"Stoics"

Parasaurolophus · January 2021

In one of the dialogues, Lyris says:

Did you and Sai ever talk about what happened in the Halls of Torment? "We're two of a kind. Stoic. Is that what people call us? Our hearts are connected, but we don't talk about our feelings. We don't even understand them ourselves. Maybe we'll talk about it someday, but today's not that day."

How correct is the word "Stoics" here? How correct is it in general to use the name of a particular philosophical school of reality in the fantasy world? Liris could just as well say that she was a Hegelian.

VaranisArano · January 2021

Its entirely correct in one sense of the word: "a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining."

As for the etymology of that word, I assume that either fantasy translation convention is in full force here or the ZOS writers didn't catch that anachronism. Or perhaps they did catch it, but decided that it wasn't worth spending the time to explore schools of Tamrielic philosophy enough to build up an alternate term (as they've done for various Dunmer, Altmer, and Argonian terms) in order to say in different words that Lyris and Sai are stoic.

Ratzkifal · January 2021

I feel like in most cases words like these have a similar origin as in the real world with slight alterations. So it's not a greek school of philosophy but an Altmeri school of philosophy or something, with everything being the same except for the slightly altered names.

If we look closely enough a lot of words are inexplicable in the context of the TES universe. Perhaps this should be viewed through the Tolkien lense where the game is just a translation from actual Tamrielic for our enjoyment purposes and liberties have been taken here and there to make it easier to read and understand.

Syldras · January 2021

BrownChicken wrote: »

How correct is it in general to use the name of a particular philosophical school of reality in the fantasy world? Liris could just as well say that she was a Hegelian.

Well, I guess they haven't thought much about the background of the word "stoic" that is used colloquially (and without any knowledge of Stoa as a concept) by many people today.

I understand that it bothers you, though. I have seen a few examples in ESO where real life things that do not exist on Nirn are used in names. Think of the Alinor Allemande dance. The word "Allemande" is based on the French word "allemand", which means "German" - an Allemande is historically a German dance. Or the Great Dane dog (Dane = Danish, from Denmark). Okay, I've just seen that they call that pet "Daenian" in English and refer to Daenia, a region in High Rock in the description. But its German name is "Großdänischer Hund" (Great Danish dog) and still refers to Denmark