WMG / A Song Of Ice And Fire Other Prophecies

For WMG related to the prophecies of Azor Ahai and The Prince who was promised, see here.

Daenerys Prophecies

Daenerys is the 'Mummer's Dragon'.

There are theories that Aegon is fake. But what if it's the other way around and it was Daenerys and Viserys that were fakes? Illyrio is said to have Valyrian looks - and conveniently, the guardian of last two Targaryens dies off screen, making swap extremely easy. Why not put his kids on the throne while he is at it?

Now, why I say it's Aegon that is real? Simly - Connington is real, and he spent most of his life with him. Aegon being fake is much less likely, simply because he was out of Illyrio's reach much of the time. Conninton was fanatically loyal to Rhaegar, making him playing part in any funny stuff or not noticing problems with Aegon had he was fake very unlikely. But he never meets Daenerys, does he?

Now, take a look at the prophecy. "Kraken and Dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon". You might notice they come in pairs, tied to each other. Greyjoy and Red Priest, Tyrion and Connington, Prince of Dorne and... who exactly? Unless it means one of his companions, the only person tied to him was Daenerys herself, after all, he was after her hand.

Why Daenerys would be warned from herself? Because if you think about it, she is her own worst enemy. The peaceful, meek Daenerys that wants to rule slaves as "Mother" is the worst obstacle Deanerys, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, still has. She could have landed in Westeros together with Aegon, but as of A Dw D, she is alone, half naked, starving, and unarmed right in front of big group of known rapist riders, purely due to her efforts to keep Mereen peaceful.

You can ask - what about dragons? Well, maybe all that was needed to wake them up was deaths of 3 people? Dany burned her son, her husband, and the priestess - 3 lives sacrificed to fire. If Melisandre is right burning royal blood makes magic more powerful, the people involved would massively boost the spell. After all, besides dragons, Daenerys and her brother did not show anything special so far. What if her problems with taming them would disappear in an instant for Aegon? Or Jon, for that matter?

Daenerys herself will be one of the betrayers

The prophecy said, "Three betrayals shall you know, not "You will be betrayed three times" My original thought was that Daenerys would "betray" Mereen by abandoning it to go to Westros, "for blood", but the "for blood" betrayal would seem to be what Mirri Maz Duur did, so maybe she will betray someone (Probably Hizdahr0 so she can be with Daario - "for love".

• I agree. I think the three "for love" parts of that prophecy will refer to the same thing. She'll betray a lover, the first since Drogo she's genuinely loved, by killing him, like Azor Ahai killed Nissa Nissa, in order to activate whatever her equivalent of Lightbringer is (thus "lighting a fire").
• I was thinking the same thing. We also have the betrayal for 'Gold' with Viserys' golden crown...

"Beware the Perfumed Seneschal"

So, when Quaithe once again shows up to give Dany her trademark vague warnings, amongst them is the line "beware the perfumed seneschal." Dany assumes him to mean either Reznak or Hizdahr, which are both fair enough assumptions... But as always with these prophercies, she doesn't have all the information.

The warning is actually referring to the Selaesori Qhoran, the ship taking Tyrion and Moqorro toward her. Tyrion translates its Valyrian name as "Stinky Steward" but another way of saying this...

• Alternatively, Varys makes a big deal of serving the Realm and is frequently described as wearing a lot of perfume, so...
• Is there an inverse to Occam's Razor for interpreting prophecies? The more obscure of two theories almost always turns out to be right. Varys pops straight into your head, but the name of the boat requires some lateral thinking. On the other hand, Quaithe's already warned her about Tyrion and Moqorro, and the ship itself sinks before Dany ever has anything to do with it.
  • Regular Occams Razor might be applicable here. The first person that Dany thinks of when she hears the prophecy is Reznak, her actual perfumed seneschal. Seeing this as too simple, the reader automatically dismisses Reznak as the answer— but he does end up betraying her and for all we know may have had a hand in the assassination attempt. Martin may be employing the reader's mistrust of anything appearing straightforward here...

The prophecy from the very first chapter is still not fulfilled.

On their way back from the execution the Starks find a dead Direwolf (the mother of the direwolves the Stark children adopt), killed by an antler lodged in her throat. This is seen as a bad omen, because the stag is the animal of House Baratheon. It's some very blatant foreshadowing that when Robert Baratheon arrives shortly afterward, his bringing Ned to King's Landing leads to his death and the downfall of House Stark. However, I think that there may be more to that. Robert can't really be blamed for Ned's death, and neither can another Baratheon. So this omen may only be fulfilled in the future, when a Baratheon (possibly Stannis) is the one to actively kill a Stark, or (figuratively) ultimately "kills" House Stark. He is already up north, and may take Winterfell soon.

• The prophecy was fulfilled when Robert asked Ned to be the Hand of the King. That led to Ned's death and all the trouble from the first book. That's what Cat's so afraid of, when Ned tells her he's going to go south with Robert.
  • Backwards: Cat was the one who wanted Ned to take the position, because she was afraid that him refusing might make Robert his enemy (this was reversed in the TV show), but in either a particularly vicious Prophecy Twist or a case of You Can't Fight Fate, Robert ended up getting Ned killed instead of killing him himself.

The Rest of the Series According to the Prophecies

Note that none of these are particularly wild guesses, they are just interpretations of the various prophecies in the series so they may act as spoilers. Readers be warned.

• Connington’s ‘Aegon’ is false per Moqorro's vision and Quaithe's warning
• Jon is Azor Ahai per Jon's dream and Melisandre's attempts to see Azor Ahai resulting in visions of Jon
• Jon is also the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna and thus the real Aegon per Daenerys's vision of the Child of Ice and Fire and the vision of the blue rose
• Jon will possess Ghost, his direwolf, after dying and then come back to ‘life’ per the second to last vision on this page
• He will come back to life as a creature of ice like Coldhands (possibly by possessing his body which has become a Wight do to being stored away in the meat locker with the captured Wight) per Jon's Dream (specifically the bit about being armored in black ice) and Bran's dream of Jon (third to last on the page)
• Sansa kills Littlefinger per the crone on the hill (the second prediction on the page)
• Jon and Daenerys are going to be two of the three dragonriders per Daenerys's vision of the Child of Ice and Fire (specifically "The dragon has three heads" refers to the fact that there are three dragonriders and "There must be one more" refers to the fact that two of the dragonriders are in the dream and the only two people in the dream that aren't long dead are Jon and Daenerys)
• Daenerys might be restored by the flame currently sustaining Catelyn per Daenerys's vision of being restored by fire

On a non-prophecy related side note: If the dragonriders are to be balanced out since Jon is both fire and ice and Daenerys is fire, then one of the Starks (either Bran, Arya, Rickon, or Sansa) must be the last rider (and Arya or Bran are the most likely). It is likely they will be elementally balanced out simply because balance is a major theme in the book.

Responses to my theories:

• The Sansa prophercy there seems more likely to refer to Rob Arryn to me: he comes into her castle made of snow, pretending to be a giant, and she pushes him over.
  • Most likely that's another foreshadowing this time revealing that the castle 'made of snow' is Winterfell. We need to consider the Ghost of High Heart has a had a strong record with predictions, she has predicted so far some huge events, and it would be out of place for her to waste her powers on something so pointless. It makes more sense for that to be a reinforcing of the prohpecy. After all the Red Wedding, Balon's death, Purple Wedding were foreshadowed many times, for example Melisandre had seen all three, but this one was new to the reader.
• Not 'the real Aegon'. He'd be the real Aegon (who, if Young Griff isn't him, is most likely dead after all)'s bastard half-brother. And he wouldn't technically have any claim to the throne, as in Westeros illegitimate children don't seem to inherit even after all other heirs. However, that wouldn't necessarily stop him from having a go, and if he was successful, possession is 9/10 of the law.
• Dance of Dragons implied with the force of a sledgehammer that Jon's mother is just a captain's daughter that Ned was trapped on a ship with for a time. It's also stated several times that Jon looks very much like Ned Stark, who looks nothing like Rhaegar. Jon has sworn to never leave the Wall until death, and if he didn't leave it for his family I don't see a dragon changing that.
  • The force of a sledgehammer? Some character (I forget who) believed that they'd had sex; even assuming he was right, that he'd got her pregnant and the child was Jon was pure conjecture. Certainly much less compelling than the story - believed by Robert as well as by Edric Dayne - that Jon's mother was Wylla, Edric's wetnurse. As for not looking like Rhaegar, most kids in the series take strongly after one parent, the mother as often as the father. Lyanna had the Stark looks as well as Ned.

The 3 heads of the Dragon

The three heads of the dragon are Dany, Quentyn Martell, and Victarion Greyjoy.

The prophecy said that Dany would ride three mounts: "One to bed and one to dread and one to love." She's already had the one to love—Khal Drogo. The one to bed would be Quentyn, in order to cement the alliance with the Martells and fulfill Prince Doran's plans. The one to dread would be Victarion, not only because he could potentially betray her to Euron and the dragon horn, but also because he had beaten his previous wife to death.

• Not Quentyn, though not for a lack of trying on his part.
• If we assume "riding" the mounts is a literal reference to sex, then she's already ridden her three. Drogo, obviously. Daario Naharis. Hizdahr zo Loraq. Generally speaking, Drogo is probably the one to love (because she loved him), Daario is the one to bed (because it was more about the physical attraction and sex than love), and Hizdahr was the one to dread, because she only married him to stop the killings, and should have dreaded him as her potential enemy/killer.

Drogon will grow two additional heads

You guys are all being way too metaphorical about this prophecy.

Cersei's Prophecies

Theories on Cersei's childhood prophecy.

