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[Book Spoilers] The Bastard of Bolton confirmed


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Here's my tinfoil hat theory:

The network asked GRRM to cut some of his material and to change Asha's name... so he came up with a wicked move: instead of Reek, Theon's going to be betrayed by his sister!

As we saw in Episode 6, Ser Roderick is dead and Roose is sending Ramsay with Dreadfort forces to kick Theon out of Winterfell.

So the Dreadfort men will play the part of Roderick's force and will lay siege to Winterfell.

But if the general plot of the book is to be followed, then who's going to lead the "relief"?

Well, Theon did send a message to Asha/Yarra at Deepwood Motte.

So what if Yarra arrives with her ironborn - remember, she's got 30 ships - and breaks the siege... only to betray Theon at the last moment and take Winterfell for herself!

She may even ally herself with the Boltons - after all, they're the secret enemies of Starks. So Theon still gets to be Reek... only in an entirely unexpected way!

That would be quite an evil twist, well worthy of GRRM, imo.

Of course, I'd still prefer the book version, but so far it seems we're not getting it, sadly.

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Here's my tinfoil hat theory:

The network asked GRRM to cut some of his material and to change Asha's name... so he came up with a wicked move: instead of Reek, Theon's going to be betrayed by his sister!

As we saw in Episode 6, Ser Roderick is dead and Roose is sending Ramsay with Dreadfort forces to kick Theon out of Winterfell.

So the Dreadfort men will play the part of Roderick's force and will lay siege to Winterfell.

But if the general plot of the book is to be followed, then who's going to lead the "relief"?

Well, Theon did send a message to Asha/Yarra at Deepwood Motte.

So what if Yarra arrives with her ironborn - remember, she's got 30 ships - and breaks the siege... only to betray Theon at the last moment and take Winterfell for herself!

She may even ally herself with the Boltons - after all, they're the secret enemies of Starks. So Theon still gets to be Reek... only in an entirely unexpected way!

That would be quite an evil twist, well worthy of GRRM, imo.

Of course, I'd still prefer the book version, but so far it seems we're not getting it, sadly.

No. Would be interesting as hell, and you labeled the theory correctly. But I'll be the first to say it: no way.

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During episode 5, Cleftjaw set off the Reek radar in my head big time. I've now accepted this isn't the case. This is just a result of the schematics of producing a television show in increments over time.

Casting an actor to play Reek would take money. The relatively minor role this season, followed by larger roles in future seasons runs the risk of not being able to retain the actor, and to get a bigger name they would have to pay big money for an actor to appear in less than 20 minutes of screen time this year.

It was only practical to forestall Ramsay's introduction to next season. However, to leave open Theon's character for sympathy and redemption, you have to have someone manipulating him into his most irredeemable acts. They cast Cleftjaw, so he is taking that role, and because he is goading Theon into his most evil acts, he seems like Reek to book readers.

The way for the show to take advantage of this angle is to have the audience suckered into cheering for Reek initially as a protagonist - Yay! He's working for Robb Stark and taking out the evil Theon Greyjoy! Get the audience to savor Theon's downfall, then gradually turn their stomachs as they realize just what Ramsay truly represents. Play with their expectations and emotions, introduce more gray into the series, etc.

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No. Would be interesting as hell, and you labeled the theory correctly. But I'll be the first to say it: no way.

How's the siege going to be resolved, then? Is the Bastard simply going to storm Winterfell and capture Theon, without any sort of uncanny twist? That would be lame and boring.

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How's the siege going to be resolved, then? Is the Bastard simply going to storm Winterfell and capture Theon, without any sort of uncanny twist? That would be lame and boring.

Theon could lower the gates, seeing Cracken banners, only to then see the flayed man on the leaders' armor right before he gets knocked out and Winterfell is taken out. Just a possible solution. But considering Asha has met up with Theon for TWOW, I doubt they will venture too far with the character until her role is more certain.

Plus, I think the twist is that he is there to take WF back for Robb but instead captures inhabitants and destroys WF. I agree, not as good as the "oh shit Reek was the bastard!" revelation in the books.

