In hindsight Traven was a horrible archmage!

[Flip Flapper]

For thoose who dont know Traven was the leader of the mages guild in the elder scrolls IV: oblivion

Why do i say he is a horrible archmage? The biggest reason (but not the only and the others are related to this in a way) is his banning of necromancy, now a lot of people see necromancy as purely evil but not nescecarily, you may say a sword is evil becuse it is used to kill people but people dont have any problem with swords do they?
More importantly necromancy CAN be used to hurt others but it can also be used to protecting people and just becse your a necromancer doesnt mean you have to dig up graves (altough admittedly it helps with getting your army up and running)
One of the reasons he used for wanting to ban it was that it was dangerous (i dont remember the title of the book and i may remember wrong but it was in an ingame book about the debate when deciding to ban it)
Yes, raising corpses is way more dangerous then shooting an exploding ball of fire, summon a demonic being or mind-raping some one, i see no way at all thoose could be abused!

My second point is this, he kicked out a LOT of competent members and a lot of others left becuse of how absurd his desicions were! It is quite possible a lot of non-necromancers left simply becuse some of their friends got kicked out or becuse they find it absurd to ban a perfectly legitimate school of magic (as well as Travens other desicion i will get to in a moment)
How can weakening his own damn guild be efficent in short or long term? They deny a LOT of potential allies wich ends up biting them in the ass thanks to spoilers.

Finally we have probably the worst of his desicions, locking off the arcane university for every one except for high ranking members! This place was built for study and locking it off for people who are not already powerfull mages seems kinda redundant and contradicts the very purpose of its existence.
I suspect this was one of the main reason a lot fo people left, not only did Traven get tons of people who very well could have been clsoe friends with a lot fo these peopel kicked out, not only did he weaken the guild with his desicion but he also locked a place FOR STUDY TO ANYONE NOT ALREADY ADEPT AT MAGIC.

I think Traven was nothing but bad for the guild in both short and long term and i do not think his own sacrifice made up for it, sure he stopped a certain spoiler character........ only it is possible he DIDNT stop him becuse due to spoiler events in daggerfall there were 2 of this guy, the mortal and the GOD meaning there is still the god left to worry about.


The only good thing i think he did was help stop the spoiler character and even that was mostly the player and anyone could have made the sacrifice, guess its better him then someone who actually would be a good archmage.

[α27theDemonKnight]

Lol. All my thoughts exactly. I wanted to kill that archmage from the start e_e
Necromancer itself is not bad as you have stated. Although the moral implications do kick in once again. In its most basic form, it is the study of the dead in a caster's point of view.
I actually love necromancy since I was a kid because of Diablo 2. One of the selectable characters is Necromancer. And all the delectable characters in Diablo 2 are good guys storywise even. The follows of Rathma or something the good Necromancers in Diablo call themselves. They try to bring balance to the world of/by both living and the dead.
Well guess I went slightly off topic at the end (I like magic. Necromancy has always been misunderstood e_e) but yeah. The archmage is a douchebag that you want to kill and do not regret at all XD

[Lelouch Lamperouge]

Well in Tamerial a lot of non magic users detested magic in general, especially necromancy. Most priests the Nine/Eight divines(depending on your belief) often found necromancers as evil beings going against the divines. So if necromancy was an accepted practice alot of peasants and nobles might have eventually riot against The Mage Guild. I'm not saying he was a good or bad archmage just giving a different perspective

[Flip Flapper]

Well in Tamerial a lot of non magic users detested magic in general, especially necromancy. Most priests the Nine/Eight divines(depending on your belief) often found necromancers as evil beings going against the divines. So if necromancy was an accepted practice alot of peasants and nobles might have eventually riot against The Mage Guild. I'm not saying he was a good or bad archmage just giving a different perspective

that is an interesting point of view but have you thought about the people who study it or knows someone who does? they get looked down upon by everyone becuse they got kicked out of the guild and also necromancy is perfectly legal

and also the thing about hating magic is mostly just the nords and redguards up untill skyrim, basicly everyone else seems to be fine with it (i dont know about imperials but books before oblivion indicate a big chunk of their leading figures are mages and imperial battlemage is one of the highest ranking roles so there was a very low danger of a revolt in cyrodil and most of the other countries as well)

so all in all the only countries i think it would matter are hammerfell where necromancy was illegal if my memory serves me right wich means it wasnt practiced there anyway, and also skyrim and they werent even affected by the desicion

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