Less examined bits of the AA prophecy

[etu]

I might be barking up the wrong tree here - but major fire magic on the wall could potentially return some of it to seawater, both heightening the crisis and making Jon's rebirth far more salty...

[Dacie]

I agree with this. I think using fire magic at the Wall, which is the territory of the Old Gods, will have adverse consequences, and will be what makes the Wall fall. It could be that it actually melts or crashes down or that the magic binding it somehow fails.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I'm not so sure about that — Melisandre says the Wall amplifies her powers, it doesn't hinder them. And she's apparently been doing at least some magic up there, without negative consequences to the Wall so far.

[Dacie]

Very true. She did burn "Mance" without any big repercussion. I need to do a re-read of her chapters but for some reason I got the feeling from them that she was feeling sort of...frustrated?

It could be I'm reading too much into it because I like the idea of fire and ice being opposing forces :devil:

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Very true. She did burn "Mance" without any big repercussion. I need to do a re-read of her chapters but for some reason I got the feeling from them that she was feeling sort of...frustrated?

It could be I'm reading too much into it because I like the idea of fire and ice being opposing forces :devil:

She was frustrated because she kept asking to see Azor Ahai/HBIC/"your instrument" in her fire and all she got was Snow.

[Corm]

I'm not so sure about that — Melisandre says the Wall amplifies her powers, it doesn't hinder them. And she's apparently been doing at least some magic up there, without negative consequences to the Wall so far.

Melisandre says that the Wall amplifies her powers but I would feel strongly that she's wrong. That what's really amplifying her powers is the approach of the Others/the rise of dragons/magic in general getting more powerful rather than the Wall itself, which would be counter-intuitive.

[aynatal2000]

I have wondered on this and I am of the opinion that it is the Starks that this referred to.First the father and then the son, Eddard executed by who the Targaryen's refer to as the usurpers, the Barantheon line and then Robb at the Red Wedding..Now before you flame me think on it for a moment - thr Starks have always kept the old ways and were the Kings of the North. of all the families decimated in the war the Starks were set upon for total destruction... why?

The Starks kept to the old ways, the old gods and the Gods wood. They have been one with the earth and the woodlands... they have not forgotten the importance and the reason for the Wall.They have kept the old stories alive- they are the dire wolf... and the warg.

Is it coincidence that what they have lost in might they are acquiring and will exceed in magic? Of all the families left it is the Starks and The Targaryen line that has magic... that walk at the edges of beliefs long thought dead and now disbelieved..

Visery's getting killed was too early; Dany hatching the eggs was unexpected; Jon going to the Wall was ...luck. The Starks were the Kings of the North,father and son are dead.Baratheons were the usurper kings - father is dead but no true Baratheon son has died. From the first book, magic came to the Starks with the finding of the dire wolves and Bran's third eye. The Children of the wood have sought to protect the Starks; Jon has sought to protect the Wall and therefore whether he acknowledges it or not, the North. Alliances made by him can change the game completely.

Death itself will bend the knee? Well Dany survived the funeral pyre,Benjen Stark may be amongst the living.,Catelyn is still alive after the horror of the red wedding but where? .

Well I ramble but that is the joy of the board.If this is part of AA prophecy I think the Starks fit it to a T.

[Dacie]

I could see this being a possibility. At the time the prophesy was written the Starks were still the Kings.

That's why I think this thread has come up with a lot of good, outside the box ideas. I don't think the prophesies are meant to be taken absolutely literally.

[Lyana]

Great thread! A lot of interesting thoughts and teories here :)

I was thinking this about the Starks too.

The prophecy is old and when we actually think this through, the Starks are the rightful kings imo.

They are connected to the Children and the First Men. Eveyone else were conquerors who came form different continents. But the Starks remained true to the Old Gods and the weirwood trees.

I am very interested in Bloodraven too. There is something about the fact that he is an albino and so is Ghost. I feel this is very important detail, which I can't connect to anything right know due to lack of more information.

About the endless summer - this could be a reference to Bran's Summer, but also to the words of the Starks: "Winter is coming".

Well, if the endless summer is to come, than the Stark words will lose their meaning.

[Dacie]

About the endless summer - this could be a reference to Bran's Summer, but also to the words of the Starks: "Winter is coming".

Well, if the endless summer is to come, than the Stark words will lose their meaning.

