Shireen Baratheon

"My books are better than these boring scrolls."

- Shireen Baratheon

Princess Shireen Baratheon is a recurring character in the third season. She is played by Kerry Ingram. Shireen is the daughter and only child of Stannis and Selyse Baratheon.

Background
Shireen is the daughter of Stannis and Selyse Baratheon. Her father is the head of House Baratheon of Dragonstone and has declared himself King on the Iron Throne. Shireen is Stannis's only child and heir. She is the same age as Arya Stark. She has three older brothers, who were stillborn.

The left side of her face is scarred by Greyscale.

Shireen was not born a princess, but was born into a powerful noble family. She only recently became a princess, after her father declared himself king upon her uncle King Robert's death.

Season 3
Having ignored Selyse and Shireen for several months, Stannis pays them a visit sometime after Melisandre's departure from Dragonstone to gather power on the mainland. Selyse tries to dissuade Stannis from seeing Shireen, but he angrily insists upon seeing his daughter. Whilst telling her of the disaster at Blackwater Bay, Shireen asks after Davos Seaworth, calling him by his traditional soubriquet, "The Onion Knight". Stannis gently explains that he is a traitor and is in the dungeon, a notion which distresses the young princess. Advising her to forget her friend, Stannis departs. Later that night, Shireen sneaks out of her tower and into the dungeon to see Davos. She demonstrates knowledge of the guards and their habits, making sure to visit when the gaoler, a known drunk, is on duty. Shireen brings Davos a book about Aegon the Conqueror to pass the time, but the Onion Knight admits he cannot read. Shireen takes this in stride and begins to teach him through the bars of his cell.

Following Ser Davos's release, he spends time with Shireen. She implores him to read more of Aegon's exploits rather than sort through Stannis's correspondence, which consists mostly of invitations to attend social events thrown by his few remaining bannermen, including the nameday celebration of one of Shireen's Florent cousins. When a confused Davos asks why there is a "G" in the word "night", Shireen shrugs off the unusual spelling.

Behind the scenes
Her inclusion in the TV series was uncertain; She appeared in the first season House Baratheon family tree issued by HBO and was then removed from the second season family tree. However, she was confirmed as a role for the third season. Child actress Kerry Ingram later tweeted that she had got the part.

Shireen has the characteristic Baratheon features of dark hair and blue eyes. In the books, this means that her hair color is outright black, but in the TV series it is a lighter shade closer to dark brown. This might be due to the fact that actress Kerry Ingram is actually a natural blonde, and it was decided that dyeing her hair completely black looked too artificial. This is similar to how Tyrion Lannister in the books has the same golden-blonde hair as his siblings, but because actor Peter Dinklage has black hair in real life, dyeing it to this color didn't match the actor very well, so the makeup team soon switched Tyrion's hair color in the TV series to more of a dirty blonde (Tyrion's original golden-blonde hair can be briefly glimpsed in a few scenes in the first episode of the series).

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Shireen is the daughter of Stannis Baratheon and Selyse Florent. She is described as a sad, sweet, and gentle child, far from pretty. She inherited the unattractive features of both the Baratheons and Florents: the square jutting jaw of her father, and the large ears of her mother. When she was an infant she contracted the dreaded disease known as Greyscale, which is usually fatal. It nearly killed her, but she survived, however it horribly disfigured her: it left a swath of flesh on her left cheek and neck visibly dead, grey and flaking. As a result - and possibly also her parents' relatively unloving marriage - she became a sullen and quiet girl, withdrawn around all except for the castle's court jester Patchface and her cousin Edric Storm.

Shireen was not born a princess, though she was born into a powerful noble family. When she first appears in the Prologue of the second novel, Maester Cressen thinks to himself that the castle staff have only recently begun referring to her as "princess" - ever since Stannis declared himself king as Robert's lawful heir. He notes, however, that everyone including Shireen picked up using the new title very quickly.

The TV series's official description of Shireen describes her as escaping her lonely life through stories in books. Shireen isn't described as a shy bookworm type in the books, however this is in keeping with how the books describe her as withdrawn and lonely. Shireen isn't a POV character in the books and hasn't received much focus so far, so the TV series is rounding out her character much as it did characters in Season 2 who weren't POV characters in those parts of the books, such as Margaery Tyrell.

Because her uncle Renly died without issue, and her uncle King Robert died without any legitimate children (only bastards), Shireen is the only remaining legitimate Baratheon heir, after her father Stannis. Robert did have one acknowledged bastard, Edric Storm, but he has been cut from the TV series (parts of his storyline, being taken to Dragonstone, were assumed by Robert's other bastard son Gendry). Robert had several other unacknowledged bastards (i.e. Gendry) but they would be considered even further behind in the line of succession, if at all.

Shireen, like her father, has some Targaryen blood. Steffon Baratheon, father of Robert, Stannis, and Renly, was the son of King Aerys II Targaryen's aunt Rhaelle Targaryen, thus he was Aerys's first cousin. Robert, Stannis, and Renly are actually second cousins to Rhaegar Targaryen as well as Daenerys Targaryen. Thus Shireen is the second cousin once removed of Daenerys. This might be moved around somewhat in the TV continuity, which removed Aerys II's father Jaehaerys II, who had a brief rule and died young - to simplify his relationship with Aemon Targaryen. Centuries of heavy inbreeding resulted in every other Targaryen suffering from insanity, but apparently also preserved the ability in their bloodline to interact with dragons and to experience prophetic visions and dreams. Shireen might have inherited some of these abilities, as she mentions that she frequently has dreams about dragons (despite having never seen a live one), though this might just be because she is an imaginative little girl who grew up in a castle filled with dragon-shaped statues and gargoyles.

Stannis's opinion of Shireen is ambiguous. Certainly, he is as distant from his family as he is everyone else around him. Stannis is also somewhat troubled that he has no male heir to carry on the Baratheon dynasty - which is a serious concern in the male-line inheritance system of the Seven Kingdoms, as there are those who would opportunistically challenge succession through a daughter. On the other hand, Stannis has remarked in the books that should he ever die in the war, he expects his soldiers to keep fighting to put Shireen on the throne.