Winter is Coming: Symbols and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones (5 page)

No one ever looked for a girl. It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet.

What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. (IV:520)

Apparently “prince” is a gender-neutral term in prophecies of the coming champion. Maester Aemon, as one who has lived through more kings than anyone, is shown as unusually perceptive in the series. His theory that Daenerys is the chosen one seems likely. Rhaegar believed it was himself and then his son, but in fact, it’s his sister.

Bran is unlikely to be a warrior, except as a wolf, raven, or possibly dragon. However, it’s not a coincidence that he’s studying to be a greenseer in the North. He too will play a vital part in the war to come. He could literally ride a dragon—from the first season he learns how to ride again, possibly in preparation for this. (He has green magic, and Rhaegal is a green dragon, in fact.) He is possibly the only hero without any Targaryen blood or mystery about his birth…however, he has incredible magic of his own. He could charm magical animals no one else could manage.

He has two death-rebirth sequences as Jaime pushes him from the tower, then a year later he hides in the crypts as Winterfell burns. Each time, he emerges with a new mission, a new quest he must undertake, all led by the mysterious three-eyed crow. Theon muses, “The gods could not kill Bran, no more than I could”
(V.544). So early, he has a destiny.

After Ramsay Bolton razes Winterfell with smoke and possibly salts the earth, Bran crawls from the dark of the crypts. Is this the Azor Ahai prophecy? Did a dragon there awaken? Or one inside Bran as he uses his new powers? Summer, Bran’s wolf, sees an intriguing sight, possibly a real dragon, or possibly only an image of one that foreshadows what’s to come:

The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. (II: 956)

Even if he’s only seeing the comet, this moment seems significant as a rebirth of sorts and the start of Bran’s heroic journey. In the same chapter, Osha notes, “We made enough noise to wake a dragon” (964). Did they?

Tyrion might choose to ally himself with Daenerys, though he shows loyalty and affection to Myrcella, Tommen, and sometimes Jaime, if not to Cersei, Joffrey, or his father. After his experiences in the series, he may feel the Lannisters would do better at Casterly Rock than on the Iron Throne destroying the kingdom. Or after his time as Hand, he may seek power for himself as Daenerys’s advisor.

Of course, becoming Daenerys’s ally does not mean he’s the Chosen One. He has yet to display talent with magic or prophecy though he’s read much about dragons (another piece of evidence he may become Daenerys’s counselor).

Some fans doubt Tyrion’s paternity: in the book, he has pale blond hair unlike the golden sheen of the other Lannisters. His eyes, one Lannister green and one black, support this as well (Daenerys’s classically Targaryen violet eyes are called “nearly black”). Tywin coldly comments: “Men’s laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine” (3.1) and Barristan Selmy reports the following to Daenerys:

“Prince Aerys . . . as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord’s right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the . . . the liberties your father took during the bedding.” (V:577)

These “liberties” could have been anything, and an affair could have taken place later. If so, he could be a Targaryen, heir to their dragon magic and prophecy. It’s been emphasized that Daenerys as a Targaryen is immune to traditional illnesses, and Tyrion, exposed to both greyscale and plague, remains conspicuously healthy (for the moment).

However, the series makes more sense if this is another red herring and Tywin’s comments are just spite and cruelty. Tyrion is a true Lannister, a brilliant schemer who would have offered much family loyalty if his loved ones hadn’t all despised him. This is the great tragedy of his life.

Rhaegar said that his son Aegon was the prince who was promised (II:512). Nonetheless, Rhaegar’s obsession with the prophecy may have caused him to misinterpret it as Melisandre does.

A Dance with Dragons
provides us a young man who claims to be Aegon Targaryen, switched with another baby before his death and thus the rightful heir (his claim as eldest son of eldest son supersedes Daenerys’s claim as Rhaegar’s younger sister, if it’s true).

Unfortunately, this claim is based on Varys’ word that he is the Targaryen child, smuggled from the castle. Any claim based on Varys’ word must be considered terribly suspect. Varys has said that he lives to protect the kingdom—a Targaryen heir might bring stability and end the civil war, and decades ago Varys certainly might have wanted to set this up by finding a Targaryen or Volantin bastard with the right appearance and raising him properly. Varys might even make the claim that having an heir to bring stability matters more than his real parentage. He describes Aegon as a fitting heir because he’s been groomed that way, unlike so many other kings:

Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid…Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them. (V:958-959)

Whether he’s a lowborn child from silvery-haired Volantis, or a descendent from the rebellious Blackfyre bastards who founded the
Golden Company
, he still could be a hero, even one with Targaryen blood. His storyline has always been planned as he leads the Golden Company to Westeros: A decade before book five’s release, Martin wrote, “The Golden Company is the largest and most famous, founded by one of Aegon the Unworthy’s bastards. You won’t meet them until A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.”
¹⁷
Whatever his plot arc, he may be crucial.

However, it’s problematic from a story perspective that a young man will swoop in and save everyone, becoming a greater hero than Daenerys, Jon, or those we’ve followed from the beginning. Several visions of “false dragons” and “mummer’s [puppeteer’s] dragons” add to readers’ suspicions.

Of course, Aegon may have survived, but be somewhere else, hidden in plain sight…

There is foreshadowing that Bran, Jon, and Daenerys (among others) may all be the chosen ones who can save Westeros…why not all three?

Daenerys will ride one of her dragons, but she must find two worthy heroes to ride the others, perhaps one companion of action and one of wisdom like her ancestor Aegon the Conqueror had. Jon and Bran are brothers to each other, chosen of the old gods. Bran has no known Targaryen blood, and Jon’s origin is a mystery, but their wolf powers of prophecy and animal bonds may be similar to Targaryen powers, only with ice not fire. Bran’s powers, like Jon’s, could make him more than a dragonrider, but a dragon itself. Perhaps this is the power Daenerys needs to master, so that they can become the three-headed dragon in truth, reviving what Aegon and his sisters only imperfectly echoed.

T
here are more nebulous prophecies made to and about Daenerys than to any other character. Her own dreams and visions, especially in the House of the Undying, show her an immense tapestry of past, present, and future. Quaithe, a Maegi, likewise appears several times to Daenerys and gives her cryptic, riddling advice.

“As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name.” The old woman trembled and looked at Daenerys almost as if she were afraid. “The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world.” (I: 411)

Daenerys’s son Rhaego was stillborn, so it’s assumed the prophecy died with him. Many fantasy series remind readers that human beings have the power to affect prophecy— Daenerys’s own choice of trusting the Maegi Mirri Maz Duur and offering her (however unwillingly) her own child as sacrifice likely replaced this prophecy with the ones about the dragons she will ride and her future in Westeros.

Of course, the prophecy of the “prince who was promised” is revealed by Maester Aemon to be gender neutral—Daenerys is the prince. She could potentially be this prince as well, and even lead a khalasar, or another army of “men without number” like the Unsullied. When she is reborn from the fire with her dragons, the prophesized prince arrives. Her “children,” the dragons, could also fill this role, though much less literally.

Upon the stillbirth of her child, Mirri Maz Duur advised her that Drogo will return from his comatose state.

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before. (I:635)

This may be a curse—a complex way of saying “never.” Or as some fans note, it may have come true in the fifth book.

The sun likely refers to the Martell sigil of a sun and spear and Quentin Martell’s story in
A Dance with Dragons
. During Daenerys’s final chapter in the book, she notes that the Dothraki Sea is drying up in the onrushing autumn. The mountain-shaped pyramids of her city burn down and blow away in the wind. And she bleeds for the first time since she met Khal Drogo…It’s either menstruation or a miscarriage, either way suggesting she can become pregnant now. Drogo has already returned in the form of her dragon, his namesake. Or something more literal or in a dream state may occur, now that Daenerys is prepared to bear a living child. When asked if Daenerys is fertile again, Martin comments only, “I am sure Daenerys would like to know. Prophecy can be a tricky business.”
¹⁸

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted.
This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.
(III:310)

The host armored in ice could be a suggestion that the battle she should be preparing for is not against the armies of the Seven Kingdoms, but rather of the Others—Dragonfire will prove an important weapon and Dany the destined hero.

Ten thousand slaves lifted bloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind. “Mother!” they cried. “Mother, mother!” They were reaching for her, touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her food, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Daenerys gasped and opened her arms to give herself to them. (II:707)

This has been fulfilled with Daenerys’s liberation of the slaves of Astapor and its neighboring cities in
A Storm of Swords
.

three heads has the dragon . . .

. . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . .

. . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . .

. . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .

(II.515)

This prophecy too comes from the House of the Undying, and Daenerys thinks of it often. Of course, Daenerys’s experiences in the first book, from her horse Silver she rides on her wedding night to the Maegi’s treason that kills her husband and unborn child to the fire that births her dragons, can be seen fulfilling the first three.

