Episode 74: A CLASH OF KINGS, PROLOGUE: "Red, Part 2" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.          

Welcome to the seventy-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, entitled: “Red, Part 2: An Analysis of the Prologue to ACOK,” in which the objectively rightful King of Westeros and his morally unambiguous sorceress begin their crusade to set the world to rights. I foresee no complications whatsoever. 

Talk about the split from last week

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch
• Lord Gene, Master of Coin
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Baby the Onion Baby
• Lord Blackheart the Defiant, Master of Zorse 
• Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• The Blue-Ringed Octoling
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• And our newest members of the Small Council: 
  • His Grace’s Royal Inquisitor Frank
  • Lord James Stormborn, Warden of the World Wide Weirwood

Thank you councillors very much!

Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Septon Merrybald, the Shoeless Maester, a brand new patron of our brand new High Lords and Ladies patron tier, asks:

Burning question that I suspect you'll answer or maybe have already answered: why do you think GRRM chose to introduce us to Stannis and Mel through Cressen's prologue rather than through Davos' POV? I adore the Cressen prologue and it's interesting to see two major characters introduced through a one shot character.

Synopsis

"Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, never to try again. The fall breaks them. And some given a chance to climb, they refuse. They cling to the realm, or the gods, or love, the illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is."

Last week, it was Cressen, Shireen, Patchface and Davos. And it was good. This week, the king is coming in ACOK. 

At the top of the stairs is Stannis’ chamber or “refuge” as Cressen thinks of it: a great big room with a massive painted table in the middle of it. The table, 50 feet long, was carved out of wood by Aegon I Targaryen and made to resemble all of Westeros. And in the middle of the room ...

Seated in the chair was a man in a tight-laced leather jerkin and breeches of roughspun brown wool. When Maester Cressen entered, he glanced up. “I knew you would come, old man, whether I summoned you or no.” There was no hint of warmth in his voice; there seldom was.

And I’m just gonna keep on reading …

Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and by the grace of the gods rightful heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros was broad of shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness to his face and flesh that spoke of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Hard was the word men used when they spoke of Stannis and hard he was. Though he was not yet five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head, circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown.

Stannis had distinguished himself by cropping his facial hair tight and short to his face, and it hangs “like a blue-black shadow across his square jaw and bony hollows of his cheeks.” Cressen then goes on to describe Stannis’ eyes as “open wounds” and his mouth made for frowns, scowls and sharply-worded commands. And then we get our first reference to Stannis not knowing how to laugh and that Cressen could swear he could hear Stannis grinding his teeth in the middle of the night. This is all just so good.

Cressen states that Stannis would have woken him up one time, but now Stannis won’t, because Cressen is old and needs his sleep.

Stannis had never learned to soften his speech, to dissemble or flatter; he said what he thought and those that did not like it could be damned.

All the same, Stannis knew that Cressen would find out what happened in the Stormlands from Davos, and Cressen admits that he talked with Davos on the stairs. Stannis thunders about how he should have removed Davos’ tongue too, and Cressen retorts that removing Davos’ tongue would have made him a poor envoy.

“He made me a poor envoy in any case. The storm lords will not rise for me. It seems they do not like me, and the justice of my cause means nothing to them. The cravenly ones will sit behind their waiting to see how the wind rises and who is likely to triumph. The bold ones have already declared for Renly. For Renly!”

Cressen says, yeah, they probably did that because Renly’s been the Lord of Storm’s End for 13 years. They’re his bannermen. Oh boy, bad call, Cressen. Stannis launches into a long rant about how these stormlanders should be his bannermen given that he held Storm’s End against Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne and nearly starved to death in that siege. And all Stannis got in return was fuckin’ Dragonstone. Storm’s End should have passed to Stannis by rights.

Cressen notes that this is a really old wound that Stannis keeps picking at. There’s the historical grievance, yes. But there’s the pragmatic side too. Dragonstone and the lords of the Narrow Sea didn’t provide much in the way of soldiers. Even adding up the sellswords that Stannis bought from Essos, the host was too small to take on the Lannisters.

Cressen tries a diplomatic approach, saying that Dragonstone needed a strong lord to hold it for Robert, and that Renly was a child which then immediately leads to Stannis bitching about Renly still being a thieving child trying to steal Stannis’ rightful crown … which, not wrong. Not wrong in the least. And because the narrative allows me to indulge in my dislike for King Terrorist, allow me to read Stannis’ exact words on Renly:

“What has Renly ever done to earn a throne? He sits in council and jests with Littlefinger, and at tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armor and allows himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be a king. I ask you, why did the gods inflict me with brothers?”

Well, Cressen can’t answer for the gods which, of course, leads to Stannis clapping back (noticing a pattern here) that Cressen can scarcely answer at all these days. Stannis asks who Renly’s maester is, and Cressen says that Renly probably doesn’t even have one, because he’s a chump who is “heedless and acts from impulse” -- the polar opposite of Stannis.

Stannis complains about how small his dick, uh, his kingdom is and then descends from his lonely chair down to look at the map with his shadow not-at-all-ominously falling over Blackwater and the forest below King’s Landing. Stannis stands there brooding nearly as bad as Jon Snow did in AGOT and begins complaining about having to eat with his lords bannermen “such as they are” (lol). Stannis lists off some Narrow Sea Lords (a poor crop, if truth be told) and their faults, then Salladhor Saan (a Pirate), Lord Sunglass (religious fanatic), Celtigar (asks too many questions), Morosh (annoys me with talking about the tides) Velaryon (impatient, wants to attack now or go home).

“What must I do now?” Stannis asks.

Focus on the prize, Cressen says. Attack the Lannisters but join up with Renly. Ha, no fuckin’ way. Not while he’s calling himself a king. Okay, not Renly. Robb Stark. Yeah, Robb. Go work together with him. Fuck that shit. Robb wants half of Stannis’ kingdom. But Stannis, go and avenge Ned, and you’ll …

“Why should I avenge Eddard Stark? The man was nothing to me. Oh, Robert loved him, to be sure. Loved him as a brother, how often did I hear that? I was his brother, not Ned Stark, but you would never have known it by the way he treated me.”

Stannis once again revisits how he held Storm’s End but adds the twist that Big Bro Bobby never thanked him for holding the Baratheon ancestral castle. He praised Ned for lifting the siege. Then after nearly starving to death, Stannis built a fleet and attacked Dragonstone. No thanks for that either. Stannis got blamed that Viserys and Daenerys got away. And even after all that, Stannis still sat as Master of Ships on the small council - a thankless job. Was he then named Hand of the King? Fuck, no. Robert galloped off for Winterfell and Ned. 

Father Cressen, and really, you can see the fatherly aspect of Cressen coming out here, gently tells Stannis that he’s been wronged, greatly, but the past is past. You can still join up with the Starks, and hey, what about Lysa Arryn. Maybe betrothe Shireen to Sweetrobin and form an alliance that way. Even though Robert Arryn is a weakling and sickly, Stannis does consider this. He was going to foster the boy on Dragonstone after all until “Cersei” poisoned Jon Arryn and squelched that. Cressen puts in that they could send Shireen to the Eyrie and away from the grim castle of Dragonstone. And maybe send Patchface along for the journey too? Yeah, maybe. Stannis seems to soften for a moment. Maybe it’s worth …

“Must the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms beg for help from widow women and usurpers?”

Ah, hello Queen Selyse. Didn’t see you come in. And neither did Cressen. He begs apologies, and then Stannis scowls saying that he doesn’t beg of anyone. “Mind you remember that, woman.” Stannis the wife-respector everyone. Selyse says she’s pleased to hear it. Then we get some unkind description of Selyse’s appearance: big ears, sharp nose and a mustache that she plucks and curses regularly. She sounds off that the Arryns owe Stannis their allegiance, and that her royal husband shouldn’t go plead and bargain with what is his by the grace of god.

That talk of monotheism makes Cressen leery as he thinks about how Selyse has been captured by Melisandre and R’hllor of late and is now a zealot in R’hllorite religious practice. Stannis, though, is not so enamored of R’hllor. He doesn’t need God’s grace. He needs swords. Cressen notes how unaffectionate Stannis is with his wife, and how this was a long-term trend for Stannis. He barely wrote to Selyse while he was in King’s Landing and only had joyless sex with her once or twice a year.

Selyse says that maybe they should try to solicit the support of her family - that is the Florents - and how they’ll rally to Stannis’ cause. Okay, great, Stannis sort-of says. That’s 2000 troops. Big fuckin’ whoop. Besides, the Florents have lands deep in the Reach. They ain’t gonna risk Mace Tyrell’s wrath. 

Okay, fine, Selyse continues on. Well, then, let’s focus our faith on the big ass prophetic sign outside the window: the red comet! That is definitely R’hllor’s banner there. And it’s your time to do some Azor Ahai’ing, your grace. It’s all so very certain. Destroy R’hllor’s enemies. You got this. Embrace R’hllor. You can do it. Yeah, sure, Stannis says. How many soldiers or swords does R’hllor have again? All you need, Selyse says. Storm’s End and Highgarden for a start. 

