Anyone else thinks that ADWD goes too far with Ramsay Snow?

[XAeon]

There's a limit that I can accept in fantasy (or perhaps depravity is the better word).

A thread for those who feel the same.

I understand, although I do not appreciate.

Moving on to a thread where adults can responsibly engage without a desire for sand with which to bury ones soft head.

[Land's End]

On 19.5.2014 at 6:16 AM, First of Her Name said:

iThe fact that this is a world where Ramsay Snow might become Lord of Winterfell is informative, it is illustrative, it speaks loads for the people around him, it prevents us from idealizing the Northmen who rallied to Robb, because we see now what their allegiance has bought his "sister." Do you imagine how Ned or Jon or Robb or Catelyn or Sam or Brienne or Tyrion would have reacted to being guests at that wedding? I think we are supposed to, and then to look at all the northmen and think, "oh, well, you are a rotten bunch of bastards almost as much as that guy."

Excellent point (even though it was made two years ago).

I don't get why people think Ramsay is worse than Roose or Tywin. The fascination with Tywin and how he does everything for "the family" goes beyond my understanding. He commanded a mass rape for fucks sake. Having "reasons" only makes it worse.

I think Roose tolerating Ramsay is just like Tywin tolerating The Mountain. I'm also signed up for the theory that Roose was just as bad as Ramsay until he got into leeches.

It's kind of funny that people think this is so far off from what happens in the real world. I'm a researcher in the field of genocide studies so Ramsay's antics don't shock me the tiniest bit.

What bothers me about Ramsay in the books is that he isn't just violent and monstrous but also ugly which makes him a very stereotypic villain. Though maybe Martin only went down that road because Joffrey was already the good-looking villain.

Even though I never watched the show I'd give it credit for casting Iwan Rheon as Ramsay Bolton. However, I will never watch it for exactly that reason - I just like Rheon too much.

[rotting sea cow]

On 4/22/2014 at 5:21 AM, Starspear said:

There's a limit that I can accept in fantasy (or perhaps depravity is the better word).

Well, if you read about torturers and their deeds under different dictatorships, turns out they are not so far from Ramsay.

Of course there is a reason why Snow is so black: Because it makes another Snow so white. GRRM likes to create this sort of feeling in his readers so we forget the bad actions and decisions of other characters. You see this in all these threads defending Jon in regards of the Pink Letter.

 

 

[FacelessDude]

Ramsey as a character could be seen as a bit exaggerated. He has no moral standards, has no regard for anyone or anything. He's apathetic, emotionless and obviously psychopathic.

People like Ramsey exist in our own world so why not in ASOIAF?

[Lord Fauntleroy]

If anything Ramsey didn't go too far enough. 

[Giomax]

I could definitely do without Ramsay's character. I haven't read the books so I can't speak for him there, but in the show he's just way too over-the-top for me to take seriously, and probably the most one-dimensional character there is. They could cut his role entirely and the show wouldn't be missing much. What did he really add to the story?

[Bloodstone Emperor]

On 4/23/2014 at 8:46 PM, Rippounet said:

 

 

 

Obviously not a thread for me then. But as useless as it probably is, I'd like to try to point out that having the readers cringe is the whole point of characters like Ramsay Snow. Once you understand that, he actually takes an almost comical dimension, and that's exactly how he is depicted in the show (so sick he's a dark joke by himself). Now, I know everyone reads in a different way, but I never have a problem with characters like this because I don't "suspend my disbelief" when they're doing their stuff. I see them as plot devices, as big bad villains, and move on... In fact, I strongly believe that Ramsay will soon become the main "villain" in the North after the convenient death of Roose, and the only question is who we will probably "love" for making him "pay"...

 

 

 

What bothers me more is that if Ramsay is what makes you think ADWD went too far, then you haven't been paying attention. The problem in the books isn't what purposely "evil" characters like Ramsay do, it's what supposedly "good guys" do. GRRM has gone to great length to build a universe in which good and evil exist in all characters and where everyone is not "black or white" but really grey-ish. He's very good at having the reader condone actions which should revolt any sane person. In other words, Ramsay's actions are so obviously evil that one shouldn't take them seriously. On the other hand, what characters like Dany or Arya do is what should really bother the reader because they're the ones he roots for. Once again, the show does a great job at showing that a character like Arya is actually just as much deranged as Ramsay, only we tend to overlook it because we sympathise with what she's been through. We shouldn't. Or at least, not to the point of liking her. I'm pretty confident that by the time ASoIaF ends, very few characters will be unambiguously "good", and that many readers will be left with a lot of moral conundrums as to what they ought to accept in the name of "justice", because in a realistic setting such a concept is very hard to define.

