Hello enlightened fantasy fans! It's Hoodoo Joe with another episode of Fantasy or Prehistory. We're discussing the upcoming season of Game of Thrones and will be using information from trailers, leaks, leaked scenes, and tinfoil theories from the Game of Thrones community, so if that ain't cool with you better click another thumbnail now.
If you found this video chances are you've already heard a lot of the community's theories on the new season. It's pretty well established that Dany will be arriving on Dragonstone early on, that Yara and Theon will be sent to Dorne to meet with the Sandsnakes and then be captured by Euron, and that Euron will use them to broker a deal with Cersei, which probably involves marriage.
At the end of season six I did a video that predicted the pact between Cersei and Euron, but my reasoning wasn't based on leaks, and I think it's important to briefly revisit those reasons in light of the new information.
The new trailers are showing all out war in Westeros... And I just don't think war is even a possibility while Cersei and King's Landing are in their current weak condition.
It would not be a war it would be an absolute massacre.
You've got Dany, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, three full-size dragons, the North, Melissendra and some other Red Priests, High Garden, Dorne, and and the Vale against the King's Guard, the Mountain, and a pyromancer.
That's not even a challenge, and stakes get higher in great novels, not lower.
What's more, we should know by now that each new spotlight villain in game of thrones must be meaner and more depraved than the last. Despite Cersei being a mass murderer, she does not fit the bill. There's no way she can rise up to the level of Ramsey on the fan hatred index meter.
But Euron can. Easily. He's a slightly more psychopathic version of Ramsey with magic added, and he has in his possession a horn with the power to control or kill dragons. I go more into depth on this in the video from last year so the link is in the youtube video below. I do want to add that the new leaks seem to indicate that a Dragon will die in the north and be raised as an undead Dragon by the white walkers. I don't know if this will be due to Euron using the horn, or whether Euron will be stealing a different dragon than the one the white walkers obtain. It's possible that Dany ends up with only Rhaegal. But I do know this: Euron is in league with the White Walkers and the Great Other. There are several Easter eggs in the books which seem to point to this, and I also think it's necessary for the last major villain to be on the Great Other's team in order for us to finally come to understand and truly be impacted by what the White Walkers really are. I think we're going to learn their true nature and origin through Euron, and the revelations of his past. It's very possible that there's a big twist coming in which Euron betrays all of mankind to the Great Other.
I'm also holding out for Dany and Jon, like Azhor Ahai, to actually re-waken an army of dragons from the rock of Dragonstone itself, but that's something else that's also covered in my old predictions video. Imagine a climax that fills your screen with dragons.
Also in one of the trailer scenes see we see a multitude of dragon bones being made for the set. My guess is that it's for a scene in Kings Landing, and I wonder if the Knights King might be able to raise them all by season 8, with the help of his vassal Euron. It would certainly make a climactic ending to see an army of undead dragons vs. an army of stone ones.
Most likely you already know about the expedition beyond the Wall to retrieve evidence of the existence of Wights undertaken by Jon,Beric, Thoros, Gendry, Jorah, the Hound, and probably Davos. Some sources are saying that both Beric and Thoros die during the expedition when the party is surrounded by wights and white walkers. Others are saying everyone dies but Jon, who is saved by Benjen/Cold Hands. My observation is that at least the Hound must survive because we see him later in what looks like the Kings landing arena, where he and Jon are presumably showing their captured wight to Cersei. I would bet that Jorah and Davos survive as well as their character arcs cannot possibly be completed at this juncture, and Gendry has to survive to reforge a certain sword.
A very knowledgeable game of thrones reader named Steve, who we'll have on the youtube channel later, has recently shared with me his theory of the Hound's ultimate climax and demise. It's almost certain that Sandor's character arc will culminate in getting over his fear of fire in some way, and it would be just about perfect for him to meet his end by defending Sansa from the wights and with fire. I really like the idea of the Hound and Sansa becoming lovers, first put forth by the Small Council youtube group, but whether they do or not I think that the resolution of their story will revolve around restoring both their faith in the possibility of honor among knights, or knight-like heroes. Sandor, too, seems to have loved knights as a kid but was turned off to the idea by his brother's sadism, just as Sansa was turned off from such fancies by Jeoffrey's cruelty.
You've also probably already heard about Jamie giving the queen of thorns poison to save her from a worse fate when he takes High Garden for Cersei, which certainly seems like the case from the brief scene we get of the two in the previews. However we must take all of this with a grain of salt because Kent Harrington has admitted to the media that three fake scenes were filmed to throw the paparazzi off. We could also be experiencing misdirection in the trailers...maybe he's giving her something else?
