I definitely see why Patchface is likely the prophet of the Drowned God; he seems likely to have been a prophet even before he encountered the Drowned God when the ship went down, and went a little nuts after looking the God (demon?) in the face. I’m a little mystified by Thoros though. What did he do to draw R’hllor’s attention, and what led R’hllor to bestow his gifts on Thoros, who by all accounts was kind of a drunken lunatic before joining the Brotherhood Without Banners?

“he seems likely to have been a prophet even before he encountered the Drowned God” – how do you figure this?

As to why R’hllor worked his will by the Mummer’s Ford, I think it was a miracle. And as GRRM the recovering Catholic well knows, a miracle is cloaked in mystery and ineffable, inexplicable grace. Thoros notes that it has nothing to do with Thoros himself:

“I have no magic, child. Only prayers. That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god’s own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord’s servants as they died. I had given it a time or two myself, as all priests must. But never before had I felt a dead man shudder as the fire filled him, nor seen his eyes come open. It was not me who raised him, my lady. It was the Lord. R’hllor is not done with him yet. Life is warmth, and warmth is fire, and fire is God’s and God’s alone.”

Now, there are some arguments that people have made that the spells and prayers that Thoros had been taught are secular magic hiding behind a religious wrapper, and that now that magic is coming back into the world, the spells are working again. (After all, the old priests never brought anyone back from the dead either.) After all, Melisandre often cloaks secular magic as reliigous in nature.

However, I disagree. While it is possible that Thoros and Melisandre were trained in secular magic that they learned in the Red Temples as novices, Beric Dondarrion wasn’t. And yet Beric turned his blood into flame (the true version of Thoros’ old trick) without uttering a syllable or a spell, and brought Lady Stoneheart to life with a kiss that did not require filling one’s mouth with fire first.

So I think it had nothing to do with Thoros, and solely to do with the ineffable plans of the Red God.

Do we know what the actual term for the shadow babies is, or is that the actual name of the magic in question (I’m operating under the assumption that there is more to shadowbinding than this practice alone)? I’ve always been under the impression that “shadow baby” was the term that the fandom collectively settled upon.

Sigh…first draft got eaten by tumblr, so I’ll try again.

The closest thing I can think of to an official term for them is that Melisandre refers to them, obliquely, as shadow sons:

“Is the brave Ser Onions so frightened of a passing shadow? Take heart, then. Shadows only live when given birth by light, and the king’s fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son. It might well kill him.“ (ASOS)

At some times, Melisandre suggests that this is the work of R’hllor – “The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.” – but I think this is a case of Melisandre propagandizing for her religion by attributing the magic known as shadowbinding to her god.

To test this, I’ve looked for examples of shadowbinders who lack her religious affiliations doing things that Melisandre does. For example, Bloodraven is accused of using shadow assassins: “A shadow came at his command to strangle brave Prince Valarr’s sons in their mother’s womb.” (Mystery Knight) Now, this is most likely mere slander, but it does suggest that there is enough folk lore about shadow assasins out there that people think it’s a thing that magic can do.

Moreover, there is evidence that Bloodraven does have some knowledge of shadowbinding. In Mystery Knight, he pretty clearly uses shadowbinding to disguise himself as Ser Maynard Plumm:

“Distantly,” confessed Ser Maynard, a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man with long straight flaxen hair, “though I doubt that His Lordship would admit to it. One might say that he is of the sweet Plumms, whilst I am of the sour.” Plumm’s cloak was as purple as name, though frayed about the edges and badly dyed. A moonstone brooch big as a hen’s egg fastened it at the shoulder

…Through the rain, all he could make out was a hooded shape and a single pale white eye. It was only when the man came forward that the shadowed face beneath the cowl took on the familiar features of Ser Maynard Plumm, the pale eye no more than the moonstone brooch that pinned his cloak at the shoulder.

This is almost identical in fashion to the glamour that Melisandre uses to disguise Mance Rayder and Rattleshirt in ADWD:

Rattleshirt sat scratching at the manacle on his wrist with a cracked yellow fingernail…The big square-cut gem that adorned his iron cuff glimmered redly. “Do you like my ruby, Snow? A token o’ love from Lady Red.”

“The glamor, aye.” In the black iron fetter about his wrist, the ruby seemed to pulse. He tapped it with the edge of his blade. The steel made a faint click against the stone. “I feel it when I sleep. Warm against my skin, even through the iron. Soft as a woman’s kiss. Your kiss. But sometimes in my dreams it starts to burn, and your lips turn into teeth. Every day I think how easy it would be to pry it out, and every day I don’t. Must I wear the bloody bones as well?” (ADWD)

Melisandre associates these glamors with both R’hllor and shadows: “with whispered words and prayer (emphasis mine), a man’s shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak.” By contrast, Bloodraven’s glamor is associated with shadows but not with R’hllor.

Another possible use of shadowbinding is that Quaithe the Shadowbinder appearing as an illusion to Dany:

“They sleep,“ a woman said. "They all sleep.” The voice was very close. “Even dragons must sleep.”
She is standing over me. “Who’s there?” Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape. “What do you want to me?”
“Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.” (ASOS)

A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. “Quaithe? Am I dreaming?” She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. “I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor.”
“You did not dream. Then or now.” (ADWD)

Now, it’s possible that this is actually a glass candle in action (”the sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles.” (AFFC)), since Quaithe mentions the glass candles but is also associated with shadows.

