College Research - TES Books [HELP]

[joker341]

Greetings!
A couple of my colleagues and I are conducting a research on the lore/books of The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind-Skyrim) and as a task we need to explore how people read the books within the game and their experience with implementing that into the gameplay. So, if anyone could help us regarding this, either by telling us about your experience or giving some hints regarding other active TES communities/forums, that would be greatly appreciated! For example, you could tell us how often you read the books you come across, or how much attention you pay (or do you just skip over sentences etc.), are they well-written or if they could pass as legitimate works of literature etc. etc. Everything is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Imbalance]

Only occasionally do I stop to read a book in-game. I've done most of my reading on UESP. Quality of the writings is all over the place, and intentionally so, upping their entertainment value while playing. For example, I've read Palla multiple times, but once was enough for ABC's For Barbarians to get the joke.
If you are not a spambot, say, "I am not a spambot."

[SeaGtGruff]

"I am not a spambot."

Sometimes I read the books, sometimes I don't, and sometimes I read them but only just barely-- that is, skimming rapidly over them.

[Symmachus]

Many books can pass as literature; there's a youtube video from Polygon that seperates the books into categories which might be useful. TES has rich (and partially open source) lore inspired by other fiction (Lovecraft, Vampire, DnD etc) and plenty of real world science (synesthesia, quantum mechanics, a fantasy take on space and time travel), mythology, religion and 'magic' (Hindusim, gnostic mysticism, Thelema, etc), philosophy and others.

The Imperial Library website and the Reddit TESLore and Apocrypha show how deep knowledge of the lore requires scholarship. Books in-game can be in-world works of literature, or count to us in the real world as pieces of literature, and I've heard Morrowind been called game-as-novel, with Vivec one of fiction's most realised characters.

My personal experience with the books in game is great; I've read them in game and out of game through sites like Imperial Library, and followed up with reading commentary, analysis on forums such as this one and lately the Reddit thread. I am sure many make a point to organise in game libraries with their books! I am sure it also would not be uncontroversial to say that the world we get from the in game books is stranger and more realised than the world of the games, which is limited by technical considerations and the desire to have mass appeal. As such, in the open source Elder Scrolls lore I find the more interesting version of the game world, though of course it is referenced and bleeds through a lot in the game; what Michael Kirkbride writes as 'C0DA', or open source lore, has a way of being incorporated by Bethesda here and there over time. We owe MK for a lot of Morrowind's refreshing strangeness

In direct answer to the questions, I read all the books eventually, and not necessarily in the order I come across them. For example I might collect a series within the game first, or read the full thing online. Such series include The Real Barenziah (a 'true', suppressed account of Queen Barenziah's life, contrasted with the officially sanctioned series that is also in the game; the differences are amusing, such as the latter asserting her chastity and other virtues, and the former painting a more gritty, flawed and sympathetic being). Some books require much attention, such as the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes or The 36 Lessons of Vivec, which are both thick with references to philosophical/religious/mystical significance and references and are works you could perform exegesis on. And many 'books' in the game worlds could pass as fantasy short stories of quality and thus bona fide literature, I suppose.

(Slight edits: some small additions)

[joker341]

Cheers for the replies, people!

@Symmachus, your reply is absolutely fantastic, btw, much appreciated!

[Symmachus]

Cheers! I am happy to be of help. You could make a post on the Elder Scrolls Online forums and make a poll if you need to get data from a larger set of people, unless you've done that already. Also the Reddit threads etc of course. If I can help at all let me know. I am always happy to see research conducted on games/see games taken seriously as a medium and art form

Oh some other ideas occur to me; in-game the player characters create journals, and in-game books can start quests, which may or may not be 'marked' in the journals; some are Easter egg type quests. So that's two other ways books are incorporated directly into the game that the player experiences. And in ELder Scrolls Online you can unlock a codex which stores all the texts you read. The ingame explanation is that it's a spell that lets you remember with photographic memory, so the codex, like the journal, is a kind of diegetic record. ESO also lets you find books in the overworld and complete sets, after which you can purchase the set as furniture items for player housing, so you can make a library of your own design.

I know a Skyrim mod that added libraries in the game world that included vendors that sold all the in-game books, so clearly there is demand to have the game world books available to read. And of course, there is the Daedric realm of Apocrypha ruled by Hermaeus Mora, Prince of Knowledge, where Black Books (in true Lovecraftian fashion; Mora himself has a lot of Cthulhu in him) magically transport the player to Mora's realm, which is a vast library where he hoards all knowledge he can get his tentacles on. In the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim you learn bits of knowledge along the quest, finding more books and exploring more areas of Apocrypha.

