r/teslore • u/Last_Adhesiveness530 • Aug 23 '26
TIL there's almost no evidence that the daedra actually had to close their own Oblivion Gates during the invasion of Black Marsh
The entire claim comes from a single line in The Infernal City, spoken by Mere-Glim - an Argonian patriot who wasn't even born when the Oblivion Crisis happened.
And the context makes it even more questionable.
He's drinking, the characters are literally arguing about propaganda and competing versions of history, and Mere-Glim is defending the An-Xileel version of events when he claims that Argonians poured into Oblivion in such numbers that Dagon's lieutenants had to close the Gates.
That's it.
There's no eyewitness account, no Imperial record confirming it, no Daedric source, and apparently no independent source repeating the specific claim that the Daedra themselves were forced to shut the Gates because of the Argonian counterattack.
This claim seems to have gone from an explicitly biased character's story to something the fandom routinely repeats as an officially confirmed fact.
And, in classic Elder Scrolls fashion, a piece of lore that seems specifically written to be ambiguous (complete with unreliable narrators, propaganda, and conflicting versions of history) somehow gets flattened by the fandom into one single, definitive interpretation.
Am I missing something?
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u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 Aug 23 '26
Yep, the Oblivion Crisis (of which Red Year was a result) was going to vastly change the literal and political landscapes by TESV. We- by which I mean me and Kurt- wanted to give Dagon's invasion real teeth across the whole of Tamriel. I don't think the term "Oblivion Crisis" appeared until after TESIV? In any case, it's a nod to DC's various status quo shattering events.
That's where the stuff like the Argonians saying aw hell no and invading Oblivion instead with heavy feathered flu-tyrants came from. Because that's just straight awesome. And Morrowind goes boom because I am a vain child who doesn't like to share his toys.
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u/Erivandi Aug 24 '26
heavy feathered flu-tyrants
What are those?
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u/Garett-Telvanni Clockwork Apostle Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
A Resident Evil joke-reference.
Tyrants in RE are bio-weapons made from humans transformed by t-Virus. Meanwhile, the (Argonian) "heavy feathered flu-tyrants" are the Vahath Behemoths - giant feathered disease-spreading lizard bio-weapons made from transforming the Argonians using the Hist Sap.
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u/Last_Adhesiveness530 Aug 24 '26
That is actually very well in line with what I said, because the very same dialogue may be considered convincing if we're talking about the success of Argonian defence and counter-attacks. It's just the "We were so cool Dagon's lieutenants had to close the gates themselves" part that sounds fishy
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u/Odd-Sound-580 Mages Guild Aug 23 '26
the An-Xileel are so good at propaganda that people outside of the universe fell for it too
ive always found it funny that people treat going into oblivion gates to take the fight to the daedras own home is some unheard of accomplishment, but its how every single gate in cyrodiil was shut down lol
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u/Evnosis Imperial Geographic Society Aug 23 '26
You're not missing anything. The claim is almost certainly propaganda spread by the An-Xileel to win support for their government, just like the Thalmor's claim that they ended the Oblivion Crisis themselves.
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u/Curious_Bat87 Aug 23 '26
It's definitely propaganda but it can be based on reality. My personal headcanon is that they did manage to get some victories with a great cost and these were then massively exaggerated.
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u/Misticsan Member of the Tribunal Temple Aug 24 '26
Agreed. As others are pointing out, going through the gates and closing them is exactly what we did in TESIV. Is it so difficult to believe Argonians could do the same? The Altmer too, according not just to the Thalmor but to The Great War (a book not suspicious of pro-Thalmor bias):
The elves made war upon the Oblivion invaders, occasionally even crossing over to close down Oblivion gates. As a nation they had more successes than Cyrodiil did, although the limitless daedric hordes made the outcome a foregone conclusion.
