The first time we saw Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) ignite his sword in flames, he used his own blood, cutting his hand and then lighting up the dark cave where he was fighting the Hound during his trial by combat in season 3:
We didn’t see Beric pull off this trick again until season 8, only this time he (and Thoros of Myr) merely waved their hands over their swords to ignite them. Later Dondarrion would even forgo that action, flicking his sword on as if by some hidden switch. So how exactly does his magic lightsaber flaming sword work? Dormer explained it to INSIDER this way: “He says two words in Valyrian which means ‘god’s light.’ And that makes it poof.”
So basically what Dormer is saying is, Dondarrion went from Harry Potter in The Chamber of Secrets, needing a wand and lots of practice to complete a spell, to Dumbledore or Grindelwald, being able to complete non-verbal spells in a pinch. Dormer elaborated:
When he’s in the trial [on season three], he uses blood to light it, but he doesn’t need blood and he doesn’t need to do any of that. He just goes [gestures as if holding a sword] and thinks about the Lord of Light.
Before we label Dondarrion a 10th level mage though, INSIDER double-checked his verbiage with David J. Peterson, the creator of the Valyrian language. When speaking to INSIDER, Dormer pronounced his Valyrian prayer as “assundeh-oh.” Peterson said the phrase would be closer to, “‘āeksiō ōños,’ or “lord’s light.”
We’re really in the nerd weeds now.
Either way, Beric is now headed to Winterfell. How does Dormer hope fans see his character when the show has wrapped? “Hopefully they just think he’s an even more bad— dude than they thought.” Teach a couple other people that spell and we’ll consider it.
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