The Blades are "lions among sheep" and just as dominant as the dragons. They are who they say they are and they know their place. What makes them good is that they show the best attitude one can have in this fight against the dragons.

Killing one dragon more or less means little, but for the Blades does it mean that they can rest, knowing that there is no further dragon alive that humans have to fear. As long as there is still a dragon alive somewhere will there never be a reason for the Blades to retire.

I think the Blades are idealists. They want you to kill Parthurnaax because he is a war criminal. I never killed him because I wasn't comfortable with it. I liked his meditations and felt he was now a positive influence on other Dova. That really puts me in the morally gray area like the CIA using ex-Nazis to spy on communists during the cold war.

Jim

They are not blind fanatics. Sure saying: "Kill your friend now or we hate you, no if's and/or but's." was too drastic, but they're not blind. They just live by a very strict code. That was protect the Emperor and kill all dragons, but now it's just kill all dragon's. They were founded to kill dragon's and they are sworn to do so.

Besides even if you like Parthuurnax(which I do) so much that you'd hate them for this, they DID help you out immensely in your quest. You'd still know squat if it weren't for them.

I actually respected the Blades during Oblivion. The seemed like honorable and staunch protectors. I always felt safe when I entered Cloud Ruler Temple. Martin trusted them and Jauffre. I trusted Jauffre with my life! I also made sure he wouldn't die during the Battle of Bruma! They truly were an elite unit back then. Now, they are but a former shadow of what they once were. Well, maybe not even a shadow anymore. They are trying to do the right and honorable thing, but somehow, it really doesn't come across.

It's sad that we can't argue the point with Delphine and Esbern, concerning Paarthurnax. I for one, will never kill him, no matter how many times I play through Skyrim!

the Blades for all intents and purposes are dead.

the last 2 reminents are following their code.

when they are gone that is it for the blades.

i have found them neither good nor evil in Skyrim

i have only found them fixed on their inflexible agenda.

there is no good or evil, there is only difference.

but no, i dont like them. too bossy

when i finished the quest to retrieve the horn and went to riverwood , there is this conversation with delphine , she says she could kill me easily if she wanted to , i just ended the conversation there and left and never went back till i finished just about every other quest i could find so the quest blade in the dark stayed there for ever in the end i went back to finish the mainquest , that is how i think about them

I am the dragonborn the first and only one this era i am destined to do even greater things after defeating alduin ; or so that is the feeling i get after reading all those books and all the information you get from so many other npcs and i will not let me boss around by some deluded members of a long death organisation

False. There is good and evil and difference.

How could there be difference if there is no good and no evil? You have to be smoking weed for such nonsense to make sense.

You will be surprised to see what Karliah of the Thieves Guild does to you. Not only can she kill you, she almost does.

This sounds reasonable and I haven't done the MQ/Civil War story in Skyrim yet. I just have such fond memories of the Blades in Oblivion because I love that game and I think I'm avoiding going further in Skyrim because I don't want to deal with what the factions are going to want me to do. Divided loyalties aren't so fun. I'm sure I'll get there eventually but if the Blades don't like my decisions when I get there, it's ok if they find another Dovahkiin.

In Skyrim I don't think they are good or evil, they are just misinformed and losers.

As a faction they are done and they need to accept that. Trying to revive the group based on Dragon Slaying isn't doing anyone any good. Heck the old man had already accepted it, but that Daphine girl just needs to go back to the inn and let the Blades remain in history where they belong. Factions die, she needs to get over it. Heck not even the Emperor recognizes them anymore.

^{I dont see them as good or evil, they are doing what they think is right.}

I don't understand why some people play this like a linear game, with defintive projections in the storyline. The Blades aren't dead or finished, unless you want them to be. It's a choice. Not a fact. I mean, there are areas in the game where you are railroaded pretty badly, but this isn't one of them. Not yet at least.

I don't know, I have played it both ways. If you side with the Grey-beards, they seem basically done. If you side with them you get to have 3 followers join and the four of you go out and kill a few dragons. That's it. No official acknowledgement that the Blades are back. No thumbing your nose at the Thalmor and saying naw naw naw. No Emperor visiting you and reinstating your faction. Just six total lonely people living on top a lonely mountain going off the clear some Dragon Wall here or there. They might was well not exist.

By your logic is the fight between the Empire and the Stormcloaks not a civil war, but it is a brawl between gangs in a suburb. You need to apply the same measurements for the Blades as you do for the Imperials and Stormcloaks. The Blades are certainly not a large organization, but only a small group. But at the end of the quest line are there 6 of them (that includes you, too). 6 characters is enough to fill a village in Skyrim.

