Wait, yes, it is a phrase, but it doesn't mean the same thing as "clear cut."

I think it's probably more that he's going to do it as some sort of anti-Other measure. Perhaps to raise the dragon sleeping under Winterfell?

No, "clean cut" is not an actual phrase.

It's his pragmatism that makes him do this. If something doesn't change, he and his whole army will starve to death in the woods outside Winterfell. He has the choice between saving Shireen (by sending her back to Castle Black with Davos) at the expense of his cause, or killing Shireen to save it. He chooses the…

It's not a betrayal of Stannis's character development. This *is* Stannis's character development! He is progressively selling his soul, and has been since the first time we met him.

He burned Alester Florent, who certainly did not betray him in any unforgivable way.

Trystane is pretty explicitly a spy.

There are no Riverlands or Dragonstone plots in the show. It sounds like they're casting Euron for next season, so we may get an Iron Islands plot, though.

It's the ride we signed up for ever since we saw Bran get thrown from the tower, I'd say.

Benioff explicitly said that Martin told them Shireen's fate, and that's what they based this on. There's this weird tendency on book readers' parts to just take the books as given, but then to complain like hell about even the most mild invented plot elements "going too far," or whatever. This isn't about Benioff and…

Well, Stannis thinks that if he doesn't sacrifice Shireen, they're all going to starve to death.

"Jaime," she said, tugging on his ear, "sweetling, I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna's breast. You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there's some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak . . . but Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you."

What storylines? I hope they spend as little time as possible on Dorne going forward, because it's already basically a total waste of space (though an occasionally interesting one, I guess) in the books, and is much worse on the show.

People keep on saying this, but it's been pretty clearly set up, and not just in the show.

I'd be very interested to see if that is even close to being true. My guess is "no."

The show does not have the same opportunity or world-building that the books have. The sooner you put away expectations of lots of plotless world-building, the more you will enjoy the show.

How was there "no fucking reason" to kill Shireen? There was very clearly a reason.

Are we talking show or books? Because in the books, it looks like the Martells are going to back Aegon, and that Dany will have to fight him and them.

It's about saving the world from ice zombies, not the Iron Throne. Stannis wouldn't have killed his own daughter just for the Iron Throne.

Well, Johnny and Pete eventually aged into their early 20s (by the 80s, I guess?) and remained deeply immature.