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The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

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Susano said:
...no? That's the entire point of chainmail. Normal steel will bounce right off it.
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We were very clearly discussing stabs, not cuts

Chainmail is less resistant against stabs not because the blade slips entirely through the rings or between the links, but because stabbing pries the links open and bursts them apart

View: https://youtu.be/ydjdBTV8ZbY?t=256

And, also as clearly stated, less resistant doesn't equal tissue paper
Mail could stop a stab, it did often stop stabs, especially in actual live combat against resisting opponents who don't stand stock still and unmoving when you shove a blade into them
Any measure of resistance is better than no resistance, and even in cases where the blade did rip open a hole in the mail it could still absorb enough of the impact to turn what would have completely skewered you into something that you might potentially survive or get stopped by the padding under the mail

It's just that swords, spears, daggers and other pointy weapons piercing through mail is a known quantity
And if a sword does pierce through the mail, then it broke apart a hole in the mail doing it
Unless it's a really thin blade like a very thin rapier, but rapiers and chainmail as common armor is anachronistic
And heck, even a lot of rapiers are too wide to slip entirely through the links or through a ring

So yeah, saying Valyrian sword can stab through chain mail isn't that big a deal
It's still a notable mark of quality if the Valyrian sword can split open mail easily, but the bronze was a bigger feat
So if you told me that a Valyrian sword could cut through bronze armor then you didn't need to tell me it could stab through mail, of course it can
Regular blades can stab through mail

It's also distinction without a difference to say it stabbed through the mail itself rather than a gap, that's how stabbing through mail normally works

Susano said:
So why the change to plate then? Because chainmail still had weak spots that were difficult to cover, like (IIRC) t he armpits etc. As well, it still is not as protective against blunt weapons like maces - of course you can use blunt weapons to dangerously dent plate armour as well, but it would be even worse with chainmail.

But against cutting blades and sharp points, chainmail will in fact hold. Valyrian steel cutting through the rings is indeed showing the ultra-sharp (and never blunting) edge of that particular sort of steel.
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Plate was a step up compared to mail because plate
a) Can't be burst and pried open by a stab the same way that chain could​
b) A solid piece of metal absorbs and distributes force a lot better​
Even in cases where mail stopped a blade in its entirety, the fact that it's a flexible sheet of chain means that all that force still transfers into your body
The sword blow might not have completely split you open, but it's still not good when it fractures your collar bone or cracks a rib

Plate's also just generally more durable and better at deflecting blows in general
 
I would like to point out that this is also a setting with straight up magic, even if it is vastly weaker. Theres a very real chance that Valyrian Steel is partially magical in nature and that earlier generation from before magic disappeared were aware of that.
 
Daedwartin said:
I would like to point out that this is also a setting with straight up magic, even if it is vastly weaker. Theres a very real chance that Valyrian Steel is partially magical in nature and that earlier generation from before magic disappeared were aware of that.
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The reforging of Ice into two swords involved some arcane (in every sense of the meaning) ritual stuff from Qohor, a city people say worships a demon. Valyrian steel absolutely involves magic.
 
Susano said:
The reforging of Ice into two swords involved some arcane (in every sense of the meaning) ritual stuff from Qohor, a city people say worships a demon. Valyrian steel absolutely involves magic.
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Also Blackfyre was on Aegon's Funeral pyre. So the blade literally went through the same flames that melted Harrenhal and forged the Iron Throne and the only thing changed is the blade itself became darker.
 
Importantly and impressively, Blackfyre didn't lose its temper, either.

If you take a sword made out of merely normal high-grade steel and put it through even a much more ordinary hot fire, you'll still have a sword-shaped object at the end but it won't be nearly as good or effective as a sword blade. Because while steel doesn't outright melt at temperatures of a few hundred degrees Celsius, it does undergo changes to its internal structure.

Blackfyre being able to withstand dragonfire without actually losing its material properties tells me that Blackfyre isn't just some kind of absurdly high-performance metal, it's a magical object with conceptual immunity to heat.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Blackfyre being able to withstand dragonfire without actually losing its material properties tells me that Blackfyre isn't just some kind of absurdly high-performance metal, it's a magical object with conceptual immunity to heat.
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Not to heat, to fire. "All Valyrian sorcery is rooted in fire and blood," after all.
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Not to heat, to fire. "All Valyrian sorcery is rooted in fire and blood," after all.
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Though I challenge you to find a sufficiently hot heat on Planetos that isn't at least conceptually/metaphorically tied to fire. Even volcanoes are - the Doom of Valyria clearly was linked to that fire and blood magic getting out of control, after all.

Of course, I still believe in the idea that fire and ice are the two poles of magic on Planetos, with often equivalent properties (see greensight and dragon dreams, for example). So with Valyrian steel clearly tied to the fire side things, it would be interesting to see if it could withstand extreme cold.
 
Susano said:
Though I challenge you to find a sufficiently hot heat on Planetos that isn't at least conceptually/metaphorically tied to fire. Even volcanoes are - the Doom of Valyria clearly was linked to that fire and blood magic getting out of control, after all.

Of course, I still believe in the idea that fire and ice are the two poles of magic on Planetos, with often equivalent properties (see greensight and dragon dreams, for example). So with Valyrian steel clearly tied to the fire side things, it would be interesting to see if it could withstand extreme cold.
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Given what it does to the Others, I think it may well do better against them than you might expect.

While I agree that fire and ice are the poles of magic on Planetos, I don't think they're entirely symmetrical. The recurring result in the series, I think, is that fire tends to defeat ice in a direct clash, but fire also tends to burn itself out or destroy itself, whereas ice endures and gathers its strength over time. We see the Valyrians and their last relevant survivors, the Targaryens, time and time again being their own worst enemy, while the Others seem to have a pretty solid and coherent campaign plan going.
 
I don't think anyone disagrees that VS is magic of some kind. I was just pointing out that "can cut through steel plate armor" isn't something that happens in the series. I don't think we ever see it fail to do so either, so people might interpret either way. The feat of cutting through bronze armor is more impressive than I initially thought (especially if it was a slash and not a stab, which is what I'd take 'cut' to mean), but I'm pretty sure that'd be bronze from like the Thenns north of the wall, right? So this isn't likely to be top of the line stuff, and armor plate is something where your limiting factor can be quality control over larger pieces.

Another detail which might be worth considering on VS is that most of it doesn't seem to be made the way I'd expect you to make weapons if you were actually getting an advantage out of being able to defeat armor. Like, you can puncture steel plate with steel war picks or similar designs, and steel greaves and other thinner plate with shorter steel blades. But everyone seems to have made longswords - weapons designed to find gaps or weak points in armor, where there might be only mail. Maybe that's purely for Doylist reasons though (war picks are less heroic than swords). Or maybe it's because VS so handily defeats steel plate that the geometry doesn't matter.
 
It also bears remembering that there are basically three kinds of Valyrian steel weapons in Westeros:

1) Original Valyrian steel weapons made in the Freehold of Valyria for Valyrians, and which later found their way to Westeros in trade.

2) Valyrian steel weapons originally made before the Doom of Valyria by smiths who knew how to make the stuff, and who took custom orders from foreigners.

3) Valyrian steel weapons that were made either before or after the Doom by taking a billet of Valyrian steel or an existing weapon of the stuff, and reforging it (a somewhat more common skill than making it in the first place) into a shape chosen by the client (sort of like how Ice gets made into two swords by Tywin Lannister)

...

Weapons of type (2) or (3) would tend to imitate existing weapon styles popular in the culture of the person commissioning the weapon, because the kind of person who has the money to throw around for something like that is more interested in prestige than in having a really optimized weapon. An absurdly wealthy Dothraki with that kind of money gets an arakh-style sword made, an absurdly wealthy Braavosi water-dancer gets a rapier or whatever made, and an absurdly wealthy Westerosi lord usually gets something like a knightly arming sword made.

Weapons of type (1) would tend to imitate whatever the Valyrians themselves wanted out of a weapon, which would depend on the situations and needs they faced in their own situation and the types of armor and armament they expected t encounter.
 
Another thought I have is that while any single sword is hardly going to make a difference in battle, there is also the matter of duels and more specifically trials by combat. Trials by combat were typically fought armored. If (on the extreme end) having a VS sword when your opponent didn't meant that you had an overwhelming or substantial advantage in trials by combat, because your weapon was much better at defeating their armor than theirs was at defeating yours, then that's something you could find ways of repeatedly leveraging. And the fact that we don't hear about say the Lannisters repeatedly losing trials because they don't have a magic sword and everyone else does, or the fact that House Stark bought a VS sword that is pretty much ceremonial rather than a combat weapon, suggests that it doesn't offer this.

Edit: Another data point would be that we hear about Jaehaerys' Trial by Combat against Braxton Beesbury. Granted, Jaehaerys is 49 at this point, so he might be too old, and this is a goofy inclusion in ASOIAF, so it might be fair game to just ignore it. But he's armed with Blackfyre and the description is him targeting weak points and finally stabbing Braxton through the visor, which suggests conventional fighting rather than anything that takes advantage of being able to defeat steel plate in a way that a conventional steel sword cannot.
 
