I've read your post entirely, OP, thank you for finding all those examples! That's a great work, indeed! Though, I have to disagree with the conclusion you've made - I don't think that love is the overarching theme of the game. Sorry for the wall of text, but in order to understand my opinion, you'll have to take your time and read it entirely. Below I'll share with you the method of studying and forming your own opinion on everything in the Elder Scrolls universe. Though, of course, the particular opinion of your in-game characters you create will be based on their individual features such as the place of their origin, level of education, family background, physical condition, etc, but using the method that opinion will nonetheless be right, free of any delusions and objective. In spite of the wall of text below (sorry!), this might be the most brief description of this method you'll ever find - it's all one post here. Otherwise, you'll have either to read many books or to live a long life or specific circumstances in order to finally come to this way of thinking on your own, because this method has not been taught in the majority of the universities for a very long time. It might be hard to understand it - it's normal, it was not easy to me either. Ok, let's start.

There are two types of understanding the lore, the Mundus - the materialistic and the idealistic ones. Using the first method a man, mer or a beastman relies only on experience, science, knowledge, on all the objects and phenomena that do have display in the Mundus, in reality. Using the latter type they rely on beliefs, someone's dominant opinion, propaganda, etc. A quick example: an appeal to the Daedric plots of Molag Bal is a materialistic thing in the Mundus, while explaining different processes referencing to, say, some weresharks' activities is an idealistic one. Because unlike the Daedra, the weresharks phenomenon has no display in reality even if we, as players playing a video game, would presume or even know that the reason to everything there were weresharks - weresharks have been still beyond the current abilities of cognition and experience in all TES games.

Since the Aurbis is an objective reality to all those who live there, since all the races of Tamriel are social beings rather than the individualistic ones, each society's nature in Tamriel is based on social classes and their division in terms of their relation to the means of production and thus their objective social interests. Thus everything that happens around a character in Tamriel can be explained using the materialistic method - the interest of the local dominant class defines the image of a particular society, the image of the majority of a particular population that class is dominant over. An example: slavery in the House Dres lands (or House Telvanni ones - no matter) is an absolutely ok thing, slaves are not treated as conscious beings there, to the Dunmeri slavemasters they are just speaking organic property. And it is absolutely normal there and fully reconciles with the local ethics, laws and Dunmeri policy. On the other hand, there is no slavery in Argonia.

An idealistic way to explain it would be to call the Dres (and all the Dunmer as many players often do) as naturally lazy evil bloodsuckers, while Argonians would simply be described as humane and highly spiritual and kind persons by default, and that would be used as the reason to explain the issue. The materialistic way to explain it would be to point at the last stage, the absolutist one, of the Dunmeri feudal society consisting of it's dominant class of land owning feudals (the nobility of the Great Houses), and the class of the majority of the population their nobility rules over - serfs, slaves and other estates personally depended on their masters. House Dres is a society of brutal serfdom and slavery. The reason of this social model is the type of production and distribution of wealth - i.e. the local type of economy (it's the subsistence one). In turn the type of economy is defined by the local environment (climate, landscape, etc.), physical environmental resources (deposits of minerals, water, land suitable for agriculture, seas, trade routes, etc.), the amount of labor force (the quantity of possible laborers) and external influence (natural disasters, pandemics such as the Thrassian Plague of the past and the current Knahaten Flu, wars, overall economical and political situation in Tamriel, etc.).

House Dres rules over fertile lands bordering upon Argonia inhabited by cheap and effective labor force - this circumstance is the only objective reason of their status of a Great House, their power and their social structure. House Hlaalu, on the other hand, lacks the same features being located in the middle of the trade routes, therefore they built a society based on commerce and craftsmanship - a much more progressive nearly capitalist society of merchants, bankers, engineers, architects who built, say, Suran and Balmora, Castle Ebonheart, etc. This is why they do not acknowledge slavery at all, though, their more progressive socio-economic formation also gave room to such a thing as the Camonna Tong. Yes, it is always a dualism of everything - no good can exist without evil, no phenomenon can exist without it's internal contradiction. The same way the primitive tribal Argonian society living in the harsh environment of swamps, lacking good fertile land, mineral resources, advanced means of production and cheap labor force, generally lives by hunting and gathering - to own a slave there would mean to feed an extra mouth only, instead of making profit. This is the materialistic way to answer why slavery is not common in Argonia the way it is common in Morrowind.

