Let's compare these two threats, both of which were made last night on Game of Thrones.
Threat #1:
None
Threat #2:
None
The first threat was levied by Khal Moro at Daenerys Targaryen; the second by Ramsay Bolton, in letter-form, at Jon Snow and Sansa Stark. Though Moro and Ramsay have never met, and are located about as far away from each other as possible—Moro in Essos and Ramsay all the way up in the North—the declarations are striking in their similarities. The way they both promise and revel in sexual violence and gang rape, the way they tease bestiality. Juxtaposing the gross threats of these two men was a deliberate move by Game of Thrones—you're meant to recognize their resemblance.
So to take it a step further, look at the consequences of those statements. After Khal Moro finished talking about horse-fucking, Daenerys torched his Dothraki temple and stood coolly while Moro and his band of "community leaders" burned to death. Moro's fatal flaw was his inability to measure Dany and her power. He was utterly unwilling to bow to a woman, or at the very least acknowledge one's value. But he also seemed unable to believe that a woman could be capable of the level of brutality men are. No way could this dainty little girl kill someone. So he burned, while his outdated belief system caved in on him.
The fallout of Ramsay's sadistic epistle is still TBD, but if Thrones went to great lengths to show how similar Moro and Ramsay's statements were, then there's also reason to believe that Ramsay's fate will resemble Moro's. Does this mean that Sansa will be the one to end Ramsay Bolton, and put us all out of our misery? I'd bet on it right now. It may take all season, but signs certainly indicate that Ramsay's disgusting rope has finally run out—I wouldn't be surprised if eventually he's the one who ends up being fed to dogs. Of course, there's always a chance that Game of Thrones reverses the hopeful trend it seems to be on and readopts the "evil trumps honor" vibes of Seasons 3 and 4, but that would be a disappointing turn in storytelling. It'd undo everything Game of Thrones has spent seasons building.
As we noted after this season's first episode, the true heroes of Game of Thrones are the women. They've spent years being degraded and disrespected, cast off as objects to be sold and sodomized. But underneath the thick, foregrounded plot of male-oriented, throne-chasing politics, Game of Thrones is revealing itself to be a slow-burning show about how the nasty actions of men do have their consequences. It has taken ages—years of television time, and centuries in the world of Thrones—but the people who underestimate and degrade women are not long for this world. They end up with gashed throats, pulverized skulls, or burnt to a crisp.
This is a definite change for Game of Thrones, and though we'll never really know one way or the other, one has to wonder whether David Benioff and D.B. Weiss made this shift in direct response to the show's previous controversies surrounding the depiction of sexual violence against female characters. What's happening in Season 6 in no way absolves Game of Thrones' past mistakes, but it is refreshing to see the perpetrators of this sexual violence finally face real consequences. The message is now clear: if you threaten to violently rape a woman on Game of Thrones, you will pay for it. So it's not a question of if Ramsay will die—it's a question of how.
