All theories I've heard of the ebony have huge holes.. My personal (unbiased) theory is thought out enough to fill said holes. And is a theory I've dropped in the discord servers I'm a part of. To begin, those who believe him to be an aspect of Ebonarm are on the right track. Their line of thought is only incomplete. In that the ebony warrior is an aspect of Ebonarm who in turn is an avatar of the Hoonding. Ergo the ebony warrior ultimately derives from the Hoonding. However, why can he shout? Why does he yearn for Sovngarde despite being a Redguard? The greybeards sure AF wouldn't teach him the thu'um for use in combat. So? The answer is simple.. His origins from the Hoonding! And what does the Hoonding have to do with any of this?? Well, while not stated in any texts, the Hoonding is simply the Yokudan version of Tsun! You don't believe me? What are their spheres? Tsun is the Nordic god of trials against adversity. And the Hoonding? Perseverance against infidels.. The exact same sphere dressed in different words. Both deities hero warrior gods who show up when their ppl are up against the ropes when facing enemies. So why is Tsun more active among rhe Redguards as the Hoonding than among the Nords? Cuz the Hoonding plays a more vital role among the Redguards than Tsun for Nords. Moreover, the Nords still got Shor, whom while dead is still running a tight ship. The Redguards aren't fans of Shor, so he is less welcome in their pantheon, instead leaving things to his shield thane. Still don't believe me? The Hoonding never shows up as the Hoonding, but rather always as powerful avatars. Who else does that? Yes, the other dead Nordic god their chief Shor does so regularly enough with Imperials & Nords where he is revered, entrusting the only race of men who despise him to his thane. And this my friends is why some random ass Redguard who should have no business being as powerful as he is or having the abilities he does is how he is & why as outlandish as it sounds, he wants to go to Sovngarde. That's because that's where his true form resides. I actually thought epic Nate was gonna go in that direction back when he dropped he ebony warrior video & said how Tsun was the only other character in the game with similar dimensions

Ebony warrior: there is nothing left to be done, no quests, no villaims- Dragon born: MF where were you when i was fighting the Alduin

"At last. Sovngarde..." The Black Soul Gem in my inventory - :)

Last time I let a character get that far, Lydia one-shotted him.

"He is unusually tall" That's a generous way to say he's fuckin' massive! Also I've never had him be immediately aggressive, for me he's always waited for me to strike the first blow... and then he'd usually proceed to Yeet me off the mountain.

They said you needed the heart of a nord to go to savenguard, they never said it had to be your own.

My theory He's just built different

I beat the Ebony Warrior on Legendary mode, without being killed and without mods. One of my proudest moments.

12:54, glad to see that Master Neloth is a fellow Epic Nate enjoyer

Him calling Epic Nate sexy is really funny to me for some reason

I've only known about this channel for a few weeks, but Master Neloth is already one of the best Elder Scrolls KZfaqrs in my eyes.

Never met him . I've only had a level 63, and now a level 54. Along way to go👍

I believe that the Ebony Warrior is mirror of a player character, everything just screams of it. In the lore, he might be an avatar of whatever entity is the Dovahkiin an avatar of, 'cause everything is sort of controversial in the TES lore. Imo, that's a character that kind of breaks the 4th wall an maybe even should not be taken as a part of the lore. Like, you're playing a gigachad that has done literally everything. The only real challenge in such a world is yourself. And by this fight, you get to fully complete the game, or, metaphorically speaking, go to Sovngarde. Sounds quite epic to me

Human connection, my favourite kind of centre of a story! Finally a satisfying theory as to the Ebony Warrior's background

I thought EW might be a hybrid of nord father and redguard mother as hybrids in Tamriel follow their mother's race.

Miraak should have been far harder than the vanilla game made him, but it is what it is.

This is really helpful thank you I keep getting jumped by that thing so I really can’t beat him

For me he'll always be the Forgotten Hero from TES: Legends

I admit I haven’t fully watched the video since I am watching this before class, but my personal preferred theory is that the Ebony Warrior is: just the Ebony Warrior. Tamriel has seen incredibly exceptional individuals throughout its history, so I don’t find it strange that a warrior of great skill of knowledge would be alive at the same time as the LDB. All of his abilities can simply be explained by training. People can learn the Thu’um, so why can’t a Redguard? It’s obvious that he is inspired by Ebonarm, but I personally don’t like the idea that every exceptional person is tied to a God.

Ebony warrior and Faendal share the same voice! Hailbrazil!

I feel like the sword singer theory could be possible. Due to the fact that sword singing, shouting, and the Dwemer’s special magic tonal architect all use the same magic, just used in different ways. So someone of the red guard pantheon could be using shouting instead of sword singing just because if the game they’re in. And yes sword singing is seen as a myth now, but so was dragons and shouting until skyrim

Master Neloth, you grace us with your presence.

