Advanced Crackpottery 5 - Dragonsteel

[leonardof]

On 02/04/2017 at 3:32 PM, LynnS said:

[...] 'm inclined to think that forging a sword in the heart of something or someone is metaphor rather than literal. For example, forging a sword in the heart of a lion, might mean someone with strength, courage etc, worthy to to become the instrument or the sword. [...]

Yes, because that would be easier than sacrificing someone you cared for, wouldn't it?

[LynnS]

5 hours ago, leonardof said:

Yes, because that would be easier than sacrificing someone you cared for, wouldn't it?

I'll use the example of the first attempt to forge the sword 'Lightbringer' in water; where it shatters in two; bearing in mind that we're told by Syrio Forel that the sword and the person are one; Melisandre's entreaties to see R'hllor's instrument in her fires and the oath of the NW:  'I am the sword' etc.  

For all intents an purposes, Drogo is Dany's instrument for regaining the Kingdoms.  Drogo is her weapon or sword.  Then we have Mirri Maaz Duur's attempt to save him using a bath of water and blood with the outcome that his body and spirit are split in two.  This would be in my view a failed forging of a sword or instrument.  The sacrifice was Dany's unborn child, Drogo and a bloody melee outside the tent, as well as the sacrifice of holy blood in the form of Mirri Maaz Duur.

As far as the forging of the sword; I don't think we are going to see Gendry or someone else following the formula in the legends quite so literally.  What I'm saying is that the character has to undergo a forging,  molded and shaped as a weapon.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

11 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'll use the example of the first attempt to forge the sword 'Lightbringer' in water; where it shatters in two; bearing in mind that we're told by Syrio Forel that the sword and the person are one; Melisandre's entreaties to see R'hllor's instrument in her fires and the oath of the NW:  'I am the sword' etc.  

For all intents an purposes, Drogo is Dany's instrument for regaining the Kingdoms.  Drogo is her weapon or sword.  Then we have Mirri Maaz Duur's attempt to save him using a bath of water and blood with the outcome that his body and spirit are split in two.  This would be in my view a failed forging of a sword or instrument.  The sacrifice was Dany's unborn child, Drogo and a bloody melee outside the tent, as well as the sacrifice of holy blood in the form of Mirri Maaz Duur.

As far as the forging of the sword; I don't think we are going to see Gendry or someone else following the formula in the legends quite so literally.  What I'm saying is that the character has to undergo a forging,  molded and shaped as a weapon.

It's in the tempering that the sword shatters. And if your sword shatters when it hits the water, you did something seriously wrong in making it.

Mirri did not just use a bath of water and blood. She was chanting/singing, bringing in shadows that Patchface talks about. 

I get the symbolism, and I agree that the characters all go through that, but at this point we can't rule out the possibility that some kind of sacrifice will be needed in order to attain the best possible weapon for fighting the Others. And we can't say the dragons are that weapon yet.

[LynnS]

9 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

It's in the tempering that the sword shatters. And if your sword shatters when it hits the water, you did something seriously wrong in making it.

Mirri did not just use a bath of water and blood. She was chanting/singing, bringing in shadows that Patchface talks about. 

I get the symbolism, and I agree that the characters all go through that, but at this point we can't rule out the possibility that some kind of sacrifice will be needed in order to attain the best possible weapon for fighting the Others. And we can't say the dragons are that weapon yet.

Drogo was submerged in a bath of water.  Then his stallion was brought in and the water turned to blood.   I'm going to say that R'hllor is a dragon, more specifically the dragon that sings to Dany in her wake the dragon dream; when she herself transforms into a dragon and flies. R'hllor is Lightbringer, the Lord of Light and the flaming sword. The last mount that she must ride.  LOL

[Lady Blizzardborn]

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

Drogo was submerged in a bath of water.  Then his stallion was brought in and the water turned to blood.   I'm going to say that R'hllor is a dragon, more specifically the dragon that sings to Dany in her wake the dragon dream; when she herself transforms into a dragon and flies. R'hllor is Lightbringer, the Lord of Light and the flaming sword. The last mount that she must ride.  LOL

I think R'hllor as a dragon would fit best as Drogon. And Drogon is the second mount she rides. Which means there's some reason for not riding him when she gets to the third mount. Either she's pregnant at that point, or Drogon is no longer with us. I hope it's the former.

