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"Burning people in obscure rituals", no it's called an execution for cannibalism. His men are falling back in line. He was pushed to do that by his men and really, seems like an okay execution method to me, nothing wrong with burning people. 

If "Mance" hadn't have been burnt he'd have been beheaded. Hardly a difference
So you're saying that Stannis did not carry out an obscure religious ritual by burning 4 people but rather he executed them for their crimes because he was "pushed to do [it] by his men" and there's nothing wrong w/ burning people alive. really?
Sorry but the burnings were obviously a religious ritual that is both foreign and obscure in the North. The Asha/Sacrifice chapter makes it abundantly clear. For example:
Six queen’s men were wrestling two enormous pinewood poles into holes six other queen’s men had dug out. Asha did not have to ask their purpose. She knew.
Stakes. Nightfall would be on them soon, and
the red god must be fed. An offering of blood and fire, the queen’s men called it, that the Lord of Light may turn his fiery eye upon us and melt these thrice-cursed snows.
...
Peasebury’s four would pay for their feast with their lives, by the king’s decree ...
and by burning end the storm, the queen’s men claimed. Asha Greyjoy put no faith in their red god, yet she prayed they had the right of that. If not, there would be other pyres, and Ser Clayton Suggs might get his heart’s desire....
...The four victims were chained up back-to-back, two to a stake. There they hung, three live men and one dead one,
as the Lord of Light’s devout stacked split logs and broken branches under their feet, then doused the piles with lamp oil. ...
...
So far as Asha knew, the gods of the Karstarks were the old gods of the north, gods they shared with the Wulls, the Norreys, the Flints, and the other hill clans. She wondered if Lord Arnolf had come to view the burning at the king’s behest, that he might witness the power of the red god for himself.
At the sight of Stannis, two of the men bound to the stakes began to plead for mercy. The king listened in silence, his jaw clenched. Then he said to Godry Farring, “You may begin.”
The Giantslayer raised his arms.
“Lord of Light, hear us.”
“Lord of Light, defend us,” the queen’s men chanted, “for the night is dark and full of terrors.”
Ser Godry raised his head toward the darkening sky.
“We thank you for the sun that warms us and pray that you will return it to us, Oh lord, that it might light our path to your enemies.” Snowflakes melted on his face
. “We thank you for the stars that watch over us by night, and pray that you will rip away this veil that hides them, so we might glory in their sight once more.”
“Lord of Light, protect us,” the queen’s men prayed, “and keep this savage dark at bay.” Ser Corliss Penny stepped forward, clutching the torch with both hands. He swung it about his
head in a circle, fanning the flames. One of the captives began to whimper.
“R’hllor,” Ser Godry sang, “we give you now four evil men. With glad hearts and true, we give them to your cleansing fires, that the darkness in their souls might be burned away. Let their vile flesh be seared and blackened, that their spirits might rise free and pure to ascend into the light. Accept their blood, Oh lord, and melt the icy chains that bind your servants. Hear their pain, and grant strength to our swords that we might shed the blood of your enemies. Accept this sacrifice, and show us the way to Winterfell, that we might vanquish the unbelievers.”
“
Lord of Light, accept this sacrifice,” a hundred voices echoed. Ser Corliss lit the first pyre with the torch, then thrust it into the wood at the base of the second. A few wisps of smoke began to rise. The captives began to cough. The first flames appeared, shy as maidens, darting and dancing from log to leg. In moments both the stakes were engulfed in fire.
“
He was dead,” the weeping boy screamed, as the flames licked up his legs. “We found him dead ... please ... we was
hungry ...” The fires reached his balls. As the hair around his cock began to burn, his pleading dissolved into one long wordless shriek....
Culturally the North finds burning people alive as a form of capital punishment to be abhorrent. It's clear the Mnt Clans and Aly Mormont find the practice appalling.
“Even in this place of fear and darkness, the Lord of Light protects us,” Ser Godry Farring told the men who gathered to watch as the stakes were hammered down into the holes.
“
What has your southron god to do with snow?”
demanded Artos Flint. His black beard was crusted with ice.
“This is the wroth of the old gods come upon us. It is them we should appease.”
“Aye,” said Big Bucket Wull. “Red Rahloo means nothing here. You will only make the old gods angry. They are watching from their island.”
