Dawn, Valyrian steel, & the Black & White Trees

[AlaskanSandman]

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

Tyrion wondered where the metal for this one had come from. A few master armorers could rework old Valyrian steel, but the secrets of its making had been lost when the Doom came to old Valyria. "The colors are strange," he commented as he turned the blade in the sunlight. Most Valyrian steel was a grey so dark it looked almost black, as was true here as well. But blended into the folds was a red as deep as the grey. The two colors lapped over one another without ever touching, each ripple distinct, like waves of night and blood upon some steely shore. "How did you get this patterning? I've never seen anything like it."
"Nor I, my lord," said the armorer. "I confess, these colors were not what I intended, and I do not know that I could duplicate them. Your lord father had asked for the crimson of your House, and it was that color I set out to infuse into the metal. But Valyrian steel is stubborn. These old swords remember, it is said, and they do not change easily. I worked half a hundred spells and brightened the red time and time again, but always the color would darken, as if the blade was drinking the sun from it. And some folds would not take the red at all, as you can see. If my lords of Lannister are displeased, I will of course try again, as many times as you should require, but—"

 

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 A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it.
A glow came from the wood, like milk and moonlight, so faint it scarcely seemed to touch anything beyond the door itself, not even Sam standing right before it. The face was old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken. It looks dead. Its mouth was closed, and its eyes; its cheeks were sunken, its brow withered, its chin sagging. If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that.
The door opened its eyes.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow
Few places in the known world are as remote as Asshai, and fewer are as forbidding. Travelers tell us that the city is built entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples, palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike. The nights are very black in Asshai, all agree, and even the brightest days of summer are somehow grey and gloomy.

 

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Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening. No other buildings stood near. Black tiles covered the palace roof, many fallen or broken; the mortar between the stones was dry and crumbling. She understood now why Xaro Xhoan Daxos called it the Palace of Dust. Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth.

It was darker than she would have thought under the black trees, and the way was longer.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"For the next step. For you to go beyond skinchanging and learn what it means to be a greenseer."
"The trees will teach him," said Leaf. She beckoned, and another of the singers padded forward, the white-haired one that Meera had named Snowylocks. She had a weirwood bowl in her hands, carved with a dozen faces, like the ones the heart trees wore. Inside was a white paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it. "You must eat of this," said Leaf. She handed Bran a wooden spoon.
The boy looked at the bowl uncertainly. "What is it?"

"A paste of weirwood seeds."
Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood. He dipped the spoon into the paste, then hesitated. "Will this make me a greenseer?"
"Your blood makes you a greenseer," said Lord Brynden. "This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran III

"Was there one who was best of all?"
"The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star.They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Dany left him behind, entering a stairwell. She began to climb. Before long her legs were aching. She recalled that the House of the Undying Ones had seemed to have no towers.
Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Jaime I

Blackwood's solar was on the second floor of a cavernous timber keep. There was a fire burning in the hearth when they entered. The room was large and airy, with great beams of dark oak supporting the high ceiling. Woolen tapestries covered the walls, and a pair of wide latticework doors looked out upon the godswood. Through their thick, diamond-shaped panes of yellow glass Jaime glimpsed the gnarled limbs of the tree from which the castle took its name. It was a weirwood ancient and colossal, ten times the size of the one in the Stone Garden at Casterly Rock. This tree was bare and dead, though.
"The Brackens poisoned it," said his host. "For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot."

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns

In the Age of Heroes, the legends say, the ironborn were ruled by a mighty monarch known simply as the Grey King. The Grey King ruled the sea itself and took a mermaid to wife, so his sons and daughters might live above the waves or beneath them as they chose. His hair and beard and eyes were as grey as a winter sea, and from these he took his name. The crown he wore was made of driftwood, so all who knelt before him might know that his kingship came from the sea and the Drowned God who dwells beneath it.
The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous. It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. The Grey King also taught men to weave nets and sails and carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh.
The Grey King's greatest feat, however, was the slaying of Nagga, largest of the sea dragons, a beast so colossal that she was said to feed on leviathans and giant krakens and drown whole islands in her wroth. The Grey King built a mighty longhall about her bones, using her ribs as beams and rafters. From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. Only then did he cast aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful place at his right hand.

