This Game Of Thrones Theory Changes EVERYTHING

The Eldritch Apocalypse is coming. (Yeah I had to google "Eldritch" too)

First, let's be clear. We're going to be talking about the books here, people, not the HBO show.

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True fans only beyond this point.

Second, we are going to be wading deep into some crazy shit here- some real specific, nerdy stuff.

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This isn't amateur hour folks.

Finally, we're headed deep into spoiler territory (including released chapters from The Winds of Winter), so for the love of Rh'llor, please do not go past here if you have not finished ADWD.

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And may the Mother help you if you don't know what ADWD is.

The theory revolves around this guy, Euron Greyjoy:

Game of Thrones Wikia / Via gameofthrones.wikia.com

Wait no, sorry, not him. This guy is the male equivalent of show Sand Snakes- a B-list villain who never comes close to living up to his own hype.

Starting again: The theory revolves around THIS GUY, Euron Greyjoy.

asoiaf.westeros.org / Via awoiaf.westeros.org

Who is a badass pirate king, a devilishly handsome (one-eyed) brute, and brother-murdering, bona-fide psychopath. And (tbh), to some, still a B-list villain. But we're here to change that opinion.

Now, A Feast For Crows established a few important things about Euron, first:

asoiaf / Via awoiaf.westeros.org

...he owns a dragon horn! As in, a horn that can literally BIND DRAGONS TO HIS WILL.

The Importance of Horns

This dragon horn is important. First because it probably works- Valyrian dragonlords used magic horns and sorcery to control their dragons. And now we've got a dude who announced his presence at the kingsmoot by having his crew blow three blasts on the great dragon-binding horn. But there is another horn in Westeros worth watching: the Horn of Joramun.

The Horn of Joramun

The Horn of Joramun, as we can remember, is the one with the power to bring the Wall crashing down. Mance claimed to have found it, and Melisandre burned that horn, but Tormund later tells Jon that it was a giant's horn that they'd passed it off as real. The real one's location is left unknown. So where is it? The only other horn of significance in the story is a small, old warhorn found on the Fist of the First Men. That horn was found by Jon Snow, and given to his friend Samwell Tarly, who has conveniently arrived in Oldtown to study as a maester- the same city about to be attacked by Euron.

The Dragonbinder

Some people (and Victarion) seem to think that if Victarion blows that horn that Euron gave him, then a dragon will be bound to him, and he will get to marry Daenerys instead. But it certainly seems unlikely that Euron would ever hand that sort of power over to his brother. A far more likely explanation? Euron has made sure that no matter WHO blows that horn, the dragon will be bound to him. When Victarion blows it, he will be burnt from the inside just the same as the others, and the dragon who hears its call will shoot like an arrow toward Westeros.

Dany's reaction to this is as yet unknown.

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You and What Army? Euron's Attack on Oldtown

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So let's ignore the horns for a second- both of them control things a world away- the Wall, and dragons. Euron is still over in southern Westeros.

By the end of ADWD, Euron is sailing south toward Oldtown, where Paxter Redwyne waits with his fleet, but to understand what will happen here, we have to go to the reference book.

In A World of Ice and Fire, Martin reveals a few similarities about the seat of the Greyjoys and of the Hightowers of Oldtown:

The throne of the Greyjoys, carved into the shape of a kraken from an oily black stone, was said to have been found by the First Men when they first came to Old Wyk.

Even more enigmatic to scholars and historians is the great square fortress [in Oldtown] of black stone that dominates that isle. For most of recorded history, this monumental edifice has served as the foundation and lowest level of the Hightower, yet we know for a certainty that it predates the upper levels of the tower by thousands of years.

An even more fanciful possibility was put forth a century ago by Maester Theron. Born a bastard on the Iron Islands, Theron noted a certain likeness between the black stone of the ancient fortress and that of the Seastone Chair, the high seat of House Greyjoy of Pyke, whose origins are similarly ancient and mysterious. Theron's rather inchoate manuscript Strange Stone postulates that both fortress and seat might be the work of a queer, misshapen race of half men sired by creatures of the salt seas upon human women. These Deep Ones, as he names them, are the seed from which our legends of merlings have grown, he argues, whilst their terrible fathers are the truth behind the Drowned God of the ironborn.

