One of my favorite lines about the elder scrolls is when you ask Urag gro-Shub who wrote them: "It would take at least a decade to explain to you why that question doesn't even make sense."
The Elder Scrolls are unironically my favourite part of Elder Scrolls lore. The way characters talk about them makes me think of quantum mechanics. Like Septimus Signus got hold of a physics textbook from 2073, knew he had been given access to the inner workings of the universe, but couldn't comprehend the nonsense about entanglement, relativity and Schrodinger's cat.
Intentional or not, that’s a really good analogy. I liken the scrolls back to when I was a teenager watching tv at 2am. One channel used to show ‘open university’ lectures. I remember watching some physics based ones and found them fascinating, but didn’t have a clue how to understand them. It’s like it’s all there, but you can’t quite grab it.
@@lazaglider i can't even grab 90% of what this guy in the video is saying. I swear most of it is just complete blabber. I feel he goes to in depth for someone like me who isn't really into much lore of the elder scrolls series.
He said it guys. He mentioned the cat. Did you know about the cat? It’s in a box and is dead and alive at the same time. Schrödinger’ cat. It’s a cat that’s dead and alive. Did you know that? Im 14 and I know this. Cat. Dead and alive. Schrödinger. Im a quantum mechanisms expert. Schrodinger’s cat. Manny Ramirez deserves to be in the hall of fame.
I love that the canonical answer to what is written in the Elder Scrolls is literally just the game’s code transcribed onto in-game paper. So you, a product of the game’s coding and programming, are looking upon the full design of the very game coding that comprises your entire existence. You all at once become aware of the entirety of your existence as well as the fact that it’s all just code.
@@Starius65 I was kinda thinking the scrolls account for the player base and all the different choices we've collectively made in all playthroughs of all the games. Essentially eyes into the multiverse. Wether your Dragonborn is a saintly paladin a necromancer that eats babies or a follower of old uncle Sheo running around turning people into cheese, all are Truths that can be told by the Scrolls.
I think the nature of the elder scrolls exists due to the very nature of a video game. There are many different players making many different decisions in many different ways and contexts. The elder scrolls show all possible futures and pasts through many different lenses essentially allowing for every player's time line to still fall under a prophecy.
If you’ve read anything in your life, you’ll see that all mythology and metaphysics are the same: chaos and order constantly in strife. It’s all the same shit and it’s obvious even to any undergrad philosophy major. Elder Scrolls is just another mythology of strife.
The Scrolls can be altered, actually. I seem to recall a certain Fox who was lost to memory and history and reinstated himself by rewriting his place within one of the Scrolls.
You recall incorrectly. The scroll he used named the original thief of the Gray Cowl. He used that to break Nocturnal's curse on it, in doing so regained his own life instead of becoming the Fox.
Martin S I just thought they were writings that people cursed just to fuck with anybody who tries to read them and all they say is some recipe for poison labeled as *”HEALING”*
my headcanon has been for a while that the elder scrolls are the representation for the will of the player and the writers/developers together kinda thing
Septimus Signus provided one of the most interesting attempt at explaining what the Scrolls actually are, but even his viewpoint was limited by his perspective as a finite, imperfect being constrained by linear time. I think the Scrolls, like the Dwemer, work best as an enigma; give us hints and tidbits (like poor Septimus), but please don't spoil the mystery.
Right? Like how in the prequel trilogy of star wars they felt the need to explain the force as midichlorians, when it worked much better as spirituality/mystery
The games are the elder scrolls themselves telling stories of heros, monsters and mortals. We viewing these scrolls are beings beyond mundus and nirn but even we need a device to translate such knowledge we see what the scrolls offer through the eyes of the hero so vividly and accurate we mistakenly think we are controlling the actions of the chosen but really the scrolls show every possible outcome every conceivable choice or action the chosen hero could have and did make. Based on the reader the scrolls show the choices more aligned with said readers moral compass to further blur the line between reader and hero. I like this theory a lot lol
Well my reading of then is has BPD. Some days it's happy, talkingbto everyone. The next im slaughtering every hold, breaking out of Cidhna Mine&then slaughter the foreshore I helped escape because fuck everyone.
This may sound like a crazy analogy, But I've always liked looking at the relationship between hermaeus Mora and the Elder Scrolls like a CCG. I'll explain... You have a deck of possible outcomes in an unknowable order (the elder scrolls) and a graveyard of spent or lost known outcomes, organized in order in which they were spent or lost (hermaeus Mora) Metaphorically speaking there are events that FORCE you to shuffle the deck, burn the top three cards. But also events that ALLOW you to look at the top three cards in your deck, as well as cards that allow you to revive spent cards from your graveyard... etc etc. This relationship plays out with a deck of truly unlimited cards and a graveyard of seemingly unlimited cards. Hermaeus Mora cannot crave a card that is yet to be drawn, and the Elder Scrolls can only tell you the cards that might be in the deck not the order in which they will be drawn.
