People keep saying they shouldn't have "shown" S5,E2 spoiler
the dogs eating Walda and the baby. Well... they didn't. Not even a little. They had meaningful sound effects, but unlike the Sansa scene where he started tearing her clothes off on screen, it was ALL sound and obvious meaning. Saying that NOTHING was too gratuitous strikes me as... odd.
It's just like, overflow on my general feelings of most things about Ramsay being unnecessary, gratuitous, and boring. Sure they didn't show them dying. But they spent too much time on the scene, come on we know what's going to happen we can imagine them getting eaten lets move on to more interesting plots and characters please.
its funny, cause i actually thought they showed quite a bit of restraint in that scene, at least in regards to how quickly they cut out Walda's screaming. they could have dragged that on for even a few seconds more, making it all the more horrific.
could it have been done quicker? sure, but that wouldn't really be in keeping with the style of the show. the pace is a bit slower at times, and the more brutal aspects are lingered upon.
yeah, when it's women gettin hurt, mostly. I'm just tired of it. get back to the exciting shit.
Definitely. Move on from that and fire up some more of that montage of
Arya getting her shit ruined repeatedly by that chick and her staff.
Wait...
I kid, I kid, wait, no, not the face, not like Arya!
Seriously they really beat the shit out of her recently. And yes, I'm aware that has been her lot in life since season 1.
A minor note re: show Arya
Those staff beating montages always ruin my suspension of disbelief. Getting hit over and over with that apparent force seems like it would be doing real damage: broken jaw, spitting out teeth, busted lip, etc. etc. But she never needs any medical attention or anything, she just has some more artful bruises.
Jon and Ramsey meet on the field of battle. While Jon's group has wildlings and a giant and really, really should be in no risk of losing, the Bolton army quickly overwhelms them. Because he's just that good apparently. Ramsey is about to finish Jon when out of nowhere, Rickon rides in on Shaggy Dog and utterly wrecks the entire Bolton army. Before Jon can even express surprise that Rickon is still alive, Rickon and Shaggy Dog ride straight to King's Landing where Shaggy Dog eats Cersei and her zombie Mountain. Then, Shaggy Dog LEAPS into the sky, flying across the sea to find Dany and Drogon. Shaggy Dog eats Dany, climbs on Drogon, and Rickon riding Shaggy Dog riding Drogon fly back to King's Landing. Rickon is named king and lives for a thousand years. The white walkers, who up to this point were marching on the south, just give up and go home in the face of such an awesome ruler.
The end.
Somebody get GRRM on the phone. He needs to know he's been replaced.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
People keep saying they shouldn't have "shown" S5,E2 spoiler
the dogs eating Walda and the baby. Well... they didn't. Not even a little. They had meaningful sound effects, but unlike the Sansa scene where he started tearing her clothes off on screen, it was ALL sound and obvious meaning. Saying that NOTHING was too gratuitous strikes me as... odd.
It's just like, overflow on my general feelings of most things about Ramsay being unnecessary, gratuitous, and boring. Sure they didn't show them dying. But they spent too much time on the scene, come on we know what's going to happen we can imagine them getting eaten lets move on to more interesting plots and characters please.
its funny, cause i actually thought they showed quite a bit of restraint in that scene, at least in regards to how quickly they cut out Walda's screaming. they could have dragged that on for even a few seconds more, making it all the more horrific.
could it have been done quicker? sure, but that wouldn't really be in keeping with the style of the show. the pace is a bit slower at times, and the more brutal aspects are lingered upon.
yeah, when it's women gettin hurt, mostly. I'm just tired of it. get back to the exciting shit.
Definitely. Move on from that and fire up some more of that montage of
Arya getting her shit ruined repeatedly by that chick and her staff.
Wait...
I kid, I kid, wait, no, not the face, not like Arya!
Seriously they really beat the shit out of her recently. And yes, I'm aware that has been her lot in life since season 1.
A minor note re: show Arya
Those staff beating montages always ruin my suspension of disbelief. Getting hit over and over with that apparent force seems like it would be doing real damage: broken jaw, spitting out teeth, busted lip, etc. etc. But she never needs any medical attention or anything, she just has some more artful bruises.
Standard TV magic, but still annoys me
not that it helps too much, but is the staff wrapped or padded at the end?
It would still break a nose, but maybe it handwaves some of the stuff away enough for TV times.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
Joffrey suffered few setbacks until that's all he suffered.
I mean... karma is slow in Westeros.
I mean, he is cowed by Tyrion on several occasions, he gets disarmed and shamed by Arya, Tywin disregards him and sends him to his room when he's getting to big for his britches, he runs away like a coward during the battle on the black water.
Ultimately Joffrey doesn't ever FEEL like he's effective at anything other than having his men beat Sansa. Whereas Ramsey feels like he is invincible.
This is the key point. Joffrey was nasty but the world related to him in a realistic way, and likewise he was constrained by the world. Ramsay though distorts everything because he needs to be the Villain.
Joffrey was basically a 1:1 adaptation of the source, which is why he was such a great bad guy. Ramsay on the other hand hasn't been adapted nearly as well.
