Lightbringer’s Secrets

Published July 28, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey, guys!

Nice Deep Dive, and I dunno where the weirdness in it lied. Maybe I am weird too so I’m blindsighted. Anyway, on to some words.

Like I mentioned in a previous email, and agreeing with you, Dany can become a tyrant (or a version of a Mad Queen) if she keeps burning people. And history is written by the winning side, so if Cersei won, she could paint Dany as a totally cruel and savage impostor, tarnishing even more the Targaryen name in Westeros. Olenna has nothing to lose now; her offspring is dead, her house has no forseeable future, so it makes sense that she wants only to see Dany raining fire and blood upon the Lannisters.

Big D on point with Euron being the Jack Sparrow of the 14 seas. He is the storm. I agree that there’s no traitor amidst Dany’s council. Blackwater Bay is not that big, two giant fleets getting out of it and heading the same way would meet each other. Varys wouldn’t take Dany out of the board before giving her a chance, specially with Cersei in power; he knows Cersei doesn’t care shit about the people or anyone else who isn’t herself. And I’m not sad at all about the passing of the Sand Snakes in the show. The whole Dorne arc was revolting because it’s the best place of Westeros in the books. Doran was not a pacifist at all costs like the show presented him, he was cunning and clever. He was as motivated as Oberyn, and there’s a line in the books that says something like “Doran is the grass, you don’t think of any danger when you look at it, but it’s the grass that hides the viper until it’s ready to strike.” There are many more things that are different, but I don’t wanna go on a “purist” rant (I enjoyed many changed he show made, in fact). It’s good we won’t need to meddle with Dorne again, at least for a while. That probably wasn’t the entire fleet, that Euron destroyed. From trailers we know that the Unsullied reach Casterly Rock by boat. And the Tyrells have a fleet too (they have had for many years, after all their shores of the Reach need to be defended against iron islanders every now and again), so not all hope is lost for Dany. Regarding the whole Theon Yara dynamics, two things: Yara is from the Iron Islands, they’re breed on tough love, so her flauting of sexuality to troll Theon isn’t cruel, just insensitive (which shouldn’t be used as an excuse to troll people under these circumstances in real life!). Also, when Theon “broke free” of Reek and rescued Sansa, it was because he owed her. He grew up with Sansa, she was more his sister than Yara, whom he barely knew (Yara showed time and again that she cared about Theon, but that didn’t go both ways very well). Also, a part of him needed to clear his conscience from taking Winterfell and killing those farmer’s boys he burnt and claimed to be Bran and Rickon. So, his redemption there made sense, but he ain’t no hero.

And a quick note about the Unsullied. They’re turned into eunuchs at an early age because their masters wanted to maintain the image of a “clean army”. They’re sold as the ultimate killing machines: they’ll kill only who their masters want killed, and if they’re used to invade a city, them being eunuchs is a guarantee there won’t be any raping and pillaging. During their training, they are given a beverage called the “wine of courage”, which over years numbs their body’s ability to feel pain, and they’re constantly put on trials to lose their sense of self. So when Grey Worm tells Missandei she’s her weakness and that he fears because of her, it’s a wonderful declaration, not only because he’s telling her he loves her, but also because it means [that Dany was the one who broke his chains, but] Missandei is the one who made him human.

Randyll Tarly is, yes, a man of principle! That’s exactly why he sent Sam away. According to his principles, Sam was too weak to carry the family name. He’s also inflexible when it comes to showing strenght to carry out his legacy, after all, he was a great general, the only who bested Robert Baratheon in battle, of course he’d like a heir who has battle prowess too. In his mind, Sam betrayed the family when he didn’t show capabilities with arms. As I’ve said before, he’s too much like Tywin, but maybe even prouder of the family name (Tywin didn’t threat so explicitly to kill Tyrion, to a point where only the Wall was an option), so his immediate dismissal of Jaime’s proposal makes sense.

From here on, there will be both spoilers and conjectures, so be warned.

First, Big D (I think) nailed it when he said that Jon needs to put a freak show together to convince the Lords of Westeros of the real threat. According to a potential script leak (so far people aren’t sure if it’s completely real), to pictures taken during filming and to scenes from the trailers, after meeting with Dany, Jon goes North, and with help from the BWB and the Hound, they capture a wight and take it all the way to King’s Landing to show Cersei and the southern Lords and Ladies that Winter is bloody here. That meeting will take place in the Dragonpit (there’s a chance of Cleganebowl happening), and Cersei will concede a truce so everybody bands together to go fight the White Walkers, while her true intention is that everybody goes north do die and she can remain in power. There’s the theory that this would be too much for Jamie to whitstand, so he’d end up killing her, fulfilling the valonqar prophecy. And yes, wights “work” from afar. Just remember the first season, when Ghost finds two “bodies” and the Night’s Watch take them to Castle Black, and during the night they try to kill the Lord Commander, and Jon saves him.

Before going into details about Azor Ahai and Lightbringer, I wonder what would Stannis think about dying for a cause that wasn’t assured due to a gramar mistake; he, who was the grammar nazi of the Seven Kingdoms. Also, as a translator, kudos for translations playing an important part in an important prophecy!

What Gene (?) said about Lightbringer is what we actually know about it. In the books we have a prophecy saying “There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him”. In the show, we have the “prince/princess who was promised shall bring the dawn” line, which could refer both to Azor Ahai AND Lightbringer. Rog half jokingly mentioned that the sword might be forged in “the death of a loved one, maybe at childbirth”, and that isn’t completely farfetched. In the show, right after Jon is born, we see Ned entering the Tower of Joy and putting a sword to rest by the bed. The camera lingers on that, and that sword is Dawn, the ancient blade of the Dayne family, forged from the heart of a fallen star; there’s a passage where it described as being “alive with light”. Ser Arthur Dayne was the Kingsguard who was OWNING Ned until Howland Reed stabbed him from behind, allowing the opening that Ned needed to kill him. After Lyanna makes Ned promise not to tell of Jon’s true origins, it is known that Ned goes to Starfall, the seat of House Dayne, to return both Ser Arthur’s body and Dawn to his relatives. When he gets there, Ashara Dayne, Ser Arthur’s sister, who was said to have been in love with Ned, throws herself into the sea. We have a lot of deaths of loved ones happening when Jon is born, and the sword has been resting in Starfall ever since. Starfall is close enough to Oldtown that Samwell could take it and bring it to Jon Snow if he found anything in the Citadel about the sword.

Stannis also forged a blade, by Melisandre’s saying, and named it Lightbringer, but it was pretty much a fake one (in the books it’s only light and no heat, like a glamour that Mel could’ve cast). Berric’s sword catches fire because he is a true worshiper of R’hllor, basically. Thoros used to lit his sword on fire before joining the BWB, and he was the only known follower of R’hllor in Westeros, due to it being a religion from Essos (like you mentioned, the Faith of the Seven, the Old Gods and the Drowned God are more well known religions, even though the Drowned God only having followers inteh Iron Islands).

Maybe Lightbringer is something Mjolnir like, or maybe it isn’t even a literal sword at all! Some people believe it is the dragons, and there’s even a theory that it is the Night’s Watch (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/59078-could-lightbringer-be-the-nights-watch/).

On a final note, if Lightbringer is based on lightsabers, it will be a nice full circle for fantasy/sci-fi, because George Lucas was inspired by Tolkien’s Sting and Glamdring (The Baggins’ and Gandalf’s swords) to create the Jedi weapons!

Keep rocking, guys!

Cheers,

Thiago Waldhelm

Subscribe Now