Let the shadow baby jokes begin. (Or not. They’d probably all been covered within ten minutes of this news breaking.)
People magazine is reporting that our Melisandre, Carice van Houten, is expecting a child with actor Guy Pearce.
Congratulations to van Houten and Pearce!
What does this mean for Game of Thrones?
Speculation below the cut!
Well, we’re not sure. Melisandre’s fate is a big question mark, going into season 6. Speculation is rampant about the character this year. She’s alive and well at the end of season 5, but with her character largely responsible for Shireen’s death, and her mystical powers possibly playing into into the Jon Story story, her future seems uncertain. There are many who theorize the priestess won’t survive season 6.
Game of Thrones season 7 is expected to start shooting mid-summer. Though it’s not clear when the actress is due, given the announcement’s timing, Carice will likely be very pregnant and showing in ways that can’t be hidden by simply filming around her belly. And of course, spending significant time at work when you’ve only just given birth is very difficult physically. The show worked around Lena Headey’s pregnancies/births, so it’s possible that happens once again. Game of Thrones could arrange to have any Melisandre filming to occur later, in the fall.
But we do have to wonder if this is another sign that Melisandre won’t be returning after season 6.
Either way, best wishes to van Houten and Pearce on their happy news!
Another interesting item in Jon-Snow-Watch has turned up today: several fans report seeing a new YouTube ad for the Game of Thrones Season 5 DVD that is focused entirely on Jon. The 30-second ad features Jon repeating the Night’s Watch oath. It appears before several Game of Thrones videos, including this one.
Make sure your ad-blockers are turned off!
Guy Pearce? Wow, their kid is going to be gorgeous.
It could mean that Carice isn’t going to be back. Weren’t there rumours about her not doing much filming for Season 6?
Hodor! And congratulations to Carice and Guy?
I’m really happy for Carice (YAY!), but I don’t like the possible implications to her character. Melisandre still has so much potential. 🙁
Congratulations!
Attractive people have a civic duty to reproduce and continue to perfect humanity.
Congratulations to Carice. Depending on whether Mel is in the next season (and she’s still supposed to meet Arya, so unless that happens this year somehow, she should still be around), they could move her filming to late in the calendar.
Many congratulations to the beautiful Carice. I hope this doesn’t mean that this will be Mel’s last season. There are many fascinating possibilities for the character yet. I’ve always felt that as the political intrigues recede the supernatural stories start to take center stage, so Melisandre should become more prominent than, say, Cersei.
I feel like this has no bearing on the fate of her character at all. She wears flowy dresses and they could hide a pregnancy easily. It’s not like the 2 actresses who were pregnant during filming for this season of The Walking Dead, who always had to be holding rifles in front of their bellies hah.
Thinking about it, they did work around Lena’s pregnancy. I now agree Carice’s pregnance isn’t really a factor.
Congrats to Carice and Guy!
I think Mel makes it to S7 since one of her interviews gave that impression(I think with Seth Meyers). They will probably just move her filming to the end or just have her sit behind a table all season or something or wearing heavy cloaks.
I think she is going to be around a bit longer. There was the line where she told Arya they would meet again and not that her visions are 100% interpreted right, but that seemed important.
So damn cute!
I wonder what that means for her role in season 7 if she survives season 6
Congrats to Carice! My initial reaction was that Mel’s a goner on the show lol. But she films mostly indoors, so they can have her sit at a table like Tywin. I wonder if this means we’re getting shadow babies in season 7 :P. I’m kidding.
I love that DVD ad. That’s actually how I’ve always envisioned a season 6 trailer or teaser: Jon reciting the vows in the background while new footage is shown. We should have had that instead of that boring Hall of Faces teaser.
Got to admit…
This is a bit stupid.
Carice’s personal life has no effect on the show, and vice versa. She has a baby not because Melly Sanders dies in season 6, but because she has a baby.
But I do think she’ll die this season.
