Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-62.31.43.199-20140124070928/@comment-24590102-20140327082510

@108.219.58.168, there is definitely an interesting, if seeming, coincidence in the timing between the Dwemer disappearance and one of Jyggalag's little spring-cleaning episodes.

However, I think that consistent accuracy in the NPC-generated lore on the subject of Sheogorath/Jyggalag would break immersion for the same reason that the appearance of an Druganov SVD in Skyrim would break immersion. Basicly, people of the period did not have Druganov SVDs and neither did they have our understanding of psychological issues - even if we can carry this understanding into our own experience of the game-world. What really amazed me is that Bethesda have managed to make room for this understanding without misrepresenting the period.

While the difference between contemporary and period knowledge does not prevent us from exploring these things, seriously, how many people know the difference between psychosis and psychopathy? Or even the difference between dementia and paranoia?

Alternate personalities are, for example, not a figment of imagination. They're as real as the core personality. In the context of a powerful god-like entity, such as Sheogorath, the alternate personality would assert itself as a separate and distinct powerful god-like entity which, in Sheogorath's case, is presented to us as Jyggalag. The thing about the mind of a "god" is the inevitability that reality, as an expression of such a mind will, likewise, bend along with that mind. And so, as Sheogorath's mind alters states into Jyggalag and back again, so too does the reality expressed through the "canvass" of the corresponding Plane of Oblivion, namely, The Shivering Isles.

The subject of Sheogorath/Jyggalag is no simple matter. Repression, for example, is not a bad short-term coping mechanism but causes serious problems in the long term. If either entity, for example, took the time to understand what was going on and accept the problems for what they were, the Greymarch probably wouldn't take place because one entity would make room for the other (perhaps, through mutual diminishment to facilitate expression and acknowledgement) in order to allow both aspects an outlet for expression. The conflict between Pelagius the Mad's Anger and his Confidence (observed via the Sheogorath questline accessed in Skyrim) mirrors this particular issue and the attached quest sees Sheogorath tasking the Dragonborn to impose Sheogorath's coping mechanism on Pelagius the Mad's little problem. In terms of thematic depth, I think that The Shivering Isles and Sheogorath's meanderings through TES would definitely rival Tolkien's literary legacy.