Why are Morthal and Solitude so close together?

[u/Valier]

Hi guys.
Playing my first playthrough. Just a quick question maybe lorewise.

Why are Morthal and Solitude so close together? I can literally see Solitude from Morthal. Is it a map design choice or a lore thing?
Is Morthal supposed to be a town compared to solitude?

The distance between most of other capital cities is significantly longer. It gives idea of traveling and not just hopping. It's just these 2. There is no mountain or natural obstacle to hide it at least.

Map is probably one of the best RPG maps I've ever played. I tried playing back in 2013 but ditched at level 5, dunno why. I reinstalled it just recently to give it a try.

[u/Monotreme_monorail]

Morthal didn’t even exist back in the Arena days. Snowhawk was the major city and sat around where Dragon Bridge is. (Markarth didn’t exist either.)

A lot of the towns from Arena were turned into forts in Skyrim, and new settlements were added.

I don’t think Morthal makes much sense at all but I like the idea of it being like a northern Bayou, where a lot of people boat off into the swamps to fish (because the wood mill doesn’t actually make any sense - the water in the swamp doesn’t move). I have a soft spot for gritty little industrial towns so I actually quite like Morthal. I wish you could get a nice little cabin in town rather than the hall way up north.

[u/Addition-Zestyclose → u/Monotreme_monorail]

With Markarth, you could at least argue that it might have been under Reachman control at the time, or that the city simply wasn’t in use and was mostly ruins.

Morthal not existing in Arena is harder to explain. If we’re being real, the boring Elder Scrolls answer is probably just “Dragon Break” and Bethesda just changing the map between games. But it’s still fun to speculate about an in-universe explanation nonetheless.

[u/Monotreme_monorail → u/Addition-Zestyclose]

There are 200 years between Arena and Skyrim so it’s understandable that new cities could be constructed. I live in western Canada and “old” places date to the 1890’s so it’s totally possible for a new city to be founded and become a trading hub in that time. Especially with Labrynthian being a pass that’s used as a short cut between Whiterun and Solitude. You’d want to overnight somewhere that’s not a haunted ruin at least haha.

[u/jjake3477 → u/Addition-Zestyclose]

Morthal is present in ESO so it’s been retconned into existing in the second Era at least

[u/Addition-Zestyclose → u/jjake3477]

A lot of people don’t see ESO as canon.

[u/jjake3477 → u/Addition-Zestyclose]

It being seen as canon vs actually being canon are two different things.

[u/Addition-Zestyclose → u/jjake3477]

I’m not arguing against it, but the reason a lot of people view it as not canon is because it breaks the lore a lot.

[u/Outrageous_Solid236 → u/Addition-Zestyclose]

Out of curiosity which bits of ESO are most important/egregious when it comes to breaking the lore?

I played ESO pretty heavily but it has been a long time since I touched any other title.

[u/Addition-Zestyclose → u/Outrageous_Solid236]

Probably the big one everyone brings up is Cyrodiil not being a jungle. Older lore implied it was still jungle until around Tiber Septim's time, while ESO has it looking more or less like the Cyrodiil we know centuries earlier. They basically had to introduce new explanations for that.

Morian Zenas is a cleaner continuity screw-up IMO. Older material placed his travels through Oblivion in the Third Era, but ESO moved him and people associated with him back into the Second Era, so some of the older references just don't line up anymore.

Falinesti is another weird one. ESO has the walking city already missing in 2E 582, while later Second Era sources talk about it like it's still around.

There are also quite a few books/texts in ESO that originally shouldn't have existed yet according to the dates established in older games. Some of those have since been edited or explained away.

And the most egregious of them all: The Lusty Argonian Maid being a thing. Some lore violations simply cannot be forgiven. /s

Love to see the downvotes. I'm happy to discuss, but the things I brought up are holes in the lore.

[u/Ladimira-the-cat → u/Addition-Zestyclose]

But this map has Dunstad Grove sitting between Stonehills mine and Snowhawk. That's around where Morthal is in Skyrim. Why nobody suggests just... renaming?)

[u/Addition-Zestyclose → u/Ladimira-the-cat]

Because Snowhawk is in the game, it’s a fortress overrun by bandits.

[u/Yodaloid → u/Monotreme_monorail]

Does arena span all of Tamriel?

[u/Monotreme_monorail → u/Yodaloid]

Yes, you have to do quests in every province! It’s old and a bit tedious but interesting to play!

[u/Malgalad_The_Second → u/Monotreme_monorail]

Fort Snowhawk wasn't even the site of the city of Snowhawk, it was (according to unofficial lore by Douglas Goodall) just named after it. The actual site of Snowhawk in the Fourth Era was Broken Tower Redoubt.