Carice van Houten: Melisandre’s faith is “shaken” in Season 6

Many Game of Thrones fans like to see Melisandre (Carice van Houten) as a villain, which echoes how Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham) sees her. Her over-the-top religious fanaticism is said to be the work of a charlatan work. And indeed, it often involves a lot of pyrotechnics and magic tricks. (The shadowbaby, on the other hand, was the real deal, but it wasn’t exactly “good” either.) When she rode away in the Season 5 finale, leaving Stannis to be slaughtered, there were fans who saw this as proof that Melisandre led the eldest Baratheon brother on, and then abandoned him after killing his only child. She must never have believed in him, or all this Azor Ahai Reborn stuff. It was all false flattery.

But van Houten wants everyone to know that’s not true. Melisandre did, in fact, believe Stannis was the One True King. When she birthed his shadow-babies and burned Shireen alive, she thought the ends would justify the means, and the ends were nothing less than fulfilling Stannis’ destiny as the savior of mankind. Melisandre was a true believer.

But now the Baratheons are dead. Whatever it was that Melisandre saw in the fire that made her think he was the true king was wrong….either she misunderstood it, or she was lied to. And now she is responsible for Stannis’ death, and Shireen’s and Seylse’s. And that has shaken her to the core. As van Houten’s told said at a recent press conference in London, Melisandre is “utterly confused” by how everything went sideways.

What the f*** is happening? She’s been on this mission and all of a sudden it makes no sense and her tricks didn’t work – the sacrifice of this girl didn’t work. But I think it’s slowly getting to her that she might have been slightly wrong about things, so that’s where we leave her in season five and that’s definitely where she starts off in season six.

As for sacrificing “the girl,” van Houten said it was great to play such an intense scene, but realized there would be consequences. “I was happy that it was going to be such an epic scene but at the same time I was like: ‘Oh my god, this is not going to help me’. All the Joffrey hate is going straight to me now.”

She says she knows the audience will forgive her…if she brings Jon Snow back. But as she hinted in another interview, that might not go as audiences expect. Keeping it vague, she also suggested there is something big coming for her character in the Season 6 premiere. “Yes, not what you think it is. Something else, funny enough. What you’re fishing for, it’s something else.”

Yes, there was something that I was like, I knew it was coming at some point. People had talked about it before to me but I wasn’t sure when it was going to happen. This is really vague…it’s in episode one already.

That was a sentiment echoed by Cunningham, who was also at the press conference.

"The first episode to kick off with [Mesliandre] – without saying anything again – is astonishing. There’s absolutely amazing stuff coming [up], just so left of field, unexpected. And just watching your and my favourite characters being put in these situations, that are just so unpredictable and just so unexpected, it’s one of the trademarks of the show."

I suppose we will have to wait until April 24th to find out what they’re talking about.

h/t The Express