Only death can pay for life (Spoilers)

[Mayura]

It is very weird to see books readers saying the show "screwed things up" because "only death can pay for life" and nobody was sacrificed for Jon to come back... Many have stated it here but it is pretty clear to all books readers (I think) that the "last kiss" R'hllor style resurrection doesn't require a third person's death (as others have pointed, the price for this miraculous R'hllor related resurrection seems to be the death of self and the weakening of the Red Priest). So why should it have been different on the show when Mel performed it? 

The way I perceived the resurrection process in the show, it seems to be a miracle that isn't necessarily triggered by the words pronounced by the Red Priest or the ritual itself. The common points between Thoros and Mel at the moment a resurrection is performed "by them" (I assume) is that they were both doubting their faith and certainly not boasting about being all powerful. They were both weak, full of doubts and were sincerely wishing for the deceased to come back. My take on it is that the "magic word" that made Jon come back wasn't Mel's incantations but rather the fact she humbly asked the God's mercy by adding a desperate "please" after the ritual was performed. Just like Thoros was sincerely wishing for Beric to be revived. 

 

 

 

[Mayura]

It is very weird to see books readers saying the show "screwed things up" because "only death can pay for life" and nobody was sacrificed for Jon to come back... Many have stated it here but it is pretty clear to all books readers (I think) that the "last kiss" R'hllor style resurrection doesn't require a third person's death (as others have pointed, the price for this miraculous R'hllor related resurrection seems to be the death of self and the weakening of the Red Priest). So why should it have been different on the show when Mel performed it? 

The way I perceived the resurrection process in the show, it seems to be a miracle that isn't necessarily triggered by the words pronounced by the Red Priest or the ritual itself. The common points between Thoros and Mel at the moment a resurrection is performed "by them" (I assume) is that they were both doubting their faith and certainly not boasting about being all powerful. They were both weak, full of doubts and were sincerely wishing for the deceased to come back. My take on it is that the "magic word" that made Jon come back wasn't Mel's incantations but rather the fact she humbly asked the God's mercy by adding a desperate "please" after the ritual was performed. Just like Thoros was sincerely wishing for Beric to be revived. 

 

 

 

[A Dance with Davos]

On 02/05/2016 at 7:18 AM, Faint said:

I remain convinced that Shireen will be burned alive to bring him back in the books. Benioff and Weiss, as is their custom, did not want to burden their audience with the moral quandary that would entail. 

"I had bad dreams," Shireen told him. "About the dragons. They were coming to eat me."

That would seem the case. However, why they would do that makes little sense to me. We are surely going to get Jon executing Olly in the next episode. Which makes Jon far more questionable than someone being sacrificed for him to come back from the dead.  I suppose they will try spin it so Jon is still being good. I can see something like... Mel tries to convince Jon to burn them, which in a sense he should, cause as far as he or anyone else is concerned he just got revived by R'hllor, but won't do it and beheads them instead. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Davos do a 180 and be super keen for them to be burned as well. 

[Zenthious]

Beric dies resurrecting Cat in the books. We don't know that Melisandre won't fade or die as a result of her work yet. She didn't preform the kiss of life. So, maybe there is a different cost that is yet unknown to us. She said herself: "If you want to help him, leave him be." That also leads me to think he will be more like Lady Stoneheart and less like his old self.

[W1NT3RF3LL]

31 minutes ago, Zenthious said:

Beric dies resurrecting Cat in the books. We don't know that Melisandre won't fade or die as a result of her work yet. She didn't preform the kiss of life. So, maybe there is a different cost that is yet unknown to us. She said herself: "If you want to help him, leave him be." That also leads me to think he will be more like Lady Stoneheart and less like his old self.

My understanding was that Beric pretty much ran out of lives at the point in which he brought Cat back to life.  I also believe her body was in a lot rougher shape then that of Jons, which also required a lot more effort to resurrect.  Regardless, on top of that I think Beric was done and at the end of the road and didnt want to live anymore to begin with.  I think people have a tendency to latch on to sayings in this story like, "Only death can pay for life", and believe that it must apply to everything.  

