History Headscratchers / TheElderScrolls

* It's strange that gunpowder [[SeparatedByACommonLanguage (Or black powder]] [[LampshadeHanging if you're non-American)]] and gunpowder weapons don't exist in TES. Especially since Sulfur and Charcoal exists in Tamriel. Not helping matters is the Nord's dislike of magic, despite them not having an alternative to magic, besides archery or the Dwemer, one of, if not, the most advanced races, having ranged weapons no-more advanced than single-shot crossbows. Granted, I'm likely looking too deep into something not in TES. Besides, saltpeter, the oxidizer for gunpowder, found no relevent results on the [[TheWikiRule TESWiki]]. Who knows? Maybe in the next TES game, we could have muskets or flint-lock firearms, bombs or, perhaps explosive bolts for crossbows.

** Orsinium was just announced as the next dlc for ESO.
** Given the DLC involves you rebuilding Orsinium and the general DoomedByCanon nature of much of the game, it's probable that this Orsinium doesn't last long enough to 'count'.

* The bizarre chop suey culture. It looks like it takes renaissance Europe, tosses in a little bit of Feudal Japan, and dumps in a metric crapton of magic. Does it even remotely make sense? The story is good, but the stitched-together culture ruins it for me.
** It didn't ruin it for me. It made sense why the Blades look like European versions of the Japanese samurai. They're old, the history going back into time immemorial. Same with the Samurais. They are an old ideal, going back hundreds of years.
** Um... if you paid attention to the history of Tamriel it would all make sense. The "Feudal Japan" bits were imported from the other side of the world, and preserved solely through isolated tradition. And if you think having Akavir be a Feudal Japan while Tamriel's Rennaissance Europe is weird, then how do you justify the difference in real life? They're both on opposite sides of their respective worlds.
** Then would you rather have everything to be a bland Medieval Fantasy with a side of neutered wannabe-renaissance? I kid, but the real world alone have a crap ton of different cultures, so why shouldn't Elder Scrolls? Not to mention generalizing Elder Scrolls as being completely Renaissance Europe is completely false. Cyrodiil for example is a cross between Roman Empire and Imperial Chinese cultures(which was dropped for indiscriminate reasons and replaced with a generic TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons setting in Oblivion, but then changed back in Skyrim). Underneath the alien qualities, Morrowind is quite Islamic and even Japanese (check the architecture of Mournhold), and Hammerfall has always been depicted as having an Arabic culture with Caribbean and Japanese elements (Sword-Singers yo). Even the Falmer/Snow Elves have a slight Indian tint to them.
** The "chop suey" culture does make sense when you consider that Tamriel is literally the meeting point where the peoples of four separate continents came together over many millennia and collided with the cultures of native populations. There's a wild disparity in the cultures across all nine provinces because of the differing species, environments, and literal gods of each area.

*** [[YouKeepUsingThatWord I think you're confusing real world "ebony"]] with real world ''obsidian''. Ebony is, as mentioned, wood, and obsidian is volcanic glass. That being said, the ingame material malachite is apparently very different from real world obsidian, which while exceptionally sharp is also extremely brittle. The Aztecs used clubs lined with obsidian blades that were largely one use only weapons as the blades would shatter on impact.

* I'm going off memory here since it's been a few years since I've played ''Dawnguard'', but do we have an idea why the original falmer broke with the altmer/aldmer? The ayleids, chimer, and dwemer split due to religious differences with the ayleids & chimer being okay with incorporating daedra worship into their culture where as the altmer were opposed to it, and the dwemer being opposed to all worship. And the bosmer were apparently a bit less hung up on the racial purity thing than the altmer were, what with the mannish wives & what not. But from what I recall the falmer apparently didn't have any major religious differences with the altmer. Which leaves plenty of room for cultural differences, I'm just curious as to what those might have been aside from a preference for cooler climates.

-->And as your vision clouds, as the darkness sets in, fear not. Know only our mercy and the radiance of our affection, which unbinds your bones to the earth before, and sets your final path to the music of your new eternity.

** It may not have been intentional, so much as due to cruel negligence. They forced the Falmer into the dark subterrane for so long without respite that their eyes simply atrophied away into nothingness

** Blind slaves can still do menial tasks like carrying things or pulling levers, and more importantly, blind slaves cannot fight back when you do things like start taking their souls to power your machinery.

* Why did the Dwemer blind the Snow Elves? It makes sense that they'd want a slave race, but why do they want their slaves to be blind? Not only does that not make the Falmer better servants, it makes them ''worse'' at many tasks.

*** More evidence for this can be found in ''Online:'' Mephala and Clavicus Vile show up in Nocturnal's realm and the player is powerless to resist them. Once Nocturnal shows up, she ''effortlessly banishes them both'' in an instant despite them each being at least equal in power to her. Why? Because a Daedric Prince is basically omnipotent inside their own realm.

** It is ''not'' a "trivial" matter to invade another Daedric Prince's realm. The player may have taken the mantle of Sheogorath, but Sheogorath ''is'' the Shivering Isles, which means that any invasion by Dagon's hordes will first have to break through into the Isles (which other Daedric Princes will not be happy about) and then be fighting the full strength of the Lord of Madness. And while Dagon is doing that, other Princes will be sharpening their knives as well. The Greymarch only worked on the Isles as well as it did because Jyggalag and Sheogorath were the same being, just swapping roles; Greymarch forces were part of Sheogorath's realm being converted by Jyggalag as he was changing. Dagon would not be converting anything; he'd have to take it by force, and within a Daedric Prince's realm, their will is absolute.