User talk:Threepwood87

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Oh yeah...

And hey, thanks for expanding the Angarvunde quest page! Nice work there :). eshe^talk 19:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

AND - for an excellent Extracting an Argonian quest page - I just followed it and it was flawless. Keep up the good work! --Krusty 10:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Heart of Lorkhan's "Natural Evil"

If you'll bear with me a moment, I think I can elucidate what the "natural evil" of the Heart of Lorkhan means, though this is built on a mountain of my own interpretations. I believe that "natural evil" can be best translated as "incomprehensible power". Imagine a power so immense and absolute that it had to be exercised without rhyme, reason, or limit.

Think of Lorkhan as neither Aedra nor Daedra, and thus not bound by the limits of either. He helped create Mundus, but did not have to sacrifice himself in the process like the Aedra. He had unrestricted (and unrestrictable) access to creation like an Aedra, but also interacted with it like a Daedra in his/her own Plane of Oblivion. When he still had his Heart (also called his hunger, perhaps best understood as his ambition and/or a huge chunk of his power), Lorkhan was able to mold the Mundus as he saw fit, unhindered by the designs of any other spirit.

I think he was not only able to do this, but had little choice in the matter. Imagine if the world was constantly in flux with your every thought or desire, and you couldn't make it stop even if you wanted to. Lorkhan, this "barely formed urge", would have been a slave to this power, surely as everything and everyone else would be a subject to it. That sort of absolute, tyrannical power would, naturally, be viewed as an terrible, evil thing by anything else with an interest in Mundus. It would also, I imagine, defeat the purpose of Mundus, as it would not allow for the stability needed for lesser spirits to be uplifted.

Dagoth worked in accordance with the Heart's natural evil because he wanted to twist the world to his liking, while the Tribunal only sought to preserve the world for the betterment of their wards, the Dunmer. Thus, Dagoth had a stronger affinity with it because he was more ambitious in his plans to wield its power. So saying Lorkhan's Heart was filled with "natural evil" doesn't necessarily say anything negative about the true moral character of Lorkhan. In fact, it could speak volumes about Lorkhan's good moral character.

If Lorkhan did have this unparalleled, unrestrainable power to shape Mundus to his whim like how I've described, the only way he could've lost his Heart is through his own consent. While virtually every account claims that Lorkhan was defeated somehow and his Heart/hunger ripped from him, I'm convinced that the loss was essentially voluntary. Perhaps there was some kind of battle, be it in words or actions, and Lorkhan was "defeated" when he was persuaded that he had to give up his Heart and its inherent "evil".

In the process, by the way, Lorkhan became the best tool for achieving the goal of the Mundus, i.e., uplifting lesser spirits. Every known mortal who has achieved divinity - Shor, Talos, Vivec, and probably a few I'm missing - has done so through Lorkhan (the only possible exception being Arkay, according to one account from Daggerfall).

In other words, Lorkhan sacrificed absolute power so that both he and all other spirits could have real freedom, and so the Mundus would have a decent shot at fulfilling its purpose. His heart may be "evil", but that's why he allowed it to be removed. Anyways, that's my take on it. It's pretty easy to turn it all the other way and view Lorkhan as a bad guy, but in my opinion this makes more sense. Or perhaps it's just more appealing, I don't know.Minor Edits^{Threats•Evidence} 08:21, 13 September 2012 (GMT)

Thanks for the message, that's really helped expand the subject for me. For what its worth, based on my own investigation I agree with your take! I'll leave the page be for now - I still think that, for the layman, there might be a way to incorporate some of the above to avoid the assumption that the Heart's being 'evil' is not as absolute a term as it is often taken to be, BUT I also wouldn't want to make the page a headache to read, and more importantly the page shouldn't be speculative. So I'll think more about it when I have time to read all the sources. Thanks for taking the time to indulge a newbie, it's very much appreciated. And I'll make sure to use the forums for philosophical speculation in the future. Threepwood87 (talk) 09:40, 13 September 2012 (GMT)