that they want nothing to do with his lore and just want to make a generic fantasy game with elves and castles? And I have said before as one of my very first posts in this very thread,
that a lot of the things mentioned in the Pocked Guide directly appeared ingame, from places to characters to enemies and even abilities.
On the Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition, let's have a closer look at it (my own physical version). Let's have a look at the writers of not just the manual, but the game itself.
The designs and writing was done once again by Michaek Kirkbride, Kurt Kuhlmann and Todd Howard. Kirkbride is not just some crazy writer they hired and made him write a few side books for them; he was a head writer of Redguard. Not just a random writer of some books they decided to throw into the game at random points, but one of the people who is outright responsible for making TES what it is today.
So the idea that Kirkbride is just some crazy writer who just wrote some ingame books that were thrown into the game and then considered by the rest of the writers to be myths and propaganda is at best a mislead, at worst a disingenuous fabrication.
To further make this point clear, Ken Rolston says that both the visual and narrative aesthetics came from Kirkbride. In reference to Kirkbride shaping the Tribunal, he refers to the fan-made article The Metaphysics of Morrowind to show the levels he went to with his worldbuilding (more on that in a bit). He then ends by saying that Kirkbride was "absolutely essential" for making the maps, the designs, the visuals and narrative aesthetics, and that he not only made the maps and illustrations readable, but mythically vibrant.
‘Here’s a world. Go play it how you wanna play it’
www.polygon.com
Morrowind - An oral history said:
Ken Rolston (lead designer) [The look of the game] came from Michael Kirkbride, and I would say that it's not just the visual aesthetic; all of the narrative aesthetic of
Morrowind also comes from Michael. I might've been the narrative lead, but Michael was the luminary — the man with spectacularly exotic and bad judgment that excited us so much. He also wrote things like his sermons of Vivec. There's a website,
The Metaphysics of Morrowind, that talks about how his gods are the most intriguing gods in any fantasy universe. And the tragic stories of the three heroic demigods of the Dunmer trying to save the world but being corrupted: Did they really murder Nerevar? All those ideas.
And he is a rare talent in that he's a very good illustrator, not just in terms of making it readable, but making it mythically vibrant. He did the original map of Morrowind, which was the foundation of the different terrains and geographical experiences. He was absolutely essential. And also crazy as a rat in a drainpipe, which is necessary. Somebody had to be really, really, really crazy, and it's better that your lead designer isn't.
I'm going to take this moment to say that although The Metaphysics of Morrowind is a fan article, someone at Bethesda used it as a reference to how weird, deep and complex TES lore can be. Someone who
isn't Kirkbride. The more I look into this, you can see just the level that Kirkbride went to to shape Morrowind and it's history. He didn't just write some ingame books while on LSD, he also figured out the entire history and culture of Morrowind, from how they got around to the clothes they wore, their history, their culture.
Morrowind - An oral history said:
Matt Carofano
(lead artist)
Michael is an awesome guy. He had crazy ideas; they were really different. He basically had been working for like a year, maybe, on Morrowind concept sketches when I started. And I think it was kind of just him, Todd, and then Ken Rolston coming up with design ideas. And so he had a good stack of images, and we had them plastered up in this room. So the whole room was covered, wall-to-wall, with all of Kirkbride's sketches. We called it the war room. And it was very inspirational, because they were all pen-and-ink sketches — really rough, really loose. But it gave a vibe of everything, from: "What were dark elves like? What did they look like? What do their clothes look like?" All the way to the landscape, which had these giant mushroom trees. There was a little bit of everything. And it became sort of the style guide for the game and the culture of the dark elves.
From all of the sketches that Kirkbride drew, the team then went on to create Morrowind, knowing it's energy and aesthetic. Note all of the praise and love Kirkbride gets from his team members for making Morrowind stand out. They are not embarrassed of him, they don't want to do away with his stuff in future games; they love him and the passion he puts into his work, and his crazy ideas.
Morrowind - An oral history said:
Mark Bullock
(environment artist)
When I first walked through the doors [at ZeniMax], and walked into the war room and saw Kirkbride's simple line sketches — I think they were usually just done with a pen — it was raw, it captured energy, and I was like: "What am I looking at? This feels like a real place." But it's not your usual revamped European fantasy; I'm getting a heavy dose of Star Wars meets something primitive meets Joseph Campbell. And that's why I immediately fell in love and knew I wanted to be part of the project.
