Warning: The following contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4: ‘The Spoils of War’
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At the midway point of Game of Thrones‘ seventh season, two things are clear: prophecies can be a product of mistranslation, and Cersei is increasingly unhinged. When she’s not detonating the Sept of Baelor or busy breaking Ellaria Sand’s spirit, she freely lets her aides see her own brother sharing her bed. With all that power, who cares what people think? However reckless Cersei may be, Jaime is not so cavalier.
No longer the arrogant, child-paralyzing swordsman of the first season, The Kingslayer has been humbled across one of the broadest emotional journeys of any George R. R. Martin character. He lost his most prized hand, all three of his children died, and he’s currently heading towards the bottom of the Blackwater Rush. After months of seething rage against his little brother, he learned that Tyrion was innocent in the death of Joffrey. This is an undeniable blow to his trust in Cersei that’s only compounded by the Lannisters’ rear army destruction at the hand of Daenerys Targaryen.
Still, as Game of Thrones charges toward its finale, the new Jaime Lannister bears increasingly little resemblance to his old self. His incestuous relationship with Cersei remains the only connection to his past, and even then, it’s beginning to look less and less like his idea.
With evidence of a major Valyrian mistranslation of œThe Lord of Light, the impending prophecy of Cersei’s death, as well as the growing call for a new Azor Ahai, Jaime may well be forced to make a seismic sacrifice to save the Seven Kingdoms.
A Major Mistranslation
Red herrings are the oldest trick in the book, but flawed translations are a nifty way to disguise them. In both A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, calls to The Lord of Light have been a familiar refrain. We’ve seen Beric Dondarrion wield a flaming sword, The Hound witnessing visions in a furnace, and Melisandre bringing Jon Snow back from the dead. We’ve also seen the Red Priestess completely miss the mark with Stannis Baratheon, thus calling into question the legitimacy of the religion altogether.
Though GRRM admitted that he lacked J.R.R. Tolkien’s skills as a philologist, he and a professional linguist developed his High Valyrian vocabulary for the show to believably wield. Such vocabulary has been a point of contention in season seven, where Missandei recently noted that the correct translation of œThe Prince That Was Promised was gender neutral. Princesses could also be promised.
This begs the question: have we misinterpreted anything else? Take a quick look at the compiled High Valyrian lexicon and note the words for œLord and œLight, œaeksio and œonos. According to this widely-praised theory, the words for œHand of Gold are œaeksio and œondos. There’s just one letter of difference between œLord of Light and œGolden Hand in High Valyrian. Note that these language discrepancies are used exclusively for the show, killing nearly all potential for coincidence. These striking similarities are seemingly by design.
Could the entire religion of The Lord of Light be built on a faulty translation? Is the entire faith a red herring in Game of Thrones? Considering GRRM’s iconoclastic and anti-religious sentiments, it wouldn’t be a shock to learn that The Lord of Light is just the stuff of semantics.
As for the œGolden Hand translation, we can only think of the one man in all of Westeros with such a title: Jaime Lannister.
Could Jaime Be Azor Ahai?
Theories abound in guessing the true identity of The Prince Who Was Promised/Azor Ahai. Many think it’s Daenerys Targaryen, others Jon Snow, some Jorah Mormont, and a select few point even point towards Hot Pie (yes).
The criteria for meeting the prophecy have already been well explained, but it’s worth pointing out how much Jaime’s life (on the show) mirrors the journey of Azor Ahai. As an aside, for every mention of Lightbringer and swords, remember that Tywin Lannister had the Stark family blade – Ice – turned into two separate weapons: Oathkeeper, now in the hands of Brienne of Tarth, and Widow’s Wail, which Jaime currently wields.
Step 1: In forging what would become the legendary sword, Lightbringer, Azor Ahai first tempered the blade in water. It shattered on impact.
Shortly after losing his hand, Jaime bathed at Harrenhal, where he told Brienne of Tarth how he earned the title of Kingslayer. In reviewing the injustice in his life, Jaime slips into a confused panic that drives Brienne to cradle him in the water and call out, œThe Kingslayer! Though out of his right mind, Jaime asserts his true name, œJaime. My name’s Jaime. While œtempering himself in the baths of Harrenhal, he briefly shatters his former identity as The Kingslayer. While he clings to elements of his old self by continuing his romantic relationship with Cersei, the transformation is underway.
As a side note, the Prince That Was Promised is expected to be born of “salt and smoke.” Should Jaime be resurrected next week, he will arise out of salt water and into smoke-filled air.
Step 2: Azor Ahai sought stronger means to build the blade that would end The Long Night. Though he captured a lion and thrust it through the beast’s heart, the blade broke yet again.
