Elder Scrolls Lore Bad?

[Arnoxthe1]

I've seen some accusations that Elder Scrolls has some bad lore in comparison to other RPG's. I mean... What? I've seen some of what I think to be the coolest lore in The Elder Scrolls. And yes, I know that's just, like, my opinion, man, but c'mon now. I honestly can't think of what's not to like about ES lore. Maybe it's... Too simple for others I guess... ?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Elder Scrolls has a pretty undeniably rich lore. That doesn't make it good lore, however. I understand why others like it, but it all just gets too weird and silly to me at times. Apparently there's even a lore reason for why your character can pause time and drink potions.

In that regard, it's extremely wacky, zany and unusual, which is cool for a lot of people. I guess I prefer lore that is a bit more serious, or grounded in some kind of reality (ala Witcher).

 

[aozgolo]

I believe that The Elder Scrolls has some VERY good lore, the problem usually is the main games in the series don't seem to draw too heavily upon it for their story. Oblivion and Skyrim specifically had really no prior cues in established lore for their plots to build upon. Dragons were really never mentioned beyond the "form" certain deities took, and yet the entirety of Skyrim's plot revolves around them and retroactively adds in all this "oh yeah we had all this lore for centuries about them". Same with Oblivion, the crisis of Mehrunes Dagon invading Tamriel was never really hinted at in any substantial way before Oblivion.

I find the games really good and the story interesting enough but when you read the lore and background history of some of the events it seems way more interesting than what we actually deal with in-game.

 

[Sanderpower]

Elder Scrolls has a pretty undeniably rich lore. That doesn't make it good lore, however. I understand why others like it, but it all just gets too weird and silly to me at times. Apparently there's even a lore reason for why your character can pause time and drink potions.

In that regard, it's extremely wacky, zany and unusual, which is cool for a lot of people. I guess I prefer lore that is a bit more serious, or grounded in some kind of reality (ala Witcher).

There is no lore reason for why you can pause time or drink potions. It's just that with Elder Scrolls lore, time and reality can become a bit wonky which leads to some people making some pretty crazy, conspiracy level assertions.

Also pretty much every game has added onto the lore since Morrowind's time I believe (and that's regarded as the best TES game). Contrary to your statement though, the plot of Skyrim was somewhat alluded to in Oblivion.

After the Oblivion Crisis (and also during it) you hear NPCs talking about what is happening outside of Cyrodill. The mention the rise of a radical group of mages in The Summerset Isles (The Thalmor). How waves of Argonians have been returning to Black Marsh (Black Marsh leaving the Empire, fighting off the Oblivion gates, and having a military strong enough to invade Morrowind).

In the Shivering Isles, you become the new Mad God in place of Sheogorath. This results in the player character, LITERALLY becoming Sheogorath as alluded to in his dialogue (and confirmed by the VA) when you do his daedric quest in Skyrim.


Alduin was also mentioned as far back as Morrowind literature, but I don't think there was anything about the Dragon Cult.


In pretty much every game they do tend to introduce a new story that is usually only loosely connected to established lore. But I think they're starting to make the games more interconnected now. The events in Oblivion was what ultimately led to The Great War, which led to the Civil War in Skyrim. Also according to the elder scrolls (the actual prophetic scrolls), the the main story lines of the previous games were all apart of this epic prophecy that would lead to the rise of the The Last Dragonborn and his battle with Alduin.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I wouldn't call it "bad," but like most Western fantasy it is derivative. It's just building on the momentum that Tolkien started with his work, occasionally going back to the Norse and Germanic myths that inspired Tolkien; again, most western fantasy does this.

To some derivative = bad. There is a large contingent of people who prefer sci-fi because it's more original, and another group of fantasy fans who are tired of the Tolkien-esque worlds of elves, humans, dwarves and ancient magic and want to see western fantasy branch out more.

To others, it's no big deal; these overarching tropes are accepted without issue.

So, like almost everything else, whether or not Elder Scrolls lore is good or bad depends who you ask.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

In pretty much every game they do tend to introduce a new story that is usually only loosely connected to established lore. But I think they're starting to make the games more interconnected now. The events in Oblivion was what ultimately led to The Great War, which led to the Civil War in Skyrim. Also according to the elder scrolls (the actual prophetic scrolls), the the main story lines of the previous games were all apart of this epic prophecy that would lead to the rise of the The Last Dragonborn and his battle with Alduin.

TES is all about building an interconnected world between games. It's nice to explore and see the connections of old and new. Now they just need to make a game based on the Akavir lore ... I want serpent vampires and monkey men.

 

[Sanderpower]

In pretty much every game they do tend to introduce a new story that is usually only loosely connected to established lore. But I think they're starting to make the games more interconnected now. The events in Oblivion was what ultimately led to The Great War, which led to the Civil War in Skyrim. Also according to the elder scrolls (the actual prophetic scrolls), the the main story lines of the previous games were all apart of this epic prophecy that would lead to the rise of the The Last Dragonborn and his battle with Alduin.

TES is all about building an interconnected world between games. It's nice to explore and see the connections of old and new. Now they just need to make a game based on the Akavir lore ... I want serpent vampires and monkey men.

They probably won't have us going to Akavir until they've made a standalone game for every province in Tamriel. By the time they do that, there would of be a decent amount of overturn on there team so who knows if they will still be good game developers by the time they're done with all of Tamriel.

I personally would think that they should of just had Elder Scrolls Online take place in Akavir, while having some allusions and references to the continent of Tamriel.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

They probably won't have us going to Akavir until they've made a standalone game for every province in Tamriel. By the time they do that, there would of be a decent amount of overturn on there team so who knows if they will still be good game developers by the time they're done with all of Tamriel.

I personally would think that they should of just had Elder Scrolls Online take place in Akavir, while having some allusions and references to the continent of Tamriel.

Yeah ... the game covering the migration of the Men of Akavir to Tamriel would have been pretty sweet also.

I'm kinda hoping that they might try to do an expansion pack, though. For a future standalone. Something Bloodmoon like, only larger. Maybe bring back the East Empire Company faction as well.

 

[Akjosch]

TES has, when it's at its best, a wonderfully colourful, wonky lore where most of everything has a twist and is just the right amount of weird to seem fantastic.

At its worst, it's full of ham-fisted retcons.

I mean ... just read this, from the Pocket Guide to the Empire

Refayj's famous declaration, "There is but one city in the Imperial Province,--" may strike the citizens of the Colovian west as mildly insulting, until perhaps they hear the rest of the remark, which continues, "--but one city in Tamriel, but one city in the World; that, my brothers, is the city of the Cyrodiils." From the shore it is hard to tell what is city and what is Palace, for it all rises from the islands of the lake towards the sky in a stretch of gold. Whole neighborhoods rest on the jeweled bridges that connect the islands together. Gondolas and river-ships sail along the watery avenues of its flooded lower dwellings. Moth-priests walk by in a cloud of ancestors; House Guards hold exceptionally long daikatanas crossed at intersections, adorned with ribbons and dragon-flags; and the newly arrived Western legionnaires sweat in the humid air. The river mouth is tainted red from the tinmi soil of the shore, and river dragons rust their hides in its waters. Across the lake the Imperial City continues, merging into the villages of the southern red river and ruins left from the Interregnum.

The Emperor's Palace is a crown of sun rays, surrounded by his magical gardens. One garden path is known as Green Emperor Road-here, topiaries of the heads of past Emperors have been shaped by sorcery and can speak. When one must advise Tiber Septim, birds are drawn to the hedgery head, using their songs as its voice and moving its branches for the needed expressions.

... and now compare it to the abomination we got to "experience" in Oblivion and weep.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I wouldn't exactly call it bad. I think the problem is more that it's not presented very well in the games. I haven't delved into it that much, but it's kind of hard not to get at least some idea of it from 190 hours of Skyrim. There's a whole bunch of history with secret societies, cults, overthrown empires, demonic deities, ancient ruins and so on, but they're not made very interesting. Two shining examples of exploring lore via gameplay were IMO Blackreach and Nocturnal's dungeon in Skyrim, the one where you have to walk in darkness to not take damage. When I first stepped into Blackreach I felt like I'd walked into a H.P. Lovecraft tale, with the tentacle-like vines (?) hanging from the ceiling that seemed to be miles above. But aside from those, nothing really stuck with me. The Daedric shrines were just generic dungeons with maybe one gimmick, like the one where you have to direct the beam of light, and the quests weren't really anything special. So much of the backstory and tales are just exposition dumps in the form of books when they could be so much more.

One of the more intriguing things I came across in Oblivion was actually a castle high up in the mountains, which was full of blindfolded katana-wielding monks. I'd never seen or heard any mention of such a place or sect, and I still don't really know what they were about, but just randomly stumbling upon it made it so much more interesting.

 

[murrow]

TES has an interesting lore, with several not-so-obvious elements and a crapload of ancilliary in-game literature to spice things up. The main problem is that it's only barely connected with the experience. I'm not saying it's impossible to get immersed in the world of Nirn, but you have to go out of your way to let it dictate your steps. Roleplaying in a lore-friendly way generally requires setting your own objectives, self-enforced limitations, and leaving a lot to imagination.

It works, and it's fun (and it's the reason TES is one of my favourite franchises), but it's extremely easy to gloss over the stuff. Which, in turn, gives an impression of shallowness, especially if you're not overly-invested or just skipped some in-game reading or dialogue due to boredom or time constraints.

Even Morrowind, which had a terrific plot with universe-wide repercussions and mutually-exclusive questlines, was a tough nut to crack in this regard. I've been playing it since my mid-teens and it wasn't until adulthood that I actually bothered to appreciate it closely enough to realize there was indeed an interesting lore behind those arbitrary kill-john-doe-to-get-a-rank-in-our-club assignments. While the setting was endearing and exotic, the byzantine dialogue, the boring nature of the MQ's first missions and the perfunctory role of books makes everything else rather easy to pass by.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Well, if there's one word that describes ES lore, it could very well be "chaotic." In my opinion though, it's a good kind of chaotic. I think what really makes it shine for me is the fact that it seems like anything in it is possible. Furthermore, I also find it fascinating from a slightly philosophical standpoint.

 

[visiblenoise]

Its lore might be awesome, but I'll never know that because the game's presentation of it makes it seem like a really elaborate afterthought. The only literature I really read while playing the game were those notes you find on NPCs after you slaughter them or something.

 

[Odbarc]

The books kind of annoy me trying to find the skill books compared to the regular books and having to actually watch the opening-book-animation with each and every single one annoys me to no end.
I've never considered really reading any of them.
If the books had an audio file that read them out loud, I'd listen but I don't like interrupting my game play.

 

[Attelia]

.

Snip

To add on to this, there was a book in Oblivion that specifically mentioned aspects of Skyrim that were also found in the game. I thought I remember this book including things about the Greybeards, but it might have been a different book. I actually read the books ;=;

Children of the Sky

Spoiler

Nords consider themselves to be the children of the sky. They call Skyrim the Throat of the World, because it is where the sky exhaled on the land and formed them. They see themselves as eternal outsiders and invaders, and even when they conquer and rule another people; they feel no kinship with them.
The breath and the voice are the vital essence of a Nord. When they defeat great enemies they take their tongues as trophies. These are woven into ropes and can hold speech like an enchantment. The power of a Nord can be articulated into a shout, like the kiai of an Akaviri swordsman. The strongest of their warriors are called "Tongues." When the Nords attack a city, they take no siege engines or cavalry; the Tongues form in a wedge in front of the gatehouse, and draw in breath. When the leader lets it out in a kiai, the doors are blown in, and the axemen rush into the city. Shouts can be used to sharpen blades or to strike enemies. A common effect is the shout that knocks an enemy back, or the power of command. A strong Nord can instill bravery in men with his battle-cry, or stop a charging warrior with a roar. The greatest of the Nords can call to specific people over hundreds of miles, and can move by casting a shout, appearing where it lands.
The most powerful Nords cannot speak without causing destruction. They must go gagged, and communicate through a sign language and through scribing runes.
The further north you go into Skyrim, the more powerful and elemental the people become, and the less they require dwellings and shelters. Wind is fundamental to Skyrim and the Nords; those that live in the far wastes always carry a wind with them.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Children_of_the_Sky

 

[Redryhno]

Wow, alot of people here really have no concept of roleplaying it appears unless everything is spoonfed...

TES may not have the best up-front lore, but go through stuff and actually read the books without wanting audio files, and there's a huge amount of stuff. Heck, even the "copy-pasted" dungeons everyone complains about have things in them that give them character, from bones with a heal pot, to notes and books sitting around, to just a hard-level locked door that leads into a barred window with some gold scattered around.

The whole point of TES is to explore and play a character in the world, not to play the game, the main quests are normally their weakest points. This is what people mean when they talk about old-school roleplay, you make a character, and then you play it using mostly your imagination. It's a a big part of why I love the series(well, that and the modding community having a mod for literally anything you'd want if you're not a filthy console peasant.)

Edit: this is also partly why I love Origins, there's no voice for your character and you've got a dozen lines for each conversation stop point, it's all there for you to make up in your head as you go along. Sure, the narrative is set in stone, but your choices(largely superficial but that's most of what roleplaying is) matter.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

The issue with TES lore is that while there's a lot of it, none of it is very good.

The motivations behind the various events and characters in the lore are never really explained. Things just happen because they happen and that's that. For example: Molag Bal created vampires by raping a human girl because he wants to defy Arkay the Divine of death. Why he feels the need to defy that guy and why he then creates immortal beings himself is never really explored, it just happens.

In general the lore just has a ton of flat characters who never change what they do, they are their actions. It's also the reason why I almost fell asleep listening to the rambling of NPC's in "The Elder Scrolls Online" even though I'm the kind of person who normally always listens to dialogue.

 

[Silvanus]

Elder Scrolls lore seems fairly rich, compelling, and fun to me.

There are very fair criticisms to made of characterisation, or the presentation of the lore, but the lore itself seems solid.

 

[R Man]

I wouldn't call it "bad," but like most Western fantasy it is derivative. It's just building on the momentum that Tolkien started with his work, occasionally going back to the Norse and Germanic myths that inspired Tolkien; again, most western fantasy does this.

To some derivative = bad. There is a large contingent of people who prefer sci-fi because it's more original, and another group of fantasy fans who are tired of the Tolkien-esque worlds of elves, humans, dwarves and ancient magic and want to see western fantasy branch out more.

To others, it's no big deal; these overarching tropes are accepted without issue.

So, like almost everything else, whether or not Elder Scrolls lore is good or bad depends who you ask.

Wait...what? This is false. The Elder Scrolls lore is not based on Tolkien's work. It is very different in terms of setting, races, moral position, thematics, geography etc. There is nothing comparable to Argonians, Khajit, or the Thalmor in Tolkeins work, and even things that seem familiar are played out very differently.

In fact I would go so far as to say that of all modern fantasy settings, the Elder Scrolls borrows the least from Tolkein.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

The issue with TES lore is that while there's a lot of it, none of it is very good.

The motivations behind the various events and characters in the lore are never really explained. Things just happen because they happen and that's that. For example: Molag Bal created vampires by raping a human girl because he wants to defy Arkay the Divine of death. Why he feels the need to defy that guy and why he then creates immortal beings himself is never really explored, it just happens.

In general the lore just has a ton of flat characters who never change what they do, they are their actions. It's also the reason why I almost fell asleep listening to the rambling of NPC's in "The Elder Scrolls Online" even though I'm the kind of person who normally always listens to dialogue.

Actually, ESO is by far the weakest link when it comes to Elder Scrolls games so I really wouldn't take that game as indicative of Elder Scrolls' quality, story/quest wise.

As to Molag Bal, I actually talked about the natures of daedric princes (why they do what they do) a while ago and I actually got a pretty good answer out of it. The answer is that daedric beings are pretty alien ones and thus, their motivations and interests and how they tick are not like us at all. So some of their actions may seem silly or stupid or straight-up bizarre. The best way to explain it would be to think of the princes as complete manifestations of the primal forces and feelings of what they represent. If you think about it like that, then what they do makes a lot of sense. And even further, daedric princes are hardly perfect beings so they make mistakes. Sometimes huge ones.