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game of thrones - How much contact with Dragonglass is needed to destroy a White Walker?


There have been a few questions and comments in our community lately regarding Dragonglass and the need to have weapons (swords, arrowheads etc) made from it to combat the White Walkers.


In Season 3, Episode 8, Samwell kills a White Walker with a dragonglass dagger, by stabbing the Walker in the shoulder.


However what interested me is how deep a wound is needed to destroy a White Walker? Is a single, shallow cut enough? If so, rather than trying to manufacture arrowheads or spear-points, men could be given slivers of dragonglass and simply throw them at the Walkers, throwing enough will almost certainly cause some wounds. Manufactured weapons of dragonglass could then be provided to those better trained to use them.


There are a number of pages that talk about dragonglass killing White Walkers, there is not (that I can find) any discussion of the degree of wounding needed for this to succeed.


Is there any in-universe lore that gives this detail?



Answer




I am only versed in show knowledge so that is where this answer will come from:




In the scene where Sam stabs a White Walker with the Dragonglass dagger it only penetrates the skin and the effect seems to radiate from that area. See the below:





The both times we see Jon kill a White Walker is with his Valyrian steel sword, Longclaw. However, on both occasions his swipe is so strong his sword effectively goes straight through the White Walker turning it into what appears to be ice shards.






Therefore, it appears that to kill one you only need to penetrate the skin of the White Walker though we only have a few occasions to go on.



To back this up with some scenes from the latest episode S07E06. The wight bear is only killed when Jorah stabs it with a Dragonglass dagger:





Also when the wights are attacking the men trapped on the island it appears the dragon glass weapons seem to just graze over the wights, though this might just be the editing not being good enough to make the attacks look like they are actually hitting.


This can be used as backup evidence that to kill one you only need to penetrate the skin. However, as it is about wights it might be a bit different.


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