Pilaf The Defiler wrote:I interact regularly with people who think a lot of MK - including MK himself - and none of those people claim he "invented all ES lore". They simply give credit where credit is due. He's still involved in the actual writing process of the early game development, you know. They still call him up because they specifically want his input. The Great War and the White Gold Concordant from Skyrim were specifically his ideas, for instance. He does quite a bit more than just post fan-fiction. It is indeed very silly the way some of these kids put him up on a pedestal. That's easy to do with someone you've never met and whose place in things you don't comprehend. It's also easy to dislike such a person to an absurd degree, and I see a lot of this on here. MK is a creative, weird adult whose ideas helped make this series we all play more interesting, and he loves it so much that he keeps coming back for more. It's hard to comprehend how anyone could view such enthusiasm negatively, but we live in a profoundly snarky, negative society these days.
I think the constraints of the Internet as a medium encourage exaggerated "snarkiness" and give the appearance of negativity. Nothing to be done about it, except to keep these things in mind and assume a mutual respect for the innate dignity of a person. It will be very important to do so with this post.
I think these are all good points, but as I said before, Kirkbride and his enthusiasm are anything but a problem, in my opinion. The aggravations arise, I think, when one person's vision of TES becomes treated as the only vision. Or at least, becomes the vision any and all others must be measured against. And it's not Kirkbride doing that, it's the Church of Kirkbridology. Newer fans don't like a bunch of completely alien concepts to be shoved at them. Personally, I find most of Kirkbride's work fascinating, but how it is willfully misrepresented is mostly exasperating. It's more than "giving credit where credit is due", it's pimping a set of beliefs, a particular framework for understanding the lore, which is far from the only understanding fans may choose. And it's tiresome to watch people push an ideology at every conceivable opportunity. Now, I do exaggerate from time to time, but that's
really what it often seems like some Kirkbride fans are doing: proselytizing. Not you, to your credit, but there's a pretty clear pattern which is pretty much guaranteed to rub most folks the wrong way.
A small but inordinately active group of people want to recruit fantasy-prone individuals within their culture into a certain belief system, thereby bolstering its influence and power. To do that, they regularly represent their opinions as reliable facts, offering answers where none actually exist. They interweave and conflate their doctrines with established teachings in order to elevate their relevance and give a "soft pitch". New ideas or people either comport with these doctrines or else get marginalized. Anything resembling resistance is shouted down or concealed. Questioning the group's beliefs is forbidden within the compound, which facilitates indoctrination. With dissent banned, the followers perceive a clear (fabricated) consensus. Their way is the only legitimate way, and the illusory consensus becomes self-proving. Anyone else, anyone who does not believe as the group does, must be simply ignorant or mean-spirited. Anything else comes to seem incomprehensible. Now, am I describing the playbook of the Waco Branch Davidians, or the status quo over at r/teslore?
When you ban dissent, honesty is sacrificed in favor of group think. Consciously or not, the group now unmoored by criticism drifts further and further away from reality. For instance, I believe that the critical opinions expressed in this thread regarding official lore are essentially representative of the views commonly held by most TES fans, even most hardcore lore fans. But I doubt you'll get the same assessment at r/teslore. That is, if you could broach the subject without violating the 8th Commandment - er, rule.
I believe exchanges of ideas inevitably become unrepresentative, misleading, and rather pointless when they're not made freely. And ultimately, despite all the arguments to be made, I can only comprehend a blanket ban on dissent as an act of cowardice. It can be effective, if the aim is to distort public perceptions in the style of police-state propaganda, but it's intellectually deplorable. This is not negativity or hostility, and I deleted the most snarky bits. It's just a dose of reality, which is thankfully still tolerated here.