"Just as the laws of physics describe how our universe works, a transcendent cosmological song describes how the Elder Scrolls universe, the Aurbis works. And the Elder Scrolls themselves are the sheet music of the song" In order to understand the Scrolls, you need to step beyond the Aurbis.
What if the scrolls are actually just code, kinda like the world is a simulation theory, and the more you read the code the more you can diverge from your own programming. This might explain why the dwemer disappeared, they were deleted just not their information. An interesting theory for sure.
"Will you look into the elder Scroll?" "What will I see?" "Even the wisest cannot tell, for the scrolls shows many things. Things that _were_ , things that _are_ and some things.....that have not yet come to pass"
The elder scrolls are deus ex machina. They are whatever you need them to be because you wrote yourself into a corner. To be fair it's deus ex machina done well.
There not really they can serve as most things in a story but an elderscroll can’t save your arse when you’re overrun by bandits they serve alot of story purposes but those purposes are justified on the context of the story something being key to the story doesn’t make it a deus ex machina
Hmm In a world of chaos where all have the power to choose their fate and make their own destiny. The idea of a prophecy that determines it for you would probably be a pretty scary and unwelcome thing. Something of a curse
This is actually just the deal I need to hear because all my time playing the Elder Scrolls games I never actually understood a whole lot of them myself outside of seeing them in game and hearing NPCs talk about them. So thank you for making this, this helped answer my questions that came to me during my playthroughs
So the Scrolls (basically) either: 1) Tell the future, in a self-fulfilling, quest-giver kind of way: "The Last Dragonborn will become a Thane!". 2) Allow you to make a wish: "I want full skill trees!". Who's to say which Scroll does what? And it sounds like they could pop up literally anywhere. - "Ope, I found this in my onion fields yesterday" (Annnd a plague of Blind Madness suddenly sweeps the nation, as unknowing townsfolk read a Cosmic Shopping List that drives them insane). Somewhere, Hermaeus Mora is laughing diabolically.
@@DahrkMezalf those who doesn't have the insight to read an elder scroll will not be able to comprehend it and is not affected by its side effects. if you are illiterate about the scrolls, it will not harm you, but it will just be a piece of metal and paper.
No? Mora is laughing at YOU maybe, even now. Your assertions make absolutely no sense given the extensive context you had to rely on upon writing this.
I think the elder scrolls are the elder scrolls - as in the games. Think about it, the scrolls document all potential outcomes - the games also do that by letting the player do as they choose in a world of infinite choices. The discs and programs we bought were the literal elder scrolls the whole time, which is why a game doesn't need a scroll in its plot for it to be and elder scroll (game).
8:52 "What should mortals do when they discover one?" One thing that I think has never been thought of before: Eat it!! Consume the Elder Scroll and gain the Power of the Universe!!! I suggest in a stir fry with pork, or perhaps shredded in a pancake with blueberry syrup.
Uncle Sheo is that you? How is the isles doing? When will you let back in, I promise not to drop cow dung in your throne room again (looks at the cart load of mammoth dung) hehe
Such power. Elder scrolls can do more than just prophesize, they can also banish, as was the case with Alduin. If they exist outside mortal comprehension and limits, then there's no end to what they can do. My opinion is that mortals only see them as prophecy parchments because that tip of the iceberg is all that is accessible to us. Mortals do not have the means to unlock or access or even comprehend the rest of their limitless abilities. Apparently, Feldir did discover as well as access its power to banish.
TLDR: the Elders Scrolls are the self insert of all story writers of the series. They're the ones who write the story, therefore, they're the ones that know all the possibilities.
The Elder Scrolls are game code. Seriously though, I’d love at least one future game to recognize the playable character, and all previous playable characters by extension, as the temporary avatar of the Godhead (ie the player). It would explain why they fulfill so many prophecies, why they can experience an elder scroll without going mad or blind, why they can make deals with Deadra without being bound in servitude to them, and why they can achieve greater power than the most powerful characters in game. Just a thought
I am a firm believer that there was another entity before creation that it is their power that created the scrolls. And that entity disappeared after creating them..
The Elder Scrolls are the allegories of everyone's head cannon of whoever played or developed , is playing or developing, or will one day play or will one day develop an elder scrolls game.
They say you can't use elder scrolls as armor in the game but why not? Just strap them to yourself like a chestplate, they wouldn't need to be broken. They're indestructible so it'd be worth the weird looking armor strapped to you.
1:14 What if the dwemer had someone read a scroll that gave them the knowledge to read scrolls without the fear of blindness, madness or death? After that leaving the universe wouldn't be far behind.
In their Tower of Mzark Oculory, they were trying to read the Dragon Scroll without the negative effects. It didn’t work. But, instead it looks like they may have put the information in the Scroll into a lexicon in a format that was understandable. This was to read the information without looking at the Scroll itself.
I've always seen them this way, they are the MS-DOS box in which the programming language of Mundus is displayed on. It's blinding to the people that live inside Tamriel because it is their source code and they can't make heads or tails out of it. It's like us trying to get a grasp on quantum mechanics the more we think we learn the more complicated it gets.
