Kill him or let him live? I let him live 'cause I dunno he seems like an alright dude. Plus, fuck Delphine for not even giving you a good reason as to why you should kill him for her. I mean, I'm the fucking Dovahkiin; you don't tell me what to do.

Paarthunax is way to cool to kill! He's like a dragon Yoda!

Screw Delphine, Paarthurnax is awesome! Dude isn't out to kill anyone, he just wants to chill on his mountain. Leave Paarthurnax alone!!!

Can you even kill him despite the quest? I finished the main storyline last night, and he was a pretty major part of the "ending." Also, the quest to kill him disappears after that.

@ZimboDK said:

Screw Delphine, Paarthurnax is awesome! Dude isn't out to kill anyone, he just wants to chill on his mountain. Leave Paarthurnax alone!!!

Well he does kind of fill the vacuum left behind by Alduin, so he does have an agenda. Whether that's good or bad is left pretty open-ended.

The Blades are nothing anymore, and I didn't kill him but finished the game pretty easily, I doubt the "help" they said I would lose for not killing him is particularly important, and hell if it turns out in the future Paathunax becomes evil, guess what? I'll kill him like I did every other dragon, compared to Alduin he is nothing really.

Pretty cool Dovah though. Let him live!

The option to kill paarthurnax seems to disappear after the game ends. I attack him till his hits zero, and nada. He won't even move.

It was one of the first time in the game I felt bad, I really liked that dragon and no way did I want to kill him. Even after I found out his past i still did not want to kill him, so fuck those other guys.

When she said that I had to kill him to get anymore help from them, I said "fuck you two" and never looked back. No regrets.

Delphine and Esbern never make a good case as to why you should kill him, and despite all you've done for both of them, they essentially excommunicate you if you don't do it - so fuck them. I went back to talk to Paarthurnax about the Blades wanting him dead, and he explained that it was in a dragon's nature to follow Alduin, as he was the first. Only through centuries of meditation did he overcome his nature.

That seems better to me than "we are Blades, we have to kill him". Everyone deserves a chance at redemption, and Paarthurnax proves himself an ally. Once you've gotten to the Sky Temple, the Delphine and Esbern are of no real further use anyway.

- Scott

From a gameplay point of view, killing Paarthunax will cut you off from The Graybeards' ability to pinpoint the remaining words of power on your map. Leaving Paarthunax alive, the Blades won't locate dragons for you to kill. The Blades don't give you any kind of specific reward for betraying Paarthunax.

Delphine is just a living, breathing meat shield at this point in the game, so I don't care if I lose by letting Paarthrnax live.

I like Esbern but I fucking hate Delphine

Fuck that bitch, I let Paarthunax live. "He needs to die because he's a dragon." Yeah, good reasoning, you fucking Wyrm-ist. The way I figured it, Paarthunax helped me more than the Blades did anyways.

I let the dragon live but I gave him a good spanking.

I let him live. Delphine was all "You need to kill him cause he's a dragon and I'm a Blade" and I was all "Nah, son" Extended middle finger, turned around and walked away

Literally made this face when they told me to kill him. Parthunax never even hinted at any kind of malicious intention and had done plenty to help me out, so why should I kill him? That's when I peace'd out from the Blades.

I also let him live. I'm planning to return to the temple and put a knife in Delphine's ribs. If Esbern interferes, it's just business.

(Assuming it's actually possible to kill them.)

I just left him alone since I never felt threatened by either parties.

"Hey dova-dovakih-dude! You should kill that dragon. He's actually a real dick!"

"Huh? What? W-why?..."

@AckbarTheGreat said:

Paarthunax is way to cool to kill! He's like a dragon Yoda!

Dragon Yoda...good description. Only a heartless bastard could kill dragon Yoda.

@Floppypants said:

From a gameplay point of view, killing Paarthunax will cut you off from The Graybeards' ability to pinpoint the remaining words of power on your map. Leaving Paarthunax alive, the Blades won't locate dragons for you to kill. The Blades don't give you any kind of specific reward for betraying Paarthunax.

I don't know about you, but dragons are more of a nuisance to me at this point anyway, haha. Finding words of power is more useful. I've got surplus dragon souls to burn.

- Scott

I only wish I hadn't inducted Lydia, Mjoll and J'Zargo into the Blades before finding out they were total dicks.

if you do kill him, do you get any more missions from the blades besides having to bring them followers? does bringing them followers go anywhere? if so how many do you need?

I let him live, i found he was a cool characther, talking dragons was a suprise for me with this game, was really kickass!

I'm shamelessly bumping this thread because somebody made a competing Paarthunax thread! We're the OT here, we thought of it first so lets prove how awesome we are by extending out this incredibly one-sided debate in this thread only. He didn't even spell the name correctly, you guys.

My game glitched, so I killed him by console-advancing quest stages.

Which means hes still alive, but hte world thinks hes dead. I can still talk to him... .best of both worlds.

Anyone who killed Paarthunax can eat a dick. Especially after you talk to him, he gives you a good speech, saying something like "Is it better to be born good or work hard to cast away your evil?" Fuck the Blades.

@Vorbis said:

I only wish I hadn't inducted Lydia, Mjoll and J'Zargo into the Blades before finding out they were total dicks.

Wait, what? How do you induct NPCs into the Blades?

@Milkman said:

@Vorbis said:

I only wish I hadn't inducted Lydia, Mjoll and J'Zargo into the Blades before finding out they were total dicks.

Wait, what? How do you induct NPCs into the Blades?

just have a follower with you and talk to Delphine, she will swear them in and next time you come back they will be in Blades gear.

Fuck that, i was like HUH? kill em? allll right, so i talked to him first, he says the blades are wise for wanting to kill him. okay, so i start throwing fire balls at him. He just sits there and takes it. Im feeling bad, but what the hell i can always load... but guess what? THE FUCKER WOULD NOT DIE. thats right i couldnt kill him, his health would be gone but he just wouldnt die... Kind of a funny bug, even the developers didnt try to kill him. Cause you fucking cant, its bugged...

Also, if you kill Paarthunax, the Grey Beards totally bitch you out and never talk to you again. Plus, nothing happens after you tell the Blades you have killed Paarthurnax. Only thing that changes is that you can sell your dragon bones/scales to Esbern for full price (which is actually pretty damn good.) Buuuut still... money isn't exactly a hard thing to earn in Skyrim.

Yeah, as soon as Delphine pretty much told me to fuck off unless I killed my little dragon mentor, I tried to kill her instead. Didn't work though.

oh so you can kill him? he bugged in my game i try reloading and everything. i just couldnt kill him..

Delphine can suck my balls, the Greybeards were right.

After beating the main quest and a lot more of the guild stuff to completion, after about 100+ hours, I decided to kill him and see what happens. All that really happens is that Delphine will let you recruit companions as blades.

However there is one interesting thing that can happen being back in the Blade's good graces. After killing a lot of Dragons (not sure the exact number), you get a minor quest to talk to Esbern. He will want you to get him a Dragon Scale and a Dragon Bone, and with it make you a potion which gives you a permanent 25% less damage from Dragon melee attacks. It's not really super crucial, and the effect doesn't show up in your stats (though it is there in the background) it's a neat thing for those of us out there that like making the "God Character" and being as powerful as possible with as many abilities as possible.

Just make sure you meditate on a word before you kill him! The power from that stays after he dies.

I laughed pretty hard because immediately after they said they would not continue to help me, i asked for help and they gave it. it seemed like if they didn't, i wouldn't have been able to advance the story line. I, frankly can't remember how they helped as it was 30 hours of gameplay ago, but it was pretty important.

@coopersy said:

My game glitched, so I killed him by console-advancing quest stages.

Which means hes still alive, but hte world thinks hes dead. I can still talk to him... .best of both worlds.

That freaking awesome. haha.

Paarthurnax was one of my favorite characters in the game. No way in hell I would kill him. I do kind of love that they made the blades such fucking dicks in this game. When they first got introduced I was like OH YEAH! But when I got that quest I wanted to kill the basterds.

I killed him and made dragon FACE out of his flesh. I wear it when walking through towns to spread fear among the children.

I thought that twist was kind of random and dumb. It felt kind of like adding drama just for the sake of adding drama.

Paarthurnax is awesome, I aint killing him, Delphine turns into a bitch at the end of the game.
 
He takes on this kind of mentor role to your character and helps you fight Alduin the fist time, the blades give you no good reason. 
So I just said 'peace' to the blades and never went back to them again.
Luckily I hadnt taken any of my followers to become baldes yet.

Paarthunax taught me Yol, led me to Dragonrend, Odahviing, and even the Sovengarde summon. The Blades gave me shitty armor that looked good, a sword that does extra damage to dragons, and helped me kill ONE normal fucking dragon when I was already killing Ancient Dragons.

Fuck the Blades. I'm glad they got hunted to the end of Oblivion.

It would be sweet if they used him for DLC, but seeing as the option to kill him already exists, that probably won't happen.

I never got the option to kill him. Is it because I completely ditched Delphine and Esbern after we got to Alduin's Wall? I literally never saw them or spoke to them again, so I guess that's why I never got the option to kill Paarthunax.

Not that I would anyway. He's a cool dude.

Wait there was an option to kill him?

The upside to killing Paarthurnax is that you can bring three companions to Delphine, and then start seeking out dragon roosts. When you're at the dragon roost you'll have your 3 blades members helping you kill the dragon, and they're all decked out in the blades armor. (Delphine is a bitch though)

@Getz said:

I'm the fucking Dovahkiin; you don't tell me what to do.

That's how I felt. I'm siding with the dragon, if the Blades really served me they would have shut their fucking mouths and just followed me.

@Voxel: @Sumbog: Delphine tries to talk to you about it right after the meeting between the Greybeards, Ulfric, and Tullius. I'd imagine that if you completed the civil war storyline you could easily miss the conversation with her.

Love Paarthunax, and I certainly won't kill him. The Blades can go suck it, they were only a means to an end. Alduin got his and I'm freakishly overpowered with two dragon friends, couldn't ask for more.

@coopersy: @takayamasama:

Recruiting extra blades, doing Esbern's quest and looking for more dragons to kill can all be done before advancing the main quest far enough when they request for you to kill Paarthunax.