Game of Thrones/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • Viserys' death almost manages to provoke audience sympathy, due in large part to the actor's efforts during the character's final scene.
    • Doreah in the season 2 finale. It doesn't help that its unclear whether she was actually a willing participant in Xaro's plans.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Renly, is he the Only Sane Man among the Baratheon brothers who won't let the fact that he's a younger brother stop him from doing what he believes is best for the realm, or just a weak and self-serving man who has being manipulated by the Tyrells into trying to take the throne from the rightful heir despite being too weak to hold it? The books portray him as somewhere in between.
    • Stannis: Well-Intentioned Reasonable (if harsh) Authority Figure just doing what it takes to win a war in a Crapsack World? Or a power-hungry sociopath who simply won't own up to his own Obviously Evil methods and intentions.
    • Was Ned Stark a man of principle who simply stood by his code of honor because he was a good man (full knowing the potential cost), or was he the naive idiot Cersei and Littlefinger said he was?
  • Base Breaker: Ros' status as a Canon Foreigner who takes screen time away from characters in the books makes her the The Scrappy to a lot of people (being the main participant in most of the sexposition scenes doesn't help), but plenty of critics and viewers find her snarky and charismatic enough to make it work (and then some appreciate her for...less mature reasons).
  • Complete Monster:
    • Joffrey Baratheon begins to embrace this fully once he becomes king. He executes Eddard Stark out of pure spite despite it being a horrifically stupid idea, politically; mentally and physically abuses Sansa; and gives a bard the choice of having his hands or tongue cut off for the crime of singing a song that made fun of Robert and Cersei. As of Season 2, he's forcing people to fight to the death for his amusement, threatening his own mother with execution, and concealing his parentage by ordering the slaughter of Robert's bastard children. Then to spite his uncle who was trying to placate him after he had Sansa publicly beaten and stripped by one of his Kingsguard, he has one of the whores severely hurt and possibly killed by the other. Basically...he's going Beyond the Impossible in his evil compared to his book counterpart.
    • Ser Gregor Clegane is the most feared knight in Westeros and works for Tywin Lannister and his family. A violent sadist who had once burned his brother's face for playing with one of his toys, Gregor is introduced in the Hand's tournament where he murders another contender via splintered lance; when Loras Tyrell manages to unhorse him, Gregor slaughters his own horse for failing him and attempts to murder Loras. When Gregor's own brother interferes, Gregor tries to kill him as well. When next seen, Gregor is head of the occupying Lannister forces at Harrenhal where he selects prisoners to be tortured to death by one of his men known as The Tickler. When Harrenhal is lost, Gregor has every prisoner put to the sword, leaving hundreds of corpses for the next arrivals to find. In Season 4, Gregor is seen practicing his sword skills by butchering prisoners in wholly one-sided duels before he enters into a Trial by Combat representing the Crown against Prince Oberyn Martell who wishes to force Gregor to confess to the murder of Oberyn's sister Elia and her children. When Gregor gets his hands on Oberyn, he shoves his thumbs through the prince's eyes before squeezing his head until it explodes, wanting to hurt the man as much as possible while he roars out his guilt in killing the children before he raped and murdered Elia in a similarly gruesome manner. Thankfully, he meets his own gruesome demise afterwards, having been poisoned by Oberyn's spear during their fight and becoming a headless, mindless shell of his former self thanks to Qyburn's experiments on him. The only thing about him that remained, however, is the enjoyment of violence and violation of others.
    • Craster is a particularly nasty Wildling who resides beyond the Wall, making his living as an ally to the Night's Watch by providing them with supplies, shelter and info. Craster delights in antagonizing them, however, hiding behind the fact he's necessary to them to avoid reprisal. What makes Craster sickening is how he rules his self-given kingdom: Craster routinely marries any daughters he has when they come of age, beating and raping his many wives and daughter-wives. If they bear him sons, Craster sacrifices them by leaving them out for the White Walkers. Craster threatens violence on those he can't simply cow into submission and relishes the lack of law beyond the Wall to simply do whatever he wants, even having the audacity to claim he is a "Godly man".
    • Walder Frey, who only narrowly avoided this status in the books, becomes one in the TV series due to the removal of any positive qualities whatsoever. While he's somewhat repugnant in his first appearance, he seems to be a fairly competent ruler and willing to help the heroes, for a price. His next appearance even has him come across as a Cool Old Guy, forgiving Robb's slight against him. Then comes The Red Wedding, which opens with Robb's pregnant wife being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach, Robb, Catelyn, and the Stark Bannermen being murdered in a massive violation of guest right, laughing and eating the whole time. To top it off, when his wife is held hostage, he simply tells the hostage taker to kill her, she's expendable. To drive the point home, he begins the next episode by recounting the Red Wedding with glee, showing no remorse and celebrating the power his betrayal has brought him.
    • Karl Tanner led a mutiny against his Lord Commander (and in the process becoming an oathbreaker (crossing an In-Universe Moral Event Horizon) by denouncing his vows to protect the wall. It's not until season 4's "Oathkeeper" that he reaches Complete Monster status, having taken up at Craster's Keep. Here he hurtles insults towards his men, encourages them to rape Craster's daughters/wives "to death, " and drinks wine from the skull of the very commander he betrayed. When one of the wives comes with a son who has been born, Karl's first reaction is to take a knife and kill it. He's only stopped when the rest of the wives point out they usually leave the sons out in the cold as a sacrifice for the White Walkers so he has that done instead. Once one of his men captures Bran and his group, he menaces Meera and threatens her to get Bran to speak. In the next episode, he intends to rape her in front of her brother, and then let his men do the same.
    • Ramsay Snow, the Bastard of Bolton, lives up to every negative stereotype about bastards in Westeros by being quite possibly the most thoroughly repulsive person to ever live. After capturing Winterfell and flaying the Ironborn who had held it, Ramsay engages in twisted games with the captive prince Theon Greyjoy. First he pretends to be an Ironborn agent who frees Theon, even killing his own men to keep up the illusion before he leads Theon back to the Dreadfort where he takes over the torture personally. Said torture consists of flaying bits of Theon's skin until he begs for the finger to be cut off, and even castrating him once his cock was enlarged enough before sending the result to Theon's father in a box. All that remains of Theon is a beaten shell of a man Ramsay dubs “Reek” who serves without question. In his spare time, Ramsay and his equally psychotic lover Myranda release girls into the woods to hunt them with bows and arrows and Ramsay's monstrous hounds who maul the girls to death. When Ramsay makes Theon negotiate a surrender with other Ironborn, Ramsay promises them safe passage only to have them immediately Flayed Alive and displayed as gruesome trophies. When married off to Sansa Stark of Winterfell, the first thing Ramsay does with her after their wedding night is take her to his bed chamber and rape her while he has Theon stand in a corner and watch. And he decides to do this ritually, stopping only to pick up where he left off next night! Ramsay then leads a 20 man army against Stannis Baratheon's forces, raiding their camps, burning all their supplies, and killing anyone they could find. When he comes back to Winterfell to find Sansa and Theon escaped and his lover Myranda is dead, Ramsay bemoans the loss of the girl he'd admired and who'd loved him...only to then prevent his men from giving her a proper burial and instead having her corpse fed to his hounds because they "needed fresh meat." Some time after, Ramsay learns of his father's wife Walda's pregnancy, fearing that his father would then have a new heir and he, his bastard, would be de-legitimized. So he brutally murders his father and has both Walda and her newborn infant child mauled to death and eaten by his dogs. After killing the wildling Osha and capturing young Rickon Stark to use as a hostage in order to get Jon Snow and his Northern allies to come battle him, Ramsay gathers an army of his own and meets with them, promising to set Rickon free if Jon agreed to his terms of battle. But the moment he lets Rickon go, Ramsay fires arrows at the child and kills him just before he can reach safety in his brother's arms. An utterly irredeemable and gleefully sadistic psychopath, Ramsay's reasoning for inflicting as much suffering as possible upon others was simply because he enjoyed doing so, making the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown given to him by a furious Jon, and his execution of being ripped apart by his own starving dogs set upon him by Sansa, entirely deserved.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Has its own page.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome/Ear Worm:
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Various characters, but Cersei probably gets it the most. Some viewers look on her as a feminist icon and role model.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Syrio Forel, the badass and Large Ham fencing master.
