Game of Thrones: Melisandre - The Purpose of Prophecy 

Hit that JOIN Button and become a member of our channel! Support The Take on Patreon: www.patreon.com/thetake Subscribe to keep up with our latest videos, and let us know what you want to see next!

Melisandre doesn't get all the credit she deserves for all her acomplishments: * Convinced Stanis to help Jon to defeat the wildings * Brought Jon back to life * Brought Daenarys and Jon together * Gave Aria the pep talk she needed to defeat the Night King * Lit swords and trenches so we could see what was happening on the battle of winterfell

Melisandre is a deeply complex character and I’m glad you’re deciding to analyze her. Great!

I think season 8 has showed that there is no purpose to prophecy.

"Prophecies are a double-edged sword. You have to be careful; they can add depth and intrigue to a story but they can't be too LITERAL OR too EASY." George R.R. Martin

Man, props to you guys for trying to make sense of the writing this season.

Do a video on the Faceless men/The Many-Faced God religion, please! Their motto 'valar morghulis' is pretty much the medieval equivalent of 'memento mori'; would be very interesting to see more of such connections between GoT & the Middle Ages. Great work as always, girls!

Melisandre is like the Fortune Teller from The Last Airbender. She says the volcano won't destroy the village. The team doesn't believe her. They save the town moments after the volcano erupts. At the very end, a side character goes, "See...she said the village wouldn't burn down and it didn't." So it's like, yeah she was correct, but the recipients of the fortune kind of made it become true, almost out of spite, because they were so sure that the fortune would NOT come true.

Melissandra kept throwing things against the wall until something stuck. Even broken clocks are right twice a day...

Excellent analysis of a complexed idea and character. I was drowning myself in videos about "how it might end," or "the fate of Jon/Daenerys," but you're right! The best we can do now as humans is to enjoy knowing nothing...for now.

Melisandre became one of my favorite characters. In Seasons 2 thru 5, I despised her. But when she showed up for the Battle of Winterfell, I cheered for her. S8E3's final shot of her fading into dust as she walks into dawn couldn't be more poetically appropriate. That's why I still love this show.

Melisandre is also a comment on how we try to oppose order on chaos, and allow ourselves to be manipulated.

Prophecy means whatever you want it to mean. That’s why prophecy is a tricky thing yo! A great King once went to the Oracles of Delphi and asked if he should go to war with another great King. The Oracles told the King if he goes to war a great kingdom will be destroyed forever! That great King went to war and his great kingdom was utterly destroyed forever like the Oracles said! You see it means whatever you want it to mean and that’s the problem! Prophecy is....flawed!

It doesn't matter if prophecies are true or not. Prophecies are important because they drive the plot and character development. The Prophecy of Azor Ahai is important because you have characters who believe in it and use it as motivation for their actions. Melisandre believes in this prophecy and she does horrible things and manipulates events in ways in hopes of fulfilling this prophecy. Regardless if it's right or wrong, it has a huge effect on characters and plot. You can't have the character or plot without the prophecy. Same thing with Cersei's prophecy. She's doing all these things to try to avoid that prophecy from coming true. It motivates her and it's very important to her character arc. That "closing eyes" comment is inconsequential to Arya. It didn't want to make her go to Braavos and become a faceless person. It didn't make her want to kill people she hated. If Arya had never heard that comment, it would have made no difference to her motivation or development.

Our red priestess forever. One of my favorite characters. She isn't linear. She's a complex, ambiguous character who is capable of both noble and reprehensible acts. I think she is meant to represent the conflict between humanity and religion in that sense.

One of the most interesting characters on the show for me. Thank you for making things clearer.

I was a good examination of Melisandre and her journey. I appreciate the examples where she's got it wrong and where she's got it right. Especially liked how you mentioned that she brought up the last words of Ygritte and Syrio Forel are they said to Jon Snow and Arya, respectively. A-

Hey The Take, when Daenerys dies, can you do a character study on her importance to the story of Game of Thrones and call it "The Tragedy of Daenerys Targaryen"

Wow, this is such a great and much-needed discussion! Comparing the unforgiving nature of misinterpreting prophecy with speculating about the show is brilliant. Well done!

ONION KNIGHT VIDEO WHEN??? appreciate the quality as always, keep em coming xo

“What do we say to the god of death?” *ad rolls* “Here comes the covfefe!” Thank you RU-vid I needed this

Who makes more mistakes? Melisandre or Tyrion 😂

"Brown eyes, green eyes, and blue eyes" basically covers everyone. It was an unlosable prediction. Melisandre was a hack. She got a child burned, totally screwed Stannis, and I wish the wights tore her apart. Good video, tho. I just wanna say, even here, clips from 'The Long Night' are still darker than clips from other episodes, 😆. That ep was hard to see.

Such a beautifully explained set of ideas. I absolutely LOVED this video.

I'm so happy you guys decided to do something on Melisandre. I really love her!

I'm very emotional watching the writing work you've done on my favourite GoT character. She deserved that. This is wonderful, the best video essay I've seen about her.

I love every video you do !!! So amazing keep working like this !!!

Brilliant as usual ladies, bravo.

Thank you for a well-paced, focused, and charitable/productive rereading of this thematic structure in ASOIAF

Your content is more appealing to me than the approaches of most other channels, in that you interpret a text in insightful ways. Most others seem more focused on criticism, sometimes extremely enthusiastic, of show and writers, and fan theories. Your writing is very good as well. Thanks.

I love how you put the fan theories in here in relation to the show prophecies. While it's fun to theorize it also takes away the enjoyment of watching if you do it too much. I like to read different perspectives and supportive statements to back it up but I try not to become too invested in a way of thinking because it takes away the enjoyment.

You do a great job! 👏🏼👏🏼 the take

Great video! Love the channel

10:07 GOT dropped the ball and showed her without the amulet in her false form. Oops!

Melisandre is a truly complex character. She's beautiful, sexy, mysterious, manipulative, but, she makes mistakes over her predictions and the prophecies. She was well played by Carice Van Houten.

You girls are amazing! Keep up the great work!

D&D: “we kinda forgot that prophecies were a thing”

That was a great analysis!! Love your videos!!

I love the content of this channel and thank you all so much for your analysis of these characters! Keep it up! But does anyone else feel like Susannah reminds them of Marcia Brady?

Great vid again! THNX!

Thank you for doing a video on her

Shireen also has elements of Iphigenia; the beloved daughter of the King demanded as a sacrifice by a god for fair weather so his troops can go to battle. The Baratheon sigil is a stag, similar to the sacrifice of Iphigenia being instigated by the killing of a sacred stag of Artemis as well.

I love your videos, they really brighten up my work week

Great video, and wise words. Thank you for shedding light on my favorite character Melisandre... ;)

How can Melisandre see that Arya has a purpose... the episode took place with the lights out.

Excellent. Very wise analysis of prophesies. Applies in general to the predictions we make about people, professional ( psychology) or otherwise. Life narratives, narrative framing... Thank you.

I thought this was a fantastic, nuanced interpretation of the character, her arc, and the principles that underlie it. Thanks for sharing.

Why was Jon brought back by the Lord of Light if he didnt play a part in defeating the WWs?

You all are amazing!

i'm sad because no doubt you all have put more thought into these characters than d&d ever did thank you, the take!!

These videos are great, but where's Susanna? We miss her narrating (no offense to anyone else)

Brilliant video ladies

The show made it very strange to begin with by taking two different prophecies from two separate cultures and combining them into one (Azor/prince that was promised). The hardest part about prophecies is they are like the Bible. Everyone interprets it differently and everyone thinks that their interpretation is the right one. Take something like the Azor prophecy. Which, isn't even a prophecy, it's just a story about the hero of the first long night, I digress. So, let's say by the end of this Jon kills Dany. Someone telling this story from a thousand years ago, even if it's just a vision that they saw, this prophecy still fits in with it. It doesn't happen in the correct order and it doesn't happen to stop the long night, but how is someone getting a vision thousands of years ago going to know the exact timeline? Or, take the prince that was promised prophecy. An actual prophecy. People decided that it is for one person and one person only. However, if you look back at the series as a whole, almost every single main character has done something to bring the dawn. Including Stannis. Melisandre getting the prophecy wrong had to happen in order for the long night to be ended. This is where I take issue with prophecy.

Perfect Take girls. Love your channel.

Great video. Game of Thrones reminds me a lot of Roman literature and values- in Greek/Roman culture hubris was the ultimate sin, always punished by the gods. GoT characters’ fates greatly reflect this. I loved that you used the term humble. Only humility saves/redeems the hubristic characters. The Lord of Light only comes to Melisandre, or is able to fulfill his purpose through her when she fully humbles herself and submits. Just like Thoros.

great video!!!

YEES! YEEEES! Finally someone got it and made thesis public!

This season is hurting the show’s legacy-it’s better that it’s ending now before the damage is too great.

