King Stannis I Baratheon

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    The elder of Robert's brothers, Stannis Baratheon is Lord of Dragonstone and Master of Ships on Robert's Small Council. A brooding, humorless man known for a harsh and unyielding sense of justice, he is obsessed with slights real and imagined. His stubbornness and determination are legendary, most famously shown in resisting the Siege of Storm's End under desperate conditions.
    
    Stannis is also a capable naval commander, having trapped and destroyed much of the Iron Fleet during Balon's Rebellion. His wife is Lady Selyse of House Florent, a mighty noble house sworn to Highgarden and to House Tyrell. They have one daughter, Shireen, a small girl of poor health, and bearing a disfigurement from a childhood ailment.
    
    After learning of Cersei's incest and the death of Jon Arryn, Stannis left the king's council and returned to Dragonstone. There, together with many of his wife's kin (Florents) acting as his councillors, he gathered what strength he could, while also falling under the sway of the sorceress Melisandre.  She proclaimed Stannis to be Azor Ahai reborn, a messianic figure of the R'hllor faith.
    
    When Robert died, Stannis claimed the Iron Throne as Robert's heir.  However, most of the Baratheon bannermen followed his more charismatic brother when Renly also claimed the throne, supported by the powerful Tyrell family. Stannis rode to treat with Renly, but could not convince him to renounce his claim. That night, Melisandre used her magic to give birth to a shadow, which assassinated Renly in his tent.  Stannis insists that he was abed and asleep during these events (despite the fact that his army was awake and gearing up for war), and that though he thrashed and cried out in his sleep, he did not wake.
    
    After this fortuitous turn of events, Stannis swallowed his sense of justice and recruited most of his brother's treasonous host into his own army.  House Tyrell declined, however, eventually allying with the Lannisters. After a brief consolidation, Stannis launched an amphibious assault on King's Landing. His forces were defeated at the cusp of victory when Lannister and Tyrell reinforcements unexpectedly arrived, seemingly led by Renly's ghost.
    
    Stannis returned to Dragonstone, his host broken. There, Melisandre urged him to sacrifice Edric Storm to complete a spell for more power. Stannis was about to follow through with the ritual when his counselor, Davos Seaworth, smuggled the boy away and urged Stannis to take his remaining forces north to defend the Wall.
    
    Stannis agreed, and arrived at the Wall just in time to crush a wildling assault at the battle of Castle Black. He stayed at the Wall to negotiate a settlement compromise with the wildlings and offered to legitimize Jon Snow as heir of Winterfell if he would support Stannis's rule. Jon decided to refuse his offer, and was subsequently selected as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Stannis continues to seek support in the North for another attempt at the throne.
    
    Stannis is "notoriously without mercy" and believes strongly in the value of justice (as evidenced by his maiming of smuggler/hero Davos Seaworth). He values the truth, continually elevating Davos for presenting no other virtue, and has confessed grief concerning the death of his brother Renly. Nonetheless, Donal Noye, former blacksmith to House Baratheon, described Stannis as pure iron: brittle, and more likely to break than bend.