Game of Thrones producers discuss Stannis’ horrific choice

Every week, it seems like something even more terrible happens on Game of Thrones than happened the week before. But even though the show has been telegraphing this particular plot twist all season, it still wasn’t easy to watch Stannis sacrifice Shireen so his army could march forward. Once again, the headlines ask if the show went too far this time. It feels almost cliche at this point—how far is too far? Is burning an innocent girl to death at the stake in hopes that it will appease the Red God and create a snow melt too far?

As always, Entertainment Weekly is there with a morning-after interview with the producers. Dan Weiss explained that Shireen’s death scene was all about the religious fanaticism that had gripped her parents. Though Selyse had, up until last night, been the one who seemed rigid to the point of blindness, this is a reminder that her husband is just as terrible. After all, Stannis “has been burning people at the stake since Season 2,” and yet there are people out there who cheered on “Stannis the Mannis.”

“It’s like a two-tiered system…If a superhero knocks over a building and there are 5,000 people in the building that we can presume are now dead, does it matter? Because they’re not people we know. But if one dog we like gets run over by a car, it’s the worst thing we’ve we’ve ever seen. I totally understand where that visceral reaction comes from. I have that same reaction. There’s also something shitty about that. So instead of saying, ‘How could you do this to somebody you know and care about?’ maybe when it’s happening to somebody we don’t know so well, maybe then it should hit us all a bit harder.” 

Ouch. Weiss also reminds us that when it comes to magic and religion, these characters don’ t live in the same world we do. They truly believe in magic and sacrifices to gods—and after all, we’ve seen that Melisandre’s magic, however whack it is at times, does actually work.

“That’s something fun about this genre because when magic is real and you can see it with your own eyes in the show, it gives you a window into the heads of people who believe irrational things on faith. I can’t really get my head around how those people operate in our world, as they’re so completely disconnected from the way I process the world. So in a strange way, fantasy is a cock-eyed window into the heads of people who would do something terrible for an irrational reason.” 

And make no mistake, Stannis is acting irrationally. He thinks he’s been appointed and anointed as a hero reborn, and that his path is the righteous one, and everything he does is for the greater good of the realm. But take a look at his face as he listens to the screams of his little girl, the one he moved heaven and earth for to save once, as she dies.

In the scene just prior to her death, Shireen is telling Stannis all about her history book, The Dance of Dragons, and how the civil war between Targaryens diminished them to the point where they never really recovered. So to has Stannis diminished this week, not only in the eyes of the viewers, but in the eyes of his men, and his wife, and when he returns, in the eyes of Davos, the man who has always been so faithful to him. And though he may get his thaw, and (hopefully) crush Ramsay Bolton into smithereens, the likelihood of his ultimate destination moves ever farther out of his reach, as he sacrifices the parts of his soul that really mattered in order to get there. He will never really recover.

• Published on 06/09/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT
• Last updated on 06/09/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT