Many people in the fandom have pointed out there is often a dichotomy in A Song of Ice and Fire between "greens" and "blacks". Not just the Dance of the Dragons, the main series is full of references to green armies and black armies, green banners and black banners, etc.

I think it's interesting to think about what "green" and "black" represent, and it kind of reminds me of Tolstoy's distinctions between St Petesburg and Moscow or city and country, one side shallow and conniving, the other plain and honest

The "greens" in ASoIaF- Renly, the Tyrells, the Hightowers, the Reach in general- are repeatedly shown to exercise power through flowers and fanfare, engaging in what are traditionally considered to be "feminine" applications of power, tears, women's courts, poisons and schemes

Nothing sums this up more than Alicent Hightower, who fits the idea of an evil stepmother to a tee. She's portrayed in Fire and Blood as scheming constantly, using lies and underhanded methods to get Aegon on throne

The blacks, on the other hand- Rhaenyra, Stannis, the Night's Watch probably Dany- are, like Tolstoy's peasants, considered to be upholders of the true way, the old way, the just way. Their power is more masculine coded- based on military prowess or a firm desire for justice

But where I think Martin departs from Tolstoy is the blacks are not really heroes, not the only good guys. The blacks may have been wronged (or think they have been wronged) but channel this into venegence, destruction, fire and blood

The "black" side of history often gets more of a pass in various parts of the extended ASoIaF world, no matter their actions. It's hard to say Velaryons were less scheming than the Hightowers under Viserys I, but they get a much lighter treatment from Gyldayne.

The modern reader is meant to like them or grudgingly support them, unlike those evil shrews, the Greens.

But at the same time, the blacks are often genuinely evil! From Stannis's blood sacrifice to Daemon Targaryen, the "black way" is dark for a reason.

This is what Donal Noye is actually talking about when he talks about Stannis breaking before he bends. It's not that Stannis is impossibly unflexible, it's that his commitment to his "justice" fog up his view of the world, leading to him breaking spectularly

The green way also has its problems, it is kind of empty, it does rely "on shadows on the wall"- Aegon II's legal claims and Alicent's charms require much more imagination than Rhaenyra's huge dragons and father's write- and that's why it too fails

So like everything in the series, you need both the green and black to achieve peace. The synthesis. Stannis is balanced out by Davos, whose lands are in the impossibly "green" rainwood and begs for mercy. Aegon III took a Green for his wife.

And it has been mentioned before what a good team Stannis and Renly would have been, had they not had their animosity.

I think we also see a synthesis of Green and Black in Sansa and Bran- Sansa has her courtesies and her Northern desire for justice, Bran dreamed of being a knight once even as he descends into the black ways of the Old Gods.