The Game of Thrones season seven finale treated us to the largest union of the show’s main characters, Littlefinger’s brutal execution and a ruddy zombie dragon. Amazing. Great. Fab. But where on Westeros did it leave the widely believed fan theory that Jaime Lannister will end up killing his Queen sister/lover Cersei as she becomes more power hungry?
To put it simply: extremely strained. Instead of violently confronting Cersei’s double-crossing of Daenerys, Jaime instead fled a snowy King’s Landing, appearing to be riding north to fight the White Walkers. Although the two characters are likely to meet again to serve a satisfying end to their story arcs, it’s now possible that Cersei could be killed off by another: her own child.
Okay, let’s back up a second. It’s likely Cersei will die before the show’s end thanks to a prophecy she received as a young girl in which fortune teller Maggy The Frog predicted her death. After the young Lannister asked how many children she would have, the physic said:
“Three for you. Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds. And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”
The first part of this prophecy has been fulfilled, as her three children (Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella) wore golden hair and then golden shrouds at their funerals. And many have interpreted the second half as saying her valonqar (High Valyrian for "little brother") will kill her, with most pointing to Jaime. Yes, Tyrion is her little brother, but considering how close Jaime and Cersei are, it would be much more potent and perfectly Game of Thrones to have her twin strangle her.
However, the recent revelations that Cersei is pregnant and Jaime has fled King’s Landing may have proved the prophecy as false. After all, Cersei is due child number four and her would-be-killers have fled. However, Maggy's words might be fulfilled with a convincing theory from Redditor CashWho, who predicts the Queen will die in childbirth.
They write: “The kid will be a male, thus fulfilling the "Little Brother" requirement and she'll be dead, thus fulfilling the 'only have 3 children' requirement. Couple that with her dying the way Tyrion was born and we've got us some wonderful poetic justice."
So, could the prophecy still hold strong? Is the valonqar referred to actually the brother of her dead children rather than Tyrion or Jaime? And would this turn also mean Jaime is partly responsible for her death by making Cersei pregnant? We’ve not got long to find out. Just kidding, we’re going to have a full year and a half to mull this over.
Yup, it's going to be a long wait.
