Winter is Coming: Symbols and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones (6 page)

He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it.

This section of Bran’s dream-vision clearly refers to the danger gathering in King’s Landing.

He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was as dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

Based on the events of the series, the three shadows seem clear. The ash-dark shadow with the face of a hound is obviously the Hound, Sandor Clegane. In the golden armor is Jaime Lannister. Littlefinger’s family sigil is a stone titan, and he’s certainly a danger to Ned and Sansa. However, the giant in armor made of stone is more likely Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides, based on his eventual fate with “darkness and thick black blood.” Sandor torments Sansa and Arya, while Jaime’s fight with Ned finally leads to his demise. Gregor Clegane fights for the Lannisters and devastates the Stark troops and the Tully countryside. In the second book, he takes Arya prisoner for a time as well.

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

Asshai still has dragons, if Bran is seeing literally. Daenerys may end up with an army of them instead of only three. Also, Daenerys has already traveled from the free cities to the Dothraki sea to Vaes Dothrak. Since she must go east to reach the west, according to prophecy, she may next journey through the Jade Sea to Asshai.

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.

Jon’s coldness can be read as a metaphor as he suffers and adjusts on the Wall. Or grimmer things may come and he may turn into a wight of sorts.

North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned his cheeks.

If the curtain of light at the end of the world is literal, it seems a stronger type of wall meant to keep the Others out. With the return of magic, that curtain may be coming down.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder, now you know why you must live.

“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming. (I: 136-137)

Bran hasn’t done much to warn his friends about this knowledge, even in the first book, surrounded by allies. If he is not meant to spread the word, he may have a larger role to play as a warrior. The three-eyed crow seems clear that Bran is the chosen one to fight the Others beyond the curtain—the crow appears to no one else.

Bran says:

“I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad.”

“And why was that?” Luwin peered through his tube.

“It was something to do about Jon, I think.” The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. (I:611)

Either the secret of Jon’s mother or Jon’s grim future is being discussed here. Of course, Jon’s fate and birthright are yet to be revealed.

I’m walking down this long empty hall…opening doors, shouting names…the castle is always empty…the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run, then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me…I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go down anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream…that’s when I always wake. (I:224-225)

Jon has a recurring dream of Winterfell, in which the castle is empty (foreshadowing its destruction in the second season). Even the ravens are gone, and the stables are full of bones. Possibly this reflects his actual descent into darkness, terror, and pain, or Lyanna’s body down in the crypt is awaiting him with the answers he’s sought—he’s truly “not a Stark.”

As a child, Cersei received a prophecy from Maggy the Frog (a mispronunciation of Maegi). Maggy also predicted Cersei’s friend, who was there at the time, would not marry Jaime as she wished but would die the next day, as she did—In fact, Melara Hetherspoon “fell” down a well and drowned soon after (IV:413). Since Cersei recalls how her friend “screamed and shouted” in the well (IV:583-584), Cersei clearly pushed her for her effrontery in wanting Jaime and to keep the prophecy secret.

Much of the prophecy about Cersei revealed in
A Feast for Crows
has come true before the series begins:

Cersei: “When will I wed the prince?”

Maggy: “Never. You will wed the king.”

Young Cersei was asking about her planned wedding to Prince Rhaegar—in fact, she weds Robert after he takes the throne.

Cersei: “I will be queen, though?”

Maggy: “Aye. Queen you shall be… until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”

As the story is unfolding, this younger fairer queen might be Sansa, Margaery Tyrell, or Daenerys. Cersei’s awareness of this prophecy fuels much of her jealousy towards Joffrey’s perspective brides. She spends her time controlling Sansa, whom she views as a protégé of a sort, but Margaery is more willful, with more family support. By the fourth book, her jealousy and paranoia motivate her every action. Some argue Cersei has already been supplanted by this time, but in fact she has not yet reached the ultimate depth of suffering. As with Martin’s other characters, good and bad, more pain is to come.

“All she holds dear” is more intriguing. This refers to her children as well as her power, and while she could lose the regency at any time, she will remain Queen Mother until the death of her three children, her only claims to the throne. Without them, the Lannister campaign is doomed. As Tyrion points out, Cersei’s one redeeming feature is loving her children (that and her cheekbones) (2.1). Will Sansa, Margaery, or Daenerys kill Cersei’s children or cause their deaths through political maneuverings? It is possible. It should also be mentioned that harm comes to Myrcella through the fair young princess Arianne of Dorne and her political maneuvering—perhaps a taste of things to come.

Cersei: “Will the king and I have children?”

