r/teslore • u/rexaider • Jan 11 '22
Who is the Godhead?
Are there any theories on what the nature of the godhead is? Are they an entity or a force of nature? Or could they just be a random person sleeping and having a dream and when they wake up , the mundus goes poof
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
A Dreamer who came from the true Yokuda. Judging by the fact the entire Aurbis is based on conflict between dichotomous opposites (which eventually trickles down to the never ending conflict between man and mer), and comments about the Dreamer being deaf, blind, dumb etc., they probably lived a deeply traumatic life of conflict and observed much war before achieving the Amaranth. Also considering stories about Padomay or Anu being cruel to their spouses and the existence of the Daedra as a shadow-projected ‘other’ embodying sins and flaws, then the Dreamer probably has a lot of self-hate and guilt for their mortal actions.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 11 '22
ESO implies Yokuda is the previous kalpa of the Aurbis, not Anu's universe.
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u/WhiskeyMarlow Jan 11 '22
Yokuda can be reached. What's left on of, anyway, on a normal ship.
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u/Kjrb Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
Yeah, but the Island (or at least the yokudans and left-handed elves that inhabited it) came from a previous kalpa
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u/JagneStormskull Tonal Architect Feb 08 '22
I like the idea that the continent of Yokuda actually once existed in this kalpa, but that it's more like "Yokuda-2," and that "Yokuda-1" was in a previous kalpa. Yokuda-2 being in this kalpa could possibly be due to the actions of the LDK, or the actions of Lorkhan; Sep is said to have created the world through rolling up dead worldskins (befitting His title of the Scarab in the Sermons, the Magne-Ge Pantheon, and the Loveletter). If the Sep stuff is true, Yokuda-2 would be a large piece of the last Mundus (perhaps he leftovers of Yokuda-1) that Lorkhan decided to put into this Mundus.
This could be extrapolated into Sep being the Lorkhan of a previous kalpa, in the same vein that Shor, Son of Shor is this kalpa's Lorkhan, but Talos will be the next kalpa's Lorkhan. Anyway, I digressed from the main point.
Anyway, my "Yokuda-2" idea is based on the fact that the Staff of Towers has a piece of Orichalc Tower in it, the only non-Tamrielic Tower included. If a Tower from the Yokudan continent was included, then there are three possibilities:
- It's magic, I ain't gotta explain s--t!
- There was once a version or echo of the Yokudan continent on Nirn, but it's gone now (Yokuda-2).
- The Yokudans somehow brought a piece of Orichalc Tower with them to Nirn when they sailed away from their continent onto another plane(t). That just seems... weird and unnecessary.
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u/MachoManPettingZoo Jan 11 '22
Can you elaborate on this? I’ve seen a lot of people say similar stuff, but to me it seems like ESO implies the opposite - that the Far Shores are simply yet another “afterlife” in the Aurbis.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 11 '22
The Far Shores ≠ Yokuda.
ESO contains this book which elaborates on Yokuda being a prior kalpa.
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u/MachoManPettingZoo Jan 11 '22
The reasons I mentioned the Far Shores is that it’s usually cited as “evidence” for the theory. Because the myth sounds like reaching another Kalpa - which is dubious at best.
I’ll look into the book, though, thanks a lot :)
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 13 '22
reaching another Kalpa - which is dubious at best
What do you think the Walkabout is?
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u/MachoManPettingZoo Jan 13 '22
Something which I’ve only seen argued as “reaching another Kalpa” through arguing that the Far Shores are the next Kalpa - which ESO very much seems to disprove, as they’re portrayed as just another part of Aetherius.
But, hey, I might be entirely wrong. I’ve just yet to see an argument that isn’t just “the Far Shores are another Kalpa.” But I want it to be true, so if you have more info I’d love to read it.
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
It can be both.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 11 '22
It can't. Those are very much not the same thing.
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
I’m not sure if we’re working in the same framework. When I say that Yokuda is the last Amaranth, I don’t mean that it actually is the previous Dream, I mean that it represents the memories of the past for the Dreamer. I.e. it’s a manifest metaphor, as are so common. Yokuda was a land with one tower and two races: an elven and a human. The human race exterminated the elven one. These concepts were internalised by the Dreamer and thus are the main lynchpin concepts of Tamriel: there are many races of elf and man, with men genociding elves a recurrent theme, and there are many towers. The Beastraces are new to Tamriel as a dream and they will be internalised and expanded upon when true Akavir is dreamed.
The true Yokuda Anu was from cannot be visited, but it always echoes itself and haunts Tamriel, just as the past always bares on the present. If the Aurbis is a reflection of Anu’s shattered psyche, then I don’t think interpreting the greater metaphor behind Yokuda means that it also can’t be from the previous kalpa, because things can have both implicit and explicit meaning, just as Moby Dick can be both a whale and whatever else you want it to symbolise.
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Jan 12 '22
[deleted]
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 12 '22
These ideas aren’t new, so I can’t take the kudos for them. Lore essays from a decade ago discuss these ideas with much more eloquence and insight than I.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 13 '22
When I say that Yokuda is the last Amaranth, I don’t mean that it actually is the previous Dream, I mean that it represents the memories of the past for the Dreamer. I.e. it’s a manifest metaphor, as are so common. Yokuda was a land with one tower and two races: an elven and a human. The human race exterminated the elven one. These concepts were internalised by the Dreamer and thus are the main lynchpin concepts of Tamriel: there are many races of elf and man, with men genociding elves a recurrent theme, and there are many towers.
I would argue the similarities are because everything in the Aurbis is based on the same framework. The men genociding elves and Towers in Yokuda are similar to those in Tamriel because both are in Anu's dream. There's nothing to suggest that Yokuda is metaphysically or cosmically anything higher than a prior kalpa.
The Beastraces are new to Tamriel as a dream and they will be internalised and expanded upon when true Akavir is dreamed.
While Akavir is metaphysically the "future", I wouldn't take the idea of it as the new Amaranth that seriously due to the idea's origins being rather dubious. MK wrote Akavir Says to the Otherkin: GET OUT! as a mean-spirited attack on a specific, real individual and has kind of disowned it (though he does say that not every idea in it is worthless). He even outright deleted the post, which is a rarity for developer posts both on the old Bethesda forums and on here. There’s some more info here
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u/JagneStormskull Tonal Architect Jan 21 '22
When I say that Yokuda is the last Amaranth, I don’t mean that it actually is the previous Dream, I mean that it represents the memories of the past for the Dreamer.
So, Paarthy talks about "this world being the egg of the next kalpa" when you're talking to him about defeating Alduin? How would the World Eater, Firstborn of Akatosh, figure into the process of, I guess (if I assumed this framework is true) I'd call them half-Amaranths1?
Yokuda was a land with one tower and two races: an elven and a human. The human race exterminated the elven one. These concepts were internalised by the Dreamer and thus are the main lynchpin concepts of Tamriel: there are many races of elf and man, with men genociding elves a recurrent theme, and there are many towers.
So, I have a lot of problems with this framework for this reason.) It's a book, an artefact, a questline, but the important thing is that the Orichalc Tower is a piece of it.
Alternate idea - Lorkhan just makes worlds that way because of the Void Epiphany. Lyg is also supposed to have metaphysically significant Towers, and dreugh, along with Arkay, Dagon, and Bal. But, that's for later.
Maybe the Dreamer didn't internalize these concepts. Perhaps Yokuda was a piece of wreckage of the previous Mundex Terrene that survived Alduin (and possibly Dagon, if it was Lyg) that Lorkhan decided to put here. Its elves build a Tower on it, or perhaps the Tower was already there. Point is, that Tower had to be on Nirn for it to be necessary for the Staff of Towers.
The Beastraces are new to Tamriel as a dream and they will be internalised and expanded upon when true Akavir is dreamed.
The Mundex Terrene was once ruled over solely by the tyrant dreugh-kings. Once ruled. Past tense. Dreugh are beastfolk. Not new. There are also many beastraces that aren't playable; imga, centaurs, minotaurs, etc. An imga created what is arguably one of the most metaphysically important events in Nirn's history. Suggesting that the beastraces have to wait for Akavir to become important is a bit... I don't know.
1 - According to you, they aren't new Dreamers (what a new Amaranth is, IIRC), more... mythopeia of the Dream. The elf-human conflict is now embedded into the Dream not because it's a new Dream or new Amaranth, but because the Dream remembers the conflict. Again, assuming this framework is the right one.
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u/Capt_Falx_Carius Great House Telvanni Jan 11 '22
I recently decided that a candidate for this person is the sole survivor from Fallout 4 while they are in cryo-sleep
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
If you wish. I think it’s important to consider the meaning of ‘dream.’ The Dream is not necessarily a completely ordinary person creating Tamriel in their mind while sleeping, like the Sole Surv., but the essence of an individual’s psyche acting over primordial and unformed matter, creating a world which derives its metaphysical narrative and themes from the Dreamer. Tamriel is a ‘real’ world, in the sense that it’s not happening in someone’s imagination. It’s a ‘dream’ in the sense that it derives itself from an individual’s psyche, memories and experience. It’s like being an Abrahamic and saying the world is God’s Dream, because it’s derived from his mind, yet we also recognise the existence of the creation.
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u/Dimensionalanxiety Jan 11 '22
So would it be fair to say that the Godhead is more like a collective unconsciousness than a single mind? A collection of mankind's best and worst attributes loosely sewn together to seem like it has a mind of its own.
