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The Dawn Sword


LynnS

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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.

A simple question.  What kind of visual or mental image does this description of the Dawn Sword leave in your mind's eye?  Describe the sword. 

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Maybe a couple of pictures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opalescence#/media/File:Why_is_the_sky_blue.jpg

https://geology.com/gemstones/opal/synthetic-opal-block-rough.jpg

In both cases the colours (blue and orange in the first picture and rainbow in the second) are the result of diffraction

Or this from a moonstone:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Pierrelune.jpg

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39 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Maybe a couple of pictures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opalescence#/media/File:Why_is_the_sky_blue.jpg

https://geology.com/gemstones/opal/synthetic-opal-block-rough.jpg

In both cases the colours (blue and orange in the first picture and rainbow in the second) are the result of diffraction

Or this from a moonstone:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Pierrelune.jpg

Interesting.  My first impression was depression era milkglass.

Introduction to Antique and Collectible Milk Glass (thesprucecrafts.com)

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Some additional uses of milkglass:

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion IV

The maester's medicines made an impressive display; dozens of pots sealed with wax, hundreds of stoppered vials, as many milkglass bottles, countless jars of dried herbs, each container neatly labeled in Pycelle's precise hand. An orderly mind, Tyrion reflected, and indeed, once you puzzled out the arrangement, it was easy to see that every potion had its place. And such interesting things. He noted sweetsleep and nightshade, milk of the poppy, the tears of Lys, powdered greycap, wolfsbane and demon's dance, basilisk venom, blindeye, widow's blood . . .

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end."

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A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

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."

 

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2 hours ago, LynnS said:

The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

First thoughts concerning that sword's appearance is that it doesnt seems to be a Valyrian steel. Or any other kind of steel at all. It can't actually be something like a crystal (milkglass, which is possibly something similar to moonstone or quartz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstone_(gemstone)#/media/File:Pierrelune.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz), because it was forged. So it's definitely a metal. Though it's some kind of metal unusual for Planetos. Well, it is  extraterrestrial, so it's unlikely that there are more of this same material anywhere else on that planet.

Or could be that it's not a metal at all. It could be something similar to the blades of the Others.

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34 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Some additional uses of milkglass:

 

Some facts that maybe relevant to GRRM use of white(ish) stones and crystals:

-some types of milkglass were made with bone ash

-some types of milkglass are translucent and cause opalescence (like the blue one I linked before)

-GRRM refers to moonstones a lot in the books and moonstones show an optical effect somehow similar to opalescence

I think GRRM wants us to link together bones<->milkglass<->moonstone

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5 minutes ago, Megorova said:

First thoughts concerning that sword's appearance is that it doesnt seems to be a Valyrian steel. Or any other kind of steel at all. It can't actually be something like a crystal (milkglass, which is possibly something similar to moonstone or quartz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonstone_(gemstone)#/media/File:Pierrelune.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz), because it was forged. So it's definitely a metal. Though it's some kind of metal unusual for Planetos. Well, it is  extraterrestrial, so it's unlikely that there are more of this same material anywhere else on that planet.

Or could be that it's not a metal at all. It could be something similar to the blades of the Others.

Nice! I've wondered if the sword actually has a crystal or diamond in the pommel or cross guard.  Maybe we don't have a full description of the sword.

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HI Lynn, 

 

Like you I  envisioned depression era milk glass and even bought a piece to study.  The more I see comparisons between Dawn and the Other's swords the less I see the match, but not unlike the comparisons to moonstones, I am thinking something like opal.   We really do need a better description of Dawn.  

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3 hours ago, LynnS said:

A simple question.  What kind of visual or mental image does this description of the Dawn Sword leave in your mind's eye?  Describe the sword. 

This description of Dawn is eerily similar to the description of the blade the Other wielded against Waymar:

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The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed to almost vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

I half-wonder if Dawn might not be some ancestral sword belong to the Others, and they want it back.

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It's also odd that Ned describes the sword as 'alive with light'.  Nobody else describes it that way.  It's the white sword or the pale sword.  I thought this might have something to do with the fact that this is a dream and perhaps the description is unreliable.  Or that the sword is forged with magic and generates it's own light under certain circumstances.  'Alive with Light' is a description that Martin has used numerous times in the books.  So is the source of light, internal to the sword, a part of it's magic or is the source of light eternal to the sword? 

