OPEN SPOILERS (BOOKS AND SHOW)
Now that Game of Thrones’s run is complete (three, er, two cheers!), we can discuss and figure out just how accurate all those prophecies, visions, predictions, auguries were: Maggy the Frog, Melisandre’s various mutterings, the warlocks of Astapor, etc.
What’s your tally?
Well the mummer’s dragon prophesy fell by the wayside.
[Moderating]
To be clear, do you want no book material at all, or book material spoiler boxed?
The show is over and cannot be spoiled in any way.
But the books can be. Someone who’s watched the show, hasn’t read the books, but intends to read the books might well prefer to avoid book-specific spoilers.
Wide open - spoilers from books and show welcomed. Change the OP or the thread title, if you would, please. Thanks!
Just going from the show, my take has been that all the prophecies and religions are essentially just a bunch of made-up nothing. Obviously, magic exists in their world, but it’s all of a neutral and unintelligent nature and pretty randomly distributed. But this doesn’t stop the humans in this society from ascribing greater meanings to magical acts and building complicated belief and social structures around them.
I can’t imagine such a person opening and reading a thread titled “GOT show - How accurate were the various prophecies and visions, after all?”, but fair enough I guess.
Why wouldn’t they? There are prophecies in the show.
Cersei was told that she would marry the king, he would have a lot of children and she only 3, and that all three would die. All that happened. A younger and more beautiful queen came and took her place as well.
In the books there is a prophecy that she will be killed be a younger brother. That doesn’t happen in the show, but may in the books.
I don’t recall what prophecies Quaithe or the House of the Undying gave in the show.
The Azor Ahai stuff seems to not be accurate in the show.
Since Cersei’s prophecy was brought up, I want to use it as an example of what I mean.
Cersei is the pubescent daughter of probably the richest and most powerful house in the kingdom, so this doesn’t seem like that far-fetched of a guess by itself. But the prophecy did also specify she wouldn’t marry “the prince” (presumably Rhaegar, to whom she was betrothed at the time). But neither the king nor the prince are actually specified, so that leaves a lot of wiggle room to make a prophecy seem correct down the line. I do see this as the strongest part of the prophecy that seems to work out, though.
I’m pretty sure “noble” lords were generally known to get around a lot.
Actually, she had four children, with one dying shortly after birth. “Gold will be their crowns” again leaves a lot of wiggle room for a noble family with a noted history of blond hair. “Gold, their shrouds” is even more vague. Yeah, everybody dies and nobles in a house known for its gold mines are likely to have a golden shroud. That’s not even taking into account other vague possibilities. Viserys got a gold crown and a gold shroud at the same time, maybe he was secretly Cersei’s offspring? (I kid.)
But doesn’t that happen to pretty much every queen?
But if you were the type of person that wanted a prophecy to “fit”, you could say that Tyrion brought about her death by aiding Dany, or that Jaime led her to her fate, or whatever.
Basically, I wonder if GRRM intentionally mimicked the sort of useless and vague but made-to-fit prophecies of the real world or if they were really meant to be classic storytelling prophecies that end up being true because the storywriter makes it so.
Maegy nailed the number of children Cersei and Robert would have exactly though, 3 and 20. That’s a lot harder to wave off as a good guess.
I don’t recall any verification that Robert had exactly 20 kids and I don’t see it in any references. And again, Cersei had 4 children, not 3. I’m wondering if three would be a good guess for the number of children a noble woman might bear in that world, though, like two is for real world families now, but it seems a bit low.