Voryn Dagoth was just some guy who loved the atomic bomb.

Just like Shoko Asahara of Aum Shinrikyo’s fame, who tried to smuggle nuclear weapons from the USSR. Or Yisrayl Hawkins, with his concept of “Nuclear Baby,” badly prophesied a new world being born through the ashes of atomic fallout. Importantly, Aum, aside from being a death cult, was also deeply patriotic in its Japan-supremacist messaging: that’s nihilistic patriotism at its most lethal. Pretty much like saying this n’wah invested netch-hole is better off being yanked to Masser than continuing to live through this shit.

Doomsday cults are nothing new, and at its heart Morrowind was, in a way, a game of its time — a time of post-Cold War and post-Elizabeth Clare Prophet atomic anxiety still lingering in the air. Not because it was intentionally written to be a metaphor, mind you, but just because your writing is always a reflection of who you are. Even if “you” in question is a team of writers working on a clunky early 2000s RPG.

And yes, almost every RPG in some way is about saving a world in a grand sense — from dragons, witches, or monsters eating the world — but I don’t remember seeing a game narrative being so intensely political as it was in Morrowind — never before, and never since. Your antagonist is not just grand evil. He’s a man deeply culturally and mythically rooted in his land to the point of deciding a literal death cult is better than a status quo his country is stuck with, and you… Well, you’re not, exactly, a police officer.

You’re the colonial power.

Dagoth Ur being shirtless makes a lot of sense, actually

Let’s talk about the guy. Aside from being a sad twink who’s deeply not over his ex and talks like he’s about to read your aura and invite you to a crystal healing, he’s also a visually shredded man who’s practicing extreme Aum-level root power-driven nationalism while being half-naked and wearing a gold mask. And that’s… genuinely interesting. He’s not shirtless by accident. He’s shirtless the same way Vladimir Putin is shirtless while riding a bear. The same way Jaimie Gomez had impeccable abs. It’s a masculine power performance as justification for politics. It’s Nietzsche, baby.

You can hear the guy echoing loud and clear when Dagoth Ur is blaming you for “grand and intoxicating innocence”: it’s The Will of Power’s concept of a good and morally virtuous one being the most mutilated kind of man. Dagoth Ur’s literally blaming you for trying to be good — because fuck Kant, and also fuck Christianity/Tribunal, sweet Nerevar, let’s achieve righteousness through power and ride a bear together.

Through this lens, being naked and shredded for him is deeply intentional: he’s strong, he’s potent, he’s an übermensch who achieved godhood and rebelled against false religion’s slave morality, and thus he’s entirely correct.

Blood and soil, might is right, sweet Nerevar.

*

So… let’s talk about cult politics.

It’s important to understand what the cult is designed to play on the defense. The cult’s motto is “fear, repent, scapegoat,” and it is very intentionally a feedback loop of creating a problem, giving a way to fix the problem, and inventing a person to blame for this problem existing in the first place. If you’re ISIS, for example, you’re fighting Western degeneracy through weapons of mass destruction, and you’re probably blaming the Jews™️. If you’re the 6th house, you’re… Weirdly enough, also fighting Western degeneracy through weapons of mass destruction, and you’re probably blaming the… Tribunal. Rinse and repeat until your followers are ash zombies and the new world order is clearly upon us.

It’s all rooted in socio-philosophical murder soup, which basically consists of

1. The world is scary and also doomed, and my suicide cult gives me structure (aka Fromm’s fear of freedom and craving for rules and order against chaos),

2. Why fight my Hlaalu neighbors if I can unite with them against n’wahs (René Girard’s scapegoating as a way to relieve societal pressure),

3. Also, fuck them gardening tools; it’s all their fault the world is doomed (aka Schmitt’s unification against a common enemy as a way to readjust the locus of control),

4. I have my doubts about a literal plague reformation of my entire living shit, but all my neighbors think it’s cool (Janis’ groupthink kicking in to suppress the heretical thought).

And of course, the 5. Drug-induced social catharsis, which is deeply needed to breathe in the plague cloud.

