Westeros

The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Domain

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Behind the Scenes 01: Screencap 14

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Here we see Viserys’s weapon more clearly. Despite his Free Cities/Westerosi dress,  he carries a rather foreign-seeming sword which we assumed to be an arakh, the single-edged, curving sword of the Dothraki horsemen. In the novels, the blades are described as “half-scythe, half-sword” which has led to some speculation as to the direction of the curve and whether it was the inner or outer curve that was sharpened. This solves the question nicely. We do find the curve of the blade to be very subdued compared to what we supposed given that brief description, as well as the apparent preference for slashing cuts.

In the background, we see a Dothraki warrior whom we believe to be Jhogo (Elysa Gabel), one of Daenerys’s personal guards. Noticeably, he seems to be wearing some form of armor—it looks like boiled leather lamellar plates, a kind of armor extremely common among historical horse nomadic peoples—but this is at odds with the Dothraki in the novels, who disdain armor of any kind. His horse is probably of the Irish Sport Horse variety.  And less noticeable because of the blurrines ... he, too, seems to be carrying a weapon inspired by the “half-scythe, half-sword” description. What appears to be a long wooden haft is attached to a distinctly scythe-like bladed weapon. Now, in the books, the arakh is carried in a scabbard or sheath, so this doesn’t quite fit. But it’s an interesting piece of variety, even if it seems rather unpractical for a horseman to carry.

We’re now going to assume that Viserys’s sword—which, we notice, seems to have something like a lion head for a pommel, which puts us in mind of certain Asiatic swords with similar detailing—may be a Free Cities weapon; it is noted in the books that Viserys’s sword was among a number of things given to him by Magister Illyrio.

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Viserys Targaryen, Previews, EP103

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