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Game of Thrones was often categorized as “low-magic fantasy,” but that really wasn’t true when you start to add up all the strange phenomena we saw in that series. Most magic was so baked into the worldbuilding that the characters barely felt the need to talk about it, such as The Wall or Valyrian dragons. Only a few characters who seemed to understand magic and have some amount of mastery over it, and among them, Melisandre had the most screentime, but Bran’s magical tutors were just as close to immortal as she was.
Why Alys is Not Melisandre
It’s natural for fans to associate Alys with Melisandre — both are women who use magic to try and influence powerful men for their own mysterious but lofty purposes. However, Melisandre tells us that she comes from overseas, and her magic seems to stem from the religion she brought with her. Added details in the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, make it even less likely that Melisandre is Alys, as she has a point-of-view chapter with authentic memories of studying in Asshai. She also encounters Bran Stark and his mentor, Bloodraven in one of her visions and perceives them as enemies. On top of that, Melisandre is antagonistic to the old gods and all the native magic of Westeros, ordering Stannis’ vassals to burn their Weirwood trees. It’s hard to imagine her doing that if she could somehow draw power from them.
Alys, by contrast, is fiercely protective of the Weirwood trees, the old gods, and traditional ways of life in Westeros. She gives Daemon (Matt Smith) a potion that likely included Weirwood seeds in it, much like the concoction that unlocked Bran’s powers in Game of Thrones, and she seems able to see and influence Daemon’s dreams. She also leads him to a Weirwood tree to show him a vision of the future, and she even implies that she is a skin-changer, bonded to a barn owl.
Still, to some fans, these are just aesthetic differences, and Melisandre could be disguising her magic in familiar Westerosi practices to blend in better as Alys. After all, her powers are essentially the same — visions of the past and future, a spiritual sixth sense, and so on. That could be true, but it seems counter-productive for the writers. If the point of having one character in both shows is to draw lapsed viewers in, this would be too confusing, and too late. It seems more likely that, like so many other players in the game of thrones, Alys and Melisandre have different interests, but they just happen to be aligned when it comes to the White Walkers.
Why Alys Could be Leaf
Leaf was a Child of the Forest portrayed by Octavia Alexandru in Game of Thrones Season 4, and by Kae Alexander in Season 6. She helped Bran and his friends reach the Children’s protected cave so that Bran could be instructed by “The Three-Eyed Raven,” Brynden Rivers, a.k.a. Bloodraven. The show seems to imply that Leaf herself his thousands of years old, and was present for the creation of the White Walkers. However, in the novels, she describes a very different backstory to Bran’s party.
“I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years, I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home.”
YouTuber Michael Talks About Stuff has shared some extensive analysis of this quote and all the implications it might have for fan theories. It suggests that Leaf lived among humans during the Targaryen reign over Westeros, and to do so, she likely used one of the same magical powers as Melisandre — “glamour.” Melisandre could use magic to make herself appear younger, and to make Stannis’ sword appear to be on fire. In the Dunk & Egg novellas, Bloodraven uses this same power to change his own appearance, and it’s reasonable to assume that Children of the Forest could use any magic that Bloodraven has access to.
If Alys is really Leaf, her mysterious backstory and her powers all fall into place quite smoothly. The Children were skin-changers and Greenseers before humans were, and their psychic relationship with the Weirwood trees goes back much further. Her agenda becomes much more clear as well — she wants to help prepare Westeros for the inevitable war against the White Walkers by minimizing petty wars and preserving the power of dragons.
