"By Azura, by Azura, by Azura!"
If you just felt a localized spike in your blood pressure or a sudden urge to jump off the highest peak of Dive Rock, you’ve probably spent time in Cyrodiil. Specifically, you’ve spent time with the Adoring Fan from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Released in 2006, Bethesda’s massive RPG gave us a lot of things. It gave us a crumbling empire, Patrick Stewart’s voice for about ten minutes, and a horse armor DLC that basically invented the modern microtransaction nightmare. But more than anything, it gave us a squat, yellow-haired Bosmer who simply would not shut up.
The phrase "by Azura, by Azura, by Azura" is more than just a bit of dialogue. It’s a linguistic fossil from a specific era of gaming where NPC interaction was starting to get weird. Honestly, it’s arguably the first true "gaming meme" of the HD era.
The Origins of the Obsession
To understand why this phrase stuck, you have to look at the context of the game. You've just become the Grand Champion of the Arena. You've fought through blood, sand, and those weirdly overpowered minotaurs. You step outside, expecting glory, and instead, you get him.
The Adoring Fan is a reward. Or a curse. It depends on how much patience you have for a character who follows you into literal hell (the Oblivion gates) just to stand there and watch you get mauled by a Daedroth.
His greeting—"By Azura, by Azura, by Azura! It's the Grand Champion! I can't believe it's you! Standing here! Next to me!"—is delivered with a frantic, breathy desperation that felt revolutionary at the time. Bethesda was leaning hard into their "Radiant AI" system. They wanted characters to feel alive. Instead, they created a stalker.
Azura, for the uninitiated, is one of the Daedric Princes. She’s the Queen of the Night Sky, associated with dusk and dawn. In the lore of The Elder Scrolls, she’s actually one of the "good" ones, or at least one of the more merciful. But the Adoring Fan’s repetition of her name makes it sound less like a prayer and more like a nervous tic.
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Why the Dialogue Grates (and Works)
Why do we remember "by Azura, by Azura, by Azura" twenty years later?
It’s the cadence. The voice actor, Craig Sechler, deserves some kind of award for "Most Efficiently Annoying Performance." He hits the "Azura" with a rising inflection that sounds like a tea kettle about to whistle.
In Oblivion, the dialogue windows zoomed directly into the NPC’s face. You were trapped. You couldn't move your camera. You just had to stare into those vacant, adoring eyes while he cycled through his three-hit combo of worship.
Variation was the enemy here. While modern games like Red Dead Redemption 2 or The Last of Us Part II use "bark" systems to ensure characters don't repeat themselves too often, Oblivion was primitive. If you talked to him ten times, you heard the name of the Daedric Prince thirty times.
It became a psychological test.
Most players eventually snapped. Because the Adoring Fan is essential to the Arena questline, he respawns. You can’t truly kill him. Players started getting creative. They would lead him to the top of the Jerall Mountains and use the "Paintbrush glitch" to build stairs into the sky, then leave him there. Or they’d lead him into a den of vampires.
No matter what you did, three days later, he’d be back at the Arena entrance.
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"By Azura, by Azura, by Azura!"
The Starfield Connection and the Meta-Joke
For years, this phrase lived on in YouTube "poop" videos and forum signatures. We thought it was buried in the 2000s. Then came Starfield.
When Bethesda announced the "Hero Worshipped" trait for their space epic, the collective gaming community felt a chill. They brought him back. Craig Sechler returned to voice the character, and while he’s technically a different person in a different universe, the DNA is identical.
In Starfield, the phrase is a wink to the veterans. It’s Bethesda acknowledging that they know exactly how annoying they made him. But interestingly, in the cold vacuum of space, the "by Azura" line feels like a relic of a lost religion. In the Elder Scrolls universe, Azura is a living goddess who occasionally talks to you through a statue. In Starfield, it’s just a weird thing a guy says.
This kind of meta-commentary is what keeps the phrase alive. It’s a secret handshake for people who remember when "Bloom lighting" was the height of technology.
The Lore Behind the Name
Let's get nerdy for a second. Why Azura? Why not "By Akatosh" or "By the Nine"?
Azura is the patron deity of the Dunmer (Dark Elves), but she’s widely respected across Tamriel. She represents transition. The transition from day to night, from mystery to knowledge.
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There’s a subtle irony in the Adoring Fan using her name. Azura is often depicted as beautiful, aloof, and powerful. The Fan is... none of those things. He is the static in the signal. By invoking her name three times, he’s mimicking the ritualistic nature of Daedric worship, but he’s applying it to a guy who probably just spent the last four hours jumping in circles to level up his Acrobatics skill.
How to Handle the "Adoring" Presence Today
If you’re playing Oblivion on a modern PC or through backwards compatibility on Xbox, you might find yourself facing the yellow-haired menace for the first time.
Don't just kill him. It's too easy.
Instead, use him as a pack mule. He has no combat skills. He will run away the second a mudcrab looks at him sideways. But he can carry your spare armor.
If you really want to lean into the "By Azura" meme, there are mods that turn his dialogue into a choir. There are mods that replace every texture in the game with his face. The internet has spent two decades processing the trauma of this character through digital art and chaos.
Honestly, the best way to experience it is to just let it happen. Let him follow you. Listen to the line. Realize that in a world of world-ending dragons and demonic invasions, the most persistent force in the universe is just a guy who really, really likes you.
Moving Beyond the Meme
The legacy of "by Azura, by Azura, by Azura" teaches us something about game design. People don't remember the balanced combat or the efficient UI. They remember the friction. They remember the things that annoyed them, the things that stood out, and the things that felt humanly "off."
The Adoring Fan is a masterclass in intentional (or perhaps happy-accidental) irritation. He’s the precursor to characters like Fallout 4’s Preston Garvey. "Another settlement needs your help" is just the sci-fi version of "By Azura."
Practical Next Steps for Fans and Players:
- Revisit the Arena: If you have an old save, go to the Imperial City Arena. Re-trigger the dialogue just to hear the specific pitch of the third "Azura." It’s a masterclass in voice acting.
- Check the Starfield Trait: If you’re playing Starfield, pick the Hero Worshipped trait on a new character. It changes the dynamic of the game by giving you a crew member who literally cannot be discouraged.
- Deep Dive the Lore: Look into the "Trial of Azura" or her role in Morrowind. It provides a hilarious contrast to the way the Adoring Fan throws her name around like a cheap curse word.
- Embrace the Annoyance: Next time you’re annoyed by a repetitive NPC in a modern game, remember the Bosmer. We’ve come a long way, but some things—like a fan’s obsession—never truly change.