Re: Shireen

It seems that GRRM's purpose in writing 'A Song of Ice and Fire' was to systematically trample everything that is decent and good into the manure and leave the reader/viewer with nothing to hold on to.

For example the two characters that finish on top in the TV show are Bran, a Machiavellian figure that uses people to his own ends regardless of the consequences for them; and Arya a borderline psychopathic killer. These at the end are the "heroes" of the story.

By contrast the two decent characters Daenerys and Jon are driven in the first case to madness and mass murder followed by being murdered herself. And in the second case by being denied his rightful claim to the throne and being banished from his Kingdom.

Melisandre is just a priestess who made quite a few mistakes in her interpretations of the signs from the Lord of light. She sees her mistakes after she brings Jon back.

Stannis did what he did more out of utter desperation than anything else, certainly it wasn't love or lust or being dominated by Melisandre. His army was snowbound and low on food, from a rational POV his choices were to sit there and starve, or sit there until his men mutinied and killed him (and the choice between those options was not his). He had absolutely no good options, and when Melisandre said that all his problems would be solved if he did what her horrible deity wanted, then the snow would melt and he could go on with his campaign. Well, since she'd been right in the past and had shown that she definitely had supernatural powers, he grasped at the only straw anyone offered him.

Stannis wasn't too bright.

And no, Melisandre isn't a bandwagon-jumper or hungry for personal power, she was a true believer in her horrible Red God. One who overestimated her ability with the aforementioned supernatural powers, and realized it before the end. But her end game wasn't power, it was to promote her horrible God and fight the Night's King.