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TLV Application
Nov. 7th, 2017 08:55 pmUser Name/Nick: Steph
User DW: knights_say_nih
E-mail: underwater.owl@gmail.com
Other Characters: Quentin Coldwater and Furiosa
Character Name: Tormund Giantsbane
Series: Game of Thrones (HBO Show)
Age: Fortyish
From When?: At the end of season four start of season five. He’ll be fictionally ‘killed’ by the men at the wall during his attempted attack.
Inmate/Warden: Tormund Giantsbane is an inmate, because of the canonpoint he’s been selected from. In the early stages of canon, he’s a rampaging marauder who massacres villagers and kills captives to prove a point or press an advantage. He is redeemable- his arc with Jon Snow fighting against the Whitewalkers will do that for him later in the series, but at the moment he’s a baddie with an inadequate moral compass and a bone to pick.
Arrival: Tormund was snatched at the moment of his death!
Abilities/Powers: Ordinary (massive scary) human.
Personality: Tormund is an extremely imposing man, whose defining character trait may be that he’s completely unwilling to be fucked with. He’s a member of the Free Folk, a people beyond the wall whose credo is that they will not kneel- and although he is periodically willing to pledge his name and his people to someone who has earned his respect, he’d rather die (or better still- kill) than feel stepped on.
He’s a violent warrior who’s likely to physically use his teeth in a battle, and has the build and ferocity to win most fights he gets into. You wouldn’t want to end up toe to toe with him on the battlefield. He has the short temper of a brawler, and a habit of starting shit- making jokes, picking fights, prying, refusing to back off. In short, he stirs the pot, and isn’t scared of what happens when it gets out of hand.
Although Tormund is a charismatic leader, he isn’t a particularly knowledgeable strategist. He’s more of a blunt, brute force. In scenes in the show, other characters try to explain the finer points of military strategy to him. He doesn’t have even an understanding of the basics, preferring to sign on to someone else’s plan than to create his own.
In the service of those goals, though, Tormund shows himself to be capable of atrocious things. This is really what puts him over the line from ‘amoral good guy’ to bona fide inmate. Shortly before his death he bands his group together with another group of wild, sadistic cannibals, and the combined group of them storm a village and massacre peaceful looking peasants, in order to make a move against their enemies in the Nights Watch.
Although Tormund expresses his hatred of these reluctant bedfellows, he fights right alongside them as they kill the villagers. Earlier in the show, he also makes a choice to kill an unarmed horse breeder; Jon Snow proposes robbing the man and leaving him alive, that they’ll be hunted more closely if they make themselves murderers. Tormund reasons that if a party is sent out to hunt them it’ll be easier to pick them off beyond the wall, so better to make themselves murderers.
The historical enmity between the peoples on the two sides of the wall are so high that killing an innocent man doesn’t even figure into his reasoning, not that there’s that much of a baseline of respect for human life in the Game of Thrones setting.
That said, Tormund is a pretty beloved GoT character. He’s got a wicked sense of humour, and lands some of the genuinely funniest lines in the show. He jokes irreverently and frequently- about Jon Snow mistaking him for the King Beyond the Wall, about nearly accidentally killing him, about the time he allegedly went to bed with a bear named Sheila.
Refreshingly, he lacks some of the rampant misogyny you see with other characters- he fights alongside Ygritte without comment. He is actually interested in female sexual pleasure rather than assault. He’s also endearingly (past this canonpoint) charmed by Brienne of Tarth, a good sign that he isn’t scared of a strong female character. We like him, despite his murderous ways.
I’m not sure you would necessarily describe Tormund as loyal- he murders friends when they cross him, changes loyalties with the wind- but obviously has an ability to take a shine to people and let them stay close to him sporadically. I think a lot of his interpersonal relationships (his casual murder of the Lord of Bones, an erstwhile friend; his switch of loyalties from the dead Mance Rayder to John Snow, working with the Crows after the death of Ygritte) make the most sense if you accept that he’s kind of cavalier about death.