[lojzelote]

15 hours ago, Ruhail said:

I think its clear that they've changed or cut something out because this was way too sanatised and clean (lol just give me a haicut thats totally enough to bring me back). I think it reaffirms to me that Shireen's death is supposed to be involved but they didnt want that hanging over boring boy's head.

Why won't this weird idea die? Shireen will be sacrificed by Stannis, she'll be his Iphigenia, and this terrible decision will be the culmination of his arc. Seeing that Stannis is right now miles away from her in the books, it's reasonable to assume they'll be reunited somewhere from the middle to the ending of TWoW. Which is a reason I doubt her burning has anything to do with Jon's return at all, because if it does, he'll be at least as much deranged as Stoneheart by the time it happens. GRRM won't do that to one of his protagonists. He may change them, yes, but he won't give them a personality transplant, which staying out of one's body for a long period of time would surely mean.

Also, Shireen is Stannis' only child and heir, while she means nothing to Jon or Melisandre. It makes a better sense dramatically for Stannis to make the fateful decision, doesn't it?

Anyhow, I don't understand why would anybody think that it should be sacrificing someone what makes the new Jon edgier or whatever. Whether someone is sacrificed or not has nothing to do with Jon's decision-making. He's dead, so he can't be involved in the resurrection. What someone may or may not do to bring him back won't be his fault either way. No, if he will be edgier, then it's because he had been dead in the first place.

Why do people think that the Beric way of being brought back is too bad for Jon anyway? It's the only established method of resurrection/reanimation the books give us! (Well, with the exception of what Qyburn and the Others do, but it seems to be even worse.)

[Steelborn]

47 minutes ago, Zenthious said:

Beric dies resurrecting Cat in the books. We don't know that Melisandre won't fade or die as a result of her work yet. She didn't preform the kiss of life. So, maybe there is a different cost that is yet unknown to us. She said herself: "If you want to help him, leave him be." That also leads me to think he will be more like Lady Stoneheart and less like his old self.

It's implied that Thoros drains himself after each resurrection. He was worried about having to revive Beric a seventh time because it'd likely kill BOTH of them. He didn't even want to revive Catelyn iirc.

So, when Beric decided to resurrect Catelyn via kiss of like, he transferred all his life energy to her. 

[Zenthious]

1 hour ago, W1NT3RF3LL said:

I think people have a tendency to latch on to sayings in this story like, "Only death can pay for life", and believe that it must apply to everything.  

Every form of magic displayed so far has a cost associated with it. Shadow magic drained the energy from Stannis. Blood magic seems to require some form of sacrifice. (Rhaego being stillborn, Mirri Maz Duur in the fire, Melisandre burning the leaches, Nissa-nissa, the Wich who prophesies the deaths of Cersei's children, etc) A wizard cut off Varys's parts and burned them in a censor in order to summon some being. The faceless man masks cause the wearer to see and dream past events of the person who's face they wore.

I'm of the opinion that the magic works, but the true driving factors behind them are less understood. Just as Melisandre misinterprets the flames so men come up with their own ideas about why fire, blood, and shadow magic work.

[Faint]

8 hours ago, A Dance with Davos said:

That would seem the case. However, why they would do that makes little sense to me. We are surely going to get Jon executing Olly in the next episode. Which makes Jon far more questionable than someone being sacrificed for him to come back from the dead.  I suppose they will try spin it so Jon is still being good. I can see something like... Mel tries to convince Jon to burn them, which in a sense he should, cause as far as he or anyone else is concerned he just got revived by R'hllor, but won't do it and beheads them instead. I wouldn't be surprised if they make Davos do a 180 and be super keen for them to be burned as well. 

Olly might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign with big letters reading "EVIL" at this point. Shireen was always objectively good and sweet. 

