mautadite:

Some snippets (few, but I think we can all agree that GRRM doesn’t bother to write about Selyse often):

Lady Selyse gave him a measured look. “And what will you tell him, Maester? How he might win half a kingdom if he goes to the Starks on his knees and sells our daughter to Lysa Arryn?”

A Clash of Kings, Prologue

“Eastwatch is not safe.” The queen put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “This is the king’s true heir. Shireen will one day sit the Iron Throne and rule the Seven Kingdoms. She must be kept from harm.”

A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 44

That brought Wun Wun lurching to his feet. The queen grabbed hold of Princess Shireen and pulled her back, her knights reached for their swords, and Patchface reeled away in alarm, lost his footing, and plopped down on his arse in a snowdrift. Wun Wun began to laugh. A giant’s laughter could put to shame a dragon’s roar. Patchface covered his ears, Princess Shireen pressed her face into her mother’s furs,

A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 44

The queen pulled her daughter closer to her and kissed her cheek.

A Dance with Dragons, Jon, 68

Selyse does:

• blame Robert and Delena (and Edric by proxy) for the fact that she has no sons, saying “Robert and Delena defiled our bed and laid a curse upon our union.” (A Storm of Swords, Davos, 55)
• lament the fact that she has borne no sons, which in a society built upon misogyny and male primogeniture, is not uncommon, and now that she’s a queen, she would feel additional pressure to bear boys.

Selyse does not:

• hate her daughter
• blame her daughter for her lack of sons
• want to beat, maim, or otherwise harm her daughter

I’m not sure where those ideas stem from, but they don’t come from the text. In her interactions with Shireen she’s stern, but displays something that I’d call absent affection. She’s adamant about Shireen being heir, and and wants to protect her always. There’s no indication of resentment towards Shireen on Selyse’s part, and saying that there is is just an attempt to paint with her a very old, very tired brush.

This is not a “Selyse is perfect” post. She’s complicit in a bunch of genuinely awful things and she’s fervent about her religion to the point of fanaticism. (Although, I could make a case for Selyse being more obsessed with Melisandre than R’hllor, but that’s a subject for another day.) I love her, but I of course recognise that she has flaws. But it’s pretty frustrating to see people continue to misrepresent her relationship with Shireen.

Selyse Baratheon isn’t perfect, but she loves her daughter. Thanks for listening.

NB: I don’t mention their relationship in the show because I don’t watch it.