Post by voice on May 5, 2017 18:52:22 GMT
Well that's what the explanation is for: we haven't seen an Others sword be described as milkglass. Similar, but Dawn has a definite whiteness to it while the other blades don't. The Night's Queen was said to be extremely pale and this author is simply positing that Dawn perhaps changed colour when it Nissa Nissa'd her.
Otherwise you do eventually IMO need to account for why Dawn is white and Others swords aren't.
Completely true. DarkSister1001 has called the Others' blades' inhuman metal "Winter Steel"...and I think this is a FAR more accurate term than my "milkglass blades". Her term fits the SSM like a moleskin glove sticky with blood:
"Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it."
I like the milkglass parallels (below), and its contrast with obsidian (frozen milk vs frozen fire), so I overuse it as often as possible. I guess you could say I'm milking milkglass. LOL
But milkglass isn't exactly an un-Otherish substance. We have but four utterances of milkglass in the novels thus far:
A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III
(Other Grass)
"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 - Eddard X
(Everything about this passage sounds like the Others to me, but that is admittedly because I suffer from a very strong case of what kingmonkey has diagnosed as Literary Pareidolia)
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.
"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 Clash of Kings - Tyrion IV
(This one is the most un-Otherish, but it does go on to describe some very Other-y things)
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 . . .
A Storm of Swords - Samwell I
(milkglass inside of an Other)
When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.
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."
"Obsidian." Sam struggled to his knees. "Dragonglass, they call it. Dragonglass. Dragon glass." He giggled, and cried, and doubled over to heave his courage out onto the snow.
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."
"Obsidian." Sam struggled to his knees. "Dragonglass, they call it. Dragonglass. Dragon glass." He giggled, and cried, and doubled over to heave his courage out onto the snow.
Others are living beings made of ice. Some of that ice comprises bone, and is described as milkglass. I'm sure we've all had an icecube in our water like that over the years.
GRRM has also said that the Others are able to make substances from ice, and that their swords are made of it. Not regular old ice, but Other-ice.
This is what I think Dawn is made from. Like the Others themselves (and perhaps their long legged spiders), Dawn/Ice is simply this not-regular substance that is cold-forged. It might be from their bones, or the bones of their spiders, or since they simply exist in and rely upon a frozen world, they make frozen substances that are composed of those frozen materials.
Another thing to keep in mind is the Wall itself. The Wall shines like crystal at times, alive with light. Sometimes it even shines like blue crystal. Sometimes it appears black, and to have red rivulets, such as when Mel's fire is nearby.
On a cloudy day, it can look grey and pockmarked from years of dust. On other days, it might appear white and cloudy itself.
I think Dawn's appearance likely functions this same way. When Ned saw it, it appeared like milkglass that was alive with light. If he had instead met Arthur Dayne on a moonlit night, it might have appeared a little differently:
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 almost to 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.
Purely conjecture of course. But blades that are "alive with light" and capable of destroying castle forged steel are a rare thing south of the Wall, and not so rare north of it.
It should be noted that Ned is the only (once-)living survivor of a blade that was alive with light in the entire series. And, the fall of Arthur Dayne is the only known example of a Dawn-wielder dying in a sword duel. Given that GRRM has stated that a Dawn-wielder is basically invincible, regardless of the sword/man he is facing, from any universe, I think this is very significant.
I would argue that the size of Dawn is precisely why it isn't as thin as the longswords we've seen the Others. A greatsword is by definition bigger than a longsword.
I completely agree. And House Dayne may have upgraded the blade. They've certainly had time, and then there is their story about the falling star. It would also make sense to me if they needed to fashion a grip.
If Dawn was indeed once wielded by an Other-ish person, we know they can maneuver more gracefully in/with frozen substanced than can Human people. Thus I think LH/NK's Dawn=Ice is the source of Dalla's Horned Lord proverb:
"We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."
You kneelers, who knelt for the first King in the North... who happened to have been the 13th man to lead the Night's Watch. And who happens to share the same number of dead predecessors as the Last Hero... whose sword was broken...and replaced with a sword that could make the Others kneel and yield. Anyway, I'm drifting away from my point. LOL
If some ancient Dayne took possession of Dawn-Ice, it makes sense that he would need a safe way to grasp it. It is a sword that is alive with sorcery. So I think the Daynes fashioned a hilt, grip, and pommel. We've seen similar sword alterations in our story already, when a sword is awarded to a new house/wielder. Ned's Ice was split in two, and bedazzled hilts and lion pommels were fitted to it, befitting House Lannister. Longclaw's pommel was changed from a Mormont Bear to a Weirwood-colored Direwolf for our favorite bastard.
So I'm thinking House Dayne would have both wanted and needed to do something similar. And, in keeping with the blade's starry-ancestry, I think they used a meteorite to fashion a worthy hilt, grip, and pommel.
It's funny, but a lot of people in the thread are ripping the idea that Dawn or Valyrian steel swords are possibly sentient. This is despite the fact that we're given passages like these
"The sword is quick," Tarly snapped. "That is the nature of Valyrian steel. Stronger than most men? Aye. She's a freak of nature, far be it from me to deny it."
And then Qhorin's sword was coming at him and somehow Longclaw leapt upward to block
We're literally told by a man who's wielded VS for decades that his sword is quick by nature, and Jon somehow is quicker and able to deflect blows without consciously doing it. The surface explanation is simply that lighter sword = quicker user, but what would be so hard to understand that it's just the sword actually moving itself too?
Preach!
The second one really drives the point home. And the Song of the Dornishman's Wife, I believe, is sung from the sword's own point of view.
Anyways, but I agree that the idea that Dawn holds the Night Queen's spirit is a pretty cool idea. We know that the Sword of the Morning need not be the best swordsman in the realm as we're told that Daemon Blackfyre was better than Ulryck Dayne and that Darkstar, supposedly one of the finest swordsmen in Dorne isn't wielding it. And otherwise we're simply told that they need to be a worthy knight. What is a worthy knight other than someone who would uphold certain "good" ideals, and why is that so important to being able to wield Dawn unless it's because Dawn goes against those ideals?
Who are you, and what did you do with Mark G?
Kidding, but it's really cool to see you coming around on the magic stuff. Any chance you're changing your mind about the Others returning because Ned killed the Sword of the Morning?
Plus given that IIRC you believe that the Night's King stirred because Dawn was defeated, I can see even more so why you like the idea that the Night's Queen's sole is trapped in Dawn. If Dawn just lost it's protector then now's the chance for the Night King to strike to get back his wife. And given that there is no SOTM for whatever reason these past 17 years, it's possibly because there's nobody strong enough to hold back the Night's Queen's influence
Yup. That's a-me.
And yup, that is EXACTLY why I love that part. I always felt like the Song of the Dornishman's wife was about Lightbringer, from the point of view of Lightbringer. And I always felt like Lightbringer was just an Essosi name for the Last Hero's blade. I see Nissa Nissa as an Essosi name for the Night's Queen, and it always made sense to me that she was the one who wanted the Last Hero (they let him find the cotf) to learn the secrets of the children, and seduced him with power afterward.
A sword is a nice toy to give a man who has been seduced by power, see: Stannis, Joffrey, Jon Snow, and Brienne (lol). I mention Brienne, because I've long applied the labels of Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail to the Night's King and his corpse queen. One might also apply these to Ned and Lyanna, but that is a different rabbit hole for another day. LOL
I'm digging this! One sword to rule them all! There's also the way Ice seemed to fight assimilation with the red colors when it was reforged. It was rejecting it bc it wasn't blood, it didn't have a soul.
It also makes me think of how Bump "went into the trees" and how the smith's of Qohor supposedly used children sacrifices to reforge VS.
Gotta love the wisdom of woods witches. Then there's our wise older brother, Gared:
"I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like."
Waymar immediately mocks Gared's eloquence, which is exactly how GRRM likes to cloak and obfuscate his truth nuggets, imo.
This is a very interesting passage to me. We have the revelation of the true enemy, right there in the prologue of book 1. The rest (dragons, flayed men, wars for uncomfortable chairs) is only window dressing.
Not only is this true enemy revealed, a means of conversion by this enemy is also laid out in striking detail. It is a peaceful transition, once you stop dreaming of fire and stamping your feet. It was things like this that made me view the Others as Westeros' antibodies – gone nuclear.
They want men to stop dreaming of nice hot fires. They want to take our dreams and extinguish our hearths! We must guard The Last Hearth!!! LOL
But anyhoo, I think Gared laid a lot out in that quote that applies to swords and sentience. I have called what Gared describes "cold forging." Both swords and men can be reforged. We've seen it with Theon-Reek-Theon, we've heard Tyrion advise Jon to armor himself in his bastardy, and we've seen Ice's identity fractured into two ("Night's King was only a man by light of day, Old Nan would always say, but the night was his to rule") and then reforged (in fire) into Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail.
Gared has just described a type of cold-fusion. It is a fusing of the mind itself, with the cold-itself. And I think this is certainly applicable to the story of the Night's King and his Queen. (Fuck, can we just start calling him Brandon the Builder of House Stark already?) If the Night's King was the Last Hero, we know a sword was a part of the deal.
the Night's Queen is pale, Dawn is pale, there is a definite resemblance. The Night's King gave his soul when he took possession of the alien sword.
The Night's Queen is the milkglass sword Ice.
I dig it. But I think she must have also had a fuckable body at one time. He had to give his seed somewhere.
Although, if anyone could write a sex scene between a Lord Commander and a sword, it would be GRRM.
The LH had an alien sword, called Ice, who could defeat the alien Others. BtB killed him to take the sword from him, then turned into the NK under the power of the sentient sword.
After his brother from WF took him - the NK - down, this brother returned the alien sword, now called Dawn, to the family of his owners.
I like this too, with one exception. Why must the LH die? Like the Night's King, he never died in the books.
I think we need to instead be looking at a Sansa/Arya or Stannis/Theon-like identity crisis.
Stage 1: "The Prince of Winterfell"
Bran the Builder
Stage 2: "The Turncloak"
Bran the Builder
Stage 3: A Ghost in Winterfell
Bran the Builder
Was the sword always alive with light? or is is only when wielded by a SotM?
This is the question.
That Dawn is alive with light as soon as it is drawn against Ned suggests to me that they are always alive with light. I view Dawn's sheath as an eclipse-maker (one more reason why Ned's actions were so disastrous, as they empowered Winter by sheathing the Sun for 17 years).
I'd like to think that Dawn radiates heat as well, when in the hands of a Sword of the Morning (and mayhaps coldness, when in the hands of an Other, or a Sword of the Evening). I'm the founder of team #DawnBurnsRed so I have to stick to my guns on that theory as well. In the hands of the weirwood bastard with a red-eyed wolf, under the light of the red comet, I think Dawn will burn red.
But that is admittedly more fan-fiction than it is a "supported theory" LOL. Crystals reflect and distort the light they are given, and we've seen the Wall do this, so it isn't complete fan fiction... but it is pretty close.
Very close indeed. Plenty of room on the Dawn-Ice Express. We glide upon the frozen Milkwater from dusk to dawn... until there is no more dawn.