Books
He's supposed to be utterly revolting in appearance and manners, not sort of cute, fit, and charming in a way. That was the first red flag back in S3. I don't consider myself a book purist but there's a reason behind the choices GRRM made with that character, and he was never designed to be as important or explored as deeply as Joffrey, so when the show decides to make him Joffrey 2.0 and change what somewhat sparse characterization there was of him in the first place... it creates problems. He's a one note psychopath with Daddy issues, spending more time with him than the book did and making him not-gross looking doesn't change anything. His scenes are repetitive and now apparently he's just being used for hollow shock value. There was no reason to show Walda and the baby being eaten alive by dogs. He barely even registers as a human being because GRRM never intended him to be, and the showrunners aren't clever enough writers to change him into a character that evokes even half the hatred Joffrey did, squarely because he lacks any of the (few) human traits Joffrey had. That's why people hated Walter White so much, because they could see the human being underneath.
I don't see how Ramsey being kind of cute rather than physically monsterous is that big a deal. Him being physically deformed added an even more cartoonish element than he is already and Iwan Rheon is doing a good job with the material given.
Also to me his daddy issues were the one interesting human tie he had, so this episode didn't sit well with me. I liked the dynamic with him and Bolton and boltons "welp, my kids a lunatic" resignation to him, I could see their story ultimately ending with one killing the other but he way it was handled here was extremely perfunctory.
I would say the thing that made Ramsay more interesting in the books was that he was never a viewpoint character. He only ever showed up to impact the story lines of more important characters, usually in a specific way. You never got a sequence that was just about Ramsay. Also, at no point during the series are Ramsay's horrible crimes actually described as they are committed. They're only referenced as having happened or, at most, you see the aftermath which is rare.
Instead, GRRM used him as an enormous tension builder. There are a bunch of scenes where Ramsay is in a position of power and drives the conversation with seemingly innocuous questions. You as the reader know that if the characters at his mercy give the wrong answers or react in the wrong way something terrible will happen to them, but you don't know what will set Ramsay off. He's unpredictable, and that makes things extremely tense whenever he shows up. He's not a grinning, joking psychopath, he's a bomb that can go off at any second and you can't see the timer. In some cases, the wrong thing is said and Ramsay does his loathsome stuff offscreen. In other cases the right thing is said and Ramsay just leaves his potential victims shaken, realizing how narrowly they escaped torture or death.
Show Ramsay is more frequently used for either dark comedy or shock value horror, and there are a number of scenes where he is the focal point of the action. There are relatively few of the Hitchcockian "bomb under the table" bits that defined him in the books.
That's a pretty spot-on analysis of what makes Ramsay work in the books, and I think it also makes clear the difficulties of bringing the character to screen. When you're in Theon's head, the stakes can be made clear by his internal panic, his vague memories of past horrors. In a visual medium you have to show something, so you're already forced to abandon some of the ambiguous threat that book-Ramsay represents.
I do think the show writers tried to capture that element in the past couple of seasons. Theon as a complete wreck, the mind games, the inability to kill Ramsay when he's not just given the opportunity but outright dared to cut his throat. But by making what had been so internal into something external, you're forced to flesh out what Ramsay actually is. Even in the books there's not a great deal beyond sadism and a fear of being a nobody.
I think the onscreen stuff has mostly worked, but he's undoubtedly a more striking presence on the page than on the screen.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
That's a pretty spot-on analysis of what makes Ramsay work in the books, and I think it also makes clear the difficulties of bringing the character to screen. When you're in Theon's head, the stakes can be made clear by his internal panic, his vague memories of past horrors. In a visual medium you have to show something, so you're already forced to abandon some of the ambiguous threat that book-Ramsay represents.
I do think the show writers tried to capture that element in the past couple of seasons. Theon as a complete wreck, the mind games, the inability to kill Ramsay when he's not just given the opportunity but outright dared to cut his throat. But by making what had been so internal into something external, you're forced to flesh out what Ramsay actually is. Even in the books there's not a great deal beyond sadism and a fear of being a nobody.
I think the onscreen stuff has mostly worked, but he's undoubtedly a more striking presence on the page than on the screen.
I feel like less would have been more with Ramsay. Some of the show's best scenes are conversations between skilled actors verbally dueling with each other. Have one or two very early sequences show, in uncompromising brutality, what it is Ramsay does when he loses it. Then subsequently you could have had a lot of great, tense conversation scenes, with just him and other characters talking while the audience is on the edge of its seat, waiting for him to explode.
Joffrey suffered few setbacks until that's all he suffered.
I mean... karma is slow in Westeros.
I mean, he is cowed by Tyrion on several occasions, he gets disarmed and shamed by Arya, Tywin disregards him and sends him to his room when he's getting to big for his britches, he runs away like a coward during the battle on the black water.
Ultimately Joffrey doesn't ever FEEL like he's effective at anything other than having his men beat Sansa. Whereas Ramsey feels like he is invincible.
This is the key point. Joffrey was nasty but the world related to him in a realistic way, and likewise he was constrained by the world. Ramsay though distorts everything because he needs to be the Villain.
Joffrey was basically a 1:1 adaptation of the source, which is why he was such a great bad guy. Ramsay on the other hand hasn't been adapted nearly as well.
Books
He's supposed to be utterly revolting in appearance and manners, not sort of cute, fit, and charming in a way. That was the first red flag back in S3. I don't consider myself a book purist but there's a reason behind the choices GRRM made with that character, and he was never designed to be as important or explored as deeply as Joffrey, so when the show decides to make him Joffrey 2.0 and change what somewhat sparse characterization there was of him in the first place... it creates problems. He's a one note psychopath with Daddy issues, spending more time with him than the book did and making him not-gross looking doesn't change anything. His scenes are repetitive and now apparently he's just being used for hollow shock value. There was no reason to show Walda and the baby being eaten alive by dogs. He barely even registers as a human being because GRRM never intended him to be, and the showrunners aren't clever enough writers to change him into a character that evokes even half the hatred Joffrey did, squarely because he lacks any of the (few) human traits Joffrey had. That's why people hated Walter White so much, because they could see the human being underneath.
I don't see how Ramsey being kind of cute rather than physically monsterous is that big a deal. Him being physically deformed added an even more cartoonish element than he is already and Iwan Rheon is doing a good job with the material given.
Also to me his daddy issues were the one interesting human tie he had, so this episode didn't sit well with me. I liked the dynamic with him and Bolton and boltons "welp, my kids a lunatic" resignation to him, I could see their story ultimately ending with one killing the other but he way it was handled here was extremely perfunctory.
I would say the thing that made Ramsay more interesting in the books was that he was never a viewpoint character. He only ever showed up to impact the story lines of more important characters, usually in a specific way. You never got a sequence that was just about Ramsay. Also, at no point during the series are Ramsay's horrible crimes actually described as they are committed. They're only referenced as having happened or, at most, you see the aftermath which is rare.
Instead, GRRM used him as an enormous tension builder. There are a bunch of scenes where Ramsay is in a position of power and drives the conversation with seemingly innocuous questions. You as the reader know that if the characters at his mercy give the wrong answers or react in the wrong way something terrible will happen to them, but you don't know what will set Ramsay off. He's unpredictable, and that makes things extremely tense whenever he shows up. He's not a grinning, joking psychopath, he's a bomb that can go off at any second and you can't see the timer. In some cases, the wrong thing is said and Ramsay does his loathsome stuff offscreen. In other cases the right thing is said and Ramsay just leaves his potential victims shaken, realizing how narrowly they escaped torture or death.
Show Ramsay is more frequently used for either dark comedy or shock value horror, and there are a number of scenes where he is the focal point of the action. There are relatively few of the Hitchcockian "bomb under the table" bits that defined him in the books.
Yeah, you articulated it perfectly. We have to use our imagination as readers because so much of his presence is either just talked about or implied, which makes him far more terrifying. Film and TV are capable of evoking the same type of atmosphere, so I don't really think D&D get let off the hook on the "it's TV" excuse. They just like to make things very blunt and clear to the audience, which I think was a side effect of the immense popularity of the show and HBO's desire to lure in as big an audience as possible.
I'm gonna laugh my ass off if the same thing happens in the books.
I feel like Book!Roose would make sure to
Tell the Maester not say shit in front of Ramsay, because that was the only real error on his part. Ramsay could have charged in Dagger for first for all anyone in that room cared to stop him. Having already put a gag order on the birth is a much more BookRoose move than thinking his way out of an uncontrolled situation.
Books: (not really a spoiler after ep 6.2)
Of course Book Roose already seemed to have resigned any future heirs to their fate at Ramsay's hands. It's not clear if he would protect Walda's child or not at this point.
If anything, I can't imagine Roose (show spoilers)
keeping Ramsay anywhere near Walda, let alone in the same castle - even if it is the Dreadfort and Roose trusts his men to guard them effectively - with even the chance that she would be carrying a boy.
SithDrummer on
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Both Ramsay and Theon should've just gotten a lot less screen time. It might have been a contractual thing or just the writers liking the actors or whatever reasons, but that entire plotline is overwrought and given way too many minutes given its relative lack of importance or progress.
You know what would've been amazing? If they never showed Ramsay on screen at all for the first four seasons. Maybe you would hear his voice or see his silhouette in the shadows, but all we are shown is the impact that he has on other people. Then in Season 5 you finally see who he is, and all you get is basically this ugly, cruel bully who is clearly afraid of his father and wants his approval and puts on an eerily-perfect front, but then treats everyone else around him like shit when dad isn't around.
The staff stuff is fine for me. It's just sparring and the faceless person doing the hitting is just putting enough force into the staff so it stings a bit.
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
Both Ramsay and Theon should've just gotten a lot less screen time. It might have been a contractual thing or just the writers liking the actors or whatever reasons, but that entire plotline is overwrought and given way too many minutes given its relative lack of importance or progress.
You know what would've been amazing? If they never showed Ramsay on screen at all for the first four seasons. Maybe you would hear his voice or see his silhouette in the shadows, but all we are shown is the impact that he has on other people. Then in Season 5 you finally see who he is, and all you get is basically this ugly, cruel bully who is clearly afraid of his father and wants his approval and puts on an eerily-perfect front, but then treats everyone else around him like shit when dad isn't around.
I strongly disagree that "basically the adults from the Peanuts cartoon" would be this amazing approach for Ramsay. You just gotta accept that the mediums are different. If you stop paying an actor to work, he won't show up again years later, good to go.