[Zenthious]

8 hours ago, Zenthious said:

We don't know that Melisandre won't fade or die as a result of her work yet.

Actually, the more I think about this, I don't think Mel can die yet at this point in the story. Her original plan was to make a sacrifice of someone with kings' blood to awaken the stone dragons. I was of a mind that Mel would figure this out before her part in the story is done. More in part, because of a vision Daenerys sees in the books.

[Stannistician]

7 hours ago, lojzelote said:

Why won't this weird idea die? Shireen will be sacrificed by Stannis, she'll be his Iphigenia, and this terrible decision will be the culmination of his arc. Seeing that Stannis is right now miles away from her in the books, it's reasonable to assume they'll be reunited somewhere from the middle to the ending of TWoW. Which is a reason I doubt her burning has anything to do with Jon's return at all, because if it does, he'll be at least as much deranged as Stoneheart by the time it happens. GRRM won't do that to one of his protagonists. He may change them, yes, but he won't give them a personality transplant, which staying out of one's body for a long period of time would surely mean.

Also, Shireen is Stannis' only child and heir, while she means nothing to Jon or Melisandre. It makes a better sense dramatically for Stannis to make the fateful decision, doesn't it?

Anyhow, I don't understand why would anybody think that it should be sacrificing someone what makes the new Jon edgier or whatever. Whether someone is sacrificed or not has nothing to do with Jon's decision-making. He's dead, so he can't be involved in the resurrection. What someone may or may not do to bring him back won't be his fault either way. No, if he will be edgier, then it's because he had been dead in the first place.

Why do people think that the Beric way of being brought back is too bad for Jon anyway? It's the only established method of resurrection/reanimation the books give us! (Well, with the exception of what Qyburn and the Others do, but it seems to be even worse.)

Firstly, what makes you say that "its reasonable to assume they'll be reunited somewhere from the middle to the ending of TWOW?"  Consider that the show has Stannis losing the battle of Winterfell, coupled with the existence of the pink letter in the books.  Consider also the distance between Stannis and Shireen, coupled with the existence of the onset of winter and a major blizzard.  Also consider that the others will soon be trying to get past the Wall.  It actually seems pretty unreasonable that Stannis and Shireen will be re-united.  

While I agree that Jon will have to be resurrected at the beginning of Winds in order to avoid the problem that you point out (and I agree with you that it would be a problem), I don't agree that this means that Shireen's burning has nothing to do with Jon's resurrection because your assumption regarding Stannis and Shireen re-uniting is flawed I think.  Its more likely that Shireen is burned at the beginning of winds than at the middle or towards the end.  

It makes sense that Mel and Selyse would burn Shireen in an effort to resurrect Stannis, and Jon is resurrected instead.  IIRC, Mel was in the room when Jon informed his NW brothers about the content of the pink letter - that Stannis is dead.  

Secondly, nobody is suggesting that it would make Jon edgier by tying his resurrection to Shireen's burning.  Nor is anyone suggesting it would be Jon's fault at all.  This is straw man.  What people are suggesting is that the audience/ readers will be in a moral quandary.  Most readers and viewers want Jon to come back to life and hope for it, but if his resurrection is predicated on the sacrifice of an innocent child (through no fault of Jon's) the readers and viewers have to question how badly they wanted him to come back and may feel bad that they wished for his resurrection in the first place.   

This would be similar to what Martin did regarding Theon.  The average reader wanted Theon to pay for his betrayal of the Starks.  But after reading what Theon went through with Ramsay, not only does the reader pity Theon, but feels guilty for wishing him ill will in the first place.

Regarding Beric, having a resurrection like this is fine for a secondary character like Beric.  But for a major character like Jon, there needs to be a major price to pay or else it feels cheap and unearned. 

