Jon Snow ReRead Project! Part 5! (DwD)

[butterbumps!]

Intermediary Chapters: Jon IV - Mel I (Dwd + FFC)

• Jon IV: DwD
  • Jon reformulates Stannis’ plan to win the North.
• Jaime II: AFFC
  • Tywin’s funeral procession leaves the city. Jaime tries to convince Kevan to stay as Hand, but he goes to Darry. He chastises Cersei for her appointments to the council, and reflects on Cristen Cole, the Kingmaker.
• Tyrion V: ADWD
  • The Shy Maid drifts through the fog of the Sorrows. Tyrion tries to piece together how Aegon survived the sack, and reveals his own identity to the party. The Stone Men attack, and Tyrion falls in.
• Cersei IV: AFFC
  • Small Council meeting; Cersei devises plan to send Kettleblack to the Wall to assassinate Jon Snow.

It’s revealed that Janos Slynt had been in contact with KL about Watch activities, including the fact that Stannis has been making common cause with the wildlings, a move they find foolish. They believe the North is won, and that all of the bannermen—Umber, Ryswell and even Manderly—will genuinely accept Bolton rule. Manderly has written to KL to let them know he holds Davos prisoner as testament to his loyalty, and awaits her decision on what to do with him. Cersei instructs him to kill Davos as “the coin he’ll need to buy his son’s [Wylis’] life.”

She brings up “the problem” of Jon’s election, and the fact that he’s ceded concessions to Stannis: “The bastard boy has written us to avow that the Night’s Watch takes no side, but his actions give the lie to his words. He has given Stannis food and shelter, yet has the insolence to plead with us for arms and men.”

They choose to read this as Jon’s decision to join the strength of the Watch to Stannis, and therefore treasonous.

Cersei, who’s looking for any excuse to kill Stark-adjacent characters, sees this as a perfect opportunity: turn the brothers against Jon, and their “treason” will be forgiven. Qyburn suggests they answer Jon’s plea by sending men to the Wall for the purpose of assassinating him: “If this bastard boy is truly his father’s son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs.”

• Davos III: ADWD
  • Davos has been held for days in White Harbor, but is brought into Manderly’s Mermen’s Court, where he’s declared a traitor.
• Victarion I (The Iron Captain): AFFC
  • At Old Wyck, Victarian rejects Asha’s offer to perform as his Hand.
• Aeron II (The Drowned Man): AFFC
  • Kingsmoot
• Brienne IV: AFFC
  • At the Whispers, Brienne kills Shagwell’s gang. Hyle Hunt teams up with her.
• Arianne I (The Queenmaker): AFFC
  • Arianne and company leave Sunspear to Crown Myrcella Queen. They are intercepted by Hotah, Arys killed, and Myrcella maimed by Darkstar.
• Arya II: AFFC
  • Begins her FM training after throwing away her possessions (save Needle). She is sent to learn Braavosi by living with Brusco.
• Sansa II (Alayne I): AFFC
  • Lord’s Declarant Meeting.
• Arianne II (The Princess in the Tower): AFFC
  • Arianne’s confined to a tower at Sunspear. Doran confirms that Quentyn’s gone east for dragons.
• Cersei V: AFFC
  • Cersei tries to get Kettleblack seduce Marg, and devises a plan to have Bronn killed.
• Jon V: ADWD
  • Stannis has left; Jon feeds Mole Town and recruits 63 wildlings.
• Tyrion VI: ADWD
  • In Selhorys, Tyrion learns Aegon’s cover story. He convinces Aegon that he must turn west and begin winning victories so that Dany will hear of it and join him as equals. After, he explores with Haldon and learns of slave rebellion and the Red Priests. He has an ugly sexual encounter with a sex slave, and is caught by Jorah.
• Daenerys IV: ADWD
  • Agrees to marry Hizdhar if he’s able to bring 90 days of peace; Daario suggests a more ruthless way to achieve peace, and Dany casts him out.
• Jon Con I (The Lost Lord): ADWD
  • Reflections of his own and Golden Company history. Meets with officers of the GC, and Aegon convinces them to change the plan to head for Westeros and get Dorne’s support rather than joining with Dany beforehand. He’s contracted Greyscale.
• Quentyn II (The Windblown): ADWD
  • Windblown sack Astapor. Tattered Prince decides to hedge his bets and selects a small group, including Quentyn’s party, to go over to Dany.
• Asha I (The Wayward Bride): ADWD
  • Asha’s returned to Deepwood Motte, and gets a letter from Ramsay with Theon’s skin. She realizes that she’s under attack, though uncertain of by whom (it’s Stannis with the clansmen), and flees for her ships, but Northmen arrest her in the forest.
• Brienne V: AFFC
  • She returns to Maindenpool and decides to head to Saltpans, after hearing that Sandor may be with Sansa, and that he led the raid there. She and Hyle join with Meribald, who gives his “broken men” speech (Jon reflects on “broken men” in Jon V).
• Samwell III: AFFC
  • Stuck in Braavos, looking for dragon news for Aemon. He runs into Arya while looking for Daeron. He and Daeron get into a fight, which results in Sam’s being thrown in the canal and rescued by Xhondo of the Cinnamon Wind who had seen Dany’s dragons back in Qarth (he brought news of Robert’s death to her).
• Jaime III: AFFC
  • Jaime is sent to clean up the Riverlands. Bonnifer Hasty is put in charge of Harrenhal, and Jaime returns the remaining prisoners, including Wylis Manderly.
• Tyrion VII: ADWD
  • In Volantis, he and Jorah meet with the widow of the waterfront to appeal for passage to Dany; during the meeting, Penny attacks Tyrion. The widow instructs them to take the Selaesori Qhoran, and that the slaves of Volantis are for Dany.
• Jon VI: ADWD
  • Sends out 9 rangers and then fights with Rattleshirt (Mance) in the practice yard. A letter from Ramsay arrives informing him that he will be marrying Arya. Unable to sleep, he walks about, where Mel joins him and makes him an offer to win more power and save his sister.
• Davos IV: ADWD
  • Led out of his cell by Robett Glover to meet Manderly in secret. Wylis is being returned in exchange for having “killed Davos,” and Manderly is now willing to move forward with an anti- Lannister/ Bolton agenda, letting Davos know he’s willing to make common cause with Stannis.
• Cersei VI: AFFC
  • A new High Septon has been chosen, and currents of popular unrest and desire for reform are palpable. Cersei meets with the new HS, striking a bargain such that the Faith will forgive the Crown’s debt and bless Tommen if she repeals Maegor’s laws against the Faith Militant.
• Victarion II (The Reaver): AFFC
  • Euron takes the Shield Isles, and reveals his next steps to Victarion. Vic is to take the Iron Fleet East to bring her back as Euron’s wife; he agrees, but is determined to keep her for himself.
• Daenerys V: ADWD
  • Reflecting on the challenges her enemies present, and refusing to unleash the dragons as a solution to any, Dany decides that she must marry Hiz.
• Melisandre I: ADWD
  • We see her visions in detail; she meets with Rattleshirt to concoct a plan, and brings Jon in on it.

[butterbumps!]

Melisandre I (DwD)

Power resides where men believe it resides. No more, and no less…A Shadow on the Wall. (Varys, aCoK)

The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. (Mel I, DwD)

overview

Plotwise, this is a pretty simple chapter, roughly divided into 4 parts. It opens with a glimpse into Mel’s visions, and reflections on her worldviews. “Rattleshirt” enters and the two discuss a plan to save Arya as a means of winning Jon’s trust. They’re interrupted by the return of dead rangers, just as she predicted; she goes to the scene to make herself visible to Jon, assuming he will begin to listen to her. Receptive to talk, Jon is invited back to Mel’s chamber where she reveals “Rattleshirt” as Mance, and that they will deliver Arya.

observations

• We get more snowflakes drifting on the wind
• One of the dead rangers, Garth, was in a relationship with Alf of Runnymudd, one of the Queen’s men.
• Mance gives Mel intel on the disgruntled Watchmen:

“A few. I was eating bean-and-bacon soup whilst Bowen Marsh was going on about the high ground. The Old Pomegranate thought that I was spying on him and announced that he would not suffer murderers listening to their councils. I told him that if that was true, maybe they shouldn’t have them by the fire. Bowen turned red and made some choking sounds, but that was as far as it went.”

analysis

This chapter is full of reveals. That is, nothing’s really been what it’s seemed, from “Rattleshirt,” to Mel’s motives, to who she truly is, to a deconstruction of magic and power as “trappings” meant to manipulate men’s expectations and from there, shape their beliefs. In the same way Varys’ mantra serves as a key to deciphering the nature of power in the series, I think this chapter shows us an explicit self-aware implementation of this philosophy.

who is Mel?

