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Melisandre came from Asshai to serve Lord Stannis. We were told that she did it because she believed he was the Azor Ahai who'd save humanity by slaying the encroaching darkness. She even forged (a fake) Lightbringer for him, the heroes' sword which presumably the last Azor Ahai used to bring down the hands behind the last Long Night.

She then met Arya Stark in Riverlands and foretold that Arya would close many eyes; brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes.

In S08E03 she meets Arya again and says the same words.

Arya at once realises that she means that Arya had to close the Night King's blue eyes and at once set out to do that.

Melisandre also hinted:

That Beric's only purpose for which the Lord of Light brought him back was protecting Arya during the battle so that she could kill the Night King.

So the question is, if she saw that:

Arya would be the one to kill Night King and is therefore the Azor Ahai she was looking for.

Why did she follow Stannis at all? There is no indication that she ever doubted that Stannis was manifestation of Azor Ahai until his last breath.

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  • 2
    ... and why did she have to hurt that little girl? What was the whole point of that?
    – Mazura
    Apr 30, 2019 at 0:39
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    Something tells me that this is one those questions that can be addressed in-universe, but whose real answer is very much out-of-universe.
    – Misha R
    Apr 30, 2019 at 3:55
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    She didn't foresee that Arya would kill the Night King. In fact, Melisandre mostly interpreted her visions the way she wanted -- she even acknowledges intepretation is fraught with errors -- and only "recalculated" after being shown wrong. At the pointt she backed Stannis, she truly believed she was right.
    – Andres F.
    Apr 30, 2019 at 14:28

2 Answers 2

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The blue eyes comment when Melisandre met Arya in the Riverlands was most likely just a reference to the many people Arya would kill.

"I see a darkness in you, and in that darkness eyes staring back at me. Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you'll shut forever. We will meet again."

Note that Melisandre also mentions brown and green eyes without putting any particular emphasis on blue eyes.

If this was in fact a vision predicting Arya assassinating the Night King, then it's possible that Melisandre didn't grasp the importance of blue eyes in her vision. As we've seen before, Melisandre doesn't always understand the true significance of her visions or interpret them correctly.

For example, in this vision Melisandre is seeking out Stannis:

"I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only snow."

Many have interpreted this statement to refer to Jon Snow; however, if this is the case then Melisandre did not interpret it this way immediately.

Then, sometime before Season 8 Episode 3, Melisandre connects the dots and realizes the true importance of her vision. This helps to motivate her to come back to Winterfell to encourage Arya to seek out the Night King.

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Because she believed it was Stannis who was the Prince that was Promised and in her own words, she was wrong.

DAVOS: The only way for what? They all died anyway! You told everyone Stannis was the one. You had him believing it, all of them fooled. And you lied.

MELISANDRE: I didn’t lie. I was wrong.

Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 10, "The Winds of Winter"

It's worth noting that Stannis losing affected her greatly and she was pretty much ready to throw in the towel because of it.

MELISANDRE: Everything I believed, the great victory I saw in the flames, all of it was a lie. You were right all along. The Lord never spoke to me.

DAVOS: Fuck him, then. Fuck all of them. I’m not a devout man, obviously. Seven Gods, drowned gods, tree gods, it's all the same. I’m not asking the Lord of Light for help.I’m asking the woman who showed me that miracles exist.

MELISANDRE: I never had this gift.

Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 2, "Home"

She then later switches to thinking Jon Snow is the Prince that was Promised so maybe she just isn't as good at interpreting the signs as she once thought she was. As she has said previously "prophecies are tricky things".

DAVOS: You serve Jon Snow now?

MELISANDRE: He’s the prince that was promised.

Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 4, "Book of the Stranger"

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  • But that was after Stannis died. When she foretold Arya's destiny supposedly, she was a fervent believer in Stannis and kept following him, rather than the one she supposedly knew would close blue eyes
    – Aegon
    Apr 29, 2019 at 16:30
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    @Aegon She just sees eyes, she doesn’t know until later on that those blue eyes are the Night King’s.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Apr 29, 2019 at 17:07
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    @TheLethalCarrot They didn't even have to be the Night King's. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes blue eyes are just blue eyes. She may have simply been leveraging the point that she had included blue eyes to motivate and focus Arya in the present. That vision may never have been about Night Walkers, but that moment was a good time to accentuate the "blue".
    – zibadawa timmy
    Apr 30, 2019 at 2:24
  • @zibadawatimmy This is good reasoning to my mind. She is by no means a future teller, she has visions and tries to interpret them. But she is good with words and maybe that was all that was needed there.
    – Kami Kaze
    Apr 30, 2019 at 7:16

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