What if the Elder Scrolls are your save files. You record past, present and future save files. You can also record a different timeline of what different choices you made, what skills you developed, what classes you chose, what choices you made are different every save file. It's interesting because the Xenogears series actually brought up the save files the Zohar was in fact something more greater than they actually were and had a greater plan.
I always thought the elder scrolls were time itself being documented, however they possessed some level of time travel itself. In Skyrim one of the elder scrolls present is documenting your actions that are effecting the entire world and all of its boundaries, and you read one and bam, you are present in the time another one was documenting someone slaying a dragon, and if i remember correctly someone acknowledges you being there as if they can cause you to time travel, or manifest yourself where events occured within the scroll. They're a rolled up wormhole. or i have no idea what i am talking about.
Or, to put it simply in meta terms - the Elder Scrolls are the biggest McGuffin to ever McGuffin and they do whatever the writers need them to do. Hell with the whole Godhead's Dream thing that's not far off, the Elder Scrolls are used as a plot device however which way they can be as the Godhead dreams of it's purpose for the story present
I think the Elder Scrolls are how time flows, everything that could ever happen is written down in them, so they are the infinite diverting steams of the many worlds that could be and are. That’s why nothing is ever certain, they record possibilities and outcomes. But no one is all knowing, so they cannot divine what has not yet happened.
all this time until now and i never had the thought that we're watching ( when playing elder scrolls) an elder scrolls of events that have happened or have yet to be happening
Isn't the point of the moth priests that they're able to narrow down the possible prophecies of a scroll into its certain prophecies? And that the scrolls exist because a scroll is how mortals perceive the fragments of creation, or the points of origin from which possible futures branch out. Which is why they tend to appear and disappear, because possible futures also appear and disappear as events are set in stone within a timeline.
Personally I beilive that the elder scrolls are the blueprint for time itself and are ever changing according to how time is altered by those worthy of altering it. I also believe that Magnus while possibly not the creator I do think that he probably used the scrolls in conjunction with his staff to finish the creation of Nirn.
Actually, when you think about it, everything you just described about the scrolls that is giving the meeting in the game. Characters know what they are. They can’t describe them because it is beyond your comprehension but the fact that they can give some information. I’ll be very little bitch that they are not meeting us it’s just limited feeling.
The Elder Scrolls are a paradox. They exist outside of time, yet they can't read non-linear time; they can't record what happens during Dragon Breaks, when time stops working. If the Scrolls existed before the universe and before Akatosh came into being, who is time, then what is the Scroll's original purpose?
You know what the Elder Scrolls lore makes me want to to play every game in the series. That's true marketing right there. Keep it a mystery. Only other story as intruiging as this was the one in Chrono Cross.
Ok don't mock me cause of this What if Ma'iq is actually an immortal being (god) who is actually the elder one the one who exists forever and that HE wrote the scrolls Not impossible right?
I think the Elder Scrolls are similar to the Sister's of fate in Greek Mythology. The power to literally reshape an exsistence instantly that even if Gods directly intefere have no power over.
Perhaps the elder scrolls are the reminence of the previous Kalpas with a new elder scroll being created at the end of each one holding knowledge of the events that happened during it. And because each go around, as it were, is slightly different two people can look at two different elder scrolls and see two different outcomes of the same event. And when an events that happened before happen again they become temporary locked as the next elder scroll begins to be written. This also ties into my sub theory that there are a limited number of possible events and outcomes and each go around cycles through and randomizes the order in which they happen. And perhaps when all the events and prophecy’s of the oldest and first elder scroll lock into place something grand will happen good or bad.
@Sebastian edwards Well if TLD didnt know how to read them he would had never been able to go back in time and learn dragonrend or found the location of auriels bow.A select few are meant to read elder scrolls and TLD just so happens to be one of the few. Also due to the fact that TLD is related to and is a dragon he is a shard of time which makes him more intuned with the scrolls
Well, the Dragonborn has the literal soul and blood of a dragon. If dragons are particularly susceptible to the Scrolls, perhaps that has something to do with it? Plus, it's also a good point that you really only see vague and odd symbols, and then the second time you're just using their power to see through a time wound. Also, dragonborn, lore-wise, are overpowered af so who knows?
My theory was just the elder scrolls are all the coding used to make the games. A sort of fourth wall. Or quantum computer, referencing to a simulation theory or something.
The elderscrolls draw their power from tod howard, the god head, they are everything and anything since their inception, because that is how tod howard made them, only he, and the great council of developers can ever know their true meanings. For it is their minds creation
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
One of my favorite lines about the elder scrolls is when you ask Urag gro-Shub who wrote them: "It would take at least a decade to explain to you why that question doesn't even make sense."
He said a month.
@@jjsouls6986 right, sorry. It's been a while since I played.
@@kestradavis5372 lol no big deal
I totally forgot about that grumpy old orc
Seriously who wrote it?
"No one does blasphemy quite like the dwarves."
