What would happen if all the Hist died?

xxslam48xxb14_ESO · November 2019

I have been pondering a lot about the hist and their connection to argonians. Wondering whether or not they are evil or if their mental and spiritual enslavement of an entire race is benevolent. The idea that they are evil slave masters endlessly reincarnating and memory jacking the argonians for eternity got me thinking about the matrix. In The Matrix we got a similar relationship going on, but instead of Hist there is machines and the Argonians are humans. The Humans eventually rebel when they learn they are being manipulated and farmed in a virtual reality(very oversimplified). In the Matrix there is even humans that reincarnate within the virtual reality, so there is more then a couple similarities.

On to my question though, what would happen if a Lukiul argonian(an argonian born outside blackmarsh/no hist connection) started a rebellion against the Hist. The way I see it Lukiul argonians are more or less "red pilled"(I promise you I am referring to the matrix) they live outside the Hists control and can thus think freely. I don't think it would be an impossible task to start roasting every Hist tree and freeing their tribes in the process, but what would happen? Would argonians finally be free to move on to the afterlife? Would they die with the hist? Its confirmed argonians can live out their entire life from birth to death without Hist interference, so I doubt they would die. I think they can even have souls without the Hist, afterall it is possible for the player character to be argonian in all TES games. In Morrwind your character has the soul of Indoril Nerever and in skyrim you have the soul of a dragon, neither of which are souls from the hist.

Jacen_Veron · November 2019

If it didn't kill Hist-born Argonians, I'm sure it would be an incredibly polarizing thing.
It would probably be as if a part of them died off, a half of themselves gone, and no way to connect to anything spiritually. It might turn them into less emotional and social beings, as they now lack a religion, their god having been killed. It may also spurn them from other faiths after seeing theirs get uprooted, they may feel a new level of hopelessness not often explored in the series. And it might make them vengeful for the loss of their spiritual connection.

Alterantively, the loss of this connection may be as simple as it was for the Vestige, or any soul trapped victim. It may simply be an inconvenience, a constant missing feeling with no notable downsides. The soul would then become fair game to whichever god they choose to worship afterward, assuming they would.

In regards to Argonian player characters, it is more than likely they would always be Lukiul. Most player characters are portrayed as uninformed outsiders with no knowledge of any Elder Scrolls lore, even of their own race. So it would be weird for any middle-aged Hist-born Argonian to be asking things like: "What's the Hist?".

Ultimately, the effects of killing the Hist would quite possibly be devestating to all Hist-born Argonians. At the very least, it would leave them with a sort of missing aspect of their existence. And at the worst, it may turn them into a sort of feral being, perhaps motivated by the loss of their dead god. At any rate, it isn't a safe bet. While I personally don't trust the Hist, I can see that the Argonian dependence on it is too great to remove them from it without great side-effects.

xxslam48xxb14_ESO · November 2019

Wasn't there an argonian in murkmire whos hist tree was killed? The old guy that carried the branch with him. He was pretty sad about it, but he didn't seem be suffering any other side effect. I assume now that every pc argonian is lukiul, it just makes the most sense. I wonder how many npcs in the single player games are as well. We know during the oblivion crisis they were called back to defend the hist, so would that make all the remaining argonians Lukiul? Argonians in the single player games are all very human/mer culturally with a few exceptions. There is a very clear cultural difference when you look at eso's tribal argonians. We know its the hist that makes the tribal argonians behave and talk the way they do, so if they don't behave that way they must be Lukiul.

I hope one day we can have a storyline digging deeper into the Hist's true motives. I just can't see them being good, neutral at best. Playing with someones soul and mind controlling an entire race is surely not good, no matter the excuse. Having control like that over Argonians probably makes even Molag jealous. Most sinister part about it is they are totally convinced that the Hist is good to them, they will never have the will to break free for as long as the Hist continues to live. They need an outsider to free them and force the truth upon them.

Aliyavana · December 2019

probably something amazing from a dunmer perspective

Iccotak · January 2020

Aliyavana wrote: »

probably something amazing from a dunmer perspective

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