Dame of Thrones: Melisandre

Dame of Thrones is back from its hiatus! Put on your best red outfit, burn a heretic or two, and let’s talk Melisandre.

Warning: A Dance with Dragons spoilers beyond this point.

Name: A brief A Dance with Dragons flashback indicates that our dear Mel’s name used to be Melony before she was sold as a slave to the temple of the Lord of Light in Asshai. It was her new masters who gave her her life’s vocation and inspired in her all those lovely pyromaniacal tendencies.

Family: Melisandre never mentions any birth family, though a woman who’s likely her mother appears in that aforementioned flashback. But why do you need family (pah!) when you have the Lord of Light in your corner?

Known Associates: Melisandre is one-third of the group known within the GoT/ASOIAF fandom as “Team Dragonstone,” the other members of which are Stannis (the Mannis) and Davos the Onion Knight. They’re getting shit done while most of the other groups are off engaging in increasingly violent dick-measuring contests. They’re better than your faves—deal with it. There’s also Stannis’ daughter Shireen, who’s here to put up with approximately none of Melisandre’s preaching, thank you very much, and her mother Seylse, Melisandre’s #1 groupie.

Weapon of Choice: Metaphorically speaking, Melisandre wields the power of religious conviction, which allows her to convince other people she knows what the heck she’s talking about. Literally it’s all about fire! Fire! Fire!

What’s Her Deal?: As one of the Red Priestesses of Asshai, Melisandre believes not in the Faith of the Seven, which holds sway in most of Westeros, but in a dualistic religion where one god, R’hllor, represents light, fire, and life, and the other (called, less snazzily, just the Great Other) represents cold, ice, and death. Melisandre’s endgame is serving the great hero Azor Ahai, who’s prophesied to roll back into town and defeat the “darkness” embodied in the pesky White Walkers and their army of ice zombie wights. Melisandre provides her magical services—sacrificing, or attempting to sacrifice, those with kings’ blood, popping out shadow babies, etc.—to Stannis because she believes he’s Azor Ahai reborn, though pretty much no one who’s read the books thinks he actually is. (The show doesn’t get into the Azor Ahai stuff so very much.)

Why Is She Awesome?: Warning: If you haven’t guessed already, I’m kind of biased in favor of Team Dragonstone. So you’re going to have to be prepared for me to be wildly subjective, even moreso than normal. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine.

Melisandre often comes across as ~mysterious~ and ~inscrutable~, and as such it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of her as a shallow character, a cardboard villain with simplistic motivations that don’t deserve any further scrutiny. Certainly, in her mind Melisandre’s ultimate goal—serving R’hllor—is pretty basic, the same as, say, Daenerys wants to reclaim her throne. Not easy. But not all that complicated as a concept. The difference is that we get to explore the many facets of Daenerys’ personality through dozens of POV chapters and interactions with many different types of people, whereas with Melisandre we get a single POV chapter and conversations with a mere handful, none of whom she can be particularly open with about any doubts or internal conflict she may be having.

She’s not particularly chatty about things that aren’t “The Lord of Light!!!!,” but that doesn’t mean the character complexity isn’t there. She says she’s serving Stannis, but really, he’s serving her goals—if/when he turns out not to be Azor Ahai, she will drop him like (pardon the phrasing) a hot potato. She is out there by herself trying to fulfill her sole life’s purpose, and she’s doing it under the radar, with no help, no rich and powerful family at her back. She doesn’t know if she’s doing it right. There’s no one else she can ask. It’s just her, alone in the Lord of Light’s corner when everyone else (OK, OK, there’s Thoros of Myr, Beric Dondarrion, and Selyse) hears the name “R’hllor” and either recoils, laughs, or sighs and says “Yeah, OK.” (Stannis, looking at you.) It’s hardcore.

That’s why I love Team Dragonstone as a whole—I’ve always been drawn who characters to toil off in the corner, unappreciated (by other characters and, perhaps, the narrative itself) while the major players engage in more flash-bang, eye-catching behavior. I should probably talk to a therapist about it.

Badass Scene: Shadow baby, baby!

Best Quote: “The night is dark and full of terrors” is her most recognizable line, but my favorite is “There is only one hell, princess. The one we live in now,” because I could practically hear the ’80s death metal riff off in the distance after she said it. Honorable mention goes to my favorite quote about Melisandre: “Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible, and red.” Yeeeeeah.

Fan Theory du Jour: As mentioned, Stannis probably isn’t Azor Ahai. It’s OK, bud. I still love you. But who is? The most obvious choices are Daenerys—hello, R’hllor and dragons go pretty well together—and Jon, whom George R.R. Martin is definitely hinting at in A Dance With Dragons when Melisandre has a vision where she “[prays] for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only Snow.”

Some think, however, that the “Snow” Melisandre sees isn’t Jon but Ramsay. There’s no real evidence to support the “Ramsay Bolton Snow is Azor Ahai” theory. The main point in its favor, as described in more detail here, is that it’s kind of weird how in A Dance with Dragons Martin elevated Ramsay from being tangential to all the major action—he’s Roose Bolton’s sadistic son and Theon’s captor, but not much more—to being such a central player in whatever’s about to go down in the North. It could mean nothing. Or everyone’s least favorite wormy-lipped flayer could find himself the subject of a heroic prophecy. It would certainly fit the “revisionist” part of the “revisionist fantasy” vibe Martin has going.

Merch Me Up: Make your way to online retailers and naturally you’ll find an assortment of hand-made versions of Melisandre’s clothing (1, 2) and jewelry (1, 2) for all your cosplaying purposes, plus t-shirts warning about the night being real scary or whatever. My favorite of those is RedBubbler ArmaanKapur’s typographic approach, though this “The Night is Dark and Full of Turnips” variation (thank you, Pyp) is also quite nice. For your other merch needs, there’s also Melisandre lip balm, House Baratheon flaming heart earrings, and this Dragonstone travel poster. I heard room service provides some great cat and onion stew.

It Belongs In a Museum, AKA Fanart:

“The Red Witch,” by Christopher Ables, lights a fire to my heart.

You can find Rebecca (@RebeccaPahle) on Pajiba, GammaSquad, and The Mary Sue, where she is an associate editor.

• Published on 07/21/2014 at 12:51 PM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:41 PM CDT