("Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven)
Prophecies are very good at getting the characters into trouble.
But for the reader, the prophecies in A Song of Ice and Fire seem to be
a kind of interactive foreshadowing.
They're mysteries that we're meant not only to engage with, but to actually solve.
Just like a game or a riddle.
And like any good game, it wouldn't be fair if it weren't possible to win.
So throughout the story the author buries clues, traps, twists and revelations
just waiting to be found.
One of those traps is the limited point of view structure of the narrative that serves
to implicitly deny that the game even exists.
There's nothing more to see here, because the character doesn't see it.
Move along.
So in order to play this game, we can't sit around waiting for an invitation.
We have to invite ourselves and take a leap of faith that there is, in fact,
a game going on.
One that demands thorough assimilation into the story's premises and style.
This is Melisandre's Girl in Grey prophecy, from A Dance With Dragons.
You'll need to have read the books in order for all of this to make sense,
because I'm gonna be diving deep into minor details.
If you like that sort of thing, then this should be fun.
This is a spoiler warning for the main books of A Song of Ice and Fire,
including The Winds of Winter sample chapters.
(ominous orchestra music)
It all starts at Castle Black.
Jon Snow has just received news that Ramsay Bolton has Arya and he's gonna marry her.
Jon is pretty bummed about it.
He knows what Arya's like, that she's gonna fight back and just make it worse.
Thing is that Jon doesn't know that it isn't really Arya.
It's Sansa's friend Jeyne Poole who is being passed off as Arya so that Ramsay can marry
her and claim the North through the Stark name.
Jon is stressed out so he goes outside for a walk and his direwolf Ghost comes along too.
Melisandre shows up and they start talking.
Mel is trying to seduce Jon really hard throughout this whole conversation.
She's using really suggestive language, stroking his ego, petting his direwolf.
And Ghost is completely enchanted with Melisandre.
Melisandre can tell that Jon is worried about his sister Arya.
But Mel is a prophet and she reassures Jon that Arya is gonna be fine
and she's actually on the way here! And this is the first time we see the prophecy.
Now, Jon is one of those characters who just doesn't give a damn about prophecies.
He's cool like that.
But we can see that this kind of effects him.
He's thinking about Melisandre's words.
Because Jon and Arya were really close.
Arya has been missing for years.
So this prediction is quite a surprise for Jon and it seems like
he wants to believe it.
Melisandre straight up offers sex. Jon is tempted but he refuses.
She gets a little annoyed that her seduction isn't working, and the chapter ends like this.
She's offering to make a shadow demon thing with Jon, like she did with Stannis.
So we have the original, first telling of the prophecy.
Here it is again.
This is very important.
The author is going to try every trick in the book to misdirect us
from these exact words.
Characters are going to communicate the prophecy back and forth, dropping words, adding words
that weren't there, and making bad assumptions that seem entirely reasonable.
Our job is to resist those misdirections and protect the prophecy in its original form.
The next time we hear about the vision is in Melisandre 1.
(suspicious piano music)
This is the first and only time we get to see inside her head and how she thinks.
She's in her private quarters by the fire praying for visions of Stannis.
We get to see that she's very careful about interpreting her visions.
Hmm so maybe that's what she was doing.
I'll give her credit.
She tries to be a good witch.
She sees a whole bunch of weird visions that I'm gonna skip because
we're here for the girl.
It seems like she doesn't actually know that the girl is Arya
because she calls her "the girl" instead of Arya.
And her bias is showing really clearly because she just wants to give Jon good news.
We got some new information here.
She says she has seen the girl only once,
and she's remembering that original vision she had.
So this is good, we can use this.
I'm gonna put it with the original and start building a list of search criteria.
The girl we're looking for needs to be: a girl in grey, grey as ash, on a dying horse,
fleeing from this marriage they have made for her.
So there has to be a "they."
And they have to have made the marriage for her.
Coming here, to you.
Melisandre is at Castle Black talking to Jon Snow, so this can only mean
Castle Black and Jon Snow.
Plain as day is a cool description but it doesn't describe the girl,
so I'm gonna leave it out.
Every word in prophecy has a purpose but I'm not sure what the purpose of this would be.
We'll keep it in mind though.
Even as I watched she crumbled and blew away.
Yep. Get in there.
We have the beginnings of our search list, but as we continue reading,
more of the vision is revealed.
So whoever this girl is, she's racing to Jon for protection.
Now there's one more passage that gives us some information about the vision.
Melisandre is talking to Mance Rayder.
Mance is trying to coax out more information about the vision, which he does successfully,
but, well, you'll see what I mean.
The descriptions of the water are good so I'm gonna add them to the list.
But Mance Rayder jumps to a conclusion.
He says the water is Long Lake because he knows the area well
and Long Lake is the biggest lake in the North.
But we're trying not to jump to any conclusions about the vision.
Water can be deep and blue and still anywhere in the world,
so I should leave Long Lake off of the list.
The hills and deer and streams and all that stuff,
those are safe to use because they come from Melisandre.
Now, Mance says that Melisandre says the girl in coming north, but Mel never said north.
What Mel originally said was "coming here, to you."
So I'm gonna leave north off the list.
"West" can go in.
It seems like a straight-forward question with a straight-forward answer.
She's closing her eyes and remembering that first vision she had.
She's avoiding the Kingsroad? No.
Mance Rayder is just making a bad assumption.
Melisandre didn't say anything about the Kingsroad.
So there it is.
That was a treacherous conversation to navigate, but I think we dodged all the traps and extracted
everything we can safely use.
Our meticulously constructed list describes everything we're looking for
in our search for the girl in grey.
Give it a look, and if you're not sure where something came from, rewatch this part.
I need you on board.
Alright, let's find this girl.