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What does GRRM see in Varys and Melisandre that we don't?


HosteenOsteen

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uuuuuuuuuh, since you asked, I love the red woman more than Stannis. She gets my love because she's the #1 wizard and I love fantasy for the wizards. I appreciate her as an updated succubus with marvelous offspring for us to marvel at instead of just draining the male animus for no discernable reason. I appreciate her as a fire & shadow creature (a dragon? a "warm zombie"?). I appreciate her as a sacrificer who's willing to make the personal sacrifice too. She does as she says. She's willing to take on a darker role that's tilting her into shadow more than light so that the world can be kept a brighter place thanks to her doing the dirty work. It's a real world hero dealing with the tarring and feathering of her soul, similar to what actual international spies must contend with if they want to do what it takes to strike a blow for the cause they believe in.



And Varys gets his respect as one of the top people to be scared of, but he doesn't get our love because there's nothing to be found in him that'd inspire love. (Not until the bald Varys TV actor infused some appeal into the role by pursing his lips like Dr. Evil). It never occurred to me to bash Varys for his epilogue appearance, though. Why people are panning him for "lying" I don't know. If Varys continues to succeed, he'll turn his chosen reality into the "truth" anyway, so it won't matter in the least bit whether he lied to Kevan, because the lie will be swallowed by all. So yeah, that's not a character to scoff at or lose respect for on the basis of how he presented Aegon as Aegon to a dying man. Aegon will be Aegon, and not just for the dying but for the living as well. Also, if you look at what Varys said, he simply referred to Aegon quickly, not in a lying way but in an expedient way. The conversation he was having with Kevan didn't demand he clarify things any further about Aegon being legitimate or a fraud. That doesn't matter in a conversation where you're simply referreing to the phenomenon of some guy named Aegon coming to kick everyone's ass. The truth being revealed to Kevan there is that Kevan's team is about to lose. Aegon's pedigree wasn't the topic. Victory was.


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Someone who actively seeks out a war is not working in the interests of.the Realm. (aGoT when he is.talking to Illyrio)

Someone who seeks to maintain a mad and chaotic.ruler so Westeros will remain in chaos is also not.working to help the Realm (aDwD epilogue)

Sure he is - as he sees it.

He's thinking long-term, not short-term.

I'm not saying that what he's doing really will work out for the good of the realm, just that he believes it will.

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I actually like both of them and liked them from the beginning. And I always felt that both of them gets judged harshly and characters in the story are extremely biased towards them. To me characters in the story are prejudiced towards them because either because she uses dark magic or in Varys case because he is a eunuch. And truth be told I was slight skeptical with Mellisandre but after her pov, I really started liking her. She really is trying to save the World and the fact is she is human and can make mistakes reading the signs. Varys to me feels like that he always does try to serve the realm. I think when he said that he serves the realm, he was telling the truth. One thing that was clear to me is that he doesn't do it for personal gain unlike littlefinger and he has morals. He sees the difference between right and wrong albeit he might be too crafty for his own good.


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Rightful King on paper.. at the moment... if Cersei's kids are declared bastards... discounting Dany and Jon and Aegon (she obviously missed the message on them). No Gandalf points for that one.

Knows ancient prophecies? Which ones other than Azor Ahai? The same prophecy a lot of other people know. No Gandalf points.

Is superpowerful? Not more so than Thoros who can reanimate the dead, or Bran who can warg a human, or Dany who can birth Dragons. No Gandalf points.

Look to your sins, the night is dark and full of terrors.

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Surely GRRM sees shades of grey and subtlety in both of these characters, since that's what he does best. One of his favorite themes is "the human heart in conflict with itself" and I can definitely see how the future of both Mel and Varys might reveal that theme. That in itself will be fascinating.



Varys is misunderstood because he appears to be nothing but grey (a creature of shadows) thus it is hard to divine his motivations. Mel otoh is presented as a very black and white character, whose future will surely become more shaded as we learn more about her history and motivations through her PoV. As he's shown with other PoV characters, I predict she will become more sympathetic to us as we get to know her better.



By HUGE coincidence, Mel happens to be the topic of the current episode of Radio Westeros ;)


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She really does believe that Stannis is the real deal. She thinks to herself in one of her POV's at the wall "Lord", she prayed. "Show me your king, your instrument" and a lot of other thoughts like that to show she really does believe Stannis the Mannis is AAR.

Well, yeah, but in that chapter I clearly remember that she never directly asked to look for Stannis. Just "your instrument" and other things like that. I might be wrong though, I'll have to double check that.

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Call me weird, but I like ALL the characters. There are no POVs where I think "Ugh, not a _____ chapter!" Obviously there are some I like more than others...

:agree: Same here.

Add me to the Varys told Kevan the truth (at least what he thinks is the truth) camp as well.

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Sure he is - as he sees it.

He's thinking long-term, not short-term.

I'm not saying that what he's doing really will work out for the good of the realm, just that he believes it will.

Tens of thousands dead just to sit some little pompous twit on a throne? He must be delusional if he thinks he is doing what is best for the Realm, regardless of how good a King Aegon could be. He wants the lives of everyone to be worse so that when his little Pretender comes along, they will all be: "Praise the Seven!"

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No, he said they were 2 of the most misunderstood.

I can't get on board with this, I must disagree.

1st of all Gandalf says something very similar to "I find it is the small acts of kindness that keep evil at bay" Gandalf would never condone killing "for the greater good" that is a huge difference in the 2 already.

Gandalf sends untold thousands of people to their death “for the greater good”. The only difference is that he lives in an authorial universe where the good guys don’t need to face difficult moral choices. In Tolkienverse, the goals of the good guys always align with “locally virtuous” choices, and the dying is done in aesthetically pleasing ways by others. This is not how Martinverse works (global and local ethics are not aligned, death is ugly), which is why we like it.

