Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Souls

Sorry in advance for the length grammar and how dull it sounds I'm focusing on the informational here.

Some facts before delving into the question.

*Falmer (who were previously snow elves) had black souls which are now white.

*Giants (who came from Atmora) see “Talos greets the last king of Atmora,” likely had black souls before being driven to the mountains by elves, nords, or dwemer. (They had enough culture to engage in political shenanigans with the dwemer.)

*The two remaining snow elves seen in skyrim have black souls. “Dawnguard”

*Orcs previously had white souls, but now possess black ones. “Daggerfall”

*In general more powerful creatures tend to have larger souls with intelligence being meaningless in the determining of their worth unless they posses a black soul.

*Souls tend to be regarded by myself and the community as consisting of AE (identity) and Animus (energy). “CODA” and others.

*We also know from the quest “Azura's Star” that black soul gems are capable of holding both the AE and the animus of a soul.

*In Mannimarco's book “On soul shriven” it is seen that holding the soul gem of a black soul renders you immune to their attacks and grants some capabilities in commanding their body within the realm of cold-harbor. He also states that the obliteration of the soul shriven feeds Molag-Bal. (more on this later)

*Mannimarco's moon allows for the creation black soul gems by blocking the planet Arkay. “Necromancer's Moon”

*All soul trapped souls go to the soul cairn. “Jiub was trapped by a dremora who certainly didn't offer him to the ideal masters as he was a servant of Dagon”

• The Soul Cairn is Daedric realm in oblivion and the ideal masters are its creators and caretakers who feed on mana in order to maintain their immortality and realm. “Battle Spire”

So now some conclusions

A widely accepted theory is that Arkay's blessing is the determinant for whether a soul is black or white. Additionally some believe it is a barrier of intelligence, culture, or civilization which determines a souls color. Both are partially correct.

I theorize that it is indeed Arkay's blessing which determines a souls color, but recall that the Aedra are dormant or diffused into creation. They gave up their agency in creating the world. Arkay's blessing is more of a natural phenomena which occurs because of a creatures identity or AE. I'm not talking about willpower here. Falmer, giants, and the like, have complex cultures with hierarchical systems where will and rules and leaders certainly exist. It is not the AE's ability to resist capture, but its potential for choice and self comprehension that defines it as “black.” I will elaborate.

We need to determine what falmer and similar “cultural” creatures have in common with animals that defines their souls as white rather then black. Animals lack the ability to manifest change within the world. That is to say they are dictated by the pull of their animus with their AE acting as more of an algorithm or rule-set for behavior rather than as a locus for choice and personality. Similar to the id in psychology. Again intelligence is not a factor here, but it is a requirement. For example a falmer might well have the intelligence to wear armor or organize the farming of chaurus, but it lacks a certain ability to comprehend itself as a truly unique individual with total agency. It can never look at the tower and say I AM. Their behavior is totally predictable with enough intimate knowledge of their mind and soul.

This is the same argument presented to atheists by the religious regarding the idea of free will; (not the point of this post btw) if we are only our minds then with enough study of each individual synapse in our brains we can determine exactly what choice everyone will ever make and free will is an illusion.

In this way we can see the difference in the AE of black and white souls. Intelligence must be compounded on an innate concept of true self identity and utter free will.

White soul gems can trap the animus of beings without this quality because their AE is not an actual entity rather another form of energy manifested into a pattern similar to the animus. It serves as no barrier to the capture of the animus and upon death the algorithm of the simple AE is recycled back into the dream sleeve much like an un-captured animus. The ramifications of this are that all white souled creatures regardless of intelligence or love or memories are obliterated upon death with no after life.

Black soul gems are infused with the power of: the Necromancer’s moon, Molag-Bal's touch, some sort of unique physical property as seen in the black reach geodes, some sort of dark enchantment (speculation), or as seen in the college of winter hold the essence of a daedra as manifested in their heart.

Now the good part

Black soul gems do indeed have the ability to trap both the animus and the AE, a property which sets them apart from white gems. (which again throw again throw identity-less AE's back into the dream-sleeve). However, I wouldn't describe it as “trapping.” I postulate that an AE possessed of free will must be rendered “inert” in order for it to be held by the soul gem. In essence black soul gems take an AE possessed of free will with the capability for true choice and “convert” it to an algorithmic AE for storage. The being itself is likely not even aware of the subtle change as it still thinks and behaves in the same way. This is why black soul gems are reliant on intelligence for power rather than the strength of the animus. The converted AE represents an enormous volume of power which most black soul gems can hardly conduct. This is why we couldn't just “enchant” away the wizard in Azura's Star. The star is designed to never break so it channels the maximum energy possible before siphoning out the rest like excess gas. The algorithmic AE of the wizard represented too much energy to be pushed out at once and since the gem was unable to simply siphon out the energy to the dream-sleeve as it normally would due to his enchantments he became “stuck.” Most soul gems are incapable of this sort of intelligent siphoning and thus break upon use as excess energy is released. Just to recap white soul gems can neither convert nor store the AE while black soul gems do both explaining both the difference in power and why seemingly intelligent creatures have weaker souls than say, mammoths. Soul gems also have a limited energy they can conduct I assume based on size, and other magical properties.