Or it could mean that there are no more Starks. :(

[ARYa_Nym]

The First Men also came from the East and had to fight the Children at first to call Westeros its land. I read in an SSM once, (I can't remember which) that Westeros used to be the place where the magical creatures lived and the humans lived in the East.

Leaf told Bran that since the humans came to their land the numbers of them and other creatures have lessened. She said that the direwolves will eventually go too.

"Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few...The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Really interesting ideas. I love how the timing of the original prophecy could be a determining factor — would it have accounted for changing political conditions in Westeros, or not?

[Corm]

Really interesting ideas. I love how the timing of the original prophecy could be a determining factor — would it have accounted for changing political conditions in Westeros, or not?

Well, that's the point of prophecies, isn't it? They must be true regardless of timeframe because the person prophesising has no idea when it will come true. Whoever had/heard the prophecy would have been told about a king, nothing more. If it is to accurately predict the future, a prophecy must make sense at the time it comes to pass.

[tze]

Some thoughts that might be relevant but which I haven't seen brought up yet:

The AA/PTWP prophecy is unique in ASOIAF in that it is the one prophecy (or group of prophecies) not brought forth in the present day. The prophecies of Patchface, Melisandre, the Ghost of High Heart, Quaithe, even the Undying, are all given on a firsthand basis, in that the person who is the source of the prophecy is the same person imparting that prophecy to others. The AA/PTWP issue is different, because there's an extra layer between the giver of the prophecy and those interpreting prophecies, as the person actually delivering this prophecy has been dead for centuries.

With Melisandre, for example, we see her interpreting visions she herself has had. Even when she misinterprets what she sees, she still has firsthand knowledge of exactly what form the original vision took. But with the AA/PTWP issue, people trying to interpret this prophecy have no way of confirming what, exactly, the original giver of the prophecy "saw". All anybody has to go on is apparently written records of the prophecy, and we don't know who actually wrote this prophecy down in the first place. Was the prophecy passed down orally and only later recorded in writing? Was the person who had the vision the same person writing it down? What about translation issues? Very importantly: did the person who brought forth this prophecy truly record verbatim exactly what he/she was "seeing", or did he/she interject his/her own interpretations into the "meat" of the prophecy itself, as we frequently see Melisandre, for example, doing?

I think this last issue might have some particular relevance. Look at Melisandre: she has a vision of towers by the sea that don't look like Eastwatch. But she tells everyone that she's had a vision of Eastwatch, while readers can look at the actual vision and say, no, that looks more like either Pyke (or the Ten Towers of Harlaw). If Melisandre were to write down her vision, would she write down exactly what she saw? Or would she write that she saw Eastwatch? I think there's an excellent chance it would be the latter, not the former. And if later generations looked at that prophecy and tried to interpret it, they'd find themselves working with inherently faulty data, because Melisandre's "actual" vision would not have been recorded at all.

I bring this up because it could be very relevant to the AA/PTWP prophecy. We have a prophecy that describes someone being born amidst salt and smoke. We interpret that frequently as saltwater and smoke from some form of fire. But there's another route that I haven't seen explored yet, and that goes to interpreting, not what those two words "really" mean, but rather, asking ourselves whether the prophet/prophetess was necessarily seeing what they thought they were seeing. Was it really smoke and salt? Or was this person really seeing two substances that he/she simply assumed were smoke and salt because he/she didn't have the knowledge base to say otherwise (just like Melisandre simply assumed her vision showed Eastwatch because she had never been to the Iron Islands and had never seen Pyke/Harlaw?)?

All signs point to this prophecy originating in either Asshai or Valyria, two places that are extremely far to the south in Essos. If a person in a tropical climate saw someone being reborn out of, say, some powdery white substance, what would that person believe he/she had seen? Sam, from the Reach, made a point of mentioning how he'd never seen snow before he came to the North. I think there's an excellent chance that a person living in the south of Essos had probably also never seen snow. Now we have a prophecy of AA being reborn among "salt"---but notice how "salt" looks quite a bit like a certain other white substance that is quite connected with the Others, but which isn't found in tropical climates. And that makes me wonder: isn't it possible that the original prophecy came from a vision that wasn't showing salt at all, but was really showing snow, and the giver of the prophecy simply didn't have the knowledge base to properly understand what he/she was seeing, as he/she had probably seen plenty of salt but had never before seen snow?

