Is Brienne a main character too then? I mean, this series has so many goddamn characters that "main character" is a rather extensive term already.
Game of Thrones (tv show thread)
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She has her own storyline while Bran gets cut for a season, so I'd say so.
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It's the issue with this cast. Would you call Varys or Littlefinger main characters? What about Stanis and Tonmen?
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Varys and Littlefinger I ultimately consider supporting characters though they have big parts. Tommen only got relevant recently. Stannis actually has scenes that focus on him all the way to Dragonstone. The only matter of debate there for me is if either he or Davos is the main character or both.
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The sand snakes. Margery is an ascened secundary character. Oleana is a main player but a secondary character. Stanis's wife and daughter. Theon's sister (Even though she's MIA in the series). Melisandre.
i mean like average woman on the street just living a life not part of the story
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I feel there aren't alot of peasents in general in the story. It definitely doesn't convey the horrors of war's effects on the common person well. I think the closest we get is in Arya's story.
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It's medieval times, the common people don't have shit for agency. Merchants maybe a bit.
Most people are just dying and farming and pooping in the street.They won't get around to rocking the political boat outside of random riots until….500-600 years from the sort of setting we're looking at here.
Unless Varys is trying to bring on the Enlightenment early lol.
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Main characters are the ones that have pov chapter titles obviously.
Sure if you haven't read the books that doesn't help much, but its a pretty major quantifier. (and yes, Brienne is one of the mains)
Hell, Rob Stark was technically only a secondary, he never had a POV, anything with him was from Cat's POV for the most part. (Another main character the show ultimately moved in a different direction from the books)
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How would you not consider Brienne a main character lmao
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She has just kinda been putzing around this season. ;p
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Is the actor in the opening credits?
Yes -> They portray a main character
No -> They portray a supporting character.
This is like, TV logic 101.
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Actually TV logic 101 is usually "is the actor well-known?" -> put at the top of the credits XD
Also, I honestly don't know the names of most of the actors. I knew Sean Bean! Anyway, it's not that meaningful anymore. The discussion at hand has descended to absurdity :P
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Main characters are the ones that have pov chapter titles obviously.
Sure if you haven't read the books that doesn't help much, but its a pretty major quantifier. (and yes, Brienne is one of the mains)
Hell, Rob Stark was technically only a secondary, he never had a POV, anything with him was from Cat's POV for the most part. (Another main character the show ultimately moved in a different direction from the books)
Mel, Aero, Aerys, Quentyn, Victarion and Euron say hi. And also, in the show Robb and Margery are practicaly main characters.
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Main characters are the ones that have pov chapter titles obviously.
Sure if you haven't read the books that doesn't help much, but its a pretty major quantifier. (and yes, Brienne is one of the mains)
Hell, Rob Stark was technically only a secondary, he never had a POV, anything with him was from Cat's POV for the most part. (Another main character the show ultimately moved in a different direction from the books)
Definitely disagree. Characters like Areo Hotah, Aerys Oakheart, and Barristan Selmy have POV chapters but I really don't think you could call them main characters. Martin generally prefers to have characters observe those in power rather than use the ruler's point of view, which is why we have Davos observing Stannis, Cat observing Robb, and usually Sansa observing Joffrey. Hell, Areo's whole purpose is to eavesdrop on Doran's machinations and size up other warriors.
Brienne in the book is still a secondary character imo. She doesn't have a POV until two books after she's introduced and has only one book of chapters then. Her main purpose is to act as eyes on the ground and explore the effects of the war on a smaller scale, something that Martin has tried to do in most of the series. The tv series has tried to make her more relevant to other characters, which is a justifiable idea in theory.
If I had to classify characters I would rank them in this order:
Main POVS
Central/influential characters
Secondary/observational POVS
Characters of some importance
Tertiary POVS
Tertiary characters
Background characters
So a book POV takes precedence over another character of equal agency. -
Mel, Aero, Aerys, Quentyn, Victarion and Euron say hi. And also, in the show Robb and Margery are practicaly main characters.
Definitely disagree. Characters like Areo Hotah, Aerys Oakheart, and Barristan Selmy have POV chapters but I really don't think you could call them main characters. Martin generally prefers to have characters observe those in power rather than use the ruler's point of view, which is why we have Davos observing Stannis, Cat observing Robb, and usually Sansa observing Joffrey. Hell, Areo's whole purpose is to eavesdrop on Doran's machinations and size up other warriors.
Obviously you don't count the one chapter guys. For the same reason you didn't include any of the prologue characters, because they're apart from the main narrative.
Though it does reinforce the point that Rob wasn't all that important.
They also took out a really important part of Caetlyn' arc as well. They could still maybe do it… somehow, but it seems like the show is skipping that bit entirely.
Brienne in the book is still a secondary character imo. She doesn't have a POV until two books after she's introduced and has only one book of chapters then. Her main purpose is to act as eyes on the ground and explore the effects of the war on a smaller scale, something that Martin has tried to do in most of the series. The tv series has tried to make her more relevant to other characters, which is a justifiable idea in theory.
By that standard, Jaimie and Cersei aren't mains either. They didn't get POVs till the third and fourth books respectively. Or Samwell. Or any POV character that died. (Ned hasn't had a chapter since book 1!)
And you can't really apply chapter count in books 4 and 5 for anyone given how the split worked out… Martin mostly just got back to the most cliffhangered plots in book 5, and had that come out on time a year later instead of six, he probably wouldn't have had Cersei or Arya in it at all.
Brienne had more chapters thatn Sansa, Arya and Bran combined in books 4 and 5, and more chapters than Asha or Samwell has had, about as many as Davos total... and thats with her story being completely intercut with Jaimie's and splitting their page time for most of a novel.
Hell, Daenary's has been around since book 1, had more than 30 chapters, and she still hasn't interacted in any significant way with any of the cast. However her story tangles in at the end, after 5 books she's been pretty much a completely separate story with almost zero bearing on the plot thus far.
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This is getting very book discussiony
Like people have already said. TV shows determine character importance with billing. I feel that practice is so universal it should hardly be up for discussion.
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Main characters are the ones that have pov chapter titles obviously.
Sure if you haven't read the books that doesn't help much, but its a pretty major quantifier. (and yes, Brienne is one of the mains)
Hell, Rob Stark was technically only a secondary, he never had a POV, anything with him was from Cat's POV for the most part. (Another main character the show ultimately moved in a different direction from the books)
I think the show treating Robb Stark with such importance was pretty generic and whatever and their focus on his snoresville of a just there to look pretty and get stabbed in her pregnant belly wife was boring. I much preferred the book's focus on Cateyln and how she felt about the situation and the horror of her losing her children one by one to the point that she clawed bloody marks (tears) into her face. I thought that was way more interesting and refreshing than cheap shock value pregger stabbing and that generic Romeo and Juliet lovers forever apart thing they did at the end.
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Here's a little food for thought on the rape issue. Not that you need to take the stance she does, but it's nice to see another perspective. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/all-hopefully-of-the-bad-arguments-about-rape-on-game-of-thrones-debunked/
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Here's a little food for thought on the rape issue. Not that you need to take the stance she does, but it's nice to see another perspective. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/all-hopefully-of-the-bad-arguments-about-rape-on-game-of-thrones-debunked/
God bless this writer!
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Here's a little food for thought on the rape issue. Not that you need to take the stance she does, but it's nice to see another perspective. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/all-hopefully-of-the-bad-arguments-about-rape-on-game-of-thrones-debunked/
I find her counter arguments weak.
Theon and Sansa haven't gone through something together. One got raped. One watched someone get raped and cried. That's not something to bond over. If someone cuts off your arm while someone else watches that doesn't form a bond. You don't look at them and go yeah, that must have been equally hard for you, all that watching. And he's clearly not the only person in the world that gives a shit about her. Brienne is a stones throw away and disgustingly enough Baelish have been protecting her for something this whole time. Not to mention everyone in the castle is whispering "the north remembers."
