Alduin
Alduin the World-Eater is the black dragon who serves as the main villain of the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), an ancient tyrant of dragonkind prophesied to devour the world.
| Also known as | Alduin the World-Eater, The World-Eater |
|---|---|
| Type | dragon |
| Tradition | The Elder Scrolls (Bethesda Softworks) |
| Category | Games |
| Earliest source | The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios), 2011 |
| Wings | Yes |
| Breathes fire | Yes |
| Guards treasure | No |
| Nature | Hostile |
The Story
Skyrim opens with the player's character about to be executed in the town of Helgen. Before the axe falls, a huge black dragon descends and burns the town, and in the chaos the prisoner escapes. Dragons have not been seen in Skyrim for thousands of years, and now they are returning everywhere. The dragon at Helgen is Alduin, firstborn and ruler of the dragons, who once ruled the ancient Nords as a god-king.
In the game's history, Alduin and his dragon priests ruled until humans learned the dragons' own magic and rebelled. Three heroes used an Elder Scroll, a powerful artifact, to cast Alduin forward in time rather than kill him. He has now resurfaced, and he raises dead dragons from their burial mounds with a shout. The player is revealed as the Dragonborn, a mortal with a dragon's soul who can absorb the souls of slain dragons. To defeat Alduin, the Dragonborn learns the shout Dragonrend, which forces a dragon to the ground, and follows him to Sovngarde, the Nordic afterlife, for the final battle.
Appearance and Powers
Alduin is larger than other dragons in the game, with black, spiked scales and red eyes. Like all Skyrim dragons, he has two legs and wings that act as forelimbs, a wyvern-like build. Dragons in the series speak their own language, and their words are power: the "Thu'um," or shout, can breathe fire or frost or bend time. Alduin's own breath includes fire and a rain of meteors.
Origins and Sources
Within the game's lore, Alduin is linked to Akatosh, the dragon god of time, and many Nords in the setting confuse the two. His name is glossed in the dragon language as "destroyer, devour, master." The legend of a world-devouring dragon who must be defeated at the end of time borrows from Norse ideas of Ragnarök and its great serpent; see Jörmungandr.
Legacy
Skyrim was one of the best-selling games of its decade and has been re-released many times. Its dragon fights and invented dragon language made Alduin one of the best-known video-game dragons. For more dragon games, see D&D computer games.
Related
- Jörmungandr: Jörmungandr is the Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology, a child of Loki so huge that it encircles the world under the ocean and bites its own tail, and Thor's destined enemy at Ragnarök.
- Drogon: Drogon is the largest and fiercest of Daenerys Targaryen's three dragons in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (from 1996) and HBO's Game of Thrones, a black-and-red dragon named for her husband Khal Drogo.
- Tiamat (Dungeons & Dragons): Tiamat in Dungeons & Dragons is the five-headed Dragon Queen, goddess of the evil chromatic dragons, a modern game creation that borrows its name from the ancient Babylonian sea goddess.
- Spyro: Spyro is the small purple dragon hero of the Spyro the Dragon video game series, beginning on the PlayStation in 1998, who charges and breathes fire to rescue his fellow dragons and their treasure.
- Famous Dragons
- D&D Based Computer Games
Sources and Further Reading
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks, 2011)
- David Hodgson, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Games, 2011)
Cite this entry: “Alduin,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/alduin.