What Was Written on Viserys’s Dagger? & How Is It Related to Game of Thrones?

Episode 4 of House of the Dragon allowed us to see more parallelisms between this series and the parent series, which we all know is Game of Thrones. Of course, we all know that there were a lot of things that happened at the end of Game of Thrones in relation to the prophecy of the Prince that was Promised. However, episode 4 revisited this prophecy through the dagger that Viserys owns because there was an inscription on it. So, what was written on Viserys’s dagger in House of the Dragon?

The words “from my blood comes the prince that was promised and his will be a song of ice and fire” could be seen on Viserys’s dagger after it was heated by fire. These words are related to Game of Thrones because we all know that Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow could both be the Prince that was Promised.

Even though the prophecy of the Prince that was Promised was quite confusing because we never really knew who between Daenerys and Jon was the prophesized savior. Nevertheless, we all know that this dagger was the same one that Arya Stark used to kill the Night King. So, with that said, let’s look at the importance of the inscription on the Valyrian Steel dagger that Viserys owns.

What Was Written On Viserys’s Dagger?

While we already know that there are a lot of parallelisms between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, especially when it comes to how similar their characters can be, we saw another parallelism in the form of an easter egg in episode 4. Of course, this was something that might have been easy to miss in the episode, but it was one of the most informative scenes when it comes to the relationship between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.

Episode 4 explored more of Rhaenyra’s budding sexuality, as she ended up getting sexually attracted to her own Uncle Daemon. After that, she gave herself to Ser Criston Cole, to who she was also attracted. Of course, the events surrounding her and Daemon ended up in the ears of Otto Hightower himself, as he told the king of what had transpired between Rhaenyra and Daemon.

Not willing to let this one pass, King Viserys called Rhaenyra to his chambers to ask what happened and to remind her of what her royal responsibilities were, not only as a princess but as the heir to the Iron Throne. While she was in the king’s chambers, Rhaenyra saw her father’s Valyrian Steel dagger resting on a brazier as she was about to touch it. That was when Viserys appeared to tell her a story regarding the dagger.

Viserys said that the dagger once belonged to Aegon the Conqueror. Of course, the history of the dagger goes all the way back to Aenar Targaryen, who was the lord of House Targaryen during the time when the entire family moved from Valyria to Dragonstone to escape the Doom of Valyria. Viserys also said that the dagger might have belonged to a lot of different Targaryens before Aenar.

As he took the blade from the flames, the king showed Rhaenyra that it had some secrets that we didn’t even see in Game of Thrones. It is worth pointing out that this Valyrian Steel dagger is the very same Catspaw dagger that we saw in Game of Thrones. But it was only in House of the Dragon that we saw its secrets—runes that are only visible when the blade is exposed long enough to the heat of the fire. So, what was written on Viserys’s Valyrian Steel dagger?

The words “from my blood comes the prince that was promised and his will be a song of ice and fire” can be read from the dagger once exposed to fire. Of course, we already knew in episode 1 that Aegon had a dream about the threat from the north, and that’s why he wanted to conquer Westeros so that he could bring it under one banner.

So, with that, the dagger is some sort of an heirloom passed down from one Targaryen king to another to remind them of their purpose as the ruling monarch of the Seven Kingdoms. The importance of the dagger is to make sure that every Targaryen monarch sees to it that they further the bloodline in preparation for the coming of the threat from the north as the Prince that was Promised was going to come from Aegon the Conqueror’s bloodline.

This is why King Viserys is so intent on making sure that Rhaenyra stays true to her responsibility as the future ruler of the seven kingdoms because she is his heir. But this was something that Rhaenyra did not understand well enough, and that’s why Viserys aims to make sure that she gets to learn why her status as a Targaryen is very important in the grander scheme of things.

How Is The Inscription On The Dagger Related To Game Of Thrones?

Back in the events of Game of Thrones, we learned that this dagger was the same one used by the assassin that tried to kill Bran. Of course, the dagger ended up back in Petyr Baelish’s hands before he gave it to Brand, who gave the same dagger to Arya Stark. And we all know that there are a lot of things that are related to the dagger and the inscription that we saw in House of the Dragon.

In Game of Thrones, the Red Priestess named Melisandre was in search of a leader that she thought could be the Prince that was Promised. This savior has already been prophesized thousands of years ago and is going to defeat the darkness and save the world from an upcoming threat that no one else in Westeros is ready for.

Melisandre supported Stannis Baratheon’s claim to the Iron Throne because she believed that he was the prince that was promised. However, after Stannis failed in his attempts to take King’s Landing and defeat the Boltons holding Winterfell, Melisandre understood that she made a mistake in thinking that the Baratheon was the Prince that was Promised. It was when she was able to bring Jon Snow back to life that made her believe that he could be the prophesized savior. Despite that, we never learned who the savior was, as George RR Martin himself said that the prophecy is open to interpretation.

Going back to the dagger, we learned that the Song of Ice and Fire is inscribed on it through the help of the Valyrian pyromancers that Aegon commissioned during the final days of his reign because he wanted to remind his heirs of the importance of understanding what their role is as the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms. 

This is where we look at how the prophecy is related to the events of Game of Thrones because we know that the Targaryens were already ousted from the Iron Throne during the events of that series. And as the inscription says, the Prince that was Promised was going to come from Aegon’s bloodline.

Considering that the “prince” word is open to interpretation as it can be gender fluid, the only logical candidates for that prophecy are Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow because they were the only living Targaryens during the final events of Game of Thrones. Nevertheless, the one who killed the Night King was Arya Stark, who used the very same Valyrian Steel dagger to slay the biggest threat the world had ever seen. This means that the dagger is the most important weapon in the world as it not only contains the prophecy but was also used to slay the Night King.

Nevertheless, the dagger never said that the one who uses it and kills the Night King is the Prince that was Promised. As Viserys himself said, Aegon conquered Westeros so that he could unite the Seven Kingdoms against a common threat. In that regard, the purpose of the Prince that was Promised was to be a leader that could unite the people of Westeros against the Night King.

We saw that in the form of the pair of Daenerys and Jon as they were the ones who united different armies from all over the world to fight off the army of the dead that the Night King was leading toward Winterfell. So, in short, the dagger was still right in the sense that the Prince that was Promised came from his blood. It was only that it was Arya who dealt the killing blow to the Night King using the same Valyrian Steel dagger.