Words are Wind: Wildfire

“Words are wind” is a common phrase in A Song of Ice and Fire, usually used to say “talk is cheap.” But that’s a view that underestimates both the power of words and wind themselves. In this “Words Are Wind” column, contributor Scott Andrews discusses some of the more important words in the world of Game of Thrones.

Tyrion: “I remember reading an old sailor’s proverb. Piss on wildfire and your cock burns off.”

Hallyne: “Oh, I have not conducted this experiment. It could well be true.”

When Bronn and Tyrion torched Stannis’s fleet with a green, castle-sized fireball in Season 2, it sure looked impressive. But in the Seven Kingdoms, wildfire is more than just a special effect. The substance has a long history in Westeros and actually played a pivotal role in the downfall of the Mad King. What is this deadly stuff?

Today, let’s take a closer look at wildfire–but not too close. It’ll burn your bits off….

Greek fire times ten

George Martin has acknowledged in interviews that he borrowed the idea of wildfire from the “Greek fire” of the Byzantine Empire. Because it could burn while floating on water, the Byzantines used Greek fire to terrorize opposing navies.

This unusual weapon won wars and quashed rebellions for centuries after its discovery around 672 A.D. It was so effective that Byzantine emperors believed its recipe to be a gift from God. They forbade its manufacture outside of the capital. Most scholars agree that its primary ingredient was petroleum, and Greek fire was in fact an early form of napalm.

Of course, wildfire is a fictional substance, so Martin made it stranger and more dangerous than the real thing. He described wildfire in a March 2012 interview:

“Wildfire is my magical version of Greek fire… Wildfire is Greek fire times ten. It’s Greek fire but it’s worse than Greek fire, and it’s got a little magical element to it. It’s really nasty stuff, and it burns with green flames, which is a nice pyrotechnical effect. Not sure we’ll get that into the show, but I’ll look forward to seeing it. I hope they do.”

Two months later, his hopes came to glorious fruition in Season 2’s episode “Blackwater,” which won two Emmy awards and a Hugo.

The pyromancers

The secret to making wildfire is known only to the Alchemists’ Guild. Men of learning, similar to maesters, make up the guild. Unlike the maesters, they focus more on magic and the arcane. The maesters have little respect for the AG and sometimes refer to wildfire as “pyromancer’s piss.”

The guild’s pyromancers say that wildfire has magical ingredients, but the maesters scoff at this boast. If we’re to believe Martin’s description above, however, the creation of wildfire actually does involve some magic.

The Alchemists’ Guild has suffered a steady decline in membership. Some say that the extermination of dragons drained magic from the world, which could account for the guild finding few eligible pyromancers in modern days. In the show, Roy Dotrice plays Pyromancer Hallyne, the head of the guild. Dotrice also narrates the audio books for the series.

Warning: May cause death

Wildfire is terrifyingly volatile and becomes even more so with age. Even sunlight can ignite it, so the pyromancers only transport the substance by night. Water can’t extinguish wildfire once it begins to burn. To prevent accidents, the rooms above wildfire jars are filled with sand. Any combustion triggers a trap door, burying the room in a split second.

But how did so much of it come to be produced in King’s Landing? What kind of person would commission and surround himself with such a deadly and unpredictable chemical?

Burn them all

During their reign, the Targaryens supported the guild and made extensive use of wildfire—particularly after they no longer had fire-breathing dragons to ride into battle. This support continued until the end of their reign when Jaime Lannister killed Aerys II, a.k.a. the Mad King (and Aerys’s children, Viserys and Daenerys, fled into exile). In Season 2’s “The Ghost of Harrenhal,” Hallyne says that Bronn wouldn’t have dared to insult the guild during the reign of Aerys.

Jaime reveals why he killed the Mad King in the Season 3 episode “Kissed by Fire.” During the most awkward bath in the history of Westeros, he tells Brienne that Aerys was obsessed with wildfire. He burned lords who opposed him, Hands who failed him, and basically anyone he preferred to burn than talk to, which was most of the people he met.

“Aerys saw traitors everywhere,” Jaime says, “so he had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city. Beneath the Sept of Baelor and the slums of Flea Bottom. Under houses, stables, taverns, even beneath the Red Keep itself.” When the Lannisters sacked the city, Aerys ordered his pyromancer to burn the city—and everyone in it. “Burn them all,” he kept saying, according to Jaime. Jaime killed the pyromancer first and then Aerys. By doing so he saved King’s Landing. As he points out, no one has ever thanked him for it.

That explains why Tyrion and Bronn found so much of it prior to the Battle of the Blackwater. And Tyrion, of course, used Aerys’s unexpected cache to devastating effect. The wildfire eruption in “Blackwater” remains one of the show’s most iconic moments.

• Published on 01/21/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:07 PM CDT