Lore talk:Madanach

Thonar's Journal

How disappointing that Thonar's Journal explicitly stating Madanach has been in jail for 20 years is thrown to the sidelines because of a headcanon that Madanach has been in jail longer - despite no sources stating as such.

It's amazing the UESP isn't more famous for inserting the headcanons of its editors over statements in the games with how many times it occurs...

94.210.31.12 17:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the 25 is referring to the 25 years since the retaking of Markarth, making it unlikely they would have wanted 5 extra years before actually imprisoning their leader. Also I feel like trying to interpret contradictory information and coming to different conclusions shouldn't be derrided as "inserting headcanon" even if people have come to the wrong conclusions before. -Tarponpet (talk) 17:22, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

It's good to keep in mind the practice of assuming good faith. The editors that reverted your change had good reason to think they were correct, due to the Bear of Markarth setting the end of his rebellion at 4E 176. This would logically suggest that Madanach was captured at/around this time, and not half a decade later. And people round when writing notes like that all the time, so it's not the most unreasonable assumption to make Thonar's Journal isn't meant to be taken as a literal answer for when he was captured (not to mention the fact his journal entry could be old).

With that said, I think the addition of the date provided from Thonar's Journal would be a purely good/positive addition to this article in some capacity, but not with the simple removal of anything else. Ignoring the existence of other sources to focus on one over the other is not the ideal outcome.

But to address what I detect is a growing frustration on your part, the anonymous user who first posted this, I think this is the second time a discussion like this has happened with you particularly (perhaps your IP has changed at some point and this has happened other times). Similar to the conversation on Lore talk:Last Dragonborn, the people arguing against you have purely good intentions, and a perfectly valid interpretation of sources. And similar to that outcome, the best course there was taking on board the additional sources that threw ambiguity on the situation, and finding a compromise that satisfies everyone.

I'd encourage you to make an account or spend some time talking with the other editors on our Discord, and as you get to know us better you'll understand everyone has good intentions for the site and wants it to be as accurate as possible, just like I'm sure you want. And we can help you out with understanding the full intricacies of editing the UESP. The alternative is probably continuing to butt heads every now and then and getting increasingly frustrated, both us and you. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 18:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems to just be an inconsistency on the part of the developers. Nepos says he's been sending the young to their deaths for almost 20 years in his dialogue, but says he's been doing it since Madanach's original uprising in his journal. In my opinion, the inconsistency should be noted, but the more reliable source of the date Ulfric took Markarth should be used. Mindtrait0r (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Humans, in general, are TERRIBLE at estimating how long ago things are once you go back more than a few years. I might reference the 1990s as "twenty years ago", when the event I'm referring to is actually closer to 30 these days. Or when you realize that the time difference between when a movie from 1985 came out is the same as the difference between when THAT movie came out and world war 2. So any dialogue or mention written in a journal is significantly less likely to be reliable (in real life, and by extension in the game) than the simple knowledge of when the events happened and us observing the time between the two. Jeancey (talk) 21:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)