I was just doing the peace treaty quest and randomly Delphine and Esbern want me to kill Paarthurnax. I find it ridiculous there is no option to say no, Paarthurnax is actually really cool and I refuse to kill him. Has anyone stumbled upon this situation? What did you do? And what can I do?

Edit and say there are spoilers first since this is general discussion. Or ask for it to be moved to the cheats, hints section. Thanks

I took out my answer because of spoilers I may have included. This thread is in the wrong forum.

Yep this, but to answer you vaguelly, he did things in the past that he shouldn't have, if you read the dialogue instead of skipping through it tells you this

Reading is important, this goes for ingame dialogue and forum rules!!

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1149624-do-not-post-spoilers-in-this-board/page__view__getnewpost

*possible spoilers*

The blades for some reason don't believe in change or second chances. Par. clearly has changed his ways but they are too naive to see this or want to see this. They believe since the blades are dragon slayers all dragons must die; no matter their morals. Very ignorant people, Esbern and Delphine. They would rather sacrifice a great asset, one who not only aided you in finding the ES but also changed his own life to the greater,thenn let a dragon live. I just don't agree.

Uh that is an old post talking about leaks before the game was released, this is not a leak.

Dude HUGE F*ckin SPOILER WTF!

Post in the right section for Christ sakes.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1149624-do-not-post-spoilers-in-this-board/

The Blades have been on the same side as dragons before. Tell them that they can take the oath they've been ignoring for the past thousand years and screw off.

Thanks for the Spoiler.

This pissed me off. Arrogant bastards. What would you rather have at your side? A badass dragon or a pair of mortals [censored]es stuck in the past? They say they serve you, but refuse to help more until you have killed him. The blades time is over... don't kill him

Guys let this die. Think of all the guests here or members who had no idea about this, and now had it ruined thanks to the op not posting in spoilers section. There's plenty of members willing to answer your broad question in the SPOILERS section. Seriously, this is crap.

Just typing in "what happens if I" brings up kill parthx whatchamacallit on google.

I'm sorry I posted and didn't think more about that when answering. My bad. Those who observed this is in the wrong forum are absolutely correct and by answering I didn't help.
I'm going to edit my answer now.

Because he deserves to die. I'n not sure if you can really make amends for genocide.

Thankfully, you do get the option to at least tell Arngeir that you will not kill Paarthurnax at some point. Too bad there doesn't seem to be any option to tell Delphine to take her own genocidal zeal and try emigrating to Akavir.

*Sigh.*

Because Parthuurnax struggles everyday with his destructive dragon nature, because he was Alduin's right-hand man who did some really terrible things to mainkind during the Dragon Wars, because the Blades slay dragons, because that's what you're supposed to do as the Dragonborn, because the Blades can't get up to the Throat of the World due to their lack of Thu'um, and because, most importantly, "nice" is different than "good."

Now, I don't see why there had to be another topic on this. There are perhaps a hundred other topics on this and how awful the Blades are for upholding their oaths.

Options would still be good. I would have liked the option to respond the way I wanted to when faced with this demand - especially when Delphine has been written so blustery and unpleasant. Now we just have a perpetual state of blanking each other. Rather unsatisfying.

Say no and leave those idiot "blades"

I love how everyone gets melodramatic over spoilers. Yeah he was a dumb-dumb for posting a quest spoiler outside the spoiler section. Cut the Broadway play and get off the soapbox, you're not as offended as you're acting to be, and if you are, you need other priorities going for you.


As for the question, you can just never talk to them again. It's not the same as saying no but it's as close as you can get. The Blades don't care about oaths or they would be ticked at you using Odahviing, who not only killed in the past but during the MQ he kills a guard in a scripted attack so he's actually worse than paarthurnax who hasn't killed in over 5,000 years and seeks redemption.

The Blades want vengeance, even though their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great (insert near infinite string here) ancestors weren't even part of that dragon war. They're looking for a cause since they have nothing to do, they're old and dying out. Boohoo.

The key is anolyzing the dialogue:

Delphine says that the Blades after centuries of being without a guide, they have found a Dragonborn AND a purpose.

The purpose is clear: being dragon hunters like the original Akaviri members of the order who came to Tamriel. To them, Dragonborn is both a symbol of their mission and a tool, a means to reach the goal.

In my view, the Dragonborn is forcefully enlisted in their ranks on the (flawled) opinion that since (s)he's able to absorb dragon souls he must make a point of using this gift for dragon hunting no matter what are the subject opinion on the matter. In their views, Dragon must be erased at all cost, no matter if the Dragon in question was 'converted' by a God and it was the first one teaching the Th'um to men.

This latter part is especially interesting because the Blades seems to discard the good things Paathurnax has done and the fact that a God (Kyne) was involved in his conversion. Their way of acting is blasphemous in addition to be irrational.

The desire to kill Paarthurnax goes beyond Delphine and Esbern. There's an old Blade dossier on possible leftover dragons from the dragon wars. Paarthurnax is one of them. It mentions how it'd rather avoid direct confrontation with the Greybeards. On that note, Bethesda has written these two factions as having a some kind of rivalry with each other, but it hasn't delved into it much (yet). First with that comment in the dossier, second from little snippets with Delphine's dialogue (she's a bit annoyed or something when mentioning Greybeards), and lastly, Arngier's own words about them.

Should be an option to kill Delphine, or have her fight Par. herself since she's quick to give the order.

I wish we could merge all of the Paarthunax topic into one; it'd make everything so much easier.
Basically, Paarthunax helped Alduin originally and slaughter many people, so Delphine & Esbern want him dead because of what he has done in the past. You don't have to kill him, but the quest will remain in your quest log.


I don't think Delphine or Esbern would be able to go up to the Throat of the World and fight Paarthunax, which is why they ask the Dovahkiin to do it.

Why not? I'd use Clear Skies to open the path for them and ref the match. They win and I'll absorb his soul. They lose and... I get an awesome new base to rebuild the Blades the way I want to.