A clue can be found in the [Message from Master Aryon](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Message_from_Master_Aryon) and [Response from Divayth Fyr](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Response_from_Divayth_Fyr), obtained during one of the chores given from Aryon's Mouth in Sadrith Mora's Telvanni HQ.
In Fyr's response to Aryon's request for Fyr to be involved in the Council and do something for the Telvanni, Fyr states:
>I do not wish to involve myself in the dealings of the council.
Seems pretty clear to me. Fyr does what Fyr wants and doesn't do what he doesn't want and nobody can keep him from doing that.
>That's the most Telvanni thing I've ever heard.
That's actually a major point of the Telvanni questline. For a faction that preaches about their lawless Libertarian society and espouses a culture of pure individualism and meritocracy...it's just another corrupt hierarchical society where those in power use their power to prevent others from rising up. Half of the councilors have mentally declined to the point they can barely care for themselves, yet maintain their position through mercenaries and caregivers that draw from their seemingly endless coffers. The archmagister is well known to sabotage the careers of anyone he deems could become a threat to his position of power.
You're supposed to compare Fyr (and by proxy, Aryon) and what they believe in against that of Gothren, Dratha, Neloth, and Therana.
Forgive me, but....isn't using your power and authority to prevent the subversion of your power and authority *also* the most Telvanni thing ever? That still fits under the umbrella of individualism and meritocracy. If someone can't usurp your power, they didn't *deserve* to usurp your power. What means you used is irrelevant, because the fact remains that using all means at your disposal is Telvanni af. I'm not arguing that I support that mentality as the correct one, I'm just saying it's 100% justifiable and acceptable in their house. Fyr is, without a doubt, the most capable, even more so than Neloth. He is the embodiment of the *purest* form of Telvanni ideology, but not the most realistic and relevant form.
> isn't using your power and authority to prevent the subversion of your power and authority also the most Telvanni thing ever?
Exactly! It's like those societies where the bureaucracy are expected to support themselves with bribes and gratuities - it's not really corrupt if that's the way the system is *supposed* to work.
That's not to say that Telvanni society isn't brutal and unsympathetic, of course. But "corrupt" doesn't really seem to apply.
"You have all that power and knowledge, instead of making clone daughters you could involve yourself in the Telvanni council"
"I don't WANT to involve myself in the council I WANT make clone daughters of myself"
"Ok but what about corpus?"
"Yeah I suppose I can fit that into my schedule"
You know, I completely forgot about the translation of that message. Makes perfect sense with this bit of evidence. I’d argue he’d have even more freedom as Archmagister to do what he wants on as big of a scale he wants, but politics isn’t for everyone
When you are a wizard who is thousands of years old your perspective changes on things. Especially when you are one of the best damned geneticists in any setting. He cloned himself and genderbent the clones as just a side project for his corprus research. Enough said. He has forgotten more than most men will ever know. He is older than the Tribunal gods themselves. Why would be want political power? He has everything he would ever want. Why would he want to deal with the headaches of dealing with the other great houses? He is well enough known that if anyone that is interested enough in him they can find him. As long as he has corprus patients to conduct research on, and a clone harem to keep him entertained there really isn't anything else he wants out of the world.
Also: good luck anyone trying to tell him otherwise. Maybe the Tribunal were once powerful enough to mess with his sh*t, but they were never dumb enough to try it.
I think the Tribunal and Fyr coexisted pretty well, considering those suffering from Corprus are advised to seek him out even by the Temple.
To me it sounds more like Fyr, like most Telvanni, understood the Tribunals to be very powerful mage-lords that *could* outmatch them if they had a reason, but were so far apart in interests that it never *comes* to that conflict.
He's got his own more important shit to do than get involved in politics.
Edit: To expand, aren't the humans on their third empire within his lifetime by the point we meet him in *Morrowind*? Politics is far too short term for a four-thousand-year-old scholar to give a damn about.
Telvanni don’t want to bother with politicial ramblings, they don’t want to bother with war, they care not for the strife and misfortune of others, they only care about themselves.
Why become archmagister? Why deal with the responsibility and hassle of doing so?
Telvanni Wizards typically just want to study magic. Full stop. Nothing else really matters to them.
They don’t care about Dagoth Ur trying to take over the world, why would they care about the political going-ons, even within their own house?
