Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-30357224-20180413212813

i know that this might not relate to how religions work in the Elder Scrolls but i have been thinking this:

Aetherium is the equivalent to Heaven. And is where the gods dwell. Oblivion is the equivalent of Hell and is where the Daedra live. In my mind, the Gods and Daedra predate all others. The Gods are beings of good (as they can only bless good things, like Beauty or Courage) Daedra can bless evil abilities (Like Exploitation or Thievery). These 2 live in harmony much in the same way as a Yin-Yang. And used their powers of good and evil to create Nirn. The Gods in turn, preceed all races in Tamriel, and the gods found in a specific racial pantheon is one of the creators of that race. (For example, the Orcish pantheon consists of the Orcish deities who are Orcs themselves, and thus created Orcs, also gifting their descendants with their particular good) thats how i interperet the relation between Gods and life in Nirn.

Now with how i view the religions of Tamriel out of the way,  let's talk about Alduin. Alduin is a god in the Nord pantheon. In which he is god of destruction and also recreation. This caused him to be made as two forms, an evil form (Alduin, who you fight in Skyrim) and a good form (Paarthurnax) Looking even further, you can notice how Paarturnax has white scales and blue eyes, whereas Alduin has Black scales and Red Eyes, which give them a good and evil appearance respectively. This is Similar to a black and white Yin-Yang, which symbolizes the balance between good and evil, a balance which exists in between Paarthurnax and Alduin. They cannot hurt each other because they are the same god, in a way. This is reflective to how you cannot have re-creation without destruction.

As for the quest in Sovngarde, you actually fight Alduin with the Heroes of Sovngarde, who battled him in the first place. After a surprisingly easy fight, you defeat him. and he sort of just pops out of existance. After reading the essay i accidentally have created, you might think "then didnt i kill a god, who is immortal?" No. you instead killed Alduin, the same evil "Yang" that you have always fought. Paarthurnax, in turn, will become Alduin. I think when he flies off with the rest of the dragons, He instead is going back to Sovngarde to become Alduin. (To me this includes the "evil" Alduin look) but upon defeating "evil" alduin, as i will now refer to him, you are able to help Alduin create good out of evil, much in the same way as how a volcano can destroy a city, but in the long run it will create more land and even help insolate a planet's atmosphere. Killing "evil" Alduin has only allowed Alduin (or Paarthurnax, who technically is Alduin) to create good from Evil. (Of course the same can't be said if you kill Paarthurnax for the Blades, and yes, you can kill him. But i chose not to, which is why this would be more logical for a save where he doesent get killed.)

One final bit of evidence i think is important: Paarthurnax calls you "mortal" at times (because you are) and can lead you to infer dragons are immortal (I was stupid enough to have that thought in my mind). But then again the game is based around killing dragons, so they are quite clearly, mortal as well (and yes, Paarthurnax is mortal as well, but so was evil Alduin.)

(feel free to yell at me for how i don't understand the lore of elder scrolls because i am quite clearly expecting that the elder scrolls religions work entirely different from what i interperet)

(also before you yell at me about this, i know some deadric princes are actually good, but most of them are evil, hence my beleif as to all Daedra are interpretations of evil, even then the "good" ones are also in control of somewhat evil things) 