Post by snowfyre on Jan 7, 2016 16:25:23 GMT
Many readers believe that Ned's Ice isn't the original family sword and that it's a replica.
And they are correct that it's not the "original" family sword, because we are told early on that Ned's Valyrian steel blade was forged just 400 years prior to the start of our story. In contrast, House Stark claims an 8,000 year history.
But the line that inspires this theory is typically GRRMbiguous, and it's not clear the name "Ice" originally belonged to a metal sword at all. In the context of this particular thread and theory (i.e, that House Stark leveraged Others/Shadow Assassins for political power in ancient days)... the comment that the name "Ice" was "a legacy from the age of heroes, when Starks were Kings in the North" calls to mind these demons of supernatural cold, with their shadowswords.
...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. (1.02, CATELYN)
1.00 - PROLOGUE
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. ...
The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. ...
... Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.
2.33 - CATELYN
...a sudden gust of wind flung open the door of the tent. [Catelyn] thought she glimpsed movement, but when she turned her head, it was only the king's shadow shifting against the silken walls. She heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then she saw Renly's sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword…
"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. ...
... The shadow. Something dark and evil had happened here, [Catelyn] knew, something that she could not begin to understand. Renly never cast that shadow.
4.42 - BRIENNE
"Cold," her king said, puzzled, and a shadow moved without a man to cast it, and her sweet lord's blood came washing through the green steel of his gorget to drench her hands. [Renly] had been a warm man, but his blood was cold as ice.
3.18 - SAMWELL
...a rider pale as ice. Sam made a whimpery sound deep in his throat. He was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow. ...
... The Other's sword gleamed with a faint blue glow. It moved toward Grenn, lightning quick, slashing. When the ice blue blade brushed the flames, a screech stabbed Sam's ears sharp as a needle. The head of the torch tumbled sideways to vanish beneath a deep drift of snow, the fire snuffed out at once. ...
...the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul's axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul's mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh.