Welcome back folks.

So, I did promise that ‘ASOIAF Theory Time’ would be a video series from now on, however there are some theories which are so big and would take so long to explain that they’re better suited to a blog post, and here we are. As with every article, this is going to contain major spoilers for all the books in the epic fantasy saga and heavy assumptions and theories for future instalments, so if you’re an Unsullied show watcher or haven’t finished the books yet then turn away now.

Just to warn you, this analysis/essay/theory/thing is very long and is separated into three key parts; the first relates to prophecy, the second to magic and gods and the third to the nature of war in A Song of Ice and Fire, however they all relate and interlink. The first part is going to be talking about some famous prophecised heroes in the saga, namely Azor Ahai. Let’s get started…

There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.

There’s also something somewhere about being reborn “amidst salt and smoke,” but I can’t seem to find it.

The identity of Azor Ahai has been a running theme throughout A Song of Ice and Fire. He’s first mentioned in A Clash of Kings, when Melisandre proclaims Stannis as the hero, and even now she still holds to that notion. The most popular theory is that Jon Snow is Azor Ahai; when he is stabbed by Bowen Marsh at the end of A Dance with Dragons, it’s argued that the ‘salt’ comes from Marsh’s tears and the ‘smoke’ is Jon’s wounds, which were apparently smoking. During the first and only Melisandre chapter in that book, she begs R’hllor for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, but he shows her “only Snow.” The capitalization of the word ‘Snow’ is key here; if it was referring to the white stuff which falls from the sky then it would be presented in lower case. However, as we know ‘Snow’ is the bastard surname in the North therefore is presented in upper case because it’s a last name. Melisandre and Jon have a fair few interactions during her time at the Wall, so it makes sense that she would refer to him informally by his last name rather than as Jon Snow. Also during the book, Jon has a dream in which he fights the Others while wielding a flaming sword. There’s a lot of hints in this book, isn’t there?

In the original tale of Azor Ahai, he was a chosen hero during the Long Night who decided he must wield a hero’s sword. He laboured for thirty days and thirty nights, however once he was finished and he went to cool it in water, the sword shattered. He started anew and this time laboured for fifty days and fifty nights; rather than make the same mistake he decided he would temper his sword with something a little tougher. He captured a lion and drove it into the beast’s heart, but again, it shattered. Finally, he knew what he must do. He worked on the sword for a hundred days and a hundred nights, and called his wife Nissa Nissa to him once he was finished. He asked her to bare her breast, to ensure him of her love, but when she did Azor Ahai drove the sword into her heart; he created Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

There are a few other similar prophecies in ASOIAF as well – that of ‘The Last Hero,’ who Old Nan told Bran was one of the First Men and fought back the Others. Samwell Tarly discovered an account which states the sword was made of dragonsteel, which could refer to Valyrian steel. There’s also ‘The Prince that was Promised,’ which quite literally refers to a promised prince who will save the world from darkness. King Jaeherys learned that the Prince would be born from the line of his children Aerys (the Mad King) and Rhaella, prompting their marriage and their son Rhaegar’s belief that he is in fact Azor Ahai/The Last Hero/The Promised Prince. Daenerys’ vision of Rhaegar in the House of the Undying shows us that he transitioned this belief onto his son Aegon (who may or may not be kicking up a storm in the Stormlands – heh), stating that his song is the ‘song of ice and fire’ and something about how ‘the dragon must have three heads’. So much prophecy.

It’s incredibly likely that those three prophecies are all different iterations of the same thing, and most fans agree as well. Additionally, a Dothraki prophecy we learn of in A Game of Thrones says how Daenerys’ son Rhaego would be ‘The Stallion who Mounts the World,’ a fearless Dothraki Khal who would unite all the Khalasars and conquer the world or whatever. Rhaego of course died, leaving that prophecy unfulfilled. It’s possible that this is also another version of Azor Ahai; perhaps the Dothraki heard about it a few thousand years ago and adopted it to fit their lifestyle.

The idea that there is a prophecised hero who will save the world from darkness is an age-old fantasy trope which has been played out dozens and dozens of times through dozens and dozens of different stories, and it’s those types of tropes which George R.R. Martin has thrived on defying. The world of Planetos is a bleak place; magic and things of a similar nature are treated realistically, the good guys don’t always win, the good guys sometimes aren’t even that good. And, of course, the defiance of fantasy rules. A notable example is in A Dance with Dragons with Quentyn Martell’s story arc.

GRRM presents us with a classic example of a prince seeking the hand of a queen, and to win her heart he aspires to tame her dragons. No doubt this story is lifted from some ancient myth or story told thousands of years ago which I’m unaware of, however in a common fantasy story Quentyn would succeed in taming the dragons and Queen Daenerys would fall for him and they would get married. That also happens to be terribly boring, so as to surprise and excite us GRRM explains what would really happen in that situation.

All the dragons see in Quentyn is dinner, and they roast him alive. Daenerys refused his marriage proposal earlier in the story because she found him unattractive and was already promised to Hizdahr lo Loraq, and will definitely refuse him again since he’s, well, dead.

There are so many more examples that I don’t even need to explain. If you’re a reader of the books or even a show watcher then you’ll know that ASOIAF is far more morally complex and realistic than your average epic fantasy, which is why it’s proved to be one of, if not the most popular epic fantasy saga. It’s those reasons which always gave me caution regarding the nature of prophecy in this world.

I struggle to believe that GRRM would craft such an elegant, original and realistic fantasy world which constantly defies and turns common story tropes on their head only to throw it all away at the end to herald the coming of a prophecised hero who would defeat the Others with a flaming sword and save Westeros and everyone would live happily ever after. It’s an absolutely ludicrous assumption.

What is even more astonishing is that tons of fans actually believe this is how things will go down! They believe that Jon is Azor Ahai, Ygritte was his Nissa Nissa, Longclaw/The Night’s Watch is Lightbringer and he’ll lead the fight against the Others. Or perhaps it will be Jamie, Brienne is his Nissa Nissa, Oathkeeper is Lightbringer and he’ll lead the fight against the Others. Or perhaps it’ll be Daenerys and… You get the gist.

My hypothesis is that there is no Azor Ahai, Last Hero, Promised Prince or world-mounting Stallion.

Absolutely none. Zilch. Fans are, for some reason, putting stock into a character fulfilling this prophecy without actually considering whether the idea fits in with the world that has been created, which is a problem with the majority of fan theories unfortunately. It’s very possible that Azor Ahai did exist thousands of years ago, however he was just a pretty good soldier who killed a few more Others than usual. Bards then put his deeds into song, those songs would travel far, mothers told their children the tale of Azor Ahai and a bit later, once he was long dead, someone came up with the idea that he was a prophecised hero and he would one day be reborn to defeat the Others again. We’ve already seen examples of this with rumours in Westeros – usually after a big event happens, we’ll hear several different rumours and stories of it through different characters. At the end of A Game of Thrones there were multiple different explanations for the death of King Robert Baratheon, and whichever one gained the most traction would become fact for the people of Westeros. Some people were even saying that Rhaegar Targaryen had come back from the dead and was raising an undead army on Dragonstone. We all know that was just a lie people spread, so why can’t prophecy be the same?

There is even some textual evidence which supports this, as spoken by Archmaester Marwyn in A Feast for Crows:

‘Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy.’ Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. ‘Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that 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. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time.’ He chewed a bit. ‘Still…’

This tells us that GRRM is at least willing to entertain the notion with his characters that prophecy is to be mistrusted.

Now, when I talk about prophecies I refer to ancient text-style ones which tell of some kind of event happening or saviour. When others writers weave prophecy into their fiction, that’s often the type of thing they write about. Arguably, you could say that we know prophecies in ASOIAF have merit because greenseers who look into and predict the future are technically giving a prophecy, and that is 100% correct; however, those types are more short-term than what I want to talk about.

I think the main argument for these prophecies coming true is that GRRM wouldn’t have spent so much time alluding to them being true and placing careful hints throughout his books if they were only to turn out fake in the end, but I disagree with this mindset; it doesn’t render any of it pointless, it was just used to enhance the world.

Melisandre is a character with a very black-and-white perception of the world. There’s her famous ‘rotten onion’ monologue to Davos back in the second book, where she says that if half of an onion his filled with rot then it is a rotten onion, and the same can be said for men. This likely boosts her belief in the Azor Ahai prophecy because it all relates to the human ideal that the world is indeed divided between good and evil, and one day a champion of good will defeat all evil and everything will be at peace. Fantasy is usually the genre used to portray those ideals, hence why it’s so popular, however GRRM is much smarter than that and knows actually fulfilling any of the prophecies he’s created would only hinder his marvellous work. The rest of the Red Priests and Priestesses likely share her beliefs, which is why their religion is centered around a ‘good’ god and an ‘evil’ god; R’hllor, Lord of Light, and the Great Other (presumably a deity of the Others).

Following on from that note, I would like to introduce the second part of my theory:

There are no gods.

But, wait, hang on… We know R’hllor is real because we’ve seen him work his magic!

The keyword there is magic. It is a fact that magic exists in Westeros and Essos and it would be ridiculous to dispute that; blood magic has been used more than once, dragons are arguably magic, characters are resurrected etc. Magic exists, end of. However it’s entirely debatable as to whether this is due to gods or whether magic is a natural part of the world. GRRM has come out and said that he is an athiest and he’ll leave readers to draw their own conclusions as to whether the gods of the world he’s created are real, but I think he’s trying to make a statement on his opinion on religion in our world and is hoping fans will be smart enough to pick up on it.

A Dance with Dragons showed us that the Old Gods don’t exist, but are in fact greenseers becoming a part of the weirwood trees. We learn this through Bran and his tutelage under Bloodraven, who can see into the past (unsure regarding the future) and watch events unfold through the eyes of the weirwood trees. He can also visit people in dreams, which we know because he is the three-eyed crow who led Bran to him. This fact is unknown to the rest of the North, who still believe that the Old Gods watch over them through the trees. They’re right to an extent.

If he can disprove one religion in-story then why not some others? People living in the North have repeatedly said that the Faith of the Seven, the main religion in the South, is a load of bullshit and they’re probably right. We have yet to see any evidence that the Seven actually exist. There’s also the Drowned God, who hasn’t offered up anything concrete aside from apparent resurrections from drowning, which could easily be down to magic. There’s also a very solid idea that the Drowned God is just another manifestation of the Others and their powers, but that’s another theory for another time…

It’s notable that there is no actual proof R’hllor exists, despite seeing powers related to him work their magic several times in the books. Again, the keyword is magic; I think that in A Song of Ice and Fire humanity created gods as an answer to magic because to them, such incredible powers has to originate from a higher deity. That idea is also predominant in real-world religions – the idea that this universe is too intricately designed as to not come from a god. On the whole, we can’t comprehend that there isn’t someone far more powerful than we could ever hope to be watching over us and since there are still those of us who think that, being (arguably) a lot more advanced and intelligent than those living in Westeros and Essos, it makes perfect sense for the characters of that world believe so to.

My pet theory is that some people a very long time ago discovered that blood and fire magic worked, and since they would have been at an even more primitive thinking level, decided that it must come from a god and they created the Lord of Light as a means to ‘answer’ for the magic, so to speak. It’s entirely possible that the name R’hllor was the name of a member of this group, however that particular pet theory is largely irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.

ASOIAF is a cynical and arguably nihilistic series, therefore it’s easy to assume that George R.R. Martin has a cynical and nihilistic perspective on the world. Someone with that mindset would definitely call religion a lie to explain magic in a way we are capable of understanding, or in the context of our planet just to construct a way to give hope to the hopeless and play on the common human ideal that the world really is divided between good and evil as I mentioned earlier.

