Game Of Thrones: 10 Times Fans Totally Overreacted To Book Changes
1. Stannis Burning Shireen
The burning of Shireen from this week's episode was horrifying, and a lot of fans were upset by this moment, but not just for the obvious reasons.
Book fans have been annoyed with the portrayal of Stannis Baratheon for a few seasons now. There's a large portion of readers who love Stannis as a character, and in fact the books definitely do much more to make readers like him than the show does. But in the show, Stannis often appears as a stoic jerk or a puppet of Melisandre.
When Stannis burned his own daughter, these fans took this as the last straw and proof that the showrunners had totally ruined the character. After all, this doesn't happen in the books, with Stannis refusing to sacrifice Shireen and wanting to place her on the Iron Throne if he dies.
At this point, it's time to just accept that show Stannis is a different character than book Stannis, even if that might be kind of disappointing. But also, according to HBO's Inside the Episode, the burning of Shireen was George R.R. Martin's idea, so there's a good chance this same event will happen in the next book.
Fans are right to be pissed at Stannis, but it's a little early to be up in arms at the showrunners for including a scene that the author himself suggested, isn't it?