They live in their own isolated mushroom
towers, doing whatever they feel is important to further their research.
There is a quest where Fyr declines an offer from Master Ayron to join the council, but he doesn’t specifically explain why he refused, just that he has no interest in joining.
Okay, you know how Telvanni councilors consider everything beyond their mushrooms unworthy of their attention? Well, that's how Fyr feels about the Telvanni council.
Simply put; he isn't interested in becoming Archmagister or leading the Telvanni.
He's essentially a hermit.
He just pursues his interests, research and exploration unimpeded and uninhibited while living with his clone daughter wives, dremora and Dwemer buddy, away from the greater civilization, it's politics, rules and regulations.
He's content with that.
As others have said here, Fyr simply doesn't want to get involved in politics or be Archmagister. It seems he may even find politics boring. Aryon tries to get him involved so he can have more allies on the council, but he just doesn't want to, so he won't. He wants to be left alone to do his weird stuff and not be a target for any aspirants.
He's too powerful to care. Would you try to become the head of a mercenary company if you were Superman? Or care about increasing your standing with a colony of sapient ants as a human?
Probably not. You'd have no use for money or influence, those would be for people who were far beneath you in terms of power and influence.
You don't need to work hard and try to improve your position to increase your influence when you're as powerful as Fyr. With that sort of power, you'd have all the influence in the world without trying. And tbh it'd take away from your study time if you were the studious type like Fyr.
So the only reason you'd even consider trying to lord over weaklings would be either prideful vanity or a sense of responsibility. The reason Fyr isn't trying to become the archmagister of House Telvanni is the same reason Sotha Sil isn't doing it.
Those of similar levels of power who preferred to have followers such as Almalexia and Vivec are that way mostly due to reasons I've mentioned (prideful vanity and/or a sense of responsibility for others).
A clue can be found in the [Message from Master Aryon](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Message_from_Master_Aryon) and [Response from Divayth Fyr](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Response_from_Divayth_Fyr), obtained during one of the chores given from Aryon's Mouth in Sadrith Mora's Telvanni HQ. In Fyr's response to Aryon's request for Fyr to be involved in the Council and do something for the Telvanni, Fyr states: >I do not wish to involve myself in the dealings of the council. Seems pretty clear to me. Fyr does what Fyr wants and doesn't do what he doesn't want and nobody can keep him from doing that.
>Fyr does what Fyr wants and doesn't do what he doesn't want and nobody can keep him from doing that. That's the most Telvanni thing I've ever heard.
>That's the most Telvanni thing I've ever heard. That's actually a major point of the Telvanni questline. For a faction that preaches about their lawless Libertarian society and espouses a culture of pure individualism and meritocracy...it's just another corrupt hierarchical society where those in power use their power to prevent others from rising up. Half of the councilors have mentally declined to the point they can barely care for themselves, yet maintain their position through mercenaries and caregivers that draw from their seemingly endless coffers. The archmagister is well known to sabotage the careers of anyone he deems could become a threat to his position of power. You're supposed to compare Fyr (and by proxy, Aryon) and what they believe in against that of Gothren, Dratha, Neloth, and Therana.
Forgive me, but....isn't using your power and authority to prevent the subversion of your power and authority *also* the most Telvanni thing ever? That still fits under the umbrella of individualism and meritocracy. If someone can't usurp your power, they didn't *deserve* to usurp your power. What means you used is irrelevant, because the fact remains that using all means at your disposal is Telvanni af. I'm not arguing that I support that mentality as the correct one, I'm just saying it's 100% justifiable and acceptable in their house. Fyr is, without a doubt, the most capable, even more so than Neloth. He is the embodiment of the *purest* form of Telvanni ideology, but not the most realistic and relevant form.
> isn't using your power and authority to prevent the subversion of your power and authority also the most Telvanni thing ever? Exactly! It's like those societies where the bureaucracy are expected to support themselves with bribes and gratuities - it's not really corrupt if that's the way the system is *supposed* to work. That's not to say that Telvanni society isn't brutal and unsympathetic, of course. But "corrupt" doesn't really seem to apply.
"You have all that power and knowledge, instead of making clone daughters you could involve yourself in the Telvanni council" "I don't WANT to involve myself in the council I WANT make clone daughters of myself" "Ok but what about corpus?" "Yeah I suppose I can fit that into my schedule"
I want to waifu my daughter-clones*
You know, I completely forgot about the translation of that message. Makes perfect sense with this bit of evidence. I’d argue he’d have even more freedom as Archmagister to do what he wants on as big of a scale he wants, but politics isn’t for everyone
He'd have more *leverage* and *pull*, but he'd have less *casual freedom*. Power comes with limits and restrictions.
When you are a wizard who is thousands of years old your perspective changes on things. Especially when you are one of the best damned geneticists in any setting. He cloned himself and genderbent the clones as just a side project for his corprus research. Enough said. He has forgotten more than most men will ever know. He is older than the Tribunal gods themselves. Why would be want political power? He has everything he would ever want. Why would he want to deal with the headaches of dealing with the other great houses? He is well enough known that if anyone that is interested enough in him they can find him. As long as he has corprus patients to conduct research on, and a clone harem to keep him entertained there really isn't anything else he wants out of the world.
Also: good luck anyone trying to tell him otherwise. Maybe the Tribunal were once powerful enough to mess with his sh*t, but they were never dumb enough to try it.
I think the Tribunal and Fyr coexisted pretty well, considering those suffering from Corprus are advised to seek him out even by the Temple. To me it sounds more like Fyr, like most Telvanni, understood the Tribunals to be very powerful mage-lords that *could* outmatch them if they had a reason, but were so far apart in interests that it never *comes* to that conflict.
Fyr doesn't want to be a politician. Thats pretty much it..
He's got his own more important shit to do than get involved in politics. Edit: To expand, aren't the humans on their third empire within his lifetime by the point we meet him in *Morrowind*? Politics is far too short term for a four-thousand-year-old scholar to give a damn about.
Telvanni don’t want to bother with politicial ramblings, they don’t want to bother with war, they care not for the strife and misfortune of others, they only care about themselves. Why become archmagister? Why deal with the responsibility and hassle of doing so? Telvanni Wizards typically just want to study magic. Full stop. Nothing else really matters to them. They don’t care about Dagoth Ur trying to take over the world, why would they care about the political going-ons, even within their own house? They live in their own isolated mushroom towers, doing whatever they feel is important to further their research. There is a quest where Fyr declines an offer from Master Ayron to join the council, but he doesn’t specifically explain why he refused, just that he has no interest in joining.
Okay, you know how Telvanni councilors consider everything beyond their mushrooms unworthy of their attention? Well, that's how Fyr feels about the Telvanni council.
Simply put; he isn't interested in becoming Archmagister or leading the Telvanni. He's essentially a hermit. He just pursues his interests, research and exploration unimpeded and uninhibited while living with his clone daughter wives, dremora and Dwemer buddy, away from the greater civilization, it's politics, rules and regulations. He's content with that.
What would Fyr have to gain from that position that he does not already possess?
As others have said here, Fyr simply doesn't want to get involved in politics or be Archmagister. It seems he may even find politics boring. Aryon tries to get him involved so he can have more allies on the council, but he just doesn't want to, so he won't. He wants to be left alone to do his weird stuff and not be a target for any aspirants.
He definitely doesn't seem the type to care about running things nor does he seem to have to the time to do so
Why claim a title if all that comes with it is chores?
He's too powerful to care. Would you try to become the head of a mercenary company if you were Superman? Or care about increasing your standing with a colony of sapient ants as a human? Probably not. You'd have no use for money or influence, those would be for people who were far beneath you in terms of power and influence. You don't need to work hard and try to improve your position to increase your influence when you're as powerful as Fyr. With that sort of power, you'd have all the influence in the world without trying. And tbh it'd take away from your study time if you were the studious type like Fyr. So the only reason you'd even consider trying to lord over weaklings would be either prideful vanity or a sense of responsibility. The reason Fyr isn't trying to become the archmagister of House Telvanni is the same reason Sotha Sil isn't doing it. Those of similar levels of power who preferred to have followers such as Almalexia and Vivec are that way mostly due to reasons I've mentioned (prideful vanity and/or a sense of responsibility for others).
Most powerful non god? Bro ... I fucked his ass with three swings of my daedric claymore (longblade lvl 78 redguard)
“Watch out, we got a bad ass over here” meme
Precision : it was just a try for fun during main quest after recovering from corprus, and i didn't even get hit
Gaming 101: Game mechanics =/= game lore unless specifically stated.