User blog comment:Zippertrain85/The reasons why Serana is not from the First Era./@comment-3217145-20130508162900

Posting points separately, because they're getting too long for one post (>.<)

"That's the theme here, the let of records and evidence are lacking in your arguments."

That's exactly my point, though. There's no evidence. Either way. Nothing you've pointed out is a contradiction, because there's nothing to contradict. When Bethesda provides new information about a previously untouched topic and it doesn't conflict with existing lore, it should be treated as canon and accurate.

The theme on your end is that these arguments usually take the form "I don't know how [x] could be true, therefore [x] isn't true." The problem with that type of argument is that it can be disproven rather easily using some more imagination. I provided examples of "[x] could be true if [y] is the case," and provided evidence of why [y] is possible or likely. If [x] CAN be true, it isn't an error or a contradiction, as you claim it is. You'd have better support if the counter-arguments could only be made with extreme twisting of known lore and bigger assumptions than the original arguments, but they don't. It's simpler to say "we don't know, maybe it's this or that or this" than to claim "I THINK this or that or this is unlikely, therefore I KNOW that those are all wrong and the premise is illogical." My guess is that Bethesda deliberately gave details that are so vague that it's impossible to say they "couldn't" happen, so they wouldn't have to justify anything or look up a bunch of specific details.

First: We don't know anything else about Solitude either. Does that mean it's unlikely that anything ever happened there? Clearly not.

I didn't acknowledge that it "can't" be altered, I said it seems unlikely that it was, based on the evidence that other cities haven't been altered. But I can easily imagine how it could have been altered: the walls there are much taller and thicker than in Whiterun or Windhelm, so the Empire could have used the original fort walls as a sort of scaffolding or blueprint and built new walls around them. Is that likely? I have no idea. It's just as likely as saying it was destroyed and rebuilt 3000 years ago, or that it wasn't.

I checked Serana's page for the actual dialog. All she says about Solitude is "I'd read stories about the Solitude windmill, but I didn't expect it to be that big!" and, "From the castle, you used to just be able to see Solitude over the mountains. It's exactly what I imagined." A mill isn't distinctively Imperial, so that doesn't tell us anything about the city's origins. The city's built on a rather impressive geographical feature, which would make it stand out, and probably make it a prime spot for building a fort in ancient times. But Serana's dialog doesn't tell us anything except that a place existed called Solitude; she hasn't even been there, so her imaginings are meaningless. We can't use that complete absence of information to say anything about what did or didn't happen there.

I'm willing to drop this particular point and say "sure, it's more likely it was built later," only because of the architecture and Imperial influence. My point is that it's not "hard" evidence or an irrefutable fact, and nowhere near a strong enough argument to refute more direct evidence to the contrary. The facts we have are just too vague to say there's definitely a problem.