#7: Rodrik Forrester (Game of Thrones)
This probably sounds familiar: bullying. Try to go back to all those repressed memories of high school or middle school. Those days when people picked on you, stole your lunch money, and generally humiliated you, with it feeling like no one was able to help you. Awful times, I know. But in Telltale’s Game of Thrones, you have the chance to imagine what it would’ve been like to go back to when you were being bullied, and just straight up tell the bullies to burn in a fiery pit.
Enter Rodrik Forrester: The eldest son of the Forrester clan, Rodrik was trained from an early age to shoulder the chains of command. He was a natural leader: strong, charismatic, and a monster on the battlefield. When Robb Stark called the Banners for war, Rodrik had the option to stay behind and protect his home. Instead, he rode side-by-side with his father, and led the Forrester Army with such valor that his name came to be feared among the lower ranks of Lannister soldiers. This battle-happy choice later resulted in him being crippled during the infamous Red Wedding. Now still heavy in recovery, Rodrik has to keep the peace of his old home while enduring the slings and torments of Whitehill soldiers, who know they can walk all over him and he can barely do a thing about it.
Rodrik can be played as more of a peacemaker trying to keep violence from breaking out and destroying his house, but one of the main themes about his character is determination. Not only did the man survive the Red Wedding, one of the most brutal bloodbaths in Game of Thrones lore, but he also stays alive for several days on the brink of death and without food or water. This goes on in an amazing moment in episode three, where he keep getting up when a Whitehill thug starts kicking him to the ground in an attempt to humiliate him. Rodrik resounds with me because I can imagine being him back when I was younger. When kids bullied me and humiliated me, and the teachers always told me to just let them tease me, and punished me whenever I stood up for myself. Now, as Rodrik, I can get back at the pixilated versions of my tormentors. Either by standing right back up when they push me down, braining them in the head with an iron cup, or even turning the tables on them and showing how it feels to be beaten and humiliated. As long as Rodrik stood tall, I could believe that anything was possible. Plus, when Russ Bain’s delivery of the phrase, “[The Red Wedding] couldn’t kill me. And you’re not the man for the job!” will make you feel unbelievably badass.
Iron from Ice, Rodrik. You gave me hope, and you’ll probably give many young victims of bullies hope too.