George R.R. Martin just made a big revelation about a character in one of his books that may play a part in Game of Thrones as well…
If you’re reading beyond this sentence, you’ve seen Game of Thrones season 5 or at least read George R.R. Martin’s book A Dance with Dragons or you just don’t give a damn about spoilers because here we go….
Recently on Martin’s personal blog, he was asked about the fate of a certain character and whether or not they are actually dead.
Nope, it’s not Jon Snow he’s talking about so let the sadness wash over you right now about that one.
No instead, Martin addressed whether or not Stannis Baratheon is actually still alive or dead when it comes to his novels, which are the source material for Game of Thrones.
“In my books? Alive, beyond a doubt,” Martin wrote on his website.
Now the comment is specific to the books so it might not have any bearing whatsoever to Game of Thrones and what lies ahead for season 6. At the end of season 5, Stannis’ army was soundly defeated while trying to attack Winterfell to get rid of House Bolton after half his troops abandoned ship when he burned his daughter alive as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light.
At the tail end of the episode, Stannis is laying wounded on the ground when he comes face to face with Brienne of Tarth, who carries out the sentence for the murder of his brother Renly Baratheon back in season 2. The only problem is with the TV show, we saw Brienne raise and swing her sword, but we never saw Stannis actually get chopped in half.
When it comes to the books, Stannis is also leading his army to Winterfell to battle the Boltons except this time he’s stuck in a massive snow storm that slows down his travel and Ramsay Bolton later sends a letter to Jon Snow claiming the Lord of Dragonstone has been killed. Martin’s comment basically confirms what a lot of readers already suspected that Ramsay is a liar.
Whether any of this actually impacts the TV show remains to be seen.
Game of Thrones show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have stated numerous times that they plan to veer off course from Martin’s source material where it makes sense for the series and Stannis’ death may be one of those fork in the road moments where they go left while the books go right.
Either way it appears Martin will pick up Stannis’ march on Winterfell when the sixth book The Winds of Winter finally comes out in 2016.
