Game of Thrones: Cersei’s prophecy explained
***Warning: Season 6, episode 10 spoilers to follow***
Hopefully by now you’ve caught up with the explosive season six finale of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’, but amidst all the carnage and incident that took place in The Wind of Winter it’s worth addressing the prophecy Cersei once had revealed to her at the hands of fortune teller Maggy the Frog.
In The Wars to Come (season five, episode one), we see a flashback of a teenage Cersei Lannister and her friend enter the witch’s hut. There, she demands to know her future, whereby the dishevelled witch obliges.
Cersei’s granted three questions. Her first asks when she will marry the prince - at the time this is (Mad) King Aerys II Targaryen’s son, Rhaegar, who’s also the one who (allegedly) eloped with Lyanna Stark and conceived Jon Snow. “You’ll never wed the Prince, you’ll wed the King,” Maggy tells her.
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She then asks about being Queen. “Oh yes, you’ll be Queen… For a time. Then comes another; younger, more beautiful to cast you down and take all you hold dear.” This answer doesn’t sit well with the young Lannister, but as an audience we have a clear idea about the witch’s riddle. Initially Margaery Tyrell was believed to be the one she speaks of. After all, she married her last living son, King Tommen, turns him against her and leaves Cersei with nothing after being humiliated in the streets during her Walk of Atonement. However, with Margaery now dead at the hands of Cersei, the ‘younger, more beautiful’ one to destroy her has to be Daenerys Targaryen who, as we see during the season six finale, is on her way to take what’s hers and remove Cersei and anyone else in her path.
Her final question is about if she’ll bear the King’s children, which confuses her with the answer: “The King will have 20 children, and you will have three.” Obviously she’s referring to Cersei’s incestual relations with twin brother Jaime, who fathered all three of her blonde-haired kids (Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen), whereas King Robert fathered many children to many different women, which Joffrey greenlit a kill order for when he came to power. The only one that appears to have survived is Gendry who rowed off in a boat (midway through season three) and whom we never hear from again.
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But while this is all viewers see in Cersei’s flashback, the books take it further:
“And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”
Firstly, we’re not even sure if this will play out in the TV show seeing as it’s not included, but the implication here is clear. ‘Valonqar’ is a Valyrian transation for ‘little brother’, telling us that either Tyrion (who’d fit a literal definition o f’little brother’) or her twin Jaime (who was, as we learn, the second twin to be born) will throttle her.
Knowing what we do in the season six finale, there are two paths it could go. Either, as seems obvious, Tyrion will murder her (now he’s a taste for murdering Lannisters, as per arrowing his father while on the loo) once Daenerys wages war on Cersei and claims the throne.
The other being that Jaime does it, regardless of his love for her. Upon returning to King’s Landing, he sees the smoke and destruction of what his sister/lover has done. He’s forced to learn indirectly that his last living son Tommen killed himself and his sis has blown up the Great Sept and part of the city - the very act Jaime prevented the Mad King from doing, thus gaining the unwanted, notorious reputation and nickname of Kingslayer.
Those glances at each other as Cersei’s being crowned are telling: his is a sadness and element of despair at what she’s done. Bear in mind he sacrificed everything to murder the Mad King to protect the city - the same city Cersei partially destroyed - from a wild fire attack. Her glance is one that’s now emotionally dead to everyone, maybe even including Jaime. She’s lost everything but has gained a somewhat meaningless crown for her to rule with and inflict cruelty. There’s every chance that, should her reign of tyranny continue, Jaime could end up killing her to protect the people from the Mad Queen. It’d certainly fit the prophecy and be a case of history repeating, but would also be poetically fitting to the world of ‘Game of Thrones’.
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Jaime once said: “We came into this world together, we’ll leave it together,” strongly implying a warped version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ whereby he murders her and then takes his own life.
What do you think about the prophecy theory? How will Cersei meet her maker? Share your thoughts in the comments…
Mike P Williams is a freelance TV, film and entertainment writer, with an obsession for all things Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park and Pixar. Over the years he’s written for the likes of MTV, Total Film, BuzzFeed, and Yahoo Movies UK.
Picture credit: HBO