Maggy: “Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you.”

This puzzled Cersei at the time, but between her illegitimate children and Robert’s bastards, the situation is clearer.

Maggy: “Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds.”

This suggests all three children will predecease Cersei. (This is hardly surprising given how much animosity Cersei and the Lannisters have earned.) If Joffrey, then Tommen, then Myrcella die, all three would be crowned in the current order of Westeros succession if the Lannisters can maintain the throne that long.

After Joffrey’s death, a Myrcella-Tommen civil war with the children both crowned as pawns of Lannister and Dorne is another possibility. In Dorne, the rulers are chosen by birth order, not gender, and Tyrion has sent Myrcella into their control. They have not yet entered the war, but with their massive army, they await the right opportunity.

The first book’s image of the two dead Targaryen children, a small boy and girl slaughtered ruthlessly by Tywin Lannister merely for the accident of their royal birth, has reached through the series, and this twisted justice may return to the youngest Lannister children, innocent pawns in the game of thrones.

Maggy: “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.” (IV:540-541)

The word valonqar means “younger brother.” Presumably the phrase means
her
younger brother (rather than famous younger brothers Stannis, Theon, or the Hound, for instance). Jaime and Tyrion are both contenders, as Cersei was born before her twin. While Tyrion and Cersei begin the story with animosity, and Cersei’s paranoia focuses on her unloving brother as the threat, she ignores Jaime’s wishes in many matters. Jaime slowly becomes disillusioned with his precious sister as the series unfolds and he may well be the culprit, dying alongside her as they were born together. Their lives are tied together far more than most characters. Fans have also speculated about the chain of hands (the books’ equivalent of the Hand pin) that one brother or the other might be wearing. The phrasing doesn’t indicate an actual person who’s Hand of the King, but wording can be terribly ambiguous…

You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world.” Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. “This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?” (V:59)

Clearly, Melisandre understands much of the war that’s coming. In fact, she’s correct about Jon being surrounded by enemies.

One intriguing scene shows us Melisandre’s visions of what is to come on the Wall.

Skulls. A thousand skulls, and the bastard boy again. Jon Snow…

Yet now she could not even seem to find her king. I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only Snow. (V:407-408)

Here Melisandre seems to be ignoring the evidence—most readers believe that Jon Snow is Melisandre’s destined hero, not Stannis, based on this quote.

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half- seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him.

Death is all around Jon—certainly many allies, enemies, and loved ones have died near him, back home in Winterfell and on the Wall. The skulls also might be the wights, coming for him. Certainly, he is gaining the ability to transform between man and wolf, but the precise order here may suggest a more important transformation—he will turn into Ghost for some time, and then regain his human form. Seeing him highlighted in flame colors may suggest the Azor Ahai prophecy or that he will turn from a warrior of the ice world into one of ice and fire. The shadow behind the fluttering curtain is also intriguing, as Bran sees a curtain in the first book:

North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned his cheeks. (I:137)

Will Jon vanish through the curtain of death? Or travel North, perhaps as a wolf, crow, or spirit to look into the heart of winter as Bran has? A curtain of light to the north is also an odd reversal of the Shadow Daenerys must pass beneath far away, in the land of magic, fire priests, and dragons.

Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirling around each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained. (V:407-408)

In this glimpse, Melisandre is seeing Wildings and the Night Watch in the present, battling wights at Hardholme.

Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. (V:407-408)

This vision is more cryptic. Rangers blinded and killed certainly suggests the “eyeless faces.”

Melisandre definitively says the skulls mean death, but again, she may be wrong. Many important skulls have been seen in the series:

• The Targaryens’ collection of dragon skulls.
  
• The skull delivered to Dorne that may or may not be genuine.
  
• Rattleshirt, the wilding dressed in bones, and the replacement who wears his armor.
  
• The
  Golden Company
  , who dip their dead commanders’ skulls in gold and swore to bring them to Westeros.
  
• The Bridge of Skulls, location of one attack on the Wall, with perhaps another to come.
  
• Richard Lonmouth, Prince Rhaegar’s squire, with a sigil of skulls and kisses (His family hasn’t been mentioned since the Harrenhal tournament, so this is unlikely.)
  
• Seven Skulls, the Ironborn longship, though it’s far to the east
  
• Patchface, Stannis’s jester from Volantis—Melisandre says, “Many a time I have glimpsed him in my flames. Sometimes there are skulls about him, and his lips are red with blood.” Who is he? Just a mad boy who may commit murder someday? Or a young prophet descended from Targaryens or Maegi?