Azor Ahai was not about one person killing another. It was about bringing people together.
There are prophecies littered all through both the Game of Thrones television show and the text itself. Maggy The Frog’s prophecy for Cersei weighs heavy on her and it’s fair to wonder if it became a self-fulfilling prophecy at one point. There is the Stallion Who Mounts The World from the Dothraki and there are Bran’s dreams about becoming the Three-Eyed Raven. (Which, you know, he may not have been the first choice, given the bones littering the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave. But that’s another matter.) The most popular prophecy from the show is that of Azor Ahai, or Prince Who Was Promised; the hero who is to be reborn amidst salt and smoke while under a bleeding star. Before getting to the show, a little back story.
Thousands of years before the events of the books/show, the White Walkers came from the Lands of Always Winter to end civilization. Old Nan tells the story in the first book of how the Last Hero – name unknown – took his sword, his dog, his horse, and 12 companions to head North to find the Children of the Forest and deal with the Walker threat. Old Nan explains all the companions died except for the Last Hero, but we don’t find out the end of the story.
Other texts indicate that the Last Hero found the Children and they, along with the Night’s Watch, defeated the Walkers (called The Others at times) in what was called The Battle for the Dawn, having discovered the lethal properties of Dragonglass. It may not have been a battle, it could have just been some sort of treaty (we know the Walkers made one with Craster), but regardless, the Walkers were pushed back into the very North. Brandon the Builder would come along and raise the Wall, and that would push the White Walker threat out of mind.
(It’s worth noting similar stories are said to appear across Essos as well, so there must be some credence to what occurred. There was assuredly a hero/leader and many battles, but like many historical facts, they are likely skewed by the victors and are blurred by the short-sightedness of the history we tell ourselves. This is important to remember as we proceed.)
The ambiguous nature of prophecy makes them inherently dangerous. Just think of Stannis Baratheon in his show arc. From the very beginning of season two, right until Ramsay guerrillas the shit out of Stannis’s army, the red priestess Melisandre is certain that Stannis is Azor Ahai. She has seen it in the flames: the Bolton banners falling, Melisandre walking the battlements of Winterfell, yada yada yada Stannis gets executed by Brienne. He knew it, and what’s more, he believed it. Melisandre was right, just about the wrong person. The Bolton banners fell and she walked the battlements of Winterfell, it was just because of Jon’s ragtag Northern army (with a big thanks to Sansa) and not Stannis. She was right about what she saw, just wrong about the cause, and thousands died because of it. (There’s a real-life lesson there.)
Azor Ahai is the story of Game of Thrones. Yes it’s about political battles and intra-family relationships and dragons and all that. But at its heart, the story is about a person amidst salt and smoke (is he a ham?). It’s about a hero who has returned to defeat the threat of the White Walkers and the Night King.
So, who is Azor Ahai?
Rhaegar Targaryen, Jon’s pops, thought it was him. He was born in the Tragedy at Summerhall, when many Targaryens (including one of the Kings Aegon) died trying to (allegedly) hatch dragon eggs, thus the smoke (from the fire) and salt (from the tears) were present. Of course it’s not Rhaeger, because he died well before the events of the White Walker threat. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.
The second reason Rhaegar thought he was Azor Ahai was a prophecy told to him by the Ghost of Highheart, another witch like Maggy, in the books. Rhaegar was told that the Prince Who Was Promised would come of the line of his parents. Two plus two is always four, so Rhaegar must be Azor Ahai. Again, there are a bunch of rubies in a river somewhere that tell another tale.
Finally, being born under a bleeding star is a requirement. We don’t know if that was the case for Rhaegar. It was the case for Jon (his Uncle Ned was bedside for his birth with Arthur Dayne’s bloody sword that had a star on the pommel) and Daenerys (the streaking comet). That would seem to indicate one of them.
If Rhaegar wasn’t Azor Ahai, but it would be a hero reborn amidst salt and smoke born of the line of Rhaegar’s parents (Aerys the second and Rhaella), what about Daenerys? Kinvara, the red priestess encountered by Tyrion and Varys in season six, seems to think so. And she was born amidst salt (either hers, Jorah’s, or Mirri Maz Duur’s) and smoke (the pyre). Varys throws Melisandre and the now-headless Stannis in her face, at which point Kinvara says people make mistakes. Hey! Uhh, yeah they do. Dany met the criteria, but your definition of hero may vary here because of her performance in the penultimate episode of the series.
There have been Reddit theories. One popular one (and I like it) is that Jaime Lannister is Azor Ahai. That goes further into the Nissa Nissa story, which the show omits completely, so it seems that may be more a book possibility. But Nissa Nissa’s story is something worth mentioning, even if it’s not in the show.
Nissa Nissa was the wife of Azor Ahai. As the legend goes, he took 30 days and 30 nights to craft his sword, but it broke when he tempered it. His second attempt of 50 days and 50 nights also failed. For his third attempt, he worked 100 days and nights, and plunged his sword into his wife’s chest, which created his heroic sword Lightbringer. Jon does stab Dany, but the details are off.
Jon Snow doesn’t kill The Night King. That went to his sister Arya. He was screaming at a dragon in the yard while his brother Bran was… somewhere else. It wouldn’t seem that Jon is Azor Ahai. But the wording is that Azor Ahai will “destroy the darkness.” In the books, there’s no character of The Night King, but presumably, Jon would have to kill some Others. But it is ambiguous about what Azor Ahai will do, exactly. Destroy the darkness implies getting rid of the threat. Why is Arya in the North in the show? Jon.
That’s why Jon Snow was in fact Azor Ahai. He fits all the criteria, except he didn’t need to deal the killing blow to The Night King. Arya did that, and she was in a position to do so because Jon was at Winterfell. Remember that Arya was going to King’s Landing to kill Cersei before Hot Pie told her about the Battle of the Bastards. She changes her mind and heads North, home to Winterfell.
In fact, Jon Snow is the reason they’re all at Winterfell. Okay, the only reason they’re even around is because of Sansa’s Knights of the Vale, but the reason she’s even there is because she fled Winterfell to head to Castle Black, to Jon. Daenerys is there with her thr-, two dragons and the Dothraki because of Jon. The Wildlings are still alive and in the fight because of Jon. The rest of the great houses of the North have declared Jon their King. He is the unifying force behind the entire resistance to the Walkers and wights. If this were Six Degrees of Separation, he’s Will Smith.
And he kills Dany. No, it wasn’t a flaming sword but he was still responsible for the conditions that led to the destruction of the darkness, and he plunged a dagger into Dany after she destroys King’s Landing, which I think is a nod from the show to the books. We’re a little off on exact details here, but he stabs his lover, as Azor Ahai stabbed his wife.
Jon fits our criteria of being born amidst salt and smoke under a bleeding star, while being of the line of Aerys the second and Rhaella (he’s their granchild). The reason there’s even a massive army in the North is because of Jon, even if he doesn’t deal the killing blow. Without the Prince Who Was Promised, Arya is a thousand miles away, Dany is possibly sitting on the Iron Throne, and the North is overrun by the army of the dead.
Some of the details are sketchy. Jon has a Valyrian sword named Longclaw, not a flaming sword named Lightbringer. He doesn’t kill The Night King with his own hands. But Cersei had four children (that’s a show change, FYI), Melisandre had the hots (!) for Stannis, and Kinvara was convinced it was Daenerys. People make mistakes and the details get a bit fuzzy when they’re passed down over hundreds of generations.
Maybe this prophecy is meant to be ambiguous on purpose. That’s the nature of responsibility. Varys brings this up once in conversation. Who is truly responsible Ned Starks’s execution? Joffrey (the judge), Ilyn Payne (the executioner), or… something else? Who is Azor Ahai? Was it really Rhaegar because without his love of Lyanna Stark, Jon is never born. If Jon is never born, do the people of Westeros destroy the darkness? Or is it Dany, because they assuredly don’t win the battle without her dragons, even if one was fighting against them. That castle would have been overrun in five minutes. She keeps the battle even enough to allow Arya to kill The Night King. Or is it Jon, because he’s the reason everyone is at Winterfell for the battle anyway.
Responsibility is where you believe it lies. The Last Hero went North to deal with the Walker threat, and came back with the threat eliminated, therefore The Last Hero ended the Walker threat himself. Thus, we have this prophecy of Azor Ahai being responsible for destroying the darkness. Though what if it was a pact? Or what if it was the Children? Or… something else? It doesn’t matter to the people because the threat ended. The cause doesn’t really matter, though of course Stannis may have something to say about fulfilling a prophecy regardless of cause.
That’s all left ambiguous and perhaps that’s the point of all this. It doesn’t matter who is responsible, really. You can put it on the shoulders of whomever. Just find a reason to band together against a common threat. I’m absolutely stoked to be able to type this sentence earnestly: maybe Azor Ahai was the friends Jon Snow made along the way.
Cliffy's hell-hole 