A "What was that?" moment.

[Count Chocula]

9 hours ago, DocClox said:

 

Oh, pretending has everything to do with it! "Pretending" is just the use of imagination, and without imagination, we're just sitting watching patterns of pixels on a computer monitor.

 

 

Of course not, that would be silly. On the other hand, the game leaves vast tracts of detail open to the player's interpretation. Here you can spin whatever stories you like. Those details are left vague precisely so we can do this.

 

Canon is a religious term used to denote the body of dogma sanctioned by the head of the Church. The term was adopted by gamers to describe appealing to the IP holder for a work to settle disputes about what really happened in a game - debates often conducted with similarly religious fervor.

 

If the body authorized to set canon (Bethesda in this instance) declines to do so, then there is no canon.

We're gonna just have to agree to disagree on the "pretending' issue.

 

The original religious meaning of "canon" is irrelevant. In a fictional universe, we could simply use "lore-friendly." There's no lore-friendly way to be a Thalmor agent in Skryim. A player does it either via a mod or in their head canon. Sitting at my computer, playing Skyrim and in my head saying to myself "Yeah, I'm a Thalmor agent!" Without a mod enabling that kind of story, what's the point? I might as well sit around without a computer and simply fantasize about being a Thalmor agent.

 

Bethesda has set the canon of the Skyrim universe by virtue of what they included and excluded from the game. The Dragonborn joining one side of the civil war to trick the factions into destroying each other is not canon. The Dragonborn joining and fighting for one side, the other side, or sitting it out, those are canon.

[DocClox]

2 hours ago, chocula said:

We're gonna just have to agree to disagree on the "pretending' issue.

 

Apparently so.

 

2 hours ago, chocula said:

There's no lore-friendly way to be a Thalmor agent in Skryim

 

Says who? Quote me one line of text that says it can't be so, I challenge you!

 

This prohibition is your head canon, right here.

 

2 hours ago, chocula said:

The original religious meaning of "canon" is irrelevant.

 

So I've got the dictionary and etymology supporting my use of the word. You've got ... head canon?

 

*sigh*

 

Shall we agree to disagree about "canon" as well? I'm beginning to doubt there's any meeting of minds to be had here.

[Count Chocula]

3 hours ago, DocClox said:

Says who? Quote me one line of text that says it can't be so, I challenge you!

 

This prohibition is your head canon, right here.

Context is king. Skyrim, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc., are not religions. The original meaning of "canon" is not relevant to the meaning as applied to fictional universes.

 

So you tell me, how does one play as an agent of the Thalmor? I will tell you, as I did before. Mods or head canon. There is no support in the vanilla game for playing as a Thalmor agent. I'm not gonna bite on your "challenge" to prove a negative. With your reasoning, anything that is not tagged as "non-lore-friendy" (if you prefer that to "non-canonical")  can be said to be lore-friendly. Unicorns? Well, they're lore-friendly because nothing says they're not.

 

Of course there's not going to be any meeting of the minds. There never was.

[Raven 54]

On 4/18/2025 at 2:47 AM, rjn said:

Travelling up the side road towards Wolfskull Cave I spotted a troop of Thalmor running towards me on the road.  No big deal, but they were being pursed by a ghost horse charging after them - and bringing up the rear was the headless horseman ghost frantically chasing his horse.

Like this?  I had to run really fast to try and catch this, Horse is under the arrow, Horseman running behind.

 

Spoiler

 

[belegost]

18 hours ago, DocClox said:

If the body authorized to set canon (Bethesda in this instance) declines to do so, then there is no canon.

c0da exists. Therefore everything is canon. If it ain't - warpinthewest it.

Edited April 25, 2025 by belegost

[DocClox]

On 4/25/2025 at 5:26 AM, belegost said:

c0da.

 

Kind of proves my point ,that one. First of all, Kirkbride wasn't working at Bethesda when he released that, and it certainly didn't come out under the Bethesda aegis. And secondly, he explicitly wrote it as a canon-breaker. His point was that nothing is canon. Or everything is, which comes to the same thing.

 

Of course, his fans managed to ignore the fine print and either write crappy fanfic and claim it as canon (because c0da) or else they claim c0da as canon when trying tp settle lore arguments, which is the exact opposite of what MK intended.

 

On 4/25/2025 at 2:45 AM, chocula said:

Context is king. Skyrim, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc., are not religions. The original meaning of "canon" is not relevant to the meaning as applied to fictional universes.

 

I guess someone just pulled letters out of a scrabble bag until they found something they thought looked cool, right? smh

 

On 4/25/2025 at 2:45 AM, chocula said:

Unicorns? Well, they're lore-friendly because nothing says they're not.

 

And in fact one appears in TES4, and another one in Skyrim AE, so possibly a poor example here.

 

On 4/25/2025 at 2:45 AM, chocula said:

I'm not gonna bite on your "challenge" to prove a negative

 

Actually, I'm asking you disprove a negative. Just one line of text that explicitly supports you point. An entirely reasonably proposition, assuming you have any evidence at all.

