I just don't seem to have the ability to play as a deliberately created character as I know many other people do. So inevitably, I am a version of 'me' living in a fantasy world. I cannot un-know things, so I incorporate knowledge of the former TES games I've played into my limited RP as 'reincarnation'. But back to the topic...

Do you think an ordinary citizen in Tamriel faced with Alduin eating the world would react differently to an 'ordinary' Earthling faced with an impending, world ending meteorite collision? I can relate to the idea of a 'good death' in dying while at least trying to not die when faced with hopeless, planet-ending destruction, but wouldn't most people just want to 'spend time with their loved ones'?


Paarthurnax must surely care something for the world since he has acted to influence world changing events in a way that has so far at least forestalled the ending of the world. And he has chosen to hang out with the Greybeards in modern/current times, not any Emperors or their governments or their agents (Blades).

Yeah, I think I've missed something about him/his agenda there. Not sure what it is. He didn't rebel against Alduin though just because of humans. Alduin stepped over his bounds as "world eater", and starting equating himself with akatosh. The whole god thing the Nords laid upon him got to his head, I guess. Paarthurnax never exactly apologizes about his own or original sense of purpose though. "I am as Akatosh made me." It makes it sound like he thought he was simply doing his job. edit: And if it was his job, that svcks. More the reason why humans should fight. The original three heroes who fought Alduin didn't trust him either. Maybe it was because of this.

The Greybeards have every right to be "pacifist hippies". Have you seen what happens NEARLY EVERY SINGLE TIME mortals obtain power? Yes, yes some mortals used it for good or at least to preserve the planet. But by and large most have used it for destruction, even when they're painted as the heroes.


-Tiber Septim used the thu'um to aid in purging the Elves alongside his 500 companions. Yes, the Snow elves drew blood first (partly because of another destructive power hidden in saarthal), but he went on to nearly massacre their entire species, for which the rest were driven underground.

-The dwarves used their power and technology to subjugate the snow elves and forever poison their lineage.

-Consequently, the Dwarves misused (allegedly) the heart of a God and certain other artifacts, and now their entire race is gone.

-The elder scroll banished Alduin, but it also damaged the time line. Alduin later returns as foretold (because the Greybeards are right, you can note escape fate completely).

-Fast forward to the College of Winterhold digging up the eye of magnus, and of course, that being abused by Ancano (The Thalmor having also sought to abuse the power of the of the dragon priests, amongst other powerful artifacts).

-Consequently Morokei is also discovered to have used his power and influence to make one of the final stands at the Labryinth, and uses the staff of magnus (which the thalmor also seek).

-Rahgot's Dragon cult held out at Forelhost, eventually intoxicating the place after a mass suicide and murder of their own children. The dragon priest masks in general were powerful artifacts granted to mortals by dragons.


There's also of course Ulfric and the Markarth incident, and a dozen+ other situations in Skyrim (even more in Morrowind/Oblivion) of case by case where people got a hold of power and corrupted it or it corrupted them, and thus having them create disasters and misery.


So yes it's easy now to say "No one wants the world to end, the Greybeards are too weak", but when you consider that

1. Every race has nearly exterminated its own kind if not the whole planet, and with those odds, it's simply a matter of time before the world does finally end (much like real life).

2. Not withstanding real world factors like continuation of the series, but purely from a lore perspective, crap happens like it or not. You are the Dragonborn even if you avoid the Main Quest, you can't not be. You are fated to battle Alduin (even if you personally never do on your character), just like it was fate with the events that lead up to the game as is like the white-gold concordact.

If the world is meant to end, the Greybeards having seen the prophecy of the Dragonborn already come to pass, can logically deduce that they are powerless against time and fate. So why stand around screaming and hollering and trying to end the world faster by flaunting power?

That's life, my friend. In all it's ugly splendor. The important thing is that mortals should be able to grow ---- or destroy themselves with their own hand. Not fates, or gods, demons, or their apparent "betters" (dragons).

id also like to point out that before the situation of this game featuring the dragonborn...Paar was pretty much the only dragon alive in excitence. So him being the very last dragon and all the other dragons got hunted down, i see him up top the throat of the world were no normal mortal can get to and meditates to suppress his primal urges to dominate more outta survival than anythign really. I mean, look at all his fellow dragons, were did there urges to go out and attack the mortals get them? Also kinda seems strange that during this time of him hiding out for his survival basically that thuum users comes across him and with the guidence of Paar, pretty much recreates a "dragon cult" that preaches to not use the thuum which were used against the dragons AND what was able for the nortals to take down the dragons...to not use it as a weapon.

