[Spoilers?] What was the point of Rickon?

[Rumy Stark]

3 hours ago, Thoros of beer said:

Ye pretty useless. But it helped Ramsay in winning the battle (if Rohan didn't show up to save the day). Jon disbanded all tactics he had against Ramsay when he saw Rickon die. 

Yeah unfortunately I think that was pretty much it. Rickon was the means by which Ramsay was able to do his mind trickery with Jon, essentially. Jon was convinced Ramsay couldn't get to him, Sansa tried to tell him otherwise, Jon lost that battle. And almost lost the actual battle because of it (would have, without the Vale). 

3 hours ago, MarieAntoinette said:

They could have included a short scene with Rickon and Osha or Rickon in captivity, just to make the audience care about him a little bit. They did not even try. I guess that the showrunners just want to reach their endgame, so they just focus on the main characters while killing everybody else off. I think that looking back it would have been better storytelling if they would have merged or not included some characters at all. All those pointless deaths and characters from past seasons coming back just to die without much character development is pretty tiring. Compared to the first seasons the show may look better now with all those big battles and CGI dragons, but it feels pretty empty and lost its heart. I barely care about any of the characters any more at this point. It is one big slaughterfest with one outrageous death after another and it bores me. The books, while also dark still have heart and can make you feel genuinely sad about the fate of the characters.

While I obviously didn't want Rickon to die, the emotional impact was all in how it affected Jon. IDK. I'm still not sure why they brought Osha back, but Rickon came back to die, essentially, cause if he didn't die that's another actual Stark who would make it harder for the Sansa/Jon team to lead Winterfell. Bran is off doing his own thing and probably won't ever be a lord again, so Rickon was the last obstacle. Which is dark and sad and terrible but.... really. 

And I agree that this season has mostly been tying up loose ends by cutting off a lot of the side plots to focus us back on the main plot, which isn't very satisfying to watch most of the time, but I think the payoff will be fantastic. Season 1 was really one plot that was happening in multiple places and after Ned's death it fractured and spiraled into the tangled web we've had for the last five seasons. I think once we've gotten back onto the one plot train we might return to Season 1's character depth, but if they're going to do that quickly we have to have this chunky sort of pruning between. *shrug*. 

[W1NT3RF3LL]

2 hours ago, Nerevanin said:

His return was to serve as a reason for Jon and Sansa to attack Ramsay, although, as Sansa said, Rickon was lost already.

His death was to make Jon angry. And it actually worked. It was only Jon's super arrow-proof shield spell that made him survive. (Aside from being a main character that was just resurrected ofc)

But it's true that although it was sad how he ran to Jon and died just seconds before getting to him, it was all a bit lacking a real emotion. The Stark children are supposed to be the main characters, yet Rickon was always like the second (or rather tenth) fiddle. He never had his own story. If there was a scene here and there with him since the time he and Osha left Bran, it would be much better. Like this, he was just a character that bears the name of Stark but no one cares about him.

Well if you read some of the interviews with GRRM, Rickon was really young and attempting to have dialog for him in the manner that we see with the others characters such as his own POV would have been really tough, and kind of silly.  He was what 3 or 4 in the books?  Maybe a tad older in the show.  I just think it came down to his age, he was just too damn young. 

[Future Null Infinity]

5 minutes ago, W1NT3RF3LL said:

That was the first thing I was thinking when he was running, I was screaming run like Jaguar Paw!!!

Like LF said : "starks, quick temper, slow minds"

Jon was the quick temper

Rickon was the slow mind

[dtones520]

Maybe the actor playing Rickon was not a very good actor?

[ilikethesebooks]

As I said, I think the point was to get Jon to the crypts where he will learn about his parentage. Might could also get an intro to the possible giant ICE DRAGON (named Winter I think) that lives somewhere in the black pools under Winterfell 

[Forlong the Fat]

3 minutes ago, dtones520 said:

Maybe the actor playing Rickon was not a very good actor?

This is exactly my thought. I think they may well have filmed scenes with him and found they were not up to show standards. or at least found in editing that the show was better without them. 

It wouldn't be the first time a child actor turned out not to be up to the task of playing a more mature character. 

[Kolx]

Shock value, noting more.

[Lord Lyman]

12 minutes ago, dtones520 said:

Maybe the actor playing Rickon was not a very good actor?

I think it was purely budget reasons. Only 2 scenes and no speaking lines, which basically means they can use him for cheap. Since Game of Thrones, Art Parkinson has been in both Dracula: Untold and San Andreas. This probably put his price tag at a higher rate then what it was for the first few seasons.

[Forlong the Fat]

14 minutes ago, Lord Lyman said:

I think it was purely budget reasons. Only 2 scenes and no speaking lines, which basically means they can use him for cheap. Since Game of Thrones, Art Parkinson has been in both Dracula: Untold and San Andreas. This probably put his price tag at a higher rate then what it was for the first few seasons.

I find that very hard to believe. They have an enormous budget.  They will pay actors like Ian McShane and Max Von Sydow for very limited roles. There's no way their decisions were influenced by the money it would take to have Rickon speak vs appearing without speaking much. 

[Juan_Snow]

There is no point to Rickon.  His Wolf is named Shaggydog for crying out loud.  The only way GRRM could have made that more obvious is by naming the kid Pointless Stark...

[Nerevanin]

1 hour ago, W1NT3RF3LL said:

Well if you read some of the interviews with GRRM, Rickon was really young and attempting to have dialog for him in the manner that we see with the others characters such as his own POV would have been really tough, and kind of silly.  He was what 3 or 4 in the books?  Maybe a tad older in the show.  I just think it came down to his age, he was just too damn young. 