The question remains how do species gain or lose this inherent sense of identity which invokes the blessing of Arkay as a result of their AE? The answer is simple, degradation vs. exultation, a feedback loop. The giants and dwemer were forced back, beaten, belittled, warred with, blinded, enslaved, and tricked by the dwemer and other races. As the dwemer saw them more and more like animals so they became. First only in intelligence then they became utterly creature. They maintained their intelligence to a degree but the deafening belief of the dwemer caused them to lose their agency in sight of the Aedra, the world bones. So it was. As the other races came to know them in this way they became solidified as creatures of some intelligence but without choice; lesser. Thus Arkay could not not shield their AE's from destruction as their AE's were no longer SELF. The exception are the two snow elves encountered in dawnguard. The dwemer believed in the inferiority of the blinded servant falmer, but not the surviving snow elves. Orc's ascended during the dragon break. In dagger-fall you have many dealings with Gortwog and other Orcs as fairly intelligent beings capable of politics etc. despite having white souls. During the Warp in the West Orsinium was gifted a totem and waged war in equal to its neighbors for unknown amounts of time. This led to the empire establishing Orcs as equal citizens of Tamriel. As people began more and more to see the Orcs as intelligent beings truly with free will and intelligence so it was. The combined belief reshaped the identity of Orcs as those with true freedom.

This also explains why Molag-Bal is fed by the “obliterated” souls of soul shriven. Their death in his realm is a permanent one as he absorbs their converted AE while the soul gem retains their animus. Additionally this explains why in ESO Mannimarco cannot just enchant away your animus. Your converted AE is no longer held in the gem when your corpse escaped cold-harbor Akatosh's blessing took your AE as well or by some other means it was returned to your body. Your corpse is acting like an Azura's star as without you animus you are uniquely immune to being separated from your body which is drawing on your AE for power due to Molag-Bal's enchantments. Unfortunately, this means when you get your soul back you have been converted and will be obliterated too. I can only assume that while in Molag-Bal's realm his enchantments force your corpse to feed off your soul gem for power. Explaining the heightened physical threshold for damage and pain as well the “practice” needed to control the soul shriven. Practice being the manipulation of the AE algorithm in the gem. I assume this is incredibly difficult and possible only by select daedra and necromancers. On Nirn it would be impracticable because to capture the soul you have to kill the person. Then you would have to set up the correct enchantments and siphon their soul back into their body slowly and at that point why not just reanimate their corpse.

Okay, sorry

Phew….. bear with me there's more, (albeit with less evidence).

The ramifications of this are extensive for the soul cairn. It only makes sense to conclude that the ideal masters found some way to attract the converted AE of black soul gems to themselves possibly with the help of daedra. In dawnguard we can see both moons from within the Cairn suggesting that it is somehow linked or melded with Nirn in a non-corporeal way in order to draw these souls. To back this up during the plane-meld Molag-Bal overrides the soul cairn's attraction but only through great effort and an all out war on Tamriel. So we can assume the attractive force of the ideal masters is great, greater than the dream-sleeve. All that excess energy from the algorithmic AE is being utilized by the ideal masters. They are depicted both in battle spire and skyrim as soul gems which likely serve as the conduit fueling the accumulated power to their incorporeal forms. I believe even these powerful gems have limits just like the star and that is what the soul cairn is for. It serves as a storehouse for converted AE energy. Thus the soul fissures. This limitation of the soul gem conduit explains why the masters act less like daedra and more like bankers. They have a great stock pile of energy to use probably nearing or at the power of gods, but they are limited in their ability to wield it by their conduit gems which one can only assume are about as big and powerful as soul gems can get. Another theory is that these great soul gems are also home to their own converted AE's granting them a half immortality within the realm of oblivion.

So the final question is why do we see anybody left in the soul-cairn? Why aren’t they all sparkles?

I believe these souls are the wisps of converted AE's which even when converted had so much to cling to in life that the portion of their soul clinging to their memories are simply not worth the effort of the ideal masters to convert. Energy in > energy out. This explain why they are so disoriented and why there are so few souls in the cairn compared to the necromantically created guardians of the cairn who appear to re-congeal after a time. In battle spire it is stated that these guardians are the result of necromancers tricked over the ages into a shallow form of immortality.

Okay so that's it

There's probably a million holes here I don't see but oh well here it is, double check my sources.

Comments, theories, suggestions?

Implications on the morality of soul trapping? On killing white souled creatures?

TLDR: Black souls have real agency AE while white have non-real agency AE. Black soul gems convert real agency AE to non-real for storage and energy and all the implications and proof of that theory.

Bonus Points for my flag and topic matching