Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-108.253.68.177-20131021030335/@comment-69.172.152.109-20140225060742

Man... I see SO many speculative threads around here (usually along the lines of making connections between character A from game X with character B from game Y: "Cicero is the Adoring Fan!", "Nerevarine is Dovahkiin!", "Ria from the Companions is Ria from Arena!", "Neloth isn't Neloth he's really Numinex/Olaf in the form of Neloth!", etc etc etc) where it's mostly just people coming up with REEAAAALLLLLYYYY stretched out, dubious, dodgy, far-flung, tenuous theories, and then saying "well you can't prove my theory is WRONG, can you? MagicDaedraReincarnationSheogorathMadnessMerlifespansVampirismSomethingSomething."

And what everyone seems to forget are three really, really, really basic aspects of logic, claims, and belief:

a) Burden of proof is always on the claimant. It's not my job to provide evidence your speculation wrong, it's your job to provide evidence your speculation is worthwhile (or at least fun / interesting... it is, after all, a videogame, not science).

b) Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence. If you're saying Nerevarine and Hero of Kvatch and Last Dragonborn are all the same soul, by way of amnesia AND clandestine Uriel Septim plots AND reincarnation AND Sheogorath forgetting he's Sheogorath AND Akatosh somehow turning Sheogorath mortal AND THEN giving him the dragonblood... that is like FIVE different EXTREMELY extraordinary claims, some of which are using the next-most hackneyed devices to "And it was all a dream!". Saying "But you have no proof I'm WRONG" isn't sufficient back-up. Where's YOUR evidence there's any substance to the theory, you know?

c) All other things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one.

Simplest explanation?

They're different heroes.

That's also a BETTER AND MORE INTERESTING STORY than it all being the same character. I find it makes for a much more interesting and compelling world and lore to imagine that there's been *many* different heroes throughout Tamriel's history, some of whom were PCs, many of whom were not (Tiber Septim, Uriel Septim, Martin Septim, Indoril Nerevar, Mauloch, Auriel, Trinimac, Ysgamor, Olaf One-Eye, King Emeric, Pelinal Whitesnake, Y'ffre, Vivec, The Snow Prince, Kagrenac, etc). Or should we start speculating that Ysgamor and Auriel and Talos were all the same soul too?

It's a rich and diverse world, with many and varied heroes and champions.

ANYWAY...

Bethesda keeps things vague and uncertain about former PCs because they want to preserve our ability to have "our own" versions and ideas of these characters. My TES heroes have always been women, for instance, and "canonical" male versions of these heroes would make "my" versions suddenly no longer count, which would rob something from my experience of the games... something that kind of annoyed me about the strong implication that Sheogorath in Skyrim is HoK and Neloth's possible reference to Nerevarine as male (at least Septimus didn't specify). My Nerevarines were, likewise, a Dunmer thief of the Bal Molagmer and a Breton sorceress of the Mage's Guild, with tentative allegiance to House Telvanni. I wouldn't want to hear the Nerevarine was a male Dunmer warrior. And my Dovahkiin were an Orsimer wisewoman, a Redguard werewolf warrior, and a Dunmer vampire assassin, and each made specific decisions regarding the factions they aligned with, which Daedric princes they were willing to involve themselves with, whether or not they killed Paarthurnax, which side (if any) they supported in the Civil War and why, etc. If Bethesda made a specific canonical Last Dragonborn and defined their decisions, again, it would rob me of my sense that the "timelines" of my own Dovahkiin are legitimate and "real".

Bethesda are, as usual, just being really really smart and following their defining mission statement of allowing each player to play their own way, make their own choices, and ultimately have their own "version" of the game and it's story. Whatever the individual player likes and chooses. It's a brilliant approach, it serves them well, it keeps the game extremely inclusive, and it's the absolute best thing about TES. They aren't going to throw that away on a silly "Returning Champion" motif or providing definitive answers to questions that don't need to be answered like what exactly happened to The Nerevarine after you, or I, or anyone else, stopped controlling their path..