GoT S3: Stannis

[pocochina]

SO I finally caught up on S3 of Game of Thrones! I'm still chewing over what I thought about the season as a whole (obviously it was very good! I'm just still collecting my thoughts) but I wanted to post some thoughts about Stannis, of all characters, that actually started when I finished ADwD a few months ago. There are a few paragraphs of book

Comments

[kdbleu]

All of this sounds like a big "aha!" against the character, but tbqh, it makes me like Stannis quite a lot.

whew... because you were really making me understand why Stannis is appealing. Stannis and Melisandre were really hard for me for a long time, why and how they fit into the larger picture. YAY!

[pocochina]

whew... because you were really making me understand why Stannis is appealing.

Excellent, because that was definitely the intention. (Fandom is so weird about this sometimes? "You have demonstrated that this character has complex motivations with consistent psychological logic behind them, YOU HAVE INSULTED THEIR HONOR AND PROBABLY KICK PUPPIES! I SAID GOOD DAY!")

But yeah, Stannis and Melisandre are pretty great on their own, and I think they serve a lot of narrative purposes I didn't get into here. Stannis, and Renly, flesh Robert out as a character and show what his real strengths were as well as what he was missing in terms of strength of conviction and stability (Stannis) and a more progressive, expansive vision of a politics of spring and peace (Renly). There were a lot of reasons things went to hell that weren't on Robert, but a few that were. And I think they make us understand R'hllorism generally, therefore giving us something against which to compare the Faith, and [book spoiler if that's an issue for you?]introduce us to the Azor Ahai myth so it's not, like,

[kdbleu]

It's their separateness that has ended up very interesting because everyone else, save Dany, is in many ways so intwined. And the more I think about it, I like the way Stannis and Melisandre balance the bulk of the Westeros action with Dany wandering in the desert. (I have many conflicted feeling about Dany that I try to keep to myself. *blush*)

I am unbothered by spoilers. It's one of my quirks. In fact, I seek them out occasionally to reveal tension. hee.

I also tended to buck the fandom trends. I like when people make me think about things differently or explain some odd feeling I'm at a loss for. :D

[pocochina]

eh, I have many conflicted feelings about Dany which I have never tried to keep particularly quiet, so no judgment here.

And yeah, I usually tend to err on the side of ducking spoilers, but I think that I'm enjoying Game of Thrones a lot more for having read the books first and having a vague idea when to steel myself for most big violent surprises.

I like when people make me think about things differently or explain some odd feeling I'm at a loss for.

Yes! A huge part of the fun for me is figuring out the stuff that doesn't seem to click at first blush, particularly because that's where I've found most of the best storytelling, and if I can't figure it out then next-best is finding an explanation.

[ever_neutral]

Notably, she doesn't seem to think of herself as exceptional among R'hllor devotees? She thinks "WE are more right than non-believers" quite frequently, but IIRC, her POV doesn't show her status-jockeying among other R'hllorists.
Ooooh, this is a great point. IDK if you've read the last book yet, but that is definitely my read of her too.

lol, and I have very few Stannis thoughts, but I enjoyed reading yours! Melisandre/Stannis is totally where it is at.

[pocochina]

I did read the last book, but it took so long that I didn't really collect any thoughts on it. I liked all the time in Melisandre's POV, though. She's a really good example of Martin's ability to turn tropes inside-out. I'd usually expect her to waltz in once in a while to deliver some cryptic, unreliable exposition. But she's a character in her own right with her own reasons and uncertainties, and I really enjoy her.

I'm so into Melisandre/Stannis, one of my favorite dynamics, we know.

[bellonablack]

THIS is an awesome way to meta Stannis and it clears up a lot of things for me personally so thank you for it.

(and it is a complex narrative that way)

[pocochina]

Glad you liked! He's becoming more and more interesting to me as things unfold.

[pocochina]

I do think his commitment to strictly following blue-and-orange morality well predates R'hilor, we see it when he cuts off Davos's fingers and knights him.

ooooh, I forgot that Davos has been around for longer than Melisandre, but yeah, it definitely shows how Stannis was predisposed to a lot of aspects of R'hllorism even before it presented itself as an option.

I think I'd rather live under his rule than any of the others'. At least with him I'd always know where I stand, and oppressive tyranny does have advantages over the sort of chaos Westros is in now.

That, and I don't think he would be able to set up the kind of infrastructure that he would need if he were going to be an effective oppressive tyrant. Regular people would probably paradoxically be freer, because he wouldn't tolerate the kind of chaotic violence the Targaryens and Lannisters have allowed, but he wouldn't be able to knuckle down on private vice.