Okay hear me out. What if the Falmer were culturally far more similar to the modern day nords rather than the altmer or the ayleids?
Like if the Falmer's culture was a more intense version of what we see of the ancient nords in Skyrim. Because the nords kind of just integrated their own culture into the falmers. Maybe the Falmer were originally far more similar to the vikings and other ancient Scandinavian cultures rather than just being the altmer but pale.
Or maybe even towards the end of their reign they started to shift cultures to a more altmer influenced lifestyle and religion making Auri-el a more prominent God figure in their pantheon. Sort of similar to how Scandinavia got christianised.
It would explain why tensions between the Atmorans and the Falmer suddenly became so high when they were previously living peacefully together.
It would also be fascinating to consider the fact the nords could actually be descendants of both the atmorans and the Falmer. Sort of like the bretons. It's very difficult to completely wipe out an entire country worth of people. And not every Falmer wanted to go underground with most being opposed to the idea. So it would make more sense for those who didn't join the Dwemer for protection to be slowly "integrated" with the atmorans which would explain the entire disappearance of the rest of the Falmer. It also gives the modern day Nords a new context which I really like because its sort of poetic irony the nords themselves would be another small part of what was left of the ancient falmer.
Also there's no way a bunch of people living in freezing cold temperatures aren't going to have beards. Bethesda is lying to me.
Anyways it might not line up with canon but it's an interesting thought. Also brings some funny scenarios to mind.
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