Game of Thrones - Spoilers

[implanted_microchip]

@Mantra I agree completely on Ramsay.

Joffrey was also a child. He's, like, a 12 year old boy and a product of inbreeding and helps drive home the GoT universe thing where there's a 50/50 shot of you being mad as all hell if you're inbred. He's a great character because he has purpose, does large things that seem plausible, inspires lots of interesting plots around him and offers a lot of great reactions and scenes from the other characters that interact with him. Ramsay has none of that. He's a plot-armor wearing scarecrow of a character that exists just to give the audience someone to collectively hate so that whenever he dies there's a sense of fan-service satisfaction but it will be totally fabricated rather than a natural occurrence. I think it's very beneath the quality of the rest of the series overall and defies the complex and interesting characters it's known for.

[ryanmcfly]

Had to watch the episode in an airport on my way back home from Hawaii. Holy shit. I was about to break down in the middle of Portland's airport.

[Jinsai]

as long as events are set in stone, and Bran can't at this point "go back in time and fix/change things," I'm not bothered by it at all. I think it's trippy and cool, and I'm usually really against stuff like time travel paradoxes.

[Mantra]

Hmmm, maybe Bran should go back in time and stop the whole Dorne storyline from ever happening.

[bobbie solo]

Had to watch the episode in an airport on my way back home from Hawaii. Holy shit. I was about to break down in the middle of Portland's airport.

[Bachy]

[Millionaire]

I think I'm the only one on the planet who likes Ramsay. He's like a Cannibal Corpse record made into flesh. Maybe its that little suppressed misanthropic part of me who relates to him. Sometimes when some guy at work is giving me shit during the course of my day, I think it wouldn't be so bad to flay him living, wouldn't it? Man, if only we had a Purge day.

[implanted_microchip]

I think I'm the only one on the planet who likes Ramsay. He's like a Cannibal Corpse record made into flesh. Maybe its that little suppressed misanthropic part of me who relates to him. Sometimes when some guy at work is giving me shit during the course of my day, I think it wouldn't be so bad to flay him living, wouldn't it? Man, if only we had a Purge day.

I dislike him because I find him to be a paper-thin character that has worn out their purpose and welcome and, in a series full of morally complex and unique, believable and intricate human beings such as but not limited to the Lannister family, the Stark family, Peter Baelish and Red Priestess Melissandre, he is an outlier of a simple, basic, generic psychopath of a character and, unlike Joffrey, inspires no (or little) fascinating reactions in the surrounding characters. He has a plot armor six inches thick that puts Glenn's from Walking Dead to shame (I'm amazed he hasn't ordered Sir 20 of House Goodmen to fill Winterfell with dumpsters yet) and seems to exist at this point as a way of offering the audience a cheap pinata of a human being so that when he eventually does die the fans have a tidal wave of manufactured delight. It seems like a forced and generic character with no arc in a franchise heralded for its naturalistic and unique progression and character-building. He seems beneath the series at this point to me.

[Jinsai]

I dislike him because I find him to be a paper-thin character that has worn out their purpose and welcome and, in a series full of morally complex and unique, believable and intricate human beings such as but not limited to the Lannister family, the Stark family, Peter Baelish and Red Priestess Melissandre, he is an outlier of a simple, basic, generic psychopath of a character and, unlike Joffrey, inspires no (or little) fascinating reactions in the surrounding characters.

Well, I would first take objection to the implication that he is not "believable." The real world has crafted more horrifying and pointless sadists than Ramsay.

I would also say he's inspired some pretty fascinating reactions in other characters. I mean holy shit... look at how he "inspired" Theon. The guy went from being a cocky narcissist and now he can't talk without twitching and sounding like he's on the verge of tears. Theon can't say "I would like to eat a slice of pizza" without having a nervous breakdown.

[implanted_microchip]

Well, I would first take objection to the implication that he is not "believable." The real world has crafted more horrifying and pointless sadists than Ramsay.

I would also say he's inspired some pretty fascinating reactions in other characters. I mean holy shit... look at how he "inspired" Theon. The guy went from being a cocky narcissist and now he can't talk without twitching and sounding like he's on the verge of tears. Theon can't say "I would like to eat a slice of pizza" without having a nervous breakdown.

His inspiration for Theon could've been complete by season 3 and been far more impacting because by season 5 it just dragged on.

"Believable" in the sense that him being shirtless with dual-wielded knives in a hallway against seasoned warriors when he's never fought in an army in his life is just absurd. He would've been fine had he been wrapped up seasons ago or given more depth. Neither ever happened. When they hit the point of him feeding babies to dogs it just was Snidely Whiplash moustache twirling to me.

[Wretchedest]

Snidely Whiplash! Hahaha so on point

[Jinsai]

I don't know... the "plausibility" of Ramsay holding his own in a battle in a discussion about believability.... in a story involving dragons, people immune to burning, and selective resurrection...

[Baphomette]

Maybe its that little suppressed misanthropic part of me who relates to him.

I'm a proud, flag-waving, card-carrying misanthrope and I don't relate to that twisted little fuck at all.

[implanted_microchip]

I don't know... the "plausibility" of Ramsay holding his own in a battle in a discussion about believability.... in a story involving dragons, people immune to burning, and selective resurrection...

But those are all fantasy elements in the series and the internal logic still gets followed. Resurrection is a spiritual element of the series and follows that logic; characters don't just randomly get shot with an arrow and leap back up left and right.

People bitch about the believability of actions in movies like Man of Steel or Batman Superman despite them being about an alien god-being and Amazonian princesses. People did the same about the Star Wars prequels, a series about energy sword magic Samurai gurus and unrealistic space opera settings. People criticize inconsistent or unbelievable character actions in The Walking Dead even though it's a show about a zombie apocalypse which is unrealistic. It's valid criticism and the way people hide behind "but it's not realistic to begin with" is weak and missing the point. If it was a Jodorowsky film I wouldn't care since he makes surrealist pictures where anything may happen at any second with no remote attempt at selling me on how realistic the events are.

But Game of Thrones prides itself on a gritty, real-world style sense of politics and intricate relationships where actions have believable consequences. A character trying to argue the illegitimacy of the king is more likely to be beheaded than to succeed because that's how these things would go. One guy with no armor or significant combat experience in a goddamn hallway with knives slaughtering armored seasoned soldiers with swords and shields is absolute plot-armor with zero attempt to hide it. The fact that it largely maintains that illusion of believability in terms of actions and behavior so well only makes those moments even more hard to swallow since you know it's capable of more and it shows laziness/convenience winning over what would make the most sense from a storytelling perspective.

[Jinsai]

One guy with no armor or significant combat experience in a goddamn hallway with knives slaughtering armored seasoned soldiers with swords and shields is absolute plot-armor with zero attempt to hide it.

You seem incredibly hung up on this one scene. I don't remember a point where it's asserted that Ramsay doesn't know how to fight. There's a previous scene which is basically his reveal where he "saves" Theon from his kidnappers. In that scene he kills a handful of armored soldiers by himself. In the scene you're talking about, he's backed up by a handful of armored soldiers. If you watch the scene again, he dispatches many of the Ironborn by stabbing them in the side or back while they're preoccupied fighting other armored soldiers in the Bolton army!!! Why do you find this scene so implausible!?

[implanted_microchip]

You seem incredibly hung up on this one scene. I don't remember a point where it's asserted that Ramsay doesn't know how to fight. There's a previous scene which is basically his reveal where he "saves" Theon from his kidnappers. In that scene he kills a handful of armored soldiers by himself. In the scene you're talking about, he's backed up by a handful of armored soldiers. If you watch the scene again, he dispatches many of the Ironborn by stabbing them in the side or back while they're preoccupied fighting other armored soldiers in the Bolton army!!! Why do you find this scene so implausible!?

It's just an easy go-to of what is a hard to believe sequence. That whole scene is poorly presented and the way that suddenly they just run away is generally considered one of the lesser scenes of the series.

