User blog comment:Saratje/The Great Paarthurnax Conspiracy/@comment-69.146.244.153-20120417220853/@comment-1992639-20120419200158

I agree with you from an in-universe aspect, definately.

But observed from the outside looking for a moment at Skyrim as a game: Bethesda has the habbit of 'retconning' things without much of an explanation at times. Sometimes they give a great in-universe reason (such as the dragon-breaks allowing all game-endings to happen at once) but at other times they rewrite events and respawn the needed NPC's (such as with Fallout3).

Still, that's why I have taken into account that he took a gamble with a good chance of failure. Atleast, by the theory he played his pokerface to convince the Dragonborn he's best kept alive. And in a way, he likely is best kept alive, though as a dragon he would have gone around with an attitude of: "I know better, ofcourse I need to trick you all, only I can make this happen the right way."

Indeed the Blades can survive, perhaps even rekindle with Akaviri elements to replenish their numbers or bring their training up to a higher level of skill.

As for Thu'um wielding men, not for the sake of having an army of men wielding the Thu'um as he has dragons to do that. However, if people can only learn the Thu'um from the Greybeards, then indeed Paarthurnax as grandmaster has control over who learns it and who does not.