I know that he is very young in the books and it's understandable that he isn't a POV. But in the state in which the books are now, if we take everything Manderly says, as true, Rickon is shaping up to be of big importance in the books. While in the show he was playing second fiddle to Bran, Jojen, Hodor, Meera, Osha and the wolves and then he was brought back to be immediately killed. You can hardly call that important.

[Lord Lyman]

25 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

I find that very hard to believe. They have an enormous budget.  They will pay actors like Ian McShane and Max Von Sydow for very limited roles. There's no way their decisions were influenced by the money it would take to have Rickon speak vs appearing without speaking much. 

An enormous budget that uses every penny. I've watched the commentary's on the DVD's, and they've mentioned plenty of times on how they had no budget to do certain things. The Volantis scene where Varys and Tyrion come upon the Red Priestess, was nothing more than the Harrenhal set dressed with reused props. Also, Ian McShane was only in one episode and part of that decision may have been for budget reasons.

Also, Tobias Menzies has been in three episodes in Season 6. He only spoke in one. Natalia Tena appeared in two episodes and only spoke in one. This was all done to save on the budget.

[W1NT3RF3LL]

1 minute ago, Nerevanin said:

I know that he is very young in the books and it's understandable that he isn't a POV. But in the state in which the books are now, if we take everything Manderly says, as true, Rickon is shaping up to be of big importance in the books. While in the show he was playing second fiddle to Bran, Jojen, Hodor, Meera, Osha and the wolves and then he was brought back to be immediately killed. You can hardly call that important.

I don't believe its anymore than him just being a pawn to bring the other Northern houses to rebel. It gives them a reason to continue to fight for the Stark name who they are loyal to.  I mean we think he will be big in the books, but we don't know what is going to happen at Winterfell yet.

[missingm]

30 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

I find that very hard to believe. They have an enormous budget.  They will pay actors like Ian McShane and Max Von Sydow for very limited roles. There's no way their decisions were influenced by the money it would take to have Rickon speak vs appearing without speaking much. 

Sometimes actors like Ian McShane almost volunteer to be in a show they like. Takes almost no commitment (could have been filmed in couple of days and coordinated with one main actor) and gets them more publicity. Plus it can be fun to be in the show if you as an actor like the story. Max Von Sydow was likely paid as he was committed over the course of two seasons. 

[Xarkar]

They had to eliminate him from any potential claim to WF over Sansa / Jon etc.

 

Bran, who is the 3ER hasnt been seen by anyone and likely will not make a claim for WF.  So that means Rickon is next.  With him dead, and Bran out of the picture, they make Jon KitN and Sansa something else 

[Future Null Infinity]

32 minutes ago, Xarkar said:

They had to eliminate him from any potential claim to WF over Sansa / Jon etc.

 

Bran, who is the 3ER hasnt been seen by anyone and likely will not make a claim for WF.  So that means Rickon is next.  With him dead, and Bran out of the picture, they make Jon KitN and Sansa something else 

^ this is exactly my idea since the day I heard about Rickon's death, storywise, Rickon is barring the road of Jon to become KitN, so it must be eliminated from the plot 

[Nerevanin]

33 minutes ago, W1NT3RF3LL said:

I don't believe its anymore than him just being a pawn to bring the other Northern houses to rebel. It gives them a reason to continue to fight for the Stark name who they are loyal to.  I mean we think he will be big in the books, but we don't know what is going to happen at Winterfell yet.

If Wyman makes his plan work, Rickon will be the key element to unite the North against the Boltons or the Crown. Rickon may be more of a pawn than player but he would be quite important. Of course Rickon might just want to stay with his wildling friends and so he would indirectly influence the events too. Of course, we don't know. But what I am saying is that I think that Rickon's role in the books will be considerably bigger than in the show.

[W1NT3RF3LL]

5 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

If Wyman makes his plan work, Rickon will be the key element to unite the North against the Boltons or the Crown. Rickon may be more of a pawn than player but he would be quite important. Of course Rickon might just want to stay with his wildling friends and so he would indirectly influence the events too. Of course, we don't know. But what I am saying is that I think that Rickon's role in the books will be considerably bigger than in the show.

I don't know, I'm not saying your wrong.  I just think for the most part real important characters have stayed that way for the most part into the show.  I gotta think that if was to play a much larger role in the books, I can't see that not being shared with D&D or them deciding to not keep it that way.

[Nerevanin]

2 minutes ago, W1NT3RF3LL said:

I don't know, I'm not saying your wrong.  I just think for the most part real important characters have stayed that way for the most part into the show.  I gotta think that if was to play a much larger role in the books, I can't see that not being shared with D&D or them deciding to not keep it that way.

I'd say that we can't judge the future importance of characters from how much screen time they got in the show. Look at Doran. In the books he seems to play a big game. In the show he was killed when D&D realized that audience wasn't fond of Dorne. Arianne got completely cut. fAegon was cut, although one would argue that a Targaeryen pretender would be quite important for the story, especially as he is currently attacking Westeros. The whole Vale story was cut, although it probably will have some importance. And on and on it goes.

[Quyen Thuy Tran]

21 minutes ago, Future Null Infinity said:

^ this exactly my idea since the day I heard about Rickon's death, storywise, Rickon is barring the road of Jon to become KitN, so it must be eliminated from the plot 

So much plot convenience. Lol