And this could also go to the "smoke" issue. AA will be reborn amidst "smoke and salt". No mention of fire and water, just specifically smoke and specifically salt. But if the "salt" this person was seeing might actually have been a different white substance that was simply alien to this person's worldview (snow), then what might we make of the "smoke"? Was it "smoke" from a fire? Or was "smoke" simply the closest thing this person had ever seen to what the vision/prophecy showed? Was it, perhaps----mist? If a person from the south of Essos had a vision showing, say, someone being reborn amidst snow and rising mist, it makes perfect sense that, given that person's knowledge base, he/she would tell everyone a prophecy about salt and smoke, not snow and rising mist. But the latter has way different implications for AA reborn than does the former.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Well, that's the point of prophecies, isn't it? They must be true regardless of timeframe because the person prophesising has no idea when it will come true. Whoever had/heard the prophecy would have been told about a king, nothing more. If it is to accurately predict the future, a prophecy must make sense at the time it comes to pass.

I think the point is, if the Starks were still kings when the prophecy was written, would the prophecy have referred to them as such, even if it came to pass after they were actually kings. No need to get snippy.

<snip>

Mind-blowing as usual. And yeah, wounds in the cold have "smoked" before.

ETA: And yes it's quite clear to anyone paying attention that what Melisandre saw can't have been Eastwatch even though she said it was.

[Corm]

<snip>

I completely agree with you, I'd like to add my own point which is actually from earlier on in this thread but recieved no replies :frown5: that fits in nicely with this idea

"all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn."

To me this oozes of misinterpreted prophecy, something that I believe to be right up GRRM's street.

I think most people agree that we will at some stage see Dany and/or dragons fighting the Others and their minions. If we assume for a moment that Dany is AA (though I don't believe she is) we must draw the comparisons that are linked to her and the original AA. It was said that he "fought the darkness" which many people think refers to the Long Night and the Others.

So, taking that into account it seems possible, even likely, to me that this part of the prophecy wasn't originally intended to serve as solace and hope for the Other fodder that fought for AA but instead was meant as a warning: those who fight in AA's cause and die will be "reborn" as wights.

GRRM has a fondness for unreliable word-of-mouth and I could see this being an example of it.

Just as you say, over many years the original meaning was lost

[Corm]

I think the point is, if the Starks were still kings when the prophecy was written, would the prophecy have referred to them as such, even if it came to pass after they were actually kings. No need to get snippy.

I didn't mean to be snippy.

It's just that it wouldn't make sense that the prophecy was passed down as being a king if that king was specifically a Stark, would it?

The way visions and prophecies have been shown to us it's all about symbolism and interpretation. Therefore, for a prophecy to reference a king and only a king, then we would expect it to be something that refers specifically to a king, like a crown or a throne, for example.

If the prophecy had shown something indicative of a Stark, a Valyrian, a Norvosi etc. then that is the sort of thing that would be mentioned, even if it was not understood.

[Sofia Aillard]

The reason I hit upon Aegon and Aerys is that their deaths are what made Jon the king and that he could have been born literally at the same time as they died, or very, very soon after.

I read somewhere here in the Citadel that Dany was born 9 months, almost exact, to the day Rhaegar died. And also read in the Citadel that Jon is 9 months older then she... So he was born almost exactly the day Rhaegar died. Ominous?

I can try to find the reference (or quote?), sorry, I don't know the correct word.

EDIT: "Queen Rhaella died giving birth to Daenerys during a terrible storm almost precisely nine months after the death of Rhaegar" 22th paragraph

"Startlingly, he would bring with him a child, Jon Snow, whom he claimed as his son. The child was born eight or nine months prior to Daenerys Targaryen" - 23th paragraph

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/FAQ/Entry/What_happened_when_during_Roberts_Rebellion/

Also

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1040/

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I read somewhere here in the Citadel that Dany was born 9 months, almost exact, to the day Rhaegar died. And also read in the Citadel that Jon is 9 months older then she... So he was born almost exactly the day Rhaegar died. Ominous?

I can try to find the reference (or quote?), sorry, I don't know the correct word.

I don't know if it was actually that exact. Jon was born around the time of the Sack to about a month after, in that window. Dany was born about nine months after Jon. I don't remember Rhaegar's own death being the marker there, but rather the Sack.

[Lyana]

Or it could mean that there are no more Starks. :(

I thought this too, but let's hope that's not the case.