Stannis Baratheon

From A Wiki of Ice and Fire
Revision as of 03:14, 15 May 2008 by Targaryus (talk | contribs) (conforms capitalization of "small council" to the books)
Jump to: navigation, search

Stannis Baratheon is the elder of Robert Baratheon's younger brothers. A brooding, humorless man known for a hard and unyielding sense of justice, he is obsessed with slights real and imagined. After the death of Robert, he styled himself king of the Seven Kingdoms as Robert's heir, though he has difficulty getting support for his claim. He has a cold relationship with his wife, Lady Selyse of House Florent, and they have one daughter, Shireen, a sad little girl bearing a disfigurement from an ailment.

Appearance

Stannis is a large man, like his brothers, with a bald head and a shadow of a beard across his large jaw. He grinds his teeth regularly.

History

Stannis was born around 265 AL. His stubbornnes and determination served him well during Robert's Rebellion, when he successfully held Storm's End against Mace Tyrell's siege. After the war, Robert gave Stannis Dragonstone instead of the wealthier Storm's End. Stannis perceived this as an insult, though Dragonstone is the traditional holding for the king's heir. Robert also made Stannis his Master of Ships on the small council. During the Greyjoy Rebellion, Stannis trapped and destroyed much of Iron Fleet.

After learning of Cersei Lannister's incest and the death of Jon Arryn, Stannis left the small council and returned to Dragonstone. There, with many of his wife's Florent relatives acting as his counselors, he gathered what strength he could. During this time, Selyse fell under the influence of the sorceress Melisandre, who proclaimed Stannis to be Azor Ahai reborn, a messianic figure of the R'hllor faith. When Robert died, Stannis claimed the Iron Throne as Robert's heir, however most of the Baratheon bannermen followed his more charismatic brother when Renly also claimed the throne. Stannis converted to the R'hllor faith, seeking only the power that Melisandre promised would follow, and prepared for war. He rode to treat with Renly, but could not convince him to renounce his claim. That night, Melisandre used her magic to birth a shadow incarnation of Stannis, which assassinated Renly in his tent. Swallowing his sense of justice, Stannis recruited most his brother's treasonous host into his own army and launched an amphibious assault on King's Landing. His forces were defeated at the cusp of victory when Lannister and Tyrell reinforcements unexpectedly arrived, seemingly led by Renly's ghost.

Stannis returned to Dragonstone, his host broken. There, Melisandre urged him to sacrifice Edric Storm to complete a spell that she claimed would raise dragons from stone and grant him more power. Stannis was about to follow through with the ritual when his Hand, Davos Seaworth, smuggled the boy away and urged Stannis to take his remaining forces north to defend the Wall. Stannis agreed, and arrived at the Wall just in time to crush a wildlings assault at the Battle of Castle Black. He stayed at the Wall to negotiate a settlement compromise with the wildlings and offered to legitimize Jon Snow as heir of Winterfell if he would support Stannis's rule. The offer fell through when Jon was selected as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Stannis continues to seek support in the North for another attempt at the throne.

References and Sources

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at House Baratheon.
The list of authors can be seen in the page history of House Baratheon.
As with A Wiki of Ice and Fire, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.