Sean C.,
Roocat,
More and more, every single day, I get the strong feeling that when Melisandre “envisioned” herself and Arya meeting again, she was seeing things through Jon’s eyes, she just didn’t understand it. And this goes for a lot of her other “visions” as well. I think she’s been seeing things from the perspective of “the chosen one” who has king’s blood running through his veins, and that has caused her to misinterpret a lot of things. So basically what I’m saying is that when Melisandre said she and Arya would meet again, what she really was seeing was that Jon and Arya would meet again (which is way more exciting/interesting… because I personally don’t give a damn if Arya and Mel ever meet again – it seems irrelevant).
I agree, I don’t think the pregnancy will affect filming for the next season, if mel is still alive.
Anyway, Congratulations to Carice. I hope the child brings her happiness.
The Jon Snow commercial on the other hand got me pumped for season 6.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in that “prophecy” as everyone seems to. Melisandres visions are not always correct, or interpreted properly.
Gethin Anthony must be having nightmares.
Interesting choice in image of Mel almost touching lips with JS in ad….
The JS ad was recurring during the streaming feed of the NCAA tourney. It’s a good ad, reminding us that his watch ends when he’s dead.
Interesting choice in image of Mel almost touching lips with JS in ad….
Also, congrats to the lucky parents to be
Lena was only pregnant in the pilot for season 1, wasn’t showing much. and just got pregnant near the end of season 5 and had already given birth when season 6 filming began.
this is not the case with carice, as she’s early in her pregnancy right now and will probably be showing quite heavily when season 7 filming begins.
melisandre will die in season 6 episode 10, calling it now.
Congratulations to Carice and Guy! I had no idea they were a couple.
I’m not ruling out that this could be Mel’s last season, but I don’t think this is a sure sign of it. They can work around pregnancies, we saw that with Lena most recently.
I have really grown to like Carice. She just seems like a fun person. She + Guy, wow! Congrats to them. ?
Congrats to Carice! (I didn’t know she and Guy Pearce were together).
For me, this does lend more weight to the speculation that Mel will depart in Season 6. I just don’t see much story for her in the future.
It’s not uncommon for actors to plan on having a kid after they’ve wrapped up a time-consuming project.
I guess we’ll see when the season airs.
jentario,
Her “personal life” has no effect on the show, correct. I don’t care who she’s dating. But her physical status certainly does play into the show. Speaking as a woman who has actually been pregnant and a new mom before, it does affect your ability to stand on a set for hours. Pregnancy affects your entire body, it doesn’t just give you a pretty round belly the way the movies make it seem.
jentario,
actually it would make a lot of sense if carice had been purposefully holding out on having a baby till her run on the show ended.
The combined time of the first 3 episodes are 16 minutes shorter than last season.
harlequeen,
jentario has been a poster since the WIC days. I’ve only noticed you lately, only because of your witch hunt for fans of the books. Get over yourself and stop calling out other posters.
Melisandre may be absent for Season 7, as Bran was… for instance, she may travel back to Asshai to inform the High Priest of the Red Temple that their Warrior of Light is Jon Snow. It doesn’t necessarily mean Mel will be killed off when there is still a lot to do with her.
That would be a missed opportunity to show Asshai.
Jack Bauer 24,
i’m not worried, i’m sure it will all add up when all the episode times are released.
Congratulations Carice and Guy!
Jack Bauer 24,
They’re not going to show Asshai, and (IMO) it would be pretty pointless to do so, unless it was a small flashback.
Show Mel’s visions are generally spot-on. The one time she was palpably wrong was in Season 5, but there they notably broke with past practice by having her actually explain what she saw, not just her conclusion, which allows the viewer to understand that she saw the defeat the Boltons correctly but wrongly inferred from that that Stannis would be the victor.
In the case of her Season 3 vision, she just flatly states that she and Arya will meet again. Really not much wiggle room there. Unless plans have changed since they wrote that season.
She and Pearce have only been dating for a few months, I believe.
@caricevhouten I just might babysit this one!
https://twitter.com/liamcunningham1/status/711245970894405633
Tyrion Pimpslap,
I’ve been around since ’11, under a different moniker, I don’t give a shit who is how long where. It doesn’t matter one iota. It doesn’t make one poster better than the other. Melly Sanders is the petty and petulant way those notorious ranters from that forum call her.
Matthew The Dragon knight,
Besides, i’m sure they just don’t want to add to much into one episode.
I’m really anticipating what they put into these episodes, what kind of content we will get each week, besides the episode titles, i’m really looking forward to it.
Oh gosh, poor women. She’s gonna have to live with that episode forever lmao
Sean C.,
eh, we don’t really know when she and Pearce truly started dating. i don’t want to gossip on this site or give credence to rumors…..but it doesn’t take much googling to see there that carice and guy pearce might have started hooking up at a “shady” time.
harlequeen,
Joking around with names isn’t something exclusive to bitter book fans. Quit being so sensitive. You don’t have to start a flame war with every book fan. Especially when there is no offense in their posts. It’s not like he referred to Cersei as ‘Carol’, like some do. He simply made a play on words with Mel’s name, similar to when people joke around calling Dany ‘Kelly C.’ and Drogo ‘Carl Drogo’.
Stop attacking each other. Now, or the posts will all be deleted.
Totally agree!! But I’m so happy for Carice and Guy! Congrats!!
I hope she doesn’t die. In spite of her evil deeds I love her character, especially now that she has doubts. I forgot about the foreseen Arya meeting.
I wish/hope they flesh out her character more, the way they do in the books. I really disliked her until ADWD and strongly suspect she is the daughter of Bloodraven but that is a possible book detail the show is likely to cut :/
That’s some awesome news! I wish the new parents happiness and a healthy baby. Wonder how fast she’s along. Can’t be that advanced Or we’d have seen baby bumps pics in all kinds of mags already, no?
harlequeen,
I spot an intolerant poster with a huge chip on his/her shoulder! But no one invited YOU out of WotW. This place allows for all kinds. Isn’t it beautiful?!
When have they been spot-on?
Congratulations to Carice !!!!!!!!! No naked scenes for her in season 7 if survives season 6.
I swear I think I am falling more in love with Liam everyday lol..so sweet!!
and that Jon Snow ad.. HBO you are KILLING me..everytime i convince myself you do this and it make me a doubter again
I feel like they have an adorable friendship and reading that latest Stephen Dillane interview, I kind of wonder if he was a bit of a dick to be around on set so they gravitated toward one another. But who knows, he could have been a delight to be around lol.
Super cute pics of Gwendoline Christie on stage at the Madonna show in Sydney yesterday. Madonna really loves GoT! http://www.ew.com/article/2016/03/19/madonna-gwendoline-christie-rebel-heart-sydney-concert
kit_hepburn,
She foresaw Matthos’ death and was able to track down Gendry halfway across a continent with no knowledge that he even existed, to name two.
Laura,
Carice and Liam co-starred in the movie Black Butterflies shortly before they were cast on the show (he played one of her love interests), so their association predates GOT.
Congratulations to Carice and Guy!
I don’t necessarily see her pregnancy being too much of a hindrance for Season 7 if Melisandre survives Season 6. They could just a body double if the scene is that important.
Akash Singh,
Yeah but they can’t use a face double. I don’t think guys get it sometimes, how much advanced pregnancy changes the body. If she’s nine months pregnant, she’s going to look it in the face. And it would also just be very difficult for her to work.
TormundsWoman,
I said stop it. That includes you and everyone else.
This is great news for Carice. I am sure they could make some kind of plan with her filming if she does make it to season 7.
It is interesting to include the Nights Watch vows over the trailer, and they properly had to record it separately for this clip, since Jon’s says his vows with Sam in the show.
Soo OT: to my Vikings fans, season 5 is coming! Yay!
Congrats to Carice and Guy. 2 beautiful people having a baby…lucky kid. And I love that Carice straight up made the ‘shadow baby’ joke. She’s adorable.
Yeah, I had the same thoughts recently after reading the SD interview. Whatever the case may be, I adore how much Carice and Liam enjoy each other’s company and we get to see that in their interactions.
As for the new Jon promo, am I the only who thinks that that is a new recording of Jon/Kit saying the vows? The cadence sounds different from when Jon said his vows with Sam. Hmmm.
Despite having the right name, Guy Pierce is clearly not a same-sex, adult film star.
Congrats to the happy couple. I hope he or she looks like Stannis 😛
Mel has been wrong many times over; assuring Stannis that he will sit the Iron Throne, that he is the chosen one etc… These are only a few examples:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0sx8Yu_n23c
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qVo8Hd7Xtlk
Mel and Arya could just as easily meet through Nymeria, in Mels flames, in death or (as you said) the writers may just simply change their minds.
YAS, Kit!
http://iconosquare.com/p/1209583370773725665_25648071
Depending on how far the scripts for Season 7 are advanced, they could shoot scenes (or parts of them) where a pregnancy couldn’t be hidden early. Make sure they’re in dark rooms to avoid continuity problems with the backgrounds.
Or she could have gap year like Bran: look out for rumours in Season 7 of people being incinerated by weirwood trees…
Loved Guy Pearce in The Count of Monte Cristo! Had no clue those two were an item. Good for them! 🙂
Sue the Fury,
I posted around the same time you posted your comment. Didn’t even see yours until I had posted in a different thread. Too late to edit. And besides, you have a magical delete button, Sue. Use it.
Kevin Daly,
I really can’t see them doing a gap year for any of the main or secondary characters again; it is just a little too late to be doing that.
If Mel is still alive at the end of the season she will be in Season 7. It would be a reduced presence, but they’re not going to ignore her completely. I’m sure the producers will fit the filming around her constraints, but it is still going to prevent her having a large amount of screen time. They’ll find a way to include her if she’s still alive, and will probably write around her reduced presence.
That’s a mistake more or less baked into the premise of the character (and one that neither the books or show has ever given much detail for). Her “tactical” predictions have been consistently correct, except in the one instance where they gave some detail to what she saw so that the audience could draw a different conclusion.
When you consider that the prediction that she would meet Arya isn’t in the book, I would have to think the writers would have to be pretty set on it to put it in the show when they didn’t have to.
Just because Stephen Dillane said things about your favorite TV show that you didn’t like doesn’t mean “he was a dick” around set. I have never heard Liam Cunningham or Carice van Houten or even Kit Harington say a negative word about Stephen Dillane. Just the opposite in fact. The episode 10 DVD commentary was filled with non stop praise for the man by Benioff, Weiss, and Headey.
Just because he saw this role as a job and didn’t care for much of anything else about it doesn’t mean we should start thinking he is/was some difficult personality. It’s okay that he doesn’t like your favorite show as much as you do.
What you say is correct but in one firm where I worked one of the lawyers left on maternity leave one week and had her baby the following week. Granted lawyers (unless they do a lot of court based work) lead a more sedentary life than members of the acting profession.
I’ll add my congratulations to the parents to be.
Congrats to Carice on her baby! Yay! ?
Video title: Game of Thrones Season 6:
Everyone: OMFG
Video title (continues): Season 5 DVD
Everyone: oh :/
Congratulations to the beautiful couple! I highly doubt this will effect her stint on GOT though,SO6 is already done, &if she made it then they can work her things around in S07. Although I do wonder how this effects Brimstone, the movie she is starring in alongside Kit Harington & Guy Pearce. It was supposed to release this year, I wonder if the production for that has started yet.
“Incorrect” and “misinterpreted” are two completely different things. What Mel sees happens: i.e., it is “correct”. However, what Mel sees often does not happen in the way that she is expecting it to do. It has been said that humans trying to understand gods would be like lobsters trying to understand humans: and to that end, it could be that GRRM is having a god or god-like-entity have the same problems in reverse: R’hllor communicates only vaguely to humans.
However, I suspect that the show has set it up so that Mel & Arya will meet again. I doubt that Mel will die this year given comments that GRRM has made about her. I do suspect that when the “truth” about R’hllor is learned, then it will be deemed a betrayal by people like Melisandre: and as she is the one Red Cleric that we know well, it would be most powerful if she is the one to show that.
Lena did get pregnant around the time the show was filming so she would not have been showing much, Clarice will be. But they could just deal with this with lots of close-ups and Melisandre sitting behind tables or partially covered by other things. There are lots of tricks. Or maybe even CGI, she is wearing loose clothes and the North filter is dark so not that much CGI would be needed. And the shooting would be secluded for her at the earliest possible time. This should be the end of Melisadre nudity however.
And Sue, about her face, well people would just deal with it, face changes are not that big deal. And with Hollywood women with strict diets even during pregnancy, the actresses rarely gain so much weight during pregnancy it is really distracting. And she could have just many body double shots for scenes requiring standing with a face closeup added later.
I do not think we can speculate if Clarice knows she will be out of the show or not based on the info, she was been in the show for years, and sometime people just have kids.
Anyway congrats for the couple!
caliopesnow,
So hotttt
Melisandre’s prediction about meeting Arya is just too on the nose, too spot on to be accurate. Same with the prediction about her walking the walls of Winterfell with the Bolton banners lowered. I’d put substantial amount of cash on the prediction that, while those visions might be real, she’s misinterpreting both of them massively.
I don’t necessarily take Carice being pregnant as the be-all and end-all sign that Melisandre isn’t coming back Season 7, but in conjunction with everything else (and logical trajectory of storylines) I think it’s incredibly, highly likely that the cost for bringing back Jon is losing her own life.
typically, the Dutch announce pregnancies after 12 weeks. No way of telling that’s the case for Carice, but that would mean she would deliver around 1st of October. That would require significant measures to film around. Then again, if they all want to, i am sure they can find a way to pull it off!
The key here is that what Mel is misinterpretting is how things are going to happen and (in some cases) who the people are. She will walk on the walls of Winterfell: but not the way that she assumed that she would. But, then, why on earth would she assume that this happens because of a second assault on the Boltons?
FreyJoy,
The shoot goes into December. So I think room could be made in the months before and after October.
Akash Singh,
It would be very difficult because she’d show in the face (like Sue said) and it would be exhausting for her and the baby with all the hours it takes to film or to set up the scene. I doubt anyone would want to take that risk. There’s also the issue of costume fits.
Hell yeah!
FreyJoy,
So if Carice is 12 weeks “along,” she would have been pregnant at the time she filmed the Seth Meyers baby shower episode. Now checking Amazon’s baby gifts category for “Rattleswords.”
I don’t know if Mel will die, or how many months is Carice but women are not machines, and not all women have the same pregnancy. What they did with Lena in her early pregnancy months may or may not can be done with Carice.
That being said, i wish all the best to her and to her baby. May everything comes easy and she always be happy!
I think he did a superb job as Stannis and not everyone who works on a show or a movie has to love it but come on, the stuff he said was completely rude and unnecessary, imo. It made me wonder if he wasn’t just a complete a-hole and I doubt I am the only one.
As a fan, I am thankful that so many perfect actors have been cast for my favorite show, including Dillane. I can’t think of many actors more perfect for a role. However, also as a fan, I get a real kick out of the actors who openly love the show, read the books, are despondent when they’re killed off, etc. No shame in my game!
Never mind the shadow baby jokes. Imagine the Prometheus jokes.
Yes. That timeless classic.
He could absolutely hate the show as far as I’m concerned, but to say that he got absolutely nothing from the experience is an insult to the great cast and crew he worked with.
M,
Carice and Guy give birth to an evil black vapour!
Do you think it will also look like Stannis?
Awkward.
Luka Nieto,
I doubt they’re insulted, and I also wouldn’t be shocked to learn that he’s not the only member of the cast who feels that way. There are members of the cast who are on record as to saying they don’t even watch the show. Peter Dinklage comes to mind. Sophie Turner has said she only watched like 4 or 5 episodes of season 5. Ciaran Hinds did commentary for episode 1 on the DVD and that was he first time he ever saw the episode. Charles Dance never watched them. Outside this show, Sean Connery hates the Bond films and hates that he was in them. The star of The Sound of Music referred to it after as The Sound of Mucus. Brando hated A Streetcar Named Desire.
That doesn’t mean these people would say they got nothing from the show as Dillane did, (at least on record) but still, it’s just a job. While we may watch it for 10 weeks for entertainment, they use the weeks they film to make a portion of their yearly income. It’s a major difference that can be overlooked. I honestly have no issue with what he said because I don’t find it all that shocking.
BunBunStark,
Nope, youre not the only one. I think its recent and definitely new because even ig they isolated his voice from Sams, hes not using his deep Jon Snow voice as in the show.
the name of the baby?
HODOR
But considering she is naked all the time and was pregnant with that ridiculous ghost thing, why not? She could be pregnat with Another Snow ghost,
Well I said not always correct OR interpreted properly, but actually they do mean the same thing and that’s just semantics. The fact is she said (or interpreted) that Stannis would sit the Iron throne. That was clearly incorrect. She said that she saw his victory in the flames and that he is the son of fire. Also incorrect/ misinterpretation yadda yadda yadda. She gets it right sometimes, other ” times she does not. One of those times could indeed be her alleged meeting with Arya in the future. I wouldn’t base Mels survival on a throwaway comment from 3 seasons ago.
Apparently, has been rumours of Carice’s pregnancy since january and I saw some pictures of her and Guy in valentine’s day and she looks 2 or 3 month pregnant, so maybe she could be back to the show in october or november.
I am going to take this as good news for Van Houten and Pierce and not such good news for Melisandre. My sense is that she has a hand in the resurrection of Jon Snow but there is no where safe for her in Westeros given that she was so plainly allied with Stannis. Either Brienne does her in or she is set upon by the Faith Militant or Cersei and Jaime. Basically I would like to see her character dealt with by one of the dragons. For the Princess!!!
Regarding Mel and Arya meeting again, that scene was written by GRRM. So it’s possible that he intends for them to meet again in the books, but D&D don’t plan to go that way in the show. I hope they do, because I just find Melisandre to be an interesting character.
The Mountain (can’t remember his name correctly) has just uploaded art of Cleganebowl to his Instagram, could be a good hint! #Cleganebowlhype
I can’t imagine that anyone would disagree with that statement Jentario/TormudsWoman. After all, this site does allow for all opinions, correct? We are not going to agree on everything, and to think otherwise would be futile.
Yes, and pray tell what “notorious ranters” from “that forum” would that be?
Relax, luv, I don’t think she means our little home.
“I shall love and sie by my post”
He already did that, so now he is free from his vows.
“It sha not end until my death”.
Now his watch is ENDED!
Sue the Fury,
True, but they could work around it. They could film her scenes earlier or later to accommodate her pregnancy. It’s not like she has tons and tons and tons of screen time. She could probably film her scenes relatively quickly. It does have to mean the character is going to die.
She’s not solo in these scenes, which means they would have to work around other actors schedules as well…
Jen@HouseStark,
Pretty sure they mean Westeros.org and specifically the posters in the rant and rave thread.
Sh*t, i never realized how much Jon’s arc follows the night watch’s oath!
We stayed in tonight and have guests sleeping over, who like normal folk, all go to bed around midnight. I, unfortunately do not. So, Im up alone in my rooms quite bored. The perils of being a natural born night owl coupled with working late second shift. I dont wish to discuss the show as until the new season I dont have anything else to say about it. So…yeah. seven blessings and peace be upon you, one and all. Who thinks the Imp gets killed off in S6?
Kit Harrington interview behind the paywall of the Sunday Times, insists he is dead and only went back to Belfast to film dead body scenes…
FireSword23,
Who’s “mentally retarded?” And I hope you arent making fun of actual retarded people. That would be pretty low.
Brandon,
I hope he’s sending her a valyrian steel rattle
According to Kit:
“I’m bloody good at playing a dead body. I’ve actually found I’m very good at it. It was some of my best work.”
I guess he’s getting some great scenes as a corpse!
FireSword23,
And we should care why exactly ?
Ygritte,
He’s talking about himself obviously .
GRRM would not have been allowed to put something in the show that violated D&D’s own plans for it.
Ygritte,
I certainly don’t 🙂 My beloved Tyrion will live until the end and perhaps after. It is known.
I know something about being a night owl, it came with age. I just forget about time while at my computer, talking to you and other fellow fans.
I’m very happy for Carice and her flesh and blood baby. Congratulations for her and Guy Pearce! I first saw him in L. A. Confidential, good movie!