• Valonqar: It's Jaime, not Tyrion. She's been giving Jaime a lot of reasons to do so. And for the whole "little brother" thing, it will turn out that Jaime was born a few minutes after Cersei, so the prophecy will be fulfilled on a technicality. Or she has another (half) brother she isn't aware of.
  • Jaime being younger than Cersei is canon — it is described at one point that he "came out of the womb holding Cersei's foot". Ergo, he was born second and is younger than her by the barest margin.
    • Or Cersei was a breech birth.
    • Would have been mentioned. That birth got talked about a lot.
  • Jaime is definitely younger—in AFFC, Cersei specifically notes that the only thing keeping her from inheriting Casterly Rock is gender; although she and Jaime are twins, all that would matter otherwise is who came into the world first. It's stated that by Dornish Law, it would have been Cersei, not Jamie, who was Tywin's heir.
  • Cersei does indeed have two little brothers. However, it's not as clear-cut as that. Maggy the Frog specifically says "the valonqar", not "your little brother", and there are two points about this phrasing that can be made. The first is that it was specifically mentioned in reference to a different prophecy that the Valyrian "Prince that was Promised" is a mistranslation, and is not specifically male, so it's possible that no Valyrian words are gendered and "younger brother" could similarly just mean "younger sibling". The second is that Maggy says THE valonqar, not YOUR valonqar. So basically it could be any character in the series that has an older sibling, especially if it's a significant part of their character that they do: possibilities include Sandor Clegane, Kevan Lannister, Benjen, Bran, Sansa, Arya, or Rickon Stark (or Jon Snow, even if R+ L=J doesn't turn out to be true), Tommen or Myrcella, Daenarys, Margaery, Loras, or Garlan Tyrell, Brynden Blackfish, Quentyn or Trystane Martell, seven of the eight Sand Snakes, Euron, Victarion, or Aeron Greyjoy, Stannis Baratheon, or potentially even any of the Black Brothers, Silent Sisters, or Brotherhood without Banners.
    • Lets not forget Maggy's own younger relatives: Jeyne Westerling and her brothers, one of whom has a suspicious "never found the body" fate...
    • Question; does "valonqar" translate to "younger sibling" or "little sibling" specifically? If it's younger, then the above holds true. If it's little, then Tyrion is probably still the best option.
  • Here's the quote proper, so everyone remembers (young Cersei asks Maggy if she and the king will have any kids): "Six-and-ten for him, and three for you. Gold shall be their crowns, and gold their shrouds. And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you." Cersei later informs us that valonqar means "little brother". From this, you can probably rule out Jaime, since he doesn't have two hands, and any female possibilities, since even if "valonqar" is gender-neutral, Maggy specifically says "his". I also think we can rule out Tyrion because that's who Cersei thinks it is, and the characters in stories are almost never right when they offer an interpretation of a prophecy. Thus, it has to be someone's younger brother. My personal theory is that it's Stannis, since in the first part of Maggy's answer, she mentions the king ("six-and-ten for him", referring to Robert Baratheon). Robert has two younger brothers, and since Renly is dead, that only leaves Stannis. Adding to this theory, in my opinion, is the fact that Stannis has already shown the ability to long-range murder someone through the use of "shadow-babies" spawned by Melisandre. First he killed his own brother with a sword through the neck and then he managed to push Ser Courtnay Penrose off the battlements of Storm's End. Who's to say he couldn't wrap his shadowy fingers around Cersei's throat? And he also has motive; with Joffrey, Tywin and Kevan dead, Tyrion vanishing, and Tommen and Myrcella just being children, the Queen Regent is really the only one left posing any kind of Lannister-based resistance to Stannis's claim.
    • I think it has to be Tommen, based off of when this part of the prophecy is voiced. It doesn't seem to make sense that the prophecy of her death would be given to her as a response to her asking how many children she would have, unless it were directly relevant. "Will I have kids?" "Yes, and the little brother will kill you." True, it never says WHOSE little brother, but it seems that it is implying that the valonqar is the little brother among her children, meaning Tommen.
    • But doesn't the prophecy also imply that Cersei will outlive all of her children? Perhaps Tommen will kill Cersei as a wight.
    • Responding to the above, prophecies often appear to imply a lot of things that don't end up happening. If Cersei reaches the Despair Event Horizon because she believes her two remaining children are dead and/or have betrayed her and dies, only for Tommen and Myrcella to turn out to be alive and later be buried with gold shrouds long after their mother's death, the prophecy would still have come true.
    • If we're banking on a literal interpretation of the choking, it can't be a shadow-baby, because of the 'pale white hands'. If it's to be any kind of monster, pale white suggests Others - though not wights, as their hands are black. My view is it's unlikely to be a literal strangling, just a metaphor for murder. Prophesies tend to speak in metaphors.
    • It's not "pale white hands", it's "pale white throat" (please see quote above), therefore any colour hands, including shadow-hands, are a possibility
    • Also including golden ones, one might think.
    • I do apologize. You know those times when you misread something the first time you see it and then keep on reading it that way until someone points it out? I still think she's likely not to be literally choked, though.
    • What if it refers to Benjen Stark? Depending on what happened to him. He is, after all, Ned's younger brother.
    • Aegon is also a possibility. Not only is he a "younger brother", but his primary motivation for murdering Cersei (so far) would be in revenge for her family's role in his sister's death. So he would be murdering her because he is the (royal) valongar. Also the "hands" and strangling could be symbolic of military movements resulting in Cersei's deposition and death, perhaps even at the hands of her own people during a protracted siege of King's Landing - and not necessarily a physical strangling.
• Two other ways the prophesy's wording can be interpreted euphemistically, just to muddy the waters:
  • If Valonqar literally means 'little (small) brother,' it could mean a physically small person who is know as a Brother- a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, a Brother of the Kingsguard, a member of the Brotherhood Without Banners, that little begging brother Brienne was hanging around with, etc.
  • If the Valonqar is indeed Tommen, then 'his hands' could refer to the Hand of The King. Mace Tyrell currently holds that position and would love to see Cersei dead, and its been a revolving door position since well before the books anyway, so he could be joined by a past or future Hand to make it Hands, plural, and kill her in some way that can be seen as 'wrapping around her neck' such as sending her to the noose.

