Game of Thrones Season 6 [Discussion of most-recently aired episodes]

[ArmorPierce]

He is trapped between two armies who want him dead. Bolton's force at the moment is weaker than the army of the dead, and if he can defeat it he can get thousands more troops to then turn towards the Night King. Also, Jon has intimate knowledge of Winterfell, much like Theon did, as a tactical advantage.

I'm not saying it's an awesome situation, but Winterfell looks a bit better than either holding off Bolton from Castle Black, or fighting off the Army of the Dead with his current force and position.

Can't help anyone if he's dead. Stannis had more men, trained men at that with siege weapons, and was wiped out without putting a dent in Ramsay Bolton's army.

[FaxModem1]

He is trapped between two armies who want him dead. Bolton's force at the moment is weaker than the army of the dead, and if he can defeat it he can get thousands more troops to then turn towards the Night King. Also, Jon has intimate knowledge of Winterfell, much like Theon did, as a tactical advantage.

I'm not saying it's an awesome situation, but Winterfell looks a bit better than either holding off Bolton from Castle Black, or fighting off the Army of the Dead with his current force and position.

Can't help anyone if he's dead. Stannis had more men, trained men at that with siege weapons, and was wiped out without putting a dent in Ramsay Bolton's army.

Is death really a concern for Jon? As long as his head is attached to his body, Melissandre can just bring him back again.

[Simon_Jester]

Can't help anyone if he's dead. Stannis had more men, trained men at that with siege weapons, and was wiped out without putting a dent in Ramsay Bolton's army.

True, but if Ramsay's plot armor ever fails, it will fail hard. I wouldn't rule it out in any given confrontation at this stage in the game.

[Ziggy Stardust]

So what's the strategic point of Jon Snow attacking winterfel with clearly not enough men? What's the point?

Strategically, he's probably better off supporting the Tullys and gathering their support by engaging in gorilla warfare against the Freys while the majority of their forces are engaged in other matters.

Doesn't seem like a genius strategic move from a battlefield commander.

Um, did you even watch the episode? There was an entire conversation about this, where Sansa told Jon he doesn't have enough men, but Jon replied that he also doesn't have enough TIME. He's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He doesn't have the luxury of a long drawn out war, because that will doom them all.

Also, not sure where you are even getting the idea that Jon is supposed to be a great strategic commander or anything like that. He's not. I mean, complaining about Stannis' stupidity is valid, because he was SUPPOSED to be a great commander, but nobody has ever said Jon is anything other than a pouty face who's good with a sword, so it's kind of weird to be huffing and puffing about a perceived lack of strategic prowess (especially since the battle in question hasn't even happened yet).

[streetad]

Well quite. Jon knows how to swing a sword and how to lead by example, and presumably trained in some sort of small unit tactics with the night's watch, but there's no reason to think he would have the relevant skills to lead an army or fight a war. His main advisers are similar - Tormund is skilled in the kind of fighting wildlings take part in, Davos is a clever smuggler and probably has some conception of logistics, but none of them are really soldiers.

[ArmorPierce]

So what's the strategic point of Jon Snow attacking winterfel with clearly not enough men? What's the point?

Strategically, he's probably better off supporting the Tullys and gathering their support by engaging in gorilla warfare against the Freys while the majority of their forces are engaged in other matters.

Doesn't seem like a genius strategic move from a battlefield commander.

Um, did you even watch the episode? There was an entire conversation about this, where Sansa told Jon he doesn't have enough men, but Jon replied that he also doesn't have enough TIME. He's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He doesn't have the luxury of a long drawn out war, because that will doom them all.

Also, not sure where you are even getting the idea that Jon is supposed to be a great strategic commander or anything like that. He's not. I mean, complaining about Stannis' stupidity is valid, because he was SUPPOSED to be a great commander, but nobody has ever said Jon is anything other than a pouty face who's good with a sword, so it's kind of weird to be huffing and puffing about a perceived lack of strategic prowess (especially since the battle in question hasn't even happened yet).

Why does he not have enough time, says who? Sansa seemed to disagree. Is throwing away lives and resources and certainly losing the battle (which is certain based on what he knows) somehow a better choice than continuing to rally support and a tactical retreat?

I recognize that nobody said that he was supposed to be some sort of great strategic commander, I am making a comment that he is making an obviously wrong decision. Am I not allowed to comment regarding characters decisions?