This makes good sense- GoT is famous for murdering people off at a tremendous clip, and north of the wall is an especially dangerous place to grow up. His loyalty would read as more logical if he’s missing a dose of the ‘I shall avenge your death’ syndrome. Instead you might say he has an intensely sentimental streak. When he makes friends, he follows them easily into battle, and seems generally sort of good natured and reliable. Give him a set of instructions and you know he’ll follow them, despite near certain death. Go into battle with him and he has your back.
Barge Reactions: Tormund is going to be pretty hard to subdue, initially. Standards of behavior are just so different in Game of Thrones that there’ll probably be a lot of walloping and bar fighting and nights cooling his heels in zero before he gets the swing of such polite company.
He’ll take the weirdness pretty in stride, though will complain loudly about everything from the weather to the food. He won’t really even engage with the idea of redemption willingly, and will instead focus on carousing and causing trouble rather than his own moral betterment.
Path to Redemption: I’m especially interested in Tormund’s path to redemption because I think he can’t have it be by following someone he respects. The problem he has so far seems to be that he’s hinged his moral compass to people who make bad choices, so replacing his willingness to raid and murder for Mance with a willingness not to for a warden is no good.
Nor, either, would be the sentimental attachment to one or two people who he’d try to protect. He’s got the sort of personality where he could absolutely get himself into trouble saving someone or other, and then go back to his murdering ways the next day.
I think Tormund’s path to redemption is going to come from developing his own thoughtfulness, and in some ways sitting down and answering these questions for himself for the very first time. Life beyond the wall is hard- the war between the Free Folk and the watch has been basically nonstop. In a subsistence lifestyle there isn’t room for strategizing, moralizing, developing art or expression, not beyond campfire story telling.
A year on good food, rested, and exposed to thought and theory will be the difference between his reactionary, ill considered ways, and someone worthy of a second shot at life, and a chance to become the leader he’ll be in the show after the canonpoint he comes from.
History: Here is a helpful wiki link.
Sample Journal Entry:
[Tormund doesn’t bother to sort out the communicator until he’s locked in zero for a day- all right, his fifth day this month. He’s getting pretty bloody familiar with these walls, these bars, this ceiling, so he finally does as everyone suggests and gets online.
The result begins;]
Well I’ll be fucked. There are people in it. Tiny little people.
CAN YOU HEAR ME, WEE FOLK?
[And then it’s about three days of constantly replying to the main post rather than following discussions in-thread. Also, the day he makes three distinct new top level posts to announce;]
WELL.
[And, still hollering to the people in the device;]
I SHOULD HOPE
[Lastly, and several minutes later.]
What do you mean, wrong? Come out of there and say so, mouseling. I’ll bite you in two.
Sample RP:
Tormund can’t abide the heat below. He gravitates instantly and easily up on deck, commandeers a ring of deck chairs and a corner to himself, and starts a fire in one of the metal serving pans from out of the dining hall. It’s good weather for a fire, and the smell of it beats back some of the blackness of space.
He can’t look away from the stars as they go by. There are some glittery nights out beyond the wall, when the skies are calm and the storms are down, but this is more like being in a snow storm, made out of light itself.
He stares out over the dazzling spray, while he prods the coals and wonders to himself how he’s going to find something out here to hunt. He wonders about where the cafeteria stocks up- not particularly hard, he'll find something somewhere.
Tormund isn't a big hit in the cafeteria either. He tends to believe line ups are a sign of a weak willed populace, or some sort of insane local superstion, and he has a few loud public conversations about his decision not to partake. Once at the food itself he has a brief, suspicious interaction with a salad.
He ends up at one of the back tables, tearing into most of a chicken. He watches his food, watches the room, takes up most of a table, and makes 'walk on, friend' little growls at anyone who looks like they might have somthing to say about it. Or the salad bowl he's brought along with him.
Special Notes: Tormund will be show-based, but I may bring details in from the books- backstory, names of children, anecdotes. Show-canon will have primacy though!