Now that those two bases are covered, it leads me to the third and final point of my elaborate theory:

All magic is the same, just manifested differently.

The reason for why the saga is called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire‘ has been the subject of great debate over the years. Some people think it refers to Jon; Rhaegar called Aegon the ‘song of ice and fire,’ however it’s entirely possible he was referring to Jon – his son by Lyanna Stark – instead. Jon would literally be of both Ice (Stark) and Fire (Targaryen). It’s this dualism and dichotomy which dominates several fan theories, much in the same way that the Azor Ahai prophecy does. Fans believe that the title refers to balance, which will be a key theme of the saga going forward; the seasons are out of balance for a mysterious magical reason and they’ll need to be restored. I think this balance idea ties in with Azor Ahai; it will come down to the battle of the champions of R’hllor (Fire) and the Great Other (Ice). Because Jon has both ice and fire magic in him then he would be the key to creating a balance between the two opposing sides and really would be the guy to save Westeros.

If I’m honest, it’s a great, smart theory. A bastard boy, ridiculed all his life because he will amount to nothing yet his family will achieve greatness, is actually the heir to the throne and a prophecised hero who will unite two magical forces/gods that have been at war for 8000 years and restore peace to the world. If this was any other fantasy series then that would be a perfectly satisfactory ending.

Except this is A Song of Ice and Fire.

There are three possible ways to interpret the title and how it relates to the ending:

The title refers to a war, which in turn implies that one side will emerge a victor; traditionally it would be the side of ‘Fire,’ as that would be the stereotypical ‘good’ side of the war. GRRM could expand on this and make it more complex by making the side of ‘Ice’ the ‘good’ side instead, or by keeping the traditional dichotomy between the warring factions but having ‘Ice’ emerge victorious, a statement that evil will always win in the end. Jon is the key to a balance between Ice and Fire, and balance is the key theme of the saga. Already explained above. Ice and Fire magic are the same thing.

In case you hadn’t noticed, those options all kinda go up one level in complexity. Option 3 is something I’ve seen mentioned only once or twice on the internet, but is my theory on the matter. All the magic shown so far in Planetos is the same, just manifested differently. To give evidence for my theory we need to go through the similarities between different types of magic.

The biggest example is resurrection. As we all know, the Others’ army is comprised of zombies called ‘wights’. North of the Wall, if you die, then you’re brought back as a wight almost instantly. Wights have been shown several times tangling with the Night’s Watch and they’re perhaps the most popular example of resurrection in ASOIAF.

Other key examples of resurrection are Beric Dondarrion, Lady Stoneheart/Catelyn Stark and Robert Strong/Gregor Clegane. There are frequent reports of the ‘Lightning Lord’ and Thoros of Myr leading a group of outlaws through the Riverlands, carrying on the justice of good King Robert. Several of the reports also state how Beric has been killed, yet each report describes his death differently. When Arya runs in with the Brotherhood Without Banners in A Storm of Swords, we finally meet the Lightning Lord and learn that the reports weren’t conflicting; all those death reports were true, and he has been resurrected constantly by Thoros of Myr via R’hllor. This is perhaps the most notable example that the Lord of Light does exist, and Thoros specifically says that he has no power, but it all comes from R’hllor. He also says how his prayers and spells only started working after Daenerys’ dragons hatched.

That last part is important because the hatching of the dragons is typically used as a sort of ‘catalyst’ for magic coming back into the world in large quantities. It always existed North of the Wall and existed sparingly in the North itself, but examples were rare in the other six kingdoms. The most notable was probably Lord Brynden Rivers, or Bloodraven; a warg/greenseer Targaryen bastard who is now teaching Bran in a cave somewhere in the far North. After the dragons came back, magic became a lot more frequent. In A Clash of Kings, the pyromancers tell Tyrion that their spells have had an abnormal increase in power recently, and I’m pretty certain that Archmaester Marwyn mentions something to Sam about magic coming back into the world in A Feast for Crows. If the powers came from R’hllor then why did they only start working once magic started coming back? The answer is that the Red Priests are advanced practitioners of magic. It’s likely that Qyburn can also work fire magic, since he (99% confirmed) brought Gregor Clegane back from the dead as the zombie Robert Strong. That example is blood magic, which is often linked with fire magic; damn, I gotta stop the generalizations here. It’s all just magic!

Maegi’s, shadowbinders and the lot are common in the Free Cities and in Asshai, where all this dark stuff comes from but we unfortunately probably won’t visit. I stated earlier that people discovered fire magic in ancient times and decided it must be the work of a god, and that belief has continued to this day. The ability to resurrect in the North presumably never went away, but magic in general tends to be stronger up there; I think the reason why Westeros isn’t particularly magical compared to Essos and the far North is because the Wall is more than just a literal wall – it’s a wall blocking magic from spreading across the continent, confining it to the top end of Westeros, which in turn causes the seasons to become out of balance.

If ‘ice’ and ‘fire’ magic both possess the ability to bring people back from the dead, then it’s logical to assume that they could share more qualities as well, and it’s then also not out of the question that they are in fact one and the same.

Bloodraven plays an important part here. He’s a famous Targaryen bastard, served as Master of Whispers and Hand of the King down in King’s Landing last century and is also a warg/greenseer. I think this is a result of a combination of Valyrian and First Men blood running through his veins – he’s part Blackwood, I believe. If magic really is divided between ice and fire then it doesn’t make sense for someone who’s predominantly Targaryen to possess warging and greenseeing ability. However, there is precedent for a Targaryen greenseer…

Now, admittedly this is a little shaky, but bare with me. Here’s the Wikipedia excerpt:

Twelve years before the Doom, Lord Aenar Targaryen’s maiden daughter, Daenys the Dreamer, had a powerful prophetic dream along with visions that Valyria would be destroyed. Foreseeing the Doom she convinced her father to leave Valyria before the cataclysm. Heeding the warning Aenar set sail, moving his entire family and their five dragons to the island Dragonstone. Closely allied families, including the Velaryons and Celtigars, went with them, settling on other islands in the narrow sea.

That kinda suggests that Daenys Targaryen had the gift of greenseeing – the name for the ability to have prophetic dreams in ASOIAF. Since the empires of Old Valyria and the one the First Men built in the North of Westeros were completely unrelated, it means that Daenys was born with this ability free of any connection or knowledge of wargs, greenseers, the Others etc.

Prophecies of the future we’ve seen so far have come from Bran (greenseer) and the Ghost of High Heart/Maggy the Frog (greenseer and reported Child of the Forest). When Daenerys visited the House of the Undying she saw a bunch of visions of both past and future – Rhaegar and Elia, King Aerys, the Red Wedding, an upcoming Battle at the Trident presumably between the Others and Dany riding a dragon. There’s also Patchface, a fool in the service of Stannis/Melisandre/Shireen who drowned and then washed up on shore a few days later, witless however has some prophetic ability which he puts into song. He correctly predicted Renly’s murder and the Red Wedding, however his predictions are fairly difficult to decipher. Lastly, how could we forget Melisandre? She has frequently looked into her flames and seen the future, although admittedly she often gets it wrong. She saw Bran and Bloodraven, Jon’s death, subsequent warging into Ghost and resurrection, and waay back it’s likely that she saw visions of Joffrey, Robb Stark and Balon Greyjoy all dying which prompted her to put on the leech show for Stannis and Davos.

Again, we see a magical element which is shared between several different magical factions; the First Men/CotF, Valyrians, warlocks, Drowned God followers and Red Priests. That’s proof that the ability to see into the future and resurrection are common throughout several different magical factions.

Of course, they’re not factions; we just think they are. That unspecified group of people discovered fire magic and turned it into the work of the Lord of Light, the warlocks discovered that same type of magic but have studied and interpreted it so that it appears different to fire magic, yet is in fact just a more advanced example. The first inhabitants of the Iron Islands probably discovered this power to resurrect as well and decided it was the work of the ‘Drowned God’; it’s entirely logical that a seafaring group of people would interpret such magic as the work of an ocean god.

People think that this saga is about a war between ice and fire magic, but they’re wrong – there is no war, the inhabitants of the world just think there is. They’ve been conditioned to believe in gods over thousands of years because they can’t process the idea that there aren’t any, and it’s just magic. The majority of Westeros aren’t exactly mentally advanced, and would over time split magic into factions because it related to their god. Unbeknownst to them, the same magic exists in the Land of Always Winter as it does in Asshai, however both sides are filled with people who haven’t learned to fully master it yet.

The title says that this article would partially be about the pointlessness of war, and this section is. If all magic is the same then what’s the point in creating a massive war between Others and dragons? I speak from both the perspective of the characters and from GRRM; from the former’s perspective, it’s because they’re just going along with what they think. From the latter’s, it’s because he would want to make an intelligent statement on the fact that war is pointless which hasn’t been explored in fantasy before and would further set apart ASOIAF from the rest, cementing its place in the throne room of high fantasy for decades.

The two recent major wars in Westeros have been a great source of irony because they were in the end kinda pointless. Robert’s Rebellion started because Aerys killed Brandon and Rickard Stark and demanded the heads of Robert and Ned, however it was known as ROBERT’S Rebellion because Rhaegar Targaryen supposedly kidnapped Ned’s sister Lyanna Stark, whom Robert was betrothed to and loved. Robert won the war and killed Rhaegar, however Lyanna died. It also led to the destruction of House Baratheon, House Stark (well…) and inevitably House Arryn. Sweetrobin is going to die soon and Harold Hardyng isn’t a true Arryn heir. The house Robert sought to obliterate, House Targaryen, actually lived on; Viserys, Daenerys, Aegon and (maybe) Jon are all Targaryen heirs who have been or are alive in the story.

The War of Five Kings started because there was a bastard on the throne, and it ended with the same bastard and his bastard brother sitting the Iron Throne. Out of the ‘Five Kings,’ only two lived (Stannis and Joffrey, though he died soon after), and House Tully was added to the list of ‘Destroyed Major Houses’ after the death of Lord Hoster, the capturing of Edmure and the fact that Riverrun is now overrun by Lannisters and Freys. The Starks were also kicked out of Winterfell and the Warden of the North is now Roose Bolton. Westeros has been ravaged and is ridiculously ill-prepared for the coming winter. What exactly did the war achieve, again?

I could go on; the Dance of Dragons between Aegon and Rhaenyra over who would sit the throne resulted in both their deaths and the last dragons being killed (until Drogo’s funeral pyre). The point is GRRM’s depiction of war is filled with glorious irony and is a satisfyingly realistic depiction because it shows that all sides lose, essentially. I think that the upcoming magical war between the sides of Ice and Fire will be written largely in the same way, with both sides losing in the end and the overall winner not really ‘winning’. Perhaps Daenerys and her dragons will conquer and destroy the Others, but in the process reduce Westeros to a smoking ruin. It would fit with the ‘bittersweet’ ending GRRM has talked about so often.

To put it in a real-world analogy, it’s like going to war over which hamburger is better, when in reality the hamburger both sides are championing is exactly the same.

I’m not sure whether anyone will realise until it’s too late. I would like someone like Bran or Bloodraven to come to the conclusion that this war is utterly pointless, however at this point it feels sadly unlikely. Perhaps the epilogue to A Dream of Spring will be set a long time after the story has ended with the characters indeed realising that the entire story we’ve spent years of our life dedicated to was, in essence, pointless, creating a statement on the stupidity and arrogant nature of humanity.

Wow, that was a long article.

Don’t worry, I’m done. If you read through all of that then I commend you and I hope you found my analysis and elaborate theory as fresh and exciting as I did when I came up with it. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading.