Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister. Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO
Cersei Lannister received a prophecy as a child that may tell us exactly what we will see in her final moments.
Game of Thrones returned this past Sunday with its eighth season and Cersei Lannister as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The Mad Queen — yea, we’re going to go there — has finally come to rule over all despite the resistance she’s met from her family, enemies, and much of Westeros. However, she’s all alone on the Iron Throne.
Jaime Lannister has abandoned her to join Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow in the battle against the undead. And all three of Cersei’s children have died, a fact that she knew would come true one day.
When Cersei was just a child, she went deep into the woods to visit Maggy the Frog, an infamous witch. Cersei wanted to know if she would marry the prince she was arranged to marry, Rhaegar Targaryen, in exchange for a couple of drops of blood from her thumb. But Cersei got more than she bargained for when Maggy the Frog informed her that she would marry a king instead and bare three children that would all die.
Maggy also told her the children would have hair like gold, and her king would have more children than her. Cersei would later in life understand these ironic tidbits, realizing that her children were fathered by her golden headed brother and her husband had 20 bastards all over King’s Landing.
But there were two more points that Maggy made in her prophecy that will likely come to pass in this final season, and they may hold the most significant clues as to what Cersei’s death will look like.
"“You’ll be queen for a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear. And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”"
Maggy predicts a younger and prettier person will take everything away from Cersei. This explains why Cersei had been so unnerved by Sansa Stark and later Margaery Tyrell, both younger and more beautiful women who threatened her spot as Queen.
The witch also predicts Cersei will die at the hands of the valonqar. The Valonqar is Valyrian for “little brother.” But given that the Game of Thrones series has indicated that Valyrian is a non-gender language, the Valonqar essentially means “little sibling.”
If we are to believe this prophecy, Cersei will be dethroned by a younger more attractive person, and she will be choked out by a “younger sibling.” While the fandom has run rampant with theories on how Tyrion and Jaime could carry out killing Cersei, since they are her two younger brothers, the possibility remains that Cersei is prophesied to be killed by someone’s younger sibling.