Also the argument has less to do with Sansa and more to do with the writing of her character. No one is victim blaming Sansa, they're upset that the writers boxed her character into this situation. If she uses this as a stepping off point to take a more active role in the game then it's stupid because she has already been though enough to want to do that. If she asks to be rescued then it's just going to back to the classic tropes that the author mentioned GoT was trying to subvert. It would be a tricky to write her out of this in a way that does her character justice and I don't think the writers are up to the task.
The men are characters whose actions are written by the writers. If you're analyzing the show you can't blame the characters for actions that they were instructed to take by the writers. If someone does something out of character you don't blame the character you blame the writer for writing it so poorly.
Then she defends the use of rape because anything can happen because it's a story and this is the story they want to tell and it involves rape so deal with it. But it's not their story. These are not their characters. This is not their world. They didn't create this they've adapted it. They've made a conscious decision to take and change a story that already involves a lot of rape and violence and apply it to areas where previously there wasn't any. It's gratuitous. That's what people mean when they say Unnecessary. If they want to show how there's rape in the world there's tons of ways they could have done that or implied it. It didn't have to happen to Sansa.
Like someone else already pointed out Mad Max: Fury Road is an entire movie about women escaping sexual slavery and magically they managed to do the entire thing without depicting one of their main characters getting raped.
Everyone thinks because they say they're a feminist they've got a special licence to speak for all feminist. Like they had to get accredited or something before they started running their mouth. This doesn't just go for her it goes for the people propping up their feminist banners on the other side of the argument as well. Now the whole thing is a mess when really it's about shitty writing.
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In a weird way, I kind of feel like one of the most offensive things about the scene was that it really feels out of character… Like, it messes up the symbolism for Sansa, who represents ... Something. Innocence on the edge of a knife. Something like that. There's this notion built up over the years that her innocence spurs others to step in and reach out to her (likewise with Jaime, that he was a big shit lord but he was the only one who respected cersei). I think that's why these scenes are particularly irritating because they cut something important out, and for what?
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I feel there aren't alot of peasents in general in the story. It definitely doesn't convey the horrors of war's effects on the common person well. I think the closest we get is in Arya's story.
I thought we got some good scenes about that when Arya and the Hound were traveling together. That man and daughter who offered to let the Hound stay with them in exchange for protection, remember that?
But yeah otherwise we gotta blame the adaptation's streamlining of the plot, the show doesn't have time to spend fucking about in the countryside for 400 chapters.
Brienne in the book is still a secondary character imo. She doesn't have a POV until two books after she's introduced and has only one book of chapters then. Her main purpose is to act as eyes on the ground and explore the effects of the war on a smaller scale, something that Martin has tried to do in most of the series. The tv series has tried to make her more relevant to other characters, which is a justifiable idea in theory.
Even if Brienne doesn't end up playing a huge role in the overall world, it's still her story that the author chose to emphasize. She's not even just an observer of another more important character, she's got her own thing going on outside of that.
Like someone else already pointed out Mad Max: Fury Road is an entire movie about women escaping sexual slavery and magically they managed to do the entire thing without depicting one of their main characters getting raped.
What's so fundamentally wrong about depicting a rape?
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Everyone thinks because they say they're a feminist they've got a special licence to speak for all feminist. Like they had to get accredited or something before they started running their mouth. This doesn't just go for her it goes for the people propping up their feminist banners on the other side of the argument as well.
Well, fortunately nobody needs credentials to speak an opinion, yet.
In a weird way, I kind of feel like one of the most offensive things about the scene was that it really feels out of character… Like, it messes up the symbolism for Sansa, who represents ... Something. Innocence on the edge of a knife. Something like that. There's this notion built up over the years that her innocence spurs others to step in and reach out to her (likewise with Jaime, that he was a big shit lord but he was the only one who respected cersei). I think that's why these scenes are particularly irritating because they cut something important out, and for what?
Purity of character can't be taken away by force. Her sense of naivete was lost a long time ago in King's Landing when all the shit started happening to her; I felt like her innocence was lost the moment she saw her father's head roll by the kid she was betrothed to. I don't see how having her virginity taken suddenly changes her character. Sexual assault does not define someone.
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What's so fundamentally wrong about depicting a rape?
