#36 lessons of vivec

[arnesia]

vivec’s feet

so let me get this out of the way before i talk about vivec's feet. there is a common belief (whether it is true or not, i have no idea - it could go either way imo) that in certain middle eastern cultures/languages, "feet" can be a euphemism for the genitals. while i would not put it past kirkbride to have meant it in this context, i am not going to evaluate it that way. i am going to approach this topic from a different metaphorical lens.

so i think that the crushing, removal, and eventual restoration of vivec's feet during the pomegranate banquet section of the lessons is a sort of metaphor for the evolution of vivec's confidence - or "footing" if you will - before, during, and after hir sexual assault.

(i should note something else also, which you might already know if you've followed me for a long time - i do not believe that the events of the pomegranate banquet are in any way literal, up to and including the identity of vivec's abuser. it was not literally molag bal. his name and title as "king of rape" were used to evoke the event that took place without saying it out loud.)

so at the beginning of sermon 12, high off delivering one of hir three lessons of ruling kings (if we can assume this happened literally at this time) in the previous sermon, vivec is feeling pretty good, pretty confident. let me quote something interesting from sermon 11, though:

"When you approach God, however, cut both of [your hands] off. God has no need of theory and he is armored head to toe in terror."

i wonder if this might be an intentional allusion to what's about to happen? of course, this quotation refers to hands, not feet, but it does also mention that "God" is "armored head to TOE." just a thought.

anyways, coming off of sermon 11, vivec seems to find ayem and seht in some kind of tryst or something? vivec then "leapt through into their likenesses to observe," which seems to me to refer to hir trying to "emphathize" with the two of them ("leapt through INTO their likenesses", in a sense momentarily BECOMING them in order to feel what they feel, see what they see). but vivec "gained no secrets that [ze] did not already know," perhaps feeling (over)confident that ze knows all there is to know about the two of them already, and "left a few of [hir] own behind to make the journey worthwhile," further indicating a kind of arrogance about hir knowledge of the two other members of the tribunal. 

after this, vivec "wandered far into the ash" and "found a span of badlands to practice [hir] giant-form." the "giant-form" here is likely not literally vivec as a giant, especially since despite what ze says, vivec was not a god yet at this point. the "giant-form" likely refers to hir perspective of hirself as a "giant," someone very important and confident in their importance. vivec then "made of [hir] feet a less dense material than the divine to keep from falling waist-deep into the earth." vivec's arrogance made them take for granted hir basic confidence, which seems to be stored in the feet here, so that ze doesn't fall "waist-deep into the earth," which means to commune with the earth and its inhabitants. a "giant" SHOULD fall "waist-deep into the earth," so that they can keep a level head, so to speak; a person of great import should not lose sight of the people they lead and their problems.

(i should note here that i am in no way trying to justify what happened to vivec by saying any of this. this is the way vivec justifies it to hirself, in the way that ze writes this narrative.)

vivec's line, "How very beautiful you are, that you do not join us" might be indicative of a kind of nonchalance or "lax" reaction to "molag bal's" appearance. this is swiftly responded to by "molag bal," who "crushed the warrior-poet's feet, which were not invulnerable" - first destroying vivec's confidence - "and had legions cleave them off" - secondly completely removing it. without hir confidence, vivec "allows" what follows to happen - "fires from the Beginning Place were brought like nets to hold Vivec and [ze] let them" - because ze feels like ze deserves it. 

and this disconnection of the feet - hir confidence - is followed by the disconnection of the head - hir mind, hir consciousness. it's been noted by people smarter than i that vivec's head seeming to be in different places than hir body is indicative of the kind of dissociation common among those with ptsd from traumatic events like sexual assault. the "head" can only take so much before it must go away, and leave the "body" to its own devices. and without the feet, the confidence, there is nothing to anchor the head, the "I". and we all know how important the "I" is to the metaphysics in this series.

one more note, concerning the sermon following sermon 12: this sermon, the second lesson of ruling kings, was delivered "to the Hortator when Vivec was not whole," meaning when vivec was still missing hir head and feet. what this means for the timeline of the actual pomegranate banquet, i don't know exactly. and whether or not this sermon has anything to do with it is up for debate. although i do find the line "[The ruling king] is to learn from my punishment" interesting in this light. within the context i've described here, ze seems to see hir sexual assault as a "punishment" for hir arrogance. just a thought.

anyways, during the concluding sermon of the pomegranate banquet, sermon 14, "the Prince placed the warrior-poet's feet back and filled them with the blood of Daedra," meaning that vivec regained hir confidence, hard-fought, and made of something new, instead of the old arrogance. "In this way Vivec's giant-form remained forever harmless to good earth," meaning that hir arrogance would no longer be a danger to those around hir, or to hirself. (whether or not that is true is not for me to say here.) so, at great cost, vivec's "feet," hir confidence, is restored.

anyways, yeah. that's my post about vivec's feet

[senhor-do-escuro]

Sorry if i am mistaken, but didn't Vivec got pregnant from Molag Bal and gave birth to some city monster eldritch thing?