Stannis gets all frown-y, and tells Selyse that the Stormlands and Reach are sworn to Renly, loving his kid-brother like they did Robert and how they never loved him. 

“Yes,” she answered, “but if Renly should die …”

Stannis looks Selyse over, but Cressen is horrorstruck, stating that these things shouldn’t be thought. Yeah, sure, Renly is a piece of shit, but let’s not let his follies … They’re not “follies” to Stannis. They’re treasons. But he’s still skeptical. Renly’s got a massive army and a full Rainbow Guard around him. 

“Melisandre has gazed into the flames and seen him dead.”

Cressen continues to be horrified. Don’t do fratricide, Stannis. Please. Don’t. Selyse asks Cressen how he’s going to help Stannis win without a little fratricide and mind you, Cressen, you can’t sell the Starks half the kingdom or marry Shireen to Sweetrobin. And Stannis says that he’s going to hear Selyse out. 

“You are dismissed.”

Cressen bends the knee and walks out, feeling Selyse’s dagger eyes on his back. He walks down the steps, but when he gets there, he’s in agony. He begs Pylos to help him back to his room. Once safe in his room (for the moment anyway), Cressen heads over to the balcony and sees one of Salladhor Saan’s ships sailing outside until it vanishes around the bend. He wishes his own fears could disappear as easily. 

You see, Cressen has a fear -- a fatherly fear. Sure, he couldn’t have kids as he was a chained maester of the Citadel. But he considered Robert, Stannis and Renly his sons after Steffon drowned. 

Had he done so ill that now he must watch one kill the other? He could not allow it, would not allow it.

In Cressen’s mind, there was only one person at fault for all this. The woman. Not Selyse. The red woman. Lots of people were scared to say her name, but he wouldn’t be scurred.

“Melisandre. Her.” Melisandre of Asshai, sorceress, shadow-binder, and priestess to R’hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God Flame and Shadow. Melisandre, whose madness must not be allowed to spread beyond Dragonstone.

His chambers now gloomy, Cressen lights a candle and moves over to the workroom under the rookery stairs. He digs around his shelf and finds a vial. He pulls the top off and spills the crystals onto a parchment. Shining like jewels, Cressen thinks that he’s never truly seen their color before. 

The chain around his throat felt very heavy. He touched one of the crystals lightly with the tip of his little finger. Such a small thing to hold the power of life and death.

The crystals were made on islands in the Jade Sea. The leaves were aged, washed in lime juice, sugar water and rare spices from the Summer Isles. Then they were thickened with ash and allowed to crystallize. The alchemists of Lys knew how to do it, the Faceless Men too. And … the maesters of the Citadel knew too.

• All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing -- but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.

Cressen can’t remember the name the Asshai’i or Lysene gave to the leaf and crystal. But in the Citadel, the poison was known as “the strangler.” Put it into wine, and it would suffocate the person who drank the wine, the drinker’s face turning as purple as the crystal itself.

And wouldn’t you know it, but Stannis would feast with Selyse and … Melisandre. Tonight.

Cressen decides he needs a nap to prepare for the ordeal ahead, and he gets into bed. But as he closes his eyes, all he can see is red. Probably the comet, haha. Or blood and murder. Haha-yikes.

Cressen wakes as the sky is dark, his chambers black. He pushes himself up with a headache coming on and realizes that he wasn’t summoned for the feast. He always came to feasts, was always there close to Stannis.

His lord’s face swam up before him, not the man he was but the boy he had been, standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone on his elder brother. Whatever he did, Robert had done first and better. Poor boy … he must hurry for Stannis’ sake.

Cressen grabs up the crystals, putting them in the parchment, and places the crystals and parchment into one of his hidden sleeves sewn into his garment. He starts shouting for Pylos to come, but no one answers. After shouting for a bit, he finally calls for servants, and they come. He asks where Pylos is and states that he should have been woken. But he’s really confused about what is going on.

Cressen crosses the long galley again with the night wind whispering around him and torches flickering about. Oh, and the red comet is still afire overhead. Cressen tries to shake off the idea that these are ominous signs and how he’s a maester. He doesn’t fear signs and portents. Oh no.

Cressen heads through the doors shaped like the mouth of the stone dragon where the great hall is, and boy, I gotta tell you, the imagery is not looking great for Cressen here. Cressen tells his servants to get lost, and he goes through the “gateway teeth.” Guardsmen open the red doors for Cressen, and the maester walks through them. 

A pair of guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon’s maw.

Looks like all signs are pointing to Cressen getting away with this plan, lol. 

Inside the hall is commotion: the clatter of knives and plates, Patchface dancing and singing his familiar The shadows come to dance, my lord and stay my lord song. The tables are crowded with knights, archers, sellsword captains eating bread and fish stew. But there was no laughter or shouting. Stannis didn’t allow that shit.

Cressen heads on over to the raised platform where his lords sat with Stannis. He tries to side-step Patchface, but tragically Patchface lurches into Cressen, knocking Cressen’s cane out from under him and sending both of them sprawling onto the floor. Patchface’s horned helmet comes bouncing off the fool’s head. Everyone laughs. Patchface sings about how in the sea, you fall up. 

The old maester smiles and attempts to rise, but his hip - the same one he broke previously - burns with pain. Suddenly, he feels strong arms lifting him up, and he begins to thank the “ser” who lifted him, but then he turns.

“Maester,” said Lady Melisandre, her deep voice flavored with the music of the Jade Sea. “You ought take more care.”

Dressed all in red with flowing flame-colored silk, a dark ruby that throbbed red, Melisandre’s hair wasn’t orange or strawberry. It was a “burnished copper that shone in the light of the torches.” Her eyes, they were red too. The only thing not red was her skin -- silk-smooth, white, pale as cream.

Slender she was, graceful, taller than most knights, with full breasts and narrow waist and a heart-shaped face. Men’s eyes that once found her did not quickly look away, not even a maester’s eyes. Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible, and red.

Cressen hesitantly thanks Melisandre, and Mel goes all “be careful, old man”, because … the night is dark and full of terrors. Aw, yeah. Melisandre signature line time, baby. Cressen knows the line too. Some sort of prayer or some shit. It doesn’t matter. He’s got a faith of his own. He tells her that only little babies are afraid of the dark, but Patchface does that creepy shadows come to dance thing again, leading to Melisandre to, um, joke around?

“Now here is a riddle,” Melisandre said. “A clever fool and a foolish wise man.” 

She picks up Patchface’s crown and places it on Cressen’s head. Everyone laughs, and Cressen gets angry. He forces his lips together to suppress his rage, thinking that Melisandre thought that he was weak and feeble. But he’s going to “learn her something” tonight. 

“I need no crown but truth,” Cressen says pulling the helmet off his head.

“There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown,” Melisandre says, turning away from Cressen in a “swirl of red silk.”

The old maester looks and sees that Pylos is seated in Cressen’s normal place of honor, and he wonders aloud why Pylos didn’t wake him. Pylos blushes, and tells him that Stannis wanted Cressen to rest, and that he wasn’t needed here. Ouch. Cressen looks over Stannis’ lords and sellswords, noticing how none of them will meet his gaze, thinking that they’re all richly dressed -- all but Davos Seaworth who’s wearing simple brown doublet and green wool mantle. 

“You are too ill and too confused to be of use to me, old man.” It sounded so like Lord Stannis’s voice, but it could be, it could not. “Pylos will counsel me henceforth. Already he works with the ravens, since you can no longer climb to the rookery. I will not have you kill yourself in my service.”

I know, I know, I’m reading so much of this chapter instead of summarizing, but really, this next part is perhaps my favorite sad moment in the chapter.

Maester Cressen blinked. Stannis, my lord, my sad sullen boy, son I never had, you must not do this, don’t you know how I have cared for you, lived for you, loved you despite all? Yes, loved you, better than Robert even, or Renly, for you were the one unloved, the one who needed me most.

But all Cressen actually says is, “As you command, my lord.” But he would like a place at Stanni’s table … at your side, I belong at your side. Davos gets up and offers his seat to Cressen, and Stannis agrees to Cressen’s seating arrangement, turning away to talk with Melisandre who is, of course, seated at Stannis’ right hand. 

Cressen realizes he’s too far away, and he needs to get closer to put the poison into her cup. Patchface capers about, singing about here, we eat fish, but below, the fish eat us which is totally, again, not completely fucking unnerving, my god. Davos tells Cressen that they really all should be dressed in Patchface's attire tonight. Melisandre saw victory in the flames, and Stannis will move accordingly. Trouble is that all Davos can see is what Patchface is seeing: the bottom of the sea. 

Cressen moves his fingers up his sleeve, and feels the strangler crystals. He calls out for “Lord Stannis” and gets immediately corrected by Selyse. King Stannis. Okay, well, King Stannis, fine. You need to make common cause with the Starks and Arryns.