Ebony warrior just casually asking for a fade gotta respect it 😂

"Finally sovengarde" Me holding a black soul gem. "Not exactly, but good fight."

I'm ways so happy when I see you upload ^-^

I found your channel a few days back safe to say you’re the funniest skyrim guy i know 🤝🤝

What really makes the fight annoying is his reflect blow perk. That, coupled with the poorly implemented smithing system where the PC's damage output becomes ungodly at high levels, always forces me to use combat magic. The first time I hit him with melee and insta-KO'd myself, I honestly thought it was a bug.

My guess is he's just a redguard from Skyrim, nurtured in this culture. However, he may be a worshipper of Lorkhan. Afterall he wants to get to Sovngarde a.k.a. the halls of Shor. That would also explain ebony armour as ebony is Lorkhan's blood. Moreover it justifies both hearts in the inventory - neither on the side od daedra nor bound by morality of aedra. Hell, he could even be a Shezzarine himself. And if we go by your theory it makes sense how Nazir worships Sithis and the Ebony Warrior Shor as both initiallly come from Padomay.

What a grand and intoxicating video

I remember preparing so much for this guy. I finally got to him and killed him in about 10 hits 😂 You can easily wipe the floor with him by enchanting cutlary with chaos enchantments and activating the elemental fury perk. He literally dies within maybe 10 seconds if you get high enough enchants and gear. You could also cheese him by dual casting thunderbolt with the impact perk. Literally stun locks him infinitely with the correct setup.

Did you See Lyle Schnub's song about you, Master?

You have such a underrated channel you sound like the guys who have like 1mill subs you will get there

8:00 well yes. It is right there, in his inventory

I think it’s heavily implied that he was the protagonist of some elder scrolls card game 😂

This has some strong "there can be only one" vibes lol.

Seeing this man for the first time was lowkey creepy because how unusually tall he is n how he runs up on u

Nice video! Can you please tell what armor and what weapon did you use here in order to defeat ebony warrior?

4000+ hours never made it this far on a character

So, if u somehow make it to lvl 80, kill the ebony warrior and then go to sovngarde in the last mission... Is he there??

I remember this fight. I just yeeted him off the mountain a couple of times and then went to find his gear.

The reason your theory is not mentioned imo is because it does not replace the other ones but simply coexists with them. We all could accept that EW was born a man like LDB and, as such, was part of a human family. If Nazir is his brother, he would not be more special than the nobodies who are members of the DB's family, unless he makes something happen for himself, while his brother gets anointed, blessed, chosen, reincarnated, possessed or whatever his deal is

After doing the umbra ae quest i thought i found an interesting connection and found nates video on it i was really excited but the folka on discord said it was probably a coincidence

Could you make a champion of molag bal build?

I like your theory, because it's cool. I don't really care if it's right, I think it's awesome

Honestly I just think he's descended from Lyris Titanborn and Sai Sahan from ESO. Yes ESO came out later, but they were being developed simultaneously. Lyris Titanborn is a very tall, half-giant Nord woman, and Sai Sahan is a Redguard Blade. They're also love interests with each other, and very present in the ESO main story. You can choose one of them to die, but neither is the "canon" choice, and death means very little in ESO anyway because it's almost definitely in a Dragon Break. So basically we have a tall Redguard who can Shout and wants to go to Sovngarde, and in a game that takes place a thousand years earlier we have a very tall Nord woman who is mutually in love with a Redguard Dragonguard.

Who else is here due to the speed run record and didn’t even know this guy was a thing until today

What if they’re just mixed race? Nordic father and redguard mother, reason for the redguard appearance. As lore said mix racer races use mother’s features.

I feel like the theory here is more head canon than anything. But it makes nazir a little bit more cool.

I personally like the idea that the ebony warrior is a distant relative of Tiber Septim who was an incarnation of Shor. The idea being that they heavily value their bloodline and its ties to Tiber Septim a Nord, and may have picked up Talos worship in the process.

just subbed

I recall my first time legitimately beating him being really easy, as all I did was continuously stagger him with power attacks from a Dragonbone Greatsword enchanted with Chaos Damage. My most recent time, I think I just summoned atronachs to damage him until he took a knee, after which I shouted him off the cliff. I don’t remember that one as well since the highlight that game was Requiem’s Alduin. (250 levels of solid pain.)

have a good day 🎉 love you

My face when I power level like a mad man and reach level 81 in 5 hours.

But to be fair, the Redguard’s afterlife must be for those of both high importance and those who contributed enough to their society. Sovngarde is for the warrior’s that the Nords are, and I believe the Ebony Warrior has that same spirit that a warrior of the Nord has. So he wished to travel to the afterlife of the honorable and worthy warriors. Either that or he must have some genes that are from a Nord. But I think what you said may also be true.

