News of Stannis's defeat swept across Westeros like a storm rolling from east to west.
Stannis Baratheon,
the former "King of Law."
When he announced to the world, in an unprecedented gesture, that he was renouncing his claim to the Iron Throne and recognizing Lynn, the King in the North, as the sole legitimate ruler of Westeros,
the entire continent was shaken.
The news carried more impact than any bloody battle.
Before Harrenhal, Lynn had stripped Stannis of all his power in full view of everyone, yet Stannis had offered no resistance.
He had simply accepted his fate in silence.
Afterward, ravens carried letters bearing Stannis's own signature to every corner of Westeros.
King's Landing, Highgarden, Oldtown, the Eyrie, and even as far as Casterly Rock in the Westerlands.
In those letters, the king who had once clung most stubbornly to his rightful claim personally admitted his defeat and called on every lord loyal to him to lay down their weapons and submit to Lynn.
It was undoubtedly the perfect foundation for Lynn's ascension.
The lords who had been waiting to see how things unfolded could no longer find any reason to resist after hearing Stannis's declaration of "self-repudiation."
Lynn, the king who had emerged from the ice and snow of the North, not only possessed dragons, possessed dragons, and commanded the Unsullied Legion, but now also held the "legitimacy" Stannis had personally handed him.
For a time, Harrenhal, where Lynn had temporarily taken up residence, bustled with an endless stream of visitors.
House Tyrell of the Reach was already there. That very day, led by Olenna, the Queen of Thorns, they brought the restored Knight of Flowers, Loras, before him and offered their humblest loyalty.
In Olenna's world-weary eyes, not a trace of her former shrewdness and calculation remained.