Nirn’s Divinity, the Missing AE, and Talos Twice-Hearted

At Convention, Auriel (the Rebel) violently excised the divine Heart of Lorkhan (the King) as Magnus (the Observer) looked on from Aetherius, having betrayed Lorkhan. Auriel, the newly reigning King, then imbued Nirn with this extracted divinity. Nirn, having acquired this unguided, mindless divinity, was able to sustain its form without the conscious presence of the et’Ada, who, when awake/alive, warped Nirn too much for it to be stable (but they were still inextricably tied to it). Their conscious selves never left; they just died. They died into Nirn, forfeited the vast majority of their AE, their egos, to Nirn’s unguided divinity, and thus became structures upon which Nirn proceeded (their Hearts remained, as ever, in the sky). But, from time to time, they may stir, and slightly or more than slightly warp Nirn. See: Dragon Breaks, blessings, Martin Septim.

Lorkhan lost his divinity, but not his AE. Lorkhan, in this sense, is an opposite of the Aedra. He is the Void Ghost, the Missing God, an empty skin slinking about. Sep. His AE asserts itself fitfully in the mortal realm, in an attempt at taking care of his own Heart, furthering its vitality and trying, in some sense, to act as its guidance once again, to reclaim his divinity without divorcing it from his cherished creation.

These fitful assertions take the form, mostly, of Shezarrines, mortal avatars. These avatars have varying levels of awareness of their demigod natures, but all act in some way to further Lorkhan’s goals, because they are all, collectively, in the most fundamental sense, the ghost of Lorkhan, the shambling AE to Nirn’s divinity.

Three Shezarrines in particular did three extraordinary things, mythically immense things. First: King Wulfharth, Zurin Arctus, and Tiber Septim anon Hjalti Early-Beard reenacted the enantiomorph of Convention, the King, the Rebel, and the Observer, when Zurin (the Observer) betrayed Wulfharth (the King), solidifying Septim (the Rebel) as the new King. Three beings who were essentially the relatively unconscious stirrings of the divinity-bereft, shambling Void Ghost reenacted divinity’s power and squabbles, which themselves were the subgradient echoes of an even higher conflict. In doing so, they fused together, their identites interlinking yet again, constituting a singular, everlasting self, granting Lorkhan’s AE a new Heart. Their apotheosis resulted in the spirit Talos, and thereafter, all mortal appearances of Talos as Septim, Wulfharth, Arctus, Wulf, Hjalti, an orc, etc., were but avatars of this greater spirit. This was a Walking Way, the sixth, soul fusion.

But that was only the first of three extraordinary feats. The second is this: At some point, Talos attained CHIM, the secret syllable of Royalty, the fifth Walking Way. In short, Talos became aware of his place in and relation to the rest of the universe, initiated within himself a unity with everything else, but managed to retain his distinct identity through Will. Talos thus achieved another divinity, a divinity that his Ghostly AE father-self intentionally failed to achieve so that mortals might learn from his failure. Talos, then, is the possessor of divinity twice over, is the AE of Lorkhan not only conscious but also Awake. Fitfully assertive and surgically mortal Lorkhan unconsciously followed his own example and achieved what he meant not to.

The third: Talos united Tamriel, a body of disparate and clashing polities, through treaty, treachery, or outright violence, depending on whom you ask and where you look. This echoes Lorkhan’s actions as the impetus for Mundus, Lorkhan who united so many spirits into one body, through treaty, treachery, or outright violence, depending on whom you ask and where you look. Talos thus took the mantle of Lorkhan directly, a piece mantling the whole, and took Lorkhan’s place in the mythic through the fourth Walking Way, the steps of the dead. But, unlike the normal process of the steps of the dead, Talos did not become indistinguishable from Lorkhan. This is because Talos underwent CHIM, the secret of mastering your own identity and nature against all outside influence. In this way, Lorkhan returned to his place in the mythic under a new name, and cemented his newly acquired divinities.

Talos is Lorkhan who fathered Lorkhan; Shor, Son of Shor. Many-Headed Talos, the Missing God Returned, Twice-Hearted, Void Ghost Resurrected.

Talos’ role in the Aurbis is this: Talos reinforces Mundus against the (sometimes internal) forces working toward its end, and stymies them further by continuing to send Shezarrine avatars to the Arena. Lorkhan’s AE has claimed two new Hearts and is more consciously pulling the strings of Nirn’s AE-less divinity. Talos knows Love, and wields Love in the service of Will. The House of We, the identities carven of self-division, of self-violence, paradoxically have a conscious, unified deity of their own, solidifying the place of mortality and its transcendence in the fabric of the Dream. In Talos, Nirn talks in its sleep and says, “I AM (NOT)”, and it asserts divine truth.

Terms, both for those who don’t know and to explain exactly what I mean when I use them here, which may differ from how others use them and how I use them elsewhere (note that this text is rather old at this point, and some terms may be outdated compared to the rest of the Model):

AE — Identity, self, selfhood, consciousness, ghost (when disembodied), story-shape, narrative-and-plot-and-narrator in one

Arena — Division of AE through self-struggle, self-rejection, self-violence; another name for Nirn, its Heart, and Mundus; the House of We

Aurbis — Totality, the Dream and its Dreamer, the state of Amaranth, the story that tells itself to itself, the sum of all AE and all Heart

CHIM — Pairing of Love and Will, allowing persistence of AE even in unity with the rest of existence; I AM AND I ARE ALL WE, a Walking Way

Convention — A particular instance of the Enantiomorph, the creation of Mundus

Enantiomorph — A particular story-shape, a tripartite AE, echoed through the gradients, granting relevance (new Hearts) to itself by repetition; a motif, the King, Rebel, and Observer; a kind of soul fusion; a Walking Way

Heart — Divinity, the ability of an AE (or collective of AE) to stake out a claim to importance and mythic relevance, conceptual meaning, sphere

Mantling — Taking a role and nature in the story of the Aurbis. Wearing a concept as a skin.

Mortal — Embodied AE without a Heart to call its own

Mythic — The quality of being part of the story of the dream, and thus not forgotten or left out by the Godhead; the bits left after proofreading

The Steps of the Dead — Acting out a story-shape, an AE, in such a way as to become indistinguishable from it in the mythic; when the AE has a Heart (or would be granted one in the process), a Walking Way

Walking Way — A path which, when taken, leads to possessing a Heart, to the transcendence of mortal form

That’s about how I see it, anyway, dressed up in perhaps too formal a register. Whatcha think?