Ramsay, overall, has an insane degree of invulnerability and every scene with him seems to, at this point, solely exist to remind us that he is, so, so dastardly, that he is so, so, so evil so that when Bastardbowl happens everyone cums in their pants and thinks how great it is to see him die. It's like they want to repeat the satisfaction of Joffrey's death but Joffrey's didn't come after repeated moments of convenient invulnerability.

People simply act dumber around Ramsay. Littlefinger really didn't know about him at all? The guy who knows more than anybody save for possibly Varys somehow didn't know about this insanely sadistic bratty torturer, and that's not just me interpreting Littlefinger's scene, that's going by what the actor and writers said even. Roose really didn't think Ramsay would try to stab him? Stannis, a tactical genius hyped up hard just manages to fumble completely and fail. Twenty good men manage to wreck everything because Ramsay sent them. He just has constantly been untouchable, invulnerable, taking no hits and managing to get away with any and everything nonstop all the time and most of his scenes at this point seem to occur for little constructive reason.

I find him to be a paper-thin uninteresting character who stopped creating interesting scenes seasons ago and at this point it's tiring, every time we get another five or ten minutes reminding us how horribly, terribly, irrevocably evil he is. Just like I'm tired of redundant Arya scenes and for the longest time was bored out of my mind with the redundant Bran scenes and really don't need yet another scene with Dany reminding us that she's the mother of dragons and how she's supposed to be such a badass, or another scene reminding us that Tyrion likes to drink.

This series both on page and on screen's biggest issue is at times bad pacing and repetitive or boring stretches and Show Ramsay is a fantastic example of this. You may like him, or have no issues, and that's fine, but I'm not the first to have these criticisms and I hate that you just keep seeming to feel that you need to dismiss me because you don't agree. You can like it all you want, I don't care and am not going to tell you you're wrong for that, I just wish I did too.

[Jinsai]

It's just an easy go-to of what is a hard to believe sequence. That whole scene is poorly presented and the way that suddenly they just run away is generally considered one of the lesser scenes of the series.

I saw that sort of thing in the youtube comments... it's reaching meme levels. I get dubious when I'm treading around meme-ish youtube comments where several people are copying a "joke" that Ramsay is wearing plot armor. Other people in the series fight without armor too, and at least in the show Ramsay seems to be a pretty badass fighter who benefits from a sociopathic lack of fear or empathy. I don't see anything in that scene that is particularly unrealistic.

Ramsay, overall, has an insane degree of invulnerability and every scene with him seems to, at this point, solely exist to remind us that he is, so, so dastardly, that he is so, so, so evil so that when Bastardbowl happens everyone cums in their pants and thinks how great it is to see him die. It's like they want to repeat the satisfaction of Joffrey's death but Joffrey's didn't come after repeated moments of convenient invulnerability.

It's like you're insisting that Ramsay has encountered endless scenarios where he faced certain death. When his army outnumbered Stannis 10 to 1? When he survived an even fight with the assistance of his best men? What other scenes am I forgetting?

People simply act dumber around Ramsay. Littlefinger really didn't know about him at all? The guy who knows more than anybody save for possibly Varys somehow didn't know about this insanely sadistic bratty torturer, and that's not just me interpreting Littlefinger's scene, that's going by what the actor and writers said even.

The show's writers spelled out Littlefingers intentions and claimed that he really didn't know? I would like to read that.

Roose really didn't think Ramsay would try to stab him?

Apparently not. He was his father. Maybe he felt he was the one person who commanded respect from Ramsay, and that Ramsay would still try to "fix things" by retrieving Sansa?

Stannis, a tactical genius hyped up hard just manages to fumble completely and fail.

Stannis is a tactical genius?! His army loses every battle in the series without some assistance. The final attack on the Boltons is suicide, and you can't blame him for wanting to die after the "burn my daughter alive" trick didn't work out as planned.

Twenty good men manage to wreck everything because Ramsay sent them.

This "20 good men" thing was all over the youtube page too, even more often than "plot armor." Really though... they had terrain advantage. The twenty men he picked would be adept at sneaking around and remaining undetected. They didn't have to fight the army, they had to sneak in, light some fires after untethering the horses so they would run when the fire broke out. Stannis' forces were already on the verge of mutiny, to the point where he had to burn some deserters alive to send a message. His army is freezing and low on food and supplies... the odds already look so goddamn bad that he actually sets his daughter on fire, and then Ramsay's 20 good men rush in and sabotage their camp. Why is this so outrageous?

