Carice van Houten on That Scene with Jon Snow

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” It’s Ygritte’s line to her foolish crow lover as they travel together south of the wall, and the last thing she utters to him as she dies in his arms during the Battle for Castle Black. For book readers, it’s also the echo Jon hears in his head whenever he thinks of Ygritte (which is all the time). So it was a little startling on Sunday to have a character who wasn’t Ygritte and who had never met Ygritte utter the line, taking aback not only Snow himself, but us too. (Though our book nazi Razor points out that Melisandre does say it to Snow in A Dance With Dragons. So there was precedence for it.)

Melisandre says the line after Jon rejects her attempt to seduce him in the Lord Commander’s chamber. We should note this attempt is really more about trying to get him to follow Stannis south to Winterfell then it is about love. We also know that Melisandre uses sex as part of her magic, so who knows what she might have been trying to do (After all, the last time we saw Melisandre have sex, it produced the shadow baby that killed Renly). In a new interview, Carice Van Houten talks about that scene, and what Melisandre is up to.

Warning: Spoilery hints, but nothing outright.

When asked why she tried to seduce Jon Snow, Van Houten hedges.

He knows that world down south. He knows it better. We need him to sort of guide us in a way. And there’s also something else about him that we don’t really reveal. In the series we don’t find out just yet what it is. And it’s not just an attraction from female to male. Yes, he’s an attractive young man but that’s not her main goal, I think. Although she might like some nice interaction with a slightly younger person, maybe, for a change. [laughs] We feel that there’s something about him that she can sense, but we don’t go into it that deep just yet.

Intriguing! Do we think this ties back to the Year of the False Spring story that got told this week? Or is this more about the theories surrounding Azor Ahai?

The interviewer asks Van Houten (who is Dutch) about the nudity on the show, and if we should see more equality in it.

People are so uncomfortable–they get so angry about nudity. And they’re so shocked. I still don’t understand why you can see machine guns and blowing off faces and all that, but if they see a nipple, they go nuts. I mean, a woman doesn’t sleep with a bra on, doesn’t have sex with a bra on, come on. This is real life, people, wake up. For me, maybe it’s because I’m European and I’m more used to that. I understand that there’s still a lot of taboos, but I think we might be helping it if we just show real life. It’s a mirror to our society anyway, this show, in a way. And it should be. And in that sense, I would say, yes, more male nudity.

But my favorite quote from the interview involves Van Houten’s reaction when she found out she would get to utter Ygritte’s line:

It’s probably one of the nicest things this year when I got the scripts. When I read that, I was like, yes. Oh I love that line. What really made me laugh was in that scene where I’m seducing Jon Snow, and he says  something like, “I swore a vow” or something. And it says [in the script]: Melisandre looks at him. B—h, please. [laughs] And I thought, oh this is so cool. The writing is so funny.

You know, Downton Abbey actually releases the scripts in book form that the public can buy at the end of the season. Perhaps Game of Thrones should consider doing the same?

• Published on 05/06/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT