Game of Thrones - Well, Stannis fans, what do you think of him NOW? (Spoilers)

[the_dramatica]

He did it as a sacrifice to aid his soldiers? That's more just than that the dragon girl executing people Victorian style.

it feels like the show is just trying to get Stannis, Sansa, the Lannisters, and Arya out of the way so they can get back to Jon, Dany and Tyrion.

Lord I hope not. The geopolitical conflicts are 90% of the interesting parts of the show. Watching Jon and Dany makes me cringe and I wouldn't bear watching a full season of them.

 

[SidheKnight]

I can see the shark jumping complaints coming up already.

This did not happen (or will EVER happen) in the books, seems to me the writers cause him to "rape the dog" to make Dany look better.

The show was already shit with all the stupid changes but this shows the writers hve zero sense what the characters represent or shades of grey instead of black and white.

THIS.

Whatever shit happens in the TV show is non-canon to me. The character derailment is massive. It's like watching a completely different story with only the names and locations being remotely similar.

And people keep telling me that GRRM has a lot of input on the TV show.. I just can't believe that. Not only is the story different, the characters are completely different people too:
Stannis is generally portrayed in a positive light in the books (though harsh and uncompromising sometimes, he always listens to good advice and does the right thing in the end), while in the show he received a major douchebag upgrade to simplify the narrative and tell the dumb audience that they're supposed to root for Dany (BTW, TV Dany is also quite different, mostly in that she's dumber and more hot-headed).
Also, Jaime is now a rapist for no reason. As if he didn't have enough character flaws already.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And people keep telling me that GRRM has a lot of input on the TV show.. I just can't believe that.

I am guessing that GRRM is contractually obligated to not bad mouth the show.

After all, this is a guy with a notoriously less than charitable view on fan fiction.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/11/14/george-rr-martin-fuck-your-fan-fiction

If anyone thinks he's delighted with Game of Deviations beyond the royalty cheques, I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[happyninja42]

I was chuckling to myself when this episode came out about that scene. What I thought interesting was the Heel/Face turn they did with the mother. The whole show, we've hated the mother because of her zealot behavior, and loved Stannis, because he's all strong and loving of his daughter. And then, they put her on the stake, and who has a change of heart? The mother. She might be a zealot, but she couldn't let her daughter be burned alive. Yeah, she was a tad late to the game, to keep her from actually dying, but she was the only one of the two of them that spoke up and said no, and tried (vainly) to stop it.

So I'm curious now, if we're going to see the mother turn into a rival for the woman in red, and actively work against her because of the death of the daughter.

What I'm really interested in, is what the Onion Knight is going to do when he gets back, and hears about what happened. Because you know he's going to be PISSED. So pissed in fact, that I think he might defy Stannis, and turn against him fully. Which I'd like to see actually.

 

[happyninja42]

Most likely because when Stannis has had someone burned to death before, there's been a greater reason behind his decision. When he was burning the idols of the seven it was demonstrating his devotion to the new god.

When he burned his bannermen, that was (at least in the books) because Alester Florent attempted to betray him and make peace with the Lannisters. I basically held it as that had happened, but offscreen. Also partially I thought because D&D dislike Stannis so didn't care enough to add a reason to his actions. While burning Mance was due to the necessity of having the wildlings bend the knee, and Mance refusing to submit, therefore paying the price for declaring war on the Seven Kingdoms.

But this one had no reason behind it other than Ramsay Bolton, the man who can do no wrong, turning up and messing things up. Which doesn't look likely to happen in the source material. D&D can say GRRM made this up, but they're the ones creating the circumstances that make Stannis look like a villain.

There was indeed a reason for him to burn his daughter. He sacrificed her to bring an end to the crippling cold. I thought that was pretty obvious with the sounds of rain as the show faded to black. And the clips from the next episode show melting snow and ice. It was a blood sacrifice to the god of fire and sun, to push back the freezing cold. That sounds like a pretty good reason to me, at least as good as the ones you mentioned above.

 

[Evonisia]

I am guessing that GRRM is contractually obligated to not bad mouth the show.

After all, this is a guy with a notoriously less than charitable view on fan fiction.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/11/14/george-rr-martin-fuck-your-fan-fiction

If anyone thinks he's delighted with Game of Deviations beyond the royalty cheques, I have a bridge to sell you.

I can only imagine the horror as year on year, the show gets increasingly more divergent and he probably can't do anything about it. When people talk about how the two are completely separate creatures, they're right, but the TV show shouldn't have started by trying to be loyal to the (first) book if it was going to do that.