[leonardof]

16 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'll use the example of the first attempt to forge the sword 'Lightbringer' in water; where it shatters in two; bearing in mind that we're told by Syrio Forel that the sword and the person are one; Melisandre's entreaties to see R'hllor's instrument in her fires and the oath of the NW:  'I am the sword' etc.  

For all intents an purposes, Drogo is Dany's instrument for regaining the Kingdoms.  Drogo is her weapon or sword.  Then we have Mirri Maaz Duur's attempt to save him using a bath of water and blood with the outcome that his body and spirit are split in two.  This would be in my view a failed forging of a sword or instrument.  The sacrifice was Dany's unborn child, Drogo and a bloody melee outside the tent, as well as the sacrifice of holy blood in the form of Mirri Maaz Duur.

As far as the forging of the sword; I don't think we are going to see Gendry or someone else following the formula in the legends quite so literally.  What I'm saying is that the character has to undergo a forging,  molded and shaped as a weapon.

I agree it won't help following the formula. And yes, it would be much better to have a nice story about the forging of a hero than a story about the forging of a sword. But I'm afraid the forging of the hero will require some sort of sacrifice...

Anyway, that's all speculation, it's not as if we could be certain before the last books are out.

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, leonardof said:

I agree it won't help following the formula. And yes, it would be much better to have a nice story about the forging of a hero than a story about the forging of a sword. But I'm afraid the forging of the hero will require some sort of sacrifice...

Anyway, that's all speculation, it's not as if we could be certain before the last books are out.

I agree about the sacrifice; there is always a price to pay for sorcery. 

[The Fattest Leech]

Nevermind. 

[Maester Crypt]

On ‎31‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 9:42 PM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Goldenheart bows are, forgive the pun, the gold standard. So this dragonbone is pretty darned awesome stuff.

I'm curious about Puddles but was interested in asking if this could refer to the three eggs gifted to Dany, well specifically two of them?

It is difficult to understand the language spoken, although I am trying...

In the Arya passage, she feels something does not love her. Could this be possible foreshadowing of her killing a dragon or two?

[Lady Blizzardborn]

13 hours ago, Maester Crypt said:

I'm curious about Puddles but was interested in asking if this could refer to the three eggs gifted to Dany, well specifically two of them?

It is difficult to understand the language spoken, although I am trying...

In the Arya passage, she feels something does not love her. Could this be possible foreshadowing of her killing a dragon or two?

It's hard to say about the eggs. If dragonbone turned out to be the source of dragonsteel, then Dany might need to sacrifice a dragon or two to save the world. I specifically think of Drogon as an incarnation of Drogo, her great love, you might say her Nissa Nissa. 

I don't see Arya specifically as one of the main contenders for killing a dragon. That's best done from a distance, and Arya's style is to get close to her target. I'm more concerned about Alleras/Sarella and that goldenheart bow at this point. But the Arya's getting that feeling from the dragons could be a very nice detail GRRM has put in to go along with Arya and Jon being so close, and the most Stark-looking of the kids, but Jon somehow knowing he's not a Stark. I would love to see how he would feel amongst those dragon skulls.

[cgrav]

Wait wait wait... so are you saying the dagger belonged to Illyrio? This opens up all manner of Bran-Illyrio-Faceless Men crackpots. 

But for slightly more serious, I think the fact that the record actually says dragonsteel means that the nature of the substance was known to whomever put those words to paper. It's only a question of whether it was known at the time it was first used. To me that suggests the steel making process was already known, as well as whatever makes it dragonsteel. Realistically, the dragon bones are ideal because they contain both iron and carbon.

And I do have a very interesting counterpoint. There is one quote that appears in two different POVs in two different books. 

First in Feast Sam I;

Quote

"The armor of the Others is proof against most ordinary blades, if the tales can be believed," said Sam, "and their own swords are so cold they shatter steel. Fire will dismay them, though, and they are vulnerable to obsidian." He remembered the one he had faced in the haunted forest, and how it had seemed to melt away when he stabbed it with the dragonglass dagger Jon had made for him. "I found one account of the Long Night that spoke of the last hero slaying Others with a blade of dragonsteel. Supposedly they could not stand against it." 

 

"Dragonsteel?" Jon frowned. "Valyrian steel?"

And then again in Dance Jon II:

Quote

"The armor of the Others is proof against most ordinary blades, if the tales can be believed, and their own swords are so cold they shatter steel. Fire will dismay them, though, and they are vulnerable to obsidian. I found one account of the Long Night that spoke of the last hero slaying Others with a blade of dragonsteel. Supposedly they could not stand against it." 

 

"Dragonsteel?" The term was new to Jon. "Valyrian steel?"

This was apparently important enough to repeat in two POVs. The author may be trying to tell us something.

[Curled Finger]

On 4/3/2017 at 0:50 PM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

 Dragonbone may be "as strong" as steel, whatever the hell that means (we have no idea what specific metric they are going by). But barring magical properties (which it could admittedly have), bone cannot hold an edge. It may not crack or break, but it will become dull and dented fast.

 

Lady B cites Tyrion's observation of the dragon skull teeth as being or appearing to be black diamonds.   Diamonds are quite durable in my experience.   They can cut glass, which may not be as tough as say my neck bone, but I know of no real comparison.    My mother had diamonds that are very old and were worn daily with absolutely no damage to their shape or "cut".   She used her hands a great deal in her profession.   Daily handling of chemicals and glass may not compare with your argument about bone being unable to keep an edge after severing heads, but I hope to  persuade you that daily rough use over an extended time may be comparable to say chopping a few heads off in a single battle.  And if memory serves, I believe diamonds are impervious to extreme fire.  Take it or leave it, but I think these dragon bones may be a material far closer to diamonds than my cervical spine.  Perhaps marrow or some part--I don't know,.  We are after all, dealing with a fantasy weapon here.   Rebar will bend where concrete will not.   Envision this inversely if you can and this is what I think we are dealing with.   

My Dear Lady Blizzardborn--you've compiled some wonderful intel here.   As always, useful and plausible.   There are many chapters throughout ASOIAF that leave me wondering why the hell I had to know that--Theon's mad sex with the captain's daughter, Asha's mad sex with Qarl the Maid and Dany's adventures in the Red Waste with all those dragon bones just lying about.   (There are of course many more, but those came to mind immediately).   We have all those bones littering Bloodraven's cave, including those giant bat skeletons.   Giant bat skeletons?   I wish I could recall whose idea it was that those giant bat skeletons were actually dragons...the point is I think there are rich caches of undiscovered bone right there in Westeros, certainly in Essos.   

To Dawn...if our dragons can provide us with weapons of superior strength and durability though dark in appearance, what would our weirwood weapons afford us?  

All in all a very good discussion.   Following to see what else pops up here.   

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

5 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

Lady B cites Tyrion's observation of the dragon skull teeth as being or appearing to be black diamonds.   Diamonds are quite durable in my experience.   They can cut glass, which may not be as tough as say my neck bone, but I know of no real comparison.    My mother had diamonds that are very old and were worn daily with absolutely no damage to their shape or "cut".   She used her hands a great deal in her profession.   Daily handling of chemicals and glass may not compare with your argument about bone being unable to keep an edge after severing heads, but I hope to  persuade you that daily rough use over an extended time may be comparable to say chopping a few heads off in a single battle.  And if memory serves, I believe diamonds are impervious to extreme fire.  Take it or leave it, but I think these dragon bones may be a material far closer to diamonds than my cervical spine.  Perhaps marrow or some part--I don't know,.  We are after all, dealing with a fantasy weapon here.   Rebar will bend where concrete will not.   Envision this inversely if you can and this is what I think we are dealing with.

