Lorkhan as A Sea God and A Snake God, Part II: Sea God

TL;DR The sea is a metaphor for Padomay, the sky, Anu. The water surface boundary is reality, the Aurbis, whatever. Padomay is metaphorically a serpent, and Lorkhan is a less metaphorical version, hence a sea serpent. Auriel created Lorkhan to keep doing what Padomay did in terms of eating up reality and dying and starting over, but Lorkhan began to keep parts of himself in Aetherius like the other Aedra and so became Aedra himself. His big final plan involved stuffing as much creation together so Alduin (a disconnected part of himself) would burst. This literally would have happened when the creation of Mundus led necessarily to Akatosh being created as the jamming together of Auriel and Lorkhan. When Akatosh showed up at convention, Auriel freaked and killed Lorkhan and then left so that Alduin couldn't eat ALL of EVERYTHING. This created big problems, hence: Numidium. Also: If a space ship can reach Masser, a submarine would reach Apocrypha.

http://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/20i1yo/lorkhan_is_a_sea_god_and_a_snake_god_part_i_snake/

If you've read part I, you'll understand why the cosmos aren't what we traditionally think they are.

The 'wheel' if you will is something I see as cultural propaganda. The worship of the Eight and the loathing of the Daedric pantheon is very much an Alessian doctrine. Though these beings are clearly cosmic and real, and have analogues in other cultures, the imperial 'system' is nothing more than that. Of course, you can empower a being - even give specific form to it - through worship. However, that doesn't make your faith exclusively valid.

Instead, we learn that Aurbis might be Psijic propaganda. That there's no 'gray matter' in between Aetherial light and the dark of Oblivion. I personally see Oblivion as part of Mundus - well - part of Mundus that's not bound to Mundus.

The Yokudan creation myth describes reality forming as the great serpent (Padomay) being built out of all possibility, begins to eat itself. Its scales become fewer, and yet better defined. Each time it gets to its heart, it dies and sheds its entire skin and starts over. When Lorkhan creates Mundus, he takes as many balls of skin and scales as possible and binds them together. He tries to get them all.

This makes Oblivion sort of 'those parts of reality' that didn't make it into Mundus. Why I call it the 'detritus of past kalpas'. However, there are Aetherial spirits and other being who have likely sequestered parts of reality away as well. Sovngarde is a great example. At the same time, the spirits who escaped Mundus such as Magnus - but even later Auriel - have 'somewhere' to go. So the jamming together of all realities was not complete. But we assume it was nearly complete, because the implication is that there's not enough 'stuff' around to go on creating.

Imagine the universe is Play-Doh, and the spirits of Aetherius play with it and this makes them gods. Of course, definition isn't something that exists in pure Aetherius. Rather, whenever there's shape, there's a shaper. The shaper doesn't exist, but you know they're there because of the shapes that get made. A god of mortal cycles, a god of nature and beasts and life, a god of connections and love, a god of ingenuity and invention and new ideas, etc. These shapers begin to realize they exist, particular once they can see themselves between and across the realities they take part of.

The Yokudan myth calls this 'Walkabout'. It means that the spirits don't come from Aetherius, they come from realities. From the creation process - it defines them. By walking among and between realities, they become "Aetherial" beings.

I only mean to emphasize that there isn't a strict cosmos like what you see with the wheel.

In all things there is form and unform. There is IS and IS NOT. The synthesis of opposites is what everything is. The earth is the synthesis of water and air. It is above water, it is below air. A sword is the steel it's made of, it is not the air that surrounds it. Being steel gives it substance, not being the air around it gives it form. Anu and Padomay is in all things.

The original cosmos, before creation, would have taken the form of an infinite expanse - air, bounded by an infinite boundary - water.

Imagine a vast sea and starless sky. Now imagine the sea surface extends infinitely until it wraps in on itself and surrounds the air. The water is not a vast world like the air. Air represents infinite ability to move, to go, anywhere, unbounded, no barriers. Water surrounds you completely, utterly, completely bounded, barriers of infinitely small size on all sides covering all nooks and corners.

There is no 'space' between to entities submerged in this water. They are both bounded, and far or not far from the surface that would liberate them back into air.

To descend infinitely away from the air, out into nothing, is infinite death, to never be able to be anything else ever again. To be formed and bound forever.

The cosmos are confusing. Why would Auriel want change in the universe, and Lorkhan a single mortality. Is not Lorkhan the agent of change, and Auriel of stasis?

Part of this confusion is due to misconception. Lorkhan loves stasis, he eats it, but his hunger is so strong he always eats himself and dies. His left over bits and pieces remain and he is born again and continues eating. He is change, but seeks stasis.

Auriel loves change. Auriel is the product of each new and different reality. He exists because he can walk between realities and thereby transcend them. He exists because he wishes to remain himself as the universe changes. He is the constant, the All-Maker, but he seeks an ever-changing universe. He is stasis, he seeks change.

This duality is not mind blowing, but it's important to grasp.

Thus, the basic form of the cosmos is sea and air. The 'water' surface is the boundary. In that infinitely thin boundary, you find reality.

To put it better, the surface is nothing more - substance-wise - than diverse reflections of Aetherial light. That is, in some spots light escapes forever, in others it reflects back.

Lorkhan is death, he is the leviathan that rises out of the sea to eat what is upon it. And yet he always eats so much that he eats himself entirely and his skin is rearranged by the beings of the air, only to be eaten again by the serpent. Think of a million floating nests.

