Winter Is Coming is a place to find the latest Game of Thrones and Song of Ice and Fire-related news, editorial content, and beyond. The WiC Club is a place to find…more of that, but deeper, denser and occasionally darker. Over on our Patreon page, we’re giving out tee-shirts and stickers, getting drunk with members, and writing articles and making videos about topics too hot for the rest of the internet.
This week’s article is about an old standby of a Song of Ice and Fire subject: prophecy, specifically this one, delivered to Daenerys Targaryen during her visit to the House of the Undying in A Clash of Kings:
"…three heads has the dragon… the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air… mother of dragons… child of storm… The whispers became a swirling song… three fires must you light… one for life and one for death and one to love… Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt… three mounts must you ride… one to bed and one to dread and one to love… The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath… three treasons will you know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love…"
George R.R. Martin sure knows how to keep the mystery in the relationship, huh?
The prophecies from A Song of Ice and Fire are deemphasized on HBO’s Game of Thrones, but among book fans, there’s a rich body of debate over what they mean. We come at it from both a literal angle, trying to untangle exactly what events the Undying are foretelling (or in some cases, recounting), and a meta-textual angle, asking what Martin wants to accomplish by including the prophecies at all. Who’s being played: Daenerys or us?
All that and more is happening over at the WiC Club. We’d love to see you around!
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