Morrowind and Imperialism
2023-Mar-01, Wednesday 13:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
I saw this post on reddit yesterday, Morrowind is the only TES game that understands empire, and it really gets to the heart of my Morrowind is, and will always be, the best Elder Scrolls game.
The main point made in that post is that Morrowind actually portrays the Empire's goals in Morrowind honestly--to wit, resource extraction. The East Empire company operates in Vvardenfell to mine the glass and ebony and to farm the saltrice and ash yams and kwama eggs and take it all back to the imperial core, and in exchange they bring order and peace. But not too much order and peace--the Empire isn't doing anything about the state-enforced slavery in Morrowind because doing so would harm the profits, even though they're happy to score moral points by having priests of the Imperial cult preach about how evil slavery is.
The main character of Morrowind is a prisoner, famously "born on a certain day to uncertain parents," who is hauled up out of the dungeons and sent to Morrowind to report to Imperial agents. You are literally a mole sent by the Empire to Morrowind in order to foment revolution, because you fit the characteristics of the Nerevarine, the reincarnated hero Indoril Nerevar, prophecied to save Morrowind from the threat of the Sixth House and Dagoth Ur. The fact that you actually are the Nerevarine is incidental to the Empire's goal of gaining tighter control over Morrowind but certainly welcome. By the end of the game, the living gods of the Tribunal are cast down, Dagoth Ur is defeated, and what power is there in Morrowind left to resist the Empire?
Is this good for Morrowind? If you've played Skyrim, you know that the answer is absolutely not. The Empire falls and Morrowind falls with it, as the Tribunal's power no longer stops Baar Dau from crashing into Vvardenfell. Much like how India's GDP didn't increase (not just didn't increase relative to inflation or population, did not increase) during the years of the Raj. This is why even though Dagoth Ur is a racist monster, he opposes the Empire and the false gods of the Tribunal so a lot of people wish they could have sided with him. He has one of the best pre-battle scenes in video games.
Morrowind. It's great. You should play it.
The main point made in that post is that Morrowind actually portrays the Empire's goals in Morrowind honestly--to wit, resource extraction. The East Empire company operates in Vvardenfell to mine the glass and ebony and to farm the saltrice and ash yams and kwama eggs and take it all back to the imperial core, and in exchange they bring order and peace. But not too much order and peace--the Empire isn't doing anything about the state-enforced slavery in Morrowind because doing so would harm the profits, even though they're happy to score moral points by having priests of the Imperial cult preach about how evil slavery is.
The main character of Morrowind is a prisoner, famously "born on a certain day to uncertain parents," who is hauled up out of the dungeons and sent to Morrowind to report to Imperial agents. You are literally a mole sent by the Empire to Morrowind in order to foment revolution, because you fit the characteristics of the Nerevarine, the reincarnated hero Indoril Nerevar, prophecied to save Morrowind from the threat of the Sixth House and Dagoth Ur. The fact that you actually are the Nerevarine is incidental to the Empire's goal of gaining tighter control over Morrowind but certainly welcome. By the end of the game, the living gods of the Tribunal are cast down, Dagoth Ur is defeated, and what power is there in Morrowind left to resist the Empire?
Is this good for Morrowind? If you've played Skyrim, you know that the answer is absolutely not. The Empire falls and Morrowind falls with it, as the Tribunal's power no longer stops Baar Dau from crashing into Vvardenfell. Much like how India's GDP didn't increase (not just didn't increase relative to inflation or population, did not increase) during the years of the Raj. This is why even though Dagoth Ur is a racist monster, he opposes the Empire and the false gods of the Tribunal so a lot of people wish they could have sided with him. He has one of the best pre-battle scenes in video games.
Morrowind. It's great. You should play it.