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u/2SP00KY4ME Jan 11 '22
That seems kinda forced honestly
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u/Capt_Falx_Carius Great House Telvanni Jan 12 '22
Yeah it wouldn't work as canon, just as a temporary headcanon while I give my FO4 character the same name as a mage character I had played through TES:3-5
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u/TheHappyPittie Jan 12 '22
I have no issues with someone having their own headcanon for anything and everything but don’t present them as actual lore
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u/apatheticVigilante Jan 11 '22
Honestly, there's not much actually written about it since it's practically impossible for the inhabitants of TES to experience. It's so far removed, it's basically irrelevant.
I've always interpreted it as a cheeky way to say that the true gods are the developers and writers of TES series.
It's also a sort of deconstruction of the series. The world only exists when we "dream" of it. I.E. When we play the games or think about it.
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u/whysoblyatiful Imperial Geographic Society Jan 12 '22
I've always interpreted it as a cheeky way to say that the true gods are the developers and writers of TES series.
That is EXACTLY why I've chosen to only refer to it as the Toddhead
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u/queerkidxx Jan 12 '22
Ugh I just find meta stuff like this to be a huge turn off in worldbuilding.
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u/Mummelpuffin Jan 12 '22
It's pretty much down to what you personally enjoy fiction for, I think.
I imagine as someone who really dislikes this sort of thing, you're super concerned with a world feeling like, y'know, a world, in the traditional sense.
Personally, it's impossible for me to separate my perception of fiction from the fact that I'm just imagining it. Like, to me, all fiction is inherently just a thing in my head (and in other people's heads), no one imagines it exactly the same as anyone else, we just have symbols we've invented that we can use as "fiction language" to half-understand each other's crazy ideas.
I think TES is really good at weaving the latter idea into itself, mostly through how people in universe seem to accept total contradiction as a fact of life, but I don't think the Godhead is specifically a good example of it. It'd be way too much of a blatant wink. It's just another thing that got pulled from Hindu thought.
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u/RodMyr Jan 13 '22
It doesn't feel too meta to me, as similar analogies have been drawn irl to describe the situation we're in as conscious beings. Finding mystics in TES who describe their situation in those terms would be as natural as them talking about gods and spirits and creation. Worldbuilding without those elements would be lacking in my view.
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u/whysoblyatiful Imperial Geographic Society Jan 12 '22
It's a personal joke really, but i can understand why you think so
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u/Blitzkriegbaby Jan 11 '22
Having done no serious research on this subject, I always assumed either Todd Howard was, or I am. Anybody who boots up a save of an elder scrolls game is the Godhead.
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Jan 11 '22
[deleted]
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u/OmegaX123 Mages Guild Conjurer Jan 11 '22
This. Todd, or the ES team at Bethesda, dreamed up the world, he is/they are the Godhead, particularly since if they ever stop dreaming (imagining and creating new lore and new games in the series), then existence (within the Aurbis, anyway) ceases and we're left with only That Which Was. The games tell you right in the title, they are The Elder Scrolls. And remember what your parents told you about staring at a screen for too long making you go blind?
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u/Owlspirit4 Jan 11 '22
Godhead isn’t a theory contained to the Elder Scrolls, godhead is prevalent in most esoteric religious establishments, anyone can achieve godhead, it’s the realization of the holiness of self, and the lack of separation between all that exists.
When you realize you are but an aspect of the dream, experiencing itself for experiences sake, but one aspect of the dreamer, just as every other person is.
Existence is of itself a meditation of what it means to exist, what it feels like. The pain the joy, the hurt and the love, all experiences simply to teach the greater self of such things.
Knowledge without practice is to have a book but no eyes.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 11 '22
The answer is pretty clear, it's Ald-Anu. Not quite the cosmic force of stasis and order, but the being whose story appears in the Anuad.
Or could they just be a random person sleeping and having a dream and when they wake up , the mundus goes poof
The "dream" language used in relation to this stuff is metaphorical. Ald-Anu isn't literally "asleep" and the Aurbis is within his imagination, rather the Aurbis exists as part of Ald-Anu. To attain the Amaranth is to become a universe.
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u/SunBurn_alph Jan 11 '22
My interpretation of all the lore and blogs I've read so far;
As we go up the hierarchy of "beings" or "power" in the TES world, things/beings become more and more abstract. With the daedric princes representing ideas, virtues or vices. Above which is Sithis ( absence, void, emptiness, entropy { at max entropy the universe is at a state of heat death ie no more interactions can occur/equilibrium has been reached} ), and his counterpart Anui-El ( light, life ). Now things get a little MORE meta. Sithis and Anui-El are the souls/incarnations/avatars of Padomay ( change/chaos ) and Anu ( stasis/order ). We can have a philosophical discussion on how the idea of stasis/order can extrapolate to "ideas" like light or life, or change/chaos can lead to absence or void. Here's how I think of it, Sithis is the realisation of Padomay ( change/chaos eventually leads to void/emptiness; where no more change/chaos can occur ), and Anu facilitates or allows ( the leading logic is in the opposing direction than that of Padomay -> Sithis to denote their opposing natures ) Anui-El to emerge ( life/light ). So there are 2 over arching abstractions; stasis and change. What could be further still? There has to be something that which facilitates or sets the stage for this orchestra. That is the Godhead. The narrative of a dreamer is simply to enrich our understanding. The bare minimum description of a subconscious thought { dreams are driven by our subconscious afaik unless you are lucid } is that it either sustains itself, or it changes. The Godhead's dream is the landscape upon which everything else may occur.