    • Bronn, the blue-collar sellsword and consumpate Deadpan Snarker, often playing the foil to Tyrion.
    • Jorah gets a lot of love, as he seems to be considered the biggest example of Mr. Fanservice in the series and basically consider him the the Sensitive Guy to Drogo's Manly Man.
    • Jaqen H'ghar is popular for his mysterious, deadpan nature and awesome killing abilities.
    • Sandor Clegane aka "the Hound," what with his terrific battle sequences and brooding personality.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Quite a lot of examples, particularly the Lannisters.
  • Fan Disservice:
    • Naked Hodor, although in-series, Osha would disagree.
    • Also the brief scene where Dany's poisoner has to walk naked, tied behind Dany's horse, until he collapses.
    • Season Finale "Fire and Blood" gives us Grand Maester Pycelle...wearing only a see-through bathrobe thing.
    • From early in season 2, Theon's scene with the girl on the ship isn't remotely sexy.
    • Speaking of Theon, an in-universe case where he finds out that the girl he's been hitting on at Pyke is his sister.
    • Melisandre teases Davos about his desire to see her naked. Moments later, she drops her robe to reveal that she's hugely pregnant and prompt;y gives birth to a nightmarish shadow creature.
  • Fan Dumb/Hate Dumb: Watch the show for any other reason than to assure yourself it's the worst crime in the history of humanity? There's a segment of the book fandom that would like you to get your head pounded into paste by Gregor Clegane.
    • Dany has quite the Hatedom/Hate Dumb just on her own. Apparently many viewers see her as "the pretty popular girl" and project their Wangst from high school onto her. This is especially notable among Sansa's more ardent fans, as if the two were in some sort of competition (when there's so far no real evidence the two even know each other exist).
  • Fantasy Ghetto:
    • Some of the early reviews are placing the series firmly in the ghetto, even so far as to claim Network Decay of HBO. Not only fantasy / SF blog io9 had a few things to say about that, but also both fans and other professional critics called them out on that outright bias. So much so Troy Patterson recused himself from reviewing the series from that point forward.
    • Combine this with fetish fuel. The second review linked above, by Gina Bellafante, claims that all fantasy is boy-oriented, and the sex was added to draw in a female audience (despite much of the sex also being in the source material). The same review claims that "we are in the universe of dwarfs, braids, wenches, loincloth," which seems to indicate that the reviewer didn't watch the show in the first place--or perhaps thinks Tyrion Lannister is supposed to be a Tolkien-style dwarf rather than a human with dwarfism, which goes well beyond Did Not Do the Research and really swings for the fences.
    • According to Liam Cunningham, "I think it's wrong to call this a fantasy series [...] it's a proper, magnificent drama show". Because a fantasy can't be a "proper, magnificent drama," right?
  • Genius Bonus: In the third episode of the second season, Lord Varys tells Tyrion a riddle. Anyone with a background in political science (especially in international relations) will recognise Varys' answer as a down-and-dirty explanation of the constructivist school of thought. Xaro Xoan Daxos' empty vault is a second example of the illusory nature of power.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Before Jon leaves to join the Night's Watch, Ned promises to tell him about his mother the next time they meet. They never do. Ned dies before they can reunite. His uncle also promises to talk with him when he returns from a ranging mission. He disappears beyond the Wall.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: In his review of The Station Agent Roger Ebert wrote that there was no reason why Peter Dinklage couldn't play Braveheart. Flash forward to "Blackwater" --- where he does.
  • Hollywood Homely: Brienne of Tarth is called Brienne the Beauty as an Ironic Nickname because she's supposed to be ugly. Gwendoline Christie isn't uglied up much beyond a few facial scratches and men's clothing/armor. It's apparently a case of Adaptational Attractiveness, and the nickname has more to do with her being a woman.
    • Gwendoline Christie isn't horribly ugly, but she is much less conventionally attractive than most of the other women of her age group on the show, so it still largely fits.
