Sorting out Prophecies

What I find interesting if that it is Sallador Saan, a pirate from Lys, that gives us the story of Lightbringer. I happen to think that the PttwP and Azor Ahai are different prophecies. It is debatable on whether or not they will be the same person. Or if its even true.

On a side note why do people think the "Last Hero" will be reborn? There is nothing to indicate that in the text that I can remember. People love to try and lump (LH, AA, PP) into the three heads of the dragons and other such things.

Also I am far more interested in Sallador Saan's connection to House Blackfyre and the War of Ninepenny Kings, but that is probably worthy of its own thread.

This is part of what I'm interested in. Several characters mention the salt and smoke. Including Mel, Aemon, Marwyn, and apparently Benerro.

Maester Aemon clearly connects the salt and smoke with the PtwP:



Benerro, High Priest of R'hllor, clearly applies the smoke and salt to Azor Ahai:

Because they're three takes on the same archetype.

In any case, I always took the "Last Hero" to be a First Men admission that the person (whoever he was) was the "end of an age" and that "we shall never see his like again". A kind of self-admission on a cultural level that the people who come after are "lesser", "smaller" and "falling from grace" in comparison to the Heroes who could do great and tremendous things. It's the idea and cultural admission that "there are no heroes left anymore."

I always rather liked First Men culture for that, like they were admitting that their feet were but made of clay--gone are the men of gold and men of silver and the men of bronze, we are but clay and mud--falliable, and incapable of such great feats as had been done once before.

It's a very Dark Romanticism aka Gothicism aka American Romanticism viewpoint. And I'm using those terms as part of the literary movement terminology. Dark Romantics focus on how mankind is full of sin and self-destructive--and our inability to get past that. As an author, GRRM definitely strikes me as a Dark Romantic--some of our best known American authors are Dark Romantics (Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville). Heck, Conan the Barbarian's author (Howard) has often been called a "Dark Romantic". The problem with Dark Romanticism is that it often tends to get too much involved demonic myth-making--i.e. focusing too much on the profound bad and evil that mankind is capable of. Or, how Canadian Literary Critic Northrop Frye puts it: "to provide all the disadvantages of superstition with none of the advantages of religion".

However you can create a sort of time-trio with them to give commentary on how different peoples in the world, see themselves and their relations with the world.


The Last Hero is all associated with the "Past" as I gave example of above. He's talked of having come and gone--and we'll never see his like again, because he's the Last Hero, and no more heroes are born to us.

The Prince who was Promised is from a culture with the expectation that there'll be "more" a "better Future" and that they've yet to really begin to do great things yet or hit their zenith.

And Azor Ahai is a present focused interpretation of the archetype--looking in the here and now for the return of a hero who once was and the signs tell that they must have arrived.

Each tells how each culture views themselves. First Men are a "we've seen better days" and Past-oriented culture. The Valyrians are future-oriented. And Asshai, is focused on the here and now.

Perhaps but I have heard it said that the four dwarves are the four kings that are raping Westeros. Renly was killed before Balon crowned himself. That would ruin the reverse order idea.