8 Shocking Game Of Thrones Scenes That Could Change TV Forever

3. Stannis Kills His Daughter

Traditional storytelling on mainstream film or television has a fairly strict code that it adheres to. The good guy might suffer a crisis of identity, or act like a dick for a bit, but he never, ever burns his daughter alive to appease the Gods. Since first appearing on the show in Season 2, Stannis has become a sort of Game of Thrones anti-hero: hard-boiled and misanthropic, tortured but ultimately one of the 'good guys'. That's a mistake we made though; we confused honour or a seemingly predictable set of behaviour patterns with goodness. In actuality there is no good or bad in Game of Thrones. An anti-hero such as Stannis can do good things or bad things, can move backwards or forwards, but he is not innately one quality or the other. Game of Thrones is changing the way we view character. It is doing so by returning to the mythology of Ancient Greece, with petty Gods and problems encountered which are difficult for modern audiences to empathise with. To most viewers Stannis committed the ultimate crime when he killed his daughter, but the story emulates the story of Agamemnon which has existed for millenia - in other words its not new, it's just unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory for TV.