It’s not that poisonous. I have a piece and have handled it without the slightest irritation. It has poisonous compounds but I bet practically all metals do.
Gallium could be used to make a link which would look and feel much like aluminum. But if this is going to be used as a necklace, the gallium link would melt.
That, and the only natural form of Polonium on this planet is [sup]210[/sup]Po, which is rather floridly dangerous even to handle.
Ha. Name me a work of dramatic fiction with a new take on the love triangle. Everything is borrowed, all art is the much-reused billboard space from the poem: “Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer,/Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear,/Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar,/And Texaco’s a beauty cream that’s used by every star.”
Perhaps the practical answer is, which metals were known to the GoT universe, and if a chain with those constituents (presumably non-toxic, solid) could be bought/made easily.
OK, enough talking around the problem. How about this list?
(NO to Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Cesium and Francium)
Beryllium Magnesium (NO to Calcium, Strontium, Barium, and Radium)
Scandium (NO to Yttrium, Lanthanum, and Actinium)
Titanium, Zirconium, (NO to Hafnium, Rutherfordium)
Vanadium (iffy), Niobium, Tantalum
Chromium, Molybdenum, Tungsten
Manganese, Rhenium (NO to Technetium)
Iron, Ruthenium, Osmium (iffy)
Rhodium, Iridium (NO to Cobalt)
Nickel, Palladium, Platinum
Copper, Silver, Gold
Zinc (NO to Cadmium, Mercury)
Aluminum (NO to Gallium, Indium, Thallium)
Tin, Lead
Bismuth (iffy)
(NO to Polonium)
?Europium, Gadolinium, Holmium
By my count, that’s between 26 and 32 links that you’d be willing to wear around your neck.
This is the real issue. GoT is essentially a middle ages level of technology, and there just weren’t that many elements known at that point.
Up until the late 1600s, we only really knew about 13 elements, and of those that are metals, only mercury would really be a problem when making a link in a chain.
The concept of an element as we understand it wouldn’t matter to them; they might well have considered bronze, white gold, brass, steel, electrum, gunmetal, and who knows what else as distinct “metals.”
They didn’t, or at least they didn’t have alchemical signs for them. If they had been classed as distinct metals they probably would have had their own symbols.
There were seven “metals of antiquity,” gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, and mercury. A few other metals, like zinc, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth were sort of known but often not clearly identified.
I don’t know if a Maester’s Chain is described in detail, but I would expect it to include the first six metals, and maybe a link with a vial of mercury.
You’re talking about our world. The thread, and my comment, were about the world of Game of Thrones.
Just now I discovered that, according tothe nerds who claim to know these things, there are many alloys in a maester’s chain; Valyrian steel, “pale steel,” which I’m guessing is George RR Martin’s way of saying stainless steel, bronze, “Red gold,” electrum, and a few others.
The concept of an alloy has been understood since the Bronze Age, and alloys have been manufactured deliberately. Once you start combining two (or more) metals into one, you certainly get an idea that the two original metals are more elementary in nature than the alloy you get from blending them.
Edit: I could see that this alloy idea could be obfuscated in the case of natural alloys, when you melt metal out of an ore that contains both base metals naturally. In such a case you might well perceive the alloy to be an element. But I suppose it doesn’t take a skilled metallurgist much to realise after some experimenting that you can greatly increase the quantity and desired quality of alloys by combiing base metals purposefully.
