I know. I feel you. This should probably be a drinking game. Every time someone mentions Aegon’s Dream, the Song of Ice and Fire, or prophecy on House of The Dragon, we all take a drink to drown our disappointment. Because we know how all this ends … with Game of Thrones season 8.
On the one hand, we’re all invested in the stakes of House of The Dragon. We’ve picked sides—Greens or Blacks—cheering on our favorite characters and warriors and championing their rights, but more importantly defending their dragons’ wrongs. (Vhagar, babe, you did nothing wrong!)
In fact, I remember when, back in Season 1, the prophecy of the Song of Ice and Fire was first name dropped by Viserys … the sheer goosebumps I felt as I excitedly pointed to the screen. Of course, HOTD was a Game of Thrones sequel, and these were all Daenerys’ ancestors, but it was still exciting to have that prophecy, the overarching theme of this entire story’s endgame, mentioned like that.
But then, as the stakes grew higher, beloved characters started to die, and the humans began making dragons do their dirty work, something changed. Realization dawned on us that all this war and bloodshed and annihilation of dragons was happening not for Daenerys Targaryen, a queen, to finally sit on the Iron Throne or for Jon Snow fulfilling both the Prince that was Promised and Azhor Ahai prophecies and ruling over the Seven Kingdoms.
No, it was all for Bran Stark, which might’ve been cool had we gotten George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring books in time to explain it to us in a way only books can. But right now, with the wounds of Game of Thrones season 8 still fresh on our fan psyches, and July 12, 2024, marking 13 years since the last book in ASOIAF series (A Dance of Dragons) released, this only makes us all incredibly pissed off.
It doesn’t help that House of the Dragon won’t let us forget it, either. Viserys’ crappy timing and Alicent’s misunderstanding of the prophecy has already been blamed for laying the groundwork for the dance of the dragons. And then there was the scene where Rhaenyra explained the prophecy to her son and heir Jaecaerys Velaryon. She asserted that she had been hesitant to go to war, but if she did, it wouldn’t be “just for a crown.” She believed in the prophecy, that a Targaryen ruler was to serve as the Protector of the Realm, and that her father entrusted the responsibility to her, which she was now passing on to him, just in case she didn’t survive in the war.
You could actually hear the fandom collectively groan when the prophecy was brought up once again, because the sheer agony of what it was going to stand for in the end! But wait, are we missing the point here? Is there a reason this prophecy is repeatedly thrust in our faces even though they know this Song of Ice and Fire is not in our favorite playlist?
Well, here’s a theory: The Song of Ice and Fire, as a prophecy, is supposed to be stupid, because that’s what makes it the biggest anti-war statement of all time. Hear me out.
George R.R. Martin has a rather twisted way of looking at prophecies, and playing with them in his work. Look at the characters in ASOIAF who’ve had prophecies made about them—Cersei, Daenerys, the unborn Rhaego, Rhaegar, Stannis—all of them doomed in the end.
In A Dance of Dragons, through Tyrion, GRRM tells us, “Prophecy is like a half-trained mule. It looks as though it might be useful, but the moment you trust in it, it kicks you in the head.”
In A Feast for Crows, he writes a more brusque critique of them,
… Prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is … and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams … Prophecy will bite your prick off everytime.
– George R.R. Martin
Both Alicent and Rhaenyra are on these crucial junctures where the impending war could’ve been stopped or avoided altogether, but get pulled back in because of a prophecy they believe in. It’s like a bacteria that seems to have infected the Targaryen bloodline, and the more it gets passed on from one generation to another, the more desperately the house clings to its seat of power, the treacherous Iron Throne.
They’re killing their own kin, slaying dragons that made them gods, and parading their disembodied heads as victories of war, when it all indicates just how rotten their luck has become as they chase a mere shadow. The end of this civil war will come, and a Targaryen will sit on the Iron Throne, but at what cost? Soon enough, there won’t be any dragons left. Their familial strength will have severely diminished, and they will never know peace like before because the one thing that ensured their unquestioned dominion was the dragons.
All this war, bloodshed, kinslaying, and dragonlslaying for the prophecy that will have a completely different outcome in the end! The prince that was promised could’ve been a princess! Ultimately, it took a Daenerys, a woman of House Targaryen, to bring back dragons. Just as all those centuries ago, it was the dream of a woman, Daenys the Dreamer, that saved House Targaryen from the Doom of Valyria. And if it weren’t for the sisters of Aegon the Conqueror, he might not have been able to conquer Westeros alone, no matter how terrifyingly capable his mount Balerion was.
If this doesn’t scream the futility of the war from the rooftops, then what does?
Perhaps, that is the endgame of A Song of Ice and Fire after all—that men, driven mad by prophecies and delusions of their own greatness based on House, gender, unquestioning faith, loyalty, and power, will fight war, and in the end get a swift kick in the head by the very things they thought they understood best. Man’s biggest downfall has always been self-importance, and waging wars over that self-importance, only to realize none of it matters in the end. It’s all ashes and dust!
Published: Jul 15, 2024 11:37 am