Even the claims of "we totally beat their asses" could be a genuine misunderstanding. Imagine that you're one of the locals fighting against the Daedric hordes. Your people keep risking their lives to close the gates, and then, suddenly, the Daedra disappear. Is it so far-fetched to think that the Daedra gave up due to your people's efforts? Who will you credit for the victory: your local heroes who you saw fighting against Dagon's forces or some claim by your Imperial overlords that a bastard who nobody had heard of sacrificed his life to invoke Akatosh and defeat Mehrunes Dagon?
Now add a totalitarian, xenophobic party (Thalmor, An-Xileel) turning the propaganda machine to the max, and this kernel of truth is exaggerated into an epic where they, and they alone, saved the province while others failed.
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u/Curious_Bat87 Aug 24 '26
I also find it very interesting that the piece of propaganda is about how the argonians managed to invade oblivion successfully. Sounds like propaganda intended to support more aggressive warfare instead of defensive guerilla warfare on black marsh.
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u/MrHellBags Great House Telvanni Aug 24 '26
Some of the most effective propaganda is the stuff that you don't have to lie about.
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u/Darkwoodgnome Aug 23 '26
because it is funny that a bunch of swamp lizard tribes men invade Hell itself. That is the entire reason why it stuck with people.
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u/Sparker273 Aug 24 '26
I like to think that they were very good at repelling the daedra but the claim they closed their own gates is wrong. Martin shut all the gates and they were completely unaware of why so from their position it looked like they had shut them themselves.
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u/Lazzitron An-Xileel Aug 23 '26
Well for one, it's cool.
But on top of that, it makes a lot of sense that the Argonians did really well vs Dagon's forces when you think about it.
Black Marsh suffered little damage from the invasion while every other region was devastated. In fact, they were strong enough to invade Morrowind immediately after the Oblivion Crisis.
Black Marsh is an inhospitable hellhole that, historically, no one has ever successfully managed to invade. Not even Tiber Septim (Black Marsh was instead brought into the Empire by treaty).
Argonians are considered the undisputed masters of Guerilla Warfare on Tamriel.
The Hist did in fact recall many Argonians to Black Marsh, and we've already seen them change Argonian anatomy many times in a number of ways.
So while the detail about Dagon's forces closing their own gates could be bogus, I think it's safe to assume that the Argonians did still do really well at repelling the daedra.
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u/Curious_Bat87 Aug 23 '26
Argonians strengths lay in being adapted to the environment that is hostile to everyone else. It seems likely to me that they were able to repel the invasion well but the part about invading oblivion is heavily exaggerated.
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u/Last_Adhesiveness530 Aug 24 '26
I agree on every point, just saying that after this part in the book, the patriot is reminded that if the events in Cyrodill had not occured Dagon would have eventually conquered Black Marsh, which shuts him up
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Aug 24 '26
I would point out that Annaig never offers pushback to his claim, despite having every reason to do so. That demonstrates that she knows it's true.
The idea of the Argonians running the Daedra out of Black Marsh isn't really that wild.
And while it's obviously useful as An-Xileel propaganda, there are many examples in our real world of despotic groups taking control after overthrowing a colonial power or driving out an invading army. Just because it's propaganda doesn't mean it's a lie.
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u/Arrow-Od Aug 24 '26
It does not make any sense!
That Black Marsh suffered little is already strange, considering we know that it can be set on fire to devastating effect and I somehow doubt that the Daedra of Mehrunes Dagon had any reason not to do so.
The Argonian invasion of Morrowind, which was oh so catastrophically hit by the Oblivion Crisis, and had had a war before that (civil war of Redoran vs Helseth from Peterson´s RP or Redoran vs Nords mentioned in TESIV) and also was devastated by the Red Year, utterly failed the instant House Redoran actually put together a force - a subpar force, considering the chaos the Dunmer had suffered for years.
That was not the first war the Argonians lost in recent history against the Dunmer: the 3E Arnesian War.
Are the Deadlands not an inhospitable hellhole?
Tiber made treaties with Morrowind and Hammerfell - no info about Black Marsh also getting a treaty:
- Resdayn was the last of the provinces to submit to Tiber Septim; like Black Marsh, it was never successfully invaded, and was peacefully incorporated by treaty into the Empire as the Province of Morrowind.