 

[Zenthious]

19 minutes ago, Stannistician said:

It makes sense that Mel and Selyse would burn Shireen in an effort to resurrect Stannis, and Jon is resurrected instead.  IIRC, Mel was in the room when Jon informed his NW brothers about the content of the pink letter - that Stannis is dead.  

That's interesting from a book perspective. Because in a way, it parallels when Lady was unwittingly sacrificed, and Bran came out of his coma. 

[Stannistician]

10 minutes ago, Zenthious said:

That's interesting from a book perspective. Because in a way, it parallels when Lady was unwittingly sacrificed, and Bran came out of his coma. 

I had not considered that.  Good point.  Its also perhaps another tie to Bloodraven if you buy into the theory that it is Bloodraven that is giving Mel visions in the flames.   

[lojzelote]

9 hours ago, Stannistician said:

Firstly, what makes you say that "its reasonable to assume they'll be reunited somewhere from the middle to the ending of TWOW?"  Consider that the show has Stannis losing the battle of Winterfell, coupled with the existence of the pink letter in the books.  Consider also the distance between Stannis and Shireen, coupled with the existence of the onset of winter and a major blizzard.  Also consider that the others will soon be trying to get past the Wall.  It actually seems pretty unreasonable that Stannis and Shireen will be re-united.  

While I agree that Jon will have to be resurrected at the beginning of Winds in order to avoid the problem that you point out (and I agree with you that it would be a problem), I don't agree that this means that Shireen's burning has nothing to do with Jon's resurrection because your assumption regarding Stannis and Shireen re-uniting is flawed I think.  Its more likely that Shireen is burned at the beginning of winds than at the middle or towards the end.  

It makes sense that Mel and Selyse would burn Shireen in an effort to resurrect Stannis, and Jon is resurrected instead.  IIRC, Mel was in the room when Jon informed his NW brothers about the content of the pink letter - that Stannis is dead.  

Secondly, nobody is suggesting that it would make Jon edgier by tying his resurrection to Shireen's burning.  Nor is anyone suggesting it would be Jon's fault at all.  This is straw man.  What people are suggesting is that the audience/ readers will be in a moral quandary.  Most readers and viewers want Jon to come back to life and hope for it, but if his resurrection is predicated on the sacrifice of an innocent child (through no fault of Jon's) the readers and viewers have to question how badly they wanted him to come back and may feel bad that they wished for his resurrection in the first place.   

This would be similar to what Martin did regarding Theon.  The average reader wanted Theon to pay for his betrayal of the Starks.  But after reading what Theon went through with Ramsay, not only does the reader pity Theon, but feels guilty for wishing him ill will in the first place.

Regarding Beric, having a resurrection like this is fine for a secondary character like Beric.  But for a major character like Jon, there needs to be a major price to pay or else it feels cheap and unearned. 

 

It's reasonable to expect because that's clearly where Stannis arc is heading. He had already had a hand in killing Renly and only Davos' intervention saved him from burning his innocent nephew. His talk of sacrifice, about if one child's life takes precedence over the entire humankind. The build-up is there, like it or not. Also, D&D confirmed it. Yeah, I know this board hates them, but there is little reason to call them liars. Anyway, people say they had done it because they have bias against Stannis, but if Stannis had been portrayed negatively because they couldn't get over the knowledge that GRRM destined this guy to burn his daughter alive?

You've got to think through why Mel and Selyse would sacrifice Shireen, though? Why not one of Gerrick Kingsblood's daughters? Selyse clearly believes that he and his daughters are Free Folk royalty. Why not to sacrifice one of them instead of her only child?

Nor am I sure if the spell would resurrect Jon if it was intended for Stannis. How would that even work? Mel and Selyse don't even have Stannis' body with them; even if it was possible to resurrect someone at a long distance, how exactly would they ensure that Stannis won't wake next to an enemy, who will simply kill him again?