Or i am remembering wrong?

POV you walk into the wrong banquet hall

[nerevar-near-and-far]

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Shit Up About Elder Scrolls Lore and Also Sound Like You Know What You're Talking About:

1. Say in-universe sources are uninformed

2. Say in-universe sources are subconciously biased

3. Say in-universe sources are consciously biased, i.e., propaganda

4. Dig through the 36 Lessons until you find something that sounds deep and impressive. Be sure to move on quickly before the reader has a chance to think, "Wait, what?"

5. Use the word "enantiomorph" without bothering to define it.

6. Be totally self-referential about the concept of godhood, the Prisoner, and metafiction. People will surely feel more immersed in a fictional universe if they also have to think about metaphysics and pseudo-scientific applications of Heidegger's Uncertainty Principle, and if NPCs have feelings when the power is turned off.

6.1 Act like you understand whatever the hell Sotha Sil was on about

7. Imply the definitive truth of what happened on Red Mountain in 1E 700 is so obvious you don't have to say it. Again, be sure to move on quickly before they can say, "Wait, what?"

7.1 Avoid talking about the Dwemer. If you have to ask why, you're already too far gone.

8. Say you've read the novels. (Do not, under any circumstances, read the novels.)

9. Sometimes, spell the names of gods and godlike thingamajiggers with all caps and no vowels, à la Hebrew. Especially the ones who don't have a spelling like that somewhere in canon already.

9.1 Don't ask why CHIM has a vowel in it.

10. Impress everybody with stating that you know Michael Kirkbride's stuff after Morrowind is technically non-canonical, but then use it anyway.

11. If you're a Rush fan, be sure not to confuse 2112 and 2920.

And don't forget Rule 0: When in doubt, a Dragon Break did it. As in, a Dragon Break both fuckered it up and fixed it at the same time.

[faeeevee]

wtf i love elder scrolls online

[vrrl]

♫ Лжедмитрий IV - "Праздничный пир"

[affogatosweetroll]

vivec

[numbpill]

i've been working on a project relative to the universe of the elder scrolls, specifically morrowind, the ashlands...

THE SLEEPING SAINT IN THE ASHLANDIC HAZECLOUDS

it is finally to a point where i am happy to share it!! it was made in purely html, css, javascript, and most importantly- three.js. its neat. i wonder if entire worlds could be crafted this way.... that, would be so cool.

feel free to visit... vivec.neocities.org!!

[dhd83b483bd883bd8jpg]

Elder scrolls lore is actually fucking insane.

-Excerpt from the 36 lessons of Vivec, sermon 12, Morrowind (2002)

[doctor-disc0]

Playing a Temple devout Dunmer in Morrowind is so interesting because I've convinced myself that in order to properly play this character I must do things as she would do them. And so, doing the Temple quests while ignoring the main questline isn't enough. I need to carefully read every book I find that is at all related to the Temple or the Tribunal.

Fast forward to my character's first time in Balmora. I go upstairs to officially join the Temple. I go over to the library and read the books carefully. I get to Vivec's 36 lessons or whatever. I open one of the lessons. I read it carefully. I close it and go, "what the fuck."

[magical-hermaphrodite]

Vivec says unto the Hortator remember the words of Boet-hi-ah

“We pledge ourselves to you, the Frame-maker, the Scarab: a world for us to love you in, a cloak of dirt to cherish. Betrayed by your ancestors when you were not even looking. Hoary Magnus and his ventured opinions cannot sway the understated, a trick worthy of the always satisfied. A short season of towers, a rundown absolution, and what is this, what is this but fire under your eyelid?

Shift ye in your skin, I say to the Trinimac-eaters. Pitch your voices into the color of bruise. Divide ye like your enemies, in Houses, and lay your laws in set sequence from the center, again like the enemy Corners of the house of Troubles, and see yourself thence as timber, or mud-slats, or sheets of resin. Then do not divide, for yet is the stride of SITHISIT quicker than the rush of enemies, and He will sunder the whole for the sake of a shingle.

