Complaining about a piece of Oblivion-given Morrowind lore, abolishing slavery leads to civil war, yeah, but the details... Options

[Kazaera]

(mods, please move this if this is in the wrong place? I couldn't figure out where this topic would go.)

So I was reading up about what happens in Morrowind post-game, according to Oblivion, and ran across this little tidbit.

Apparently Helseth incites a civil war, which he and his allies win, in order to break the power of the Great Houses and consolidate his own. And how he starts this is by banning slavery.

So far, so good. This sort of makes sense, given how fraught slavery is as a topic.

Except. That the civil war apparently happens between Hlaalu and Dres on the anti-slavery side and Redoran and Indoril on the pro-slavery side. Telvanni is Sir Not Appearing In This War.

First, the minor WTFs: Redoran is the in-game house that seems to make least use of slaves, and Indoril seems to be presented as very close to the Temple, also sort of military/religious and not a major slave-owning power either. Since slavery is also a matter of Dunmer tradition and so on, I could buy Redoran and Indoril *supporting* the major slave-owning Houses who protest against this, but have some trouble seeing them being the only ones... considering that of all the houses they would possibly be affected least from everything we've seen. (Hlaalu's got plantations. Worked by slaves.) I also have a lot of trouble seeing Telvanni stand by and do nothing, considering they're very pro-slavery and use slaves a lot.

But all of that pales next to Dres.

I mean, we don't know much about Dres lorewise. But what we do know is that: they are an agricultural House. They have huge, huge plantations that rely solely on slave labour. They are very anti-Imperial, very much Temple-supporters, apparently traditional allies of House Indoril, and very, *very* opposed to abolishing slavery.



I actually considered having slavery outlawed somehow in my Morrowind fic and ending up going "no, that would never happen because Dres would never stand for it." And now apparently, canonically, they not only have but fought a war to abolish slavery???

Especially because... you know, from Dres's description, this would totally ruin their economy.

Of course, apparently (I haven't played Oblivion myself so I'm going off the UESP wiki) you hear rumours that House Dres has "remodelled its economy from an agricultural one to a mercantile one". To which my reaction is twofold:

1. What, overnight?

2. ...if House Dres is the only primarily agricultural Great House, and it magically swaps its economy for one based on trading, then... where is the food coming from?

I have been continually WTFing over this piece of lore since I stumbled across it. Honestly - has anyone been able to make any sense of it? Because I'd love to, really, but I just hit "House Dres" and go "......what."

[Kazaera]

I think I've pinned down what frustrates me re: the "tradition!" argument - it isn't that Redoran and Indoril are the super, super-traditional Houses and Dres and Hlaalu are the super-Imperial friendly ones. Dres is presented as at least as adherent to tradition as those two, I'd say from the lore. At least as much as Redoran, at least. Maybe a bit less than Indoril, but not necessarily. This plotline is simultaneously arguing that Redoran and Indoril fight a war against abolishing slavery just because of their adherence to tradition, and that Dres throws it aside to the point where they're agreeing to someone that would cause them massive economic damage. And since the three have extremely similar stances in-game that really gives me whiplash, you know? I can buy one of the two but both at the same time is a bit much.

ETA: And Helena's beaten me to it on this point! also, yeah, Redoran doesn't actually seem that anti-Imperial as things go. Definitely friendlier than Telvanni in-game, definitely friendlier than Indoril from lore and I'd also guess friendlier than Dres from the lore.

(Also, re: trading - I see Dres as the main breadbasket of Morrowind, so I figure they've been selling saltrice to the other regions. This is because, well, the food on Vvardenfell has to be coming from somewhere and the few Hlaalu plantations we see don't seem inclined to provide it. You can't tell me Ald'ruhn is subsisting on trama root and cliff racers. This is also why I was so "where is the food coming from?" However, I'm not sure they could become a mercantile House based on those trading partners and routes, you know?)

If we say that it's a shift /in progress/, that Dres has agreed to slowly shift their system from slavery to trading or possibly from slavery to employed workers, it becomes a lot more believable although points still remain - except that that's not what we're given in Oblivion. ><

This post has been edited by Kazaera: Sep 1 2011, 11:30 PM