Fans have come across a major continuity error in the first episode of Game of Thrones' latest season.
At the end of The Red Woman episode, Lady Melisandre - played by actress Carice van Houten - takes off her necklace revealing that she is an elderly woman with thinning white hair, possibly hundreds of years old.
In an interview in 2013, van Houten told Access Hollywood her character was "way over 100 years."
The reveal of a magical necklace which makes her appear young shocked viewers, but now fans are irked by a continuity error which seems to be poking holes in the show's plot-twist.
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"How do you explain this?!" a fan posted on Twitter along with a photo of a scene from season four of Thrones, which clearly shows Melisandre naked in a bath without her magical necklace, still looking young.
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While many fans were puzzled by this apparent mistake, Reddit users were quick to hypothesize about why The Red Woman's youthful magic would still work in the bathtub scene, even when she was without her necklace, according to Digital Spy.
One user suggesting that it might not have been an "oversight" at all by the show's creators.
In the bathtub scene, Melisandre has a conversation with Selyse, Stannis' wife. The user believes that although the viewer sees The Red Woman as young, Selyse knows about Mel's secret the entire time and was "horrified".
"Selyse has this strange expression the entire time," the Redditor shared over a year ago in a thread discussing the magic ruby necklace. "Like, she cannot look directly at Melisandre yet also cannot look away.
"If you re-watch the scene and 'pretend' to yourself that Selyse is seeing Melisandre as she actually appears, it actually fits better. WE still see the seductress, Selyse sees the hag. She is horrified yet fascinated and not at all shocked.
"I think it's clear the missing choker in the bath scene, was not an oversight but instead was a clue for us," the user continued. "Mel uses tricks with most, she uses none with Selyse."
Another Reddit user claimed the necklace was only removed at the end of the episode for dramatic effect and that the powerful magic, or "glamour" as it's referred to in the books, still needs to be taken into account:
Redundant6939 writes: "But I think we all forget that she made Mance (Rayder) drink a glamour and we saw something resembling it right before they panned on the mirror. The necklace is just an indicator of when her magic is in power but I think it's wrong to assume that when she takes it off, she becomes an old woman. The show just did it for the effect."
There is also the theory that it wasn't the necklace that kept Mel young, but a blue potion she adds to her bath mixture during the season four scene.
User BillOneyPaige suggested that "she [sprinkles] something in her bathwater as well, which could be another item she uses. It's said [Shiera] Seastar used to [bathe] in virgins blood to maintain her youth, why not Mel." (sic)
Game of Thrones' sixth season continues next Monday on Sky's SoHo channel.
- nzherald.co.nz
The Australian site cited a 'heightened threat level' as the issue.