Memetic Badass examples in Game of Thrones.
Meta examples:
- Tyrion Lannister isn't short because of a genetic deformity. It's only because of the sheer weight of his balls.
- Khal Drogo. Jason Momoa himself is of the opinion
that Drogo would win in a fight against Conan the Barbarian, one of literature's most famous memetic badasses, whom he has also portrayed.- After "Golden Crown" episode some nerds tried to object that gold cannot be melted in a pot on an open cooking fire. Fools didn't realise that Drogo melted that gold with his pure rage!
- Stannis "The Mannis" Baratheon:
- As a man of short words and seemingly dry wit, he's blunt, to the point, and will fight for his right.
- He's the first man to touch down upon King's Landing during the Battle of Blackwater. He then proceeds to lay waste to Lannister soldiers and had to be dragged out by his own men after the fight was lost, even though he was still determined to fight.
- In Season 4, he has a Big Damn Heroes moment when he shows up to save Castle Black from the Wildling army just in the nick of time.
- Other characters on the show refer to Stannis as the most skilled military leader in the Seven Kingdoms, and fans of the show have joked that "the reason the Wall is 700 feet high is to protect the White Walkers from Stannis".
- To this day, there are still people who will claim that Stannis never died because he was too awesome to be Killed Offscreen.
- Robb Stark is a boy of probably no more than 18 years old with no war experience and inferior numbers. Despite this, he has won three battles straight and captured in-universe Memetic Badass Jaime "Kingslayer" Lannister on his first victory, a fact which is noted by all sides of the war. Having the title of "King in the North" should be enough to strike fear, and if that isn’t enough, his badass direwolf Grey Wind sure will.
- It is said that there really aren't Seven Kingdoms, just people that Ser Barristan Selmy allows to live.
- Ser Barristan once threw a bottle of wildfire and killed 50 men. Then the bottle hit the ground and exploded.
- Tywin Lannister:
- He can cure dyslexia through sheer persistence.
- He regularly gives bollockings to an Ax-Crazy completely monstrous psychopath who's nearly a foot taller than him.
- He pretty much singlehandedly waged a war against in-universe Memetic Badass Robb Stark and won.
- He has been known to kill men with nothing more than a stern glare and a well-worded insult.
- He never smiles because his smile is way scarier than his frown.
- Arya Stark has a nasty revenge streak, has more bravery than most soldiers, and has an impressive body count in spite of her twelve years of age. The internet seems to have great fun in talking up Arya's badassery and how many enemies she's killed. One popular meme goes, "She has a larger personal bodycount than her oldest brother, and he led troops into war". This eventually becomes the truth by the time the series ends- she has an on-screen tally in excess of 400 people (including the Night King and the Army of the Dead), while Robb only has three (one of which was an execution).
- Varys is a non-combatant form of this. He knows what you had for breakfast three days ago, there are no surprises here. This is neatly described when he talks with Oberyn Martell in Season 4:Oberyn: Lord Varys.
Varys: Only Varys. I'm not actually a nobleman; no-one is under obligation to call me Lord.
Oberyn: And yet everyone does. - Tommen's pet cat Ser Pounce. After it was revealed that he will not be in any further episodes in Season 4, reasons for his departure include theories that he's playing the game of thrones against Littlefinger or getting the hell out of town after poisoning Joffrey for threatening to kill him and put his guts in Tommen's food.
- Theories run wild regarding the survival of Karl Tanner, the fooking legend of Gin Alley, who will save Westeros from White Walkers for seven silver.
- Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish:
- His Establishing Character Moment has him lighting a faraway funeral pyre boat with a flaming arrow on the first try. Fan have run with it by painting him as some sort of archery god.
- Despite their victory of the Red Wedding in Season 3, Roose Bolton and Walder Frey could not enjoy it because they feared Tully was the Sole Survivor of the event. In Season 6, when the Blackfish retakes Riverrun from the Freys, it turns out they had very good reasons to be worried.
- Though mostly a tongue-in-cheek jab at the implausibility of their actions, Ramsey's "20 Good Men" are now stated to be the ultimate fighting force capable of defeating any other army in Westeros. Some fans boil it down to one man, jokingly named Ser Twenty of House Goodmen.
- And his bother Ten.
- After his excellent Rousing Speech, Mace "The Ace" Tyrell is being hailed as one of the greatest military leaders in the show.
