Sports in Tamriel

[House of the Wolf]

Why do we see no sign of non-gladiatorial sports in Tamriel? Was it a byproduct of being a game design dedicated to all other aspects (even if so, you'd think there'd be some mention in one of the many books provided in the games)?

[Minor Edits]

I hadn't really thought about it before. There's talk of various types of gambling here and there, and very simple games like hide and seek, but no actual sports, as far as I can tell. Every mention of "sport" in TES I can find could be interpreted to mean "fighting".

TES is based on the medieval world, and most medieval sports focused on honing a man's fighting prowess in some way (this makes all the more sense in TES due to the hyper-violent nature of Tamriel). Non-militant exceptions were practiced mainly or entirely by nobles, and included the ancestors of cricket, golf, soccer, and bowling. Hockey, too, but I'm North American, so that's a militant sport in my book...

Hypothetically, they could introduce some variant of a medieval sport, or come up with something more unique to TES. I would imagine that a non-militant sport hasn't been introduced because fans would naturally want to play it in the game, so it would have to actually be fun to play. It's an interesting prospect, but mini-games in RPGs are very hit and miss. I hope that if and when TES gets its own Grifball, the developers will put a great deal of thought into it, to make it viable part of future games, as well.

Edit- I think the omission thus far has definitely been a product of game design - namely, that their visions for each game have been so ambitious that they didn't have the time or inclination to develop this area. But I could see them doing so in a future game. They've got to be looking for more ways to keep the franchise dynamic, and this seems like a logical way to do that.

[Aranel]

This would be nice to see, yeah. I'm surprised that, with all the lore TES has, this hasn't been been mentioned at all.

Hunting is more or less a sport, though. The Jarls and other nobility are the ones that participate in it the most (Siddgeir mentions hunting whenever he wants, and random hunters throughout Skyrim say roughly "It's not like my poaching hurts anyone, the Jarl can hardly eat ever deer, now can he?"), and I imagine the nobility all over Tamriel would participate in it -- not to mention how many common folk probably do it too, though it's probably "technically" illegal for them (but people probably turn a blind eye to it).
For Dunmer, according to A Pamphlet on Ashlanders "a pure pleasure is found in hunting, in taking their time, sneaking up on their prey and surprising it with a swift, silent arrow."

Wrestling also seems to be, unsurprisingly, common in Skyrim -- you can participate in a lot of brawls (and with the Companions questline, more or less initiate them with the misc quest)

Seeing as Hircine who has sport (more or less) as one of his aspects, particularly the Great Game, I'd imagine most of his followers would be really into hunting (and likely archery, too boot).

In Bosmeri culture, it seems to be a sort of "rite of passage"/game/sport to steal things though. According to Valenwood: A Study, "Wood Elves go to war not to conquer lands or covet precious resources; they do it for sport. Unless a threat to Valenwood presents itself, Bosmer consider the slaying of others to be simply unnecessary, and wagers are even made prior to raids regarding the theft of prized possessions without a drop of blood spilled." This is reinforced in War Customs of the Tribal Bosmer and also in Nizun-ja's journal. (Granted, these are both ESO books, but I'd imagine they're still relevant to the overall lore)

The Wolf Queen, v2 mentions a "Tournament of Stamina" that sounds like it is similar to an Arena, but with a no-kill clause.

But beyond really simple things like that, we haven't seen much that would imply other things, like jousting and discus throwing, which is... well, pretty surprising. More so since there is plenty of magic in TES - there is a lot of potential there.

Although, it sounds like in this interview (http://www.imperial-library.info/conten ... d-peterson), jousting was apparently planned in Daggerfall. Some of the books I've referenced on this might not actually be on uesp, but you can find them on the imperial library

[Minor Edits]

A Pamphlet on Ashlanders is fanon. We have the rest.

[House of the Wolf]

Am I correct in assuming that "fanon" is fan-made-canon?

Well, the ancient cultures in the Western Hemisphere seemed to share their own sports (of course, some sports required the execution of the defeated team, but the sport itself didn't involve the actual hunting/killing of players).

But all we seem to find are combat-oriented, individual-based sports in any of Tamriel's histories. If we were to explain it through lore, would it have anything to do with the endless strife/conflict?

[Minor Edits]

Fanon is abnormally prominent fan fiction which is treated as reliable TES source material by some. Something which many fans have chosen to adopt as part of their headcanon, aka monkey truth, those things in our individual imaginings of the game world which we believe to be "the truth" even though we know those things are not official. The UESP doesn't document these things, and only cites to them when there's a substantial reason to believe the relevant information in the particular piece is accurate and there's a substantial need for it in an article in order to help explain in-game content.

Absolutely, the hyper-violent nature of the TES-verse doesn't seem to cater to organized athletic associations dedicated to a game which was not combat-oriented. One need look no further than the Arena opening cutscene to accept that. I guess that's why it never occurred to me. In a medieval world of monsters and magic, gods and demons, someone hitting a ball with a stick or chasing a ball in a field professionally just seems oddly discordant. Nevertheless, if they wanted to introduce something like this, I'd roll with it. So long as the lore behind it was worthwhile, that is. Wars have broken out over sports in real life, so I would expect any TES sport to be responsible for genocides.

Maybe a game of histball gone wrong is what really happened to the Kothringi?

[House of the Wolf]

In the spirit of the World Cup, I feel like them developing a game where they kick around a ball with the purpose of getting it into a hole/net would be universally simple to understand. (*Sidenote: if Tamriel did have some version of soccer/football, I'd imagine the Bosmer would end up best at it).

[Minor Edits]

The Khajiit never quit

[Aranel]

...*sighs* The Imperial Library has fanon on it? Well, that was... disappointing, LOL. I take it the rest of the stuff I referenced is actually considered canon though, Minor Edits? (Or, well, atleast as "canon" as ESO will turn out to be, anyways - which is a debate in of itself, I guess, but I suppose time will tell)

And as far as sports go, if they want to implement it in a game, it might be interesting. If a game ever takes place in High Rock again, I think they could totally get away with jousting. I don't know, it just seems a very... Breton thing to do, but I guess that's because they remind me of the French and the English primarily. And I think TES could come up with some of their own sports -- though that's mostly because I have a hard time imagining anyone playing say, golf, in Tamriel.

[Minor Edits]

Everything else you cited was official material. It looks accurate to me. Including the pamphlet quote, by the way. Though it may not be official, I imagine it's accurately conveying an ideal Dunmeri hunting experience, based on what we know of them.

Anything which is part of the Forum Scholars Guild at TIL is fanon. I didn't mean to denigrate it, merely answer your implicit question regarding the difference between our sites. The UESP seeks to document anything official, whereas TIL also branches out a bit into unofficial developer texts (in a grey area unto themselves) and collaborative fanon. Usually with success, in my opinion. An unofficial work can give a valuable perspective, and even if the substantive information it presents is not "the truth", it often has an element of "truthiness" to it.

As for what's canon, your guess is as good as mine. Plenty of official material is not canon because of retcons or abandonment. You could very well find unofficial material at TIL which is closer to the mark on certain topics than official material. Their more liberal approach (for lack of a better term) allows them to draw many reasonable conclusions and inferences that the UESP's encyclopedic format prohibits it from exploring.

[Imbalance]

How about all those titles that Bethesda made before TES? Can they count as backstory?

[Minor Edits]

Of course. I'm pretty sure I heard some Nords talking about Wayne Gretzky.

[Imbalance]

If the Great One isn't a shezarrine, I don't know who is.