It's also recently been leaked that Sam will discover something important at the Citadel in episode one of season seven and, as many have speculated, it's probably Jon's true origins as well as a new way to fight the white walkers. Some of the scenes also show him working in the lab with another maester and another maester has been cast for most of the episodes in this season. We think that this maester and Sam will also discover at cure for grayscale, and that Jorah will accompany Sam to the Wall to give Jon the new information he's discovered, which will result in the expedition beyond the wall.
Now I want to spend a little time talking about Azhor Ahai, the prince that was promised, and the prophecies of the Last Hero of the Long Night. Recently I've been watching a lot of great community videos building cases for characters other than Jon Snow being Azhor Ahai. Some of these are very convincing. Euron's story is very much like that of the Last Hero, the Drowned God, the Storm King, and the original king of the Iron Isles. Euron was reborn amid salt and smoke when he tied himself to a mast like Odysseus so that he could hear the song of the metaphorical Sirens. Jamie Lannister also fits the bill - after he loses his hand, therefore losing his old identity, he's reborn amid salt and smoke when he's in the hot tub with Brienne, and this is the first time we ever see any of his weaknesses so that we can actually sympathize with his character. Jorah too is rife with symbology recalling the legends of Azhor Ahai, the Prince, and the Last hero, as well as the Hound, Daeny, Davos, Tyrion, Samwell, Bran, Sansa, Arya, Stannis, and even Cersei and Benjen Stark.
And this isn't just tinfoil conjecture. Some of the Easter eggs that theorists have pointed out cannot be a mere coincidence. It's almost as if George Martin is using Azhor Ahai ascnsion, or the Last Hero's journey, as a template for all of his main characters' story arcs. All of these characters have something in their rebirth that signifies smoke and fire, and something that might be seen as several attempts to forge a literal or metaphoric perfect weapon. I'm not going to take time here pointing out all of the evidence for each of those, as many others have already done so and a quick search for "Who is Azhor Ahai" will yield hours of entertainment. But the point I want to make here is that Martin is including these equations on purpose and I don't think we will have real confirmation of who is Azhora Ahai because Azhor Ahai is No One, and at the same time he is all of them.
Victory over the white walkers and the long night will not come solely through the efforts of Jon Snow or Dany. Sansa will also play a necessary part, one that can't be accomplished without the sacrifice of Sandor Clegane. For the world of men to arise triumphant, Jamie will have to sacrifice his Nisa Nisa, in other words his sister Cersei. Arya's part in the war will also be no less than Jon Snows or Dany's. Who is Azhora Ahai is a matter of perspective rather than fact, and we will still be able to debate the question long after the series and books are over. Just like the characters in Martin's world seem confused over whether the Prince, Azhor, and Last Hero are the same people, so in the future they might have different opinions on which of these characters saved Westeros from the long night. If you're a citizen of Kings Landing, you might say Jamie saved you when it's all over. If you live in the North you might say Jon Snow, and if you're Dothraki or Unsullied you might say Dany. And all of these heroes might become confused with each other in the future, just like the heroes of legend seem confused with one another in the lore.
I don't think the prince that was promised is the same person as Azhor Ahai or the Last Hero. I think these are all cultural heroes that saved different peoples or nations during the last Long Night, and I think their stories are all so similar because it requires certain steps to save your people from the magic of the Other.
For instance, Many of the Gods, Kings, and Heroes in the origin stories of various peoples such as the Ironborn, Stone Men, Northerners, Dornish go through a death and rebirth that's accompanied by the help of a woman or being with blue eyes and cold lips who seems to be associated with White Walkers, Children of the Forest, or the Drowned God.
Perhaps only a person who's been altered by the magic of the Great Other has any hope of defending their people from his power, and it's always been like that.
I learned from the famous psychologist and prehistoric researcher Stan Gooch that when many theories, all based on sound research and data, seem to be true and yet contradict one another, it's possible that they could all be correct and the contradiction is only because of an erroneous perspective.
Maybe the legends are not all speaking of the same cultural hero, maybe no one is Azhor Ahai or the Prince that was Promised, but all of the heroes have traits and journeys in common with each other that will perpetuate such legends in the future nonetheless.