[Ralin]

Well quite. Jon knows how to swing a sword and how to lead by example, and presumably trained in some sort of small unit tactics with the night's watch, but there's no reason to think he would have the relevant skills to lead an army or fight a war. His main advisers are similar - Tormund is skilled in the kind of fighting wildlings take part in, Davos is a clever smuggler and probably has some conception of logistics, but none of them are really soldiers.

Jon was raised by Ned Stark and got at least some of the same education his 'brothers' got. Probably not as much given that he wasn't expected to inherit, but it was enough that Robb was able to out-maneuver Jaime and Tywin Lannister at the age of 14/16. So I would expect him to have an above-average grasp of strategy and command by osmosis if nothing else.

[Knife]

Why does he not have enough time, says who?

The massive army of the dead. Oh, and Bolton who know's Sansa went to Castle Black and wrote Jon a nasty letter telling Jon he'd come get him. Both Jon's rock and hard place can come get him.

[Solauren]

Given all this talk about Brotherhood without Banners, we might actually see Lady Stoneheart this season, which begs the question why Jaime and Bronn's Excellent Adventure in Dorne took place, sucking, up a lot of valuable Season 5 time.

So they can space out the reveal of two major characters returning from the Dead, and keep the emotional impact of Jon Snow's death/resurrection high.

Otherwise, Lady Stoneheart would have been revealed last season, possibly as part of the last episode, right before Jon was murdered.

That would have completely killed the suspense for non-book readers about Jon's return.

[Ralin]

Spoiler

And replaced it with suspense over whether Jon would come back as himself or some fucked up murder revenant.

I'm still disappointed we didn't get any ambiguity over that, by the way.

[Solauren]

Spoiler

And replaced it with suspense over whether Jon would come back as himself or some fucked up murder revenant.

I'm still disappointed we didn't get any ambiguity over that, by the way.

Considering who you spoke of, no one would have suspected anything else from them.

[Ralin]

I'm not sure what exactly you mean.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Cersei believes the Faith Militant will actually recognize trial by combat. Not so wise.

Called it.

Arya put her blind fighting experience to very good use, as expected. Those who felt the fucks that butchered the innocent people were acting in a manner you wouldn't see out of the Brotherhood without Banners have been vindicated. Sandor chicken reference!

On the whole, pretty solid episode.

[Kingmaker]

So, who else wants to see another scene of Grey Worm and Missandei sitting in awkward silence while Tyrion tries to get them to laugh at his jokes? I feel like there's room for at least one more.

[Guardsman Bass]

There was good in that episode, but also disappointment.

1. They still haven't pulled the trigger on shit going bad in King's Landing. I guess they're saving it all for the final episode of the season, so it can end on a cliff-hanger? In any case, I didn't think "Clegane Bowl" was likely, but now it's definitely not likely. I'm guessing now Cersei does the whole "be careful what you wish for" thing, orders Gregorstein to kill the HIgh Sparrow and bring back Tommen, and then tries to burn the Great Sept of Baelor with the remaining wildfire left by Aerys (hinted at in Qyburn's exchange with her). In any case, this was all really good - the best part of the episode.

2. I'm glad they did at least use some of Arya's training in her defeating the Waif, although I'm disappointed as well. All that assassin training, and it comes down to a fight in the dark with a sword?

3. Good stuff in Riverrun, although I'm a bit disappointed that the Blackfish went down (fake death off-screen?). Beric's still alive, but they also gave a lot of talk to him being resurrected over and over again.

4. The "joke" scene with Tyrion and the Masters' assault on Mereen was good, but the ending of it was a bit underwhelming. That's it? Two seconds of Daenerys walking in, before they immediately cut away? I was kind of hoping the dragons would get loose and wreak some havoc on the Masters, but nope.

Oh well. I enjoyed it, even if the Arya stuff was the weakest part of the episode for me. Seeing the preview for Bastard Bowl, I'm not entirely impressed with what I saw, but I'll bet I'm wrong about that.

