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A Note on Valyrian Steel


Jon B Smith

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I am new to the forums, so forgive me if this has been pointed out. 

Listening recently to the wonderful Radio Westeros podcast, I noticed that there was a mistake concerning steel technology, and this mistake may have been replicated elsewhere in people's theories about Valyrian steel, Lightbringer, and the technological proficiency of ancient empires on Planetos. I am thinking specifically of the Great Empire of the Dawn and the Valyrian Empire. 

The mistake is in equating Valyrian folded steel blades with any steel blades. Valyrian swords, or swords that are older but mistakenly thought to be Valyrian type (ie. Ice, Dawn, Lightbringer, wherever it is if it is not one of these) use not just steel as described, but FOLDED steel, which is quite a step up technologically from regular steel.

Anyone would be right to note that a Dawn Age sword using steel of any kind would be a marvel, because at that time people only had regular old iron. The Lightbringer myth, with its "heat, hammer, fold" repetition is not just talking about making plain steel, which would already be beyond basic iron-making. It's talking about making pattern welded steel. This type of steel is found in real-world examples of katanas, as well as Damascus steel. Or at least modern Damascus steel; no need to get into whether it's actually the same as historical 17th century Damascus steel. Point is, pattern welded steel is known for being beautiful, as the layers give the blade a wood-grain or 'watery' look, and, most importantly, the blades get insanely sharp and hold an edge really well. Sounds familiar. Seriously though, they're just mesmerizing to look at. 

Steel, the plain kind that is used every day in everything, is not folded. It's iron that is heated very hot, stripped of impurities, and yet retains just a little bit of carbon. When you hit that sweet spot of carbon content, the metal has all the fun properties that we all associate with swords, knives, and armour. It's hard as hell but just malleable enough, and most importantly, you can control how hard it gets by hardening and tempering it. This is the stuff that any sword would likely be made of, and it does a damn fine job without folding. 

Pattern welded steel is made by heating, folding, super-heating, and then hammering your steel. This makes the folds weld together and become one. So your folded piece of metal is totally fused, welded together, but the layers give it those special properties that make it really well suited for blades. 

The metallurgy of steel, carbon, and pattern welding are super complex. I don't claim to be an expert, but these are the basics. 

 

Now, the main thing that separates iron from steel from pattern welded steel, when you are trying to make it, is HEAT. Apply a lot of heat to iron, and you can get steel. Apply a lot of heat to steel, with some badass technique, and you can pattern weld it. This last thing is Valyrian steel. The middle thing is just what regular swords are made of. A forge that can create steel can get hot enough to pattern weld; but one that can only apply enough heat to work iron cannot. But if you have a source of super intense heat, you can vault straight to the best stuff. 

You see where I'm going here! What I'm suggesting here is that any Dawn Age sword that is folded, ie. Lightbringer, must have been made with dragon fire. 

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Davos I

Quote

"Burnt," said Sallador Saan, "and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer? I shall tell it to you. It was a time when darkness lay heavyon the world. To oppose it, the hero must have a hero's blade, oh, like none that had ever been. And so thro thirty days and thirty nights Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fires. Heat and hammer and fold, heat and hammer and fold, oh, yes, until the sword was done. Yet when he plunged it into water to temper the steel it burst asunder."

The tale Sallador tells does not say that the second and third attempt included folding the steel, but I think it is safe to assume that was the case.

Of course, the tale was told in a time when folding steel was more common knowledge, that might just have been thrown in to show the blade was being made by a craftsman who knew what he was doing.

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5 hours ago, Jon B Smith said:

 any Dawn Age sword that is folded, ie. Lightbringer, must have been made with dragon fire. 

We only know of one dawn age sword and it isn't folded. Westerosi weapons in the dawn wer made of Bronze. The Ironborn had Iron weapons and it was one of hte reasons they were so badass. 
We don't know anything about lightbringer, othe than it;s creation myth. there is a good chance it never existed and is just a story 

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I do believe you mean the age of heroes, not the dawn age, and yes I am a firm believer that during the age of heroes there is a perfectly reasonable possibility that weaponry was forged in Dragonflame. 

