r/asoiaf•
themurphysue

[Spoilers extended] About Dany's HoTU prophecy - is this relevant?

EXTENDED

. . . three heads has the dragon . . . . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . . . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . . . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .

I'd like to discuss the use of the words "for" and "to" in the context of prophecy, and the use of the word "to" specifically. Ever since I read this chapter, I have been wondering about what any of those could mean almost...grammatically speaking.

a fire for life, a fire for death and a fire to love

fire for life = a fire designed to bring new life to something (drogo); a fire for death = a fire designed to bring death (and many think this is Mirri) .. But for the life of me I don't understand what a "fire to love" might be.

  • is it a fire that's lit because of love
  • is it a fire that's lit to bring love in some way, to incite love
  • is it a fire that's lit to take Dany, physically, towards love in some way?

This "to" bothers me immensely because it's used only once in this entire sentence, and then three times in the next, with very specific meanings:

a mount to bed, a mount to dread and a mount to love

a mount to bed = sex (drogo), a mount to dread = physically mounting something that brings dread (the dragons) and a mount to love (maybe sex again but this time Dany caught feelings? maybe it's still a physical mount that takes Dany towards her love?)

The rest of the prophecy is still pretty enigmatic, but it's a lot easier to discern what a treason "for gold" and "for blood" are, and even the treason "for love" is easier to interpret.

HUGE PREMISE: I started this post mainly because I'm not a native english speaker and the nuances, if there are indeed any, may fly over my head. I just really don't understand what the heck "a fire to love" might mean and it's driving me insane.

Posted Jul 21, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

66
Loading comments…