  • Ho Yay: A few scenes. Invoked by Varys: "Do you spend a lot of time wondering what's between my legs?"
  • Huge Schoolgirl: Sansa Stark could be considered this. She’s played by Sophie Turner who was 14 years old when the first season was filmed and was at least 5'10 at the time. She's even roughly taller than Littlefinger.
  • Iron Woobie:
    • Arya
    • Tyrion
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • The scene between Viserys and Jorah in Episode Six seemed to partially paint Viserys as such. Possibly subverted, as he proceeds to be a total ass and basically brings his death upon himself.
    • It is hard not to feel a little bit sorry for Lancel Lannister after all the abuse Robert gives him.
    • Theon, who's a bit of an asshole, but also takes hideous amounts of shit from all sides.
    • The fans that dislike Daenerys tend to see her as this. It's undeniable that her childhood and teenage years have not been nice, at all.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Sean Bean is all over the advertising, sitting on the iron throne as if anticipating events to come. He is by far the best known actor in the series, one of the noblest and most sympathetic characters, and by all appearances The Hero. When he is accused of treason and threatened with execution, no one is really fooled that he's in any danger; its all just a matter of what form The Cavalry will take. Which, of course, is entirely the point. Anyone Can Die, up to and including the top billed and most beloved characters, and now everyone knows it.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • Petyr Baelish, a.k.a. Littlefinger. At least in the first three seasons prior to getting hit by Villain Decay and Taking a Level In Dumbass.
    • Tywin Lannister was this full-stop back when he was around. Charles Dance's performance certainly helped.
    • Mirri Maz Duur, the witch, who got her revenge on Khal Drogo for his men sacking her village and raping her. Unfortunately for her, she pulled her scheme a little too well, and Dany learned a bit about Equivilent Exchange in the process.
    • The show adds several scenes in which Littlefinger and Varys are fully aware of their roles as the dueling Magnificent Bastards of Kings Landing, to a Friendly Enemy level.
    • Tyrion Lannister. The little guy can bend almost anyone to his will.
    • Xaro Xhoan Daxos, as of "A Man Without Honor." The man played everyone else in his entire storyline for chumps right from the start. Possibly subverted in that it gains him nothing in the end.
    • Olenna Tyrell has shown herself to be a Magnificent Bitch par excellence, and this extends to her Bastard Understudy granddaughter, Margaery Tyrell.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Khal Drogo. Jason himself is of the opinion that Drogo would win in a fight with Conan the Barbarian, one of literature's most famous memetic badasses, who he has also portrayed. Jason ended up playing Conan in the 2011 film.
    • Tywin Lannister can cure dyslexia through sheer persistence. He also gives bollockings to an Ax Crazy Complete Monster who's nearly a foot taller than him. In addition, he is pretty much singlehandedly waging a war with in-universe Memetic Badass Robb Stark.
    • Arya Stark can answer back and hold her own in a Death Glare contest with the aforementioned Tywin. She's twelve.
    • Lyanna Mormont is quickly becoming even more of a memetic badass than Arya (who has become a legitimate badass over the course of the show). Some memes have the Others deciding not to invade Westeros after having her glare at them.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "Just so," is slowly, but surely, becoming one.
    • "The war for Cersei's cunt" has become one on /tv/, and for whatever reason is usually accompanied by a picture of Saoirse Ronan.
    • The scene in which Tyrion bitchslaps Joffrey several times is very popular and has been made to play in a repeating loop, or set to music. And with Tyrion continuing to slap people, the act is now referred to as getting "Imp Slapped."
    • Hodor!
    • Ned's obsession with honor and the lack of Rickon in the show (especially joke theories about where he is instead of Westeros) have both been pretty big around Tumblr.
    • "THEY KILLED MAH NIGGA NED, MAN!"
    • The show's use of exposition via sex scenes has become infamous and a neologism, "sexposition," was created to describe it.
    • Robb Stark is a boss, though after his decisions in "Valar Morghulis" it's "Robb Stark is an idiot."
    • "THE KING IN THE NORTH!"
    • "Play with her arse!"
