Talos, The Mantella & the Warp in the West - Daggerfall Lore
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- What is the Mantella really, and how did it cause a dragon break?
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/ jwlar
Watch more retrospective analysis and reviews:
• Retrospectives
Timestamps, click to skip ahead!
Introduction 0:00
The Mantella 2:00
The Man-God 9:44
The Warp in the West 14:53
Retcons 18:10
Outro 21:51
Talos, The Mantella & the Warp in the West - The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall Analysis | Part 7 in-text form:
It’s common for people to ignore Daggerfall’s importance to the lore of the Elder Scrolls, while Kirkbride’s Morrowind contribution to the series should not be understated, it seems many attributes a lot of the Elder Scrolls world-building to his style of writing when he was often just following the form of the previous lore in the series.
When you look into just how much of the lore was first introduced not in that third instalment, but instead 6 years earlier… Undoubtedly, Daggerfall lore needs more love. There are so many things we owe to The Elder Scrolls II...
The Eight Divines. The 16 Daedric Princes. Jyggalag. Baan Dar. The history of the Yokuda. Sword-singing. The history of the Septim Empire. The Skyrim Conquests and the War of Succession. The Direnni clan. Prophet Marukh and the Alessian Order. The battle of Glenumbria Moors. The Siege of Orsinium. The Dark Brotherhood. Every single guild. The Psijics Order and last but most certainly not least - The Numidium.
While this video won’t focus on every aspect of the lore introduced in Daggerfall, because as that list shows, along with the vast number of books on screen right now, is that there is far more than people may realise when they discuss the Big 3, as they seem to have become known.
Instead, this video will take a deep dive into the aspects that affect Daggerfall’s main story the most, and the effects that leave the largest lasting impact on the series as a whole.
This boils down to two features in particular, the Mantella that powers the mighty Numidium, and the Warp in the West, the first documented case of a Dragon Break.
As a quick disclaimer, to help explain some of the more complicated aspects, I will be pulling from lore that was written after Daggerfall. This intro may have had a snarky undertone against those that dismiss Daggerfall’s lore, but the new lore added by Kirkbride as well as Peterson in Morrowind and later still helps to improve the stories within said lore.
Art by:
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#elderscrolls #daggerfall #jwlar - Hry
Mannimarco: "The Underking will try to destroy the world! He's pure evil!"
Underking: "Bro I literally just wanna die"
Reminds me of Invader Zim
"Gir, self destruct"
"FINALLY!" *boom*
Perhaps, by creating the God Talos, the Underking DOES destroy the whole world...?
The events of Elder Scrolls 3, 4 and 5 show the destruction of The Empire and the Dunmer power.
Underking is literally me fr fr.
In our real world, "Talos" was the name of an ancient Greek mythological figure. A giant man made of bronze, built by Hephaestus, their god of craftsmanship and blacksmithing (and volcanoes). A strong parallel to the Numidium!
And in D&D there's a god of destruction named Talos. And what did the Numidium do? It destroys things, and is referred to as the metal god.
I do know that they did go into all mythologys to get some stories and characters
Exactly!
I think it may be possible that Talos reclaimed the Numidium during the Warp, meaning he could return to the material plane as a hyper-powerful, semi-omniscient bronze giant
@@histori6259 Not quite, but Numidium absolutely had a hand in his ascension. If you ask Kirkbride (yeah, yeah, I know) the Numidium has been in a basically infinite Seige of Alinor and will _eventually_ return to yell NO at everything in an attempt to pretty much negate the world.
Pretty sure it was Ysgramor that was the one that conquered Skyrim and wiped out the snow elves, not Wulfharth. The nordic empire had already been established in Skyrim before Wulfharth came to Skyrim from Atmora.
Yep, you’re right, just checked. My bad.
Yep, Wulfharth pushed the Allessian Order out of Skyrim.
yeah, came here to say that too. Up
14:55 "No one has found any proof that it [the Numidium] exists."
