A Japanophile’s Guide to Nirn

IRL writer’s note: Lots of people on this sub who contribute have delightful specialisations in fields like philosohpy, physics, computing and the arts that add an amazing breadth of understanding to The Elder Scrolls universe.

I am not a specialist. I am a Jill of all trades, mistress of none. I have a degree, but it’s very general, and while it is my intellectual foundation, it does not define my perspective.

After university, I moved to Japan with my boyfriend (now husband), and we lived there for 3 years, most of that time with a Japanese family that we met through happenstance.

Those three years completely define my perspective on almost everything. I do not say I am the definitive authority on Japanese culture, I may make some assumptions and generalisations that some of you may disagree with or are not familiar with. But I assure you it is not the prejudice of the ignorant; it is simply my personal experience.

Japan is relevant to the lore because TES borrows heavily from other cultures for inspiration, and any game developer in the world is standing on the shoulders of Japanese gaming giants, and by extension, manga and anime titans as well.

This piece is going to touch on mostly mythical and language-related similarities, I think that Akaviri architecture and weapons are obvious examples of Japanese influence. I’m going to try and string together more obscure details.

First of all: Language and the significance of the colour red. Red Mountain, Red Year, I have seen some emphasis on the colour red in MK’s work on the Magna-Ge, when /u/FranklyEarnest was talking about the colour spectrum in his work. Akatosh.

Wait what? If you take the Kanji characters and readings most commonly used for the words Aka and Toshi (words almost always end in vowels, but in some dialects and social situations they drop the vowel at the end of the word). The most common character and meaning of Aka is “red” and Toshi is “year” or “age”.

His very name is a prophecy.

I considered how Akavir would translate. But V is a very alien and nonexistent sound in their language. The closest sound it B, that makes it Aka Biru, which is more like Red Beer. Sometimes Biru can mean “building” or “noon” depending on the context, and how the reader reads it. (the B sound is actually a voiced H sound, so Biru can be a version of Hiru, which means noon)

Red Noon? Maybe a bit of a stretch in terms of that being a deliberate choice, and we cannot discount the name being derived from multiple language roots.

Yokuda is another one that always sounded very Japanese to me. Yoku roughly translates to “next”. Da can denote either a rice paddy or large size, depending on the characters chosen. A rice paddy was also a unit of measurement in feudal Japan, but also paddies were so ubiquitous that they would also simply denote a location. The same way everything in Toronto is something something Mills.

Why next? Does it have significance for the next Kalpa? Or was it chosen because after all life began on Tamriel, it was the Next Place humans and elves settled.

If there are other words you would like me to take a look at if you think they sounded Japanese, I can look at it. I am not super fluent, but I can read it well enough to use and interpret a few dictionaries, which I have in my possession.

Numerology: Now there are lot of subtleties about Japanese numerology that I don’t know, but I know some of the basics. Some are shared by the Chinese, some are not.

The number 4: This is a very unlucky number. It is pronounced “Shi” in both Japanese and Chinese, and in both languages it means Death. In certain new developments in Toronto, when the builder assigns house numbers, entire neighbourhoods are totally bereft of the number 4.

The Dunmer also are not big fans of this number, associating it with the House of Troubles, which can often result in death for those who muck about there.

I noticed that 3 is of course very important in the Elder Scrolls, but I have also noticed that prime numbers in general seem to be important. Vivec discusses often “the 5 corners of the world” and I think in the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes, they say something about “7 and 7”. Hortator and Sharmat, 1 and 1, eleven according to Vivec.

The Japanese are generally fond of prime numbers as well, with their children celebrating important rites of passage at ages 3, 5 and 7, and there being a designated national holiday for this exact thing. 5 is a particularly lucky number in their numerology, and I know that Ayrenn is heavily influenced by the number 5.

There is a numerology they do with the syllables of names, but I haven’t had time to do any yet, so if I get around to it and if it’s at all interesting, I will share it.

Mythology and Pop culture: It may seem like an inappropriate pairing, but one becomes the other eventually, right?

Like the Khajiit and Argonians, the Japanese have a separate and distinct creation story. Many world religions discuss God or the Prime Mover as creating all the universe and man along with it.

The Japanese creation myth is a beautiful work of pragmatism. The Universe, and Earth formed from a combination of established scientific means, and then was populated by spirits, or Kami. Their Creation gods, the male Izanagi and the female Izanami, who dip the jeweled spear into the ocean, forming the first island of Japan from the foam (Izanami gives birth to the other islands after they descend to the first island). Amaterasu is formed after the creation of the islands in a different story, from water used to wash Izanagi’s eye. The Imperial Family is mythologically descended from Amaterasu, so Japanese are chosen in that sense.

Ahnurr and Fadomai give birth to each of their children and give them each a great gift or idenity. Azurah created the Khajiit at the express wishes of their mother and gifted them with her secrets. The Khajiit are special.

The Hist literally did this for the Argonians. They carved out a piece of the land, nurtured their people in it, and aren’t particularly inclusive of outsiders.

The Altmer in particular share some cultural parallels with certain facets of Japanese culture. The static and conservative culture, based more on external validation, the expectation of conformity to social norms and mores, the ostracision of those who dare be other than the norm. And that certain…nihilistic outlook on life. It’s more of a zeitgeist thing than an overt imitation of their culture. The Japanese are obsessed with their own demise. Their pop culture and mythology are steeped in disaster, famine and ruin. Even in the cutesiest shojo mangas, there are themes of imminent death and destruction.

People compare the Thalmor to the Nazis, and remember that imperial Japan was allied with the Nazis. In general I actually think it’s not a fair comparison either way, at least in terms of brutality, because we haven’t seen anything on par with concentration camps or the Rape of Nanking out of the Elder Scrolls, and I somewhat doubt we will in official Lore. Correct me if I am wrong.

But war crimes aside, ideologically, I think the Thalmor are more like the Imperial Japanese than the Nazis. They both had an “ideal” race thing going on, but the Japanese wanted more to get the lesser races in line so they could meet their goals. I think Hitler had a somewhat grander scheme. The Thalmor don’t want whatever Hitler’s version of a utopia would be. And neither did the Japanese.

The Red String of Fate. A Japanese notion, probably Buddhist, that is analogous to the Greek Fates with their spinning wheel, but way more romantic. The idea is that some souls or spirits are linked with an immortal red string that cannot be cut. And no matter how many times your soul is recycled and reborn, reincarnated and reused, these spirits find each other, time and time again. Often used in romantic story arcs, can also be applied to rivals and nemeses. Particularly important people can have more than one red string, indeed, fate will spew out entire groups of souls that have been friends, family, lovers and enemies, time and time again.