#agot dany

[book-daenerys]

George R. R. Martin to Amazon.co.uk: The whole point of the scene in A Game of Thrones where Daenerys hatches the dragons is that she makes the magic up as she goes along; she is someone who really might do anything.

George R. R. Martin in an online Q&A from 1999: The birth of Dany’s dragons was unique, magical, wonderous, a miracle. She is called The Unburnt because she walked into the flames and lived.

George R. R. Martin to Desde Hollywood: Magic is coming more and more to the fore. Magic has awakened when the dragons awoken.

[ai-manre]

Every time I wonder about how Jon is going to come back, I try to picture the manner of his resurrection. I wonder if it's gonna be like the show where he wakes up on a table, which I found rather underwhelming. What I keep coming back to is this vision from AGOT:

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

This is not something we have seen come to fruition yet, and I really like this idea of Jon being reborn in fire because throughout ADWD there's the foreshadowing of kings blood and fire, of melisandre seeing 'kings and dragons' in her fire, of 'waking dragons out of stone'. And I really feel like the line 'he was no true dragon. Fire cannot harm a dragon' has to come back into play atleast once more. Especially when there's a false dragon in the story now, that marker of a true dragon is even more powerful.

[sare11aa11eras]

Daenerys Missandei Irri and Jhiqui!

[Image Description: A full-length drawing of four people, Daenerys Targaryen, Missandei of Naath, and Dany’s two Dothraki handmaidens, Irri and Jhiqui. They are standing progressively farther back from the viewer. Daenerys stands in profile, walking forward, talking to someone. Missandei and Jhiqui have their bodies facing the viewer, Irri is angled slightly to the right side of the drawing. Missandei, Irri, and Jhiqui look at Daenerys. They are standing on a red carpet against a blank background.

Daenerys wears a purple tokar with a gold fringe. She wears her dragon crown, a gold bangle, rings of various materials, a gold vambrace with purple stones, gold earrings with purple stones, and an elaborate necklace with purple stones. From the necklace and the crown dangle long strings of red and black beads. She wears an anklet and leather sandals. A few golden bells can be seen in her hair.

Missandei wears a knee-length light orchid-color dress. It hangs loosely around her. Her dress is trimmed at the hem with purple and blue beads of different lengths. She wears sandals similar to Dany’s. She wears a large V-shaped piece of jewelry similar to a collar around her neck and over her collarbones. It is gold, mostly decorated with purple stones, and a blue butterfly design. Missandei wears earrings with blue butterflies and purple, pink, and yellow stones. She wears a bracelet of alternating pink and yellow stones. Her hair is in braids to pull it away from her face, but is otherwise in an Afro-type style. She holds a tablet and writing utensil in front of her chest. She has an interested expression as she looks up from her writing towards Dany.

Irri wears Dothraki clothes. She wears long trousers, which are blue fabric with a fringed panel of leather along the inside of her leg and groin. She wears leather boots with green, white, and purple painted swirls on them. She wears a dark leather belt around her middle and a belt of gold discs over it. The central gold disc has a green stone. More blue fabric wraps around her chest, either pleated or wrappings. Over this is a painted vest, primarily decorated with blue, green, and white. On her upper arm is an armband with an illustration of a horse galloping in grass. She has leather wrappings on her wrist and opposite upper arm. She wears one visible ring. She wears a leather necklace with a triangular gold pendant and gold triangular earrings. Her hair is in at least three braids, tied off with gold beads. She has bangs. She wears a woven headband of green and blue, with jade stones. Her face is neutral.

Jhiqui also wears Dothraki clothes, although hers do not look practical for riding. Her clothes are primarily fabric of a deep raspberry color. Along the outer side of her trousers is a stripe of leather, fringed at the end, painted with pink and pale purple flowers. On her chest she wears a beaded brooch shaped like a flower, with pink petals and a green “stem”. She wears slippers, in the same material as the rest of her outfit, with a decoration of pink flowers on yellow around the heel. Her vest is laced closed over a green and gold under layer. Her vest is trimmed at the hem with gold discs. Around her middle is a dark leather belt, with a thin belt of gold discs over it. She wears a leather necklace similar to Irri’s, with a circular gold pendant with a garnet stone. Her earrings match this pendant. She wears two rings. Her arm band is gold and garnet. Her hair is worn similarly to Irri’s. She has a bracelet with chips of green jade set in silver on a leather cuff. She has a nose piercing with a gold chain that leads to her earring. She appears to be wearing rouge. She looks mildly interested in whatever is happening. End ID./]

[rynnthefangirl]

I love so much the concept of the dragons being tied to Targaryen women and their fertility. It plays so poignantly into the history of House Targaryen in Westeros. The Targaryens come to Westeros, and in an attempt to consolidate their power, they assimilate into the oppressive social structures of Westeros, sacrificing and devaluing their women to do so. Rhaena, Aerea, Rhaenys, Rhaenyra, Daena, Naerys, Rhaella, and so many more — crushed under the heels of their brothers and fathers and uncles in order to appease the lords of the realm. And in doing so, the Targaryens ironically kill their true source of power. Dragon egg production is high before Dance, as Syrax and her rider Rhaenrya’s fertility flourishes as one. Then Rhaenyra is usurped and killed, and suddenly, no eggs can hatch. It speaks to the general devaluing of women’s labor and contributions, not just in House Targaryen, but in broader Westeros and our own world. It is not the fighting or the conquering or the crown or the Sword or the Iron Throne that forms the weight bearing beams of the House of the Dragon. It is female fertility, labor, childbirth, motherhood. The latter had been exploited for the sake of the former for 300 years, chipping away at that load bearing beam until the House collapses around them, dragons and crowns and thrones and men and women alike.

And the one to bring it all back? A girl. Overlooked and underestimated, her value tied solely to the son she could bear or the army she can be sold to buy. But the true power is intrinsic to her. All the men think themselves the great saviors of their house and their world— with women like Lyanna Stark and Elia Martell being sacrificed at the altar of Targaryen men’s destiny— but it is Daenerys Stormborn, Daughter of Dragons, Bride of Dragons, Mother of Dragons, who succeeds where they all failed.

[westerosiladies]

[a-chaotic-dumbass]

thoroughly convinced that the only way to learn asoiaf geography is playing the crusader kings game of thrones mod

[saessenach]

a little WIP of Daenerys Targaryen in A Game of Thrones

[horizon-verizon]

It’s so embarrassing for Daenerys’ haters that the only Hugo Award GRRM has won for ASOIAF is for his Daenerys centric novellas. The Starks have 6 POV characters and 162 chapters, and yet “the heart of the story” couldn’t win GRRM what Daenerys has. Same for the Lannisters (3 POV characters, 78 chapters) and the Greyjoys (4 POV characters, 26 chapters).

Tee hee. I imagine that Dany's chapters supplied that wonder, heart, tragedy, etc. as well as thrills that other chapters don't have as much. It must be so embarrassing to not see which character pays in GRRM's bills and keep his beard clean.

A lot of people might counter with Dany being the only Targ left and needing the "extra" stuff about her family bc they're all dead, whereas the others' families continue to actively move the narrative forward. Honey, Dany's chapters has some of the most poignant and intense political intrigue of the entire series! Magical, too,, and the magic adds/shapes the story alongside Bran's. In political intrigue, only the Lannisters and Ironborn Greyjoys really are coming close to Dany.

Or that Dany's family were the ruling family and that it'd only make sense to write thema all up bc if you do, you inevitably explain the rest of Westeros...um, we still only got details about non Targ houses when they were connected to Targs intimately! And all really to center her!

Whatever, Dany herself is defined by her intuitive beauty. Haters can die mad.

[linaartsblogsworld]

“All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.”

Because I love Dany so much, I wanted her to be the first after the long break 🥺❤

[daenerys-targaryen]

[book-daenerys]

DAENERYS TARGARYEN + Moon references in her chapters

“A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,” blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire. […] “He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,” the Lysene girl said. “Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.” The two Dothraki girls giggled and laughed. “You are foolish strawhead slave,” Irri said. “Moon is no egg. Moon is god, woman wife of sun. It is known.” “It is known,” Jhiqui agreed. — AGOT, Daenerys III

~

The khal laughed as he swung down off his stallion and showed her the scars on his leg where the hrakkar had raked him through his leggings. “I shall make you a cloak of its skin, moon of my life,” he swore. — AGOT, Daenerys VI

~

As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep. She dreamed. All her cares fell away from her, and all her pains as well, and she seemed to float upward into the sky. She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. — ADWD, Daenerys X

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[llutik]

“He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,’ the Lysene girl said. ‘Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the older moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.”

[maddiesflame]

annie.shr x daenerys targaryen layouts

like/reblog if saved © maddiesflame

[fromtheseventhhell]

It's a fact that Dany's story is riddled with violence against women of color and that she's the perpetrator in several cases, so mentioning her race is actually necessary (Sansa being white has no bearing on her story because again, she never hurt or killed any woc). Besides burning Mirri, r*ping Irri and torturing the wineseller's daughter, she also slaps Eroeh in the face. She looted one city, destroyed another to gain an army of slaves, took over another one for a trial run at ruling and plans to abandon it to invade and destroy a continent that she (and the thousands of warlords she's bringing with her) has never been to to demand fealty from people who don't want her as their queen. Why don't you at least acknowledge that Dany is written as a villain and that your hatred of Sansa is, by comparison, irrational?

It's ironic that the biggest criticism of how George writes characters of color is that he uses them in service of white characters' arcs and that's exactly what you've decided to do in my inbox. Nothing about liking these characters, wanting to see more of their stories, or wanting better for them. Nothing about wanting to start a conversation about the racism in George's writing. Nope. Just you using these characters of color and their suffering, which you supposedly care about, as props because you feel a "pure", white character is being unfairly hated. I have to laugh. The only "hate" I've given to Sansa is disliking her annoying stans and pointing out how she's written in the books but apparently, that's enough to have you clutching your pearls.

And the thing about racism is that, for Dany to be capable of being racist, it would mean that race HAS to be a factor in their society. That would mean that Sansa, as a white woman, would subsequently benefit from her white identity. Which is why I found that so funny from the first ask you sent. You can't just decide that race is only a factor in a single character's story. I get it though, you haven't actually thought any of this through because your only motivation is to put down Dany and prop up Sansa. This is how I know you don't care at all about racism and you're just copying talking points you've heard instead of thinking for yourself.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

It’s important that the first revelation of Nissa Nissa is accompanied by some level of skepticism from Salladhor Saan and aversion on Davos’ part. It doesn’t sound right that Azor Ahai chose to sacrifice his wife for a magic sword. It shouldn’t sound right.

“A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’ he said to her, for that was her name, ‘bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.’ She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

“Now do you see my meaning? Be glad that it is just a burnt sword that His Grace pulled from that fire. Too much light can hurt the eyes, my friend, and fire burns.” Salladhor Saan finished the last grape and smacked his lips. “When do you think the king will bid us sail, good ser?”

[…] A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost … When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay.

Not only does it not make sense that Nissa Nissa would agree to her husband’s request, it’s also telling how Salladhor Saan expresses relief in knowing that King Stannis didn’t actually forge Lightbringer. Because forging Lightbringer means human sacrifice. And why should one be deprived of their life, even if it’s for a magic sword? Davos is very right to be creeped out by it.

The theme of sacrifice shows up quite a bit in ASOIAF and Davos I isn’t the first or last time. The very first chapter in the series, Bran I, tackles this idea with Jon and the direwolves.

“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”

“What of it, Jon?”

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

Bran saw his father’s face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.

Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself, Jon?” he asked softly.

“The direwolf graces the banners of House Stark,” Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”

Jon, though he may desperately desire to have his own piece of magic, would not sacrifice his siblings for it. He wouldn’t dare to deprave the girls, Arya and Sansa, of their own magic even when it might be very easy to do so. This is a pretty stark contrast (pun intended) to Azor Ahai and his Nissa Nissa. Azor Ahai’s first line of thought was to sacrifice his wife whereas Jon’s was to sacrifice himself. Sure Azor Ahai got his magic sword, but Jon’s self-sacrifice is not in vain either because he later earns his own wolf, who turns out to be even more special than the rest in the pack.

Bran IV kind of alludes to the idea of self sacrifice through Old Nan’s retelling of the last hero:

So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

Though the one we know is called the “last hero”, notice that it’s not a title but a mere descriptor; there were many heroes before him who died and he was the last one standing. There is a human toll in this legend, but it’s implied to be self sacrifice. It’s also interesting that though there is mention of a blade, it is the children of the forest’s magic that is key. This does kind of bleed into what we know about the Night’s Watch and its relation to the long night. The Night’s Watch victory was a group effort, rather than the actions of any one man.

We have several legends surrounding the long night that work, but only one involves the cost of sacrificing someone else (that we know of). This might be where GRRM is headed with Stannis and his creation of Lightbringer. Sure Azor Ahai did get his magic sword, but it doesn’t negate the steep human cost. GRRM has lowkey confirmed that Stannis is sure to burn Shireen. And rather than this sacrifice not working, I think it’s more likely that it does work. Stannis does indeed create the flaming sword. But this will be directly weighed by other (self) sacrifices made for the same purpose. Stannis’ sacrifice of his daughter won’t work any better than other characters who choose to sacrifice themselves even when knowing that they are not going to go down as individual legends; I think Jon Snow will once again be the prime example of this, as he has already resigned himself to being a shadow in history despite initially wanting the opposite. Maester Aemon was right in saying that

[…] all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that … light without heat … an empty glamor … the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam

The sword is wrong. Azor Ahai is NOT one to be emulated. Rather, he should be a cautionary tale. He is not any more special for his sacrifice than what the last hero or the men of the Night’s Watch did, even though we know his name but don’t know theirs. GRRM answered the question regarding sacrifice before he even posed it. To make someone else pay the price is flat out wrong. The only true and worthy sacrifice is really that of the self.