Potential Spoilers Below
The Game of Thrones always
does what you aren’t expecting them to do.
So from a scenario that took place in The Wheel of Time (TWOT) there is
a small chance that they did just that.
A quick look at what happened:
In
TWOT Rand is searching for one of the Forsaken named Graendal who he intends to kill. She is
currently taking refuge at a fortress called Natrin's
Barrow. He has sent for a man named Ramshalan to help him carry out his plan.
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| Rand |
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| The Forsaken |
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| Graendal |
"My
Lord called for me?" Ramshalan said, bowing extravagantly toward Rand.
Rand
didn't turn away from the map. "I have a puzzle for you, Ramshalan,"
he said. "I want to know what you think."
"Please,
don't hesitate, my Lord!"
"Then
tell me this: How do I outthink an enemy I know is smarter than I am?"
"My
Lord." Ramshalan bowed a second time, as if worried that Rand hadn't
noticed the first one. "Surely you seek to trick me! There is nobody more
intelligent than yourself."
"I
wish that were true," Rand said softly. "I face some of the most
crafty people who have ever lived. My current foe understands the minds of
others in a way that I cannot hope to match. So how do I defeat her? She will
vanish the moment I threaten her, running to one of a dozen other refuges she
is sure to have set up. She won't fight me head-on, yet if I destroy her
fortress in a surprise attack, I risk letting her slip away and never knowing
if I've finished her."
Rand then sends Ramshalan through a gateway after telling him his plans. He later follows through the gateway with Min, Nynaeve and 20 Aiel Maidens assigned to protect him with their lives. He tells them that he expects Graendal to use compulsion on Ramshalan and pull from him everything that they discussed. He tells Nynaeve he brought her along so that when he returns she will be able to determine whether or not Ramshalan is indeed under compulsion. Ramshalan returns and Nynaeve determines that he is under a weave of compulsion. The following ensues:
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| Aiel Maidens |
He
turned to the fortress palace below.
"Forgive
me," he said, but it didn't seem directed at Min, "for calling this
mercy as well."
Something
impossibly bright formed in the air before him, and Min cried out, backing
away. The air itself seemed to warp, as if pulling away from Rand in fear. Dust
blew from the ground in a circle around him, and the trees groaned, lit by the
brilliant white light, the pine needles rattling like a hundred thousand
insects scrambling over one another. Min could no longer make out Rand, only a
blazing, brilliant force of light. Pure power, gathered, making the hairs on
her arms rise with the force of its nebulous energy. In that moment, she felt
as if she could understand what the One Power was. It was there, before her,
made incarnate in the man Rand al'Thor.
And then,
with a sound like a sigh, he released it. A column of pure whiteness exploded
from him and burned across the silent night sky, illuminating the trees below
it in a wave. It moved as quick as a snap of the fingers, striking the wall of
the distant fortress. The stones came alight, as if they were breathing in the
force of the energy. The entire fortress glowed, transforming into living
light, an amazing, spectacular palace of unadulterated energy. It was
beautiful.
And
then it was gone. Burned from the landscape—and the Pattern—as if it had never
been there. The entire fortress, hundreds of feet of stone and everyone who had
lived in it.
Something
hit Min, something like a shocking wave in the air. It wasn't a physical blast,
and it didn't make her stumble, but it twisted her insides about. The forest
around them—still lit by the glowing access key in Rand's hands—seemed to warp
and shake. It was as if the world itself were groaning in agony.
It
snapped back, but Min could still feel that tension. In that instant, it seemed
as if the very substance of world had been near to breaking.
"What
have you done?" Nynaeve whispered.
Rand
didn't reply. Min could see his face again, now that the enormous column of
balefire had vanished, leaving behind only the glowing access key. He was in
ecstasy, mouth agape, and he held the access key aloft before himself as if in
victory. Or in reverence.
Then
he gritted his teeth, eyes opening wide, lips parted as if he were under great
pressure. The light flashed once, then immediately vanished. All became dark.
