Game of Thrones weapons master: 'we try not to kill people' 

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Game of Thrones weapons master: \'we try not to kill people\'

Weapons master Tommy Dunne on creating the show\'s dangerously realistic swords, daggers and axes

Deobia Opaeri as Areo Hotah, wielding one of Tommy Dunne\'s intricate weapons Photo: HBO

With the latest season of HBO’s Game of Thrones due to start in less than a week, interest in the show is at an all-time high: everything from Daenerys’s swiftly growing dragons, to Tyrion’s new status as an exile, to the likelihood that the show is going to “overtake” George RR Martin’s books, has been put under scrutiny.

But, for diehard fans of the series, it’s not just the big plotlines that fascinate, but the minutiae of the world itself: the crucial details that help make Westeros, and its more exotic counterpart Essos, such tangibly “real” places.

One of the key people behind these details is Tommy Dunne, who boasts what could well be one of the most impressive job titles ever: Dunne is the official Game of Thrones “weapons master”. Alongside a small team of artisans and blacksmiths in the show’s Belfast-based armoury, he is responsible for designing and manufacturing the hundreds of weapons used in the series.

A softly spoken Irishman from County Wicklow, Dunne began his career as a welder, before being asked to help make weapons for the film Braveheart, more than 20 years ago. Since then, he has worked on a varied collection of film and TV productions, from Saving Private Ryan, to The Mask of Zorro, to HBO’s Band of Brothers.

Video: Tommy Dunne on creating the weapons of Dorne

We get the chance to encounter both the man and some of his creations shorty before the launch of season five. It\'s instantly clear that Dunne is immensely proud of his work: he is quick to emphasise the fact that every single weapon seen on screen during Game of Thrones, whether it’s in the hands of a principal character or an extra, will have been made especially for that purpose.

“We’re in a house, we’re in a world, that we want to keep authentic,” he says. “We don’t want to just keep items from other shows – we don’t want someone to spot something and go ‘that’s off Gladiator, that’s off whatever’. Everything has to be made [from scratch].”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a large number of the weapons on the show are imbued with heavy symbolic value. Game of Thrones, with its quasi-Medieval setting, is perhaps a shade too gritty and down-to-earth to be a typical fantasy epic, but it shares one thing in common with its Tolkien-style predecessors: all the swords get names. They’re not mere props, but an integral part of the story.

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Sean Bean as Ned Stark with his sword, Ice (HBO

A particularly poignant example of this is Eddard Stark’s sword, Ice. In one of season’s one’s most gut-wrenching moments, the principled, noble Stark leader (played by Sean Bean) was executed. At the beginning of season four, his sword was melted down and turned into two weapons for his enemies: one for his executor, the sadistic boy-king Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), and one for Joffrey’s uncle/secret father, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).

The destruction of the weapon echoed its owner’s downfall: something great had been broken down and lost forever. But while Joffrey named his sword Widow’s Wail (and, rather oafishly, used it to cut the cake at his fateful wedding), Jaime later passed his weapon on to honourable warrior woman Brienne, who named the blade Oathkeeper. It was a move that suggested that Jaime may well be on a path to redemption, and hinted that Eddard’s values had, in some strange way, lived on through the new sword.

Oathkeeper ( Picture: HBO\'s Making Game of Thrones)

Fittingly enough, Dunne made an uncredited cameo during the “melting Ice” scene, as the blacksmith responsible for forging the new swords – an experience he describes, chiefly in reference to the scene’s rather moody lighting, as “a bit dark”.

Looking at Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail up close, the most arresting thing about the weapons is their colour, and their beauty. Both have hand-moulded crossguards, hilts, and pommels, formed from gleaming brass, and decorated with blood red Swarovski crystals, The scabbards are similarly ornate. Both the weapons also feature symbols of their owner’s houses: Baratheon stags for Joffrey, and Lannister lions for Jaime. Each one took Dunne between two and three weeks to make.

“I look at the crystals and try to find nice ones,” he explains, indicating the stones in Widow’s Wail. “The most opulent. I build around the stone – rather than trying to build [the scabbard and finished sword] as an item and then fit something into it. We work backwards, so we find the diamond, and then create our style from it.”

It soon became clear that “opulent” is one of Dunne’s favourite words: during our meeting, he uses it a good five or six times. Looking at his work, it\'s hard to begrudge him: everything is, indeed, very opulent.

“We don’t skimp,” he says, when asked about the cost of the materials used. “If something [on the show] looks bad, it’s for a reason – it needs to look grotesque, or more broken down. If it needs to be opulent, it will be opulent.”

Value-wise, he is hesitant to put a price on Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail but estimates that they would be insured for between two and three thousand pounds. Officially, all the show’s weapons belong to HBO, but, design-wise, Dunne has a free hand in their creation.