But now we run the risk of focusing too much on Kirkbride. While Kirkbride helped shape what Morrowind is, he was not alone; an entire team created Morrowind. If Bethesda or Zenimax didn't like Kirkbrides ideas, they would not have used them in Morrowind. And they certainly wouldn't keep going back to them. As Douglas Goodall puts it (from the same interview I linked to him earlier), without Kirkbride, TES would by indistinguishable from the countless other fantasies out there, and that Kirkbride makes the game unique while Ted Peterson brings the game to life.
Interview with Douglas Goodall said:
Sinder Velvin: How do you feel about
Michael Kirkbride and his
36 Lessons of Vivec?
Douglas Goodall: No one writes like Kirkbride. I admire him. He's a genius. A little crazy, maybe, but still a genius.
The 36 Sermons are impressive. I don't think the fans have come anywhere near figuring them out. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I've figured them out. I think he gets a little too weird at times, but without Kirkbride's work, the Elder Scrolls would be indistinguishable from dozens of fantasy games and trilogies. Ted Peterson's stories bring the world of Tamriel to life, and Michael Kirkbride's work makes it unique.
Which leads us to the subject of "weird TES" imput by writers who aren't Michael Kirkbride. For this I will return to the above post by Kurt Kuhlmann on Skyrim...
Kurt Kuhlmann said:
We all try not to take it to heart that only MK can save Skyrim from the trash heap - but I can say that even without directly writing any books, I'd say there's more of his influence on Skyrim than Oblivion. Probably a lot more - if you look at the chapter from the PGE on Skyrim, (pretty sure that was one of his - I can't remember any more who wrote which one, it's Bilbo and Strider all over again), and that chapter is the foundation for the whole setting. And if you look really hard, you might even find a painted cow. (No comment on flying whales.)
Kurt Kuhlmann is actually
unsure who wrote which chapters in the 1st Pocket Guide to the Empire between him and Kirkbride. It could have been him, it could have been Kirkbride. "But what about all those crazy OOG texts Kirkbride wrote?" Remember earlier I said I'd return to that Douglass Goodall quote? Well here it is, and I deliberately left some context of the interview out so I could make a big reveal.
Interview with Douglas Goodall said:
Sinder Velvin: Talking about the Lessons of Vivec,
why did you write Sermon Zero? Should it be interpreted as being official lore?
Douglas Goodall: I wrote it is as a kind of "me, too!" after reading the 36 Sermons. It was a tribute and a refutation.
I don't have any say anymore about whether it is official lore. I probably didn't leave extensive enough notes for them to make it official...
Goodall says "rambling on the forums" in response to his own OOG writings, to both tribute and refute the contents of the 36 Lessons of Vivec.
The Imperial Library even has a page to decipher this OOG text, with letters from both the front and end of a sentence being used, code, apocrypha...the exact kind of thing Kirkbride puts in his texts, both OOG and in-game. Except...you know, this isn't by Kirkbride.
If you need another example on how this wasn't just Kirkbride, let's have a look at one of the more famous examples of an OOG text, The Trials of Vivec. In which, Vivec drags Azura kicking and screaming into Mundus in all her eldritch glory and blasts her the fuck back to Oblivion. Before we get into it, it should be noted that this is an RP, meaning several people were involved in it. We know Kirkbride was involved, but who else was?
Forum roleplay which starts with Vivec being put on trial for the Tribunal's crimes, and ends with Vivec usurping the proceedings and taking his revenge on Azura.
www.imperial-library.info
The Trial of Vivec said:
Note: This role-play is done in the Official TES Forum. Some devs and ex-devs participate in the play, and to the fans this event in the play is considered semi-official. But still one must remember that so far there is no official word from Bethsoft regarding this play. Some more information about the Bethsoft Developers: Michael Kirkbride played Vehk, Azura, and Ainoryl; Ted Peterson played the Daedric Prince Sheogorath, Celarus and Gosleigh; Ken Rolston played The Emperor Uriel Septim VII; Kurt Kuhlmann played Hasphat Antabolis; and GT Noonan played Divayth Fyr.
Outside Michael Kirkbride, we have Ted Peterson, Ken Rolston, Kurt Kuhlmann and GT Noonan. So some very important figures in TES's writing department all participated in these forum roleplays, and they themselves wrote OOG texts of their own.