Well, the poster I was answering to had seemed to be suggesting that. His words had beeen "they don't want it hanging over the boring boy's head". Hard to say what he had meant by it. Though I must say I'd rather have Jon alive than Shireen, without any doubt. But I wouldn't question if Jon's life is worth more than Shireen's since I would view her sacrifice to be unnecessary to begin with. As we have previously seen, it can be done without killing anybody at all.sl

As for Jon, he will have hanging over his head the lost lives of the wildlings and the Watchmen, who will slaughter each other in the aftermath of his assassination. The readers can ask if Jon's love for Arya and his attemp to get her away from Ramsay had been worth that bloodshed and the further weakening the defences of the Wall.

Again, people keep saying that a price should be paid for resurrecting Jon, but they universally seem to think that Shireen should pay that price instead of Jon. Beric's price was a part of his soul with each time he had been brought back. I don't see why Jon can't be the same.

The Beric way is the only truly established form of resurrection. OTOH Mirri's way (and therefore her words on the topic) are highly suspect. First of all, did Drogo really die in the first place? Second, whether he did or did not, Mirri's magic turned him into a piece of vegetable.

For those reasons, I wouldn't trust Mirri's input. "Only death can pay for life" sounds nice and all, but it hasn't been proved true by anything we have actually seen. Thoros' way of doing it seems to be much more reliable, even if much less showy.

[lojzelote]

9 hours ago, Zenthious said:

That's interesting from a book perspective. Because in a way, it parallels when Lady was unwittingly sacrificed, and Bran came out of his coma. 

That was a dramatic cut in the show, In the books, nothing supports that idea.

Nor was Lady's execution intended as a sacrifice. I don't think it is a "sacrifice" when someone on the other side of the continent randomly dies.

[A Dance with Davos]

14 hours ago, Faint said:

Olly might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign with big letters reading "EVIL" at this point. Shireen was always objectively good and sweet. 

True. I am just hoping that they make  Olly seem a bit more sympathetic. Have him beg and cry for his life. Saying that they forced him to do it. Then have Davos or Tormund tell Jon to put him in a cell and exectue the other traitors. Just something to make Jon seem questionable.

Wishful thinking. Olly will probably go down screaming "Death to the Bastard Commander!"

[Alex Malikov]

Shortly before the resurrection scene, a Child of the Forest calls Meera Reed to come inside, where Bran "really needs her".

I think Mel's involvement in the resurrection was only incidental.

I don't think a death of a random person across the continent counts as a sacrifice. There's enough connection between Bran and Meera to make her a "meaningful" sacrifice.

[lojzelote]

Olly is just a child traumatized by what had happened to his family. He's highly annoying, but he's certainly not evil.

I really doubt Bran and Bloodraven had anything to do that. First, it has never been suggested they have the power. Second, if they have the power and think bringing Jon back is important, wouldn't they put resurrecting him over chilling in the past?

Anyway IIRC spoilers suggest that Meera lives farther down the line.

[CrypticWeirwood]

3 hours ago, lojzelote said:

I really doubt Bran and Bloodraven had anything to do that. First, it has never been suggested they have the power. Second, if they have the power and think bringing Jon back is important, wouldn't they put resurrecting him over chilling in the past?

Coldhands is probably moving around thanks to Bloodraven.

The big mystery is why Lord Brynden wanted Jon to go through the whole ordeal of death and resurrection in ice in the first place. He's obviously been planning all this for a very long time, a lot earlier than just when he sent Bran and the warlocks the dreams about it.

[lojzelote]

36 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Coldhands is probably moving around thanks to Bloodraven.

The big mystery is why Lord Brynden wanted Jon to go through the whole ordeal of death and resurrection in ice in the first place. He's obviously been planning all this for a very long time, a lot earlier than just when he sent Bran and the warlocks the dreams about it.

Assuming Bloodraven is somehow connected to the direwolves and/or Mormont's raven, I doubt that he had any such plans. Both Ghost and the raven had been acting strangely on the morning of the day of Jon's assassination. It reads more like if they had wanted to warn him.