“I’m very lucky with [ the show’s makers]” he says. “They do leave me alone, they do let me come up with my look. But I’ll always pass it on to them, to make sure they like what my interpretation will be.”

While Dunne’s swords might be remarkably "opulent", they are also impressively heavy, and extremely deadly-looking. The hand-forged steel blades come complete with “blood grooves” or fullers: the lengthways depressions found in real-life swords. Many people believe that these grooves may have been designed to make the sword easier to pull from an enemy’s body, allowing blood to escape down the narrow channel. But other historians have provided a far less bloodthirsty answer, suggesting that the innovation was simply intended to make the sword a little lighter, without compromising its strength.

Reassuringly, neither of these theories is likely to be put to the test while filming Game of Thrones. Dunne explains that the steel blades aren’t used during the show’s combat scenes, but are removed and swapped for softer, safer replicas.

“We have aluminium, a rubber, or a bamboo version of the same item,” he says. “We’d have the handle or the crossguard as a separate item, with an aluminium blade in that, or a bamboo. But they will wear [the steel sword], if it ever needs to be close to camera.”

Asked whether this is primarily to protect the blades, or the actors, he says: “It’s a bit of both. But it is mainly for safety, because we wouldn’t kill people. I like my job. I want to try and keep it.”

Dunne, who helps train some of the actors in how to use his weapons, is quick to mention Coster-Waldau as one of the show’s most skilled fighters.

“He’s not only pretty – he is actually very good – wonderful – with a sword,” he said. “He’s very, very fast. Kit [Harington, who plays Jon Snow] is fantastic as well. He’s increased his pace.” (Rather sadly, Coster-Waldau‘s character Jaime was relieved of his right hand in season three, and has since lost some of his prowess with a blade).

Maisie Williams as Arya Stark with her sword Needle

The weapons master also has praise for Maisie Williams, the 17-year-old actress who stars on the show as young Arya Stark, describing her skill with a sword as “phenomenal.” When showing us Williams’s sword, Needle (the name was originally a reference to Arya’s unladylike preference for sword fighting over needlework), he draws attention to how it was custom-made for the petite 5ft 1in actress: all of the weapons on the show are measured and designed to fit the person who will be carrying them. Consequently, while Needle is still pretty hefty, it is considerably lighter than both Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail.

Given the abundance of swords on the show, and the Medieval Europe "feel" of Westeros, it’s easy to forget just how important other, more unconventional weapons are to Game of Thrones. Among the blades Dunne has brought with him is a strange, craggy, semi-transparent item: a sword belonging to one of the show\'s mysterious White Walkers, an otherworldly race who inhabit the far North.

Designed to look like a piece of ice (especially when featured in action, with light reflecting through and shining off it), the blade is unlike any of the other weapons featured on the series, and is a clear reminder of the show\'s more fantasy-based elements. Rather than being forged, it is made from baked resin. White Walkers and weapons have been the subject of some pretty frantic fan speculation: google "how to kill a white walker", and you\'ll get a pretty impressive range of theories about exactly which substances can finish the creatures off. (Obsidian, or "dragon glass" appears to be the only safe bet, although there have been hints that Valyrian steel might also work).

Dunne has also brought along a Dothraki blade: belonging to the nomadic, Mongolian-like horse tribe that Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) marries into in the show’s first season. He indicates that, when creating the Dothraki weapons, which mostly employ a curved, scimitar-like blade, he was influenced by both the “look” of Ancient Egyptian weapons, and by more practical concerns.

“The reason I went for scimitars is basically because they [the Dothraki] are nomadic, and they’re dealing with a lot of riding,” he explains. “And a lot of traditional weaponry for horses – people riding horses – has a curvature. The person has to be able to fight, and ride, and so nothing is really straight. "

“I know we’re talking about death here. But as a practicality, when you need to swing your sword, it needs to hit the object and deflect away also from it – so it doesn’t impale you on your horse, in any way, shape or form.”

Areo Hotah (Deobia Opaeri) with his jewelled axe (HBO)

In a recent promotional video released by HBO, Dunne also details some of the more unusual weapons we can expect to see next season, in the new land of Dorne: from a vicious looking whip, to an ornate, jewel-encrusted seven-foot long axe (described by Dunne, of course, as "opulent”).

Given how often characters on Game of Thrones are killed off – the show is notoriously ruthless – is it ever hard for Dunne to put so much work into a particular cast member’s weapon, then see its owner disappear?

The armourer is philosophical. “It’s very hard to make one-off items,” he says. “In theory, this one,” – he indicates Widow’s Wail - “is gone, because it was Joffrey’s. But the new king, Tommen, will take it over.”

The message is clear: in Game of Thrones, a weapon can have a much longer shelf-life than an actor.

Game of Thrones Season Four is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray. Season Five premieres on April 12.

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