Let me get this straight,

Someone explain to me how the Blades work, Recruitment, Paarthurnax and his death/life and its effect and everything please. I am confused right now.

~Blades!~
You get worthless quests.

A Worthless Blessing that doesn't last forever.

You can make a 3rd Follower become a member of the blades (Max is 3 if you killed Paarthurnax. If you didn't kill Paarthurnax, the max is 2 and gotta be done like right after Alduin's Wall).

Greybeards will hate you.

~Paarthurnax/Greybeards!~
You get a useful blessing from Paarthurnax that lasts forever!

Greybeards will help you find words!

Blades will hate you.

Well, okay then. The Blades seem like [censored]s anyway. I liked Paarthurnax, so I refuse to kill him. I didn't know.

Thanks.

Recruiting into the Blades:
After the quest called Alduin's Wall, you can bring up to three followers (MOST followers work for this!) to Sky Haven Temple, one at a time, and talk to Delphine. She'll turn them into Blades, and give them Blades gear (including a katana.)
*Make sure* that these followers do not have Dragon Priest masks when you recruit them - not in inventory, and not equipped. There's a bug that will destroy the masks.

Using your Blade Followers:
Once you have three, Esbern will* give you Dragon Hunting radiant quests; your Blade followers will be at the battle site, and will help you curb-stomp the dragon before porting back to Sky Haven.

The Paarthurnax quest:
-Siding with Paar.
Pros: You can go to High Hrothgar safely.
The Greybeards will still be your friends.
Arngeir will still sniff out walls for you, and you'll still get Letter from a Friend.
Paar will change your Meditation on Shout (the choice between Fus Ro Dah, Yol Toor Shul, and Feim Zii Gron.)
Cons:
*The Blades won't be your friends; they'll just whine about Paar still being alive.

-Siding with the Blades.
Pros: You can tag-team dragons with your Blade follower buddies!
Cons:
See Greybeard Pros; yeah, none of that will happen - and if you somehow get back into High Hrothgar, the Greybeards might flip out and give you skydiving lessons. If you're lucky, they will have hit you with Ice Form first, and the icicle will break yer fall...

That doesn't even count. I kept Paarthurnax alive and my Follower is Derkeethus, who I recruited to the Blades. So I am already tag-teaming with my Blade follower!

I never really liked the Greybeards because they seem to act alot like the elves in LotR when concerning the end of the world. Fate this, fate that, never taking responsibility for their own destiny.

I never used shouts that much either. But I also never use followers and tend to avoid fighting dragons, so not really any incentive to take a side.

What tipped the scales were the kata- *ahem* 'blades swords'. You can never say no to those.

Um. They ARE following their own destiny. It's the "rest of us" who have other destinies in mind.

[And I have a mod to craft katanas.... so I could care MUCH more than less about the blades version....]

You can get Dragonbane and other Blades Swords easily without killing Paarthurnax. I have like 6 Blades Sword and Dragonbane at my house.

How did you get more than one Dragonbane?

How did you get more than one Dragonbane?

Dragonbane *and other Blades swords.* There's only one Dragonbane, but a host of Blades swords:
-1 in Delphine's room
-6 in Sky Haven Temple
-Bolar's Oathblade (unique)
-The Ebony Blade (unique and unusual)
-Fultheim (Nightgate Inn) has one
-Esbern has one
-Delphine dual-wields them like a wannabe Musashi...

So you can certainly get your katana on without killing Paar.