Min blinked in the sudden darkness, trying to get her eyes to adjust. The
powerful image of Rand seemed burned into her vision. Had he really done what
she thought he had? Had he burned away an entire fortress with balefire?
All
those people. Men returning from the hunt... women carrying water... soldiers
on the wall... the grooms outside...
They
were gone. Burned from the Pattern. Killed. Dead forever. The horror of it made
Min stumble back, and she pressed her back against a tree to keep herself
upright.
So
many lives, ended in an instant. Dead. Destroyed. By Rand.
A
light appeared from Nynaeve, and Min turned, seeing the Aes Sedai illuminated
by the warm, soft glow of a globe above her hand. Her eyes seemed almost afire
with a light of their own. "You are out of control, Rand al'Thor,"
she declared.
"I
do what must be done," he said, speaking now from the shadows. He sounded
exhausted. "Test him, Nynaeve."
"What?"
"The
fool," Rand said. "Is her Compulsion still there? Is Graendal's touch
gone?"
"I
hate what you just did, Rand," Nynaeve snarled. "No. 'Hate' isn't
strong enough. I loathe what you've done. What has happened to you?"
"Test
him!" Rand whispered, voice dangerous. "Before condemning me, let us
first determine if my sins have achieved anything beyond my own
damnation."
Nynaeve
breathed in deeply, then glanced at Ramshalan, who was still held in the grip
of several Aiel Maidens. Nynaeve reached out and touched his forehead,
concentrating. "It's gone," she said. "Erased."
"Then
she is dead," Rand said from the darkness.
Light!
Min thought, realizing what he'd done. He didn't use Ramshalan as a courier, or
as bait. He used the man as a way of proving to himself that Graendal was dead.
Balefire burned someone out of the Pattern completely, making it so that their
most recent actions never occurred. Ramshalan would remember visiting Graendal,
but her Compulsion no longer existed. In a way, she'd been killed before
Ramshalan had visited her.
So what does this have to do with there being a small chance that Margaery could have survived? It turns out in the very next book that Graendal was not dead after all and this is how she survived:
“Al'Thor
has found me," Graendal said curtly. "He sent this one to make an
'alliance' with me, but did not tell him who I was. Al'Thor likely wants me to
think that this man stumbled upon me accidentally.”
“Graendal
carefully removed her Compulsion from Ramshalan, leaving him dazed and disoriented.”
“What
is it you wish me to do, Great One?" Delana asked, glancing at Aran'gar and
then back at Graendal.
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| Aran'gar |
"Compulsion,"
Graendal said. "As intricate and as complex as you can make it."
"What
do you wish it to do, Great Lady?"
"Leave
him able to act like himself," Graendal said. "But remove all memory
of events here. Replace them with a memory of talking to a merchant family and
securing their alliance. Add a few other random requirements on him, whatever
occurs to you.”
“Now,"
Graendal said, releasing her weaves of Air and speaking to Ramshalan,
"return and tell the Dragon Reborn of your success here.”
“She
looked through the dove's eyes, accustoming herself to its strange way of
seeing. At her order, a servant picked it up and carried it to a window in the
hallway outside the room. The bird hopped onto the windowsill. Graendal gave it
a soft nudge to go forward; she wasn't practiced enough to take control
completely. Flying was far more difficult than it looked.”
“The
light was coming from a gateway in the middle of a clear patch, spilling forth
a warm glow. There were figures standing before it. One of them was al'Thor.
Graendal
felt instant panic. He was here. Looking down over the ridge, toward her.
Darkness within! She hadn't known for certain if he'd be here in person, or if
Ramshalan would travel through a gateway to give his report. What game was
al'Thor playing? She landed her dove on a branch. Aran'gar was complaining and
asking Graendal what she was seeing. She'd seen the dove, and would know what
Graendal was up to.
Graendal
concentrated harder. The Dragon Reborn, the man who had once been Lews Therin Telamon. He knew where she was. He had once hated her deeply; how much did he
remember?
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| Lews Therin Telamon |
Did
he recall her murder of Yanet?”
“Something
burst alight in his hand. The access key. Graendal gasped. He'd brought that
with him? It was nearly as bad as balefire.
Suddenly
she understood. She'd been played.
Cold,
terrified, she released the dove and snapped her eyes open. She was still
sitting in the small, windowless room, Aran'gar leaning beside the doorway with
arms folded.
Al'Thor
had sent Ramshalan in, expecting him to be captured, expecting him to have
Compulsion placed on him. Ramshalan's only purpose was to give al'Thor
confirmation that Graendal was in the tower.
Light!
How clever he's become.”
“She
released the True Power and embraced less-wonderful saidar. Quickly! She was so
unsettled that her embrace nearly failed. She was sweating.
Go.
She had to go.
She
opened a new gateway. Aran'gar turned, staring through the walls in the
direction of al'Thor. "So much power! What is he doing?"
Aran'gar.
She and Delana had made the weaves of Compulsion.
Al'Thor
must think Graendal dead. If he destroyed the place and those Compulsions
remained, al'Thor would know that he'd missed and that Graendal lived.
Graendal
formed two shields and slammed them into place, one for Aran'gar,
one for Delana. The women gasped. Graendal tied off the weaves and bound the
two in Air.
"Graendal?"
Aran'gar said, voice panicked. "What are you—”
“It
was coming. Graendal leaped for the gateway, rolling through it, tumbling and
ripping her dress on a branch. A blinding light rose behind her. She struggled
to dismiss the gateway, and caught one glimpse of the horrified Aran'gar before
everything behind was consumed in beautiful, pure whiteness.
The
gateway vanished, leaving Graendal in darkness.
She
lay, heart beating at a terrible speed, nearly blinded by the glare. She'd made
the quickest gateway she could, one that led only a short distance away. She
lay in the dirty underbrush atop a ridge behind the palace.
A
wave of wrongness washed over her, a warping in the air, the Pattern itself
rippling. A balescream, it was called—a moment when creation itself howled in
pain.”
“She
breathed in and out, trembling. But she had to see. She had to know. She rose
to her feet, left ankle twisted. She hobbled to the treeline and looked down.
Natrin's
Barrow—the entire palace—was gone. Burned out of the Pattern. She couldn't see
al'Thor on his distant ridge, but she knew where he was.
"You,"
she growled. "You have become far more dangerous than I assumed."
Hundreds
of beautiful men and women, the finest she'd gathered, gone. Her stronghold,
dozens of items of Power, her greatest ally among the Chosen. Gone. This was a
disaster.
No,
she thought. Alive. She'd anticipated him, if only by a few moments. Now he would
think she was dead.”
Graendal
is killed and resurrected for her failure for not killing Perrin. When she is
next seen, she is hideously disfigured and astonishingly ugly; Moridin
introduces her as Hessalam, without forgiveness in the Old Tongue, and says her
old name is not to be spoken of again.
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| Moridin |
She
has unpleasant features with a hooked and bulbous nose. She has pale eyes which
are off-center with each other. Hessalam greatly resents Moridin for her new
face.
So what does this have to do with Margaery?
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| Could the High Sparrow or the writers be telling us something? Could the stone lead to a priest hole or something similar? He did say if the statues and pillars were knocked down this would remain. |
I know this is not a smoking gun but what if the stone were a priest hole or something similar. We do know that this season was not shown in real time with people leaving one location and finding themselves far far away the next time you see them. Could the same thing have happened from the time we see Margaery in the Sept of Baelor with the High Sparrow?
Margaery spent a lot of time "praying" next to this stone. Could she have found a hidden passage. She like Graendal seemed to be the only one that knew something was going on while everybody else seemed to oblivious to what was happening.
If she did find her way to the stone to escape could she have been disfigured in a similar way as Graendal when she was punished for her failure?
Note that the symbol on the stone is similar to the "Wheel of Time" itself as represented by the seven spoked wheel.
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| A representation of The Wheel of Time |
Summary: Wildfire is the Game of Thrones equivalent of Balefire.
Comments encouraged. Love to hear the idea’s of
others. Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m
not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth. I simply
look at the information presented and go from there. If you can shine a
light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.