Because there’s not, actually, that many things capable of suppressing the self-preservation instinct. Dagoth Ur giving his followers the euphoria of creating a better world together and a lot of good ol’ fenethylline (dreams and visions he spread like spores) to make them commit is just an old-fashioned cult leader way. He deeply believes in reformation, and his followers’ minds needed to be open to it too, so here we are.

In essence, we get something roughly like this: the world is big and scary. The Jews are too powerful. We’re doomed; the world is lost. Let’s get reborn by dying like sick Victorian children together. Praise Dagoth Ur and the House Unmourned. Heil.

We hate Vivec in this house.

Let’s talk about Nietzsche’s beef with Christianity.

And listen, I’m not claiming the Tribunal is a one-to-one parallel to Christianity. I’m also not… not claiming that. Sorry for the Christians in attendance, but political godhood being rooted in the mythic beliefs of the locals while simultaneously declaring those same beliefs heretical and backward? Yeah, I’m ready to both reject Neloth and celebrate Easter. Pass the netch eggs.

Nietzsche, the petty twink that he was, saw Christianity as an extension of slave morality and false virtue built under the tyrant father-God to keep people obedient through guilt-tripping. The way to grow past it, says the twink supreme, is to create an übermensch: the ideal human being who rises above religious morality by creating their own. Basically, messaging your ex at 2 A.M. drunk is fine if you slay.

Dagoth Ur, despite godhood ambitions, fits the image perfectly: new world order through the death cult, rejection of false Gods, being shredded in a cave as nature intended, and yes, also messaging his ex drunk at 2 A.M. Him hating the Tribunal with burning passion and seeing them as false Gods stealing divinity is very much on par with priests and popes in Nietzsche’s view. Dagoth Ur, in essence, is a root cause-driven Neloth-übermensch, and I very much don’t think it’s a coincidence he hates the Tribunal much more than he hates the Empire (although, let’s be clear, he hates them both).

He sees the Tribunal as enforcing a slave morality — obedience, false virtue, passive redemption — while he offers “master morality”: domination, creation, and freedom through annihilation; and that’s Nietzsche vs. Christianity through and through. Aum wanted Japan free from imperial influence, sure, but they also deeply, passionately despised Christianity’s influence on the country, and that’s the point.

Dagoth Ur wants freedom for his people (through death and reformation Dwemer-style, but this is beside the point), but his hatred for the Tribunal is deep. Salty. Personal. Irrational. He’s not thinking about Baar Dau being a literal ticking time bomb held together only by Vivec’s ass cheeks, for example — because he didn’t ever have long-term plans. Yank this shit to Masser. Let it choke on sarin. Consequences be damned.

The thing is — and this is how, from Nazi Germany to Aum, Nietzsche is constantly being mishandled — übermensch was meant to create. And the 6th House is not a political party; it never was. It’s a death cult. Pure amygdala, fear of God without one. And this is just sad.

Politics: as told by 4chan

The thing about Morrowind’s politics: every single person in it sucks. Oblivion, for example, had the privilege of being written by a victor, and the moral dilemma of saving people from a literal ancient evil with horns is very clean-cut, but Morrowind is not like that. Morrowind’s politics are held together by Vivec’s dick, duct tape, and fear of Numidium above all else. It’s a deeply politically nihilistic, corrupt, and borderline sociopathic shithole where everybody hates everybody. And don’t get me wrong, I’m saying it with love. But it’s very clear why somebody could look at it and say, “Fuck it. Plague it is.”

So, everybody sucks, and you, as a Nerevarine, probably suck the hardest: you’re a colonial tool meant to convince the locals you’re their God reborn, and nobody in the Empire actually cares if you’re truly Nerevarine or not. Your only mission is to suppress the political unrest in Vvardenfell by exploiting root beliefs of local people. You’re very much not a good person. Kant is currently crying on Hegel’s dick.