“I make common cause with no one,” Stannis Baratheon said.

“No more than light makes common cause with darkness,” Lady Selyse helpfully completes.

Stannis does his complaining thing about the Starks stealing half his kingdom and how the Lannisters have already stolen his throne while King Terrorist Renly has thieved away the swords and soldiers that were his. 

“They are all usurpers, and they are all my enemies.”

Cressen realizes that he’s lost Stannis and starts thinking about how he could approach Melisandre. He needed to get to her cup. So, he decides on a new tact: a speech.

“You are the rightful heir to your brother Robert, the truth Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. But even so, you cannot hope to triumph without allies.”

Stannis has got allies, Selyse says. The Lord of Light, R’hllor. He’s got God on his side. Cressen thinks that gods are uncertain allies. And R’hllor’s got no power here.

“You think not,” Melisandre says as the ruby glows in the light. “If you will speak such folly, Maester, you ought to wear your crown again.”

Selyse shouts about how that’s exactly what they should do. Go fetch Patchface’s helmet. Patchface says that no one wears hats under the sea, and Stannis? Oh boy … this one’s hard even for a Stannis fan to be cool with. He tells Patchface to give Cressen his crown. 

No, the old maester thought, this is not you, not your way, you were always just, always hard yet never cruel, never, you did not understand mockery, no more than you understood laughter.

Emmett, why are we Stannis fans again?

Patchface dances in on Cressen and puts the helmet on top of the maester’s head, his neck bowing under the weight. Selyse says that Cressen should sing his counsel, but Stannis not-really redeems himself by saying that having Cressen sing is going too far. “He is an old man, and he’s served me well.”

And I will serve you to the last, my sweet lord, my poor lonely son.

And now Cressen realizes how he’s going to do the deed. He reaches into his pocket and finds the crystal, grasping it between his thumb and forefinger. He reaches for his cup, praying that he’ll be smooth. He drops the crystal into his own wine glass, knowing that no one but Davos saw.

“Mayhaps, I have been a fool. Lady Melisandre, will you share a cup of win with me? A cup in honor of your god, your Lord of Light? A cup to toast his power?”

Melisandre “studies” him. “If you wish.”

All eyez on Cressen, he leaves his bench. Davos catches his sleeve, whispering, asking what he’s doing. “A thing that must be done for the sake of the realm and the soul of my lord.” He shakes Davos’ hand off him, spilling a drop of wine on the rushes.

Melisandre meets Cressen beneath the high bench, everyone looking at them, but he only had eyes for Melisandre. He sees all the red that envelopes her and notices her red lips especially, curled in a faint smile. She reaches for the cup, and Cressen feels her skin is hot, warm to the touch, feverish.

“It is not too late to spill the wine, maester.”

“No,” he whispers hoarsely. “No.”

“As you will.”

Melisandre takes the cup from his hands, drinks long and deep. When she’s done, there was only a little bit left. 

“And now you.”

Cressen’s hand shake, but he forces himself to be strong, to be unafraid. The wine feels sour to his tongue. The cup slips from his hands, shattering on the floor.

“He does have power here, my lord. And fire cleanses.”

The ruby shimmers red. Cressen tries to reply, but his words die in his throat. He coughs deep, terrible. Then his breath becomes a thin whistle. He tries to suck air down as iron fingers tighten around his neck. And let’s just read until the end, shall we?

As he sank to his knees, still he shook his head, denying her, denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god. And the cowbells peeled in his antlers, singing fool, fool, fool while the red woman looked down on him in pity, the  candle flames dancing in her red, red eyes.

And that is the Prologue to A Clash of Kings.

Um, wow.

I feel … just wow. 

That is how you open a fucking book!

Depth

The years of arguing and antagonizing and memeing about Stannis have congealed somewhat. So let’s try for a fresh start here on the Not A Cast, with another bold statement: Stannis Baratheon is the single best written character in ASOIAF. Not Jaime, not Catelyn, not even your beloved Sansa.

• H I S  G R A C E
  • I want to start by talking about Stannis’ role in the story from what we know of the writing process
  • He does not appear in the pitch letter, and few think he’s going to turn out to have a major role upon endgame
  • He is prominent in the wartime plotting, but as a blunt object for clearing other factions off the field (Renly, Mance, Boltons) rather than being central himself
  • Yet he’s lasted for longer than any other of the titular five kings (unlike the show, which killed off Balon last), is involved in many iconic memorable moments, and is given more psychological depth than any other non-POV save perhaps Sandor
  • So why does Stannis exist? Why did George invent him after coming up with the bones of the story, and why keep him around this long?
  • I think his primary purpose is thematic; he is central to how George is writing about leadership, prophecy, backstory, and the intersection of all of the above
  • The idea is that Stannis is both hero and villain, solution and problem, and that ambiguity is weaved into every scene in which he appears or is even mentioned
  • Throughout Stannis Baratheon’s story, his soul is on trial; what makes that story work is that the author is making the case for both the defense and the prosecution, sometimes within the same sentence
  • Stannis’ duality is manifested in so many ways--the archetypes informing him, the advisors surrounding him, how his best and worst angels collide in his decisions
  • George writes him this way as a grounding for the ethical struggles he puts Stannis through, and those in turn act as echoes of and foreshadowing for the struggles of more central characters like Jon and Daenerys
  • You could tell basically the same story without Stannis, but I think it’d mean less
  • It’s hard not to get meta about Stannis, because essentially his story is about being aware that you’re a secondary character, “a page in someone else’s history book” to borrow from the show, and allowing that to poison your soul over time
    • “My life meant nothing. I meant nothing … I was a supporting player. I had a bit part. I was a walk-on, a one-off, whose presence was worth a chapter or two at most, a few lines in a ballad.” 
  • Stannis desires above all to be the protagonist, and while there’s definitely something grasping and pathetic about that, it’s also the end result of a lifetime as an underdog, forever searching for love and increasingly certain he will be denied it
  • He’s the ultimate middle child, the definitive second-in-command, and hates it
  • This is what makes him so vulnerable to Melisandre’s narrative about him, but also Davos’; for better or worse, he’s always looking for a way to prove the world wrong about him and force everyone who laughed at him to take him seriously
  • Reading his story is all about seeing whether that drive will be directed for good or ill, and it reminds me of Jaeherys II’s line about the Targaryens:
    • “Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.”
  • To understand where this gnawing need inside Stannis comes from, we have to talk about his relationship with the person he considers to be the actual main character of his story, the book in which he is but a page, the song in which he is but a verse: his brother Robert
  • Stannis was always overshadowed by his older brother, put it all on the line for him anyway, and never got any love back for it; this drives pretty much every major decision Stannis makes in the series in one way or another
  • We talked about how Tysha and Joanna are constantly present whenever Tywin and Tyrion talk, and similarly, Robert is always flashing behind Stannis’ eyelids
    • “Robert … He is in my dreams as well. Laughing. Drinking. Boasting. Those were the things he was best at. Those, and fighting. I never bested him at anything. The Lord of Light should have made Robert his champion. Why me?"
  • Stannis believes deep down that Robert was right not to love him because he is unworthy, and this is mirrored in his rejection by the political community at large:
    • “It is as you warned him. They will not rise, Maester. Not for him. They do not love him.”
      
      No, Cressen thought. Nor will they ever. He is strong, able, just...aye, just past the point of wisdom...yet it is not enough. It has never been enough.
  • “It has never been enough” could be the defining mantra of Stannis’ story and life
  • No matter what he does, he never seems good enough for Robert, the crown, the realm...or himself. Again, the meta: he’s not good enough to be the protagonist
  • This feeling of unworthiness has pushed Stannis in two opposing directions at once, cementing the essential ambiguity of his character
  • On the one hand, it’s made him strong--“the singers may do as they like” and the likes of Robert and Renly and Janos Slynt may corrupt their souls as they climb the ladder, but Stannis will be a just man even if it means being the only one!
  • On the other hand, it’s made him weak--envious, short-sighted, and very vulnerable to being told he’s the chosen one after all if he’ll only pay the price
  • The man resulting from this process is “just past the point of wisdom,” as Cressen tactfully puts it; strong but brittle, as Donal Noye would have it; possessed of the personality of a lobster, as Loras says bluntly in Season 1
  • His alienation is in part sympathetic, as we see from Cressen’s perspective:
    • You were the one unloved, the one who needed me most.
  • But it’s also self-fulfilling at this point--Stannis is so convinced that he cannot be loved that he pre-emptively acts to distance himself from everyone
  • His defense mechanisms have gone so far that he feigns this duty-robot persona (“I am king. Wants do not enter into it”) that many in the fandom have swallowed uncritically, when in truth he’s as emotionally vulnerable as anyone in the story
  • George clearly wants us to peer beneath that rough surface at the raw hurting soul underneath, but that’s not to suggest the surface doesn’t matter
  • The overall takeaway from this scene is that Stannis does have better angels, but is electing to ignore them; he has valid and even sympathetic reasons to feel the way he does, but is allowing those feelings to back him into a very dark corner
  • In a 1999 So Spake Martin, George was asked a question about whether Robert ever loved Stannis and Renly. The response is interesting and helps us understand the dynamic:
    
    There are many different kinds of love. Robert was dutiful toward his brothers, and no doubt loved them in a way... but he didn't necessarily like them. His relations with Stannis were always prickly. Renly was the baby of the family, and spent little time in Robert's company until he was old enough to come to court. I suspect Robert was fond of the boy, but not especially close to him.
    