Do you think Stannis was a willing participant in creating the shadow babies, or do you think Melisandre just did it without letting him know what was going on?

As I suggest in my ACOK chapter essays, I think Melisandre told him that it was a necessary ritual (to prove his faith or to purify him or something), but didn’t tell him why it was necessary or what it would do. After all, “Melisandre has gazed into the flames, and seen him dead.” If R’hllor is the one true god and Melisandre’s visions are true – both propositions that Melisandre has gone to great lengths to try to convince Stannis of – then there’s no need to take action, much less to use black magic (which would seriously undermine those propositions) to kill him.

And after the fact, I think Stannis was in deep denial about what he had subconsciously experienced in the night – “I dream of it sometimes. Of Renly’s dying. A green tent, candles, a woman screaming. And blood….I was still abed when he died. Your Devan will tell you. He tried to wake me…Devan says I thrashed and cried out, but what does it matter? It was a dream. I was in my tent when Renly died, and when I woke my hands were clean.”

Isn’t it odd that Melissandre, being of Asshai, is portrayed as white? (Or in the books the only peculiarity is she has red eyes, but otherwise her ethnicity is not described which kinda implies white by default) Geographically, Asshai seems a sort of equivalent to RL India. How could people originating from Asshai A) be white and B) not have a distinctive language (I don’t buy Valyrian that far East, the books say Valyrian is already breaking down by Slaver’s bay)

This is a common misconception. Melisandre is “of” Asshai but she was not born in Asshai, because “there are no children in Asshai.” Rather, Melisandre was sold into slavery in Asshai:

“The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover’s hand. Strange voices called to her from days long past. “Melony,” she heard a woman cry. A man’s voice called, “Lot Seven.” She was weeping, and her tears were flame. And still she drank it in…

Dawn. Another day is given us, R’hllor be praised. The terrors of the night recede. Melisandre had spent the night in her chair by the fire, as she often did. With Stannis gone, her bed saw little use. She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord’s blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover’s kisses. 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.”

Moreover, we have no idea what ethnicity the Asshai are, since “those who walk the streets of Asshai are masked and veiled.” So I think people are being far too conventional by assuming that any real world ethnicity applies to the Asshai, or humanity for that matter.

Finally, why white should be assumed as the default for Melisandre, I don’t know – she was a slave in Essos, so she could be from as far west as Lys to as far east as Qarth, I suppose. We know she has pale skin, but that’s it. And she speaks with a distinctively Eastern accent, so there’s that.

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Davos II, ASOS

“Ser Davos, and undrowned. How can that be?”
“Onions float, ser.”
Synopsis: “Sing to me, oh muse, of the man resourceful, who, storm-buffeted far and wide…”
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
(more…)

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Melisandre’s thoughts on the wildlings

Melisandre nodded solemnly, as if she had taken his words to heart, but this Weeper did not matter. 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.

Do those thoughts seem disturbing given she is essentially saying regarding the wildlings that their lives don’t matter?

I think there’s two ways to interpret this passage.

The first way starts with the fact that Melisandre’s brand of religious devotion is intensely Millennialist and prophetic in nature – as far as she’s concerned, the Final Battle between Azor Ahai Reborn and the Great Other is at hand as the prophecies have foretold, and the entire world faces apocalypse unless it unites behind her god and his chosen champion. This is part of the reason why Melisandre is the most misunderstood character in ASOIAF – she doesn’t sacrifice people or burn weirwoods because she’s actively malicious, she genuinely thinks that what she is doing is necessary for the salvation of humanity, and like Varys she’s a hardcore consequentialist. A truly just woman is no less to be feared than her male counterpart.

In this reading, Melisandre views the wildlings as doomed by fate to be casualties in the coming war – these dead-ender wildlings who insist on staying north of the Wall have placed themselves right in the path of the Army of the Dead. And her view is helped by the fact that these wildlings have rejected both the true god and his champion, who are the only path to salvation.

The second way of reading has to do with her attitude of cultural superiority. Remember, Essosi consider Westerosi to be barbarians only recently raised to semi-civilization by the last remnants of the Valyrian Empire. Melisandre, as someone raised in one of the most ancient cities of Essos, probably shares this view, given that she is also a missionary bringing the true religion to the heathen.

Now think what someone like that would think of a people that even Westerosi consider barbarians and savages. One of the things I actually really like about ASOIAF is that GRRM shows his main POV characters reacting to the widllings or the mountain clans as people from their backgrounds would react: Tyrion considers the mountain clans’ devotion to democracy and gender equality to be signs of backwardness and part of his plan for using them to take the Vale is to educate them in civilized ways, like obedience to a king. Jon Snow comes to empathize with the wildlings’ desire for freedom and their attachment to their cultural heritage, but he also thinks that these same qualities will doom them on the battlefield.

In this reading, Melisandre is expressing the softer side of Manifest Destiny doctrine – as opposed to the harsher side, which presented native peoples as dangerous threats, this view said that native peoples were “destined to vanish from the earth” as the progress of Western Civilization eventually overtook them. Indeed, the very trope of the Noble Savage was premised on the idea that this fate was inevitable, but now interpreted as a tragedy that could be safely lamented. So in Melisandre’s eyes, the wildlings have rejected enlightenment in favor of clinging to superstion and will thus be swept away by the force of history.

So which is it? Take your pick.