Dagoth Ur: *Pay no attention to the towering Dwemer hulk behind me.*
Akulakahn, I think spelled that right was a second Numidium that Dagoth was building. No one knows what happened to the first one.
Kukluksklahn is a pale imitation of the original Numidium.
@JoshSweetvale maybe, maybe not. V2 would have the benefit of having the heart of Lorkhan as it's battery which is presumably better than the Mantella
Blizzard made one route canon. Eidos made one ending cause another and then another in a big domino effect. Then there's Bethesda who put the Iliac Bay into a state of superposition, making each ending split the world into seven different timelines which all reconverged 2 days later. People living in the region are left with contradicting memories of what happened, some have multiple sets of memories, several key figures are documented as being in multiple places at once, and even centuries later people are still trying to make sense of it.
So everything happened and simultaneously nothing happened. Except Tiber Septim becoming a God.
@@Ratich and mannimarco becoming a god, the underking getting his death, orcs becoming recognized as people, etc
far more has happened then just tiber becoming a god.
@@Ratich So every single ending of the game came true that's what happened in the dragon break. Time split, all endings were realized, Talos becomes a deity, time then reconverges into one timeline making all endings true.
I miss this level of meta that is still mostly exclusive to Morrowind :/ Vivec making his city via a heavily mysticized description of using the game's packaged mod tools is just so fucking fantastic
@@salmon_wineWhen Vivec also describes dieing as being respawning in a video game. Same mystical way.
Gotta admit, I'm addicted to your daggerfall takes. A review on Daggerfall Unity mods with the best lore connections / possibilities would be welcome.
That's a great idea :) Thanks!
12:27 "Ysmir's role becomes cloudy"
Hehe, I get it.
I don't pause Elden Ring for much, but this is one such thing 👌
Your channel is so based and very important to the Daggerfall community
Thank you :)
Let it die.
@@dickrichard626 No.
I think this is the first time I understand so well what "The Warp in the West" entails, thanks to your explanation. Thank you very much for this. :)
Zurin = shezzarine
Tiber = shezzarine
Ysmir = shezzarine
imagine being a god with a tragic backstory (depending on the culture that views him), tries to send 3 of his own avatar's to nirn to set shit straight, only for one of those avatar's (tiber) to be a complete dickbag, ruin everything, all 3 merge, create a new god, which then in many pantheons replaces yourself
just fuck, why cant Lorkh catch a break :C
I mean, Lorkhn is dead. His body is flying around Nirn. If aspecs are consideration, then Talos is more of a reborn Lorkhn that his replacement.
I'd argue that Akatosh sort of planned exactly what you're talking about. Probably a number of collaborators. (Keep in mind that Akatosh and Lorkhan, despite being rivals, are two sides of the same coin.) Lorkhan wanted someone to achieve Amaranth which would mean no more Akatosh, or anyone else for that matter.
- Kyne (Lorkhan's former handmaiden) sends Alessia a Shezzarine in the form of Pelinal Whitestrake, but he has an Elvish name for some reason and Shezzar disappears not long before Pelinal shows up. Also Pelinal is aware of Reman who himself leads to a vision of Tiber.
- Akatosh pops in and tells Alessia "yo, I'll, like, protect you n' stuff if you build an empire that worships me, sorry for being too Elvish for you"
- Shezzar is forgotten in the Empire for not being Elf-friendly enough, and what Shezzarines remain aren't associated with the Missing God as they used to be.
- This continues until Tiber shows up, who actually re-institutes the worship of Shezzar somewhat, a Shezzarine ruling an Akatosh-driven empire.
- Three Shezzarines appear at once, in fact, Tiber figures out one of the Walking Ways (somehow), and mantles Lorkhan with his unwitting partners, mirroring Lorkhan's tricky use of the other Et'Ada to create the mortal world.
So now Space God is back, and doesn't have any beef with Time God any more, seemingly. Whether that's actually a good thing for mortals is debatable.
