Tansy

Tansy
Biographical information
Died	301 AC Near the Dreadfort, the North
Political information
Affiliation(s)	House Bolton
Personal information
Culture	Northern
Lover(s)	{Ramsay Snow}
World of Westeros
Series	Game of Thrones
Season(s)	4
Appeared in	"The Lion and the Rose"
Died in	"The Lion and the Rose"
Portrayed by	Jazzy de Lisser

"If you make it out of the woods, you win!"

―Ramsay Snow to Tansy

Tansy was a servant of House Bolton and one of Ramsay Snow's bedwarmers.

Biography

Game of Thrones: Season 4

Due to Myranda's supposed jealousy of her, Tansy is hunted through the woods near the Dreadfort by Ramsay Snow, Myranda and the bastard's girls, with Reek feebly attempting to keep up. Ramsay and Myranda taunt her with mild amusement as she desperately runs to evade them, with Ramsay saying that if she makes it out of the woods, she "wins" -- presumably, Ramsay would stop chasing her and she'd be allowed to live. Myranda eventually strikes her in the leg with an arrow, and Tansy begs for her life as Ramsay says she has become a problem; Myranda is jealous of her presence, although Myranda denies it. Ramsay goads the dogs into ripping her to shreds as she screams. Myranda mockingly comments that she is "not so pretty now," while Theon watches with horror.

Game of Thrones: Season 5

Myranda mentions Tansy to Sansa as one of several women who Ramsay was involved with but killed after they began to bore him, and gleefully quips that Ramsay let her join him in "hunting" Tansy for fun, which angers Sansa.

Tansy is later partly avenged when Myranda is thrown to her death by Theon.

Game of Thrones: Season 6

Though Ramsay vows to avenge her death, he orders Myranda's body to be unceremoniously fed to the dogs as Tansy was. As they flee from Winterfell on foot, Theon leads Sansa through the freezing river to throw the hounds off scent, remembering what happened to Tansy.

Eventually, Tansy is completely avenged when Ramsay is also fed to his hounds but, unlike Myranda, he is fed to them alive as Tansy was.

Behind the scenes

George R.R. Martin stated on the DVD commentary of "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" that he had written a scene involving Myranda and Violet for the fourth season. Stephanie Blacker was not available for the fourth season due to pregnancy. Since Martin wrote "The Lion and the Rose", this seems to suggest that the role played by Tansy in the episode was originally intended for Violet, further evidenced by dialogue in the fifth season where Myranda mentions that Ramsay murdered Violet when she became pregnant (possibly with his child).

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, there is no mention of a girl at the Dreadfort named Tansy. The name is apparently fairly common for girls born in the Riverlands, and is possibly meant to be a reference to an ingredient of Moon Tea, a powerful contraceptive/abortifacient, since smallfolk often name their daughters after flowers and herbs. There are two book characters by that name, neither has anything to do with the Boltons:

• An innkeeper who works at the Peach, a brothel within Stoney Sept.
• An orphan who currently lives at the Inn at the Crossroads.

Tansy's role in the show is filled in the books by Kyra, who was a bedwarmer for Theon after the seizure of Winterfell. When the Boltons put the castle to the sword, they chained the women and children and took them to the Dreadfort. Kyra is manipulated by Ramsay into releasing Reek from his cell, but he successfully tracks them both down as was his intention all along, and kills Kyra. At some point after the hunt, Ramsay names a puppy from the next litter of pack hounds Kyra, as he's known to do with his "sport".

It is unknown if there was a girl named Tansy among Ramsay's victims. If there was, the fact that none of his dogs is named Tansy indicates that the hunt was not challenging enough in his eyes, and that girl was given a painful death.

During the final stages of his illness, Hoster Tully continuously mutters the word "Tansy". Catelyn initially believes it to be a name and attempts to discover who it belongs to, but to no avail. After thinking it over, recalling Lysa's tearful reaction when Catelyn let her hold baby Robb, she realizes the terrible secret that haunts her father on his deathbed: Lysa got pregnant some time before her marriage to Jon Arryn, and their father forced her to undergo an abortion by drinking Moon tea (one of its ingredients is the herb called Tansy). The only detail that Catelyn does not figure is who was the man who got her sister pregnant. Lysa reveals that when she drags Sansa to the Moon Door: after Littlefinger was defeated by Brandon Stark when he challenged him for Catelyn's hand, Lysa nursed him and the two ended up sleeping together, with Lysa becoming pregnant as a result of this. After Hoster had to send Littlefinger back to the Fingers, Lysa revealed this to him in the hopes that he would relent and allow her to marry Littlefinger. Instead he made her abort the child, for which she resented him for the rest of both of their lives, hence she did not visit him when he was dying or attend his funeral.

Appearances

• – "The Lion and the Rose"
• – "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" (mentioned)
• – "The Red Woman" (mentioned indirectly)

External links

• Kyra on A Wiki of Ice and Fire