I think we can all agree that some weird stuff goes down on Game of Thrones' season six premiere [1]. Chief among these strange goings-on is the scene in which Melisandre sheds her dress — and her youth goes with it. It's a stunning conclusion to the season opener, and we have a lot of questions about it. Unfortuntely, we don't have a ton of answers yet, but here's what we do know.
- Exactly how old is she? We don't know an exact age, but the writers have talked about her age range [2].
- How is the necklace tied to her appearance? She tranforms right after she takes it off, so that has to have something to do with it, right?
- What about that other time she takes off her necklace? She totally takes it off in the bathtub [3].
- Does she transform like that every night? What if someone walks in to wake her up early or something?
- Why not at least put on a nightgown? It has to be really cold at the Wall.
- Why does she look so angry? Crisis of faith aside, she looks pissed.
- Why are we just seeing this now? Melisandre has been on the show for so long that it seems like a very deliberate choice to do this reveal right now.
- Is it to hint that she may be using her powers to resurrect Jon Snow? One of the strongest theories about how Jon will return to the show [4] is that Melisandre brings him back to life. Perhaps the writers are showing us this now to prep us for the Red Woman to sacrifice herself for Jon.
- When the Dothraki men are talking about white-haired women with Daenerys, is that just foreshadowing this scene? This is a stretch, but it does seem like a funny coincidence.
- Are we going to see her in this form again? We just need to brace ourselves, is all.