Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-66.243.250.142-20150614033110/@comment-96.243.176.208-20150813225313

That bit about territiorial fighting seems familiar to me too. I don't have any sources, but my impression from playing Skyrim was that they COULD devour each other's souls. The Dragonborn's power comes from being born with the soul of a dragon. I take that literally- a dragon reincarnated or created into a mortal body. That soul attracts the others to it. It only makes sense that dragons themselves would have that ablity.

If dragons can devour each others souls, one could say there was no need for a Dragonborn. But it would require one of the ressurrected dragons, who was most likely very loyal to Alduin in the past for Alduin to have reason to ressurect him, to break from the dragons' rigid hierarchial structure, fight Alduin and win. Paarthurnex and Odahviing said that dragons follow who they precieve to have the greatest Thu'um and that was Alduin. The other Dragons were afraid of him. Paarthurnex himself was too weak to fight him on his own. Alduin's destruction needed to come from someone else.

Also, the Dragonborn could use shouts that none of the dragons could, since the Dragonborn is mortal. The game stressed that the only way to get Alduin into a position where he could be killed was to use the DragonRend shout. It was created by men and could only be used by beings with a sense of mortality. So I believe a mortal Dragonborn was necessary, but the power behind it was not unique to Dragonborns. Rather it is an ability of all dragons. As for if they actually used it?