Stannis Baratheon

Stannis held Storm's End through a year of siege for Robert's cause, his garrison reduced to eating rats and boiled leather, and he did not yield. It was the single hardest thing anyone did in the rebellion. His reward was Dragonstone — a wet rock — while Renly, who had done nothing at all, received Storm's End itself. Stannis never mentioned it. Stannis never forgot it either.

He was iron-hard, joyless, and unbendingly just in a court that ran on charm and appetite, which made him useless at court and invaluable everywhere else. Robert found him tiresome; Stannis found Robert unserious; both were right. He served as master of ships, then quietly abandoned King's Landing when he began to understand what the queen's children were, which turned out to be the most sensible thing anyone at that council did.