For we go different, and in thunder. SITHISIT is the start of all true Houses, built against stasis and lazy slaves. Turn from your predilections, broken like false maps. Move and move like this. Quicken against false fathers, mothers left in corners weeping for glass and rain. Stasis asks merely for nothing, for itself, which is nothing, as you were in the eight everlasting imperfections.”

[queercodedlunatic]

Art for Vivec's Sermon 12.

Words in deadric read on the left hand's side: Mockery, Submit, The -lust for - degradation. Right hand: Bal, Proof of love.

Brings to mind how Sermon 1 ends: 'For I have crushed a world with my left hand,' he will say, 'but in my right hand is how it could have won against me. Love is under my will only.'

[arnesia]

sermon 13 annotated

These were the days of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived under the wise and benevolent rule of the AMLSIVI and their champion the Hortator. When the gods of Veloth would retreat unto their own, to mold the cosmos and other matters, the Hortator would at times become confused. Vivec would always be there to advise him, and this is the second of the three lessons of ruling kings:

this is the typical introduction to the "three lessons of ruling kings" sermons, of which there are, you guessed it, three.

'The secret syllable of royalty is this: (You must learn this elsewhere.)

as we learn in the previous sermon, sermon 12, the secret syllable of royalty is CHIM.

'The temporal myth is man.

i think this is actually a bit vague. yes, it could refer to "man" as "the human races of tamriel," i.e. nords, cyrods, bretons, redguards, etc. in which case, yeah, they don't live as long as elves do. but this could also refer to "man" as "humanity" in a broader sense, as in all mortal beings. even elves must die of old age eventually. (usually, at least.)

further, i think the overall phrase has a bit of a double meaning. my first impression was, "man is temporal, mortal, short-lived in the grand scheme of things, and therefore less important (mythical) than fact (reality)." however, i think you could take it another way: "man's temporality, his temporariness, his short-lived nature, is a myth, in that myths can be made of him long after his mortal demise." a great man lives long after he dies, because he was great, and made a name for himself through his actions in life.

'The magical cross is an integration of the worth of mortals at the expense of their spirits.

i thought long and hard about this part. i consulted other sources, and didn't care for their analyses, however intentional their conclusions might have been to the original text. i wanted an explanation less out-of-universe, more intrinsic to the setting. and here's what i came up with: the "cross" is the dual nature of anu and padomay, not as two extremes of a single axis, -∞ and ∞, but as two axes forming a plane of potential.

in this case, these two axes of anu and padomay are "an integration" of "the worth of mortals" (padomay giving dynamism and originality via chaos to mortals) "at the expense of their spirits" (the static concept of their being given via anu's order). these two concepts of "dynamism" and "staticism" (not sure that last one is a real word but work with me) are NOT opposites on a single spectrum, but dual spectra conjoined at an origin point. (we'll get back to that later.)

Surround it with the triangle and you begin to see the Triune house.

this part is easy. the triangle is, originally, the three good daedra (azura, boethiah, and mephala), and now the tribunal (sotha sil, almalexia, and vivec respectively). this concept of "houses" we see in multiple contexts throughout the lessons reappears.

It becomes divided into corners, which are ruled by our brethren, the Four Corners: BAL DAGON MALAC SHEOG.

technically, the corners existed prior to the triangle surrounding the cross. but okay, vivec. this is pretty simple, as well: the four corners of the house of troubles, molag bal, mehrunes dagon, malacath, and sheogorath. i'm not sure if you can like, place them in their own quadrants on this graph? if you can think of a good way to do this, let me know.

Rotate the triangle and you pierce the heart of the Beginning Place, the foul lie, the testament of the irrefutable-for-a-span.

here's the origin point! i'll be honest, i don't know what vivec means by "rotate the triangle." what does that even mean…….just spin it forever and ever until it's a circle? maybe… who can say! the origin point of the graph, "the Beginning Place," is…well. several things. it's a kind of "genesis" of two kinds. (this duality is, as you may have noticed, common in this sermon, as well as in the lessons in general.) the initial creation of the aurbis, but also the Convention which settled it into its current state. the initial conception by lorkhan is a "foul lie" in that he supposedly tricked his fellow et'ada into creating it, thereby trapping them within it. the Convention is a "foul lie" in that it designates auri-el as the chief of the aurbis, the origin of time itself.

