Jagar Tharn's goal

[Redguard_Master]

I've noticed in a lot of the pages it is mentioned nobody is sure what he wanted when he imitated the throne. I've been thinking and I've come up with an idea. He has clear associations to mehrunes dagon right? How much easier would it have been to conquer tamriel as he tried to do in oblivion if the empire was in complete civil war as jagar let it be and if the emperor was secretly on mehrunes side?

[WolfGang IceEye]

i think he just wanted to lead the empire but yours is good to

[LarsBM]

Actually, he was acting in the interest of the empire, as the current emperor Uriel was using the Numidium to crush neutral countries as well as the opposing ones, gathering the whole of Tamriel mostly by force.

Tharn did not like the crushing of neutral parties, so he overthrew the emperor and tricked everyone to believe he was him (Uriel).

[achrdili]

then why most of his servants were monsters? and he looked quite evil as well...

[OblivionDuruza]

achrdili, his topic has been dead for 3 years now, this is a necropost. However, seeing as this is one of the Older TES Game Forums, I think it should be okay, just as long as there's still discussion to be had here.

In my opinion, the beauty of the Elder Scrolls games so far have been the moral ambiguity. If you look at Dagoth Ur, as a prime example, you can sort of see his side of the story, and even sympathise with his cause. The same is true for Skyrim, with both sides of the Civil War, and even with Alduin (IMO). I think that Jagar Tharn is another one of these examples, it's up to the player to see the merit or lack of, in his position.

[RomeoDragonface]

I suppose it will be alright for me to add to this then?
Because I've always had trouble determining whether or not any certain character was evil or good; not to mention their motives. And then I learned.

As stated in the Pocket Guide to the Empire (3rd edition), good and evil are 'subjective' and not 'spiritual'. And since these are sand-box games, the aforementioned subject is likely made a clean slate for the player to determine that themselves.

I like it that way, really, and not just as a game, but as a concept. It's unlike anything I've seen.

[OblivionDuruza]

Often times, those that we might see as 'evil' are actually striving for a version of 'good', but are simply deluded or misguided in their view of the state of reality, and thus think that what they are doing, is right, when in actuality it is not. Or alternatively, they see that what they are doing is right, and that the ends justifies the means, while we disagree with their consequentialist approach. That's my take on things.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I personally see the Tharnatos as either a precursor or a failed branch of the Mythic Dawn plot. While some people on these forums groan at MK references, a roleplay from around the time Oblivion came out linked them to the Ayleids, and the Ayleids to the Thalmor and possibly the events of both Oblivion and Skyrim. This Nu-Hatta thread was also the origin of the idea of Towers - an idea that's actually mentioned in Skyrim and the two Keyes novels, which also make the Alyeid connection. Since Barenziah and Symmachus point out that Tharn almost certainly is at least part Elf, he may have some connection to the Thalmor and the Ayleids.

[OblivionDuruza]

I remember that reference to Tharn potentially being Elven (from The Real Barenziah?), but I thought that the supposition Barenziah made about Nightingale pertained specifically to Dunmer blood?

[Pilaf The Defiler]

He's a Battlemage. Later lore fleshed out that office to associate them strongly with Nibenese, who have a mixture of ancestries. Ayleid is in there, definitely. The Nibenese are much more multiracial than the Colovians, who are genetically and culturally strongly Nordic. With a guy like Tharn and his clan, you get a mixture. A little bit Nede, a little bit Nord, a little bit Akaviri, more than a little Mer. So who knows?

TESO is going to flesh out the Tharn family a lot. Some members of it appear once again as Daedric cultists. Their motivation was apparently that they'll be given a cursory rulership position over an Oblivion merged Mundus. So they're basically power hungry.

[Darius]

/watch?v=MHn0pBePN7I&t=0m10s

Case solved.