what the heck were uriel's friends doing during the first TES game
So, people make text posts on tumblr right? Anyway here's my ramblings about elder scrolls:
I was reading the UESP and read the plot of Arena. Since there's some characters who were supposedly close to Uriel in Oblivion, it made me wonder what they were doing during Arena.
Jauffre didn't exist as a character before Oblivion, but his backstory is that he's the grandmaster of the Blades and Uriel trusted him so much that he gave his son to him. I think the fan theory that the agent of daggerfall is Jauffre is helped by the fact that we don't know anything else Jauffre did when he was actively a Blade.
We also don't know Jauffre's age. If we assume that Jauffre was the Agent and that he was born around the same year as the one listed on the UESP (375), he would have been a kid when the Imperial Simulacrum started in 389. So the answer to what Jauffre was doing during the Imperial Simulacrum would be "school".
However, if we assume that Jauffre is older, like around 70 (he's pretty spry for his age) he could have been a Blade during the Imperial Simulacrum. Since Jauffre would not be Grandmaster at that time, Jagar Tharn wouldn't see him as a threat and would ignore him. Perhaps Jauffre was working to undermine Tharn during that time and that's why he gained Uriel's trust. Maybe Jauffre was even the Eternal Champion?
And then there's Ocato. He has even less backstory than Jauffre. Ocato first appeared in Daggerfall as the Imperial Battlemage and already has Uriel's trust. You'd think Uriel would be incredibly wary of trusting anyone after he was betrayed by a previous imperial battlemage, so why did he trust Ocato? The fan theory that Ocato was the Eternal Champion does explain this, though then that means that the eternal champion was offed by the Thalmor offscreen, which is kinda dull.
But, if Ocato wasn't the eternal champion, what was he even doing during the Imperial Simulacrum?! We also don't know his age, but unlike Jauffre I doubt he was a kid when that was going on. Presumably Ocato was already an accomplished mage before he became Imperial Battlemage. So, the kind of person Jagar Tharn would have seen as a threat. And Ria Silmane tells the player of Arena that the reason they can stop Tharn is because they aren't seen as a threat, which is why they were thrown into prison instead of being killed.
Obviously Tharn didn't murder Ocato. So what happened during that decade then? I have some theories, but they all have flaws:
Ocato didn't know Jagar Tharn had replaced Uriel (but then why would Uriel trust Ocato? And wouldn't Ria Silmane's ghost try to contact him like she contacted the player of Arena?)
Ocato was so bad at magic that Tharn didn't see him as a threat, and so Ocato could secretly work to take down Tharn (but if he was so bad at magic then what could he even do against Tharn?)
Ocato was somehow occupied for an entire decade. Maybe he was on an undercover mission. Or in a coma. Or lost in the imperial city sewers.
Jagar Tharn is Ocato. This is solely because it's funny to imagine Tharn being defeated and then just trying the exact same plan again (and it working).
I know that the lack of backstories for these characters isn't really that big a deal and doesn't affect the quality of the games, but it's interesting for me to theorize about.