I don't understand why people say Ebonarm was a Redguard, from the Ebonarm book in DAGGERFALL:
"He rides into the middle of the blood soaked field and dismounts. He is a very imposing figure. His very tall and heavily muscled body is encased in ebony armor. His ebony helmet does not hide the flowing reddish blonde hair and beard which appear almost as shimmering gold, nor does it shield the steel blue eyes that seem to pierce all they fall upon."
yes, he is adored by Redguards and the fighter guilds in Hammerfell are shrines dedicated to him, but unless he was a black man with red hair and blue eyes (which is rare but possible in our world) he was always most definitely a Nord
Its cool that this and the making of Daggerfall were also released separately from the retrospective.
When trying to make the games make sense as I play, I do what most players do & construct a personal canon. When the Graybeards name the player Ysmir during their ceremony, I look at that as the player mantling at least a portion of old Ysmir Wulfheart. By extending that reasoning, praying at a shrine of Talos & gaining the benefit is the player simply drawing upon the essence of Ysmir as part of Talos. You're tapping into what is already yours.
There are probably holes in this, but that's one thing which makes this series interesting through the years.
I'm pretty sure that as soon as Talos became a thing, Ysmir ceased to exist as a distinct entity. Prior to Skyrim, Ysmir was the Nord name for Talos. The Greybeards were likely just stating that the Dovahkiin was mantling/an incarnation of Talos.
@@NukestarmasterWell, we do meet "Wulf" in Morrowind. If Talos is anything like the RuneQuest gods he was inspired by, he's _simultaniously_ just Talos and also Tiber, Wulfhearth and Arctus, or at least the three of them are "aspects" of Talos which still have their own agency sometimes.
I consider the fact that i once successfully installed dosbox and mounted daggerfall and arena and played them, to be an acheivement
Isn't Tiber also a Dragonborn? That means he is not just a Shezzarine but also has a certain aspect of Aka.
Very true, and very important because Akatosh and Lorkhan are increasingly showin as two sides of a coin that seems to really hate itself (or at least did).
I think Talos is the result of a very long project on Akatosh's part to get the Space part of Time & Space back into the mix, while being subservient to him rather than another war starting.
The results of the warp in the west weren't only felt in the bay region.
I barely know anything about the topic but I know Cyrodil was a jungle before the dragonbreak.
The Cyrodil change was from a separate dragon break.
It retroactively became the Cyrodiil we know so it technically was never a jungle because history was rewritten.
The eso team puts this down to a transcription error by a scholar, which I prefer to a dragonbreak honestly. Maybe during Tiber’s reign there was a population boom in Cyrodiil which led to more wilderness areas being deforested and converted to pasture and cropland. It’s easy to see how exaggeration and mistranslation turned this into Tiber single handedly changing the landscape.
It _may_ have been a jungle. It might've just been a transcription error like Tom Mitchell there said, or the other theory put forth in ESO is that White-Gold, being a reality anchor, has some affect on the local climate which changed over time as it's masters changed.
It was never implied to be the dragon-break, though. It was implied that Tiber was a CHIMster ("I see how you hate jungle... I breath now, in ROYALTY")
Guys ESO is not canon.
Go look at the cash shop and you will see why @@colbyboucher6391
So there’s seemingly a concept in elder scrolls called Jills that are something like female Dovah, aspects of Akatosh that repair time, rather than consuming it like Alduin. Specifically they fix dragon breaks. It’s basically a lore point that retcons the retcon of your retcon to give you a more coherent version of events
Well, there might be. In the Kirkbrideverse there is. Whether they'll become "Bethesda canon" remains to be seen.
TES 1: The gods battle over Nirn, unclaimed plain.
TES 2: Mortals meddle with plans of gods.
TES 3: Mortals challenge the plans of gods.
TES IV: Gods challenge plans of mortals.
("When the next Elder Scroll is written you shall be its scribe.")
TES V: Dragons challenge gods and mortals using time.
(Insert Alduin's Wall)
TES VI: ?
Personally I suspect the Dwemer will play a far greater part in the entire lore of Nirn than is generally thought. Countless assessments of their abilities have been done...
I am of the opinion the Dwemer understood how to travel to different realms of Oblivion without the aid of gods, and fled Nirn because of they recognized it is "The Arena of the Gods", and used methods to attempt to preserve and observe their cities for their eventual return.
can't believe it's already been half a year since I found your first daggerfall video. this series has been a lovely thing to look forward to every month or so, and the effort you put in clearly shows! thank you for making such interesting lore videos
Thank you! It really means a lot :)
I always wondered why there was no Shor's temples and shrines in Skyrim. Yes, he is a "dead god" but according to books he was always honored by nords. But then I noticed how many Talos shrines are there in the game. They literally everywhere. So maybe after the events of Daggerfall all Shors shrines were replaced by Talos's?
Yes and no. This is more of a retcon then anything else because even after the warp in the west the nords still venerated shor. Technically in skyrim they still do but there's no temples. In fact most of the other God's of their pantheon they don't follow anymore they got heavily imperialised.
Which makes no sense since they were under imperial rule for the entire 3rd era and didn't stop venerating the old God's. I think bgs went in this direction because of how akatosh is related to the main story and that talos is worshipped by most nords who's apart of the imperial pantheon
You can watch my final near 4-hour retrospective of Daggerfall here:
czcams.com/video/16YEMiNxNCs/video.html
It includes an updated version of this video as well, correcting any mistakes I made.
Can't wait!
2:26 - i made that picture hahah - cool to see it being used (i was Modji-33 on DA before i started doing cartoons for YT)
Woah, that’s awesome! Thank you for your epic work!
good on you for tackling daggerfall's original release period next! i keep finding conflicting reports so i'm curious to see what you can dig up on it
Gonna be honest, Double Negative has done most of the heavy lifting, but it's still an interesting topic with so many different dates.
The only thing that is undeniable about Daggerfall is the main theme slaps.
Retcon is short for retroactive continuity. I think its funny that the complexity of ES lore was explained so well, but the real word thats straightforward got messed up.
Ah, CZcams has realized I’m doing my first Morrowind play through, and has no revealed this gem of a channel to me. Good stuff!
And yes, pun intended.
Haha, thanks!
So glad I discovered your channel. You do excellent work, keep it up!
10:00 wow, i never noticed that before. “Mind blown” moment lol. If the mantella did have part of his soul too it would be a cool reason to make him a divine
If TES II had all of High Rock rather than just the holds that surrounded the Iliac Bay, Jehanna would basically border The Reach of Skyrim, given that there's not unincorporated area between the two holds (I don't know if this is so). I find it odd that the Wrothgarian Mountains are just one large region, but I would also jot that down as 'we ran out of memory (RAM)', as that was a thing that happened a lot even back then.
(you can ask John Romero and Adrian Carmack about that)
...
Yeah, I like the name, Jehanna; in my native, it's similar to 'Yahana', a common feminine name. It translates to English as 'twirl', as a form of ritual dance. Actually, come to think of it, the *_Soulstresses_* of the Indie RPG, *_Edolie,_* can be seen constantly twirling about.
...
The Warp in the West reminds me of how the ending of Ys I: Omen was narrated in the SC-3000/Master System version (when Adol/Aron reads the Book of Fact/Dekt the ending is triggered); basically, it boils down to everything, all the monster attacks and the events of the game, had happened in an instant/one day, which is actually not maintained in later versions/re-releases, due to better Japanese translations.
...
Retcons due to poor translations, are exceptionally common in JRPGs. Final Fantasy is the worst of them, well, before VII anyway, with VI having a 'Warp in the West' of its' own, and more than one. The Mother series has a lot of retcons because of the same issues. Of course, the Mother series is twisted and dark, and American censors are a bunch of whiny dumbarses. The ESRB, don't get me started on them.
...
One more TES retcon: the D&D aspect being gradually dropped. It was mostly gone by TES III, and only a tiny bit of it remained by TES V.
Everything in current bethesda is excused with Dragon Breaks, for example: "X character too a massive shit in the latrine, but ended up not losing weight, surely this is the work of a DRAGON BREAK"
16:40 How can the stars and moons remain constant if there is a new freaking necromantic moon???
So THAT'S why you need to pray at talos shrines for the crusaders relics.. Pelinal was also a shezzarine.. If talos is a bunch of shezzarines, then it all adds up..
Ive got a couple of things to say about this. Firstly, I think it's odd that this is the only main series game to not have the main character a prisoner of the empire. I wonder if that wasn't a coincidence. I dont know why, but i feel there is somthing more to that. This is the game that had the biggest impact on the entire world, yet the only one where your character is not a prisoner. It feels strange. Second, I think what causes the most potholes in this series, is how ambitious the world building is. This game has an astounding amount of lore. I honestly think this game has more lore than even DnD. If you write a lot of lore, it becomes way easier to make potholes. I honestly think we forget the massive amount of world building this game had. I honestly feel that we need to cut them more slack. The people who made the lore obviously put their heart and soul into it.
I think the real game where the elder scrolls became what is today was adventures: redguard. That game, and the pocket guide to the empire that released alongside it, are the true skeleton of tamriel that should have been brought to life
i wonder how someone manterling a god compares to a ine... i.e Nerevarine etc...
and would the hero of kevatch then be counted as a Sheagorine? for mateling the daedtric prince of madness... also it is curious to think the hero of kevatch may still be him in skyrim...
Amazing!
I think many things are confusing nowadays because of Kirkbride tbh :/ As much as people likes his writings and C0DA, I think we should not think of things that he released after Morrowind as canon or anything like that at all
I think that was the entire point of C0DA.
Everything is canon. Nothing is canon. Every single person's individual character's adventure is canon to them and that's all that matters.
Yeah, I prefer Kirkbride's Elder Scrolls. Lore doesn't need to be clear cut. Mythology is full of contradictions.
I've always interpreted "retcon" to be short for "retroactive continuity"
TES lore is majestic
Killing Alduin is literally a dragon breaking event. Can't wait to see how the entirety of Skyrim is both under stormcloak and imperial control simultaneously in TES 6. Maybe it's ruled by a person named Ulfric Tulius, the new capital is Whiterun and he unites nedic people against the dominion , while the turning point of the second great war is focused around the Iliac bay once more...
And it's once again the war of men under Talos (in place for Shor) against mer under some newly introduced god in place of Auriel (or maybe Trinimac reborn in some mantling event?), which spells some kind of doom to Nirn (or current kalpa), while the player tries to prevent disaster by working with some Alessian cult serving the true Shor/Auriel (Akatosh) oversoul. Maybe we could even have a choice to take one of the two main sides and finally break Akatosh, wiping one part of him or the other from existence, as the former Alessian Order tried to. Maybe Herma Mora and his new servant might help the player in the neutral/cosmopolitan path
Mind you, all this was written by a mad man coming home after 12h shift, having only 1 hour of sleep before said shift (it's entirely my own fault) 🤣
I really hope, that TES 6 gets a more complex main story than skyrim and oblivion. But I highly doubt that. I don't have much trust in bethesda anymore
I've looked into the lore of Talos and dragon breaks, There doesn't seem to be much evidence supporting what you said about Tiber Septim retroactively becoming a god because of the warp in the west.
Firstly, I always thought that the in-world reason there's no mention of Talos in Daggerfall is because he simply wasn't worshiped in the Iliac Bay. I mean, all the city-states there are fighting for independence from the Empire, so why would they worship the very person that founded the empire they were fighting to break away from?
Secondly, I've read and heard nothing about dragonbreaks changing the past. As far as I can tell, dragonbreaks cause multiple timelines during a set time period to all be simultaneously true and they do not affect events before said time period.
Very good point, I've checked thorgh my sources again and cant find where I got that from, it must've been my own interpretation. I removed that paragraph using Yotube's editor for now, so it will be removed when CZcams updates it in a few hours. :)
Thnaks for watching!
@@Jwlar There could be something to your theory, so don't completely discard it. Maybe mention it in a future theories video.
The true reason is that bethesda had not invented Talos yet.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 I know, but that was my headcanon explaining why he's not acknowledged.
Jwlar is right about all of it and it’s all in game, the only question is who actually became a divine. I personally think it was Lorkhans bid to take his place back as a divine but some people think it’s Tiber literally.
I distinctly remember reading one thing that Talos' godhood is questionable if taken literally thag Tiber Septim ascended to godhood upon death and that is nothing but Septim propaganda to give legitimacy to the Empire by goving it a divine origin in its first Emperor.
The thing that really fucking irks me, is the banning of Talos because "a god cannot be a man". The Altmer also pray to Arkay, a god that used to be a man. The Thalmor are massive hippocrates
... oh, I just realized exactly what this is. This is a Mandela effect within TES lore, and Mantella sounds like a play on that... I shall now be referring to the Warp in the West as "the Mantella Effect"
Arkay used to be mortal according to some religions and even then we don't know what race. They pray to Phynaster and Syrabane and they used to be mortals except they were Elves instead of Humans
The Thalmor are a bunch of dumbarses. Sure as beans can't fight either. Hypocritical, asinine, unnecessary. #DragonBreak
Arkay is an example of unreliable narrators. different sources define the origins of this divine differently. If we take a step back though, and look at Elven religion, the Elves believe ALL the true Divines are ancestors, that's what Aedra means. (Aedra=Ancestor Daedra=Not our Ancestor ) This is the source of the Thalmor hating that Talos is worshipped as one of the Divines, He is not an ancestor of the Elves. They likely also would vehemently reject any notion that Arkay was a human man.
After having played every elder scrolls game to modded and unmodded death I have to say daggerfall is probably my favourite, especially with the daggerfall unity release
The warp in the west was caused by the activation of the numidium. Just like when tiber septim when he conquered the summer set isles that caused a dragonbreak. Also it wasnt thats the thing about dragonbreaks they dont make sence on purpose.
Ysgramor was giantkin he didn't have a normal life expectancy
Only wierd zoomer kids would ever compress this series to "The Big Three", real men even add in Arena.
Those original writers of elder scrolls should be praised more than Todd Howard. They gave us so much good content.
They call Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim the Big Three when Daggerfall is literally bigger than England
15:10 retroactively
I would love to play daggerful but i keep dying to the bat in the tutorial stage :(
can anyone help me run daggerfall unity GOG cut on my win8.1 pro pc?
You need a Dragon break.
The 8 divines? Excuse me?
Akatosh, Arkay, Dibella, Julianos, Kynareth, Mara, Stendarr, Zenithar. The 8 Divines. There was no Talos.
Ysmir was an aspect of Shor? I have never read this? What is the source?
I think the Five Songs of Wulfhart heavily implies that Shor was mantling Ysmir at Red Mountain. The account makes no sense if it was assumed that Shor was physically there at the battle, because then why else would he need to revive Ysmir's body. It's further supported by Arcturian Hersey, Ysmir claims that Tiber Septim "knew" Ysmir's position at Red Mountain, thinking that will power the Numidium. This further supports the idea.
@@PraveenJose18551 yes, but the Song just says that they were together and that Ysmir was his general.
@@RenanL.S. given the vagueness, I always took that to me than Shor wasn't physically there and was puppeting ysmir. I see no reason why Shor had to specifically reincarnate anyone, unless to use them as a body. The Arcturian heresy supports the theory because that's the only explanation of why Tiber Septim and Zurin Arctus would consider Ysmir's soul as important when learning about Red Mountain
@@PraveenJose18551 I disagree, as I remember it is said that Ysmir is Shor's general, so they cannot be the same. And Shor literally goes physically there and takes his heart back. At the AH it is said that Ysmir was weakened after the defeat of his god Shor, again implying that they are different.
