I really felt betrayed by the Blades over the situation with Paarthanax.

They gave me, the Dragonborn their allegiance and I opened my temple to them using my own blood as the key; now they kick me out of it!
Even the Dragonborn Emperors refused to allow them to kill Paarthanax, and now they demand that I kill him myself after he helped my save Tamriel!

I played a good character, and I would have killed Esbern and who ever Blades that refused to follow me, so I can prevent the Dragon genocide! But the game won't allow me to kill the old man!

It's really screwed up Lore, or maybe just flawed characters running the Blades last stand.

Apparently, if you ignore the civil war, the Greybeards get the empire and cloaks together to sign a peace agreement or something.

Basically, at a certain point in the MQ you need the cooperation of the Jarl of Whiterun. The Jarl won't help you while their at risk of military action. You can either convince the greybeards to help negotiate a peace treaty, or win the war on behalf of the empire or stormcloaks.

Thanks, I haven't gotten that far in either, so....yep. Meh, like not that'll hinder me anyway. I made my choice!

Its essentially just padding. It makes no difference either way.

I prefer the peace conference to anything else. Probably one of the top ten moments of Skyrim is when I get to toss out the Thalmor ambassador onto her sorry ass! That...rocked on so many levels.

My character did that on my first MQ playthrough, heh. I'd rather have shouted her off the mountain, though; you're forced by plot NPCs/dialogue to be very diplomatic.

I can't help but wonder what, say, Vivec would do in a similar situation... [looks for a "WWVD?" shirt]

Vivec would disappear and doom the entire province to death, is what Vivec would do...

Just Curious, but is it possible Paarthanax has had a grand scheme to replace Alduin as the leader of the dragons this whole time and was merely manipulating mankind to that end? The meaning of his name seems to imply that his purpose.

Nothing that's been written in game. That I seen.

In the end, it won't matter. Post-Skyrim lore will inevitably mention his disappearance where no one is sure what happened to him. Was he killed by the Blades? By Dragonborn? By other dragons who didn't want him to lead them? Who knows. :shrug:

Yeah, while this and the Civil War present nice 'morally grey choices' (the Civil War more so, though) they are utterly meaningless in terms of game continuity and lore. While my personal moral compass tells me to allow Parth to live, I think I might just kill him so I can still have the allegiance of the Blades (I don't really interact with the Greybeards either). Or better yet I'll save right before I fight Parth and continue two separate games (one with Parth dead, the other with Parth alive) and see if any DLC is influenced by this decision.

Edit: I know a few pages back I said how Parth should die for the unattached ways of the Greybeards, but I forgot about Windcaller. But still, Parth could have done something to help in Tamriel's past.

Really, it was best the Graybeards stayed out. As others have mentioned, the swordsingers, the Ansi (or something like that) of Yokuda caused the entire continent to blow up, because they wielded great power, they were the wiseman, and they used their power. Plus, the Thu'um was badly exploited in ages past.

And in the end, Paarth's role was not to be a protector, but to ensure the loophole (Dovahkiin) has what it needs, and to train new generations of Graybeards.

I'm not talking about the Greybeards, I mean Parth personally.
Parth swooping down and flame broiling every litte problem for Tamriel would lead to a Yokudan end (or a second Dragon Cult). I'm saying he could have been something like an advisor to the leaders of Tamriel (am advisor only a few certain people would know of), or just send the Greybeards to do that.
An proactive Parth would be bad, I concede to that point.

In the end they hint something about Alduin's possible return since you don't absorb his soul. So who would be there to guide future Dragonborns against Alduin if not Paarthurnax? He most likely outlives the Grebeards and even the current Dragonborn.

Do we know he wasn't? Tiber Septim used dragons early in his reign, the Empire revered dragons, who's to say Parth didn't act as an adviser for various leaders of the Empire?

It's weird that every time this subject comes up, most of the hate for the demand to kill Parthurnaax falls on Delphine. In my game, it was Esbern who broached the subject (he's the dragon lore fiend, after all), and Esbern who put down the ultimatum that Parthurnaax had to die. Delphine just backed him up. Sure, she's less diplomatic about it than Esbern is, but that's her personality. She seemed regretful, in her own way. She still sent me those 'from a friend' messages long after the ultimatum was delivered, and both she and Esbern turned up at the peace conference to help convince both sides to cool it, AND with a dragon name to boot, even after delivering their ultimatum to my character that they could not (would not) help her until Parthurnaax was dead, and Arngeir even told them straight up my character had chosen not to kill him.

Really, short of tagging along at my heels with swords in hand, I'm not sure how much more helpful the Blades could have been in this situation anyway. If their oaths demand that they NOT help me until Parthurnaax dies, they're really stretching the letter of said oaths to do it anyway. I mean, showing up at High Hrothgar, with Delphine blatantly wearing Blades armor at that, where the Thalmor Ambassador (who is actively hunting them in particular) is in attendance, when there's only the two of you and no guarantee the Dragonborn will back you up (especially with how many people seem to want to turn around and kill the Blades for daring to suggest Parth should die), is a pretty ballsy move for what may be the only two Blades still alive. And the entire reason they do it is to give you Odahviing's name. Without that, you'd have kind've stalled before the finish line.