So these beings, the "Deep Ones", existed back probably around the time of the children of the forest and such. Up to this point we've assumed it was pretty much just the Others and the Children wandering around, yet Martin has always made it clear that krakens are real too, so why not these creatures? And when the Andals came, would they not have retreated into the sea, just as the Children retreated to their trees?

Kaiju Attack(?)

So we can safely assume that, just as the children are real, and the Others, and krakens, and all the rest, that beneath the sea there are merlings and their forefathers, the "Deep Ones". But by far the most important submarine character has been the "Drowned God" that Aeron Greyjoy (Euron's little brother) is always praying to. Martin has implied that the old gods are truly just the greenseers speaking through the trees, thus gods are not literal gods- they are just things that mortal men cannot understand. The WOIAF heavily implies that the Drowned God is truly a gigantic Cthulhu creature. While I'll go into how this creature could appear, it would be such a GRRM twist for Aeron's prayers to at last be answered, and the Drowned God emerge- only for Aeron to realize that the "God" does not care about him in the slightest. Oldtown, by the way, would not stand a chance.

Release the Kraken!

Via pre05.deviantart.net

Below the thunders of the upper deep, far far beneath in the abysmal sea, the kraken sleepeth. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

But maybe you don't buy into all of this? Maybe this is all a bit too far fetched. But see, here's the kicker. George RR Martin has not released many chapters of The Winds of Winter online, but he has read some out loud at conventions, and one of those chapters in particular is worth a closer look: an Aeron chapter (which can be read along with analysis here):

In this chapter, Aeron (a priest of the "Drowned God"), has begun to have visions (and visions, as all ASOIAF fans know, are extremely telling). Here are a few passages:

He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible. Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered round his feet and a forest burned behind him…
Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. "Kneel, brother," the Crow's Eye commanded…
"Never. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!"
"Why would I want that hard black rock? Brother, look again and see where I am seated."
Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow's Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood.
Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith…even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.
And there, swollen and green, half­-devoured by crabs, the Drowned God festered with the rest, seawater still dripping from his hair.

And later..

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood­-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman's form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed…

And lastly, this new chapter ends with Euron strapping his brother Aeron, along with septons, priests of Rh'llor, and others, to the prows of his ships as figureheads.

Do you need more proof? Aeron sees four important things:

1) The longships of the ironborn burnt on a blood sea

2) The many gods of many religions, dead.

3) The bride of Euron, who sounds like the bride of the Night's King

4) Euron laughing above it all.

Recall that Moqorro too has had visions of Euron: "a tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood."

Euron does not believe in gods, and says as much in this chapter. But he clearly plans to become a "god" himself. Aeron has seen the fleet of the ironborn burning- and so we know Euron does not plan to win the coming battle. He has strapped priests to the front of his ships; he is preparing them and his men for some grisly sacrifice to the deep (the dead gods of the vision). Thus Euron will rise on a wave of dark magic and power, and eventually, he will be wed to a terrible dark bride- when at last the Others come south, he will make himself the new Night's King.

So, wait, what does this mean? What is going on??

Well, quite a lot. But here's the basics:

Euron will sail his fleet into battle against the Redwynes in front of Oldtown. And when he does, he will use the carnage (and the blood of the priests strapped to his ships), to make sure the sea runs red with blood.

This great blood sacrifice- a blood-red sea- will awaken...something...in the deep. Maybe a great Cthulhu or an army of Deep Ones, or both, and Euron will use them to destroy everything he can.

Meanwhile, Victarion will use his horn, and a dragon will be bound- but for Euron, not Victarion. And when it arrives in Oldtown, Euron will have his sea creature(s), a dragon, and whatever other advantages he found in his journeys to Valyria. And in Oldtown, amidst the carnage, he will find the Horn of Joramun and bring down the Wall, eventually allowing him to create an alliance with the Others.

Maybe some of these specifics will be wrong, but one thing is certain: a great deal of uncommonly powerful forces are converging on Oldtown, a city that till now has been completely spared by the wars of ASOIAF. When they do come together, something is going to happen.

"Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes." - Leo Tyrell, student at the Citadel, A Feast For Crows

All eyes are pointed north to the Wall, or east, to Storm's End where Aegon now sits. But they should look to their west, where Euron Greyjoy speeds south to Oldtown.

The apocalypse is coming to Westeros, and it's nothing like you ever expected.

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For more reading on the "Eldritch Apocalypse" Theory, go and visit Poor Quentyn , who gets all credit. You can also find a summary of more evidence here