What Exactly Does The Prophecy In The Letter for the King Mean?

One major addition to the story of The Letter to the King didn't appear anywhere in the book on which the series is based: the prophecy. While there were a couple of vaguely supernatural elements in the novel, the focus on magic was an addition made specifically for the Netflix YA series.

In the fifth, penultimate installment of the series, "Spiral," a woman whom Tiuri (Amir Wilson) and Lavinia (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) encountered on their travels to deliver the titular letter showed them an ancient prophecy about the kingdom, which was in danger.

The prophecy reads:

Like all prophecies, it was pretty vague on details (namely who, in fact, the Great Mage of the North actually was).

At this point in Tiuri's journey to deliver the letter, he'd been in peril (and subsequently escaped) more times than one person could reasonably expect. There was definitely something special about him. And since he was the son of a shaman, it was only natural he'd think that the prophecy was about him. Could he be the Great Mage of the North? Was he the person who was supposed to bring light to the shadow?

The evil Prince Viridian (Gijs Blom) had gotten wind of the prophecy as well, and subsequently applied it to his own situation. In his mind, he was the light and Tiuri was the shadow.

Let's be real — anyone with eyes could tell that the power-hungry, world-conquering Viridian was definitely not the light (come on, he has a jawline so sharp it could hurt people, naturally a man with that kind of bone structure is the bad guy).

You know who didn't think the prophecy applied to them? Lavinia. But looking back, she was also with Tiuri when he was in the most danger. Remember when that other shaman was trying to steal his powers, and Tiuri essentially conjured a protective bubble around himself? What if Tiuri hadn't actually done that at all?

While some of the young knight's near-misses with disaster can be attributed to his bravery, the rest definitely required a little more than luck. The common denominator in all of those situations? Lavinia. Typical that the two dudes would think they were a powerful magician, but the woman Mage, but the woman continually rescuing one of them from trouble wouldn't ever consider that she was the special one.

The moment of truth came when Lavinia conjured a spiral wind that got Prince Viridian's henchmen off her back — paving the way for her to save the day later, after Tiuri (thanks to his bravery and the help of his knight BFFs) delivered the letter to King Favian (Yorick van Wageningen) at last. Leaning on Tiuri for moral support, she literally started glowing with light as she defeated the spooky dark clouds Viridian had conjured, eventually vanquishing him for good.

It turns out that the Great Mage of the North was a streetwise woman from Mistrinaut, not the sweet knight in training the show followed throughout his journey. Which means that if Netflix wanted to greenlight a second season, we'd expect it to follow Lavinia on her journey to understand her powers. Other than being able to instinctively protect people and stand up to evil, there's no clear indication of what her magic does — can she conjure elements? Can she summon things? Can she influence others?

The addition of strong female characters to this classic Dutch children's book definitely makes it stand out from other fantasy series, and a second season following Lavinia as she goes on a quest to understand her powers and where they came from would be welcomed.