Just How Dumb Are the Heroes on 'Game of Thrones'?

It kind of feels like the best guys in 'Game of Thrones' are also the stupidest.

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Complex Original

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Last night, Game of Thrones aired what might have been their best battle scenes to date, which is saying a lot—this is the show that lit TV screens aflame with "Blackwater" in 2012. But in "The Battle of the Bastards," the focus was less on the spectacle of wildfire explosions and more interested in the pure gruesomeness of medieval warfare. The main point of the battle scenes shot by director Miguel Sapochnik was to show just how much of a clusterfuck these sort of fights are, that most of your survival depends on luck, and that you're just as likely to be trampled to death by your own men as you are cut in half by the enemy. The ground-level perspective of the battle between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton('s army) was immediate, thrilling, and suffocating.

After an hour of watching—and feeling the relief of the good guys prevailing—it was easy to immediately feel that this was a flawless episode of Game of Thrones. And in that same afterglow, it was hard to criticize any of the actions of our heroes, Jon Snow, Sansa Stark, even Daenerys Targaryen. But I've had some sleep since then, and there are a lot of questions that need answering. Namely, are these people very, very stupid? Do George R.R. Martin, Benioff and Weiss have us rooting for a bunch of idiots?

Let's go character by character (Arya "The Expert Assassin" Stark, you too will be judged) to find out.

Jon Snow

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Here's a summary of some of last night's episode (these quotes are not exact):

Sansa: No Jon, seriously. Ramsay is freaking nuts.

 


Jon: I'VE FOUGHT WHITE WALKERS.


Sansa: Ramsay is worse than those dudes, and probably smarter.


Jon: I'LL SET TRAPS FOR HIM.


Sansa: Eh, probably not. He's probably gonna fuck with you hard.


Jon: WE NEED TO SAVE OUR BROTHER.


Sansa: Grow up bro, Rickon is so dead.


*Fast-forward to the battle*


*Ramsay brings out Rickon, sets trap*


Jon: I WILL NOW ABANDON ALL STRATEGY AND RIDE TOWARDS AN ARMY OF 6,000 BY MYSELF.

Jon, buddy, what is up, man? Like, I get that you're a man in a regressive society and your natural instinct is to turn your ears off any time a woman speaks, and I get that you love your brother (even though you haven't seen him in like five years?), but MY GOD. Clearly Ramsay's whole ruse with Rickon was to force the issue and get Jon to play by his rules, and Jon was all too eager to fall into the trap. It was borderline hilarious seeing Tormund and Davos watch this whole thing play out and be like, "Come on man, don't be an asshole," and then, "Welp, looks like our leader is dumb af."

Another small gripe at Jon's seemingly subpar intelligence: after he's actually won/been saved by the army of the Vale, he and about 20 of his soldiers have Ramsay cornered. So what does Jon do? Does he use those numbers to his advantage? Nope! He PUTS DOWN HIS SWORD, picks up a shield, and walks toward an arrow-firing Ramsay—alone. Don't get me wrong, it was totally badass—and no one loves a recreation of that hamburger meat scene from The Patriot more than me. But it was incredibly stupid. Deep down, I was hoping that Jon would just pull the Game of Thrones equivalent of Indiana Jones shooting a swordfighter and let all his men light Ramsay up with arrows.

Jon Snow is talented with a sword, he's a charismatic leader, and he has a beautiful face. But like Ygritte told him so many times, he really knows nothing.

Verdict: Love you Jon, but you're pretty dumb

Sansa Stark

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Daenerys Targaryen

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Arya Stark

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