Prophecy is useless

[BalerionTheCat]

There were rumors concerning Bloodraven, even during his time as Hand of the King: "student of the dark arts who could change his face" for example. But I would not suppose he knew something, or was involved, before he joined the CotF. IMO, this would be too much speculative. This happened before the wood witch talked to King Jaehaerys II.

He waited for Bran OK. He certainly waited for Jon too, TPTWP. But I would not exclude, "mild speculation" there, that he influenced somewhat Lyanna and the events from Harrendal onward. Some (many?) like the idea that what happend to Lyanna and Rhaegar was fortunate (or infortunate), and for the wrong reasons: Rhaegar stupidity or lust, Lyanna foolish love, or whatever. I prefer the idea that someone engineered the whole affair. Must be my work speaking.

[purple-eyes]

17 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

There were rumors concerning Bloodraven, even during his time as Hand of the King: "student of the dark arts who could change his face" for example. But I would not suppose he knew something, or was involved, before he joined the CotF. IMO, this would be too much speculative. This happened before the wood witch talked to King Jaehaerys II.

He waited for Bran OK. He certainly waited for Jon too, TPTWP. But I would not exclude, "mild speculation" there, that he influenced somewhat Lyanna and the events from Harrendal onward. Some (many?) like the idea that what happend to Lyanna and Rhaegar was fortunate (or infortunate), and for the wrong reasons: Rhaegar stupidity or lust, Lyanna foolish love, or whatever. I prefer the idea that someone engineered the whole affair. Must be my work speaking.

It is a possibility because at that moment of HH tourney BR is already a greenseer. 

He surely can see HH tourney and even send some words or dreams to howland or even rhaegar. 

He said he can not change the past, but this does not mean he can not do something with current people. He is not a video camera watcher, he can talk through the trees and send dreams. Old green seer even broke the land to stop first men, so they can do actual things. Not just looking at videotapes. Bran will certainly do something as well. 

We were told howland can talk to trees. So far it is only about heart tree. So yeah, howland may get some information from BR on that isle and chose to attend the tourney at that certain time. So that he will trigger everything and lead to the birth of savior. 

[purple-eyes]

Kolt story took too much time to talk about old gods. Very suspicious. It is not something only made by Lyanna. There is power of old god, who is br at that time. 

There is a decent chance that BR heard the pray of howland and then somehow helped lyanna to win. So that rhaegar will track down to her and notice her. 

 

 

 

[UnmaskedLurker]

23 hours ago, kimim said:

Readers have near-perfect hindsight. The characters in the story don't. imo for them, the future is decided; the prophet is simply seeing what will happen. Take Melara's death. She was fated to die that night, and visiting Maggy was a necessary condition for her death. As far as Cersei showing self control: She can't. She is an impulsive, arrogant, dim-witted sociopath. Her character flaws and mental illness doom Melara.

Look at the Ghost of High Heart's prophecy on the RW. She is simply describing what she sees/hears. The readers can think of ways of averting the tragedy. The Brotherhood could figure out what she's talking about, send someone to warn Robb, etc. They don't. In this timeline RW is going to happen.

I see prophecy as unavoidable, sort of like telling a patient that they have a terminal illness which will kill them in eighteen months. Interest lies in how people face that diagnosis.

 

I believe we were discussing this issue in another thread -- and as in that thread, I agree with you here. In this "fantasy" world -- some people can see the future - and what they see are called prophecies or visions. But there is only ONE timeline -- so any attempt to cause the prophecy or vision not to happen is impossible -- it was an accurate window in the future and so it will happen. If such efforts could be successful, the prophecy would "know" and would not describe the future as it did. I have referred to this concept as the "time paradox" because the prophecy sees into a future where the behaviors that led to that future, in part, happen due to one or more characters hearing the prophecy -- so the prophecy comes true in part only because it was told to someone at all. But knowing the future is not the same as causing the future - the characters should still be understood to have "free will" -- but the prophecy already knows how that free will is going to be exercised.

Unfortunately for so many characters, they think they can cause the prophecy not to happen (or in some cases make it happen). As readers, we know such efforts are fruitless -- the prophecy will come to pass (and does not need help getting there). So in the Cersei example, Maggy sees the future and essentially saw what Cersei, now with the knowledge of the prophecy, will do. Sure Cersei has free will -- but she is going to do what she is going to do, and Maggy sees it and tells it to her (although in the telling arguably has some effect on Cersei's actions -- the "time paradox" I described above).

