- Washington Free Beacon - https://freebeacon.com -

'Game of Thrones' Stacks the Deck in Dany's Favor

Spoilers for the ninth episode of the fifth season of Game of Thrones below.

Before we get into the family barbecue that took place this weekend, can we talk about dragons for a second? Yes, that was a thrilling sequence in Meereen's fighting pits—Dany surrounded by her men, including a newly redeemed Jorah, fighting off masked thugs killing the city's elites—and yes, it was a fantastic use of a dragon, who we finally get to see do some damage. But if a dragon can be put in mortal danger by a few insurgents chucking spears at it ... aren't dragons kind of overrated as a tool of war?

Sure, it's not the ideal place for a winged firebreather to have to do battle. I get it. He is surrounded by steep walls and loses the aerial advantage. Still. I couldn't help but think, "Huh, they're not THAT tough." Anyway. Maybe this week's debacle will inspire Dany to surge some dragon fire into the hovels of Meereen.

And that moment at The Wall, with Alliser staring down at Jon Snow, a horde of Wildlings at his back—will the gates open, or no? Has he been betrayed in his absence? Deposed as Lord Commander? Just when you think John and his newfound friends will be left to freeze, the portcullis goes up. Great stuff.

But Stannis. Oh Stannis.

You've been so great this season! Lively, even. Remember when you corrected that one guy's grammar?

We all loved that. And we loved you, when you sat down with your daughter and explained why you wouldn't abandon her despite the fact that she was infected with greyscale. She's a princess of the House Baratheon, goddammit! She's not some leper to be abandoned. She has value!

Just ... not the kind of value we all expected her to have for Stannis.

Granted, we should've seen this coming. After all, Westeros is a terrible place. And when the witch queen told Stannis that he would need the blood of his daughter to obtain the power necessary to take Winterfell, we should've known it wasn't some idle comment. But nothing—nothing, not a single thing, certainly not Sansa's wedding night—on the show thus far has been as horrific as the sight of Stannis' daughter being marched to her doom, her screams echoing through the winter wasteland. It was the most wrenching moment on a show filled with them.

Needless to say, fans are not pleased with this turn of events. I think Forbes' Erik Kain sums up their POV pretty succinctly here:

I won’t mince words: I’m very unhappy with tonight’s episode of Game of Thrones, "The Dance of Dragons." It’s not that it was a bad episode. Quite the contrary. It was thrilling and tragic and intense.

It was also one of the most disturbing, baffling and unnecessary departures from the books we’ve seen yet—and wholly inconsistent with one of the most powerful moments of the season. ...

Killing off Shireen this way absolutely decimates Stannis as a character (the show already ruined Barristan Selmy, and now it’s ruined Stannis, too.) It renders his passionate, moving speech to his daughter meaningless. It makes him not so much a hard-to-like good guy struggling against the villains, but a villain himself and one of the worst we’ve seen. Even the ever-deplorable Cersei would never stoop so low. Even Roose Bolton treats his horrible, sadistic son better than this.

I don't blame Erik for being upset. I was upset! And I'm not going to argue that it was a necessary move, exactly. I will, however, argue that it was a necessary move if you wanted to demonstrate the corrupting influence of powerlust. What does last night's sequence do? It shows us that Stannis wants to rule Westeros no matter the cost. He is no better than the Mad King, laughing as his enemies burn in front of him. I'm not terribly fond of the cliche "the ends never justify the means," because it kind of depends on the ends and the means in question. But the end here is very simple: Stannis believes he deserves the Iron Throne. Not because he'd be a great ruler. Not because he'd bring peace and prosperity to the realm. Not because he believes in improving the lives of those who live under him. He simply wants it. And he'll roast however many daughters it takes to win it.

My larger problem with this bit of writing is that, dramatically, it totally stacks the deck in Dany's favor. Who in the audience would now cheer for anyone else in Westeros over her? The Lannisters? They're an incestuous train wreck. The Starks? They're scattered into the winds. The Baratheons? Headed by a daughter-sacrificing sociopath. The Boltons? lol jk. Littlefinger? He's basically Stannis sans the army. Dany's all we've got left now.

Which means there's a not-negligible chance that she'll do something horrible early next season to turn us against her. Because, as we know, Westeros is a terrible place.