So, the type of environment, the amount of resources and external circumstances define the type of economy, the type of economy defines the socio-economic formation, the socio-economic formation defines the social policy, the social policy defines the social standards of laws, religious and other views, ethics, views on good and evil, criteria of honor and shame, level of tolerance, etc. - everything. Finally, the social standards along with the particular individual's place of origin and everyday life, educational level, social class, family background and personal experience define the individual views (supportive, rejective, indifferent, tolerant, intolerant, etc.) on everything happening in the Mundus. This is why your character being, say, a Breton merchant seeking ways to trade his goods to a wider circle of consumers, will never convince a Dres slaver to abandon slavery, to pay his laborers with gold and to look at his slaves as equals. This is also why a former Argonian slave finds nothing horrific in becoming a slavemaster herself, in killing people in order to achieve her selfish goals, in becoming a member of the society that previously treated her as cattle.

To form such individual views on a particular object or phenomenon of study a character has to understand the nature of such an object or a phenomenon, and in order to do it they have to construct it's defintion. What is the definition, the "definition of definition" ? Definition is a complex of features immanent to an object or a phenomenon throughout the process of it's establishment and development. Features can vary from time to time, but only those of them that are immanent to the object or a phenomenon throughout it's process from the beginning till the end, can be included into the definition of such an object.

So, finally you say that "the overarching theme of the whole ESO is love". Well, I don't say you are wrong - I say it is an idealistic opinion. In order to see if your opinion corresponds to the reality we see on the screen, we have to define.. love. What is love ("..baby, don't hurt me.." )? I've read all of your examples up there - the same way I could give many more examples showing that violence, hate, greed, etc. are the actual overarching themes of the whole TES (not just ESO), but that would be the same idealistic approach as yours. So that case we would have been argueing till the end of times counting examples and discussing their value - i.e. discussing features instead of the phenomenon's nature. If you remember that bubble gum , "Love is.." a biochem.. nah, stop.. It's Aurbis, magicka defines every flow of life and every process there, right? Let's try it again: love is a magickal process reflected in it's subject's specific unconditional feeling and cognition of the priority of the object's necessities and desires over it's own ones. If a phenomenon does not correspond at least in one word of it's definition with the definition of love, or excludes such a possibility, then that phenomenon is not love, but something else. It might also be based on harmful idealism that hides true nature of things on Nirn and acts in contradiction to the objective interests of a character. This is why changing one object of love thus making harm to the other, is whatever, but not love; this is why eating too much is not love for food - it's gluttony; Khajiiti man and woman sleeping in one bed passionately is not love - it's passion; being an Argonian Canonic Tribunal priest in a society where the Canonic Tribunal Temple is the primary supporter of the Argonian slavery (well, bad example, not in 2E 582, of course, but it works in, say, in 3E 427. An example just to show such abnormal things like Argonian Tribunal priests do exist there) is not love for the Three - it's treason of the Argonian people's interests as a society because of such individual idealism; tolerating Molag Bal or necromancy not being a Daedra or a necromancer respectively is the treason of the interests of all the living in Tamriel, etc., etc. Idealism leads to philosophical pluralism, i.e. a situation showing several contradicting opinions as being considered right simultaneously (while Truth, the real state of things happening around, is considered to be unperceivable and somewhere out there).

Idealism makes it impossible to distinguish good and evil, makes a common tamrielic denizen act in a way harmful to his or her own objective interests empowering those who make profit on it: Mannimarco, Molag Bal, slavers, Altmeri racial supremacists, the Covenant militaristic and revanchist policy, the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild, the Imperial East Empire Company, the Daedra, the nobility of Tamrielic kingdoms, etc. - all those who never act because of some subjective idealistic thoughts. I support the Tribunal Temple and the Dunmeri official policy not because of some idealism, personal feelings towards the Khajiit or Argonians, but because I have completed certain quests there and became a land owner in Morrowind, a feudal, a personal friend and Champion of Vivec, a Hand of Dres with literal slaves working for free, though called "Hirelings", I became an Ordinator there - so, it is my objective interest to support the Dunmeri policy all along. On the other hand, there is no option to join the Ashlanders - so it was not the question of choice, but guess my attitude towards the Great Houses and the Tribunal were I an Ashlander there. Idealism in Tamriel is a tool to preserve power, to pervert all the good features common to people like love, passion, compassion, etc,. to make all those slaves, peasants and "free" folk to act according to their beliefs instead of their objective interests, to quarrel and fight each other because of things like fur, scales, religion, rights, better or worse food, treatment, views on abstract things, etc., to make them work and fight for our cause and profit, and to make them think that beauty and love will some day save Tamriel from the dread Daedra, slavers, wars, injustice etc .

