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Suggestion: Valyrian steel, both weapons and armor, somehow acts as a mind or consciousness. Allowing that will resolve GRRM's inclinations to mind-control in a creatively new way. Let me explain: Suppose Little Robbin or somebody else is mind-controlling person A and person A commits act X. Then the moral responsibility for X ultimately is on Little Robbin. The narrative issue with mind-control is that it is simply postponing the question of responsibility. Things are quite different if we deal with mind-influence. It allows variability in the form of influence and degree of resistance or acceptance. If Blackfyre, Dark Sister, or the Iron Throne exert some influence on minds of Targaryens, then it creates an exciting narrative opportunity: readers wouldn't know for a while what influenced character actions. As well as the right kind of uncertainty: just because the swords whisper something doesn't mean they overpower the will of their wielders.
What kind of mind or consciousness could Valyrian armor have? I focus on several likely possibilities:
The possibilities are not mutually exclusive. For instance, Valyrian armor may war-enhance by allowing the wearer access to thousand years of Valyrian battles. Imagine ancient generals and heroes preserved inside the sword and you communicating with them. Tactical decisions. Valyrians were bred for war, but their biological superiority and dragons are not enough to win every war. Some kind of military mind is also needed. One item traditional genetics lacks is genetic memory. Real-life officers and generals study historical wars. Valyrian steel may be a genetic memory of sort. Something, by the way, that I really liked about the premise of Stargate SG-1 and found underused on the show. Most of what Goa'uld do they could accomplish without inventing 'genetic memory'. You don't need it to melt people's faces.
GRRM values Tolkien. In TLotR we find a certain ring that exhibits those exact behaviors we are discussing: mind-influencing, but also power, battle-enhancing. Sauron is concerned that Aragorn with the power of the Ring might represent a danger to him. Somewhere else I believe he describes echoes, memories stored either in a weapon that kills the Nazgul or in the sword that Aragorn re-forges (not sure about this one). Resolving themselves in this thrust that kills the Nazgul.
As explained on my philosophy page https://fractal-affinity.com/got/c18/WillAndRepresentation.html , the inspiration for this idea came through observing some similarities with 'The World as Will and Representation' by Schopenhauer and works by Nietzsche, including the concept of Will to Power.
Star Wars stories involve the Force (that closely resembles Schopenhauer's Will) and Light Sabers, but there is no direct connection between the two. Also neither Force nor a lightsaber has a 'mind', a personality. Imagine if the color of the lightsaber crystal affected the 'personality' of the weapon and was related to a 'spirit' of an ancient Jedi inside the crystal? Basically, merge a Lightsaber, a Holocron, a Force Ghost into one object, give it its own, fairly independent, mind and character – and that could be what Targaryens find in their Valyrian steel. (If I were a Marvel writer, I would suggest that the super heroes are not quite gone, they survive, but where can they survive? In the Infinity Stones themselves.)
As noticed, many of previous GRRM writings have a theme of mind control. See the videos by Preston Jacobs. PJ's summaries are excellent. His impulses to see mind-control everywhere in Ice and Fire? Not misguided, but I suspect that instead of people or gods mind-controlling characters, the true culprits might be objects, like Valyrian weapons or horns. And only in the form of whispers or influences – not total mind control.
Why Euron puts a Valyrian armor on before the battle. Euron found some way to communicate with Valyrian artifacts. The key to that was Fire and Blood, of course, but what exactly those artifacts provide to him we don't know. He puts armor on to enhance his commanding abilities. Aeron specifically notices how strange it is to put a heavy armor on before a sea battle. He either lets the armor, or the mind inside the armor, speak to him and advise him, or lets the armor's mind see the battle. To absorb the knowledge of that and maybe unlock a potential 'next level' within the armor.
Why did Aegon IV give Blackfyre to Daemon Waters? I suspect it was not so much a gift to Daemon as:
Why exactly?
As I am trying to state, Valyrian steel is perhaps not only a tool, but a mind that could influence or even control weaker wills. Again, keep thinking of Nietzsche's Will to Power. It has its own will, if not a conscious mind. Aegon's conquest is three Targaryens mastering their three abilities: their Valyrian blood, the dragons, and the Valyrian steel. Instead of just two, Targaryens and their dragons, I propose to add Valyrian steel as equally important component. Aegon could consult Blackfyre without being overwhelmed by it. The narrative purpose of the years after the Conquest is to show how quickly that balance is broken.
Read TWoIaF part about the events after Dowager Queen Alyssa Velaryon manages to escape with Dark Sister. Even the fact itself is remarkable: why does it matter if she takes a sword with her or not? Nevertheless GRRM wants us to know it. After that, Rhaena Targaryen escapes with Blackfyre. (Same question: why does it matter? It is just a sword. Suppose you say – it is a symbol, the realm felt like he is no longer the king. Well, there is no indication that anybody else was bothered by absence of DS and BF. The only one who seemed mad about the departure of the swords was Maegor.) Immediately after that Maegor's downfall comes. It is not that he is defeated, but he starts acting very irrationally (well, more irrationally than before). More importantly the narrative implies that he felt like he lost. Despite him still having, apparently, military advantage over the claimant. Then, of course his famous death on the Iron Throne. I see here some mental influences of the Iron Throne on his mind. Perhaps the loss of Blackfyre made the Iron Throne consider him unworthy and provoked a series of irrational decisions and a suicide of sort. Sometimes I see the Iron Throne as a transformer waiting to be activated, perhaps occasionally coming to life in episodes like Maegor's death, but as awesome as this possibility is, most likely the Iron Throne is alive in a different way. It is a mind influencer of sort. Blackfyre and Dark Sister might have served as its neutralizers, so to speak.
A rather major decision by (f)Aegon is made in the presence, readers suspect, of Blackfyre. If fake Aegon is indeed fake, we will find out through his inability to interact with dragons (as most suspect) but also by his failure to communicate with Valyrian steel – or resist its influences. A miscalculation, perhaps, from Varys and his friend: they didn't take into account the synergy between a Targaryen and a dragon or a Targaryen and a powerful Valyrian sword.
Is there other supporting evidence? I hope to write with more details about strange changes in color of Ice, and the two swords it spawned; how its color changes throughout the story. The armorer that re-forged them says:
I confess, these colors were not what I intended … Valyrian steel is stubborn
And then most significantly
These old swords remember …
Somewhere in the same chapter we find:
The blade felt alive…
Well, for a hypothesis that states 'Valyrian steel has a mind of some sort' one wouldn't find a better support than that. Not a clear-cut proof, but as noticed by a certain contemporary philosopher: There's no proof of anything.
One reason I felt like I had to rush this post is the approaching date of Fire & Blood publication, November 20. This is the major expectation or prediction I would make about the book: expect Valyrian steel to play more prominent role. More active than in The World of Ice and Fire. Basically, read the book allowing the possibility that some characters' decisions are influenced by the swords themselves. Swords are actors: benevolent advisors if their master is strong or masters of puppets if their will dominate a weak Targaryen. (And I would consider Maegor the Cruel to be such – allowing the swords' or the Iron Throne's will for blood to dominate him.)
A scene when Daenerys meets/finds Blackfyre, Dark Sister, or another powerful Valyrian object. It should be really interesting. So far, she hasn't been in direct contact with such a weapon, I believe quite intentionally on GRRM's part.
Dark Sister's fate – it will not be at the bottom of the lake forever.
There is an equally interesting topic of Ice, its transformations, and the fate of Jaime and Breanne. I can't discuss it now.
The topic of Weapons as Actors in relation to philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is discussed at: