To be fair, as far as we know that was just a title–we’ve never seen Martin Septim kill a dragon. But, fair enough. Though that sort of proves my point: The Septim dynasty died out at the end of Oblivion, and even before that there were points were it disappeared or lost control of the Empire for a couple of generations.
First of all, :rolleyes:
Secondly, if Hitler had spent the latter part of his life working to save Jews and the other victims of the Holocaust, repenting, working hard to give evidence to the Allies, and putting himself at risk to do so, you might hear me say the same thing.
Until then your analogy is crap.
Tiber has no direct descendants after his grandson, but Martin was definitely Dragonborn or he wouldn’t have been able to shatter the Amulet of Kings and summon the avatar of Akatosh. However there are…or were, two different types of Dragonborn - those with the dovah sos who can absorb dragon souls, and those who could light the dragonfires and fulfil the covenant with Akatosh forged by St. Alessia. Tiber and Reman were both, we’re the first type (along with Miraak), the Septim dynasty are the latter type following on from Alessia’s covenant.
Maybe if in 1945 Hitler took down a super-Hitler and retired to a mountain to teach others how to defeat super-Hitlers, would the gallows still await him? As we’re the Last Dragonborn it’s also the last chance to show him the gallows.
I just feel like we’re telling people, “If you’re evil, don’t ever repent. Don’t ever turn to the good side and help us. Don’t ever change your goddamn mind, because we will kill you, no matter how much good you do.”
I do believe in redemption. Not the religious kind but the plain old pay back what you took kind.
The choice is supposed to be hard. If it were real life, it would be hard. His very nature is evil, and as he admits himself, only through great effort can he suppress his urge to dominate. I’d have a hard time just walking away from that, saying “hey, good luck with your inner struggle” when humanity’s very existence is on the line.
I killed him. Didn’t feel like a betrayal, either. It felt more like “this place isn’t big enough for the both of us. May the best win.”
He’s lasted thousand years winning his struggle, and you, your descendants, the Greybeards, or the Blades can always take care of him if he steps out of line.
The problem I have with “may the best win” is that if you don’t, you always get another shot. Unless you defeat him the first time, it’s more like “may the best win, but if I lose, I get another shot until I win”.
That’s the real power of the Dragonborn, you know.
What descendants? All your kids in Skyrim are adopted.
I’ve only played that far through the main plot once, and I spared Paarthurnax basically because the Graybeards had been a more valuable ally than the Blades had been. But personally, I don’t believe that he’s reformed at all.
Dragons are immortal, cunning, vicious, patient, and utterly driven to dominate all other life. Paarthurnax was second only to Alduin in exemplifying these traits.
What’s more likely. After millenia of slaughter, Paarthurnax, alone of all dragons, suddenly grew a conscience and decided to play nice with humans? Or is Paarthurnax playing a very, very long game, using human pawns to eliminate his dragon rivals until only he’s left, the threat of dragons is largely forgotten, and the Dragonborn bloodline is extinct? Yeah, it might take a couple thousand years, but what’s that to a dragon?
For now. Once my library & trophy room are full, the cellar is finished out as my mancave, and we have matching enchanted dragonbone armor, Lydia’s gonna be whelping like a wolf bitch. 
If dragon borne is inherited, Paarty’s gonna have a small army to deal with if he gets out of line.
I’m sure there’s a mod for that. And also a mod for killable kids. The real reason why the Dragonborn won’t have descendants: s/he’ll go apeshit after being asked “Papa! Do you want to play tag?” for the 800th time.
Or perhaps they are the same type in different circumstances - the Septims couldn’t eat any dragon souls when there were no dragons available to eat, after all. Nor can you or Miraak use the Amulet and light the dragonfires and so forth when you aren’t Emperor and they don’t exist.
Imagine you want to take over the world. Would your plan include slaughtering every other humanoid being in the world and holding sway over a bunch of beings you consider to be so much less than you? To me, it would be an incredibly stupid plan by Paarthy to have every other dragon destroyed and being the only dragon left. If he was secretly playing the long con, having the Dragonborn destroy Anduin, the only dragon who sits ahead of Paarthy, and then still having a dragon army to do his every sadistic whim, including likely killing the Dragonborn.
Alessia established the covenant with Akatosh concerning the Chim-el Adabal and Dragonfires in order to seal the Gates of Oblivion; becoming Dragonborn - her status as Dragonborn and first Empress is well established.
But she couldn’t absorb a dragon’s soul. All that’s required for being Dragonborn in those terms is the blessing of Akatosh in upholding the covenant that was fulfilled by his avatar in Oblivion. That form of being Dragonborn is obsolete, but it does share in common the necessity of being blessed by Akatosh. Miraak couldn’t be the other form of Dragonborn as he pre-dated the covenant, likewise our Last Dragonborn appears after it has been completed.
Wanting to “hold sway over beings you consider to be so much less than you” is kind of the definition of being a megalomaniac, isn’t it? And dragons seem to be megalomaniacs by nature. So, if Paar killed all the humans, and ruled a world populated entirely by dragons, he’d still be ruling over a bunch of inferiors. The only difference is, these inferiors have the ability to actually kill him. Wouldn’t it be smarter to choose the group of inferiors that are physically incapable of ever really harming you?
Again, let’s assume you want to take over the world. Which would you rather rule over, fellow humans or a bunch of animals? And Paarth, when he was a bad dragon, still saw dragons as so much more better than humans, and never once seemed to want the destruction of all dragons. It just makes no sense to me to want to rule over an empty world and destroy all of your own kind, even if I were a meglomaniac.
Depends. By “bunch of animals,” do you mean squirrels and birds and shit, or do you mean intelligent, tool using creatures with whom I can communicate, but who I nonetheless think kind of suck? Because if I were the kind of sociopath sufficiently disconnected from my fellow man that I would have no problem butchering them in job lots just so I can wear the biggest, shiniest hat there ever was… Well, I’m not sure that that sort of person would really care if the people he subjugated looked just like him, so long as they were real good with the bowing and scraping.
Anyway, you have no trouble believing that Paar would help slaughter his kin because he’s a good guy. Why is it so unlikely that he’d be unwilling to do the same if he were a really, really bad guy?
Wait a sec, what about Akatosh?
Kill him! All hail the [del]Nine[/del]… [del]Eight[/del]… Seven! All hail the Seven Aedra.
I think Akatosh was born without Original Sin or something. He didn’t help his boy Alduin in subjugation. Also he’s not really a dragon, he’s a god who looks like one, and can apparently (TES lore is intentionally very vague) have dragon children. Other myths suggest they are one and the same.
One significant point: Dragons are powerful, but not invulnerable. Even ordinary soldiers in a group can and do kill them. There’s a reason why they don’t usually attack cities. Dragons tend to get killed when they do. And there’s are a lot of powerful figures in the world who could, if necessary, kill a dragon.
While this technically wouldn’t kill Paarthurnax, he’d be a sleeping corpse for eons, or maybe forever, if he did get his butt crushed in battle. So it’s not as if humanity (et. al.) is somehow defenseless before his might.