 

On 4/25/2025 at 2:45 AM, chocula said:

With your reasoning, anything that is not tagged as "non-lore-friendy" (if you prefer that to "non-canonical")  can be said to be lore-friendly

 

I quite clearly and explicitly say that I wouldn't expect anyone to accept my RP as being canon in any way, and here you are somehow interpreting that as the exact opposite. Wonderful.

 

Meanwhile, by your reasoning, your DB isn't allowed to feel happy, or sad or angry unless an NPC comes up and says "You look like you feel happy" (or "sad" or "angry") because it isn't in the game. And since the game declines to comment on your internal state in almost all cases, that means your canonical DB is an psychopath, feeling no emotion at all.

 

Which is a ridiculous conclusion, so I reject the logic that leads to that conclusion.

 

[edit]

 

MK wasn't at Bethesda at the time.

Edited April 26, 2025 by DocClox

[DocClox]

23 minutes ago, belegost said:

c0da exists. Therefore everything is canon. If it ain't - warpinthewest it.

 

If everything is canon, then nothing is.

[Raven 54]

5 hours ago, chocula said:

Context is king

 

2 hours ago, DocClox said:

If everything is canon,

You two constantly bickering at each other is ruining this thread, it takes more intelligence to avoid rather than foster an argument.

[rjn]

4 hours ago, Raven 54 said:

Like this?  I had to run really fast to try and catch this, Horse is under the arrow, Horseman running behind.

 

 

That's it. But in your case the horse has extended his lead on his rider.  In my case it was near the start of the horseman's journey and he was just a few steps behind.  The WIKI lists this a a rare bug in the game.  I'm guessing they get in a rare fight and don't recover.  Horse riders normally dismount to fight don't they?

[Jyratx]

On 4/21/2025 at 6:46 PM, chocula said:

If critter likability is relevant to someone for random killing, sure. For me, the question is "Do I want to spend time doing something that does not really have anything to do with the story?" For me, that answer is "No, I don't."

I mean, story is nice... but if I'm in need of some quick cash and I just happen to see a few knife ears with armbands walking by, I'm murdering them and taking their crap. That's just how it's gonna be.

[Jyratx]

On 4/18/2025 at 2:47 AM, rjn said:

 and bringing up the rear was the headless horseman ghost frantically chasing his horse.

I've often wondered what specifically creates this problem, because I tend to encounter him off the horse much more than him being on the horse. 

[Count Chocula]

7 hours ago, Jyratx said:

I mean, story is nice... but if I'm in need of some quick cash and I just happen to see a few knife ears with armbands walking by, I'm murdering them and taking their crap. That's just how it's gonna be.

Story is nice? Story is what games like Skyrim, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc., etc., etc. are all about.

[Raven 54]

On 4/25/2025 at 5:02 AM, rjn said:

That's it. But in your case the horse has extended his lead on his rider.  In my case it was near the start of the horseman's journey and he was just a few steps behind.  The WIKI lists this a a rare bug in the game.  I'm guessing they get in a rare fight and don't recover.  Horse riders normally dismount to fight don't they?

I had just fast traveled to the stable outside Whiterun where I saw the horse run by followed by the thrown rider, no idea how they were separated, they ran by the western watchtower where they turned left at Fort Greymor, they went a short way where the horse turned around and ran by the rider but the rider continued to the point where the horse turned around before turning himself which caused the considerable lead by the horse.   

[Jyratx]

5 hours ago, chocula said:

Story is nice? Story is what games like Skyrim, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc., etc., etc. are all about.

Story, yes indeed, but also roleplay. These aren't games like GTA or AC, in which you're playing as a 'pre-built' character with their own goals, flaws, quirks, and histories. I've always thought of it as 'build your own backstory' kind of thing (with the notable exceptions of Fallout's 3 and 4), and act accordingly during your playthrough. You do the story, as in events play out as they do, but there's also room for roleplay. If I were a mentally unstable Bosmer following the Green Pact, how would I go about doing things? If I were an Altmer who despises the Dominion because they brainwashed my family, what would I do to get back at them? I get that it doesn't really affect the overarching story; you're not going to the Summerset Isles and magically nuking some feudal funny-moustache-man knife-ears, but it does add value to who the player wishes their character to be, which in turn gives them a unique experience... until, you know, you've slain Alduin for the umpteenth time and are looking to spice up your game. And then, me foine buckaroo or buckarette, that's when you come here to Loverslab.

Edited April 27, 2025 by Jyratx

[Count Chocula]

On 4/27/2025 at 4:47 AM, Jyratx said:

Story, yes indeed, but also roleplay. These aren't games like GTA or AC, in which you're playing as a 'pre-built' character with their own goals, flaws, quirks, and histories. I've always thought of it as 'build your own backstory' kind of thing (with the notable exceptions of Fallout's 3 and 4)

You can't do something some people might be inclined to call "role playing" without a story.