[Vympel]

Ok, thoughts:

- Immediately, the first thing to say is that a lot of purported 'spoilers' for this episode were - and I find this immensely gratifying - total, utter, shite. We heard all about how the Hound was going to kill Thoros of Myr and the Brotherhood, oh, and no mention of the return of Berric Dondarrion, because of course there had been no casting news about that from the actor's agent. So it bears repeating that a lot of people posting purported 'spoilers' are bullshit artists who read the same news as everyone else and spin a bullshit story about it, or insert it in spoilers from elsewhere that are true.

- Wow, all that weird behavior of Arya last episode amounted to nothing - she really was just being an idiot. Ok. Leaving aisde that narrative stumble (and the associated ones - like how she survived / recovered from gut wounds after jumping into what is probably massively dirty water) I did like how she took out the Waif, and I'm not really bothered that we didn't see it.

- Riverrun: Oh, Riverrun. Ok. They killed off Blackfish, carted off Edmure to Casterly Rock - and otherwise nothing much was achieved for the two characters there we care most about. Brienne and Jaime didn't really learn anything from their experience. I mean yes, Jaime and Brienne had a heart to heart and Brienne talked about his honor, and he did let Brienne go when he easily could've captured her (as noted on the behind the scenes stuffon the GOT youtube channel) but it seems like an awful lot of effort for that small amount of payoff.

I never expected Blackfish to survive, but dammit did they have to rob Edmure of one of his most admirable acts? Why not have him speak to his uncle, urge him to escape, only for his uncle to refuse? Instead we have Edmure gratuitously order that the Blackfish be clapped in irons. Wut?

Still, Edmure was pretty cool in the tent.

- Sandor ripping the shit out of the bandits. Awesome.

- The Brotherhood without Banners, honor restored! This actually made me really happy. And holy shit, Thoros and Berric! Not sure what they're going to do North (fight White Walkers presumably), but ok.

- Holy shit, he ripped his head off.

- I enjoyed Bronn and Pod's reunion alot

- Tommen, you weak little ponce. Go back to your cat.

- King Aerys' Wildfire cache, Qyburn is talking about, obviously.

- I liked the joke scene with Tyrion & Co - and holy crap that fleet looked cool. Random note: the story about the brothel, the donkey and the honeycomb was first referenced in Season 1 when Tyrion is talking about his sins at his trial at the Eyrie.

- So Drogon's just gonna burn that whole fleet, right? Alternately, the Iron Fleet will sink it.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The resolution of the Riverrun plot was mind-boggingly retarded. One of the stupidest and most disappointing wastes of time this show has seen, other than Dorne.

If the soldiers were so loyal to Edmure Tully, why did they seize control of Riverrun with Blackfish to begin with? It makes no sense for them to heed Blackfish's call to arms and then suddenly give up like that, and completely ignore Blackfish' valid point that Edmure has been a prisoner with a knife to his throat. If they had really been so dedicated to Edmure's alleged legitimacy as Lord of Riverrun, they wouldn't have risen up against the Freys in the first place. Otherwise what the hell was their motivation to go to war with Blackfish?

Even if you jump through bizarre mental loopholes to excuse that, this episode still directly contradicts what happened in the last episode. I mean, they were willing to listen to Blackfish in that scene, potentially getting their Lord killed in the process (either by hanging or throat slitting), but they weren't willing to listen to Blackfish when Edmure shows us? It just makes no god-damned sense for that scene to have gone down the way it did. Maybe if they had a scene last episode that showed that there was a lot of dissent among the soldiers within Riverrun over whether to listen to Blackfish or not, but they didn't portray it like that ... they portrayed it like Blackfish had raised an army of loyal Tully soldiers to retake Riverrun from the Freys, and then out of the god-damned blue sky they just decide "Ah, fuck it. Edmure's chill."

Then, hey, fuck it, let's just give Blackfish an undignified off-screen death while we're at it (I admit the possibility that maybe he isn't dead, because we didn't see it happen, but it seems unlikely)!

(Also, why is the general of the Lannister army the ONLY one keeping watch when they take over the castle? I know they wanted that tender wave good-bye, but what the fuck kind of army has no sentries except for their fucking commander?)

So, basically, the entire Riverrun sidestory was a complete waste of time. We got absolutely no development of the plot or characters (I know everyone is geeking out over Jaime's speech, but there was nothing there he hadn't already expressed at some point or another anyway, so it's not like this experience changed him in the least), and it was resolved in an incredibly sloppy and moronic way. Good job, writing team! It's sequences like Dorne and this plot that make me fear the worst for the next two seasons of the show.