Actually, they do not need to film the same actors in the same scenes at the same time. It obviously is highly desirable to do so. However, what happens a lot is that Actor A will do his/her part, then Actor B will do his/her part weeks, months and in at least one case years later. (The scene between Frodo and Sam on the stairs to Cirith Ungol had Frodo’s parts done 2 years before Sam’s!) Scheduling is the biggest reason for this, although there have been cases where feuds between actors meant that they had to do this to maintain peace on the set.
This obviously will be a inconvenience for the production (assuming Mel has more to do in Season 7, which I expect that she will): but they can work around it if she can do her scenes in June or July.
Hee hee. It’s funny the extent to which we’re willing to explain how Melisandre’s pregnancy won’t affect her work in the show, and the various workarounds for it, and the reasons why she can’t die, when there’s a strong chance she’s already a goner. I don’t think she has a story arc after she presumably brings Jon back from the dead, because if she does successfully do that and remains alive, she’d be a character who would fully be able to rejoice in her “victory,” which is absolutely unheard of for this show. Ergo, she’s a dead woman walking.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Sean C.,
Indeed, it is more probable that B&W added those lines themselves. Scripts never are used as last written: script editors modify them, and there usually is a script supervisor responsible for series continuity that looks over things in a series like this. B&W might do these themselves, but more probably they work with 2+ people who focus on these particular items.
Things related to this come up in at least one Mel scene in Series 4. I just watched Episode 8 for the third time but the first time since the Shireen Roast. Selyse wants to leave Shireen behind because of Shireen’s “heretical” tendencies. (Read: no mother wants to hang around with her teenage daughter!) Mel shows Selyse the flame and points out that they have to bring Shireen as the Lord of Light will need her there. (I remember catching that scene before and thinking “ooh, gun hanging!”: but, man, did I not anticipate the firing! I thought that it was Stannis’ death in the Battle of Ice that made Shireen important and that Mel already knew that Stannis was a stepping stone for her true Chosen One…..)
Some comments that GRRM has made indicate that there is more to come with Melisandre in noting that she probably is the most misunderstood of his characters. (Of course, his fans keep trying to shoehorn his characters into a binary “good/evil” despite how many times GRRM keeps telling them that this never describes anyone and that all people fall on a continua for multiple “good vs. bad” traits, and that the “good” and “bad” ends are subjective, anyway.)
If nothing else, then Mel might well be an important foil in a larger plot arc. At some point, the “why” of R’hllor is going to be important: and we almost certainly will learn that R’hllor is not what Melisandre and the other Red Priests think that it is. As Mel is the Red Priest that we know best, she would be the best face of the reaction to learning this: and thus the best foil for the main characters when it happens if that reaction is important.
George R.R. Martin has said that he’s going to leave it ambiguous as to whether the Gods are real or not, so I don’t think he’s planning on getting into the how and why very much at all.
However, for the sake of argument, if that is something he’s planning on exploring, it’s more in keeping with his method of writing to have Mel die thinking that she’s making a great sacrifice in the name of R’hllor and the greater good, and then for the audience to find out the truth behind it, not Mel.
Of course George might have plans to keep her alive longer than is necessary (see characters like Raydar, Mance), but the show might see that now is a good time to eliminate her, as they have done many times with characters in the past.
He has said that in reference to the 7 Gods and others. He’s already made it clear that the Old Gods are real (and what they really are), and that the “older, crueler” gods that Craster follows are real (and what they really are, i.e., the White Walkers).
R’hllor almost certainly is going to join this list: at this point, it pretty much has to do so. Unlike the 7 and the others about which we read, R’hllor clearly is a real something. The “something” is important, and the Old Gods and the Walkers are telling there: although some people consider them to be gods, and they clearly have “suprahuman” powers/abilities, they are far from all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing things, too. And that should lead us to the question: what is R’hllor really? We have some clues. It has access to visions of the future. It has powers to alter weather, to communicate (albeit poorly) with humans and to revive the dead. It seems to have gained more power since dragons came into the world, too. It has an attitude of “you are with me or you are against me”: note that in the books, his followers dismiss all other religious as either fiction or the work of Satan (the “Other”). It grants power but usually only in return for sacrifice, particularly sacrifice of people important in human social hierarchy. (Reviving the dead seems to be the one exception: which suggests that R’hllor revives what it wants to be revived for its own purposes, and not the purposes of the cleric requesting the revival.) And it clearly wants something (or somethings), for which it is nudging and pushing people indirectly.