    • New for season 2: "Her vagina is dark and full of terrors" and "Joffrey likes to watch".
    • Substituting pronouns for "a man," like how Jaqen H'ghar speaks.
    • Whenever someone lists the entire Stark family line, they make sure to add Tony at the end.
    • Stannis the Mannis, with the common phrase of admiration being some variant of "First off the boats/on the beach, first on the ladders/walls, slaughtering Lannister bitches like a boss and last to leave."
    • "FIYAH AND BLUD!"
    • "There's no cure for being a Joffrey" should be one, if it isn't already
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • If Janos' betrayal of Ned didn't put him over the edge (he was only doing what he was paid for, after all), then leading a massacre of Robert's bastards, including personally killing a baby certainly did.
    • Joffrey crossed it when he has Ned executed. Especially since he first made it look like he was going to do the exact opposite. He also crosses it when he orders Slynt to kill all of Robert's bastards. And then again in the scene where he torments the prostitutes
    • Theon executing Rodrik Cassel in "The Old Gods and the New." His victim even informs him that he is now lost.
    • Theon displaying the hung corpes of two young boys, apparently Bran and Rickon, who have been burnt alive. Perhaps slightly eased in that he is quite palpably remorseful for it, particularly after Yara's blistering criticism of the decision after her arrival in Winterfell.
    • Ramsay Bolton's torture and emasculation of Theon and creation of Reek is beyond the pale.
      • Given his unhealthily large entry above under Complete Monster he is a candidate for worst in show.
    • Dagmer killing Maester Luwin entirely for the hell of it.
    • Cersei - in terms of death toll for a single act/atrocity, her destruction of the Great Sept in the season 6 finale has to place her up at the top of the long list.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Sansa, who begins to give Joffrey spirited answers that are often masked as innocent observsations. She also tries her hand at manipulating him, once managing to get him to spare a man, and once attempting to goad him into fighting in the Battle of the Blackwater.
    • Ros' severe Break the Cutie in season two is getting her a lot more sympathy.
    • A considerable number of viewers (mostly women, for some reason) disliked Shae in the beginning and considered her a Shallow Love Interest to Tyrion. After witnessing her newfound badassery in Season 2 and taking on a protective role over Sansa, the critics disappeared.
  • Seasonal Rot: General consensus is that the series began to decay in quality from Season 5 on, reaching an explosive (in the bad sense) finale in Season 8. It doesn't help the show-runners openly said they discarded most fantasy elements to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator, on a fantasy story, important elements like Lady Stoneheart were discarded, and illogical plot developments are fundamental for major plot events (Bolton suddenly defeating Stannis when it seemed all lost thanks to "twenty good men").
  • Special Effects Failure:
    • The golden crown. And the end result looks more like wax than metal.
    • The full-grown direwolves look less real than the dragons. CGI dragons are easy. CGI fur isn't, so they filmed real wolves in front of green screens, and insert (bigger versions of) them in the filmed shots. It shows.
    • When Ser Barristan is being relieved of his place on the Kingsguard, if you look closely you can see his helmet bending as he holds it, almost like it's made out of rubber or plastic.
    • Difficult to see unless you're specifically looking for it (and hidden by the lighting) but when Tyrion chops off the Baratheon captain's leg in "Blackwater," the blood that splatters his armor is obviously being thrown at him from offscreen.
  • Squick:
    • Lysa Arryn breastfeeding her son Robin. In the book, he was about six when this scene happened, and in the show he looks even older.
    • Daenerys having to eat and keep down the entire raw heart of a horse. By the time she barely finishes it, her mouth and both her hands are soaked with blood. Still, that she does--while pregnant, no less--is something of a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
    • The description of what's going to happen to the man who tried to poison Dany. We only get to see the beginning of it, but it's still pretty gruesome.
    • The description of what Littlefinger's more demanding clientele want from his brothels: young boys, fresh corpses (of beautiful women)...It can also put the opening scene of episode 7 to new, unpleasant light, since the children being bathed outside his brothel may be his prostitutes, as well.
    • Khal Drogo fights a warrior who insulted Dany, and slashes a hole in his throat. Messy, but fair enough. Then he rips out the man's tongue through the hole.