As others have pointed out, essentially, this use of prophecy is how prophecy has been used in literature for millennia. GRRM is not really doing anything innovative here -- although it does make for an interesting story. But I disagree with KoW regarding the proposition of whether GRRM has defied or subverted prophecies as typically used. I would argue he is not.  The prophecies are commonly misinterpreted (as KoW pointed out) -- but again, that action is common in stories with prophecies. I don't see how GRRM is doing anything all that different here. He is doing it well -- which is all I ask -- but not really that different.

[BalerionTheCat]

21 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

Kolt story took too much time to talk about old gods. Very suspicious. It is not something only made by Lyanna. There is power of old god, who is br at that time. 

There is a decent chance that BR heard the pray of howland and then somehow helped lyanna to win. So that rhaegar will track down to her and notice her. 

My view is that Lyanna was acting very strangely at Harrendal. Ok Arya is strange too. And BR has probably nothing in it. But IMO, training for a tourney is passing strange. Because IMO Lyanna could not win without any training. And Bran saw her also training with a sword. I could imagine her praying at the Winterfell Weirwood, to know what to do about Robert, whether to accept the marriage or not. And BR passing her some messages, what she must do.

I suppose BR could disturb a horse and prevent a knight to hit Lyanna. But I would prefer if Lyanna won her rounds by herself essentially.

[purple-eyes]

8 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

My view is that Lyanna was acting very strangely at Harrendal. Ok Arya is strange too. And BR has probably nothing in it. But IMO, training for a tourney is passing strange. Because IMO Lyanna could not win without any training. And Bran saw her also training with a sword. I could imagine her praying at the Winterfell Weirwood, to know what to do about Robert, whether to accept the marriage or not. And BR passing her some messages, what she must do.

I suppose BR could disturb a horse and prevent a knight to hit Lyanna. But I would prefer if Lyanna won her rounds by herself essentially.

Actually I have no doubt lyanna can do some jousting. She is a good rider, plus had some secret training. Maybe she can beat benjen stark. 

But those three knights are not bad at all. They are three champions out of five champions for two days out of five days in the greatest tourney, which means they are better than 40% of knights at that tourney to hold their positions. 

And a 14 year old lyanna who never attended tourney before, only had some backyard training can be so sure to beat them all? 

Really? 

A high school soccer girl can beat three European champion league professional players? 

Grrm is doing something impractical here. 

Brienne'a victory is more real. 

 

[OuttaOldtown]

Authors don't put useless things in a book, it's very likely many or all prophecies will not be as straightforward as believed, that doesn't mean they're useless..

[UnmaskedLurker]

1 minute ago, OuttaOldtown said:

Authors don't put useless things in a book, it's very likely many or all prophecies will not be as straightforward as believed, that doesn't mean they're useless..

I think (but not sure) that what was meant by useless is that knowing the prophecy cannot allow a person to avoid the prophecy. And OF COURSE, that is why it is a prophecy -- because it will happen. Nothing can stop it -- it is a vision into the future and as there is only one time line -- it will happen. So they are usually useless to the person hearing or seeking out the prophecy. And no matter how hard someone tries -- they cannot avoid the prophecy from happening (and often cause it to happen for such efforts)

But I agree that GRRM puts in prophecy for good literary reasons -- and so for story telling purposes they are not useless at all. But if someone thinks they are warnings of what to avoid -- they are useless because they are not warnings of what might happen -- they are descriptions of what WILL happen.

[BalerionTheCat]

1 hour ago, purple-eyes said:

Actually I have no doubt lyanna can do some jousting. She is a good rider, plus had some secret training. Maybe she can beat benjen stark. 

But those three knights are not bad at all. They are three champions out of five champions for two days out of five days in the greatest tourney, which means they are better than 40% of knights at that tourney to hold their positions. 

And a 14 year old lyanna who never attended tourney before, only had some backyard training can be so sure to beat them all? 

Really? 

A high school soccer girl can beat three European champion league professional players? 

Grrm is doing something impractical here. 

Brienne'a victory is more real. 