In contrast, none of the other gods in the series show anything like this: they are names that people repeat and implore, but nothing ever comes of them.
My bet is that it is that the how/what/why of R’hllor is going to be connected to whatever happened all of those many years ago when the Walkers first “threatened” the world. The Walkers were there and the Old Gods were there: I am betting that R’hllor was, too, even if not yet “R’hllor.” (Any Doctor Who fan would tell you that R’hllor is, no doubt, the Valyard…. 😀 )
I can’t help but think that this line is not only relevant to Season 5 but a reminder for what will become relevant in Season 6. Of course Jon is a man of duty and will not forsake the ultimate threat of the WW, but everything points to his being released from his vows.
lp,
Agreed. This situation reminded me of Gambon and how he’s still bashed by some HP fans, because he didn’t read the books or love the series. It’s just a job, why do you expect actors to be some special flowers loving everything they do? I read the article and didn’t find anything insulting there.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
could that be Martin refering to
Also I’ve heard D&D tell the writers what’s their plan for the episode. Especially in later seasons not everything on “George’s episodes” was truthful to books.
Laum,
At least according to them, they had that idea from Season 2. But regardless, they wouldn’t put a line like that in unless they had a firm plan around it.
Everything points to people trying to use this to tell Jon that he is released from his vows. Davos, for example, is a pragmatic man who will look for any loophole: we saw that last year when he tried to convinced Jon that according to the vows of the Night Watch, the Boltons are the enemies of men. (Of course, after years of bending the universe so that a moral absolutist like Stannis could think that he’s always driving straight ahead, Davos is going to be pretty good at this.)
Jon, however, does not look for loopholes. I can see him saying “It means until I’m permanently dead” or him even saying: “I must not have been truly dead.”
And, of course, there will be the question about how the Westerosi deal with this. “I was dead but came back to life” will be one of (if not the) most creative lies a Night Watch deserter ever has uttered before he was executed, but obviously a lie nonetheless. Of course, next to the treason of letting Wildlings into the North, desertion might not be on the top of their list for wanting to execute Jon! All in all, Jon should have some interesting times ahead of him.
Sean C.,
Could be, the more I think about it the more probable it seems. But I just love how it sounds “right” with Mel mistaking
in the books.
Laum,
Ah, but wasn’t it Jon who mistook Mel’s description for Arya? Given what Mel sees, she would have had no reason to think that this explanation was not right, and it certainly made sense given what they knew.
But that is always where it goes wrong: what Mel sees happens, but there is so much that Mel and other people do not know that their best “educated guess” is still pretty uneducated.
Wimsey,
I just checked, it’s Mel’s mistake. “… for you are bastard born. I had not forgotten. I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.”
Laum,
D’oh! I had forgotten that. I thought that she simply said a brown haired girl on a horse. Well, then, it seems that Mel herself put the wrong name on the face that she did not know. Still, this emphasizes the difference: Mel saw what was going to happen: she just did not know who the person was, and her parsimonious inference turned out to be wrong.
How come noone thinks Melisandre will also be pregnant in season 7? (Maybe with Jon’s son/daughter!?)
Shy Lady Dragon,
I don’t like the way they zoomed in on Tyrion’s face after the voices of the known dead spoke on that HOF teaser though. Then we hear those rumors of major, shocking death to come *shudders at the thought.* And yes, that is just what I did when I became resigned to my wacky biological clock, as a coping mechanism decided to just forget about the time, tell myself it means nothing, and soon enough it really didn’t! 5 am to me now is no earlier or later than 5 pm lol.
Ygritte,
I used to shudder as well while hearing “and the dead are coming” while focusing on Tyrion, but then I thought it was a red herring not for us, but for the casual watchers. Imagine them scared that, after losing Jon, they’ll have to lose Tyrion!
Maybe she’ll carry another shadow baby in S7. 😉