Chekov’s Wildfire: Book Version
Based on Tyrion's battle preparations in ACOK Chapters 20 and 49, this is what we know about what he knows about wildfire:
* Water does not quench it. * Will seep into wood, cloth, leather, steel, and cause them to burn. * It has also seeped into the clay pots in which it is stored. * Much of the stock they made for Aerys was lost. * The previous year, 200 jars were discovered beneath the Sept of Baelor. They were removed by acolytes working only at night. * The substance becomes more sensitive over time. * Any spark will ignite the substance. Too much heat and the jars blaze up. * Jars of wildfire should not be set in direct sunlight, lest they ignite spontaneously. * Once the substance begins burning inside a sealed jar, it expands violently, the jar explodes, and if there is more wildfire in close proximity, you get a chain reaction. * Any little mistake, for instance, an act of carelessness by a common soldier, can bring catastrophe. * So you'd best be very, very careful in handling the stuff. * King Aerys took great interest in the pyromancers' work. He used them to roast his enemies. Tyrion has learned of Aerys's love of wildfire from Jaime. * During the Blackwater preparations, 300 jars from Aerys's reign were found beneath the Dragonpit. * It would have been nice if the late Rossart had told someone he was storing wildfire beneath the Dragonpit, thinks Tyrion. * It's easier to brew wildfire when magic is active in the world, and magic becomes active when there are living dragons.
This isn’t what we know about the wildfire situation in King’s Landing. This is what Tyrion knows. Tyrion knows perfectly well the city is sitting on top of a giant nuclear bomb waiting to go off, and Tyrion, at the start of TWOW, is very close to meeting up with Daenerys. Tyrion, in the extant five books, doesn’t know why it was put there, and he doesn’t know where most of it is, but he knows there’s a hell of a lot of decades-old wildfire still unaccounted-for. He knows what’s likely to happen if, for instance, someone brings a dragon to the city and sprays large amounts of fire at the ground.
If Tyrion becomes an advisor to Dany in TWOW (and it looks very much like he will), and then she flies a dragon over King’s Landing and his dracarys blows up the city, it can’t be an accident. It is impossible for someone as well-informed and clever as Tyrion to allow the wildfire caches to be ignited unintentionally. If Dany and her dragons set off the King’s Landing Ka-Boom, it’ll be a conscious choice.