A lifetime ago, she was a slave girl named “Melony,” sold in “lot 7” to the temple (ostensibly the Red Temple). She’s frequently called “Melisandre of Asshai,” and this chapter confirms that she spent time there learning magic as a continuation of her lessons, but this is not her true origin it would seem.

Tyrion VI provides some background on the Red Temple, and some discontinuities stand out in this chapter. Firstly, Mel’s visage is notably absent of the distinctive slave tattoos the Red Priests are marked by. Given her “Melony. Lot 7” memory, it would appear she’s removed these markings, which leads to a couple of implications: there’s ample room to question the veracity of her appearance, and her erasure of these markings may suggest she has strong feelings about slavery. Secondly, we learn from Tyrion of 3 orders within the Red Temple: priests, prostitutes and knights. She’s the only female priest we ever see, and it may suggest she’s actually not technically one. Given her gender, it seems likely she may have had her start as a temple prostitute. The reason I point this out is because it appears she may be a priest-gone-rogue, as she hasn’t mentioned Benerro at all, who we now know is the head of the order, and it may be that much of what we see of her methods are from learnings beyond the R’hllorist canon. To build on that, there’s suggestion that shadow-binding is an Asshai-based form of sorcery, not R’hllorist.

I think it’s fair to say that she’s separate from the R’hllor institution at this point, but the nature of the schism is debatable. Increasingly, I’ve come to believe that she was sold into temple prostitution, where her fervor for R’hllor grew, but her gender held her back from sanctioned priesthood. Given this possible roadblock, I get the sense that she sought out other sorceries, like the shadow-binding, in order to serve her god. From there, I suspect she’s reconciled the theological implications of all these skills under the R’hllorist canon on her own. This is admittedly on the speculative side; however, some of her reflections this chapter, which will be expanded on below, don’t quite make sense in the context of her being a sanctioned priestess, so I’m putting this suggestion upfront as a way of understanding what might be going on.

One last note: there’s implication that she may not only transform her appearance, but her humanity to some extent. It appears she considers herself separate from “mortal men,” and her lack of bodily functions would lend credence to this:

With Stannis gone, her bed saw little use. She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders…. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour. One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams. Melony, she thought. Lot Seven.

and

Food. Yes, I should eat. Some days she forgot. R’hllor provided her with all the nourishment her body needed, but that was something best concealed from mortal men.

what is Mel after?

Perhaps most importantly, we see that Mel is a true believer. Prior to this chapter, I think it’s fair to say that her motives have been highly suspect; after all, someone who genuinely sees their beliefs as an end rather than a means or an excuse is extremely rare. She absolutely believes in R’hllor, she truly sees the world as a fundamental duality, she believes that the ultimate battle between good and evil is upon them, and genuinely believes in Stannis as Azor Ahai, the hero who will vanquish evil:

The dark recedes again … for a little while. But beyond the Wall, the enemy grows stronger, and should he win the dawn will never come again. She wondered if it had been his face that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf’s face … they were his servants, surely … his champions, as Stannis was hers.

To her, this is about saving the world from evil. And everything either falls into good or evil.

Her dualist outlook puts everything into irreconcilably conflicting categories, and her categories derive from formulaic indexing and deduction. But it’s more complicated than that, and one reason why I suspect much of her theological thought is self-taught and her magic might be outside canon. Her rationalizations to Davos back in aCoK about shadows serving R’hllor stand in contrast to her immediate categorization of the faces in this vision as evil and opposed. That is, she will find a way to rationalize something she finds useful as an instrument of R’hllor and therefore on the side of good, even darkness, which she ordinarily sees as unilaterally evil; if she doesn’t understand or see something’s utility, then it is an irreconcilable evil.

We also see that she’s truly dedicated to finding truth from flame—it’s hard work, and her pursuit of truth is not disingenuous, even if the interpretations of her visions she communicates to others are.

I think it’s also worth noting that Mel is actually not entirely heartless. She may be ruthless in serving her ends, but she’s not without the ability to empathize or compassion, as illustrated by her thoughts on Devan:

In truth, he was here because Melisandre had asked for him. The four eldest sons of Davos Seaworth had perished in the battle on the Blackwater, when the king’s fleet had been consumed by green fire. Devan was the fifthborn and safer here with her than at the king’s side. Lord Davos would not thank her for it, no more than the boy himself, but it seemed to her that Seaworth had suffered enough grief. Misguided as he was, his loyalty to Stannis could not be doubted. She had seen that in her flames.

fake it till you make it

Now, this becomes very thematically interesting. She believes in the concept of “true power,” and seems to believe it manifests in magic. When “real magic” is beyond her grasp, she employs techniques of illusion to convince others she possesses magical power:

She was stronger at the Wall, stronger even than in Asshai. Her every word and gesture was more potent, and she could do things that she had never done before. Such shadows as I bring forth here will be terrible, and no creature of the dark will stand before them. With such sorceries at her command, she should soon have no more need of the feeble tricks of alchemists and pyromancers.

And

They need never know how difficult it had been, or how much it had cost her. That was a lesson Melisandre had learned long before Asshai; the more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer.

So Mel simultaneously reifies while conceptually negating Varys’ pervasive adage about power as an illusion. That is, she does precisely use illusion and expectation to shape men’s beliefs, especially in terms of convincing them that power is more than an illusion, but the fact that she genuinely believes that “real power” (i.e. magic) exists puts her at odds with Varys’ riddle.

She employs a similar “fake it till you make it” approach to inter-personal and political power dynamics (though, admittedly, for her, “magic” and political capital are heavily conflated). In fact, she coined the term “trappings of power” to describe gestures (without inherent meaning in and of themselves) one does that send a message about one’s status and power to others:

Having guards about her would no doubt help keep the black brothers properly respectful, the red priestess knew, but none of the men that Stannis had given her were like to be much help should she find herself in peril.

……….

She would have no need of [her guards] today, but Melisandre made it a point to keep a pair of guards about her everywhere she went. It sent a certain message. The trappings of power.

…………

The priestess did not speak, but she slowed her pace deliberately, and where she walked the ice began to drip. [Jon] will not fail to notice that.

Where this becomes even more interesting is that it renders the perception of power akin to something like language—the intended significations of meaning depend entirely on whether those you’re gesturing to understand these signs the way you do. I would say that Mel deconstructs Varys’ riddle to the next level; yes, power is an illusion dependant on men’s beliefs, but now we explicitly see how these illusions are constructed, as well as limitations on one’s ability to communicate the intended message thusly. In particular, Mel and Jon have very different interpretations of certain power trappings and what messages they are sending. Much depends on where you’re standing.

The baby-swap is salient to these points as well. We know that Jon switched Mance’s baby, but it seems Mel and Mance do not. In fact, Mel appeals to Jon’s holding Mance’s son hostage as a guarantee of his good behavior on the Arya mission. So, in truth, Jon holds no real power over Mance, as Gilly has his baby, but what matters is that Mance believes he does.

what Mel wants from Jon

Jon’s been showing up in Mel’s visions lately, and she senses that there is power to him, but at the moment, I think she may be unsure of his precise utility in her grand scheme. The production of “terrible shadows” does indeed seem to be a desired goal, which was what she pitched to him in the previous chapter. Bringing forth a major weapon—either the dragon she was seeking, or this shadow—is what she’s looking for, so it may be that she merely sees Jon as a means to that means of the end of vanquishing darkness.

What is certain, however, is that she is committed to earning Jon’s trust as an immediate goal. She seems to believe that there are two types of people “unbelievers and believers,” and that to believe in her power is to trust her. That is, she seems to think the only reason a person would not listen to her council is because they doubt she is truly capable of magic. As such, her efforts to win Jon’s trust are exclusively focused on convincing him that she has power.

But she doesn’t seem to understand him at all. From the previous chapter, we know Jon doesn’t doubt her power at all; it’s her motives he’s distrustful of. This disconnect may be highly influenced by her inaccurate read of Jon:

He does not love me, will never love me, but he will make use of me. Well and good. Melisandre had danced the same dance with Stannis Baratheon, back in the beginning. In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit. Stannis had been a younger son living in the shadow of his elder brother, just as Jon Snow, bastard-born, had always been eclipsed by his trueborn sibling, the fallen hero men had called the Young Wolf. Both men were unbelievers by nature, mistrustful, suspicious. The only gods they truly worshiped were honor and duty.

Having been in Jon’s head and seeing him through Sam, we know he’s not an unbeliever by nature, as well as the fact that he’s not as implacable about honor or duty as she seems to think (and, side note: since when is honor something Stannis particularly follows either). He’s more empirical and pragmatic than her impression allows, I would suggest.

It would also seem they’re not speaking the same language in terms of what messages are being sent. From the previous chapter, we know that Jon didn’t move into the King’s Tower is because he didn’t want to send the message that Stannis was gone for good. Mel reads his intention completely differently:

Snow still chose to dwell behind the armory, in a pair of modest rooms previously occupied by the Watch’s late blacksmith. Perhaps he did not think himself worthy of the King’s Tower, or perhaps he did not care. That was his mistake, the false humility of youth that is itself a sort of pride. It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings.

The boy was not entirely naive, however. He knew better than to come to Melisandre’s chambers like a supplicant, insisting she come to him instead should she have need of words with him. And oft as not, when she did come, he would keep her waiting or refuse to see her. That much, at least, was shrewd.

And what’s even more curious about this view is her mention that Jon keeps her waiting as a keen political move. Now, we’ve had like 8 or so Jon chapters since Mel’s been at the wall; never once do we see him reflect on keeping her waiting, or thinking about playing her in any way. Does this actually even happen?

Her major Jon power-play: the Arya mission

Despite having a somewhat incorrect impression of Jon, Mel does rightly see Arya as an opening. What I think is debatable, however, is how to read Jon’s protests from the previous chapter. Was Jon so reluctant to talk to Mel about Arya because he swore to have no family, or do we read this reluctance more directly toward Mel?

At any rate, Mel identifies an opportunity to put Jon in her debt via rescuing Arya. Believing that Jon would never see to her rescue himself due to his vows, and believing she has seen Arya in her flames, she seizes a loophole in the form of Mance to carry it out:

“He is not you. He made his vows and means to live by them. The Night’s Watch takes no part. But you are not Night’s Watch. You can do what he cannot.”

I wonder if she’s wrong about that. I have no doubt that Jon is truly conflicted about abandoning Arya in accordance with his vows, but his feelings toward the sanctity of “taking no part” were already beginning to erode. Now, I, personally, could come up with a rationalization for intercepting Arya as beneficial to the overall picture from Jon’s position. Or, at the very least, as part of a strategy to strengthen Stannis’ position.

But the way Mel pitches this is very much about the creation of a very personal debt that she senses Jon has a strong personal connection to. That is, despite the fact that Arya is a figure with political capital, her rescue is exactly in line with the goals of her Azor Ahai, and that this would be a means to her “good overcoming evil” end, she only sees this as a means to the end of winning over Jon. It’s very short-sighted from her POV.

From her chapter, it does seem like she genuinely believes this mission is all about winning over Jon, so it doesn’t appear that this was something cooked up as part of a larger strategy that she’s just marketing to Jon as personal manipulatively. That said, her conception and presentation of this makes the whole mission seem like a taboo for a Watchman. That is, she emphasizes Jon’s personal desire as the reason for the mission, which makes it seem indefensible from a Watchman perspective. It presents the Arya situation as singularly important to Jon (as in, no other parties would have a stake in this), and as such, presents herself as the only channel to do this:

“Who else, my lord? Only his life’s blood could pay for his crimes, your laws said, and Stannis Baratheon is not a man to go against the law … but as you said so sagely, the laws of men end at the Wall. I told you that the Lord of Light would hear your prayers. You wanted a way to save your little sister and still hold fast to the honor that means so much to you, to the vows you swore before your wooden god.”

Jon doesn’t agree to it on-page, though we know he does, as he procures Mance spearwives. We also see that he believes this whole mission is very personal, never thinking of it in the context of either his or Stannis’ strategies. However, I’m curious about how Jon might have thought about the prospect of rescuing Arya if Sam were there, or Mel made a different pitch, or if he’d just let himself think it through on his own more. That is, I’m wondering if he’d have seen a broader justification for the idea of rescuing Arya as more than a personal desire for his sister, and as such, spearheaded the mission on his own terms.

the opening vision

Here’s the opening of the chapter parsed out. Since this is a reread thread, I want to suggest some caution in getting too caught up with speculating on all of the possible interpretations of it. What I think is crucial, though, is to reflect on the way Mel interprets the “signs,” jumps to conclusions, and sees what she expects to see in them:

One more time. She had to be certain. Many a priest and priestess before her had been brought down by false visions, by seeing what they wished to see instead of what the Lord of Light had sent.

Show me Stannis, Lord, she prayed. Show me your king, your instrument.

• Eyeless faces weeping blood.
• Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths.
• Shadows in the shape of skulls
• skulls that turned to mist,
• bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing.
• Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. (HotU: From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . .)

She asks for another vision of the girl on a horse. But instead gets:

• A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf’s face threw back his head and howled.
• Strange voices called to her from days long past. “Melony,” she heard a woman cry. A man’s voice called, “Lot Seven.”
  
• Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirling around each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained.

She believes the skulls symbolize death. Then:

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him.

She interprets the skulls around him to mean that he has enemies all around him. She’s frustrated that he’s an “unbeliever,” and frustrated that she’s not seeing Stannis in her visions: I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only Snow.

Melisandre had seen his danger before, had tried to warn the boy of it. Enemies all around him, daggers in the dark. He would not listen. Unbelievers never listened until it was too late.

[Lummel]

:thumbsup: Butterbumps!

About Melisandre's interpretations I noticed that although she sees Bran as a wolf faced boy and Jon changing places with a wolf, which to me seem quite similar images she comes to completely opposite conclusions about them seeing Bran as a servant of the enemy and Jon's wolf as a source of power for him. It doesn't occur to her that this might be a sign that Jon could be a servant of the enemy or that the boy might be a powerful ally. This for me falls very much into the pattern of rationalisation and dualism that you expounded above.

Agree on the compassion for Davos - which is an interesting feature, not something we normally associate with Melisandre.

With regard though to the Rhllorristas isn't Bennero the chief in Volontis, not necessarily worldwide? Although I agree that simply because she seems to have turned up in Westeros without servants despite the value she puts on the propaganda of the trapping of power is very curious and suggestive.

[Maia]

Great work on Melisandre, Butterbumps!

I think there's some irony here in that the message this sends is that she's not concerned with what's best for Jon or the Watch, but rather, in convincing people that she's powerful.

I think that Melisandre has a case of "not seeing trees for the wood" - i.e. she thinks that she sees the big picture and doesn't concern herself with such small issues as "what is best for the Watch". Or "what is best for Jon".

So she's proving the point that didn't need to be proven, and working against the issue that's the true roadblock (Jon's trusting her motives). I wonder if she'd intervened prior whether Jon would have been more receptive about trusting her motives in the next chapters.

Oh, absolutely! I guess that she was afraid that if Jon suddenly listened and didn't send the men, there would be no way to prove that her vision was the true one or, indeed, that it had accomplished anything at all.

The Gift does get brought up in Jon IV, but Bowen and Jon don't see it as particularly lucrative at this stage because there isn't enough time for a harvest.

Yet, IIRC in both Bran's and Jon's chapters in the Gift we were told how rich it is in stuff that is growing in the wild - apples, acorns, etc. and how it must nourish lots of boars and such.

They don't have time to plant anything, sure, - but to hunt and to gather what is already growing on abandoned homesteads? This certainly seems like a more reliable source of food than wight and wildling-haunted woods beyond the Wall. Would be easier to transport whatever they gather too, due to abandoned roads and generally much lower level of danger.

Also, given how few rangers Jon has left, how much game could be realistically brought in from behind the Wall? Not enough to matter, IMHO.

For this to work, though, it would be absolutely critical that the pardon would come from Stannis rather than Jon, and more importantly, that this was done on the condition that Mance would appeal to the wildlings to make common cause with the Watch and fight alongside them.

A few issues with this. First of all - wouldn't it be the ultimate example of "clean hands"? I.e. Jon knows that it would be a gross miscarriage of justice to pardon Mance, so he'd shove this onto Stannis?

And I don't think that a king is supposed to be able to forgive NW traitors and deserters either. Now, Stannis has already demonstrated that he doesn't care about the millenia-old customs and laws that govern NW and allowed it to exist back in the days of multiple kings, who often fought each other.

However, Stannis _also_ doesn't seem to care what will happen to NW _or_ the North, should he be defeated and killed. He is an "after me, the flood" character. Should he fail, from his PoV it would be because the northeners and people of Westeros in general didn't support him as they should have, and thus they'd _deserve_ whatever was coming.