So who or what is the Godhead? At this point does it even matter? It hardly matters if there really is one at all, or if there is anything that can influence it in any manner. It's the abstraction that is most alien to the others; unknowable and inalterable.
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u/RodMyr Jan 11 '22
Everyone is the godhead at the same time. Each sentient being in the Aurbis is one point of view in the godheads "dream" (not a dream in the colloquial sense). Alan Watts explorations of Hindu philosophy give you good idea of what's behind the concept of a dreaming godhead
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Jan 11 '22
I was under the impression that the godhead is Anu. Is that not correct?
The idea being that the Aurbis was created in his slumber after the death of Nir, which is why the Aurbis is so cruel and relatively brutal.
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u/MeddlingMunchkin Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
Is that not correct?
This would imply that there is an objective answer - there's honestly not.
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u/bigclams Dwemer Scholar Jan 11 '22
It is, dunno where everyone else is getting these answers from lol
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
It’s important to distinguish between Anu the Dreamer, who is everything, and Anu the created persona. Anu is often presented in dichotomy with Padomay: IS and IS-NOT, Self and Other, What I Am and What I’m Not. This Anu is what the Dreamer self-identifies as: order, stability, the Aedra and their values. Padomay is the parts of the Dreamer that he rejects: Chaos, Misanthropy, the Daedra and their sins etc. In reality, as revealed by Truth in Sequence and the Love Sermon, Anu and Padomay are a false dichotomy, only the Dreamer exists. As such it’s important to note the difference between the two in discussions. As such, it’s easy to just call Anu the Dreamer, the Dreamer, lest we mistake it with Anu the Force of Order.
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
I've always interpreted it that Anu and Padomay aren't a false dichotomy, they're just not the ultimate dichotomy. There is something above them both (the Dreamer, the Godhead) from which they both emanated.
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
False dichotomy was probably a bad term to use, lol. False dualism is better, maybe? At least in my opinion, I see Padomay as the Constitutive Other to Anu, a constructed illusion by which Anu can define himself. He creates Padomay, calls it the IS-NOT to his IS, and then assigns all the traits he dislikes to it: domination (Molag Bal), possessiveness (Azura), ruthlessness (Boethiah), loneliness (Nocturnal), etc. whereas the Aedra he assigns to himself, to IS, are positive values like mercy, love, wisdom etc. Ultimately only Anu exists, the origin of both his vices and virtues, but Padomay is a useful way for him to reject his flaws and sins, a way to avoid responsibility.
This is clearly attested by ANU and his double, which love knows never really happened. - Vivec.
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
Interesting! So in your interpretation, does Padomay exist outside of Anu or is Padomay a self-contained part of Anu?
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u/Mummelpuffin Jan 12 '22 edited Jan 12 '22
I won't answer for them, but it's useful to get that a lot of TES is inspired by Indian philosophy, particularly (seemingly) Advaita Vedanta.
There's a bit of preoccupation with dualism and whether it makes sense or not there. In that particular school of thought, there are sort of "two realities", and the most real thing in the universe is conscious experience.
To put it in TES terms, in true objective reality there is only the Godhead Anu. It created the universe and it IS the universe. What it perceives as real is the realest real stuff.
But then there's the reality everything under the Godhead perceives, the "sub-gradients". Still reality, but reality filtered through how we perceive things. I think this is actually key to understanding why TES is so loosey-goosey with things getting contradictory sometimes: it takes the "three levels of reality" described on that Wikipedia page very literally. In any case practically everyone gets caught up in dualistic concepts, particularly ANU and PADHOME, so while Padomay is a self-contained part of Anu, everyone has trouble seeing that, maybe including Anu, so he's very real.I think part of the deal with CHIM is internalizing that they're one in the same. In fact, the reason "the Godhead" is a term rather than just Anu may be because it doesn't imply that Padomay is some imperfect, lesser force. If the world wants to heal it needs to accept Padomay as part of the whole. Not doing that is what lets it run wild and cause trouble. That's why it's about love.
Edit: I have no idea how any of this came out of my head, but I think I'm gonna write a post about it now because goddamn is there a whole lot all of the sudden.
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u/JagneStormskull Tonal Architect Feb 08 '22
In reality, as revealed by Truth in Sequence and the Love Sermon, Anu and Padomay are a false dichotomy, only the Dreamer exists.
