HBO's highly anticipated Game of Thrones Season 5 premiere has finally come. Interestingly, the new season of the immensely popular saga opened with a flashback scene - the first ever in the show's history - and both GoT writer George R.R. Martin and showrunner David Benioff have something to say about it.
The first episode of GoT's fifth season, titled "The Wars to Come," showed a young and would-be queen Cersei Lannister (Nell Williams) coaxing a prophecy from Maggy the Frog (Jodhi May), a hermit witch who sucks her blood and predicts her future.
Maggy tells the Lannister princess she will indeed become queen, but her reign will only last until "another, younger and more beautiful" comes to cast her down. The witch also prophesies Cersei will have three kids, saying "gold shall be their crowns" and, hinting at their eventual deaths, "gold their shrouds."
The flashback scene is adapted from A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the GoT co-producer and writer talked about Cersei Lannister's prophesy, and what it means to the story.
"Prophecy is a staple element in fantasy, but it's tricky," Martin stated. "You want to play with the notion of prophecies coming true but in an unexpected way. You want to be unpredictable about it."
The best-selling author cited examples such as William Shakespeare's MacBeth and War of the Roses, where the fulfilling of prophesies turned out different from what was expected. "You have to look at prophecies carefully and look at the weasel-wording," Martin said. "Maggy the Frog tells Cersei a prophecy, but could Cersei make it happen through her efforts to avoid it?"
It's not the first time Game of Thrones used a prophecy though. EW noted that in a past episode, the show utilized a big prophecy. Melisandre was shown burning three leaches to signify a death curse placed upon three contenders for the Iron Throne: Joffrey Baratheon, Robb Stark, and Balon Greyjoy. While in Martin's books all three characters have died, on the TV adaptation the Greyjoy patriarch remains alive, according to the site.
"The interesting thing about prophecies is they don't always come true," said GoT co-creator Benioff. "Melisandre thinks she sees things in the flames and sometimes she's right and sometimes she's not. One of the things we like about George's books is it's not as if everything always hones to where some enigmatic prophecy determines the fate of each character."
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