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Ramsay's Subtle Foreshadowing of Bolton Traits - Changing Clothes


FourRavensBlackOnWhite

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Hi everyone, first post ever so sorry for formatting issues! On my fourth re-read when a couple of small things in ACOK struck me.

1. Ramsay has a sort of "signature move" from the time he is introduced as Fake Reek. Besides the obvious where he changes clothing with Reek and takes his identity, it is also his idea that Theon do the same with the Miller's sons and pretend they are Bran and Rickon. Now, this second action could just be some clever hinting by GRRM at the time that "Reek" is not who he seems, but I think it might go deeper.

2. I believe this acts as a parallel of the Bolton strategy overall, sort of like a kid imitating his father; metaphorically in this case. Whether or not you subscribe to the "Bolt-On" Theory (which I think is oriented correctly but goes a bit too far), Ramsay's actions seem like Bolton-lite historically speaking. Taking someone's clothes and taking their identity is something that happens twice in a handful of chapters. To me, this seems like a precursor to taking someone's skin and taking their identity (or at the very least, thematically links to that part of the Bolton's history)

Not much else to say, except that I found this interesting and some potential foreshadowing depending on how magical GRRM gets as the last two books proceed.

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On 2/22/2022 at 12:32 PM, FourRavensBlackOnWhite said:

I believe this acts as a parallel of the Bolton strategy overall, sort of like a kid imitating his father; metaphorically in this case. Whether or not you subscribe to the "Bolt-On" Theory (which I think is oriented correctly but goes a bit too far), Ramsay's actions seem like Bolton-lite historically speaking. Taking someone's clothes and taking their identity is something that happens twice in a handful of chapters. To me, this seems like a precursor to taking someone's skin and taking their identity (or at the very least, thematically links to that part of the Bolton's history)

Not much else to say, except that I found this interesting and some potential foreshadowing depending on how magical GRRM gets as the last two books proceed.

This is interesting, thanks (though I know nothing of bolt-on, and maybe I'll skip it).

The bolded bit is developed out more with the faceless men - they take the clothes and the (facial) skin for a perfect identity steal (skinning is another link between Ramsay and  the FM).

The final development is the human skinchange, as suffered by Hodor - I think we're going to see a lot more of that one.

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16 hours ago, FourRavensBlackOnWhite said:

Can you indicate where you saw this? An SSM? Interview? Anything like that?

A several years old interview that I came upon a few weeks ago. There were a few other theories mentioned as well. He was saying Roose wasn't some hundreds or thousands of years old vampire that changes skins.

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