Heres what I think, Talos is actually an aspect of Shor, or Shezzar aka Lorkan. This diety has always been a god favourable to mankind and disliked by the elves. The elves blame him for disconecting them from divinity by creating mundus. and Talos actually takes the place of shor in the pantheon upon his supposed ascension to divinity. however, shor has had avatars before such as YSMIR and pelenial whitestrake. see the connection? Talos was also known as Ysmir, though the one first mentioned i believe is a different person at a different period in the timeline.
tl;dr talos = lorkhan/shor/shezar and the elves be mad either way because it is a god of man.
Very close, this is indeed more or less what it is.
Talos is what is called an
enantiomer of Lorkhan, a term from chemistry that means mirror-image.
(A mirror image is not the same as the original, see the difference between your right and left hand.)
Talos is a conglomerate entity of Wulfhart, Arctus, Septim and a few others.
What happened is that several Shezarrines, avatars of Lorkhan, with their lives so closely re-encacted the story of creation, they ascended.
As above, so below, as below, so above.
As a replacement of Lorkhan he is an affirmation of creation, a spoke in the Wheel, a big giant 'Yes'.
This is why the Thalmor want him gone.
Their ultimate goal is to shed the mortal coil and return to the endless possibility of Anu.
The Dwemer had the same goal, but where they tried to make their entire race into a god the Thalmor are trying to uncreate the world.