    Stannis always resented being given Dragonstone while Renly got Storm's End, and took that as a slight... but it's not necessarily true that Robert meant it that way. The Targaryen heir apparent had always been titled Prince of Dragonstone. By making Stannis the Lord of Dragonstone, Robert affirmed his brother's status as heir (which he was, until Joff's birth a few years later). Robert could just as lawfully retained both castles for his sons, and made Joffrey the Prince of Dragonstone and Tommen the Lord of Storm's End. Giving them to his brothers instead was another instance of his great, but rather careless, generosity.
  • Regardless of how Robert meant it, Stannis took it as a slight because it didn’t happen in isolation--it was sadly representative of their entire relationship
  • We’ll talk more about Stannis’ parallels to other characters later, but indulge me:
    • “It was hard for all my brothers. That shadow Tywin cast was long and black, and each of them had to struggle to find a little sun. Tygett tried to be his own man, but he could never match your father, and that just made him angrier as the years went by. Gerion made japes. Better to mock the game than to play and lose. But Kevan saw how things stood early on, so he made himself a place by your father's side."
  • Robert is the Tywin, an impossible standard casting a long shadow
  • Ned was his Kevan, albeit coming from the outside to be “the brother I chose”
  • Renly is the Gerion, making japes (though more ambitious in the end)
  • That makes Stannis the Tygett, and yep, “tried to be his own man but could never match Robert, and that just made him angrier” sums up Stannis perfectly
  • His entire self-conception and decision-making process is dominated by his reaction to Robert getting all the love and sharing none of it with him
  • You can see that all over his introductory paragraph, truly a work of art:
    • Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and by the grace of the gods rightful heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, was broad of shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness to his face and flesh that spoke of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Hard was the word men used when they spoke of Stannis, and hard he was. Though he was not yet five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head, circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown. His brother, the late King Robert, had grown a beard in his final years. Maester Cressen had never seen it, but they said it was a wild thing, thick and fierce. As if in answer, Stannis kept his own whiskers cropped tight and short. 
  • “As if in answer” he says! It’s definitely in answer. Trying to keep up with Robert won Stannis nothing, so he responded by sprinting in the opposite direction
  • His bookishness, minimalist aesthetic, and general disinterest in sex (coupled with a raging dislike of sex work) are all rooted in his own character, but the common denominator is building a counter-legend to Robert’s at every turn
  • Of course, the brothers still have so much in common--the stubbornness, the martial prowess, the loyal companion who pleads with them to spare the children
  • Plus, y’know...the claim Stannis is fighting so damn hard for is in Robert’s name!!
  • So no matter how much Stannis pulls away from Robert, everything leads him right back to his famous beloved perfect brother, and that only makes him angrier
  • He’s permanently stuck in “the shadow of a crown,” an eerily perfect description of Stannis’ relationship to Robert, the Iron Throne, and the realm as a whole
  • Stannis’ backstory (and his complaints here) establish him as the unsung hero of Robert’s Rebellion, the one who did the hard work and got none of the credit
  • Part of why Stannis takes to being Azor Ahai is that he feels like he sweat and starved to make Robert a figure of legend, so it’s his turn to be one now
  • The realm’s political rejection combines with his feeling of unworthiness compared to Robert to fuel his intense bitterness here
  • So he’s also the shadow of a crown in that he’s the flipside of Robert’s glorious image, the one “standing cold in the shadows while the sun shone on his elder brother” coming for his vengeful turn in the spotlight 
  • Stannis is the Jungian shadow of the crowned stag, a figure of intense Catholic guilt come (as Sansa says) like the Stranger to judge and punish us for our sins
  • And there’s that sun imagery again, just as in Genna’s monologue about Tywin
  • Robert has a ton of sun king imagery surrounding him, his star always shone so brightly...and that’s why Stannis looks like leather cured in the sun 
  • He’s been staring into the sun his whole life, just on the other side of glass from glory, not allowed close enough to be nourished by the fire, but close enough to be transformed by it. The hotter Robert burned, the colder Stannis became.
  • There’s something cosmically true about this family dynamic, fitting the imagery: it’s as though you can’t have a Robert without a Stannis, the action demanding an equal and opposite reaction, the rise always foreshadowing the fall
  • Robert in his sun king glory days embodied so many things--youth, hope, the ideal of the fantasy genre...and now he’s gone, and we’re left alone with the cynicism he inculcated in Stannis, as I was saying about this chapter vs. Dany X
  • The middle Baratheon stands in for disappointment, disillusionment, decay, despair, and the desperate drive to fill the hole that all those leave behind
  • That’s how Stannis related to Robert, and now that Robert’s dead and Stannis is the heir, who steps in to take it all away from him but Young Robert, aka Renly?
    • The youngest of Lord Steffon’s three sons had grown into a man bold but heedless, who acted from impulse rather than calculation. In that, as in so much else, Renly was like his brother Robert, and utterly unlike Stannis. 
  • We’ve seen Renly framed throughout book one as a younger version of Bobby B:
    • "You must forgive me, but sometimes you look the very image of your brother Robert."
    • He might have been Robert's ghost as he stood there, young and dark and handsome.
  • But now that comparison isn’t just there to emphasize how Robert has gone to seed. Renly is deliberately evoking the parallel:
    • “The Targaryens called Robert usurper. He seemed to be able to bear the shame. So shall I.”
    • He swept a hand across the campfires that burned from horizon to horizon. “Well, there is my claim, as good as Robert’s ever was.”
    • In their midst, watching and laughing with his young queen by his side, sat a ghost in a golden crown.
      
      Small wonder the lords gather around him with such fervor, she thought, he is Robert come again. Renly was handsome as Robert had been handsome; long of limb and broad of shoulder, with the same coal-black hair, fine and straight, the same deep blue eyes, the same easy smile. 
  • We’ll talk much more about this in Catelyn II-IV, but what Renly is offering the realm is essentially the promise of Robert rebooted. Remember the promise with which he took the throne? That didn’t work out, let’s start over and try again!
  • The problem is that this doesn’t reckon with why Robert failed, and Renly doesn’t have an answer to that question beyond “he was too focused on getting laid.”
  • That dovetails with not only Stannis’ critique of Renly in this chapter…
    • “He is a child still … a thieving child who thinks to snatch the crown off my brow. What has Renly ever done to earn a throne? He sits in council and jests with Littlefinger, and at tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armor and allows himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be a king.”
  • ...but also what Ned saw of Renly in council, in which he seemed unable or unwilling to reign Robert in. His only plan amounted to swapping out the deck chairs on the Titanic by replacing Cersei with Margaery
  • This is in direct contrast to Stannis, who while definitely driven to an overwhelming degree by envy and pride, actually does have a relevant policy critique to make of Robert’s regime:
    • “Janos was hardly the first gold cloak ever to take a bribe, I grant you, but he may have been the first commander to fatten his purse by selling places and promotions. By the end he must have had half the officers in the City Watch paying him part of their wages … Two men who were prepared to come forward died suddenly on their rounds …  I saw the proof Jon Arryn laid before the small council. If I had been king you would have lost more than your office, I promise you, but Robert shrugged away your little lapses. ‘They all steal,’ I recall him saying. ‘Better a thief we know than one we don’t, the next man might be worse.’ ”
  • And he has an idea of how to do better:
    • “...rise again, Davos Seaworth, and rise as Lord of the Rainwood, Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and Hand of the King.”
      
      For a moment Davos was too stunned to move. I woke this morning in his dungeon. “Your Grace, you cannot...I am no fit man to be a King’s Hand.”
      
      “There is no man fitter.” Stannis sheathed Lightbringer, gave Davos his hand, and pulled him to his feet.
      
      “I am lowborn,” Davos reminded him. “An upjumped smuggler. Your lords will never obey me.”
      
      “Then we will make new lords.”
  • Here is where we get into one of my favorite aspects of ACOK: the presentation of Renly and Stannis as perfectly matched opposites on every conceivable level
  • Again, this is mostly a discussion for Catelyn chapters, but even before the Baratheon bros square off you can see it in how they relate to Robert
  • It’s as if Robert’s legacy was split in two (like Ice): the “ghost” and the “shadow” 
  • Stannis, as the shadow, has a legit critique to make of how Robert ran things, but is also far too close to it emotionally to serve as a legit vessel for that critique
  • Renly, by contrast, doesn’t have this personal backstory weighing him down
  • He barely related to Robert beyond the image, and that’s why he’s able to effortlessly recreate it--because unlike Stannis, he never had to wrestle with the man beneath the image, the disappointment and disillusionment that set in
  • Renly can therefore be the ghost: the picture perfect resurrection, with none of the baggage that Stannis accumulated and is refusing to let go in this chapter
  • As such, Renly claiming the crown and immediately amassing a huge army of followers while Stannis is left in the lurch is a hideously perfect nightmare scenario for the latter, explaining (if not excusing) his attitude in the Prologue
  • It’s happening again! Robert gets a reset, a mulligan, a do-over, and here I am left holding the bag, just like when he was alive. And worse, it’s working:
    • “They love my charming young brother, as they once loved Robert...and as they have never loved me.” 
  • This confirms all of Stannis’ deep-set anxieties, not only about Robert and Renly (they don’t love me, don’t care about duty, and are just jumping for the throne like a shiny object), but about everyone with whom he shares a continent. Westeros has rejected him en masse, and Renly is here to make that clear as obnoxiously as possible:
    • “The whole of the realm denies it, brother … Old men deny it with their death rattle, and unborn children deny it in their mothers’ wombs. They deny it in Dorne and they deny it on the Wall. No one wants you for their king. Sorry.” 
  • So now Stannis can no longer contain or contextualize his anger at Robert with the idea that “there are deeper, older laws...the younger brother bows before the older” (per GoT History & Lore)
  • That, after all, is why Stannis is such a stickler. Not because he cares about the rules in themselves, but because the rules are the only way he can understand why it’s ok for the brother for whom he starved to treat him like this
  • And now, we have a version of Robert who doesn’t even have the fig leaf of the succession to justify screwing Stannis over. He’s blatantly breaking the rules, and no one seems to care. There is no punishment--in fact, there are rewards!
  • So it was never about Robert being older. It was about something wrong with me. Something broken inside, that makes me unlovable while the crowds cheer them.
  • And so, we see him decide in this chapter that he is done. He is done spending his days toiling for a system and a kingdom and a family that mocks his efforts
  • Oh, kinslaying and blood magic violate taboo, do they? So what? Why should I follow the rules when Robert and Renly never did, and were loved in spite of it? 
    • “They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned?”
  • He’s explicitly talking about the smallfolk there, but under the surface, he’s talking about Robert and his younger avatar Renly. They are one figure in Stannis’ mind, one infuriatingly perfect laughing storm who will always get all the credit and love
  • Renly’s betrayal is sharper than a serpent’s tooth because it feels like all the wounds of his relationship with Robert have been reopened
  • So when he greets Selyse broaching the topic of killing Renly not with horror or even reluctance, but with a silence that speaks volumes, I think what’s tempting him is the possibility of the image of Robert finally succumbing to gravity 
  • If Renly could be surrounded by his army and his Rainbow Guard and all the lords who love him, and yet prove mortal...well, maybe that means Robert wasn’t so larger-than-life after all. Maybe I am not doomed to be his shadow forever.
  • So Stannis, too, wants to reboot Robert’s Rebellion, but he wants to take back his decision to fight for his brother and instead fight against him
  • We’ll argue come Davos II whether Stannis consciously gave the order to kill Renly, but for the character arc’s purposes, it is clear that Stannis has identified Renly not only as a huge practical problem, but as the avatar of all his misfortune
  • That’s his primary motivation here: to rewrite his family history, to break the narrative Renly is reviving and replace it with the bitter reality of his life
  • Hence his sigil: the crowned stag on fire, “as if swallowed whole” by Stannis’ fury
  • As Emmett was saying, it’s important that Stannis is set up as both hero and villain. So, too, does this chapter underscore the other aspect of Stannis: whether he’s a big ol’ jerk or the underdog. Surprise, surprise. It’s both!
  • Let’s take a brief gander at the political and military situation Stannis is in at the start of ACOK to help outline the picture before Emmett brings it home with the character side of it.
  • In terms of strengths, Stannis has the largest and strongest navy this side of the Iron Fleet as he took the royal fleet with him to Dragonstone and has, um, privateered any ships that have come within sight of Dragonstone per Cressen
  • But his army is pathetically weak: 3,000 men here, maybe 5,000 at the Stannis/Renly parlay in ACOK. Here’s how Renly describes Stannis’ military situation later in ACOK:
    • “All the chivalry of the south rides with me, and that is the least part of my power. My foot is coming behind, a hundred thousand swords and spears and pikes. And you will destroy me? With what, pray? That paltry rabble I see there huddled under the castle walls? I'll call them five thousand and be generous, codfish lords and onion knights and sellswords.”
  • Renly zeroes in on Stannis’ weakness. He has too few men. And part of the reason why this is the case is that Stannis’ personality doesn’t lend itself to lords wanting to sign up and bring their levies to his cause. He’s kind of a jerk!
  • But the other part of it is how Stannis already starts with a disadvantage given the holdings that Robert allowed him to have. He’s kind of the underdog!
  • “Kind of the underdog” is perfect, that’s exactly how Stannis is being framed here. His arguments are legit if you break them down--Robert really was an absentee king who appears to have relied on Stannis to do a whole lot of the boring, dangerous, and unrewarding work of making his regime a reality
  • Renly really does have nothing under his belt but a couple years on the council in which he doesn’t seem to have particularly distinguished himself
  • And the nobles’ objections to him at their core really have nothing to do with his fanatically harsh brand of justice that (correctly) puts off so many in the fandom
  • It’s about Stannis refusing to tell these corrupt shiftless assholes that they’re awesome, and that he in fact holds basically his entire class in obvious contempt
  • Is this politically damaging? Oh yeah. Short-sighted and self-indulgent? You bet!
  • But: you can’t honestly say they don’t deserve contempt. That’s the great underlying tension of King Stannis’ fury (and no, I’m not talking about the ship)
  • You get where it’s coming from even as you see how dangerous and counterproductive it is, so you understand Cressen’s instinct to try and temper the flame
  • All of this is filtered through Cressen’s perspective on Stannis as his father figure
  • Every time Cressen looks at Stannis the man, he sees Stannis the child
  • This allows him to understand that, just like Renly, Stannis’ campaign is rooted in the persona he’s been constructing since childhood
  • The emotional heart of this chapter is certainly Cressen’s love for Stannis, but as always, George is pushing in two opposing directions at once here
  • On the one hand, he’s using Cressen’s perspective to peel back the layers of resentment that have set in over time to show us the lonely unloved child:
  • I understand not emotionally connecting with the character as he exists in the present day, and I think George also saw that danger, and uses Cressen accordingly to guide us in terms of how Stannis started from a relatable spot
  • Cressen understands that Stannis was starved of love and has been reacting to that absence ever since
  • He knows that Stannis’ primary motivation isn’t for the crown or castle in themselves, but them as proxies for that love:
    • “Did he take my hand and say, Well done, brother, whatever should I do without you?”
  • That’s all he ever wanted, and Robert ghosted him, creating a hole inside that keeps growing and Stannis will do anything to fill
  • On the other hand, the fact that Cressen is Stannis’ father figure means that Stannis isn’t just being obnoxious to a subordinate
  • He’s being cruel and arguably neglectful to the man who raised him
  • Constantly interrupting, belittling, losing his temper...not the model of a worthy leader or a dutiful son
  • And while (unlike the show) Stannis doesn’t know that Ned Stark went down swinging for him, we do, and Stannis taking out his anger with Robert on Ned is very unlikable
  • It’s telling that just as Stannis is considering a prudent decision (albeit useless as re-readers know Littlefinger already has Lysa’s allegiance locked up) of betrothing Shireen to Sweetrobin, Selyse enters the story and throws Stannis off his game.
  • A lot of surface-level readers look at Selyse and think George was doing a bit of Phyllis Schlafly pastiche.
  • And, y’know, sure, Selyse isn’t pleasant. But why is that? Couldn’t be that 12-13 years of loveless marriage had an impact, right? Right.
  • I, myself, am a bit more sympathetic to Selyse than most people in the fandom, and I think her conversion into R’hllorite zealot makes a lot of character sense given the Stannis/Selyse dynamic
  • Stannis has a really cold relationship and dynamic with his wife.
    • He rarely wrote to her when he was in King’s Landing in the small council
    • They only have sex once or twice a year. According to Renly: “He goes to his marriage bed like a man marching to a battlefield, with a grim look in his eyes and a determination to do his duty."
    • Part of Stannis’ cold relationship to Selyse works as both contrast and comparison to Robert who certainly loved the ladies but he describes Cersei to Ned in AGOT, Eddard VII as “Oh, Cersei is lovely to look at, truly, but cold …”
    • But the other part of Stannis is that he’s a misogynist. Asha in ADWD: But there was no explaining such things to Stannis Baratheon. Her very womanhood seemed to offend him. 
    • That doesn’t lend itself to a happy relationship. Misogyny never does.
  • So, imagine you’re Selyse, in a loveless marriage, with low self-worth (Cressen notes how Selyse plucks her mustache regularly - ouch. So, she knows her appearance) and suddenly a red priestess comes all the way to Dragonstone with good news of great joy to all people! Stannis is Azor Ahai Reborn. Wouldn’t you become a bit of a zealot given the circumstances?
  • That being said, her entry function into the story is threefold: 
    • To set a roadblock in front of Stannis’ willingness to compromise to seek allies in the Arryns.
    • To make “ludicrous” statements about how the Stormlands and Reach will join with Stannis thanks to R’hllor. This gives Stannis the opportunity to clap back at her (You know: she isn’t wrong lol)
    • To project her feelings of inadequacy onto Cressen at the feast
  • Selyse serves to make Stannis less sympathetic, in two main respects
  • One, as you say, is how poorly he treats her and women in general
  • Stannis’ misogyny really is one aspect of Stannis’ character that doesn’t fit into the “every heroic aspect is mirrored in the villainy and vice versa” structure 
  • This is just wretched, and hateful, and can’t be argued away or dismissed
  • The other respect in which Selyse serves to make Stannis less sympathetic is in her advice, which is always rooted in the most narrow-minded and self-serving interpretation of R’hllor’s will imaginable
  • We see that in this introductory scene, in which Stannis almost almost takes Cressen’s advice, George showing us the glimpse of the reasonable man and worthy leader under these calcified layers of loneliness and resentment…
  • ...and then Selyse walks him, and hits him where it hurts:
    • “Must the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms beg for help from widow women and usurpers?”
  • Like Tywin (and Viserys, and Theon, and Victarion…) Stannis is motivated in large part by the sense that the world mocks him and this must be stopped:
    • “...there will be no more begging, and no more laughing either.”
  • That is rooted in how Robert and Renly treated him, as we see reinforced at Storm’s End
  • The stormlords who refused Davos, the northmen and riverlords following Robb Stark, the Lannisters occupying the throne and capital; all of these are but the icing. Robert and Renly are the cake. He filters his relationship to all else through his relationship to them, and his relationship to them never ever worked
  • So when he says this:
    • “I make common cause with no one …  They are all usurpers, and they are all my enemies.”
  • What he’s really saying is my big brother never loved me and I don’t know how to deal with that. Which is EXTREMELY immature, but also fits this larger-than-life tragic structure, wherein the earth will shake to fill these holes inside
  • And while Cressen tries to rekindle that dying flame, Selyse feeds him a different narrative: you can take a shortcut, you can force them to get in line
  • This is an iconic and well-tread dramatic scenario: the man who built his life on doing the right thing, in the face of the thin wages, chooses the wrong thing
  • This is a significant failure, because if there’s one consistent message to ASOIAF, it’s to do the right thing even when there’s no guarantee of success
  • So by chapter’s end, when he’s fully bought into Selyse’s pitch, George demonstrates that in doing so, he has sold his soul:
    • Lord Stannis’s eyes were shadowed beneath his heavy brow, his mouth tight as his jaw worked silently. He always ground his teeth when he was angry. “Fool,” he growled at last, “my lady wife commands. Give Cressen your helm.”
      
      No, the old maester thought, this is not you, not your way, you were always just, always hard yet never cruel, never, you did not understand mockery, no more than you understood laughter.
  • Now, Stannis quickly takes it back, so to speak--again, George letting us know the man who saved Proudwing is still in there. But that man has bent the knee to the man who cast his love for Proudwing into the fire to keep up with Robert
  • When George says that Stannis is in spite of everything a righteous man, this is (part of) the “everything” he’s talking about
  • One of the ways you can tell how invested George is in Stannis’ character are the extensive parallels built in between him and other characters
  • He’s an articulation of an archetype in which the author is clearly fascinated
  • So many to talk about going forward:
    • Tyrion
    • Theon
    • Maekar Targaryen
    • Alaric Stark
    • Balon Greyjoy
    • Victarion Greyjoy
    • Aerys II
  • But the most important ones are Jon and Dany
  • Melisandre explicitly compares Jon and Stannis in ADWD:
    • In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit. Stannis had been a younger son living in the shadow of his elder brother, just as Jon Snow, bastard-born, had always been eclipsed by his trueborn sibling, the fallen hero men had called the Young Wolf. Both men were unbelievers by nature, mistrustful, suspicious. The only gods they truly worshiped were honor and duty.
  • We’ll have a lot more to say on the subject as we go, but what’s important to note here is that the decision Jon made at the end of book one is the exact opposite of the decision Stannis made during Robert’s Rebellion:
    • “I chose Robert, did I not? When that hard day came. I chose blood over honor.”
  • So I see Stannis in part as a version of Jon who actually did abandon his watch to join Robb, choosing blood over honor...and came to regret it
  • Robert disappointed Stannis on every level, both in their relationship and in Robert’s conduct as king, and that contributed hugely to Stannis’ current state
  • This is Jon spat back out decades later, after Robb left him to hold some castle and forgot all about him--which, of course, Robb would probably never do!
  • The Starks certainly have more functional dynamics than the Baratheons, but the point is that Stannis is what happens if Jon gave free reign to his resentment
  • As for Dany, she was born on Dragonstone, is a younger sibling taking over from the elder slain in book one, and walks the same prophetic fine line as Stannis
  • She, too, is a profoundly ambiguous figure, with certain actions and ideals that set her above her environment, but worrying signs about where it’s all headed
  • She, too, comes for King’s Landing with fire and blood, and in both cases, it’s not clear if their brief apotheosis staring down the Others will be enough to sate them
  • Stannis embodies what’s waiting for every bright young revolutionary in the story--Jon, Dany, Robb, and of course Robert and Renly, all of them dead-ending in skin turned steel by the sun
• Red, and terrible, and red
  • Even more than Stannis, the Prologue builds up to the introduction of Melisandre
  • She’s a constant presence throughout the chapter, bleeding into the comet, the castle, and Cressen’s dreams, reddening the world with every step
  • When he descends into the dragon’s mouth of the Great Hall to confront her at chapter’s end, it’s as if she brought the hellish aesthetic of Asshai with her
  • She’s made of candle smoke, dissonant drones, “blood velvet and scarlet satin,” all fluid flowing flourishes in perfect contrast to Stannis’ stiff martial stomp
  • Before the chapter begins, she’s already got her hooks in Selyse and is establishing a network of informers and enforcers on Dragonstone
  • The ripple effects that will claim the gods in Davos I are seen here as well:
    • “Dalla and Matrice were talking by the well, and Dalla said she heard the red woman tell Mother that it was dragonsbreath.”
  • This is George showing us the early days of someone like Varys or Bloodraven
  • We only see the former in AGOT and the latter in TMK after they’ve long established their power and reputation as masters of whispers
  • This is the equivalent of Varys crossing the narrow sea, worming his way into Aerys’ good graces, and weaving his spiderweb for the first time
  • Given that Barristan (according to Stannis) said that “the rot in Aerys’ reign began with Varys,” you could see Cressen’s Prologue as an early Barristan chapter
    • (Although Davos is also the Barristan equivalent here, with his siegebreaking at Storm’s End standing in for the Defiance of Duskendale)
  • Cressen’s thoughts and feelings on Melisandre must be very similar to how the likes of Barristan greeted the arrival of Varys in Aerys’ court
  • And just as with Varys, George gives us good reason to both adopt our POV’s fear and distrust of Melisandre and also dig deeper to find her true motives
  • On one hand, George leans into describing her as a figure of uneasy ominous horror like the comet, embodying the tone of dread that defines the chapter
  • The way her ruby throbs, the unnatural color to her hair and eyes...while pretty and shapely, Melisandre also looks like blood and fire and the gates of hell!
  • Cressen alone is seeing through the glamour, in multiple senses of the word
  • On the other hand, you can see George working to show that he’s still not seeing her entirely accurately, and that she’s more than a mustache-twirling villain
  • Cressen assumes it’s a knight helping him to his feet, but instead it’s her
  • She’s introduced giving aid rather than dealing death, and indeed will frame herself as a knight in Davos II, blurring the roles and archetypes at work
  • Melisandre is also more interested in genuine debate than pure zealous mantra-mouthing (which tends to be more Selyse’s wheelhouse)
  • She, too, sees Cressen as a larger-than-life figure who stands in for a school of thought, and so treats this like he does as a contest for the mastery of will
  • It’s the classic “we’re not so different, you and I” dynamic that George recreates between Davos and Melisandre in ASOS, and it’s key to making the latter work
  • She’s Rasputin, but more, a Disney witch, but more. Always more, because above all Melisandre is a figure of ambiguity and philosophical complexity. Punisher and savior, death and rebirth, all wrapped up in a carefully sculpted image 
  • Cressen senses this shadowplay, but can’t pierce it to see what lies beyond, so he falls back on “red and terrible and red,” which is so revealing
  • It captures the dread Melisandre inspires, but also on how Cressen is abandoning his cherished rationality when it comes to defining that dread
  • Melisandre, like Stannis and Davos, is putting up a front, but teasing out what’s part of the front and what’s real is the reader’s job, and if it’s difficult, well...imagine how it is for her!
• Drinking a cup of death
  • Davos will repeatedly claim later on--both out loud and in the privacy of his own thoughts--that Melisandre murdered Cressen, and while I love Dadvos, this accusation does not bear up to the slightest scrutiny
  • Cressen is the one attempting to commit murder. He conceived the act, he brought the murder weapon, he deployed it. Melisandre is responsible for nothing more than failing to go out of her way to prevent his suicide
  • Now, it is relatable and sympathetic that Cressen would resort to drastic measures to prevent one of his boys from killing another, especially given Robert’s recent death and the taboo against kinslaying
  • However, Stannis’ rage towards Renly is already in the driver’s seat before Selyse talks up Melisandre’s vision of the youngest Baratheon brother dead
  • Melisandre herself isn’t even present when Stannis is convinced to take this course of action. She’s certainly tempting him onward (sexually as well as morally), but the decision is ultimately his and is firmly rooted in his character
  • At this point, as Stannis says in Davos I, he thinks of Melisandre as nothing more than a “red hawk.” He doesn’t believe in her god...yet
  • As such, I think we need to consider Cressen and Davos’ perspective on Stannis and Melisandre through the lens of both feudal politics and genre tropes
  • It was commonplace in Ye Olde Medieval Times for not only troubled supporters but outright revolutionaries to direct their criticisms and violent action not toward the sacred body of the king himself, but toward “evil counselors” who were ostensibly responsible for all the misdeeds, so strong was image of the untouchable king-as-god-and-land
  • That’s not to say that evil counselors weren’t a thing, of course, but that the culture of loyalty to the monarch invariably has an impact on resistance to injustice flowing from the top down
  • We know George was aware of and interested in this aspect of feudal politics when writing ACOK, because he makes explicit reference to it later in the book:
    • "His Grace is but a boy. In the streets, it is said that he has evil councillors.”
  • Because of this ideological limitation (as well as his personal attachment to Stannis), Cressen is unable to acknowledge that Stannis, not Melisandre, is still the one setting the agenda and making policy on Dragonstone
  • Remember, Cressen has no idea that Melisandre can birth shadowbaby assassins; as far as he knows, the priestess along with the queen is simply talking the king into going for Renly’s throat. Yet he doesn’t try to kill Selyse, instead acting as though Melisandre has literally bewitched her
  • And that brings us to the genre trope in question, namely the ensorceled king
  • One pictures Theoden in the movie adaptation of The Two Towers, in which the wizard Saruman is literally speaking through the seemingly decrepit, enfeebled ruler of Rohan, who is instantly restored to his vital self when Gandalf the White banishes his wicked opposite
  • I think George is doing something interesting with this concept, indulging in it while also undercutting it
  • Yes, Mel draws from Stannis’ life force to make her shadowbabies. Yes, he gets gaunter and older-looking as a result. Yes, she has a huge impact on his decision-making, especially after she starts showing him visions directly
  • But no matter what Alester Florent tells Davos in ASOS to justify his self-serving betrayal, there is never any indication that Stannis has snapped
  • He is not being hypnotized nor puppeteered. He is the same man he always was, making decisions (both good and ill) rooted in his background and beliefs
  • So when Davos thinks to himself that Cressen drank a cup of death to free Stannis from Melisandre, I say Stannis could be free of her any time he chooses, and when Davos wonders “what has she done to him” later in the book, I say she’s done less than he thinks
  • In that light, I think we can see that Cressen was trying to kill Melisandre for a decision Stannis made, and that he was doing so in the name of some very questionable assessments
  • The irony here is that the rationalist skeptic gave free reign to his prejudices and emotional turmoil, whereas the mystical prophet read the situation pragmatically
  • I love how George writes this, that as soon as both Cressen and Davos decide to murder Melisandre, they are framed as having been seduced by her logic
  • Cressen suddenly decides that the comet is his, and Davos suddenly decides he’s a warrior of god who doesn’t have to worry about hunger or illness
  • In the end, Melisandre wins--not only because she lives and he dies, but because her side won the debate raging in Cressen’s head throughout this chapter
  • The educated maester, a serious man (to borrow from the Coen Bros) goes down “denying her, denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god,” yet she smiles with pity because they both know he’s wrong
  • He dies on his knees before her. The omens were real, and “he does have power here.” An age of wonder and terror is upon us. Welcome to A Clash of Kings!
  • But even among such grandiose big-picture stuff, my favorite moment of this chapter-closing scene is this murmured line from Melisandre to Cressen as she holds out the cup of death:
    • “It is not too late to spill the wine, Maester."
  • When George calls Melisandre the most misunderstood character in his saga, I understand his frustration, because he lets you know what’s really going on with her right there in her introductory scene
  • It is not too late to spill the wine. It is not too late to save yourself. I don’t need you dead. She says this to a man she knows full well is trying to kill her. 
  • What does this say about her? That like Varys, her terrifying willingness to sacrifice individuals for the greater good doesn’t mean she’s incapable of mercy; see also her striving in ADWD to keep young Devan Seaworth alive for his father Davos’ sake, despite his attempt on her life
  • It’s a glimpse behind the ruby red curtain at the person inside: Melony, of Lot Seven. She gives her would-be killer a chance to spare himself, and far from cackling with satanic glee as he dies, she meets his gaze with pity
  • This makes Melisandre more complicated and humanized than she’s often presented...but I don’t mean to suggest it exonerates her
  • She justifies every brutal action with her Manichean worldview--everything is black and white, night and day, love and hate, ice and fire
  • But the very fact that she can empathize with and show mercy to an enemy of R’hllor trying to strike her down (surely a servant of the Great Other, by definition!) ought to demonstrate that such a worldview is dangerously limited
  • The insistence that light cannot make common cause with darkness ignores Davos’ vital point that people are onions, made of both
  • This unrealistic binary intersects dangerously with Stannis’ own blind spots--neither of them can forgive deviations from the divinely ordained order, even as part of them senses the essential inhumanity of that decision. The king and the sorceress are scarier together than they ever could’ve been apart
  • Sadly, Melisandre doesn’t heed her own humanity, and people will burn for it. 

