Stannis the character was ruined for me

[rs1n]

I know the book and show diverge, but I had hoped that they would keep the characters intact as much as possible, even if certain characters got combined into a single character. With respect to Stannis, he was righteous -- to a fault, even -- and had a very strict moral code and sense of justice. Except in the show, he turns into a kinslayer, making him the one of the biggest hypocrite in the entire story. (In the book, Stannis burns men who turned to cannibalism.) What gives?

[TheKitttenGuard]

I know the book and show diverge, but I had hoped that they would keep the characters intact as much as possible, even if certain characters got combined into a single character. With respect to Stannis, he was righteous -- to a fault, even -- and had a very strict moral code and sense of justice. Except in the show, he turns into a kinslayer, making him the one of the biggest hypocrite in the entire story. (In the book, Stannis burns men who turned to cannibalism.) What gives?

He is a kinslayer in the book no matter what technicalities his fans use.

[Wavey Sauce]

Stannis was butchered from the start

 

the other day on HBO rewind, one of the D's when talking about Stannis burning Shireen, said it was not super shocking cause the first time Stannis was ever shown he was burning people alive on the beach....face palm.

Pretty sure he was burning wood, false idols of the 7. Not people. Doesnt even know whats in his own show, but pretty much shows right there he has always disliked him. i love Dillane as the actor though, but its obvious they never liked Stannis

[Drogonthedread]

Stannis was butchered from the start

 

the other day on HBO rewind, one of the D's when talking about Stannis burning Shireen, said it was not super shocking cause the first time Stannis was ever shown he was burning people alive on the beach....face palm.

Pretty sure he was burning wood, false idols of the 7. Not people. Doesnt even know whats in his own show, but pretty much shows right there he has always disliked him. i love Dillane as the actor though, but its obvious they never liked Stannis

 

Too much focus on the interviews I think he is regfering to the season 4 ...

 

His story in the final episodes is too rushed ...but other than that he is like all the  other characters in the story  who has been affected by the dumbing down of TV from books ...

I like dillane would have  loved to see more of him ...

[Stag_legion]

They pretty much inverted Stannis' story progression on the show. In the books stannis is becoming more pragmatic as the story progresses and as a component of that he's relying on Melisandre less and less. Its the opposite on the show, where he believes less in melisandre in the beginning.

the same can be said about stannis' military situation. Stannis' army grows as it moves south and ironically the blizzard saves his army from destruction by delaying him enough so that he is made aware of Karstark treachery. On the show the moment he stepped away from the wall his army got smaller and his military situation worse.

 

Stannis is the quintessential grey, morally complex character of ASOIAF, but D&D don't do morally grey. they only do bland heroes who viewers are supposed to cheer for or evil irredeemable villains who the viewers are supposed to hate. The forced morality of the show has annoyed me for a number of seasons, its like the show runners think morally grey characters are somehow scary to general viewership.

[Dragon in the North]

 

Stannis is the quintessential grey, morally complex character of ASOIAF, but D&D don't do morally grey. they only do bland heroes who viewers are supposed to cheer for or evil irredeemable villains who the viewers are supposed to hate. The forced morality of the show has annoyed me for a number of seasons, its like the show runners think morally grey characters are somehow scary to general viewership.

Stannis may be a darker shade of grey in the show, but he is still a morally complex character. He didn't burn Shireen with malicious intent. He'd been led to believe that it was his duty to lead the Seven Kingdoms to victory against the White Walkers and that burning his daughter would grant him the power to achieve his goal.

[Drogonthedread]

^^ adding to this people forget what the show has done that is not in the books...

They have developed the father daughter relationship beautifully and showed another side of stannis....which we don't see in the books...shireen is barely a character in the books ...

 

[Wyman Manderly's Meat Pies]

I could almost forgive last season if he survived and returned to the wall with Theon, Sansa, Brienne and Pod. (Reminding Brienne of her duty reminds her of the one she can still fulfill, the one she made to Jamie. Even if she plans on using Stannis as a bargaining chip should she need one.)  Then he breaks down and looses his shit at Melisandre and we realize just how deep into his mind she was and to what extent she was pulling his strings. He cuts her down and takes the black. I guess he would also sort of free Davos, who would become an advisor to Jon or a father figure to Rickon, depending on where he is. 

But he had to be served up to Super Brienne the bestest warrior in the whole wide world. (Has she fairly beaten any top tier fighter since Renly? Everyone else has been crippled or had some kind of handicap.) 