Different tourneys have different rules. These knights were the 3 whose squires had bullied the crannogman. If they were the champions after two days, then certainly BR did something to probabilities. Or everything was predestined. But I would suppose it was one tourney where one knight can challenge any other knight he wishes.

For Lyanna skill. Someone said, Barristan or Jaime I don't remember, that in jousting, the more important was the horsemanship. I know nothing about horses, but I would think you need a lot of strength and training to aim precisely an 12-14 feet lance on a charging horse. I would not believe that even possible for a normal 14 year old like Lyanna. But this is fantasy. I give that credit to GRRM, this "suspension of belief". But I could accept a magical intervention to.

[purple-eyes]

17 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

Different tourneys have different rules. These knights were the 3 whose squires had bullied the crannogman. If they were the champions after two days, then certainly BR did something to probabilities. Or everything was predestined. But I would suppose it was one tourney where one knight can challenge any other knight he wishes.

For Lyanna skill. Someone said, Barristan or Jaime I don't remember, that in jousting, the more important was the horsemanship. I know nothing about horses, but I would think you need a lot of strength and training to aim precisely an 12-14 feet lance on a charging horse. I would not believe that even possible for a normal 14 year old like Lyanna. But this is fantasy. I give that credit to GRRM, this "suspension of belief". But I could accept a magical intervention to.

No, the rule is, you have to challenge the five champions, not any random knights in the list. 

There are five champions from the start. Four whent knights and one KG oswell whent. Whoever wins one champion can replace him as the new champion. 

So you have to win everybody who challenged you during these two days in order to keep yourself as champion. You can not even lose once. 

If we assume for five days, every day we have same number of knights, then these three guys are obviously very good. They won a lot of people in two days. 

And another thing is, why lyanna is so confident she can win? We had barristan and Jaime said jousting can be affected by many unexpected things. So even lyanna knew how to joust, there is no way that She can be so sure she must win. She knows if she lose to any of them, then she will be unmasked and bring shame or embarrassment to her house. 

I would say there is some effort from old gods, Who is bloodraven. And that laughing heart tree sigil represented power of old gods. 

[BalerionTheCat]

19 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

No, the rule is, you have to challenge the five champions, not any random knights in the list. 

There are five champions from the start. Four whent knights and one KG oswell whent. Whoever wins one champion can replace him as the new champion. 

So you have to win everybody who challenged you during these two days in order to keep yourself as champion. You can not even lose once. 

If we assume for five days, every day we have same number of knights, then these three guys are obviously very good. They won a lot of people in two days. 

And another thing is, why lyanna is so confident she can win? We had barristan and Jaime said jousting can be affected by many unexpected things. So even lyanna knew how to joust, there is no way that She can be so sure she must win. She knows if she lose to any of them, then she will be unmasked and bring shame or embarrassment to her house. 

I would say there is some effort from old gods, Who is bloodraven. And that laughing heart tree sigil represented power of old gods. 

OK. Lord Whent daughter was the queen of love and beauty. She was initially defended by her brothers and uncle. The same rules as Ashford. How likely is it that Lyanna met the 3 knights she wanted? Just by chance? She would challenge one. And then be challenged by the other two? Just these 2, and no one else?

And I agree about the weirwood shield and the face on it. IMO this an evidence Lyanna was in touch with the Old Gods or their representative.

[purple-eyes]

10 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

OK. Lord Whent daughter was the queen of love and beauty. She was initially defended by her brothers and uncle. The same rules as Ashford. How likely is it that Lyanna met the 3 knights she wanted? Just by chance? She would challenge one. And then be challenged by the other two? Just these 2, and no one else?

And I agree about the weirwood shield and the face on it. IMO this an evidence Lyanna was in touch with the Old Gods or their representative.

You did not get me. 

There are five champions in the end of day 2. Three of them are those three bad knights. Lyanna challenged one, won, then immediately next one, won, then last one, won again. Three successive fightings and victories. 

So now she replaced all three of them, there are only three champions left now. She, oswell whent and another knight. 

Next step would be that people start to challenge lyanna, the current champion, whoever wins her, will become next champion. I do not know if they will resume five champions or stay with three, but it does not matter, because eventually one person has to defeat all champions to win the final. 

