How Stannis grew on me

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Greetings all. It has certainly been a time and a half since I posted last. Greetings all!

I thought I might tell the story of how I learned to love Stannis, and how I grew to support his claim to the throne.

Why did I support it, and grow to support Stan's cause? I basically saw him as the least terrible of a number of bad options.

Way back in 2011, I read the first asoiaf book. I really liked it for the first few chapters.. but it kept getting more and more depressing.

Why did Bran have to be paralyzed? Why is Cat so mean to Jon, and when will the Snow and Starks become "One big happy family?" When will Jon leave that dumb, frozen wall and fight with his brother? Why was Tyrion such a smarmy obnoxious "favorite character?" (I never warmed to Tyrion until I saw the show version.)

These and other discouraging thoughts went through my head, as I read the book, even up until Ned Stark's death.

I knew right away that this was a "different" sort of fantasy where the "good guys" don't always win and the "right thing" is most often never done. It was fairly close to midieval Europe, in how human life was very cheap, and life was nasty, brutish and short.

And then I saw Stannis. He was not kind, and he was not terribly humane. But he seemed just. Apart from his prince charming son, Stannis seemed the closest thing to Ned Stark, even if only a half or quarter baked version of him.

I liked how even if he was harsh and insensitive, he was never seemed emotionally cruel, or a person who enjoyed causing physical or emotional suffering to those around him. Even Maester Cressen commented on it, stating with shock that Stannis would order him to wear Patchface's crown. He stated "Stannis never understood mockery, just as he never understood laughter." Even that instance I don't was Stannis being cruel, just his mean wife gave a direct command to a servant in their castle. If he contravened her order, he would undermine her authority in her own home.

As harsh and unbending as he is ( he burns people at stake, and cuts off fingers for gosh sake!) he does seem to have an uncommon amount of integrity and consistently compared with the other great houses. Even if Edric Storm was a bastard conceived in his wedding bed, he refused to take his bastardy into account on weighing whether to burn him or not (despite Mel and Selyse's suggestions.) Sure he is fanatical, merciless and perhaps has his faith misplaced, but at least he is fair, in that he will not commit a horrible murder unless it is the only way to stop the nuclear winter.

 

I don't know if Im explaining this right, but I liked and supported him because there seemed a certain constancy, predictability in his ambition to gain the throne. While he is a bit self-righteous and disengenous about saying he doesn't "want it"  I think there is some truth to that saying. He wants the throne ( as near as I can tell) as a means to an end, not an end in itself. He doesn't want to necessarily enjoy the prestige of being "the king" or being really rich and powerful and having people  bow to him. He seems to want it for an ideology: as a means of executing "justice" on everything and everyone in an era of deeply unjust and self-absorbed rulers. Also, I suppose there is his own internal validation he gets from it as well, that finally he has "made it" and is "equal" to popular big brother Bobby B.

 

Just my two cents. Has anyone else shared my reasons for liking the Stan?

[Grissom]

Welcome back!

[BalerionTheCat]

I share your feeling about the medieval Europe style. Where everyone is harsh. Even Ned, who starts by beheading a poor frightened man. When he should have helped him. When some men are blinded by their honor, instead of doing the right thing, the human, caring thing. If Davos is the right sort of man, Stannis is not. But there are other good men, like Sam or Maester Aemon. And some of these men are helping Jon. Jon who is thinking like them, and learning from them. And he is expected by prophecies. I believe, in ASoIaF, at the very end, the "good guys" will win and the "right thing" will be done.

[khal drogon]

He is definitely not a good guy and he is pretty hypocrite(the opposite of consistent), I like how he is written. I like his humour. And I agree he is one of those realistically written characters. 

[Walda]

I stopped laughing and started loving Stannis at this:

Quote

“When I was a lad I found an injured goshawk and nursed her back to health. Proudwing, I named her. She would perch on my shoulder and flutter from room to room after me and take food from my hand, but she would not soar. Time and again I would take her hawking, but she never flew higher than the treetops. Robert called her Weakwing. He owned a gyrfalcon named Thunderclap who never missed her strike. One day our great-uncle Ser Harbert told me to try a different bird. I was making a fool of myself with Proudwing, he said, and he was right.”

(ACoK, Ch.10 Davos I)

So Robert was probably right, when it came to what was wrong with her, and choosing the best bird to hunt with.

Ser Harbert seems to be a bit of a dick, it can't have been easy losing his parents and being raised by him.

It takes a lot of patience, and some skill, to nurse a goshawk back to health. Robert might have broken the bird's neck when he found it, knowing it would never be good for hunting with an injury like that. I could see Renly taking it on, then palming it off on a servant or friend as a gift, when he tired of the effort or got a better bird.

But Stannis was the kind of boy that would take the trouble, had that combination of practical skill and human feeling. There is also the name - Stannis always had a sense of pride. Robert sees that pride is really a weakness (and he isn't wrong), but there is honour in pride, too. 

Also, he respects advice. This often results in him doing things that are misguided, but then, so did Robb Stark, and Eddard Stark, and Renly, too.

The advisers he chose have improved over the years, too. He saw the merit in Davos, raised him to his Hand. Melisandre might seem a more doubtful choice, but she seems to be completely sincere in her desire to serve the Lord of Light, and her belief that Stannis is  Azor  Ahai come again. I do wonder why he went looking for her, and how she found him, and why Queen Selyse is such a fan of hers, but I don't think Melisandre wants the Iron throne for herself, or from self-interest, and in spite of her love of burnt offerings, she does seem to think in terms of keeping the body count to a minimum.

The other Kings were faster to mobilise and listen to advisers who would have them go to war for their own glory, or against the Lannister bastard on the Iron throne, with little thought of the hardship war would inflict on the smallfolk beyond their own lands (the ones that feed them and pay them fealty), or for the good of the realm generally. All were asked to defend the Wall, for the sake of the realm, and not one of the others did.

True, Stannis is hung up on his rights, charmless and sullen,  but he chooses counsellors who tell him the truth, to the best of their ability, and show some ability to do so. He also shows considerable ability as a commander, and thinks hard about things. He does have ambition, but he cares about Justice.

Also, there is only one letter's difference between Proudwing and Windproud.