Why does Sotha Sil call our character "the prisoner"?

Katahdin

I have never played the original games so I dont know if there is an answer in those games.
I was curious as to why Sotha Sil called our character "the prisioner" and if it might be related to being captured and put into Coldharbor by Molag Bal in the base game story?

TheNuminous1

Prisoner
Vestige
Numinous.

We are all the Unsung heros of this Current Catastrophe.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

We always start the game in prison, it's tradition.

The Prisoner must:
1.) Notice the boundaries formed by Nirn's existence and
2.) Be able to see past those boundaries.

Our character(s) are the Prisoner because they're the player character - as we, the players, exist outside of Nirn, naturally we can see the boundaries formed by the game and see beyond them.

Nestor

He thinks we are Prisoners in our own Bodies. The constructs he creates will last forever in his mind, where our organic casing wears out in 60 to 80 years.

TheNuminous1

Nestor wrote: »

He thinks we are Prisoners in our own Bodies. The constructs he creates will last forever in his mind, where our organic casing wears out in 60 to 80 years.

speak for yourself. ima pull a vanus, drotha, divath, Almsivi, or any of the other People with extreme longevity. you can take 60 years. ima kick it for a few thousand.

Adernath

Every conscious being seems to have a particular horizon of awareness: For example, a horse is aware of its immediate surroundings, but might not be aware of the fact that it is living on a planet drifting in space around the sun. We are aware of this fact, but, being descendants from other living forms on earth, it is likely that we have our own horizon of awareness, which is just far far different and larger (and certainly includes the awareness that we might have a horizon of awareness etc. etc.).

I understand Sotha Sils remark as that he 1) grasps that his world consists of pure algorithms (which in fact is true) and that 2) from his perspective the player character seems to be aware of his own horizon, because he is played by a human being outside of the game. Therefore he sees the protagonist as a prisoner, because, as he said, a prisoner is aware of his own horizon (which in this case is the horizon of the computer game rules)

... of course, it could also be the case that we never left the Wailing Prison and simply went mad

Cadbury

Adernath wrote: »

... of course, it could also be the case that we never left the Wailing Prison and simply went mad

That's actually been a fan theory for years, going as far back as Oblivion (Your character actually is dying in prison, and hallucinates the emperor's appearance)

Korah_Eaglecry

He may be referring to the Wailing Prison the Vestige starts out in or possibly the fact that if you start a new character with the Morrowind Update. Your character is a prisoner about to be shipped off as a slave.

Either fits and its why they used such a vague descriptor.

Ratzkifal

He actually explains why he does.
A prisoner needs two things to be a prisoner. He needs to realize that he is a prisoner and he needs to see the door to the outside. Sotha Sil is blessed/cursed with absolute certainty. Everything he foresees will occur. For him the world is a prison. He realized he is a prisoner. What Sil is lacking however is the door. And since he can't escape his prison, he calls the person with the insight of the door prisoner. So it's basically him calling us "the chosen one" or "the one who can free us all" whatever that means.

Pendrillion

I just wonder why Sil never achieved CHIM... But absolute certainty might be in the way of attaining it ... The prisoner remark mainly felt like he would be aware that the person we can represent, has seen his demise in the future... Of course we also are the prisoner of causality... And he seemed to understand that we are trapped together with him in this event of cause and effect without being able to change the outcome...

But I still think that Sotha Sil had some aces up jis sleeve...

ArrerBoy

Pendrillion wrote: »

I just wonder why Sil never achieved CHIM...

CHIM requires padomaic behavior. Or as others would call it "Being a ***". SEHT is too passive, accepting of what is and what will be. Those who achieve CHIM choose to not accept that and change the state of things, usually with violence. VEHK, Talos being the primary examples whose legacies are drenched in bloodshed.


As to the original topic, you are the Prisoner. Every time a there is a threat, it's a Prisoner who saves the world. Vestige, Champrion, Nerevarine, Dragonborn, you always start as a prisoner on your way to somewhere new.