Lore talk:Turuk Redclaws

Edit Summary

Edit summaries are not enough, I need to explain why I removed things. I'll go in order from the least to most significant.

On Turuk's oats-for-brains

Hroltar the Boaster was the only person cited as thinking Turuk is stupid. Hroltar the Boaster is a sour old sack of oats who likes to raise the booster seat on his high horse to the nth degree while insisting everyone else isn't nearly as cool as he is. I wouldn't take his opinion on anyone's intelligence or level of courage seriously.

I don't think it's necessary to state what the Undaunted of all people think of the other Undaunted. They're prone to roasting each other on a dime, whether they're trying to lift themselves up at another's expense or trying to get a rise out of someone in an attempt to goad them into doing something excessively dangerous for the Tamrielic "lulz". They're heavily opinionated, and most of those opinions are not academically useful because the Undaunted deal in dares, not political approval. It would be different if we were talking about an Emperor and their court: Hroltar just says that Turuk has wet bread for brains because Turuk is not Hroltar, and Hroltar likes to toot his own horn at every given opportunity. "The Boaster" is in his name: it's a given that he's very opinionated in ways that don't matter.

Anyways. Hroltar is but one sourpuss, and the Undaunted's opinions of each other are mostly rooted in outdoing each other, so it doesn't seem useful to consider them when sizing a character up for a lore page (also "X adventurer is a pinhead" seems like a pretty common insult among rowdy warriors like the Undaunted, so such a statement from a character is flawed as evidence that a character is perceived a certain way by a number of their peers).

On necromancy

The bit about him not being opposed to necromancy seems a bit unnecessary, as he's never specifically called out by Yisareh as thinking this way, nor does he say anything about it: the previous version was more of a broad statement that belongs on Lore:Undaunted (and already is). Turuk specifically puts emphasis on the fact that he uses blood altars very often in his Q&A. He never tells us his view on necromancy or the art of blood magic as a whole, but he does say that he's taught newbloods how to build them, and that he relies on them a little too much. This doesn't say anything about his skill in constructing them per se (for all we know he could be terrible at it lol): just that he has personally taken the initiative to show new members a thing or two about building a blood altar.

Gameplay v. lore

Next I would like to bring up the issue of gameplay versus lore. I don't think we need to go in depth about the Undaunted store or initiation on Turuk's page: anything lore-worthy that could be extracted from that should go on Lore:Undaunted. Additionally, we probably shouldn't mention when Turuk sends leaderboard trial run rewards in the mail, because these trials are only cleared once in lore, and the weekly trial emails strike me as ostensibly a gameplay thing.

To put it simply, every member of the Undaunted is rewarded with riches and bragging rights by their fellow adventurers for everything impressive they pull off: Turuk and the other founders aren't the only people who reward their buddies for killing large animals, and Turuk isn't particularly special because his name gets to be in the sender's line of an email. He stands out because he's a founding member of the Undaunted: rewarding people for being cool is just par for the course for the Undaunted as a group. That those involved in imprisoning the Serpent in Sanctum Ophidia were rewarded for putting of the end of the world is a given for the Undaunted.

On editorializing

I think we should take care not to lean too far in one way or the other on whether a sentence sounds like it "approves" of a subject or not, or that the article otherwise "thinks highly" of a person in lore. Example:

"No challenge was too daunting, from necromancer nests to the lairs of mighty monsters."

This sounds like something written by someone who admires Turuk, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but lorespace is an encyclopedia: it should be as impartial as possible. I'm guilty of adding a bit of dramatic flair here and there too, so I get it: but we need to be careful with wording, especially when our sources are enthusiastic or braggadocios.

Speaking of which, we shouldn't trust the Undaunted as a wholly unbiased source (in a general sense: this is a tangent) when it comes to how big and dangerous something is. The Undaunted are loud, proud, often drunk, and boastful adventurers with a tendency to get into bragging contests and goading each other into doing stupid things for clout (usually on the dangerous end of the spectrum). Like jumping off tavern roofs.

That's not to say we can't use anything they say in lore: we just need to be aware that they brag a lot, and in doing so have a tendency to exaggerate the truth of the matter. Turuk would want you to think that the ogre he slew was more ferocious than it actually was because it would mean at least one more person thinks he's a Cool Guy tm for slaying The Beast.

Our goal should not be to tell people how cool Turuk Redclaws is and lift words out of his mouth to convey this, but instead to state plainly the letter of his deeds: we should also be careful not to translate personal accounts from the Undaunted too directly to any lore articles because they're extremely biased and want you to think they're cool.

We should consider what Turuk and his comrades say and determine what we can extract from a given account in an encyclopedic manner. What Turuk's comrades think was "impressive enough" or "not outrageous enough" doesn't matter: what matters is what Turuk did, when he did it, who that deed helped, etc. What Turuk thinks about his accomplishments doesn't matter in the long run: if slaying that ogre was a defining moment in his career, then so be it, but anyone among the Undaunted's ranks insistence that some beast was "SO big and strong and [I'm] so impressive for killing it" should be taken with the chunkiest grain of salt.

"According to his own words, the chronicle of Turuk's heroic feats was extensive, perhaps even warranting its own volume."

This line is a good start: it tells us that Turuk did a lot before the Undaunted were conceived, and implies that he made quite the name for himself. However, further paraphrasing would eliminate the issues I'm seeing with editorializing. Turuk's words are the problem: this sentence is saying "Turuk accomplished so much, someone needs to write a book about him", which is not a factual, impartial statement. That Turuk gained a reputation through his actions is true, but "his deeds warrant their own book" is purely patting Turuk on the back (it's Turuk, Turuk is doing the patting).

I hope this didn't come off as too abrasive at any point: I know I have issues with tone sometimes, and I like to try to be as clear as possible when I find something that I think warrants changing (hence the tendency to write paragraphs). -MolagBallet (talk) 03:19, 22 April 2023 (UTC)