We Need to Talk About Edward [Lore Discission]

ShedsHisTail · June 2016

Alright, so I sort of went down the rabbit hole trying to sort out a couple of inconsistencies in Elder Scrolls lore and I arrived at the story of King Edward.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:King_Edward

King Edward is a series of books first encountered in Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall. There are 12 chapters in the series and the story involves references to a number of known characters and places in Elder Scrolls lore. What I'm trying to determine is if King Edward is supposed to be a true story, or if it's more of a fable.

While the character of Moraelyn, who plays a significant role in the story of Kind Edward, and his family and clan are well established prominent figures in Dunmer; King Edward himself doesn't show up on any lists of Kings I can find anywhere. Neither does his father King Corcyr I of Daggerfall or his mother, Aliera of Wayrest. Furthermore, in trying to date the supposed time period of the story we're only given a few point of reference; "before the Reguards came and the glorious Septim Empire was formed," but after the goblins drove the Dwemer from Hammerfell.

This gives us a rough timeframe of somewhere between 1E 700, when the Dwemer disappeared from Hammerfell (though at no fault of any goblin) and either:

1E 808 - when the Redguards conquered Hammerfell or
2E 566 - when the Greater Daggerfall covenant is born from the joining of Highrock and Hammerfell by the marriage of Emeric to Maraya. From a native Daggerfall perspective this might be perceived as the Redguards "arriving."

So, that first timeframe 1E 700 - 1E 808, is 108 years.
The second is a window of about 2,700 years.

Either way, knowing what we know about Moraelyn, this would make him at least 300 years old at the beginning of the story.

Disregarding Dragon breaks and knowing that the book references the Septim Empire, we can deduce that it was written after 2E 854 but no later than 3E 405 (the events of ESII). So, I'm leaning toward the story of Edward being a work of fiction with a more moralistic purpose (since many of the stories include lessons and philosophy, not to mention unicorns and riding around on Akatosh's back), than an actual source of Tamrielic history.

Was curious if this is the correct assessment, or if any of you other lore nerds can point me to something more concrete.
If it -is- history, perhps someone can help me place Edward and his family into the timeline.

capncronic365 · February 2022

I know - way late answer, but the only relevant information I could dig up is a bit of info from Queen Aliera - the lore mother of King Edward - at least according to the novels - thing is she is a real person - her father was a beta tester who went by the handle smaug - who happens to also be the source of the name akatosh - the dragon god of time, with the little I found that could explain any of it - likely it was considered for lore, but discarded and made fiction - because the person they were basing Queen Aliera on, was a minor at the time, so I guess that made people uncomfortable with what they had come up with, hence it getting cut - anyhow here is the link to that tidbit of information https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/8mgxla/queen_aliera/

it's kind of cool that they incorperated stuff inspired by people outside the dev team - in this case beta testers.

ArchMikem · February 2022

You know, instead of actually labeling the thread "Lore Discussion", we have an actual section for Lore threads.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/lore

Čičiliusku · February 2022

Almost 6 years later...

Also, alot of lore from Arena-Daggerfall era has been retconned ever since. So there are quite inconsistencies if you compare them to the newer series.

VaranisArano · February 2022

Thread necromancy aside, it amuses me that people always forget about the unicorn in TES IV Oblivion.

RisenEclipse · February 2022

Look, just accept eso for what it is. There are so many lore issues, that at this point you might as well just enjoy the game and not think about it too hard. My biggest gripe with this game is the need for so many bloody apocalypses. Look, I understand this is a period where apparently a lot of its history was forgotten. But it seems a LITTLE ridiculous that the whole of Tamriel collectively forgot about coldharbour apocalypse, tri daedric prince apocalypse, dragon apocalypse, monster army apocalypse, oblivion crises 2.0 apocalypse. It's why I very much so disagrees with them setting this game in the past. Or at least do it with a lot more... subtler stories. Then there's the issue where they announced that they were never planning to change the year of the game (technically it's still 2E 582 everyone) so now everything is actually happening at once in the same year. Besides these there are a lot of lore inconsistencies, world building issues (so Solitude remains the exact same size and shape for a thousand years because apparently Skyrims population stays consistently the same the whole time?)

So honestly, if you try poking at things and letting it bother you, you're going to go crazy. Enjoy the game. Don't look too closely at it. And I dunno just assume dragon break if you really can't find a way to ignore it.

Kajuratus · February 2022

RisenEclipse wrote: »

Then there's the issue where they announced that they were never planning to change the year of the game (technically it's still 2E 583 everyone) so now everything is actually happening at once in the same year.

Remember that's not actually how the game works. 2E 582 is when the game starts, and since you can play the game in any order, the developers have to assume that anything CAN take place in 2E 582. But game time is personal to you. Time does pass for your character, the world and stories just don't reflect that because of the constraints of game development. Its like worrying about not having a canonical race for the Vestige. Well of course not, that's completely up to the player. The only reason people would get annoyed over everything supposedly happening in the same year would be if they wanted to look up the events of this game on a wiki timeline. Thats literally it. Think about the Beyond Skyrim projects, all of the quests that they're adding are going to have to take place during 4E 201, because the player will be able to leave Helgen and head straight to wherever they want.