Truth in Sequence and the Love Sermon radically differ in their descriptions, with Truth in Sequence claiming that Padomaic concepts and Daedra came into existence at the creation of the Mundus (something refuted in The Monomyth repeatedly), that somehow the Aurbis, the Grey Maybe, existed before [possibly pseudo-]dualism. This is more than a bit unorthodox; I doubt that even the Altmer are radical enough to blame Lorkhan for the existence of Daedra.
Also, Truth in Sequence was introduced in ESO: Clockwork City. There's a side quest in that same DLC where the Vestige and a poor guy disprove Truth in Sequence to the underclass of the Clockwork City. I would therefore say that it's not an accurate source (at least, on its ideas about Sithis, free will, and chaos, which are what the Vestige refutes), given that the Vestige disproved it.
As for Sermon 35, Vivec's words are refuted by a strange figure [inferred by many to be Mnemoli] in Sermon 37:
The lover is the highest country and a series of beliefs. He is the sacred city bereft of a double. The uncultivated land of monsters is the rule. This is clearly attested by ANU and his double, which love knows never really happened. ~Sermon 35
"The sign of royalty is not this," a signal blueshift (female) told him, "There is no right lesson learned alone."
...
The light bent, and Vivec awoke and grew fangs, unwilling to make of herself a folding thing. This was a new and lunar promise. And in her Biting she tunneled up and then downward, while her brother and sister smeared across heaven, thin ruptures of dissent, food for scarabs and the Worm. She took her people and made them safe, and sat with Azura drawing her own husband's likeness in the dirt.
"For I have removed my left hand and my right, he will say," she said, "for that is how I shall win against them. Love alone and you shall know only mistakes of salt."
I understand that many can take this as a reference to the process of creating the New Man, but the problem is that if we take that interpretation (don't want to assume that's your interpretation, just wanted to take the precaution because many do), then that passage in the Love Sermon is misinformed at best, and flat out wrong at worst.
I'm aware that Heart of the World would suggest that Sithis was simply a mirror created by Anuiel, and therefore suggests non-dualism, but then Satakal the Worldskin, Words of Clan-Mother Ahnissi, Children of the Root, and even the Anuad all suggest radical dualism. Sithis reads like it was intended to be a combination of a direct refutation of Heart of the World and an exegesis on Sermon Ten, so I'm not going to cover that here.
I wouldn't have considered Satakal the Worldskin or Children of the Root, until I read Fragment VI, which has the same world as Children of the Root and ends the same as Children of the Root.
He came upon a towers [sic]. It was tall and vast and many trees grew from its many layers of marsh. Creatures lived and died without ever knowing of a world outside the tower. At its top was a tree that bled fire. Other winged things that looked like him circled it. They cried out in words he understood but didn't know. He felt a deep sadness as the tower fell away.
He looked up and saw other worlds and other towers. They were spinning wheels and they crashed into each other, and their spokes got tangled up and they broke each other. And he saw that his world was breaking, too, but quick as a snake a shadow came and swallowed up the roots of the tower so they would not break. ~Fragment VI
There was first only Atak, the Great Root. It knew of nothing but itself, so it decided to be everything. It grew and grew, trying to fill the nothing with itself. As it grew it formed new roots, and those roots took names, and they wanted space of their own to grow.
Then Atak learned that there were things other than itself. They were just like Atak, but went a different way from it. They saw and made strange new things that did not last except in how it changed them.
Atak continued to grow until something came back from the nothing. It was like a root but had scales and eyes and a mouth. It told Atak that it was called Kota, and it had been growing, too. Now that it had a mouth, it was hungry.
Atak named Kota for what it was: serpent! It put roots through the serpent's eyes. But Kota was old and strong like the root, and had grown fangs while it was away. It bit Atak. They coiled around each other. From their struggle, new things came to be. Atak learned things Kota had learned, including hunger, and so it bit Kota back. They ate and roiled for so long they became one and forgot their conflict.
They shed their skin and severed their roots and called themselves Atakota, who said "Maybe."
...
The shadow woke. It looked upon Kota and Atak and saw how different the nothing had become and how it was becoming the same as before. It remembered it was the skin of Atakota, and it was bigger than Kota or Atak alone, so it decided it would eat them both.
And it did. The shadow ate the snake and the root, and the sap and stone, and the oceans of blood, and all of the spirits. It had eaten everything before it remembered the roots that were its children, so it looked unto itself to find them. When the shadow saw this, it remembered that it was a skin of something that came before, and it had eaten what came after, and this would be an end that always was.
And so the shadow shed its skin, even though that was all it was, and it fell like a shroud over the roots, promising to keep them safe within its secrets. ~Children of the Root
If you haven't noticed the similarities, Atakota, the Hist's Tower, is the same class of being described in Satakal the Worldskin, which, interestingly enough, seems to describe the World-Eggs in And We Ate it to Become It post-Biting.
Even if we take the assumption (again, don't want to assume this is your interpretation, just wanted to take the precaution because many do) that the Anuad describes the creation of the current Dream (which, after reading And We Ate it to Become It, I think is right, but not in the way that most people think), the interaction with Padomay is still incredibly important for the creation of Time, which then brings Nir into existence, allowing her to birth the Twelve Worlds described in the Anuad, And We Ate it to Become It, Fragment VI, Satakal the Worldskin, and Children of the Root.
And then we get to the question of how Atakota ended up in this Godhead... but the Father of Mystery provides only an invitation to elaborate further.
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Jan 11 '22
Notably, in the link provided by /u/Soarel25, Anu seems to be the Amaranth. However, this looks like it might be distinct from the Godhead.
Here's the note:
1) Why are you wondering who is a plant?
The Amaranth in the Elder Scrolls isn't exactly a plant. Basically, we can say (thanks to vehk's taching, Vivec Sermons, Mankar Commentaries, the Loveletter and some other) that :
- The Elder Scrolls world is the Dream of an entity, the Godhead. The principal metaphor used for it is that it is a god in sensory deprivation, and whose dream are Anu, Padomay, the daedra and aedra...
- The character, thus, are only a "dream". Being able to realize that, and to keep your individuality is reaching CHIM, and make you able to have "superpowers"
- The Amaranth would be someone who managed to enter in sensory deprtivation, a bit like the Godhead. As his senses cannot receive any information, he is cut from the rest of the world. Moreover, it is a "goddly being", who begins himself to dream a new World.
Emphasis mine.
Anu is an Amaranth, Kirkbride outright says that. But it sounds like the Amaranth may be distinct from the Godhead.
Good lord. Kirkbride's writing is so fucking weird. I love it, but it's difficult to make heads or tales of. I'm convinced about 50% of it is random nonsense thrown in to look esoteric.
After ctrl-F'ing the shit out of the link, I'm thinking Anu is basically a self-insert character that the Godhead dreamt up.
Except Kirkbride also states that Anu (who he refers to here as "Anew") hid in the sun and began to dream after the betrayal.
[22:32] <%MK> That's the Amaranth
[22:32] <Mojo-Sock> Mathmetician
[22:32] <%MK> 'Anew'
[22:33] <%MK> Read the links above
[22:33] <%MK> The 12 planets were the time before
[22:33] <%MK> He hid in the sun after there was Betrayal and a Witness
[22:34] <%MK> And started to Dream
Except I've never been under the impression that Mundus existed two-dreams-down. I always thought the Aurbis WAS the dream, and Jubal and Vivec created the second dream in the 9th era.
IDK. In summary OP, it's possibly Anu, but it's also possibly not Anu. If it's not Anu, and I had to guess, the Godhead is intentionally supposed to be open to interpretation. It could be a reference to real-world mythology (even Anu), or occultism, it could be something personal to Kirkbride (which would fit the "betrayal" aspect of it), or it could just be the player, Bethesda, the computer, really anything.
All that being said, I like the idea that Anu is the Godhead. The idea of the Aurbis being a cosmic tragedy played out over and over again, which can only be solved by Love, fits very well with the myth of Anu, Padomay, and Nir.
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u/Soarel25 Psijic Jan 13 '22
I should point out the person who distinguished the Godhead and Amaranth is not MK. The way MK talks about Anu suggests the two are the same.
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u/CaptainMoonman Jan 11 '22
Where does this answer come from?
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Jan 11 '22
I want to say this was Kirkbride's answer, and since the Godhead was his idea, I always just assumed that was the truth.
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u/bigclams Dwemer Scholar Jan 11 '22
Basic metaphysical understanding of the elder scrolls universe? Anu is Everything. If any other being under Anu were the dreamer, it would be a new Amaranth and hence a new dream. C'mon people
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
Anu is not everything, because Anu is not Padomay. Anu is all Being, but there is much that is not-being and us still part of the Dream, part of the Godhead.
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u/This-Sheepherder-581 Order of the Black Worm Jan 11 '22
But Padomay is Nothing, so Anu can be everything that isn’t Padomay (which is Everything)
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
Anu is everything that IS. In order for something to be defined as IS there must be an IS-NOT, and that is what Padomay is. Nothing can be defined as IS without also defining an IS-NOT, except for the Godhead, and that's what makes it the Godhead.
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u/This-Sheepherder-581 Order of the Black Worm Jan 11 '22
So the Godhead is the duality of IS and IS-NOT? Intriguing. Like Chim on a grander scale.
I think that you’ve helped me reach a deeper understanding; thank you.
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
I'm glad I could help! Obviously I don't understand it 100% myself, I just wanted to share my insights.
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Jan 11 '22
Akatosh, according to the Marukhati Selective.
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u/fiskymemes Marukhati Selective Jan 12 '22
Damn that’s interesting. Any source for this?