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Free Cities: Qohor

 Qohorik swords, knives, and armor are superior to even the best castle-forged steel of Westeros, and the city's smiths have perfected the art of infusing deep color into the metals of their work, producing armor and weaponry of lasting beauty. Only here, in all the world, has the art of reworking Valyrian steel been preserved, its secrets jealously guarded.

Maester Pol's treatise on Qohorik metalworking, written during several years of residence in the Free City, reveals just how jealously the secrets are guarded: He was thrice publicly whipped and cast out from the city for making too many inquiries. The final time, his hand was also removed following the allegation that he stole a Valyrian steel blade. According to Pol, the true reason for his final exile was his discovery of 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.

 

So what am i trying to say here? 

Valyrians made their steel using the trees to fuse the iron with carbon.

Trees=Charcoal=Carbon+Iron=Steel

The Valyrians did this though with the Black Trees with Blue Leaves of Essos we saw at Qarth. The Forest of Ghis and surrounding area's being cleared long ago. 

This is why Valyrian steel drinks in light as the Black trees do, and as the Black Stone does, which is just the Black Tree petrified. 

Dawn is made from the White Weirwoods and probably that meteor that fell. Enough to make a sword, but hardly enough to build a city. This is why dawn glows with a milk light, just like the Weirwood Gate.

So one tree and it's weapons and structures drink in the light, while Dawn and the Weirwood gate glow milk white. 

Judging by the Qohorik people, blood is probably still apart of it's forging as we know the trees feed on blood. 

Why did Ned's sword turn red? Not sure, but may have to do with Ned being executed with it and his soul going into the sword as Nissa Nissa's had gone into Dawn. But as it's Valyrian and made of the Black trees, it drinks the light and responds differently as far as colors go.

[Tucu]

Oathkeeper and Widow's wail are red because Mott used red dye. Not all the metal took the colour so it ended with ripples of red and black.

[AlaskanSandman]

5 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Oathkeeper and Widow's wail are red because Mott used red dye. Not all the metal took the colour so it ended with ripples of red and black.

That's not even close to how metal works. You can't just add dye to metal, doesn't work like that. To color steel involves heat or aging/rusting. To color gold involves mixing in other metals and alloys.

Edit- and no they can't just color steel any color they want, other wise we wouldn't need paint. 

[AlaskanSandman]

6 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Error

[Tucu]

We don't use spells or blood magic in metallurgy, but that didn't stop the Valyrians.

[AlaskanSandman]

5 minutes ago, Tucu said:

We don't use spells or blood magic in metallurgy, but that didn't stop the Valyrians.

Well in that case the swords just work on hopes and dreams since we're just throwing any logic out the window.

[Tucu]

From Mott in GoT Eddard VI

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The Knight of Flowers bought all his armor here, Tobho boasted, and many high lords, the ones who knew fine steel, and even Lord Renly, the king's own brother. Perhaps the Hand had seen Lord Renly's new armor, the green plate with the golden antlers? No other armorer in the city could get that deep a green; he knew the secret of putting color in the steel itself, paint and enamel were the crutches of a journeyman

Tinting metals is within the abilities of Mott.

[AlaskanSandman]

1 minute ago, Tucu said:

From Mott in GoT Eddard VI

Dying metals is within the abilities of Mott.

How do you know he used dye to get the green in Renly's armor? You dont even know what kinda of metal it is. How do you know he didn't simply mix in Bronze or that the armor wasn't Bronze of some type. There are much more likely real world answers than something like dye. And so what, Tobo say's it's magic and spells, but i seriously doubt that. Either way, there's more textual evidence for what i presented that what your saying.

[Tucu]

Mott says that he can can put colour into the metal itself and then says that he used red dye on the Valyrian steel (with mixed results). He is the only person in the books so far that knows some of the secrets of working Valyrian steel.

You are trying to create a mystery where there is none.

[AlaskanSandman]

13 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Mott says that he can can put colour into the metal itself and then says that he used red dye on the Valyrian steel (with mixed results). He is the only person in the books so far that knows some of the secrets of working Valyrian steel.

