UESPWiki:Archive/CP The Elder Scrolls Novels

The Elder Scrolls Novels

With the upcoming book The Infernal City (and it's as of yet unnamed sequel) by Greg Keyes, I was wondering what sort of changes the site will go through?  I know UESP is based primarilly around the games, but if the stories are considered cannon, which I assume they are, will there be a new namespace created, or will we just update the Lore space?  Just wanted to ask since the release date of the first book is coming up (late November last I checked). Dlarsh  20:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

:It's really gonna be hard to make any decisions like that until the books come out.  I've been wondering about that myself: new namespace, use General, use Lore?  It'll be interesting to see what we get with the new books.  --GK  22:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

::We cover in-game books in Lore, we might as well do the novels there too. We can't simply copy the contents ofcourse, but a good summary is doable. Other Lore articles that are updated with the new content can then refer to the novel articles as sources. --Timenn-  17:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

:::The only problem I foresee with using Lore is: what about other articles that will need to be created?  Characters, Places, etc...  Lore:Characters in The Infernal City?  Lore:Annaig?  Of course, I see other problems with the other options, too; namely, If we go with a new namespace, what do we name it?  And are the novels worthy of an entire namespace?  A lot of questions that we can speculate and talk about, but it really doesn't make any sense to decide beforehand.  --GK  22:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

::::Alright, I've posted the new article for the book, with the preliminary information, The Infernal City, in the mainspace for now.  The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward a namespace, probably "Novels:".  At least we have a few weeks to discuss it!  :)  --GK  00:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

:::::Why pages like "Characters in The Infernal City", don't we have categories for that? I think Lore serves its purpose perfectly for these novels. There is no reason why every notable character in it can't have its own article. It's not like a game where we need to provide NPC summaries based on certain game properties. The great advantage of using Lore is that we would actually be able to combine all possible Lore easily, we don't need to incorporate everything into another namespace, and then add it to Lore too. Lore should be the complete repository of all, well, Lore... --Timenn-  09:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

::::::I think we should create a namespace for each individual book. If you look at what we already have set up, you will see a namespace for each game and each mobile game. The amount of information in the game is irrelevant to the need for namespace. Then, say, we have an article on the Annaig in the InC namespace (The Infernal City:Annaig), the second novel (Novel 2:Annaig), and those two can be joined in a "retrospect" or wide-view of the entire series in the Lore namespace (Lore:Annaig). Since you expect to have some OOG (or, OON) information, relying on the Lore namespace would get confusing. Also, having a Novels namespace would be a pure redundant move (why have Novels:Annaig when Lore:Annaig would be more appropriate. The different namespaces for the novels allows a singular look at the novel information, while keeping the Lore namespace allows for a synthesis of information while minimizing redundancy. –Elliot   10:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
:Well, I favor the idea of a 'novels' namespace. Though I'd be willing just to stick it into lore as well. I think Timenn has made an excellent point about most of the novels articles ending up being redundant with the Lore ones, but I also see GK's point that there will be minor characters in the book that may not warrant a Lore page, but have enough information to have a small article, or even just a list of 'minor' characters. That being said, I am against putting it in its own namespace currently. We use namespace to keep the wiki organized, and so when you're search for Oblivion's Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, you don't end up on a page for Morrowind. I don't believe that these will negatively impact the novels namespace, and I think that there is real potential for a ton of cross namespace links if we separate them. I'd rather avoid those.--Ratwar 18:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

\=> I am reading the book now and hope to have it finished pretty soon. But here is what I am thinking after reading some. We need to have a Novel Namespace. And for the this namespace, we look at the characters from a novel perspective: as characters (or relatively, as NPCs). Then, in Lore, we only use important facts and important info, such as the new emperor and other important happenings. I mean, we don't have Glarthir in the Lore namespace do we? I just see it in that manner. And I agree categories would most likely be best for a good chunk of it. But, I will know more when I am done with it. –Elliot   23:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

:I just finished the book, and I am still leaning towards what I initially thought would work. We don't create namespaces based on content, we create them based on structure. And trying to fit the novel information (which is different from approaching it in a Lore-based way) in the Lore namespace will prove to be difficult. Maybe not now, but in the long run it will definitely be an issue. I plan on starting some things tonight, and I plan on using The Infernal City as a namespace. If there some sort of decision down the road, then I will happily comply and fix it. But, the "weeks of discussion" dropped the day after this was brought up, so I am not really sure how many people have thought about it or have even read the books. The new namespace would be approached in a manner that is slightly "story telling" or "recapping" while the Lore namespace has been used to expansively look at the series as a whole...
:Blegh... now I am having second thoughts... I am thinking a Novel namespace would be equally sufficient. It will remove redundancies since the majority of characters will be in the next novel. So that seems like the appropriate action to seek out. But I will vehemently go against stuffing it in the Lore namespace. And, like we do for so many articles already, we can use transclusions for some of the articles if there happens to be little differences. But like I said, unless someone pops in here before tonight, I will go ahead and get started. –Elliot   19:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

::I would tend to agree with the approach of having a single Novel (or Novels, whichever) namespace.  Much like any of the games, anything appropriate to Lore could be added or transcluded there, as required.  From a conceptual standpoint, I could see a namespace for each novel, but in reality, I wouldn't see that as very efficient.  The novels almost certainly won't contain enough information to justify a namespace in their own right and if there are characters that continue from one to the next, I think it would be more beneficial to consolidate detailed info from the entire series of novels into a single page than to have a separate page for each under each novel's namespace.  As for the suggestion of putting them only in Lore, I could live with it, but I think that's going too far in the opposite direction of creating a namespace for each book.  It's probably best to leave Lore for consolidated info that applies to the entire ES-verse and put info from/about the books in a separate namespace.

