Who's Going to be Azor Ahai Reborn?

    Azor Ahai (aka The prince that was promised) is from an ancient prophecy that tells of coming of a hero that will save the world from darkness. This "prince" is said to have a song of ice and fire- which is the title of the book series.

"When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone." — Melisandre to Jon Snow  (A Dance with Dragons, Jon X)

    I think within the GOT community it seems pretty clear that Azor Ahai is  more than likely going to be one of two people: 

• Jon "Knows Nothing" Snow, Lord Snow, The Bastard of Winterfell, The Snow of Winterfell, Ser Alliser's Bane, The crow-come-over, Lord Crow, The Black Bastard of the Wall, The 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
• Queen Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Lady of Dragonstone, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

    To recap Nissa Nissa's role in the Azor Ahai prophecy: She is the wife of Azor Ahai and essential in the creation of Lightbringer.  According to the legend of Azor Ahai, he labored for thirty days and thirty nights to create a hero's sword. However, when he went to temper it in water, the sword broke. In his second attempt, he took fifty days and fifty nights to make the sword, even better than the first. To temper it this time, he captured a lion and drove the sword into its heart, but broke once again. Third time's a charm as they say and he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. Some reason which isn't really explained how he knew it, Azor Ahai called for Nissa Nissa and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her breast, which made her soul merge with the sword, and Lightbringer was finally created. He went on to do his life's work of saving the planet (like Captain Planet but cooler).

    Given that Jon Snow is the under dog of the series and the top male protagonist, I think a huge percentage of book readers/fans would say for most tropes and standard writing ideas that Jon Snow will be Azor Ahai reborn. While he would be a straightforward pick, I don't believe he will be Azor Ahai. Rather Jon Snow is destined to be Nissa Nissa. Wait you're telling me Jon Snow- son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, Mr. King's Blood himself, isn't going to be the Prince Who was Promised? That's right. No worries I'm going to try to justify my thought process.

    Jon Snow at the end of A Dance of Dragons is murdered by fellow brothers of the Night's Watch. These hoes ain't loyal indeed. Which I mean 98% of them are criminals sent up there to avoid getting killed so he should have expected. As we've seen to the lead up Melisandre is very interested in Mr. Snow based on premonitions/visions from the flames she likes to stare into. She knows he's important and even though its not outright said, she's definitely changed her pick of Stannis to Jon Snow to be Azor Ahai. I think she's self aware to know she doesn't get anything right but is on top of our boy Jon Snow being special. Hell anyone north of Winterfell can tell. Without a doubt Melisandre is going to be the one to bring Jon Snow out of wolf retirement and back to the living breathing body of his.

    Based on Beric Dondarrion and Lady Stoneheart, we get a glimpse that resurrection is possible even though the mechanics of how aren't really known. Given Melisandre's love for king's blood and lighting folks up like they're marshmallows at a campfire, it is without a doubt obvious Jon's return is going to be the death of Shereen Baratheon. (RIP Shereen).  So what do we know about resurrection?

"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?" --  Beric to Thoros of Myr (A Storm of Swords, Arya VII)

    From Arya's chapter, we see that Beric is withering away both mentally and physically from her observations as well as his own words. On top of this, during an interview George RR Martin had with TIME magazine, the author introduced the concept of a fire wight. 

"Poor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this," he said. "Every time (he's brought back) he's a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he's got all these scars, he's becoming more and more physically hideous, because he's not a living human being anymore. His heart isn't beating, his blood isn't flowing in his veins, he's a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice – now we're getting back to the whole fire and ice thing." - George RR Martin interview with TIME (7/13/17)

    Beric Dondarrion was resurrected by R'hllor via his red priest Thoros of Myr. What we see is that when you get resurrected in the name of R'hllor, you are brought to life via fire.  Jon Snow currently dead at the Wall is going to be brought back to life via Melisandre- a red priestess of R'hllor.  Thus Jon Snow by all accounts being resurrected will himself be a fire wight. 

    Now on to a skill Jon Snow is known for- NO not that sexual thing that drove Ygritte wild. We're talking his warging ability (thanks Mama Stark). So in case you're not familiar with the concept, warging is skin changing/taking over another being's mind and body. There are rules in place that it should only be animals, but considering Bran Stark does what he's not supposed to and wargs Hodor, the actual limits of warging aren't really established.  Jon Snow like his fellow Stark family siblings (really cousins) is a warg. Unfortunately currently only Bran is aware of that power.  Current day, Jon Snow is dead as can be after running into the pointy ends of his fellow crow swords. Given his final word was to call for Ghost, Jon is going to live on  inside of Ghost for a bit. He's going to transfer himself to Ghost and I would think protect his body and/or whoever else he feels needs it and maybe maul some traitorous crows while he's at it. I think with the Wildlings present, once he'll come back someone will let him know he's a warg so he'll at least know something finally. 

