154 ASOS 11 Davos II: Conviction

Davos thinks he's on a divine mission--sent by the Mother to save Stannis--but his irrationality belies his true motive: to displace guilt for leading his sons into the fire. If the gods are guiding Davos, they want him to rest and recover, having weakened him with a flux to the point where he can barely hold the dagger he aims at Melisandre.

Davos's Demonization

Sailing through a red dawn to Dragonstone, Davos sees Melisandre superimposed over the landscape. The smoke is from the human sacrifices she's burning. The lighthouse fire flashes like the ruby at her throat. Sea and sky ripple like her dress. The smoke, which may be from the volcano Dragonmont, represents the tearful cloudiness of Davos's vision as he prepares to strike Melisandre down like a fiery demon, himself. She holds his king like a damsel in distress. Only, Stannis doesn't see it that way.

Davos's mindset is so hardened against Melisandre that he magnifies the blame he places on her into a depiction of her as more monstrous than he knows her to be. Davos thinks Melisandre gave his sons to the fire on the Blackwater to ride Stannis to power. Association with the human sacrifices ongoing on Dragonstone brings to mind an accusation: that Melisandre wanted Stannis's fleet to be burnt as sacrifice to her god in her bid for power. It suggests she didn't just cause the burning indirectly by provoking retaliation for having burned the seven, but intentionally sent Stannis's fleet into what she knew would be an inferno to harness the power of their sacrifice. Davos's demonization of Melisandre demonstrates his mental state as dangerously irrational but also poignantly depicts the way soldiers lives are thrown away in war, almost as human sacrifice to a war god to pay for power.

Later, Davos tells Salladhor Saan:

"She sent the fire to consume us, to punish Stannis for setting her aside, to teach him that he could not hope to win without her sorceries." 139

Davos is so filled with murderous vengeance he doesn't care if he keeps a story straight.

Bountiful Harvest

When Davos is brought to Salladhor Saan aboard a massive Pentoshi cog, it at first seems Saan has been misused in a trade, having been sold thirty nine jars of pepper as forty three. "These Pentoshi, do they think I am not counting?" Saan says. 136 But it turns out it be Illyrio's ship with chairs made to his measure. Davos asks if Saan has turned pirate again

"Vile callumny. Who has suffered more from pirates than Salladhor Saan? I ask only what is due me. Much gold is owed, oh yes, but I am not without reason, so in place of coin I have taken a handsome parchment, very crisp. It bears the name and seal of Lord Alester Florent, the Hand of the King. I am made Lord of Blackwater Bay, and no vessel may be crossing my lordly waters without my lordly leave, no. And when these outlaws are trying to steal past me in the night to avoid my lawful duties and customs, why, they are no better than smugglers, so I am well within my rights to seize them." 137

In Stannis's name, Lord Axell Florent has made Saan a lord to pay him and keep him from returning to Lys. All he's really done is make it legal for Saan to operate as the only pirate in the area. It's one way a lord can operate. Yet, by what logic is there a lord of a bay? Saan cares for no peoples.

Holy Law

When Davos says Stannis's war will rage on because Stannis is still the rightful heir, Saan says "All the laws are not helping when all the ships burn up, I am thinking." 138 It's a reminder of what Davos heard the Mother say in his previous choral chapter: that Stannis's ships burned because he burned the seven.