S07.E06: Beyond the Wall

[Pallas]

5 hours ago, WhiteStumbler said:

I can't find an explicit reference to dragons being necessary to make Valyrian steel. Also, it is called "Valyrian steel", not "Targaryen steel", so I assumed that it was from Valyria, which seemed volcanic (the Smoking Sea, the Doom).

Sorry! -- that's probably my mis-recalling an exchange we once had, Stumbler. Somewhere here, a season or so ago, I speculated -- probably in the spec thread -- that Valyrian steel was forged by dragon-fire. Based on its hailing from Valyria, and being spoken of as absolutely finite: only X amount of Valyrian steel swords in existence, now or ever again. I thought you later confirmed this, but now I bet if I check I'll find that you simply saluted the possibility.

So if dragons aren't the secret sauce, it would be some other element proprietary to Valyria, and now out of reach: Valyria is a toxic wasteland, peopled only by the Stone Men. Some special property of Valyrian iron? Or the carbon used in smelting it? Does that carbon need to be volcanic ash?  Dragonglass = obsidian, volcanic glass created by cooled lava; so is the equally fatal-to-the-dead Valyrian steel comprised of volcanic residue as well?  In the spec thread, Choc Butterfly made a profound argument for why the turned Viserion will no longer be able to breathe fire...

[WhiteStumbler]

1 hour ago, gingerella said:

WS, what the hell is the Doom and why does this feel like the first time I'm hearing of it?!

Tile Face Woman: (in Qarth, painting symbols on a face-down man) Jorah the Andal. This man must sail past old Valyria. All who travel too close to the Doom must have protection.

Jaime: (seeing Ned's melted down sword) No one's made a Valyrian steel sword since the Doom of Valyria.

Tyrion: (while a prisoner of Jorah) You know what they say. The Doom still rules Valyria. What about the demons and the flames? Aren't you afraid of the Doom?
Jorah: No. But pirates are.

The poem Tyrion recites and Jorah finishes...
Tyrion: "They held each other close and turned their backs upon the end.
The hills that split asunder and the black that ate the skies;
The flames that shot so high and hot that even dragons burned;
Would never be the final sights that fell upon their eyes.
A fly upon a wall, the waves the sea wind whipped and churned--"
Jorah: "The city of a thousand years, and all that men had learned;
The Doom consumed it all alike, and neither of them turned."

22 minutes ago, Pallas said:

So if dragons aren't the secret sauce,

I guess volcanoes and/or some special Valyrian iron / other ingredients to start with, otherwise the Targs could have made more, right?

Edited August 25, 2017 by WhiteStumbler

[gingerella]

WS, I bow to your recall...Whoa!  So, yeah, it would seem that almost anything that was forced with volcanic heat would kill a WW because it comes from the hottest thing possible? The poem Tyrion recites clearly is talking about a volcanic eruption, or so it seems.

Edited August 25, 2017 by gingerella

[WhiteStumbler]

9 minutes ago, gingerella said:

So, yeah, it would seem that almost anything that was forced with volcanic heat would kill a WW because it comes from the hottest thing possible?

<bows> I seek only to serve the realm.

I think that is true (anything forged with volcanic heat kills WWs), either dragonglass or Valyrian steel. That makes sense to me.

[DirewolfPup]

I'll only add that Tywin Lannister found someone capable of forging two swords (Oathkeeper & Widow's Wail) out of Ned's gigantic sword. So forging Valerian steel definitely doesn't require dragons. It could be from the mountains of Valeryia. With all the volcanic activity, it was abandoned, then used as an island prison for the diseased with Dragonscale. Kinda poetic actually. There are "dragons" in Valeryia again.

[gingerella]

15 minutes ago, WhiteStumbler said:

<bows> I seek only to serve the realm.

Funny, that got me thinking about Varys and how he always says that's his raison d'etre, and yet, WHY on earth would he serve the very realm that cut off his man bits all those years ago? You would think he'd run far away from such a place and such people, and he would not want to "serve" that place in any way. Unless...that is a ruse and he really seeks to destroy the place and people that did such a heinous thing to him. I know he kept the magician in that trunk for a hella long time, but it wasn't just that magician who could be blamed for doing what he did...just something that crossed my mind reading your post just now WS...

 

18 minutes ago, WhiteStumbler said:

I think that is true (anything forged with volcanic heat kills WWs), either dragonglass or Valyrian steel.

Is there anything else, that A Show has not told us about, that might be in the same category as Valyrian Steel and Dragon Glass? I cant think of anything, other than hot dragon breath...

[Llywela]

11 minutes ago, gingerella said:

Funny, that got me thinking about Varys and how he always says that's his raison d'etre, and yet, WHY on earth would he serve the very realm that cut off his man bits all those years ago? You would think he'd run far away from such a place and such people, and he would not want to "serve" that place in any way.

