Posts Tagged ‘Dragonglass’

This post will be talking about magic, but not really Harry Potter magic. I’ll be addressing some supernatural underpinnings in HBO’s Game of Thrones. If you’re not up on the show, I wanted to state up front that I’ll definitely be discussing plot points.

The blogger would make an awful maegi. One is supposed to make vague statements  and trick the reader into stumbling onto curses and naked spoilers.

No one disputes that there is magic on display in Game of Thrones.

Daenerys Targaryen was given a brief lecture about magic and dragons by the Warlocks of Qarth, while in their House of the Undying.

When your dragons were born, our magic was born again. It is strongest in their presence, and they are strongest in yours.

This post will be about magic and specifically how Daenerys represents a magic that had gone away from the world, and which is now returning in force. I’ll also discuss that there’s a magic that never went away, a passive but persistent kind of magic. As a counterpoint to Daenerys, there’s a character who is the central focus for that type of supernatural element. (Narratively or symbolically speaking. Yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.)

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This article will be talking about Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series. There will be spoilery details if you’re not up to date on the show.

drogon-in-valyria

That’s either a dragon or a very large spoiler. If this was the Internet, it’d be a matter of debate which is more feared.

For five seasons of Game of Thrones, there had been occasional references to things that were Valyrian. Mostly weapons that were made of Valyrian steel, although Xaro Xoan Daxos had a Valyrian steel safe deposit box door. Daenerys dramatically schooled a slave master in Astapor by speaking the High Valyrian language.

But what does “Valyrian” mean? It took five seasons, but finally the show presented the noun from which the magical adjective was derived from: Valyria.

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