Lore-wise, there's no more reason for Dovahkiin to be a nord male than a dunmer female. For exactly that reason.

To me, the real question here is, "Who is going to tell the Dovahkiin that he can't be Emperor?"

Seriously, should he or she make the claim, who do you think is going to get in the way? I'll tell you who: Bethesda, and ONLY Bethesda.

Their game, their rules, their emperor.

Period. ("full stop" for you Brits)

Yes it would. I've played all my characters as a female, and have no intention of playing a male Dovahkiin of any race. If the lore ends up saying that the Dovahkiin was male, no ifs ands or buts, it means *my* Dovahkiin was not the Dovahkiin or else the lore is wrong for me and for everyone else who never played a male character. That's why the specific details about TES heroes are left so vague, why they fade from history or disappear into the mists as far as the "next batch" of lore is concerned. It allows the lore to be "right" for the greatest number of players possible.

The orc was talking about the *literal* Elder Scrolls, which are not the lore. They are a part of the lore. If they want to write it into the lore that at some point after all the events of Skyrim (the game) a literal Elder Scroll was used to magically transform every possible Dovahkiin into a Nord male, or to erase the actual Dovahkiin from the memory of every living person and replace it with the image of a Nord male - and I can't see why they would want to do that, unless it's to cater to a small group of people who *insist* that the Dovahkiin be a Nord male - then... whatever, fine. Otherwise, writing it into canon that the Dovahkiin was a Nord male will result in the lore being wrong for anyone who chose not to create a Nord male Dovahkiin.

Not really. Your character wasn't called until you killed a dragon. Before that moment the Greybeards probably didn't even know you existed. I don't know why they summoned Talos, perhaps he killed a dragon too. After all they were around back then.

About your earlier point (hard to quote cause you wrote in the part where you quoted me) You are right that being a dragonborn is an advantage to claiming the throne, certainly but it's not an entitlement. If the Amulet of Kings was still around it might have been because you could wear it where nobody else could. Now it's just helpfull.


What's this guys name? How does he look, like in the trailer? Does he become a vamp or a dawnguard in the expansion, which side of the civil war did he choose? What guilds did he join? How far did he get? What diseases does he have? What are his religious believes?

Besides the person you see is for the trailor not the actual dragonborn.


I promise you dragonborn and dragonblood are the same thing.

"Akatosh, looking with pity upon the plight of men, drew precious blood from his own heart, and blessed St. Alessia with this blood of Dragons, and made a Covenant that so long as Alessia's generations were true to the dragon blood, Akatosh would endeavor to seal tight the Gates of Oblivion, and to deny the armies of daedra and undead to their enemies, the Daedra-loving Ayleids." Those blessed by Akatosh with "the dragon blood" became known more simply as Dragonborn"

Extract from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Book_of_the_Dragonborn

Akatosh seems to make a link here between being Dragonborn or of dragonblood and having the right to rule, but without the dragonfires there is no real reason for them to rule over anything and Akatosh has made dragonborns before that did not end up ruling over all of Tamriel or even Cyrodiil or another individual province. So you have no real right to rule. You just have a nice addition to your claim because you are dragonborn and thus blessed by Akatosh who is the chief god of the Imperial religion, but it does not actually make you dragonborn. Or would every Shezzarine have been allowed to rule over the Third Empire also because they are aspects of Talos?


Yes it would. TES takes a great deal of care to make sure that nobody can ever identify the hero of a previous game as it wouldn't make sense. My Nerevarine for instance would not have allowed the destruction of Morrowind, the moon would have kept floating. The Argonian invaison would have been stopped. Helseth would have been killed. Ald'Ruhn would have survived the oblivion crisis and I can promise you that no matter what would have happened Vivec would still be sitting on his throne being worshipped like a god, with me on his side.

Bethesda however simply wrote out the Nerevarine, no canon ending. The same happened to the CoC. We have no idea what happened after the events of SI and that's okay, maybe he or she died returned to the Isles and ruled there or maybe he just ate a lot of cheese for a great many years. Again this is not set in stone. The only canon things are that those hero's have dissapeared.


Or you know, the Imperial legion... Sure you are powerful in this game, but dragons can be killed even without you and an entire legion marching directly towards you would be a rather hard thing to kill even for soembody as powerful as the Dragonborn. One can not claim the throne on his or her own, so without political and military support the dragonborn is useless.

I think it is a bit funny how people say the Dragonborn(as in Dragonborn is general, not necessarily the Skyrim Character) have the right to rule. As the history of TES shows they no not, but they have a tendency to have the might to rule. Though before the Dragonfires were no longer needed it was very convinient that only the Dragonborn could keep it lit.
Btw, wasn't it one of the Emperors of the second Empire who introduced the practise of putting out the Dragonfires on the death of an Emperor? IIRC I have heard or read something about that in one of the ES games.

What about what the Greybeards said, about the storm-crown and no worthy brow to sit upon, and you being called Ysmir the dragon of the north they can put that in the lore man or woman.

Stormcrown is a title I cannot really explain, other than i know Talos is another word for it. I am not sure what it means in the context either, but I doubt it have something to do with a right to rule Tamriel. I could be wrong, but there it is. Also, what is the Stormcrown? Anyone got a good explination for that?

As for Ysmir it think it is a bit more simple. A Dragonborn is a dragon in mortal form and if he/she have accepted the Greybeards guidance they are formally given their title in the north. Dragon of the North, Ysmir. Since the player is given this title no matter where they are from I think it is a decent explination.

I wasn't originally going to respond to your post because I'm pretty tired, but this hit me like a sack of bricks. The Nerevarine being canonically male or female, Orc, or Dunmer, wouldn't define if he stayed in Morrowind and prevented all those catastrophes or not. CoC became Sheogorath and he even talks about it in Skyrim's quest. You seem to miss the heart of what the Orc librarian said: everything happens. It's the same idea as the multiple universe theory, where every action causes a separate universe wherein every possible combination of events occurs. However, there's a line of events that Bethesda has kept congruent from game to game. If you're a Marvel fan, saying that this is "616 of the Elder Scrolls" will make a lot of sense to you. The very fact that the Nerevarine "sailed away to Akavir and was never seen again" and the CoC became Sheogorath shows that Bethesda does keep its own canon, but in general keeps the main character vague as to not piss off its playerbase.

However, this is the first time to my recollection that there's been a trailer with an identifiable figure as the main character and when I saw it I knew then, "They're making him the Emperor. Why else would they set aside ambiguity?" And with how they included that line with the Orc, "Everything is true, even the falsehoods. Especially the falsehoods." was probably to remind players of exactly that.

If you honestly believe the canon Dovahkiin became the Harbinger, Thievesguild Master, Killer of the Dark Brotherhood, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Hero of the Stormcloaks, Hero of the Imperials in the same continuity and timeline, I have news for you that you aren't going to like.

tl;dr: everything happens, multiple universes, everything is canon but only one universe is held as the standard between games.

lol, that would be hilarious

My understanding is while all dragonborns are dragonblood not all dragonbloods are dragonborn. Dragonborns are pretty much dragons in mortal shells while dragonbloods are just those blessed to rule.

Dragonborns make a big impact on Tamriel and apparently have an innate desire to dominate. Which why I'm almost positive the last expansion pack will be about the Thalmor and it will kill or ascend the PC so Bethsea regains control. The dragonborn's story doesn't feel done after Aldun's defeat but making them emperor can't work because as they're a PC there's too many lore problems.

LOL No. It's possible that Beth would overturn 10 years of TES precedent, but highly unlikely.