The crofter’s village stood between two lakes, the larger dotted with small wooded islands that punched up through the ice like the frozen fists of some drowned giant. From one such island rose a weirwood gnarled and ancient, its bole and branches white as the surrounding snows. Eight days ago Asha had walked out with Aly Mormont to have a closer look at its slitted red eyes and bloody mouth.
It is only sap, she’d told herself,
the red sap that flows inside these weirwoods. But her eyes were unconvinced; seeing was believing, and what they saw was frozen blood.
“
You northmen brought these snows upon us,” insisted Corliss Penny. “
You and your demon trees. R’hllor will save us.”
“R’hllor will doom us,” said Artos Flint.
Asha is also disgusted by the spectacle.
Asha Greyjoy could taste the bile in the back of her throat. On the Iron Islands
, she had seen priests of her own people slit the throats of thralls and give their bodies to the sea to honor the Drowned God. Brutal as that was, this was worse.
Close your eyes, she told herself. Close your ears. Turn away. You do not need to see this. The queen’s men were singing some paean of praise for red R’hllor, but she could not hear the words above the shrieks. The heat of the flames beat against her face, but even so she shivered. The air grew thick with smoke and the stink of burnt flesh, and one of the bodies still twitched against the red-hot chains that bound him to the stake.
The only people the burnings appeased were the Queen's Men, because it was a religious ritual. It was meant to end the snowstorm. It was accompanied by a prayer to the Lord of Light. It was an obscure Religious ritual, foreign to the North, and associated w/ a hostile foreign god attacking the olds gods and the olds ways of the North.
There's nothing wrong w/ burning people, who out of desperation, resort to cannibalism, really?
So do you think the Uruguayan Rugby Team that crashed in the Andes in the 1970s and resorted cannibalism should have been burned alive (
http://en.wikipedia....flight_disaster)? Stannis's Lords are eating well enough (aly willingly chose to forego a meal, and asha harldy ate more than few bites, same for Justin Massey) but the common folk are starving to death and those who try to survive, as Stannis would (remember the siege of Strom's End), are being burned alive in obscure religious rituals to appease a God that most people doubt he even believes in. Is that the King's Justice under Stannis? Is that leadership? Is that how he will rule the realm? And people wonder why he’s the least popular of all the claimants.
Knight errant, on 13 December 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Aegon, that's hardly justification "He killed a guy he befriended for about 2 weeks, Aegon will NEEEEVVERRRR get that" ...Yes, yes he will. He's already had better training than Jon, now he's putting it into action, he's proven cool headed but still young and rash for glory, hardly his fault. He's
and led the attack, he's seen men die for him then and for the realm so I hardly see how you can say he hardly compares to jon.

Not all of this happened in ADwD and probably needs a spoiler in the ADwD forum. And none of this has been confirmed. He said he wanted to lead the attack. He's probably seen men die by the start of TWoW, but not at the end of ADwD. Who are these men he's seen die for him and the realm? Where or when did he prove he was "cool headed"? JonCon and Tyrion both indicate he's rash like when he kicked cyvasse board, or by demanding to lead the attack on Strom's End. Neither of the 2 PoV that have given us insight into Aegon's personality have indicated he's cool headed. How is living on a pole boat w/ a measter and septa an exiled lord who lost his only major battle (how's that for tactics) and learning arms from Duck someone who JonCon describes as merely "adequate" (ADwD p.812) better training than one Jon received? Jon was educated in Winterfell by Maester Lewin w/ access to unique texts like
Engines of War. He was educated by Old Nan and the Ned. He was trained in arms by Rodrik Cassel who's been battle tested unlike Duck. He then went on to receive training in arms from Thorne. Maester Aemon shared 100+ years of wisdom. He was chosen and groomed by the Old Bear and Halfhand. He was taught about wildling culture and the lands beyond the Wall and the knowledge long forgotten to the south. And he has far more battle experience than Aegon which has no doubt taught him much and more in comparison to the boy who lazily meandered on a pole boat for the last 16 years. He hardly compares because, words are wind, and thus far he's done nothing but act like a privileged child.
Edited by By the Old Gods Not theNew, 13 December 2012 - 04:31 PM.
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