"Valyrian Steel" is part of the Histories & Lore, a special feature in the Blu-ray of Season 4 of Game of Thrones. It is narrated by Iain Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont.
Summary
Iron chainmail and steel plate over the chest. Metal gauntlets over the hands and greaves over the legs. A visored helm over the skull. A knight in full armor can shrug off swords, spears and and axes. But Valyrian steel slices through his protections like so much cloth. As advanced as iron is from bronze, so is Valyrian steel from ordinary steel. Lighter yet stronger, and nothing holds an edge like it. If you take a whetstone to a Valyrian blade, you will need another whetstone, or maybe another hand to hold it.
Nobody knows how the Valyrians forged their steel. Less than a handful of smiths can now even reshape it. The process, like so much of their civilisation, was lost in the Doom. Many claim they wove magic spells into the molten metal and blasted it with dragonfire. When you see a Valyrian blade, smokey and dark as if drinking in the sun and rippling with a thousand foes, you may not scoff so loudly.
The Valyrian steel that exists now is all there will ever be. Some survives in The Citadel where the Maesters' chains, where a link of Valyrian steel signifies study of the higher mysteries, whatever those are. Some drifts through the world as prized daggers and jewellery for rich merchants. Jorah has even seen a Dothraki arach. But much more of Valyrian steel lives on in the great houses of Westeros as their most treasured possession: a sword passed down from father to son for generations. Ice of House Stark. Heartsbane of House Tarly. Lady Forlorn of House Corbray.
But even precious treasures can be lost. Aegon I Targaryen's Blackfyre and Visenya's Dark Sister disappeared in Daemon Blackfyre's rebellion. A foolish King of the Rock took House Lannister's Brightroar to Valyria, and neither blade nor man was seen again. And then there are the swords that are not lost, but lose their owners. For five centuries Longclaw was the pride of House Mormont]], Jorah's house. Even penniless and in great debt, he chose to sell men rather than the sword. When his shame became known and he fled Bear Island for the east, he left it behind for his father, to hold it for a worthier heir. Valyrian steel is a wonder of the world, sharper than wits, truer than men, rarer than virtue. But even its edge cannot cut so deeply as a son's failure, nor its value match that of redemption.
Appearances
Characters
- King Aegon I Targaryen (mentioned)
- Queen Visenya Targaryen (mentioned)
- Daemon Blackfyre
- King Tommen II Lannister
- Lord Jorah Mormont
- Lord Commander Jeor Mormont
Peoples
Noble Houses
Institutions
Locations
- The Citadel
- Valyrian Peninsula (mentioned)
- Bear Island