Quote: Only black soul gems send their contents to the soul cairn. Other soul gems just release the spirit inside when used.
What about arvak
My own interpretation is that souls are only sent to the soul cairn if that's their intended purpose, to be used as currency in a deal with the ideal masters, as with any other Daedra.
If the soul is actually used to power an enchantment, I've always liked the idea of pieces of that soul being siphoned away and destroyed little by little, until that person or creature ceases to exist.
I only use soul gems on the evil people. I couldent imagine sending wildlife and white souls to the soul carin Unless they go elsewhere it still feels incredibly cruel.
I'm not interested in such petty ethics. My necromancer wants power and knowledge. If i need to enslave anyone's soul to advance myself, i'll do it. Souls are tools. Knowledge and power is all
| What, still here? Hand it over. That thing, your dark soul. For my sexy enchanted tavern clothes. |
Quote: Only black soul gems send their contents to the soul cairn. Other soul gems just release the spirit inside when used.
What about arvak
I have this theory that anything in a black soul gem goes to the Soul Cairn, not just black souls in particular. You can trap souls smaller than a certain gem can hold (trapping a lesser soul in a common gem, for example) if you have no other gem for it. I theorize that Arvak and his master were attacked by some people, probably necromancers, with black soul gems, and perhaps Arvak was also captured by mistake when one accidentally soul trapped the horse along with his master. I'd imagine that one necromancer or other individual of questionable morality was cursing his bad luck for wasting his expensive black soul gem on the lesser soul of a horse, or perhaps he conned someone else the full price of a filled black soul gem for what was a lesser soul and made his money back and more. Same for those cows you can find in the Soul Cairn, another case of accidental use of a black soul gem on a white soul, or an intentional con.
In any case, the fact that few white souls are in the Soul Cairn probably means that necromancers tend not to make that kind of mistake very often
It's because the game developers probably forgot to create 'soul' versions of NPCs' souls for the Soul Cairn.
But in lore, if you did that, the Soul Cairn will be crowded with the souls that you used for enchantments.
Remember:
Gameplay =/= Lore
Remember gameplay is still a subset of Lore :^)
Actually no, anything your PC does is considered non-canon. It doesn't mean that these things didn't happen. It just means that in canon other characters were doing it. E.g. siding with either the storm cloaks or the empire