I never said anything was fundamentally wrong with it. I said in this case it's shitty writing. In the book this doesn't happen to Sansa it happens to a different character. The writers made a choice to place Sansa in this situation. I think it was a bad choice. I don't think it adds anything more to a character who has already suffered a lot.
She watched her father die. She was beaten by men in plate armor. She was taunted about the deaths of her mother and brother and was never allowed to openly mourn for them, had to denounce her entire family in public and say they deserved it. I think most people would be a psychological ruin after all this. The writers didn't need to add rape to Sansa's suffering. I don't understand the logic behind it other than to shock the viewer which is a cheap tactic.
I pointed out Mad Max because it would have been very much within the setting of that movie to throw in a rape scene. Post apocalyptic testosterone fueled anarchy and the main cast is a female and 5 women who were sex slaves. Yet the writers choose not to depict their characters in that type of circumstance. There are other movies like Mysterious Skin, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Skin I Live In, Skoonheid etc. That depict much more visceral and graphic scenes of rape yet they add to the story rather than coming off like something thrown in to make the audience gasp and squirm. Or in people's cases just watch and say that's a shame shrug
Well, fortunately nobody needs credentials to speak an opinion, yet.
well they should when they're presenting their opinions as facts.
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character can't be taken away by force. Her sense of naivete was lost a long time ago in King's Landing when all the shit started happening to her; I felt like her innocence was lost the moment she saw her father's head roll by the kid she was betrothed to. I don't see how having her virginity taken suddenly changes her character. Sexual assault does not define someone.
im not talking about virginity or anything like that, I'm talking about personality and symbolism
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Purity of character can't be taken away by force. Her sense of naivete was lost a long time ago in King's Landing when all the shit started happening to her; I felt like her innocence was lost the moment she saw her father's head roll by the kid she was betrothed to. I don't see how having her virginity taken suddenly changes her character. Sexual assault does not define someone.
Except her innocence wasn't all lost then. In the books it's more straightforward, with her imagination of Ser Dontos as her Florian come to rescue her away. One of the reasons her last chapter of the third book is so well regarded is that it imparts a sense of magic or child-like wonder as Sansa plays in the snow. In a way, it's almost impressive that she's managed to retain a bit of that optimism. I'm not partial to Sansa's character or story but she's one of the characters for which I most strongly wish a happy ending.
The show has gone a somewhat different direction. They've emphasized naiveté and petulance to depict her as a child, which means her running theme of loss of innocence comes off as more purely a good thing. Either way, it's been much more of a process than a single sudden shift, which is why her Dark Sansa transformation at the end of Season 4 felt so rushed.
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Without seeing the effect of the incident yet, I don't think we can really say that it's all suddenly been changed as a result of it. Sexual assault doesn't "ruin" someone, symbolically or realistically. If she IS completely changed, beaten down, lost all possible childlike wonder after this, then the point is clearly taken, but I think the strength of character is how she deals with it, not what happens to her.
And for the record, I'm not keen on the rape scene either, I think there's been way too much of it on the show. I'm tired of the shock and awe approach. I just don't think I can say at this point something has been ruined/taken away without seeing effect.
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Cersei…
[hide]Karma
is
a
BIIIIIIIITCH![/hide] -
My only disappointment is that show Theon will never be as loved as book Theon.
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"Egg, I dreamed I was old."
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I found the episode neither bad nor particularly good. Most of it was pretty unexceptional outside of the final scene, but it definitely was a good episode for book quotes.
Kinda overplayed their hand on lingering face shots though.
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[hide]I'm just glad stuff is happening.
-Stannis drama
-Jorah finally caught Dani's attention.
-Sam and Gilly do the do.I'm worried for a lot of characters. I fear for Shireen most of all. I can't imagine every single character is going to walk out of the Sparrows situation alive, someone is gonna get the axe. Bran got the cure for the poison, but I have doubts about the cure. Crap is bound to go sour in at both the Wall and Winterfeld.
And I'm worried for Dario. Dario just entered the "I just said something disagreeable and the only way to solve that is my potential death" realm.[/hide]
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! So I am going to assume that the episode 9 shock element contender might be Stannis forced to sacrifice(or not sacrifice) his daughter in the heat of the battle and ending up facing the consequences and/or Cersei walking naked to get back to the throne soon?
! Ramsay is still going about with his shit and frankly, this guy might just die earlier than Joffrey did. Great to see Danersys and Tyrion meeting up finally. Looking forward for some good interactions between them.
! And the best part of the episode… Bronn survives! -
! So excited that Tyrion and Dany meet. That's some future book spoilers level shit. I hope he gets a dragon.
! What's the point of poisoning someone and then showing them your tits so the poison starts to work but then giving them the antidote. I like Bronn and I'm glad he's going to live but that's a lot of work just so the producers can show some titties.
! I hope Olenna figures out what to do in this situation and I'm so glad to see Cersei finally get what she's had coming to her for so long.
! Sansa is completely reduced to the damsel in distress. Her rape, and the repeated rapes that followed, just a catalyst for her to go to Theon for help so we can see Theon is completely broken down into Reek. I hate this so much for several reasons but it's not like I didn't see it coming. So now another person close to Sansa is murdered and THIS might be that catalyst for her to strengthen her resolve and take a more active role in her future. Or not. I dunno what they're doing with her character. It's easier not to care because they clearly don't care. -
Can they please just write samwell Tarley out of the show already
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Can they please just write samwell Tarley out of the show already
"You`re running out of friends Tarley"
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! I would've liked more if Cersei was thrown in the same cell as Margaery
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! Sansa is completely reduced to the damsel in distress. Her rape, and the repeated rapes that followed, just a catalyst for her to go to Theon for help so we can see Theon is completely broken down into Reek. I hate this so much for several reasons but it's not like I didn't see it coming. So now another person close to Sansa is murdered and THIS might be that catalyst for her to strengthen her resolve and take a more active role in her future. Or not. I dunno what they're doing with her character. It's easier not to care because they clearly don't care.
! You're vastly oversimplifying it. It's clearly an ongoing situation, plus we even see Sansa confronting Theon again in the preview for the next episode, so to assume a single endpoint in this episode is simply wrong. You also can't say that that old lady was someone close to Sansa. Her death had the in-universe consequence of threatening Sansa and reinforcing her situation, but one of the big points of the sequence was to raise the stakes for Brienne. The idea is that Theon isn't reliable and Brienne could meet the same fate if something goes wrong.
! Also, there's a big difference from simply trying to survive in a bad situation, as she did in King's Landing, and actively looking for a way to get out of it. Sansa's got way more fire than Theon and is trying to make use of her available resources in order to escape. She's no longer content to simply be the victim. -
u have a lot of faith in the ability of these writers to utilize sexual assault as a storytelling device
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I'm so goddamn happy that Dany's plot is finally going somewhere.
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Game of Thrones likes to subvert tropes like last minute rescues so they end up making Sansa the victim of repeated rapes.
! Game of Thrones falls into trope of turning Sansa into a damsel in distress who is litteraly locked away in her room from the rest of the world needing to be rescued. Understandable, given the cliche situation the writers put her in. I will say this about her character though and possible actions for the future. She did grab that tool/weapon so perhaps she will end up brutally killing (and I mean like REPEATED STABS TO THE NECK) Ramsey in bed and recue herself by planting the candle in the tower and calling for help. As for Theon…man, I don't know what they'll do with his character. For a time I felt bad for him and I still do but significantly less. How long will the writers make him wallow in his own feces before he develops some kind of backbone? I understand he's in trauma and fear but, damn, he has had so many chances to escape or right some kind of wrong but he continously fails to step up to the plate. His redemption moment better be grand.
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! What if Sansa burns Ramsay alive when he sees her trying to lit the candle in the tower, so they see the signal but not the one they were expecting.