There have been many many threads that have argued this topic back and forth for ages, with terms like Dragonsteel being thrown around etc and it always ends with two groups agreeing to disagree I think.

Ones who say(myself included), that there were dragons everywhere once, before the Valyrians ever became the super dragonlord, spell crafted steel sword making masters we know of, and it's totally possible somebody long ago forged a sword from iron ore smelted in Dragonflame and it was awesome. This could easily have been the first ever prototype for Valyrian steel(without the Valyrians spells) but was not named Valyrian steel, obviously.

And there's others who say.. Pfffttt! No chance!. 

And so it shall be until the next books help us settle the score. Hopefully!

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If you know a thing about steel making and get how ultra-hot dragon breath is supposed to be, I'd say it's a fairly logical conclusion. Though fantasy isn't always logical, so who knows for sure (I know I know, Martin does).

A while ago I got a differente theory, though. Thinking about the Lightbringer story of being tempered in the blood of Azo Ahai's wife, I was wondering if maybe Valyrian steel swords weren't made by tempering the swords... In dragon blood. In a big stretch of the idea, maybe the thing will even go as far as the new Lightbringer being tempered in Dany's own blood (as she is "the blood of the dragon," afterall).

On a similar base, I wondered if dragonglass isn't actually frozen dragon blood. But again, I'm stretching the concept.

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If you buy the theory (Radio Westeros again) that Melisandre is unknowingly the daughter of Bloodraven and his sister, then it makes perfect sense, along with your idea, that she will be the one who gets sacrificed to make Lightbringer 2. And you know she'd be up for it, fanatic that she is! 

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On 23/06/2016 at 8:14 AM, Dorian Martell said:

We only know of one dawn age sword and it isn't folded.

About Dawn:

The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

Those who have had the honor of examining it say it looks like no Valyrian steel they know

It doesn't seem to me Azor Ahai used a dragon to heat his blade:

Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fires

It was in the time of the LN, before (or just at the end?) of the Dawn Age. Much before Valyria. He used sacred fires, maybe the magic which was used in the creation of the dragons. Because the dragons were not always there. They came from somewhere, or were created:

If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came

The Valyrian Steel seems a specific Valyria technology, rumored to use dragon's blood in its making:

blood sacrifices-including the killing of slaves as young as infants-which the Qohorik smiths used in their efforts to produce a steel to equal that of the Freehold

Dawn is something different. If anything it looks like the Others' swords:

In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

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On 6/25/2016 at 4:08 AM, BalerionTheCat said:

snip

I am not a subscriber of Dawn as Lightbringer.  My issue is, what makes the AA story true and the House dayne story false? I think the Dayne story is true, and it somehow relates to the story of the last hero. My personal crackpot is that Dawn, the runic bronze armore of the Royces and Winterfell were the posessions of the Last Hero, who was Bran the Builder. His  fortress, armor and sword were seperated for safe keeping incase another hero was needed. 

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Regarding "pattern welding", that's a specific technique that combines elements of hard but brittle steel with softer but ductile wrought iron to produce a sword that has sharp edges but won't break. It was notably used by Frankish swordsmiths during the Middle Ages, and has some elements of similarity to Damascus steel.

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On ‎6‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 10:50 AM, Jon B Smith said:

you buy the theory (Radio Westeros again) that Melisandre is unknowingly the daughter of Bloodraven and his sister, then it makes perfect sense, along with your idea, 

along with Mel being the red star bleeding when she has the vision of bloodraven and spontaneously starts bleeding at the wall

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A quick note as to the steel:

I just want to put this video here for anyone interested in what a folded steel sword made of a meteorite looks like in real life. The video is kinda long, just over 20 minutes which is forever in internet time, but if you go to the 20:45 mark, then you can see a great sword at the end. The entire video is awesome and details the forging every step of the way. I think I embedded the video near the end.

Another quick note: turn your speakers down because there is music and it is a little loud.

 

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