The Actor Who Plays Ramsay Reacts to This Week's Intense Episode of Game of Thrones
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Episode nine is (in this editor's mind) the best episode of Game of Thrones' sixth season, and possibly even the series as a whole. Jon Snow is pitted against Ramsay Bolton, and in the end, the Starks prevail over the monster. Jon beats Ramsay to a pulp, but the villain dies by being ripped apart by his own hungry dogs. He calls the pups loyal, but as Sansa points out, no creatures are loyal when you starve them for a week. Actor Iwan Rheon spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his character's gruesome demise; here are the highlights!
- He's happy with Ramsay's death: "Yeah, I feel really lucky he got a proper send off. And it's a gruesome death. It's so ironic. He's been banging on about those hounds all this time."
- He received the infamous "your character is dying" call: "I had received half the scripts, five episodes, then I got the call. They joked, 'Isn't it great Ramsay ends up on the Iron Throne?' As soon as they said that I said, 'He's dead isn't he?' It's cool."
- Though he hadn't shot his final scene at the time of EW's interview, he thought Ramsay's final scene was "great": "It leaves Sansa in an interesting place as a character, because he's saying, 'I'm inside you now.' It's horrible, and I think he probably has done some damage. He's gotten in her head. But I think it's nice too, because it's such a great scene to go out on."
- Why Ramsay is smart to deny Jon's request for a one-on-one battle: "It's actually quite intelligent of Ramsay. He would like to fight him. Jon Snow tries to wind him up. But Jon would probably beat him and he knows that. Ramsay knows Jon is an amazing swordsman."
- The show has a twisted sense of justice. "Jon Snow needs to win because otherwise there's no hope left in the world. But it is interesting that it isn't fair. And afterward, Ramsay still thinks he's won. He's so arrogant and self assured he thinks he'll still be fine — until the last minute. He always thinks he's going to be okay."