While the differences between ASOIAF and Game of Thrones widen at this point, the arc chosen by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss lends even more credibility to Jaime becoming The Prince That Was Promised. Believing his brother was innocent in Joffrey’s death, The Kingslayer frees Tyrion from prison. With his newfound freedom, Tyrion immediately sets about strangling his girlfriend then shooting Tywin (the head lion of the Lannisters) through the heart with a crossbow. While Jaime didn’t kill his father, he directly influenced his fate.
While standing at the foot of her father’s corpse, Cersei heaped blame directly on her brother:
œTyrion may be a monster, but at least he killed our father on purpose. You killed him by mistake, with stupidity¦look at the consequences, here they are. He loved you more than anyone in this world.
Cersei guilt trips his brother for killing Tywin, shames him for taking independent action, and as a result, she suppresses his independence from his old identity and further shackles him to their incestuous relationship.
Step 3: Distraught by his previous failures, Azor Ahai spent months rebuilding the blade. Knowing what must be done, he rammed the sword through the breast of his wife, Nissa Nissa, whose soul conjoined with the sword to form Lightbringer, bane of the White Walkers.
His love for Cersei is one of obsession that his spanned his entire life. He has now tried twice to shed his old Kingslayer self and has been denied. He clings to his sister, but his trust in her erodes. He just learned from Lady Oleanna that Tyrion is not only innocent in Joffrey’s murder, but that she thinks his sister is a œdisease that he will œregret his role in spreading. With the fallout in ‘The Spoils of War,’ he recognizes the true threat of Daenerys Targaryen and the absolute vulnerability of King’s Landing. It’s only a matter of time until Jaime, who has been aching to break from the bonds of his sister, steps up to the plate and sacrifices her for the good of the Seven Kingdoms. Again, though the show has kept this on the down-low, Jaime Lannister is currently holding the Widows Wail sword.
Cersei’s impending death isn’t just hearsay, it’s prophecy.
The Valonqar Prophecy
In season five, young Cersei traipsed through the dark woods of King’s Landing. Upon arriving at the hut of a witch named Maggy, she gave the seer a drop of her blood in exchange for her fortune. In one fell swoop, Cersei learned that though she would become Queen, her time would be marked short by a younger and more beautiful ruler that will œcast her down and take all that [she holds] dear. Maggy promised that she would marry a king, not the prince whom she preferred, and that though the king would have twenty children, she would only have three. Though Cersei was baffled by this apparent contradiction, Maggy then foretold that while each of these children would have golden crowns, they would have equally golden shrouds.
Maggy was on the money, as Cersei married Robert Baratheon, birther of bastards, and instead produced three illegitimate children of her own with Jaime, all of whom have since died. As for the one expected to dethrone her, Daenerys Targaryen conveniently just made her presence known at Casterly Rock.
However devastating the crone’s fortune proved to be, Game of Thrones silenced Maggy from the most upsetting part of her divination in ASOIAF: the Valonqar Prophecy.
œGold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds, she said. œAnd when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.
In High Valyrian, the valonqar simply means œlittle brother. Assuming that’s the correct translation, it leaves two candidates to bring down Cersei: Tyrion, who Cersei has long feared would fulfill the prophecy, and Jaime, the Mad Queen’s twin. In season two, Tyrion even tells his sister, œA day will come when you think you are safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth.
Could that false sense of safety come after Tyrion dies, convincing Cersei the valonqar prophecy is broken only for Jaime to fulfill it himself? However it happens, Jaime has been increasingly led to question his sister. He looked genuinely dismayed seeing her sit on the Iron Throne at the end of season six, and every day since, his confidence has dissipated. Should he be captured and held hostage by Daenerys Targaryen, he will stand in direct opposition to Cersei’s reign.
Though the Prince That Was Promised and Valonqar prophecies appear to be unrelated, Jaime is the only candidate that can satisfy both. He’s the man with the golden hand (the œaeksio ondos), after all. In A Storm of Swords, we learn:
œHis hand burned. Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch they’d used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in the flames, the fingers he no longer had.
That’s as direct a correlation between physical signs and prophecies as GRRM could possibly provide. As this astute Reddit user adds, Jojen Reed even revealed what the end times will look like, lifting up his right hand only to have it burst in flames: œYou’ll know.
A misinterpretation of High Valyrian; a prophecy about Azor Ahai; a foretelling that Cersei’s younger brother will end her life. With 9 episodes left on Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister is the one character who can resolve these many loose ends. Should the Valonqar be raised out of the waters of the Blackwater Rush, Cersei’s days may well be numbered.
