#36 lessons of vivec

[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

[thana-topsy]

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

- Sermon Twelve

[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.'

[ansu-gurleht]

sermon 32 analysis

so to get a little context for sermon 32, we need to look at the last paragraph of sermon 31.  (click on that link for a bit more explanation here.)

Find me in the blackened paper, unarmored, in final scenery. Truth is like my husband: instructed to smash, filled with procedure and noise, hammering, weighty, heaviness made schematic, lessons learned only by a mace. Let those that hear me then be buffeted, and let some die in the ash from the striking. Let those that find him find him murdered by illumination, pummeled like a traitorous house, because, if an hour is golden, then immortal I am a secret code. I am the partaker of the Doom Drum, chosen of all those that dwell in the middle world to wear this crown, which reverberates with truth, and I am the mangling messiah.

so, to be fair, i don’t think it’s so much “context” as “aesthetic” that this paragraph provides for a sermon 32 reader. it establishes the “aesthetic” of the mace, as something that can both 1) destroy instead of cleave and 2) refine by way of “pummeling” (“lessons learned only by a mace”).

so let’s look at sermon 31 proper.

The Scripture of the Mace, First:

'The pleasure of annihilation is the pleasure of disappearing into the unreal. All those that would challenge the sleeping world will seek membership in this movement. I denounce the alienation of the Cloven Duality with a hammer.'

i think the first part is pretty self-explanatory? being annihilated is the same as “disappearing into the unreal.” the “sleeping world” is the world of the gods, who seem to sleep in their inaction. if you want to challenge the gods, you must in some way unmake yourself.

the last line here is actually a reference to sermon 23, which is kind of a sister sermon to this one (even the numbers are reflections of one another). whereas the 23rd sermon pertains to the second walking way, the 32nd purports to pertain to the fourth. we’ll see about that later, if we can at all.

the second walking way is that of the psijic endeavor, exemplified here:

I give you an ancient road tempered by the second walking way. Your hands must be huge to wield any sword the size of an ancient road, and yet he who is of right stature may irritate the sun with only a stick.

the psijic endeavor, in effect, is doing something so important that the entire world itself can’t help but recognize you yourself as important, as important as a god. this is the path of veloth, although he became a saint, not a god, so idk how that works out.

a big part of the scripture of the sword (lesson 23) is that the sword is dual-natured and -purposed. on one hand, it destroys by severing. on the other hand, it cuts things down into better shapes. this is the “cloven duality” that the earlier quote from lesson 32 mentions. 

in lesson 32, vivec “denounce[s] the alienation of the cloven duality with a hammer.” the sword is “treated as a delicate meal,” meaning that it is something used very intentionally to a specific effect. the mace, on the other hand, is used carelessly, regardless of whether its effect is beneficial or malicious. it can destroy by smashing, and it can refine by hammering against an anvil, but it doesn’t care which. the mace simply swings at whatever comes near.

Second:

'Take from me the lessons as a punishment for being mortal. To be made of dirt is to be treated as such by your jailers. This is the key and the lock of the Daedra. Why do you think they escaped the compromise?'

the “lessons” here mentioned could either be the “lessons learned only by a mace” referenced in the previous sermon, or could be a reference to the 36 lessons as a whole. “the punishment for being mortal” is a “punishment” for not being perfect. “learning” from your mistakes and the mistakes of others is here seen as a punishment for your very nature as fallible. gods, evidently, don’t have to learn from their mistakes.

mortals are “made of dirt,” made up of the world they live in. the gods treat them like “dirt” as a result, as inconvenient (although sometimes actually convenient) byproducts of creation. 

the “key and lock” of the daedra is the means by which they enforce their whims upon mortals, which occurs by the very nature of mortalkind, of being “dirt,” here meaning profane, not-divine.

the “compromise” is convention, where the aedra sacrificed parts of themselves to stabilize the crumbling world of nirn. the daedra “escaped the compromise” by not partaking in convention. they did this so that they could retain their powers over lesser spirits, such as mortals.

Third:

'Velothi, your skin has become the pregnant darkness. My brooding has brought this on. Remember that Boethiah asked you to become the color of bruise. How else to show yourselves people of the exodus into the vital: pain?'

now, we know that the reason the “skin” of the velothi has “become the pregnant darkness” is because azura cursed the chimer for the folly of the tribunal, breaking nerevar’s oath. but this line, tying back to something nerevar says in sermon 31, claims that the reason, perhaps the reason more officially accepted by the temple faith, is that vivec’s grief over the pomegranate banquet caused this change. vivec here not only accepts fault for this change, but claims it was necessary: boethiah asked them to “become the color of bruise,” after all. 

the “exodus into the vital” is of course a reference to the velothi exodus which brought the original chimer to morrowind. an exodus is almost always a painful experience, and so by representing bruises in their skin, the dunmer represent their old exodus.

Fourth:

'The sage who is not an anvil: a conventional sentence and nothing more. By which I mean dead, the fourth walking way.'

remember how i mentioned earlier that the mace can either smash or “refine by hammering against an anvil”? if you are strong enough, the mace will hit you and bounce off, not destroying something too brittle to exist but instead bending you into a stronger shape. the sage, the teacher, must be the anvil that props up their people, preventing them from shattering and instead giving them the support they need to bend instead. a sage who doesn’t thus support their people is just a mouthpiece for aphorisms (“a conventional sentence”)

notice the phrase “by which i mean the dead.” a similar phrase has been used before in the lessons! refer to sermon six, the first of the “hidden in the words that came next to the Hortator” series. 

For by the word I mean the dead.

this refers to the later scripture of the word, wherein vivec claims that the “word,” a.k.a. the word without action, is a “dead” medium, meaning that words are useless without actions to back them up. the reference to this sermon here in sermon 32 makes sense, given the preceding line about the “conventional sentence” being less valuable than a sage who is an anvil.

now...the last part. i’m not one hundred percent sure why people think the fourth walking way is mantling! this is the only sermon that refers to that walking way and i can’t really tell how it relates to mantling at all. i think kirkbride might have written this here just because it was the fourth verse of the scripture. if you think you can tie the concept of mantling to this sermon, be my guest and show me how! but i’m not sure it’s convincingly possible.

Fifth:

'A proper comprehension of the virtues: stage-managed and to be murdered.'

according to vivec, the “virtues,” often exemplified by the aedra and their teachings, aren’t actually real - they’re “stage-managed,” theatrical. vivec aims to “murder” them to find something actually true and real. whether this is a new morality or something beyond simple morality is not expounded upon.

Sixth:

'In the end, rejoice as a hostage released from drumming torment but that savors his wound. The drum breaks and you find it to be a nest of hornets, which is to say: your sleep is over.'

the “hostage released from drumming torment” has been the victim of the Mace, that which hammers into new, stronger shapes. but the “hostage” knows that the new shape is stronger, so he “savors his wound.” it’s also worth noting lorkhan’s role as “the doom drum”. “the drum” (lorkhan) “breaks and you find it to be a nest of hornets”: this is the second and final time vivec refers to “hornets,” which is apparently an important symbol to vivec - likely due to mainland morrowind having giant hornets (or wasps) that people ride around on, called “parraptons” (these are only mentioned/seen in an unofficial comic). 

but of course, there’s also the common saying of “stirring up a hornet’s nest,” which is to cause a lot of trouble. the “drum,” or lorkhan, “breaks” and it turns out to have just been a lot of trouble after all. “which is to say: your sleep” - the amnesia of dream, the belief in mundane unreality over the truer divine reality - “is over.”

Seventh:

'The suspicious is spectacle and the lie is only a theoretical inspiration.'

“the suspicious” here meaning “that which is difficult to believe” is “spectacle,” here meaning “the fantastical and untrue.” it’s hard to believe because you shouldn’t believe it. “the lie” - in this case the lie of the aedra, that being mundus - “is only a theoretical inspiration” - that which the lie the aedra push only inspires the suspicious, the fantastically untrue. any disbelief in the fantastic proves the lie within the fantastic, and that lie is a distraction from true, divine reality. (this is a bit difficult to fully explain. feel free to ask for clarification if you need help.)

Eighth:

'But then why, you ask, do the Daedra wish to meddle with the Aurbis? It is because they are the radical critique, essential as all martyrs. That some are more evil than others in [sic] not an illusion. Or rather, it is a necessary illusion.'

vivec says here that the daedra are “the radical critique” - they meddle with the aurbis to show its shortcomings, its faults. “that some are more evil than others [is] not an illusion,” meaning that yes, some, such as molag bal, are clearly more evil than others, such as azura. but this is true only in a practical, everyday, mundane sense. in a more real, more divine sense, no daedra is more “evil” than any other, because mundane mortal morality does not apply to the et’ada; “it is a necessary illusion” for the “lie” of the aedra who wish to impose their self-serving morality upon mortals.

and as always, 

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

[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... 😒🍷

[thana-topsy]

POV you walk into the wrong banquet hall

[arainmorn-art]

Yeah, I'm nostalgic. Yes, I decided to show my old comics x) A little known fact about me is that I'm also a Morrowind fan. Not Oblivion, not Skyrim, not The Elder Scrolls as a whole, but Morrowind specifically. Who understood the Molag Bal reference, good for you x)

In late 2015, I participated in a canceled zine based on the TES comics. In a week, I drew this comic about Nerevar and Vivek's quiet evening (no script, no storyboard, because I was a rushing moron). When I was reading Vivek's 36 lessons, the phrase that he's a "magical hermaphrodite" inspired me to draw him as, well, an androgynous elf with boobs x) The subject of hermaphrodites and androgynity really inspired me at the time. Oh, and Nerevar being a guardian for a little Vivec, hnnnnnnnnn. It makes his final even more painful x') It also amazes me that I draw the same character types years after years. Gosh.