In the end of fifth day, rhaegar and barristan are the last two champions, and rhaegar won him, so he is the final champion. 

So lyanna was listed with oswell whent and another champion as the final three champions of end of second day. 

[OwloftheRainwood]

On 2/7/2016 at 1:28 AM, A Faceless Poster said:

A lot of effort is put into interpreting and understanding the visions and prophecies that come up within the story, but for the most part it seems kind of pointless. Any truth revealed by prophecy is so vague that its real meaning cannot be established until after the event foretold happens with most people in story never connecting the two.

Yes, it may be "pointless" in terms of finding concrete, universal meaning behind prophecy, but I don't think that's the point. GRRM is trying to say something about prophecies or "signs": everyone interprets them based on their background and interests, the inherent vagueness in prophecies allows this to happen. Good examples are the red comet, Stannis as AA reborn, "stone dragon" and PtwP. In the same way, prophecies tend to be interpreted by fans depending on characters he/she favors. Mostly it's a fun preoccupation.

[BalerionTheCat]

20 hours ago, purple-eyes said:

You did not get me. 

There are five champions in the end of day 2. Three of them are those three bad knights. Lyanna challenged one, won, then immediately next one, won, then last one, won again. Three successive fightings and victories.

I'm sorry. I should have read again this passage. It's all clear in the book. The 3 knights were among the 5 champions at the end of the second day. And she challenged the 3. If I'm correct, but now I'm having doubt about that too, she should have challenged one, then waited for someone else to challenged her. I feel it was not the normal way for one champion to challenge another one. At least not before deciding who is the tourney final champion. Still somewhat unlikely that the 3 knights she wanted to challenge were among the 5 champions at some point. But I would think the very good knights were allowed to wait the last day or so, to avoid too many challenges, and to reduce the risk of injuries.

[purple-eyes]

14 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

I'm sorry. I should have read again this passage. It's all clear in the book. The 3 knights were among the 5 champions at the end of the second day. And she challenged the 3. If I'm correct, but now I'm having doubt about that too, she should have challenged one, then waited for someone else to challenged her. I feel it was not the normal way for one champion to challenge another one. At least not before deciding who is the tourney final champion. Still somewhat unlikely that the 3 knights she wanted to challenge were among the 5 champions at some point. But I would think the very good knights were allowed to wait the last day or so, to avoid too many challenges, and to reduce the risk of injuries.

It is indeed strange that she can challenge three champions continuously, usually she should stay there after defeating one and wait for other people to challenge her. 

GRRM must also spend some thinking to decide how to make lyanna only fight with these three knights when the game rule is that everybody has to challenge a champion, not randomly pick up any one to fight. 

So in the end he decided: ok, let them all become champions and lyanna show up in the end of the day, so that other people will not challenge her immediately. 

It is still sort of weird because if lyanna can keep fighting, no reason other people can not. But there is no better way than this. Otherwise lyanna would need to face other knights. 

It would be easier if there is only one knight involved. Then lyanna only needs to fight one champion. But grrm wanted three boys to bully howland. So here you go. 

About better knights showed up late, it is possible, but in ashford tourney, most famous knights showed up quite early. 

 

 

[Sullen]

Useless? No.

Misleading for the characters? Certainly.

[Seams]

I have a half-formed notion that at least one of Quaithe's warning prophecies will be true for both Tyrion and Dany. I think this may be one way that GRRM confounds predictions: it's not just a matter of mining Dany's storyline to see which events or encounters best match this cryptic prediction; two major characters may experience completely different challenges and meet different people but both will fit Quaithe's vision. This is the line that - I believe - will be true for Tyrion, even though it was delivered to Dany:

 

Quote

The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.

By the end of ADwD, Tyrion has definitely had a bad experience with a lion (Tywin or Cersei, take your pick) and

has had his life saved by a griffin when Jon Connington dives into the river to save him after their encounter with the stone men.

The ship on which he travels is called the Selaesori Qhoran which has roughly the same meaning of the perfumed seneschal. (I think the overpowering stench of Tywin's dead body also fits in with the motif of the stinky steward. There may also be a pun involving steward and stew, and Tyrion's role in creating singer stew back at King's Landing. But I digress.) This ship becomes a nightmare, nearly sinking in a monster storm and turning Tyrion into a sitting duck when the slavers come along and take all survivors to a slave market.