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hailcapital said:
...And the fact that we don't hear about say the Lannisters repeatedly losing trials because they don't have a magic sword and everyone else does...
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To be fair, most other houses don't have magic swords, only some do. Many of the houses that do have magic swords also have very few occasions when they are likely to directly challenge House Lannister in particular to a duel or trial by combat.

... or the fact that House Stark bought a VS sword that is pretty much ceremonial rather than a combat weapon, suggests that it doesn't offer this.
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I'm not sure Ice is purely ceremonial, though it's clearly on the upper limit of how bulky a sword can be and still be practical.

Edit: Another data point would be that we hear about Jaehaerys' Trial by Combat against Braxton Beesbury. Granted, Jaehaerys is 49 at this point, so he might be too old, and this is a goofy inclusion in ASOIAF, so it might be fair game to just ignore it. But he's armed with Blackfyre and the description is him targeting weak points and finally stabbing Braxton through the visor, which suggests conventional fighting rather than anything that takes advantage of being able to defeat steel plate in a way that a conventional steel sword cannot.
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That's valid. Is this Jaehaerys I, the guy who's Rhaenyra's grandfather as I recall?
 
Simon_Jester said:
I'm not sure Ice is purely ceremonial, though it's clearly on the upper limit of how bulky a sword can be and still be practical.
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I guess that's unclear. But speaking to the 2&3 swords laid out by you above - while I agree the people might ordering these weapons largely aren't going to be the type to get super into the weeds on weapon optimization or anything, they are going to be people who have been trained to fight since childhood and are expecting to potentially use weapons in life or death situations. And they want to win those life or death situations and not die.

Any Stark who dies with a regular-steel sword in his hands knowing that he has a VS greatsword at home that's too big to use, or who dies because he's trying to fight with a VS sword at the limit of practicality, is going to feel really silly.

Simon_Jester said:
That's valid. Is this Jaehaerys I, the guy who's Rhaenyra's grandfather as I recall?
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Yes.

Mystic Pentagram said:
There are also a couple of greatswords (Stark and Tarly) and an axe (House Celtigar).
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Yeah. By "everyone" I meant "that seems to have been the default among people who have VS ancestral weapons." Not "literally everyone."
 
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Simon_Jester said:
That's valid. Is this Jaehaerys I, the guy who's Rhaenyra's grandfather as I recall?
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Yes. Rhaenyra's grandfather once fought a trial by combat as his own champion while at the age of 49.

Makes it a bit ironic that Viserys criticised us so badly for fighting our own trial by combat rather than letting our kingsguard handle it, come to think of it, given the previous king would do exactly that.
 
Imperious said:
Yes. Rhaenyra's grandfather once fought a trial by combat as his own champion while at the age of 49.

Makes it a bit ironic that Viserys criticised us so badly for fighting our own trial by combat rather than letting our kingsguard handle it, come to think of it, given the previous king would do exactly that.
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Jaehaerys is in a very weird spot in the history of Westeros kings.

He is fondly remembered as the best king they ever had, but most of those same lords that praise him now that he is long dead would have probably been his political/ideological opponents when he was alive.

If nothing else, because he was a reformer, and nobles hate change and love traditions (when those traditions advantage them).

So everyone claims they want to be as good a ruler as Jaehaerys I Targaryen was. But no one actualy says out loud what made him such a good king or tries to follow in his footsteps.
 
Simon_Jester said:
That's valid. Is this Jaehaerys I, the guy who's Rhaenyra's grandfather as I recall?
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Great Grandfather.

Rhaenyra's grandfather is Baelon. Who's death in 101 AC caused the great council of that year because Jaehaerys had already passed over his eldest grandchild Rhaenys for Baelon. With Baelon dead it was uncertain who was Jaehaerys rightful heir, his eldest grandchild or his oldest grandson.
 
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Mystic Pentagram said:
There are also a couple of greatswords (Stark and Tarly) and an axe (House Celtigar).
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[grunts]

Of course, properly a longsword is generally a two-handed weapon and a knightly sword that's supposed to be held in one hand is an 'arming sword' or 'broad sword'... :(

But this is largely the fault of industrial-era pop culture. Gary Gygax was not what you'd call perfectly interested in terminology and would outright make up polearms; swords got up lightly by comparison.

He is the only Jaehaerys in the Targaryen Dynasty, so i can't think who else might be.
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I don't have the complete list of Targaryens so well memorized that I don't feel like I should at least ask to confirm things like that.

hailcapital said:
I guess that's unclear. But speaking to the 2&3 swords laid out by you above - while I agree the people might ordering these weapons largely aren't going to be the type to get super into the weeds on weapon optimization or anything, they are going to be people who have been trained to fight since childhood and are expecting to potentially use weapons in life or death situations. And they want to win those life or death situations and not die.

