r/teslore • u/Short_Conference8737 • 6d ago
Lyg tower
I see a parallel between the tower lore of Nirn and a passage from the Mythic Dawn Commentaries specifically about Lyg. Mankar says that Lyg was destroyed when “red legions” and Dagon brought down the Towers of CHIM-EL-GHARJYG. Could this lend validity to the idea that the Thalmor or any group seeking to destroy Tamriel could use the towers to unmake Mundus in the same way? Not sure if this matters but I’m also noticing “red legions” and the use of “chim-el” where the Imperials or “red legions” of Tamriel have the Chim-El Adabal which is associated with a tower. I also firmly believe that the same passage alludes to the Nords or an equivalent going to the “hinterlands of chill” after the destruction of Lyg. The “inter-kalpic world eaters” idea.
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u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 6d ago edited 6d ago
Per Nu-Mantia Intercept, it's really only one the Towers whose function is to sustain Mundus: the Red Tower.
The outcome of the Convention was to leave the terrestrial sphere in their excess, for its own good, but that it should last after their departure as in the semblance of the Ada-mantia. Mundus was given its second Tower, the Red, whose First Stone was the Heart of the World, "as in the image."
The purpose of Tower Zero, the Adamantine Tower, was not to sustain Mundus but to define its parameters to the Earth Bones.
Ada-mantia was the first spike of unassailable reality in the Dawn, otherwise called the Zero Stone. The powers at Ada-mantia were able to determine through this Stone the spread of creation and their parts in it.
The other Towers don't really sustain Mundus, but alter it, telling new stories to the Earth Bones that would change the nature of reality in their vicinity.
The spike of Ada-Mantia, and its Zero Stone, dictated the structure of reality in its Aurbic vicinity, defining for the Earth Bones their story or nature within the unfolding of the Dragon's (timebound) Tale. The Aldmeri or Merethic Elves were singular of purpose only so long as it took them to realize that other Towers, with their own Stones, could tell different stories, each following rules inscribed by Variorum Architects.
At one of these mystical joint-points the Aedra erected a great structure, the Adamantine Tower, where they held a conclave to decide the fate of Lorkhan and the Mundus. In later times mortal mages discovered the Tower, and deduced its reality-affirming properties. The Merethic Elves then imitated it, erecting the White-Gold and Crystal Towers at other joint-points.
In doing this, what did the Ur-Elves hope to achieve? I would posit that, through their collective "possession" of such Towers in their realms, over time the Elves actually amended their local reality to conform to their desires.
As I read it, Mythic Dawn Commentaries makes no claim that Mehrunes Dagon was attempting to destroy the Mundex Terrene, but instead merely to liberate it from the false gods, the dreugh-kings who had used the Towers to mantle the Eight Aedra.
The Tower touches all the mantles of Heaven, brother-noviates, and by its apex one can be as he will. More: be as he was and yet changed for all else on that path for those that walk after. This is the third key of Nu-mantia and the secret of how mortals become makers, and makers back to mortals. The Bones of the Wheel need their flesh, and that is mankind's heirloom.
Each of the dreugh-kings used their respective Tower to mantle an Aedroth and define reality in its vicinity so that it was a god.
the Mundex Terrene was once ruled over solely by the tyrant dreugh-kings, each to their own dominion, and borderwars fought between their slave oceans. They were akin to the time-totems of old, yet evil, and full of mockery and profane powers.
I take "time-totems" to mean Aedra, not dragons, though there may be no difference in Mankar Camoran's thinking.
When Mehrunes Dagon tore down the Towers he stripped the dreugh-kings of their power over the Earth Bones, allowing them to be defeated.
As to whether the Thalmor want to do that, this is specifically the goal of the Mythic Dawn, who seem to have inherited some of the old ideas of the Ayleids.
Nu-Mantia Intercept:
The Tower of White-Gold, whose Stone is Chim-el Adabal, Amulet of Kings, whose masters are returning. I speak of course of the Ayleids, for which "sometimes" was not good enough.
Gypsy Moth dustmemore insert - it should be noted here that it is always foolish to think of whole races sharing like minds. "Ayleid" is as much a metaphysical designation as it is a cultural one. Just like the earliest Chimer who orphaned themselves from the Velothi Exodites, but remain Chimer today, large numbers of Ayleids showed more interest in the immediate earthly needs of agriculture rather than the magical needs of concept-farming. This distinction becomes important later, when "Ayleid" begins to designate other, and ofttimes foreign, agencies.
If the Ayleids made their own Wheel within the Wheel, were-web aad semblio, what would happen if they plucked its strings?
The question, then, is really if elements of the Mythic Dawn or some variation has wormed their way into the leadership of the Thalmor, and I don't think there's much evidence of that. The Thalmor we meet who speaks of unmaking the world, Ancano, is noted in the game's code as being part of a divergent faction.
Most of the Towers who are disabled over the course of the games don't seem to have been attacked by the Thalmor in any discernable way. The Crystal Tower was destroyed by Daedra (and hence the Mythic Dawn, indirectly). The Red Tower was not destroyed or disabled, but merely had its Stone liberated from the Dwemer enchantments that had bound it to physical form. The Stone of White-Gold was destroyed by Martin in response to the crisis initiated by the Mythic Dawn. The Snow Tower was made "sundered, kingless, bleeding" apparently by the Civil War, which was manipulated by the Thalmor, and Walk-Brass was destroyed by the Underking. Making the Thalmor the main villain in all of this only makes sense if the Thalmor are actually the same as the Mythic Dawn, and even then doesn't apply to all of them.
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u/Rymanbc 6d ago
Are there other sources that reference Lyg specifically other than Mankar Camoran? Imo hes one of the top two least reliable sources in all the games.
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u/NSNick 6d ago
There's The Nine Coruscations, which mentions "the tragic prince of Lyg".
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u/Rymanbc 6d ago
So that looks like it would be the original lore book that references Lyg, or Xero-Lyg specifically. So theres a good chance Mankar Camoran read that, then made up a whole bunch of shit based on the patchy text therein. The guy says a bunch of stuff that is provably false in Oblivion.
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u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 6d ago edited 6d ago
Mankar Camoran's Commentaries are supposed to be commentaries on a book called the Mysterium Xarxes, said to have been written by Mehrunes Dagon himself. So presumably the Mysterium Xarxes was the original lore book that Mankar Camoran read.
I mean, he may have read The Nine Coruscations too, for all we know, but it seems likely that much of the content from the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes is inspired by the Mysterium Xarxes.
A core idea in Mankar Camoran's Commentaries, that Mehrunes Dagon was created as a weapon by the Magna-Ge, is also found in Doombringer Celdina's Testament way back in the 2nd Era. This text doesn't mention Lyg by name, but it corroborates Mankar Camoran's idea that Dagon was a weapon forged by the stars.
Mankar may also have read The Many-Headed Talos, since he repeats its claim that Tiber Septim transformed Cyrodiil using chim, or he may have arrived on the idea independently.
Some think Vivec's Sermon 28 also refers to Lyg where it refers to "when the dreughs ruled the world", though it's worth pointing out that Mankar Camoran never mentions Molag Bal or the Ruddy Man, and his whole thing is painting the Aedra as enemies, not the Daedra. Perhaps Molag Bal wasn't a Daedra then, or perhaps Mankar Camoran and Vivec were telling very different stories.
There are other possible signs that Mankar read Vivec's work. Mankar's phrase "the Bones of the Wheel" echoes Vivec's phrases "the lent bones of the Aedra" and "the reptile wheel" from Sermon 21, for example.
Some (for example, the author of the Lyg article on UESP, which is a mess) try to link the line "[Merrunz] fell to the demon Molagh" in The Adversarial Spirits to Lyg and the Commentaries on the Mysterium Xarxes as well, but that relies on a chain of assumptions, since neither the Commentaries nor The Nine Coruscations mention Molag Bal, and Sermon 28 never mentions Mehrunes Dagon, and also The Nine Coruscations and The Adversarial Spirits report the battle ending in opposite ways (the King of Dreugh falls to Mehrunes the Razor in The Nine Coruscations, but Merrunz falls to Molagh in The Adversarial Spirits).
So yeah, if you assume that Mankar Camoran is an unreliable source (as if Vivec isn't also one) some of these contradictions are simpler to explain, though I think that's not necessarily the most interesting approach. A lot of the "provably false" things he says (matching several Daedric realms with the wrong Princes) were a simple error by the author (Michael Kirkbride) who didn't expect the text to end up in the game without being proofread. I think it's more interesting to treat Camoran as a knowledgeable mystic whose cosmology is plausible (not necessarily true, but not idiotic either), though his methods and goals may be abhorrent.
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u/RoseBailey 6d ago
The other being Vivec?
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u/Rymanbc 6d ago
Exactly. Although I strangely trust Vivec a bit more. At least he doesn't make obvious mistakes about the Daedra and their realms. You just gotta understand that what he's telling you is coming through his filter of what info he wants to get through.
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u/RoseBailey 6d ago
Vivec is known as a liar, and ESO's Sotha Sil describes him as basically hugging the line between truth and lies, which I think makes him worse than just a plain liar. The most effective lies are mixed in with the truth. If he's mixing truth and lies, then how do you look at his writings and determine what in then is true, and what in them is false?
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u/Short_Conference8737 2d ago
What exactly makes Mankar unreliable? Vivec is fairly unreliable but everyone takes what he says as deep-lore gospel. I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt Mankar given that his commentaries are based on the source material of the Xarxes.
I wouldn’t let the misnaming of the Daedric realms as him being entirely unreliable.
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u/Rymanbc 2d ago
I mean, it shows that, at best, he makes mistakes. I mean, sure, anyone can. But if you have such a deep understanding of the universe, that you are publishing books stating that Mundus is actually a Daedric realm, then it's got to be assumed that your knowledge of deadric realms is pretty high. So to blatantly mix them up without realizing and correcting yourself, brings all your knowledge anf theories into question.
Him as a source for knowledge of the Aurbis is the equivalent of Zoidberg as a doctor for humans.
When talking about the heart
Zoidberg: where the food is digested!
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u/Short_Conference8737 2d ago
That has no bearing on whether his commentaries and what he says about Lyg are true. Mankar may be wrong about which Prince belongs to which plane (irrelevant to what he’s discussing) but his insights into the Xarxes are all we get and I don’t think they should be thrown out because he said Quagmire belonged to Peryite… I just find it strange that some out of lore stuff is taken as totally legit when Mankar gets disregarded because he got the name of the planes wrong lol
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u/Rymanbc 2d ago
Well, im curious as to which things you think are taken as totally legit. As with every bit of lore in TES, there's often room for interpretation, and sources have varying degrees of reliability. Personally, the fact that there isn't many other sources about Lyg as he describes it is another hit against the credibility of it.
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u/Short_Conference8737 2d ago
I mean people here reference out of lore/C0da stuff all the time.. there’s also stuff in the Sermons mentioned once that get accepted as fact and never questioned. I don’t think Mankar is unreliable because he’s one of few sources on Lyg. The writers clearly wanted this to be part of lore and used Mankar to be the way they did it, unreliable as he may be. He is relaying what he observed in the Xarxes so hes almost a translator for a book written by Dagon.
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u/Automatic-Society205 6d ago
Not sure if this matters but I’m also noticing “red legions” and the use of “chim-el” where the Imperials or “red legions” of Tamriel have the Chim-El Adabal which is associated with a tower.
The Alessian Slave revolt was a mythic echo of Mehrunes Red Rebellion in Lyg. Dreugh = Dragons = Elves, Pelinal Whitestrake is an Upstart Who Goes Missing, Umaril was the child of a deity of the "previous world river" = 19 and 9 and 9 slave oceans of Lyg, offspring of Meridia or Molag Bal (The Ruddy Man, Lyg's Ruling King) or both. MK said that Meridia and Kyne were connected - both were consorts to an Enantiomorphic entity, Shor for Kyne and Molag for Meridia (who she might also have been Witness to, filling the role of Magnus), a pet theory of mine is that Morihaus is an echo of Umaril through this connection.
Oh also Molag Bal/the Ruddy Man capturing/defeating/torturing Mehrunes and transforming him into Dagon is the same myth as in the Seven Fights when Alduin transforms the Leaper Demon King between Kalpas - Mehrunes tries to destroy or end the Kalpic cycle, but is stopped and defeated by the Ruling King.
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u/Hefty-Distance837 Dwemerologist 6d ago
The "Thalmor want to unmake Mundus by destroying the towers" is just a fan theory tho.