My understanding was that Varys had his bits cut off somewhere in Essos, long before he came to Westeros - the kind of magic and religion that required such mutilation isn't practiced in Westeros (or wasn't, until Melisandre got her hooks into Stannis)

The realm of Westeros is where Varys chose to make his home after he escaped the magician who cut him

[Pallas]

2 hours ago, gingerella said:

The poem Tyrion recites clearly is talking about a volcanic eruption, or so it seems.

The very first image of the opening credits -- engraved on the rim of the astrolabe --  shows a volcano (a mountain shaped like an arrowhead), a city below in flames, and a very large dragon gazing back at the catastrophe. 

I defy any of A Show's  more recent screenwriters to compose that poem. There's no action.

[Rocinante]

Maybe the valerian steel is made with some kind of magical procedé. After the dying of magic they found out it couldn't be made anymore?

[ChocButterfly]

Ohhh, so many interesting speculations! I can't quote everyone, because I have already forgotten who said what after reading everything and I'm too lazy to go back. But, from the topic of the WW being all Craster's family, as someone else said, there must have been many other WW from eons ago. If the CHoTF created them to fight men, then they surely created an army, not just the Night King. But yeah, there must be at least other 99 WW babies  (or already grownups?) around somewhere. Which leads me to another question, who the hell is taking care of those babies?? The WW don't seem like cuddly maternal guys, but these are babies we're talking about! And where are they? Where do they live? Do they have houses, cities? Do they even need to eat?? Drink milk??? I would have been fine with a horde of WW who may not sleep, eat , or have any civilization at all, but once they brought up the babies thing, they must have a society. Plus, they have clothes, who makes it??

 

Also, the power of turning normal human babies into WW babies with just one touch is HUGE!!! Not even the CHoTF could do it. They needed the circle thing and the obsidian, and they were magic! So, there goes again my theory that WW are directly serving the, let's call him Lord of Darkness. We have seen some humans with incredible powers like Melissandre who is apparently immortal and can bring people back from death. Heck, even Thoros, who wasn't particularly special, did have that Super Special Power. The LoL gave it to them for some purpose. Well, the NK seems to be special among his people as well. The LoD may have chosen him and gave him those powers with time.

That works as well for something interesting that another poster mentioned. The WW at the beginning required elaborated rituals to turn cadavers into zombies. I think I remember a spiral made of decapitated horse heads or something? Anyway, in Hardhome and in last episode we saw the NK resurrect the dead by apparently just willing it. I initially thought this was a continuity mistake of the show. But now, I believe this is intentional, and falls into the whole theme of magic coming back stronger and stronger as the end is near. It seems the NK is getting more powerful as winter is setting in. I wonder how much it'll take for the days turning into night, like Bran's grandma said.

By the way, if I remember correctly we have seen human zombies, bears, giants, horses and I think they showed a zombie mammoth once. Soon we'll see zombie Summer as well.

[Anothermi]

One of the things The Door showed us was that Zoomboneis can be "neutralized" by decapitation.  A zomboni without a head is no zomoboni at all.  Yes, Chocbutterfly,  what we have been shown is more important than what we speculate. Chatty ChotF, Summer and Hodor were all torn into pieces.  They would have had no heads to work with a body. I think they are gone for good.

[supposebly]

I didn't like this episode much. While I could sort of get on board with Jon's trip, Dany was still reluctant to believe him or at least still was busy thinking about her other problems and bitch to Tyrion about his family and his allegiances, what I did wonder was, didn't he take some Dragonglass with him? Why didn't they equip weapons with Dragonglass before they went?

Still, the conversations while the weather was better where good. I wasn't sure but wasn't someone else killed by the bear? Couldn't they simply have taken that one? Or was that just Thoros? I got confused there.

Not sure what's happening with Sansa and Arya, who is quite creepy these days. (Almost as creepy as Littlefinger). Still, it makes sense. They were never friends, they were very different and life has been....unkind to say the least. So, there is really no reason why they would trust each other at all at this point.

Two Deus ex Machinas, first the predictable Dany who came in the nick of time and then Benjen who does the same to save an idiot Jon who took too long to jump onto a dragon. What does Benjen do all day anyway? 

I find the 'romance' between Dany and Jon ill-conceived and ill-timed since they are developing this while we would expect her to mourn one of her children. Also, there seems to be no chemistry that I can see. I'd think it would be more in character for her to blame Jon for this. At least a bit.

Btw., if it were really that cold, they all should wear hats. I live in Canada's prairies and you don't go without a hat in the winter! I get distracted by these things that are better for filming, when I'm not engaged in what's going on.

I really hate that this was the reason we now have a zombie dragon. This was a stupid way for a dragon to die.

Edited August 24, 2019 by supposebly