Anticipation is high for the return of Game Of Thrones for its seventh season this July. While the fears of the show rushing into uncharted territory are present, most are still excited to see their favorite characters launch into the great war we’ve been building to all this time. Before an ultimate battle with the White Walkers, the forces of Westeros seem to have to deal with each other and the person who sits on the Iron Throne: Cersei Lannister. At least that’s what the trailer seems to be hinting at.
The shortened 7-episode season is sure to pack plenty of action, but a small detail from the trailer has a few folks thinking that the fate of the queen is sealed and a prophecy will be fulfilled. According to Joanna Robinson over at Vanity Fair — and some fine sleuthing over at Reddit — it would seem that one scene from the trailer hints at more than you’d think. And of course, it once again gives the book readers a leg up on folks just watching the show.
Here we see Cersei standing on the large map of Westeros opposite her brother, Jaime. The details are tiny, as pointed out in the Vanity Fair piece, but they could mean a lot if the details presented in the book hold up. Cersei is standing on “The Neck,” which is a swampy area that narrows and “forces armies on both sides into a bottleneck,” while Jaime stands at “The Fingers.” There’s plenty of detail about these areas in the source article, but the important detail lies in the name and the prophecy that told Cersei about the death of her children and, in the book, her own demise:
The HBO series showed part of this book scene in Season 5. It’s where Cersei learned, quite accurately, that all three of her children would die before her: “gold will be their crowns and gold their shrouds.” But in the book there’s a section of Maggy’s prophecy that foretells Cersei’s death as well. After the death of her children “when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”
As Robinson points out, “valonqar” means “little brother” in high Valyrian and it apparently points to an obvious culprit:
It is certainly not hard to picture Tyrion being the one to end his sister’s reign by taking her life. She did treat him like dirt throughout the series, tried to have him killed, rooted for his death when he was on trial, and has had a fairly antagonistic relationship with him from birth. It makes sense and falls in line with what we’re about to see go down with Tyrion supporting Daenerys and her invading army.
But, as noted in Vanity Fair, the obvious path isn’t always the one chosen by George R.R. Martin. While David Benioff and D.B. Weiss might opt to go the obvious route, the author of the books could throw folks a curveball or two. Jaime Lannister is also technically a “little brother” despite being a twin, with Robinson noting that Cersei says Jaime “came into this world holding my foot.” Tyrion has already dispatched his father in the series, so he’s had some blood on his hands. Maybe having Jaime take out his sister and put an exclamation point on this character arc is the right path for the show to take. And if it does take this, the visual from the trailer is a nice treat for those with the information.
Obviously there a lot more information to dig into from the season 7 trailer and this observation. We’ll have to wait until the season begins for any concrete info, but it is just nice to be close once again.
(Via Vanity Fair / Reddit)