::As Elliott said, I see character, place, and item pages in the Novel(s) namespace including much more detailed info that's specific to the novels.  The Lore namespace would then be used as it always has (I think...I don't read them much): to record general information about the character, place, or item that doesn't go into nitty-gritty details that're only found in one specific game or the novels. —Robin Hood   03:56, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

:::Glarthir is an NPC whose relevance can only be attributed to the gameplay of Oblivion, and not to the entire Elder Scrolls. Summarizing him without any gameplay relevant information would simply result in a phrase on how he was a paranoid citizen in the city of Skingrad who believed various other citizens were involved in a conspiracy against him. 

:::Compare this to an NPC like Vilena Donton. She was the head of the Fighters Guild in Cyrodiil for many years. The loss of her son caused her to let the Fighters Guild to fall in disgrace when it started losing ground to the upstart Blackwood company. When she realised that the loss of both her sons had distracted her from leading the Fighters Guild she stepped down and turned the leadership over to a recent recruit. 

:::The first NPC is not noteworthy for the Lore namespace, as has already been pointed out. Glarthir's only role was to provide some entertaining gameplay, and he has not contributed to the lore of the Elder Scrolls other that being an added flavour to one particular game. Vilena Donton on the other hand has had an impact on the history of the Fighters Guild, and its welfare. Her actions (or non-actions) steered the Fighters Guild in a direction that is noteworthy for Lore. The Fighters Guild has a bigger impact, and the roles of the more prominent members may be explained in more detail on separate articles. 

:::My question is, do we see characters in book that fall into that first category (Glarthir's)? I believe that is not the case. It's unlikely that you will read a line like "Timm was a smith working in Leyawiin who greeted the the protagonist every morning, as he passed by." in a proper novel. Such figurants don't appear. In the rare case they do, they are not noteworthy. My point is, every character appearing in the novel that has an impact on the storyline, deserves its own article. Information about "the father of" and the likes can be included on that character's article instead. I believe the same reasoning can be applied for items and locations as well. Don't treat a novel like a game. There is a substantial different between them. Even a mobile phone game provides a broader variety of facts than a 1000-pages novel. The story in a book only moves in one direction. As reader you cannot elect which of the two bandits is killed first when the protagonist is ambushed. Furthermore, a game makes concessions a novel never has to make. Finding the total population of the Imperial City is not done by counting all the NPCs appearing there in Oblivion, but if a reliable source claims 100,000 people live in the city, we use that number instead. 

:::As a fine example, I would like to name Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki. You will see there that every subject appearing in a specific episode or movie has an article. If it appears in more episodes than it is still all included in one single article. In the case of Worf, you see a chronologically order biography. The section about "The Deep Space Nine years" appears after "The Next Generation" section, but only because it happened later in the timeline. Facts about his youth that were not revealed until the Deep Space Nine series are still covered earlier than events that happened throughout The Next Generation series. Games are mentioned off-hand on Memory Alpha, as they are not considered canon (they are covered on Memory Beta, though), but when they are mentioned it is outside of the main summary of a subject. Since we consider games canon (duh!) events of them are covered in Lore, but information only relevant to gameplay are covered on articles in a different namespace. 

:::If we want attribute specific material concerning subjects to a specific novel, we can easily use the references to make it clear where the information comes from. And we can still retain the article about the book itself, in which we summarise the events in the book, the amount of pages, the chapter names etc. etc. --Timenn-  12:08, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

::::There are many characters that have no true effect on the Lore; I guess you could call them cosmetic. But they seem to be noteworthy because... unless you read the book you won't know, I guess. I still don't think shoving the information in the Lore namespace is viable. Approaching a book as a book and approaching a book as a "historical" reference are two entirely different things all in themselves. –Elliot   13:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That icon in the corner says "Elder Scrolls Pages" not Elder Scroll games. This site is about TES, so atleast a Novel section should be added. Perhaps each book (unless enough books are made) should be done in the way expansions are. There is the Morrowind section, then the Tribunal and Bloodmoon sub sections. Kiutu 20:13, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

: I think the regular editors of this site know full well what its purpose is. There probably will be some kind of Novel namespace at some point, but since all we have so far is half a book, it's impossible to tell what needs to be done. I don't think any definitive decision can be taken until the second half of the story comes out. –rpeh  22:16, 14 December 2009 (UTC)