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Lol it is ironic how we hate the sadistic actions inflicted on Sansa by Ramsey but we want something similar or even worse dished out to him because he "deserves" it. Explains quite a lot about perspectives. I am not defending the actions of a psychopath of course I am just observing how it affects society in general
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Well, quite frankly, I believe that if a person willfully and knowingly harms innocents in such a heinous manner, they're a menace to society and should be removed from the gene pool immediately. I wouldn't cry for Ramsay getting his wiener chopped off, but being excessive about the manner probably does reflect the same "monster". For those that wish to see Sansa retain her innocence, brutally killing or mutilating Ramsay probably wouldn't be very conducive to that (even though it would be justified). :P
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@xan:
Lol it is ironic how we hate the sadistic actions inflicted on Sansa by Ramsey but we want something similar or even worse dished out to him because he "deserves" it. Explains quite a lot about perspectives. I am not defending the actions of a psychopath of course I am just observing how it affects society in general
It's less ironic and more justified? It's not like he "deserves" it. He really does deserve it. Sansa is an 'innocent girl' who has been manipulated, passed around, used, and trapped for most of the series. Ramsey is a sick piece of shit. Of course you're not defending a psychopath and we're not really being ironic in wanting a piece of shit to suffer. It's not ironic to dislike the throwing away of a good apple while accepting the throwing away of a rotten apple. They are just not the same thing.
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Ramsay could be killed by any number of people in a number of creative ways. I'm more interested in Sansa turning the tables on Littlefinger and having him killed.
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Well, quite frankly, I believe that if a person willfully and knowingly harms innocents in such a heinous manner, they're a menace to society and should be removed from the gene pool immediately. I wouldn't cry for Ramsay getting his wiener chopped off, but being excessive about the manner probably does reflect the same "monster". For those that wish to see Sansa retain her innocence, brutally killing or mutilating Ramsay probably wouldn't be very conducive to that (even though it would be justified). :P
She can always stab him a few times to frighten and throw him off his guard so she can run out of the room and escape. He bleeds out and becomes weaker and weaker leaving Theon to finish him off. :P
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Ramsay is a huge fucking monster and really needs to get put down in the most humiliating way possible (read: have Theon beat him up.) Same for Roose and Walder Frey.
Fat Walda should live tho. She's chill.
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Can someone remind me the story of the brat standing near the high sparrow at the end of the episode ?
Phew! For a moment I thought my favorite character would die, poisoned. Nope, he just met his future wife.
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I'm surprised so many people are waiting for Theon's redemption. I've always felt that had he got his hands on the stark boys he would have killed them just as easily as he killed those two farm boys. It's one thing to be a slave but it's a different thing to be something like Reek. Lacking the courage to help or to end his own life he takes actions that he knows will cause the immense suffering of others. He basically got that woman flayed alive. Nothing can redeem him for me. Anything that brings him something even close to that is too much. If he should survive this I hope it's as a broken man in a room somewhere afraid of the ghost of Ramsay for the rest of his cowardly life.
As for Ramsay I always think a life of suffering is crueler than death. Still for some reason I don't hate him as much as I hate Joffrey. I think it's because he knows he's a monster. I don't believe he thinks himself the hero of anyones story. He just wants to be the worst villain they've ever met. He doesn't justify his actions as much as states them as if "obviously this is how you react in _____ situation." I don't know what kind of end I would want for him. I guess anything is fine.
Also, there's a big difference from simply trying to survive in a bad situation, as she did in King's Landing, and actively looking for a way to get out of it. Sansa's got way more fire than Theon and is trying to make use of her available resources in order to escape. She's no longer content to simply be the victim.
I don't really see that difference. In both situations she is put in a terrible situation and is relying on others to help her escape it. I don't think that's an oversimplification either. The most active thing she's done is pick up that thing without Ramsay noticing. But Brienne is still a loaded rescue gun waiting to be fired. Like I said earlier it's easier just to stop caring about her story because there's only so many times I can voice my disgust before even I tire of hearing myself repeat it.
Can someone remind me the story of the brat standing near the high sparrow at the end of the episode ?
Phew! For a moment I thought my favorite character would die, poisoned. Nope, he just met his future wife.
That was Lancel Lannister. Cersei slept with him in the earlier season while Jaime was away. She also gave him the special wine to give to Robert for his hunt hoping he would get extra extra drunk and injure himself which he did. That's breaking marriage vows and attempted regicide. Maybe just plain regicide since he died.