Captcha: murphy's law.

Yeah, that's how I would describe this burning scene.

 

[InterstellarFascist]

Stannis went retarded as fuck last episode. It gets cold for a couple days in the north and he lost some supplies so he burns his only heir alive? Stannis is doomed if this is how short sighted and breakable he is. The situation wasn't nearly desperate enough for it to believable and came off as horribly contrived. It just comes off as done for the hell of it with the flimsy excuse of 'Ramsey cooked my food'.

But he's still the best king that that Westeros can have.

 

[COMaestro]

I keep seeing everyone say that Stannis and his men were just cold for a few days before jumping to this sacrifice, but do we really have any idea how much time has passed since they marched out? Stannis and his men left Castle Black and since then Jon has been able to travel to where the wildlings were camped and got a few thousand back to the Wall. Jamie and Bron traveled to Dorne and were captured for an indeterminate amount of time. Also, Roose Bolton claimed the snows were too high for his army to travel through, and these are men of the North who would certainly be better adjusted to the cold than Stannis' men. I feel that we should be looking at weeks of time rather than just days. Weeks where his army was stranded, unable to move, and then loses nearly all their horses and food stores due to Ramsey's attack?

I do admit, the show didn't sell this as well as it could have. Inclement weather should have been shown, and I think deserting troops should have been mentioned to show how desperate things were getting, but I do think that they did give us a good sense of the low morale of Stannis' troops and how they were freezing and starving.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I do admit, the show didn't sell this as well as it could have.

That is the primary source of the problem, really. They've done a shit-poor job of showing just how serious the winter storm is. It looks like a light dusting onscreen, instead of the deadly and ceaseless blizzard it is meant to be.

 

[elvor0]

I can see the shark jumping complaints coming up already.

This did not happen (or will EVER happen) in the books, seems to me the writers cause him to "rape the dog" to make Dany look better.

The show was already shit with all the stupid changes but this shows the writers hve zero sense what the characters represent or shades of grey instead of black and white.

Actually, GRRM did actually tell the writers to do it, and

Spoiler: spoilers from the future, as in spoilers for people who have read the books

has said he was going to burn Shiereen in the books too in the future, he just wanted it to happen here in the TV show, likely because the timelines are all shown cocurrently on GoT as opposed to some characters then others later like with the books.

The Unsullied thing is what bothers me the most too. I mean, first Dany had the Dothraki, a badass army of killer guys who would kill a lot. Then they all die, or simply disappeared. Now, she has the Unsullied a badass army of killer guys raised just for killing, no fear, no fellings, just one obedient and powerfull army of murder... And they get killed left and right by what's kind of the 1% of Meireen.

To add to what BloatedGuppy said too, they're also using the wrong kind of equipment for men equiped with Daggers. A spear may keep people away, but if there are many of them, or they get in close, you're fucked. Jorah and Ser Barristah fought much better against them because not only are they far more experienced, they are better equiped in mind and body to fight in the situations that overwhelm the Unsullied.

 

[Tawanda]

Quick question from a show peasant to book readers, is it ever explained why kings blood is able to perform this magic, why not sacrifice some random mofo?

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Quick question from a show peasant to book readers, is it ever explained why kings blood is able to perform this magic, why not sacrifice some random mofo?

Not really.

As far as I can remember everyone's just taking Melisandre's word that king's blood 'has power' to 'wake the stone dragon'. She's pretty secretive so we don't know exactly why, but it's wrapped up in the Azor Ahai prophecy as he slew his wife and it's generally assumed that Azor Ahai reborn would have to do something similar.

You might have noticed that spilling king's blood to wake stone dragons sounds exactly like what happened with Danaerys though...

 

[K12]

"OMG not like the books!" ... how many times do the writer/producers need to explain TV GoT is not the same story line as book GoT. Get it through your thick skulls already.

As for Stannis (TV version anyway), ever since he signed up with the fire witch he has never backed down from the push to power, no matter what deal no matter what sacrifice he always said yes. And I haven't seen a particularly strong inclination toward his family either, at best they are dragged around as an obligational nuisance.
As I see it they wanted to portray a man hell bent on getting that throne and this is just another step, it was a really nasty step but I doubt it will be the last one, honestly if he were to offer his wife to the troops for a morale boost it would still make sense.
But considering the reliability of that fire witch I'm not sure why they burned the kid, the only time that lady could make anything happen was by humping and giving birth to a shadow baby assassin, everything else she was selling was plain hogwash, so I really don't see where this is going.

