When Stannis Baratheon chose to have his daughter burned alive in last night’s Game of Thrones ‘The Dance of Dragons’ episode, fans were inconsolable. Showrunner Dan Weiss believes this only exposes their own hypocrisy however.
Following a dramatic scene in which Shireen realises her fate and her mother has a change of heart but fails to save her from the funeral pyre, EW caught up with Weiss and asked him: “How could you do that to Shireen?”
His reponse was to “flip the question”, and ask why we only care now, when Stannis has been burning people alive since season 2.
“It’s like a two-tiered system,” he said. “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 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.” (x)
So Shireen died… to prove a point. A point that doesn’t make much sense as show! Stannis hadn’t burnt children before. There is a difference, a massive difference, between murdering a child and a grown adult. Yes, I care deeply for Shireen and have an attachment to her that I don’t have for other characters.
But that is my right to have such an attachment. I am under no obligation to have an attachment to every single fictional character. I’m allowed to have favourites. Must I have the exact same emotional response all the time? What gives D&D the right to judge my very human response to an act of sheer evil?
This also implies that fans are absolutely fine with Stannis being okay with the burnings in previous seasons. Most people aren’t, they find it heinous and disgusting. A lot of Stannis fans are critical and aware, its not as if they are okay with everything he does. Burning people alive- just that concept is going to get an emotional reaction of out people
Weiss also holds fans in disdain, labelling the people who watch Game Of Thrones, wishing for the ‘hypocrisy’ to be exposed. How dare we have a problem with a little girl being burnt alive. I don’t watch this show for all the reasons about why I suck as a person.
No one was making them burn Shireen. They decided to. How the showrunners treat their characters- and fans who decide (which is their freaking right) to call them out of their BS- is absolutely disgusting.
frankly this show needs more people calling the writers/producers out on their shit because what the fuck. i don’t understand anything any more.