Board Thread:Skyrim/@comment-105.158.238.148-20140417030552/@comment-12277465-20140428175557

It's actually not about revenge. At least, I don't think it is. It's not about the fact that he's a dragon either.

It's about the fact that he's a Greybeard.

See, if it was just that he was a dragon -- even Alduin's top lieutenant -- wouldn't they be asking you to kill Odahviing? Think about it: Odahviing has done all the exact same things as Paarthurnax -- oh, except the whole being hand-picked by Kynareth, helping in the final battle, and spending thousands of years alone meditating as penance thing. Odahviing just figured "eh, the boss is losing. Might as well throw in with the winning side." I mean, nothing against Odahviing, here, but if we're going to talk about distrusting dragons...

So I think that the Blades' grudge against Paarthurnax is about nothing more than the fact that he's a part of a rival order.

By the way, when did the whole Blades/Greybeard feud start anyway? I mean, as far as I know, there haven't been many of the shouty-shouty-dragon-soul-absorbing subset of Dragonborn recently (as opposed to the emperor-dragonfires-Dragonblood subset), so when did they even have a chance to be rivals in teaching them? Prior to the events of Skyrim, weren't the Blades mostly just an order of royal bodyguards, in the absence of a Dovahkiin proper?