Tinfoil hat time. The green pact was actually made with the Deadric prince Namira, not the Aedra Y'ffre!

A friend and I were recently talking about the bosmer and their lore, specifically how the "green pact" makes no god damn sense.

Why would a forest god restrict its followers not to eat its fruit (whose only purpose is to spread seeds) or use any vegetation from it (even helping it by clearing away dead trees) and only consume the meat of animals or other humanoids?

In fact it goes so far as to demand its followers completely consume the corpses of their humanoid enemies within three days of killing them. This does not sound like the pact of a spirit of nature or an Aedra, this sounds like the kind of thing a Daedra would demand from its followers. That got me thinking . . .

What if the being that made the green pact with the Bosmer was actually Namira?

Namira is the patron of all cannibals and finds joy in seeing mortals eat other mortals. What if she pretended to be a nature spirit in order to trick a whole race into becoming cannibals? It would explain a lot of the ridiculous restrictions the green pact imposes – restrictions that don’t just require cannibalism, but actively encourage it to be performed even more frequently.

You need some not-animal materials? Go make war with another race who has wood. Of course, afterwards , you need to eat allllll the dead bodies of the people you just killed.

THAT'S A SHIT TON OF CANNIBALISM!! Even after small battles the bosmer would have to eat more than one other whole person each! THAT'S INSANE!

But, is any of this contracy to what Y’ffre would ask them to do? Well, let’s take a look. Y'ffre’s only real demand seems to be to not disrupt "the natural order of things." Not eating fruit, as the green pact dictates, IS disrupting the natural order of things. Fruit exist only to be eaten in order to spread their parent plant’s seeds. If they don't spread their seeds then sooner or later that species of plant dies out. So the green pact goes against "the natural order of things." Hell, if they had a rule "don't eat spicy food" that would make more sense. Spicy peppers are spicy to defend themselves against mammals and make sure only birds, who spread the seeds further, eat and spread their seeds (birds can't taste spicy fyi).

But no, the rule is no plant consumption from the forest of Valenwood what so ever. Just Valenwood, cause screw all other forests. Why would an Aedra so focused on nature exclude all other forests? Maybe they wanted to force the Bosmer to import all the resources they needed…but, in order to import all those goods, the Bosmer would need either a great deal of money, or, once again, to go to war.

This whole green pact seems to encourage violence, greed, theft and a whole slew of other sins rather than any actual good qualities. This whole green pact stinks like a scam, the kind of scam the Daedra are known for. But which one, you ask?

Namira. She is the Daedric prince of decay, darkness, gross bugs and cannibalism. The fact she has control over bugs, spiders and other bugs shows she has some sway over nature, maybe even more than she is letting on. She delights in seeing things rot and decay. She also takes great pleasure in seeing mortals devour other mortals.

All those things are reinforced by the green pact. Decay, because the bosmer are not allowed to use any wood, so all deadfall will rot. Insects and other "repulsive crawling creatures," don't have to compete with humanoids for the bounty of the forest and the things that eat them are hunted by those same humanoids. Cannibalism, the bosmer are flat out told they have to be cannibals and given a frickin’ deadline on all their kills.

By Talos, Namira got the Bosmer good. She conned a whole race into following her without them even noticing, and all she needed to do was dress up like a tree!