Any Stark who dies with a regular-steel sword in his hands knowing that he has a VS greatsword at home that's too big to use, or who dies because he's trying to fight with a VS sword at the limit of practicality, is going to feel really silly.
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Well, about the only limitation there is that Ice needs to not be too big to use as a combat sword if you've spent significant time training with it.

It doesn't need to be especially practical as a normal sword, just not outright hopelessly impractical.

And remember, the part where you'd feel silly dying with a regular sword in combat because your Valyrian steel sword is impractical to use... that exists in direct proportion to the size of the advantage Valyrian steel actually has in battle. And the bigger that advantage, the more it becomes worthwhile to train hard to get your 'impractical' Valyrian steel weapon into the field even if a different Valyrian steel weapon would theoretically be preferable.

Imperious said:
Yes. Rhaenyra's grandfather once fought a trial by combat as his own champion while at the age of 49.

Makes it a bit ironic that Viserys criticised us so badly for fighting our own trial by combat rather than letting our kingsguard handle it, come to think of it, given the previous king would do exactly that.
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Well, apart from the technical point that I was wrong and Jaehaerys was Rhaenyra's great-grandfather... it's not really ironic that Viserys would say this was a bad idea.

If something had gone badly wrong in that swordfight, well, Jaehaerys already had a son and a granddaughter to succeed him. Rhaenyra does not. Her line dies with her, and (as of the time of the trial by combat) Viserys' own line is left on the rather uncertain condition of whether Johanna actually has kids that survive, and further complicated by the fact that he's a sick man who might well die before those children reach majority, leading to a regency period that could see Daemon or the Velaryons or both swoop in with Rhaenyra dead.

Likewise if Rhaenyra were simply maimed but not killed, that would also be Real Bad for the overall long-term governance of Westeros in various ways, because being physically disabled can be really bad for your ability to, well, do things. Doesn't prevent you from living a rich life, don't get me wrong, but it can have knock-on effects that are hard to see coming when you start from the assumption of being able-bodied.
 
Simon_Jester said:
[grunts]


Well, apart from the technical point that I was wrong and Jaehaerys was Rhaenyra's great-grandfather... it's not really ironic that Viserys would say this was a bad idea.

If something had gone badly wrong in that swordfight, well, Jaehaerys already had a son and a granddaughter to succeed him. Rhaenyra does not. Her line dies with her, and (as of the time of the trial by combat) Viserys' own line is left on the rather uncertain condition of whether Johanna actually has kids that survive, and further complicated by the fact that he's a sick man who might well die before those children reach majority, leading to a regency period that could see Daemon or the Velaryons or both swoop in with Rhaenyra dead.

Likewise if Rhaenyra were simply maimed but not killed, that would also be Real Bad for the overall long-term governance of Westeros in various ways, because being physically disabled can be really bad for your ability to, well, do things. Doesn't prevent you from living a rich life, don't get me wrong, but it can have knock-on effects that are hard to see coming when you start from the assumption of being able-bodied.
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Jaehaerys is actually known to have wanted to fight as his own champion when he was 14 years old as well. He was just overruled by his mother, who was acting as his regent at the time. Perhaps its something in the blood.
 
Simon_Jester said:
[grunts]

Of course, properly a longsword is generally a two-handed weapon and a knightly sword that's supposed to be held in one hand is an 'arming sword' or 'broad sword'... :(

But this is largely the fault of industrial-era pop culture. Gary Gygax was not what you'd call perfectly interested in terminology and would outright make up polearms; swords got up lightly by comparison.
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Well, in Italy all type of swords during the Middlle Ages and the 17th-19th centuries were all just called "sword".

In Italian different names for different types of swords were created only by military historians in the 20th century. Wich is why reading old treaties abaout sword-fighting in Italian is so confusing, since they call both a rapier and a longsword just "spada".
Simon_Jester said:
I don't have the complete list of Targaryens so well memorized that I don't feel like I should at least ask to confirm things like that.
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Okay, my mistake here. Just checked and there are actualy 3 Jaehaerys in the history of House Targaryen.

The first begin Jaehaerys I, the second one of the children of Alicent and Viserys, and the third begin Jaehaerys II (the father of Mad King Aerys).

But since the last two aren't born yet and probably never will in this timeline (since Alicent and Viserys aren't married and Rhaenyra will probably not give birth to Aegon III), i was technicaly correct.
 
Temes1066 said:
Not according to HBO.

D&D grasp of Westerosi History (and Westerosi Characters) is why they shouldn't have been allowed to run the show
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I should note when I saw Show canon I mean House of the Dragon only. This is not a statement about the quality of later seasons, though I have strongly negative opinions about much of them, but because the showrunners regularly just made shit up and created a completely nonsense timeline. There's references to a Meagor III at one point!
 
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