He sent out word, brought in all the Maesters and healers he could find, and they managed to stop the greyscale's spread and save Shireen's life. People told Stannis to send Shireen to the ruins of Valyria to live with the stone-men.īut Stannis would hear nothing of it.
Greyscale is a bit like the Game of Thrones version of leprosy, I suppose. Everyone said she was going to die, or struggle on for a while before dying a horrible death. Shireen would nuzzle the doll with her cheek as a baby, Stannis tells her, and by the time they realized this is where the greyscale came from and burned the doll (I think there's significance here with the burning of the doll, and later all the burning of men Stannis partakes in) it was too late. A Dornish trader sold him a doll just after Shireen was born-a little wooden doll with a dress sewn in the colors of House Baratheon. Stannis rises from his desk, and tells the story of how Shireen got greyscale, the disease that mutilated half of her face. Then Shireen asks her father if he's ashamed of her. "She shouldn't have said that," Stannis says, his protective heckles rising. "Because she told me 'I don't want you to come,'" Shireen replies. Shireen admits that her mother, the nutty Selyse, didn't want her to come. This banter gives way to a much more serious conversation. "Were you bored a lot, too?" she quips back. "My father always said boredom was a sign of a lack of inner resources," Stannis chides her.
When his daughter, Shireen Baratheon, comes into his study at Castle Black, she tells him she's bored. It appears we're rebalancing a bit now, with Stannis as a much nobler and more likable figure. The show has always presented him as colder and more cruel than I found him in the books. Stannis is actually given one of the finest scenes in the entire episode, a scene that justifies my deep admiration for his character and helps chisel away some of his stony exterior and expose an actual human underneath. Watch: Jon Snow Crashes Seth Myers' Dinner Party.That's quite the juxtaposition of back-story and commentary, if you ask me. "Perhaps," Stannis replies, "but that was never Ned Stark's way." Selyse reminds Stannis that he's just a bastard from some wench Ned Stark bedded in the war. Not by accident, we also have a scene at the Wall where Stannis and his wife, Selyse, observe Jon Snow training in the yard. Now we see that Rhaegar was a noble, kind, and well-loved prince-a far cry from his father, and likely a much better man than Robert. Robert was a man of great appetites and poor judgment. We remember Robert not as some valiant knight or great king, but as a whoring, fat, careless, wretched king who mistreated his queen and left bastards all over King's Landing. Ultimately, Robert killed Rhaegar, and up to this point we assume that this was a just action, that Robert was off rescuing his beloved, toppling the evil Mad King and his kidnapping, rapist prince. It wasn't Ned Stark losing both his father and brother to the Mad King's cruelty, though that certainly helped motivate the young Lord Stark to help his friend. The important thing to recall here is that it was Rhaegar's "abduction" of Lyanna that sparked Robert's rebellion. Rhaegar was also a musician, and something of a roguish character. Once more we're given the portrait of a good man, but not just a talented knight. He tells of how the two of them would go out and pan-handle, using the money they'd earn to give to charity, or get drunk. He hated killing people, but he loved playing music. He was great at killing people, Dany says-but again, Barristan corrects her. Her eldest brother, Rhaegar, on the other hand was a great man. Her father was the Mad King not just in name, but in deed. He brings up the Mad King and Dany responds with the lies of her brother, Viserys, saying she won't believe the lies of the Usurper. Far off in Meereen, Barristan himself begins to talk to Dany about her family. Just as the show begins to stray into uncharted territory, we start to see the most important pieces from Martin's books finally clicking together.īut this isn't the only moment we hear about the prince.
For book readers, holy crap we finally have this enormously important piece of back-story introduced to the show. For non-book-readers this is seriously important back-story.
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