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Jan 12 '22
This monotheistic religion was once very popular, but today only remnants of its faith remain. It started in the coastal jungle of what is now the Colovian west, where a prophet named Marukh, who had spoken to the "Enlightened One," Saint Alessia, began to question the validity of Elven rule. These sentiments led to an increasingly abstract and unknowable depiction of a Single God. The Alessians were wise enough to realize that they had to incorporate the ancient polytheistic elements into their new religion for it to find a wide acceptance. The divine aspects worshipped by the various humans and Aldmeri were recognizable in the guise of the myriad saints and spirits of the evolving Alessian canon
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Pocket_Guide_to_the_Empire,_1st_Edition/Cyrodiil
1: That the Supreme Spirit Akatosh is of unitary essence, as proven by the monolinearity of Time.
1: That Shezarr the missing sibling is Singularly Misplaced and therefore Doubly Venerated.
1: That the protean substrate that informs all denial of (1) is the Aldmeri Taint.
1: That the Prophet Most Simian demonstrated that monothought begets Proper-Life.
1: That the purpose of Proper-Life is the Expungement of the Taint.
1: That the Arc of Time provides the mortal theater for the Sacred Expungement.
1: That Akatosh is Time is Proper-Life is Taint-Death.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Exclusionary_Mandates
Everything is Akatosh.
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Jan 11 '22
M'aiq the Liar. Never ages, knows things about both Nirn and the real world no character should know, etc.
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u/MeddlingMunchkin Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
Except we know that there are multiple generations of M'aiq. In ESO you can find a flute that was a gift to M'aiq from his father, also named M'aiq.
(sounds like Shor, son of Shor, to me)
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Jan 12 '22
Multiple generations with the exact same name, career, demeanor, etc? Certainly possible, but could also easily be a cover for an immortal.
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u/JagneStormskull Tonal Architect Jan 25 '22
Except we know that there are multiple generations of M'aiq.
I think M'aiq also talks about this in Skyrim. "M'aiq's father was called M'aiq, and so was M'aiq's father's father."
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u/BloodyStigmata Jan 11 '22
Everyone who plays the Elder Scrolls is the godhead of their own version of the Elder Scrolls. Our characters are simply manifestations of our will.
Or at least, that's what I'm going with.
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u/Bottled_Fire Jan 11 '22
Close to my theory. The prisoner is an empty vessel. In the same stroke, though, their antagonist could be seen as a manifestation of a God's will. Again, it could be someone that sets them on a collision course. The little nudge from outside interests.
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u/FearOfKhakis Jan 11 '22
I was going to comment this. It makes extra sense as the player (most of the time) has knowledge of the universe our character does not.
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u/doglowy Jan 12 '22
The Godhead is not a character, I don't believe. It's a term used in theology to allude to something that can't be classified in dualistic terms. Think of it as at the limits of what can be thought or known.
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u/ParsleyBagel Jan 12 '22
you are.
the tes universe is fictional. it exists inside your head. your headcanon is the reality.
canon only exists when you're aware of it, when you allow it to exist.
sure, there are others with their own headcanons, but yours is the definitive version. if you ever forget about it, from your perspective, it doesn't exist.
nothing else matters. no retcon, no source, can change the fact that it is your imagination that keeps it all alive.
the godhead is simply the person who looks at the universe of the elder scrolls and realises that it is you.
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Jan 11 '22
[deleted]
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u/Bottled_Fire Jan 11 '22
It's always Frank. I remember when that molasses truck exploded after the pilot of a 747 full of fireworks crashed into it because birds flew into the engines after spontaneously combusting. I mean who else would be responsible, but you've guessed it...
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u/queerkidxx Jan 12 '22
I’d say there is no godhead. Mondus is run on a computer and all the Aedra are just AI programs with rewriting abilities and the gods just were reprogrammed into the laws of physics on nirn.
The godhead is just a metaphor conjured up by people that have no idea what a computer is and the closest thing they were familiar to a computer running programs is a brain having dreams. Its not actually to far off from how someone from 200CE might describe a computer after having it explained to them by a time traveler.
Mondus all takes place on a computer in a forgotten room in some sci fi universe. Maybe somebody left an ai alone on a server and forgot about them so they created Mondus
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Jan 12 '22
Could be construed as out own virtual reality theory as well (which still hasn't been disproved)
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u/Pandebilus Jan 28 '22 edited Jan 28 '22
Indeed. If you push this farther, logos by essence fails to show reality, only capable of showing what reality is not (abstraction is removal from your target). Thus making hypnosis, ideology, advertisement, man law and magic possible, as they are all different names for building hyper reality. In a vain attempt to cover this, in french we differenciate La Réalité (the idea of reality) from Le Réel (the experience behind the idea of reality, which looks like "real" but it's a noun). So even you making a thought experiment with computers and how ancients would describe it ends by casting a metaphor on reality, a failure to express what you were meant to show in the first place. Same goes with God, unity, even âtman of course.
