Game of Thrones Season 5 - anyone still watching? Unhidden spoilers ahead!

[binary solo]

TheLastStarFighter said:

binary solo said:

Except unless Stannis magically teleports his way back to the Wall the decision to burn Shireen will not involve him, which is quite a big difference with respect to Stannis morals, ethics and state of mind. If it's purely Selyse and Mel who make the call the burn Shireen to help out Stannis then that changes the character dynamic completely, especially since in this episode it's Selyse who breaks down and ends up desperately wanting the burning to stop. It's not the burning of Shireen that's the problem it's the character assassination of Stannis that is the problem. People who never liked Stannis from the start are all fine and dandy with his total moral corruption. 

The show has become very lame in other story departments too, it lacks depth, subtlety  and complexity.

Lol @ character assassination.  In his very first scene Stanis is burning family members at the stake. He has no problem sacrificing the lives of coutless soldiers or close loved ones. He killed his own brother. You clearly haven't been paying attention to who he is. But that's OK, because most don't.  As the producers said, no one cared when Stannis was killing strangers with no screen time. They wanted him to kill someone you cared about so you could feel who he is.  Cold, cruel and fanatical in his cause.

 

He killed his brother because his brother was trying to usurp Stannis' position as rightful king, i.e. Renly was guilty of treason. Whatever you might say about Stannis as a person, he was Robert's heir by the laws of Westeros. If a king has no trueborn children the crown goes to the oldest surviving male sibling, i.e. Stannis. In the medieval world what do you expect a rightful king in waiting to do with a family member who refuses to support your claim and worse still makes a reasonous counter-claim?  The answer is death, always death. I'm sure you would have been fine with Stannis and Mel sending his smoke baby to assassinate Joffery or Balon Greyjoy. Renly was happy to see Stannis dead if Stannis didn't bend the knee, only Renly would have had to oversee the slaughter of thousands of people to get to Stannis and kill him. Stannis managed it with just one death. Which is the more honourable way to rid yourself of a usurper? And you can't leave a would be usurper alive because there is always the chance of people rallying again to his cause. Even if Stannis were to defeat Renly "honourably" on the field of battle the end result would still be Renly's death. Why people think the method Stannis employs is to bad and evil and morally wrong is the the lol-worthy thing in this situation.

In his very first scene Stannis is burning statues of the Seven, not people. Also just burning his brother-in-law on the show because he wouldn't follow the red god is in iteslf a character assassination of Stannis in the books. Stannis burns his brother-in-law because his BiL acted without Stannis' authority and wrote to Joffery wanting to do a peace deal. That's treason, the penalty for that is death. I think you'd agree that while it might be harsh punishment it is not without justification in the context of the situation. In the books Mance Rayder never burns and it's not because Mance bends the knee, it's because there is a much better use for Mance, and someone rather more worthy of death is substituted to make it look like Mance is being burned. 

Stannis does intend to do a couple of morally questionable burnings in the book, but never of a direct legitimate relative, without cause. The show has been assassinating Stannis' character from the start, but burning his own daughter was merely the most egregious step they took to finally kill off any semblance of sympathy  anyone might have for show Stannis. TV show-wise Stannis' character is irredeemable unless the burning of Shirren was a ruse, which is probably isn't. And I will be very pissed at the show writers if Davos sticks with Stannis. Davos should, for lack of any better claimant to the throne, give himself the the Night's Watch, or if he can get to Mereen throw in with Dany, though I can't see why Dany would accept into her service the person who was the saviour of Storm's End during the overthrow of the Targaryen reign.

By contrast in the books, in terms of legitimacy of claim on the Iron throne, I am still firmly on team Stannis, both in terms of right of claim and best person for the job out of the contenders. In terms of who are the heroes who will save the world from the long night, I think that's probably Jon and Dany. The problem for Stannis is that while he has a claim on the Iron Throne Mel has mislead Stannis about his destiny. Whether Mel is deluded and believes it herself, or whether she's playing Stannis was not obvious until we got Mel PoVs in Dance with Dragons (the book) and it appears Mel genuinely believes Stannis is the great hero of their time. And while it's very difficult to justify burning innocent children, when the threat to human existience is real (which in the context of this story it is very real) then one can understand a point of view that says, yeah the cost benefit of burning a child is worth it if it saves all of humanity (not just Westeros, but all humanity).

Re the rape of Sansa. My complaint isn;t that it happened, but that in the book there was an important thematic and story context to it. In the show we already know the depth of Ramsey's depravity from witnessing the systematic brutalisation of Theon, and the hunting of the girl in the woods. In the book we don;t see much of Ramsey's truely awful nature until the wedding night with Jeyne. There is also the suggestion that Ramsey and Roose both know Jeyne is not really a Stark, and that thematically even Ramsey and Roose would think better than to be totally abusive to a legitimate Stark. Classism and an inherent respect for class does exist in those worlds, so the cruelty to Sansa is questionable merely from the fact that Jeyne is lowborn and the Bolton's probably know it and therefore they are completely unconstrained by social convention.