On Mantling

This post is a bit different than what we usually find on r/teslore. Instead of talking about about some specific aspect of the lore of Aurbis, I'm going to talk about a myhtopoeic concept in our own world that we apply in our Aurbic lore. That concept is, as you may have guessed, mantling.

There are several meanings of the word "mantle", from an article of clothing (as in "her elegant velvet mantle"), to a few technical definitions ("the earth's mantle; a hawk's mantle") to -- strangely enough -- a meaning synonymous with "onus" or "responsibility" ("the mantle of leadership"). As a verb, it also means "cloak" or "hide" ("the fog mantled the forest; the hawk mantled its prey"). These meanings all derive from a Latin word meaning "cloak", which was verbed and then renominalized into several other meanings.

The concept of mantling has become increasingly popular in fantasy, perhaps because it is somewhat metaphysical. We can see this with the mantle of Winter in the Dresden Files series (another one of my favorites): it doesn't exist in any tangible way, but it is clearly bequeathed and has effects on whosoever carries it. It is a magical construct that radiates a persona, a mask over the carrier's true self. And it comes with responsibilities -- carrying Winter's mantle puts one in debt to Winter, which means that the carrier has to do Winter's bidding.

So how does this fit in Aurbis? Well, in the Elder Scrolls universe, it seems that the major Aedra and Daedra not as beings-in-themselves but rather as mantles -- as a sort of metaphysical construct, a cloak or mask that envelops whoever happens to be wearing or carrying the mantle. We see this happen with the Champion of Cyrodiil: he assumes the mantle of Sheogorath during his sojourn in the latter's realm, the Shivering Isles, and over time, he becomes Sheogorath, an admixture of the experiences and memories of both the Daedric Lord and the underlying mortal.

In this way, the mantle is both tangible and not. It can do tangible things, like be passed around, yet it does not exist in a manner that we can physically experience or touch (touching the body of Sheogorath does not necessarily mean we're touching the mantle of Sheogorath). And, interestingly enough, it is parasitic: the mantle must eventually overwrite its bearer's personalities. He who assumes the mantle of an Aedroth -- or Daedroth -- over time must become that Aedroth or Daedroth, losing his own sense of self in the process.

Now that we have an understanding of the concept, let us examine the other great story of mantling in Aurbic lore: the deification of Tiber Septim (né Talos). Based on our understanding of daedric mantling, we can assume that when Talos assumed the mantle of the Missing God, he should have become Lorkhan and all the various branching aspects associated with Lorkhan. His existence as a distinct entity should have ceased not long after he took on that mantle, much like how the Champion of Cyrodiil's ceases not long after he assumes Sheogorath's mantle. But it didn't. Talos instead became a god separate from Lorkhan. Where Talos filled the aspects of the Missing God, Lorkhan continued to be associated with the earth itself -- it is, after all, created from the remnants of his being.

Our usual understanding of how this came to be is that Talos, much like the Chimer Tribunal, reached divinity by achieving CHIM. This theory is reasonably well supported. But it isn't the only explanation that we can put forth. Here are a couple of other explanations that might bear further investigation:

(1) Aedric mantles function differently than daedric ones. This is fairly self-describing. Another way to conceive of a mantle is as a shared being -- one body, multiple existences. Under this scenario, we can postulate that a daedric mantle's nature is to overwrite its host's existence, while an aedric mantle shares its existence with its host. This sense, while AFAIK not supported in Aurbic lore, is supported in e.g. the difference between Go'a'uld and To'kra (in Stargate lore) or angels and demons (in Supernatural lore). We just have so few case studies that we can't say for certain whether this hypothesis is more accurate than competing ones.

(2) The mantle of Lorkhan and the mantle of the Missing God are not the same mantle. In this scenario, the fundamental existence of divinity is the mantle itself. The Aedra and Daedra that arose are essentially beings (of some sort) that took these mantles and became embodiments of Aurbis' various aspects. Under this conception, one mantle arose that there was never being to take -- that of the Missing God.

When Lorkhan was slain and made into the earth, the earth assumed Lorkhan's mantle, while the unclaimed mantle -- the Missing God -- essentially floated free in Aurbis, until Talos successfully claimed it. This helps explain why Talos' responsibilities are so different than Lorkhan's were (a very strange result of Talos mantling Lorkhan).

I might note here that a related hypothesis might be that Lorkhan's mantle split when he was slain. The end result is the same: the earth assumes Lorkhan's physical mantle (inasmuch as physical mantles exist; one might argue that the Heart of Lorkhan is a physical embodiment of Lorkhan's earthly mantle), while the metaphysical mantle floated free and became the conception of the Missing God, a role unfilled until Talos arose and claimed it for himself.

Of course, these hypotheses I just ran through suffer a common problem, namely, the idea of how Talos assumed the mantle. Achieving CHIM solves that problem, but creates the problem that the Tribunal achieved CHIM without ever claiming a mantle -- especially strange when you consider that the Missing God's mantle still floated free when they achieved it. From Sheogorath, we know that a daedric mantle can be passed from being to being, but there are no clear aedric avatars -- and even if there were, no clear previous bearer of the Missing God's mantle -- that is, indeed, the reason it's called the Missing God -- who can bestow it upon Talos.

I invite you to consider all of these hypotheses and come to your own conclusions.