*laughs in Tribunal*
To be fair, the Tribunal did something once that the Dwemer did on a daily basis.
The dwarves made a god lol. The Tribunal just lied a lot.
Tod Howard on the Elder Scrolls "It just works".
16 times the scrolls
Tod blames to many problems on me. Time to dust off the Wabbajack!
U see that scroll over there? if u can see it u can read it
Sixteen details the times!
@Neverlandia If you have not played Morrowind, Oblivion or daggerfall then please shut the fuk up about it.
The Elder Scrolls are unironically my favourite part of Elder Scrolls lore.
The way characters talk about them makes me think of quantum mechanics. Like Septimus Signus got hold of a physics textbook from 2073, knew he had been given access to the inner workings of the universe, but couldn't comprehend the nonsense about entanglement, relativity and Schrodinger's cat.
Intentional or not, that’s a really good analogy. I liken the scrolls back to when I was a teenager watching tv at 2am. One channel used to show ‘open university’ lectures. I remember watching some physics based ones and found them fascinating, but didn’t have a clue how to understand them. It’s like it’s all there, but you can’t quite grab it.
@@lazaglider dont worry, its actually not all there. Schrodinger himself believed the formulas were missing something.
@@lazaglider i can't even grab 90% of what this guy in the video is saying. I swear most of it is just complete blabber. I feel he goes to in depth for someone like me who isn't really into much lore of the elder scrolls series.
He said it guys. He mentioned the cat. Did you know about the cat? It’s in a box and is dead and alive at the same time. Schrödinger’ cat. It’s a cat that’s dead and alive. Did you know that? Im 14 and I know this. Cat. Dead and alive. Schrödinger. Im a quantum mechanisms expert. Schrodinger’s cat.
Manny Ramirez deserves to be in the hall of fame.
@@mike-0451 now explain why the cat is dead and alive smarty pants
I love that the canonical answer to what is written in the Elder Scrolls is literally just the game’s code transcribed onto in-game paper. So you, a product of the game’s coding and programming, are looking upon the full design of the very game coding that comprises your entire existence. You all at once become aware of the entirety of your existence as well as the fact that it’s all just code.
Fudgemuppet and Camelworks makes me want to believe the elder scrolls lore history more than real life history.
yeah p ooo
@James Donnelly Calm down.
The ironic part is that fudgemuppet's explanation of the scrolls make it retcon-proof, perfect for uncoordinated writers.
It is an allegory for the truth of things...in a way...as many stories are.
@@Starius65 I was kinda thinking the scrolls account for the player base and all the different choices we've collectively made in all playthroughs of all the games. Essentially eyes into the multiverse. Wether your Dragonborn is a saintly paladin a necromancer that eats babies or a follower of old uncle Sheo running around turning people into cheese, all are Truths that can be told by the Scrolls.
"No one does blasphemy quite like the dwarves."
Except for those *damn faithless Imperials.*
Nah
The Talos Mistake
@@grefsteel3989 Talos says: Be strong for war. Be bold against enemies and evil, and defend the people of Tamriel.
@@grefsteel3989 huh?
@@HoundofOdin Talos also says, "I'm totally an Atmoran guys don't look into that Hjalti gossip too hard"
you can buy one for 5.99 in es6
clericofchaos1 wait a second...
You get 3 free with 10$ battle pass
No. U gota pay 59.99 each. Or join the live service for 200 dollers a month. U get 3 scrolls every 6 months
They come free when you donate £10 to khajiit lives matter.
@@homebrewinstrumentals7700 KHAJIIT STOLE NOTHING!
I think the nature of the elder scrolls exists due to the very nature of a video game. There are many different players making many different decisions in many different ways and contexts. The elder scrolls show all possible futures and pasts through many different lenses essentially allowing for every player's time line to still fall under a prophecy.
you are much closer to the answer than most of people. But you are a bit off the track. It is a bit more simpler.
@@alekseimutovkin Illuminating contribution mate.
Fr bro thought he did something
It should be noted that the Scrolls are heavily inspired by the real-world mythology of the Akashic Record, which is a very similar concept.
Never knew this. Fudgemuppet should look into this. Find real world examples on which things in the elder scrolls are based.
Indeed. Kudos for knowing that.
No way! Wow that’s actually mind blowing to me
If you’ve read anything in your life, you’ll see that all mythology and metaphysics are the same: chaos and order constantly in strife.
It’s all the same shit and it’s obvious even to any undergrad philosophy major. Elder Scrolls is just another mythology of strife.
@@bm1343it shouldn’t. That’s like being surprised that cool aid is just flavored water.
i wonder has Maiq been in contact with an elder scroll. It would explain much about him.
"Maiq once read an elder scroll. So bright is the light that almost made him blind. Thank Alkosh that Maiq's eyes still sees."
Could Maiq possibly be an Elder Scroll personified?
@@kayleescruggs6888 hes literally more mad then sheogorath
Maiq is elder scrolls itself.
