In the most recent episode of Game of Thrones Season 6, “No One,” Cersei’s right to trial by combat was denied by her son, King Tommen. Thus ended all dreams of Cleganebowl, at least for this year. But while the outcome of Cersei’s trial before the Faith Militant is looking bleak, the scene ended with a compensating victory, when Qyburn approached and gave Cersei some good news.
Here’s how it went down…
QYBURN: “That old rumor you told me about. My little birds investigated.”
CERSEI: “Is it just a rumor or something more?”
QYBURN: “Much more.”
So what the hey diddle are they talking about? The most likely possibility (spoilers) is that Qyburn has discovered the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen’s secret caches of wildfire.
As Vanity Fair points out, Cersei has always been quite fond of threatening to burn down cities to protect her children. We’ve long assumed she’s employing dramatic license, but it’s looking more and more like she will literally burn down King’s Landing (or part of it) in an attempt to kill the High Sparrow or thwart his control over Tommen.
Earlier in the season, Bran Stark had a trippy vision quest, complete with our first glimpse at the Mad King’s assassination by Jaime Lannister (you can read our shot-by-shot analysis here). Interspersed through his vision were several shots of alchemists bottling wildfire and of a massive, underground explosion. In his dying moments, the Mad King called for his underground stores of wildfire to be detonated, burning the city around him. He believed that he’d be resurrected like the phoenix (and who knows, his daughter Daenerys certainly has some magical fire retardant). But the wildfire was never detonated, so what was Bran envisioning?
Is it possible it wasn’t a flashback to the era of the Mad King, but a flash forward to Cersei’s fire-y solution?
In George R.R. Martin’s fourth A Song of Ice and Fire novel, A Feast For Crows, Cersei burns down the Tower of the Hand with wildfire (in an inept attempt to flush out Tyrion, who she believes to be hiding in the walls), so there’s a definite precedent for Cersei’s more pyromaniacal propensities.
While the next episode of Game of Thrones Season 6 looks to be taken up entirely with the Battle of Winterfell, expect Cersei Lannister to reveal her plan in the Season 6 finale. Hopefully when Daenerys arrives in Westeros there’s still an Iron Throne to sit upon.