• It will be Ser Robert Strong/Gregorstein who kills Cersei.

Bear with me for a sec: the prophecy specifically mentioned the valonqar's hand. That can't be a coincidence. Qyburn used to run with Vargo Hoat. Hoat cut off Jaime's sword hand: Qyburn asked for it and got it (or maybe he stole it) because hey, what better sword hand for your corpse warrior than the Kingslayer's? I know the hand itself wouldn't really be able to bestow excellent swordsmanship upon the owner, but since we're talking about a friggin' Frankenstein's monster here I think we can let this one slide. Anyway, Strong is going to kill Cersei with Jaime's hand.

• Hands plural were mentioned in the prophesy, and Jaime only lost the one. That being said, it's also theorized above that the strangling in this case could be metaphorical. If both Jaime and Strong contribute in some way to Cersei's death, then it could be said that Jaime's "hands" (albeit on two different people) did her in.

• We assume that she will be killed because of her shiny personality, but what if it’s not the point? The one who kills her will do so out of pity, because “she will be drowned in tears” after losing her children, probably insane. So if she goes all Lady Macbeth, the one who loves her is going to want to end her suffering. So, I guess the valonqar is Jaime, but for a totally different reason.
• Younger queen: Daenerys, most likely. She has the motive and means to do so, and she is stated to be beautiful. Another likely choice is Sansa, who is also said to be beautiful and might become a queen via Littlefinger's manipulations.
  • And it's probably not Margaery at this point, since Cersei has her locked up by the end of the fourth book.
    • But Margaery is likely to be pardoned since she's actually innocent of the charges and is very popular with Tommen and the smallfolk. Cersei, on the other hand, is going to get hoist by her own petard in a spectacular fashion.
    • Wait, what? If she's innocent, how do you explain the Moon Tea?
    • Simple. She jumped the gun with her beloved Joffrey. She was keeping him very happy That Way, unlike his earlier betrothal to the more innocent and naive Sansa. Once Joffrey unexpectedly died, her pregnancy suddenly became a big problem. Yes that's right, Margery aborted Cersei's grandchild, although Cersei doesnt know it.
    • Maybe she's innocent, it was for one of her cousins or another, and she was hiding her? Alternatively, she may und up proven innocent. Or... She is so BadAss, she ordered herself Moon Tea to lure Cersei into action, what she'll end up turning to her advantage. Probably she'll finish off (or scare into submission) old septon to remove him as witness against her. Oh yeah.
    • It may be that she was in league with Pycelle (who was given a lot of reasons to hate Cersei in AFFC and is the source for the moon tea information) to manipulate Cersei into making accusations which could be turned against her (with the supposed defector from her retinue to Cersei being a plant who was feeding her all Cersei's plans). However, she didn't take the upsurge in religious fundamentalism and the Church's new militancy (or the fact that most people are apparantly too stupid to realise that regular horse riding could make her physically appear not to be a virgin) into account.
    • Note that Cersei's plan was for her to set the only competent Kingsguard on Margaery's champion in a trial by combat. This worked because the other decent warriors in the Kingsguard were away (Jaime's besieging Riverrun, Balon Swann is delivering Gregor's head to Dorne etc). What nobody knows, however, is that Arys Oakheart is dead, so there's likely to be a vacancy in the Kingsguard soon- possibly for Garlan the Gallant, Margaery's brother and several times stated to be the most deadly sword in Westeros, to fill.
    • While there is an open Kingsguard spot, it probably won't be Garlan filling it. He's Happily Married if you recall, and recently was given a large keep with extensive lands, turning him into a great lord in a single stroke. He's unlikely to give all that up.
    • He might do it to save his sister's life. The Tyrells seem to be a lot less dysfunctional than most Westerosi families. His sister is also the queen, her death and the shaming of her reputation could destroy his family's otherwise good position in the Game of Thrones, and lead them to ruin. And for bonus points, it's an extra slap in the face for Cersei; her own brother isn't coming to her aid, since she's burned the hell out of that bridge. The idea that Garlan would give up everything and join the Kingsguard for his sister parallels what Jaime once did for Cersei quite nicely, but without the incest angle. Just another way Mergaery is better than her.
    • While it is certainly traditional, and expected, for a Queen of Westros to have her champion be one of the Kingsguard, is it really necessary that it be so? After all, much of the irony is still intact if Margaery's bother fights on her behalf and Jamie will not do the same for Cersei, regardless of him not being one of the Kingsguard.
    • Whenever Kings' Landing does find out about Arys Oakheart's demise, Qyburn already has someone that he's lined up to be the next member of the Kingsguard (mentioned twice in aFfF, both before and after Cersei's incarceration). But the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is the one who gets to appoint new members, they've only been appointed by the Regency thus far because Jaime (who was named the new commander after Selmy was relieved) was a prisoner and unreachable.
