Astronomy of Ice and Fire: Children of the Dawn, Part Two

[TheSmallOther]

Well, if you need someone (Darkstar or someone else) to bring sword outside so it becomes accessible... Ned had a chance to do it long ago. But that destroys the point of the Sword of the Morning all the way. You have to prove you are worthy of the sword, swords isn't passed to the heirs of House Dayne. I really doubt that killing the owner is enough - Ned haven't become Sword of The Morning. And we haven't heard (yet) about anyone who isn't SOTM wielding Dawn.

[LmL]

If Darkstar gets, he will probably have stolen it.

[LordImp]

I think Oathkeeper will either stay with Brienne (she is the daughter of the Evenstar, which probably makes her the Morningstar), or Brienne will deliver it to Jon at the crucial moment. I don't see anyone else wielding that sword... outside chance for jaime, but i doubt it. I only mention him because I haven't figured his symbolism out yet.

Widow's Wail may not be wielded at all, but if it is, Dany makes sense, although fAegon could end up with it, if he doesn't have Blackfyre already.

I do have a feeling that this is leading up to a dragon rider with a flaming sword, perhaps two. That's really the ultimate incarnation of the magic George has put together.

As for Dawn... Darkstar could get it, it Dawn is meant to wielded antagonistically, or if not, then Edric Dayne, who has been proven in battle and served at Lord Beric's side. Beric is very much an AA / BSE symbol, so Edric Dayne wielding Dawn would be a lot like the idea of Eldric Shadowchaser, son of AA, being the Last Hero. I think the LH's dragonsteel was Lightbringer, not Dawn, but the swords are switching all over the place, so that's not really a problem.

Another option for Dawn is that Darkstar might wield it for a time, serving as a mechanism to bring the sword out of Dorne, only to be killed by someone else later who needs it more.

But Jon already has Longclaw , and imo Longclaw is Jons sword. Oathkeeper stays with Brienne or goes to Jaime i hope.

[LmL]

There are a bunch of quotes about Jon really wanting a different sword, that of his father. That's the one he's meant to wield, if I'm right that Ned's sword was the OG Lightbringer.

[Durran Durrandon]

Longclaw is a bastard sword for a bastard if Jon is not a bastard, he needs a new sword.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Well, if you need someone (Darkstar or someone else) to bring sword outside so it becomes accessible... Ned had a chance to do it long ago. But that destroys the point of the Sword of the Morning all the way. You have to prove you are worthy of the sword, swords isn't passed to the heirs of House Dayne. I really doubt that killing the owner is enough - Ned haven't become Sword of The Morning. And we haven't heard (yet) about anyone who isn't SOTM wielding Dawn.

Right. It's not the Elderwand. We already have a potential for that in this series and it's that dragonbinding horn.

Longclaw is a bastard sword for a bastard if Jon is not a bastard, he needs a new sword.

A bastard sword is not for bastards. It's a hand-and-a-half sword, halfway between a one-handed and a two-handed sword. It has nothing to do with the birth of the person who wields it. Cute wordplay though.

[LmL]

Yes it was cute world play, and I'm pretty sure that was the intention.

[Magnar of Skagos]

I don't usually read long essays like this, but this was truly fascinating. Good job, I'll be checking out your other posts as well ;)

[Durran Durrandon]

Right. It's not the Elderwand. We already have a potential for that in this series and it's that dragonbinding horn.

A bastard sword is not for bastards. It's a hand-and-a-half sword, halfway between a one-handed and a two-handed sword. It has nothing to do with the birth of the person who wields it. Cute wordplay though.

It is George's cute word play. It was someone's line when he first got Longclaw.

[LordImp]

There are a bunch of quotes about Jon really wanting a different sword, that of his father. That's the one he's meant to wield, if I'm right that Ned's sword was the OG Lightbringer.

Guess i missed those quotes. Now it makes sense for Jon to wield Oathkeeper. But i also want

Jaime to have it , because i think Jaime eventually will be a Oathkeeper .

[Lady Blizzardborn]

It is George's cute word play. It was someone's line when he first got Longclaw.

Ah. I really need to reread this series. I'm forgetting all the good lines.

[Lord_Pepsi_Cupps]

I like the analysis of the sword name and imagery and how it relates to character symbolism. I like it, but I'm not on board entirely. Too many "important" swords in the mix, and it's all that common Valyrian steel that's the problem.

This had me thinking that these grand swords we've come across in the books so far (with the possible exception of Dawn and the original Ice, but I'm NOT sure) aren't really that important in the end. Especially not once it's revealed that Valyrian steel is not dragonsteel, and is not effective against the Others (eff the show). They are kind of like the Iron Throne - everyone's obsessed with it, the whole story seems to be about it, but it's just not the point of anything.

I wonder if we should apply the same critical mindset to these swords, as we do to exploring the difficult idea of "the hero" in the books. It seems like we're skipping that step and launching straight into matching up characters with the sword they were "meant" to have.

However dragonsteel is made, dragonsteel sword(s) will be crucial. And if Valyrian steel has some useful properties (maybe it's a precursor to dragonsteel) then the Valyrian steel swords will obviously also be useful. But the swords will be "useful" to whomever wields them, and ultimately it's the wielder of the sword we should be focusing on, not the sword itself. And if the wielder is important, they can make an impact with a stick as well as with a destiny sword.

It seems that GRRM has sown the field with so much magical sword imagery and so many potential "magical" swords, it's almost comical. Like he's pushing the trope of the "magic destiny sword" to its extreme, which to me says "these swords are far less important than you think".

[LmL]

I kind of just noticed this from ADWD:

The dragonlords of old Valyria had controlled their mounts with binding spells and sorcerous horns. Daenerys made do with a word and a whip. (ADWD, Daenerys)

We've talked a bit about the idea that there may be different versions of the dragon - human bond. One, a more skinchanger like bond, such as Dany has with Drogon. The second being the more psychic-rape like technique of sorcery and dragonbinder horns... We've debated about what they did in Valyria, and what the BSE might have done to alter the nature of dragon bonding. I feel like this quote backs up the idea that Valyrians were basically enslaving the dragons with horns and sorcery, and that the Targrayens actually rediscovered the older form of dragonbonding when they came to Westeros.

This would explain why the Targaryens did not take any of the Valyrian technology with them to Westeros - no horns, no fused stone, no candles that we ever hear off, no ability to make more V Steel. All of that might have been tainted, perhaps descended from the Bloodstone Emperor's perversion of GEotD magic.

This would also explain the dragon breeding Renaissance that took place once the Targs conquered Westeros. I keep thinking of Aegon's trip to Oldtown before the conquest...

[Saeculum]

First I'd like to thank you for this excellent series of essays. I just finished devouring them and they definitely seems to weave the various clues left to us together in a more-than-just plausible manner (not to mention the fact that they lend credence to many of the more well-founded theories).

I would like to debate one point--viz. that that GeoDawnians were dragonlords (also, you mentioned wanting to debate this some in "Children Part One" but with no search function I couldn't find any significant discussion; please let me know if there is one). The best evidence for thinking this is the existence of fused stone structures which pre-date the Valyrians combined with the notion that these structures were not made by the BSE. For my part, I'm unsure whether or not they are the BSE's "style" but am willing to concede this point as it doesn't play a role in my argument.

The case against pre-BSE dragons is based on (1) the best account of the history of dragons is Barth's Unnatural History and (2) that Others did not appear until the Long Night While we shouldn't read too much into a title, I find it interesting that the only book on the origins of Dragon is titled "Unnatural". This would seem to imply that dragons are not native to Planetos--a claim which is further supported by the fact that all of the origin stories hold that Dragon were born from either the "Shadow", the broken fire moon, or the 14 flames. Second, assuming the Others are the result of ice magic becoming unbalanced and knowing they did not appear until after the cataclysm which destroyed the Dawn Empire, it is reasonable to think that dragons appeared around the same time, which fits nicely with the first two origin stories.

So how do we explain the existence of pre-BSE fused stone. I can only speculate here but it doesn't seem crazy to think that practitioners of uncorrupted fire magic would be able to shape stone and steel without the aid of dragons. Why think this? One reason is that a very similar type of structure based on ice magic exists: the Wall. I'm not sure if there's any textual evidence for this but from what I can tell the wall is seamless as opposed to being made out of blocks of ice. If fire magic and ice magic parallel each other as much as we suspect, it seems reasonable to think that fire mages could also make seamless structures using their methods.

What about dragons? Assuming that the Dawn empire could simply wield the power of fire naturally (by that I mean simply through their own spells), it is likely that this power faded or otherwise became unwieldy once the fire moon was destroyed. How would the BSE compensate, by creating/enslaving dragons. Dragon's fire is, as we know, primarily black which is unlike natural fire--the sort which I would imagine uncorrupted fire mages would wield. I think this makes even more sense when we interpret the Valyrians as a perversion of the Dawn Empire. In all cases the Valyrians' creations seem to be perversions of Dawn Empire technology. Note the differences between their architecture and the older fused stone structures, the difference between Dawn/Ghost King blades and Valyrians Steel blades, and (perhaps) skinchangers/dragon horns as means of bonding with beasts.

The upshot is that dragons were created (or enslaved) in order to mimic the methods of the Dawn Empire once the source of their power was tainted. My guess is that dragons are the result of either BSE experimentation on Wyverns/Wyrms or, more likely, the result of a mutation caused by the bloodstone corruption. If so, this would also reconcile the third origin myth--that dragons were born of the Fourteen Flames--as the Valyrians could have used corrupted fire magic to mutate the fire wyrms which burrowed under the volcanoes. It also reconciles the claim that dragons roost in the Shadow near Asshai if we assume that is where and when they originated.

My final point is simply that dragons seem to be evil or dark in nature which makes more sense if they are the result of corrupted fire magic. Of course, it may just be the case that they existed before hand and were simply corrupted by the bloodstone. But either way they do not seem to be the sorts of creatures (as we know them) which would have had a place in the empire of the God-on-Earth (assuming that the Dawn Empire was "good" during it's golden age).

Anyway, thoughts?

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I kind of just noticed this from ADWD:

The dragonlords of old Valyria had controlled their mounts with binding spells and sorcerous horns. Daenerys made do with a word and a whip. (ADWD, Daenerys)

We've talked a bit about the idea that there may be different versions of the dragon - human bond. One, a more skinchanger like bond, such as Dany has with Drogon. The second being the more psychic-rape like technique of sorcery and dragonbinder horns... We've debated about what they did in Valyria, and what the BSE might have done to alter the nature of dragon bonding. I feel like this quote backs up the idea that Valyrians were basically enslaving the dragons with horns and sorcery, and that the Targrayens actually rediscovered the older form of dragonbonding when they came to Westeros.

This would explain why the Targaryens did not take any of the Valyrian technology with them to Westeros - no horns, no fused stone, no candles that we ever hear off, no ability to make more V Steel. All of that might have been tainted, perhaps descended from the Bloodstone Emperor's perversion of GEotD magic.

This would also explain the dragon breeding Renaissance that took place once the Targs conquered Westeros. I keep thinking of Aegon's trip to Oldtown before the conquest...

The Targs used imprinting. At least the Westerosi Targs did. They placed the dragon egg in the baby's crib. And the child took the egg with them, so that when the dragon hatched, that child would be the first person it saw and bonded to.

It's a very old practice. I think once the initial blood-bond was established, sorcery was not necessarily required to maintain it. Though the incest to keep the strength of the blood is clearly something House Targaryen continued to practice for a while.

[Knight and Dayne]

So how do we explain the existence of pre-BSE fused stone. I can only speculate here but it doesn't seem crazy to think that practitioners of uncorrupted fire magic would be able to shape stone and steel without the aid of dragons. Why think this? One reason is that a very similar type of structure based on ice magic exists: the Wall. I'm not sure if there's any textual evidence for this but from what I can tell the wall is seamless as opposed to being made out of blocks of ice. If fire magic and ice magic parallel each other as much as we suspect, it seems reasonable to think that fire mages could also make seamless structures using their methods.

Hate to be that guy but...

Grigg’s section was darker to the eye, with more obvious features; long horizontal ledges where a block had been imperfectly positioned atop the block below, cracks and crevices, even chimneys along the vertical joins, where wind and water had eaten holes large enough for a man to hide in. (ASoS 30)

I had a similar thought during my last re-read, but that quote jumped out at me. The magic of the wall seems to be woven deep within, mostly with the black gate. The structure itself seems to have been built and bolstered by men (and giants).

Though if you're looking for a non-dragon explanation for fused stone, Wildfire might be a good starting point.

[Lord_Pepsi_Cupps]

This would explain why the Targaryens did not take any of the Valyrian technology with them to Westeros - no horns, no fused stone, no candles that we ever hear off, no ability to make more V Steel. All of that might have been tainted, perhaps descended from the Bloodstone Emperor's perversion of GEotD magic.

The apparent absence of Targ Valyrian tech is notable and needs explaining for sure. But it's just as likely that the link to family dragonlore and magic lore was lost when all the adult dragonriders died during the Dance. I've said this before, but Rhaenyra's cry that Joffrey "does not know" when he mounts Syrax indicates that though children were dragonriders, some knowledge - some key stuff - is kept closely guarded. As you would expect! Rhaenyra may not have had a chance to school her quick succession of heirs in the dragonlore that Jace might have been taught as her designated heir.

