Raw Musings on the 36 Lessons of Vivec

All right. I finished my first real solid read-through of the 36 Sermons, and some contextual readings of posts by the likes of /u/RottenDeadite.

I feel like I have been hanging out in an Escher painting this week, after all the talk of Relativity, Quantum mechanics, and then reading the Sermons closely.

I will be the first to say that on the first read-though, I understand very little, especially after reading other people’s analyses, but I have made some connections on my own that I would like to share. I also invite anyone to comment and enlighten me on the things that I do not understand, maybe even recommending reading inside and outside the lore.

My main observation, which could have something to do with the two pieces having the same author would be that I had a lot of the same feelings reading 36 Lessons that I did reading Songs of Pelinal. The way the pieces moved me was the same, and I do not believe that this is mere coincidence. After all, Vivec himself had to make a powerful argument against luck.

It’s not an Enantiomorph, not the sense that other things are Enantiomorphs in the lore. However they are in a strictly literary sense; they have some analogous players that are presented with contrast-able dilemmas, but answer questions very differently.

Both stories have their sad beginnings, Perrif the slave-turned-queen, Vivec, the netchiman’s hermaphrodite offspring street-urchin prostitute-turned-God.

Both stories have their divine interventions, except it is Aedra in Perrif’s case, Daedra in Vivec’s.

Both stories have their champions, immortal beings fighting to the death in Perrif’s case, mortal beings acheiving eternal life in Vivec’s.

Alessia, who dies, but sets the foundation for an era of relative stability and freedom for her people. Yes the Empire is crumbling by the 4th era, but man is definitely better off than they were under the Ayleids.

Vivec, who lives, but sows the seed of his people’s eventual downward spiral. The Dunmer as a race are arguably not better off than they were before ALMSIVI, long term.

I can go on and on listing the reversals and comparisons between it, but I think you get the picture.

I especially notice the fatalistic aspects of Vivec and Pelinal. There is a theme of lack of control in both cases. Vehk through his origins prior to apotheosis, and the prophecy of the Nerevarine. Pelinal because of his madness.

They are both strange indirect reflections of powerful immortals, Vivec being the Anticipation of Mephala, and Pelinal being (in my opinion) a mirror-shard of Akatosh from the 9th Era.

And despite the stories having so much in opposition to one another, they leave the reader feeling the same way. They both echo with grief, and a desire to do better for their people. They both show the plight of unfortunate mortals who are pawns of much greater beings with much grander plans.

They are both full of hope, and love. Different love. I think RottenDeadite did really well at talking about Vivec’s definition of love. Alessia was another type of love. And with that different love came a different kind of apotheosis (Talos).

Okay enough about Pelinal and Al-Esh. Onward.

Mephala is like the Fates in the ancient Greek mythology. Multi-faced, holding all the threads that represented the fates and souls of the mortals, even the Fate of Gods lay on their spinning wheel (although they can’t cut those strings, they still hold them).

The Lessons made me ask myself a question: Why did the Daedra stay? Why did they not go with the Magne-Ge?

I think they want the Amaranth too. They are like the remoras (see what I’m doing here?) that stick to the bellies of whales and sharks (and whale-sharks especially). They want none of the risk of being a whale or shark, but they still want to benefit from there being whales and sharks.

They did not want to sacrifice their lives to create Nirn, but they certainly seem want to escape the dream as well. Mephala as herself could not see the Amaranth, so she engineered a series of seemingly unrelated events that culiminate in Vivec seeing it and acheiving CHIM.

But why? Vivec’s trajectory made Azura pretty angry, but maybe Mephala wanted that as well. What is her game anyway? (rhetorical question).

If Mephala is so powerful she can orchestrate an apotheosis, what else can she orchestrate?

Next, I cannot make up my mind about Dagoth Ur. Sharmat and Hortator. Hortator and Sharmat. Interchangeable yet opposed to one another and co-extant.

Do Dagoth and Nerevar(ine) share a soul? Is it a Time Paradox duplicate, a machination of Mephala or is it some kind of divine binary/enantiomorph?

I probably could think of more questions and opinions, but these were the big ones. I will be reading it again sometime soonish, but I have a hankering to read up on Talos and his (over)soul next.