I wouldn't bother to kill them. They're not that much of an annoyance. Nazeem now....

You don't get to kill people preemptively because they might commit crimes. Don't see why dragons should be treated differently.

No, but you can because they already commited the crime.

MetalGod, if you think killing Paarthurnax is the way to go, then go there. Some people agree with you, many of us don't. There's NO reason to try to change peoples' minds! This is a SPMR game. Nothing I do, or you do, or Sonja_Stormcloak does, affects ANYONE else.

So stop with the trying to get people to agree with your interpretation please.

Paarthurnax... his whole plan seems wonderfully benevolent, until you realize that it all culminates in him becoming the King of Dragons. He uses the Dragonborn, the Dragonborn is just his tool. He knows he can't kill Alduin, so he tells the guy who can what he wants to hear to get him to do it for him. I love how 99% of the players of this game buy his act, while at the same time talking about how power hungry Ulfric is. There's irony here somewhere.

How do you know that your character is the last dragonborn? Akatosh is what? A duck? No. A witch? No. A dragon! Right! Alduin is a child of Akatosh. Akatosh "gave the gift" of dragon blood to St. Alessia (the book doesn't say exactly HOW, but from reading Norse and Greek mythology I can guess pretty well -- gods used to leave their planes of existence to impregnate women), and thus established the dovahkiin. One of your character's ancestors is a descendant of St. Alessia and Akatosh. It's the only way. Your character carries the dovahkiin genetics. (S)He will pass them onto their children. Apparently they can lay dormant for decades and then express themselves when needed. So the gene will probably express itself at some point in the future again.

Your character could not absorb the soul or Alduin. Why? Because Alduin will return when Akatosh sends him to end the world. Singling out Paarthurnax for death makes no sense. No character who has gone through this entire game has earned the right to pass judgement, especially if they have done the Thieves Guild or DB quest lines. Even the Companion quest line is suspect.

So before you pass judgement, I ask you to look at your statistics. Look at the number of people your character has killed. Look at the number of murders. Forget the bounty. That just means someone saw. Look at how many game days have passed.

But no one is going to convince anyone otherwise of their choice in this matter.

And so Paarthurnax decides he wants to be king of the dragons? He has to get them to follow him first. That is going to be more difficult than he thinks. And if he does? So what? Someone needs to be in charge.

QFT, And that's why there's really no point in this sort of thread. We all say what we did, and more or less why. But it's a SPMR game, and nothing any of us do will have any affect on another person's game worldspace. *shrug* Useless exercise for the most part.

Before him, every dragon was superior to and cruel towards humans. He may have killed a thousand humans those thousands of years ago, but there was no alternative path until he made one himself. IMO, you can't justify killing him because of his actions in the far past because there was no other path, it would be enforcing your moral law ex post facto.

If he endangers the world by returning to his natural ways then I'll kill him, but not before. To do so preemptively devalues the concepts behind redemption and forgiveness.

Well since technically I'm a dragon then the dragons are my brothers. Why would I kill one of my brothers who doesn't mean me any harm?

A more apt anology would be what if a tiger killed 20 humans and then 40 years later learned to speak english and cured cancer. Would you forgive him his crimes that occured back when he was just an animal? Parth wasnt under man/mer law at the time he killed people. With no law governing there can be no crime occuring.

I won't do that quest

Null

Something for people to think about at least.

I do find it strange that he's presented as so unquestionably cool and good.. When something is so simple like that, I want to question it. I mean, maybe the TES writers really did want him to be that good, but usually writers in general have something up their sleeve when something is presented that way.

That is, unless they're trying to market this story to toddlers or something. Those are usually the only type of stories with absolute good and bad choices. I expect better than preschool morality from Bethesda though.

No reason to kill him when he has done nothing to me or anyone for a long time but second he goes back to his old ways his bones will become apart of my armor.

Some of my characters will kill him, some won't
I can understand the Blades pov though
Retribution & revenge have been the usual attitude rather than redemption and forgiveness for most people throughout history
Not saying thats right but it isn't hard to understand IMO

It's a complicated question, philosophically speaking.

Firstly, lets consider his intentions. The outward appearance is that he's just a dragon Buddha; a peaceful philosophic type who just wants everyone to get along. Some believe that his comments upon the death of Alduin suggest that he intends to take up Alduin's mantle, and that all of his apparently benevolent acts up to that point where all part of an extremely long winded plan to usurp Alduin. I realise that 'long winded' isn't that much of a downside for a Dovah. I believe that the counterpoint to this is Odahviing's reaction to Paarthurnax's plan to 'Make the other Dovah hear the rightness of his Thu'um'. First of all, Paarthurnax's choice of words is, I think, important. He does not say the 'greatness' of his thu'um, or the 'strength', he says 'rightness', this is a departure from how Dovah normally reference Thu'um. Consider when you first talk to Odahviing, and he says how some dragons are questioning if Alduin's 'Thu'um was truly the strongest'. This is echoed at other points in the story, with Thu'um being a quality of strength, not 'rightness'.

Further, Odahviing's comment is "I doubt many will wish to exchange Alduin's lordship for the tyranny of Paarthurnax's 'Way of the Voice'", he regards the highly prescriptive 'Way of the Voice' to be the tyranny, and it's not Paarthurnax that's the bad point of the whole deal but the fact that the Way is strictly peaceful and non-interventionist.

Next we have the more knotty problem of the possible necessity of punishment for past crimes. Unfortunately we are only informed of his past crimes, they were hidden in the mists of deep time before man-kind arose to challenge the dragons, we have no solid proof of his crimes. It is almost certain that he DID commit crimes, but to sentence him to death for presumed wrongdoing, based on his species is reminiscent of the worst kinds of racial prejudices our own world has seen. On top of this we have to consider the possibility for 'redemption'. Is it possible to wipe clean your crimes in any way and if so, does multiple thousands of years of penance count as sufficient. It may not be the same for a Dovah as for a human, but duration is generally not the deciding factor in penance; hardship is and from Paarthurnax and Odahviing's comments the 'Way of the Voice' is indeed a hardship.