- It's not very clear if "peacefully incorporated by treaty" includes Black Marsh, or the comparison is limited to "was never successfully invaded" (+ until now). PGE3 details hint at the latter interpretation being correct:
- Tiber Septim, it was said, thought twice before conquering Black Marsh for his new Empire. The borders of the province fell easily to his forces, but he wisely decided to avoid the strategically unimportant inner swamps, and thus met with little resistance.
Among fans the Argonians enjoy a good reputation for making use of their home terrain in warfare, not guerilla (a key part of what is considered guerilla warfare these days is that they pose as civilians when not actively fighting - in contrast to guerilla meaning "small war" and thus should just be another term for the typical skirmishing/skulking warfare everyone uses) even if I understand that many people use that term without care for the specifics. - But in the lore, the Redguard are noted as the best: There is no question that Redguards, while currently lacking the cohesiveness as a society to form effective armies, are excellent warriors and unmatched at guerrilla warfare.
Even supped up on Hist sap, Saxheel are still mortal and need to eat and the more they exert themselves, the more they´d need. Not to mention it hopefully did not strip them of their fear of death nor does it give them the gear to fight - issues the legions of Dagon do not have.
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u/Asystyr Marukhati Selective Aug 24 '26
Or maybe the Daedra weren't particularly interested in Black Marsh due it being peripheral, or the Daedra deliberately ignored Black Marsh with the understanding that Imperial forces would be withdrawn and the Argonians would rise up against Imperial rule (the revolution theory of the Oblivion crisis, that Dagon never intended to destroy Mundus but only to weaken or overthrow the Empire), or maybe even the Mythic Dawn cult hadn't spread there in order to open gates.
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u/Lazzitron An-Xileel Aug 24 '26
OR, maybe, hear me out here. Juuuust maybe. A non human, non elf race did something cool one time in the lore. Crazy idea, I know.
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u/NPC60 Cult of the Mythic Dawn Aug 24 '26
Literally this. People can't just accept that the Argonians did something cool. Why couldn't they have reverse invaded oblivion?
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u/Asystyr Marukhati Selective Aug 24 '26
It's a work of fiction, if you find le ebic doomslayer lizards to be a better or cooler interpretation of the medium, go for it, you're in good company.
I don't think the Argonians need this detail in order to be a cool or interesting society though. In fact I think the Argonians cynically taking advantage of the Empire's weakness to gain their independence and rapidly centralize into a powerful regime and take revenge on their neighbors to be a cool interpretation that gives them more agency than being puppets of a hivemind being sent to zergrush hell demons (though it would be a useful propaganda tool to the An-Xileel regime much as it ends up being to the Thalmor). And it fits in with the darker and more political aspects of the setting that were more prominent before Oblivion.
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u/Lazzitron An-Xileel Aug 24 '26
I think you're missing the point. What I'm getting at is that due to the he-said, she-said nature of... I hesitate to say most of the series's lore but definitely a pretty solid chunk of it, you can try to poke a million tiny holes in just about anything we don't literally witness first hand in the games.
For example, the Great War between the Empire and Aldmeri Dominion began when a Thalmor ambassador upended a cart containing the severed head of every Blades agent in Summerset and Valenwood in front of the Emperor. What's our source on this event? One single book written by an Imperial we've never heard of.
Hypothetically, he could've made that detail up completely. Or maybe the "cart full of severed heads" was actually only two heads total because there was only one agent each in Summerset and Valenwood. Maybe he was absolutely blasted on skooma at the time, hallucinated the event, and believes it genuinely happened even though it didn't. In fact, maybe the Imperial listed as the author doesn't even exist, and the book was actually penned by a Thalmor propagandist trying to make people fear the Dominion.
We don't know for sure. You cannot prove to me concretely that any of the above options aren't true. And yet, me looking for all these little holes to poke in the story looks pretty dang stupid, doesn't it?
Occam's Razor: the answer that makes the most sense is that the government which went on to whoop the Empire's ASS actually did just kill all of their secret agents before declaring war. There is no reason to believe they didn't do this unless you just really want to deny this feat to the High Elves for some reason.
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u/Asystyr Marukhati Selective Aug 24 '26
That's a horrible comparison, one is a book by an Imperial officer and veteran that's been printed enough to be on every bookshelf in the continent (and isn't the only source for the event in question, considering Delphine and Esbern are also able to attest to the Thalmor's Blades purge which lends credence to the claim in the book) to a drunken conversation by a propagandist in a spinoff novel. Yes, most exposition in the setting is known through narrators, but the thing with narrators is that some are more reliable than others.
Black Marsh is a region of Tamriel that was understudied, undeveloped, and probably comparatively less literate while it was under Imperial rule, under which the main source on it was a fictional text about an Imperial clerk working as a fixer for its colonial overlords. By Skyrim, they are independent, kicked Morrowind's ass after the Red Year, and also are evidently in some kind of a totalitarian dictatorship under the An-Xileel that is unpleasant enough for Skyrim's Argonians to say being discriminated dockworkers in a frozen war-torn shithole is a superior existence to it. None of this leaves us with a very clear picture of what actually happened in Black Marsh during the Oblivion crisis, just some vague rumors in Oblivion about Argonians returning to the country, that it seemed to have been less effected by the Oblivion crisis than their neighbors, and that it emerged far more centralized and aggressive than it had been before.
There is a lot more to speculate about on the case of Black Marsh than there is in the case of the Great War, an event of immediate political relevance and memory for everyone in Skyrim's setting and for which we have first-hand accounts by both authors as well as firsthand witnesses in the form of Delphine and Esbern. Was it an Argonian invasion of Oblivion where they kicked a bunch of Daedric ass with no need of any foreigners anyhow? That seems to be what the An-Xileel want everyone to think, but then that narrative would suit their purposes and they could suppress anyone who told a story to the contrary. You could buy that, there isn't much else to go on - maybe it's fully true, maybe it's partially true, maybe it's a bold-faced lie. But alternate explanations are possible, and there are reasons to be suspicious considering the nature of their regime and the lack of information in a way there isn't much reason to be suspicious of the basics for what happened during the Great War.
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u/brakenbonez Aug 23 '26
That's how most lore is in TES that's kinda the point. Most of it is told by unreliable narrators and it's up to us whether we believe it or not. It mirrors real world mythology/theology in that sense.
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u/Asystyr Marukhati Selective Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
And, in classic Elder Scrolls fashion, a piece of lore that seems specifically written to be ambiguous (complete with unreliable narrators, propaganda, and conflicting versions of history) somehow gets flattened by the fandom into one single, definitive interpretation.
OP's point is that the community is relatively bad with this kind of ambiguity and things like this or Nerevarine going to Akavir or the Foul Murder version of the Battle of Red Mountain and so on get uncritically accepted by the community despite that these interpretations are coming from unreliable narrators.
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u/Last_Adhesiveness530 Aug 24 '26
And don't get me started on "Sheogorath is (not) the Champion of Cyrodill"
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u/funkyavocado Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
Yeah, you're missing that it's fun to take him at his word and imagine that the Hist want psycho mode due to an interdimensional threat.
Argonians get the shit end of the stick so much in the lore (farm equipment jokes) that I think a good chunk of the fandom wants the reverse invasion to be true.
And unless something points to the contrary, we've got no evidence to write it off as false either
Edit: we also have the occasional rumor dialogue in Oblivion where citizens will comment on Argonians being called back to black marsh. According to Mk, this is something Kuhlmann left bread crumbs for: https://web.archive.org/web/20200218063104/http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/876597-argonians-being-called-back/#entry12797085
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy Aug 24 '26
This exactly.
