Why I Like Stannis Baratheon

On the most eligible king in Westeros

I was a bit late to the whole Game of Thrones party. As my family was watching the second season, I was catching up with first, closely following along with the insert provided with the DVD showing the various family trees, trying to differentiate the vast amount of characters introduced in those first 10 episodes. What interested me the most was the single golden stag featured on the sheet, used in lieu of the unseen third Baratheon sibling: Stannis. There was talk of him, but never a sighting. That is, until the second season, where he is not only introduced, but so was an entirely new plot thread centered around him. Much like the cast at The Wall or at King’s Landing, there was an entire retinue of characters backing the eldest Bartheon brother. His own team. “Team Stannis”.

Who were these new characters? Apart from the Lord of Dragonstone himself, there’s his ‘Hand of the King’, the loyal Ser Davos Seaworth (who’s missing part of his own), a former smuggler and up until fairly recently, quite illiterate. Then there’s Melisandre, the Red Woman. Quick-to-disrobe, the priestess of R’hllor proved her appeal by giving birth to some sort of shadow monster. And while the other disputed Kings of Westeros have their own legions to back them militarily, Stannis must resort to hiring pirates like the unfaithful Salladhor Saan. Additionally, there’s the his own family: his wife Selyse, a fanatical follower of the Lord of Light, and his daughter Shireen, born with the disease Greyscale, leaving half her face quite grey and quite scaly.

So what is there to like about the guy? He has zero personality, and spends most of his time lurking in his obviously evil sea fortress. Put simply, he’s a misfit, and I like me a good bunch of misfits. While the rightful heir to the Iron Throne may not be the character that I identify with the most (that honor goes to Pod), I still identify with him, as one misfit to another. I can’t help but to root for the guy. After all, he knows when dole out justice and when to dole out mercy. And despite his no-nonsense attitude, he’s not actually ‘evil’ (though a few deviations from the source material seem to make him out to be). He’s the only one that responds to the Night’s Watch’s calls for aid, showing that he truly cares more about the Seven Kingdoms than some of the other disputed kings. He may be pragmatic to a fault, but he’s dutiful. And in the few interactions he has with his family, he shows signs that he genuinely cares for them (though this is most apparent in his scenes with his daughter), even his brother’s illegitimate child, who he still showed reluctance towards sacrificing. And in all honesty, apart from possibly Daenerys, Stannis does indeed have the most solid claim to the Iron Throne. I only have an inkling of what will become of the alleged Prince That Was Promised, but I can only hope that whatever he does will prove him to be more than “a page in someone else’s history book”.