Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-121.217.164.118-20130929050443/@comment-74.167.0.216-20140510232152

My theory is that when the dwemer used keening and sunder on the heart of lorkhan, it literally unmade them. They were simply erased. Perhaps the resonance made was just too powerful, and it erased the dwemer from existence. Arniel only used keening, and subbed a warped soul gem as the heart, therefore locking him in a state of half existence, which would explain his intangibility in-game, whereas ghosts can be attacked. He is a SHADE of his former self because he's literally only half there, which could also explain his inability to talk. It's worth note that Arniel hit the gem multiple times. Maybe those hits created a resonance that did unnoticeable things, and the last happened to be similar to the one that erased the dwemer. That begs the question though, why wasn't the dragonborn taken as well?