“An ant who hears the words of a king may not comprehend what he is saying,” Melisandre said, “and all men are ants before the fiery face of god. There’s a particular quote that in A Storm of Swords that I find very intriguing because when seen in a Doylist perspective it subtly introduces the notion that perhaps we should doubt the very foundation of the prophecy of Azor Ahai come again. How Dany’s narrative arc as a failed saviour will impact her role as Azor Ahai come again.The possibility of a Prophecy Twist, which means that the prophecy has been misread on a very fundamental level.The focus in this post will therefore be on two different issues that may very be related in a surprising way: This requires a closer look at Dany’s arc itself and how her desire to save people often comes into conflict with her more impatient and violent impulses that repeatedly result in Fire and Blood - qualities closely associated with the Targaryen heritage that she is so determined to reclaim. If you takes this statement, as well as GRRM’s tendency to subvert and examine common fantasy tropes, I find it doubtful that GRRM will play such as common fantasy trope as The Chose One straight. One of the themes of my fiction, since the very beginning, is that the characters must make their choices, for good or ill. it is their thoughts, beliefs and actions that are important in GRRM’s story because his interest is primarily in the choices the characters make - and prophecy gives him a way to present his characters with difficult choices: If prophecy isn’t really very useful to the characters then what is its use in the narrative? In many respects, it is not the prophecies themselves but rather they way they impact the characters, i.e. I’ve previously written about how the readers should mistrust prophecy instead of making the same mistake as Melisandre (identifying a promised saviour) or Cersei (trying to avoid a prophecy) In GRRM’s world, prophecies are mostly murky and misleading - and they rarely offer the characters much useful guidance ( x). However, I think that it is extremely important that we do question this issue since prophecy is a complicated issue in the text. When it comes to the prophecy of Azor Ahai, most fans treat it as a guessing game without examining the question in relation to the multiple textual warnings about the very nature of prophecy itself. On top of that, I’ve also looked more closely into how this prophecy impacts the arc of Stannis Baratheon who Melisandre of Asshai mistakenly identifies as AA at the same time that the text introduces the prophecy itself. I have previously examined the textual clues that support the identification of Daenerys as Azor Ahai ( Part 1) but I’ve also explored how the narrative structure itself supports this identification, especially in relation the way the text bluntly teases Jon Snow as a candidate for AA right before his death in A Dance with Dragons ( Part 2). This post is the third and final entry in a series of metas that theorize that Daenerys Targareyn embodies the mythical figure of Azor Ahai from the prophecy out of Asshai.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |