Stannis’s death

[Canon Claude]

17 minutes ago, James Steller said:

First of all, to paraphrase Balin from "The Hobbit": It's not a show... it's an ABOMINATION!

“Abominations! Mutations! Deviations! That’s all you’re going to find on Game of Thrones!”

[Jaenara Belarys]

27 minutes ago, Canon Claude said:

“Abominations! Mutations! Deviations! That’s all you’re going to find on Game of Thrones!”

The first four seasons are fine. After is when it mutates to the abomination. 

[StarksInTheNorth]

On 10/22/2021 at 11:07 AM, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

Just curious, why does everyone believe Shireen is going to be burnt by Stannis? I thought it was just a bad decision for the TV Series. Why would Stannis burn his only living heir and issue and for what? He explicitly states that he loves her with all his heart and he would never sacrifice her for whatever Melisandre promises him.

GRRM or DD said at one point that there were three big moments he revealed to them when they met up in New Mexico around season 3 or 4. It’s been basically confirmed that the moments were Hodor’s name origin, Shireen’s burning, and King Bran.

I seem to be in the minority but I think Stannis will actually take Winterfell after he battles Ramsay. However, I don’t think he has the unifying effect that he wants. Barbrey Ryswell-Dustin has no reason to love Stannis and he’s preferred candidate for Lord of Winterfell will be presumed dead.

IMO the North will be set up for a many-factions succession crisis akin to the drama at King’s Landing. Whoever the Lord Manderly is will push for Rickon but Stannis will have it out for the house since they “murdered” Davos. Who knows what rumors will fly regarding Jon, and there’s a chance House Flint will believe Bran is alive since one of their men saw him after he escaped Winterfell. Sansa will probably arrive mid-late book (surprisingly with the bigger, fresher army).

Throw into the mix Roose or Ramsey potentially surviving to refight, People not agreeeing if it should be King/Queen Stark or Lord/Lady Stark, rumors/news from the south and east about dragons and krakens, northern news about the Others that northern lords might not believe, and the potential reemergence of Robb’s will, and Stannis will have a major political mess on his hands.

I have a pretty grim outlook on the burning of Shireen. Maybe late TWOW the stark ruler and regent are decided on. Maybe not. Eventually, the wall will fall while the north and south are still playing the game of thrones. With squabbling and many mouths to feed, the situation at Winterfell will be dire. Stannis will seek to forge Lightbringer with the sacrifice of she who he loves most, his daughter.

But I saw a theory that has stuck with me (maybe joannalannister on tumblr?) that said the Starks will have to raze Winterfell to be a distraction and allow their retreat from the north. And the more dire combination of these two theories might be that someone takes the flames of Shireen, seeing that Stannis has failed to truly get the sword of a hero, and uses the flames to burn the castle.

(My further thought on this is that the burner is Sansa, since she has the most ties directly to the castle. This is a separate symbolism theory of mine, but Imo the POV children each are tied to a particular part of stark identity more than the others: Sansa is the castle, Jon is the name, Arya is the sigil, and Bran is the heritage. That’s wildly off topic though oof)

[James Steller]

1 hour ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

The first four seasons are fine. After is when it mutates to the abomination. 

I know it's fashionable to say that, but I don't agree with it anymore. I look back on those four seasons and there were always problems with them. One particular gripe I have is that Dumb and Dumber slandered Stannis right from the very start. No mention of him at all in the first season as serving on the Small Council or suspecting Robert's children before Jon. His best traits are muted in favour of his worst ones, and his character development is destroyed by making him Melisandre's thrall even AFTER Davos tells him of the Night Watch's plight. He only goes north when Mel tells him that's where he should be. 

There are other concerns, but the character assassination of Stannis is my biggest gripe with the abomination. They turned one of the most fascinating characters of the story into a two-dimensional disappointment.

[Canon Claude]

13 minutes ago, James Steller said:

I know it's fashionable to say that, but I don't agree with it anymore. I look back on those four seasons and there were always problems with them. One particular gripe I have is that Dumb and Dumber slandered Stannis right from the very start. No mention of him at all in the first season as serving on the Small Council or suspecting Robert's children before Jon. His best traits are muted in favour of his worst ones, and his character development is destroyed by making him Melisandre's thrall even AFTER Davos tells him of the Night Watch's plight. He only goes north when Mel tells him that's where he should be. 

There are other concerns, but the character assassination of Stannis is my biggest gripe with the abomination. They turned one of the most fascinating characters of the story into a two-dimensional disappointment.

Okay, I hate the abomination, but you can’t possibly write off the entire thing because you didn’t like what they did to your favourite character.

[James Steller]

6 minutes ago, Canon Claude said:

Okay, I hate the abomination, but you can’t possibly write off the entire thing because you didn’t like what they did to your favourite character.

I never said I wrote off the entire thing. I just have issues with the abomination as a whole, not just the latter half. The latter half is worse by far, obviously, but the first half was never perfect.

[Jaenara Belarys]

10 hours ago, James Steller said:

There are other concerns, but the character assassination of Stannis is my biggest gripe with the abomination. They turned one of the most fascinating characters of the story into a two-dimensional disappointment.

Which comes after S4.......besides, we have Melisandre telling Stannis he should go north in the books too. Sure, we have problems in the first four seasons (not building up Jeyne Poole for the fArya story, Stannis on the small council as you said, the boring Qarth storyline, blah blah blah) but it's not as bad as S5 and beyond. 

10 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

Okay, I hate the abomination, but you can’t possibly write off the entire thing because you didn’t like what they did to your favourite character.

*looks at S8. 

[Canon Claude]

4 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

 

*looks at S8. 

My point is was that regardless of how it ended, I do have to admit that the first four seasons contained some genuinely amazing television. I’ll never think of Tywin, Ned Stark, or Cersei Lannister without imagining the actors from the abomination. 

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

Just now, Canon Claude said:

My point is was that regardless of how it ended, I do have to admit that the first four seasons contained some genuinely amazing television. I’ll never think of Tywin, Ned Stark, or Cersei Lannister without imagining the actors from the abomination. 

Agreed, including Peter Dinklage as Tyrion. Charles Dance as Tywin was pheonemonal and Cersei's actress was really good too. But Dinklage really killed as Tyrion. 

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

On 10/21/2021 at 5:50 PM, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

 Stannis Baratheon. The man needs no introduction. A seasoned battle commander and badass, he is arguably the best suited to the Iron Throne. But even the most hardcore Stannis fans agree that he will not sit the Iron Throne. But he won’t die a wimpy death like in the show. How would Stannis’s eventual death be poetic and meaningful ? How would you write Stannis’s death so it is relevant to the plot and not just an off-screen death?

Like what @Lord Lannister said, I think Stannis Baratheon will be on the eve of taking King's Landing from Young Griff but he hears off the Wall falling and immediately sets sail on a Braavosi fleet with like 5000 swords. He will land at Eastwatch and travel to Castle Black just in time for the main portion of the Army of the Dead to arrive. He will face them with newly strengthened Night's Watch which has around 5000 men(Boltons and Freys that Stannis has sentenced to the Wall.) They will face the wights and it will be a very Pyrrhic battle in the sense that both sides will wear each other out until Stannis faces the Other who commands this portion of the Army of the Dead. Stannis will lead a cavalry charge to try and kill him but most of his men will die until Stannis ends up facing the Other. Even though Lightbringer is false, Stannis will plunge into the Other's heart but not before the Other kills him. A new portion of the Army of the Dead will arrive but the survivors will be saved by UnJon riding on Viserion, Melisandre, and Ben Stark with all the rescued wildlings from Hardhome. Thus, Stannis will save the North from most of the damage that the Others will inflict. 

[WhatAnArtist!]

11 hours ago, James Steller said:

There are other concerns, but the character assassination of Stannis is my biggest gripe with the abomination. They turned one of the most fascinating characters of the story into a two-dimensional disappointment.

