I recently watched the entirety of Game of Thrones, and while I think it's a fantastic show, season 5 was a somewhat slow (though still overall good) season, with a disappointing finale, especially in regards to the way Stannis Baratheon's story was wrapped up. That brings me to my question.
Did Stannis have any sort of impact on the world of GoT besides serving as a way for Melisandre to be in the right place at the right time to revive Jon Snow? There was so much time devoted to him on the show, all for his story to end in a rather dismal and seemingly rushed way. I get that he was the reason Mance Rayder died, but I'm not sure a whole lot would have changed if that hadn't happened. Did Stannis actually have any significance to the realm or was his story just a dramatic but dead end arc?
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If you hadn't noticed by that point, George RR Martin likes to subvert expectations and end storylines without wrapping them up necessarily, as real life would do.