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I would like to know as well.

hes just a Dremora who said F it and decided to be a pirate.

What is it exactly that we're forgetting?

He's a Dremora who lives on Nirn and acts as a pirate. It's a personality quirk. I assumed he was a leftover from the Oblivion Crisis or something.

Pilaf, whats your opinion on the "all humans, sans redguards and Akaviri, came from snow-throat" theory?

Time and space were only just becoming stable when Men appeared on Nirn, so it's plausible, but overly convoluted and not necessary. I think considering the early racial diversity amongst men which was later muted due to interbreeding (there were dozens of different Nedic tribes, some dark-skinned according to the Adabal-a and other sources, and several ethnic groups of Atmorans according to Songs of the Return) that it's far more likely the races of men evolved independently all across Nirn as the Wandering Ehlnofey tribes settled down. They all still shared enough blood to intermix again shortly after, though.

I do not personally see the evidence that Nedes are Atmorans or that Atmorans originated in Tamriel, though.

Well my basis for it comes form the "children of the Sky" legend that has been mentioned in about 4-5 places in Elder scrolls lore. Even the tablets on the way up the High Hrothgar act as if it was true.


But then again, it could very well be like the old "Talos was born in Atmora" bit that they just keep throwing around because it makes them look more boss.

Other new lore in Skyrim explicitly mention the Dragon Cult and Nords originated in Atmora, though. In fact the majority of dialogue and sources in Skyrim suggest this. The Ehlnofey themselves originated on a doomed planet, and spread across Tamriel. I am highly skeptical of the Children of the Sky hypothesis, just as skeptical as I am of the "Out Of Atmora" hypothesis for the origin of all Nedes. I think the truth is much more complex and gradual.

None of that really prevents the proto-nords from being created on Snow-Throat, going north to Atmora, doing the whole Dragon-Cult thing, and them coming back.

Furthermore, the original source of the "Children of the Sky" theory labels Atmora as the Nords homeland.

The Nords believe they were created on Snow-Throat, but they dont see Skyrim as their "homeland" because they didn't stay there long enough, and had gone north.

Isn't it possible that the Nords came up with the idea that they were created on Snow-Throat to justify their brutal destruction of the Elven population of what became Skyrim?

I dont see how that justifies anything, they dont treat Skyrim as their homeland so they cant pull the "this is our homeland" card.

The entire Stormcloak rebelion is based on that idea and the "Talos of Atmora" myth. They're just the latest incarnation of Anti-Mer sentiment that goes back to Ysgramor. As YR wrote it's "fatherland nonsense".

Yeah but the Stormcloak thing comes form the fact the Nords have lived there for a couple thousand years, and thus can call it their home.

Back in the olden days, as in Ysgramor days, the Nords hadn't lived there for awhile, or ever to most people's knowledge.

The Snow-Throat creation myth as we know it was probably invented after Ysgramor, probably by the Dragon Cult. It's no coincidence that Alduin made the Throat of the World the centre of his Empire. In the original myth Kyne might have been a Dragon that created man. The story was only changed after the Dragons became the enemies. Even then the Nords minimise Paarthurnax’s role by attributing the gift of the voice to Kyne alone.

The whole idea is probably just a Nordic Story to demonise non-humans.

Snow-Throat wasn't the center of Alduin's empire, Bromjunaar Sanctuary, near Morthal, was the center of the dragon cult in Skyrim.

Also the tablets on the way up to High Hrothgar mention Parthy, as well as do Nodric legends that mention dragons being asked by Kyne to give Nords the voice, Parthy and the other Dragons were never cut out of the legend of how Nords obtained the voice.

The Dragons themselves gathered at the Peak of Snow-Throat. Paarththurnax was cut out of the legend, we don't hear about him until you basically force a meeting. As soon as the Blades hear that he has came out of hiding they try to assassinate him, probably because what he knows could turn all of Skyrim against the Empire. Much easier to bury the truth with genocide.

What truth is this?

Except the only time we know of that the Dragons gathered at snow-throat was after Alduin's defeat at the hand of the Dovahkiin and because Parthy was now the highest ranking dragon alive. There is literally no historical data that shows that Dragons met at snow-throat in the past during the Dragon Cult era.


http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:High_Hrothgar



Because being mentioned on one of the emblems on the way to the top of snow-throat = cut out? You could know Parthy helped Nords before even meeting the Greyebards.Those things have been there for ages.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Dragon_War
"At first, men died by the thousands. The ancient texts reveal that a few dragons took the side of men. Why they did this is not known. The priests of the Nine Divines claim it was Akatosh himself that intervened. From these dragons men learned magics to use against dragons. The tide began to turn and dragons began to die too."

It's common knowledge that Dragons who turned against Alduin helped mankind learn how to use the voice.

Akatosh takes the form of a dragon, Lorkhan is also Akatosh. The one example of a Mortal becoming a Divine was the Dragonborn Talos. I think that the Divines are basically incredibly powerful dragons who absorbed the Dragon Soul of Lorkhan after helping him create Nirn through the Voice. So they are the highest ranking Dragons and Alduin was the one who rebelled.

Considering Akatosh and Lorkhan existed before Dragons, and indeed before all other spirits, that is impossible.

The Dragons were created in Akatosh’s image and each one was imbued with a small part of his power, that’s why he could only manifest himself briefly in Oblivion using the massive amount of Dragonborn souls in the Amulet of Kings.

Well, a lot of what he said was conjecture, and Ralok does have a point that Mankar was, more or less, two septims short of a pint of mead. But more importantly, he did make one or two assertions that are factually wrong based on every other source available. For instance, he said that the realm of Meridia was Coldharbour, when the Doors of Oblivion says that's the realm of Molag Bal. I think there's plenty of reason not to take every little thing he said or wrote as totally accurate (of course, that's what I think about every source regardless of whether I'm given reasons to doubt).

Pilaf's chart has a lot going for it. I think it's a positive to take into account lesser-known lore, because I don't think any of it can be truly "dismissed". Once upon a time, Jyggalag was a "dismissed" piece of lore, and we saw how that ended. When I see something in the lore that hasn't been explained or mentioned much, I see potential actors which are being reserved for some future storyline, not abandoned concepts.

Ralok, your second chart is much improved, though it could use some tweaking. For instance, it appears like you're saying that the Dwemer and Falmer both evolved from the Ayleids; I'm not aware of any basis for that claim.

As for the whole origin of man debate, it seems to me that various sources which apparently contradict each other are merely focusing on different chapters of the same story. In the real world, a historian might say that my ancestors came from Europe, while an anthropologist would say my ancestors came from Africa. Neither would be wrong, it's just that their focus is fundamentally different.



There's also Arkay, purportedly.

Mankar getting the names of the Daedric realms wrong is actually the result of the speech being a last minute addition that Bethesda threw in, and they used Kirkbride's rough draft of the speech instead of his final draft.

It was more of a "WE NEED TO THROW THIS IN NOW DO IT, NO TIME FOR ERROR CHECKING", instead of a deliberate attempt to make what Mankar said wrong.

While in the game Mankar got it wrong, in canon he got it right.

There's also Arkay, purportedly.[/quote]

By all accounts he's either the son of Mara and Akatosh/Lorkhan or of Akatosh and a Mortal woman. Since Gods can't reproduce that could mean either Dragon or ascended Dragonborn. Which means Arkay could support my theory.

Daedra cant reproduce, or create, the Aedra can create however.

The significance of the distinction between what is wrong and what Bethesda intended to be wrong seems negligible to me. Either way, it gives us reason to doubt the accuracy of information from that source. Do you have a source for the assertion that every thing Mankar was supposed to say would have been canonically correct?



Ark'ay, the God of Birth and Death counts as an account, doesn't it? That says he was an "ordinary shopkeeper" and nothing more, unless I'm missing something in there.

I agree, Akatosh created himself, Dragons and time. So he could create Arkay. Either as a Dragon or a Dragonborn who later became a Divine when Akatosh needed someone else to moniter life and death.

I call bull on the "ordinary shopkeeper" myth. Again, the Imperial cult has been trying to hide the fact that the Gods are backstabbing Dragons since Alessia.