User blog:Aramithius/Anuic/Padomaic Re-Examined, and Found Wanting

Some thoughts I had about Anu, Padomay, Magnus and the Thalmor. Hopefully processed into something useful, but I still feel like there's more to this ball of wool...

Traditionally in TES lore, “Anuic” and “Padomaic” are terms associated with change and stasis respectively. It is assumed that the “Anuic” forces are those for the status quo, for keeping things as they are. However, if we look at the behaviour of Anu himself in the events of the Anuad, we see that it is not a static attitude, but an explicitly backward-looking, regressive thing, which is not the absence of change, but change oriented to make things as they were.

Anu’s actions in the Anuad are entirely based on his love of Nir. He fights Padomay based on that love, and grieves because of it. The first stage of grief is typically though to be denial, wanting it to not be the case. This is again not preservation but reversal. He only turns to make Nirn when he has no other option.

The Anuad also talks about the blood of Anu and Padomay. Note that Anu’s blood becomes not the Aedra, but the stars, the Maga-Ge. At Convention, Magnus and his followers flee (a striking resemblance to Anu's own actions); they attempt to go back. The Aedra are composed of a mixture of the blood of Anu and Padomay, and therefore their death and stasis is not the purest example of what Anuic can be, which the Magna-Ge exemplify in their actions. They focus not on the present, but on the beyond. Anu's action are not Anuic, they are Magnic.

So much for “Anunic”. Now to “Padomaic”.

Padomay’s actions are mostly about himself and what happens when that selfishness is interrupted. He wants Nir, regardless of her own feelings, and lashes out when he doesn’t get his way. He hates creation because he had nothing to do with it, and therefore it is worthless to him. He focuses inward, on his own desires. It fits that his blood become the Daedra, who are too concerned about themselves to want to be part of Nirn at convention. He is also described as “the beginning of all true houses”, which is only possible when a division between “us” and “not us” is established. But the focus on just “us”, on the internal, is not change, it is an echo chamber – when you only get one set of opinions, those opinions can only amplify. It is maintenance of the self. The Daedra are inward-focused on their own domains and themselves, reflecting the wants of Padomay. But this has nothing to do with change - it is the antithesis of change.

To get to change, we need to get to the Aedra and the Mundus project.

The Aedra are the mixed blood of Anu and Padomay, a mixture of yearning for the Beyond (or the Gone) and self-drive, which is referred to explicitly in The Lunar Lorkhan. To know "the measure of its existence" Nirn needs to know what has gone before, and to have "selfishness" gives it self-preservation. While uniquely attributed to Lorkhan, that most sacrificial of Aedra, it is possible that these qualities are what make all Aedra (if not selfishness, then certainly a drive for continued existence). This selfishness and wanting to hold on to what was implies the Merish version of events, that they were tricked rather than persuaded - why would you want to give up what you are and what you were for something that will be, given both Anu's and Padomay's tendencies? Unless what flows from a mixture of the within (Padomay) and the beyond (Anu) is the without - something that is not the self, but is not absent either. The existence of Lorkhan's project, the Mundus as a pervasive and yet changeable context, is not Anuic or Padomaic, it is something else entirely. It looks back to get its present moment, but also moves forward through the interplay of opposing desires. It is of both Anu and Padomay as befits the Aedra as their comingled blood.

This implies both stability and change, which is the essence (and the contradiction) of Mundus, and explicitly the Anuiel-Sithis pairing. Sithis may be entropy, but entropy needs something to act on, and therefore cannot be solely like Padomay. Except that the Dark Brotherhood are frequently self-destructive. Which could point to a Daedra, Padomay or both. Not sure on that point.

One thing I haven't discussed yet are the Thalmor. The Thalmor are, so common received wisdom would have it, are trying to unmake Mundus and get back to a past that is beyond their current mode of existence. Doesn't that sound familiar now? The Thalmor are not "Anuic" in wanting no change, they are like Anu in wanting backwards change, exemplified as a "Magnic" or Magnus-like perspective for the most part. They are also closer to Magnus than Anu, even in my revised definition - they have tried Mundus and want out, rather than having the backwards-looking perspective forced on them by someone selfish. Or maybe they did, after Tiber smashed their empire and Mehrunes smashed their culture. I'm not sure.

My thoughts have gone a bit everywhere in this post, but I hope I've shown that the Anu = Stasis and Padomay = Change is too simplistic to describe any of the entities they are commonly linked to. Apologies if I've been too verbose.

*Which, now I think about it, is more fitting to Anu and sleeping in the sun than Padomay. But not really sure where that leaves us. Unless it's the simple fact of everything being a facet of Anu, which implied that Anu was the Amaranth all along...