Magic / glass candles: Similarly with magic, I doubt the Targs would have advertised their glass candles, particularly since they were always going to be on iffy ground with the Faith. It also seems that glass candles aren't an "on/off" device, but that some magic is required. Again, this may have meant that only some family members partook - of course, Visenya comes to mind first and above all. All those random rumours around Targs "dabbling in the dark arts" may just be garbled tales of the early Westerosi Targs using their Valyrian tech. And if you think about it - is not the sheer "far-sightedness" (wink) the Targs show in the main campaigns of the Conquest indicative of some deeper insight into the enemies' plans, rather than just what flying above them on a dragon can provide?

Baelor: Not only is there a further question of if / how fire-magic related objects work when dragons are gone, but then we also have Baelor the Blessed going on a book burning spree. We're told he burnt Barth - and we know what Barth dealt with. What do we reckon he did with the family dragonlore and magic books? Is it much of a leap to suppose he destroyed any magical objects too?

Incest in Valyria: On top of all that, Valyrians dragonlords practiced incest marriage too, it wasn't just the Targs. This suggests Valyria didn't entirely break with descent-related dragon-bonding. Sure it may have only been a political game by the time of the Doom (if they bonded their dragons through horns etc), but Valyrian society itself doesn't suggest that. It's very much family-based from what we can tell, with the 40 families representing the fundamental individual power units in society. If anyone in Valyria could "steal" a dragon with magic, and establish themselves as a power, the family unit and the family dragons wouldn't be so important. TWOIAF most clearly hints at the "family dragon" aspect to Valyrian dragonlords.

The horn as psychic violence: I love the description of the Dragonbinder as psychic rape - sure sounds like it. But I think this is harking back to a pre-Valyrian time, rather than to Valyria. Admittedly it does not sound like something I'd associate with an idyllic paradise on earth that the GEotD was, so if screams the BSE. It may fit his theme of the "unnatural" (kinslaying, usurpation, casting down the true gods, etc) if his magic could cut across the "natural" dragon-human bond with something awesomely powerful, but fundamentally "wrong". Enter Dragonbinder.

Original human/dragon bond? Finally, who's to say that this "psychic" rape isn't how the original human-dragon bond was made? "You must claim the horn with blood" is ominous, combined with the words on the horn itself ("fire for blood, blood for fire"). You're not just sacrificing a random person and blowing the horn to capture a dragon; you need to sacrifice someone of your own blood (like a stupid brother who might just blow the horn thinking he'll outsmart you), and the dragon and all its descendants will be bound to your bloodline. You give the horn your blood, and it will give you fire.

And if Dany's two remaining dragons are bond-free (we don't know where the eggs came from originally), we may indeed be getting a Greyjoy dragon bloodline any moment now. Although an interesting question is what happens when you sound the horn around a bound dragon.

So Dragonbinder could be pre-Valyrian, but very much core to the whole existence of dragonlords.

[Mithras]

Longclaw is a bastard sword for a bastard if Jon is not a bastard, he needs a new sword.

This is why Jon will get Oathkeeper.

[LmL]

First I'd like to thank you for this excellent series of essays. I just finished devouring them and they definitely seems to weave the various clues left to us together in a more-than-just plausible manner (not to mention the fact that they lend credence to many of the more well-founded theories).

Thanks very much Saeculum. I do my best, and many others contributed. I do see the astronomy - ancient myth in ASOIAF as kind of an overarching framework, so it does lend itself to many other theories.

I would like to debate one point--viz. that that GeoDawnians were dragonlords (also, you mentioned wanting to debate this some in "Children Part One" but with no search function I couldn't find any significant discussion; please let me know if there is one). The best evidence for thinking this is the existence of fused stone structures which pre-date the Valyrians combined with the notion that these structures were not made by the BSE. For my part, I'm unsure whether or not they are the BSE's "style" but am willing to concede this point as it doesn't play a role in my argument.

The thing here is that we are only given one way to make fused stone - with dragon flame, and sorcery. We also know that it requires an older, bigger dragon to have flame hot enough to do the deed, so I think wildfire is out. In addition, it requires sorcery to shape the molten stone. We don't even have any idea how this is down - it sounds like aeromancer type magic to me, as nobody can actually "touch" the molten stone.. but in any case, my principle on theory making is that we need an in-world example for magical explanations. Unless there are hints about some other way to produce fused stone, a theory that relies on an as-yet unnamed method to produce fused stone is far-fetched. The fused stone structure seems placed there to tell us specifically that dragons were around.