   So hopefully at this point I've established two major plot points for Jon Snow: 

1. Jon Snow is going to be a fire wight/ have R'hllor's fire inside him animating him
2. Jon Snow has the ability to transfer his being/soul/power into another being or object

    Lightbringer was successfully created by Azor Ahai stabbing Nissa Nissa with his sword and her soul/essence bonding with it. Jon Snow having those two plots points- fire inside and warging is the perfect candidate to be Nissa Nissa and not Azor Ahai- if we're talking Lightbringer being an actual physical weapon in the War for the Dawn. Him being a dead man walking means he can carry out that heroic duty to give the rest of the world a chance.

    So who's going to be Azor Ahai? If Jon Snow is going to be Nissa Nissa and everyone is all for Jon and Dany falling in love, then the logical person to fill the role of Azor Ahai is...Daenerys Targaryen. Really? 

    Yes really and here's why. Daenerys literally was "born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone." When she set and enter Drogo's funeral pyre, she emerged out of it a new stronger person from that point forward. She also hatched the dragon eggs that she took with her aka "wake dragons out of stone" per Melisandre's words to Jon Snow.  While Melisandre has been known to make mistakes, she reveals to Jon Snow Azor Ahai's qualifications and its kind of hard to say Dany didn't put a check mark next to those.

    Azor Ahai goal in life is to free the world from darkness. Daenerys begins to take on that challenge in her own way with the first goal of eliminating slavery. She begins in Astapor with the Unsullied. After killing off the slave masters, she sets them all free. They willing stay and accept her as their leader. Heads over to Yunkai with intentions to free the slaves there. Once that is set and done, the freed slaves from Yunkai hail Dany as their "Mhysa" (Mother). She then moves on to Meereen and is successful in that conquest and freeing the slaves as well. Being the breaker of chains, she stays at Meereen upon learning of Astapor's return to slave territory so she can stamp out that evil.


    In addition to awakening literal dragons from stone, Daenerys has also awaken the concept of dragons across the world. In Westeros, everyone is talking about her and the return of dragons- from folks in the Citadel to bards in Braavos. Everyone is well aware of Dany and her dragons- so much for keeping that info to yourself Varys. It is through this widespread talk, that Aemon Targaryen, the man who was advising Rhaegar of the Azor Ahai/Prince that was promised prophecy, is thoroughly convinced that Daenerys is the Prince that was Promised. He insists that the Citadel is informed and that they should in turn help Dany in anyway they can. Cue Archmaester Marwyn who decides he needs to head over to Slaver's Bay and help her.


    That is where Dany's quest has ended for now until Winds of Winter, but as you can see she set aside a long time goal of returning to Westeros and ruling it, in order to free Essos of slavery and make that side of the world truly free. In terms of Westeros, I believe much like the show, she wants to go there and reclaim her spot as the rightful heir (based on Faegon being a Blackfyre- sure will do a post about that). On top of that she wants to reform/reinvent the rule of law to make it in her ideals. Her motivation/quest is to free the world from darkness or unknowingly be Azor Ahai.


    So enter the love story of Daenerys and Jon Snow. Given where they will be at the time of their meeting, Jon Snow will be a dead man walking and Daenerys will be as strong as she can be with an army of free riders, warriors, and people behind her. Does it make sense when the Prince That Was Promised prophecy is told to them, that it will be Dany making the ultimate sacrifice to create Lightbringer? She has three powerful unmatched weapons that are her children- Drogon, Rhaegal, Viserion. Her people are behind her- Dothraki, Unsullied, and the freed people of Essos. She no doubt will gain support in Westeros which will include folks from the South (Hightowers, Tyrells, Dorne, etc) are more than likely going to join her giving Cersei's actions. She is the epitome of change and reform in the story of Ice and Fire. With all that, she's going to give up her life for the once off chance that her soul can light this sword on fire? We're going to have this powerful woman who we've seen grown in much worse conditions than Jon Snow, all of a sudden say "I had a good run so go ahead and I'll take the L for the team"? It logically makes no sense.


    Enter George R. R. Martin with years of telling fans to expect a 'Bittersweet' ending to Game of Thrones. That bittersweet ending will be Jon Snow becoming the ultimate sacrifice and hero of the story. He will know after his resurrection he's a dead man walking on borrowed time much like Beric Dondarrion did. He will know he has something (R'hllor's fire) inside of him that he can't explain that has to mean something. With that knowledge, which he'll finally acquire from being resurrected and be Jon "Knows Something" Snow, he will more than willingly know what has to be done and gladly do it for his true love (and family if we get a Stark reunion). With Daenerys, he knows he has a more than capable leader that has shown time and again she can get her goals and the tasks associated with them completed. Jon Snow I don't believe would have it in him to let someone else take the role. As his adopted father Ned Stark pushed his sense of honor/duty during his childhood (granted Jon kind of broke a lot of vows so...), I think upon being resurrected, a renewed Jon Snow will gladly make the same type of sacrifice Ned did in order to save Sansa/Arya. It makes a lot more sense that Jon Snow followed in Ned's footsteps than to be a new Rhaegar.


    So with that long winded explanation and in my opinion Daenerys is destined to be Azor Ahai and Jon Snow to be Nissa Nissa with the bittersweet ending George RR Martin promised us.