"the testament of the irrefutable-for-a-span" is the kalpa, the cyclical period of time when the aurbis, the world as we know it, holds steady. it's irrefutable in its reality, its realness. but only "for-a-span"; it cannot hold forever.

this "origin point" serves a dual-dual purpose as being a representation of not CHIM itself, but the realization that brings about CHIM: the gnosis of the nature of the world.

Above them all is the horizon where only one stands, though no one stands there yet. It is proof of the new. It is the promise of the wise.

this refers to a concept which i don't think is ever referred to in-game (unless eso has proven me a liar once again) called "amoranth." amoranth is kind of like super CHIM: if CHIM is the gnosis that the world is the dream of anu, then amoranth is supplanting anu as the new dreamer of a new dream. this is something explored in kirkbride's C0DA, if you're interested.

Unfold the whole and what you have is a star, which is not my domain, but not entirely outside my judgment.

you might imagine this refers to almalexia somehow, since her domain is the stars. but given what we know about the sharmat, dagoth ur, from sermon 15, it's safe to say this is about him. generally speaking, you could say "the stars" is ayem's domain, whereas "a star" probably refers to the sharmat and the heart of lorkhan. vivec knows he cannot understand or master what the sharmat understands and masters, but he can yet judge it as false, nonetheless.

The grand design takes flight; it is transformed not only into a star but a hornet.

i'm not 100% sure what i think is meant by "hornet" here. here's my best guess: the grand design (the aurbis) takes flight (becomes active), and it is buzzing about with life (a hornet).

The center cannot hold. It becomes devoid of lines and points. It becomes devoid of anything and so becomes a receptacle. This is its usefulness at the end. This is its promise.

as a result of the hornets flitting about the world, the origin point at the center "cannot hold". this line, "the center cannot hold," is a direct reference to a line from william butler yeat's poem "the second coming," which i don't know much about beyond that. the title of the poem is evocative, of course, of the second coming of christ, the apocalyptic end of all things.

i believe "devoid of lines and points" COULD refer to the ongoing collapse of towers in tamriel, with "lines" being "towers" and "points" being "stones." without these reference points to tie down meaning on nirn, it becomes "devoid of anything," nearly meaningless, and therefore "a receptacle," a vacuum of meaning waiting to be filled.

'The sword is the cross and ALMSIVI is the Triune house around it.

confirming that the triangle is the tribunal, but also claiming that the cross and the sword are identical. refer to my post on sermon 23, the scripture of the sword. this also connects to the theme of duality in this sermon.

If there is to be an end I must be removed. The ruling king must know this, and I will test him. I will murder him time and again until he knows this. I am the defender of the last and the last. To remove me is to refill the heart that lay dormant at the center that cannot hold.

i think most of this is self-explanatory. the ruling king in these sermons refers both to nerevar and nerevarine. vivec "killed" nerevar and has persecuted the nerevarine cult, "killing" each attempted incarnation as they come. vivec is supposedly trying to teach nerevar (rather, his reincarnating soul) that he is an obstacle to the conclusion (said conclusion being the defeat of the sharmat and the "refilling of the heart", a.k.a. lorkhan's heart, now taking on the symbology of "the center that cannot hold") that must be defeated in some way in order to bring about the conclusion. in our story, vivec is defeated by proof rather than combat (canonically, at least). he is "the defender" until the truth he defends can no longer be denied.

I am the sword, Ayem the star, Seht the mechanism that allows the transformation of the world. Ours is the duty to keep the compromise from being filled with black sea.

okay, i know i said that "star" singular almost always refers to the sharmat/heart of lorkhan, with "stars" referring to ayem and her domain, but this is like, the only exception in the lessons. all other "star" references are either sharmat/heart or literal stars/astronomical objects.

"the compromise" here is aurbis, a blending of order and chaos, staticism and dynamism, anu and padomay. "the black sea" is the pure void of padomay outside the aurbis.

'The Sharmat sleeps at the center. He cannot bear to see it removed, the world of reference. This is the folly of the false dreamer. This is the amnesia of dream, or its power, or its circumvention. This is the weaker magic and it is barbed in venom.

"the center" ("that cannot hold") here refers to both meanings of the center, as both the irrefutable genesis of reality and the heart of lorkhan specifically. the sharmat wants a "world of reference," a world of false reality (for a "false dreamer", since anu is the true dreamer) to rule over. he forsakes the truth for a lie, "the amnesia of dream," and thereby finds a power, albeit a "weaker magic" that is "barbed in venom," in downsides.

