Engineering with Valyrian Steel

If you’ve either watched Game of Thrones or read any of the Song of Ice and Fire books, then Valyrian steel should be familiar to you. Sourced from the dragon-fires of old Valyria, swords made of this material have unique properties, with the blades being lighter, stronger and sharper than any other steel used for swords.  They also have the very handy property of being the only steel able to withstand weapons used by The Others (White Walkers in the TV series) and, as Jon Snow found out at Hardhome, destroy a White Walker.

While Valyrian steel is very rare in Westeros due to the Doom of Valyria (the eruption of dragon fires that powered Valyria spelling the doom of Old Valyria and it’s empire) it is a much sought after metal, and many families – most recently the Lannisters – have killed owners of Valyrian steel swords and recycled them to make new version. So what if there were more steel available? Apart from sword-making and white-walker killing, what else could we do with Valyrian steel in Westeros?

First let’s get the obvious out of the way. KILL ALL FREYS. There you are, done and now we can move on.

We know Valyrian steel is light, so therefore it’s potential use extends to armour as well as weaponry. As the Mountain found out against Oberyn Martell, heavy armour can significantly slow you down against a well-trained opponent, leaving you exposed unless/until they start getting cocky and monologue while you have the chance to recover.

Its strength also creates options.  Westeros isn’t blessed with strong bridges, hence the delays suffered by the Stark army before reaching The Twins for a wedding with very unfortunate consequences – KILL ALL FREYS – so using Valyrian steel for bridge and other civil engineering projects could help significantly improve the infrastructure of Westeros.

The sharpness of Valyrian steel points to use with the food and beverage industry, as does it’s dragon-fire background.  Light, strong and sharp, Valyrian steel makes mince-meat of peoples necks when used as a tool of execution – KILL ALL FREYS -  so industrialising this for general food makes a lot of sense.  Steaks, however tough and over-cooked wouldn’t stand a chance against the finest steel in the land!

Equally the combination of properties suggests plenty of medical uses.  All kinds of operations could be made cleaner and easier with the use of Valyrian steel.  Certainly I’m assuming that Theon Greyjoy would have preferred the erm…procedure that Ramsay Bolton inflicted on him to have been performed with Valyrian steel.

However it’s important to make sure that Valyrian steel isn’t overused.  Take the aforementioned “procedure”.  If for example a person such as Walder Frey or any of his offspring were to face the same fate, Valyrian steel may make the process somewhat too efficient.  Something to bear in mind….

So there are plenty of other uses Westeros were there to be a greater supply of Valyrian steel.  With the growth of three dragons currently residing in or near Mereen (at the time of writing, the precise whereabouts of Drogon is not known) there is the potential for new supplies to become available, and as long as some of that supply is used to KILL ALL FREYS, that’s fine by me.