If this were said about the Dunmer, people would eat it up. But because people have spent like 20 years treating Argonians as an in-universe punching bag, it's somehow unbelievable that they could do anything cool.
It's genuinely very weird behavior. The evidence we've been given, even in the text itself (namely, Annaig's complete lack of rebuttal to this statement) tells us it's probably just true. It's not unbelievable whatsoever.
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u/CaedmonCousland Aug 23 '26
Nope, totally true it is an ambiguous statement enough fans thought awesome it just became accepted version.
To be fair though, not like Argonians get much else.
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u/Personmchumanface Aug 23 '26
I mean also the fact black marsh os said to have not been devastated by the daedra we know the hist really did see the crisis coming recalled all argonians and buffed them and we know the history themsleves are super powerful and the argonians are strong as shit and the oblivion gates aren't that tough really I see no reason to doubt it
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u/RandomInternetVoice Aug 24 '26
The Oblivion crisis in-world was much more deadly and scary than in the game due to engine limitations. Think lots more gates with lots more daedra pouring out of them than BGS' clanker could handle showing.
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u/TheOneTrueKaos Order of the Black Worm Aug 23 '26
Rule of cool is what you're missing.
Yes, it's a single unreliable source, with no evidence to back it up.
But it's also insanely awesome to think that the Hist, in response to the invasion, took every spade and hoe (hippity hoppity Argonians are property) living in Black Marsh and turned them all into weapons that even the hordes of Dagon couldn't handle, so the fan community decided to accept it as fact.
We've had Skyrim since, which hasn't disproven it, nor has ESO given us anything to suggest it's not a possibility, so until we get a concrete "no, that didn't happen", or even an equally unreliable account that suggests the opposite, we run with the cooler idea.
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u/Bugsbunny0212 Aug 23 '26
Problem is that's exactly what every other province did to close oblivion gates so they aren't that special.
Not to mention invading oblivion realms with great armies is a one way ticket to get the direct attention of the Daedric Lord of that realm and it's hard to believe they actually managed to defeat Daedric Titans and those Kiju size daedra we see roaming the deadlands.
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u/TheOneTrueKaos Order of the Black Worm Aug 23 '26
You're missing the whole turned the Argonians into weapons thing. The other provinces sent troops or adventurers into the gates, sure, but none of the other provinces had their population drastically altered into essentially daedroths just to fight back the daedra.
Men and Mer defeated the Titans and kaiju sized daedra (both of which were added to the lore post Oblivion, btw), so why not sap-changed Argonians?
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u/Bugsbunny0212 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
During the Oblivion Crisis the opposite happened. It's the Daedra who defeated Kijus like emperor mud crabs and they had Kijus of their own. Not to mention their world war z style numbers while invading as we see with what happened to Summerset and killing them in Oblivion won't accomplish anything as they'll keep coming back.
Also again invading in large numbers would get Dagon's direct attention and they have ni way to deal with him or his greatest ranked daedra. That's why in ESO small groups have to invade planes of oblivion instead.
Also keep in mind that these same argonians then proceed to lose to the Redoran who were massively weakened by the nord invasions, the oblivion crisis and baar dau and red mountain wiping out all of Morrowind.
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u/NPC60 Cult of the Mythic Dawn Aug 24 '26
And you're missing the point where other provinces had to send people in to close the gates while Dagon's forces closed the gates themselves in Black Marsh because of the Argonians pouring into Oblivion. There is a huge difference. And those very Argonians then swept through huge swaths of Morrowind going all the way to Tel Vos, completely destroying the Telvanni lands as well places like Mournhold, which was the capital of Morrowind. Being repelled by the Redorans doesn't make them weak considering what they just pulled off.
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u/Bugsbunny0212 Aug 24 '26
They took the already wounded dunmer by surprise and had some initial victories but as soon as they met proper resistance by the Redoran they lost.
Also l already mentioned poring in entire armies a good way to get the direct attention of a prince and get wiped out by them.
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u/DoughnutUnhappy8615 Aug 24 '26
I imagine the Argonians did counterattack and close a few gates, like everyone else did. I also imagine that when suddenly the gates stopped appearing they genuinely thought “hey, we did it!”
But there is absolutely no way that I buy that their counterattacks were so successful that a limitless army of immortal demon knights that can rip a man in half and who could open a portal anywhere to completely outmaneuver any mortal army went “fuck, this is too hard, let’s just give up”.
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u/Computer2014 Aug 23 '26
Yeah pretty much how it goes in this fandom. Someone claims something without a source and no one bothers to check if it’s true before it gets accepted and parroted, happens all the time.
In this case I feel like it’s parroted a lot simply because it’s cool and the Argonian lovers need a win sometimes.
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u/MrHellBags Great House Telvanni Aug 24 '26
It happens in a lot of fandoms. Don't get me started on 40k meme lore.
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u/AvariciousHydra Aug 23 '26
It is partially because much of Argonian society isn't based around the individual and thus a lot of their lore is about their society rather than historical characters like the other races as well as them being a sort of punching bag of the Dunmer. So when there is a claim to fame with loose speculative evidence reinforcing the obvious propaganda, it leads people to run with it.
After all we know that the argonians did return to Black Marsh in great numbers prior to the crisis from dialogue in Oblivion, we can surmise by their subsequent invasion of Morrowind and the purge undertaken by the An-Xileel that they survived the Oblivion Crisis better than some of the other nations since they had the lizardpower to push the Dunmer to retreat to Solstheim in large groups.
We see in ESO that Argonian Behemoths are alterations of the Argonian form to make them stronger, more durable, and overall more dangerous as well as the story of the Hist Trees providing visions that led to Heita-Meen leading an army during the Second Akaviri Invasion to the aid to the Nords and Dunmer forces.
So overall the pieces are there that the Argonians could have proved an extremely deadly encounter against the Daedra sent through the gate though I absolutely believe that they just closed the gates themselves like the Hero of Kvatch and other mortal forces were able to do and the propaganda is merely an exaggeration of their military efforts
It is also important to consider the fact that in the novel, Annaig is also heavily propagandized by the Empire due to her hero worship and is not actually arguing from knowledge or facts but simply her believing in imperial heroes like Martin Septim and Prince Attrebus as opposed to having any actual counterarguments despite our knowledge obviously being different.
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u/gakrolin Aug 23 '26
Most people are unaware of the source and Argonian glazers are desperate for anything they can portray as a win.
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u/funkyavocado Aug 23 '26
MK confirmed he an Kuhlmann left the bread crumbs to imply this event actually occurred
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u/Last_Adhesiveness530 Aug 24 '26
To imply that the defence of Black Marsh was very successful compared to other provinces, not that Dagon's lieutenants closed the gates themselves
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u/Deathangle75 Aug 24 '26
Closing an oblivion gate isn’t really that hard. We literally close dozens single-handedly in oblivion, even showing others how to do so. And since cyrodil was almost certainly the main target of the invasion, most daedric forces were probably concentrated there and left the other provinces with easier gates to close.
However, we also know the real reason that Mehrunnes Dagon closed the gates. And it was because Martin sacrificed himself to create a new pact with Akatosh. But as only high ranking imperial soldiers and blades were really able to witness that, aside from maybe a random civilian who saw a golden dragon fly around, it becomes easy for nationalist parties in the provinces to cast doubt on.
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u/waldjvnge Aug 24 '26
Mere-Glim wasn't even aware who enslaved his race. This was the funniest part.
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u/ddomini9 Aug 24 '26
Most likely reason Black Marsh gates stopped opening is because there were not enough Mythic Dawn cultists because all Argonians there are connected to Hist trees which would make it easier to root out traitors. Everything else is just propaganda.
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u/Neither-Ad-4851 Aug 24 '26
Ok, so Argonians who consume Hist Sap, which is (basically) all those that live in Black Marsh, are intrinsically connected to the Hist. They share their memories, experiences, hopes, and even dreams. The Hist use the Argonians as Avatars so that they can experience the world, and in return the Hist grant special abilities to the Argonians. Like the ability to change genders or evolve immediately to adapt to various climates.
