On the Nature of Lorkhan and the Aka

Julius Patramos Arcanus

[Julius of the house of Patramos or Patramou, granted the title Arcanus by his excellency the Emperor Titus Mede II for his expertise and counsel in matters of Arcane scholarship. Scholar of the arcane University, adviser to the Emperor and the Imperial Counsel]

[The following is a letter submitted to his colleagues at the Arcane University on the question of the infamous ban on Talos worship]

I would prefer, acolyte, to refrain from touching directly on the question of Talos, whether I believe in his apotheosis or think him to rightly stand among the divines. My tongue is held tight due to my position, and I wish not to put his excellency the Emperors into a compromising position. (Read into that what you would.) I wish, rather, to look beyond the question of Talos as a specified deity and consider the placement within the broader scope of things. To do this, we must look back to the dawn, the very beginning of the dawn, when this world was formed.

Doubtless many of my colleagues at the university hold to different beliefs in these matters, but I will paraphrase here only my own perspective and build forward from there.

Whether or not you believe Lorkhan to have been an evil trickster or a brilliant visionary (or whatever other opinions you hold of him) we can put this forward as the basis of our understanding: Lorkhan, somehow, convinced the divines to work with his brilliant plan to create the Mundus. Doing so would require a sacrifice, they all would have to give up a part of themselves to create this new world that would have the uniqueness of mortality and total free will that the other planes do not. I believe this was a willing sacrifice, but whether it was or not is immaterial.

What is important for your question is this one thing: AKA, the primeval form of what we know today variously as Akatosh, Auriel, and so forth was caused to make the greatest sacrifice. By taking part in the creation of the Mundus, AKA was shattered into countless shards. The many faces of AKA became the various entities that we know as the time god or aspects thereof. The dragons, too, are shards of Aka, I would gather.

I presume now to say that we believe that Lorkhan and Aka are not entirely distinct, but are in actuality the two faces of the same thing. As one goes, so too does the other. They are the two sides of one coin, or the two faces of the madman.

I present to you, n regards to your question of Talos, that Lorkhan is in a state much like that which afflicts the Aka. The being that we identify as Lorkhan was, like Aka, shattered to create the world. His body was torn asunder, even his mind was rent into so many forms. What we called Talos was not a new god, or some heretical assumption of divinity by a man. Talos was the collusion of several of these shards, these pieces of Lorkhan, that bound themselves together and became somewhat more whole than they had been before.

But Talos is not Lorkhan, nor did he entirely replace Lorkhan, or mantle him. Talos is part of Lorkhan, according to this interpretation. The same can be said of Shor, the god of the nords. Shor is not and never was Lorkhan, he is and was merely a part, a shard of Lorkhan like Akatosh is just a part of Aka. Shor did not cease to be when Talos ascended, if you believe that he did ascend, because Shor is not Lorkhan. So Talos was not replacing him.

So in response to the 'Talos Question' I say only this:

Tiber Septim was Shezarine Wulfharth was Shezarine Zurin Arctus was Shezarine

And so were many others. These are not avatars of Lorkhan, like the familiar avatars of the Eight (and one?) but bits, pieces of Lorkhan who were mad, and inspired, and driven to greatness because they sought to be whole. Some of them, as Talos, may have become something closer to being whole, but Lorkhan is still broken.

So I will not directly respond to your queston, in part because of the delicacy of my position, and in part because I think this is little more than a Thalmor plot to brand me as a Talos worshiper and criminal because I have become inconvenient. But mostly because your question, I think, cannot be straightly answered. I cannot say whether Talos is the divine, because you don't understand what the concept of Talos is.

I would say, regarding the ban, that I will neither speak for nor against it. I will only laugh at the foolishness for their tremendous misunderstanding, beveling that Talos and Tiber Septim are one and the same.

Give my regards to the Justiciar

Julius Patramos Arcanus