This is sort of a breakdown of the chapter Jon VI in ADWD with some meaning that wasn’t immediately obvious to me on the first read. Put on your sexual innuendo hat for this dive. TLDR: Mel offers to make a shadow baby like she did with Stannis.
Jon receives news that Ramsay is going to marry Arya. Jon is conflicted between love and duty because he wants to do something about it. He can hardly imagine Arya in a dress, let alone in Ramsay’s bed. He knows she’s a fighter and she’ll just make it worse for herself.
he could not imagine Arya in a wedding gown, nor Ramsay Bolton’s bed. No matter how afraid she is, she will not show it. If he tries to lay a hand on her, she’ll fight him.
Formatting by GRRM
His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words.
Jon goes outside for a walk to clear his head, in the shadow of the Wall, and Ghost goes with him.
In the shadow of the Wall, the direwolf brushed up against his fingers.
This shadow theme pops up later.
Melisandre approaches him, fresh from a night fire.
They sound a thousand leagues away. It was Lady Melisandre and her followers at their nightfire.
But Jon doesn’t see Melisandre at first. He sees Ygritte and it freaks him out.
Someone was behind him, he realized suddenly. Someone who smelled warm as a summer day.
When he turned he saw Ygritte.
She stood beneath the scorched stones of the Lord Commander’s Tower, cloaked in darkness and in memory. The light of the moon was in her hair, her red hair kissed by fire. When he saw that, Jon’s heart leapt into his mouth. “Ygritte,” he said.
“Lord Snow.” The voice was Melisandre’s.
Surprise made him recoil from her. “Lady Melisandre.” He took a step backwards. “I mistook you for someone else.” At night all robes are grey. Yet suddenly hers were red. He did not understand how he could have taken her for Ygritte. She was taller, thinner, older, though the moonlight washed years from her face.
It seems like a harmless mistake on Jon’s part. But after the chapter plays out and Melisandre’s intentions become clear, I can’t help but return to this and wonder if Mel used magical suggestion to make herself to look like Jon’s lost lover for a moment just to stir his heart.
“You will freeze your fingers off,” Jon warned.
“If that is the will of R’hllor. Night’s powers cannot touch one whose heart is bathed in god’s holy fire.”
“Your heart does not concern me. Just your hands.”
“The heart is all that matters.
Jon makes it immediately clear that he’s not interested in heart talk, and Mel makes it clear that she is. I think he’s having trouble shaking off the shock of the Ygritte thing, and maybe it even offended him on a subconscious level. That he would mistake someone for her.
Melisandre comforts him with promises of Arya.
I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you.
And follows with some suggestive language.
She gazed at Ghost. “May I touch your …wolf?”
The thought made Jon uneasy. “Best not.”
May I touch your… wink. Jon’s still being cold as fuck but she touches Ghost anyway. Ghost is completely enchanted by her. He’s doing circles around her, licking her face. Jon is confused because Ghost has never acted like this. There are hints that maybe she’s using magic or tricks to enchant Ghost but it’s speculative.
“Ghost.” Melisandre made the word a song.
It’s like Mel is trying to seduce Jon through Ghost. Look even your dog likes me.
She knelt and scratched Ghost behind his ear.
Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face.
Ghost disobeys an order to come and Jon is really weirded out. More flirting and hints of magic.
“He is not always so …”
“… warm? Warmth calls to warmth, Jon Snow.” Her eyes were two red stars, shining in the dark. At her throat, her ruby gleamed, a third eye glowing brighter than the others. Jon had seen Ghost’s eyes blazing red the same way, when they caught the light just right.
Then Mel starts talking about how powerful Jon is and how he should wield his power.
there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it.”
Followed by a direct offer of sex, hidden offer of shadow baby, and more ego stroking.
“The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows.”
“Shadows.” The world seemed darker when he said it.
“Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall.”
It’s tempting but Jon still isn’t taking the bait.
Jon could feel her warmth. She has power. The thought came unbidden, seizing him with iron teeth, but this was not a woman he cared to be indebted to, not even for his little sister.
More suggestive talk about how magic is a “sword without a hilt” 😉 Mel realizes her seduction isn’t working and tries another angle. If he wants to be all business then fine. Let’s talk shop.
I have seen their pale dead faces in my flames. Empty sockets, weeping blood.”
(…)
“You do not believe me. You will. The cost of that belief will be three lives. A small price to pay for wisdom, some might say … but not one you had to pay. Remember that when you behold the blind and ravaged faces of your dead. And come that day, take my hand.”
Then the chapter ends on a cliffhanger.
The mist rose from her pale flesh, and for a moment it seemed as if pale, sorcerous flames were playing about her fingers. “Take my hand,” she said again, “and let me save your sister.”
Was this shadow baby supposed to kill Ramsay? Rescue fArya? Both?
Apples and Dragons 