Why Shor and Talos would want Ysmir? Because he is op as fuck. The guy, weakened, loose his heart, and is still able to defear the Numidium. This is completly insane.
16:52 "There are others on this earth, that could too" If the planet you live on is called Nirn ... why would you use the term earth? Shouldn't he have written, "there are others on this nirn ..." and so on?
Earth could also refer to ground or rock. Same as the word "terra" or "terrain"
@@OmGiTZElectric terra is the name of our planet, the same way earth is the name of our planet. It's just in another language. Terrain, is a word that comes from terra. Basically, would be "Nirnin" in the elder scrolls, logically. The terms, terra, earth, etc should literally not exist in that world :D
The dova kings said "I ve bought a nice Nirnin, now going to build a castle on it ... " :D
@@nidhogg6344 Counterpoint, that would be obnoxious as fuck to read.
@@Nukestarmaster or very funny to read xD
But isn't Talos supposed to be Tiber Septim?
yes.
Well, according to the theory he is... partly.
people who worship Talos in Skyrim are worshipping Tiber Septim who has become divine. How he achieved that divinity is unknown, and unexplained in any of the real Elder Scrolls games. just ignore whatever is in ESO.
@@baneblackguard584 I disagree. I enjoy ESO lore. Not every TES fan hates that game.
@@etinarcadiaego7424 my advice is still just to ignore lore from ESO or treat it as alternate universe, non-canon.
if you like ESO, congrats. it just feels completely out of touch with the lore from the single player games.
To me a retcon is when an important part of a story is changed to be incompatible with the older version, except with the excuse of an unreliable narrator or the fog of history. The exact locations of a town changing is only important if the exact location of it is relevant to important parts of the story, likewise with the climate. But also, what is classed as an important part of a story shouldn't just be taken on face value; if a character is hardy because they grew up in a desert, the true important part is that they grew up in a harsh environment, so unless part of their character is specific to having grown up in a desert, it can be changed to a jungle or a tundra etc without much important change to the character.
I would say a good example of a bad retcon is in the Dune series, where originally, there was no AI because humanity decided to discard it because humanity felt that its presence prevented their own growth as a species. This is a pretty unique stance in literature, where humanities technological advancements didn't doom them, they were getting on perfectly fine, and the AI were posing no existential threat, but that humanity chose to discard of it for their own self-reliance. This also can be looked on as a dark event, where if you give stocks to true AI being sentient, humanity essentially committed genocide on their loyal servants simply because they felt it was a mistake to have made them. This is very interesting and unique take that was hinted at.
However, when Herberts family took over the estate, they retconned it to be a boring and generic imitation of Terminator, where humanity destroyed the AI because the AI took over and enslaved them, transforming the decision to destroy the AI from a dark and conflicting decision for personal growth actively taken by people choosing to give up comforts, to one where the decision was forced by generic circumstances.
"I think we can all agree that the later games would have suffered if . . . adhere closely to what was designed in 1994" - with respect: great writers can weave tales to make it all work without such shoehorned, clunky, 4th wall-breaking devices. Any author who has to explicate their choices intellectually, and then beg for my indulgence has failed as a storyteller.
Kirkbride Elder Scrolls is best Elder Scrolls.
just ignore ESO lore. treat it as an alternate universe, disconnected from the single players games. I keep seeing people trying to force ESO lore on the main Elder Scrolls games and in my opinion it MASSIVELY detracts from the game series as a whole. There is ESO and there is the Elder Scrolls series, treat them as separate.
Some of us really like ESO. We have every right to consider it lore if we want to.
Nah ESO introduced some genuinely cool stuff, it’s for sure hit or miss though like with the summerset expansion. I wouldn’t mind if tesvi just cherry picks what to keep and what to retcon.