Melisandre: unwitting servant of Evil

[rmholt]

OK aside from her many mistakes this one stood out. in ADWD she is doing one of her marathon starings at the fire and sees what looks to me like Bran and Brynden Rivers and decides they are evil. Pretty big mistake. Is she going to unwittingly sabotage the upcoming effort against the Others?

[The guy from the Vale]

Who's to say they aren't evil? I admit being utterly fascinated by Bloodraven; but I don't know if he can be trusted. His regime during the D&E-stories is pretty tyrannical, after all.

I agree though that Mel isn't really a 'good' person, whatever she may think of herself. Human sacrifice and live burnings don't sound cool to me, and neither do shadow babies.

[HouseHarrison]

A big plot twist would be that the Children are behind the Others, in which case her vision would hold true.

[Jolene Brown]

I want Bloodraven to be evil so badly! I just don't want Bran to stay in that stupid cave.

[rmholt]

Who's to say they aren't evil? I admit being utterly fascinated by Bloodraven; but I don't know if he can be trusted. His regime during the D&E-stories is pretty tyrannical, after all.

I agree though that Mel isn't really a 'good' person, whatever she may think of herself. Human sacrifice and live burnings don't sound cool to me, and neither do shadow babies.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Scary!

[rmholt]

I want Bloodraven to be evil so badly! I just don't want Bran to stay in that stupid cave.

Yeah he is trying to talk himself into being OK with it but he isnt. One of those guys might be behind

what is going on with Theon

in the sample WoW chapter.

Asha is trying awfully hard to get Theon over to a weirwood and the ravens are calling his name. i though Bran, but maybe Brynden. Or someone else. Now that we have time travel via weirwood things are all mixed up.

[Associate Maester]

OK aside from her many mistakes this one stood out. in ADWD she is doing one of her marathon starings at the fire and sees what looks to me like Bran and Brynden Rivers and decides they are evil. Pretty big mistake. Is she going to unwittingly sabotage the upcoming effort against the Others?

I don't like to get into characters being good and evil in ASOIAF (most are "mixed" to borrow from Davos). We simply don't know enough to assume that Bloodraven is "good." Personally, I find Bloodraven and the CotF pretty darn creepy and ambiguous (not necessarily evil).

[Anvilbreaker]

Though Bran might still be good, I find it very hard to believe anyone called "Bloodraven" could really be a good guy. Most characters are shades of grey, but he seems so creepy.

[Pellaeon]

Not sure if evil

or just ignorant and stupid

[Katerrinah]

A big plot twist would be that the Children are behind the Others, in which case her vision would hold true.

That's assuming the Children/The Others are evil.

[Swordsaint]

I think Bloodraven is either evil, or Bran is much more powerful then him. Think of all that has happened that could have been prevented by simply warging raven carriers. My theory is that Bloodraven is trying to turn Bran to the "dark side of the force" and once Bran realizes it, he'll need Jon to come save him. When Jon wakes he'll have ice armor which will keep him off the Other's radar and he'll have strong cold resistance. Jon is also a warg himself which means Bloodraven will not be able to simply warg him away. Bloodraven could also be a metaphorical flame that Jon pulls his sword from being that Bloodraven is a Targ.

[CoolGirlsMurderFriend]

I prefer to think that the disdain on Bloodraven's face was because she had been burning heartwood trees.

If it wasn't for Mel, the willdlings would have been breaking against the wall until they had either destroyed the NW or ended up like the ones that Jon sent the ships to save. I think she's one of the few characters looking at the big picture.

[Loras]

One thing that really bothers me is the misconception that Melisandre makes lots of mistakes. She makes one major mistake in 'Dance' and that is the misinterpretation of the 'Grey girl on a dying horse' and even then her vision turned out to be correct. So to say that she has made 'many' mistakes is simply an untrue statement.

I agree with Coolgirlsmurderfriend, Melisandre is desperately trying to see the bigger picture and to recruit allies to her cause. She sees Jon Snow as a powerful ally and thus wants him on side, which causes her to make the mistake about the vision. I personally think that this is why she kept Mance Rayder alive too.

As for Brynden; reread Melisandre's chapter followed directly by Bran III - that provides some very stark parallels between the two characters. Neither one is necessarily evil, but it is unfair to say Mel must be working against 'good' (assuming that Bloodraven is good) when the two characters believe fundamentally different things.

[Icelance]

It's all in the greyscale

We will have to wait for Dawn to bring the light

[A bowl of brown]

I think BR gets a bit of a harsh rap from people in Westeros in the D&E tales mainly because he's a bastard and kills his brother during battle. His regime is pretty harsh but there was just a civil war and there's a pretty weak king on the throne so he needs to be somewhat harsh to keep the peace.

I always got the impression he was imprissoned because Maekar? didn't like the fact that BR got made hand instead of him rather than anything particularly sinister.

Him and Melisandre may well have different objectives but I don't think its a good vs evil situation.

[kissdbyfire]

One thing that really bothers me is the misconception that Melisandre makes lots of mistakes. She makes one major mistake in 'Dance' and that is the misinterpretation of the 'Grey girl on a dying horse' and even then her vision turned out to be correct. So to say that she has made 'many' mistakes is simply an untrue statement.

I agree with Coolgirlsmurderfriend, Melisandre is desperately trying to see the bigger picture and to recruit allies to her cause. She sees Jon Snow as a powerful ally and thus wants him on side, which causes her to make the mistake about the vision. I personally think that this is why she kept Mance Rayder alive too.

As for Brynden; reread Melisandre's chapter followed directly by Bran III - that provides some very stark parallels between the two characters. Neither one is necessarily evil, but it is unfair to say Mel must be working against 'good' (assuming that Bloodraven is good) when the two characters believe fundamentally different things.

Mel has some powers and a lot of powders. I think she makes mistakes left and right, and I'm not even counting the 'grey girl'.

[kissdbyfire]

OK aside from her many mistakes this one stood out. in ADWD she is doing one of her marathon starings at the fire and sees what looks to me like Bran and Brynden Rivers and decides they are evil. Pretty big mistake. Is she going to unwittingly sabotage the upcoming effort against the Others?

She doesn't decide they are evil. Here's the quote:

"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."

[Dark_Rin]

Well the problem Melisandre has is that she only sees visions, it is up to her own self to interpret these, no clear cut answers are revealed to her in the fire. So when she saw Brynden and Bran the image seemed to her to be evil because she could not a clear picture of the truth.

For me another big mistake she has made is seeing Stannis as Azor Ahai, the rest of the Red Priests see Dany as Azor Ahai and she actually has Dragons to back up her claim, all Stannis has is a replica flaming sword that even a blind man could see was not genuine.

Thats a pretty big mistake IMO.

[kissdbyfire]

Well the problem Melisandre has is that she only sees visions, it is up to her own self to interpret these, no clear cut answers are revealed to her in the fire. So when she saw Brynden and Bran the image seemed to her to be evil because she could not a clear picture of the truth.

Well, that is true for all visions, they still need to be interpreted (think Oracle of Delphi). But I agree with you that Mel's interpretations are wrong most often than not.

For me another big mistake she has made is seeing Stannis as Azor Ahai, the rest of the Red Priests see Dany as Azor Ahai and she actually has Dragons to back up her claim, all Stannis has is a replica flaming sword that even a blind man could see was not genuine.

Thats a pretty big mistake IMO.

And definitely agree here, regarding AAR and Stannis and Jon. She even thinks how odd it is that R'llor keeps showing her Jon Snow when she asks for a vision of AA/AARR.

Really, Mel? *smh*

[Not_a_Lady_Brienne]

Who's to say they aren't evil? I admit being utterly fascinated by Bloodraven; but I don't know if he can be trusted. His regime during the D&E-stories is pretty tyrannical, after all.

Agree with this. Back in CoK when Jon/Ghost communicates with Bran in a dream (a weirwood with Bran's face and 3 eyes), Ghost snarls because he smells like darkness and death or something. Even though everyone is a shade of grey, this might be foreshadowing that Bran possibly becomes darker grey (I hope not though).