I was a bit inarticulate before, allow me to rephrase. Even if dragon bone could hold its edge better than normal bone tissue, you can never really make it sharp in the first place, at least not compared to materials like metal or glass. The dense molecular structure of metal means that you can have a durable, compact molecular matrix contained even in a very tiny volume of material, like at the edge of a blade. And the reason that Samurai steel or Damascus steel (real world equivalent of Valyrian steel) is so sharp and durable is because the act of folding and twisting the metal over and over creates complex structures within the molecular matrix, further cementing the molecular bonds. You can achieve a similar result with diamond, which already has a super strong molecular structure without all that crazy folding and twisting business. But bone tissue is not like this at all. It is made up of large organic cells, not individual and uniform molecules (admittedly an oversimplification of steel composition, but you get the point). And on top of that, bone tissue is porous, or in other words spongy. It is basically full of tiny holes. You simply can't create super sharp weapons from bone tissue, even if dragon bone is indeed as hard as diamond and capable of holding its edge. It would certainly not be ideal for fighting an armored foe. Humans on Earth have used bones as weapons for hunting animals, but never for fighting armored opponents (to my knowledge).

In super over simplified terms, it basically comes down to density. A higher density of material allows for a sharper edge. Bone cells are around 5 to 20 micrometers in diameter, and again bone is porous so these cells aren't even homogeneously packed directly against one another. By contrast, the distance between the nuclei of two bonded iron atoms (the main ingredient in steel) is about 250 picometers. That means that the density of the cells in bone tissue is somewhere in the magnitude of 20,000 to 80,000 times less dense than the bonded atoms in metal. And this means (again, super oversimplified) that metal can be potentially 20,000 to 80,000 times "sharper" than bone. Metal can have a much thinner edge and a much steeper angle to the edge, because there are plenty of atoms close to the edge bonded to the atoms at the edge.

I think that dragonsteel is simply the same thing as Valyrian steel, but obviously predated Valyria itself.

[Curled Finger]

@40 Thousand Skeletons, I have missed the little real world lessons around this joint.   Thank you kindly for taking a complex concept and breaking it down for easier digestion.    I understand what you've explained and of course it makes sense.   The only thing I have to add is that the 1st Men migrated to Westeros some 8 to 10,000 years back with their bronze weapons.   I'm sure you will agree that while less than optimum, bronze was still better than bone.   You have the giants and COTF, Others and 1st Men for some 2,000 years with no discernible technological progress that I can cite.  I'm not sure they had armor outside their wooden shields, if they even had that.  Maybe a bronze helm or something?   My experience with bronze is that it's very pliable.  It wouldn't take a beating very well at all.    If a thing is coated or dipped in bronze chances are very good you can actually rub it completely off with a low torque electric polisher.  I've actually performed this feat of magic with the silver coating a brass piece.   Which is the long way around to questioning the existence of any real armor at all during The Long Night.   If this is the case and all the weaponry available during TLN was either bronze or bone (glad to know of anything else -- stone? -- you can contribute to the list) wouldn't bone infused with the very interesting substance of obsidian--a coating?-- or even dragon teeth, be plausible even adequate weaponry for the time if the Others have no armor?   I get where you're coming from and agree completely when the Andals join the story.   When I consider dragonsteel I'm bound to the time as I see it, a veritable bronze age.  In the same vein I see the Others armored in ice and spells, but little practical armor.   I hit a speed bump at the technology available at the time.   

[Jon Ice-Eyes]

Two things are relevant here. 

First, meteors were the first available source of iron available to humans. This is because smelting technology wasn't really made yet. They had good enough forges to work iron, but not good enough to extract it from rocks. Meteors can have big chunks of iron, ready to work. So if you happen to find a fallen star, or a moon meteor, iron -- sometimes people say 'steel' interchangeably -- would be available. 

Second, steel is iron plus carbon. Also, really good steel -- the kind that makes good damascus steel -- has other elements like chromium, nickel, molybdenum, and even silicon. Actual moon rocks are high in some of the rarer metals. What I think is that dragon bone also has these elements, and if you add these to iron, you might get some crazy-ass steel. Using dragon flame to forge with, and adding in dragon bone might allow some crazy alloys which on Planetos are magical. 

Dragon steel in my mind is dragon bone plus iron, plus a lot of crafting technology. Maybe a little blood sacrifice. Some of this may have been available through really fortunate convergence to a bronze-age society; just enough to make, say, one sword. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

3 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

@40 Thousand Skeletons, I have missed the little real world lessons around this joint.   Thank you kindly for taking a complex concept and breaking it down for easier digestion.    I understand what you've explained and of course it makes sense.   The only thing I have to add is that the 1st Men migrated to Westeros some 8 to 10,000 years back with their bronze weapons.   I'm sure you will agree that while less than optimum, bronze was still better than bone.   You have the giants and COTF, Others and 1st Men for some 2,000 years with no discernible technological progress that I can cite.  I'm not sure they had armor outside their wooden shields, if they even had that.  Maybe a bronze helm or something?   My experience with bronze is that it's very pliable.  It wouldn't take a beating very well at all.    If a thing is coated or dipped in bronze chances are very good you can actually rub it completely off with a low torque electric polisher.  I've actually performed this feat of magic with the silver coating a brass piece.   Which is the long way around to questioning the existence of any real armor at all during The Long Night.   If this is the case and all the weaponry available during TLN was either bronze or bone (glad to know of anything else -- stone? -- you can contribute to the list) wouldn't bone infused with the very interesting substance of obsidian--a coating?-- or even dragon teeth, be plausible even adequate weaponry for the time if the Others have no armor?   I get where you're coming from and agree completely when the Andals join the story.   When I consider dragonsteel I'm bound to the time as I see it, a veritable bronze age.  In the same vein I see the Others armored in ice and spells, but little practical armor.   I hit a speed bump at the technology available at the time.   

Welcome!  

Aah, that's where I think you are mistaken . I am betting that their ice armor is quite practical and was the same armor they used in the LN. It is likely that they are using some form of magic (probably telekinesis/"teke" specifically) to keep the ice in that form. Here is the relevant SSM:

Quote

Shaw: Do you know what substance an Other sword is made from. 

Martin: Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it. 

And when Sam stabbed the WW, his armor melted with his body: 

Quote

He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. "Mother, that's cold."

So Sam got lucky and stabbed the WW in its throat with his eyes closed. I am betting that its armor would have stopped the glass dagger, otherwise it isn't super useful armor. It is unimaginable, special ice after all. And I also doubt that a bone sword would be sharp enough to penetrate the armor. But really who knows, maybe the mere fact of the blade being on fire would melt the armor and get around the problem of sharpness that way. Or maybe GRRM has no idea that you can't sharpen bone very effectively. He did once melt gold in a cooking pot.  

Also, don't forget that the whole narrative of a Westerosi "pre-Andal bronze age" is really brought into question by the apparent existence of iron in Westeros. We of course have the Ironborn themselves. And then we have the description of Robb's crown:

Quote

The ancient crown of the Kings of Winter had been lost three centuries ago, yielded up to Aegon the Conqueror when Torrhen Stark knelt in submission. What Aegon had done with it no man could say. Lord Hoster's smith had done his work well, and Robb's crown looked much as the other was said to have looked in the tales told of the Stark kings of old; an open circlet of hammered bronze incised with the runes of the First Men, surmounted by nine black iron spikes wrought in the shape of longswords. Of gold and silver and gemstones, it had none; bronze and iron were the metals of winter, dark and strong to fight against the cold.

It is hard to say if the Kings of Winter only wore such a crown after the coming of the Andals, but I doubt it.