- Also, thanks to the odd way the actor says "Madness", talk has begun to spread of Magnus, the mysterious man who conquered King's Landing.
- Lady Lyanna Mormont:
- In Season 5, Stannis Baratheon commanded fealty and loyalty from House Mormont for his campaign to claim the Iron Throne. How did ten year old Lyanna Mormont reply to this? She personally wrote a letter: “Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark.” It is an '’awesome’’ way to declare House Mormont is staying on Robb Stark’s side.
- In Season 6, we finally get to see the lady, who stole every scene she was in and became an instant favorite with the Internet. She gets to wave her Maester off while negotiating with Jon, Sansa and Davos. She even joins the other Northern lords when meeting Ramsay and his allies before the Battle of the Bastards, giving Ramsay a Death Glare. These moments have resulted in several memes showing her to be the strongest character in the story. After watching many other young leaders being manipulated (like Robin Arryn and Tommen Baratheon), it's nice to see this little she-bear remind her advisers on who's the boss. Many fans wished for GRRM to make her the real star of the series.
- And then in Season 8 she kills a giant wight by stabbing it in the eye! Sure she dies in the effort but it's still fantastic.
- Ser Bronn of the Blackwater can easily qualify as the Lannisters' secret weapon, being able to deal with entire armies, White Walkers and Dany's dragons on his own. Just keep him paid and sated, and he'll cut down the Night King in seconds.
- Qyburn's physic-defying ballista design note has caused the fandom to quip that he can make any outlandish sci-fi tech for Westeros if given enough time.
- Euron Greyjoy has started to gain this reputation among the fandom in Season 7 after his rather lackluster introduction in Season 6. During his first major sea battle, he leads his men into battle with a battleaxe, kills two of the Sand Snakes with their own weapons, and captures Yara, Tyene, and Ellaria Sand. When he returns to King’s Landing, he rides through the streets with his prisoners in chains while receiving thunderous applause from adoring crowds and is given command over Cersei’s naval forces.
- Euron's ability to seemingly teleport and effortlessly wreck multiple fleets in a row with negligible losses, even after his own fleet was stolen and he spawned a new one essentially out of thin air, had already earned him◊ memetic status by Season 7. But it really kicked into high gear in the same episode where Qyburn's physics-defying ballistae show up, as Euron manages to score three perfect shots on a moving target from miles away, spearing a dragon through the throat. Keep in mind, he did this without any actual aiming mechanisms, at a range that would render his target a tiny dot on the horizon (they were above cloud cover). Cue the memes about how Euron can hit anything, anywhere, at any time.
- Euron's ability to seemingly teleport and effortlessly wreck multiple fleets in a row with negligible losses, even after his own fleet was stolen and he spawned a new one essentially out of thin air, had already
- From Season 7, there is "Dumb Cunt" — the most effective wight in the Night King's army. It was the first one to deduce that the icy lake has refrozen, and the first to march out onto it to attack the heroes. It survives lethal hits to the jaw, skull, and ribcage from fellow badass Sandor Clegane, and gets back up from being thrown in the lake to nearly put an end to Tormund Giantsbane.
- Later on in the show's life, despite having died in the first season, Robert Baratheon developed the title "BOBBY B", being declared the true king of Westeros and the actual winner of the Game of Thrones. Images of BOBBY B with Glowing Eyes of Doom were extremely common, as were predictions that he survived and would go on to destroy every other faction and win the throne by shouting "THE WHOOOOOORE."
In-universe examples:
- Robb is a Memetic Badass in both a meta sense and in-universe, and is known as "The Young Wolf". The Northmen trade tales about how he rides into battle on the back of a giant direwolf, that he can turn into a wolf, and that he can't be killed.
- Jaime Lannister is known by everyone to be an accomplished fighter on the same level as Barristan Selmy more or less, at least until he got beaten by Robb Stark, which (as mentioned above) got Stark his own reputation as this.
- Thoros of Myr seems to be one, given the way that Jorah, Jaime, and Jory all Squee over him using a Flaming Sword at Pyke.
- Barristan Selmy. Watch the Kingsguard freak out when he draws his sword in anger. After he had loosened his armor and removed his helmet. Made even more apparent by the fact that Jaime, a Memetic Badass in his own right, looks at the guy as an ideal to live up to.Jaime: He was a painter. A painter who only used red.
