Stannis has been burning people alive for seasons, including people in his extended family. To claim that it’s not established in this world because Shireen’s exact situation hasn’t come up is ridiculous. If that’s the case then literally nothing is established prior to that exact situation occurring.
What about the unmotivated close up of Dany holding Missandei’s hand after that? I still think there’s something to it, we’ll see…
Exactly. This is precisely what the outraged posters are (apparently) unable to see as being any different from a commander’s meting out of punishment to soldiers for failure to obey orders, or to disloyal relatives/allies/attendants.
I’m mystified by this blindness to a distinction that would certainly not be lost on the story characters.
See, I look at it differently. Stannis has been doing his thing and they are still starving and gonna die real soon. I think the murder of his daughter would be looked upon as a desperate move. If any of the mercenaries follow a different god then they’d be very skeptical. I think realistically they’d start looking for ways to mutiny and get the hell out.
The difference being that Jesus went willingly. That’s a pretty big difference.
I still fail to understand why you place so much importance on what Stannis soldiers think. He certainly doesn’t, that has been made extremely obvious.
Clearly there’s a difference. There’s a different between burning your child and literally everything else. That fact makes your complaint that it wasn’t set up ridiculous since, apparently, there’s literally nothing that could set that up.
I think it was just to show that she knew they were doomed and she was trying to offer comfort to Missandei. I don’t think she was knowingly calling Drogon but she probably prayed and ended up summoning him. I think that also served to wake up her dragon training abilities. She longer showed any fear when approaching him. I hope this means she lets the other ones out of the dungeon. Also, even though I knew he’d show up I was so happy to see that dragon. I think that Tyrion and the rest will manage to get away because Drogon did take out quite a lot of the Sons of the Harpy and they still have some fighters on their side.
Regarding Shireen, I think she sealed her doom when she said she wanted to help her father. Stannis may have been on the fence but when she said that it was like “okay, she’s cool with it.” The most shocking thing about that whole scene is that her previously uncaring mother suddenly became maternal. She’s probably going to go way off the deep end now, not just fetuses in a jar crazy but whether she will just harm herself or try to take out Melisandre and/or Stannis remains to be seen.
I think the magic will work so Stannis will convince himself he did the right thing but the guilt will eat away at Selyse. Davos will be horrified, of course, chances are he won’t make it back before they move on to Winterfell, but I he will probably continue to follow Stannis but end up hesitating, betraying or abandoning him at the most inopportune moment. As for the men, I think I agree with the assessment that although they were uncomfortable with the idea, they were desperate and were told the sacrifice would save them, now if it doesn’t work there would be a chance they’d eventually turn against Stannis but I think it will work out and they will be more accepting of what happened.
Sure that’s different. I think all other things being equal, most human beings in most societies would think that burning your innocent child is worse than lots of other people you could burn.
But what you are ignoring (repeatedly) is all the other factors that work against your argument, most particularly the absolutely desperate situation Stannis’s army finds itself in. Yeah it sucks when your commander burns his daughter alive. But you know what sucks a lot more? When you’re starving to death and stuck in a blizzard and are about to die.
Does anyone get the feeling that Melisandre has a different agenda than just advancing the message of the Lord of Light? Who does she ultimately report to? I’m sure Stannis must have been satisfied with her story before he allowed her to be his chief advisor, but we weren’t privy to how they met and how she gained access. Also, was Selyse already into the cult before Mel got there, or did she simply get converted faster due to her child-bearing issues?
I honestly think it show Stannis as being more ethical. He led those men out here, and now he’s going to let them all die - horribly- or make a huge personal sacrifice. And of course- His wife, his daughter and Stannis himself will likely all perish too. Or perhaps the Boltons might capture his family…
I think Melisandre is Fred Phelps. She honestly thinks she’s doing the right thing. She believes no else sees the truth and they’re the ones that are deluded. That’s why she is so frightening. Stannis, fool that he is, at least tries to look at the situation, he’s simply not smart enough. Melisandre just knows, she never questions or thinks.
ETA: I don’t think Stannis is ethical at all, he’s the flip side of Eddard Stark. Holding rigidly to his code because he thinks it’s right. Ignoring the burning house of reality all around. When the contest is you against the world, bet on the world.
You mean the Eddard Stark who beheaded a man of the night’s watch who was the sole survivor of a wight attack, and claimed he was trying to warn the North of the danger? The attitude was, “You might be right, and you might be doing us all a service. And yeah, that attack must have been horrible and traumatic. However, rules are rules. Now bend over and let me hack your head off.”
Even the good people in this world follow a code of ethics that leads them to doing horrible things sometimes.
And those who think the soldiers would revolt over the burning of a child, I don’t think you get just how horrible life was for foot soldiers in pre-industrial armies. Most of them died of sickness, starvation, or froze to death. Those that made it into battle died in the most horrible ways. And yet, in general armies stayed loyal to their commanders - in part because retribution for any signs of treason was swift and horrific. Napoleon led almost 500,000 men on his march to Moscow, and only about 10,000 made it back alive. Most starved or froze to death, just like what’s happening to Stannis’ army, but there was no treason.
You are also looking at this through the lens of a person living in a rather soft society, and one in which the lives of children are held as sacred. But centuries ago children could be worked to death in mines. Children were sent down chimneys to clean them. People had many children because many children died, and because they became pretty much your slave labor once they reached an age where they could be useful. Girls Shireen’s age were married off for money, sold into slavery, placed into forced marriages for the purpose of clan bonding or as bargaining chips, etc.
I think the soldiers reacted exactly the way they would have in that world. Some were horrified, some were fascinated, probably more than a few were thinking, “Damn, that’s harsh. But I hope it works.” But mutiny over a moral issue like this? Not a chance.
Now, if Stannis refuses to pay them, you might see a different result.
Passing on the infection from Jorah.
No. Not going to happen in any way, shape or form. There is no conceivable way that Jorah would have knowingly touched Dany’s hand if the infection spread that way.
It is purely a symbolic camera shot.
I’m not sure where you got any of this, it certainly was neither in the show or the book. The guy went crazy and ran off, he tried to warn nobody, he simply deserted the nights watch and headed south. You can argue that he had good reason to go crazy and desert after seeing what he saw but Ned did not behead a man valiantly trying to do his duty.
Nope. As I said before… actually here, best explained in pictures:
Right hand (both wrists covered up by bracers
Unless he’s been scratching himself a lot, there’s no way. As we’ve explained there are very logical explanations for both shots that have nothing to do with greyscale, but it’s understandable that some viewers may have been misled.
The deserter from the Night’s Watch never said anything in his defense that I recall. Ned never knew anything about the White Walkers.
Aside from that, I didn’t mean to suggest that Ned and Stannis are opposites. Their codes are the same Stannis is just harsher than Ned and doesn’t take extenuating circumstances into account. Neither realize, however, that holding to a code that no one else does, does not make you better. It just constrains you while soothing your conscience or stroking your ego.
If you’re doing horrible things for your Code then your Code is not ethical. Burning one little girl to save thousands of other people my seem like logic but it implies that that little girls live is less important anyone else’s. His little girl.
If I, personally, I would never (hopefully) do such a thing, ethics be damned. Right or wrong, I’d burn the world before my child. Let the rest of the world fight for their own lives and if humanity loses… well we had our chance.
The deserter does tell Ned that he saw the White Walkers, but he absolutely didn’t go to warn anybody. He crazily mumbled about the White Walkers after getting caught. Something that almost everyone thinks was just a fairy tale.
It’d be like Bowe Bergdahl saying he deserted because his squadmates were werewolves.
Of course, by any reasonable ethical standard, choosing to kill billions instead of one is insanely comically evil.
What makes these questions interesting is that it’s almost never really fully clear. You don’t have two buttons to press, one which will instantly kill your own daughter, and one which will instantly kill billions of strangers, and you are being forced in some irresistible fashion to press one of them.
Stannis has to either take an action that is guaranteed to kill his own daughter in a painful fashion, but which he has good reason to believe will save the lives of the rest of his army and allow him to continue to wage his war to become king, which (a) is his right, and (b) will then, he has good reason to believe, let him save the world; OR, do nothing, in which case it’s very likely, barring some OTHER miracle, that he will die, and his soldiers will die, and his daughter will die, and then because he hasn’t become king, the forces of evil will sweep over the world.
Can you confidently and clearly state that the choice he made was the wrong one? And SO MUCH the wrong one that making it made him a horribly unforgivable monster?
(It’s worth pointing out here that Stannis has believed for years that king’s blood has great magical powers, and that his daughter had king’s blood. If he was so selfishly power-hungry that the only thing that he cared about was his own success, he could sacrificed her years ago, but he never even considered it.)
One little girls life is less important everyone else’s. Everyone dies if she doesnt die, and she dies anyway.