What do you think of Stannis?

The burning of Shireen makes Stannis a massive hypocrite which completely undermines him as a character. Stannis is repeatedly described in a very consistent manner that is probably best summed up by Donal Noye, "Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He’ll break before he bends." Very early in ASOIAF, Stannis's view on the value of justice is shown by his quote to Davos, "A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad the good. Each should have its own reward." The fact the POV from which we view Stannis constantly references his lack of fingertips due to this belief of Stannis shows the extent to which this defines Stannis as a character. It is also enforced by the fact that the good act that Davos did (saving the Stannis's life, along with those of his entire family) far far outweighed the offense for which he was punished (smuggling). Davos received the traditional punishment for smuggling, with no leniency or consideration of his good deed, which aligns perfectly with the quote. People have argued that Stannis's assassinations (assassinations, call them what they are) of Renly and Cortnay Penrose violated this mantra in that he committed murder and was a kinslayer, punishable by death which he justified with the "good" or at the very least dutiful action of pressing his claim. The only valid argument that I have seen against this violating one of Stannis's core beliefs is that they were rebels and hence it wasn't murder, making it not a "bad" or "evil" or unlawful act. But I think we've beaten that dead horse enough and I'm not here to argue about that.

Stannis's recent burning of a completely innocent character, and also his daughter, however, is clearly an evil and highly unlawful act in and of itself. The penalty for murdering an innocent child is clearly death, and kinslaying is widely seen as one of the most evil acts, right up there with violating guest right, certainly qualifying it as "the bad" in Stannis's equation of punishments. Given that I am pretty sure Stannis does not intend to kill himself as punishment for this act, this clearly violates his sense of justice, which is in my opinion Stannis' defining characteristic. Justifying it as a means to an end, "the good," of ascending the throne or saving Westeros from the Others, or whatever reason he or anyone else gives is completely invalid in regards to Stannis's own core beliefs. The most widely referenced and seemingly apparent character trait of Stannis's is to break before he bends and never deviate from his idea of justice and duty and people getting what they deserve. This is clearly an example of Stannis "bending before he breaks", in violating one of his core beliefs, which subsequently violates everything that has been established about one of the character.

People have been saying how this decision was so hard for Stannis because he loves his daughter and it's going to tear him apart emotionally, and he might go crazy because of guilt. However, the inner turmoil and guilt and potential ensuing craziness should be due to his breaking his view of morality on which he has based his entire life, especially given how he is repeatedly characterized as completely unwilling to deviate from that, more so than any other character in the books/show.

Now if Stannis goes batshit crazy Harvey Dent-style because of this, I think that the burning of Shireen makes sense as a plot device in order to show the whole character inversion, nothing is safe in Westeros, not even your morals/honor/duty, in a typical ASOIAF fashion. However, I just don't see Stannis it happening in the show, especially with the Battle of Ice coming up potentially next episode, where Ramsay will probably slay The One True King in single combat without a shirt due to the Boltons' vomit-inducing plot armor in the show. Barring that, the extremely heavy-handed foreshadowing of Brienne killing Stannis seems like a pretty good bet as well. Either way, I don't see Stannis having the time to truly accept his own actions and react in a meaningful way before he kicks it, and if he lives I really don't see D&D taking it in that direction because they left character development behind somewhere in Season 4.

tl;dr Stannis "bent before he broke" by sacrificing Shireen and deviating from his core belief that "a good act does not wash out the bad... each must have its own punishment." Unless he absolutely loses his shit because of this, this has all just been a waste of time.