I was always hoping there was a grand back story to The Ebony Warrior and this is a good one! But I suspect it's a Bethesda random stat/skill/model based on lvl 80 just so we have one last thing to do.

was waiting for you to say he shared the same face as Naz…. eem

19:47 Look at him. Look at this dude. This Bosmer piece o shiet. Me: *Opens inventory to take a sip out of 5.000 bottles of Sujamma and Mazte, puts on a specially enchanted amulet with 5.000+ Luck* Me then: "Never should have come here!" ... *Still gets oneshot by Gaenor* "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

I wish Bethesda gave this guy much more depth than what we have. Imagine if he had the most intimidating voice ever to mankind while giving the Dragonborn the most philosophical words ever 😂

I fucking love master neloth. He is such an advanced mage that he has a KZfaq channel in our world.

My personal pet theory is that the TES universe is actually a multiverse - not in the sense that there are different planes of existence, at least some of which go through cycles of death and rebirth, but in the sense that all possible timelines exist parallel to each other. I mean, that's basically what a Dragonbreak is, isn't it? Several timelines collapsing into one? Thus, everytime a Big Important Hero of Prophecy (likely a Shezzarine) shows up, there's one in every single parallel universe. We get to play some of them - all of which begin their journey in an identical worldstate - but there are other Heroes scattered throughout the lore. Why can no one agree which race Tiber Septim actually was? There was more than one of him. Why is there a female Khajiit version of Jurgen Windcaller? For the same reason, say, the Hero of Kvatch is simultaneously a male Argonian and a female Imperial, among every other combination of races and genders the game allows. And then there's the other worldstates. The world we inhabit in the games is one where the Nords have traditionally been the most devoted followers of Lorkhan/Shor, where they're the ones whose ancestors used to be giants compared to the other mortal races, the ones who are called into Shor's service upon death, and the ones who were gifted by Kyne with mastery of the Thu'um only Dragons and those of the Dragonblood could match. Now imagine an alternate timeline where all of this is true for the Redguards instead, and also they didn't "shrink" the way the Atmorrans did upon arriving in Skyrim, splitting into the Nords and the giants we see today. Enter that world's version of the Dragonborn, who upon fulfilling his destiny becomes so overpowered, his only options to secure his afterlife are apotheosis or finding someone who is as overpowered as he is - an alternate version of himself. So what does he do? He finds a way to hop between universes (possibly using a technique similar to the Walkabout), finds us, and challenges us to a duel. He purposefully never tells us who he is or what he did so we don't go universe hopping as well, potentially messing up the entire multiverse. We're left with some great loot and a lot of questions.

I think imma be around 16 or so when I gain level 80…but that will take a while.

Made me think

I wonder what would happen if you defeat the ebony warrior before you fight Alduin. Would you see him in Sovngarde?

Ebony warrior is probably big bc it looks cool. They probably put stuff in games and then pay an intern to weave it into lore

What if the ebony warrior is just a reflection of the player? Since we encounter him at level 80 and he summarises he has done everything there is to do… the same as the player most likely by that stage. Would be cool :)

My theory is that the Ebony Warrior is also Dragonborn. He originated in a completely different place perhaps after the player began their journey

I'm at level 277, and haven't done the sragonborn quest line yet

Theory After defeating all enemies and doing everything, The Dragonborn fought the last opponent left... Themself The Ebony Warrior is not actually a separate being, but is actually a manifestation of the player's soul Now, the Dragonborn sells their soul to every powerful being that passes, so, in this theory, the Ebony Warrior is just a portion of The Dragonborn's soul that is destined for Sovngarde. They appeared retaining all the honorable warrior traits of The Dragonborn, since that is what is valued to Sovngarde As for why he is a Redguard, it's quite simple really. The gods aren't racist, and Redguards have a lot of natural talent for martial combat, moreso than the Nords, despite the warrior heavy Nord culture Also, The Ebony Warrior is not mentioned anywhere else. If there was an adventurer that powerful, doing that much, you would've heard rumors at least And most likely (assuming this theory is correct), they'll continue to encounter extraordinarily powerful mortals who never seemed to exist before their encounter, each being another portion of The Dragonborn's soul. Perhaps they'll meet a Khajiit assassin who represents their sneaky, murderous aspects, destined to join Sithis. Or a Dunmer Wizard who represents their sheer chadliness, destined to remain chadly. Maybe a vampire who is their evil aspects destined for Molag Bal's realm. A werewolf destined for The Hunting Grounds. (And many others, the Dragonborn is kind of a soul sl*t okay?)