It's a crime that Peter got an emmy for this season and nobody else got nominated. That scene with Shireen earlier in the season was beautiful.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

They pretty much inverted Stannis' story progression on the show. In the books stannis is becoming more pragmatic as the story progresses and as a component of that he's relying on Melisandre less and less. Its the opposite on the show, where he believes less in melisandre in the beginning.

the same can be said about stannis' military situation. Stannis' army grows as it moves south and ironically the blizzard saves his army from destruction by delaying him enough so that he is made aware of Karstark treachery. On the show the moment he stepped away from the wall his army got smaller and his military situation worse.

 

Stannis is the quintessential grey, morally complex character of ASOIAF, but D&D don't do morally grey. they only do bland heroes who viewers are supposed to cheer for or evil irredeemable villains who the viewers are supposed to hate. The forced morality of the show has annoyed me for a number of seasons, its like the show runners think morally grey characters are somehow scary to general viewership.

Stannis is possibly the MOST morally grey character on the show , it blows my mind when people describe him as a villain , every one of his decisions was born out of pragmatism rather than being evil. 

Compare that to Ramsey or Joffery, or even Tywin or Jamie, they were portrayed as far more villainous.

i guess some of the upset over the changes come from the assumption that Stannis was on an upward curve and his story was going somewhere major. Since we don't know that , I never assumed it. There fore I'm not bothered by any changes.

in fact season 5 was Stannis at his most interesting. He eclipsed every other character this season, providing real heart wrenching drama. I really enjoyed watching every single one of his scenes. 

[Stag_legion]

Stannis may be a darker shade of grey in the show, but he is still a morally complex character. He didn't burn Shireen with malicious intent. He'd been led to believe that it was his duty to lead the Seven Kingdoms to victory against the White Walkers and that burning his daughter would grant him the power to achieve his goal.

That's not what the show runners intended it to be! if you watch the "inside the episode" for that episode, D&D say stannis burned shireen because of his ambition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GX6ODbiHno

Stannis doing it for the greater good is simply a projection from books stannis. Book stannis is willing to do shady stuff for utilitarian reasons (though killing his heir is not one of those). but show stannis does stuff just cause he's power hungry and a fanatic.

[Stag_legion]

^^ adding to this people forget what the show has done that is not in the books...

They have developed the father daughter relationship beautifully and showed another side of stannis....which we don't see in the books...shireen is barely a character in the books ...

 

We know now that all that was for the sake of emotional manipulation. Book stannis is more consistent in being a distant parent and yet caring for his daughter, when he tells Massey to fight on for his daughter even if he dies.

In fact that part in TWOW also proves that stannis doesn't believe in destiny and shit, because he thinks his own death on the way to winterfell is areal possibility. If book stannis thought he was the messiah/had some special destiny his death would be the last thing he would be thinking about. 

[StepStark]

^^ adding to this people forget what the show has done that is not in the books...

They have developed the father daughter relationship beautifully and showed another side of stannis....which we don't see in the books...shireen is barely a character in the books ...

 

And how is Shireen a character in the show please? She's cute, right? And that's it. Standard cliche in depicting children. They're just cute and lovable. No personality whatsoever. In the books at least we're told right away that she's a sad child and Cressen feels huge personal guilt over that. Just that one detail is way more interesting than that cliched cute and adorable kid from the show who served only one purpose: to make her death more shocking (though not logical at all). And I don't see what's so beautiful in "father daughter relationship" in the show, because it's one more standard cliche of telling instead of showing. D&D couldn't find more sophisticated and interesting way to portray Stannis' love for his daughter, so they made him outright say it to her face in a single conversation that is completely isolated from anything that is going on in Stannis part of the story at the moment. Their book relationship is much more beautifully portrayed.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

That's not what the show runners intended it to be! if you watch the "inside the episode" for that episode, D&D say stannis burned shireen because of his ambition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GX6ODbiHno

Stannis doing it for the greater good is simply a projection from books stannis. Book stannis is willing to do shady stuff for utilitarian reasons (though killing his heir is not one of those). but show stannis does stuff just cause he's power hungry and a fanatic.

Lol.

 

Its exactly this sort of comment that truly makes me wonder if people watch the show or just watch the interviews. 

[StepStark]

We know now that all that was for the sake of emotional manipulation. Book stannis is more consistent in being a distant parent and yet caring for his daughter, when he tells Massey to fight on for his daughter even if he dies.

In fact that part in TWOW also proves that stannis doesn't believe in destiny and shit, because he thinks his own death on the way to winterfell is areal possibility. If book stannis thought he was the messiah/had some special destiny his death would be the last thing he would be thinking about. 

This, absolutely! If I didn't know better I'd sometimes think that D&D deliberately destroyed all the complexity of Stannis' character, when in fact they probably just didn't understand any of it.

