Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-62.255.98.169-20130504143516/@comment-24590102-20140312115732

Lore is "a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject". As knowledge is "information and skills acquired through experience or education", it stands to reason that lore encompasses all of the facts which may be verified in gameplay in addition to what opinions may be taken as "widely held". However, it's the facts in their context (and, at most, direct inferences thereof) which are most interesting because only this specific class of information has sufficient reliability to be of practical value.

In the context of the Elder Scrolls as a setting, I think there is very little that is known about the Falmer in spite of the amount which is written or said. For example, I guess the point of all this is that, other then what we may observe through the eyes of the Dovahkiin, there is little we can say for certain about the Falmer. At best, we can improve the reliability of our conclusions with a little parsimony. After all, an inference is vastly more reliable than an interpretation.
 * 1) It is claimed that the Falmer are blind, but this is a literary assumption in stark contrast to the fact that they can land a bullseye from 100 yards.
 * 2) It is claimed that Falmer limitations in vision and posture are hereditary when there are no facts to confirm that these issues are not meagrely the product of ongoing living conditions and would depart from the first generation to return to the life of the surface world.
 * 3) We know that the Falmer infiltrated what later became Dwemer ruins throughout Skyrim and, beyond this, we know nothing of their relationship with the Dwemer. Once again, much of what we hear about the "Mythical Snow Elves" is speculation, supposition and confabulation (i.e. "interpretation"). Maybe I've missed something, here, but one of the seemingly sillier NPC claims is that the Falmer were enslaved by the Dwemer who are known to have been be freethinkers via the overwhelming number of recorded observations concerning Dwemer method of analysis – not to mention their attitude to the Daedra. This presents us with an aporia (i.e. irresolvable internal contradiction) in that freethinking cannot survive without a healthy intolerance of slavery and the supremacism used to justify slavery. After all, freethinking evolves from and depends on freedom as a basic principle of thought and, by extension, action – as a defining principle of being (i.e. via self-awareness). Thus the Dwemer, as a culture, could either be freethinkers (supported by their technological growth) or tolerant of slavery (brought into question by absence of previous behavioural examples) but I cannot see how they could be both. It would take a great cultural revolution for the Dwemer to turn from freethinkers to slavers and, yet, where is the evidence of this great cultural revolution? On the other hand, it was the Falmer who launched an attack against an ally – which is worse than attacking under the white flag. Cultures which tolerate this level of deception pose an enormous threat to their neighbours because there is no treaty and no alliance which can mean anything to such a culture. Thus, before we begin speculating, it is yet necessary to ask, what evidence is there that the Falmer culture was cleansed of such deeply ingrained deceitfulness? What is to say that, having been kicked out of Saarthal by the Atmorans, the Falmer did not attempt to repeat the same strategem of befriending and betraying an ally – this time with the Dwemer? Certainly, this scenario requires far less speculation, in light of the facts at hand, than the rather confabulated conjecture that the Dwemer offered refuge to the Falmer, had a major cultural revolution, successfully erased all evidence of said cultural revolution and proceeded to clap the Falmer in the irons of slavery which mysteriously disappeared with the Dwemer but which, nonetheless, are glibly explained away by blindness-inducing toxic foods which allow the victim to hit a bullseye at 100 yards with an arrow shot from a bow. Conveniently, the Dwemer no longer remain to argue the historical points concerning themselves – which is the sort of thing which lends great support to the academic equivalence of debauchery, if only by the absence of scrutiny. And, yes, this is a favourite of mine and, yes, I could be wrong too.   :)
 * 4) In spite of the Falmer archery skill, it is claimed that the Dwemer enslaved the Falmer by blinding them with toxic food rations when none of the latest Falmer delicacies cause blindness or even vision impairment nor can they be refined into poisons which cause even temporary blindness.
 * 5) It is assumed that the Dwemer of Skyrim disappeared with the Dwemer of Morrowind, as opposed to being wiped out by their Falmer "servants" who, aforetime, wiped out nearly all of the inhabitants of Saarthal after entering into a sworn alliance with the denizens of Saarthal. In the language of the period represented, there is a word to describe such people: "forsworn". However, the key question this raises is why history would not repeat itself when the Falmer "sought refuge" with the Dwemer?