 

 

 

So... What I kind of want to say is that anyone who thinks the Ramsay character is "too much" should stop reading. Now. This isn't a fairy tale, it's a very dark story of how all people can easily do terrible things under certain circumstances. Ramsay's not a real issue because he will eventually be killed, thus providing a moral aspect to his life story. Characters like Arya and Dany, on the other hand, won't necessarily die, or suffer the consequences of some of their deeds. They might even gain from being cruel and remorseless. Yes, Ramsay's bad and one is expected to cringe when reading of his sadism. But if you want to go down this road, Arya and Dany are sadists as well, possibly worse because they think their actions are morally defendable. In truth, they're not, and as readers we should be shocked by what they do because unlike Ramsay they make their choices consciously more than instinctively. In truth, characters like Ramsay or Joffrey never had a chance of doing what is right, because they never had the ability to recognise it. Dany or Arya, on the other hand, both have it in them to do evil voluntarily. Every time they kill or torture someone (or order someone killed or tortured) the reader should realise that the author is leading him to see this as acceptable, when in fact it isn't.

 

 

 

When did ASoIaF go "too far"? Wasn't it when Dany, one of the "heroes" had 163 people publicly crucified? Or when Arya, another "hero", started randomly killing people whenever she felt like it? Or was it all the unmentionable sexual acts? Fact is, the books are constantly playing with morality, testing the reader with every possible cringeworthy situation. The point is to create a maximum of emotional responses through the proper use of words on paper. In this, I find GRRM to be a talented writer taking a leaf out of Nabokov's book. I remember that more than half of my class in college had to put Lolita down at some point because of how bad it got at times. ASoIaF seeks to achieve the same thing. It cannot go "too far", because going as far as it can is the whole point. If you keep in mind that this is a literary project you should be fine. And possibly enjoy cringing once in a while...

 

 

 

On a different note, here's my favorite quote from ADWD:

 

How was Dany sadistic. She freed hundreds of slaves and locked up her own dragons when she thought that it killed a child. Sure, she allowed Yunkai to continue slavery but it was all for the greater good, because with her death slavery would also return to Yunkai. When she killed the wise masters in Astapor, she had literally watched them cut off the nipple of an Unsullied. It is the same as killing a torturous sociopath such Ramsay. When she killed the Wise Masters of Meereen, it was for the justice of the slaves and too stop rebellion by the slavers. 

[LordMiddleFinger]

I really don't see what the problem here is. George R.R. Martin is a realist. He won't write a story where the villain is just some arrogant asshole who likes to make fun of people and sit in his chair while others do his dirty work. He created Ramsay in order to show the readers what it was really like back in the medieval period. There are many real life examples of incredibly cruel and sadistic people from our history. Here's a list of people ( real people from history ) that are arguably worse than Ramsay:

- Godfrey of Bouillon. A french nobleman who fought in the First Crusade. He marched with thousands of men on Levant ( which is basically where Syria and some other Arab countries are ). They were there to kill and take Land from other people. During the siege of Jerusalem this guy and his men captured many Jews and then they burned them alive. Those who tried to surrender were killed on the spot and civilians ( also Jews ) who begged for mercy and asked for sanctuary  were trampled to death. This is from The chronicler Fulk of Chartres describing the massacre: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet colored to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive, neither women nor children were spared."

- Ferdinand I, King of Naples. The bastard son of the Spanish monarch, Ferdinand/Ferrante. One day this guy decided to invite some French noblemen to dinner. They were actually spies/agents of his rival for the Throne of Naples. Anyway after they finished their dinner, he fed some of them to crocodiles  and imprisoned others for 30 years. Some of them were later killed and propped up in a mock banquet, their bodies were pickled and turned into mummies. He made sure they looked "lively" during the feast. 

- Galeazzo Maria Sforza. This was a great guy. He cared about his people and was very religious. In fact he was so religious that he imprisoned a priest because when the priest was asked "How long shall i rule" the priest answered "11 years". Galeazzo was so thrilled that he decided to not only throw the guy in jail, but he also decided that it would be bad for the poor father's health to eat too much, so he told his guards to feed him only when absolutely necessary! So they gave him a little food and said "Have fun!". The priest soon ran out of food, and was forced to eat his own excrement. Twelve days later he died. Galeazzo was of course devastated when he heard that the good father had passed away, so to cheer himself up, he organized a gang rape  of some poor women ( which was his favorite pastime activity ). His men loved him of course. Those who never got invited to his gang rape parties were so butthurt that they started spreading rumors about how he poisoned his own mother. He did not care about this totally false rumors and turned to his second favorite hobby, torturing prisoners. 

- William The Bad, King of Sicily. Apparently when his subjects got tired of him and decided to rebel and tried to put his 9 year old son on the Throne, William killed the boy ( his own son ) by kicking him to death.

 So no, I've got no problem with Ramsay being a total lunatic in the books who tortures people, rapes women, and has "human beings" for pets. He has no real power. He is a bastard and a psychopath who is hated by the entire North, any idiot can torture you after you have been taken prisoner and you are unable to defend yourself. I don't understand why so many readers think that Ramsay is so terrifying, Roose is terrifying, The Mountain is somewhat terrifying ( if you have to fight him 1v1 because the dude is a freak of nature ), Maegor I Targaryen AKA Maegor The Cruel was terrifying, Littlefinger is terrifying because he acts like the nicest person alive but is probably more sadistic than Roose Bolton and is probably the most intelligent person in Westeros ( not counting Bloodraven ), Euron is Euron. 