When I realized this might be the case I did a search trying to find out if anyone else had come to this same conclusion previously and found a very interesting video by the Israeli Game of Thrones theorists GoT Academy, and found they actually go into a lot more depth with this theory, citing historical instances where this same thing has happened in the real history books.
We won't ever get an answer as to who was really Azhor Ahai.
Having said that, I'd like to interject that Bran is probably the most important hero in the story. He's been going back to all times since the story began, and is actually all of the Brans from history, and possibly one incarnation of him is even the Night's King himself. He may be the person who began the Long Night through some terrible mistake, and has been trying for eternity to correct the error. The current story is just the time in which he finally gets it right, and maybe he's had to alter all of the lives of the aforementioned heroes in order to do so. Was it Bran who led Bran to the tower in order to discover Jaimie and Cersei? Did future Bran want current Bran to be a cripple so that he'd finally live to adulthood and accomplish his goal? The last few Brans on record were rash and died before their prime. I go into this more in a past episode on youtube and have provided a link in the video below.
I'll wrap up with just a few more predictions before the season starts. I don't think there's going to be a Clegane Bowl even though there will be a reference to it when the Hound, Jorah, and Jon display their captured wight in Kings Landing. I do think that the Hound will eventually kill his brother, but only with the help of Arya.
I think there is still the possibility of a Lady Stoneheart in the series, despite the fact that the Hound symbolically pissed in the river... But I think it's a slim chance. And honestly I don't really care - there are several characters from the books that I miss a lot more than Lady Stoneheart. Strong Belwas for instance.
And I also want to deliver a bomber about Mrs. Stark to those of you who don't know. Caitlin Stark was not only an idiot who got a lot of people killed and started a war, but she had a much darker agenda than most people realize. A rereading of her first chapter in the book Game of Thrones reveals that she conspired with Maester Luwin to get Jon sent to the wall in order to protect the future of her other children, which means that she must have known Jon Snow could be a more legitimate heir than Robb or any of the others. I don't think she knew he's a Targaeryan - I think she believes he might be a legitimate product of Ned's annulled marriage to Ashara Dane.There's good evidence that Ned Stark was married to and in love with Ashara Dane before being forced to marry Caitlin after his big brother's death. Whether Lady Stoneheart appears or not, we'll soon learn of a deeper plot Caitlin, Little Finger, and Luwin were involved in. And I'm not so sure that Peter's claim of taking Caitlin's maidenhead is a total fabrication born of Liza having impersonated her sister on a drunken night.
If you found this video chances are you've already heard a lot of the community's theories on the new season. It's pretty well established that Dany will be arriving on Dragonstone early on, that Yara and Theon will be sent to Dorne to meet with the Sandsnakes and then be captured by Euron, and that Euron will use them to broker a deal with Cersei, which probably involves marriage.
At the end of season six I did a video that predicted the pact between Cersei and Euron, but my reasoning wasn't based on leaks, and I think it's important to briefly revisit those reasons in light of the new information.
The new trailers are showing all out war in Westeros... And I just don't think war is even a possibility while Cersei and King's Landing are in their current weak condition.
It would not be a war it would be an absolute massacre.
You've got Dany, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, three full-size dragons, the North, Melissendra and some other Red Priests, High Garden, Dorne, and and the Vale against the King's Guard, the Mountain, and a pyromancer.
That's not even a challenge, and stakes get higher in great novels, not lower.
What's more, we should know by now that each new spotlight villain in game of thrones must be meaner and more depraved than the last. Despite Cersei being a mass murderer, she does not fit the bill. There's no way she can rise up to the level of Ramsey on the fan hatred index meter.
But Euron can. Easily. He's a slightly more psychopathic version of Ramsey with magic added, and he has in his possession a horn with the power to control or kill dragons. I go more into depth on this in the video from last year so the link is in the youtube video below. I do want to add that the new leaks seem to indicate that a Dragon will die in the north and be raised as an undead Dragon by the white walkers. I don't know if this will be due to Euron using the horn, or whether Euron will be stealing a different dragon than the one the white walkers obtain. It's possible that Dany ends up with only Rhaegal. But I do know this: Euron is in league with the White Walkers and the Great Other. There are several Easter eggs in the books which seem to point to this, and I also think it's necessary for the last major villain to be on the Great Other's team in order for us to finally come to understand and truly be impacted by what the White Walkers really are. I think we're going to learn their true nature and origin through Euron, and the revelations of his past. It's very possible that there's a big twist coming in which Euron betrays all of mankind to the Great Other.
