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Aug 15, 2023

How House Of The Dragon's Real

House of the Dragon's master armorer discusses how the fantasy show forged its

House of the Dragon's master armorer discusses how the fantasy show forged its Valyrian steel blades – Blackfyre, Dark Sister, and the catspaw dagger.

House of the Dragon's master armorer, Tim Lewis, discusses how the fantasy show forged its Valyrian steel blades. House of the Dragon is set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, though Valyrian steel is just as scarce and highly coveted. The metal was made, allegedly imbued with magic spells and forged with dragonfire, hundreds of years ago in Valyria, previously the home of House Targaryen and House Velaryon before the Doom. With the destruction of Valyria came the loss of knowledge about how to forge the razor-sharp steel.

In House of the Dragon, only three Valyrian steel blades are featured throughout season 1, fewer than there are actual dragons. There is Blackfyre, the sword owned by King Viserys I Targaryen, and Dark Sister, the sword wielded by Prince Daemon, both blades being passed down the family over the years. Another Targaryen family heirloom is the catspaw dagger, which was previously featured in Game of Thrones, but in House of the Dragon, is owned by Viserys who explains some of its significance to the Prince That Was Promised prophecy.

Related: House Of The Dragon Might've Confirmed The Origin Of GOT's Catspaw Dagger

During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, House of the Dragon's master armorer, Tim Lewis, discussed at length how the fantasy show forged its Valyrian steel props. He reveals that Swedish sword maker Peter Johnson crafted the first two blades, Blackfyre and Dark Sister. While the catspaw dagger was previously featured in Game of Thrones, the armory decided to craft a new prop for House of the Dragon. Read what Lewis said about how the Valyrian steel props were made below:

[Blackfyre is] a kingly statement piece. And then, going into all the detailing, Peter just had literally cast the pommels in silver. We could never, we would never do anything like that on a film. All the detailed work that he did was just so intricate and beautiful. I'm very much of a style of manufacture, which is authentic, as well. And that's the same as Peter. It didn't want to feel like a fantasy sword. It wanted to feel like an authentic sword and how an authentic sword would've been made. It would've been cast in wax and then cast as a lost wax cast, and then the wooden handle would be made up and wrapped in leather and all these components would come together on the blade. That's how we make our swords. You don't want anything that's too fantastical. The only thing that's fantastical is these dragons. That was their feel on it. So I was trying very hard to keep everything historically accurate as possible, but playing with design.

We got the catspaw dagger over from Ireland, from the Legacy [tour]. We had it there and we took measurements and we were allowed it for a couple of weeks. It's heavily guarded, came over in a case, and I kept it locked up whilst it was with us. We looked at it and we said, "Well, maybe we could just adjust it here. We don't want it to feel like it's directly the same thing." And also Paddy had to wear it all the time. It was always on him, and that was what he wanted to do, as well. He was really key. That was partly one of his ways of defining his character: it was always on him... There is a gem on there, which again goes into the Game of Thrones version of it. But we just thought the metalwork and that [gem] could be something that could be altered or damaged. We wanted to feel like you could take the blade, you could take the handle, you could change the metalwork a bit, and it becomes that one from Game of Thrones. We would first come up with the design, then we would draw that up on a computer, cut that out on a vinyl, lay the vinyl onto the blade, peel off each tiny little bit of lowlight of the blade, and that would then get etched in an acid, and then you would take that out. It took ages to do one blade. You're just pulling all these vinyls off, and it's not until you finally take it out of the acid and clean it up and then you pull all the rest of the vinyl off to know if it's worked. And if it hasn't worked, you've wasted the entire time you've spent making the blade and then trying to etch it.

Valyrian steel previously played a crucial role in Game of Thrones. The catspaw dagger was first used in an assassination attempt against Bran Stark in season 1, and later during the eighth and final season when Arya Stark uses the dagger to kill the Night King. Valyrian blades (and dragonglass) are the only weapons capable of killing White Walkers since the blades were apparently infused with Valyrian magic, while normal metal freezes and crumbles upon contact.

After King Viserys' death in House of the Dragon episode 8, his Valyrian steel weapons have now passed onto his son Aegon who, with the help of his mother Queen Alicent and grandfather Otto Hightower, usurped the throne from Rhaenyra. During Aegon's coronation in episode 9, both Blackfyre and the catspaw dagger were used to bolster his royal appearance. While Aegon and Daemon's razor-sharp weapons will undoubtedly be used on the battlefield in the upcoming Targaryen civil war of succession, it remains to be seen if any of the steel's magical qualities will come into play.

Next: HOTD's Alicent Reveal Flips Aegon's Dream & The Prince That Was Promised

Source: EW