Pretty sure M'aiq is supposed to be Rajhin the Khajiiti thief god, also known as "The Purring Liar"
The Dwemer got the Dragon scroll after the war, so I’m just imagining Dwarf attending Feldir’s funeral, and being like, “And this is mine.”
The Void Looks Pretty is that how they were wiped out?
Texas Red There are a lot of theories about how they were wiped out, but that ain’t one of them. Them having an elder scroll was entirely unrelated.
The Void Looks Pretty ok
Azura cursed the Dwemer allegedly, but I don't know what of/with they were cursed; but perhaps this is a culprit of their mysterious disaopearance.
@@stickmanmageofthelordtacha4917 they went to the moon
As the scroll opened in the beginning my eyes actually hurt and I winced. But then I was like...wait a second.
lmao
Elder Scroll: *Has beautiful drawing of Inigo on it*
Person who looks upon it: **Screams in horror and goes blind and crazy**
The Scrolls can be altered, actually. I seem to recall a certain Fox who was lost to memory and history and reinstated himself by rewriting his place within one of the Scrolls.
You recall incorrectly. The scroll he used named the original thief of the Gray Cowl. He used that to break Nocturnal's curse on it, in doing so regained his own life instead of becoming the Fox.
TheOnlyAlchimous Clearly my memory was compromised, I blame Nocturnal.
@@mesektet5776 :o
@@mesektet5776 daedras be cursed
@@TheOnlyAlchimous but it's still an elder scroll
for all this years of playing I never thought about what are the Elder Scrolls anyway
They always felt like macguffins to me.
Martin S I just thought they were writings that people cursed just to fuck with anybody who tries to read them and all they say is some recipe for poison labeled as *”HEALING”*
Elder scrolls are basically notes of lore writers from Bethesda
lmao
my headcanon has been for a while that the elder scrolls are the representation for the will of the player and the writers/developers together kinda thing
reading an elder scrolls sounds like an ayahuasca trip
The scrolls sound like Augur of the obscure. Enigmatic, powerful, inexplicable knowledge.
"How exactly does a posi-trac rear-end on a Plymouth work?....It just does".
Septimus Signus provided one of the most interesting attempt at explaining what the Scrolls actually are, but even his viewpoint was limited by his perspective as a finite, imperfect being constrained by linear time. I think the Scrolls, like the Dwemer, work best as an enigma; give us hints and tidbits (like poor Septimus), but please don't spoil the mystery.
Right? Like how in the prequel trilogy of star wars they felt the need to explain the force as midichlorians, when it worked much better as spirituality/mystery
The games are the elder scrolls themselves telling stories of heros, monsters and mortals. We viewing these scrolls are beings beyond mundus and nirn but even we need a device to translate such knowledge we see what the scrolls offer through the eyes of the hero so vividly and accurate we mistakenly think we are controlling the actions of the chosen but really the scrolls show every possible outcome every conceivable choice or action the chosen hero could have and did make. Based on the reader the scrolls show the choices more aligned with said readers moral compass to further blur the line between reader and hero. I like this theory a lot lol
Kinda like Red Dead redemption is seen thru a movie
Well my reading of then is has BPD. Some days it's happy, talkingbto everyone. The next im slaughtering every hold, breaking out of Cidhna Mine&then slaughter the foreshore I helped escape because fuck everyone.
you almost nailed it. But Elder Scrolls are not games themselves. Yet, you are close. It is a bit more mundane.
Elder scrolls : game codes
This may sound like a crazy analogy, But I've always liked looking at the relationship between hermaeus Mora and the Elder Scrolls like a CCG. I'll explain...
You have a deck of possible outcomes in an unknowable order (the elder scrolls) and a graveyard of spent or lost known outcomes, organized in order in which they were spent or lost (hermaeus Mora)
Metaphorically speaking there are events that FORCE you to shuffle the deck, burn the top three cards. But also events that ALLOW you to look at the top three cards in your deck, as well as cards that allow you to revive spent cards from your graveyard... etc etc.
This relationship plays out with a deck of truly unlimited cards and a graveyard of seemingly unlimited cards. Hermaeus Mora cannot crave a card that is yet to be drawn, and the Elder Scrolls can only tell you the cards that might be in the deck not the order in which they will be drawn.
Jesse Bates
That was pretty sick
Jesse Bates is this a Yu Gi Oh reference?
HEART THIS GUY
you speaking in yugioh
Oh, now that is brilliant.
"Just as the laws of physics describe how our universe works, a transcendent cosmological song describes how the Elder Scrolls universe, the Aurbis works. And the Elder Scrolls themselves are the sheet music of the song"
In order to understand the Scrolls, you need to step beyond the Aurbis.
Good metaphor for understanding the Bible.
Alright fudgemuppet be honest do you know real history or ElderScrolls history better
I'm preety sure almost everyone here knows Elder Scrolls history better
I put so much effort into making videos that get like 2 likes and then this random comment gets 40
I study real life history *nervously looks around*
@@CAPace09 heretic
What if the scrolls are actually just code, kinda like the world is a simulation theory, and the more you read the code the more you can diverge from your own programming. This might explain why the dwemer disappeared, they were deleted just not their information. An interesting theory for sure.
This is the truth, not just theory. The creators of this IP have said as much.
@@crackedupmonk Really? didnt know that ill have to take a look into it. thanks for the info.
Asgeir too woke
Magic works like a computer code
@@pancakes8670 technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.
"Will you look into the elder Scroll?"
"What will I see?"
"Even the wisest cannot tell, for the scrolls shows many things. Things that _were_ , things that _are_ and some things.....that have not yet come to pass"
The elder scrolls are deus ex machina. They are whatever you need them to be because you wrote yourself into a corner.
To be fair it's deus ex machina done well.
There not really they can serve as most things in a story but an elderscroll can’t save your arse when you’re overrun by bandits they serve alot of story purposes but those purposes are justified on the context of the story something being key to the story doesn’t make it a deus ex machina
@@tamonk9054 the save file is an elder scroll.
Forlarren in morrowind the savefile is chim and that’s the only we really had anything remotely mentioned about the savefile in game
@@tamonk9054 You can actually use an Elder Scroll against a group of bandits. Flash the scroll on their faces and you got the best flashbang.
@@DR-ng7oh ''tactical scroll going in'' -some SWAT Dragonborn
Hmm
In a world of chaos where all have the power to choose their fate and make their own destiny. The idea of a prophecy that determines it for you would probably be a pretty scary and unwelcome thing. Something of a curse
I hope they make it canon that Parthuurnax lived but they probably will keep it ambiguous
Tod Howard can't wait to reveal The Elder Scrolls 67: The Final Straw
Ray Martin 2 more after that and he’ll make The Elder Scrolls 69: Nice
This is actually just the deal I need to hear because all my time playing the Elder Scrolls games I never actually understood a whole lot of them myself outside of seeing them in game and hearing NPCs talk about them.
So thank you for making this, this helped answer my questions that came to me during my playthroughs
I always liked the reading room form oblivion like that would be a kick ass room for a player home
Too many blind folk in there, not enough hot female librarians
So the Scrolls (basically) either:
1) Tell the future, in a self-fulfilling, quest-giver kind of way: "The Last Dragonborn will become a Thane!".
2) Allow you to make a wish: "I want full skill trees!".
Who's to say which Scroll does what? And it sounds like they could pop up literally anywhere.
- "Ope, I found this in my onion fields yesterday"
(Annnd a plague of Blind Madness suddenly sweeps the nation, as unknowing townsfolk read a Cosmic Shopping List that drives them insane).
Somewhere, Hermaeus Mora is laughing diabolically.
@Neverlandia I know that lol; I just think it's a hilarious visual: random scrolls popping up and people going insane trying to see what they are.
@@DahrkMezalf those who doesn't have the insight to read an elder scroll will not be able to comprehend it and is not affected by its side effects.
if you are illiterate about the scrolls, it will not harm you, but it will just be a piece of metal and paper.
No?
Mora is laughing at YOU maybe, even now.
Your assertions make absolutely no sense given the extensive context you had to rely on upon writing this.
Last time i was this early dragon breaks redconned the outcome
retconned*
I think the elder scrolls are the elder scrolls - as in the games. Think about it, the scrolls document all potential outcomes - the games also do that by letting the player do as they choose in a world of infinite choices. The discs and programs we bought were the literal elder scrolls the whole time, which is why a game doesn't need a scroll in its plot for it to be and elder scroll (game).
Me: Half-Asleep
Phone: Buzz
Pickup phone sees Elder Scrolls: Well im not sleeping now.....
8:52 "What should mortals do when they discover one?" One thing that I think has never been thought of before: Eat it!! Consume the Elder Scroll and gain the Power of the Universe!!! I suggest in a stir fry with pork, or perhaps shredded in a pancake with blueberry syrup.
Dunno man, Scrolls seem a bit too big...
GIVE ONE TO GIANT!
Uncle Sheo is that you? How is the isles doing? When will you let back in, I promise not to drop cow dung in your throne room again (looks at the cart load of mammoth dung) hehe
Such power. Elder scrolls can do more than just prophesize, they can also banish, as was the case with Alduin. If they exist outside mortal comprehension and limits, then there's no end to what they can do. My opinion is that mortals only see them as prophecy parchments because that tip of the iceberg is all that is accessible to us. Mortals do not have the means to unlock or access or even comprehend the rest of their limitless abilities. Apparently, Feldir did discover as well as access its power to banish.
TLDR: the Elders Scrolls are the self insert of all story writers of the series. They're the ones who write the story, therefore, they're the ones that know all the possibilities.
The Elder Scrolls are game code.
Seriously though, I’d love at least one future game to recognize the playable character, and all previous playable characters by extension, as the temporary avatar of the Godhead (ie the player). It would explain why they fulfill so many prophecies, why they can experience an elder scroll without going mad or blind, why they can make deals with Deadra without being bound in servitude to them, and why they can achieve greater power than the most powerful characters in game. Just a thought
What's the thing you got there?
Fudgemuppet: an elder Scroooouuuul
I am a firm believer that there was another entity before creation that it is their power that created the scrolls. And that entity disappeared after creating them..
The Elder Scrolls are the patch notes from all the games. :)
Underrated comment 😂
"Trust Septimus, he knows you can know!"
yea like what the f*ck is that supposed to mean🤣
I love everything about the Elder Scrolls. They're the biggest mystery in the series despite being the namesake.
The Elder Scrolls are the allegories of everyone's head cannon of whoever played or developed , is playing or developing, or will one day play or will one day develop an elder scrolls game.
They say you can't use elder scrolls as armor in the game but why not? Just strap them to yourself like a chestplate, they wouldn't need to be broken. They're indestructible so it'd be worth the weird looking armor strapped to you.
Drogonborn, “it just works”
That’s why not
Bonus point: if anyone who see the scroll will be blinded, it would be the perfect armor.
I'm pretty sure they just randomly disappear unfortunately 😔. They phase in and out of existence.
When the thing the series is named after, has lesser plot relavance than cheese
Maybe the Elder Scrolls were the friends we made along the way?
I only just realized the elder scrolls are literally the codes of the game, like the actual codes that make up the game
“To keep this video from being feature length...”
Me: Damn, that’s something I would watch. SEND THAT SHIT TO HOLLYWOOD
"I can't describe the scrolls"
proceeds to near perfectly describe them as the scripts of reality
What if the elder scrolls are the thoughts of the dreamer, the ego. And sithis is the unconscious, the id.
I'd be interested in seeing a future antagonist that wants to destroy the elder scrolls.
I really love this idea! I feel like it could play well with a potential plot with the thalmor.
Oh, you mean Todd Howard, the Profaned Mage
You and the psijic order with the eye of magnus aim to destroy the scrolls to stop the cycle of rebirth and enter the Eternal kalpa
1:14
What if the dwemer had someone read a scroll that gave them the knowledge to read scrolls without the fear of blindness, madness or death?
After that leaving the universe wouldn't be far behind.
In their Tower of Mzark Oculory, they were trying to read the Dragon Scroll without the negative effects. It didn’t work. But, instead it looks like they may have put the information in the Scroll into a lexicon in a format that was understandable. This was to read the information without looking at the Scroll itself.
Remember when this was profound?
Meditation on non-being is basic prequisite for entry into higher realms of logic.
I've always seen them this way, they are the MS-DOS box in which the programming language of Mundus is displayed on. It's blinding to the people that live inside Tamriel because it is their source code and they can't make heads or tails out of it. It's like us trying to get a grasp on quantum mechanics the more we think we learn the more complicated it gets.
HighmageDerin Woah GLaDOS slow down
@@itsclemtime2357 cOme tO mOndus We haVe CAKE.... but its a liE....
What if the Elder Scrolls are your save files. You record past, present and future save files. You can also record a different timeline of what different choices you made, what skills you developed, what classes you chose, what choices you made are different every save file.
It's interesting because the Xenogears series actually brought up the save files the Zohar was in fact something more greater than they actually were and had a greater plan.
I've been waiting for this. Was really surprised you hadn't made one yet. Keep up the good work
What about the Psiijics? Do we have any info on them working with or being affected by the scrolls?
Could there be only one Elder ‘Scroll’? The scrolls that seem to exist as separate entities are simply emanations of the ‘Scroll’ into the ES reality.
I always thought the elder scrolls were time itself being documented, however they possessed some level of time travel itself. In Skyrim one of the elder scrolls present is documenting your actions that are effecting the entire world and all of its boundaries, and you read one and bam, you are present in the time another one was documenting someone slaying a dragon, and if i remember correctly someone acknowledges you being there as if they can cause you to time travel, or manifest yourself where events occured within the scroll. They're a rolled up wormhole. or i have no idea what i am talking about.
1:53 “we’d all likely ascend to Toddhood”
Has anyone else noticed that the inscriptions on the Eye of Magnus are the same that appear on tge elder scrolls? As in same alphabet
Or, to put it simply in meta terms - the Elder Scrolls are the biggest McGuffin to ever McGuffin and they do whatever the writers need them to do. Hell with the whole Godhead's Dream thing that's not far off, the Elder Scrolls are used as a plot device however which way they can be as the Godhead dreams of it's purpose for the story present
The Elder Scrolls - The ultimate instrument for Retcons
You mean Dragon Breaks...
Ever check the time, immediately forget, and have to check again? Imagine doing that with an Elder Scroll.
I'd trade my eyes for infinite access to Akasha.
I wonder if you could use the skeleton key to unlock the full power/knowledge in a scroll such that a mortal can access it
1:42 These moth priests are legends! Not many people can read, but these can read even being blind!!!
I think the Elder Scrolls are how time flows, everything that could ever happen is written down in them, so they are the infinite diverting steams of the many worlds that could be and are. That’s why nothing is ever certain, they record possibilities and outcomes. But no one is all knowing, so they cannot divine what has not yet happened.
From a physical and meta-physical standpoint, they are likely singularities containing the potential realities of the tower-wheel.
all this time until now and i never had the thought that we're watching ( when playing elder scrolls) an elder scrolls of events that have happened or have yet to be happening
Sugestion: It would be really cool if you remaster "The Gladiator" build.
Nice vid btw
Every time I listen to one of these videos I get slapped upside the head with some crazy ass lore words I’ve never heard of
Isn't the point of the moth priests that they're able to narrow down the possible prophecies of a scroll into its certain prophecies?
And that the scrolls exist because a scroll is how mortals perceive the fragments of creation, or the points of origin from which possible futures branch out. Which is why they tend to appear and disappear, because possible futures also appear and disappear as events are set in stone within a timeline.
Personally I beilive that the elder scrolls are the blueprint for time itself and are ever changing according to how time is altered by those worthy of altering it. I also believe that Magnus while possibly not the creator I do think that he probably used the scrolls in conjunction with his staff to finish the creation of Nirn.
Actually, when you think about it, everything you just described about the scrolls that is giving the meeting in the game. Characters know what they are. They can’t describe them because it is beyond your comprehension but the fact that they can give some information. I’ll be very little bitch that they are not meeting us it’s just limited feeling.
Is being a daedric artifact worth it?
Umbasa
Ur mom is a daedric artifact
@@freshandzesty1111 unfortunately.
@@statiichydra1351 LOL
The Elder Scrolls are a paradox. They exist outside of time, yet they can't read non-linear time; they can't record what happens during Dragon Breaks, when time stops working. If the Scrolls existed before the universe and before Akatosh came into being, who is time, then what is the Scroll's original purpose?
You know what the Elder Scrolls lore makes me want to to play every game in the series. That's true marketing right there. Keep it a mystery. Only other story as intruiging as this was the one in Chrono Cross.
So Olava the Feeble read an Elder Scroll? That’s what gave her the fortune telling power she claims to have?
I’ve wanted this video for a while thank you.
7:00 makes me think of delphine wanting to kill paarthurnax
This video just gave me an idea.
What if the games is someone looking at a scroll
Ok don't mock me cause of this
What if Ma'iq is actually an immortal being (god) who is actually the elder one the one who exists forever and that HE wrote the scrolls
Not impossible right?
Ways to read elder scrolls from least to best from what I gained from this:
adept moth priest
I think the Elder Scrolls are similar to the Sister's of fate in Greek Mythology. The power to literally reshape an exsistence instantly that even if Gods directly intefere have no power over.
Great stuff as always great work mate👍
Perhaps the elder scrolls are the reminence of the previous Kalpas with a new elder scroll being created at the end of each one holding knowledge of the events that happened during it. And because each go around, as it were, is slightly different two people can look at two different elder scrolls and see two different outcomes of the same event. And when an events that happened before happen again they become temporary locked as the next elder scroll begins to be written. This also ties into my sub theory that there are a limited number of possible events and outcomes and each go around cycles through and randomizes the order in which they happen. And perhaps when all the events and prophecy’s of the oldest and first elder scroll lock into place something grand will happen good or bad.
The Elder Scrolls are an allegory for the Akashic Records
how are the scrolls affected by time, if time is only a function of mundus because of akatosh?
I'v been wating for this video for such a long time... now it is finally here :D
The elder scrolls, roll credits! Oh wait....
I've always wondered why your character, on two occasions hasn't gone blind from reading the elder scrolls.
@Sebastian edwards true, so perhaps that's why.
Because heroes-prophecied by the scrolls-are sort of related to the scrolls. That's what according to r/teslore
@Sebastian edwards Well if TLD didnt know how to read them he would had never been able to go back in time and learn dragonrend or found the location of auriels bow.A select few are meant to read elder scrolls and TLD just so happens to be one of the few. Also due to the fact that TLD is related to and is a dragon he is a shard of time which makes him more intuned with the scrolls
I mean we are talking about someone who can talk to dragons and hell even talking dogs so one can say maybe are player is actually high
Well, the Dragonborn has the literal soul and blood of a dragon. If dragons are particularly susceptible to the Scrolls, perhaps that has something to do with it? Plus, it's also a good point that you really only see vague and odd symbols, and then the second time you're just using their power to see through a time wound.
Also, dragonborn, lore-wise, are overpowered af so who knows?
My theory was just the elder scrolls are all the coding used to make the games. A sort of fourth wall. Or quantum computer, referencing to a simulation theory or something.
The elderscrolls draw their power from tod howard, the god head, they are everything and anything since their inception, because that is how tod howard made them, only he, and the great council of developers can ever know their true meanings. For it is their minds creation
So they're basicly Todd's doodles.
My personal interpretation is that The Elder Scrolls are a window to the scripts and codes of the actual games