Padomay is the primordial serpent, but only so much as to barely fulfill the metaphor. Only after countless cycles is Lorkhan basically created by Auriel out of the skin of Padomay (given its heart - Sithis) to continue to fulfill that role. Lorkhan then would probably take the form more often than not of the literal giant sea serpent.

Magnus would be a spirit that realizes the scam of it all - that none of it has real substance and is just an interplay of two purities - and 'escapes' to Aetherius - the light that reflects back perhaps.

At the bottom of the depths is Hermaeus-Mora, the bits and piece of Padomay that fall out of the reach of the creators. The little balls of scales and skin that are never reuse, but congeal and coalesce in the depths. More than any other being this one knows all that is tangible will end, and end up at the bottom with him. Thus, nothing tangible can satiate him. Only knowledge, the echo of the tangible, will. Presumably, some portion of Sithis' hunger remained with Herma-Mora.

The planets represent parts of the pieces of reality and kalpas that the gods intended to use in Nirn before Lorkhan tricked them. Like nests on a high, safe perch.

And so that's why Lorkhan's a sea god.

Now, think of Lorkhan as the front end of the serpent's mouth, and Alduin as the back end of that same mouth. The eyes of the serpent lust and hunger for more more more. The throat of the serpent only tastes the bile of an overfull stomach. Thus the two aren't inherent enemies, but become enemies superficially.

The first fight of the Aldudagga mentions that greedy man is "in and out of kalpas". I take this to mean that Lorkhan - created by Auriel to continue the cycle of change so that he (Auriel) can continue to play his little game of creation (he adores stasis, but cannot persist within it) - is meant to follow the plan, Auriel's plan, but goes haywire. Part of Lorkhan, inspired by his hunger, creates a part of himself that transcends kalpas - just like the rest of the Aedra. This makes him one of the Aedra as well, and it gives him a transkalpic plan.

The culmination of that plan is when Lorkhan gathers so much reality into one place - Mundus - that Auriel's hand is forced and he has to kill Lorkhan. That's why it happened, this time. Because his hand was forced by Lorkhan's greed.

Mundus is too much reality balled up together. Alduin cannot eat it. This is meant metaphorically to mean that too much of reality is revealed to itself, that it will result in permanent stasis - or permanent change - bad for everyone. So though Alduin and Lorkhan are adversarial, they share the same heart - which Auriel rips out of Shor's ribs I guess at some point in the binding of reality.

This, then, must be considered seminal. It is said, by one account, that time begins when Magnus departed Mundus. However, time is understood to be the binding of Akatosh. What are we to make of this?

I am assuming it's all related, and the inability of Alduin to eat himself is the problem that cause Auriel to act differently, this difference being the death of Lorkhan.

I propose that Magnus could not have coexisted with Akatosh. Akatosh's presence drove Magnus away like a magnet with an opposing pole. That is, Magnus's departure wasn't causal, it was an effect. Auriel on the other hand, could stay, but he didn't stay very long - though I propose he coexisted with Akatosh for a brief while, knowing he couldn't really stay and co-preside with Akatosh. If we knew more of the Falmer, we might now more about this.

I think that Lorkhan's greed created Akatosh. That the bringing together of so much reality meant that it was inevitable for the two aspect to merge. This meant the dreaded end of kalpas that Auriel feared. If Alduin were to eat Auriel and Lorkhan, it would mean sundering of change/stasis, the ripping of the boundary.

The universe began when the two separated out from a whole. The universe would end as the separation became final.

It went like this: the Aedra looked upon Mundus from atop Direnni Tower.

"Nice laws of physics Magnus," said Kynareth. "I like your 'goats'," said Magnus. "See, it wasn't so bad," said Lorkhan. "We'll see," said Auriel. There was a pause. "Regardless, good job everyone!" said Akatosh.

"Oh F**K," said Auriel, who then ripped Lorkhan's heart out and sent it to the far end of the world. Magnus immediately peaced out.

Auriel took care of some things, then looked at Akatosh and said, "Well, you got this bro."

The end.

The idea is that Lorkhan as the missing god. Auriel 'lets' Akatosh take over so that they don't both get eaten by Alduin, and so Akatosh gets mixed in with real memories of Auriel. Lorkhan is just dead. So, people know about him, but he's not a god of Nirn. Akatosh fills the roles of both Auriel and Lorkhan. That's why Lorkhan's missing. Auriel is 'gone' but he was here, and he deliberately passed the reins to Akatosh. Lorkhan is just not there, in the pantheon.

Alduin still exists, but as an aspect of Akatosh not of Lorkhan. Likewise, LDB is an aspect of Akatosh's greedy man nature, but Akatosh isn't pure Lorkhan.

One imagines Lorkhan knew this would happen, who knows what his plan is. In one sense, Numidium is a natural consequence of things getting so screwed up. These are all things to consider another day.

Conclusion is that Lorkhan is a sea serpent. The sea and its depths are the void metaphor. Presumably, since pieces of past kalpas combine for Mundus (the Dreugh are here), old Lorkhan is remembered by sea folk. Moreover, none this process is necessarily exclusionary.

I like to think that the physical depths of Nirn's sea become an anti-sky and start to transcend Mundus and physically connect to the deeper parts of Oblivion. If a space ship can reach Masser, a submarine would reach Apocrypha.

That's why sea creatures can sort of transcend Kalpas just like Aedra. They hide in the depths and watch their lord Lorkhan eat everything on the surface. They remember the leviathan serpent Lorkhan better than other denizens of Mundus who only really remember anthropomorphic Shor.

Oh, by the way, there was a Shor/Shezzar. There was an Auriel. There was/is an Akatosh who was/is both 100% Auriel and 100% Shor. Make sense?