Maggy

Maggy
Biographical information
Died	Killed by Randyll Tarly near Horn Hill
World of Westeros
Season(s)	5
Appeared in	"The Wars To Come" (flashback)
Portrayed by	Jodhi May

"Everyone wants to know their future... until they know their future."

―Maggy

Maggy, also known as Maggy the Frog, was a woods witch and reputed fortune teller living in a hut in the woods near Casterly Rock.

Biography

Background

Samwell Tarly once recalled overhearing a story of a woods witch named "Maggy the Frog" camping near Horn Hill, which suggest she left the Westerlands at some point. He also recalled that his father hunted her down, remarking that whatever magical powers she claimed to have didn't save her life. In hindsight, he realized that the name "Maggy" was likely a corruption of the Eastern word for wizards: maegi.

Season 5

When she was a teenager, Cersei Lannister went to visit Maggy at her hut in the woods, accompanied by Melara Hetherspoon, because she had heard that the witch could read people's futures. Cersei entered Maggy's hut uninvited, but when Maggy woke and demanded that she get out, Cersei arrogantly pointed out that Maggy was on her father Tywin Lannister's lands, and threatened that she would have her eyes gouged out if she refused her. Chuckling, Maggy relented and asked Cersei for a taste of her blood, handing her a knife to cut her finger with. Cersei complied and Maggy then literally sucked some blood from the cut, as part of her blood magic. Maggy told Cersei that she could ask three questions, but mocked the prideful young girl that she wouldn't like the answers.

Maggy let Cersei ask three questions. First, Cersei's father had promised that she would wed Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, and she wanted to know when they would marry. Maggy responded that she wouldn't marry "the prince" but she would marry "the king". Worried, Cersei used her second question to confirm that she would indeed be queen some day. Maggy confirmed that she would, but that in time she would be overthrown by another, younger and more beautiful queen, who would cast her down and take all she held dear . Third, Cersei asked if she and the king would have children. Maggy cryptically replied that the king would have 20 children, but Cersei would have only three. Cersei didn't think that made sense (not realizing that a king can have bastard children), but Maggy continued to say of her three children that gold would be their crowns, and gold their burial shrouds, implying that all of Cersei's children would predecease her.

Cersei remembers meeting Maggy right before her father's funeral, after he was murdered by her own brother Tyrion. Cersei is disturbed because her eldest son Joffrey has already died, poisoned at his own wedding to Margaery Tyrell, who will now marry her younger son Tommen and become the new queen, while her daughter Myrcella is in Dorne as a ward—and potential hostage—of Prince Doran Martell, brother of the late Elia and Oberyn Martell, both of whom died at the hands of her bannerman Gregor Clegane. Cersei fears that Margaery is the younger and more beautiful queen that Maggy warned her about.

Season 6

Cersei, mourning her daughter, tells Jaime about Maggy's prophecy, claiming that everything she said came true. Jaime dismisses that prophecy as nonsense.

Season 8

Maggy's prophecy finally comes true at the Battle of King's Landing, when Daenerys Targaryen is burning the city with her dragon Drogon, killing Cersei and Jaime in the process.

Abilities

Blood Magic

Maggy is a powerful blood mage, and can receive prophetic visions of a person's future by drinking their blood. She demonstrated this ability to a young Cersei in her childhood: after she drank the blood from her fingertip, she told Cersei three visions from her future, with all coming true in her adulthood, showing her to have genuine magical powers.

Appearances

Template:Season Five Appearances

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Maggy—often called Maggy the Frog—is not simply a Westerosi woods witch, but an Essosi fortune teller living in Lannisport, the wife of a spice merchant who brought her with him from Essos. This spice merchant was the founder of House Spicer and grandfather of Sybell Spicer, the mother of Jeyne Westerling, who later married Robb Stark (Jeyne was changed into the character Talisa for the TV series). The nickname "Maggy" is conjectured to be a slurred mishearing from the foreign word Maegi.

Kevan Lannister recalls Maggy as frightening old crone, who was supposed to be a priestess, and that half of Lannisport used to go to her for cures and love potions. Based on Kevan's comment there is a fan theory that Sybelle Spicer might have not only concocted a contraceptive for her daughter, to prevent her from getting pregnant by Robb (as she reveals to Jaime), but also a love potion, to make Robb susceptible to Jeyne's advances.

In the books, Maggy tells Cersei that Robert will have sixteen, not twenty children. She also tells Cersei: "When your tears have drowned you, the valonqar ["little brother" in High Valyrian] shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you". Naturally, Cersei assumes it refers to Tyrion; she forgets that Jaime is also younger than her. This part of the prophecy has been omitted from the show.

Cersei never tells Jaime about the prophecy. She shares it with only two people - her companion/lover Taena Merryweather and Qyburn. Taena assures Cersei she has nothing to worry; Maggy was just a hateful sick woman, who was jealous at Cersei for her youth and beauty, and since she didn't dare to harm Cersei directly she sought to wound her with her viper's tongue.

Qyburn assures Cersei that prophecy can be forestalled; to her question "how?" he answers evasively "I think Your Grace knows how". Cersei, believing that Margaery is the "another queen" Maggy referred to, attempts to dispose of her by falsely accusing her of adultery. Following Margaery's arrest by the Faith, Cersei smugly thinks that she has forestalled the prophecy, including the parts about her children's deaths and the valonqar as well. Her scheme, however, backfires on her.

In the fifth novel, while Cersei performs her walk of atonement, she hallucinates that Maggy is standing in the crowd with her pendulous teats and her warty greenish skin, leering with the rest, with malice shining from her crusty yellow eyes, hissing the prophecy about another queen who will cast Cersei down and take all she holds most dear.

In the novels, Maggy looks much like a stereotypical ugly fairy tale witch: very old, squat and warty, with no teeth, crusty yellow eyes, and pale green jowls—hence why she is called "Maggy the Frog".

There is no mention in the novels that Maggy moved to Horn Hill and was eventually killed by Randyll Tarly (those details were created for Histories & Lore segments of Season 7). It is unknown what has become of her after the meeting with Cersei; Kevan assumes she is long dead, but it has not been confirmed.

See also

• Maggy on A Wiki of Ice and Fire (MAJOR spoilers from the books)