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
Kit Harington is like the only cast member who's read all the books, too. I wonder if he put up any opposition at all when HBO told him to do this cover.
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fRAWRstThe Seas CallThe Mad AnswerRegistered Userregular
Im firmly in the "thats bs that they feel thats okay to run as a cover"
but tbh, the last book came out the same year the show STARTED
i cant help but feel like, fuck, they have shit to run/shit to do and cause george is a perfectionist we're stuck with shit like this
Im firmly in the "thats bs that they feel thats okay to run as a cover"
but tbh, the last book came out the same year the show STARTED
i cant help but feel like, fuck, they have shit to run/shit to do and cause george is a perfectionist we're stuck with shit like this
Yeah, but that's kinda shitty even to show watchers who just don't happen to have HBO and don't get to watch until they can get it on iTunes or digitally elsewhere.
Im firmly in the "thats bs that they feel thats okay to run as a cover"
but tbh, the last book came out the same year the show STARTED
i cant help but feel like, fuck, they have shit to run/shit to do and cause george is a perfectionist we're stuck with shit like this
The thing is that there are probably book fans actively avoiding all spoilers on the internet, but then this appears at the check out stand in the grocery store and they're kind of fucked. Not to mention people who don't watch it right as it airs.
Uhtred on
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fRAWRstThe Seas CallThe Mad AnswerRegistered Userregular
Im 100% agreeing with you guys
its just being stuck between the media blitz and the OG book readers who are trying to "we do not show"
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
The book thread had at least weekly discussions along the lines of "hey, that's a pretty spot-on prediction that poster is making, are we sure they aren't a book reader?" and I know I personally sent several PMs to people in the show thread saying "hey dude, that's pretty not okay in the show thread", reported several others as well (even if the show-only posters didn't seem to pick up on the post being anything important), and I also know I wasn't the only one doing so.
Yes, there were some asshole book readers; it sucks and shouldn't have happened but it was going to.
But I guarantee you, all but a few book readers, and all book readers in media, went to exceptional lengths to not spoil show watchers, and stay vigilant against book readers who would spoil them. .
Still had the scar on his head when he was a kid, but was able to talk normally? I, and I think a lot of other people had assumed that his only being able to say "Hodor" came from the same head injury that gave him the scar, but this sort of suggests that something else happened to turn him into an idiot mute. Also if I were the lord of Winterfell and noticed I had a six foot ten-year-old for a stable-boy, I'd be training him up to be one of my bodyguards asap.
Joffrey suffered few setbacks until that's all he suffered.
I mean... karma is slow in Westeros.
I mean, he is cowed by Tyrion on several occasions, he gets disarmed and shamed by Arya, Tywin disregards him and sends him to his room when he's getting to big for his britches, he runs away like a coward during the battle on the black water.
Ultimately Joffrey doesn't ever FEEL like he's effective at anything other than having his men beat Sansa. Whereas Ramsey feels like he is invincible.
This is the key point. Joffrey was nasty but the world related to him in a realistic way, and likewise he was constrained by the world. Ramsay though distorts everything because he needs to be the Villain.
Joffrey was basically a 1:1 adaptation of the source, which is why he was such a great bad guy. Ramsay on the other hand hasn't been adapted nearly as well.
Books
He's supposed to be utterly revolting in appearance and manners, not sort of cute, fit, and charming in a way. That was the first red flag back in S3. I don't consider myself a book purist but there's a reason behind the choices GRRM made with that character, and he was never designed to be as important or explored as deeply as Joffrey, so when the show decides to make him Joffrey 2.0 and change what somewhat sparse characterization there was of him in the first place... it creates problems. He's a one note psychopath with Daddy issues, spending more time with him than the book did and making him not-gross looking doesn't change anything. His scenes are repetitive and now apparently he's just being used for hollow shock value. There was no reason to show Walda and the baby being eaten alive by dogs. He barely even registers as a human being because GRRM never intended him to be, and the showrunners aren't clever enough writers to change him into a character that evokes even half the hatred Joffrey did, squarely because he lacks any of the (few) human traits Joffrey had. That's why people hated Walter White so much, because they could see the human being underneath.
I don't see how Ramsey being kind of cute rather than physically monsterous is that big a deal. Him being physically deformed added an even more cartoonish element than he is already and Iwan Rheon is doing a good job with the material given.
Also to me his daddy issues were the one interesting human tie he had, so this episode didn't sit well with me. I liked the dynamic with him and Bolton and boltons "welp, my kids a lunatic" resignation to him, I could see their story ultimately ending with one killing the other but he way it was handled here was extremely perfunctory.
I would say the thing that made Ramsay more interesting in the books was that he was never a viewpoint character. He only ever showed up to impact the story lines of more important characters, usually in a specific way. You never got a sequence that was just about Ramsay. Also, at no point during the series are Ramsay's horrible crimes actually described as they are committed. They're only referenced as having happened or, at most, you see the aftermath which is rare.
Instead, GRRM used him as an enormous tension builder. There are a bunch of scenes where Ramsay is in a position of power and drives the conversation with seemingly innocuous questions. You as the reader know that if the characters at his mercy give the wrong answers or react in the wrong way something terrible will happen to them, but you don't know what will set Ramsay off. He's unpredictable, and that makes things extremely tense whenever he shows up. He's not a grinning, joking psychopath, he's a bomb that can go off at any second and you can't see the timer. In some cases, the wrong thing is said and Ramsay does his loathsome stuff offscreen. In other cases the right thing is said and Ramsay just leaves his potential victims shaken, realizing how narrowly they escaped torture or death.
Show Ramsay is more frequently used for either dark comedy or shock value horror, and there are a number of scenes where he is the focal point of the action. There are relatively few of the Hitchcockian "bomb under the table" bits that defined him in the books.
Oddly enough, when I was reading your description of book Ramsey, I found myself thinking of the main BAMF from No Country For Old Men.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
*jerkoff motion*
SECRET PLAN
This was a "secret plan" in the same way that a child or pet hides their head under a blanket is an "effective camouflage".
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
Joffrey suffered few setbacks until that's all he suffered.
I mean... karma is slow in Westeros.
I mean, he is cowed by Tyrion on several occasions, he gets disarmed and shamed by Arya, Tywin disregards him and sends him to his room when he's getting to big for his britches, he runs away like a coward during the battle on the black water.
Ultimately Joffrey doesn't ever FEEL like he's effective at anything other than having his men beat Sansa. Whereas Ramsey feels like he is invincible.
This is the key point. Joffrey was nasty but the world related to him in a realistic way, and likewise he was constrained by the world. Ramsay though distorts everything because he needs to be the Villain.
Joffrey was basically a 1:1 adaptation of the source, which is why he was such a great bad guy. Ramsay on the other hand hasn't been adapted nearly as well.
Books
He's supposed to be utterly revolting in appearance and manners, not sort of cute, fit, and charming in a way. That was the first red flag back in S3. I don't consider myself a book purist but there's a reason behind the choices GRRM made with that character, and he was never designed to be as important or explored as deeply as Joffrey, so when the show decides to make him Joffrey 2.0 and change what somewhat sparse characterization there was of him in the first place... it creates problems. He's a one note psychopath with Daddy issues, spending more time with him than the book did and making him not-gross looking doesn't change anything. His scenes are repetitive and now apparently he's just being used for hollow shock value. There was no reason to show Walda and the baby being eaten alive by dogs. He barely even registers as a human being because GRRM never intended him to be, and the showrunners aren't clever enough writers to change him into a character that evokes even half the hatred Joffrey did, squarely because he lacks any of the (few) human traits Joffrey had. That's why people hated Walter White so much, because they could see the human being underneath.
I don't see how Ramsey being kind of cute rather than physically monsterous is that big a deal. Him being physically deformed added an even more cartoonish element than he is already and Iwan Rheon is doing a good job with the material given.
Also to me his daddy issues were the one interesting human tie he had, so this episode didn't sit well with me. I liked the dynamic with him and Bolton and boltons "welp, my kids a lunatic" resignation to him, I could see their story ultimately ending with one killing the other but he way it was handled here was extremely perfunctory.
I would say the thing that made Ramsay more interesting in the books was that he was never a viewpoint character. He only ever showed up to impact the story lines of more important characters, usually in a specific way. You never got a sequence that was just about Ramsay. Also, at no point during the series are Ramsay's horrible crimes actually described as they are committed. They're only referenced as having happened or, at most, you see the aftermath which is rare.
Instead, GRRM used him as an enormous tension builder. There are a bunch of scenes where Ramsay is in a position of power and drives the conversation with seemingly innocuous questions. You as the reader know that if the characters at his mercy give the wrong answers or react in the wrong way something terrible will happen to them, but you don't know what will set Ramsay off. He's unpredictable, and that makes things extremely tense whenever he shows up. He's not a grinning, joking psychopath, he's a bomb that can go off at any second and you can't see the timer. In some cases, the wrong thing is said and Ramsay does his loathsome stuff offscreen. In other cases the right thing is said and Ramsay just leaves his potential victims shaken, realizing how narrowly they escaped torture or death.
Show Ramsay is more frequently used for either dark comedy or shock value horror, and there are a number of scenes where he is the focal point of the action. There are relatively few of the Hitchcockian "bomb under the table" bits that defined him in the books.
Oddly enough, when I was reading your description of book Ramsey, I found myself thinking of the main BAMF from No Country For Old Men.
There are definitely some similarities between Book Ramsay and Anton Chigurh.
Yeah, I mean, it's assholish to put that on the cover of a magazine like that, but let's be serious here: book readers basically all knew this was coming.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
The book thread had at least weekly discussions along the lines of "hey, that's a pretty spot-on prediction that poster is making, are we sure they aren't a book reader?" and I know I personally sent several PMs to people in the show thread saying "hey dude, that's pretty not okay in the show thread", reported several others as well (even if the show-only posters didn't seem to pick up on the post being anything important), and I also know I wasn't the only one doing so.
Yes, there were some asshole book readers; it sucks and shouldn't have happened but it was going to.
But I guarantee you, all but a few book readers, and all book readers in media, went to exceptional lengths to not spoil show watchers, and stay vigilant against book readers who would spoil them. .