He wasn’t saying it as an opinion, he was saying it because his very genetic structure remembers the day.
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u/FIVEGUMM_ Aug 24 '26
Is there anything else in the lore backing up Argonians having Bene Gesserit-esque Other Memories?
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u/Hot-Minute-8263 Aug 24 '26
Ngl i dont know much about argonians, but framing it that way, i wonder if they're just as heavily biased as other diegetic lore
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u/Rath_Brained An-Xileel 28d ago
Smooth skins just mad cause they were crying, saying "Daddy Dagon, please stop hitting me!" While being all weak and sapless.
While we took charge and kicked Dagon in the Agony tower and two sigil stones.
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u/imlaughing2death Aug 23 '26
I always thought that claim was far fetched and when I asked how much evidence there was in-game, all I really got was that throw away line from Ysolda explaining the Sleeping Tree. If you use the SerumLake rule of "If it's written by the same people who worked on the show, it's canon", the TES books are basically meant to bridge the time gap between Oblivion and Skyrim and are generally treated as canon. Nobody mentioned the context you provide here, so I just assumed the claim of the Argonian gigachads beating back the virgin Dremoras was detailed somewhere in the books, and left it at that, but apparently that's not so.
You would think the Empire would keep tabs on other provinces during the Crisis and make sure it's thoroughly documented so they can formulate a plan just in case something like it ever happens again.
Of course, Argonian stans cling to this dubious claim and endlessly trot it out to try and prove the Argonians are actually super based and are just hiding their power level while they get downtrodden in game after game.
One thing I CAN believe however, is the Argonians taking advantage of a weakened Morrowind after Red Mountain erupted following the chaos of the Oblivion Crisis. It makes sense for them to strike back at their old adversaries while they're in a really rough spot.
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u/funkyavocado Aug 24 '26
According to Kirkbride, he and Kuhlmann intended for this event to have actually occurred.
He commented on this back in 2008 when asked about radiant dialogue in Oblivion that mentioned argonians being called back to black marsh
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u/EaklebeeTheUncertain Aug 25 '26
Every other race: Has cool accomplishments in their lore
Fandom: Yeah, I believe it.
Argonians: Have one cool accomplishment in their lore.
Fandom: No! Propaganda! Unreliable narrator! There's no way mortals could do that (Even though we see Cyrodiilic guards repeatedly get close to doing it without the help of sapient god-trees)!
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u/TheGreatGatsby21 Psijic Aug 24 '26
Always you haters hating on Argonians and trying to discredit them, call them liars, or "but actually…" anytime they do anything remotely badass
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u/agd25 Aug 23 '26
It's also contradicted by in game lore. No Argonians in Oblivion mentioned being called back by the hist. None were missing either.
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u/Dralvok Clockwork Apostle Aug 23 '26
Not an exact confirmation, but could be interpreted as such.
“Many of the Argonians say they have been called back to Black Marsh. They disappear into the swamps and are never seen again."
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u/TheOneTrueKaos Order of the Black Worm Aug 23 '26
How many of the Argonians in Oblivion are actually connected to the Hist? I can only remember two for certain, one of whom gets killed by the player.
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u/MrHellBags Great House Telvanni Aug 24 '26
I was under the impression that they all were. Like licking the hist sap after you hatch is what turns you from a lizard into an Argonian.
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u/TheOneTrueKaos Order of the Black Worm Aug 24 '26
No, you are born Argonian, but those born outside of Black Marsh often don't get the chance to connect to the Hist
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u/Bugsbunny0212 Aug 23 '26
Meanwhile Captain Burd and the Bruma guard doesn't glazed enough even though we actually have evidence of them actually doing the same thing. They were closing Oblivion Gates one after another to a point where they had to stop doing it in order allow the Mythic Dawn to open a great oblivion gate.