I'm also holding out for Dany and Jon, like Azhor Ahai, to actually re-waken an army of dragons from the rock of Dragonstone itself, but that's something else that's also covered in my old predictions video. Imagine a climax that fills your screen with dragons.
Also in one of the trailer scenes see we see a multitude of dragon bones being made for the set. My guess is that it's for a scene in Kings Landing, and I wonder if the Knights King might be able to raise them all by season 8, with the help of his vassal Euron. It would certainly make a climactic ending to see an army of undead dragons vs. an army of stone ones.
Most likely you already know about the expedition beyond the Wall to retrieve evidence of the existence of Wights undertaken by Jon,Beric, Thoros, Gendry, Jorah, the Hound, and probably Davos. Some sources are saying that both Beric and Thoros die during the expedition when the party is surrounded by wights and white walkers. Others are saying everyone dies but Jon, who is saved by Benjen/Cold Hands. My observation is that at least the Hound must survive because we see him later in what looks like the Kings landing arena, where he and Jon are presumably showing their captured wight to Cersei. I would bet that Jorah and Davos survive as well as their character arcs cannot possibly be completed at this juncture, and Gendry has to survive to reforge a certain sword.
A very knowledgeable game of thrones reader named Steve, who we'll have on the youtube channel later, has recently shared with me his theory of the Hound's ultimate climax and demise. It's almost certain that Sandor's character arc will culminate in getting over his fear of fire in some way, and it would be just about perfect for him to meet his end by defending Sansa from the wights and with fire. I really like the idea of the Hound and Sansa becoming lovers, first put forth by the Small Council youtube group, but whether they do or not I think that the resolution of their story will revolve around restoring both their faith in the possibility of honor among knights, or knight-like heroes. Sandor, too, seems to have loved knights as a kid but was turned off to the idea by his brother's sadism, just as Sansa was turned off from such fancies by Jeoffrey's cruelty.
You've also probably already heard about Jamie giving the queen of thorns poison to save her from a worse fate when he takes High Garden for Cersei, which certainly seems like the case from the brief scene we get of the two in the previews. However we must take all of this with a grain of salt because Kent Harrington has admitted to the media that three fake scenes were filmed to throw the paparazzi off. We could also be experiencing misdirection in the trailers...maybe he's giving her something else?
It's also recently been leaked that Sam will discover something important at the Citadel in episode one of season seven and, as many have speculated, it's probably Jon's true origins as well as a new way to fight the white walkers. Some of the scenes also show him working in the lab with another maester and another maester has been cast for most of the episodes in this season. We think that this maester and Sam will also discover at cure for grayscale, and that Jorah will accompany Sam to the Wall to give Jon the new information he's discovered, which will result in the expedition beyond the wall.
Now I want to spend a little time talking about Azhor Ahai, the prince that was promised, and the prophecies of the Last Hero of the Long Night. Recently I've been watching a lot of great community videos building cases for characters other than Jon Snow being Azhor Ahai. Some of these are very convincing. Euron's story is very much like that of the Last Hero, the Drowned God, the Storm King, and the original king of the Iron Isles. Euron was reborn amid salt and smoke when he tied himself to a mast like Odysseus so that he could hear the song of the metaphorical Sirens. Jamie Lannister also fits the bill - after he loses his hand, therefore losing his old identity, he's reborn amid salt and smoke when he's in the hot tub with Brienne, and this is the first time we ever see any of his weaknesses so that we can actually sympathize with his character. Jorah too is rife with symbology recalling the legends of Azhor Ahai, the Prince, and the Last hero, as well as the Hound, Daeny, Davos, Tyrion, Samwell, Bran, Sansa, Arya, Stannis, and even Cersei and Benjen Stark.
And this isn't just tinfoil conjecture. Some of the Easter eggs that theorists have pointed out cannot be a mere coincidence. It's almost as if George Martin is using Azhor Ahai ascnsion, or the Last Hero's journey, as a template for all of his main characters' story arcs. All of these characters have something in their rebirth that signifies smoke and fire, and something that might be seen as several attempts to forge a literal or metaphoric perfect weapon. I'm not going to take time here pointing out all of the evidence for each of those, as many others have already done so and a quick search for "Who is Azhor Ahai" will yield hours of entertainment. But the point I want to make here is that Martin is including these equations on purpose and I don't think we will have real confirmation of who is Azhora Ahai because Azhor Ahai is No One, and at the same time he is all of them.