Does anyone remember that one guy who was straight up predicting everything like, three seasons ahead, and pretending like he was just "really good at guessing". At one point he started waxing philosophical one a topic that is only referenced secondhand in the show, with no indication that it was all important information (e.g., it was a throwaway line in one scene between two people talking about other people). And then when people called him out on it, he pretended like he had never read the books until someone (a mod?) found an old post from like 5 years ago of him participating in an ASOIF-related thread.
That's the kind of shit we did for you people. And you sit here, in the Show Thread, playing your games and enjoying your Long Summer. But we of the Book Thread, we know. We have seen. Snarks and grumkins may be tales to you, but we have seen them, in that thread. We have seen them, and we have killed them.
I am the watcher on the forums...
I am the shield that guards the threads of men
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
The book thread had at least weekly discussions along the lines of "hey, that's a pretty spot-on prediction that poster is making, are we sure they aren't a book reader?" and I know I personally sent several PMs to people in the show thread saying "hey dude, that's pretty not okay in the show thread", reported several others as well (even if the show-only posters didn't seem to pick up on the post being anything important), and I also know I wasn't the only one doing so.
Yes, there were some asshole book readers; it sucks and shouldn't have happened but it was going to.
But I guarantee you, all but a few book readers, and all book readers in media, went to exceptional lengths to not spoil show watchers, and stay vigilant against book readers who would spoil them. .
Does anyone remember that one guy who was straight up predicting everything like, three seasons ahead, and pretending like he was just "really good at guessing". At one point he started waxing philosophical one a topic that is only referenced secondhand in the show, with no indication that it was all important information (e.g., it was a throwaway line in one scene between two people talking about other people). And then when people called him out on it, he pretended like he had never read the books until someone (a mod?) found an old post from like 5 years ago of him participating in an ASOIF-related thread.
That's the kind of shit we did for you people. And you sit here, in the Show Thread, playing your games and enjoying your Long Summer. But we of the Book Thread, we know. We have seen. Snarks and grumkins may be tales to you, but we have seen them, in that thread. We have seen them, and we have killed them.
I am the watcher on the forums...
I am the shield that guards the threads of men
We knew you existed, and we were grateful.
I don't get why people did that anyway. Why ruin other peoples fun by trying to spoil things. Accidents happen, but shit like that is intentional.
Yeah, that's atrocious. "Don't watch as it airs? F' you buddy"
I see where you are coming from, but really, are you suggesting that magazines and all media need to censor themselves from mentioning what has already aired (and I know it's only on HBO, but that's where it airs). And how long should they censor it?
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I can understand it bothering you but I cannot see all media, advertising, etc. getting behind the notion that they need to work with all those same people on the book side. especially when dealing with Martin.
like EW knows that it's a book but it might as well not exist for the people working on the show stuff, I imagine. they're making their content based on the show and the business therein
there's being a decent person in conversation and then there's enormous business decisions made way in advance
Yeah, that's atrocious. "Don't watch as it airs? F' you buddy"
I see where you are coming from, but really, are you suggesting that magazines and all media need to censor themselves from mentioning what has already aired (and I know it's only on HBO, but that's where it airs). And how long should they censor it?
Making it the cover story? Yeah, that's a dick move. But EW has been awful about spoilers for its entire existence.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
After the lengths book people went to not spoil show watchers on plot points, shit like this is kiiiiiinda infuriating, even as a person who doesn't care about spoilers.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
The book thread had at least weekly discussions along the lines of "hey, that's a pretty spot-on prediction that poster is making, are we sure they aren't a book reader?" and I know I personally sent several PMs to people in the show thread saying "hey dude, that's pretty not okay in the show thread", reported several others as well (even if the show-only posters didn't seem to pick up on the post being anything important), and I also know I wasn't the only one doing so.
Yes, there were some asshole book readers; it sucks and shouldn't have happened but it was going to.
But I guarantee you, all but a few book readers, and all book readers in media, went to exceptional lengths to not spoil show watchers, and stay vigilant against book readers who would spoil them. .
Yeah there was also the time when I hadn't read the book and talked some about what could happen in the Oberyn fight, and someone PMed me with spoilers warning that I'm spoiling other people...
Edit: To be clear, I'm not bitter. I mean I wasn't happy about knowing who would win that fight but it was ages ago and clearly wasn't intentional.
Yeah, I mean, it's assholish to put that on the cover of a magazine like that, but let's be serious here: book readers basically all knew this was coming.
Still doesn't make it okay to spoil it for people. There were some show only folks in these threads that accurately foresaw certain things happening without any book knowledge and it would've been dickish to spoil it and say, "Well you saw it coming anyway"
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I don't think that "don't spoil books that major cultural phenomenon tv series are based upon" is a useful (or true) moral position.
Still had the scar on his head when he was a kid, but was able to talk normally? I, and I think a lot of other people had assumed that his only being able to say "Hodor" came from the same head injury that gave him the scar, but this sort of suggests that something else happened to turn him into an idiot mute. Also if I were the lord of Winterfell and noticed I had a six foot ten-year-old for a stable-boy, I'd be training him up to be one of my bodyguards asap.