It was telling, I thought, that

in the preview chapter of WoW Stannis's instructions to Massey in case of his death only concerned his daughters rights, yet nothing was said about stopping the impending Other apocalypse

As such, shouldn't Jon be better? Shouldn't he think about reprecussions of not just a deserter, but a man who viciously turned on NW using the knowledge and skills he acquired while being a member, murdered a lot of brothers and caused untold harm to NW _and_ the North, etc. being forgiven and offered a position of leadership?

Particularly _since_ Jon intends to admit more wildlings into the ranks and use them to man the Wall? What kind of message would that send?

How could the members of NW ever trust their new wildling collegues, who'd have a constant example in front of them that oaths and promises given to NW aren't worth spit? That no matter what enormities you commit, you'd be welcomed back with open arms? How could northeners south of the Gifts ever feel safe?

"Some men aren't worth having", and that very much applies to Mance, when people south of the Wall are concerned, as his future actions would show.

I think there's also virtue in publicly portraying Mance as a prisoner guilty of desertion, while privately making use of him as a councilor. He has a lot of wisdom and knowledge of wildling dynamics, and has tried to fight the main enemy himself. I think it would be a waste to kill him given his knowledge of the wildlings and the Others.

Even more of "the clean hands" action. And the big problem with this is... that, seemingly, Mance didn't impart any of that privileged information, which was, supposedly, important enough to spare him, to anybody. At the end of ADwD Jon won't know anything more about any of these topics than he didn in the beginning. And, judging by her chapter, neither does Melisandre! A complete waste of massive injustice and subtrefuge.

There's virtue in publicly executing him as a message of Stannis' dominance, but I think there may have been virtue in showing mercy in terms of winning wildling trust.

Or gaining wildling disdain and inviting an attack by them, once they had numbers south of the Wall on their side, for welcoming such an obvious traitor back into their arms? Remember, wildlings believe that the strong have a right to take from the weak, and all that jazz. And that would be a huge display of weakness and gullibility.

_Burning_ the supposed Mance and attendant speeches sent a wrong message too, of course.

Mance is incredibly skilled, Mel has a way of controlling him, and I wonder if there would have been a way to better make use of him than the Arya mission.

Yea, IMHO it was a complete waste of Mance's potential utility. I wonder at Jon, that he didn't at least insist on some new information about the Others as a proof that Mance was "on their side" and a reason not to execute him at once.

To add, even if Jon doesn't know about Robb's will or the full details of Ramsay's antics, he does know that the Boltons have no reason to love him and he knows there was foul play in terms of their post RW bounty.

Why should "foul play" matter, when an ice-zombie apocalypse stares one in the face? Shouldn't Jon try anything and everything to counter-act it, as a Lord Commander? Shouldn't he disseminate the knowledge he gained as far as possible, on the off chance that it might help?

Mance may be vastly more charismatic than the Boltons and not personally cruel, but his "play" was as foul or worse. Yet Jon argued for forgiving and using him.

Now, re: Melisandre's chapter proper, I don't believe that the Red Priestresses don't exist. Davos interacted with a lot of people from the Free Cities, where the Red Priests are common, and visited there himself - it would be completely implausible if a woman appeared, claiming to belong to a male-only order and nobody said anything. And Melisandre herself thought about other priestresses in her PoV, i.e.:

"Many a priest and _priestess_ before her had been brought down by false visions, by seeing what they wished to see instead of what the Lord of Light had sent."

I also think that she most likely wears a permanent glamour... however, not all Red priests have face tattoos. Thoros doesn't.

In fact, I don't think that even slaves are tatooed on the face anywhere except for Volantis and the lands it holds. There may be some variation in the ways they worship depending on location where they train, too.

Still, shadowbinding does seem unorthodox for a R'llorist, so I agree that Melisandre might be some kind of heretic. But Moqorro also spoke of shadows as something positive, didn't he? So, maybe Melisandre's rationalizations don't go against the canon entirely? Hm...

Red Priests do learn spells, as per Thoros, it seems that spells are an integral part of their worship. But they didn't work for anybody in Myr before he left, as far as he knew.

It is entirely possible that Melisandre _was_ able to make some spells work, albeit too feebly to be of real use (viz: the Quartheen firemage, who was able to coax fire from obsidian), and it prompted her to consider herself an elect of R'llor and look for more powerful magic.

Again, very interesting that prior to the Red Comet and/or hatching of the dragons, magic used to worked much better in Asshai than anywhere else.

And speaking of Thoros, he wasn't booted out of the priesthood for sloth and hedonism because he had a talent of seeing visions in the fire - this is clearly something that R'llorists prize highly. So, it might have been Melisandre's ticket in too. She remembers that it was her very first magical ability to manifest.

[butterbumps!]

Now, re: Melisandre's chapter proper, I don't believe that the Red Priestresses don't exist. Davos interacted with a lot of people from the Free Cities, where the Red Priests are common, and visited there himself - it would be completely implausible if a woman appeared, claiming to belong to a male-only order and nobody said anything. And Melisandre herself thought about other priestresses in her PoV.

I also think that she most likely wears a permanent glamour... however, not all Red priests have face tattoos. Thoros doesn't.

In fact, I don't think that even slaves are tatooed on the face anywhere except for Volantis and the lands it holds. There may be some variation in the ways they worship depending on location where they train, too.

And speaking of Thoros, he wasn't booted out of the priesthood because he had a talent of seeing visions in the fire - this is clearly something that R'llorists prize highly. So, it might have been Melisandre's ticket in too. She remembers that it was her very first magical ability to manifest.

Yes, I'm not sure why foraging wasn't brought up, but I wanted to point out that the Gift was ruled out in terms of agricultural productivity.

On Mance:

If the King is allowed to absolve someone from NW vows, KG vows, or even pardon a KG who had killed the previous king, I do think Stannis could have pardoned Mance from a legal perspective, so making a Stannis-derived pardon wouldn't be a miscarriage of justice as such.

Further, I don't actually think Mance "turned viciously against the Watch." I mean, really, would the Watch have ever entertained negotiations with the wildlings in terms of offering protection without leverage of force? Did Mance turn on the Watch, or did the Watch turn away from its true purpose? His ends were to save the wildlings, which put him into conflict with the Watch, who are the gatekeepers of safety, not to destroy the Watch. Where's the "justice" in allowing only some "realms of men" survive?

Yes, sparing him for the sake of regrouping sends the message that could allow chaos to ensue-- people would think breaking rules would go undisciplined. But it sends a different message to the other side of the Wall that may have actually had a more positive outcome than the situation we have at the end of DwD in terms of bodies out there. I don't believe we can just assume that Mance would not be accepted; kicking people's asses wasn't the only way he rose to power, after all. The efficacy of sending him back out is something I'd actually ask Mance about himself if I were Jon or Stannis (and bear in mind, he thinks they hold his son). From Varamyr, we see that the wildlings' hopes were tied to Mance, and that now he was thought dead, all hope was lost. I think it's possible he could have rallied them.

I do think executing Mance at this stage is a bad idea. I think he's too valuable.

I'm also not worked up over the lack of appeal to the Boltons. Just to point this out, it kind of looks like you're condemning Jon for sparing Mance for idealistic reasons despite thinking of pragmatic ones, while condemning him for not appealing to the Boltons for pragmatic reasons, despite how their legitimacy and lack of being brought to justice is at play.

I actually do think Jon's lack of Bolton contact is pragmatic. If Jon were anyone other than Ned's "son," I'd agree that at least going through the motions of an appeal would be the right move. However, I think Jon's doing this would be a complete moot point given who he is, if not something that calls attention to himself as another "Stark target" to finish the job of "Stark" extinguishing. I think the better criticism is to ask why Jon didn't think to write those letters of appeals to all the other Northern lords with Stannis, and frame it as a matter of urgency in terms of the Long Night rather than a Stannis-centric appeal for fealty.

On the Mel chapter:

There may be such things as female priestesses that would be the equivalent of Moqorro or Benerro, but their omission is rather curious, especially in light of the way the 3 orders of the temple are presented.

Mel is different than Thoros. Thoros wouldn't have slave tattoos because so far as we know, he wasn't a slave, but sent willingly to the temple.

ETA: I don't think Thoros was actually ever "booted out." The Reds sent him on a mission to go to Westeros and convert Aerys, which failed because the pyromancers knew "better tricks." I think he basically pulled a Dareon and didn't really take his mission seriously, or ever bother to return.

[Mithras]

Intermediary Chapters: Jon IV - Mel I (Dwd + FFC)

Melisandre I (DwD)

Very good :cheers:

Finally we came to the Great Harlot. Speaking of which, though I am not a bible expert, does GRRM take certain elements from the Whore of Babylon?