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

The strangler returns for the Purple Wedding, but this time it’s deployed successfully against Joffrey, a great example of using the same plot device to produce two different outcomes.

The fool’s crown ringing its sad little bells, however, puts me more in mind of the Red Wedding...and “The Bells,” of course. Turns out there might be foreshadowing for this all over!

“Before she’s done we’re all like to see what Patchface saw, I fear—the bottom of the sea.” Oh Davos, if you only knew…

Theory/Discussion

So, as we all know, Stannis got the happiest of all endings on the show! What does that entail for his character (and Shireen’s) in the books? What will be the same, what will be different, why do we call ourselves Stannis fans after Season 5 Episode 9 exposed him as the villain David Benioff and Dan Weiss knew him to be all along?

Jeff talks watching Season 5 Episode 9 as someone who didn’t believe it

At Con SanJose held in 2002, George was asked:

So what's Stannis going to do when Mel decides to sacrifice Shireen? (Now, that actually startled him a bit. He said, well, yes, it is the blood of a king. Then he just handed me the bowl of cheese doodles. I'm not sure if that meant anything at all...)

So, being me, I assume that this was indicating that Melisandre would sacrifice Shireen without Stannis’ knowledge. Silly, silly me. But boy oh boy, do I remember my anger when S05E09 aired. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! Stannis would NEVER sacrifice Shireen! Didn’t D&D read the Theon sample chapter from TWOW where Stannis tells Massey that if he dies that Massey is supposed to seat Shireen onto the Iron Throne!? And Shireen is still back at Castle Black while Stannis is three days ride from Winterfell. Impossible! Outrageous!

I remember being a big dodo, tweeting about it back in 2015 in ways that fill me now with a Catholic sense of shame and regret. Now, IN MY DEFENSE, I do think the sheer horror of watching a child burn at the stake was having an emotional impact on me. 

So #TheDiscourse got heated in 2015. Lots of people were shouting about how Stannis could never do this. That D&D hate Stannis, they misunderstood his character (which, a bit true lol), etc.

It was only when I was watching Elio Garcia Jr and Linda Antonsson’s video after the fact and watching the Radio Westeros and History of Westeros recap of “The Dance of the Dragons” that it began to dawn on me that I might be wrong. Then, I started doing a closer read of some of Davos’ chapters in ASOS. Personal story: But back around that time, mutual friend and guest of the podcast Eliana was doing a bookclub of ASOS down in DC over brunch with friends. And I happened to get down there for their book-club of ASOS, Davos IV, and it really hit me that all the build-up and groundwork George put especially in ASOS that finally convinced me.

