Dragonglass

Dragonglass Spear.jpg

A spear head, made of Dragonglass.

This is a map I found in a book. Dragonglass is rare in Westeros, but there is a mine on Dragonstone. This
might be the only source left in Westeros.

SAMWELL TARLY IN A LETTER TO JON SNOW

Dragonglass is a common name in Westeros for the substance known as obsidian, a form of volcanic
glass. Along with Valyrian steel, it is one of the two known substances capable of killing White Walkers.
It is also capable of killing wights. In Old Valyria, it was known as zīrtys perzys, which translates to
"frozen fire".

Large amounts of dragonglass can be found on Dragonstone.[1]

Dragonglass was a very important tool to the Children of the Forest, using it to fashion weapons. A long-
forgotten secret is that the Children actually created the White Walkers as a weapon, by transforming
humans into them: this was achieved in a magic ceremony that involved (among other things) plunging a
dragonglass shard into a human's chest.[2]

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History

House of the Dragon: Season 1

Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen use a dragonglass shard to cut their hands and lips during their
traditional Valyrian wedding.[3]

Game of Thrones: Season 1

Doreah tells Viserys she's seen a man from Asshai with a dagger of real dragonglass.[4]
Game of Thrones: Season 2

Grenn, Edd, and Samwell Tarly find a cache of dragonglass spear heads along with an old warhorn buried
in the snow on the Fist of the First Men. Sam identifies the material, but is unsure why it would have
been left on the Fist by a ranger of the Night's Watch. Edd suggests that whoever it was, they wanted
someone else to find the weapons.[5]

Game of Thrones: Season 3

After escaping Craster's Keep with Gilly, Sam shows her a piece of the dragonglass he had found. She
asks what it does, and Sam responds that he isn't sure it does anything. He does remark how beautiful it
is however.[6] Sam later uses his dagger to slay a White Walker that was after Gilly's baby. When Sam
stabs the White Walker in the shoulder, the creature shrieks in pain while turning to ice and shattering.
[7] Sam provides Bran Stark with a dragonglass dagger and Meera Reed with a set of dragonglass
arrowheads for their journey beyond the wall. [8]

Game of Thrones: Season 5

Stannis tells Sam that there is dragonglass on Dragonstone, and encourages him to continue his research
into ways to defeat the White Walkers.[9]

At Hardhome, Jon Snow gives Sam's dragonglass to the Free Folk he is trying to convince to come South
of the Wall with him, telling them of Sam's experience of killing a White Walker with dragonglass. Some
of the wildlings are convinced, partly due to the dragonglass. Later, during the evacuation, the Night's
Watch oversees the collection of dragonglass needed for the defense of the Wall. However when the
White Walkers and the horde of wights attacked most of the dragonglass is left behind when they
overrun the whole settlement.[10] Wun-wun, a giant at Hardhome who survived the invasion may have
kept a dragonglass arrowhead he was examining as the attack began.

Game of Thrones: Season 6

Dragonglass is revealed to be the substance that turns men into White Walkers. The first White Walker
was created when Leaf and several other Children of the Forest forced a dragonglass dagger through a
First Man's heart. When the White Walkers invade the Cave of the Three-Eyed Raven, one of the
Children tries to kill a White Walker with a dragonglass spear, but the blade is blocked by his chest
armor and he kills her. Meera Reed then kills him by throwing another dragonglass spear into his
unprotected neck. [2]
After a hooded man on a horse came to rescue Bran and Meera from the Wights, he revealed himself to
be the Benjen Stark who went missing during his last Ranging. He recounted that when he was stabbed
by a White Walker and left to die, the Children of the Forest found him and saved him from dying and
turning into a wight with the same process that creates White Walkers (dragonglass inserted into his
heart).

Game of Thrones: Season 7

In preparation for the coming war against the White Walkers, Jon Snow, the newly-acclaimed King in the
North, give orders for every maester in the North to search for dragonglass, so that it could be mined
and made into weapons. He pressed upon his lords that dragonglass was now far more precious a
resource to the people of the North than gold.[11]

During his research on the White Walkers at the Citadel in Oldtown, Samwell Tarly discovers that a
massive mountain of dragonglass could be found on Dragonstone, an island located near Blackwater Bay
which had been the ancestral home of House Targaryen since before the Conquest. He immediately sent
a message to the North, informing Jon of his find.[12]

On Dragonstone, Jon tells Tyrion Lannister of the utility of dragonglass against the army of the dead,
who later tells Daenerys Targaryen. Not wanting to waste time on a feud over the dragonglass, she
allows Jon to mine for it, whilst she concentrates on defeating Cersei Lannister.[13]

Dragonglass weapons, presumably made from the dragonglass excavated from the Dragonstone mine,
were later used extensively throughout the wight hunt. Namely battleaxes, halberds, pikes, hatchets,
and daggers.

Game of Thrones: Season 8

Dragonglass 8.2 hound.jpeg

Hound inspects his new dragonglass axe

In Winterfell,[14] cartloads of dragonglass, mined and shipped from Dragonstone, are unloaded so that
Gendry and his team can set to work forging the many thousands of weapons required for the upcoming
battle against the Night King and the Army of the Dead. The Hound collects a dragonglass-headed axe;
and Arya asks Gendry to make her a specialised weapon based on a design which she hands him (a
modified pole staff with a dragonglass-speared point).

Dragonglass 8.2 aryas weapon design.jpeg

Arya's weapon design

Dragonglass 8.2 gendry.jpeg

Gendry inspects his dragonglass spearheads

The next time Arya sees Gendry, she asks whether he has made her weapon yet.[15] He explains to her
that he has thousands of arrow-headed spears to forge. After pointing out that hers needs to be much
stronger than the one he shows her, Arya demonstrates her throwing skill to him, encouraging him to
prioritise her weapon. Later on, Gendry brings Arya her newly forged weapon.

During the Long Night,[16] the living use the dragonglass weapons to defend Winterfell against the
dead. Several main characters are seen arming themselves with, and using, dragonglass weapons:

Dragonglass 8.3 samwell.jpeg

Samwell's daggers

Samwell is handed a pair of dragonglass daggers.

Arya gives Sansa a dagger to defend herself with.

Lyanna Mormont stabs the giant wight in the eye with a dagger.

Arya uses her spear to fight the wights inside the library at Winterfell.

Since the magical properties of dragonglass are only required to fight against White Walkers and wights,
which are all destroyed when Arya kills the Night King with the Valyrian steel dagger,[16] its usefulness
has expired.

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In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, dragonglass is found in quantity on Dragonstone and in the ruins of
Valyria, where it was used to make different kinds of ornaments, including candles. It is also an export
from Asshai. According to legend, the Children of the Forest also made use of the substance. Samwell
Tarly discovered, by chance, that dragonglass is one of the few materials that can harm or kill Others.
According to legend, every year the Children of the Forest would provide the Night's Watch with one
hundred daggers made of dragonglass specifically for that purpose.

Stabbing an Other with dragonglass will cause it to melt into a puddle of very cold liquid, not shatter to
pieces.

Dragonglass is useless against wights: Sam discovers that by stabbing a wight with a dragonglass dagger,
and the dagger shatters to pieces. He later tells Melisandre about the anomaly, that what kills Others is
ineffective against wights. She explained "Necromancy animates these wights, yet they are still only
dead flesh. Steel and fire will serve for them. The ones you call the Others are something more."
Dragonglass apparently has no special effect on them, given that the TV series has confirmed that
Valyrian steel can also kill White Walkers but to wights it is only a particularly sharp sword that can carve
through them better than regular steel.

After hearing Sam's story about killing the Other, Stannis says that on Dragonstone there is much of that
obsidian in the old tunnels beneath the mountain, in many colors: mostly black, some green, red and
purple. Unlike in the show, Stannis does not just mention that; recognizing the importance of the
material, he sends word to Ser Rolland, the castellan of Dragonstone, to begin mining it. It is unknown
whether his command has been fulfilled.

There are old notes claiming that something called "dragon steel" is also lethal to the Others. Jon and
Sam suspect this refers to Valyrian steel, but in the novels, the theory has not been put to test yet.

Dragonglass is sharper than steel, but also more brittle. For this reason it does not make good swords
because they might shatter, but smaller daggers are more sturdy and therefore more common. They are
also very effective as arrowheads.

In the books, it was Jon Snow who found the buried bundle. In it there were blades, a dozen knives, leaf-
shaped spearheads, numerous arrowheads, and a broken warhorn.

When the wildlings come to Castle Black, Jon examines their weapons and notices some of them are
made of dragonglass. It is unclear whether the wildlings are aware that dragonglass is lethal to the
Others, and have made those weapons for that purpose. It is possible, given their technological level,
that dragonglass was simply the sharpest material those particular wildlings had available.

Apart from its effectiveness against White Walkers and its use in magic, dragonglass is identical to real-
world obsidian, down to its volcanic origins, its overall functional limitations, and its use as a reliable
cutting tool by peoples who had yet to develop metallurgy. The World of Ice and Fire directly states that
"obsidian" is what maesters officially call this type of volcanic rock, while "dragonglass" is a popular
name for it used by the common people. That being said, it is often referred to as "dragonglass" in the
novels, except for one or two points when a maester calls it "obsidian" (to point out to readers that
"dragonglass" actually is "obsidian") and in A Storm of Swords, Samwell Tarly refers to it as "obsidian" a
number of times. The Valyrian word for dragonglass translates as "frozen fire".

Gallery

Dragonglass.jpg

A cache of dragonglass

DragonGlass2.jpg

The Hound with a dragonglass dagger

DragonGlass4.jpg

Tormund with a dragonglass battle axe

802 Arya staff behind the scenes.png

Arya Stark's staff

Dragonglass 8.3 samwell.jpeg

Samwell's two daggers

Dragonglass 8.2 hound.jpeg

Hound's axe

DragonGlass1.jpg

A wildling with a dragonglass spear

DragonGlass3.jpg

Jorah Mormont with dragonglass daggers

Dragonglass daggers given to artist Kris Kuksi (who created the box) as a part of Create for the Throne

Dragonglass 8.2 aryas weapon design.jpeg

Arya's staff design

Dragonglass 8.2 gendry.jpeg

Gendry inspects his spearheads

References

"Dragonstone"

"The Door"

"Driftmark"

"Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things"

"The Prince of Winterfell"

"The Climb"

"Second Sons"

"Mhysa"

"Kill the Boy"

"Hardhome"

"Dragonstone"

"Stormborn"

"The Queen's Justice"

"Winterfell"

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"

"The Long Night"

External links

A Wiki of Ice and Fire favicon.PNG Dragonglass on A Wiki of Ice and Fire
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