Who is the Grey girl in Melisandre's fires?

[glassgardens]

Oh, I’m entertaining myself going down this Sansa-as-girl-in-grey rabbit hole and this bit from her Alayne/TWOW chapter strikes me as relevant:

Quote

The merchants are clamoring to buy, and the lords are clamoring to sell,” the Gulltowner was saying when she found them. Though not a tall man, Grafton was wide, with thick arms and shoulders. His hair was a dirty blond mop. “How am I to stop that, my lord?”

“Post guardsmen on the docks. If need be, seize the ships. How does not matter, so long as no food leaves the Vale. “

“These prices, though,” protested fat Lord Belmore,” these prices are more than fair.”

“You say more than fair, my lord. I say less than we would wish. Wait. If need be, buy the food yourself and keep it stored. Winter is coming. Prices must go higher.”

“Perhaps,” said Belmore, doubtfully.

“Bronze Yohn will not wait,” Grafton complained. “He need not ship through Gulltown, he has his own ports. Whilst we are hoarding our harvest, Royce and the other Lords Declarant will turn theirs into silver, you may be sure of that.”

“Let us hope so,” said Petyr. “When their granaries are empty, they will need every scrap of that silver to buy sustenance from us. And now if you will excuse me, my lord, it would seem my daughter has need of me.”

 

So...Bronze Royce has his own ports. Runestone is on the Narrow Sea, and so is Old Anchor. Meanwhile, Gulltown will be essentially blockaded, but from the inside (is there a separate word for that)? Now as far as I know, the Vale doesn’t have its own navy, so Baelish’s control stops at the waterline. If Bronze and allies can divert Gulltown traffic to their own (smaller) ports, they will stand to do quite well financially. 

Anyway, what I’m saying is that there will be an unusually high volume of ship traffic in the lesser ports of the Vale due to Littlefinger’s price-gouging/war-profiteering.

Perhaps with Royce’s support, perhaps not, if Sansa can get to the coast, she might be able to catch a ship north.

Related: Littlefinger gave Sansa all of Lysa’s jewels. We heard that Sansa left all of Lysa’s rich-lady clothing packed away at the Eyrie and took only Alayne-appropriate more modest garments, but she did not tell us that left the jewels up there as well.

If she brought them with her, she might have them with her at her wedding (maybe there are even some Tully-appropriate pieces from Hoster to Lysa?) and if she took them when she ran, one or more of them might suffice to pay her passage.

[Elegant Woes]

11 minutes ago, corbon said:

Huh?
I don't recall and can't find this. Do you have a source?

I just checked how Ned got out of the Vale and it seems I got confused with something else. Ignore my previous comment. 

@glassgardens You bring up a lot of great and detailed information that I haven't considered and this is coming from a person who believes that Sansa is the Girl in Grey. Keep it up 

[glassgardens]

Re it being Lyanna, Melisandre says “A girl in grey on a dying horse. It have it seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.”

I know we should mistrust and be skeptical of Melisandre and George, but it does seem like one of the elemental limits of the mystery is that’s it’s taking place forward in time, not back.

I mean if Melisandre can misinterpret everything, totally, we might as well be looking for a boy in black riding a unicorn fleeing saber-tooth tigers (the prophecy is actually about Rickon, suckers!).

 

[corbon]

12 minutes ago, glassgardens said:

Re it being Lyanna, Melisandre says “A girl in grey on a dying horse. It have it seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.”

How would she know?

12 minutes ago, glassgardens said:

I know we should mistrust and be skeptical of Melisandre and George, but it does seem like one of the elemental limits of the mystery is that’s it’s taking place forward in time, not back.

Why?

12 minutes ago, glassgardens said:

I mean if Melisandre can misinterpret everything, totally, we might as well be looking for a boy in black riding a unicorn fleeing saber-tooth tigers (the prophecy is actually about Rickon, suckers!).

Thats throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I think its more than reasonable to trust the images as images, even if they are "might never be" futures (and I think they are more reliable than that - unlike Dany's visions, which were being manipulated by a human (or past human) group.
There are no unicorns or sabretoothed tigers, so no, lets not look for those.

