Stannis Baratheon

Stannis is the elder brother passed over for the crown he believes is rightfully his. Rigid, humorless, and consumed by a joyless sense of justice, he leads a small, embattled court on Dragonstone, weighing counsel from a red priestess and a disgraced smuggler alike as he prepares to press his claim by force.

Dillane plays him as a man allergic to charm, and that's the joke and the tragedy at once — Stannis says exactly what he means, refuses easy warmth, and yet earns a strange respect for never pretending to be other than he is. The writing lets his rigidity become its own kind of integrity, and Dillane's flat, exacting delivery makes every rare crack in it land hard.