Hodor
Yeah, I think he was set-up to be/trained as Lyanna's bodyguard. And, I am holding to my prediction (however crazy it might be) that he was at Tower of Joy or at least when Lyanna was "kidnapped" and received his injury then. Its too obvious to have someone who can't talk now (who could before) have some secret that will eventually come out that only he (or a few people) know
Still had the scar on his head when he was a kid, but was able to talk normally? I, and I think a lot of other people had assumed that his only being able to say "Hodor" came from the same head injury that gave him the scar, but this sort of suggests that something else happened to turn him into an idiot mute. Also if I were the lord of Winterfell and noticed I had a six foot ten-year-old for a stable-boy, I'd be training him up to be one of my bodyguards asap.
Hodor
Yeah, I think he was set-up to be/trained as Lyanna's bodyguard. And, I am holding to my prediction (however crazy it might be) that he was at Tower of Joy or at least when Lyanna was "kidnapped" and received his injury then. Its too obvious to have someone who can't talk now (who could before) have some secret that will eventually come out that only he (or a few people) know
I'm really excited about what could be revealed this season. This part of the story gets me hyped up
People keep saying they shouldn't have "shown" S5,E2 spoiler
the dogs eating Walda and the baby. Well... they didn't. Not even a little. They had meaningful sound effects, but unlike the Sansa scene where he started tearing her clothes off on screen, it was ALL sound and obvious meaning. Saying that NOTHING was too gratuitous strikes me as... odd.
It's just like, overflow on my general feelings of most things about Ramsay being unnecessary, gratuitous, and boring. Sure they didn't show them dying. But they spent too much time on the scene, come on we know what's going to happen we can imagine them getting eaten lets move on to more interesting plots and characters please.
its funny, cause i actually thought they showed quite a bit of restraint in that scene, at least in regards to how quickly they cut out Walda's screaming. they could have dragged that on for even a few seconds more, making it all the more horrific.
could it have been done quicker? sure, but that wouldn't really be in keeping with the style of the show. the pace is a bit slower at times, and the more brutal aspects are lingered upon.
yeah, when it's women gettin hurt, mostly. I'm just tired of it. get back to the exciting shit.
Definitely. Move on from that and fire up some more of that montage of
Arya getting her shit ruined repeatedly by that chick and her staff.
Wait...
I kid, I kid, wait, no, not the face, not like Arya!
Seriously they really beat the shit out of her recently. And yes, I'm aware that has been her lot in life since season 1.
A minor note re: show Arya
Those staff beating montages always ruin my suspension of disbelief. Getting hit over and over with that apparent force seems like it would be doing real damage: broken jaw, spitting out teeth, busted lip, etc. etc. But she never needs any medical attention or anything, she just has some more artful bruises.
Standard TV magic, but still annoys me
not just tv magic
she's being beaten by practitioners of actual magic as part of magical assassin training so maybe that has something to do with it
Posts
A minor note re: show Arya
Standard TV magic, but still annoys me
Somebody get GRRM on the phone. He needs to know he's been replaced.
not that it helps too much, but is the staff wrapped or padded at the end?
It would still break a nose, but maybe it handwaves some of the stuff away enough for TV times.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I would say the thing that made Ramsay more interesting in the books was that he was never a viewpoint character. He only ever showed up to impact the story lines of more important characters, usually in a specific way. You never got a sequence that was just about Ramsay. Also, at no point during the series are Ramsay's horrible crimes actually described as they are committed. They're only referenced as having happened or, at most, you see the aftermath which is rare.
Instead, GRRM used him as an enormous tension builder. There are a bunch of scenes where Ramsay is in a position of power and drives the conversation with seemingly innocuous questions. You as the reader know that if the characters at his mercy give the wrong answers or react in the wrong way something terrible will happen to them, but you don't know what will set Ramsay off. He's unpredictable, and that makes things extremely tense whenever he shows up. He's not a grinning, joking psychopath, he's a bomb that can go off at any second and you can't see the timer. In some cases, the wrong thing is said and Ramsay does his loathsome stuff offscreen. In other cases the right thing is said and Ramsay just leaves his potential victims shaken, realizing how narrowly they escaped torture or death.
Show Ramsay is more frequently used for either dark comedy or shock value horror, and there are a number of scenes where he is the focal point of the action. There are relatively few of the Hitchcockian "bomb under the table" bits that defined him in the books.
I do think the show writers tried to capture that element in the past couple of seasons. Theon as a complete wreck, the mind games, the inability to kill Ramsay when he's not just given the opportunity but outright dared to cut his throat. But by making what had been so internal into something external, you're forced to flesh out what Ramsay actually is. Even in the books there's not a great deal beyond sadism and a fear of being a nobody.
I think the onscreen stuff has mostly worked, but he's undoubtedly a more striking presence on the page than on the screen.
I feel like less would have been more with Ramsay. Some of the show's best scenes are conversations between skilled actors verbally dueling with each other. Have one or two very early sequences show, in uncompromising brutality, what it is Ramsay does when he loses it. Then subsequently you could have had a lot of great, tense conversation scenes, with just him and other characters talking while the audience is on the edge of its seat, waiting for him to explode.