    • "Garden of Bones." Just about half of the episode in one form or another. Within the first five minutes we have a man getting his leg amputated, and we can hear the bone being sawed through, and him screaming through the gag as Robb holds the poor bastard down.
    • The Tickler's dead body, with his head twisted completely around.
    • A priest getting literally torn apart by an angry mob, especially when it's implied that cannibalism ensues. The commoners of King's Landing are already going insane from hunger, and the Winter hasn't even started yet.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Inevitable when you're dealing with such a nerd-loved property. Though interestingly enough, George R.R. Martin himself denounces this view on the DVD commentary, saying that things like Syrio having hair and Ghost making noise just work better for the new medium.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Ramsay Snow/Bolton between the book and the show. Ramsay in the books is described as pudgy, not very bright, blunt, and extremely ferocious but not very skilled as far as combat goes. Ramsay in the show is lean, cunning, drips villainous charisma (even if it's just the sort that makes you hate him more), as well as a tactical genius, lord of melee, and crack shot with a bow.
  • The Woobie:
    • Daenerys. The crap her brother puts her through just makes you want to hug her. And then the Finale happens...
    • Bran Stark goes from being a cheerful kid full of adventurous ideas to being crippled and wanting death for simply seeing something he shouldn't have.
    • Poor fat Sam. He doesn't even get the benefit of nerd rage.
    • Tyrion. He is certainly introduced as someone discriminated against and put upon, but seems to triumph over it with little emotional fallout. Then you meet Tywin. Then you learn some backstory. Then you want to hug him forever.
    • Jon never knew his mother, grew up with a stepmother who hated him and despite having siblings and a father that loved him, never felt like he belonged in his family. He then goes off to the Wall to live a life of celibacy and freezing cold. Then his brother goes to war, his father is killed and his sisters are taken captive, and he can do nothing but sit by as everything goes to hell around him.
    • And now as of "Fire and Blood", Sansa Stark. The shit Joffrey is starting to put her through amps up the sympathy ridiculously high, especially for a character who spent the entire first season being both stupidly naive and excessively haughty.
    • Also, Arya Stark, forced to run without knowing what's going on, spending several days without food, watching how her father is dragged and booed and hear how he's beheaded. And then forced to forsake her identity.
    • Even though some may consider her The Scrappy, Ros is having a really bad time in season 2, possibly qualifying as a victim of the Trauma Conga Line.
  • Ugly Cute: Dany's dragons.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Bran and Lancel. In-universe, Arya is often mistaken for a boy. Tywin Lannister sees through her disguise pretty quickly, though.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Despite the limitations of a television budget, Game Of Thrones has some notably impressive visual effects.
    • The reveal of the dragons in 'Fire and Blood' is fantastic.
    • In 'Blackwater' the wildfire explosion is quite simply awe inspiring.
  • Wham! Episode: Despite a series that's a Trauma Conga Line and despite practically everyone knowing it was coming, much of the fandom is still reeling from the horror of the "Red Viper versus The Mountain" fight.
  • What an Idiot!:
    • Okay. Viserys? Why did you think it was a brilliant idea to marry your sister off to Khal Drogo without any recourse for getting him to back up the vow to invade Westeros? And why did you assume that Daenerys would still be subservient and loyal forever after marrying Drogo, especially when you continue to mistreat her? And how can you be so apocalyptically stupid as to think you can break a holy city's laws with absolutely no backup? This all ends in pretty much the way you'd expect.
    • Robb chooses to break his marriage contract with the Freys and marry Talisa. In doing so, he's jilted the offspring of one of the most notoriously proud and touchy nobles in the whole of Westeros whose House has one of the largest armies in the Riverlands and controls one of the very few secure land-routes to the North, to marry a girl who, despite being from a noble family of Volantis was working as a nurse when he first met her. For the other side.
    • Apparently Pyat Pree forgot that dragons can breathe fire. He did remember that putting the mother close to the dragons made them stronger, but collating these two facts didn't occur to him until Dany uttered the "Dracarys" command.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Sandor Clegane
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