And finally, anything wrongdoing he may have committed was not a normal 'crime'. It was a war, he killed people in a war, he may even have committed 'war crimes' (to our mind) but such concepts did not exist at the time and I'm sure humans did some pretty nasty things to the dragons they downed. Even in our world war criminals have been let go if they changed sides and aided the winners. But more important is that we don't attempt to judge Paarthurnax upon our own moral system, which holds little weight in Skyrim.

At the end of the day I think Paarth is a bro.

If anything, I think the best reason for keeping him alive is that it leaves all the elements in the game. Perhaps they might expand more in DLC. This way, the Blades and Paarth are still players in the story. Instead of just the Blades.

Same goes for the Civil War.

I would hope this is the case, because the game's main story as it is..... is pretty badly done. I still like the game though.

That's fine, so long as you;re alive. He will outlive you. He's waited thousands of years, another few decades won't bother him.
It's a fine legal argument, but it's not a good moral argument. Saddam Hussein made the same argument at his trial; under Iraqui laws, nothing the president does could be considered a crime, and thus the trial is invalid. Problem is, mass murder is mass murder and it's wrong whether it's legal or not. Paarthurnax is a mass murderer, and he wasn't just any dragon, he was one of Alduin's highest ranking lieutenants until he turned against him.

I've killed him with my first char, and I didn't with my second. none of the two options is better than the other, so just do what you feel like

If my Dovahkiin weren't around and he turned evil, I doubt it'd be that hard for someone else to do the deed. I've seen town guards and other characters kill dragons for me, and after years of meditation rather than active marauding he's a rather poor old specimen of a dragon (He was easy to kill with my Dunmer Assassin playthrough). For me, the potential good he could do teaching the Way outweighs the possible evil.

There are some pretty substanitial differences between Saddam and Paarthurnax's situations. Saddam didn't save the world twice and he could have chosen to not commit the crimes he did. Paarthurnax and the other dragons were not aware of any other way until Paarthurnax began to sympathize with humanity and give them the Voice to defeat his own race and his brother.

Funny, had Paarth stayed the course instead of turning a new leaf, there wouldn't have been any humans like the Blades to judge him.

If Akatosh was a Daedra I would agree with you, but he is an Aedric spirit.
They dont really go for the classic god behaviour such as impregnating women, abducting young lads and levelling cities.
Mainly because they are, in a way, dead.
A large part of them went into the Mundus upon creation, unlike the Daedric princes they dont have the power, nor the inclination.
I like your theory about Akatosh siring the dragonborn bloodline, its nicely mythical, but it doesnt seem very Aedric to me.

When it comes to Paarthnax, for me the decision was easy.
What is more evil, someone who decides based on ancient edicts and regardless of the accused's personality and actions he should die, or someone who has refuted his violent nature and through great effort of will has sought enlightenment for the past 6000 years and has made the effort to teach others of his insights?
One is a static and unthinking adherence to law, the other changes his behaviour based on new insight and circumstance.
Its a no-brainer imo.

Sonja says: "Well at that point it won't be my problem anymore, will it?"

Oh and the information about Akatosh and St. Alessia is right in that book about The Dragonborn you find in the jail on your way out of Helgen, and again in Sky Haven Temple. It is pretty symbolic and vague and you can't take it literally as some magically bestowed gift of dragon blood. Someone in the bloodline, namely St. Alessia..... well you know.

Akatosh did manifest at the end of the Oblivion Crisis to defeat Mehrunes Dagon using Martin Septim as his vessel. Dead? I think not.

Not dead as a mortal is dead, but dead as a god is dead. Its not the same thing.
Lorkhan is arguably deader than Akatosh since he got his heart torn out, but many shezzarines have walked Tamriel.
Even dead gods can dream.

Aedra do not manifest themselves directly on the Mundus. They send dreams, visions, avatars.
Part of the reason is that they are the Mundus.
The avatar of Akatosh that appeared was summoned by Martin, it required his sacrifice. It was the fulfillment of the Alessian pact.
In a way Akatosh did not even exist before the middle dawn, so it is also a nice symmetry, a fullfillment of purpose.

"Akatosh, looking with pity upon the plight of men, drew precious blood from his own heart, and blessed St. Alessia with this blood of Dragons, and made a Covenant that so long as Alessia's generations were true to the dragon blood, Akatosh would endeavor to seal tight the Gates of Oblivion, and to deny the armies of daedra and undead to their enemies, the Daedra-loving Ayleids."

This is of course wonderful Imperial propaganda as you can view it this way, however it conveniently leaves out the reshaping of Auri-El by the Marukhati Selectives, namely to create a god worthy of leading the Imperial pantheon.
Akatosh was bound to the empire and compelled to the covenant as much as Alessia.

I would say it is unlikely that Akatosh engaged in a physical relationship with a subgradient as Alessia.
Its almost an incistuous concept.
I cant think of any other comparable Aedric-mortal relationship in the mythos.
It is however, a fascinating idea.

If I had the option, I would gladly hack the obnoxious Delphine to pieces rather than kill wise, old Paarthurnax. He stays, she goes.

Paarthy's awesome. On the character that I had where I made choices roughly the similar to what I would have done, I let him live.

I considered whether he might have been manipulating me early on, but it seems that he genuinely wants to help. I couldn't be bothered with Esbern and Delphine. Paarthy seemed very wise to me, so I followed his advice.