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How's the siege going to be resolved, then? Is the Bastard simply going to storm Winterfell and capture Theon, without any sort of uncanny twist? That would be lame and boring.

the twist is that he's going to burn winterfell down and betray robb.

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I'm not super hopeful, but I would be very happy if it played out mostly like from the books;

Then, a surprise featured extra to retake Winterfell from Theon, and an actual casting for S3.

Pwweeeeaase?

What would they have Ramsay do in Season 3? Ramsay Snow was in the last 1/3 of A Clash of Kings as Reek and then Ramsay. Then, both he & Theon disappear until ADWD - only mentioned in passing a few scattered times in ASOS (not sure on AFFC?). They'd have to drag in torture & flaying scenes, and would even HBO go there? And, how often can they show that? I think they'll have him in helm & cloak like Jaqen in Season 2. They'll close the season with him apparently killing Theon and then bring Theon back in a few years when they start doing AFFC/ADWD storylines as a surprise.

I'm still not sold on the change to the storyline from the books - in the books, Ramsay was kind of a loose cannon who was imprisoned in Winterfell as Reek. TV show Ramsay seems to be holding down the Dreadfort in Roose's absence? But, I'll see how it plays out over the last 4 episodes before I decide for sure.

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I can't see Ramsay being cast for Season 3. I assume he wasn't cast this year due to lack of things to do on-screen and he wasn't even in Storm of Swords, so it makes sense they're just saving him until Theon's ADwD arc or sometime shortly before that.

They probably want a good, at least somewhat big-name actor to play Ramsay and it just doesn't make sense economically to hire an actor that doesn't have much to do before his time. This doesn't necessarily mean he's just going to pop-up as a new character in Season 4 or 5, he's already been mentioned and after the sacking of Winterfell, I assume there will be many stories of flayings and other disgusting rumours being spread about him. They'll build up the lore of this character off-screen and then shove it down our throats later on.

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Apparently Michael McElhatton (Roose) is younger than Ralph Ineson (Dagmer, or Finchy from The Office).

So, uh... yeah... :drunk:

LOL. Well, that takes care of it. Not that I thought there was any chance in hell that they'd do that. I think the writers are derps, but not THAT big of derps.

I don't get how or why people are excited just because a name was said. Ramsay is pretty integral to the story, so of course they were going to include him.

Getting excited about it, though? He's a horrible character. One of the few stereotypical monsters in the story and his death can't come soon enough.

I can't speak for the others, but I for one am not excited so much as I'm relieved to hear he hasn't been cut. Yes, he's integral, but I thought Edmure and the Reeds were too and so far no sign of them whatsoever, so I was worried about Ramsay too. Some had speculated that his character would be merged with Roose's, and I'm glad that this isn't going to happen.
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Theon being betrayed by someone he thinks is an ally has emotional relevance. A random army of Boltons is blah. How can they end the best storyline of the season in such a dull way?

The idea that Ramsay can somehow fake it as an Ironborn is contrived, but we've already seen contrived plots this season with over ubiquitous Littlefinger and Mata Hari Jeyne. At least Dagmer = Ramsay would be interesting.

Also, isn't the Winterfall arc too far advanced to save Ramsay for next season?

50/50 on whether I think this theory is correct. It would be pretty funny. We all have spent months wringing our hands over the absence of Reek, if he was there the whole time it would be kind of epic.

BTW in the Manchurian Candidate, Angela Lansbury was about the same age as her on screen Laurence Harvey and it worked fine.

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I'm still not sold on the change to the storyline from the books - in the books, Ramsay was kind of a loose cannon who was imprisoned in Winterfell as Reek. TV show Ramsay seems to be holding down the Dreadfort in Roose's absence? But, I'll see how it plays out over the last 4 episodes before I decide for sure.

Well he was, IIRC, until the Lady Hornwood incident, which could be included later in the show.

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They can do plenty of Theon/Ramsay scenes next season. They are going to be super creepy, torture scenes, but we will get to see Theons transformation into Reek. They can also add to the Ramsay freakshow by showing the Lady Hornwood scene next season too.

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