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24 minutes ago, LynnS said:

It's also odd that Ned describes the sword as 'alive with light'.  Nobody else describes it that way.  It's the white sword or the pale sword.  I thought this might have something to do with the fact that this is a dream and perhaps the description is unreliable.  Or that the sword is forged with magic and generates it's own light under certain circumstances.  'Alive with Light' is a description that Martin has used numerous times in the books.  So is the source of light, internal to the sword, a part of it's magic or is the source of light eternal to the sword? 

With your last comment I had to think of Stannis' sword which was debunked by Aemon (iirc) as fake because it wasn't warm.

Does 'Alive with light' also mean warm? (bonus question: does Aemon know Dawn is the sword of Azor Ahai?)

Additional thoughts:

1) the Other's sword is that cold that the human steel sword breaks - is Dawn the opposite, i.e. break human swords fighting Dawn because it 'alive with light'?

2) Above would fit with Dawn being tempered in Nissa Nissa's heart if Nissa Nissa is a dragon (and Azor Ahai a Targaryen?)

3) The description of ghost grass high as a man on horseback fits a longsword?

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

This description of Dawn is eerily similar to the description of the blade the Other wielded against Waymar:

Sam also describes the WW he slays a 'thin as a sword'.  The sword of the Others made without metal calls to mind Martin's statement that we will be surprised with what the Others can do with ice.  Not only can they make weapons, but armor that reflects the light to make them near invisible in the background.  Their armor acts like a mirror.  So I wonder about the story of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield.

The Others swords are translucent whereas milkglass is opaque.

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2 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

HI Lynn, 

Like you I  envisioned depression era milk glass and even bought a piece to study.  The more I see comparisons between Dawn and the Other's swords the less I see the match, but not unlike the comparisons to moonstones, I am thinking something like opal.   We really do need a better description of Dawn.  

Hi Curled Finger,

I used to have few pieces of old amethyst glass, so dark a purple it looks black.

I associate magic spells with swirls and patterns not unlike the ebony and wierwood doors that Dany sees before she enters the room with the Splendor of Wizards, in the House of Undying.  Alive with light could be swirling patterns of color.  Something akin to Tobho Mott's description of the swords he reforges from Ice.  The sword forms it's own patterns in spite of Mott's spells.

Dany's dragon eggs:

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

Magister Illyrio murmured a command, and four burly slaves hurried forward, bearing between them a great cedar chest bound in bronze. When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce … and resting on top, nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. They were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than the others, patterned in such rich colors that at first she thought they were crusted with jewels, and so large it took both of her hands to hold one. She lifted it delicately, expecting that it would be made of some fine porcelain or delicate enamel, or even blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with tiny scales, and as she turned the egg between her fingers, they shimmered like polished metal in the light of the setting sun. One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls. "What are they?" she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.

 

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56 minutes ago, alienarea said:

Does 'Alive with light' also mean warm?

Here are some additional passages where Martin uses 'alive with light':

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and named in the rainbow of light that filled the sept of Riverrun. She was of the Faith, like her father and grandfather and his father before him. Her gods had names, and their faces were as familiar as the faces of her parents. Worship was a septon with a censer, the smell of incense, a seven-sided crystal alive with light, voices raised in song. The Tullys kept a godswood, as all the great houses did, but it was only a place to walk or read or lie in the sun. Worship was for the sept.

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IV

They had brought a horse for her. The lamps were being lit along the streets as they set out, and Catelyn felt the eyes of the city on her as she rode, surrounded by the guard in their golden cloaks. When they reached the Red Keep, the portcullis was down and the great gates sealed for the night, but the castle windows were alive with flickering lights. The guardsmen left their mounts outside the walls and escorted her through a narrow postern door, then up endless steps to a tower.

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A Game of Thrones - Jon III

By the time Jon left the armory, it was almost midday. The sun had broken through the clouds. He turned his back on it and lifted his eyes to the Wall, blazing blue and crystalline in the sunlight. Even after all these weeks, the sight of it still gave him the shivers. Centuries of windblown dirt had pocked and scoured it, covering it like a film, and it often seemed a pale grey, the color of an overcast sky … but when the sun caught it fair on a bright day, it shone, alive with light, a colossal blue-white cliff that filled up half the sky.

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

Stannis Baratheon drew Lightbringer.

The sword glowed red and yellow and orange, alive with light. Jon had seen the show before … but not like this, never before like this. Lightbringer was the sun made steel. When Stannis raised the blade above his head, men had to turn their heads or cover their eyes. Horses shied, and one threw his rider. The blaze in the fire pit seemed to shrink before this storm of light, like a small dog cowering before a larger one. The Wall itself turned red and pink and orange, as waves of color danced across the ice. Is this the power of king's blood?

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn IV

The candles within Renly's pavilion made the shimmering silken walls seem to glow, transforming the great tent into a magical castle alive with emerald light. Two of the Rainbow Guard stood sentry at the door to the royal pavilion. The green light shone strangely against the purple plums of Ser Parmen's surcoat, and gave a sickly hue to the sunflowers that covered every inch of Ser Emmon's enameled yellow plate. Long silken plumes flew from their helms, and rainbow cloaks draped their shoulders.

 

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3 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I'm imagining a white longsword, colored like rippling milk.

I'm trying to visualize what ripples of color look like.  Alive meaning colors pulsing or rippling along the blade like ripples you might see in a pool of water.  Does that sound right?

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I would point out that "pale" is not a color, and that white light is made up of the entire spectrum.

I would suggest that alive with light is akin to saying shining like a rainbow or a prism.

This works for both the grass described like Milkglass:

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"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end."

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

And the Swords:

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Crystals adorned the pommels of their longswords and the crests of their greathelms. They carried kite shields of a style not common since the Conquest, displaying a device not seen in the Seven Kingdoms for centuries: a rainbow sword shining bright upon a field of darkness.

A Feast for Crows - Cersei VIII

Six of the High Sparrow's knights escorted her, with the rainbow sword of their reborn order emblazoned on their kite shields.

A Feast for Crows - Cersei X

Their kite shields all bore the same device: a crystal sword shining in the darkness, the ancient badge of those the smallfolk called Swords.

A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

Which fits, not only with Dawn, the literal sword, but also the constellation, The Sword of the Morning, and how dawn returns color to the world after night.

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The eastern sky was pink near the horizon and pale grey higher up. The Sword of the Morning still hung in the south, the bright white star in its hilt blazing like a diamond in the dawn, but the blacks and greys of the darkling forest were turning once again to greens and golds, reds and russets.

A Storm of Swords - Jon IV

 

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43 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

I would point out that "pale" is not a color, and that white light is made up of the entire spectrum.

I would suggest that alive with light is akin to saying shining like a rainbow or a prism.

I'm coming to this conclusion as well.  If there is a crystal or diamond in the pommel of the Dawn Sword; alive with light could mean that it is reflecting the colors of a prism when light strikes the crystal.  Or it could have reflecting/refractive properties of its own, not unlike the Wall refracting sunlight on it's surface.  The Wall itself is described as a crystal.

Regarding the ghost grass, I would characterize their glow in the dark affect as a form of bioluminescence.

What about this:

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A Clash of Kings - Davos II

There was no answer but a soft rustling. And then a light bloomed amidst the darkness.

Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. "Gods preserve us," he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre shone.

 Does this give us any hints about the warrior of light?

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Just now, LynnS said:

I'm coming to this conclusion as well.  If there is a crystal or diamond in the pommel of the Dawn Sword; alive with light could mean that it is reflecting the colors of a prism when light strikes the crystal.  Or it could have reflecting/refractive properties of its own, not unlike the Wall refracting sunlight on it's surface.  The Wall itself is described as a crystal.

I would even take this a step further, and suggest that Melisandre's "Red Sword of Heroes" is in fact just one aspect of the magic sword, as one color is one aspect of a rainbow.

The Jade Compendium. The pages that told of Azor Ahai. Lightbringer was his sword. Tempered with his wife's blood if Votar can be believed. Thereafter Lightbringer was never cold to the touch, but warm as Nissa Nissa had been warm. In battle the blade burned fiery hot. Once Azor Ahai fought a monster. When he thrust the sword through the belly of the beast, its blood began to boil. Smoke and steam poured from its mouth, its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame.

We see here that Lightbringer changed when it was taken into battle, going from warm like a living person, to fiery hot.

We see Beric light his sword on fire using his blood, although it consumes the blade. I think this is an indication that the fire comes from the man and not the blade itself.

I would suggest that the blade reflects the wielder, and can likely burn bloody hot or icy cold with hate.

Remembering that the Greatsword made of Valyrian Steel Ned brought to King's Landing was not the original Ice, also opens possibilities to ponder.

She could see the rippling deep within the steel, where the metal had been folded back on itself a hundred times in the forging. Catelyn had no love for swords, but she could not deny that Ice had its own beauty. It had been forged in Valyria, before the Doom had come to the old Freehold, when the ironsmiths had worked their metal with spells as well as hammers. Four hundred years old it was, and as sharp as the day it was forged. The name it bore was older still, a legacy from the age of heroes, when the Starks were Kings in the North.

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