The forging of Lightbringer

[NonoNono]

If Lightbringer was made by killing the Night's Queen with a dragonsteel sword to the heart (as I believe it was), I would think it would work the same.

But in the show Beric said if you kill a WW, those he turned will fall, so I don't see what the point of such a sword would be unless even a regular valyrian sword can't kill him.

[CrypticWeirwood]

On 4/18/2019 at 3:48 AM, Hippocras said:

Still, you have to wonder why Beric Dondarion was included and kept around for so long if he was just going to be a curious side character who is the only one whose sword can catch fire.

It would be thematically strange if he has been kept around for a different purpose than the one he was used for in the books. Not impossible, but strange.

That means he would pass along his resurrection/reanimation flame to a high lady tragically slain so that she might carry out some singular purpose after her death. The candidate list for who that lady could be is rather short: Sansa and Dany are the top contenders, with Arya and Brienne being only distant seconds.

The Stark women would make more sense as proxies for Catelyn, but Dany makes more sense as needing to become an undead fire wight like her lover Jon already is.  I don't know why people think that her womb has been quickened by a dead man, or that the babe would be born human rather than undead, but Beric might also surrender his own spark that a stillborn babe might live.

[Hippocras]

48 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

It would be thematically strange if he has been kept around for a different purpose than the one he was used for in the books. Not impossible, but strange.

That means he would pass along his resurrection/reanimation flame to a high lady tragically slain so that she might carry out some singular purpose after her death. The candidate list for who that lady could be is rather short: Sansa and Dany are the top contenders, with Arya and Brienne being only distant seconds.

The Stark women would make more sense as proxies for Catelyn, but Dany makes more sense as needing to become an undead fire wight like her lover Jon already is.  I don't know why people think that her womb has been quickened by a dead man, or that the babe would be born human rather than undead, but Beric might also surrender his own spark that a stillborn babe might live.

I do tend to agree he will pass on that flame as in the books, but disagree that it needs to be to a woman. 

But for this thread I was more getting at his flaming sword, and why include it at all.

[CrypticWeirwood]

59 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

I do tend to agree he will pass on that flame as in the books, but disagree that it needs to be to a woman. 

But for this thread I was more getting at his flaming sword, and why include it at all.

Your point is well taken.

I'd truly like to believe that Beric's flaming sword persists for some higher purpose than mere cinematic bombast, but I've by now had my hopes dashed so many times that I'm gun-shy about even trying to dream up a possible reason that has any narrative meaning.  From Melisandre's fakery of Stannis's sword that even blind, Maester Aemon (Targaryen) could see was merely a mummer's trick to the worldwide oral legends from time out of mind of Lightbringer somehow bringing the light that ends the Long Night and even to the meteoric Dawn echoes in Dayne/Dorne/Doran, I have no doubt that Martin himself meant these as lingering clues and feints of some once-and-future revolutionary event that changed, changes, and/or will change everything. Perhaps the legends are actually just memories of future events yet to occur which Bran projects backwards into the past. They aren't even prophecies, just badly retained memories of the future.

But what if anything of the Beric's flaming sword or of Lightbringer itself (whatever that is) that the showrunners will have chosen to weave into these final few episodes, I am incapable of predicting and am afraid even of hoping for. I don't trust that we'll get a payoff. A hundred other things we have not gotten one for, so this is mostly probably nothing but the hundred and first non-payoff element.

The trailer's obvious call-out to the Battle of Helm's Deep raging above while the non-combatants hid in the caverns below has been remarked upon by many. For all we know, Lightbringer will be supercharged by a divinely thrown lightning bolt from above  like Glamdring was in the movie's flashback scene where Gandalf slew the balrog.  Yes, I'm kidding. I chose that just to show that I don't think we can know.

All things are equally likely and unlikely to me at this point (save for one alone). who knows, maybe Jon will have to stab the Night King who's embracing a self-sacrificing Daenerys by running it through her heart and continuing through to his. Nobody knows. We do know that it will be controversial and freak a lot of people out, whatever happens.

The one tiny little thing that I'm certain we'll see in the denouement is that Westeros and its people will be forever changed by this terrible war.

I say this because Martin has continually repeated how important the Scouring of the Shire was for him, how it showed that you can never go back to the place you left because war permanently disfigures its heroes (think of Frodo) dooming them even in victory to a bittersweet ending of relief colored by incurable sorrows.

[lakin1013]

Some leaks have Beric dying on the battlefield in ep 3.  That leaves his wonderful sword available. If Beric dies on a chaotic battlefield, there may be nobody near him to give the sword to but if there is a moment (or the show makes one) we will see who adopts the magic Beric-Light-Up sword.

[Hippocras]

6 hours ago, lakin1013 said:

Some leaks have Beric dying on the battlefield in ep 3.  That leaves his wonderful sword available. If Beric dies on a chaotic battlefield, there may be nobody near him to give the sword to but if there is a moment (or the show makes one) we will see who adopts the magic Beric-Light-Up sword.

Beric’ssword is irrelevant. The only reason he can light it on fire is because he is a fire wight. For anyone who is not that sword is just a basic, not very special at all regular steel sword.

Beric needs to pass on his life flame to someone to have any meaning at all.

[21st Century Moose]

3 hours ago, Hippocras said:

Beric’ssword is irrelevant. The only reason he can light it on fire is because he is a fire wight. For anyone who is not that sword is just a basic, not very special at all regular steel sword.

Beric needs to pass on his life flame to someone to have any meaning at all.

Thoros could also light his sword, but otherwise I agree - the magic isn't in the sword, it's in the wielder. You could give Beric or Thoros any old sword and they'd be able to light it, but their swords are otherwise quite mundane. 

[Hippocras]

3 hours ago, 21st Century Moose said:

Thoros could also light his sword, but otherwise I agree - the magic isn't in the sword, it's in the wielder. You could give Beric or Thoros any old sword and they'd be able to light it, but their swords are otherwise quite mundane. 

Thoros did it differently. He just lathered all his swords with wildfire and burned them up, needing a new one every time. But Thoros was not brought back by fire.

Jon was, but doesn’t know he can make his sword burn yet. I doubt though that Beric and Jon will be the only characters brought back by fire before the end.

[Timm]

On 4/20/2019 at 6:20 PM, CrypticWeirwood said:

(...)

All things are equally likely and unlikely to me at this point (save for one alone). who knows, maybe Jon will have to stab the Night King who's embracing a self-sacrificing Daenerys by running it through her heart and continuing through to his. 

(...)

OMG! I think you’ve got it!

Or at least, I think you have the right denouement, but the wrong characters. I think it will be Gendry who throws himself between the NK and Arya after she has been knocked down and therefore sacrifices himself as he and the NK both fall on top of Arya and her sword (not sure if it is needle). We see the three of them in a pile and the tip off the sword poking out the NK’s back. Then the sword starts to shine and the NK explodes. Gendry then expires in her arms.

I mean, Gendry the blacksmith King is such an obvious candidate to forge Lightbringer and therefore be AA. So he won’t be. He will instead take the Nissa Nissa role: There is magic in a King’s blood.

And Arya is set up as such a formidable warrior – what irony if she defeated the big bad by accident, having been to all intents and purposes defeated by him. In fact, she never needed all that training – she knew from the first day that she got Needle to “stick ‘em with the pointy end”. Killing her lover in the process would I suppose be somewhat err… bittersweet? It also makes sense of her tweet “last woman standing. Barely.”

 

And if that’s not what D+D do, I bet they wish they had.

[Lord Stannis-The True King]

I've recently been made aware of a theory postulating that Ser Jorah will create Lightbringer from Heart's Bane by killing an increasingly Mad Daenerys. The sword name really does fit and Jorah really does love Daenerys. It fits as a possibility and it could be fantastically dramatic.

[lakin1013]

12 hours ago, Hippocras said:

Beric’ssword is irrelevant. The only reason he can light it on fire is because he is a fire wight. For anyone who is not that sword is just a basic, not very special at all regular steel sword.

Beric needs to pass on his life flame to someone to have any meaning at all.

Using your argument, if  Jon tries to caress Long Claw, it should burst into flames, yes?  Jon IS a fire wight but did not receive the instruction kit about what he can, and cannot do.

[Hippocras]

2 minutes ago, lakin1013 said:

Using your argument, if  Jon tries to caress Long Claw, it should burst into flames, yes?  Jon IS a fire wight but did not receive the instruction kit about what he can, and cannot do.

I think Jon would need to actually cut himself with it. His blood is needed not just a rubbing. Of course Jon’s sword is Valyrian steel so it remains to be seen if that would work the same way.

[21st Century Moose]

I think people looking for a forging of NewLightbringer are reading far too much into things, and will probably end up disappointed. 

OldLightbringer was forged three times, and tempered in water, a lion and Nissa Nissa before it was complete. 

If we look at what the prophecy actually says about NewLightbringer, it doesn't say any of that. 

All it says is that a warrior is going to draw it from a fire. That's it. No water. No lion. No Nissa Nissa. None of that is prophesied for NewLightbringer. 

So, the probability is that NewLightbringer already exists, possibly that it's one of the Valyrian Steel swords. At some stage during the battle there will be an incident involving that sword and fire. Perhaps dragon fire? Someone's going to pull the sword out of the fire and that will be it - NewLightbringer will be complete. Valyrian Steel tempered in dragon fire? Sounds about right to me - I can easily imagine that having an effect on the NK that normal VS wouldn't. 

[Wik]

The show runners might as well just hack it up here..... bring in Dawn, make it Lightbringer.....??????? The end

[Hippocras]

On ‎4‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 10:37 PM, Wik said:

The show runners might as well just hack it up here..... bring in Dawn, make it Lightbringer.....??????? The end

I hope not. Because that would really suck. Dawn has zero presence in the story thus far except in a vision of Bran's. 

[Wik]

3 hours ago, Hippocras said:

I hope not. Because that would really suck. Dawn has zero presence in the story thus far except in a vision of Bran's. 

You and I think that, but we aren't big HBO execs so what we think doesn't count lol

[Sheiraseastar23]

I like the idea of Rhaegar being Azor Ahai, Lyanna being Nissa Nissa and Jon being Lightbringer. 

[NonoNono]

On 4/25/2019 at 2:04 PM, 21st Century Moose said:

I think people looking for a forging of NewLightbringer are reading far too much into things, and will probably end up disappointed. 

OldLightbringer was forged three times, and tempered in water, a lion and Nissa Nissa before it was complete. 

If we look at what the prophecy actually says about NewLightbringer, it doesn't say any of that. 

All it says is that a warrior is going to draw it from a fire. That's it. No water. No lion. No Nissa Nissa. None of that is prophesied for NewLightbringer. 

So, the probability is that NewLightbringer already exists, possibly that it's one of the Valyrian Steel swords. At some stage during the battle there will be an incident involving that sword and fire. Perhaps dragon fire? Someone's going to pull the sword out of the fire and that will be it - NewLightbringer will be complete. Valyrian Steel tempered in dragon fire? Sounds about right to me - I can easily imagine that having an effect on the NK that normal VS wouldn't. 

Pulled out of fire. Pulled out of a heart? R'hllor's symbol is a flaming heart.

I don't think that to make Lightbringer one had to plunged it into water or a lion, only the heart of Nissa Nissa (who was I think the Night's Queen anyway).

[martianmister]

Jon Snow is the Lightbringer and also the Prince that was promised. Rhaegar Targaryen is Azor Ahai and Lyanna Stark is Nissa Nissa. Stabbing is an allegory for sex. It is known.