Even though Stannis is my favourite character in the books, I don't have too much of a problem with how he was written in the show (until the end of season 5, of course). Sure they removed some of Stannis's more humanising dialogues from the books (e.g. Proudwing, his parents' death), but they compensated for that by fleshing out his relationship with Shireen and making him a very caring father, who even chides his wife for speaking poorly of her. In the books Stannis is barely ever even in the same room as her on any occasion. This is one case of D&D actually making Stannis more sympathetic than his book counterpart. They also didn't include some of Stannis's more questionable moments, like letting Cressen by publicly humiliated. They also made Stannis a legit badass by having him be the first guy to jump off the boat at King's Landing and leading the assault in person, and having to be dragged away from the fighting when the battle was lost. In the books he commanded the battle from his flagship out on the bay and never actually got directly involved with the fighting. More realistic, but not quite as viscerally badass. I specifically remember back in 2012 when the episode first aired that a lot of show-fans said that this made them like Stannis more. Also, Stannis's line of "....thousands" is still one of the most coldly badass lines ever said by anyone.

One moment I didn't like though was how Stannis's arrival at the Wall was depicted. It should have been a triumphant and heroic moment, practically the only Stannis actually gets in the series, but instead they had what can best be described as "Sith lord" music playing when he showed up, and the whole thing was played very menacingly, like he was a villain or something. Very disappointing. Another thing I didn't like was that Stannis was too quick in deciding to let Gendry by burned. In the books he agonised over it for weeks and possibly months, repeatedly refusing to let Melisandre do it even when two of the three kings were dead. Only after Joffrey died, exactly as Melisandre predicted, did he finally relent. In the show, NO kings had died when he made this decision, which makes him look like a fanatical fool who didn't need any evidence whatsoever.

But in general Stannis's depiction is actually fairly close to the spirit of his book counterpart. He's cold and blunt, with a strong sense of unsentimental justice and a very dry sense of humour. None of it is as fleshed out as the books, of course, but the character is still recognisably Stannis. The same can't be said for other characters like Tyrion, who is whitewashed so thoroughly that he earns his mocking nickname "Saint Tyrion", and is practically a different person. We tend to focus more on how D&D made characters seem morally worse, but people forget that they did the same thing in reverse with other characters, to equally detrimental effect (e.g. Tyrion, Cersei, Arya, Jorah, Shae). 

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

On 10/22/2021 at 5:48 PM, Mister Smikes said:

You don't decide.  The deranged occultist who is thinking of burning you to death is the one who decides what counts as having "kings blood".  If the magic doesn't work, he'll just have to redefine his terms and try again with a new victim.  And I suppose, in theory at least, the demon god he worships is not a mere puppet-on-a-string, and gets to have a say in whether he is pleased with a particular human sacrifice, or whether he thinks it's fun to get his follower to murder more people before he hands out some kind of cursed magical reward.

Do you think the magic actually cares whether the blood came from a king or his family or not?  Personally I don't, I think the whole kingsblood racket is about getting blood without risking your own. People are going to be a lot more sympathetic to the idea of human sacrifice if the rules of human sacrifice disqualify them from ever being asked.

[Mister Smikes]

6 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Do you think the magic actually cares whether the blood came from a king or his family or not? 

Who knows.  But if you are an aspect of the God of Death, and want to spread War and Destruction, what better way to do it than to make powerful and power-hungry people murder each other's children.

Who knows what goes on in Rh'llor's mind.  But the practitioners of "magic" in Westeros don't assume the "magic" is impersonal, and neither do I.

6 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Personally I don't, I think the whole kingsblood racket is about getting blood without risking your own.

In that case, I would think that chicken's blood would be a better choice.  Killing the children of powerful people is an excellent way to invite retribution.

6 minutes ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

People are going to be a lot more sympathetic to the idea of human sacrifice if the rules of human sacrifice disqualify them from ever being asked.

You think?  Euron thinks every man he murders is a blood sacrifice.  There is all kinds of blood magic.  

You can even do chickens, if you are not that ambitious.

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

Just now, Mister Smikes said:

Who knows.  But if you are an aspect of the God of Death, and want to spread War and Destruction, what better way to do it than to make powerful and power-hungry people murder each other's children.

Who knows what goes on in Rh'llor's mind.  But the practitioners of "magic" in Westeros don't assume the "magic" is impersonal, and neither do I.

In that case, I would think that chicken's blood would be a better choice.  Killing the children of powerful people is an excellent way to invite retribution.

You think?  Euron thinks every man he murders is a blood sacrifice.  There is all kinds of blood magic.  

You can even do chickens, if you are not that ambitious.

Oh, Ok. I didn't realize you were one of the people who believe the gods are real. If it comes down to Rh'llor's mind then I guess he can change it as the situation warrants. Maybe some days he likes chicken, maybe some days kings.

[Mister Smikes]

1 hour ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Oh, Ok. I didn't realize you were one of the people who believe the gods are real. If it comes down to Rh'llor's mind then I guess he can change it as the situation warrants. Maybe some days he likes chicken, maybe some days kings.

I don't much care whether the entity in question is a god or a demon or a space alien, or an advanced super-computer.  The practitioners don't understand themselves to be practicing some kind of exact but fictional science, but rather believe they are communicating with forces and entities they do not fully understand or control.  That's just going by the text.  Certainly, Thoros does not seem to be in charge of the forces he is unleashing.

Lots of people on this forum seem quite dogmatic about the gods not existing in any sense.  And they will tell you GRRM said so.  But he never did, so that's rather confusing to me.

 

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

8 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I don't much care whether the entity in question is a god or a demon or a space alien, or an advanced super-computer.  The practitioners don't understand themselves to be practicing some kind of exact but fictional science, but rather believe they are communicating with forces and entities they do not fully understand or control.  That's just going by the text.  Certainly, Thoros does not seem to be in charge of the forces he is unleashing.

Lots of people on this forum seem quite dogmatic about the gods not existing in any sense.  And they will tell you GRRM said so.  But he never did, so that's rather confusing to me.

 

Fair enough. I don't share your view but I don't see much point in arguing it. Debating the existence of gods in a real world is futile enough.

[Willam Stark]

GRRM already said that we won't know if the Gods exist or not, so it's up to us.

 

[chrisdaw]

He is going to second life as an ice dragon/Other, but how his human human life (body) ends I'm not sure. Brienne killing Stannis has really big backing in the text on top of what the show did,

Quote

 

"No, but you have courage. Not battle courage perhaps but . . . I don't know . . . a kind of woman's courage. And I think, when the time comes, you will not try and hold me back. Promise me that. That you will not hold me back from Stannis."

Catelyn could still hear Stannis saying that Robb's turn too would come in time. It was like a cold breath on the back of her neck. "When the time comes, I will not hold you back."

 

I mean that's right on the nose, something is going to come of that, but how it comes to fruition I can't see. Stoneheart holding Brienne back from killing Stannis? I can't fit how it could come together. Brienne going north and killing Stannis.... maybe, I don't think so but maybe... but Stoneheart having a part in it?

I'm at a loss with it.

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

1 hour ago, chrisdaw said:

He is going to second life as an ice dragon/Other, but how his human human life (body) ends I'm not sure. Brienne killing Stannis has really big backing in the text on top of what the show did,

I mean that's right on the nose, something is going to come of that, but how it comes to fruition I can't see. Stoneheart holding Brienne back from killing Stannis? I can't fit how it could come together. Brienne going north and killing Stannis.... maybe, I don't think so but maybe... but Stoneheart having a part in it?

I'm at a loss with it.

@chrisdawcould you elaborate on your ice dragon theory? It sounds fascinating.

[Lord Lannister]

3 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

GRRM already said that we won't know if the Gods exist or not, so it's up to us.

 

Upon consultation with Melisandre's vagina... I can say the Lord of Light is real.