You might be thinking though, "all of this is just OOG stuff. If they really wanted TES to be weird, wouldn't they put that in the games themselves?" Well the main counter I (and other lore fans I've seen, even ones I don't know) have to this argument is; there is an entire game about weird lore. Battlespire is set in a slipstream realm between Mundus and Oblivion, where the most powerful of the Imperial Empires mages train, as do the battlemages and the shadow legion. You visit various pocket universes like the Soul Cairn, meet a giant talking turtle years before Elden Ring gave us the turtle pope, gives us the dremsleaves which are used as communications and the story ends with shit talking Dagon. It's the exact kind of crazy stuff that Kirkbride would write. With that it hand, it just so happens I happen to have a copy of the Battlespire Users Guide, which has in it the credits of the game.
You might notice that Kirkbrides name is missing. We see a few familiar names such as Gary Noonan (and thanks to Todd Howard & Bruce Nesmith, among others), but the Elk is elusively missing. It is possible that he's not credited here, but if he did have some involvement in Battlespire that I'm missing, then please let me know. In anycase, prior to Kirkbride even properly working at Bethesda we had weird TES, and not just mentioned in books (though we had that too, see the uncensored Biography of Barenziah, if you dare) but directly as the main plot of an entire game. And this was the case with the titles which came after Kirkbride left too. Another example of weird TES I refer to is Clockwork City, which came well after Kirkbride left. And it's not just interdimensional content either; Tamriel itself is filled with lots of weird stuff, which we see in Elsywer Online, Summerset Online, Oblivion and of course Morrowind. Even Skyrm has dragons which are shards of time, giant underground mushroom caves, Dwemer ruins, a reality-warping language, cultists from an eldritch tentacle library beyond space and time, fighting a guy with a super key using the power of shadows...
Except the thing is, this argument of "they put the huge scale feats and the weird lore into the games themselves" literally comes up with every single installment of ESO, and is then ignored in favour of the Skyrim Civil War questline. So obviously the argument needs changing, as mere evidence isn't enough.
One last note on Kirkbride is that people often describe his post-game works as being "fan fiction" to discredit it, which is quite disingenuous, as it's the same as dismissing Stan Lees comments, Tolkiens letters, George Lucas's ideas for their respective series. You can dismiss these claims as Death of the Author if you wish, but trying to label someone who made a series what it is as some kind of "crack addicted fan fiction writer" is all levels of dishonesty.
Now that's all done, and with Death of the Author in mind, let's move onto how interpretations work in TES, and how this has been taken out of context to downplay.
Mythopoeic Forces To talk about different interpretations, we'll first have to talk about Mythopoeic Forces, which is how different conflicting interpretations can exist in TES. What are Mythopoeic Forces? To give a short version, all things are subgradient of the Godhead, which means the Aedra are subgradient, and mortal races are subgradient of the Aedra. Which means everyone is still part of the consciousness of the Aedra, meaning enough belief in something can change reality (or convince reality to change itself). This is why there are different aspects of the Aedra. Daedra are immune to the effects of Mythopoeic Forces in Oblivion, but within the Mundus you'll hear they have to spread their influence to gain more power. This can change the world, not only in the present, but also retroactively in the past. Lawrence Schick said it most famously.
Lawrence puts on a dark red fez and adopts a different voice.
www.imperial-library.info
Jason: That makes sense. You did an interview recently where you were in character. Is that kind of a fun thing to do, to be in the character and to you know…?
Lawrence: Well it is. The reason I did that is because, like I said, 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.
This comment has been posted a lot, and it says how everyone in Tamriel has their own beliefs and opinions which are just as valid as anyone elses, as history is malleable and the gods can alter it. Or TES for the most part has an unreliable narrator, unlike say DnD, where most of what you learn comes from the books which tell you via third person omniscient.
This doesn't mean that there is no objective truth in TES (he says "objective reality behind all these different opinions" rather than "objective reality full stop"), but a lot in TES is left to interpretation. With all that said though, despite the contradictions, the truth still exists, you just have to look for it (history is not a lie, even if the definate truth can't be found).
Whenever I visit Vivec City, I always make sure to stop by Jobasha's Rare Books in the Foreign Quarter. Apart from browsing the many books and scrolls that
www.imperial-library.info
Sinder Velvin:
This makes me wonder - If there are so many radically different accounts of certain historical events, how can any researcher possibly tell which accounts are true and which are not? Furthermore, does this not mean that there is no unanimously accepted history of Tamriel? In this case, how do you explain the unity of the Empire given the great cultural differences between the peoples living in Tamriel?
Carlovac Townway:
With all due respect, I think you're overstating things a bit, Sinder. Are there events, personalities, and histories that are in contention? Certainly. Does that mean that there are no facts that are generally accepted amongst the people of the Empire? Not at all. As a historian, it is my job to look at commonly held beliefs -- And there are many of them in Tamriel -- And question them, look for evidence to support and disprove them. I must see them in their political context, both historical and contemporary. Sometimes I must be satisfied with the most likely scenarios, guessing what happened and why based on what happened before and afterwards. And I have to admit to myself that some of my guesses are going to be wrong, and be big enough to admit it when other evidence comes to light. All that said, I don't see history in Tamriel as a completely formless mass with no tentpoles or points of reference. It may be impossible for a historian to be conclusive, but that does not mean that history as a whole is a lie. The truths are there, if you look.
Here though I feel I need to stress the definition of the word interpretation.
You will note that nowhere does anyone say "ignore whatever you don't like." Nowhere does anyone say "lie and pull things out of your ass." Although TES's history is malleable and a lot is up to interpretation, interpretation is based on evidence, so the burden of proof still exists.
To go into how Mythopoeic Forces work, I'll go over a now famous example of Miraak vs Vahlok. In terms of TES being powerful, this segment isn't as great or important as many people say it is (in terms of feats Skyrim has several better ones, and Miraak has better things to go on in the 4th Era), but it's been used over and over to discredit the written work in TES, so I think it's a good example to use.
en.uesp.net
So great and terrible were the forces unleashed in this contest that Solstheim was torn apart from the mainland of Skyrim. Here, the myth clearly descends into the realm of pure fantasy.
There's been debate to whether this fight actually happened or not. The author saying that the myth "descends into fantasy" is evidence some have used to say it didn't happen, while others will point out similar natures of Morrowind and Solstheim and the fact you meet both Miraak and Vahlok (how have at the very least, been confirmed to have fought) has been used as evidence that the fight did happen as described.
Now if this was...say...Dragon Age, even if we never found out the truth, we'd know that
at least one of these are true. If it was something like The Witcher with a multiverse of it's own, it might be true that one is true in one universe and another true in another universe. In TES, while there is also a multiverse and the previous can apply, it gets more complicated than that. In TES, both truths are simultaneously true at the same time. The gods can alter history, making either one or the other true.
Now, this is not to say there's nothing reliable in TES (or to throw out evidence you don't like). The objective truth does absolutely exist in TES, as much as so much of its history is up to interpretation. However, even with the objective truth known, there are still lots of questions.
Another example of how TES is a mythic setting where the objective truth exists along with many interchangeable ones is how Vivec stopped the meteor. Baar Dau was going to crash into Vvardenfall, Vivec stopped it with his power and later when he was gone it fell, destroying Vvardenfell. We know that Vivec stopped the meteor; this is confirmed in the guides, and we see the meteor in Morrowind and Morrowind Online (infact it's an integral part of that ESO plotline, as is the fact Vivec stopped it). The fall of Baar Dau is also important to the plot of the The Infernal City and Lord of Souls, where we can see the after effects, as we also can in Dragonborn. This is definately an incredible feat which scales directly to Vivec, and it can be proven objectively.
What we don't know though is who actually sent it. The most popular story is that Sheogorath sent it to destroy Vvadenfell and stir up chaos. Another one (in the Lessons of Vivec I believe it was) says that Baar Dau got mad and threw itself at Vvardenfell. However, if you read between the lines, there's a third interpretation. That Vivec hirself threw Baar Dau at Vvardenfell, then caught it, so as to show everyone hir greatness and their faith in the Tribunal. All of these interpretations can be and are true.
Even looking at
the guides, it doesn't actually say who sent the meteor, just that Vivec stopped it. You may also note that this same page notes that Vivec did indeed give his sword to Dagon, but if the events of said meeting went exactly as Vivec & his followers said it did may or may not be the case.
This also leads to another example of even with the omniscient narrator, the ambiguous aspects still remain. My favourite example of this is from the Skyrim guide.
It tells us that Miraak was defeated in the Metheric Era by other Dragon Priests and escaped into Apocryapha. It tells us that Hermaeus Mora exists everywhere and nowhere and is the void. It tells us that Apocrypha is infinite and the rules of the natural world doesn't apply there. But when it comes to Miraaks past and his destiny, it says he
might have been destined to fight Alduin. The omniscient narrator tells us that many things are true, but even here it will say "maybe" or "perhaps."