[TheFeniX]

The resolution of the Riverrun plot was mind-boggingly retarded. One of the stupidest and most disappointing wastes of time this show has seen, other than Dorne.

Your post essentially mirrors my reaction. It was a lot of build up with no payoff and said payoff makes me scratch my head at how it could happen at all considering what lead up to it. The only thing I can add is that it now makes us rely on a complete Ex Machina for Jon Snow to retake Winterfell with the resources he has. I fully buy he could just up and get killed along with Rickon and Sansa just gets raped to death or whatever, but we either way: we get sold out WRT the build-up.

I honestly like the idea of a character coming back from the dead only to get killed again without accomplishing anything important. It's nice to turn this stuff on it's head, but GoT has been turning so much, it's popped off. There's no viewer payoff in killing Jon again, having more Starks die, seeing Bolton torture people, seeing Sansa go through Hell. I hope the writers know this because it's just boring.

On the Arya front: she has to be magic. Up and running a day after getting nearly gutted. Only after a spill that could have been fatal to an uninjured person does she start bleeding again and showing signs of her previous wounds. At least the scenes with the Hound are great, even though he also seems to be magic.

"I choose violence." Line actually felt really well delivered even with all the spoilering. I really like how Lena Headey plays Cersei. Gives an otherwise annoyingly worthless character some life. Why they kept throwing such a good line in trailers and other bullshit.... is it all they've got? Either way, Franken-Mountain should have taken after his brother and eaten every fucking chicken in the Red Keep. No idea why he stopped after going all Sub-Zero on that one asshole.

[Guardsman Bass]

The resolution of the Riverrun plot was mind-boggingly retarded. One of the stupidest and most disappointing wastes of time this show has seen, other than Dorne.

A comparison with the Dornish storyline is apt. With no Lady Stoneheart, no Blackfish, no indication that the massacre of the Freys by the Brotherhood without Banners at Riverrun is going to happen (there's pretty strong hints in the books that it's building to that), what exactly did the Riverlands Arc amount to? Honestly, nothing other than what the Dornish Arc was - namely, a way to get Jaime out of King's Landing while Cersei gets into trouble, and to check off several plot points. Bleh. At least we got Jaime's confrontation with the Blackfish out of it.

In general, so much of this season feels like it's simply waiting around for the cool stuff to happen in the last two episodes.

We got absolutely no development of the plot or characters (I know everyone is geeking out over Jaime's speech, but there was nothing there he hadn't already expressed at some point or another anyway, so it's not like this experience changed him in the least), and it was resolved in an incredibly sloppy and moronic way.

They threw away the whole arc of Jaime's character development in the Riverlands. It's about the schism between him and Cersei, him developing his own way of doing things without being rash and without his personal fighting ability anymore, and instead they made him re-focus on Cersei. Even the scenes with Brienne felt off from it, because there's basically no point anymore to having them meet - no wonder she immediately heads north again with Pod having accomplished absolutely nothing.

[Ziggy Stardust]

On the Arya front: she has to be magic. Up and running a day after getting nearly gutted. Only after a spill that could have been fatal to an uninjured person does she start bleeding again and showing signs of her previous wounds. At least the scenes with the Hound are great, even though he also seems to be magic.

This stuff doesn't quite bother me as much as it does some people, in all honesty. I agree it's not terribly realistic, and if overdone it can just be silly, but to me it's fairly inoffensive. It's a standard action-movie trope, essentially just embellishing the perceived risk to the protagonists to make their eventual victory seem to come against much greater odds. I think your criticisms are valid, but ultimately I'm fine with that decision by the showrunners because I find something innately satisfying about watching characters I like and care about achieving near super-human feats to accomplish their goals. Even if it's predictable, it isn't logically incoherent so much as it is a little hyperbolic, whereas decisions like the writing for the Dorne and Riverrun arcs do bother me quite a bit because they are so logically incoherent. It isn't accomplishing any particular narrative goal or achieving any particular emotional reaction from the audience because it's just a time-wasting red herring. Sometimes it almost feels like I just changed the channel and watched part of a completely different show that just happens to have characters with the same names/actors for a few minutes.

"I choose violence." Line actually felt really well delivered even with all the spoilering. I really like how Lena Headey plays Cersei. Gives an otherwise annoyingly worthless character some life. Why they kept throwing such a good line in trailers and other bullshit.... is it all they've got? Either way, Franken-Mountain should have taken after his brother and eaten every fucking chicken in the Red Keep. No idea why he stopped after going all Sub-Zero on that one asshole.

Lena Headey is brilliant. Probably the best acting performance on the show, along with Peter Dinklage. One thing you can't criticize the show for is bad acting. Honestly, even the Riverrun scenes were buoyed a bit by how good Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Clive Russell are at using even mediocre material.

[Simon_Jester]

On the Arya front: she has to be magic. Up and running a day after getting nearly gutted. Only after a spill that could have been fatal to an uninjured person does she start bleeding again and showing signs of her previous wounds. At least the scenes with the Hound are great, even though he also seems to be magic.

This stuff doesn't quite bother me as much as it does some people, in all honesty. I agree it's not terribly realistic, and if overdone it can just be silly, but to me it's fairly inoffensive. It's a standard action-movie trope, essentially just embellishing the perceived risk to the protagonists to make their eventual victory seem to come against much greater odds. I think your criticisms are valid, but ultimately I'm fine with that decision by the showrunners because I find something innately satisfying about watching characters I like and care about achieving near super-human feats to accomplish their goals...

The problem is that in other areas the writers (and Martin who composed the original source material) are going to immense lengths to play up Westeros/Essos as a world where the limits of the possible are quite firmly grounded in 'reality.' Yes, there is such a thing as magic. But when people try to do noble, heroic things that work in stories, nothing except magic ever actually blocks reality from reasserting itself with a sickening crunch. The little boy who dreams of growing up to be a great knight gets crippled in the first episode. The honorable father figure who's too much the bluff warhorse to navigate the decadent capital's politics winds up maneuvered into a total trap, caused entirely by his political tone-deafness. Then he gets killed by a capricious little lunatic with a crown. The fiery heir trying to avenge his father's death at the head of a powerful and motivated army wins every battle... and, again, winds up maneuvering himself to death by his own political tone-deafness.

And don't even get me started on Ramsay.

So basically, by this point the writers have spent five years creating the expectation that nobody is special, nobody is magical, nobody is privileged, except in very, very specific ways that are overtly stated. Anyone can die, horrible things can and will happen to everyone, the intrigue is relentless and ruthless and, well... you win or you die.

So while in almost any other work of fiction, it would be okay to have people routinely surviving injuries that would kill a real person who lacked the armor of the plot...

It would be much better, in the specific context of Game of Thrones, if when the writers wanted someone to survive something nasty, they just made it nasty enough that survivable was plausible for a real human in a world where plot armor isn't in play. Because the norm in Game of Thrones is exactly the opposite- there is no plot armor, and indeed there is almost a form of anti-armor that applies to sympathetic characters, who end up magnets for betrayals and attacks by people who really shouldn't be able to get a shot off against them.

[Ziggy Stardust]

So basically, by this point the writers have spent five years creating the expectation that nobody is special, nobody is magical, nobody is privileged, except in very, very specific ways that are overtly stated. Anyone can die, horrible things can and will happen to everyone, the intrigue is relentless and ruthless and, well... you win or you die.

So while in almost any other work of fiction, it would be okay to have people routinely surviving injuries that would kill a real person who lacked the armor of the plot...

This is literally no different from every action movie ever. Unless you honestly think James Bond is supposed to be explicitly magical. Again, I accept that it is a valid criticism, but it is bizarre at best and dishonest at worst to say that Game of Thrones is somehow the only example of it. It just happens to be a recent and high profile example.

[Simon_Jester]

The thing is, Bond isn't supposed to be magical, but he is supposed to be a winner. We watch the movies precisely so that we can see Bond's charisma, sangfroid, and resourcefulness as he fights his way through various challenges. He's not supposed to get shoved in the back of a van and taken out and shot halfway through the movie because someone recognized his latest Bond car and figured out he was a secret agent.

So it is a convention in the context of Bond movies, and most other action movies, that the protagonist(s) can survive things normal people almost certainly wouldn't. They don't need magic powers to be able to do this- but they have a level of luck, skill, and toughness that rivals that of the luckiest, toughest, most skilled real people on their best days.