I avoid doing the whole "OMG not like the books" thing. People who complain about Brienne fighting the Hound and the "white-washing" of Tyrion's character I think are kind of silly. There have plenty of positive or at least different but comparable good changes in the show but the treatment of Stannis has been the consistently poorest part of the adaptation.

The TV show seems very keen to just make him a by-any-means-necessary religious extremist but in the books he's a complicated mix of just and uncompromising with an inferiority complex and a paranoia that comes from having zero people skills.

In the book I get the feeling that he doesn't even necessarily want the Iron Throne but he is a just man and it is his by right whether he wants it or not. The other funny thing in the books is that he doesn't seem to really believe in Melisandre's religion, he just recognises her power and his inferiority complex lets him be charmed by her insistence that he's this prophesied hero. I still think he'd be a pretty shit king but he'd be a relatively well-intentioned shit king.

The show makes him a villain with all the nuance and complexity taken out to have more "shocking moments". This also serves to make Davos look like a complete moron for continuing to insist he's a good man when he blatantly isn't.

 

[Magmarock]

In all honesty I still don't hate Stannis because if you watch that scene again I think you'll see that the only person who looks even remotely happy about how things are going is the red headed witch. Not that Stannis is innocent of any wrong doing but I after see what he was and what he's turned into I think it's obvious by now that he is not in control. I want to know how his knight reacts to this news when he returns to the camp.

 

[BadNewDingus]

I almost cried when she cried for her mother and she finally showed some compassion towards her daughter, wanting to free her and all. She was just too weak to do anything, though.

Anyways, if I was in the army and saw this, I would probably throw up. However, if it worked and you realise that it saved everyone in said army, I would be a little thankful ... but still disgusted with myself. Well ... until I die at the next battle. So it's pretty much a moot point at the moment.

 

[Politrukk]

Quick question from a show peasant to book readers, is it ever explained why kings blood is able to perform this magic, why not sacrifice some random mofo?

Has something to do with being more potent, take into account that the ruling houses in Westeros although some not shown all have something magical about them.

Example :Starks have had wargs and have one again now (bladiblaforeshadowing they're cutting out, in the books it is implied all Stark children are to some extent wargs).
Targaryens can't be burned by fire.

The Tyrells live in the most fertile land there is.

It's something that has been set-up but never properly explained.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Targaryens can't be burned by fire.

They most certainly can.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Summerhall

A great fire broke out in the castle in 259 AC, which was a serious blow to House Targaryen. The fire left the castle ruined and resulted in the deaths of King Aegon V Targaryen, his eldest son and heir, Prince Duncan the Small, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Duncan the Tall. It is sometimes blamed on one of the many Targaryen attempts to bring dragons back by hatching ancient dragon eggs.

Daenerys not burning on Drogo's pyre is generally attributed to blood magic, not a special quality of Targaryen blood. From a Q&A with George RR Martin...

Granny: Do Targaryens become immune to fire once they "bond" to their dragons?

George_RR_Martin: Granny, thanks for asking that. It gives me a chance to clear up a common misconception. TARGARYENS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO FIRE! The birth of Dany's dragons was unique, magical, wonderous, a miracle. She is called The Unburnt because she walked into the flames and lived. But her brother sure as hell wasn't immune to that molten gold.

Revanshe: So she won't be able to do it again?

George_RR_Martin: Probably not.

 

[happyninja42]

Quick question from a show peasant to book readers, is it ever explained why kings blood is able to perform this magic, why not sacrifice some random mofo?

Has something to do with being more potent, take into account that the ruling houses in Westeros although some not shown all have something magical about them.

Example :Starks have had wargs and have one again now (bladiblaforeshadowing they're cutting out, in the books it is implied all Stark children are to some extent wargs).
Targaryens can't be burned by fire.

The Tyrells live in the most fertile land there is.

It's something that has been set-up but never properly explained.

It's a fairly common trope in storytelling, to have those of noble bloodline having some kind of mystic/spiritual significance to them. I mean, they are (in theory) noble because of divine decree in most mythologies, so those of their blood have a touch of divinity to them.

Also, there is a common concept that the nobility are tied to their realms in a mystic way. "The King and the Land are One" is a good example of this.

So it would make sense that their blood would have potency to it. The idea has existed in real world cultures for ages, Game of Thrones has simply said "Yep, it really does have power, because magic is real here."