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Why the hell doesn't House Baratheon have a Valyrian Steel Sword?


JWittoBeast

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8 hours ago, RumHam said:

No, they're sworn to Dragonstone. Lord Celtigar bent the knee to the Iron Throne after the Blackwater, if that's what you mean. But that's not the same thing. In any event if if Adrian wanted to give the axe to the Lannisters it's not clear that he had it with him. It may still be on Claw Isle. 

I think he just meant they were loyal or aligned.  But you're right, the axe and the Celtigar's um collection seems to get some attention.  

 

5 hours ago, Sensenmenn said:

The evidence is there for jamie wielding dawn and I'm sure there is plenty of evidence to support jamie geting a new hand but we have to wait for WoW to come out to see who is right about what.

I've often observed the story unveils different secrets to different readers at different times.   There are lots of people who believe Jamie will wield Lightbringer or die a Dragonslayer rather than Kingslayer and even those who believe he will be a kingmaker.   Jamie's a wonderful character.   I'm not so sure about growing a new hand as I am about the team he and Brienne could make if they were to quest together with his cunning and her skill.   Their relationship is astonishing and I think they could become a synchronized fighting team.   There is nothing saying all Jamie's training won't find the other hand proficient, too.   I'm not familiar with any character ever growing a limb or appendage back.   If you've got the evidence, please cite it as this would be a game changer.  The story hasn't yet revealed that to me.   

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43 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Heck yes, that's my thinking too.   

@LmL is of the same mind, I'm sure. He alluded to this already in his podcast of the Mountain and the Viper. He elaborates on the often repeated number of twelve plus one in the books.

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Just now, sweetsunray said:

@LmL is of the same mind, I'm sure. He alluded to this already in his podcast of the Mountain and the Viper. He elaborates on the often repeated number of twelve plus one in the books.

His podcasts are great.   The math throughout ASOIAF is fascinating.   We find so many instances of 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13 and 19--it's stunning.  The mind searches for patterns and I often wonder if I'm the only one who sees them.   Thanks for your encouragement, sweetsunray, it's a high compliment coming from you.   

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11 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

His podcasts are great.   The math throughout ASOIAF is fascinating.   We find so many instances of 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13 and 19--it's stunning.  The mind searches for patterns and I often wonder if I'm the only one who sees them.   Thanks for your encouragement, sweetsunray, it's a high compliment coming from you.   

Yup: for the number 3 for example you'll always have 3 hunters (a tracker, a caller/singer, a killer), which follows bear-hunt traditions

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House Baratheon was hardly alone in this, even among the Lord Paramounts. The Arryns, Martells, Tullys. Greyjoys, Tyrells and yes, Lannisters now all don't have one. It is worth stating that technically Widow's Wail is now an heirloom of House Baratheon. Regardless, the number of great houses to have VS swords was two at it's best. I think a large reason they're so coveted is it gives the smaller Houses that do posses them a certain amount of prestige that they have something the great houses can't match.

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10 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

You need two hands to wield a greatsword.

Valyrian?

Remember that sword of Gregor - which isn´t Valyrian. It is an ordinary two handed sword of ordinary steel - what´s unusual is that Gregor wields it with one hand, which he can do because he is unusually strong.

We are repeatedly told that Valyrian swords are light compared to ordinary steel swords.

It is therefore possible that a Valyrian steel greatsword as big as Gregor´s sword could be lighter than Gregor´s sword - lighter as much that not only Gregor but an ordinary man like Jaime could wield it one handed.

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7 minutes ago, Jaak said:

Valyrian?

Remember that sword of Gregor - which isn´t Valyrian. It is an ordinary two handed sword of ordinary steel - what´s unusual is that Gregor wields it with one hand, which he can do because he is unusually strong.

We are repeatedly told that Valyrian swords are light compared to ordinary steel swords.

It is therefore possible that a Valyrian steel greatsword as big as Gregor´s sword could be lighter than Gregor´s sword - lighter as much that not only Gregor but an ordinary man like Jaime could wield it one handed.

No that has little to do with weight. It has to do with length, and how the length distributes the weight and point of balance. Gregor can wield a greatsword with one hand because he's what? 8 foot tall? Jaime says the bear in bearpit it Gregor with a pelt, and the bear is 8 feet tall when standing on hind legs. For Gregor a greatsword is the length of a tootpick. Jaime's not even ranked amongst the normal giants, let alone a super-giant like Gregor.

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On ‎8‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 11:21 PM, JWittoBeast said:

They are LITERALLY FROM Valyria and they were Aegon's main supporters, yet they don't even have a Valyrian steel sword?

"House Lannister, you get Brightroar, House Stark you get Ice, House Tarly you get Heartsbane....House Baratheon? Nope you get nothing sorry, but House Targaryen gets to keep 2 Valyrian steel swords for ourselves."

 

On a side note, what would  be a cool name for it? I think "Stormbringer" would be a good name, some people say "Fury" and that would be good at the time of 1 AC but in modern day it wouldn't be too good since there is already a ship named "Fury", so "Fury the Sword" and "Fury the Ship".

Technically they are from Dragonstone. The Baratheons did not exist when the Targaryens left Valyria. The house was only formed afterwards.

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On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 4:19 PM, JWittoBeast said:

 

Tyrells were a servant house, basically the number 2 house in the Reach.

Martells were a petty kingdom before Nymeria, but it seems like Dorne substitutes VS for other metals (Dawn).

I was always under the impression that the Arryns were isolated, secluded basically.

Tullys were rebels under the Ironborn, not likely to have one.

Greyjoy makes sense. They reave and rape and murder EVERYONE, from the Arbor to the Wall, yet they never once found a VS sword?

Same with Hoare. They spent all that time on Harrenhal, yet never once got a VS sword.

The Ironborn have no use for trinkets. It was probably not important for them to have one.

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3 hours ago, tugela said:

Technically they are from Dragonstone. The Baratheons did not exist when the Targaryens left Valyria. The house was only formed afterwards.

We are not told that. Orys Baratheon was a minor figure before he got Argella, but he had a surname. And he was rumoured to be a bastard - but only rumoured, not acknowledged. He was Orys Baratheon, not Orys Waters like a Dragonstone bastard would be. So, there would have been other Baratheons - like Orys´ official father.

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11 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

His podcasts are great.   The math throughout ASOIAF is fascinating.   We find so many instances of 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13 and 19--it's stunning.  The mind searches for patterns and I often wonder if I'm the only one who sees them.   Thanks for your encouragement, sweetsunray, it's a high compliment coming from you.   

Thanks for the kind words! 

19 forts on the Wall... what other 19's are there? I remember thinking about 19 before but I forgot where else it appears. 

One of my favorites number puzzles is this one, see if you can make sense of it. Okay, so, 44 'ribs' on Nagga's hill. Those are petrified weirwood (I think it's a flipped over boat hull, actually), so it's something like a weirwood circle. There are also 44 islands in the Iron Islands group - 31 main islands and 13 off by the Lonely Light. Then we have the High Heart, which has 31 weirwood stumps. Not sure what to make of that. 

To be honest, color symbolism and number symbolism gives me nightmares, because they so subjective and open to misinterpretation. Mainly the latter - it's easy to draw connections where none are meant. There are so many threes... 

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3 hours ago, LmL said:

Thanks for the kind words! 

19 forts on the Wall... what other 19's are there? I remember thinking about 19 before but I forgot where else it appears. 

One of my favorites number puzzles is this one, see if you can make sense of it. Okay, so, 44 'ribs' on Nagga's hill. Those are petrified weirwood (I think it's a flipped over boat hull, actually), so it's something like a weirwood circle. There are also 44 islands in the Iron Islands group - 31 main islands and 13 off by the Lonely Light. Then we have the High Heart, which has 31 weirwood stumps. Not sure what to make of that. 

To be honest, color symbolism and number symbolism gives me nightmares, because they so subjective and open to misinterpretation. Mainly the latter - it's easy to draw connections where none are meant. There are so many threes... 

First thing that came to mind looking at your 31s is 13 inverted.   Stephen King has a thing about prime numbers.   Could be our intrepid GRRM has a number fetish, too.   Maybe inane, but could always be significant.   The numbers are so distracting I can't even begin to think about colors.   Hats off to you for all the crazy sequences and recurrences you always manage to work when you bring them to light.   I've got one for you that I will message to you so as not to derail this interesting thread.   

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3 hours ago, LmL said:

Thanks for the kind words! 

19 forts on the Wall... what other 19's are there? I remember thinking about 19 before but I forgot where else it appears. 

One of my favorites number puzzles is this one, see if you can make sense of it. Okay, so, 44 'ribs' on Nagga's hill. Those are petrified weirwood (I think it's a flipped over boat hull, actually), so it's something like a weirwood circle. There are also 44 islands in the Iron Islands group - 31 main islands and 13 off by the Lonely Light. Then we have the High Heart, which has 31 weirwood stumps. Not sure what to make of that. 

To be honest, color symbolism and number symbolism gives me nightmares, because they so subjective and open to misinterpretation. Mainly the latter - it's easy to draw connections where none are meant. There are so many threes... 

Theon is 19 when GoT starts: 

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The head bounced off a thick root and rolled. It came up near Greyjoy's feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who found everything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head, and kicked it away.

There are 19 dragon skulls under Red Keep:  There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff's skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.

 

Walder has 19 great-grandsons

Craster has 19 wives

619 knights died fighting for Stannis at Blackwater

Ygritte is 19.

Sam has 19 arrows: 'So now all they had was Mormont's dagger and the one Sam had given Grenn, plus nineteen arrows and a tall hardwood spear with a black dragonglass head. The sentries passed the spear along from watch to watch, while Mormont had divided the arrows among his best bowmen. Muttering Bill, Garth Greyfeather, Ronnel Harclay, Sweet Donnel Hill, and Alan of Rosby had three apiece, and Ulmer had four. But even if they made every shaft tell, they'd soon be down to fire arrows like all the rest. They had loosed hundreds of fire arrows on the Fist, yet still the wights kept coming. '

 

Fair Walda is 19.

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"Hardin's Tower." Of the sixty-three who had come back with him from Mole's Town, nineteen had been women and girls. Jon had housed them in the same abandoned tower where he had once slept when he had been new to the Wall. Twelve were spearwives, more than capable of defending both themselves and the younger girls from the unwanted attentions of black brothers. It was some of the men they'd turned away who'd given Hardin's Tower its new, inflammatory name. Jon was not about to condone the mockery. "Three drunken fools mistook Hardin's for a brothel, that's all. They are in the ice cells now, contemplating their mistake."

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For nineteen days they drifted, as food and water dwindled. The sun beat down on them, relentless. Penny huddled in her cabin with her dog and her pig, and Tyrion brought her food, limping on his bandaged calf and sniffing at the wound by night. When he had nothing else to do, he pricked his toes and fingers too. Ser Jorah made a point of sharpening his sword each day, honing the point until it gleamed. The three remaining fiery fingers lit the nightfire as the sun went down, but they wore their ornate armor as they led the crew in prayer, and their spears were close at hand. And not a single sailor tried to rub the head of either dwarf.

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Bowen Marsh was waiting for him south of the Wall, with a tablet full of numbers. "Three thousand one hundred and nineteen wildlings passed through the gate today," the Lord Steward told him. "Sixty of your hostages were sent off to Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower after they'd been fed. Edd Tollett took six wagons of women back to Long Barrow. The rest remain with us."

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They had been three days from Winterfell for nineteen days. One hundred leagues from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell. Three hundred miles as the raven flies. But none of them were ravens, and the storm was unrelenting. Each morning Asha awoke hoping she might see the sun, only to face another day of snow. The storm had buried every hut and hovel beneath a mound of dirty snow, and the drifts would soon be deep enough to engulf the longhall too.

From 'The Hedge Knight:

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He had piled the old man's things under an oak. The cloth purse contained three silver stags, nineteen copper pennies, and a chipped garnet; as with most hedge knights, the greatest part of his worldly wealth had been tied up in his horses and weapons. Dunk now owned a chain-mail hauberk that he had scoured the rust off a thousand times. An iron halfhelm with a broad nasal and a dent on the left temple. A sword belt of cracked brown leather, and a longsword in a wood-and-leather scabbard. A dagger, a razor, a whetstone. Greaves and gorget, an eight-foot war lance of turned ash topped by a cruel iron point, and an oaken shield with a scarred metal rim, bearing the sigil of Ser Arlan of Pennytree: a winged chalice, silver on brown.

From TWoIaF:

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Even his sons proved a trial to this goodhearted king, when they might have been a strength. Aegon V had married for love, taking to wife the Lady Betha Blackwood, the spirited (some say willful) daughter of the Lord of Raventree Hall, who became known as Black Betha for her dark eyes and raven hair. When they wed, in 220 AC, the bride was nineteen and Aegon twenty, so far down in the line of succession that the match provoked no opposition. In the years that followed, Black Betha gave Aegon three sons (Duncan, Jaehaerys, and Daeron) and two daughters (Shaera and Rhaelle).

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Lady Ellyn remained, but her influence dwindled, while that of Lady Jeyne grew. Soon, the rivalry between Ser Tion's widow and Tytos's wife became truly ugly, if the rumors set down by Maester Beldon can be believed. Beldon tells us that in 239 AC, Ellyn Reyne was accused of bedding Tytos Lannister, urging him to set aside his wife and marry her instead. However, young Tytos (then nineteen) found his brother's widow so intimidating that he was unable to perform. Humiliated, he ran back to his wife to confess and beg her forgiveness.

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Such a match would unite and strengthen the royal bloodline and regain the Iron Throne the friendship of the Sea Snake with his powerful fleet. One objection was raised: Laenor Velaryon was now nineteen years of age yet had never shown any interest in women. Instead he surrounded himself with handsome squires of his own age and was said to prefer their company. But Grand Maester Mellos dismissed this concern out of hand. “What of it?” he is supposed to have said. “I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it.” Thus was the match decided.

 

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One-eyed Prince Aemond, nineteen, was found in the armory, donning plate and mail for his morning practice in the castle yard. “Is Aegon king,” he asked Ser Willis Fell, “or must we kneel and kiss the old whore’s cunny?” Princess Helaena was breaking her fast with her children when the Kingsguard came to her … but when asked the whereabouts of Prince Aegon, her brother and husband, said only, “He is not in my bed, you may be sure. Feel free to search beneath the blankets.”

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All this came to pass even as Prince Aemond and Ser Criston Cole advanced upon the riverlands. After nineteen days on the march, they reached Harrenhal … and found the castle gates open, with Prince Daemon and all his people gone.

 

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25 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

There are 19 dragon skulls under Red Keep:  There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff's skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.

This is the one which lines up the best with the Night's Watch forts. Dragon skulls and black fortresses containing black-blooded crows who fight with fire are both prime black meteor symbols (aka Lightbringer symbols). The Nineteen dragonglass arrows fit in with this very nicely as well. The people who are 19 years old are harder to figure without reading more of the text around them to see if their age is being used in a symbolic way. I do notice the ones which refers to maidens and mothers - Craster's Wives (who as the mothers of the Others would equate with the ice moon, like the Night's Queen does) and Ygritte (who is a prime fire moon symbol like Dany), and the 19 year old bride Betha Blackwood, an important figure for sure. Not sure about Walder's grandsons, I need to investigate Walder's symbolism a little better... though I do remember that he sits in a black wooden "throne," just as the Blackwoods do (and by throne I mean "grand chair that the head of the house sits in," although they are not called thrones. 

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17 minutes ago, LmL said:

This is the one which lines up the best with the Night's Watch forts. Dragon skulls and black fortresses containing black-blooded crows who fight with fire are both prime black meteor symbols (aka Lightbringer symbols). The Nineteen dragonglass arrows fit in with this very nicely as well. The people who are 19 years old are harder to figure without reading more of the text around them to see if their age is being used in a symbolic way. I do notice the ones which refers to maidens and mothers - Craster's Wives (who as the mothers of the Others would equate with the ice moon, like the Night's Queen does) and Ygritte (who is a prime fire moon symbol like Dany), and the 19 year old bride Betha Blackwood, an important figure for sure. Not sure about Walder's grandsons, I need to investigate Walder's symbolism a little better... though I do remember that he sits in a black wooden "throne," just as the Blackwoods do (and by throne I mean "grand chair that the head of the house sits in," although they are not called thrones. 

I wrote to you about the skulls, Ygrette and Craster's wives, but you are unable to receive messages!   Let me know if you free up some space and i'll try to send it again. 

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11 hours ago, Jaak said:

Valyrian?

Remember that sword of Gregor - which isn´t Valyrian. It is an ordinary two handed sword of ordinary steel - what´s unusual is that Gregor wields it with one hand, which he can do because he is unusually strong.

We are repeatedly told that Valyrian swords are light compared to ordinary steel swords.

It is therefore possible that a Valyrian steel greatsword as big as Gregor´s sword could be lighter than Gregor´s sword - lighter as much that not only Gregor but an ordinary man like Jaime could wield it one handed.

So few people could wield a greatsword or hammer with one hand: Robert, Gregor, maybe the Greatjon and Strongboar? All the Starks must have wielded Ice with both hands, we know Ned executes a man with two hands. What Valyrian greatsword are you referring to? I don't think Jamie could wield a greatsword with one hand regardless of weight, its simply too long and impractical.

10 hours ago, tugela said:

The Ironborn have no use for trinkets. It was probably not important for them to have one.

Well Dalton Greyjoy obtained one when raiding called Nightfall. Harras Harlaw wields it now. Also a member of House Drumm managed to obtain Red Rain, the Valyrian steel sword of House Reyne. 

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