Remember, Paar isnt the one that started to teach the mortals to use the thuum as a weapon, the thuum was a quite common weapon that was used by MANY, BUT Paar is the one that is behind the teachings of that weapon used by many to not be used as a weapon at all.

Paarthurnax was the one who started to teach humans how to shout under the guidance of the Goddess Kyne. It was Jurgen Windcaller who founded the teachings of The Way of the Voice.

I was interested to see some dialogue today where Arngeir describes Delphine's desire to have Paarthurnax killed by the Dragonborn as "malice", and immediately after this Esbern describes it as "an old grudge". Seems it's really only Delphine that's adamant that killing Paarthurnax is necessary.

It isn't just Delphine. People think she's pulling all of this out of her hat, but she's just a soldier, who takes her "order" and "history" seriously (maybe too seriously). There's a sort of dossier in sky haven temple written by blades that precede her, and it has Paarthurnax on their hit list, so to speak. I think she's just trying to follow in this tradition.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Atlas_of_Dragons


Anyways, what I think it might all amount to is that the war with Alduin isn't over. And in the future, you can choose to have a force of people to help you end it, or maybe have Paarthurnax and friends (not sure on that. He does help fight Alduin once at least. Not sure about a whole war. I think he'd be useless though if tried to be peaceful in that kind of situation).

Delphine found a few very old books in Sky Haven and seemingly made them her purpose. This part of The Blades' history is very old and does not appear to have been relevant to the organization of the Blades during their time as the protectors of the Septim Emperors. She wants to erase all that has happened since almost mythical times, and go back to The Blades when 'The Blades' weren't even from around here... Plus she doesn't even get the Dragonborn to run her up to Paarthurnax to hear his side of things. I find her self imposed tunnel vision, and her lack of any option to have more information given to her to be signs of a fanatical, not quite balanced mind. Even if she was right and Paarthurnax committed completely unforgivable crimes in the past and intends to do so again, she has handled this situation so badly by being a fanatic that she still doesn't deserve any support.

I can't really argue with you. She does have tunnel vision.

The only reason I'd complete her request would be for entirely different reasons than she says. Although, I'm happy to have a character that doesn't do it either.

As for the age of these texts, they are de facto "Blades" texts. Note that it refers to the Akaviri Dragonguard as it's predecessors. I think this whole confusion is really a matter of Bethesda sort of redefining what the Blades are to begin with. You sort of have to roll with it.

It is all about them, is it not? It is never about you. People who have hope when they see you are bad people. All you ever wanted is to talk about fate. Then you run into them and they are the bad ones, because they want you to shut up.

Pacifism has one advantage: you can watch yourself burn and claim it not to be your fault! The moment you feel the flames eating you will you begin to scream and struggle to survive. This is what pacifism does to you. It lets you realize that your actions come too late and you should have done something sooner. You could have fought the flames before they got to you.

And yes, you can act wrong, too. But while you make mistakes and before it is too late can you learn from them. Pacifism means that you fear your own actions more than you fear death.

Letting go of pacifism and using your powers does not mean that you have to rage and rain death upon everyone.

In my story do the Greybeards now sit on a mountain in the cold without a dragon. They can train their Thu'um now without their master. See how they will carry on the knowledge of the Thu'um.

And do not worry about a second ending of the world. Should a similar situation arise where mankind is doomed do we still have time travel.

I think there's something to be said for the writing as you get into the main quest being complex enough to give both choices some justifications. This is why I think Delphine is not as strong a character as she should have been, because her 'cardboard cutout-ness' or one dimensionalness (is that even a word?) weakens the complexity. I think the people thinking Paarthurnax is potentially evil could, and have, justified their argument simply with the post Alduin death line where Paarth says the rest of the dohv will "bow to the rightness of my thu'um". I personally don't find that too ominous, since dragons tend to speak assertively, but the cool thing is so much is open to individual interpretation, and whatever a player chooses can feel morally sound.

I imagine the Atlas and other books in Sky Haven Temple would have to be copies of accounts dating back to the dragon war when the first dragons in it are killed. It's a bit like Delphine decided in our 21st Century to take up some ancient Greek doctrine because she has Greek ancestry, but you are right, we will get more out of the story if we roll with it. Beth probably feels there's an expectation that they must add new lore with every game and expansion, and I suppose this is right, but I'd be happy to go back to: 'no word is true until it is eaten', and I've not eaten any Temrielic books lately. The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

Any stronger and you will only get more complaints about how evil the Blades are.

A magic, wise and old dragon on a mountain works great to take stress of a player in making decisions and better than anything else. You cannot beat this. The Blades simply lack this and are not more than a secret organization. So even if you made Delphine like a mother to the players would it still not be able to beat the support the players get from knowing that there is one big bad dragon on the mountain who might help them.

Maybe the Dark Brotherhood should have killed Paarthurnax and the Blades should have killed the Emporer, but where would be the fun?

By 'stronger' I mean a more developed character and less one dimensional. I kinda don't appreciate that a so-called 'strong woman' is written to be so inflexible, stubborn and unpleasant. Strong female characters can, and have, been done better.

Did you notice that Paarthurnax does not have any bones at his place? All the other dragons have bones of mammoths, trolls and humans lying around. Even as a human does one need to admit that dragons have to eat something, right? But Paarthurnax's place is clean, no bones, no blood, nothing.

You want to blame it on Delphine? Sounds to me more like you just want to blame it on someone or just anyone.

If anything then it is Paarthurnax who is out of place. I am not saying he is a bad dragon - he is a game element that some players cling onto all too easily. The "World of Warcraft effect" ...

Take a look at Whiterun, walk up all that pretty water and even there can you find a skeleton in the water basin. You would not want to drink from that water unless you are really very thirsty, right? Many places have a good and a bad side to them even when it is only a little.

Let Paarthurnax feast on some corpses, too. Maybe a few dead Stormcloaks and Imperials of equal amounts, and let Paarthurnax explain to the player that they were already dead and he is just clearing the battle fields before the corpses begin to rot.

The only dirt on Paarthurnax one can find is that what the Blades dig up. It will always be an easy option to blame the Blades and to make Paarthurnax look as clean as fresh fallen snow.

But then again, maybe this was all intentional by Bethesda.

all i can say is that im happy that Bethesda is rolling with these "either choice side A or side B" scenarios. Yes there are faulty writing BUT dammit bethesda's finally giving us some thought provacking decisions and u can tell they at least trying to take from the good of FONV as far as storywriting. they aint there yet,.................dammit then i just remembered all the guild questlines.....i enjoyed them but im gonna shut up now...

Well, Delphine didn't perform the "Black Sacrament" to have Paarthurnax killed. If she did, and I received such instructions from Sithis via the Night Mother, such would have been done. It's another job. But she did not. So not being one to wantonly kill things for fun (except for Thalmor -- but they're enemy combatants) or simply because someone said so Paarthy lives. And since there are no bones up there doesn't mean he's pure. It just means there are no bones up there. There are bones strewn all over other places besides the dragon lairs. Everyone has to eat. But he sleeps.

I also believe that Alduin is not really dead. We just sent Alduin back to Akatosh.

But if Martin Septim had let my CoC handle Mehrunes Dagon instead of smashing the amulet of Kings we wouldn't have been in this mess. Mehrunes Dagon would have been defeated and banished back to Oblivion. Why? Because the CoC was doing more damage to him than he was to the CoC -- in fact he was doing no damage to the CoC (reflect damage 125%, reflect magic 100%)

I suppose in Martin's Case, he's the only one can truly "shut the gates of Oblvion". That's his destiny I guess, just like we're the only ones who can consume dragons.


I agree though about the writing here though. As much as I complain about the faults, I can't argue it's thought provoking.

Have to agree with all your points! The entire endgame in Oblivion I was gnashing my teeth and screaming *something disallowed* Martin - LET ME DO IT!!!! But of course he didn't.... *sigh*

I also believe that Alduin is an aspect of Akatosh, just as Paarthurnax is also an aspect of him. Akatosh is represented by the dragon.

Also The Blades have another problem. I see people talking about books in Sky Haven. What books? There are no books in Sky Haven Temple. Well at least not now. Nor are there any books in Delphine's hideout in Riverwood anymore......... because this little girl went in and stole all of them. Bad little girl. Bad little girl.

RE: Mehrunes Dagon -- I wonder if I'd used the Razor on him and scored the banish hit? I've broken games before.

Be cool if stealing Delphine's books meant that she never gets obsessed with killing Paarthurnax.

If you were seriously asking what books are in Skyhaven Temple because you no longer have them (I suspect you aren't), then there's the one already linked in this thread - Atlas of Dragons, plus Remanada, Effects of the Elder Scrolls, Flight From the Thalmor and Dragon Language: Myth No More, to name some of the rarer ones. Atlas of Dragons doesn't actually show up in the game until well after you have met Paarthurnax in the MQ.

Also from the dialogue of Delphie and mainly Esphern when u first enter the temple, the blades history, oaths, and im having brainfart...but it was all done orally and taught t the fresh recruits. So while we may only see some books and say that delphie got all of it from books when we should also putin there that they got these ideas from orally as well. I believe it was espbern that said that i forgot what that every blade used to have memorized and such.

I don't understand the issue here.

