Skyrim Has A Secret Way Of Keeping Paarthurnax Alive – Without Mods

One of the stupidest choices in any video game ever comes towards the end of Skyrim, when you’re asked to choose between The Blades and Paarthurnax.

Let’s have a little context for the two people that haven’t played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Paarthurnax is a formerly evil dragon who has, over the centuries, tried his best to be better and helps players save the world from total destruction. The Blades are an ancient order who, once the day has been saved, decide Paarthurnax still needs to pay for his crimes.

Can You Save Paarthurnax In Skyrim?

You’ve a choice to make

Once you’ve saved the world, you’re left with a choice. Although I should stress it’s not much of a choice at all. The Blades ask you to go and execute Paarthurnax.

If you believe, like most people, that murdering a dragon who just helped save everyone is fundamentally not a very chill thing to do, you don’t actually get to tell the Blades where to shove it. Instead, you have to be content with an open quest in your log telling you to kill Paarthurnax. Even worse, the Blades won’t actually speak to you again until you’ve done it.

Granted, speaking to the Blades again doesn’t really open a world of post-game content, aside from some radiant dragon-slaying quests. But that’s not really the point. After a game filled with choices, your final big decision just kind of… fizzles out. Thankfully, there’s a way around this.

How To Save Paarthurnax Without Mods

It is PC only, unfortunately

Obviously, there are dozens of mods out there that will add new outcomes to the Paarthurnax dilemma, and if you want to install one of those, you can go right ahead. However, if you game on PC and don’t want to muck around with mods, there’s another simple way to effectively trick the game – and by extension the Blades – into thinking Paarthurnax is dead.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Complete the Main Quest line and talk to Arngier and the Greybeards.
• Go to Sky Haven Temple and get the quest Paarthurnax from Delphine.
• Open console commands and type the following line: ‘setstage MQPaarthurnax 50’.
• Talk with Delphine again, and you’ll have the option to tell her Paarthurnax is dead.

And that’s it! The quest will be complete, you’ll remain on good terms with the Blades and Greybeards, and Paarthurnax gets to enjoy retirement in peace. Sure, it’s technically cheating, but since Skyrim fumbled this particular ending, we have to take matters into our own hands.

Systems

Released

November 11, 2011

ESRB

M for Mature: Use of Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes

Engine

Creation

Expansions

Skyrim: Dragonborn, Skyrim: Hearthfire, Skyrim: Dawnguard