#except i can't figure out any songs that would fit here that end in thirty seconds of silence

[softgrungeprophet]

sometimes when i make a playlist i don't care about the order... sometimes all i care about is that it's book-ended by two specific songs or that it starts or ends with a particular song, but other than that it doesn't matter.

and sometimes i have to inject artificial softening so i can transition more smoothly into a romantic soul song after ramping the playlist up to nine inch nails...

[fortunatelylori]

Do you subscribe to the theory that Jamie is The Prince that was Promised/Azor Ahai? It certainly makes a lot of sense. I can't see anyone being Nissa Nissa but Cersei. There just aren't too many true couples on this show and if anyone was going to kill their loved one it would be him for so many reasons. I mention this because it could tie into the whole Sansa kidnapping plot. I can see this actually happening first. Jon will definitely put WW on hold for Sansa. Jamie killing Cersei

Also, Dany could fulfill the Younger more Beautiful Queen. This needs to happen before Cersei dies and Sansa just doesn’t fit that role yet. Dany could very well end up in KL trying to take the Throne from Cersei instead of helping with the WW. Sansa taking everything she holds dear also really doesn’t fit. I mean she thinks she took Joffrey from her but she really didn’t. But what she holds dear now is power. And the only realistic threat to that at the start of 7 is Dany.

So maybe Dany is on the Throne pretty early and during the WW? Sorry for the long ask. Thank you for answering!

Hey, nonnie!

Firstly never apologize for long asks. I love hearing from you guys. :)

Onto the questions: 

Do you subscribe to the theory that Jamie is The Prince that was Promised/Azor Ahai?

No, I don’t. For one, I’m not convinced that The Prince that was Promised and Azor Ahai are the same person. Melisandre is the only one to mention both prophecies as pertaining to the same person but Mel is an especially unreliable prophecy reader. Aside from her, Maester Aemon mentions the Prince that was promised as well but makes no mention of Azor Ahai and it seems that Rhaegar first believed he was the prince that was promised to then switch and think that his son by Elia Martell was this prohecized hero. And because Rahegar was an idiot who could bungle a glass of water, he also believed that this was somehow related to the Dragon must have 3 heads prophecy of which we know absolutely nothing at this point. 

Here’s what we know about the prince that was promised. He was “Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star” and: 

The prince is said to have “a song”, the song of ice and fire. 

We don’t know if Rhaegar also believed the prince that was promised was Azor Ahai so the entire connection between these 2 prophecies seems to come from Melissandre. And again, I wouldn’t put much stock in what she thinks because she’s a religious fanatic who actually manipulates events to suit the prophecy (having Stannis pull a fake Lightbringer from the flames on Dragonstone) because she really, really wants it to be true. 

I’m pretty sure the prince that was promised is Jon. His is the only story that is linked to both fire and ice. He is the literal product of the song of ice and fire (the son of a Targareyen and a Stark) and his story is connected to both ice and fire through out. He fights against Ice in the form of the White Walkers and he encounters both the false Azor Ahai (Stannis) and now D*ny, who is the person associated the most with fire in the series. If the Dance of Dragons 2.0 and dark D*ny theories become canon, his song of ice and fire would be his titular role in both these great wars that are about to visit Westeros. 

But this is only supposition on my part at the moment because we simply do not have enough information to make an informed guess on this theory. 

Now, onto Azor Ahai. Who is this guy? According to the Ice and Fire wiki: 

Darkness lay over the world and a hero, Azor Ahai, was chosen to fight against it. To fight the darkness, Azor Ahai needed to forge a hero’s sword.[3] He labored for thirty days and thirty nights until it was done. However, when he went to temper it in water, the sword broke. He was not one to give up easily, so he started over.

The second time he took fifty days and fifty nights to make the sword, even better than the first. To temper it this time, he captured a lion and drove the sword into its heart, but once more the steel shattered.[3]

The third time, with a heavy heart, for he knew beforehand what he must do to finish the blade, he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.[3]

Although he had Lightbringer, Azor Ahai did not fight alone.[5] The Jade Compendium mentions that when the hero thrust the blade through a monster, the creature burst into flame.[6]

So Azor Ahai is a mythical figure that hails from Asshai and he kills his wife in order to forge a sword that then kills creatures by bursting them into flames. Cool … 

Now, considering that this legend comes from across the world from the place where the Long Night happened, that this grisly tale of human sacrifice is toted around by religious fanatics who then use it to burn people at the stake, does it seem likely to you that this guy is meant to be the savior of humanity? Does it seem likely that this obsession with fire could actually lead to defeating the WWs, creatures we know are impervious to fire? 