User DW: knights_say_nih
E-mail: underwater.owl@gmail.com
Other Characters: Quentin Coldwater and Furiosa
Character Name: Tormund Giantsbane
Series: Game of Thrones (HBO Show)
Age: Fortyish
From When?: At the end of season four start of season five. He’ll be fictionally ‘killed’ by the men at the wall during his attempted attack.
Inmate/Warden: Tormund Giantsbane is an inmate, because of the canonpoint he’s been selected from. In the early stages of canon, he’s a rampaging marauder who massacres villagers and kills captives to prove a point or press an advantage. He is redeemable- his arc with Jon Snow fighting against the Whitewalkers will do that for him later in the series, but at the moment he’s a baddie with an inadequate moral compass and a bone to pick.
Arrival: Tormund was snatched at the moment of his death!
Abilities/Powers: Ordinary (massive scary) human.
Personality: Tormund is an extremely imposing man, whose defining character trait may be that he’s completely unwilling to be fucked with. He’s a member of the Free Folk, a people beyond the wall whose credo is that they will not kneel- and although he is periodically willing to pledge his name and his people to someone who has earned his respect, he’d rather die (or better still- kill) than feel stepped on.
He’s a violent warrior who’s likely to physically use his teeth in a battle, and has the build and ferocity to win most fights he gets into. You wouldn’t want to end up toe to toe with him on the battlefield. He has the short temper of a brawler, and a habit of starting shit- making jokes, picking fights, prying, refusing to back off. In short, he stirs the pot, and isn’t scared of what happens when it gets out of hand.
Although Tormund is a charismatic leader, he isn’t a particularly knowledgeable strategist. He’s more of a blunt, brute force. In scenes in the show, other characters try to explain the finer points of military strategy to him. He doesn’t have even an understanding of the basics, preferring to sign on to someone else’s plan than to create his own.
In the service of those goals, though, Tormund shows himself to be capable of atrocious things. This is really what puts him over the line from ‘amoral good guy’ to bona fide inmate. Shortly before his death he bands his group together with another group of wild, sadistic cannibals, and the combined group of them storm a village and massacre peaceful looking peasants, in order to make a move against their enemies in the Nights Watch.
Although Tormund expresses his hatred of these reluctant bedfellows, he fights right alongside them as they kill the villagers. Earlier in the show, he also makes a choice to kill an unarmed horse breeder; Jon Snow proposes robbing the man and leaving him alive, that they’ll be hunted more closely if they make themselves murderers. Tormund reasons that if a party is sent out to hunt them it’ll be easier to pick them off beyond the wall, so better to make themselves murderers.
The historical enmity between the peoples on the two sides of the wall are so high that killing an innocent man doesn’t even figure into his reasoning, not that there’s that much of a baseline of respect for human life in the Game of Thrones setting.
That said, Tormund is a pretty beloved GoT character. He’s got a wicked sense of humour, and lands some of the genuinely funniest lines in the show. He jokes irreverently and frequently- about Jon Snow mistaking him for the King Beyond the Wall, about nearly accidentally killing him, about the time he allegedly went to bed with a bear named Sheila.
Refreshingly, he lacks some of the rampant misogyny you see with other characters- he fights alongside Ygritte without comment. He is actually interested in female sexual pleasure rather than assault. He’s also endearingly (past this canonpoint) charmed by Brienne of Tarth, a good sign that he isn’t scared of a strong female character. We like him, despite his murderous ways.
I’m not sure you would necessarily describe Tormund as loyal- he murders friends when they cross him, changes loyalties with the wind- but obviously has an ability to take a shine to people and let them stay close to him sporadically. I think a lot of his interpersonal relationships (his casual murder of the Lord of Bones, an erstwhile friend; his switch of loyalties from the dead Mance Rayder to John Snow, working with the Crows after the death of Ygritte) make the most sense if you accept that he’s kind of cavalier about death.
This makes good sense- GoT is famous for murdering people off at a tremendous clip, and north of the wall is an especially dangerous place to grow up. His loyalty would read as more logical if he’s missing a dose of the ‘I shall avenge your death’ syndrome. Instead you might say he has an intensely sentimental streak. When he makes friends, he follows them easily into battle, and seems generally sort of good natured and reliable. Give him a set of instructions and you know he’ll follow them, despite near certain death. Go into battle with him and he has your back.
Barge Reactions: Tormund is going to be pretty hard to subdue, initially. Standards of behavior are just so different in Game of Thrones that there’ll probably be a lot of walloping and bar fighting and nights cooling his heels in zero before he gets the swing of such polite company.
He’ll take the weirdness pretty in stride, though will complain loudly about everything from the weather to the food. He won’t really even engage with the idea of redemption willingly, and will instead focus on carousing and causing trouble rather than his own moral betterment.
Path to Redemption: I’m especially interested in Tormund’s path to redemption because I think he can’t have it be by following someone he respects. The problem he has so far seems to be that he’s hinged his moral compass to people who make bad choices, so replacing his willingness to raid and murder for Mance with a willingness not to for a warden is no good.
Nor, either, would be the sentimental attachment to one or two people who he’d try to protect. He’s got the sort of personality where he could absolutely get himself into trouble saving someone or other, and then go back to his murdering ways the next day.
I think Tormund’s path to redemption is going to come from developing his own thoughtfulness, and in some ways sitting down and answering these questions for himself for the very first time. Life beyond the wall is hard- the war between the Free Folk and the watch has been basically nonstop. In a subsistence lifestyle there isn’t room for strategizing, moralizing, developing art or expression, not beyond campfire story telling.
A year on good food, rested, and exposed to thought and theory will be the difference between his reactionary, ill considered ways, and someone worthy of a second shot at life, and a chance to become the leader he’ll be in the show after the canonpoint he comes from.
History: Here is a helpful wiki link.
Sample Journal Entry:
[Tormund doesn’t bother to sort out the communicator until he’s locked in zero for a day- all right, his fifth day this month. He’s getting pretty bloody familiar with these walls, these bars, this ceiling, so he finally does as everyone suggests and gets online.
The result begins;]
Well I’ll be fucked. There are people in it. Tiny little people.
CAN YOU HEAR ME, WEE FOLK?
[And then it’s about three days of constantly replying to the main post rather than following discussions in-thread. Also, the day he makes three distinct new top level posts to announce;]
WELL.
[And, still hollering to the people in the device;]
I SHOULD HOPE
[Lastly, and several minutes later.]
What do you mean, wrong? Come out of there and say so, mouseling. I’ll bite you in two.
Sample RP:
Tormund can’t abide the heat below. He gravitates instantly and easily up on deck, commandeers a ring of deck chairs and a corner to himself, and starts a fire in one of the metal serving pans from out of the dining hall. It’s good weather for a fire, and the smell of it beats back some of the blackness of space.
He can’t look away from the stars as they go by. There are some glittery nights out beyond the wall, when the skies are calm and the storms are down, but this is more like being in a snow storm, made out of light itself.
He stares out over the dazzling spray, while he prods the coals and wonders to himself how he’s going to find something out here to hunt. He wonders about where the cafeteria stocks up- not particularly hard, he'll find something somewhere.
Tormund isn't a big hit in the cafeteria either. He tends to believe line ups are a sign of a weak willed populace, or some sort of insane local superstion, and he has a few loud public conversations about his decision not to partake. Once at the food itself he has a brief, suspicious interaction with a salad.
He ends up at one of the back tables, tearing into most of a chicken. He watches his food, watches the room, takes up most of a table, and makes 'walk on, friend' little growls at anyone who looks like they might have somthing to say about it. Or the salad bowl he's brought along with him.
Special Notes: Tormund will be show-based, but I may bring details in from the books- backstory, names of children, anecdotes. Show-canon will have primacy though!