Or in other words, when she tells what she saw, describes what was in images, thats trustworthy. When she ascribes meanings, relationships, motivations or intents, thats not, though she may have used clues in the images to ascribe those things (eg a facial similarity to Jon).

[chrisdaw]

10 minutes ago, corbon said:

How would she know?

The question is why would GRRM write that line if it was to be the opposite. There's no art to it having just been flat out wrong.

[corbon]

16 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

The question is why would GRRM write that line if it was to be the opposite. There's no art to it having just been flat out wrong.

Its another example of her false certitude. She's been certain of many things and been wrong about nearly all of them. Why would this be any different?

[Dot Com]

I could only see Sansa as the girl in grey if Jaime and Brienne somehow get to her and help her back. Otherwise I don't see how she'll survive alone in the North when even battle hardened soldiers in Stannis' army are reduced to cannibalism. 

I like the Lyanna explanation. There's a good breakdown of it here, from the guy who brought us the Night Lamp theory: https://cantuse.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/lyanna-the-grey/ 

19 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

The question is why would GRRM write that line if it was to be the opposite.

Because Mel is always wrong, obviously. 

[Bear Claw]

14 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Please elaborate.

I believe that this prophecy has to be right because she is at the Wall and her magic has been increased. This is also the first? or at least among the first prophecies she shares with Jon Snow. She also warned him about the daggers, and she was spot on about that. Unfortunately, Jon didn't listen. Anyway, I think these prophecies that she is having at the Wall regarding Jon Snow are just literally going to be true. Maybe she's being fed visions by the 3EC, and it's all some kind of set up for some reason, but she's right on the money. 

[Bear Claw]

15 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Mel is often right and wrong. See one of her first prophesies. She saw Renly dying at Storm's End and Renly defeating Stannis in King's Landings. Both were right! But she misunderstood the signs. Same here.

People have pointed this before. It might be something. It might be nothing. It might be a GRRM's mistake. It might just mean that Alys tried to evade her captors going another way.

 

Mel will be exactly right because she is at the Wall now. She says her power has grown at the Wall. Maybe it's because of the 3EC, but look at the visions she has had while there: Jon Snow=the Red Lord's champion, daggers in the dark, keep your wolf close by, and his sister on a dying horse. She's  on a winning streak here. Why would our author play the Renly card on us again? I think the reader is suppose to see Alys and say, "Oh, that Mel made a Renly mistake again. She's so wrong." Why beat that dead horse? I think the author will surprise us and show Mel is right.

[corbon]

4 minutes ago, Dot Com said:

I like the Lyanna explanation. There's a good breakdown of it here, from the guy who brought us the Night Lamp theory: https://cantuse.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/lyanna-the-grey/ 

Ugh thats awful, explanation wise. 

Whats interesting to e, is the actual descriptions of what Mel saw in the images that we get. And most of those are when Mance/Rattleshirt questions her about the visions, which @a black swan brought to my attention.

Quote

Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets 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.

The girl. I must find the girl again, the grey girl on the dying horse. Jon Snow would expect that of her, and soon. It would not be enough to say the girl was fleeing. He would want more, he would want the when and where, and she did not have that for him.¹ She had seen the girl only once². A girl as grey as ash, and even as I watched she crumbled and blew away³.

A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. 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.

Quote

He slipped his blade away. "As well as any raider. Some parts more than others. There's a lot of north. Why?"

"The girl," she said. "A girl in grey on a dying horse⁴. Jon Snow's sister." Who else could it be? She was racing to him for protection, that much Melisandre had seen clearly⁵. "I have seen her in my flames, but only once. We must win the lord commander's trust⁶, and the only way to do that is to save her."

"Me save her, you mean? The Lord o' Bones?" He laughed. "No one ever trusted Rattleshirt but fools. Snow's not that. If his sister needs saving, he'll send his crows. I would."
...

"If your stiff-necked lord commander will allow it. Did your fires show you where to find this girl?"

"I saw water. Deep and blue and still, with a thin coat of ice just forming on it. It seemed to go on and on forever.⁷"

"Long Lake. What else did you see around this girl?"

