User blog:Zippertrain85/Dunmer/Argonian slavery, my thoughts.

Hello everyone. I'm going to be doing another lore theory blog, today's topic will be about the Argonians & the Dunmer, and their relationship. Most people when they think of Dunmer and Argonians think of slavery, hatred, etc. It's considered a well-known lore fact that the Dunmer enslaved the Argonians for hundreds of years, by going into Black Marsh, taking slaves, and then bringing them back to Morrowind. Seems simple enough, the only thing is, I personally see a lot of contradictions in this idea to what we're told about Black Marsh and the Argonians.

First of all, I find it unlikely that the Dunmer could've entered Black Marsh that easily considerding how dangerous the land is said to be. The Dunmer have no resistance to any types of poison or disease (atleast as far as we're told in lore) meaning they would be exposed to a lot of very deadly bacteria in Black Marsh that could quickly kill everyone sent inside. Think about it, not even Tiber Septim wanted to invade Black Marsh because he knew how dangerous it was, it's unlikely a couple Dunmer could do it. There might be a justification for this, the fact that Black Marsh's boarders are more habitable and have a lot less poison and diseases. The thing is, this area is known for containing prisoners and tribes of numerous other races, in addition to Argonians. Meaning that the Dunmer wouldn't have access to many Argonians if they did only search for slaves around the boarders. One main reason Argonian slaves are sought after is because the things that make them immune to the dangers of Black Marsh, make them equipt for hard labor. So, the Dunmer would have no reason to enter Black Marsh if they weren't getting access to that many Argonians in the first place. They could just go to some other province and get similar results.

Secondly, if the Dunmer were truly entering Black Marsh to take slaves, the government in the province might consider this an act of invasion from Morrowind and declaire war on them. As shown in the Oblivion Crisis the Argonians are very powerful warriors, and can take on god-like power, especially with the Hist. Meaning that things like the Tribunal in Morrowind may not prove to be that much trouble for them to overcome if they truly felt they were being invaded by Morrowind. I don't think the Dunmer would want to risk putting their whole province through that just for some slaves.

And finally, you may be wondering if you believe what I said to be true, how did the Dunmer get Argonian slaves then? Obviously they did have them as shown in Morrowind. Well, in Black Marsh there are many different tribes. One Tribe is called the Archeins. According to the UESP wiki article the Archeins made fortunes selling Argonians from tribes into slavery. This could possibly mean the Dunmer traded slaves with tribes like the Archeins. It would explain how they could get so many Argonians without having to go into the deadly inner swamplands, and how the government never took it as an invasion. I also don't see any real benefit the Dunmer would get from not be-friending Black Marsh. Since they would still get slaves, but they could also trade many other things, they can still think that they're inferior, but get some things from Black Marsh that don't exist anywhere else in Tamriel.

This is mostly my personal interpretation as to why I think the Argonians sold slaves to the Dunmer as opposed to the Dunmer took Argonian slaves from going into Black Marsh and enslaving them. But I wanted to share it in a blog, so we could have some discussion (not arguments) about it. If you think I got anything wrong, or that this whole thing in general is wrong. You can leave a comment explaining why, I'm open to criticism.