A Baratheon player plays a lady character from his discard pile during his Melisandre's Scheme turn. He then responds to his action by putting a Royal Entourage into play from his discard pile.

I consider this play illegal, my reasoning is as follows:

A card can only break a rule, if it directly contradicts the rule and in order to break a rule the card has to state exactly how to break said rule and what to do instead.

So how do we play a card from our discard pile? We don't know what costs, restrictions or other rules apply because this scenario isn't described in the rules of the game. The phrase "as if they were in your hand" on Melisandre's Scheme describes how playing a character from your discard pile actually works. It tells us that costs, restrictions and whatever other rules we can think of are the same as if we played the card from our hand.

However, it doesn't change where the character is played from. Hence, a lady character played from your discard pile during a Melisandre’s scheme turn is not considered to be played from your hand for the purpose of triggering responses.

Please note the interaction between Baelor Blacktyde and Robert Baratheon (KotS).

Any thoughts, official rulings or antitheses?

Baelor and Robert is a different situation. You can't use Robert to play an Event with Baelor out because regardless of "how" you play the card, it is still IN your discard pile when you initiate the effect.

I guess I'm a little confused. What does "You may play...as if they were in your hand" mean, then?

The word "play" seems to cause a "change of state" so to speak. These cards are treated as if they were in your hand. I say that because the FAQ defines "play" explicitly. If they wanted these to be treated differently, it should say something like "You may put into play" rather than "You may play."

So, I think with both parts of that sentence, "You may play" and "as if they were in your hand" makes it so every Baratheon character you play out of your discard pile due to Mel's Schemes is treated just like it was played from your hand.

It doesn't change the fact that a copy of the event is in your discard pile.

A card that is played "as if it were in your hand" counts as being played from hand for all purposes. Melisandre's Scheme doesn't bypass Fear of Winter either:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/78979-melisandres-scheme-vs-fear-of-winter

It works a bit like replacement effects in that regard: You can play "After a character is discarded from your hand" type responses to Darkstar PotS being put into play, you can play "After a character is killed" type responses to a character being returned to hand with Retreat Core, etc.

As for why Baelor/Robert KotS is different, others have given the answer already: The event would *count as* being played from hand for all purposes, but since it still *is* in the discard pile, you can't play it in the first place:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/50292-robert-and-baelor-blacktyde

Nice catch on the Fear of Winter thread.

Sometimes I wish the forums had an inbuilt search function, google doesn't really work if you don't know specifically what you're searching for. Would've saved me the work of setting this thread up and you the work of responding to my redundant question. >.>

Google doesn't work at all anymore since the forum switch, in my experience. Don't know why. OTOH, there *is* an inbuilt search function, and it *does* work (better than before, at least). Look at the top of the page.