"Hills. Fields. Trees. A deer, once. Stones. She is staying well away from villages. When she can she rides along the bed of little streams⁸, to throw hunters off her trail."

He frowned. "That will make it difficult. She was coming north, you said. Was the lake to her east or to her west?"

Melisandre closed her eyes, remembering. "West."

I think the underlined parts are direct descriptions of things she has actually seen i the fires. Clearly it was a relatively long scene.
1. I think this part demonstrates why Mel imputes certain information that I think its unlikely she could know from the actual vision. She knows just saying the girl was fleeing (an imputation, but one that you could clearly make from a simple vision, eg by the stream bed maneuvers and looks over shoulders etc), she needs 'more' to convince Jon to act. Hence I think she invented the marriage part based on her knowledge that Arya was betrothed to Ramsey - and got a bit lucky with Alys' arrival fleeing a marriage (I don't think she knew about that situation?)
2. Note this vision is a scene she's seen only once and not been able to recapture. 
3. The "a girl as grey as ash and crumbling" part, clearly part of the actual vision ("as I watched").
4. The girl is in grey. I think thats a separate things from being as grey as ash. I sort of get the impression of watching a soundless movie and at the end the colour bleaches out and then the grey girl literally crumbles and blows away.
5. These bits in italics I think are Mels imputation, to make an interpretation fit her purposes, not things she really saw in the vision. They may be right or wrong.
6. Note again her purpose. I think that colours her interpretations.
7. The water. As previously discussed, I think Long lake in its current situation is ruled out. The Gods Eye in Lyanna's situation would seem to fit well.
8. The area around. As noted by  @a black swan this fits very well to the area around the God Eye and Harrenhall that Arya travelled, and therefore where Lyanna was taken. Are there as many villages and fields around Long Lake? Maybe but I suspect not. And I suspect they'd be thoroughly covered in snow any time in the recent past or near future. Whereas if Lyanna was taken in the spring or warmer 'end-of-winter' climate after that nasty cold snap post "False Spring", then the snow could be well gone while the frozen Gods Eye is not quite finished melting entirely. 

We don't have precise official maps of the sort of scale we truly need for this analysis I think, but if you use, for example, the westeros interactive map, you can see areas close to Harrenhal and maybe a bit further south/east as well, where the grey girl could be heading north with the lake on her west.

 

Regarding the past/future thing for the visions, two points.
1. I agree that most of the visions Mel tells us about are 'future' visions rather than past visions. But thats primarily because those are the most useful ones for her to bend others to her purpose. I don;t think that there is any evidence that the visions are always in the future. They are just whatever R'hlorr, or whatever power it is that sends them, wants her to see. 
2. For me, that there is no indication of snow covering the ground in the vision, that pretty much rules it out as a 'current/future' vision at Long Lake. A 'past' vision at Long Lake possibly, though the God's Eye certainly seems to fit better.  But Long Lake area should already be blanketed in snow by now, probably quite a lot of it, the sort that significantly changes the natural descriptions.
 

 

 

[corbon]

6 minutes ago, Bear Claw said:

Mel will be exactly right because she is at the Wall now. She says her power has grown at the Wall. 

Her power yes. thats a whole different thing than her ability to interpret what she sees.

[Dot Com]

13 minutes ago, corbon said:

Ugh thats awful, explanation wise. 

Low standards, what can I say. 

13 minutes ago, corbon said:

Quote

The girl. I must find the girl again, the grey girl on the dying horse. Jon Snow would expect that of her, and soon. It would not be enough to say the girl was fleeing. He would want more, he would want the when and where, and she did not have that for him. She had seen the girl only once. A girl as grey as ash, and even as I watched she crumbled and blew away.

A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. 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.

It's kind of interesting that immediately after thinking of the grey girl, Mel has a vision of Bran and Bloodraven. Whose special power is looking into the past. Coincidence? Probably. But perhaps interesting in light of the Lyanna theory. 

[chrisdaw]

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Its another example of her false certitude. She's been certain of many things and been wrong about nearly all of them. Why would this be any different?