Also, note that the actual story of Azor Ahai is not told to us by Melissandre, Azor Ahai’s greatest fan girl but rather it’s told to Davos by his pirate friend, as a cautionary tale about the dangers of believing in prophecies and the dark underbelly of blood magic. 

I think it’s far more likely that Azor Ahai is not a hero. He’s a villain and the elemental opposite to the Night King.  R'hllor followers herald Azor Ahai’s second coming with such encouraging words as: “ he will bring an eternal summer” which sounds great if you worship fire but in reality an eternal summer is about as bad as an eternal winter. If the WWs unbalance the world by plunging it into night and winter, Azor Ahai is supposed not to bring balance back but to unbalance it in the opposite direction. 

Considering the placement of Azor Ahai in complete opposition to the WW and the obsession with fire of the followers of R’hllor, I’d say that the best candidate for this position is one D*enerys Targareyen, which doesn’t sound surprising since many people theorize the same. The twist is that AA was never meant to be a hero but rather an antagonist. @trinuviel has a fantastic series regarding this topic and I would encourage you to read it. She goes into a lot more detail than I am able to provide. 

If anyone is destined to be the hero to save the world from the Long Night that character is Bran Stark. Except that his story doesn’t link to Azor Ahai but rather to the legend of the Last Hero, who is also identified as Bran the Builder (this connection is not fully established yet but I believe the characters of the Last Hero and Bran the Builder to be one and the same). What do we know about the Last Hero? 

Legends of the north state the last hero and his companions went in search of the children of the forest during the Long Night, thousands of years ago. The only survivor of the company after attacks from giants, wights, and Others, the last hero eventually reached the children and gained their assistance. The Night’s Watch then formed and won the Battle for the Dawn. This ended the generation-long winter and sent the Others into retreat,[1]possibly to the Land of Always Winter. The fate of the last hero is unknown.

If the theory that Bran the Builder and the last hero being the same person is true, then we also know that this first Bran (who incidentally is mentioned in connection to our Bran in the series by Maester Luwin), with the help of giants and the children of the forest, also built the Wall to keep the WWs at bay. So the legend in Westeros, the epicenter of the first Long Night, includes no human sacrifices and no mention of fire but does include a Wall that still stands to this day that has magical properties. 

As for Nissa Nissa, it’s hard to know who or what she represents at this point. We don’t know how much of Azor Ahai’s story is made up or embellished and we don’t know the true purpose of this story. I don’t think the show will shed much light on this since the Nissa Nissa story is never really brought up in the show. What I do believe is that no matter what this turns out to be, it won’t be played straight. In a series that has highlighted the dangers of prophecies, I just can’t see a human sacrifice, if it does anything, to lead to anything good or at least to its intended purpose (people theorize that the burning of Shireen paid for Jon’s life, however that was not the intended purpose of that sacrifice, nor is that an element present in the repeated resurrections of Beric Dondarrion). 

I do think Jaime is the valonqar that “shall wrap his hands about Cersei’s pale white throat and choke the life from her” but I don’t think that has anything to do with the Azor Ahai and/or Prince that was promised prophecies. 

Also, Dany could fulfill the Younger more Beautiful Queen. This needs to happen before Cersei dies and Sansa just doesn’t fit that role yet.

I disagree. I believe that D*ny is a red herring for this prophecy, much in the same way that Maergery was a red herring. D*ny seems the obvious answer but her story isn’t linked to Cersei’s in any way. Their clashing is incidental, because one sits the Iron Throne and the other covets it. There’s nothing personal there to make the fulfillment of this prophecy resonate. 

Aye. Queen you shall be… until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.

You could assume that this “other” is another queen but it need not be. “Another” could simply refer to another person/woman. Or Sansa could be queen by that point. That is also possible. If the marriage between her and Jon happens prior to the downfall of Cersei, she could be another queen. Also Sansa has been intimately involved in all of Cersei’s tragedies even though she is not directly responsible. She was the one that carried the poison that killed Jofferey, the war with her brother is the reason why Mycella was sent to Dorne, Jofferey’s death leads to Tommen becoming king and eventually killing himself. And, by the end of this series, Sansa might end up as queen of the Seven Kingdoms effectively replacing Cersei. 

It isn’t that Sansa is directly responsible for what happens to Cersei but that she ends up taking everything from her in a way that no one could have predicted unless you look back at the events. This is the type of twist that GRRM loves to use with his prophecies, whereas D*ny being the YMBQ would be playing it straight and rather uninspiringly so. 

There’s also the matter of D*ny being foreshadowed never to touch the Iron Throne. They made a point of showing it in the series so I’m pretty certain D*ny will never sit down in that chair or be Queen of the 7 kingdoms even temporarily. 

Thanks for the ask!