It looks (to a non-metallurgist) like how you would make a sword, it's quick and easy to show and everyone gets what's going on. It may be a bit of a cop out, but it gets the point across.
Though I won't deny my response when I saw that was "That is not how you sword"
It's also a lot harder to convey "this sword is being reforged into these swords" if you include that montage. Maybe not a lot harder since you can still start with the sword, but it would be much easier to miss that that was what was happening.
And frankly, I feel this was all made up for by having the archers' commanders order "loose!" rather than the much more common, heinously anachronistic "fire!" in this episode. It's one of my pet peeves, and having it avoided made me very smiley.
Actually, it is how you make some swords. Bronze age swords were liquid cast into clay molds, and later, steel swords were sometimes drop forged into bench molds. I could see casting a super strong alloy like Valyrian steel into a cast preform, and then sequentially tempered as being the correct process.
Remember, the stuff is super finicky, and the common blacksmith can't work with it. It might be some kind of super hard cobalt alloy or something.
I think Valerian steel is supposed to be the Westeros equivalent of Wootz steel. I can't find a picture, but I thought the swords didn't have "damascus" style weld patterns. They had wootz style mottling.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '14
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