You are trying to create a mystery where there is none.

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"I confess, these colors were not what I intended, and I do not know that I could duplicate them. Your lord father had asked for the crimson of your House, and it was that color I set out to infuse into the metal. But Valyrian steel is stubborn. These old swords remember, it is said, and they do not change easily. I worked half a hundred spells and brightened the red time and time again, but always the color would darken, as if the blade was drinking the sun from it. And some folds would not take the red at all, as you can see. If my lords of Lannister are displeased, I will of course try again, as many times as you should require, but—"

Not once did he ever mention any thing about dye's. Nice try though. He say's he "infuses" the color, which is exactly what you would do when mixing metals. 

Im not creating anything. People have speculated on Dawn and Valyrian steel since the books came out. Nice try again. 

You'd have made a better argument bringing up Red Rain, but as you didn't ill kill it now. Red Rain was possibly the ancestral sword of House Rayne. So House Drumm likely took it from House Rayne and may have even killed them with it. Which would be the same situation as Eddard, being killed with his own sword and it turning red after. 

I expected to hear more argument about the stone part and it's relation to things haha As Obsidian and Basalt both come from volcanoes, and dragon glass seems inherently magical. Yet nothing for sure on the basalt or a direct link of it to Asshai's stone. Also the Basalt isn't said to drink in light. But there's some arguments against me though

[Tucu]

21 minutes ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Not once did he ever mention any thing about dye's. Nice try though. He say's he "infuses" the color, which is exactly what you would do when mixing metals. 

Im not creating anything. People have speculated on Dawn and Valyrian steel since the books came out. Nice try again. 

You'd have made a better argument bringing up Red Rain, but as you didn't ill kill it now. Red Rain was possibly the ancestral sword of House Rayne. So House Drumm likely took it from House Rayne and may have even killed them with it. Which would be the same situation as Eddard, being killed with his own sword and it turning red after. 

I expected to hear more argument about the stone part and it's relation to things haha As Obsidian and Basalt both come from volcanoes, and dragon glass seems inherently magical. Yet nothing for sure on the basalt or a direct link of it to Asshai's stone. Also the Basalt isn't said to drink in light. But there's some arguments against me though

Mott tried to turn fold by fold a dark grey metal into a crimson metal with some infusion and ended with a pattern of dark grey and dark red. No mention of using other metals.

Not sure what the mistery is there; we already knew that he only has partial knowledge of working Valyrian steel. 

 

 

[AlaskanSandman]

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Mott tried to turn fold by fold a dark grey metal into a crimson metal with some infusion and ended with a pattern of dark grey and dark red. No mention of using other metals.

Not sure what the mistery is there; we already knew that he only has partial knowledge of working Valyrian steel. 

Hahah true true. But the methods described above is how you infuse metal with other metals or alloys. Folding and Hammering (Hammering to work out the slag impurities). 

Theres just no way dyes would work in metals, i suppose you could say welll its fantasy. Yet Martin seems to use real world logic when available. Almost the same difference in use of Magic as Tolkien. As when Sauramun calls his weapons of war magic, which is different that the magic of the Elves (which they would not call magic).

Fire burns up anything organic breaking it down to its carbon and other basic elements. Hence why Charcoal from trees is exactly what you would wanna use, other that oil wrapped in wrags maybe. This way you "Infuse" the iron with the Carbon needed to make steel. The varying amounts of carbon effecting the quality of steel.

Yes, Tobo can rework it, but can not, forge it anew. Why? Possibilities of logic?

Tobo has discovered he needs the fires super hot to melt Valyrian steel, hotter than normal steel.

Tobo has not discovered though How the steel was made. How it was given it's strength and sharp edge and lightness (all known for more carbon in the iron). 

You said it your self, Partial knowledge, so the curiosity comes in where his understanding ends, with the weapons creation. The Qohorik claim to be able to make a steel worthy of Valyrian steel though we've yet to see it. It is said they use human sacrifices to make the swords. Since the rumor is out though, Tobo should know how to make new Steel but doesnt.

Blood may well be needed as part of the Blood Magic the Trees Feed on that Powers them. This i have already suggested.