There are also examples of scholarship within the game world; historians debate each other, there are essays and commentaries elucidating other texts etc, and you can meet authors in the game too.

Writing and literacy themselves have some history and commentary in the game world of the Elder Scrolls. There is a god of logic and reason, Elder Scrolls (which are holy artefacts after which the series is named) which are sort of quantum records of history that can be used to prophesy to an extent but which are also uncertain in what they record until the Hero makes a choice or effects an outcome, after which the quantum wave function of multiple possibilities collapses, so to speak, such that the Scrolls become a magical indelible record of the historical event in question. In terms of interacting with the Elder Scrolls, in Oblivion the final Thieves Guild quest has you steal one, and you use a few in Skyrim for different questlines, reading them etc.

There is Mora, a demonic entity who hoards knowledge, an Elven god scribe, Xarxes, and in the Song of Pelinal it is recorded that some humans opposed writing things down ('Nonscriptionists'), who a demigod on the side of humanity killed and wrote with their blood as an example.

Related to interacting with texts in game, there are alternate alphabets such as the Daedric script which people translate to reveal hidden messages put in by developers. And some books explicitly contain riddles and secret messages. For example, the first word in each paragraph of Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes forms a secret message, and the first illuminated letter of each paragraph contains yet another message; all of it to help you locate the cult. And the 36 Sermons are simultaneously a piece of theocratic propaganda, the man-god Vivec's self-aggrandising epic poem, a source of skill point increases, a magical retroactive alteration of Vivec's own timeline, a guide to the reincarnated spirit of someone he betrayed and which prophecy (referenced in the game's opening text) and the game's main questline reveal is the player character, a source of lore, and contains a coded message that is an admission of guilt; that Vivec and his co-conspirators did indeed murder the person who has since reincarnated as the player, though the player finds this out only later in the main questline, thereby learning about the prophecy and simultaneously making it true in the process of playing the game, by fulfilling the requirements of the prophecy. Then there's clever tricks like with the book The Dragon Break Re-examined; the god of time is a draconic figure, and a Dragon Break is a rupture in time, and has happened only a few times in the history of the game world. The book argues that these recorded 'dragon breaks' are nothing more than errors resulting in historians moving from one calendar system to another, etc, that is, non-supernatural means. What is hidden is that the book references events in the past tense that would actually date the book in the future, and the in-game author's name is an anagram of 'Darn Fool'.

The Black Books themselves contain snippets of poetry etc that are intertextual references, such as to Lovecraftian fiction or works in a similar genre, such as through referring to Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow, or refer obliquely to the in-game concepts like 'Chim', itself a philosophical-religious concept in the deep lore of the Elder Scrolls universe that has links to existentialism, Nirvana and other real-world concepts, and is a state of mind/godhood that was quite possibly achieved by two non-player characters in the game universe. and is hinted to be them in a way realising they are characters within a game world, and thus gaining access to 'cheat codes' by which they manipulate both the timeline and material reality of the game world. So in other words you have in the game world books telling players about non-player characters who ascended (or in one case, wish to ascend) to a state of 'godhood' that is either using cheat codes within the game world, or wanting to become a player character themselves, in the sense that they could be all genders, all moralities etc at once, just as the player can choose to do be anyone or do anything in the game.

(Edits: grammar etc)

[Symmachus]

Some books like the Monomyth or Annotated Anuad give players some insight into the religion/cosmogony of the world. The book Spirit of the Daedra tells us something about the psychology of the daedra, the analogue of demons in the Elder Scrolls. Other books tell us about history, geography etc and all of the above flesh the world out. Books published by the University of Gwilym are intended to be signalled as 'trustworthy' by developers, I believe.

Outside the game, discussion of lore, as you will see in the forums and Reddit threads, binds the community together in terms of creating fanfiction and analyses, especially because the lore is consciously portrayed as deep and multifaceted, with incomplete and contradictory accounts and opinions in the books of the game.

[joker341]

Some books like the Monomyth or Annotated Anuad give players some insight into the religion/cosmogony of the world. The book Spirit of the Daedra tells us something about the psychology of the daedra, the analogue of demons in the Elder Scrolls. Other books tell us about history, geography etc and all of the above flesh the world out. Books published by the University of Gwilym are intended to be signalled as 'trustworthy' by developers, I believe.