He just has constantly been untouchable, invulnerable, taking no hits and managing to get away with any and everything nonstop all the time and most of his scenes at this point seem to occur for little constructive reason.

Except when he manages to let Theon and Sansa escape. That was a pretty big fuck up.

And I'd say his recent scenes are pretty important... what with him killing his father and brother, securing Rickon as a hostage, waging war on Jon Snow.

I find him to be a paper-thin uninteresting character who stopped creating interesting scenes seasons ago and at this point it's tiring, every time we get another five or ten minutes reminding us how horribly, terribly, irrevocably evil he is. Just like I'm tired of redundant Arya scenes and for the longest time was bored out of my mind with the redundant Bran scenes and really don't need yet another scene with Dany reminding us that she's the mother of dragons and how she's supposed to be such a badass, or another scene reminding us that Tyrion likes to drink.

Here it sounds like you're basically just saying "but my complaint isn't just with Ramsay, all the characters on this show suck."

This series both on page and on screen's biggest issue is at times bad pacing and repetitive or boring stretches and Show Ramsay is a fantastic example of this. You may like him, or have no issues, and that's fine, but I'm not the first to have these criticisms and I hate that you just keep seeming to feel that you need to dismiss me because you don't agree.

I'm disagreeing with you. I don't see how that is me "dismissing you because I don't agree." It's not like I'm not addressing the points you are making. I'm sorry if I don't agree that the "twenty good men" joke is really that clever or accurate even. That sort of thing happened. Small clandestine forces would sneak into enemy camps to light fires, poison the food, spread illness. It even happens in the bible. It's not ridiculous at all to think that a small team could penetrate a weakened army that's literally freezing, and through a coordinated system (they are "good" after all) light the place on fire. There's tons of scenarios where that could be achieved. There's also historical parallels to his character that are just as "paper-thin." Caligula was probably a source reference point. Others think he's based on Vlad the Impaler. Either way, historical figures are a blueprint for this sort of person, where everything about them is an almost comical demonstration of how evil they are. That sort of character is almost mandatory in a story with scenes like the red wedding.

You can like it all you want, I don't care and am not going to tell you you're wrong for that, I just wish I did too.

I'm not sure why this sort of disagreement is being perceived as something personal.

[Mantra]

I do think Ramsey's brand of evil has a silly cartoonish quality, but i guess ultimately my biggest beef with him is not that he's unrealistic but just that he's not that interesting. I mean, I have a next door neighbor named Darryl who sometimes corners me and rambles for 15 minutes solid about his ice cooler or his intricate system for organizing the files on his computer or how our second amendment rights are being destroyed. Now if I saw a dude like him on a tv show, I might find him to be a "realistic" character, but that doesn't mean he's interesting to watch. There may have been plenty of one-dimensional monotonous psychos in real life, but I don't really care, cuz Ramsey fucking sucks, just like my neighbor Darryl.

When's the last time Ramsey had a scene and you thought "holy shit, that scene was amazing"? Almost every scene is the same old thing. Three seasons of this horseshit. He's long outstayed his welcome. He sucks ass, and he needs to go.

[Wretchedest]

Yeah, I don't think he has any great scenes actually, at one point it was just torture porn, and now it's kind of a joke. I generally laugh at whatever he's got going on because it's so fucking over the top you can't take it seriously.

Joffrey was at least slightly more dynamic by being emotionally fragile, and really being an instrument to those around him, the dynamic was neat.

Of the shows many uses of plot armor I'd say the most egregious right now is the high sparrow. And in a show like this with so much bloodless and character death, it's legitimate to ask, what motivates the people around High Sparrow and Ramsay NOT to kill them? What real power do they wield that has people following them? I just don't know in either case.

For all that this show CAN create dynamic, interesting characters, it does have a way of over simplifying it's villains and some of its heroes.

[implanted_microchip]

@Wretchedest I get that High Sparrow is that populist Bernie Sanders-type inspiration figure for his followers who are the commonfolk that loathe the elite, so I see how he's got support -- but, yeah, the fact that we've never dealt with Ramsay having people in his ranks try and fuck him up is just weird.

And Joffrey had lots of great scenes. Charles Dance talking shit to him was some of the show's best scenes. Tyrion's slap. The character development he inspired in Sansa. The big defining scene of season 1. Cersei's entire acceptance and breakdown about how her son was pure evil yet she still loved him (Cersei may be my favorite character and good god she got some incredible moments because of that kid). And Joffrey was interesting in the sense that he was yet another Mad King created via inbreeding. Ramsay's not really led to any of that. It's just really drab gray and blue misery around him 24/7 while he has that same spooky-eyed smirk and kills off characters left and right in a blase manner. I think anything interesting he had to offer stopped a long, long while ago. It's just gratuitous at this point.

I've always liked that the "heroes" really aren't even heroes most of the time. All the best characters are the most complex and Ramsay just isn't one of them. I don't hate him for the reasons the show wants me to. I hate how I can so tell that the show wants me to. It feels very cheap and exploitative. It's a series that can really exist above that kinda shit that most TV dips into constantly.

In general I just dislike how little we're getting of the Lannisters in this season but I know we're getting that Riverlands business at some point. I'm hyped for it.

Also to say he's necessary in a show with scenes like Red Wedding makes little sense since that involved him a whole not at all. Roose -- a calculating, pragmatic power-hungry bastard and Walder Frey, a douchey two-faced and bitter weirdo -- were the direct leaders of it, with Tywin Lannister -- one of the most complex characters in the series -- making it happen. All three of those are characters with more depth. I don't mind Ramsay existing, I mind the constant focus on him when he's numbingly boring to watch.

[TheyCallMeDrug]

nice flaming ball and chain dude.

dragons ftw.

[Conan The Barbarian]

Man, having khalessi end every episode and her story progressing slowly is really repetitive. Cool scene indeed, but now im just more emotionally invested with everyone else and when she is on screen im all, yea dragons.

[marodi]

Dragons and Direwolves >>>>> everything else.

I'd watch a show with only dragons and direwolves.

Here's an official announcement: Randyll Tarly has been added to the "to feed to either Ghost or Drogon" list.

[Jinsai]

@Wretchedest I get that High Sparrow is that populist Bernie Sanders-type inspiration figure for his followers who are the commonfolk that loathe the elite, so I see how he's got support

Man... really?! REALLY?!

[marodi]

The High Sparrow is a cunning, manipulative SOB. I think he's Loki in disguise.

[Jinsai]

The High Sparrow is a cunning, manipulative SOB. I think he's Loki in disguise.

If we want a real-world parallel, he's a cult leader, like L Ron Hubbard or something. I just don't get the political drift there. I would very much like it if we could refrain from tainting characters in this show as "being like" controversial current political figures in general. Forum cross-talk is almost never a good thing.

Kleiner, if you find the character boring, that's fine. He's not implausible though, and he's important to the story.

[Mantra]

If Bernie Sanders is the high sparrow, does that mean Hillary is Cersei?

[Jinsai]

When's the last time Ramsey had a scene and you thought "holy shit, that scene was amazing"? Almost every scene is the same old thing. Three seasons of this horseshit. He's long outstayed his welcome. He sucks

I really liked his lone eulogy for Myranda

[Baphomette]

Man, having khalessi end every episode and her story progressing slowly is really repetitive. Cool scene indeed, but now im just more emotionally invested with everyone else and when she is on screen im all, yea dragons.

Daario didn't seem too thrilled with the scene either.

[implanted_microchip]

If Bernie Sanders is the high sparrow, does that mean Hillary is Cersei?

I mean, yeah. That totally fits. And we've got Euron "Donald" Greyjoy, too: "I could tell people I killed my own brother in the Kingsmoot and I wouldn't lose a single vote!"

It's not like I'm the first person to draw that parallel. For fuck's sake I hate this place