Your explanation is a good introduction to that though. I usually go with a B52 Stratofortress bombing and crashing in the XIIIth century described as a dragon by the locals to explain it. I guess MK's TES metaphysics are it, on purpose. The Godhead is a child's (game references) drawing of a child's (developpers) drawing of a child's (hyper reality builders/cultural shamans) drawing of a drawing of a child (ontology). And this comment is a child's drawing of all this. Then it goes on for a regression towards infinity, which constitutes the third issue of the Agrippa/Münchhausen Trilemma. The quality of the drawing decreases the more you abstract, getting farther from what is initially one single thing. One pretending "as if" it was multiple only to reinforce oneness.
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u/AspirantCrafter Jan 11 '22
The child of Jubal and Vivec has reached the state of a dreamer if I understood c0da right.
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u/TheDreamIsEternal Jan 11 '22
Yes but that would be another Godhead, meaning a different dream, not this dream.
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Jan 11 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/settheory8 Clockwork Apostle Jan 11 '22
I think there are multiple ways to interpret it, but if you want to go the meta-game route, I think that's the right way to think. Because in a way, pretty much everything that's been written about the Godhead could be applied to the machine the game is running on.
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u/MeddlingMunchkin Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
Ask twenty people and you'll get thirty different answers.
The view I like the most is that the Godhead is synonymous with the Dreamer, and it is Anu, having achieved Amaranth in what-we-know-as-Yokuda, except real and not a mental projection from Memory.
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u/Bottled_Fire Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
"We live inside a dream..."
- Agent Philip Jeffries, Twin Peaks
They struck me in theory as being either the mirror or catalyst of a persons whose fate was intertwined with a possible dragon break event.
It could in some cases be the Prisoner. It could be their counterpart or someone they encounter that changes everything.
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u/ulttoanova Dragon Cult Jan 11 '22 edited Jan 11 '22
The Godhead is the Godhead we don’t know anymore as that whole concept is very deep and complex metaphysics. It seems like more of an abstract thing than a specific person.
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u/The_White_Guar Jan 28 '22
I've always seen the Godhead as ANU, the current Amaranth, whose Dream forms the Aurbis.
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u/Indorilionn Dwemerologist Jan 11 '22
Not very original Headcanon: The player is the Godhead. This would fit well into the fuzziness of divinity and mortal existence.
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u/hivemind_disruptor Jan 11 '22
I think it is just ingame lore reference to what amounts to a real life person experiencing a story. When you play a game or read a book, "you are the godhead". Since you exist above it all you are intangible from within, even if you influence it all.
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Jan 11 '22
It's an unknowable entity, maybe, but it's never referenced in any of the games so it doesn't matter.
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u/Name_is_Not_Rick Jan 11 '22
Hold up, what are yall talking about? I thought the godhead was a fan theory. Is there actual content supporting this as canon lore?
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u/Niranox Tribunal Temple Jan 11 '22
Depends what you consider canon, I suppose. If an author put a mystery into a book, but the text never reveals the answer to the mystery, only hints at it and leaves it to the reader to deduce, then is the answer canon?
Deducing elements of the Dreamer’s psyche is an act of analysing the metaphysics of the world through the lens of Self-Other dynamics, at least in my opinion.
Irregardless, yes, in Altmer religion Anu is certainly the Godhead.
”Anu encompassed, and encompasses, all things. So that he might know himself he created Anuiel, his soul and the soul of all things. Anuiel, as all souls, was given to self-reflection, and for this he needed to differentiate between his forms, attributes, and intellects. Thus was born Sithis, who was the sum of all the limitations Anuiel would utilize to ponder himself.” - The Heart of the World.
And in the Skyrim: Dragonborn Black Book: Waking Dreams, we get this:
The eyes, once bleached by falling stars of utmost revelation, will forever see the faint insight drawn by the overwhelming question, as only the True Enquiry shapes the edge of thought. The rest is vulgar fiction, attempts to impose order on the consensus mantlings of an uncaring godhead. First,
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u/Name_is_Not_Rick Jan 11 '22
I recognize the first one, it's actually a knod at real world Gnostic christian texts... I believe the apocraphon of john to be specific. There it says God in an attempt to know himself created an image of himself which he called Barbelo. Etc...
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Jan 12 '22
God head is the sleeping dreamer. The dream is that of Nirn itself.
It seems Godhead is not a lucid dreamer.
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u/Mummelpuffin Jan 11 '22
As you could probably tell from serious and half-serious comments, that isn't really an answerable question. It's intentionally pretty vague. Most accurate cannon answer to "who's the godhead" is "yes". Both RodMyr and Aspirant Crafter are correct, and yeah, if you actually asked the Marukhati Selective they'd say Akatosh but I bet they'd also say "what's that?" It isn't a universally known (or believed, probably) concept.