    • What if the young queen is Margaery, but instead of actively taking action that casts Cersei down and such, she provides the motivation for Cersei to destroy herself? Would that count. Also on the Margaery-as-motivation thing, Cersei loves Joffrey and if Littlefinger is to be believed Olenna killed Joffrey to protect her.
  • Perhaps the young queen is Jeyne Westerling — Robb's wife.
    • There must be some relevance to Maggy (Maegi) being Jeyne's grandmother, after all. Why mention it so often?
    • Despite loving this theory, (Jeyne certainly deserves some good fortune), the prophecy states that the young queen will be more beautiful than Cersei is. Jeyne is stated as being pretty, but compared to Dany, Sansa or Margaery, who are all strikingly gorgeous...
    • Maybe the beauty isn't meant to be aesthetic, but internal? Jeyne is more pretty than beautiful, but it's mentioned over and over and over again how kind she is (Jaime outright tells Lady Westerling that Jeyne is worth ten of her in terms of goodness and honour), and it would be an excellent development for the queen who felt least like a queen (she says to Cat at one point "I don't feel much like a Grace") to bring down the queen who felt most like a queen.
  • ...which lead us to the younger queen being Sansa. SHE strarted the plot to remove joffrey and was UNKNOWINGLY a part of it.
  • Myrcella. Bear with me: if Myrcella gets married, then^note assuming Westerosi marriage law has a similar family-based aspect to our world's medieval laws, which it does seem to given the whole exchanging the bridecloak thing she will technically no longer be one of Cersei's children, but instead part of her new husband's family. If she's still in Dorne when this happens, or if the new husband has a claim to the throne, then she could very easily end up being the younger/more beautiful queen that supplants Cersei. This might also answer the apparent non sequitor in Maggy's prediction.
    • Now that Myrcella's face has been scarred this seems less likely. Although as of ADwD Cersei's famed beauty does seem to be... diminished.
  • Note that the prophecy doesn't say "another queen" will dethrone Cersei; it just says "another" and that this "another" is younger and more beautiful (perhaps in a metaphoric sense). Thus, it's possible that the prophesied "another" isn't from royalty or nobility. It might even be a man, especially since Cersei isn't exactly a legendary beauty anymore in the books and will likely only grow less attractive as time passes.
• Arya, despite being trained against it, will retain her identity, and with it, her quest for revenge. Since there are only a few people left, and Cersei would be the easiest to find, Faceless Man Arya will be the one that strangles her, with or without the use of her abilities to keep the prophecy intact, but deliciously subverted.
• Cersei isn't concerned with her children out of maternal instinct, but because of self-preservation. I cite Stavro Mueller Beta: Cersei cannot die until all three of her children have been crowned and died before her and the younger queen finishes her off. Part of why she's so high and mighty is because she knows until that happens, she's effectively immortal. Joff's death in Storm of Swords shook her, and now she's taking a more proactive role in her kid's wellbeing.
  • Well, if that were true, she'd keep him off the Iron Throne. High mortality rate there, and it has the advantage of proving the prophecy wrong.
  • Regarding the above, Cersei isn't exactly known for thinking things through and acting rationally. Otherwise, she would've ensured her friend Melara lived past the latter's prophesied death; instead, she actively caused it, which only gave Maggy's prophetic powers more credence. Thus, it's entirely possible that at least part of Cersei's motivation in keeping her children alive is because she thinks it will stave off her own death.
• On the fate of her children: Joffrey's dead, but Tommen and Myrcella might make it out alive. The series has done enough with fake versions of the nobility (the fake Arya) and feigned deaths (Bran and Rickon) to make sure that, just because you're fated to see your children die before you, doesn't mean they'll actually die.
  • Maybe Tyrion/or Jaime will "declare" to Cersei that their kids died from an accident. Then she'll fling herself off the wall.
  • Also, the prophecy doesn't explicitly state that seeing all her children die before her is what causes Cersei to fall into despair. It simply says, "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," before mentioning that Cersei will one day metaphorically drown in her tears. As mentioned elsewhere on this page, her children all having blonde hair could symbolize and thus count towards the "golden crowns" part of the prophecy, and if Tommen and Myrcella were buried with golden shrouds long after Cersei's death (highly likely since they're royalty and gold is among both the Lannister and Baratheon colors), the prophecy would still be fulfilled. Plus, for someone like Cersei, knowing that her two remaining children have vanished without a trace and/or turned against her probably isn't that different from knowing they've died.