Because there's art to where she has been wrong, mystery and purpose. This there is not, the line serves no purpose if it is not correct.

[Bear Claw]

1 hour ago, chrisdaw said:

Because there's art to where she has been wrong, mystery and purpose. This there is not, the line serves no purpose if it is not correct.

This is exactly how I feel We've been down that road with Mel before. There is no purpose to keep playing the same old tune.  

[The Map Guy]

You guys already know my answer.

If you don't ... ADOS spoilers ahead:

Spoiler

 

The girl in grey is Jon Snow's real sister.
The dying horse is actually a zombie horse.
The girl in grey is escaping a marriage between her, Rhaegal, and the Others ... where she is burning humans against her will, leaving nothing but ashes, and shutting eyes forever.
It will happen in ADOS, at the frosty western shores of the Gods Eye.
She is not actually heading North, but heading South towards Jon.

In regards to the fire vision, how does Mel know this is Jon Snow's sister?
Perhaps she looks like Jon? Even has some Stark features?
Alys Karstark does have some resemblances since Karstarks and Starks are kin.
BUT she is too tall to fit the description of 11 year old cousin Arya.
What Mel sees in her vision is an short Arya look-alike with similar facial features as Jon Snow.

In regards to eye color of the girl in grey, GRRM was kinda sloppy in this issue.

TV Stuff 2013 (after 2011 ADWD):

Spoiler

 

He reinforces himself in 2013 HBO GoT by having Mel meet Arya ... where Mel studies Arya's eyes in the TV show.

Off-Topic:
Yes D&D used this scene wrong in Season 8. They even try to give Arya, covered in ashes at King's Landing, a injured white horse.
They totally messed up the girl in grey prophecy in Season 8 ... BUT the girl in grey will be the person to single-handedly end the Long Night.

Unlike the GoT show where Arya does it in one deus-ex-machina-stroke ... I believe the ADOS girl in grey takes her time, eradicating the Long Night all night long. 

 

 

And finally, why does R'hllor care about Alys or Jeyne anyways?

I believe Jon Snow's sister will have the biggest role for R'hllor in ADOS.

 

 

[corbon]

1 hour ago, chrisdaw said:

Because there's art to where she has been wrong, mystery and purpose. This there is not, the line serves no purpose if it is not correct.

I don't see how you can argue that at all. You could say the same of every other prediction she made, until we found the resolution later. We just haven't found a good resolution of this one yet.

How do you resolve it as a 'future', with relevance to Mel's AA drive, with the lack of everything being covered in deep snow?

9 minutes ago, Bear Claw said:

This is exactly how I feel We've been down that road with Mel before. There is no purpose to keep playing the same old tune.  

Thats simply not a good enough answer. Its not convincing to say "the tune has changed because I'm bored with the old one".

[Dorian Martell's son]

18 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Alys was probably nowhere near Long Lake on her flight to the Wall - that would be really out of the way.

Mel probably got the wrong sister. Every prophecy has to have a play on words and meaning while still meeting all criteria. Alys doesnt really fulfill that. 

This isn't a literal investigation. She saw a girl, Told folks it was Arya but then Alys showed up. Mel was wrong. Fallible.  There is nothing more. GRRM loves to drive home the idea that visions/prophecy is never accurate and often sends a person down a wrong and fatal path. My guess is that this will play out when mel convinces Stannis to make a profound sacrifice to the red god and then dies, proving he was never TPTWP. THat's just a guess and has nothing to do with the other versions of the story available on alternative media 

[chrisdaw]

15 minutes ago, corbon said:

I don't see how you can argue that at all. You could say the same of every other prediction she made,

No you can't. There is mystery and interest in how her interpretations are wrong or right, what lead her to believe something and what may be the true meaning behind it all. In her flatly stating this hasn't happened yet but will there is no interpretation, no possible hidden correct meaning, if she is wrong the inclusion isn't a misdirection with any kind of art, it's just bluntly saying something incorrect.

[glassgardens]

13 minutes ago, corbon said:

How do you resolve it as a 'future', with relevance to Mel's AA drive, with the lack of everything being covered in deep snow?

Allow me!

Melisandre is wrong again! But about something different!

She is wrong again about her pick for Azor Ahai reborn. She thought it was Stannis. She now thinks it’s Jon Snow. She is mistaken in both cases. There is some overlap between Stannis and Jon Snow (swarthy grim hard-bitten warrior types), and between them and Rhaegar (who was similarly consumed with this problem), but let’s just assume that this Warrior of Light character, whomever he is, is none of them.

But let’s posit for a minute that she’s completely basically right in this vision: Jon Snow’s sister is coming north fleeing a marriage etc. If Jon Snow ain’t the Guy, why is she having visions of Arya, Sansa, Lyanna, Alys, Jeyne or a player to be named later—like if he’s not the messiah, who cares what happens to Jon Snow’s sister?

Well, because this girl has some tie to the unrevealed Azor Ahai that is separate and distinct from her blood relation to Jon Snow. 

Given that we’re at the Wall, and that Bran and Bloodraven and the weirwoodnet are clearly meddling metaphysically in circumstances in the north, I would say that absolutely narrows it down to Arya and Sansa. One of them almost certainly is the girl in grey (IMHO), and either they are Azor Ahai reborn themselves (somehow) or have some part to play in manifesting him or his magic in the North (contra long-standing conventional wisdom that it has to be a Targaryen).

[corbon]

8 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

No you can't. There is mystery and interest in how her interpretations are wrong or right, what lead her to believe something and what may be the true meaning behind it all. In her flatly stating this hasn't happened yet but will there is no interpretation, no possible hidden correct meaning, if she is wrong the inclusion isn't a misdirection with any kind of art, it's just bluntly saying something incorrect.

Not seeing the difference.

1 minute ago, glassgardens said:

Allow me!

Melisandre is wrong again! But about something different!

She is wrong again about her pick for Azor Ahai reborn. She thought it was Stannis. She now thinks it’s Jon Snow.

No, she still thinks its Stannis as far as I can tell. She's confused about see Snow when she asks to see AA in the flames and expects to see Stannis.

She wants to bring Jon round to support her so she can getbetter support for Stannis. If she thought Jon was AA she'd be following him, not trying to convince him to follow her. 

1 minute ago, glassgardens said:

But let’s posit for a minute that she’s completely basically right in this vision: Jon Snow’s sister is coming north fleeing a marriage etc. If Jon Snow ain’t the Guy, why is she having visions of Arya, Sansa, Lyanna, Alys, Jeyne or a player to be named later—like if he’s not the messiah, who cares what happens to Jon Snow’s sister?

Well, because this girl has some tie to the unrevealed Azor Ahai that is separate and distinct from her blood relation to Jon Snow. 

Given that we’re at the Wall, and that Bran and Bloodraven and the weirwoodnet are clearly meddling metaphysically in circumstances in the north, I would say that absolutely narrows it down to Arya and Sansa. One of them almost certainly is the girl in grey (IMHO), and either they are Azor Ahai reborn themselves (somehow) or have some part to play in manifesting him or his magic in the North (contra long-standing conventional wisdom that it has to be a Targaryen).

Never mind that your argument makes a bunch of dodgy assumptions in order to prove those same dodgy assumptions, you didn't address the point at all.

You made the point that it had to be a 'future' vision, thus ruling out 'past' visions.
My counterpoint is that if this is a 'future' where some girl is coming north past Long Lake, why is the terrain in Long lake not covered in snow? Why is Mel seeing "hills, trees, field" rather than a generic snow covered landscape? Why is she seeing a lake with a thin crust of ice rather than a lake frozen solid? I mean, the snow is already metres deep at Winterfell, and thats much further south. And frankly, I don't see it getting warmer  and spring returning before we have some sort of resolution here. How is he girl travelling through stream beds when possible to throw off pursuers, if the stream beds don't have running water in them? If the stream beds have running water in them, how are they not frozen over under current "north of Winterfell" climatic conditions  and/or how is the girl or her horse, or both not had their feet/hooves frozen off already?
This is my point. How do you resolve the vision being only possible as a 'future' with the vision's climate clearly being significantly warmer than the current conditions in the North?