For all we know, the Ebony Warrior could be a halfbreed. In TES, children usually are the race of the mother, so the only certain thing we know, is that his mother most likely was a redguard. Maybe he was born to a mixed couple, like the one we meet in Dawnstar (I think). It could be, that one of his parents (most likely his father) was a Nord, who raised his son as such. That would explain, why the Ebony Warrior yearns for, and can be found in, Sovngarde: he's a Nord in basically everything but appearance. That could also explain, why he could use the Thu'um: even if it wouldn't be something inherent due to having Nordic blood, he could've been taught by the greybeards as a Nord. And even if not, it would be possible, that his Nord parent was taught how to use the voice, and then taught it to their son. And on the topic of the Great War, someone suggested, that the Ebony Warrior could be, I think it was the Forgotten Hero (? The PC from the game, where the Aldmeri Dominion uses the Orb of Vaermina, and the PC poses as the Emperor, after the real one sustained a terrible wound from an Assassin and couldn't lead his Army himself.)

Isn’t Miraak a breton? I could be wrong, just curious about a connection here

Since it's been established that mixed race children are the race of their mother, I still believe the most likely explanation for why he's a Redguard is his father is a Nord of some high standing who had a child with a Redguard woman and really just wants to meet his father in Sovngarde. A likely scenario is he is the bastard son of someone like (but not necessarily specifically) Ulfric, High King Torygg, or another Jarl past or present that also trained in the way of the voice and passed on his teachings to his son. It would explain his desire to succeed and to enter Sovngarde, since though he may look like a Redguard, he is just as much a Nord, and wants to join his father there.

He was supposed to be Ebonarm before ot was scrapped and then they repurposed the model to give us a strong boss battle at the endgame

Pretty good theory, except the fact, that he couldn’t of trained with the grey beards, at least I am pretty sure one of the grey beards say that ur the first person they’ve trained for a long time,

17:42 Must correct you there, the great war happend 30 years before TESV, not 20.

What if the ebony warrior is another protagonist who has done everything and decided to become a boss instead. And considering the dragonborn can be the champion of all daedric princes, the most likely result is that there will be a war in aetherius over their soul. Well, unless Akatosh has first dibs.

Me attaining level 80 easily with Legendary Illusion 6

I LOVE YOU

It's a shame you have not mention Imperial Knowledge's theory. He is quite prominent in the fields of lore.

Flame Atronachs are my weakness 😩😩😩

I fought him in town just to see what would happen.

Kinda like a wasted oportunity to add more lore for this character, ot at least use him in a quest, random encounter or stuff like that because the whole Redguard, human who can shout, absolute unit, Sovngarde, no quest/enemy left is very, intriguing I say, after all, the community likes this powerfull warrior, from lore perspective that is. I like to believe that the Ebony Warrior is related, somewhat, to TES 6 if indeed is located in Hammerfell. Either the Player Character, canon or not, or a very special ally within the game, or a major DLC chacater, especially with that line of "no quest to complete/enemy to defeat"

Master neloth, why do I hear knocking on my door?

Your theory makes me laugh Piecing together Skyrim laziness, same race and "they have unrevealed backstories" as definitive evidence is wild

I think hes an Ebony Nord, they just used a redguard model. Liie a reverse albino redguard

Brother, I hit level 80 back in 2010. game came out that year lol. Now I replay the game but only to about level 60 a run through. If it wasnt for anniversary edition this shit would be so boring to me.

he was never seen without his ebony armor ........he has red hair and blue eyes

Ah.... I remember sneaking up and one-shotting this dude with my enchantment stacked bow.

Master Neloth, have you heard of edging?

Let me tell you, those tree women will give you even more weird feelings down below with certain mods 😂

I always just assumed he was biracial, I.e nord mother, redguard father. And is just trying to prove himself nord to go to sovengarde.

I peeped my Favorite Skeleton follower in the intro. Good sneak.

Said the sexy epicnate hahah

I wonder if there’s a term on the gender/sexuality spectrum for those who are attracted to spriggans… #wood4wood? (I’ve never had twitter, but I feel like that’s probably already a thing. 🤣)

Does it feel like a swarm of bugs in your pants?

I'm usually with nate on this theorys but I think your's way better and more consistent, on this one, nate kinda gave way too much importance to CC content while they're not even canon nor have any substance, they are just extra content made by fans that are available to enjoy and that's all, also his other theory about ebonarm is just way to blend for me

Can you shout him off a cliff?

Did you just copy the other dudes video almost word for word?

Not every player likes Serena lol.

I've only fought him once and he was one of the few times I got killed in the game, I couldn't believe it. The first time I tried to kill him, I wasn't worried, I thought surely nothing can kill me anymore, I'm too OP. I was proven wrong lmao. Second time around I just grabbed a shitload of restore health and stamina potions, and paced myself. That fight took so long but it was great, can't wait to do it again on my main save on PC.

Karstaag > ebony warrior. Ebony warrior got wrecked in 4 hits by dawnbreaker.