• Or her younger cousin might decide the trial
• Am I the only person who thinks that the Younger Brother who will kill her might be Tommen? It'd be figurative, of course, but all they'd need to do would be to stick the piece of paper in front of him that says "Execute Cersei" and he'd place his seal on that without looking at it.
  • Tommen seems a bit wimpy for any such thing :/
    • Samwell Tarly seemed pretty wimpy, too. That's no stopper.
  • I was wondering about that; Tommen's Hand is Mace Tyrell, whose daughter Cersei is constantly scheming against, maybe one day she'll go too far and Mace will want his revenge
  • Examining the wording of the prophecy itself, it seems like it can really only be unTommen. The Maegi is specifically talking about Cersei's children; she is answering one of the direct questions Cersei was allowed to ask. Even ignoring the obvious question, within that context, of why she would give Cersei extra information about something entirely unrelated, she's already talking about Cersei's children. As in, "These will be your three children, they'll all rule, predecease you, and of those children, the younger brother's going to choke you." As we know, it's about to get colder in King's Landing, and when Tommen has a deadly visit from a few chilly gentlemen, he'll be all too happy to seek out Mommy Dearest and give her a nice big hug. Cersei is just so short-sighted that she fails to notice that anyone else would be a nonsensical non-sequitur. Jaime is a red-herring for the audience, Tyrion is a red-herring for the character. Tommen is going to get killed and shrouded in gold and then his revenant will choke Cersei. It is likely that his sister will quickly (but not immediately, because she has to rule at least for a moment, unless the "crowns" part refers to their hair) follow him into death, since his dead body probably won't be just "lying in state" for very long. The tidiest order of events has unTommen killing Queen Myrcella on his way to Cersei, since it requires the least amount of time for his body to be on display.
    • I'd have to disagree on the claim that Maggy only answers Cersei's direct questions since Maggy does at least somewhat go off on tangents. She didn't necessarily need to mention that Cersei would marry "the king" (Robert) when answering the question about whether Cersei would marry "the prince" (Rhaegar). Additionally, there wasn't a need to mention that Cersei would eventually be dethroned or add that it would be by someone younger and more beautiful; that doesn't affect how she'd become queen to begin with. Finally, Cersei just asked if she and the king will have children; Maggy could've easily answered that without adding, "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds." In addition, as acknowledged above, Myrcella might not even need to be crowned to fulfill the prophecy since she was born with blonde hair. Also, it's been mentioned elsewhere, but the prophecy stating that Cersei's three children will eventually have golden shrouds doesn't necessarily mean that they'll predecease their mother. That's only Cersei's interpretation, and she's been wrong about a lot of things. Sure, the prophecy sounds like it's saying Cersei will drown in her tears due to seeing her children all die since it mentions her doing that right after it states that her children will have golden shrouds, but false implications like this are often what lead to Prophecy Twists.
• We are all assuming that this prophecy is true. We know "Maggy" was a Meagi, but the last one of those we met turned out to be a nasty little traitor indeed. Could just be that the sour old women was just saying things? After all, Cersei blows things way out of proportion on a regular basis.
  • Is there a single other prophecy (or indeed ordinary dream) in this series that hasn't come Metaphorically True? It looks very much like You Can't Fight Fate in this universe. And what reason would she have to lie? Mirri Maz Duur had her city sacked by Dany's husband; Cersei was just rude to Maggy.
    • Dany's child will become the Stallion who mounts the world?...
    • He certainly is! All three of them are! Shit, two of them alone wrought havoc in Meereen once poor Quentyn let them out! And that's not even talking about how all her freed slaves call her "Mother".
    • Maybe this prophecy is doomed now because Myrcella can't wear a crown, lacking an ear as she does...
• All Cercei's children were born crowned with gold — they're golden-haired Lannisters when they should have been raven-haired Baratheons. Actually getting to sit on the Iron Throne itself may not matter to meet the prophecy. Our dear Maggy was telling Cersei to her face that she was going to be an incestuous adulator, instead. Perhaps.
  • In addition: being Lannister-"Baratheon"s — the odds of being sent of with shrouds of gold would be high, regardless of being rulers. The House colours of Lannister: red and gold(en yellow — for when you can't go full-on, shiny-shiny gold). The House colours of Baratheon: black and gold(en yellow). Spot the common denominator.
• Maybe the younger and more beautiful queen is a post-marriage to Aegon VI Arianne Martell? I really do hope it's Myrcella and her inner beauty, though. Kid's earned it by now, scarring-be-damned.