Game of Thrones does not run on this convention, and that's putting it mildly. Too many characters have died because of the realistic, logical consequences of their own limitations, their own bad choices, their being outgunned, or plain bad luck.

So for Arya to suddenly grow a suit of plot armor when her father and brothers and many of the people loyal to her family and so on and so on lack such armor... is perhaps jarring. We want Arya to stay alive as a viewpoint character- but in the context of this series the way to make that happen is not to have her survive the unsurvivable.

James Bond can get away with surviving the fate no normal man could survive. Batman or Han Solo or Lara Croft or Zorro or any of a thousand 'merely human' action heroes can get away with that, and we take it for granted, because it is part of their idiom that they are among the rare, fortunate ones who can dance between the bullets. But Arya Stark... not quite so much.

[TheFeniX]

I gotta go with Simon_Jester here. We've established just how deadly the GoT world is. The mighty Kal Drogo was downed by a fleshwound infection and that guy was in pretty damn good shape. Ned takes a spear to the leg and he's no longer in fighting shape even up until he's executed. And he's pretty fucked up even afterward, taking weeks to recover.

They kind of jumped the shark with the Hound showing up again in tip-top shape after all the bullshit he went through before his final "death" scene. Arya takes multiple stab wounds to the gut and fights off her attacker. The next day, she's up and moving like normal up until a deadly spill just opens up her old wound, instead of giving her new ones. Meanwhile, Bolton goes down immediately to one gut stab and BadassMcLargeHuge Dorne bodyguard guy goes down immediately to a backstab.

I can buy a whole lot of shit. Like, Named heroes in a TV show who take hits from bullets, phaser energy, whatever: they aren't going to die unless contract negotiations fall through. I can buy that Arnold taking a bullet to the shoulder won't cripple him for life, even though wounds of that nature leave most people with chronic pain and a serious loss of range-of-motion after lengthy recovery periods because that's just how those movies/series work.

However, GoT has routinely established how deadly the world is no matter how billable the actor or how important the character. Now it seems like, in order to shake things up, they have to show characters surviving some truly insane shit just to keep us guessing. And we also have deadly wounds that aren't instantly fatal.... becoming instantly fatal. A gut stab takes time to kill you. It's not an off-switch. I don't expect the GoT writers to have specialties in emergency medicine, but I do expect them to get some basic shit right.

[Simon_Jester]

This is a somewhat more specific version of what I'm saying, but I think it details things well.

Basically, you can have 'gritty realism' in which people can only do what people can really do.

Or you can have 'heroic realism' in which people can only do what we imagine people can really do.

We can imagine people being stabbed in the belly and toughing it out, or fighting off severe wound infections that were lethal 95% of the time in real life. The entire concept of "flesh wounds" is basically a tribute to humans' ability to imagine healing from serious injuries with no significant loss of function.

But Game of Thrones simply does not run on this basis. Too many characters have died or been incapacitated or degraded or ruined precisely because they entered a situation that normally is not survivable. Poisonings kill people, stabbings kill people, and so on, and in many cases these killings are even easier than in real life, with people being unusually vulnerable. Being 'tough' doesn't save you from truly serious, lethal injury- King Robert's toughness just prolonged the agony when he was gutted by a boar, and the Mountain's toughness only prolonged the agony when he was poisoned by Oberyn Martell.

And this isn't even just about physical injuries either. It's about political injury too. In most stories, if the protagonist leaves one person in a position of trust who is not trustworthy, that just results in a dramatic betrayal and the protagonist wins anyway. In Westeros, leave one person with a shot at stabbing you in the back, literally or metaphorically, well... you win or you die, as noted. The ones who leave room for betrayals generally don't win.

So in a setting where the 'natural' ability of characters to survive or recover from (real or metaphorical) injuries is if anything less than real life, turning around and making someone nearly invulnerable really, really stands out, and not in a good way.

This is also part of why people have gotten sick of Ramsay- he's not invulnerable in what he survives physically, but he is invulnerable in that he succeeds in getting away with things, and doing things, that literally no one else in the setting could accomplish. Nobody else could try to rout an army with twenty men, or murder his father and stepbrother in front of witnesses, and not end up getting crushed flat by the weight of the consequences of his actions.

In a setting where heroic characters had succeeded in accomplishing equally improbable feats against the odds, Ramsay Snow wouldn't seem so ridiculous. But that's... not the setting he lives in.