She is associated with Antichrist and the Beast. Stannis is the next best thing to Antichrist in ASOIAF. Slynt had said the mark of the beast is on Jon but I don't think the beast is Jon. Patchface can also be called the beast from the sea and I really think that once the household of Stannis goes to Nightfort, Patchface will do some real bloody stuff. But I think there is a better match for the beasts.

It is said that there are two beasts associated with the Whore of Babylon:

Beast from the sea

The description of the beast is found primarily in Revelation chapters thirteen and seventeen. Chapter thirteen gives the fullest description of the beast. John saw the beast "rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." (Revelation 13:1) The beast was like a leopard, with feet like the feet of a bear, and had a mouth like a lion. One of the heads of the beast had a mortal wound but the wound was healed causing people to wonder and follow the beast. (Revelation 13:1-10) This description draws many parallels with a vision in the Book of Daniel where four beasts come out of the sea in the forms of a lion, bear, leopard and a beast with ten horns. In Revelation chapter seventeen we learn of a third beast, scarlet in color and some of the symbols are explained. The prevailing view is that the scarlet beast is another, distinct, visualisation of the same subject as the beast of the sea. The seven heads of the beast represent both seven mountains and seven kings, and the ten horns are ten kings who have not yet received kingdoms. Of the seven kings we are told that five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come. We are also told that the beast itself is an eighth king who is the seventh ruler, and is going to perdition. We are also told that this beast "was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition"

I think the beast from the sea looks like fAegon, who came across the sea. The bolded sentence is a very good match with Aegon's head being smashed against the wall and fAegon appearing with his head "healed". People will wonder this and follow fAegon. Seven heads of the beast can be attached to the Faith of Seven which has been taught to fAegon by a soiled Septa, a different colored whore of Babylon.

Beast from the earth

The second beast is primarily described in Revelation chapter thirteen. This second beast comes out of the earth whose overall appearance is not described, other than having "two horns like a lamb", and speaking "like a dragon". His purpose is to promote the authority of the first beast with the ability to perform great signs, even making fire come down out of heaven. This second beast is also called the false prophet. He speaks like a dragon commanding the people of the Earth to make an image "to" the beast that was wounded by a sword. It is declared that anyone who does not worship the beast or its image would be killed. The lamb-horned beast from the earth also causes all people to receive the mark of the beast "in their right hand or in their forehead."

I think this is clearly Dany. She will be taken to Dosh Khaleen but she will come out from the Womb of the World. She speaks like a dragon because she is a dragon. She can make (dragon)fire come down out of heaven.

[Ragnorak]

Nicely done, Butterbumps.

Last chapter's Ghost incident

With a brief look back to the Ghost/Ygriite episode last chapter:

The sound echoed queerly from the corners of the room and twisted like a worm inside their ears. The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips. The ruby on the wildling’s wrist darkened, and the wisps of light and shadow around him writhed and faded.

So it seems possible to present different sensory illusions to different people. I looked at Mel's description of Mance's wavering glamor

The wildling wore a sleeveless jerkin of boiled leather dotted with bronze studs beneath a worn cloak mottled in shades of green and brown. No bones. He was cloaked in shadows too, in wisps of ragged grey mist, half-seen, sliding across his face and form with every step he took. Ugly things. As ugly as his bones. A widow’s peak, close-set dark eyes, pinched cheeks, a mustache wriggling like a worm above a mouthful of broken brown teeth.

but nothing jumped out other than Jon's phrase "cloaked in shadows and memory."

So did Mel or Stannis spare Mance?

This seems like it was Mel and not Stannis.

Mance Rayder chuckled. “I had my doubts as well, Snow, but why not let her try? It was that, or let Stannis roast me.”

But this seems to indicate that Stannis knew if Mel isn't lying:

And he owes you his very life.”
“Me?” Snow sounded startled. “Who else, my lord? Only his life’s blood could pay for his crimes, your laws said, and Stannis Baratheon is not a man to go against the law … but as you said so sagely, the laws of men end at the Wall.

A very angry Jon

We've occasionally talked about Jon's berserker strength. He seems as angry here as when he lifted Thorne off his feet.

Jon Snow grasped the spear that bore Garth Greyfeather’s head and wrenched it violently from the ground. “Pull down the other two,” he commanded, and four of the crows hurried to obey. ... To the men struggling with the spears Snow said,

Mel doesn't seem to notice his anger, but Jon just yanked a spear out of the ground in one motion while four men are struggling with its companions. We've only seen this with a Jon close to blind rage. She notices that he clenches his sword hand but also fails to observe any emotional state associated with the gesture.

He looked at her face for a long moment with those cold grey eyes of his. His right hand closed, opened, closed again. “As you wish. Edd, take Ghost back to my chambers.”

Is Jon that hard to read, is Mel oblivious or is it a mix of the two? Perhaps Mel does see something and we're supposed to read more into her adjective "cold" given her temperature based value system.

Clean hands

I actually see this as Jon's biggest mistake, at least on a certain level. One of the moral implications of having bloody hands is owning responsibility for your choices and actions. Mel's offer is one of "clean hands" and one designed to absolve Jon of the burden and corresponding responsibility of making a hard choice. Jon tends to be good at looking for that third choice when confronted with two bad options, but I don't think Mel's clean handed out here qualifies as a third choice.

This also fits with Winterfellian's observation last chapter about Jon letting events unfold and seeing himself as powerless to influence them.

Had Mel simply laid out her intel on Long Lake and Mance given Jon his assessment of his ability to get Arya I suspect Jon would have weighed the decision and said "yes." That would have made it Jon's choice and lessoned the "debt" to Mel, though in the end probably resulted in more trust and therefore more actual influence with Jon. Mel seems to want power over Jon and not influence with Jon regardless of whether or not the latter actually yields more power.

There's also this little bit of contrasting clean hands imagery.

The wildling began to scrape the dirt out from beneath his nails with the point of his dagger.

Rattleshirt could wash his hands a hundred times a day and he’d still have blood beneath his nails.

ETA: On an odd religious note, Mel has Seven candles.

[Fire Eater]

Good job bumps!

Also good finds Paper Weaver, with the first and second beasts referring to Aegon and Dany.

her tears were flame

I agree that she was a temple prostitute at the Red Temple in Volantis. Flames indicate the slave belongs to the red temple while tears indicate that the slave is a prostitute, tears of flame could mean Mel was a prostitute. As for her comment "best concealed form mortal men," I think that implies she is undead like Beric and Lady Stoneheart.

Visions:

As for that, tze gives a good argument.

She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her form sockets weeping blood

I think the eyeless faces, not heads, refer to the weirwoods whose sap looks like blood, and lack eyeballs.

I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor only shows me Snow.

R'hllor must be thinking "Man, this woman is thick."

The skulls are death

one either side of them [bran in the COtF Cave], in niches carved from stone, skulls looked down on them.

The wights are already shown so it would be redundant to use skulls to represent death, given the dead would be made into wights. The CotF cave is filled with skulls, and the skulls could mean that BR and/or the Old Gods are looking after the wildlings at Hardhome. The caves at Hardhome could have been CotF caves with spells still active to prevent wights from entering. The skulls all around Jon mean that BR is looking after Jon, and that he will help him, and likely successfully contact him after the Ides of Marsh.

Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again.

Jon will slip into Ghost after the Ides of Marsh, and then return to his own body.

the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them rising from the depths

My favorite theory regarding this vision is that BR sends the Hammer of the Waters to Pyke, which is a bunch of towers on sea cliffs.

On other subjects:

In the black iron fetter about his wrist, the ruby seemed to pulse. . . Soft as a woman's kiss. Your kiss. But sometimes in my dreams it starts to burn, and your lips turn into teeth.

Fetters are used to handicap slaves and prisoners. In essence, Mance is Mel's prisoner and slave. Mance's dreams could be cluing in to what the nature of this relationship, and what it will mean for Mance.

I was eating bean-and-bacon soup whilst Bowen Marsh was going on about the high ground. The Old Pomegranate thought I was spying on him and announced that he would not suffer murderers listening to their councils.

Marsh managed to think that Rattleshirt (Mance) was spying on him. Interesting, why would he be concerned with people listening in on his conversations with his group if it is just about things as innocent sounding as the high ground? Who does Bowen think Mance would be spying for? Marsh and Co were likely plotting and discussing plans for what would culminate in Jon's last POV.

None of his free folk mattered. They were a lost people, a doomed people, destined to vanish from the earth as the children of the forest had vanished.

Does anyone find this thought to be offensive or is it just me? Saying an entire group of people's lives don't matter sounds pretty prejudiced to me.

To add to what Ragnorak said, we do see bouts of seemingly extraordinary strength and ferocity when Jon is angry such as lifting Thorne off the ground with one hand, Jon needing two men to pull him away after he already knocked an older and more experienced Emmett's helm askew, sent his sword flying six yards away and wrecked his shield into splinters, and now wrenching a spear from the ground where four men are struggling. If this is what "waking the dragon" actually is, it puts Dany and Viserys to shame.

[Treemaster]

Awesome post, Butterbumps! I have nothing to add for now, but just wanted to express due appreciation for its quality. Great analysis of Mel and Mel's background.

[bemused]

I'm only getting a chance to post now, close to 12 hrs. after seeing the new chapter come up ,and in the meantime, I see there's plenty more I want to reply to..but here's for starters...

Bumps!.. Yum! this is really , really good.

There does seem to be something decidedly off about Mel's "priestess" designation.I've never been able to decide if I think she's really a stand-alone (rogue) figure or if there's a schism within the R'Hllorist faith itself, with the Benerro faction being the more dominant in and around slaver's bay. ( And if so, which would be the older faction ?)..Is she trying to carve out a new , special niche only for herself ?( or for women generally within the religion).. Or has a more patriarchal faction taken over and become more powerful ?

Are the facial tatoos a new thing ... something that seeped into the religion via the common practice in Volantis? ..That she has no tatoos seems like it might be evidence that her appearance is glamoured , but then, Thoros has none either and magic wasn't working for him until recently.( With Thoros .. he's a priest ,but was he ever a slave ... and does he come from Myr originally , or was that where he entered the priesthood ? )

Women seem relegated to Temple Prostitute in Volantis , but might there be a progression from servant/student/acolyte , to prostitute , to priestess elsewhwere ?

Melisandre had practiced her art for years beyond count, and she had paid the price. There was no one, even in her order, who had her skill at seeing the secrets half-revealed and half-concealed within the sacred flames.

If Mel had been practising her art for "years beyond count", her religion might have since evolved into something a bit different than it was when she started. That she thinks there's no one "even in her order " who has her skill at seeing , would seem to imply that "her order" is known for this skill.( Or was at some time ,in some location.)

Bennero and Moqorro both seem to have pretty finely tuned skill in seeing and perhaps a more objective frame of mind for interpreting. Do they,too feel that.. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. ... We see Moqorro by his fire through the night , but we don't know if, like Mel ,he rarely sleeps.

One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams.

This desire to be free of dreams is potentially dangerous ,given Mel's location. Bloodraven could possibly help her to understand the wall better ( if that would be a good idea ) .. or at least, perhaps influence her dreams in a way to clarify some of her misinterpretations.

[Mithras]

Benerro and Moqorro are very precise about ship arrival and departure times but that does not necessarily make them experts on interpreting highly metaphorical visions about AAR or other deep subjects.

[bemused]

Benerro and Moqorro are very precise about ship arrival and departure times but that does not necessarily make them experts on interpreting highly metaphorical visions about AAR or other deep subjects.

Agreed ,that's why I said perhaps.. They think Dany is Azor Ahai.. they and Mel both could be wrong . :D It's that they've had what we know to be correct political visions , but the visions we hear of - regarding the Triarchs , the golden Company and the Qartheen , e.g. - may not be more than they could know through a good intelligence network. We have no way of knowing if they had any such visions well in advance.

[butterbumps!]

About Melisandre's interpretations I noticed that although she sees Bran as a wolf faced boy and Jon changing places with a wolf, which to me seem quite similar images she comes to completely opposite conclusions about them seeing Bran as a servant of the enemy and Jon's wolf as a source of power for him. It doesn't occur to her that this might be a sign that Jon could be a servant of the enemy or that the boy might be a powerful ally. This for me falls very much into the pattern of rationalisation and dualism that you expounded above.

Agree on the compassion for Davos - which is an interesting feature, not something we normally associate with Melisandre.

With regard though to the Rhllorristas isn't Bennero the chief in Volontis, not necessarily worldwide? Although I agree that simply because she seems to have turned up in Westeros without servants despite the value she puts on the propaganda of the trapping of power is very curious and suggestive.

Yea, exactly-- the way she seems to inconsistently index things give her a bit of a "fly by the seat of your pants" feel, imo.

That's a good point-- Benerro might just be the Volantene head, but I'd gotten the impression he was a more prominent leader than that, since he's referred to as "First Servant of the Lord of Light," and has been sending out the Azor Ahai message "to the world" from his vantage. I might have the wrong impression of this, but after the Tyrion chapter, I had kind of thought he might have been like the equivalent of the Red's pope of something-- almost like Volantis is the "Vatican" of the Red's operation or something. That might be wrong though. Perhaps the head of each temple is called "First Servant."

What I feel a bit more confident about is that the Reds definitely send representatives out on missions (Moqorro, Thoros), and the lack of reflection about any sort of mission in Mel's chapter stands out to me as a clue that whatever Mel is doing is likely unsanctioned.

Is Jon that hard to read, is Mel oblivious or is it a mix of the two? Perhaps Mel does see something and we're supposed to read more into her adjective "cold" given her temperature based value system.

Clean hands

I actually see this as Jon's biggest mistake, at least on a certain level. One of the moral implications of having bloody hands is owning responsibility for your choices and actions. Mel's offer is one of "clean hands" and one designed to absolve Jon of the burden and corresponding responsibility of making a hard choice. Jon tends to be good at looking for that third choice when confronted with two bad options, but I don't think Mel's clean handed out here qualifies as a third choice.

This also fits with Winterfellian's observation last chapter about Jon letting events unfold and seeing himself as powerless to influence them.

Had Mel simply laid out her intel on Long Lake and Mance given Jon his assessment of his ability to get Arya I suspect Jon would have weighed the decision and said "yes." That would have made it Jon's choice and lessoned the "debt" to Mel, though in the end probably resulted in more trust and therefore more actual influence with Jon. Mel seems to want power over Jon and not influence with Jon regardless of whether or not the latter actually yields more power.

There's also this little bit of contrasting clean hands imagery.

I wonder if Jon might actually be that hard to read. I know we've discussed privately that this reread has been more challenging in a lot of ways than others, and part of that are the ambiguities Martin leaves open. I mean, even for a reader, with access to his POV, I think it's even a bit tough to nail down precisely "this is who Jon is."

I think Mel miscalculated the extent to which honor, duty, and lack of faith exist in Jon's character. I also think she projected what she sees in Stannis onto Jon in terms of his being haunted by Robb's glory shadow. But, in fairness to Mel, we see that even Sam couldn't accurately read what Jon was thinking back in his FFC overlapping chapter during the paper shield discussion.

On the Arya mission, I very much agree with the bolded. It's one of those "if the characters were rational" moments. The third choice is to realize that rescuing Arya serves the bigger picture and go from there. Mel's being more upfront about this would have undoubtedly served to lessen the "debt," but raise her level of trustworthiness in Jon's eyes.

I'm not entirely sure whether Mel is completely blind to how rescuing Arya would be a godsend to her Azor Ahai's scheme, or if she does and is purposely misrepresenting this to Jon as having exclusive value to him. But she was present when Jon and Stannis spoke in Jon IV, and would know that Jon isn't exactly sticking to his "take no part" in practice, and that he's pretty good about putting things into a wider perspective. So was she blind to what Jon actually did in terms of being involved with Stannis that chapter, or did she see it, and purposely exploited Jon's emotions to manipulate him into not seeing a third option of his own so that he wouldn't spearhead his own mission without her? (for example, his desire to rescue Arya is something the clansmen share, and I don't think it's a stretch to assume he could have talked to them about a plan, if not even Mors Umber). I guess I'm wondering if her alienation of this issue to Jon was purposeful or unintentional.

None of his free folk mattered. They were a lost people, a doomed people, destined to vanish from the earth as the children of the forest had vanished.

Does anyone find this thought to be offensive or is it just me? Saying an entire group of people's lives don't matter sounds pretty prejudiced to me.

yea, I agree. But I kind of wonder how Mel came to believe that-- was this from a vision or just a worldview? It looks like Mel seems to believe it means they're going to be erased, but what if they are "destined to vanish" as a separate "free folk" nation because they'll be living on as an integrated part of the realm? I find her attitude toward the inevitability of the loss of an entire people disturbing, but wonder how true this inevitability really is, I guess you can say.

On the visions, I've leaned toward the towers as Pyke, and like Tze's view of the faces as weirwoods.

I want to point out though that the first grouping of visions I parsed might be all part of the same "story," or chain of events. As in, these might not be separate, but part of the same vision narrative.

In particular, I find it very curious that we have a tower crumbling, then death and sex, then winged shadows through a curtain of flame. I purposely put up the HotU quote adjacently to compare to that slayer of lies line: smoking tower, stone beast takes wing, breathes shadow flame. I've wondered if this may portend the same event.

Not only that, but Mel has been on a very dedicated mission to sacrifice innocents and/ or have sex with people in order to either wake a dragon from stone, and more recently, to create "terrible shadows." Is there a chance this refers to her?

Awesome post, Butterbumps! I have nothing to add for now, but just wanted to express due appreciation for its quality. Great analysis of Mel and Mel's background.

thanks!

One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams.

This desire to be free of dreams is potentially dangerous ,given Mel's location. Bloodraven could possibly help her to understand the wall better ( if that would be a good idea ) .. or at least, perhaps influence her dreams in a way to clarify some of her misinterpretations.

This is probably a completely worthless comment from an analysis point of view, but Mel's lines here always reminds me of the way Gaiman's The Sandman philosophizes about the realm of Dream, its relation to Death, and so forth.

I kind of think Mel would have better luck with these visions if she drew them out and showed them to people, so that they weren't influenced by her expectation and the limitations of her own observation. For example, she knows those towers by the sea do not look like Eastwatch, but tells Jon they're Eastwatch. Had she drawn out that castle, a lot of confusion could probably be avoided.

I honestly think people would be more inclined to take her visions seriously if she owned up to her limitations-- which, let's face it, aren't an inability to see visions, but rather, the fact that she hasn't seen everything in the world, and therefore, doesn't know how to name or identify these images. It's a perfectly understandable limitation, and has nothing to do with magical power. But the fact that she doesn't know how to name these things seems like a great shame to her, so she keeps up the facade and just names them anyway, despite how I'd think this undermines the image she projects when these events don't come true.

[Mithras]

More on the Beast

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

fAegon lands on Westeros and he is armed with the Faith of the Seven. I have a theory that Varys controls the High Sparrow and the whole sparrow movement. One of his disguises was a filthy begging brother and the last time we saw him until the Epilogue of Kevan, he was wearing the same disguise.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

The beast is supposed to get his power, his seat and authority from the dragon. Varys is a dragon whether a Blackfyre or a Brightflame. The dragon is often referred to as the Serpent in the Bible. There was Lady Serala, the Lace Serpent of Myr. She was the prime motivator for the events leading to Defiance of Duskendale, which is still a mystery.

“In Duskendale they love Lord Denys still, despite the woe he brought them. ’Tis Lady Serala that they blame, his Myrish wife. The Lace Serpent, she is called. If Lord Darklyn had only wed a Staunton or a Stokeworth... well, you know how smallfolk will go on. The Lace Serpent filled her husband’s ear with Myrish poison, they say, until Lord Denys rose against his king and took him captive.”

“Varys came from Myr.”

“So he did.”

I suspect Varys playing a part in the Defiance of Duskendale.

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

We already covered this. Aegon’s head was smashed but fAegon’s head is completely solid. and how people worships fAegon reminds me of this:

A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd.

[butterbumps!]

snip

Just so I understand, how are you sourcing your beast imagery? I mean, how are you getting from Mel to beast? It looks like you connected Mel to the Whore of Babylon, and from there, are using those Biblical myths to apply back onto ASOIAF. Is there a more ASOIAF-direct connection between Mel and "beasts" without going through the Biblical Whore of Babylon filter?

[Lummel]

...And the location could play into the illusion as well...

So this meeting is on the spot where Ygritte died. Could the location itself act like Rattleshirt's bones? The bones remember. Does the earth and the ruined LC's Tower remember ,too ? Both events take place by moonlight. The "glittering silver mask" of the dying Ygritte perhaps foreshadowing that an Ygritte "mask" will be briefly worn by Mel...

I don't know if this is something that GRRM is aware of, but apparently human memory does work like that, locations prompt memories which are associated with that place.

...Mel doesn't seem to notice his anger, but Jon just yanked a spear out of the ground in one motion while four men are struggling with its companions. We've only seen this with a Jon close to blind rage. She notices that he clenches his sword hand but also fails to observe any emotional state associated with the gesture...

and a spear which the Weeper's men worked through the night to work into the frozen ground too...

...That's a good point-- Benerro might just be the Volantene head, but I'd gotten the impression he was a more prominent leader than that, since he's referred to as "First Servant of the Lord of Light," and has been sending out the Azor Ahai message "to the world" from his vantage. I might have the wrong impression of this, but after the Tyrion chapter, I had kind of thought he might have been like the equivalent of the Red's pope of something-- almost like Volantis is the "Vatican" of the Red's operation or something. That might be wrong though. Perhaps the head of each temple is called "First Servant."

What I feel a bit more confident about is that the Reds definitely send representatives out on missions (Moqorro, Thoros), and the lack of reflection about any sort of mission in Mel's chapter stands out to me as a clue that whatever Mel is doing is likely unsanctioned.

...I also think she projected what she sees in Stannis onto Jon in terms of his being haunted by Robb's glory shadow. But, in fairness to Mel, we see that even Sam couldn't accurately read what Jon was thinking back in his FFC overlapping chapter during the paper shield discussion...

Benerro might well be a pope like figure among the free cities, but since Melisandre is associated with Asshai she could be independent of him all the same - I'm wary of drawing fixed conclusions here when we know so little, though I agree that she is most likely off on a mission all of her own simply because of the lack of an entourage of servants, assistants and guards. It is hard to link her thoughts about her own powers and abilities with the impression of a hierarchical setup that we get from Tyrion - normally one would expect the best/most highly skilled person to have a senior place in the hierarchy - how else would she have got access to the training and learning required without some degree of seniority? On the other hand if she is a senior Rhlorrista from the far East how did she get to link her vision of an Azor Ahai reborn to Stannis Baratheon? (How did she get to hear about the children of the forest - are they that famous abroad too?) I like this chapter a lot for giving us an insight to a mysterious figure but it also in GRRM style it raises new questions.

I agree entirely on the Jon/Stannis issue. It does seem as though she has simply read across her conclusions about Stannis to Jon, which links to what Maia was saying about her being a big-picture person who misses or doesn't pay attention to details - and we see her in this chapter blanking out what the Mance says about the various wildling leaders because she's already convinced that the wildlings will die out. Maybe she is right about that, but there is still scope for them to be significant before their extinction besides which she herself assures Jon that the future can be changed depending on how you respond to these visions! "And it may be that if you act, you may avert what I have seen entirely" p416

Melisandre seems to have a view of people as objects. A collection of component parts. With limited individuality.

I wondered if she was thinking of herself as no longer human, not quite Rhllorr, but associated increasing with him, perhaps becoming one with him in some way in her mind?

[Fire Eater]

I kind of think Mel would have better luck with these visions if she drew them out and showed them to people, so that they weren't influenced by her expectation and the limitations of her own observation. For example, she knows those towers by the sea do not look like Eastwatch, but tells Jon they're Eastwatch. Had she drawn out that castle, a lot of confusion could probably be avoided.

I honestly think people would be more inclined to take her visions seriously if she owned up to her limitations-- which, let's face it, aren't an inability to see visions, but rather, the fact that she hasn't seen everything in the world, and therefore, doesn't know how to name or identify these images. It's a perfectly understandable limitation, and has nothing to do with magical power. But the fact that she doesn't know how to name these things seems like a great shame to her, so she keeps up the facade and just names them anyway, despite how I'd think this undermines the image she projects when these events don't come true.

I completely agree. Mel seems too concerned with creating an aura omniscience to the point that she is unsure about a vision, and gives a guess based on it. She doesn't even seem to care if she gave the wrong interpretation. It is better to act on no information than misinformation.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

I see the R'hllorism as a term as broad as christianity - a common set of beliefs and rituals that constitute a core, but apart from that there are so many regional, institutional and other types of differentiations, that sometimes it can make it seem as a different religion alltogether. Thoros of Myr does not seem to share Melisandre's view of the end and the means, he seems to have more things in common with Septon Meribald than with Mel; the Red Temple of Braavos apparently does not employ slaves. It is too much spread geographically and culturally, so imo it wouldn't make much sense to be as solid as the Faith of Seven who are bound to a single country.

Mel seems to be a sort of freelance missionary as, in a way, Thoros was too. It also seems that this mission was of her own initiative or else she has been given green light to handle it on her own as she thinks best. She must be high ranking - a lot of education to be invested in someone insignificant.

I think that none of their magic is exclusive to R'hllorists, not even reading the fires.

In the Princess and the Queen, a bastard girl from the Riverlands sees visions in fires. There's no indication at all that she has any connection with their faith.

But they seem to view magic as something stemming from the god, so they study it and use it and, in a way, worship it - the polar opposite attitude than the Citadel...

Melisandre's greatest flaw imo is her total subjectiveness of perspective. Jon and Stannis may indeed both be "unbelievers" - if, by that, she means that they are not likely to believe her without questions and requirements of proof. Accordingly, by "honor" she might refer to their reluctance to accept her "end justifies the means" view.

Another one: I believe that she fears the things she does not know and/or does not understand. This might explain why she sees Jon/wolf as 'good' but Bran/wolf as 'evil'. Jon is familiar; by his position as LC of the Watch he fights for her side "by default"; Bran and Bloodraven, though, represent a power that isn't hers so by, her logic, they must be at the side of darkness.

I think her ideas towards sleep and dreams are more connected to her past than to her faith, even though she doesn't openly admit it. She wants to be free from the dreams of Melony, dreams that hurt.

So many things and so little time... One last thing: Jon does not want to relate Arya to the "big picture". In later chapters we have his thoughts about it. He wants to save his little sister from the Game of Thrones entirely, not to just free her from the Boltons. So I don't think that the argument of her value to Stannis' cause / big picture would be a very good one.

[butterbumps!]

Benerro might well be a pope like figure among the free cities, but since Melisandre is associated with Asshai she could be independent of him all the same - I'm wary of drawing fixed conclusions here when we know so little, though I agree that she is most likely off on a mission all of her own simply because of the lack of an entourage of servants, assistants and guards. It is hard to link her thoughts about her own powers and abilities with the impression of a hierarchical setup that we get from Tyrion - normally one would expect the best/most highly skilled person to have a senior place in the hierarchy - how else would she have got access to the training and learning required without some degree of seniority? On the other hand if she is a senior Rhlorrista from the far East how did she get to link her vision of an Azor Ahai reborn to Stannis Baratheon? (How did she get to hear about the children of the forest - are they that famous abroad too?) I like this chapter a lot for giving us an insight to a mysterious figure but it also in GRRM style it raises new questions.

The aSoS Davos chapter where he's imprisoned at Dragonstone has her saying this to Davos:

I have seen him leading the fight against the dark, I have seen it in the flames. The flames do not lie, else you would not be here. It is written in prophecy as well. When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. The bleeding star has come and gone, and Dragonstone is the place of smoke and salt. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai reborn!

So she says she's seen him leading the fight against the dark, but it seemed to me that she might have connected this to Stannis through some deductions and assumptions. If I had to guess from this excerpt, I'd hazard that she may have had a vision of someone leading a fight against "darkness" (whatever that looks like), assumed it was related to the LN myth and that the person she sees is AA, referred to the prophesy of being born amidst "smoke and salt" and "dragons from stone," and connected this to Dragonstone, where our pal Stannis happened to be.

I could be very wrong, but the way she "proves" the point to Davos, adjacently to the way we see how she interprets raw visions, is why I tend to think it was a vision of something that she read through a R'hllorist lens into believing was the LN/ AAR, then applied the stone, salt, smoke of the prophesy onto her search for this champion, and deduced Dragonstone -> Stannis from that.

On the hierarchy of the Reds: you are right-- we can't know with certainty about how this organization works. Honestly, when I stated Benerro was the head of everything, it wasn't so much a conscious speculation, but the way I had read it. That said, I agree with the questions you raise about it. Apologies for unintentionally speculating, lol.

[-Winterfellian-]

So Mel simultaneously reifies while conceptually negating Varys pervasive adage about power as an illusion. That is, she does precisely use illusion and expectation to shape mens beliefs, especially in terms of convincing them that power is more than an illusion, but the fact that she genuinely believes that real power (i.e. magic) exists puts her at odds with Varys riddle. h

Where this becomes even more interesting is that it renders the perception of power akin to something like languagethe intended significations of meaning depend entirely on whether those youre gesturing to understand these signs the way you do. I would say that Mel deconstructs Varys riddle to the next level; yes, power is an illusion dependant on mens beliefs, but now we explicitly see how these illusions are constructed, as well as limitations on ones ability to communicate the intended message thusly. In particular, Mel and Jon have very different interpretations of certain power trappings and what messages they are sending. Much depends on where youre standing.

I really like how you phrase this, particuarly the bolded. In a more narrow sense, it seems Mels understanding of the language of power is a matter of the instrumentalisation of others expectations for the purpose of exercising power. The command of this language itself becomes a means of power to which she seems to devote herself while expecting others to do the same.

The problem is she seems to assume that this language is a universal one. While she disdains Jons poor display of power trappings, his noiseless form of behavior is a form of trapping of its own, at least within a Northern scope if Neds overall demeanor and the approval in which he was regarded by a great part of his subjects is any indication.

Does Mel believe the power inherent to such modus operandi to be a form of real non-magic power?

I am tempted to say that she does, not only because she employs this methods to boost Stannis claims as King and AA but also for herself. Only, she reaches for a more subtle and Varys like form of power, where rather than being the monarch she sets up as the one whispering Gods will in the ears of said monarch.

But the way Mel pitches this is very much about the creation of a very personal debt that she senses Jon has a strong personal connection to. That is, despite the fact that Arya is a figure with political capital, her rescue is exactly in line with the goals of her Azor Ahai, and that this would be a means to her good overcoming evil end, she only sees this as a means to the end of winning over Jon. Its very short-sighted from her POV.

From her chapter, it does seem like she genuinely believes this mission is all about winning over Jon, so it doesnt appear that this was something cooked up as part of a larger strategy that shes just marketing to Jon as personal manipulatively. That said, her conception and presentation of this makes the whole mission seem like a taboo for a Watchman. That is, she emphasizes Jons personal desire as the reason for the mission, which makes it seem indefensible from a Watchman perspective. It presents the Arya situation as singularly important to Jon (as in, no other parties would have a stake in this), and as such, presents herself as the only channel to do this:

Jon doesnt agree to it on-page, though we know he does, as he procures Mance spearwives. We also see that he believes this whole mission is very personal, never thinking of it in the context of either his or Stannis strategies. However, Im curious about how Jon might have thought about the prospect of rescuing Arya if Sam were there, or Mel made a different pitch, or if hed just let himself think it through on his own more. That is, Im wondering if hed have seen a broader justification for the idea of rescuing Arya as more than a personal desire for his sister, and as such, spearheaded the mission on his own terms.

Though I dont disagree with you about Mel being short sighted and the manner in which the mission was presented, I gotta ask, given the current situation how do you imagine that the Arya mission could have been rationalized as part of Jons- and by extension the NW- strategy? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but it seems to me this could only have been possible had Jon taken a more active and public role in Stannis support since the beginning. But Jon did no such thing in an effort to maintain the appearance of neutrality. Presenting the rescue in service of Stannis cause is one thing, but presenting it aligned in the interest of the Watch and the bigger picture (keeping in mind that so far they have tried to keep themselves apart from Stannis actions, at least publically) is highly implausible IMO.

Given the state of affairs between Stannis, the Watch and the IT staying put was really the best option for Jon and the Watch, with the only other viable option was getting his hands dirty and involving himself fully in at least the planning of the mission. Jon ended up doing the worst, which is keeping on the sidelines while letting others run the show in an effort to keep his hands clean, to borrow Ragnoraks expression.

.Clean hands

I actually see this as Jon's biggest mistake, at least on a certain level. One of the moral implications of having bloody hands is owning responsibility for your choices and actions. Mel's offer is one of "clean hands" and one designed to absolve Jon of the burden and corresponding responsibility of making a hard choice. Jon tends to be good at looking for that third choice when confronted with two bad options, but I don't think Mel's clean handed out here qualifies as a third choice.

I agree with this 100%

Melisandre's greatest flaw imo is her total subjectiveness of perspective. Jon and Stannis may indeed both be "unbelievers" - if, by that, she means that they are not likely to believe her without questions and requirements of proof. Accordingly, by "honor" she might refer to their reluctance to accept her "end justifies the means" view.

Another one: I believe that she fears the things she does not know and/or does not understand. This might explain why she sees Jon/wolf as 'good' but Bran/wolf as 'evil'. Jon is familiar; by his position as LC of the Watch he fights for her side "by default"; Bran and Bloodraven, though, represent a power that isn't hers so by, her logic, they must be at the side of darkness.

I very much like this analysis. It definitely explain how Mel can associate Stannis and Jons sort of honor as being one and the same, something that has grated me in the past.