#pelagius iii

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Sheogorath: Look, we’ve all been there, right? Letting our fear and anger get the best of us, intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created.

Pelagius the Mad: *sips tea in disinterest*

[uesp]

"Mad Pelagius is a silly little tradition in High Rock in a mock memorial to Pelagius Septim III, one of the maddest emperors in recent history. He died about 350 years ago, so the Septims since have taken it with good humor."

--Description of the Mad Pelagius holiday, which is held today, the 2nd of Sun's Dawn!

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

Sheogorath's sentence about how Emperor Pelagius III The Mad was the best emperor the Septims ever spawned ("Well, second best, no one beats my old buddy Martin but dude turned into a Dragon God, and that's hardly sporting") takes a whole new level when you remember that Pelagius never had any actual power in his life but it was his politically savy and ingenious Telvanni Dunmer Wife Katariah I the one who was actually ruling the empire, later followed by their son Cassynder (the two of them fucked like trucks apparently, even during Pelagius last years).

Apparently, the Champion of Cyrodill thinks best emperor the empire could ask is the one that doesn't rule and leaves those more fit to rule to rule in their stead.

[colonel-killa-bee]

Doesn't Pelagius Septim the Mad's appearance in Skyrim discredit racial phylogeny, given his mum is an Altmer and his father is an Imperial. I mean, he looks mostly human, when he should look at least 80 percent Altmer. I think he also has some Dunmer in him, but I could be wrong on that.

Yes and no. The book has always been like a one size fits all rule that we knew was not an absolute law.

It’s a general rule, one that I think mostly applies to situations that seem more strange like an orc and a dunmer offspring, or a dunmer and Nord. Orc and Imperial, etc.

Imperials who are basically diluted Nords racially mixing with Altmer and popping out a Breton, that’s not strange, really. Bretons are said to have been made after the intermixing of the Aldmeri and Nedic people, Nedics being the non Atmoran human descendants of the Wandering Ehlnofey that remained on mainland Tamriel and who would later become Bretons and Imperials.

With the inclusion of the Forsworn who are a Breton race with the genetic marks of many tamrielic races, I think that this was just their way of adding to the lore of Bretons and how they came to be. An Altmer and an Imperial making a Breton’s not that strange really. think about it.

An Altmer is what it is because unlike the other elven groups, they remained within the Aldmer culture and way of things. An Imperial looks different from a Nord, shorter and smaller in general because they’re even further from the Ehlnofex people than they are, they devolved further because they’re not as close to that culture as Nords are, who even still use some of the same language given that the name Talos is Ehlnofex for Stormcrown.

So when an Altmer dilutes its lineage with human dna, it makes sense that the child would not be Altmer, it’s too far from the Aldmeri and Old Ehlnofey line genetically to be so, with Wandering Ehlnofey blood thrown in. And the Imperial blood is cast even further from that of the Wandering Ehlnofey and Atmoran cousins, and so out comes the compromise, a Breton. Even shorter of a human, and the furthest from both lines of Ehlnofey.

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Ghost of Pelagius the Mad haunting the Blue Palace: Geeeet Oouuuut . . .

Elisif the Fair: Paaaaaay Reeeeeent.

Pelagius the Mad: I'm five hundred yeeears oooold . . .

Elisif: Then you're five hundred years behiiiiiind on reeeeent.

[uesp]

Did You Know: According to The Madness of Pelagius, Pelagius III truly never ruled as Emperor? From the beginning, his wife Empress Katariah Ra'athim and the Elder Council made every actual decision during his reign. Just two years after his reign began, Pelagius was sent to a private asylum, and Katariah became the Empress Regent. When Pelagius passed away six year later, Katariah became the Empress Regnant.

Image depicts the Amulet of Kings.

[uesp]

Did You Know: The temple that kept Pelagius III in his last days was destroyed shortly after his death? Residents of the Shivering Isles, not willing to allow this tragedy go uncorrected, traveled to Tamriel and stole the entire ruined temple, stone by stone. They then restored it to its original state in the Isles.

[qarajhcreations]

Taking on the Mind of Madness quest, we met our first death... But as it wasn't in the "real" world, it's fine. Merely, it was just an illusion all along.

Stumbling further around in Solitude, we nick more Steel Arrows from the unsuspecting guards. A mostly action-lacking episode, but then again, it's not as long.

Part 5 of 5 in a bulk-recording, recorded on February 11th, 2016