[Stag_legion]

Stannis is possibly the MOST morally grey character on the show , it blows my mind when people describe him as a villain , every one of his decisions was born out of pragmatism rather than being evil. 

Compare that to Ramsey or Joffery, or even Tywin or Jamie, they were portrayed as far more villainous.

i guess some of the upset over the changes come from the assumption that Stannis was on an upward curve and his story was going somewhere major. Since we don't know that , I never assumed it. There fore I'm not bothered by any changes.

in fact season 5 was Stannis at his most interesting. He eclipsed every other character this season, providing real heart wrenching drama. I really enjoyed watching every single one of his scenes. 

just cause stannis wasn't consistently as bad as ramasy and jeoff doesn't mean D&D didn't try to make him into a villain.

 

Its actually really telling of the show, if stannis is the most grey character. that basically means the show doesn't have grey characters, only mild villains, exaggerated villains and good guys.

The root of much of this is the fact that D&D play favorites with characters. They don't want viewers to like stannis, they want everyone to be "team khaleesi" or "team stark", "team tyrion" , and giving stannis reasonable standpoint would take away from that. This is made even clearer when you see that they omit their favorite characters shady deeds and invent new ones for stannis. How can anyone deny that the show runners wanted viewers to dislike stannis?

[StepStark]

Lol.

 

Its exactly this sort of comment that truly makes me wonder if people watch the show or just watch the interviews. 

Yeah, right. Why shouldn't we completely disregard actual words of D&D that actually prove their complete incompetence, and instead trust show apologists when they're parroting that all those deviations served to make GOOD TELEVISION?

[Stag_legion]

Lol.

 

Its exactly this sort of comment that truly makes me wonder if people watch the show or just watch the interviews. 

What you take from the show is your thing, the interview tells you what the producers intended with the scenes. Your person take on stannis is useless when the subject is about how the producers wanted the character to be.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Yeah, right. Why shouldn't we completely disregard actual words of D&D that actually prove their complete incompetence, and instead trust show apologists when they're parroting that all those deviations served to make GOOD TELEVISION?

Because if you actually watched the show you'd understand that Stannis ISN'T being portrayed as a villain, but rather as a morally complex guy who's willing to make sacrifices and hard choices in order to serve a greater goal. 

Instead you scrawl through interviews, picking up on any stray word and subverting it to mean what you want it to mean. Its pretty funny actually to observe that.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

just cause stannis wasn't consistently as bad as ramasy and jeoff doesn't mean D&D didn't try to make him into a villain.

 

Its actually really telling of the show, if stannis is the most grey character. that basically means the show doesn't have grey characters, only mild villains, exaggerated villains and good guys.

The root of much of this is the fact that D&D play favorites with characters. They don't want viewers to like stannis, they want everyone to be "team khaleesi" or "team stark", "team tyrion" , and giving stannis reasonable standpoint would take away from that. This is made even clearer when you see that they omit their favorite characters shady deeds and invent new ones for stannis. How can anyone deny that the show runners wanted viewers to dislike stannis?

Lol. I'm really shaking my head at this stuff, I alway do, I'm still surprised you can continue to say stuff like this after all this time. Its so silly its almost not worth a response. 

If they don't want people to like Stannis (lol at this, as if thats ever a consideration of an adult film maker), then why spend so much time this season concentrating on his moral choices, showing the emotional impact it has on him and his family. Nothing about his sad decline this season was there to make you cheer, or celebrate the fact it went wrong for him. In fact it was filmed in the opposite way, you were meant to feel sad and disappointed in those events. 

Just watch his final scene, its almost a celebration of Stannis, and its fantastic. He doesn't go out like a villain, he goes out single handedly killing a couple of guys, hawling himself along half dead, and then stoically telling Brienne to get on with it and kill him. 

If anything I'd say Stannis was one of their favourite characters, they gave him some of the best lines and gave him more screen time in the show than he really had in the books, where he's a background fixture to Davos and Mel and Jon.

[StepStark]

Because if you actually watched the show you'd understand that Stannis ISN'T being portrayed as a villain, but rather as a morally complex guy who's willing to make sacrifices and hard choices in order to serve a greater goal. 

Instead you scrawl through interviews, picking up on any stray word and subverting it to mean what you want it to mean. Its pretty funny actually to observe that.

 

Someone who burns his own daughter because of his personal ambition is not being portrayed as a villain? That's moral complexity for you? Like, he did burn his daughter for no reason, but on the other hand in that one scene he did tell her that he's not ashamed of her so he has to be morally complex! Is that your way of reasoning? LOL!

What is actually funny is observing D&D actually confirming their shallow intentions and their general lack of talent. You know, all those things show apologists keep denying.