Outside the game, discussion of lore, as you will see in the forums and Reddit threads, binds the community together in terms of creating fanfiction and analyses, especially because the lore is consciously portrayed as deep and multifaceted, with incomplete and contradictory accounts and opinions in the books of the game.

This was all quite fascinating to read! I've played all the major TES games, but never paid too much attention to non-main-quest related books, I guess that's coming back to bite me in the ass.
Very valuable information this is, and if you have the time to answer a poll we've decided to use, that would be great! We studied Miesen last class who developed 27 questions (that are answered on a scale 1-10, for how true they are for you) regarding why people read literature altogether. We decided to use those 27 questions, but we want answers from the perspective of you as your character inside of the game world, as well as answers from you just as a player, outside of the game world.

If you're up for it, I'll leave the "questions" here and you can just type the number of the "question" and next to it a number from 1 to 10 on how true that is for you as the character inside of the game, and next to that another number for how true that is for you just as an outsider, a player.

Reading motives/Why does one read:
1. To entertain oneself.
2. To lose oneself in a story.
3. To get carried away in a story.
4. To stimulate one's imagination.
5. To become surprised.
6. To settle down./To relax.
7. To sharpen one's intellectual capacity.
8. To read real-life stories.
9. To have a different look on things.
10. To improve one's linguistic skills.
11. To aquire an extensive vocabulary.
12. To have feelings evkoed.
13. To experience feelings of beauty.
14. To daydream pleasantly.
15. To create excitement.
16. To learn more about others.
17. To move oneself.
18. To gain prestige.
19. To "belong".
20. To provide oneself with an identity.
21. To be appreciated by others.
22. To have a clear way of how to live.
23. To get a feelings of safety and security.
24. To have greater practical insight.
25. To chase away boredom.
26. To kill time.
27. To have greater practical knowledge.

This applies to everybody else who replied, you can join in, as well.

And if you have anyone who's interested in this subject and can answer the poll, feel free to share! xD

[Symmachus]

(1-10, Answers from the perspective of you as your character inside of the game world, as well as answers from you just as a player, outside of the game world.)
1. 10. 10.
2. 6. 10.
3. 6. 10.
4. 6. 10.
5. 6. 10.
6. 7. 4.
7. 10. 10.
8. 10. 0.
9. 10. 10.
10. 6. 10.
11. 10. 10.
12. 5. 5.
13. 10. 10.
14. 3. 6.
15. 5. 8.
16. 10. 5.
17. 5. 5.
18. 7. 7.
19. 5. 5.
20. 0. 0.
21. 5. 7.
22. 0. 6.
23. 0. 0.
24. 0. 0.
25. 5. 10.
26. 6. 8.
27. 10. 0.

My character is a mage who reads as part of his research, so I imagine he views it as work, while I read the lore to be excited by new insights and to discuss them with others and to inform my own writing, so it's not so much something I do to relax but to deep-dive

[joker341]

(1-10, Answers from the perspective of you as your character inside of the game world, as well as answers from you just as a player, outside of the game world.)
1. 10. 10.
2. 6. 10.
3. 6. 10.
4. 6. 10.
5. 6. 10.
6. 7. 4.
7. 10. 10.
8. 10. 0.
9. 10. 10.
10. 6. 10.
11. 10. 10.
12. 5. 5.
13. 10. 10.
14. 3. 6.
15. 5. 8.
16. 10. 5.
17. 5. 5.
18. 7. 7.
19. 5. 5.
20. 0. 0.
21. 5. 7.
22. 0. 6.
23. 0. 0.
24. 0. 0.
25. 5. 10.
26. 6. 8.
27. 10. 0.

My character is a mage who reads as part of his research, so I imagine he views it as work, while I read the lore to be excited by new insights and to discuss them with others and to inform my own writing, so it's not so much something I do to relax but to deep-dive

Magnificent! We're very thankful for you input! This will be incredibly useful for our presentation in two weeks. You're also the most responsive/helpful out of everybody we questioned online, cheers!

[joker341]

(1-10, Answers from the perspective of you as your character inside of the game world, as well as answers from you just as a player, outside of the game world.)

Saw your PM, but I can't figure out how to reply to it xD
The presentation went excellently, all four of us in the group got praised by both the teacher and some of the students. You were a fantastic example for identification in videogames, the professor actually questioned me on the exam about your answers, and I got a grade higher because of how good the presentation was, so it really went better than expected! Your help was much appreciated, without those answers of yours, we would've had a lot less content xD

[Imbalance]

This is outstanding. Congratulations!

[Symmachus]

Oh awesome, so glad it went well, congrats