for the night is dark and full of terrors in the ancient books it's
written that a warrior will draw a burning sword from the fire and that
sword shall be Lightbringer prophecies are dangerous things hi everyone it's
Charlie this is going to be my video explaining what's going on with a Zora
hi on the TV series what they've changed from the books because there are a
couple retcons in the last couple of episodes with Arya Starks character
there are a lot of you that are confused does this mean that she's Azure hi now
so we'll try to explain what's going on if you're new to the channel be sure to
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on the video obviously careful for spoilers through season 8 episode 3 if
you have not seen the episode yet because we'll be talking about what
happened at the end of it after the episode a lot of people were wondering
if Arya Stark is now supposed to be the real Azure hyper the show's explainer
because she's the person that landed the blow on the night king so that
what does it mean that Melisandre has been talking about the prince who was
promised azor Ahai this whole time ever since she debuted during season 2 then
even if you haven't read the books they use season 7 episode 2 to introduce the
concept that high Valyrian is a gender-neutral language so it could also
be interpreted as the princess who was promised will be the one who will bring
the dawn there are a couple different concepts tied up in this prophecy
there's a surah high in the prince or now princess who was promised but those
are really the same thing pulling from the exact same prophecy is just that in
the series and in the books Melisandre tends to use the term azor Ahai more
often than not whereas other characters like maester aemon in the books in
Rhaegar Targaryen used the prince who was promised when talking about the
prophecy the text of the prophecy that Melisandre keeps quoting from just reads
there will come a day after a long summer when the star bleeds in the cold
breath of darkness falls heavy on the world in this dread hour a warrior shall
draw from the fire a burning sword and that sword shall be Lightbringer the red
sword of Heroes and he who clasps it shall be azor Ahai come again in the
darkness shop fully before him we kind of got a version of that at the
beginning of season 2 with Stannis because at that time she thought that
Stannis was the fulfillment of the prophecy
she bins seeing visions in the flames but as we
learned later in the series her ability works a lot like brand Starks ability
where she's getting all this information but she doesn't necessarily know how to
contextualize it so her visions are now starting to come true at the end of the
series it's just that early in the game she
didn't know exactly when these things were going to happen like when Stannis
was getting ready for the Battle of Winterfell and Melisandre burned Shireen
because she was convinced that that was the battle that she had been seeing in
her visions he would be victorious the prince who was promised as we later
learned that was false the battle that she had been seeing this whole time in
the flames was this Battle of Winterfell against the night king and the White
Walkers so when you think about Melisandre as visions early in the
series and how she was wrong later just think about her the same way you think
about bran like just has all this information doesn't know quite what to
make of it has trouble contextualizing it and placing it in the timeline so his
aura high is just one of many prophecies in the book so george RR martin is much
bigger about seeding in prophecies into the narrative than the TV show has been
so the TV show has cut out a whole bunch of stuff like you talk about Maggie the
Frog the prophecy of the valonqar the TV show
completely cut that out so when we're talking about the TV show paying off big
prophecies you really just have to think about the prophecies that they've
literally said out loud so azor Ahai it just happens to be one of the few that
they've actually talked about in the series if you remember season 7 episode
2 like that added wrinkle oh it could actually be the princess who was
promised maybe Daenerys is the fulfillment of the prophecy with Jon
Snow because Melisandre senses that Jon is very important in the warp of the
dawn she just doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do and because of what
happened with Shireen she's learned to be more cautious about the way she
interprets her visions in the flames like she says prophecy is a tricky thing
and kind of shakes her head a little bit like don't hold me hard and fast to this
I'm not telling you exactly what needs to happen I'm just telling you that you
in Jon Snow are both very important to this prophecy in the books that's
probably going to be a winds of winter type moment but the way they're seeding
it is actually through maester aemon's character maester aemon in the books is
also thinking about the prophecy of the prince who was promised he believes in
it the way that Rhaegar believes and he corresponded with him regularly
based on what the books tell us Rhaegar was obsessed with prophecy Daenerys even
has a vision of him quoting the prince who was promised when at the time
Raigarh actually thought that it was his son with elia martell named Aegon
Targaryen the reason why Rhaegar thought that this Aegon the son of Elia Martell
was the fulfillment of the prophecy is because he was born as a red comet was
over at King's Landing so the whole idea is that the comet is very important to
this azor Ahai figure so just remember when that was happening on the TV show
that was near the time when Daenerys dragons were hatched
so she was reborn amidst salt and smoke also Jon Snow was at the fist of the
first men with the wildlings learning about the threat of the White Walkers
while that was happening but early on the books and the TV show are trying to
tell you that there's no one specific interpretation no one specific person
who is actually going to be a Zora hi it's probably going to be a number of
people working together George or Martin has talked a lot about his original main
characters before he changed his story like I said Arya Stark very important to
his original endgame he originally intended to age the characters up with a
huge time jump during the series whereas what ended up happening is is that got
canceled so Arya Stark kind of got parked in Braavos to learn to become
this crazy assassin as part of the faceless men in the house of black and
white not just to make her a really badass face stealing assassin obviously
it was very important for endgame that she have a lot of these skills so even
though the TV show has changed a lot of things and it's even wrecked conned
itself with a couple of the Arya Stark moments during season 3 which I'll
explain in a second there are a couple moments that happened a couple lines of
dialogue that Melisandre quotes which are actually retcons to what she said
earlier on the series one of the other big changes from the books is that there
is no official night king as of yet in the books George Martin has talked about
a mythical night's King plural night's king who was the 13th Lord Commander of
the Nights Watch a stark of Winterfell who fell in love with this ice bride and
was turned into what seems like a white Walker and turned on the brothers of the
Nights Watch who then had to band together with the
king-beyond-the-wall at the time of the wildlings to defeat them and put them
back down that was after the mythical long night that people talk about the
neverending night that lasted for a generation which is about 8,000 years
ago in the books more recently he's been saying is closer to four or five
thousand years just because there's no real recorded history from that period
the maesters didn't exist the Citadel wasn't a big thing till much much later
so during season eight episode two they
talked about how the night king is trying to eliminate memory of man how do
you keep people from forgetting things you write it down that's what the
maesters are all about so George nor Martin is just saying that it's
important not to take things too literally when people are talking about
legends of the long night and things that happen during then because a lot of
the actual facts could have been twisted over time and a lot of that gets into
the idea of this azor Ahai figure the person who will bring the dawn
so here's Lomas long Strider who wrote a book within the context of a Song of Ice
and Fire called Wonders made by man he talks about meeting descendants of the
Rhoyne are in the ruins of the festival city of croy an who have tales of a
darkness that made the Rhoyne dwindle and disappear her waters frozen as far
south as the joining of the cell horu it goes on to say according to these tales
the return of the Sun only came when a hero convinced the mother Royals many
children lesser gods such as the crab king and the old man of the river to put
aside their bickering and join together to sing a secret song that brought back
the day that sounds very similar to the legends about the children of the forest
coming together with the first men to defeat the night king in the White
Walkers which we actually know her a real thing Melisandre comes from a shy
so no surprise that the legend of azor Ahai comes from that city so when she's
talking about Stannis and then Jon Snow she's talking about a Zora hi come again
she's talking about this mythical figure that came from that part of the world
not someone who necessarily originated in Westeros which is where the mythical
long night that we keep talking about happened there's another tale from
something called the Jade compendium a book with in A Song of Ice and Fire that
bro counts the legend from ET which is sort of an analogue for China within a
Song of Ice and Fire which states that the Sun quote-unquote
hid its face from the earth for a lifetime
ashamed it's something none could discover in that disaster was averted
only by the deeds of a woman with a monkey's tail that all comes from
Georgia our Martin in the books so he's just trying to seed the idea that
prophecy as Melisandre and the TV show says is a tricky thing what it seems
like is that you have a lot of different cultures banding together putting aside
their differences to overcome this big insurmountable threat so the whole idea
of azor Ahai is tied up in a bunch of important people coming together to say
defeat the White Walkers in the night King or if the night King doesn't exist
in the book then just the White Walkers that to the mythical figure Azure high
that's talked about in these legends is also referred to as quote-unquote the
last hero legends in the north also state that this mythical last hero
figured and his companions went in search of the children of the forest
during the long night thousands of years ago they survived attacks by Giants
whites in the white walkers eventually they reached the children of the forest
gained their assistance they formed the Nights Watch and then they had the
battle for the dawn that ended the long night so the path of the last hero
sounds a lot like what bran started going north of the wall seeking out the
children of the forest in the three-eyed Raven seeking to renew their Alliance
Jon Snow also did similar things aurilla Stark traveled all over the world
gaining all these skills in what she thought was to become a faceless person
Jack and Hegar always imply that he knew a little bit more about the past she was
destined for than he let on so just more evidence of Martin being purposefully
ambiguous about who this one figure was applying it to a bunch of different
characters in present-day trying to let you know that it's no real one person
that's doing all this by themselves we still don't quite know if Martin is ever
going to introduce a knight king like figure that is an original creation of
the TV show but it was introduced as an idea when George art Martin was still
writing Game of Thrones episodes so it's something that he's signed off on I
think the idea of a lot of these main characters like Jon Snow Daenerys Arya
Stark and some of the others being the fulfillment of the prophecy together
collectively works better if you have numerous threats that you have to take
down all these White Walkers instead of just one main white Walker so some of
the changes that the TV show has made are incongruous with what Martin's
trying to seed in the books so it's kind of messing with people's heads when it
comes to predicting who is as or high like are you trying to tell me is this
one figure Jon Snow this whole time oh now you're trying to tell me it's both
Jon Snow and Daenerys together then why is Arya Stark technically the person to
kill the night king because if it's got to be a prince or princess who was
promised how is Arya Stark a princess even though Robb Stark was briefly the
king in the north she's his sister so maybe that would make her a princess and
that would kind of fulfill that part of the prophecy but how does it work does
their special blood exist even if they were only King for a brief period the
whole idea is that Martin is trying to say don't put too much faith in the
letter of those prophecies it's more about a broad interpretation
of what it really means them coming together to defeat this threat as a
collective group the thing that the TV show has done which sort of mislead you
along the way is try to see to include like born under a star where you see Jon
Snow being born in this bed where you have the star of Arthur Dayne sword dawn
above the bed here's where the TV show gets really tricky and it gives you an
idea that they didn't completely know what the ending was going to be when
they seeded some of these earlier Easter eggs so you can't necessarily say that
they had this plan the whole time during the episode Melisandre gives arya stark
that pep-talk and reminds her about the prophecy that she gave her earlier on
this series you said that we would meet again
I saw darkness in you and in that darkness eyes staring back at me brown
eyes green eyes blue eyes eyes you'll shut forever so what happens is is in
this moment they wanted Melisandre to give Arya the idea or remind her Oh blue
eyes blue eyes like the night King I should go get him now but the problem
with this moment is that it's actually a retcon to what the actual prophecy she
gave her during season 3 was so during season 3 episode 6 she says I see
darkness in you and in that darkness eyes staring back at me brown eyes blue
eyes green eyes I shall set forever so the order of the colors of I she would
shut was different here's the other big change they made to they said that they
decided that Arya would be the person to get the night King about three years
ago which is when they were getting ready to write season seven so during
season seven that's why you saw Samwell look at a dagger in a book that looked
exactly like Arya's dagger they wanted to see the idea that the dagger would be
important for defeating the night king so that's why bran
put it in her hands he sense because of his green sight the dagger would be
important and she was the person to have it he didn't know exactly when it would
be important just that it would be important for Arya to have the dagger
but like I said they reckoned the moment for Arya when she was getting ready to
go get the night king so during season three when they originally seeded that
prophecy which actually is not from the books that's a moment that the TV show
made up they did not know that Arya Stark would be the person to get the
night king so when she gave her the prophecy for the first time that
actually on the TV show just referred to her stealing faces all the people she'd
be going after, she got Walder Frey we talked about Arya shutting green eyes
Cersei has emerald eyes in the books Lena Headey has green eyes in real life
so keep in mind that while the TV show is trying to wrap up the fulfillment of
a lot of things that been setting up they will also probably
wreak on some other moments from earlier in the series and from the books so that
it all just seems to fit together by the end so just because Arya Stark gets the
night king in this moment doesn't mean that she is azor Ahai so given all that
I think the best answer to who Azure High really is is actually Jon Snow
Daenerys and Arya Stark together you could argue that Jaime Lannister other
characters have a role in helping them along the way but I still think that
it's mostly about Jon Snow coming together with Daenerys in Arya Stark
being the person with the skills to land some of these blows but when it
comes to this moment in the books I do think the actual battle with the White
Walkers will go down very differently so we'll just have to check back after
winds of winter comes out to see if it goes down that because the final book
dream of spring is supposed to be about what happens after you defeat that
threat like the realm turn on itself will they put aside their differences
will old entities rise back up that's why you see them defeating the night
king in Episode three because the rest of the story the dream of spring of it
all is going to be what happens after the next couple of episodes so hopefully
that explains a little bit about the mythology behind this and some of the
changes that the TV show made interesting to note about some of the
retcons - I might do another game of Thrones bonus video before episode 4
happens but my episode 4 video will post Sunday night just like normal as long as
you have alerts enabled for my channel you'll see the videos when I post them
no worries while you wait for everything click here for my season 8 episode 4
trailer video and click here for my Game of Thrones season 8 episode 3 video
thank you so much for watching everybody stay awesome I'll see you guys tonight
you