A man/woman in their early 20's goes out with a gang and murders several families in their city. Their leader gets arrested and they run away into the mountains. 60 years later they offer aid to someone on the mountain and later the law finds out this 80 year old man/woman murdered tons of people 60 years ago. Of course they are going to come after you. When questioned the person states "I fight the urge to kill everyday, but I have changed".

Needless to say there are consequences to your actions no matter how old you are or how much you have changed. By keeping Paarrhurnaxx alive your an accessory to murder and no different than Alduin. At least Paarthurnaxx can die knowing he did everything he could to make up for the thousands of lives he took.

I am pro capital punishment, and gave this more thought than I really should have, since if it were a pedophile or sadistc serial killer instead of a Dragon I wouldn't hesitate to go for execution. I would consider it more of societal self defence, not revenge, but then I went *bah*, it's good to put some thought into these decisions, but ultimately I'm playing for the fantasy, not exactly wanting to think of RL child killers.

Paarthurnax is a dragon. He's immortal, and has already lived an incomprehensibly long time. He's not exactly someone/something that can be easily related to in mortal, human terms. I agree there should be and have been consequences to his actions. As for any further consequences, just who is qualified to decide? If he attacked me, I'd have to decide on the spot, but otherwise I think it's a pretty self-important act to go executing an ancient, seemingly helpful, son of Akatosh in cold blood...

only problem is the whole reason we believe he is redeemable is that hes been on the mountain mediating to supress his primal needs of dominance and then right after we take care of Alduin, Paars off to go dominating "The dragons will bow before the rightousness of my Way of the Voice or thuum" i forget which but basically once we take care of alduin, hes no longer medating and off dominating again the very thing hes been suppressing for all these years. Also its goood to point out that a few things. one is that Paar didnt side with the mortals because of thier plight, its more along the lines that alduin was overstepping his boundaries and raising himself higher and trying to be a 'god" instead of king of the dragons and my opionion continues to help us because when he got throw out of time by the elder scroll, he didnt change and i think got pretty much ported to the future. so basically paar understands the effects of the scrolls pretty damn well to were Alduin wasnt "banished" so to say for 5000 years but pretty much thrown into the future. Paar helps us yet again because Alduin is still the same wanting to throw off the "king of dragons" role and become a "god" so Paar steps in to help us mortals "the only ones who can take down Alduin, we mortals are the only ones who can weild the weapon that can hurt Alduin" so that basically when Alduin is taken care of and disposed of, Paar can take on his older brother's role as king of the dragons which he makes perfectly clear when Alduin is outta the picture.

So basically Paar has helped us save the world twice now but its not because of our plight or salvation, but mroe along the lines straightning out the heirachy of the dragosn mainly. I mean his reason and the mortals reason for fighting were different thats why the original mrtals paar helped didnt trust him and the other dragons and wouldnt include them in their meetings or let them know about the weapon or when they were goign to use it.

Now that Paar's whoel reason for saving the mortal race to take on Alduin since only the mortals are able to, i see that he stepped in at first to help them learn the words of the voice as seeign the mrotals as weaposn to help him and after they took down Alduin, Paar knows Alduin isnt totally defeated yet and its not his time to sdestroy everything, he sets and waits and suppresses his urges for his survivability seeing hwo all the other dragosn got hunted down. He ides out on the mountain and lo and behold Jurgen comes up to that very spot to ponder on the direction for the way of the voice. Seeing how the thuum is used as a very common weapon and the same weapon that could wipe out Paar and his dragons race when in the future alduin raises all the dragons and paar dominates them, the mortals will stand up and wipe the dragosn out yet again since the thuum is so commonly used, he goes about persuading Jurgen to basically teach and train people to not use the voice as a weapon to insure the survivablity of his race in the future when he takes over. I believe that the dragosn taught the mortals the thuum to use them as cannon fodder seeing how they were easily defeated by dragosn before and didnt anticipate the mass amount of mortals that would eventually be able to use and basically turned the mortals into at that moment allys but in the future future enemies, he sets about to puttign the playign field in his favor by trying to get people to not use the voice as a weapon AND basically having that sect that teaches and trains to not use the thuum as a weapon as the only place that can use the thuum. So that whenthe last dragonborn is spat out into creation there is but one place to go and learn the voice and its fundamentals and values are created by paar, the reason why the draonborn is even excemplemt is because he is the only oen that will be able to learn the shout that takes Alduin down without having to spend his entire life learning it.

All speculationa nd in no way IS Canon, but just my personal opionion on what MAY have been behind the motives of what has gone on. Im not right, this is just speculation. But that my reasoning behind Paar and why i dont fuilly trust him. His reasons for helping are different than our own.