Emmett talks watching Season 5 Episode 9 as someone who did

“It was one of those moments where I remember looking at Dan and [thinking] that’s so horrible and so good in a story sense,” Benioff said. “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 of king’s blood, and the power of king’s blood, and it all leads ultimately, fatally, to Shireen’s sacrifice, and it’s one of the most horrible moments we’ve shot … It’s obviously the hardest choice he’s ever made in his life and for Stannis it comes down to ambition versus familial love and for Stannis and for Stannis sadly that choice is ambition.”

“People who watch Game of Thrones don’t see the same world as Stannis and Melisandre,” Weiss said.“To those characters, magic is real and it works. That’s something fun about this genre because when magic is real and you can see it with your own eyes in the show, it gives you a window into the heads of people who believe irrational things on faith. I can’t really get my head around how those people operate in our world, as they’re so completely disconnected from the way I process the world. So in a strange way, fantasy is a cock-eyed window into the heads of people who would do something terrible for an irrational reason.” 

For me, these quotes demonstrate an understanding of the structural logic involved in Stannis burning Shireen, yet also a misreading of the meaning of that moment. I think the showrunners (like a lot of people) view Stannis and Melisandre purely through the lens of modern skepticism of religious claims. But given that Stannis starts the story in the books as an out-and-proud atheist and is only a partial convert as late as ADWD (“pray harder”), I think the most accurate lens through which to look at this moment is as an ethical struggle between the most obviously good end (save the world) and the most obviously bad means (sacrificing your kid). And while we of course are meant to flinch away from such an act, I don’t think GRRM is approaching it as an act of pure irrationality, but one driven by a horribly seductive logic that could plausibly claim someone who is “in spite of everything a righteous man.” 

• Evidence in ACOK
  • Shireen’s dragon dream
    • "I had bad dreams," Shireen told him. "About the dragons. They were coming to eat me."
    • Bran dreams of the gargoyles coming loose from Winterfell to prey on him
    • Teora Toland has a similar dream in TWOW Arianne I
    • It strikes me that Shireen is a descendant of Aegon V Targaryen and that dragon dreams play a major role in George’s 1998 The Hedge Knight novella
  • The death of Renly
    • "He will not do it," said Davos. "He could not harm his own blood."

"Lord Renly will be glad to hear this."

• The legend of Azor Ahai and Nissa Nissa
  • “Great was his woe and great was his sorrow then, for he knew what he must do.
    
    A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. 'Nissa Nissa,' he said to her, for that was her name, 'bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.' She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.
    
    Now do you see my meaning? Be glad that it is just a burnt sword that His Grace pulled from that fire. Too much light can hurt the eyes, my friend, and fire burns."
• Evidence in ASOS
  • Melisandre’s case for sacrificing Edric Storm
    • “Your brother’s blood … A king's blood. Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon."
    • "He is only one baseborn boy, against all the boys of Westeros, and all the girls as well. Against all the children that might ever be born, in all the kingdoms of the world."
    • “Azor Ahai tempered Lightbringer with the heart's blood of his own beloved wife. If a man with a thousand cows gives one to god, that is nothing. But a man who offers the only cow he owns . . ."
  • Stannis being gradually convinced by that argument
    • “He may be the best boy who ever drew breath and it would not matter. My duty is to the realm." His hand swept across the Painted Table. "How many boys dwell in Westeros? How many girls? How many men, how many women? The darkness will devour them all, she says. The night that never ends. She talks of prophecies...a hero reborn in the sea, living dragons hatched from dead stone...she speaks of signs and swears they point to me. I never asked for this, no more than I asked to be king. Yet dare I disregard her?" He ground his teeth. "We do not choose our destinies. Yet we must...we must do our duty, no? Great or small, we must do our duty.”
    • “If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark... Sacrifice...is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice.”
  • Stannis allows Melisandre to burn Lord Alester Florent for treason, yes, but Melisandre has a different interpretation on why they burned Alester:
    
    Melisandre had given Alester Florent to her god on Dragonstone, to conjure up the wind that bore them north. Lord Florent had been strong and silent as the queen's men bound him to the post, as dignified as any half-naked man could hope to be, but as the flames licked up his legs he had begun to scream, and his screams had blown them all the way to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, if the red woman could be believed. (ADWD, Davos I)
  • Alester is related to Stannis by marriage, again setting the groundwork for Stannis’ willingness to “kinslay” even if Stannis and Alester are only related by marriage.
    • So, it’s Renly (his brother), Edric Storm (his nephew) and Alester Florent (His uncle-in-law) that Stannis kills, tries to burn or actually burns.
  • The legend of Night’s King
    • He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.
      
      He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.
• Evidence in ADWD/Theon TWOW chapter
  • “I will have no burnings. Pray harder.” vs. Stannis burning the Peasebury men for cannibalism.
  • Stannis wants to burn Theon
    
    "Unchain me, and I will serve you."
    
    "As you served Roose Bolton and Robb Stark?" Stannis snorted. "I think not. We have a warmer end in mind for you, turncloak. But not until we're done with you.”
• The coming showdown in the north
  • Battle of Ice (reference our Night Lamp episode)
  • Rejection by the north in favor of Jon (or Sansa, Rickon, etc)
  • Climax at the Nightfort (?)
• The role of the counselors in TWOW
  • Theory: Davos hears about the Golden Company seizing his home land and taking his family hostage and sails to them.
    • From ACOK onwards, Davos has been setup to feel immense guilt over his abandonment of his family.
    • Just prior to being freed from the Wolf’s Den in ADWD, he sends a letter telling his wife Marya how sorry he was for not being a better father and husband.
    • Will him learning that Marya and his surviving kids are in danger in the Stormlands lead him to choose “blood over honor” — the same decision that Stannis made in choosing Robert over Aerys?
    • And if Davos isn’t present with Stannis, who will speak for Shireen when Melisandre presents her choice?
  • Theory: Melisandre will have a crisis of faith where she’ll believe that R’hllor has abandoned her given that Stannis and Jon are both “dead.” (Somewhat similar to Melisandre in S06 in theme if not exact beat for beat in terms of plot)
    • Her faith will be restored by learning that Stannis is alive and Jon’s resurrection
    • Now restored in her faith in R’hllor and his fiery power, who’s to doubt that her belief that kingsblood can raise stone dragons?
    • But Winterfell isn’t the traditional home of the Targaryens or dragons. So, why would it matter if Melisandre’s faith is restored?
    • Because there are probably dragon eggs in Winterfell as Mushroom recounts that Vermax laid a clutch of dragon eggs in Winterfell.
  • Davos potentially gone, Melisandre reviving her faith in R’hllor and the plot clues George has laid are all well and good. They’re also things we’ve covered in previous regular and patreon episodes.
  • So, it’s vital that we turn instead to the narrative and thematic reasons why Stannis would do this.
• How do we look at Stannis’ arc in light of its endpoint?
  • On the one hand, the murder of a child is the Big No of ASOIAF
  • And for good reason--Stannis sacrificing Shireen is a betrayal of their mutual love and his duty to protect the weak and helpless, especially within his own family
  • On the other hand, George has presented scenarios in which the killing of a child is arguably the least bad option--see Jaime and Bran, for example
  • I get the argument that Stannis burning Shireen is the resolution of the hero v. villain question, coming down definitively on the latter side
  • But looking at the groundwork above, from “too much light can hurt the eyes” to “great or small, we must do our duty,” I see a different conclusion emerging
  • Instead, it’s about the road to hell being paved with good intentions, as the desire to become the hero transforms you into the villain
  • The Warrior of Light becomes the servant of darkness; Azor Ahai becomes Night’s King. It’s both, from start to finish. It will always be both.
  • Over the course of the series, Stannis undergoes a revitalization and corruption arc at the same time, as his ends improve and his means get worse
  • That’s what makes him such an insidious cautionary tale for Jon and Dany
  • How easy is it to become that which you’re fighting, your moments of apotheosis backsliding into despair and annihilation, just as we saw in Season 8? 
  • The problem with Stannis on the show is that they never invested in the apotheosis in the first place, flattening his arc and deflating its end
  • Ultimately, as I always say about Stannis: the metaphor of the fiery heart does not work if you don’t have a heart to cast into the fire in the first place
    • “There must have been a time, in the beginning, when we could have said – no. But somehow we missed it. Oh well, we'll know better next time.” 

Conclusion

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• Joining our small counselors in helping bring this episode to you all are our High Lords and Ladies:
  • Lord of the Squishers and Warden of the Deep
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• Join us next week for Arya’s first chapter in ACOK...and also her second and third! While her early chapters in the book certainly aren’t bad, they are short and kinda repetitive; if we did individual episodes on each one, we’d be out of things to say by the third. So we’re gonna do what we haven’t since Sansa I and Eddard III of AGOT, and combine them into a single episode. Hope you enjoy!