In a long ago thread I proposed that the House of the Undying and the Winterfell library were intended to be linked - both are dusty repositories of history and prophecy, and both are burned. Tyrion makes a memorable visit to the Winterfell library shortly before the fire there, and he borrows several books which he takes along on his trip to the Wall. Books are "undying" in the sense that the ideas they hold have an existence of their own and can live on in a person's mind, be written down in a new book or exist in duplicate form in another copy of the same book.

The mummer's dragon in Tyrion's story could be any one of several possibilities. I have a strong suspicion that there is much more to Penny than meets the eye. A few things cause me to wonder whether she might be the mummer who has a dragon that isn't really a dragon. We know she is a mummer, a performer who pretends to be a knight and puts on entertainments for a living. The dragon clue comes from two conversations between Penny and Tyrion:

 

Quote

Tyrion made an attempt to teach her cyvasse, though he soon realized that was a lost cause. "No," he said, a dozen times, "the dragon flies, not the elephants."

"...We performed for the Sealord of Braavos once, and he laughed so hard that afterward he gave each of us a ... a grand gift."

 

What if the Sealord of Braavos gave Penny and her brother a pair of elephants? He was laughing at her preposterous jousting match, and he may have thought this would be a way of creating an even funnier sort of joust. In the cyvasse game, Penny uses the elephant as a dragon at least a dozen times. Throughout their voyage, we watch Penny losing at Tyrion's games but gradually winning at her own games: getting Tyrion to take Oppo's role, riding the pig in the jousting match; and letting Penny kiss him. The Shrouded Lord spreads a deadly disease by bestowing a kiss, but this evil threat doesn't even cross Tyrion's mind when Penny picks the "game" they play below decks during the storm. (I'm not saying Penny is the literal Shrouded Lord, but I think GRRM is certainly drawing a parallel here. The Shrouded Lord is also said to be a statue that is kissed to life by a grey woman from the mist. Tywin and Penny are both mixed together and tied to a statue motif in Tyrion's dreams and thoughts and memories.) Tyrion is playing Penny's games by Penny's rules, although he's not conscious that he has surrendered. I predict that some upcoming elephant encounter involving Penny may explain the mummer's dragon prediction in Tyrion's arc.

Alternatively, Tyrion's encounter with the mummer's dragon could relate to his interaction with Moqarro. At the beginning of the ADwD chapter with all this Penny activity, Tyrion describes the prayer ritual of Moqarro and his five guardsmen, calling it "mummery." Soon Tyrion engages Moqarro in conversation and they talk about dragons, among other things. Moqarro sees dragons in the flames so maybe the mummer's dragon in Tyrion's arc will be fire. Later, during the horrific storm, two of Moqarro's guards are carried off in a stiff wind, holding onto the ropes dangling from a loose sail. The description is very much like the flight of a dragon, so this could also fulfill this aspect of the prophecy.

There are other parts to Quaithe's prophecy, I realize. I don't yet have all the answers. Pretty pig could be the pale mare for Tyrion. Technically, she did precede the "others" in the prophecy, since Tyrion first saw the pig at Joffrey's wedding.

[Batbob45]

in COK Prologue, Patchface did somehow predict the Red Wedding with the following lyrics.

Fool's blood, king's blood, blood on the maiden's thigh, but chains for the guests and chains for the bridegroom, aye aye aye.

[WSmith84]

What I don't quite get is why certain characters think that they have to act to make a prophecy come to fruition. That they believe in prophecies, I understand, but surely if you believe that a certain thing will happen, your intervention is not required - otherwise, the prophecy is not a certainty at all.

It's possible of course that a prophecy will come true only because people hear it and act on it. An example might be Rhaegar creating Jon Snow, if he turns out to be the saviour of mankind. Of course, Rhaegar acting on it might have also created the necessity of a saviour in the first place. Perhaps there would be no need for Jon Snow if the realm was united by a strong King Rhaegar. Perhaps Rhaegar created not just a saviour, but the need for a saviour in the first place. Unless Jon turns out to do something only someone with his super-special blood can do, I'm betting a united Westeros not torn apart by famine and war but without Jon Snow would stand a better chance of defeating the Others than a war-torn, famine-filled, divided Westeros with him.