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Game of thrones season 5 (NO BOOK SPOILERS)

Billy Mitchell said:
I agree with the Grantland column this morning on the Stannis/daughter thing being logically inconsistent with the rest of the show.

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/ask-the-maester-dragons-human-sacrifice-and-more-dragons/
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I was thinking about this, and I disagree with netw3rk (Jason Concepcion, author of the article) that Stannis has been depicted as one of the greatest generals of the realm in the series. That's apparently how he's described in the books, though, so I think Concepcion is letting his book knowledge color his viewing of the series.

Nothing in the show has demonstrated that Stannis is an expert military commander. I can't even remember a scene where they explicitly say he's a great commander, or where other characters acknowledge his acumen. He's constantly getting second-guessed by his Hand, and we've seem him out-maneuvered several times now: e.g., Blackwater Bay and now the Midnight raid. The only real success he's had was ambushing the wildlings, and that action happened mostly offscreen. All his other successes have come through the Lord of Light, King's blood, and Melisandre's magic vagina.

Instead, the show depicts Stannis as a desperate man trying to fulfill what he perceives as his destiny. I could go on, but you get the idea. The past 3 seasons have been setting Stannis up to put more faith in Melisandre, not less. I'm not convinced that the show has set up Stannis to be the same character as the Stannis in the books, so Concepcion's criticism seems misguided.

Edit: Concepcion's point about being a "kinslayer" makes sense though. Everyone hated the "mad king," and how is Stannis any different now?
 
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I'm rewatching from the beginning now and am almost done with season 1 and there has been mention of Stannis as a great general in S1.
 
the iron bank is the smartest character in the show and they lent him monies based on his military skillz.
 
I don't really get the Grantland take either. The entire show is about flipping perceptions so making Stannis desperate and willing to do anything to win despite his past, including turn on his principles, is exactly what show is about. The quest for the throne/power, even one that starts of with the best of intentions, makes you become unacceptable/unable to handle it. It reminds of a quote from the Dark Knight.

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
 
The Grantland piece fails to mention Blackwater. Stannis had his first chance to take the throne and lost because of the wildfire move and Tywin's return. He then gets lectured about how he was destroyed by fire because he didn't bring Melisandre with him. Here he is with serious battle #2 in his sights and it's pretty understandable that he'd try not to make the same mistake twice - especially since he's in a hopeless situation where they can't go forward and can't make it back.

You knew someone was getting sacrificed... And there's the nice tie-in that it could have been Gendry had Davos not freed him earlier.
 
Yeah, they've gone to lengths to depict that he is really backed into a corner here. Not enough food or supplies to get back to the Wall, and army might not be strong enough to take Winterfell, and winter is coming bro. Gotta take drastic measures.
 
http://io9.com/so-did-game-of-thrones-just-reveal-a-huge-book-spoiler-1710011764

Except that in the special “making of” featurette, Inside Game of Thrones, producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff say that Martin himself told them that Stannis would sacrifice Shireen. Says Benioff, “When George first told us about this [development], it was one of those moments where I remember looking at Dan. It was just like, ‘Oh, that’s just so horrible, and so good in a story sense.’ Because it all comes together. From the beginning, from the very first time we saw Stannis and Melisandre, they were burning people alive on the beaches of Dragonstone, and it’s really all come to this. There’s been so much talk about king’s blood, and the power of king’s blood, and it all leads, ultimately, fatally, to Shireen’s sacrifice.”
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To echo the sentiments others have expressed, regardless of what Martin has said, Stannis sacrificing Shireen strikes me as out of character. The Stannis I pictured would march his army into a 30 foot snowbank and keep marching until his entire army had dropped dead before he would accept the title of kinslayer. Stannis is finished.
 
This season's been a lot of fun, but also reminded me how great a plotter Martin is. Everything happens for a reason, even if takes a long time for those sequences to unwind into place. Without his roadmaps, these TV donks are mucking up a bunch. (The latest example being this Stannis thing - if you're gonna have a father burn his only child alive, you gotta earn that scene.)
 
I'm not sure you can say everything happens with a reason with Martin. There's about eighty dead end do nothing events so far, and I highly doubt they're all going to be wrapped up.
 
Concepcion's point isn't that it would be completely out of character for Stannis to sacrifice his daughter, it's that it is completely out of character for Stannis to feel the sense of desperation required to sacrifice his daughter given his current circumstances.
 
bym051d said:
What part of Martin's writing leads you to believe that'll ever happen?

I have a feeling that this entire story is going to end horribly.
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IAppreciateIt said:
tywin was a good guy, if they just presented the show in a slightly different way and positioned some characters more positively and some more negative even without changing the plot at all the fan favorites would be totally different.
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the reason it reads like that is because martin is trying to tell a story that mirrors real life/history.
 
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deaconson said:
he's borrowed a ton from historical events as well.
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that was/is his intention. the story almost didn't have any fantasy elements in it at all. the latest episode, that guy straddling the harbor, that was the colossus of rhodes IRL. the whole series is a historical fiction really.
 
Thanks for totally bringing the books into these last couple of pages.

I'm pissed about how sucky Mad Max was and venting.
 
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