@scathach @anemone @georgia I think a lot of it was just over correcting and overdoing it on the whole “haha, the evil character won”
It’s one thing for Ned Stark to be outwitted by Cersei and Little Finger due to unwillingness to put the children at risk, or for Tywin Lannister to find a way to assassinate Robb Stark. It’s a “good doesn’t always triumph just because it’s good” thing, I get that. It made sense in these cases. Ned Stark didn’t die just because he was good and the show wanted shock, it was because he was up against capable schemers who outwitted him. Likewise with Robb, his betrayal of an alliance and making an enemy of an untrustworthy lord was his downfall
The problem with Ramsay beating Stannis is that it literally was just done as a “Ramsay is evil and audiences love to hate him, so to show how much we can subvert expectations we’re going to have him win”.
Stannis at this point was by far the most capable and senior commander in the known world with a strong army bolstered even by all the wildlings that had joined him, and he was facing a young psychopath with basically zero military experience.