I'm not debating the number that much, though there are bandit gangs that are larger, but the fact that they are never formally recognized by anyone, anywhere. For that purpose they might as well be a gang of bandits, except they do get recognized by the local Jarl when a bounty goes out on them. Blades don't even get that.

Don't get me wrong I WISH there was more to them. Maybe more random people join. Plenty of empty beds in their hideout. Maybe some rumors in the towns you could hear, like some random guards saying something like "I hear the Blades have returned!". But no, you don't get anything like that. I just wish there was. If so it might make killing the dragon worth it.

I like that the Blades are Imperial supporters, but their stance should be subserviant to the dragonborn, no?
I had to read up on why they were helping the other dragonborn in Skyrim, Ulfric.

Um ... Ulfric can use the voice, just like the Grey-Beards, but he is not dragonborn. It's the dragon soul absorbtion that makes the difference.

check!

Yeah, that's my understanding. Plus, he only knows Unrelenting Force, right? I may have missed it, but does the story ever address his ability?

alot of people mostly people who did not play morrowing and obilvion do not understand and rightfully so that the blades are gone, they are all dead apart from a few survivors who shall forever be hunted down and cannot start a new life and only live acording to their code. i do not see the current blades as blades at all, i see them as remmenents. i dout the blades in Oblivion would be so ready to kill parth a dragon who spoke with tiber septim himself, just look how fussy they are with his armour and besides the intire matter about dragons is so long forgotten they never mention it and the only mentions of dragons at all are in the looming threat from the continent akavir (dragon land!!!) in the book Mysterious Akavir, the information is very limited but it seems that in the continent of Akavir they have ether found a way to become dragons OR they have some dragonborn in their ranks, the first explenation makes more sence as acording to what the next passage says. Ka Po' Tun is the "Tiger-Dragon's Empire". The cat-folk here are ruled by the divine Tosh Raka, the Tiger-Dragon. They are now a very great empire, stronger than Tsaesci (though not at sea). After the Serpent-Folk ate all the Men, they tried to eat all the Dragons. They managed to enslave the Red Dragons, but the black ones had fled to (then) Po Tun. A great war was raged, which left both the cats and the snakes weak, and the Dragons all dead. Since that time the cat-folk have tried to become the Dragons. Tosh Raka is the first to succeed. He is the largest Dragon in the world, orange and black, and he has very many new ideas. "First," Tosh Raka says, "is that we kill all the vampire snakes." Then the Tiger-Dragon Emperor wants to invade Tamriel. (i was SOOO SURE THAT skyrim would be based about this!) after i played skyrim i discoverd a book i did not read in the arcane university that mentions Aludin but very breifly. i think that the blades in oblivion would fight dragons only if they risked the empire, the blades in morrowing would probebly be more willing to fight dragons in Skyrim everthing the blades where is gone and is replaced by two lost people trying to teach a bunch of kids about a code and way of life they no longer know anything about.

the blades will probebly not die out and i hope they do not but as it seems you as a player are the last dragonborn and the dragons (except in Akavir) are rather on the dead side of things and their is no emperor to serve without the dragon born they realy need to find a new reason for their exsistance, mabey a charity for burn victims LOL!

I don't think it does...

I was incorrectly presuming he was taught the way of the voice by the greybeards like the player is, because he is dragonborn. But he chose not to follow that path (which were the player to walk away from the GB at that point he would only know UF as well) and instead chose to persue being High King of Skyrim.

My bad!


So we don't know then, how Ulfric learned the way of the Voice?

My guess is he ate a chicken once when one of its bones got stuck in his throat.

It is a bit like that guy, who put tin foil in his mouth and was able to receive a radio station with only his fillings.

For all we know, you are the emperor. Who cares about the current one. His grandfather was a random colovian who took over the imperial city with a mere 1000 soldiers, after Martin died.

As for the number of people, I'd assume it'd grow. This game present a sense of scale anyways. Cities aren't realistically populated. Same with factions.

edit: I mean the game DOESN'T present a sense of realistic scale. My bad.

Ulfric Stormcloak at least knows the "disarm" Thuum, since he used it on me when I was being chased by guards and decided to go inside his keep =D

And Korr, yes I also assumed that the three new Blades members are just the beginning, and that we won't see their rise to glory in this game.
How do you think the Thalmor would feel about the Emperor keeping the Blades as his personal guard? It would basically be a violation of the White-Gold concordat.

Maybe they're in Skyrim simply because it's the best place for the weakened group to hide from the Thalmor? For all we know, Thalmor presence could be even stronger in Cyrodiil, which it probably is, since it's the heartland of the Empire and all. What purpose would the Blades serve there?