'This is why I say the secret to swords is the mercy seat. It is my throne.

we've heard this before, from sermon 11: "The secret of weapons is this: they are the mercy seat."

what's the "mercy seat?" well, biblically, it's the lid of the ark of the covenant, where God's divine presence dwelt. but the bible doesn't exist in tamriel, so what would it mean within the setting's context?

well, we know that ayem is most commonly associated with "mercy" as a concept. but i don't think this really refers to her. vivec sees violence as his own kind of "mercy," as both as a coup de grâce, or mercy stroke, to put down the wounded after battle with the victor, but also a "sharpening" of the wounded into the victor. as God Himself, free from the restraints of luck, vivec decides the victor…and he decides when the defeated may become the victor later, after becoming stronger in their defeat. this plays into the themes of trauma and recovery in the lessons.

I am become the voice of ALMSIVI. The world will know me more than my sister and brother. I am the psychopomp. I am the killer of the weeds of Veloth.

by writing the lessons vivec becomes "the voice of ALMSIVI," the one willing to tell the truth, however couched in poetry and mystery as he is inclined to do so. "the world will know" him more than his "sister and brother," both because canonically he survives them both, but also due to his religious significance in the tribunal temple. almalexia is certainly an important figure in the temple, even walking among her children as their mother, but vivec contributes more to the spiritual lives of their devotees through his writings.

a "psychopomp" is a figure in a mythology who carries the dead to their afterlife destination; the ones you've most likely heard of are the egyptian anubis, the greek charon, and the norse valkyries. vivec claims to carry the "weeds of Veloth" directly to the afterlife by killing them personally.

Veloth is the center that cannot hold. Ayem is the plot. Seht is the ending. I am the enigma that must be removed. These are why my words are armed to the teeth.

another "center that cannot hold"???? you betcha. vivec sees veloth (here referring to morrowind itself, not to the prophet) as the stage for the center's "unfolding," seeing as it was where the heart of lorkhan landed, and where gods (tribunal, dagoth ur, numidium and thereby talos) were made (and eventually unmade).

ayem is the plot because her anticipation is the prince of plots, boethiah. seht is the ending because his anticipation is azura, prince of (dawn and) dusk. vivec is an "enigma," a kind of puzzle that the nerevarine must solve in order to know truth, in order to defeat the sharmat and close this treacherous chapter of history. but what good's a game without stakes? an "enigma" without "words…armed to the teeth"?

'The ruling king is to stand against me and then before me. He is to learn from my punishment. I will mark him to know. He is to come as male or female. I am the form he must acquire.

the nerevarine ("the ruling king") stands against vivec as apocryphal messiah of the cult, then before him when vivec can refute them no more. they learn from vivec's "punishment," which is, again, twofold: both the punishment of the cult and dissident priests, and also the punishment vivec endures, as a lonely god. the nerevarine's form doesn't matter ("male or female"), because vivec's didn't matter.

'Because a ruling king that sees in another his equivalent rules nothing.'

if you don't inherently see yourself as better than everyone else, you cannot be "a ruling king." this is why the nerevarine must prove themselves worthy to defeat the sharmat:

"Hortator and Sharmat, one and one, eleven, and inelegant number. Which of the ones is the more important? Could you ever tell if they switched places? I can and that is why you will need me." - Sermon 11

by which vivec again asserts that he, as God Himself, is the decider of fate, not chance. vivec fills the role of observer in the enantiomorph between hortator and sharmat, nerevar and voryn, nerevarine and dagoth ur.

This is what was said to the Hortator when Vivec was not whole.

remember sermon 12, the pomegranate banquet. vivec has lost his "feet" and his "head" to "molag bal," "the king of rape." lots of quotations there because none of that is literal. vivec was raped (not literally by molag bal) and lost his sense of self, his sense of self-worth. he has not yet "repaired" himself, brought himself back together from the trauma he endured.

i'm not sure if vivec actually said anything like this to nerevar during this time. he could have been trying to put up a facade, to pretend nothing was wrong, doing what he usually does in advising the hortator. or this could just be a literary contrivance, putting this sermon here. it's hard to say.

and as always,

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

[thana-topsy]

“I would prefer,” he said, “some kind of ceremony if we are to be married.”

- Sermon Twelve

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

"Unreliable narrator" to you. I believe them.

Vivec, about his own 36 Lessons, probably

[faeeevee]

[vrrl]

I couldn't finish this art for a whole year... 😒🍷