Great Video!

Prophecies in Vikings are a super interesting topic!

Could you do a video for Theon please?

"I brought Ice and Fire together" and it all didnt matter in the end, but at least i nearly messed up again by handing the Night King a dragon 🐉

A very good theme ... well thought out.

Love your GoT videos :)

This answered every question I had about her!

This insight is profound!

Please do a video Bran and the purpose of history - and the opposing themes of ice and fire in the show.

well done. fantastic job.

Love the fact that you drew comparasons with the fandom 'prophecies', and their combing of the books and scenes on the show for 'clues' and 'foreshadowing' that GRRM has put through the text... One of the youtube sages, bridge4 (210k subs), has made a video following the Long Night episode, now claiming: 'the writing was all there; he was just too dense to figure it out' (his belief, based on book combing, and show analysing, was that the Night King would be cured, and yes, writing was all there for that too).

Amen for your channel sisters!

The end of Melissandre, the slow walk among the snow until her final resting place, was the only thing I truly liked about season 8.

The whole prophecy thing didn’t make sense. None of the characters even knew about it (expect for Stannis) for it to effect their storyline or decisions. The writers were trying to sell the idea of a prophecy to the audience. Which just seemed weird when they ditched it.

Yeeeeeaaah a new the Take video

there is no point. The showrunners didn't care enough to nake something off the prophecy

what happened to the season 8 episode "take"? Seems like they stopped after episode 3, you guys provide the best analysis of the episodes.

There are ppl out in the world who believes whole hardly in Nostradamus, the 2nd coming of Christ...ect. This is how our world turn. From the beginning of human. We always wanted to know how the story end. I used to always read the ending of the book before I start reading the whole book, but that didn't help me enjoy the story much either. The best historic story about prediction is the story of Oedipus. Some prediction is better to not know than know. Anyway, we all know what is in our future... Valar Morghulis.

Here's a prophecy: Game of Trones is going to surprise us with a dissapointing end... Thanx, girls!!!

Great video, a very complex character. But I think the most confused character is the Hound. Please do a video on him.

Melisandre deserved better. Great character.

I actually hope to do a video to Netflix's A series of unfortunate events, this time the full show. It's one of my favorites and it's sooo underrated, maybe you could help get the love it deserves.

I'm not going to lie, I got chills when she lit up the Dothraki's blades and the Bombas protecting WinterFell.

Much-needed fire for the Dothraki. That turned out pretty useful.....

Certainty indeed! An often unrecognized fault of human nature ... it can cause too much reliance on confirmation bias ... from the Oracle of Delphi to Jimmy the Greek ... you take yer chances and sacrifice what you think you must, even sanity ... to achieve this certainty ... ironic or wut? LOL

Wow this is brilliant! It does put this truncated season in a more palatable and understandable context. A lot of us fans are living with the uncomfortable uncertainties of trying to predict what happens to our beloved characters upset over leaks in a way that parallels Melisandre. Thanks so much for this💜

A cautionary tale for literalists and religious zealots.

I hope you will continue making GoT videos cs we already miss the show

I think that she's a good metaphor or personification for evangelicals, the extreme part not the humbled part

Melisandre went out like a boss. The Red woman is the true Queen

I really wish they would make a tv show or smt about the Assai

I’m a simple man. I see GOT and The Take I click on it

It's also about self-fulfilling prophecy, the fact one knows a certain prophecy makes him/her alter his/her/ decisions to fullfil or to deter the prophecy and it is because of these certain steps that it turns out true, like in the story of Oedipus. Meaning that if the person had not heard the prophecy or did not act upon it, it wouldn't have come true.This is more about Cersey tho.

Take my heart

Am I the only one for who the video is not working? I have the sound with no problem but the image is always the same... It's the only video that's doing that

I fucking loved this analysis.

I would love to see an analysis of eve and villanelle from killing eve! Please watch killing eve if nothing else it’s such a wonderful show.

Unfortunately, this was a retcon. Prophecy and logic never mattered in GoT. But at least our expectations were subverted, right?

I'm still hoping that She returns till the end of the series. Although it looks like impossible for that to happen.

Jaime :"f*ck fate, f*ck prophecy, f*ck everyone who is not us" The irony is that the last sentence which has always defined their bond until the end, is what fulfilled the prophecy regarding their children and then their mutual fate.

The problem with using prophecies to guess what comes next is that many of the prophecies contradict each other. Much like real life

I love your analyses. Thank you. :)