Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-2A02:C7D:4E14:F00:10F8:8520:F2D6:99A7-20181223111747/@comment-1255618-20190422213329

Regardless of what people both in and out of universe tell you, Daedra aren't really the same as demons and devils. People who worship the Imperial Pantheon, or who just don't like Daedra for other reasons, often think of them as demons and devils, but they are not. The fact that many of them look like traditional Christian depctions of demons and devils is purposely meant to throw you off so that you judge the books by their cover. Daedra are the embodiment of Change (as opposed to Stasis), and change is necessary to create new good or evil. But just like people often don't like change, even when it's good, most people don't like the Daedra. In reality, like Greek gods such as Poseidon and Aphrodite they tend to be capricious and not clearly good or bad. Case in point: Sanguine. Generally seen as "the Daedric Prince of Sin" by the masses, he comes across as more of a party dude when you meet him in the games. He's an extreme hedonist and often overlooks or doesn't think of the consequences of his actions, but he seems to like mortals and has done good things on more than one occasion. He has even helped out the Empire from time to time, and supposedly even helped to write its constitution.

Some Daedra like Mehrunes Dagon and Molag Bal have very well-deserved negative reputations, and you'll fight plenty of mean Daedra in the games, but other Daedra such as Azura and Meridia are as kind to mortals as any Aedric god and sometimes more so. Most Daedra are between these extremes. However, even the worst Daedric Princes have "redeeming" qualities, and the best Princes also have their "flaws". They also have a tendency to form alliances with each other in ways that make no sense to us (like Azura and Molag Bal working together) and lesser Daedra often laugh at mortals' attempts to understand Oblivion's politics. They also think in different ways than mortals do since mortals were created from the Aedra and not from them. Good and evil are foreign concepts to the Daedra. I find it helpful to think of them as aliens to the mortal plane that operate on their own alien morality that makes us go "wha???" plenty of times.