Victory over the white walkers and the long night will not come solely through the efforts of Jon Snow or Dany. Sansa will also play a necessary part, one that can't be accomplished without the sacrifice of Sandor Clegane. For the world of men to arise triumphant, Jamie will have to sacrifice his Nisa Nisa, in other words his sister Cersei. Arya's part in the war will also be no less than Jon Snows or Dany's. Who is Azhora Ahai is a matter of perspective rather than fact, and we will still be able to debate the question long after the series and books are over. Just like the characters in Martin's world seem confused over whether the Prince, Azhor, and Last Hero are the same people, so in the future they might have different opinions on which of these characters saved Westeros from the long night. If you're a citizen of Kings Landing, you might say Jamie saved you when it's all over. If you live in the North you might say Jon Snow, and if you're Dothraki or Unsullied you might say Dany. And all of these heroes might become confused with each other in the future, just like the heroes of legend seem confused with one another in the lore.
I don't think the prince that was promised is the same person as Azhor Ahai or the Last Hero. I think these are all cultural heroes that saved different peoples or nations during the last Long Night, and I think their stories are all so similar because it requires certain steps to save your people from the magic of the Other.
For instance, Many of the Gods, Kings, and Heroes in the origin stories of various peoples such as the Ironborn, Stone Men, Northerners, Dornish go through a death and rebirth that's accompanied by the help of a woman or being with blue eyes and cold lips who seems to be associated with White Walkers, Children of the Forest, or the Drowned God.
Perhaps only a person who's been altered by the magic of the Great Other has any hope of defending their people from his power, and it's always been like that.
I learned from the famous psychologist and prehistoric researcher Stan Gooch that when many theories, all based on sound research and data, seem to be true and yet contradict one another, it's possible that they could all be correct and the contradiction is only because of an erroneous perspective.
Maybe the legends are not all speaking of the same cultural hero, maybe no one is Azhor Ahai or the Prince that was Promised, but all of the heroes have traits and journeys in common with each other that will perpetuate such legends in the future nonetheless.
When I realized this might be the case I did a search trying to find out if anyone else had come to this same conclusion previously and found a very interesting video by the Israeli Game of Thrones theorists GoT Academy, and found they actually go into a lot more depth with this theory, citing historical instances where this same thing has happened in the real history books.
We won't ever get an answer as to who was really Azhor Ahai.
Having said that, I'd like to interject that Bran is probably the most important hero in the story. He's been going back to all times since the story began, and is actually all of the Brans from history, and possibly one incarnation of him is even the Night's King himself. He may be the person who began the Long Night through some terrible mistake, and has been trying for eternity to correct the error. The current story is just the time in which he finally gets it right, and maybe he's had to alter all of the lives of the aforementioned heroes in order to do so. Was it Bran who led Bran to the tower in order to discover Jaimie and Cersei? Did future Bran want current Bran to be a cripple so that he'd finally live to adulthood and accomplish his goal? The last few Brans on record were rash and died before their prime. I go into this more in a past episode on youtube and have provided a link in the video below.
I'll wrap up with just a few more predictions before the season starts. I don't think there's going to be a Clegane Bowl even though there will be a reference to it when the Hound, Jorah, and Jon display their captured wight in Kings Landing. I do think that the Hound will eventually kill his brother, but only with the help of Arya.
I think there is still the possibility of a Lady Stoneheart in the series, despite the fact that the Hound symbolically pissed in the river... But I think it's a slim chance. And honestly I don't really care - there are several characters from the books that I miss a lot more than Lady Stoneheart. Strong Belwas for instance.
And I also want to deliver a bomber about Mrs. Stark to those of you who don't know. Caitlin Stark was not only an idiot who got a lot of people killed and started a war, but she had a much darker agenda than most people realize. A rereading of her first chapter in the book Game of Thrones reveals that she conspired with Maester Luwin to get Jon sent to the wall in order to protect the future of her other children, which means that she must have known Jon Snow could be a more legitimate heir than Robb or any of the others. I don't think she knew he's a Targaeryan - I think she believes he might be a legitimate product of Ned's annulled marriage to Ashara Dane.There's good evidence that Ned Stark was married to and in love with Ashara Dane before being forced to marry Caitlin after his big brother's death. Whether Lady Stoneheart appears or not, we'll soon learn of a deeper plot Caitlin, Little Finger, and Luwin were involved in. And I'm not so sure that Peter's claim of taking Caitlin's maidenhead is a total fabrication born of Liza having impersonated her sister on a drunken night.
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