 

[SerClout]

On 2016-12-05 at 11:08 AM, rotting sea cow said:

Well, if you read about torturers and their deeds under different dictatorships, turns out they are not so far from Ramsay.

Of course there is a reason why Snow is so black: Because it makes another Snow so white. GRRM likes to create this sort of feeling in his readers so we forget the bad actions and decisions of other characters. You see this in all these threads defending Jon in regards of the Pink Letter.

 

 

Reminds me of that chapter when Davos is present with Robett Glover and Wyman Manderly while about Ramsay's deeds they are wondering if a Snow ever was so black. But yeah you can always find that dude who's worse and over the top.

[Kandrax]

On 15.1.2018. at 11:01 PM, LordMiddleFinger said:

I really don't see what the problem here is. George R.R. Martin is a realist. He won't write a story where the villain is just some arrogant asshole who likes to make fun of people and sit in his chair while others do his dirty work. He created Ramsay in order to show the readers what it was really like back in the medieval period. There are many real life examples of incredibly cruel and sadistic people from our history. Here's a list of people ( real people from history ) that are arguably worse than Ramsay:

- Godfrey of Bouillon. A french nobleman who fought in the First Crusade. He marched with thousands of men on Levant ( which is basically where Syria and some other Arab countries are ). They were there to kill and take Land from other people. During the siege of Jerusalem this guy and his men captured many Jews and then they burned them alive. Those who tried to surrender were killed on the spot and civilians ( also Jews ) who begged for mercy and asked for sanctuary  were trampled to death. This is from The chronicler Fulk of Chartres describing the massacre: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet colored to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive, neither women nor children were spared."

- Ferdinand I, King of Naples. The bastard son of the Spanish monarch, Ferdinand/Ferrante. One day this guy decided to invite some French noblemen to dinner. They were actually spies/agents of his rival for the Throne of Naples. Anyway after they finished their dinner, he fed some of them to crocodiles  and imprisoned others for 30 years. Some of them were later killed and propped up in a mock banquet, their bodies were pickled and turned into mummies. He made sure they looked "lively" during the feast. 

- Galeazzo Maria Sforza. This was a great guy. He cared about his people and was very religious. In fact he was so religious that he imprisoned a priest because when the priest was asked "How long shall i rule" the priest answered "11 years". Galeazzo was so thrilled that he decided to not only throw the guy in jail, but he also decided that it would be bad for the poor father's health to eat too much, so he told his guards to feed him only when absolutely necessary! So they gave him a little food and said "Have fun!". The priest soon ran out of food, and was forced to eat his own excrement. Twelve days later he died. Galeazzo was of course devastated when he heard that the good father had passed away, so to cheer himself up, he organized a gang rape  of some poor women ( which was his favorite pastime activity ). His men loved him of course. Those who never got invited to his gang rape parties were so butthurt that they started spreading rumors about how he poisoned his own mother. He did not care about this totally false rumors and turned to his second favorite hobby, torturing prisoners. 

- William The Bad, King of Sicily. Apparently when his subjects got tired of him and decided to rebel and tried to put his 9 year old son on the Throne, William killed the boy ( his own son ) by kicking him to death.

 So no, I've got no problem with Ramsay being a total lunatic in the books who tortures people, rapes women, and has "human beings" for pets. He has no real power. He is a bastard and a psychopath who is hated by the entire North, any idiot can torture you after you have been taken prisoner and you are unable to defend yourself. I don't understand why so many readers think that Ramsay is so terrifying, Roose is terrifying, The Mountain is somewhat terrifying ( if you have to fight him 1v1 because the dude is a freak of nature ), Maegor I Targaryen AKA Maegor The Cruel was terrifying, Littlefinger is terrifying because he acts like the nicest person alive but is probably more sadistic than Roose Bolton and is probably the most intelligent person in Westeros ( not counting Bloodraven ), Euron is Euron. 

 

I would add  semi- historical Christman Genniperteigna- He killed 964 people, keep a girl as sex slave, six victims were his own newborn children and after killing them, he would hang their corpses at entrance of his cave and start singing "Dance little child, dance, your father Genniperteigna made this dance for you".

[Kandrax]

Now, about Ramsay. He is probably the most evil character in the books. But is he too much?

I don't think so. A worse villain could appears. Some psychopath who likes to rape little girls, torture little boys until they beg him to kill them, roast babies alive and once he gave a man this choice: Rape one your daughter to death or i will kill your other children.

And truth to be told Ramsay still pales in front of many Anime and Manga villains.

Forgive me for beign disgusting.

[TyrionFan82]

Yeah, some of that was crazy. I mean you want Theon to get cumupance but wow that's a bit much! And poor Jeyne, what'd she do to deserve that?