Of course there is a super obvious and important question: if steel didn't exist in Westeros, and the sword referred to as "dragonsteel" was actually dragon bone, where the heck does the term "dragonsteel" come from in the first place? Maybe they only started using the term way later? IDK, it just seems like a stretch to me for the sword to have been anything other then Valyrian steel. I assume Valyrian steel can kill WWs, because otherwise it seems pointless to include in the story and especially to go out of the way and give a Valyrian steel sword to Jon. And if that is the case, I just don't see how a sword made from dragonbone could possibly be more useful than Valyrian steel, let alone more useful than the living dragon that would have to be sacrificed to get it. And if they really needed some dragon bones, couldn't they just use the skulls in the Red Keep before resorting to dragon sacrifice? Mayhaps those will all be exploded by then when Chekhov's wildfire destroys KL. If GRRM is going to go the route of making Dany sacrifice a dragon, I hope that it would be as part of a deal to make peace with the Others (the equivalent of nuclear disarmament), and not to make more war.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

4 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

Two things are relevant here. 

First, meteors were the first available source of iron available to humans. This is because smelting technology wasn't really made yet. They had good enough forges to work iron, but not good enough to extract it from rocks. Meteors can have big chunks of iron, ready to work. So if you happen to find a fallen star, or a moon meteor, iron -- sometimes people say 'steel' interchangeably -- would be available. 

Second, steel is iron plus carbon. Also, really good steel -- the kind that makes good damascus steel -- has other elements like chromium, nickel, molybdenum, and even silicon. Actual moon rocks are high in some of the rarer metals. What I think is that dragon bone also has these elements, and if you add these to iron, you might get some crazy-ass steel. Using dragon flame to forge with, and adding in dragon bone might allow some crazy alloys which on Planetos are magical. 

Dragon steel in my mind is dragon bone plus iron, plus a lot of crafting technology. Maybe a little blood sacrifice. Some of this may have been available through really fortunate convergence to a bronze-age society; just enough to make, say, one sword. 

This is some good points, and it is definitely important to bring up meteors given that Dawn is a thing. The only problem I really have with this explanation is that dragon bone is said by Tyrion to be "utterly impervious to fire". Mayhaps it isn't impervious to dragon fire and can me melted that way and combined into a steel alloy? But that seems super misleading on the part of GRRM.

[cgrav]

4 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

The only problem I really have with this explanation is that dragon bone is said by Tyrion to be "utterly impervious to fire". Mayhaps it isn't impervious to dragon fire and can me melted that way and combined into a steel alloy? But that seems super misleading on the part of GRRM.

Maybe we can take the negative implication that it IS vulnerable to ice or cold or something else other than fire. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

1 hour ago, cgrav said:

Maybe we can take the negative implication that it IS vulnerable to ice or cold or something else other than fire. 

That may be true. IDK if you have ever read The Ice Dragon. It is purportedly a children's story by GRRM, but in classic GRRM fashion a man is nailed to a wall and forced to witness his daughter being raped. But it is only heavily implied and not made explicit, because you know, it's a children's story . Anyways, SPOILERS, the story takes place in a land very similar to Westeros, and there is an ice dragon, which is ridden by the pov character Adara. And at the end of the story, the ice dragon fights 3 fire dragons (ridden by the rapists). The ice dragon is melted (piece by piece) by the fire dragons, and the fire dragons are basically frozen to death. All 4 dragons end up dying.

So yeah, at least in that story, fire dragons (and their bones) are vulnerable to the ultra-cold breath of an ice dragon, which may or may not end up being a thing in asoiaf.

[cgrav]

5 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

 

So yeah, at least in that story, fire dragons (and their bones) are vulnerable to the ultra-cold breath of an ice dragon, which may or may not end up being a thing in asoiaf.

There is the "frozen fire" motif in ASOIF. Really I'm inclined to assume that the dragons have some chilly equal in Otherland. The mutually destructive exchange of forces seems like a very GRRM thing. 

And that makes me wonder... if "frozen fire" melts Others, does it freeze dragons?