Franken Gregor will kill Cersei

The prophecy says that Cersei will be strangled by her younger brother's hand. Jaime (who is younger than Cersei by seconds) lost a hand to the Bloody Mummers. What if Qyburn kept it? And, in making a super-strong champion, gave it the right hand of one of the greatest swordsmen of the day- Jaime Lannister? Maggy the Frog never said the valonqar's hand would necessarily be attached to his body...

• While it's a neat idea, and may even happen, the reasoning is unsound. There's no way Jaime's hand would be in a usuable state- it was rotting even when he was being taken to Harrenhal by the Bloody Mummers, it'd be nothing but bones by the time Qyburn got around to making Ser Robert Strong.
  • It was rotting, but still intact, and Gregor's body was in pretty bad shape by the time he died, which doesn't seem to have been a problem. And if Qyburn wanted to keep it he'd have pickled it or something. It wouldn't have deteriorated much further.
• Her younger brother's hands, plural. It's interesting that this is how Shae died - Tyrion wrapped his chain of golden hands around her neck and choked the life out of her. And now that Tommen has so few living relatives left, Jaime might well be the next owner of that chain (with all the requisite sick jokes about a Hand without a hand)...
• Or better yet, it's not her valonqar that kills her, but the valonqar... as in the little brother of a guy she brought back to life, which the little brother would have a big problem with.
  • For that matter the valongar could also mean Aegon - who's motivation for killing her would stem from her family's involvement in the death of his sister.

Arya Stark is "The Valonqar"

It's been noted before that the Valyrian language doesn't have that great a distinction between male and female, as far as words go. So "valonqar" basically means younger sibling, regardless of whether it's a boy or a girl. There's the first slice of evidence.

Second, that it would be Jaime or Tyrion who kills Cersei seems a little too obvious.

Now while this doesn't discount other younger siblings who might take her out, like Daenerys or Stannis or The Hound, I think Arya is way more likely given the nature of most "prophecies" or visions of the future that we've seen come true as well as GRRM's penchant for juicy surprises.

When Maggy the Frog tells Cersei that "When your tears have drowned you, the valonqar will wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you." So Maggy apparently believed the "valonqar" to be a boy. Of course, Arya, for most of the series and her life, has been commonly mistaken for a boy. She may even disguise herself as a boy again one day, if she's going to be a Faceless Man.

On top of this, there's the fact that Arya being the one would be nice poetic justice for Cersei. She is one of the few people on Arya's death list who is still alive. She's also one of the first people to be on said death list. When you think about it, Arya and Cersei have wanted to kill each other since book one when Arya struck Joffrey. It's noted many times what a major blunder it was for Cersei that she couldn't capture or even find Arya after she betrayed Ned. And something that the HBO show has noted even more than the book's is the fact, that Arya is a bit similar to Cersei in temperament. Or rather, Arya is becoming everything Cersei wishes she were: a warrior woman and a respected leader.

It'd be nice if the moment Cersei thinks she's going to be killed by either Tyrion or Dany, it's Arya that comes out of the shadows and finishes her. Especially since it would mean she was finally able to avenge her father's death in some way.

The valonqar from the prophecy isn't a younger sibling of Cersei's — it's a younger sibling of the young and beautiful queen from the same prophecy.

Specifically, the younger and more beautiful queen is Sansa and the valonqar is Arya. The queen isn't the queen of Westeros — she's the Queen in the North. Sansa has, after all, already been responsible for the death of one of Cersei's children. Cersei also tends to think of the two of them — "The Stark girls" — as a unit, made up of the older one and the younger one (i.e. the valonqar). We also know that Valyrian nouns are gender-neutral, which doesn't make it much of a stretch to guess that the pronouns are gender-neutral as well (and that "wrap his hands" could be translated as "wrap her hands"). We also know that of Arya's list of future kills, Queen Cersei is always the last one that she names — the way that you'd name the final boss in a video game last. She's missed the chance to kill some of the people on that list, but Cersei was always the main one. And finally, oh, how incredibly sweet it would be. GRRM is good at making us miserable, but he's also good at dealing out the occasional moment of transcendent bliss (Jaime in the bear pit, the Tickler's death, what happened to Vargo Hoat, etc.), and that would definitely be one of them.

Arya is really the younger and more beautiful queen/person who will cast Cersei down

Right now, the leading fan theories on this are for Dany, Sansa, and Margaery, but they're way too obvious. Dany and Marg are clearly red herrings- Marg for Cersei since she thinks it is her and Dany for the audience because she is being set up to be in the position to fill that role, especially if we interpret the prophecy to be referring to a queen instead of just a person who may or may not be royalty or even female. But in true Martin fashion, those expectations are going to come to nothing. With Sansa, that theory just seems more like fan hopes than anything substantial.But if Arya is the younger and more beautiful one who will cast Cersei down it would be completely unexpected and almost out of no where since most don't see Arya in this way, least of all Cersei. She is obviously younger, and as far as beauty goes, Arya seems to be the ugly duckling type who is growing into her looks as the books go on. Having Cersei taken down by a younger, live version of Lyanna Stark (the woman Cersei spent the duration of her marriage living in the shadow of) would be perfect symmetry and it would explain the importance behind Arya's similarity to her aunt.

• Interesting, although a few characters note that Lyanna Stark, while pretty, was not half as beautiful as Cersei or Ashara Dayne.
  • That's true. In this series, as in life, beauty is subjective. Some say Lyanna was incredibly beautiful. Some say she was just OK, but not even close to being as beautiful as others. But Arya goes through the same thing. Some call her ugly (Arya Horseface) while others say she is attractive. Her beauty is even referenced in ADWD by another character. Plus, Cersei has aged a decade and a half since she was in her prime. It will be much easier to surpass her in beauty now.
    • Cersei was attracted to Rhaegar when she was young and he, in turn, found Lyanna more beautiful. Since Arya looks like Lyanna...

The valonqar isn't Cersei's younger brother; the valonqar is her younger sister.

Remember, at least some High Valyrian nouns are common or neuter, even ones one might expect to be masculine or feminine: we know that Maester Aemon concluded that the "Prince who was Promised" was actually a princess, Daenerys. It is therefore possible that valonqar could be a common noun, essentially "younger sibling." As such, it could refer to a younger sister as easily as a younger brother. Of course, Cersei has no sisters, only two brothers, both younger than she. But she does have three or four sisters-in-law: Selyse Florent, married to Stannis Baratheon, Margaery Tyrell (also her daughter-in-law), who was married to Renly, Sansa Stark, married to Tyrion, and Tysha, also married to Tyrion. Any one of these women could qualify as Cersei's younger sister (granted, I don't recall if we ever learn Selyse's age relative to Cersei, or Tysha's either), and any one of them would certainly have motive.

• Sansa is interesting. Unlike Margaery (that marriage was annulled), she's still legally Cersei's sister-in-law, and she would also be able to do double-duty as the "young queen" who's supposed to usurp her. Then there's the irony in Cersei having essentially played her Evil Mentor in queenliness. Finally, just think how wonderfully satisfying it would be.
• If another theory is correct, Cersei does have a younger (half-)sister, namely Marei from Chataya's brothel. Of course, Marei is barely there in the novels, however, it's possible that she can kill her in case of an Torches and Pitchforks Angry Mob uprising. There would be extra irony if Cersei gets killed in a smallfolk rebellion that could have been avoided if she focused on ruling rather than her paranoia.

The valonqar is Viserion or Rhaegal

Viserion and Rhaegal are not any younger than Drogon, but they are described as being smaller than him, and thus either would fit the bill as a "little" brother. And the valonqar having a connection to Valyria would explain why Maggy suddenly lapsed into her native tongue for one word alone, as she apparently never did that at any other point while speaking with Cersei. Daenerys is destined for a clash with the Lannisters, and a dragon's claw would have the strength to easily crush Cersei's throat, even unintentionally on their part.

Perhaps Daenerys will attempt to intimidate Cersei into surrendering by taking her on a joyride over King's Landing clutched in her dragon's talons, only for their grip to slip and start strangling Cersei. Or, Cersei might attempt suicide by leaping into the Blackwater Bay in grief after the deaths of Tommen and Myrcella ("when your tears have drowned you"), only for Viserion or Rhaegal to fish her out of the water in their claws before she could die, and then accidentally choke her to death. Either one would be a significant and unintended complication to Daenerys' ascendancy, tainting her image in the eyes of her followers, the smallfolk, and the lords of the realm.

Margaery is the younger and more beautiful queen

I know prophecies usually don't refer to the person that the characters think it is, but hear me out. The younger and more beautiful queen is supposed to take all that she holds dear. What Cersei holds dear is her children.

We know Olenna killed Joffrey, so Margaery could have been in on the plot to kill him. She helped Olenna ask Sansa for information about Joffrey, which prompted Olenna to kill Joffrey, so she could be involved. Plus, if she knew about the plan she could make sure she doesn't get poisoned by accident.

Tommen is still alive, but in the books he commits suicide because of Margaery's deaths. While we don't know how closely the books will follow the show, something like that happening does seem plausible for the characters involved. That's not exactly Margaery's fault, but is still could be viewed as 'taking Tommen from Cersei', especially to Cersei. And even if Tommen's death has nothing to do with Margaery, Margaery causing Tommen to turn away from Cersei could still count.

We don't know what happens to Myrcella in the books, the show isn't much help since the dorne subplot is so different there. While it's still plausible that someone in Dorne would kill Myrcella to get revenge for Oberyn, it's all possible that her death could have something to do with Margaery, or that Margaery could take her from Cersei in some way.