Stannis Baratheon is the second son of Lord Steffon Baratheon and Lady Cassana Estermont, along with brothers Robert and Renly. He is portrayed as a brooding and humorless man with a harsh but fair sense of duty and justice whose dour demeanor is often off-putting in comparison to his two more charismatic brothers. He is renowned as a skilled and prescient military commander. Although he is initially said to be extremely stubborn and inflexible, in later books he has shown some ability to use diplomacy and deception to achieve his goals.
Background
Stannis was born in 264 AC as the second of the three sons of Steffon Baratheon, the lord paramount of the Stormlands, and Lady Cassana Estermont. A very introverted person, Stannis was constantly overshadowed by his much more masculine and charismatic older brother Robert, and was also outshone socially by the flamboyantly charming younger brother Renly. Donal Noye, a smith of the Night's Watch who used to serve as the house armorer at Storm's End, once describes the three Baratheon brothers as that "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day."
In his youth, Stannis once found an injured goshawk which he nursed back to health and named Proudwing, but the bird never flew higher than the treetops thereafter and was mocked as "Weakwing" by Robert. Stannis was eventually convinced by his great-uncle Harbert to abandon Proudwing and get another hawking bird, a childhood experience that helped shaping his highly secular and pragmatic attitude towards religious faith later in his life.
When Stannis was 14, his lord father Steffon was sent to Volantis by King Aerys II Targaryen to find a bride "of noble birth from an old Valyrian bloodline" for Crown Prince Rhaegar. Steffon, traveling with his wife Cassana, failed to find a suitable bride for Rhaegar, but had found a very talented fool nicknamed "Patchface", whom they thought would entertain and finally teach Stannis to enjoy laughter. However, during their return journey, Steffon and Cassana's ship Windproud was caught in a severe storm in the Shipbreaker Bay and sank within direct view of Storm's End, the only survivor being the fool Patchface, who became insanely eccentric afterwards. Stannis, who was standing with Robert behind the castle's parapets anticipating his parents' return, witnessed his parents' death and was deeply traumatized, subsequently losing all faith and respect in the Seven Gods.
When Robert rebelled against King Aerys in 282 AC, a still-teenaged Stannis was put in charge of holding Storm's End in Robert's absence. Stannis successfully commanded the castle's defense from sieging by loyalist Reach forces under Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne for the best part of the year, although his garrison only survived starvation thanks to the smuggler Davos Seaworth, who evaded the sea blockade by the Redwyne fleet to bring the Baratheon soldiers a shipful of onions and salted fish. When Eddard Stark finally arrived to lift the siege, Stannis knighted Davos as a reward for his aid, but also insists that Davos have four fingertips from his left hand cut off as punishment for his years of illegal smuggling; Davos agreed to accept the punishment on the condition that Stannis personally performs the amputation. Stannis was subsequently tasked with building a new royal fleet to assault and capture Dragonstone, but arrived on the island to find that Aerys' surviving children Viserys and the newborn Daenerys had already fled to Essos.
After Robert was crowned king, he named Stannis Lord of Dragonstone, giving him the islands at the entrance of Blackwater Bay as well as the nearby peninsula of Massey's Hook, citing the fief's strategic importance. However, Stannis feels slighted over this as their younger brother Renly, who has no accolades of significance, is named Lord of Storm's End and given dominion over the entirety of the Stormlands, which Stannis believes to be his rightful inheritance.
Several years later, Stannis married Lady Selyse Florent, but a drunken Robert soiled the wedding by deflowering Selyse's cousin Delena (who later gave birth to a bastard son Edric) on Stannis' wedding bed during the feast, further insulting Stannis. Stannis and Selyse have a single daughter together, Shireen, who nearly dies after contracting greyscale in infancy and has since been left disfigured.
When Balon Greyjoy rebelled against the Iron Throne in 289 AC, Stannis, who is appointed Robert's master of ships, commanded the royal fleet and destroys the Iron Fleet under the command of Victarion Greyjoy at Fair Isle and conquered Great Wyk, the largest of the Iron Islands, adding to his significant military resume.
Just prior to the beginning of the first novel A Game of Thrones, Stannis comes to suspect that Robert's three children with Queen Cersei Lannister, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, are not actually his biological children. He knows that Robert will not believe his word alone, so he reveals his suspicions to Robert's Hand of the King and trusted mentor, Lord Jon Arryn. The two lords the investigate and discover several bastard children fathered by Robert in King's Landing (among them a blacksmith apprentice named Gendry) and begin to gather evidence of the bastardy of Cersei's children. Jon Arryn also agrees to foster his young son and heir, Robert Arryn, at Dragonstone. However, Jon Arryn then dies unexpectedly and Stannis suspects that it is the Lannisters who assassinated Jon Arryn, so he immediately leaves the capital for Dragonstone.
Appearance and personality
Stannis is frequently described as a tall, sinewy and broad-shouldered man who towers over others. Despite being in his mid-30s, Stannis is balding, lacking the long black hair of his brothers, although he keeps a close-cropped beard of the signature Baratheon black. His face is described as "tight like cured leather" with hollow, gaunt cheeks. His has the Baratheon trait of blue eyes, which are described by Asha Greyjoy as "deep, sunken pits" with a powerful stare that suggests an "iron ferocity".
Stannis' most prominent characteristics are his flinty and austere demeanor, unrelenting stubbornness, and powerful sense of duty and justice, the latter of which he is infamous throughout Westeros. He rarely forgives a slight; Jon Snow once comments that "Stannis Baratheon with a grievance was like a mastiff with a bone; he gnawed it down to splinters." His signature tic is grinding his teeth, often in the face of unpleasant or unforeseen circumstances. He is a renowned commander, sailor, and warrior, although he is a better tactician than fighter. Stannis is known for his brusqueness and lack of tact in social situations and finds himself uncomfortable around women, including his own wife Selyse. He abhors brothels and once tried to have them banned from King's Landing, which made him unpopular with the smallfolk there. He dresses plainly in dark clothing and is rarely seen without his sword and dagger. Stannis is plagued with bitterness at the lack of respect and affection he has been shown by his older brother King Robert, and even in childhood was described by the Baratheon family maester as "the most unloved of the three"; a "solemn and joyless" child "mature beyond his years". Stannis is an atheist, despite claims that he is being manipulated by the red priestess Melisandre.
Although Stannis suffers from a lack of support and resources during the War of Five Kings, he is frequently described by his adversaries, including Tywin Lannister, as the most dangerous rival claimant. Above all, he is characterized by his fearless and uncompromising pursuit of justice and duty, as described by Varys: "His claim is the true one; he is known for his prowess as a battle commander, and he is utterly without mercy. There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man."