2nd, saying Mel supports the rightful king is a pretty convoluted statement, the right king by what definition?

Oh, Mel is probably mistaken about who the rightful king is. But that doesn’t really factor into morality, does it? If Gandalf had misread some scroll, or somebody else in Tolkienverse bore all the marks of Elessar, without being the Right Guy, would Gandalf not have helped him?

Again, Gandalf has the luxury of living in a fictional universe where the author doesn’t mess with the good guys. Prophecy is interpreted correctly, for instance. That’s a huge boon to Gandalf, but hardly makes Mel evil.

3rd Mel is no Gandalf in terms of power, she gets visions that she is not smart enough to properly interpret(I'm not calling her stupid I'm just saying she doesn't have enough knowledge) and is a shadowbinder, in other words a magical assassin. I don't think I could fit all of Gandalfs powers into 1 thread.

I have no idea about how you want to compare these things. Mel is surely one of the most powerful beings in her fictional universe.

4th The king she backs is Stannis... so her king is more likely to become the nights king than king of the 7 kingdoms, so in a way she is more like Sauromon, supporting the evil king out of ignorance. Sauromons ignorance was believing Sauron was going to win no matter what and Mels is that Stannis is AA even tho she knows his sword is a fake.

I don’t understand where this comment is going. (And: “Saruman”)
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Reminds me of the "I Claudius" series, where Emperor Claudius decides to install a nut like Nero so that he will be so much hated that the people will rise up, get rid of emperors altogether and return back to the republic. Claudius never wanted to be an emperor and was pro-republic. But then the army elected him emperor, and after Caligula and Tiberius he was a well loved emperor. He realized that people started to see an emperor as a good thing. So he made the adopted Nero his heir over his own son. Didn't went down so well.

Shit, I never considered that Varys could have that sort of end game.

Mel is Gandalf. (Backs the rightful king, knows ancient prophecy, wants to save world, is superpowerful, etc.)

GRRM’s trick was to introduce Mel in a way that would correspond to writing LOTR from the perspective of Denethor.

... You're blowing my mind Frank.

She's willing to take on a darker role that's tilting her into shadow more than light so that the world can be kept a brighter place thanks to her doing the dirty work. It's a real world hero dealing with the tarring and feathering of her soul, similar to what actual international spies must contend with if they want to do what it takes to strike a blow for the cause they believe in.

So she's Batman?

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No, he said they were 2 of the most misunderstood.

I can't get on board with this, I must disagree.

1st of all Gandalf says something very similar to "I find it is the small acts of kindness that keep evil at bay" Gandalf would never condone killing "for the greater good" that is a huge difference in the 2 already.

2nd, saying Mel supports the rightful king is a pretty convoluted statement, the right king by what definition? If Stannis' claim comes from Roberts claim then Stannis' claim is based on conquest wheres Dany's and Jon's are based on bloodline, that again eventually leads back to conquest. For that matter, no 1 in the

history of the world, or any world, has ever had the "right" to be a king, they took the "right" and no 1 stopped them.

3rd Mel is no Gandalf in terms of power, she gets visions that she is not smart enough to properly interpret(I'm not calling her stupid I'm just saying she doesn't have enough knowledge) and is a

shadowbinder, in other words a magical assassin. I don't think I could fit all of Gandalfs powers into 1 thread.

4th The king she backs is Stannis... so her king is more likely to become the nights king than king of the 7 kingdoms, so in a way she is more like Sauromon, supporting the evil king out of ignorance. Sauromons ignorance was believing Sauron was going to win no matter what and Mels is that Stannis is AA even tho she knows his sword is a fake.

Mel is more ruthless than Gandalf is, certainly. She's arrogant, where he's humble, and flaunts her powers, rather than veiling them, as he does. But, her aims are as benevolent as his. She's trying to save the World from an existential threat.

And her powers are real, even though she exaggerates them. She can survive poison, go without food or drink, birth shadow babies, kill a warg with a thought, prolong her life, glamour Mance Rayder and Rattleshirt. But, having magical power is not the same thing as being omnipotent, so she makes mistakes too.

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I like Mel better than Varys actually. In fact, I think it might be a possibility that she knows Stannis isn't Azor Ahai, but she tells him that anyway to increase her own power while searching for the real one. Also she has cool powers, whereas Varys, while being cool, is just too contradictory for me to begin to understand. I like him best under the theory that he's working with the FM.

We've read her POV. She thinks Stannis is Azor Ahai.

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People take the words of Varys as gospel and believe that he actually hates magic or speaks the truth about his past. I think that is the misunderstanding about him. He is perhaps the most untrustworthy character.



The only time I am confident that Varys spoke the truth was at his dialogue with Illyrio. I am very sceptical about everything else about him, especially the ones he told himself.


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People take the words of Varys as gospel and believe that he actually hates magic or speaks the truth about his past. I think that is the misunderstanding about him. He is perhaps the most untrustworthy character.

The only time I am confident that Varys spoke the truth was at his dialogue with Illyrio. I am very sceptical about everything else about him, especially the ones he told himself.

We need a Varys POV. They could be titled something like The Guy With No Dick, The Fat Guy's Wife, The High Septon, The Blackfyre, or The Merman
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People take the words of Varys as gospel and believe that he actually hates magic or speaks the truth about his past. I think that is the misunderstanding about him. He is perhaps the most untrustworthy character.

The only time I am confident that Varys spoke the truth was at his dialogue with Illyrio. I am very sceptical about everything else about him, especially the ones he told himself.

We need a Varys POV. They could be titled something like The Guy With No Dick, The Fat Guy's Wife, The High Septon, The Blackfyre, or The Merman.
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