Given that, I was sad but appreciative that two groups ostensibly on the same side (insofar as not wanting Alduin to eat everything is the same side), could not be reconciled. Sometimes I think people just want everyone to bend to their PC's whims and bow to their every uttered word, regardless of characterization, background, or motivation. I mean, no matter how silly you think the Blades' oaths are, THEY obviously hold them in high importance. Why should they abandon all of that just because the PC says so? They haven't spoken with Parth. All they know is that Alduin's former right hand, who apparently killed a whooole lot of people and did really terrible things (the translation of his name alone is telling) is sitting on a mountaintop free and clear and has never had to face any kind of consequences for his actions, and now they're fledgling Dragonborn, having just started in on this whole being Dragonborn thing, has up and decided that he/she is just not going to go about this Dragonborn thing on literally the second oldest genocidal maniac of a dragon who has got off scot free for literally thousands and thousands of years. I'd be kind've grumpy too.

And nope, I didn't kill Parthurnaax and don't intend to. I'm willing to give the old dragon his chance. Doesn't mean I can't see and sympathize with the Blades' side of things.

For me at least it wasn't so much that I wanted them to play by my rules as it was them being unbelievably ignorant of the whole situation. Parth was the singular reason why Alduin was defeated in the first place. If it hadn't been for him teaching the Thu'um to the first Tongues, humanity might not have survived the first era. It's also because of him that the player learns Dragonrend and again is enabled to fight Alduin and save humanity from complete destruction. The entire time between he's been grandmaster of the Greybeards and kept the art alive so humanity can continue to survive in the face of oppression by his own kind. Yeah, sure, he might have slaughtered thousands before that and been the biggest dragon jerk ever, but it's pretty irrational to still hold that against him.

The Blades don't seem to understand the role he played then and now, and ask you to go against some pretty basic morality. Not even considering that, they give you next to no real assistance in dealing with the threat. They can't even replace Parth as your guide to stopping Alduin. So yeah most people find that option pretty unappealing, unless they want to be humanity's most ungrateful [censored].

I don't think they're ignorant. I think they're going along the lines of that poster from earlier in this thread: Parthurnaax is too dangerous to be allowed to live, and all the people he killed eons ago deserve justice, which in this case = death. I don't agree with them, and I think this view carries it's own form of shortsightedness (which is what Arngeir accuses them of, though he has his own blind spots), but I can see where they're coming from.

I think the option was meant to be unappealing. Parthurnaax is written as a likeable old dragon who freely admits his own shortcomings, and the Blades, who have in past games pretty well always been on the PC's side, are suddenly taking a stance that players are going to find repugnant and disagreeable. It's a situation where two groups the PC has befriended refuse to reconcile, and while that svcks, I don't call it in and of itself bad writing. Rather like the civil war, it's a situation where everything isn't going to turn out to be cherries and roses for everyone, and there's no clear 'good' or 'evil' option.

I find the sheer level of hatred leveled at the Blades over this to be a bit baffling, is all. And I find it especially weird that Delphine seems to get the vast majority of it, despite the fact that it's Esbern who brings the matter up. Especially when by far the biggest complaint I've heard is 'how dare they (the Blades) not go along with what my PC wants'.

I think you're answering your own question.

The Blades have always been the unconditionally good force in a world that's otherwise pretty questionable. They've always supported the player personally, even when everything else is turned against him/her, because you're in the right and you're going to save everything. But now all of a sudden they do a complete 180, and ask you to basically murder someone who's done nothing but help because of a seemingly irrational prejudice. Or else you don't get their help. People feel betrayed by the change. They're supposed to help you be the big hero, just like they always have, but now their agenda is sharply diverging from your own. I agree it's not bad writing, and it is definitely intended to shake things up. It would have helped if they'd given some clue as to why the Blades are so bent on dragon genocide, but maybe that's being kept for later.

I don't know about Delphine getting a lot of hate, it seems mostly for the Blades in general.

I only hate half the Blades...who is Delphine >.>

Esbern is alright.

<_<

Then I'm going to assume you dislike her for a reason entirely unrelated to Parthurnaax...right?

Hated her the first two sentences out of her mouth when I first met her.

"You must be a newcomer. Would you like a drink?" ? :tongue:

I really don't think people are upset that the Blades aren't bowing to their whims, their upset because the Blades are being idiots. They are sworn to you, you are the entire reason for their existence, and yet they up and flip you bird unless you agree to personally kill another one of your allies whom they know little about apart from he's a dragon, and in spite of all the help he's given, and in spite of using as their headquarters a temple that you opened to them with your own blood and are graciously allowing them to inhabit. And why do they do this, based on the job description that the Blades as a faction haven't had for a thousand years, and because they are so unrelenting in their dogma that they'll turn their back on the individual their entire life is supposed to revolve around (who also just happened to save the world). Those two owe everything to you and yet are willing to abandon you at the drop of a hat; as many others have said, [censored] those guys.