What contradicts the idea that melting is normal, but the folding and heat treatment gives Valyrian steel its sharpness and strength?
My son observed the NK may have been a Targ as well because of that. And it’s a strong proposition, and there’s little debate about whether or not the Targs have a right to the throne they built, and wouldn’t it be interesting if NK showed up at the Red Keep to claim the big uncomfy chair but…so what? He’s totes dead now. Kind of reduces him to the creepy branch of the family nobody likes to talk about.
I don’t think we’re done with Bran yet. Because all he did was be bait, and because he warged the ravens but none of the usual reporting happened. Where’d he go, what’d he see, and what does it mean?–they usually answer these things when someone wargs.
The Hound is askeered of what skeers The Hound. He may have become less of a sociopath, but phobias run deeper than morality and this last battle highlighted his pyrophobia is as strong as ever. I’m certain this fact will not be lost on The Mountain when their reckoning comes. And that The Hound will have to overcome it to overcome him.
I think this is the exchange that kicked off this tangent –
There is a limited supply of Valyrian steel in the world. There isn’t going to be any more. Ice was remade into who Valyrian steel swords with the aid of one of only three living smiths who are capable of working with Valyrian steel. Those smiths are not available at Winterfell. So, period.
Nothing can be done to increase the supply of, or to modify the existing Valyrian steel swords into some other form, like arrowheads or coatings. It doesn’t matter what you think you know about metallurgy or swordsmithery or what you think you saw happening to Ice. That’s what the show tells us.
Just watched a bunch of snippets from the show, but I couldn’t find it specifically stated whether Xaro Xhoan Daxos’s vault is made of Valyrian steel. Anybody know?
According to this, it’s made of Valyrian stone.
Ah, got it. Thanks.
They had them at Minas Tirith in LOTR:ROTK, too.
OK, thanks.
That’s what I charitably assumed, but there were still too many shots of Jaime, Brienne, Pod et al. being overrun by wights and then being fine a few scenes later.
I don’t have any problem accepting that Westerosi obsidian is not like Earth obsidian. They also have ravens that can be trained as carrier pigeons and fly the length of South America in a few days.
Probably. Deep down I still hope we see him again - but I really doubt we will.
From the intro sequence, the ballistas would be kept safely inside the building, firing through ports, I guess, so this wouldn’t work.
Thanks! I wonder (though I’m sure it’s nowhere mentioned in the show) whether Valyrian stone is Valyrian steel ore.
That’s really bad planning, as it would restrict their line of fire to the point that they would be useless.
The idea that it is similar to Damascus steel is totally an assumption on your part.
Thinking that melting it down changes its structure and alters its magic is also an arbitrary assumption on your part (and proved false by Ned’s blade being melted and the new blades still being Valyrian steel).
The problem here is that you’re arguing on the basis of ideas that are entirely born in your imagination. You think people are wrong because they don’t make the same arbitrary assumptions you do. No amount of you personally wanting to believe that Valyrian steel is similar to Damascus steel makes it so. And as soon as “magic” in involved, as you believe yourself, you can’t make any reliable assumption anyway. The reason why the three guys are the only ones able to forge Valyrian steel might be because they’re the only ones knowing the exact amount of menstrual blood of a virgin that must be poured in the melting metal, for instance.
I don’t know about the books, but please explain where in the show it is explained that it can’t be melted and recast by normal means, when the only scene in the show where this issue is dealt with precisely shows it being melted down and recast with no indication that it’s not “by normal means”.
The only thing we’re told is that very few people know how to forge it for reasons unknown. All the rest of what you state might come from the books or might come from your imagination, but it definitely doesn’t come from the show.
And also you can’t really complain about the thread being hijacked and repeatedly in the very same posts keep talking about the topic.
Yes, but as pointed out by the posters I was responding to, it would prevent them from being easily destroyed by dragon fire. I assume you could have many of them, each covering a specific area.
Anyway, what I wrote is solely based on what we see in the intro sequence. Not a proof that they’ll be actually disposed this way.
Besides, I’m not sure anybody should be surprised by bad military planning at this point in the show.
The Valyrian steel tangent is beginning to sound like a debate on how a swallow can carry a coconut; but more argumentative and less rational.
I think the intro sequence is just a callback to Cersei and Qyburn testing the new ballista on the old dragon skull.
You know what would have been awesome? Bran taking over the NK with warging and winning the battle that way. Maybe by marching them to King’s Landing.
My fanwank is Valyrian steel has microscopic nodules of dragonglass in it. The trick for working it is insuring the nodules are evenly distributed and it is shaped and sharpened in such a way so the nodules add to the strength and durability of the edge. Obviously they can’t make more, even if they knew what makes it special. If it were just Damascus steel then the ordinary blacksmiths could always make more.
You know what would have been cool and totally unexpected? If, instead of reaching for his weapon, the Night King s…l…o,w,l,y bent the knee.
I know the ballista is supposed to be an anti-dragon weapon in the show, but really a ballista is a useless weapon against a flying target. You would essentially have to hope that it flies directly into your bolt, as the ballista can’t really be aimed in real time. All the dragons have to do is fly unpredictably and the ballista is useless. If you had a hundred of them lined up to fire right down an obvious approach lane for a dragon maybe you could fire a huge volley and hope to get a lucky hit, but that’s about it.
On the other hand, if Rickon had run a serpentine pattern he’d still be alive, so…
I’m pretty curious what the tone is going to be for the rest of the season. If I’m being unbiased by personalities Cersei is barely even a threat in comparison to the NK. From the perspective of humanity, who cares who sits on the Iron Throne? It’s not like Cersei wants to destroy the world or open up a portal to a demon universe. She just wants power. The difference between Cersei, Dany, or Hot Pie sitting on the throne is pretty immaterial in comparison to having all of Westeros killed by the NK.
After the episode ended I kind of felt like that was the real climax of the series. Everything else is just clean up. Cersei being on the Iron Throne really only has major significance in reference to defending the NK attack. Now that that problem is solved it seems a little hollow.
I vaguely remember there being a ton or worry about starvation due to the coming extra long winter in the beginning of the series. Those worries seem to have just gone away. Maybe the NK was making the winter longer and so that is no longer an issue? Maybe all the conveniently located and refrigerated bodies around Winterfell can support them through the winter. Dibs on Jorah’s thigh meat!
Maybe, but the more I think about it, the more I’ve convinced myself, on the grounds of painfully thin supposition, that Bran warged into Ghost. Stalking the Night King from the ground, maybe, or up to some other business we’ll (hopefully) find out about next episode.
What we saw of Bran’s warging was largely pointless. The ravens couldn’t see much in the blizzard, and Bran would have quickly realized that. So he wouldn’t have spent the majority of the episode uselessly warging, but would have hopped into something better suited to showing him what he needed to know. Ghost, I imagine, because I don’t think the wolf died offscreen (a la Shaggydog) during the Dothraki charge. Ghost rates a Summer death scene, at least.