"After a long summer, the stars shall bleed. This clearly refers to the bloody comet in the sky. No one can say how it was produced, or why it hangs there, neither moving nor disappearing."
"The cold darkness shall engulf the world undoubtedly refers to the winter that has arrived, and by extension, the coming of the White Walkers."
"In this hour of dread, a hero shall be reborn amidst smoke and salt. This is nonsense. Saying it is the same as saying nothing. Where is there no smoke and salt? There is some in Nightfort's kitchen."
"Finally, there is some substantive content, which has also caused much controversy, in the following. He shall wake dragons from stone, and draw the burning sword from the fire. That sword is Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes." Bran rubbed the armrest. "This sentence can be a description of fact or a complex metaphor. Before we attempt to interpret it, we must accept this. The things in the prophecy are not necessarily themselves. Dragons from stone are not necessarily true dragons, and a burning sword is not necessarily a sword that emits fire. They can also be symbols and references."
After Aegor nodded, the boy continued. "If one were to say Stannis Baratheon is the Prophet, then waking dragons from stone would refer to the dragon statues on Dragonstone, and as for Lightbringer, any glowing sword would suffice. But if someone believes Daenerys Targaryen is the Prophet, then dragons from stone are true dragons hatched from fossilized dragon eggs, and the burning sword can refer entirely to the fiery breath spewed from a dragon's mouth." He looked up at Aegor and shifted the subject. "But what if someone wanted to say you, Commander, are the Prophet? Dragons from stone could be wildfire, because the preparation of that flammable substance uses petroleum, and the burning sword, naturally, would be the raging flames produced when wildfire is ignited."
Aegor raised a hand to interrupt the Greenseer's lengthy discourse. "I understand what you mean. The ambiguity of prophetic statements allows for great subjectivity and malleability in interpretation. Anyone can be the Prophet if they dare to make it up. So what?"
"You quickly grasped one of the key points." Although Bran's expression did not change, approval was evident in his tone. "But did you notice the sequence of events in the prophecy and the subtle differences in their actual fulfillment?"
"What?" Aegor finally felt a bit lost.
"This is an ancient prophecy from Asshai, so distant and ancient in both space and time that even I cannot trace its original source. And yet such a prophecy, after enduring the test of long ages, has finally begun to turn into reality. It seems miraculous and accurate, but if you pay attention to the details, you will find parts that are not quite accurate."
"For example?"
"After a long summer, the stars shall bleed, and the cold darkness shall engulf the world." Bran reread the first three lines. "Did you notice the order of these three events? Summer ends, the bloody comet appears, and only then do the White Walkers return. But in reality, the White Walkers had already been active beyond the Wall for over a year before you encountered them, and the bloody comet appeared more than a year after you killed the first White Walker. This gap, one before and one after, is two years. And this long summer was not truly recognized as ended until more than a year after the bloody comet appeared. So, the correct order is that the cold darkness awakens, the stars bleed, the long summer ends."
Aegor was of the Night's Watch and had been closer to several major events than most. He did not need to think to know that what Bran said was true. But for the common folk living muddled lives, two or three years passed in a blink. Moreover, what could these subtle differences in sequence indicate?
"I do not understand. What does it matter if the first part of the prophecy has a slight issue with the order? It might be distortion from oral transmission, or perhaps the one who made the prophecy was not a stickler for details. To negate the prophecy based on this is a stretch."
"No, I am not trying to negate the prophecy. I am trying to offer a new perspective. Have you considered that this subtle difference in sequence might be due to a delayed reaction because the response was not quick enough?" Bran shook his head, rejecting Aegor's charge. "If the stars shall bleed represents the beginning of fulfillment, or the return of magic, then the White Walkers should have appeared at the same time as the dragons and the bloody comet, or at least around the same time. But the fact is, the latter two appeared overnight only after you encountered the White Walkers, and after the news spread that the Night's Watch had planned a ranging to the North but ultimately abandoned it, with a gap of over two years between. Did you never think anything of that?"
"You mean..." Aegor suddenly understood.
"Rather than the prophecy beginning to be fulfilled, it is more like a certain entity finally realized the opponent had started to act, and then hurriedly conducted some operations to create the celestial phenomenon, causing the content of the prophecy to begin turning into reality."
Aegor narrowed his eyes, finally understanding what the so-called third type of prophecy meant.
"You mean, this prophecy is not a prediction at all, but a guarantee. What supports it is not foresight or some magical power like speaking things into existence, but a powerful entity using strength and means to ensure that it all comes true."
"It is only a guess, but it explains many things." Bran affirmed Aegor's guess and posed a question. "Let us assume for now that this guess is true, and you are the one behind the prophecy pushing it to come true. Would you start planning and cultivating the Prophet decades or even centuries in advance, just to fight one final battle and drive away the darkness?"
How could Aegor, a mere mortal, simulate the thoughts of a god? He wanted to refuse the question, but then he thought of himself as a private enterprise owner, a taste of which he had just had while founding the Night's Watch Industry.
The operation and development of an enterprise, the implementation of a leader's policies, strategies, and ideas, inevitably require various talents to carry out the work. Were these talents cultivated by Night's Watch Industry starting from sperm, eggs, embryos, or even parents and grandparents?
Of course not. Society adjusts dynamically. As long as humanity is not wiped out, there will always be ordinary, excellent, and exceptional people, suitable and unsuitable. Whatever kind of employee a boss wants can be recruited somewhere, it is only a matter of abundance, time, and cost to find and hire them.
By switching his mindset, he quickly reached an answer. "No, I would not expend extra effort planning and cultivating in advance. I would accumulate resources and strength to ensure I do not fall behind the general trend. When a hero is truly needed, I would search within a certain time and place for one or a few suitable candidates, provide them with resources, clandestine aid, and opportunities, and have them win this war against the cold god for me."
Before he finished, Aegor suddenly realized that his answer was typical great-power thinking, selecting suitable pawns to fight proxy wars. What Bran meant was that the Prophet is not born. Whoever happens to fulfill the prophecy by chance, or is chosen and aided to repel the darkness, that person is the hero of the prophecy.
As for the places where this person matches the ambiguous descriptions, busybodies and future generations will write and fill them in.
So, Daenerys setting herself ablaze to hatch dragons and then cutting a swath with her advantages, finally returning to Westeros with a large army, and himself successfully establishing the Night's Watch Logistics Department and, after turmoil, becoming Commander and strengthening the Wall's defenses... was R'hllor secretly aiding all of this, and was he merely an agent?
This conjecture was a great challenge to free will and made Aegor uncomfortable. No one likes to be a puppet on strings.
"This ancient prophecy is actually a warning from the Lord of Light, the sworn enemy of the cold god, issued to that other similar entity. If you oppose me, someone will surely deal with you. The key is not the Prophet at all. Its core is the last sentence, the result. The hero will drive away the darkness." After much explanation, Bran finally returned to his logic. "As for who the hero is, and how they drive away the darkness, it is completely irrelevant. What the Lord of Light wants is for the result to come true."
How could he make two legendary deities sound like street thugs brawling? Aegor could not help the association, a being blazing with fire threatening another figure of ice with a harsh tone. Dare to move, and I will kill you.
He quickly realized his sense of familiarity. This widely known prophecy from Asshai was simply the otherworldly, magical, deity-specific version of Do not say I did not warn you.
"The cold god has the White Walkers, and the Lord of Light has the hero of the prophecy. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they do not want to, perhaps they have reached an agreement. In short, these only two true gods according to the red priests have chosen to decide the winner through a long-distance contest," Bran concluded. "This means that even though none of us knows what these two beings are, or what they look like, this does not affect our actions. As humans, our opponents are the White Walkers on the chessboard, not the cold god outside it."
After going in a circle, Bran not only failed to clear Aegor's confusion, he made his mind more chaotic. According to this theory, he, who had become the de facto Lord of the Gift and had barely begun to escape the status of a pawn in the game of thrones, had merely jumped from a lower chessboard to a higher one, far from realizing his dream of becoming a player.
If he abandoned the defense of the Wall and allowed the White Walkers to invade the Seven Kingdoms, could he force the Lord of Light to come forward? The thought rose uncontrollably, but reason told him that Bran's words were ultimately only his own inference. He could not use the lives of all in Westeros as guinea pigs to test it.
(To be continued.)
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