Yeah, you articulated it perfectly. We have to use our imagination as readers because so much of his presence is either just talked about or implied, which makes him far more terrifying. Film and TV are capable of evoking the same type of atmosphere, so I don't really think D&D get let off the hook on the "it's TV" excuse. They just like to make things very blunt and clear to the audience, which I think was a side effect of the immense popularity of the show and HBO's desire to lure in as big an audience as possible.
You know what would've been amazing? If they never showed Ramsay on screen at all for the first four seasons. Maybe you would hear his voice or see his silhouette in the shadows, but all we are shown is the impact that he has on other people. Then in Season 5 you finally see who he is, and all you get is basically this ugly, cruel bully who is clearly afraid of his father and wants his approval and puts on an eerily-perfect front, but then treats everyone else around him like shit when dad isn't around.
Guess the two clownshoes running this show into the ground never saw Tropic Thunder.
Show spoilers for book people, don't click if you're not watching.
I mean seriously?
Shoe's on the other foot, and the other guy's kinda an asshole.
I strongly disagree that "basically the adults from the Peanuts cartoon" would be this amazing approach for Ramsay. You just gotta accept that the mediums are different. If you stop paying an actor to work, he won't show up again years later, good to go.
The lengths book readers went to NOT to spoil? The very first show thread here, someone just casually mentioned Ned dying. When people freaked out, that goose was like "I thought it was obvious from (garbage and lies)."
On a personal anecdote, all the readers at our group viewing parties were like "This isn't a spoiler but (100% spoilery shit)."
Or my "favorite". The spoiler guy who then insults people who don't want to hear it, calling THEM "selfish babies."
Kit Harington is like the only cast member who's read all the books, too. I wonder if he put up any opposition at all when HBO told him to do this cover.
but tbh, the last book came out the same year the show STARTED
i cant help but feel like, fuck, they have shit to run/shit to do and cause george is a perfectionist we're stuck with shit like this
Yeah, but that's kinda shitty even to show watchers who just don't happen to have HBO and don't get to watch until they can get it on iTunes or digitally elsewhere.
The thing is that there are probably book fans actively avoiding all spoilers on the internet, but then this appears at the check out stand in the grocery store and they're kind of fucked. Not to mention people who don't watch it right as it airs.
its just being stuck between the media blitz and the OG book readers who are trying to "we do not show"
frustrating all around
The book thread had at least weekly discussions along the lines of "hey, that's a pretty spot-on prediction that poster is making, are we sure they aren't a book reader?" and I know I personally sent several PMs to people in the show thread saying "hey dude, that's pretty not okay in the show thread", reported several others as well (even if the show-only posters didn't seem to pick up on the post being anything important), and I also know I wasn't the only one doing so.
Yes, there were some asshole book readers; it sucks and shouldn't have happened but it was going to.
But I guarantee you, all but a few book readers, and all book readers in media, went to exceptional lengths to not spoil show watchers, and stay vigilant against book readers who would spoil them. .
but this is a nice place.
Oddly enough, when I was reading your description of book Ramsey, I found myself thinking of the main BAMF from No Country For Old Men.
*jerkoff motion*
This was a "secret plan" in the same way that a child or pet hides their head under a blanket is an "effective camouflage".
There are definitely some similarities between Book Ramsay and Anton Chigurh.
Does anyone remember that one guy who was straight up predicting everything like, three seasons ahead, and pretending like he was just "really good at guessing". At one point he started waxing philosophical one a topic that is only referenced secondhand in the show, with no indication that it was all important information (e.g., it was a throwaway line in one scene between two people talking about other people). And then when people called him out on it, he pretended like he had never read the books until someone (a mod?) found an old post from like 5 years ago of him participating in an ASOIF-related thread.
That's the kind of shit we did for you people. And you sit here, in the Show Thread, playing your games and enjoying your Long Summer. But we of the Book Thread, we know. We have seen. Snarks and grumkins may be tales to you, but we have seen them, in that thread. We have seen them, and we have killed them.
I am the watcher on the forums...
I am the shield that guards the threads of men
We knew you existed, and we were grateful.
I don't get why people did that anyway. Why ruin other peoples fun by trying to spoil things. Accidents happen, but shit like that is intentional.
I see where you are coming from, but really, are you suggesting that magazines and all media need to censor themselves from mentioning what has already aired (and I know it's only on HBO, but that's where it airs). And how long should they censor it?
like EW knows that it's a book but it might as well not exist for the people working on the show stuff, I imagine. they're making their content based on the show and the business therein
there's being a decent person in conversation and then there's enormous business decisions made way in advance
Making it the cover story? Yeah, that's a dick move. But EW has been awful about spoilers for its entire existence.
Yeah there was also the time when I hadn't read the book and talked some about what could happen in the Oberyn fight, and someone PMed me with spoilers warning that I'm spoiling other people...
Edit: To be clear, I'm not bitter. I mean I wasn't happy about knowing who would win that fight but it was ages ago and clearly wasn't intentional.
Still doesn't make it okay to spoil it for people. There were some show only folks in these threads that accurately foresaw certain things happening without any book knowledge and it would've been dickish to spoil it and say, "Well you saw it coming anyway"
6:38
Hodor
I'm really excited about what could be revealed this season. This part of the story gets me hyped up
not just tv magic