Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-62.31.43.199-20131118141224/@comment-24590102-20140315152814

"A is superior to B" is absolutely not synonymous with "A's power is superior to B's power" and the distinguishing context has to carried by the text - which it isn't unless the author makes the effort to ensure that it is communicated.

However, my main point is that in the absence of actual verifiable facts, "it ain't necessarily so".

This is very much about the key difference between facts and opinions. This is aside from the fact that TES is a very detailed and intricate collection of worldspaces which include in-game mythology, in-game interpretations, in-game propaganda in addition to in-game academic misconduct and in-game documentation of academic pursuits all for the player to explore and unravel in the context of the TES universe. Often the line between reality and mythology is blurred - especially by things like opinion and interpretation which I think I have already explained - but I'll see if I can't make it clearer with a flip-side example:

Interpretation is generally an arbitrary opinion which is distorted - usually by culturally acquired preconceptions. There was a time, for example, when sailing to the other side of the world was viewed in some cultures as a departure from existence (i.e. once you sailed off the edge of the world). To us, it's just the other side of the world but, to the superstitious of days gone by, such places would have been regarded as outside our existence at the very least and, certainly, those words of the Loveletter would have been more meaningful regarding a person shipwrecked on the other side of the world, to some of these historical people, than invoking the idea of "the other side of the world" which would may have been inconceivable to some of those historical people.

In the case of Xal, he's expressing an interpretation imposing his own cultural mythology in a statement that lacks any probative facts which can be verified by the player through actual gameplay involving the articles in question. While it is a fact that there is a record of Xal making his statement, his statement is, itself, not a statement of fact unless it can be independently verified (or refuted) by direct observation or experiment. So what he is saying is certainly relevant to TES lore but, until the overall technological progress of Tamriel surpasses that of the Dwemer, the idea that the remaining Tamrielic people would understand the Dwemer strikes me as somewhat paradoxical.