Morrowind’s politics are deeply utilitarian. Dagoth Ur is basically Jeremy Bentham saying happiness is a pleasure and the absence of pain (and you can’t feel pain if you’re DEAD, obviously). The Tribunal could be seen as Kantian in spirit (duty, structure, cosmic order, moral control, and Vivec’s promiscuity probably too), but they’re extremely corrupt in practice. They’re hypocrites powered by lies and stolen divinity, and they are exploiting local deep state Nelothy prophecies and beliefs for personal goals just as you are. You actually being Nerevar reborn is as irrelevant as them being Gods now. You both suck. And that’s the point.

You’re not a hero; you never were. Dagoth Ur is not a villain; he never was. The Empire and the Tribunal are both equally shitty for people, and the people in question are engaging in slavery, necromancy, and probably mushroom fucking. Morrowind politics are so ridiculously polarized — I’m this close to assuming it was written on 4chan.

And yet, it’s so insanely complex, deep, and magical — you love it anyway.

Akulakhan, or How I Learned to Love the Atomic Bomb

At its core, the Elder Scrolls lore and politics are deeply rooted in real-world atomic trauma: the image of Dwemer disappearing and becoming the skin of Numidium is not just mythical; it’s visceral. It’s uncomfortable to think about.

Dwemer, importantly, were also by nature a death cult: it’s strongly implied that their disappearance was their entire goal, so Dagoth Ur retracing their steps with Akulakhan is not a coincidence. Voryn Dagoth was there, deep in the trenches of the Battle of the Red Mountain. Dagoth Ur now lives in a cave, desperately recreating a deadly miracle he once witnessed, just as Shoko Asahara was influenced by David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in the 90s.

An atomic weapon is usually understood as a mutually assured distraction: it’s specifically built to not be used, but it’s not the logic of a death cult, and it’s very much not the logic of Dagoth Ur. He saw reality being shaped by the image of the one who holds Lorkhan’s heart, and he wants it too. He saw a deterrence and chose apotheosis instead.

An atomic bomb is deeply Nietzschean as a symbol: an ultimate power fantasy, master morality in action. Just like Numidium, it’s an ability to will a new world into reality. And Dagoth Ur is too much of a Nietzschean hero to not buy into this shit: the atomic trauma is his whole concept of divinity. Like many cult leaders before him, he deeply embraces Hegelian dialectics: synthesis (new world) through the antithesis (distraction). In short, let’s build the nuke and yeet the world into the violent, reformative apocalypse.

And yet… It’s interesting how much he knows exactly how the nuke works. He had seen it. He was there. He knows it’s not just a political tool; it’s a time-ripping bomb that leaves not just nothing, but existential, soul-level nothing in its wake, and there’s no reformation, no new world being born after that. Just the time threw up on itself 6 times in a row and whole nation out-existed itself from the continuum. And still, he builds an Akulakhan.

Hell is other Dunmer.

So, who’s Dagoth Ur, anyway?

Morrowind’s genuinely the most politically and ethically interesting game I’ve seen in my entire life, and it’s interesting specifically because you’re basically just drowning in the pile of shit, and you’re also actively suck. In the whole sea of bad actors, Dagoth Ur could be legitimately seen as a freedom fighter — and he is seen like that by many, and those people legitimately have a point. Was he deranged? Yes. But was he incorrect? Depends on who you ask.

And it’s fascinating how deeply he is rooted in real-life cult philosophy: he spews Nietzsche at you in every dream while actively drugging you, and for many — it works. You can’t go into Morrowind discourse without seeing people deeply wishing there was an option to become the 6th House follower. He’s so effective, in fact, you almost wish there was a possibility to not destroy the Akulakhan. Were you ever compelled to side with Alduin, on the other hand? Let me guess: fuck no, the hell of a Meretic suicide was that idea?

So. Voryn Dagoth was a guy who fell in love with the atomic bomb. And then the atomic bomb changed him, slowly eroding his humanity until his whole nature became just “being horny for his shitty ex” and “yearning for the apocalypse.” He’s both Aum and just some twink on Grindr. To honor the House Unmourned is gay solidarity, actually.

And I love that for him; I truly do. What’s moral philosophy anyway? Ew.