I came across a philosophical take on Morrowind that not only stuck with me, it pulled me deeper into the game. I don’t know the origin of this take, but essentially it’s that all the versions of this main character that you play, infinitely varied as played by everyone in the world, have all co-existed in the same infinite cross-dimensional slice of time, which the daedric prince Azura has locked in a time loop. This has resulted in stories of what actually transpired being vague, and most of Morrowind being obliterated after the events of TES III.

There is something both moving and creepy about feeling like I’m contributing to the machinations of this seemingly benign daedra, whose aim is ultimately one of the pursuit of perfection and humanity, which is so impossible to achieve, it can only be expressed like a chronological equivalent of a math equation that approaches infinity, but with the lives of those poor people of Morrowind, and the never-ending reincarnation of Nerevar.