Unlike the real world, we know the source, the very reason of love in TES - it is the energy of Aetherius controlled by the will of Almalexia (or Mara if you stick to the Eight Divines cults) in a specific way that forms the sphere of influence on the mortal world that starts up that process (love) in the reality. Both divines are real in this universe (regarding Mara: see Ama Nin and Marilyn Wassermann) we see them both, their actions or the results of such actions in the game. The most well known example of love IRL is the story of the sacrifice of Jesus we all know. In the majority of other cases love is a relatively rare thing - some say that in 99.9% of cases among the two people only one truly loves the other while the object of that love sells himself or herself for care, food, money, status, in fear of staying alone in their old age - whatever. In order to make love an overarching theme an author of any product of art has to make it the very reason, the mean and the goal of the entire plot of his creation. Now let's see if love is indeed the overacrhing theme of the whole ESO - was it love that helped us to destroy Molag Bal, to save Sotha Sil, to defeat Veya, that made Veya end up like that killing her father and causing death to so many people, was it love that drove us to help that Argonian slave? Was it love that defined our choice of whom to save during the beginning of the EP solo campaign - those two cute Dunmeri female soldiers on one hand, or several citizens of Bleakrock on the other (if you prefered one group to the other, the other would be killed in action)?

Love was not the reason of why Azura helped "even Vivec for the sake and because of her love for her people", as you say it - if you look attentively at what she says ("Vvardenfell must stand. Everything I do in this regard serves that single goal. Best that you remember that, Mortal") and how she acts, you'll see that she is around only until the Heart of Lorkhan is buried beneath Red Mountain, i.e. until 3E 427, the events of TES III. She does not save those whom you think she loved neither during the Oblivion Crisis of 3E 433, nor even during 4E 5, the Red Year, when Vvardenfell becomes destroyed. According to the pre-ri'Datta Khajiiti texts that was she who placed the Heart of Lorkhan there and somehow guarded it or had some other interest in it - as soon as it disappears from Nirn she has no concern neither over Vvardenfell, nor for the fall of Baar Dau and the death of so many of her people there. Just the way she had no concern for her Khajiiti "children" being enslaved by the other of her "Chosen Ones". This is a whatever thing, but not love. As you see it, love, hate, violence, compassion, greed and any other such feelings along with their numerous types are not the overarching theme in TES. TES is not a soap drama, it combines many features and parallels of real life, it is a very simplified small scale model of life based on a fictional setting, thus love (as one of so many features of life) can't be it's overarching theme just the same way it is not the one IRL. It's just one of it's many features - features that some people never experience in their entire lives. So, here is another perspective you are free to follow or to reject. Nevertheless, you did a great work of gathering all those examples, OP! Now you have another method of perceiving them. It was very interesting to read your post, thank you much, mate!

Suddenly I recalled the Dostojevski's "Crime & Punishment" where the overarching theme, as many readers think of it, is the theme of casting away bad supremacy ideas, sticking to one's own business, theme of law, inevitable punishment, and finally in the book's conclusion - an overarching idea that love, piety, praying and living an honest life make everything ok. The whole book shows the way the problems of mind lead to the physical life problems, and the way to cure it is through love and payer.

But if we look closer into the world and it's characters, into the materialistic reasons of the crime Dostojevski named in order to make his book that credible and great, we'll see the world of total poverty and a former student forced to abandon his education because of the lack of funds. Thus instead of studying, the student begins to think it over and over, he begins to invent philosophical reasons and plan the murder, and finally commits it after he receives a certain letter from home telling that his sister is going to marry an unloved old man in order to save him - that makes his ideas of self superiority turn into reality, so he takes an axe and performs the crime in order to change his life and save his sister from and undesired marriage. So here should have been the overarching theme of the whole book - fight poverty, build dormitories and pay scholarships to let students study instead of forcing them into thinking over their life that destructive way. Those who still disagree can make a thought experiment: imagine that student receiving a message of winning a great sum, a lottery prize or something, the moment before he goes out to murder the woman - would that stop him or would he nonetheless say "F those millions! Death to the old bat!" and execute his plan? So this is it. If the problem of mind is cured by money, then it's real source is located in the wallet - not in the mind. Because human minds are not equally strong - people are different and the limits of a hopeless man depend on a certain man. But the consequences of the majority of cases can be changed due to solving the very materialistic reason.

I think the same way it works in any work of art. I suppose the thing that should be paid much more attention is exactly to how the players perceive it: as I've said it in my previous long reply, if they perceive it idealistically, they'll have numerous opinions and will never convince each other or won't be able to reconcile on the art work's ideas hopping from one idea to the other with all thd ideas equally true (and sometimes inexistent in the physical reality shown) to one of them and false to the other. But if they see it the materialist way they won't have "two truths" at all, because they will all see the same nature of things - the true one because it reflects the reality equally to everybody and, speaking of an interactive entertainment, allows to influence such a reality the right way according to the art work consumer's desires and necessities.