Apotheosis through Undeath: Scarab that Transforms into the New Man

It may have worked for Mannimarco, right?

Or if the title of the post is incorrect, perhaps the King of Worms is not undead. Or perhaps he did not achieve godhood after all. But he was a necromancer, and he did try.

So erroneous and tragic as it may have been for Mannimarco, it is one way to look at things, and it is plausible that this was his point of view.

But...can we definitively and truly say that it was wrong? Undeath definitely has a place in the Mythos of Tamriel. I am suggesting here that it may have a very significant place. The taboos surrounding necromancy are abundantly documented, and the “ick” factor cannot account for all of it.

Then we have Meridia, and her absolute, unequivocal, almost numidian rejection of it. Why? Yeah yeah, desecration, bla bla I get it, that’s the general answer. But really, why? I am beginning to wonder if perhaps in addition to being horribly gross and often cruel, it is also treading on some very powerful Daedric and/or Aetherial territory. Maybe not Meridia’s, not entirely. But there are lines in the Magna Ge Pantheon that seem to imply that Nirn (Nana Null) can affect the Magna Ge, and some fear her, and some serve her. Based on this, it seems to make sense that the Star Orphans would have diverse and mixed feelings about mortals achieving godhood.

Necromancy, right or wrong, is one way of playing god. Arguably, Mannimarco played it so well that he became a god.

This got me thinking...Seeing necromancy as a Walking Way would kind of make sense, without really invalidating any previous research or established lore on this, seeing the close relationship to the dead the Dunmer seem to have going back to the Chimer.

Every culture seems to brush up against necromancy, it’s either outright taboo, which seems to be the flavour of Imperial Culture when the games are set; or strictly prescribed, as in Dunmer and their ancestor tombs and Ghost Fences; the ancient Nords with their burials and Draugr; even the ancient Altmer and whatever messed up stuff they were up to.

When we talk about the Aedra being in a sleep-death state and the planets we see in the sky at night are their bodies, there is a spectrum of ways to interpret the image. We could take it as a myth to explain the unexplainable and infinite nature of the planets, with little relationship to objective truth; or it could be very literal, and the Mundus is literally a petri dish of dead matter borrowing life from someone more powerful.

It appears that despite the “ick” factor and obvious ethical issues with Necromancy, we cannot deny its importance across history and culture in Tamrielic culture. Also, it is so important, so powerful that societies feel the need for a taboo….yet it is not a realm owned by any Daedric Prince or Divine. Mannimarco seems to lay claim to the territory but is not given a title, so really I can’t say definitively if he owns that idea the way Peryite owns pestilence. Molag Bal definitely has a tie to vampires but not to the undead in general, so I’m not sure if we can be sure that sphere is his.

I do apologize for not writing something more polished than this, but I wanted to keep with the week’s theme by posting this in a timely manner. I have other thoughts but they are too scattered, perhaps the discussion here can help bring them into some kind of shape.