Of course there are several other pieces of evidence about dragons existing before the Long Night which you didn't address. Did you read my Fingerprints of the Dawn essay? The maesters have found dragon bones all around the world, including Westeros. We know that no Valyrian dragons came to Westeros before Aegon did, yet we do have ancient tales of dragon slayers in the reach. We also have tales of dragons roosting at Battle isle, specifically, the very place we find the fused stone, as well as stories of traders from overseas coming before the Fist Men. We know those tales are true because the First men found the fused stone fortress there when they arrived. The fused stone style matches that of the Five Forts, which was the work of the GEotD as far as we can tell. All of this evidence paints a pretty clear picture to me...

But then we also have the idea of the Last Hero with dragonsteel. I'm of the opinion that dragonsteel = Lightbringer, and the story of Lightbringer and Azor Ahai are from Asshai. The fused stone fortress and stories of dragons in Dawn Age (pre-Long Night) Westeros give us the where and the how of Azor Ahai's bringing his red fire sword to Westeros. It also answers the question of what important battle was fought at Battle Isle.

I would have loved for the BSE to be the one responsible for creating dragons with the black moon meteors. It would have fit my theory very nicely... but I just can't come to that conclusion. The Five Forts seem like they were made long before the BSE (why would he care about keeping monsters out anyway?), which means fused stone existed before BSE / AA. As you say, the BSE tech is a corruption of GEotD tech, so it makes more sense that he corrupted the dragon binding process... I also have an idea that perhaps he created the black dragons, which are the biggest and breathe black fire.

The case against pre-BSE dragons is based on (1) the best account of the history of dragons is Barth's Unnatural History and (2) that Others did not appear until the Long Night While we shouldn't read too much into a title, I find it interesting that the only book on the origins of Dragon is titled "Unnatural". This would seem to imply that dragons are not native to Planetos--a claim which is further supported by the fact that all of the origin stories hold that Dragon were born from either the "Shadow", the broken fire moon, or the 14 flames. Second, assuming the Others are the result of ice magic becoming unbalanced and knowing they did not appear until after the cataclysm which destroyed the Dawn Empire, it is reasonable to think that dragons appeared around the same time, which fits nicely with the first two origin stories.

Not unreasonable to suspect that as a possibility, but that is not evidence in favor of it (simultaneous origins of both). The citadel makes clear dragon skeletons have been found all over the world and must have roamed wild in ancient days. Also, wild dragons are not the threat that Others are. Only when humans control dragons are dragons a horrible threat. Others and dragons are not equivalent in all ways. Ice and fire magic are also not perfectly equivalent, although they do have many parallels.

I'm also not one of those who thin Barth has everything right. I think he usually has part of the truth, but not all. I happen to think he's wrong about dragon origins being from wyverns and firewyrms. Ihave too many problems with that. Firewyrms would be even harder to control than dragons - they live underground in volcanic rock. Also, consider what we know about skinchanging - it's easier to do with animals that are similar to man. Dragons are intelligent, but firewyrms? They live underground in molten rock, that's about a foreign an existence as you can think of. Seems like getting firewyrms to breed with wyverns is even more implausible than taming dragons in the first place. Also, wyverns have beaks, not jaws, which means they're like pterodactyls. I just don't see it.

So how do we explain the existence of pre-BSE fused stone. I can only speculate here but it doesn't seem crazy to think that practitioners of uncorrupted fire magic would be able to shape stone and steel without the aid of dragons. Why think this? One reason is that a very similar type of structure based on ice magic exists: the Wall. I'm not sure if there's any textual evidence for this but from what I can tell the wall is seamless as opposed to being made out of blocks of ice. If fire magic and ice magic parallel each other as much as we suspect, it seems reasonable to think that fire mages could also make seamless structures using their methods.

As Knight and Dayne pointed out, the Wall is not seamless, but added to each generation until recently with blocks of ice.

Raw fire magic to make fused stone is too speculative to be workable in the theory, imo. I pretty much stick to relying on the magic we are given, or is implied in some way, as I was saying above.

What about dragons? Assuming that the Dawn empire could simply wield the power of fire naturally (by that I mean simply through their own spells), it is likely that this power faded or otherwise became unwieldy once the fire moon was destroyed. How would the BSE compensate, by creating/enslaving dragons. Dragon's fire is, as we know, primarily black which is unlike natural fire--the sort which I would imagine uncorrupted fire mages would wield. I think this makes even more sense when we interpret the Valyrians as a perversion of the Dawn Empire. In all cases the Valyrians' creations seem to be perversions of Dawn Empire technology. Note the differences between their architecture and the older fused stone structures, the difference between Dawn/Ghost King blades and Valyrians Steel blades, and (perhaps) skinchangers/dragon horns as means of bonding with beasts.

