Is Nirn a Realm of Oblivion?

Son0fSun

In his speech at the penultimate ES: Oblivion story quest, Mankar Cameron says the following:

Mankar Cameron wrote:

The Principalities have sparkled as gems in the black reaches of Oblivion since the First Morning. Many are their names and the names of their masters: the Coldharbour of Meridia, Peryite's Quagmire, the ten Moonshadows of Mephala, and... and Dawn's Beauty, the Princedom of Lorkhan... misnamed 'Tamriel' by deluded mortals. Yes, you understand now. Tamriel is just one more Daedric realm of Oblivion, long since lost to its Prince when he was betrayed by those that served him

Ask yourself! How is it that mighty gods die, yet the Daedra stand incorruptible? How is it that the Daedra forthrightly proclaim themselves to man, while the gods cower behind statues and the faithless words of traitor-priests? It is simple... they are not gods at all. The truth has been in front of you since you first were born: the Daedra are the true gods of this universe. Julianos, Dibella and Stendarr are all Lorkhan's betrayers, posing as divinities in a principality that has lost its guiding light. What are Scholarship, Love and Mercy when compared to Fate, Night and Destruction? The gods you worship are trifling shadows of First Causes. They have tricked you for Ages.
Why do you think your world has always been contested ground, the arena of powers and immortals? It is Tamriel, the realm of Change, brother to Madness, sister to Deceit. Your false gods could not entirely rewrite history. Thus you remember tales of Lorkhan, vilified, a dead trickster, whose heart came to Tamriel. But if a god can die, how does his heart survive? He is daedroth! TAMRIEL AE DAEDROTH! "This Heart is the heart of the world, for one was made to satisfy the other." You all remember this. It is in every legend. Daedra cannot die, so your so-called gods cannot erase him from your minds completely.

Although he gets the realms of Oblivion incorrect, Coldharbour is the realm of Molag Bal, Quagmire is Vaermina's realm, and Moonshadow belongs to Azura, the idea that Lorkhan could in fact be the Daedric Prince of Dawn is an interesting. If Nirn is actually a realm of Oblivion it would do much to explain why there is a near constant attempt by Daedric Princes attempting to control or gain control of the realm of Nirn to increase their own power. The Daedric Princes always are at war and fight with each other, the most notable being when Jyggalag was forced into Sheogorath by the other Daedric Princes for having too much power.

The creation mythos of Nirn and Lorhan's involvement also fits the narrative of Mankar Cameron:

The Lunar Lorkhan wrote:

I will not go into the varying accounts of what happened at Adamantine Tower, nor will I relate the War of Manifest Metaphors that rendered those stories unable to support most qualities of what is commonly known as "narrative." We all have our favorite Lorkhan story and our favorite Lorkhan motivation for the creation of Nirn and our favorite story of what happened to His Heart. But the Theory of the Lunar Lorkhan is of special note.

In short, the Moons were and are the two halves of Lorkhan's 'flesh-divinity'. Like the rest of the Gods, Lorkhan was a plane(t) that participated in the Great Construction... except where the Eight lent portions of their heavenly bodies to create the mortal plane(t), Lorkhan's was cracked asunder and his divine spark fell to Nirn as a shooting star "to impregnate it with the measure of its existence and a reasonable amount of selfishness."

Masser and Secunda therefore are the personifications of the dichotomy-- the "Cloven Duality," according to Artaeum-- that Lorkhan legends often rail against: ideas of the anima/animus, good/evil, being/nothingness, the poetry of the body, throat, and moan/silence-as-the-abortive, and so on -- set in the night sky as Lorkhan's constant reminder to his mortal issue of their duty.

Followers of this theory hold that all other "Heart Stories" are mythical degradations of the true origin of the moons (and it needn't be said that they observe the "hollow crescent theory" as well).

It is a valid theory that Mankar Cameron could have been on to something, and the Aedra were in fact Lorkhan's underlings in which they rebelled and "killed" their master, Akatosh shooting his heart into what became the Red Mountain. It the same heart that turned Sothas Sil, Almalexia, and Vivec into the "living gods" of the Tribunal and obviously has a semblance of live and divinity within it also adding credence to the theory that Mankar Cameron is in fact right.

Given my tl;dr post, what does the community think?

[Edit per posters request]

susmitds

Nirn has been quite often implied directly and indirectly to be Lorkhan's plane of oblivion.

Prabooo

Son0fSun wrote: »

Quagmire is Vaermina's realm

Giggity

VaranisArano

Mankar Camoran is the villain, and is heavily implied to be spouting BS. To be fair, I'd probably do the same if the Hero of Kvatch was coming for me...

This is the same guy who convinced his followers to come to a Paradise where they are hunted by Daedra and there are secret lava filled torture chambers.


The Daedra actually want Nirn because while they can create lots of stuff from their own power, the daedra they create and control are nowhere near as interesting as what mortals can get up to.

Besides, the whole "Nirn is a plane of Oblivion" thing runs into a lot of issues with Akatosh and the Dragonfires, unless you assume thats a complete lie, a la Mankar Camoran. But we aren't given any reasons aside from the word of the villainous cult leader that Akatosh is lying when he instituted the Dragonfires, Martin Septim died to relight them permanently, or the Dragonfires being put out leads in part to ESO's Interregnum. Why would an Aedra protect a realm of Oblivion as opposed to the Mundus they sacrificed part of their power to create? If Mankar Camoran is right, then much of Akatosh' actions make no sense.

Bruccius

If what you said were true, then how come that an Oblivion Invasion can be prevented through the Dragonfires of Akatosh?

The Daedra desire Nirn because Nirn is different from Oblivion. Oblivion is far less creative than the peoples of Nirn, they are far less free, have no real independent mind, as they are created in the image of their Lords.

The people of Nirn do not have this, they are unpredictable.

Mankar's claims are interesting, but almost certainly a lie.

Cardthief

Prinseth

I think that’s there’s a little truth to it, it seems like the same concept, but Nirn is obviously much different from Oblivion Realms. Also isn’t it said somewhere that Daedric Princes can’t create but that they can only imitate and that they copied and modeled their realms after Nirn but exaggerate them in certain aspects?

Ajaxandriel

That theory is interesting.

If Mundus is surrounded by Oblivion, then it may be a part of it. Indeed magics work inside it. Mundus is permeable, susceptible to the "other" Oblivion realms.

Or it is not a part of Oblivion like an island is not a part of the sea that surrounds it.

But sometimes islands are washed and reshaped by tidal waves.

So what if Nirn was shape-shifted in an Oblivion realm? like Nirn getting magically "terraformed" into (current) Nirn.
Or more likely, only Tamriel and Yokuda (we really don't know enough about Atmora and Akavir)
thus...
- explaining the monomyth about Lorkhan and its daedric features
- expalining the myth of the fleeing et'Ada (=exiles of a magically sinking continent)
- explaining the myth about the Towers (looking like magical dykes, to keep the island-versus-sea comparison)
- expalining the myth about the chaos of Dawn Era, before Y'ffre's law (=magically drowning creatures)
- explaining the birth of beast-races like Khajiit and Minotaur (=magical living rubble of the oblivion tidal wave)
- explaining the "world" of Aldmeris being already "itself", Tamriel (=indigenous elves settling back in their lands)
- even plausible explanation for the Dwemer living in the deeps (=indegenous elves surviving in bunkers) all the more with their own obsession with getting their own magical-*** (Brass Tower)

LMar

Mankar is crazy. He has his own theories and he is trying to brainwash you. He even gets the realms wrong. A lot of things exist to disprove this as mentioned above