Let's Talk About What These "Game Of Thrones" Prophecies Actually Meant

Now that the show is over, let's look back at those tricky prophecies.

Prophecies and visions have played a big part in the Game of Thrones story – more so in the books, but they’ve still featured heavily in the show.

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They seemed to foreshadow significant events and formed the core of many, many fan theories. Now that the show is over, let’s take a look at how they actually played out (or rather, whether they did at all…)

1. The prince that was promised

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This is probably the biggest prophecy in both the books and the show. Melisandre and her fellow Lord of Light worshippers are the ones who mention it on screen, with Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen both being suggested as the ~chosen one~ who would end the darkness (read: White Walkers) and bring about the dawn.

They each fit the criteria for the prophecy – and yet neither of them was the one who ultimately brought down the Night King. Arya, meanwhile, doesn’t fulfil the prophecy at all.

However, Dany and Jon did come together to defeat the Night King, and without them, Arya wouldn’t have been in place to kill him. You could also make the argument that Jon was the prince that was promised, and the true darkness he ended was Daenerys herself. Either way, it might not be entirely straightforward, but it does seem like this prophecy was fulfilled on the whole.

2. Mirri Maz Duur’s curse

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When Daenerys discovers Khal Drogo is in a vegetative state after Mirri Maz Duur’s blood magic spell, she asks when he will return to her. Mirri Maz Duur responds, “When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east. When the seas go dry. When the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.” In the books, Mirri Maz Duur adds “When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.” This part was omitted from the show, although its meaning was retained – when Daenerys refers to Mirri Maz Duur saying she can’t have children, she seemingly means this statement, even though we never saw it on screen.

A lot of fans thought that when the criteria was symbolically met (as it seems to be already in the books), Dany would find love again and become pregnant. There was a popular theory that her and Jon’s baby would in fact be the prince that was promised. The show even seemed to foreshadow it in Season 7. As we know, this entirely went down the drain in Season 8. Dany never got pregnant, and although she found love with Jon, he murdered her. I guess Drogo kind of returned to her in the end, if you count the fact they’re both dead now. But ultimately this prophecy – or curse – remains unfulfilled within the show canon.

3. Maggy the Frog’s predictions

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As a young girl, Cersei receives a prophecy from a woman called Maggy the Frog. We see this in a flashback in Season 5 of the show. Maggy tells Cersei:

• “You will never wed the prince. You will wed the king.” This comes true – instead of marrying Prince Rhaegar, who Cersei was promised to at the time, Cersei married King Robert.

• “You’ll be queen for a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold dear.” There’s always been a lot of speculation about who the “younger, more beautiful” queen would be. Margaery could fit the bill, although Cersei did become queen again after Margaery died. Daenerys, of course, literally cast Cersei down under a pile of rubble, wiping out everything she held dear, most importantly her own damn life. So yeah, this came to pass too.

• “The king will have 20 children and you will have three. Gold will be their crowns. Gold their shrouds.” This is where things get tricky, because in Season 1 Cersei said she had a child with Robert who died as an infant – a baby who doesn’t exist in the books. So technically she had four kids, plus the baby she was pregnant with when she died. Honestly I think this was just the show getting a bit sloppy with continuity, although if you want to justify it, you can say that Cersei only had three children who got to grow up (or, at least, become teenagers). And they all died before her.

There’s another part of Maggy the Frog’s prophecy that was omitted from the show – about the valonqar or “little brother” choking the life out of Cersei. A lot of people predicted this would still happen in the show, believing Jaime would be the one to kill Cersei. As we know now, that didn’t happen. But since the show never included this part of the prophecy anyway, I guess it doesn’t really count?

4. Bran will fly

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When Bran first meets the Three Eyed Raven (you know, the old guy in the tree), he’s told “You’ll never walk again, but you will fly.” A lot of fans took this to mean he would ride and/or warg into a dragon. That obviously didn’t turn out to be true. Instead, the line is a hint that Bran would become the Three Eyed Raven himself. And if you want to get super physical about it, he did warg into a bunch of birds, so I guess that’s him “flying”.

5. The eyes Arya will shut

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Back in Season 3, Melisandre meets Arya and makes a comment about the darkness in her that will shut "brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes" forever. During the Battle of Winterfell, Melisandre repeats this prediction to Arya, emphasising the "blue eyes" to let her know it's her that needs to kill the Night King. While some fans thought the "green eyes" would be Cersei or Dany, the truth is Arya has killed a lot of people and some of them definitely had green eyes. So this prophecy was fulfilled.

6. The voice in the flames

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When Varys was castrated as part of a blood ritual, he heard a “voice in the flames” that has haunted him his whole life. Fans have long been curious about what the voice was, what it said and what it all meant. It seemed to have significance in the show, after all – Kinvara the red priestess mentions it to Varys in Season 6 in a speech about how things happen “for a reason”. Unfortunately, Varys died and the show ended without revealing who or what the voice was. Could it have been his own screams as he was burned alive by dragonfire? I guess we’ll never know.

Never forget, George R. R. Martin wrote in A Dance With Dragons, "prophecy is like a half-trained mule. It looks as though it might be useful, but the moment you trust in it, it kicks you in the head."

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