Where in my post was I taking an outraged tone? I acknowledge the fact that it probably was easier for the actor/sword expert (the casting call was for an expert fencer to play Ser Arthur Dayne) to use two weapons at speed than it might have been for him to move a 2 hander quite so fast.
As for irrelevance. Maybe it is. But we saw in season 3(?) Ice being melted down to make two new Valyrian blades. One went to someone who didn't appreciate the weapon and iirc one went to someone who might be as moronically noble as Ned.
Perhaps rewatching those scenes or recalling them would have more impact if the audience was shown that perhaps a main reason Ned lasted long enough against Ser Arthur Dayne until his friend came to help was that he had a Valyrian blade to match Dayne's weapon whereas his bannermen had ordinary weapons.
I've said before and I'll say again that the show exceeds the books in it's choices of actors particularly with Charles Dance and Peter Dinklage bring to life character in a way that exceeds most readers' ideas of them when reading the book.
No need to get one's back up over it as if I said the show sucks because this and that....
I didn't.
The book minutiae is part of what drew the show creators to try and adapt the series for television and them paying attention to that minutiae may very well be what allowed them to answer that "one question" correctly.... The answer to that question is arguably what convinced G.R.R. Martin to say yes to the adaptation.
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