Weapons master Tommy Dunne takes us behind the iconic blades of Game of Thrones

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Weapons are great. Medieval weapons are even greater and medieval fantasy weapons are greatest of all. Being the designer as well as the creator of many of the weapons used on Game of Thrones, Tommy Dunne probably knows that even better than you and I do. He recently revealed some of his secrets to Entertainment Weekly.

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In addition to being the show’s weapons master, Dunne also had a cameo in season 4, as the man who melted down the enormous Valyrian steel sword Ice to turn it into two smaller blades at the command of Tywin Lannister. Those two blades we know now as Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail, wielded by Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister (the latter was also briefly wasted on Joffrey Baratheon) respectively. Dunne calls that shoot the “hottest three days of my life.” Interestingly, sword enthusiasts have criticized that scene for showing the two blades being cast instead of being properly forged, a technique that hasn’t really seen much use since the Bronze Age.

Dunne has built literally thousands of items of weaponry for the show. His body of work includes the Dornish daggers Ellaria and Tyene Sand use (aka objects many fans could probably have done without), Arya’s Valyrian steel dagger once used in an attempt to assassinate Bran (“We couldn’t put an image on it, because we didn’t want anyone to know who supplied it”), and the spear that Oberyn Martell used to almost kill Gregor Clegane. Dunne actually made 20 of these spears, but they nearly ran out anyway due to the brutal nature of the scene. “I was in panic mode. We were down to the last one.”

Then there’s Gendry’s warhammer, last seen beyond the wall in season 7. For that piece, Dunne created two versions: a heavier one that included bronze and another, lighter model crafted from rubber and foam.  “He enjoyed using the heavy one,” Dunne remembered. “We used the bronze one if he had to swing it.”

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Among the most interesting of Dunne’s creations are the weapons used by and against the White Walkers and their wights. There’s the NIght King’s “hockey stick”, as Dunne called it, or the beautiful dragonglass daggers, which are modeled on a real obsidian dagger Dunne shaped himself. The ones we see on the show are rubber, though. “We created very translucent sharp edges and made so many shapes and looks and styles.”

But all of those are overshadowed by an item created especially for the show without any basis in the Song of Ice and Fire book series (not yet, anyway): the spear the Night King used to “kill” the dragon Viserion, giving the dead a major new weapon in their fight against the living. The White Walkers’ crystalline weapons are inspired by ice shards Dunne saw in Iceland during filming. “These shards were unbelievable, just beautiful,” he recalled. “I took loads of photographs for references.”

For more insight into the weapons of Game of Thrones, including looks at Dothraki arakhs, head to Entertainment Weekly!

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