So I just recently start watching this show, and somethings doesn't quite make sense in this one scene. So Melisandre gave birth(summoned) the shadow demon, and then it murdered Renly effortlessly. So why did Mel just use this trick to kill whatever is in the way of the iron chair?
Thanks in advance !
- They loosely explain this in Season 3. Melisandre was only able to give "birth" to the shadow-baby demon because it was "fathered" in a sense by Stannis. And as she explains in Season 3, making a shadow demon drains some of a man's life energy. There comes a point when Stannis actually outright asks her to "make another son" with her to assassinate his enemies, but even Melisandre politely refuses: she explains that some of Stannis's life-force has already been drained, but she doesn't want to actually harm Stannis, and making another shadow-demon might kill him.
Physically, the books mention that after fathering the shadow-demon Stannis looks very haggard...indeed, as if he has slightly aged a few years, though everyone assumes this is simply due to the stress of losing the war again and again to the Lannisters.
I think the TV series chose to show this subtly, because the actor they cast to play Stannis is actually older than the actor who plays his older brother, Robert. In Season 2 they just used makeup to make him look slightly younger (they dyed his greying hair dark black), but afterwards didn't use the makeup anymore, and he looks more like the actor's natural age.
As for why Melisandre doesn't do this with other men?...I think she offered with Davos but he declined in disgust.
Basically, Melisandre doesn't have nearly as much control over her magical powers as she claims she does. Well, she does have magical powers, it's just that no one in the world truly understands magic - that's what makes it "magic" and mysterious, and not just "Technology by another name". She actually does see prophetic images in the flames, but her own interpretation of what she sees is often skewed (and there are times when Melisandre herself admits that she isn't sure what she saw in a specific vision). --The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:44, May 28, 2014 (UTC)