The “dread” is her dragon and the fire for death most likely a cataclysm in war as Drogon burns the enemy into a grisly melted ruin like that of Harrenhal. Hatched from a red and black egg, he even mirrors the Targaryen colors. The fire may already have come true, as there’s a great conflagration when she first rides him. However, the third mount is a mystery—what could she ride after a dragon? Perhaps after the war ends, she will find a simpler mount and be, not Khaleesi or Mother of Millions, but simply Daenerys once more. More intriguingly, she might discover her warg magic and ride inside a raven, wolf, or another person—the bonded animal of someone she loves, or an attempt to save someone she loves or return to him.

Treasons are a little clearer: “The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second,” Daenerys thinks (V:38). All through the first season, Jorah has been the one informing on her to Varys, and Dany isn’t pleased to discover this. This leaves the treason for love.

Azor Ahai “called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her breast, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer” (II:115). This moment must repeat for the great hero to live once again. Further, if Jon or Dany is the great hero, this could fulfill all three terms of the prophecy: If Azor reborn (many signs point to Jon) betrayed his one true love Daenerys and stabbed her to reforge Lightbringer (treason for love), the blade would blaze up in a mighty flame (fire for love), and Daenerys might even be trapped inside the sword as Nissa was, making it her mount for love. Her fire would make the sword a true Lightbringer, combining the love prophecies as the first three were combined. Of course, this would herald a grisly end to Daenerys if she couldn’t return through some kind of magic or escape into an animal, her other possible mount for love. “Knowing” three treasons suggests they all will be betrayals of her, but she could be the betrayer and light a pyre under her own true love (whether Jon or someone else), kindling her fire to love as a wrenching sacrifice. Only life can pay for life, so it’s certain the chosen one of Westeros will have a hard road.

Quaithe, Daenerys’s sometime magical advisor, appears at Xaro’s party on the show and gives Ser Jorah a warning: “I’m no one, but she is the Mother of Dragons. She needs true protectors, now more than ever…They are dragons, fire made flesh. And fire is power” (2.5). In the book, her prophecies are far more riddling and cryptic. She tells Daenerys:

“To go north, you must go south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.”

Asshai, Daenerys thought. She would have me go to Asshai. “Will the Asshai’i give me an army?” she demanded. “Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?”

“Truth,” said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd. (II.426)

Apparently, Daenerys will need something in Asshai, the mysterious land of the Maegi, before she conquers Westeros and the Others (and “touches the light” which may be the sword of Azor Ahai). It may be the Valyrian steel sword she needs to face the Others (of course, Brightroar, the Lannister sword of fire was lost in Old Valyria, and
other famed swords
may lie nearby).

A few fans believe Daenerys literally must go East to go West and sail around the world. “Truth” might mean the forgotten lore of Westeros: How to fight the Others, what the Others truly are, what Daenerys’s shapechanging power is, why the Targaryens need to be in Westeros, what happened to the dragons long ago.

Certainly, her acts in the Free Cities are a delay of her destiny. It’s not surprising Daenerys needs to revert to being the Targaryen heir determined to sail for Westeros and sit on the Iron Throne. In book five she travels alone to the grasslands—beginning her quest to return to the beginning as young Daenerys.

In her Undying House vision, crones from the Dothraki city “knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed” (I: 411). Perhaps this will not be fulfilled, as Daenerys’s child will not be the Stallion Who Mounts the World—that child died. Or perhaps Daenerys will return to the Dothraki and rule them at last.

“Dragons,” Moqorro said in the Common Tongue of Westeros… “Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all.” (V:436)

This last refers to Tyrion, the listener. Whether or not the “shadow” is significant, he will certainly be instrumental in big events. Moqorro is another Maegi, who mingles among characters who leave Westeros and offers a glimmer of their destiny.

Books four and five shows us:

• Dragons old:
  Maester Aemon Targaryen and Bloodraven (both born Targaryens and now over a century old). More details and flashbacks about Aerys are presented as well.
  
• and young:
  Prince Quentyn Martell who has Targaryen blood, Aegon Targaryen, the alleged lost prince, and Daenerys of course. Possibly Jon Snow.
  
• true and false
  : Time will tell who is a true Targaryen and who doesn’t have what it takes. In this book, Barristan the Bold introduces rumors about Tyrion’s mother and Ashara Dayne possibly having bastards, just to muddle things further for readers. More possible heirs to the legacy of Azor Ahai are also introduced.
  
• bright and dark:
  Jon and Bloodraven are darker than the others. Maester Aemon is blind. Dark may also mean dark of purpose or hidden.