Which leads me to my final point.
A few years back, I went on a big tangent of how you go into a lighthouse and you see everyone has been killed by Falmer and Chaurus, and went on a big tangent of how it might have been Belethor, but it was most likely the Falmer and the Chaurus, as that's how the game's story telling was designed (and it was outright confirmed by the guides that it was the Falmer and the Chaurus).
The term I was looking for was Occam's Razor, meaning that the thing that is most likely to be true, is probably the thing that is true. Even though it
is possible that Belethor was still involved somehow in provoking the Falmer & Chaurus to attack, chances are he wasn't.
I bring this up because far too much discussion on TES falls down to anal retentive nitpicks and cherrypicking, which people will say are interpretation. However, they would then turn around and say that certain events
definately didn't happen, or that TES
definately isn't mythic.
This leads me to my final segment, and how to address when an interpretation is not an interpretation.
Of course, people can have very different interpretations of TES from you or I, and that's ok. When I first got on here, my interpretation of TES was that it was actually pretty weak, but after talking to a friend and discussing it, that changed, as this thread is to show. If you meet someone with a different interpretation, try and discuss it with them, and you might change their mind. Who knows, maybe they'll even enlighten you and change the way you think.
But now we return to the key word of interpretation. A skewed perspective is not an interpretation, nor is deliberately lying about a series (often with the ulterior motive of not liking the fact that it's stronger than you thought it was). If you've been around for a while, you can tell when someone is insincere with their argument. For an example of this,
way back earlier in this thread, I argued that as technology improved, we got to see more of the true scope of Tamriel and beyond; bigger environments, less engine limitation, more impressive feats of strength and magic. I'll admit that I was quite a different person back then (more naive to say the least), but this argument does hold up, particularly in retrospect. Back then, even with word of god directly commenting on engine limitation, people said they could've still made something big in scope if they wished too, and how the game is portrayed directly should be an indicator of the strength of Skyrim, regardless of stuff like Legends cards.
Along comes Online and how that argument has changed from "we only use what is in the games" to "the games aren't an accurate portrayal, use the less impressive cinematics instead" (but not the Legends cinematics or the parts of the cinematics with exploding islands and collapsing glaciers) This is not an interpretation. This is deliberately shifting the goalposts. Another example I've seen is people using faux-empiricalism, saying that the in-game books and statements are unreliable and that they'd rely on more reliable statements, but then ignore reliable narrators, word of god, onscreen events and even entire storylines which says something they don't like or doesn't fit their "interpretation."
Another big lie we see being thrown around is how mythic powerful TES isn't what Bethesda and Zenimax intended. While a lot of the nature of TES does rely on Death of the Author, the reason I still use word of god quotes is because the sentiments of the creators is the exact opposite to this. If they didn't want TES to be a mythic world, not only could they could have not put things like Clockwork City, Thu'um, the Tribunal, Shivering Isles, Battlespire, stiltstriders, Towers, Hist and so much into it, they could have leaned more towards TES being a low magic, low fantasy setting whenever they speak in interviews and streams. Instead all we've gotten for years is the opposite. Not only have they
directly confirmed not only are the contents of several books are indeed true, but that
weird events that happened in the games did infact happen exactly as they appeared in the games. If you base your argument of empirical evidence, shouldn't you also take into account the destruction of the Shivering Isles, the Greybeards Shout shaking Skyrim and Dovahkiin surviving it, Alduin being comparable to a planesmeld and TES being a mythic world?
Of course, I'm not saying you should call everyone who disagrees with you a liar, but thankfully, in terms of SB at least, it's easy to see when someone is insincere.
In conclusion - Michael Kirkbride was an incredibly important figure in making TES what it is today
- At the same time though, Kirkbride was not the only one to make TES what it was, and others such as Kurt Kulhmann where just as monumental
- Weird TES existed before Kirkbride joined, and continued after he left
- While much of TES's lore is from the standpoint of an unreliable narrator, the truth still exists, as does the objective truth
- Thanks to Mythopoeic Forces, there can be multiple truths existing at the same time, which is why different interpretations of events can be true
- However, deliberate dishonestly (lying, omitting context, stonewalling) is not an interpretation
- Interpretations still require evidence
- When confronted by nitpicking downplays, Occams Razor can be applied
