The last? remember this cycle repeats itself over and over again. once every century or so a new dragonborn is brought forth, as people from the past say "let the future take care of the futures problems" Remember, though Paarthurnax is the second oldest they don't respect his Thuume' the way they do the Dovakin. Alduin can't be resurrected either because no one knows that shout to resurrect, the ending is open to interpretation no doubt but I wonder if there is a way to chose which way you want to go about doing this I.E. join the imperials or storm cloaks kind of scenario.

I'm not defending the Blades, but didn't Parthy admit that he struggles with being a bad guy on a daily basis? He deals with it through meditation and all that. If the urge is too strong DAILY for a long, long, long time... it's never a good thing, is it?
It's almost inevitable that someday he might turn evil, with a huge dragon alliance.

I suppose it just depends on how you want to take your chances; for the time being, it's nice having a wise dragon for a friend.
Future tense, someone else can deal with it if Parthy loses his cool.
If he never does, then I guess he never needed to die.

You mentioned everything but The Way of the Voice in your metaphor. Your super-Stalin wasn't alive through all these years, resisting urge to rule over the world. Of course he could be lying, and he was peacefull in all those years just to take Alduin's seat. That would mean The Greaybeards are bunch of blind morons and the prophecy of Alduin eating the world is a [censored]. Very unlikey, so I guess Paarthumnax will stick to his Way.

Also keep in mind, that dragons of Tamriel have different way of thinking as they are immortal. Why would Paarthumnax want to conquer Tamriel, if he knew, that one day Alduin will return and take his seat back? Also forcing other dragons to follow The Way of the Voice would mean, that they won't follow Alduin blindly again.

Im not too sure.
You could say that every human struggles with evil on a daily basis too.
And also that Paarthunax is a better person than most humans when it comes to evil deeds, as he doesnt do any for thousands of years. He's been on top of that mountain, meditating, teaching while the rest of humanity is littering, jaywalking and some of them a bigger evil sometimes like a murder.

That's stretching it kinda thin, to say everyone "struggles" with being good or evil on a daily basis.
Even if you said humanity struggles with it, it's still too vague.

I don't have a problem NOT hitting an old lady with my truck, with NOT stealing something from a store, or running a chainsaw through some dude's gut. I don't think about it, it doesn't taunt (or haunt) me, and I certainly don't need a form of counseling or meditation to convince myself that maybe it's a bad idea.

It just seems Parthy is really wrestling with it, which doesn't give me that "solid" feeling about him. I hate the Blades, don't get me wrong. I'm just looking at it from another perspective. He's had some serious war crimes, which is also difficult to forgive--even if centuries can distort what really happened.

It's been convoluted since Morrowind, intentionally. That's the way it's written.

I did not kill Paarthurnax. He acknowledged his wrongdoing and seems to me to have made the steps to redemption. That fact that I was given the mission to kill him by the specific two Blades I got it from is relevant:

Esbern has had recurring nightmares about Dragons for some time, and is far more suited to academic life than making decisions of someones life or death. Delphine was so desperate to have the Dragons be the Thalmor's work in a way that suggests she has serious PTSD from the war and therefore is probably not the best decision-maker either.

Add to that that the oath to kill Dragons has been defunct for at least 600 years by this point, since Tiber Septim bound several to his will. The Blades are desperately searching for a purpose after 200 years of having none, and the two that have found one are of debatable suitability to make that decision. So there you have them betraying the oath to serve the Dragonborn to allow for the oath that allows for violence.

Also, Paarthurnax had just saved my hide when I was stumbling blind atop the Throat of the World after learning Dragonrend. To answer that with murder would be neither something I would do in the real world nor would it have been in-character for who I was playing.

In Morrowind it was convoluted but interesting.Since Oblivion it has become far more convoluted but far less interesting.

The Blades did one good thing for me and that was making Derkeethus a Blade so now he is powerful. But I will NEVER kill Paarthurax. Never had and never will.

To people thinking that they need to kill all Dragons. You are racist! You do know dragons count as another race, right? And dragons like Paarthurax and Odahviing are good to have around so their kind can live.

Yeah, Dragons have a dominant nature but don't every race have something bad about themselves? Look at the Altmer? Look at the Nords? Look at all the other races and tell me if any of them truly are perfect and have nothing bad about them!

My role-playing character waited to be struck first almost always. That included dragons and he liked this dragon as did the Graybeards. Up to when the shout words quests broke down the Graybeards gave him plenty of clues as to where words could be found--along with some secret friend who I never learned the identity of. If the word quests could have continued I might have learned who this friend was. As it is though it just pisses me off and dislike the whole game and Bethesda especially.

The Blades attitude was way to demanding for me. After their main quest I was hoping to kill them off but when I tried this they could not die so I gave up on them and actually never saw them again in the game iirc.

I'm pretty sure dragons aren't real.


Oh wait, you mean my character's racist. Maybe. At least one is.