VaranisArano · February 2022

Kajuratus wrote: »

RisenEclipse wrote: »

Then there's the issue where they announced that they were never planning to change the year of the game (technically it's still 2E 583 everyone) so now everything is actually happening at once in the same year.

Remember that's not actually how the game works. 2E 582 is when the game starts, and since you can play the game in any order, the developers have to assume that anything CAN take place in 2E 582. But game time is personal to you. Time does pass for your character, the world and stories just don't reflect that because of the constraints of game development. Its like worrying about not having a canonical race for the Vestige. Well of course not, that's completely up to the player. The only reason people would get annoyed over everything supposedly happening in the same year would be if they wanted to look up the events of this game on a wiki timeline. Thats literally it. Think about the Beyond Skyrim projects, all of the quests that they're adding are going to have to take place during 4E 201, because the player will be able to leave Helgen and head straight to wherever they want.

That IS how the game works. You can roleplay that time is passing for your characters, but roleplay isn't gameplay. Gameplay-wise, this is all happening in the same year. All the lorebooks and the events that happen in game point to the same year.

According to ZOS Loremaster Leamon Tuttle:

"So, time in-game is personal to you. Given that multiple players can play content in any order, we've resisted the push to advance to 2E 583. For that reason, we assume that all events of ESO take place in 2E 582."
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bwdb0r/comment/epwvu1a?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

"And yeah, we edited the body text of "Birds of Wrothgar" to reduce confusion on this point. I think there are good arguments both for and against, but remaining in 582 is the current deign decision."
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/e84ule/comment/fab3gep?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

In other words, you can roleplay the passage of time if you like, but ESO is going to continue to present content as if it is all happening in the same year. That's the current design decision. The chronology of stuff like Euraxia Tharn and especially Blackwood timeline with the fall of the Longhouse Emperors all points to the same year.

We can pretend otherwise, and I usually do pretend that at least some time has passed, but that's not going to be reflected in the gameplay or the lore.

ColovianHastur · February 2022

I should mention that people should keep in mind King Edward it's a in-universe fictional series, and fictional authors have freedom to change stuff to suit their worldbuilding.

It also shouldn't be used as a basis for theological research. It's like using the Da Vinci Code as a valid source for Christian theology and history.

RisenEclipse · February 2022

VaranisArano wrote: »

Kajuratus wrote: »

RisenEclipse wrote: »

Then there's the issue where they announced that they were never planning to change the year of the game (technically it's still 2E 583 everyone) so now everything is actually happening at once in the same year.

Remember that's not actually how the game works. 2E 582 is when the game starts, and since you can play the game in any order, the developers have to assume that anything CAN take place in 2E 582. But game time is personal to you. Time does pass for your character, the world and stories just don't reflect that because of the constraints of game development. Its like worrying about not having a canonical race for the Vestige. Well of course not, that's completely up to the player. The only reason people would get annoyed over everything supposedly happening in the same year would be if they wanted to look up the events of this game on a wiki timeline. Thats literally it. Think about the Beyond Skyrim projects, all of the quests that they're adding are going to have to take place during 4E 201, because the player will be able to leave Helgen and head straight to wherever they want.

That IS how the game works. You can roleplay that time is passing for your characters, but roleplay isn't gameplay. Gameplay-wise, this is all happening in the same year. All the lorebooks and the events that happen in game point to the same year.

According to ZOS Loremaster Leamon Tuttle:

"So, time in-game is personal to you. Given that multiple players can play content in any order, we've resisted the push to advance to 2E 583. For that reason, we assume that all events of ESO take place in 2E 582."
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/bwdb0r/comment/epwvu1a?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

"And yeah, we edited the body text of "Birds of Wrothgar" to reduce confusion on this point. I think there are good arguments both for and against, but remaining in 582 is the current deign decision."
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/e84ule/comment/fab3gep?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

In other words, you can roleplay the passage of time if you like, but ESO is going to continue to present content as if it is all happening in the same year. That's the current design decision. The chronology of stuff like Euraxia Tharn and especially Blackwood timeline with the fall of the Longhouse Emperors all points to the same year.

We can pretend otherwise, and I usually do pretend that at least some time has passed, but that's not going to be reflected in the gameplay or the lore.

Precisely. The year has not changed in the game or its stories. So it's ALL taking place in the same year. Which I personally don't agree with that. They did put a lorebook in the game in wrothgar saying that it did go up one year. But then they retconned that a few years later and decided no years had passed. You can pretend that years have passed for yourself, but you can also just pretend that all lore inconsistencies and errors aren't there either. But that doesn't change fact, which some people can't overlook or pretend it's something else.

Ipsius · February 2022

We don't talk about Edward, no, no