I'm just shooting the shit because it's one am and I can't sleep but sometimes I'm a little bit sad that the Thalmor are written as cartoonishly evil nazi stand-ins because it preemptively de-claws their gripe against Talos worship, which is actually very valid when you think about it in terms of the literal deification of The Guy who was known as a killer of mer.

And it's weird how reoccuring of a theme it is in the Nords' self-mythology, too, because that's something Talos shares with Ysgramor, who went on a bloody genocide spree, ultimately, because the nords claimed a right to Skyrim they felt superseded that of the snow elves, which is just weird, when you think about it, because as far as I know there's nothing to indicate they had even been there before Ysgramor's time.

You find Ysgramor in Sovngarde. There's no reason to believe Talos isn't a real god, in-universe, either. But fuck, man, if I was an elf and I saw a dude who hunted my people for sport and wasn't ever sorry about it ascend to divinity, I would be mad, too. Mad enough to tear the world to ribbons, too, if I could.

In TES lore, belief maketh gods, sorta. And sometimes I wonder if the Thalmor want to stop Talos worship not because of the whole tower theory, but merely because - imagine it - Talos being a god means there is a god above that hates you, not for who you are, but what you are. And that's terrifying.

The Thalmor are not nice. They're not sympathetic. They do horrible thing. But shit, man, who wouldn't, when faced with the threat of divine annihilation? One that you know half the world endorsed with a smile, out of pride, even when it meant deifying your murderer? I would be ugly, too. I would be petty and mean and cruel, because that's how scared people behave. That's what happens to people you tell you don't think they really are people.

Anyway I have a lot of feelings about the god-emperor-conquerer narrative in TES and its narrative perspective. Probably will delete later