I let the MQ at that point on my first character who, by the by, never got the seasons unending quest to trade one city for another. My current guy, who hasn't taken up sides in the civil war yet, did sit at the meeting. Right afterward Delphine hangs back and goes all Dubya with the "you are either with us or against us" malarkey. But this time I decided to clobber Paarth. I even ran all the way from High Hrothgar to the summit just to give myself some more time to consider it. Talking with Paarth at that point made it seem silly to kill him.

So I went ahead and trapped Odhaviin, rode him to the place with the thing, went through and carved up Alduin. Then I came back to Paarth and before he could say anything I killed him. Just like that. The next day a dragon attacked me. Life goes on.

Sure he was, he was in Tibet teaching super-soldier martial arts to monks or something.

My point was, Stalin would still be Stalin. The fact that the entire setup just happens to involve all the other super soldiers coming back to life, super-Hitler dying, and super-Stalin taking control of the super-soldiers. "I'll teach them to be peaceful, I promise." probably wouldn't cut it at the Hague, and it wouldn't stop the Mi5 guys (or whoever the Blades are in this metaphor, lol) from trying to get the one guy who can kill him to do so. It's risky enough having all these super-soldiers around again, why the hell would you leave super-Stalin alive to lead them? It's just a stupid, stupid move.

The real question is when will the world end?

So I got in a mood one day and kille Paarth. He didn't put up much of a fight. He was probably the easiest dragon I killed 1:1.

And nothing happened. I didn't talk to the Greybeards anymore before, I didn't talk to them after. I didn't talk to the Blades before, I didn't talk to them after.

In the end the world was unchanged. Still dragons terrorizing the skies. Still bandits hanging out in caves. Still draugr walking around in crypts. And still Falmor skulking Dwarven ruins.

I feel like the opening sequence of The Incredibles. Everytime I save the world it still needs saved!

The idea that "We needed him before. We dont need him anymore so go kill him" seems criminal to me. Certainly not evident that I can take my notions of justice from a person that talks like that.

How about less clearly defined, less physical evils such as nepotism? Lying? Bragging?
Any human being has a great capacity for evil, and by and large not giving in to it is a choice.

Apparently if you don't kill him, there's an extra little cutscene when you finish the MQ.. so I'll probably wait to kill him afterwards, cuz I like to do and see everything.

When the last dragonborn is revealed.


Which may not even be us.

The main arguments presented in the game for killing him are:

1). The justice argument: he committed attrocities centuries ago and was never brought to justice. Do you think that he should pay for those war crimes he committed all those years ago?
2). The trust argument: Paarthurnax himself says that not a day goes past when he isn't tempted to return to his powerhungry nature. With the return of the dragons and the defeat of Alduin, can he be trusted to remain bound by the way of the voice? What if he reverts to his old nature and becomes Alduin 2.0?

The main argument presented in the game for sparing him are:

1). The forgiveness argument: Paarthurnax overcame his dark nature through following the 'way of the voice' and meditating. Is this not sufficient for him to be forgiven for his past crimes? After all, he may well have been the key factor in aiding the men in defeating their dragon overlords, does this not mean that mortalkind owes him?

Of course there are other arguments hinted at in the game and thought up by fans, but these I think are the main points to consider.

I wouldn't kill him. Not a chance. I've said in another thread somewhere, I obliterated the Delphine and Esbern after I heard they wanted me to do this. Boy, was it satisfying.

I have posted my reasons for killing him here:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1351928-do-you-want-to-kill-paarthurnax/page__p__20372706#entry20372706

It's not racism, it's a necessity. Dragons don't count as another race because they are fundamentally different from mortals. They are like Daedra, in a bad way.With an inborn desire to dominate and enslave all mortals, they could be compared to Molag Bal.Their capacity for terror just can't be compared to that of mortals

Or like the Aldmeri Dominion, on the way to genocide....

I decided to kill him. It was a hard decision and I was hoping for a way around it. I wanted to continue to help the Blades but didn't want to kill Paarthurnax. They made a convincing argument though.

Esbern says that Paarthurnaz was once Alduin's "right hand man (dragon)" or whatever. He committed atrocities that should not be forgotten. My counter-argument was, "he has changed now". But then I went to talk to Paarthurnax about the how the Blades want to kill him. He said something like "not a day goes by when I am not tempted to return to my old ways." This made me think for a while and in the end, I decided to kill him (with Odahviing watching, which was weird). . I still wonder if I made the right decision though.

Besides, his mission is complete and he has nothing else to do. He would have just sat on the mountain for eternity if not for me. Its an honor to be killed by the Dragonborn.

1: He isn't trapped anywhere. At the end of the MQ, he left the mountain to begin convincing dragons to become one with the Way of the Voice.
2: That is invalid argument. Those type of arguments are made just so one small group of people are happy. It's like if Bethesda stops making Elder Scrolls Games for 25 years then finally made ES6 after all that then someone says "Oh.. The time of these games are over, why are you making another one now?"
3: Why kill him in the first place?
4: It is mercy to let him live. He can do so much more with his life.
5: And the rest are not really reasons so no need to say anything more.