A look back at Ramsay -- was it a mistake... (book spoilers)

[Jamie Lannister]

... to leave him out of S2?

My friend and I certainly think so. I was bitter about it all the way through (despite Alfie's top notch acting), but they weren't convinced until S3 played out in full. Jumping right into the torture and ignoring the build up seems like a bad idea in hindsight; the Reek stuff was easy to miss in CoK (GRRM deliberately obscured a lot of it from us, and "Reek's" cover story was actually pretty convincing), but it would've translated wonderfully to TV IMO. This is one of their biggest missed opportunities.

I'm a big fan of Rheon's Ramsay. He's a great actor and I honestly couldn't care less that he doesn't look like some kind of overweight wannabe-bishonen, but Ramsay's entire plotline would be a LOT better had they started it in S2, keeping Ramsay's role relatively the same. He's arrested, imprisoned, and given a pardon by Winterfell's new ruler. He becomes Theon's unlikely confidant, urges him to the dark side, and quite explicitly betrays him in that jaw-dropping finale.

In the books, Ramsay's triumphant return, betrayal of Theon, and sack of Winterfell was an amazing (and shocking) end to the action after Blackwater; in the show, it was a confusing clusterfuck of nonsense that was only offhandedly explained by ROOSE a whole season later, in an original villain's exposition scene.

Ramsay just feels like a weaker character overall for it. Some of his most heinous deeds were pawned off to Finchy from The Offi-- uh, Show!Dagmer, who was used as a sacrificial filler villain and unceremoniously murdered offscreen for his trouble. I didn't really like his role either.

Anyone else feel similarly? Would Theon's arc be in a better place had they stuck to the material?