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."

[Helena]

There's actually no mention in Oblivion of Redoran's part in the abolition dispute. All we're told is that they're fighting the Nords over Solstheim (which is a bit bizarre, as it's Imperial territory and there are no Redoran settlements there). I can't see them getting involved in a messy civil war, over an issue which barely affects them anyway, at the same time they're busy battling Nord invaders. Far more likely that they'd maintain an uneasy neutrality, perhaps on the basis that they couldn't spare the soldiers.

The Dres thing is just complete bollocks. It's repeatedly stated in MW that their economy is totally dependent on slave labour (and no, it's not remotely plausible that they'd remodel it within 6 years), and that they are utterly, violently opposed to any attempts to limit or abolish slavery. People can make all the excuses they like for Bethesda, but I refuse to give them a pass on this one. I can accept the situation as it's described in Morrowind, or the situation as it's described in Oblivion - not both.

What's even more exasperating is that it could have been made plausible, if Beth had just swapped the roles of Dres and Redoran. Sure, the Redorans don't like Hlaalu very much, but they're also the House with the least to lose from abolishing slavery. I'm sure Helseth - who can't possibly be as much of a moron as he's portrayed in Tribunal - could find some inducement to offer them. What's more, their leader Bolvyn Venim is killed during MW's main quest, and his most likely replacement (apart from the player) is the much more tolerant Athyn Sarethi. I could easily see him offering grudging moral support to Helseth, on the grounds that abolishing slavery is a good cause even if it means aiding the Hlaalu.

I'm getting increasingly fed up of Bethesda's attitude of "lore is whatever we decide to pull out of our a**es today". If they can't be bothered to even try to keep their own lore consistent, why should their fanbase have to do it for them? I've always tried to keep my fanfic in line with official lore, on the basis that it's Bethesda's world and characters and fans should respect that. But if they're just going to change their minds every five minutes, what's the point?