Morrowind plot holes

Everyone knows that I’m a big fan of Morrowind. I don’t idealize it, however. Even though it’s a “huge improvement over its successors”, it has its own share of plot holes. It’s important to sudy mistakes of your predecessors, so let’s give Morrowind some bashing.

Before we start, I should note that I find the storylines of Morrowind remarkably internally consistent. There are very few “why haven’t they?” moments for me there. In Oblivion, for example, I cannot refrain from asking that one question: if it was always possible to permanently prevent large-scale invasions from Oblivion realms to Nirn, why hasn’t Akatosh done it millennia ago and made it depend on one specific family of humans instead? “Why haven’t they?” questions are excusable with humans because humans can be stupid or short-sighted (myself included), but the god of time surely should know better. Besides, if you claim that Akatosh intervenes whenever when there’s a threat to the existence of Nirn or its spacetime consistency, then he should have intervened at the moment when Oblivion gates started opening.¹

Most plot holes in Morrowind come from ignored implications of the laws of the world. The biggest source of those troubles is “magic”.

In our world, “magic” is, roughly, everything that is impossible for a human to do without violating the laws of nature.

In The Lord of the Rings, for example, magic is pretty close of our definition of magic. Sauron can pull of tricks like forging the One Ring because he’s not a human, but a being much higher in the creation chain: he’s a maia, one of the lesser divine beings. Gandalf or Saruman also aren’t humans, but rather maia. The distinction is that a human or an elf cannot become a maia, much less an ainu (a demi-god) through innate talent and training, those powers were granted directly by the creator god. Random hobbits cannot get anywhere close to those powers within the laws of nature that apply to them.

In the universe of The Elder Scrolls, however, “magic” is a part of the laws of nature. Everyone can learn to cast spells, even though some people learn much faster and can keep casting spells much longer without rest. Our law of nature is that if you jump from an airplane, you will hit the ground with a terminal velocity approximately of 55 meters per second. The Elder Scrolls law of nature adds that if you cast the spell of slow fall, you can decrease your terminal velocity by one m/s for every point of spell strength.

In LotR, it’s a safe assumption that the set of persons with magical powers is limited and if someone doesn’t already have those powers, they never will. In TES, the chance that a random person can throw a fireball at you or turn invisible is almost as high as the chance that they have a dagger hidden under their clothes, and that should completely change the way the world works. However, a lot of the time characters behave as if that issue doesn’t exist.

For example, during the main quest, Mehra Milo, a dissident priestess of Morrowind’s native temple, ends up in a maximum security prison (evocatively called “Ministry of Truth”) and you need to rescue her. Her plot is to have you smuggle a Scroll of Divine Intervention into her cell. Those scrolls teleport the caster to the nearest Imperial cult shrine. The one nearest to the prison is, conveniently, in a town where Morrowind’s native law enforcement and religious organizations have no presence at all, it was built by the Empire’s colonial authorities for their own use. Since Mehra’s heresy isn’t against any imperial laws, it’s a perfect escape route.

There are three types of teleportation spells in TES3: Almsivi Intervention (takes you to the nearest native religion’s temple), Divine Intervention (takes you to the nearest Imperial Cult shrine), and Mark/Recall (allows you to set a mark in any location and instantly return to it). Almsivi and Divine Interventions scrolls are sold in every store, and spells are also widely taught and quite easy to cast. Mark/Recall spells are somewhat harder to learn, but also aren’t secret.

It’s surprising that Mehra Milo didn’t know the spell and hasn’t bothered to learn it even though she knew she could need to escape from inquisitors. Well, maybe she’s just bad at magic. There’s a deeper question, though: how do prisons work in a world where such spells are widely available?

If any moderately skilled mage can cast a spell and escape from their cell, something surely has to be done about it. The simplest solution, in-universe, is to put bracers or collars enchanted with a “drain magicka” effect to prevent them from casting any spells. That would also solve the problem of inmates trying to use invisibility spells to aid their escape or attacking guards with destruction spells.

Another option would be to enchant the prison to prevent inmates from teleporting out of it. Enchantments that prevent specific types of magic do exist in-universe. Almalexia enchanted the whole city of Mournhold to make it impossible to levitate there (ostensibly because levitation offends her — the fact that she spends her days levitating above the floor in her cathedral only adds to her hypocrisy²). Dagoth Ur made teleportation impossible in the heart chamber, although it’s not clear what’s his motivation for it(³). So, there clearly are ways to make the Ministry of Truth impossible to escape from by teleportation, and I have no idea why Vivec wouldn’t do it — that would also prevent people from escaping by smuggling scrolls into it (that’s easy if you roll it really tightly… ;).

Is there an easy fix for that plot hole? The player could be required to take Mehra Milo outside of the prison walls, which would be more believable and also much harder for the player to pull off.