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 Cersei Lannister, Melara Hetherspoon, and Maggy the Frog. Art by Cris Urdiasles © | ||||
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| Allegiance | House Hetherspoon | |||
| Culture | Westermen | |||
| Born |
264 AC or 265 AC[1] Westerlands[2] | |||
| Died |
276 AC[1] Lannisport or Casterly Rock | |||
| Father | Tybolt Hetherspoon | |||
| Books |
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| Played by | Isabella Steinbarth | |||
| TV series | Game of Thrones: Season 5 | |||
Melara Hetherspoon was a noblewoman of House Hetherspoon and a childhood friend of Cersei Lannister.
In the television adaptation Game of Thrones, Melara is portrayed by Isabella Steinbarth.
Appearance and Character
[edit]According to Cersei Lannister, Melara compared favorably with "pasty-faced and plump", fat and timid Jeyne Farman. Melara was pretty, though she had freckles. At the age of eleven, she had been "healthy as a little horse".[3]
Cersei thinks of Melara as bolder than Jeyne and possibly bolder than Cersei herself.[3] However, Cersei also recalls Melara as a friend who betrayed her,[4] and as "a greedy little schemer with ideas above her station".[5]
History
[edit]Melara was a ward at Casterly Rock,[6] a childhood bedmaid of Cersei Lannister,[3] and her close friend during their youths.[5][7] Another of Cersei's bedmaids, Jeyne Farman, would always hang back or hide behind them.[3] At Casterly Rock, Melara heard the serving girls say that the witch woman Maggy the Frog in Lannisport could curse a man, make him fall in love, summon demons, and foretell the future.[3]
In 276 AC, when Cersei was ten years old and Melara was eleven, the girls attended the tourney hosted by Lord Tywin Lannister in Lannisport in honor of Prince Viserys's birth. There, Cersei was secretly told that she would be betrothed to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen at the end of the tourney. Cersei was so happy that she decided to visit Maggy the Frog with Melara and Jeyne to have their fortunes told,[5] after Melara told them tales of Maggy's powers she had heard from the Casterly Rock serving girls,[3] and because Cersei wanted to show her friends that a queen and a lioness had no fears.[5]
That night, Cersei and her friends sneaked out of their beds to seek Maggy's tent on the tourney grounds, and entered it to find that the sorceress was sleeping. Cersei kicked her bed and demanded she wake up and tell their fortunes. After Maggy opened her yellow and crusted eyes, the sight of them caused Jeyne to flee in fear. However, Cersei and Melara stayed, asking to know their futures and what men they would marry, despite Maggy ordering them to leave. After Cersei threatened to tell her father Tywin to have Maggy whipped for insolence, Maggy grudgingly agreed, saying she must taste their blood. She provided a twisted iron dagger, which Cersei used to prick her thumb and Melara's. Maggy sucked the blood with her toothless mouth, then told the girls they had three questions. Cersei asked when she would marry Prince Rhaegar and about the children she would have, and received a frightening prophecy about marrying a king, the deaths of her children, a younger queen who would supplant her, and the valonqar that would kill her. Cersei wanted to leave after this, but Melara then demanded her own questions. She asked if she would marry Jaime Lannister, Cersei's twin, a question that angered Cersei. However, Maggy prophesied that Melara would not marry anyone and would die a maiden, and that her death was was very close, close enough to "smell her breath". Cersei followed this by throwing a jar of potion into Maggy's eyes, and the girls fled the tent while Maggy screamed and cursed at them in a foreign language.[3]
Afterwards, Cersei and Melara laughed at the "stupid", nonsensical prophecies, until the end of the tourney, when Cersei learned that King Aerys II Targaryen had refused to consider Tywin's proposal and that she would not marry Prince Rhaegar.[5] After that, Melara insisted that if they never spoke about the prophecies, they would be forgotten and would not come true.[8][3][9] However, Melara fell down a well and drowned soon afterwards.[3] Cersei recalls that Melara was not silent in the well, and that she had screamed and shouted.[9] After Melara's death, Cersei asked her septa, Saranella, the meaning of the word valonqar, who told her it was High Valyrian for "little brother", which Cersei took to mean her younger dwarf brother, Tyrion Lannister.[9]
Recent Events
[edit]A Feast for Crows
[edit]Queen Regent Cersei Lannister frequently recalls her childhood friend Melara and the night they visited Maggy the Frog.[8][5][7][3][9] She compares Melara to her new friend and bedmaid, Taena of Myr.[5] Cersei has a nightmare about the visit to Maggy's tent, and asks her advisor Qyburn about it afterwards, telling him that Maggy's prophecies must be true as she had correctly predicted Melara's death.[3]
A Dance with Dragons
[edit]Cersei, imprisoned by the Faith of the Seven in the Great Sept of Baelor, agrees to perform a walk of atonement naked through the streets of King's Landing, as it is the only way to leave her imprisonment and return to her son, King Tommen Baratheon. During the humiliating walk, Cersei tries to hold on to her pride, but eventually begins to hallucinate. Among others, Cersei sees a young girl in the crowd sitting beneath a fountain, drenched in spray, staring at her with Melara's accusing eyes.[10]
Quotes by Melara
[edit]Melara: Just tell us our futures, then we'll go.
Maggy: Some are here who have no futures.[3]—Melara and Maggy the Frog, in the dream of Cersei Lannister
Melara: I get three questions too. Will I marry Jaime?
Maggy: Not Jaime, nor any other man. Worms will have your maidenhead. Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close.[3]—Melara and Maggy the Frog, in the dream of Cersei Lannister
If we never talk about it we'll soon forget, and then it will be just a bad dream we had. Bad dreams never come true.[3]
—Melara, to Cersei Lannister
Quotes about Melara
[edit]Cersei had not had a friend she so enjoyed since Melara Hetherspoon, and Melara had turned out to be a greedy little schemer with ideas above her station. I should not think ill of her. She’s dead and drowned, and she taught me never to trust anyone but Jaime.[5]
—thoughts of Cersei Lannister
Cersei did not care to think about Senelle. She repaid my kindness with betrayal. Sansa Stark had done the same. So had Melara Hetherspoon and fat Jeyne Farman when the three of them were girls. I would never have gone into that tent if not for them. I would never have allowed Maggy the Frog to taste my morrows in a drop of blood.[4]
—thoughts of Cersei Lannister
You stupid girl, the queen thought, angry even now. Jaime does not even know you are alive. Back then her brother lived only for swords and dogs and horses... and for her, his twin.[3]
—thoughts of Cersei Lannister
Cersei: This maegi made certain prophecies. I laughed at them at first, but... she foretold the death of one of my bedmaids. At the time she made the prophecy, the girl was one-and-ten, healthy as a little horse and safe within the Rock. Yet she soon fell down a well and drowned.
Qyburn: Do you still grieve for this friend of your childhood? Is that what troubles you, Your Grace?
Cersei: Melara? No. I can hardly recall what she looked like.[3]
—Cersei Lannister and Qyburn
She could still hear Melara Hetherspoon insisting that if they never spoke about the prophecies, they would not come true. She was not so silent in the well, though. She screamed and shouted.[9]
—thoughts of Cersei Lannister
Theories
[edit]Evidence suggests that Melara's death in the well was no accident, that she was either pushed into the well by Cersei, or that Cersei deliberately did not get her help in time.
- Cersei blames Melara for her choice to visit Maggy the Frog and hear the prophecies that have haunted her for years, considering it a betrayal.[4]
- Cersei recalls how angry she was when she heard Melara wanted to marry Jaime, a fact that still angers Cersei today,[3] and she thinks of Melara as "a greedy little schemer with ideas above her station".[5]
- Maggy the Frog's prophecy of Melara's death said she was there that night, close enough to Melara to smell her breath.[3] Melara evidently did not die the very night they visited Maggy's tent — per the fact that she and Cersei laughed about the prophecies afterwards, until the final day of the tournament,[5] and the fact that Cersei describes her death as "soon" rather than "that night"[3] — so Maggy must have been referring to Cersei's presence rather than a metaphorical concept of Death.
- Cersei recalls hearing Melara scream and shout [for help] in the well,[9] which shows that she was there when Melara drowned. Furthermore, Cersei's hallucination of the drowned Melara stares at her accusingly.[10]
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 See the Melara Hetherspoon calculation.
- ↑ George R. R. Martin's A World of Ice and Fire, Melara Hetherspoon.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 36, Cersei VIII.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 32, Cersei VII.
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 24, Cersei V.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Appendix.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 28, Cersei VI.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 17, Cersei IV.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 39, Cersei IX.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 65, Cersei II.