ithelia makes perfect sense? (spoilers in discussion)

Kalle_Demos

Faulgor wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every year I'm reading such threads expecting rich stories, deep concepts and obscure lore just to be reminded "it's ESO park baby!" on release and just go watch some third party deep lore dives, if tes related even.

Hope Beth involvement wasn't just an approval stamp. Not sure if any competent tes writers are left with Kuhlmann's departure.

Yeah, after suffering through Starfield, we are reaching the point where I prefer ZOS over BGS' writing ...

I must disagree. With something this lore/story significant and the impact that it could have on the franchise as a whole, not just ESO, I would rather have Beth at the helm. ESO should follow the meta narrative, not the other way around. Lets not forget that Beth had to step in and stop Zos from bringing the Dwemer back.

Syldras

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Lets not forget that Beth had to step in and stop Zos from bringing the Dwemer back.

Do you have a source for that? I'm curious, I've never read that before.

Faulgor

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Every year I'm reading such threads expecting rich stories, deep concepts and obscure lore just to be reminded "it's ESO park baby!" on release and just go watch some third party deep lore dives, if tes related even.

Hope Beth involvement wasn't just an approval stamp. Not sure if any competent tes writers are left with Kuhlmann's departure.

Yeah, after suffering through Starfield, we are reaching the point where I prefer ZOS over BGS' writing ...

I must disagree. With something this lore/story significant and the impact that it could have on the franchise as a whole, not just ESO, I would rather have Beth at the helm. ESO should follow the meta narrative, not the other way around. Lets not forget that Beth had to step in and stop Zos from bringing the Dwemer back.

I would have agreed with that, the problem is I'm no longer sure there's anyone at the helm at BGS.

HappyTheCamper

Hey if the upcoming PTS this Monday adds new lore books, it’d be great if people shared those with the community. Especially if they involve Ithelia!

Like something about, idk, the Magna-ge or something…totally unrelated (but not entirely.)

OtarTheMad

Syldras wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Lets not forget that Beth had to step in and stop Zos from bringing the Dwemer back.

Do you have a source for that? I'm curious, I've never read that before.

I was unaware of this as well so I looked it up and found this on UESP:

In an interview with Game Informer, creative director Rich Lambert informed that the team had every intention of pursuing the mysteries surrounding the Dwemer, but Todd Howard “kindly reminded [them] that this was something [they] will never do, [they] will never come out and spoil the mystery and the secrets of the Dwemer.”Bill Slavicsek explained in 2022 that the team "also believe in the rules of the universe and there are certain mysteries that will never be answered. The Dwemer are one of those — [they] are not going to step anywhere near that."

So ZOS didn’t want to bring Dwemer back, just look into why they disappeared but Bethesda said no. Bethesda’s laid more hints out than anyone so kind of weird. Just so funny “this is something we will never do”… ahhh College of Winterhold side quest, mage from Morthal dialogue both from Skyrim and both pretty much gave us a picture of what happened.

Syldras

OtarTheMad wrote: »

So ZOS didn’t want to bring Dwemer back, just look into why they disappeared but Bethesda said no.

Already knew that. The part I was wondering about was bringing Dwemer back because that did sound rather unlikely even for ZOS

OtarTheMad

Syldras wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

So ZOS didn’t want to bring Dwemer back, just look into why they disappeared but Bethesda said no.

Already knew that. The part I was wondering about was bringing Dwemer back because that did sound rather unlikely even for ZOS

Yeah agreed.

And it’s not like ZOS couldn’t just do a story where a Bosmer spinner sends you into the past and you meet a Dwemer. Heck the last living Dwemer is literally alive right now and we could meet him but I doubt ZOS will put him in the game.

Syldras

OtarTheMad wrote: »

And it’s not like ZOS couldn’t just do a story where a Bosmer spinner sends you into the past and you meet a Dwemer. Heck the last living Dwemer is literally alive right now and we could meet him but I doubt ZOS will put him in the game.

I think they could. Actually it would be nice, narration-wise, if it wasn't too obvious, though. As in you only understand who he (probably) is if you read between the lines and have knowledge of the lore (they already did something like that once: I'm still wondering how many people not that familiar with the lore missed the fact that Wretched Spire in the Deadlands is Old Mournhold). Yagrum should still look rather normal at this point; the way we see him in TES 3 is after he contracted corprus disease in the third era.

OtarTheMad

Syldras wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

And it’s not like ZOS couldn’t just do a story where a Bosmer spinner sends you into the past and you meet a Dwemer. Heck the last living Dwemer is literally alive right now and we could meet him but I doubt ZOS will put him in the game.

I think they could. Actually it would be nice, narration-wise, if it wasn't too obvious, though. As in you only understand who he (probably) is if you read between the lines and have knowledge of the lore (they already did something like that once: I'm still wondering how many people not that familiar with the lore missed the fact that Wretched Spire in the Deadlands is Old Mournhold). Yagrum should still look rather normal at this point; the way we see him in TES 3 is after he contracted corprus disease in the third era.

I’d love that. They already did that with Falmer in Western Skyrim… basically having them in the game but no one truly understanding what they are.

OtarTheMad

Hopefully with Bethesda being okay with Ithelia it means that some things in lore are okay to be explored. Not every thing needs to be mysterious or avoided. No Imga, no Lilmothiit, no Kamal, no snow elven ruins or cities turned into something else, no Yagrum, no Falinesti etc.

It’s thousands of years between now and the next game I believe right? So some things could be included but then “forgotten to time”

Kalle_Demos

My post was misleading, I apologize. I stand by my opinion that Beth should be involved in subject matter like new Princes and Dwemer, anything large enough to affect the meta and franchise as a whole.

Syldras

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

I stand by my opinion that Beth should be involved in subject matter like new Princes and Dwemer, anything large enough to affect the meta and franchise as a whole.

I'm quite sure that's the usual procedure. Not with every single tiny side quest, but every time a more "serious" lore topic comes up.

TaSheen

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

My post was misleading, I apologize. I stand by my opinion that Beth should be involved in subject matter like new Princes and Dwemer, anything large enough to affect the meta and franchise as a whole.

Beth was involved in Ithela, according to what Rich said in the stream.

StarOfElyon

Stille_desAethers wrote: »

please correct me if i'm getting something wrong. her name seems to evoke the greek "aletheia" to me, often translated as "truth," but actually closer to un-obliviating.

when you die in ancient greece, a nice man ferries you across the river lethe so that you may forget your mortal life. a-lethe is the negation of this process– a re-collection.

herma mora appears to have great interest in obliviating ithelia. he is after all a prince of the arcane– of secreting away knowledge. she is what refuses to be concealed. his shadow.

i'm no expert on the lore, but that is what first came to mind.

I think her name came from Alethea (truth). The symbolism of the mirror (or hand mirror) is knowledge of self. I'm not a gnostic but I know the phrase "know thy self". She might be an agent of self-actualization. Maybe a "Sophia" or "Lucifer" type of archetype.

Syldras

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The symbolism of the mirror (or hand mirror) is knowledge of self. I'm not a gnostic but I know the phrase "know thy self". She might be an agent of self-actualization. Maybe a "Sophia" or "Lucifer" type of archetype.

Gnothi sauton?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself
In my country, it's mostly known as a phrase later used by philosophers from the era of Enlightenment on, such as Kant and Hegel. So nothing related to religion, actually almost the opposite (although concealed).

And I don't see self-knowledge and "rebel" archetypes like Lucifer as synonymous, either. Of course, without self-knowledge there wouldn't have been a motivation to rebel, to feel the need to make autarchic decisions, but still, it's more.

Also, don't forget that this is a ZOS game.

Syldras

StarOfElyon wrote: »

The symbolism of the mirror (or hand mirror) is knowledge of self.

Oh, and I forgot this part, this would interest me - in which tradition? Because from culture to culture and era to era the symbolism varies a lot. Most connotations I know are rather negative, with mirrors, especially hand mirrors, as a sign of superficiality, vanity and excess (that's why you find it in so many Baroque vanitas still life paintings). Although, some myths also know the mirror as a tool to banish evil spirits. But there are really dozens of different interpretations (and I'm not even sure if ZOS really had any of them in mind).

TaSheen

Til Eulespiegel's headstone has an owl and a hand mirror - and somewhere I read something that indicated that to be a visual representation of "showing others themselves". Way too long ago now.... no idea where it came from.

Syldras

Eulenspiegel, if literally translated, means "owl mirror", and there's also a German idiom "jemandem den Spiegel vorhalten", literally "to (forcibly) hold the mirror in front of someone's face (so the person is forced to look at themselves)", meaning showing that person their mistakes, confronting them with them.

I still think ZOS didn't have that much of a deep meaning in mind behind Ithelia's mirror theme.

Maybe the mirror as a symbol of something like an alternate reality? There are so many stories, from fairytales to classic literature to fantasy movies, where people see a different world behind the mirror - or can even step through it to enter another reality. A shattered mirror could mean fracturing this alternate reality into hundreds and thousands of different shards, different realities and different possibilies.

TaSheen

Probably true that ZOS wasn't going that deep. But Ithelia standing in shattered crystals....