Game of Thrones doesn’t celebrate romantic love. Characters occasionally find each other, and they might enjoy some happiness, but often it ends in tears, or death, or disillusionment, or maybe the romance wasn’t all that healthy to start with. I like that. Popular fiction often puts romantic love in the spotlight, so it’s refreshing to watch a show that sees it as compromised and fleeting at best, and not the end goal for most of the characters.
Still, the show gives romantic love its due, and has featured it in all kinds of shapes and sizes. This week we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of Game of Thrones, and today is all about the romances, so let’s examine some of the romantic relationships on the show and see if we can’t find anything out about the nature of love in Westeros.
23. Ramsay and Myranda
You see how low the standard for romantic love is on this show? We’re starting with Ramsay Bolton and Myranda the kennel master’s daughter, two people brought together mostly by their shared fondness for hunting women through the woods and killing them. It’s like if Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos found each other and decided to settle down.
But at the same time, there’s something almost heart-warming about the normalcy of their rapport in their quieter moments. There’s a moment in season 5’s “Kill the Boy,” after Sansa has arrived at Winterfell but before Ramsay marries her, where we drop in on their private conversation. Myranda is concerned that Ramsay is attracted to Sansa, and he assures her that she doesn’t have anything to worry about. Then they have some kinky sex play where she kisses him so hard she draws blood, but that first part isn’t completely out of the ordinary for a couple. That’s kind of nice…
These two were lucky to find each other—who else is likely to share their very specific set of interests? That said, they’re both better off dead.