It's only the black dragons who breathe black fire.

I buy the general principle that the GEotD magic might have been weakening over time. My thinking is that this was when the dragonbinder horn technology might have been invented... blood sacrifice to bond dragons, something like that. I mentioned the "he made the black dragons" idea.

The upshot is that dragons were created (or enslaved) in order to mimic the methods of the Dawn Empire once the source of their power was tainted. My guess is that dragons are the result of either BSE experimentation on Wyverns/Wyrms or, more likely, the result of a mutation caused by the bloodstone corruption. If so, this would also reconcile the third origin myth--that dragons were born of the Fourteen Flames--as the Valyrians could have used corrupted fire magic to mutate the fire wyrms which burrowed under the volcanoes. It also reconciles the claim that dragons roost in the Shadow near Asshai if we assume that is where and when they originated.

My final point is simply that dragons seem to be evil or dark in nature which makes more sense if they are the result of corrupted fire magic. Of course, it may just be the case that they existed before hand and were simply corrupted by the bloodstone. But either way they do not seem to be the sorts of creatures (as we know them) which would have had a place in the empire of the God-on-Earth (assuming that the Dawn Empire was "good" during it's golden age).

Anyway, thoughts?

As I was saying, I feel like the evidence is pretty solid for Dawn Age dragon presence and also that of sorcerers who could wield them. We don't need to come up with an unheard of method for making fused stone, because we know dragons existed during the Dawn Age. All of the clues I mentioned above and more that are in my essay connect Asshai with Battle Isle, and Lightbringer with dragonsteel.

I don't think dragons are actually created at all, myself. I think that on a magical planet, we have magical creatures. Magical trees. Those both existed prior to the LN / moon destruction. I think the "sprang from the 14 flames" is the closest answer - dragons are simply a magical creature that exists on Planetos. By themselves they aren't a menace to life on earth - they are just apex predators. Monsters, surely, but not monsters with an agenda as the Others appear to have. I suppose it's possible the GEotD did the firewyrm wyvern thing and we aren't supposed to think about the impracticality of it, but my gut says that's wrong.

Here's a wild idea: the original God Emperor descended and ascended to the stars. Perhaps there was a meteor thousands of years before the LN which started this whole thing? A fun idea, but again very speculative.

Thanks for your time to read the essays and respond, let me know if I am missing one of your arguments.

[TheSmallOther]

I like the analysis of the sword name and imagery and how it relates to character symbolism. I like it, but I'm not on board entirely. Too many "important" swords in the mix, and it's all that common Valyrian steel that's the problem.

This had me thinking that these grand swords we've come across in the books so far (with the possible exception of Dawn and the original Ice, but I'm NOT sure) aren't really that important in the end. Especially not once it's revealed that Valyrian steel is not dragonsteel, and is not effective against the Others (eff the show). They are kind of like the Iron Throne - everyone's obsessed with it, the whole story seems to be about it, but it's just not the point of anything.

I wonder if we should apply the same critical mindset to these swords, as we do to exploring the difficult idea of "the hero" in the books. It seems like we're skipping that step and launching straight into matching up characters with the sword they were "meant" to have.

However dragonsteel is made, dragonsteel sword(s) will be crucial. And if Valyrian steel has some useful properties (maybe it's a precursor to dragonsteel) then the Valyrian steel swords will obviously also be useful. But the swords will be "useful" to whomever wields them, and ultimately it's the wielder of the sword we should be focusing on, not the sword itself. And if the wielder is important, they can make an impact with a stick as well as with a destiny sword.

It seems that GRRM has sown the field with so much magical sword imagery and so many potential "magical" swords, it's almost comical. Like he's pushing the trope of the "magic destiny sword" to its extreme, which to me says "these swords are far less important than you think".

I wouldn't say its extreme. More like a common trope in fantasy novels and various mythologies, such as Narsil in LOTR, Excalibur for King Arthur. Stick may be powerful in the hands of right wielder, but he would not exploit his abilities to the maximum. Aragorn was doing well enough with his common sword, but Narsil added that lacking bit to his power.

But I do agree with idea that not all Valyrian swords are important just because they are made of Valyrian steel.