Curtain Call: Charlotte Hope

“Dying? Who said anything about dying? You can’t die. Your father was Warden of the North, and Ramsay needs you. But I suppose he doesn’t need all of you.

~Myranda to Sansa in the Game of Thrones Season 5 finale, “Mother’s Mercy.”

The only character on the show with the ability to match Ramsay’s sadistic nature stride for stride, all the while remaining strikingly beautiful and deceptively demure, Myranda was the perfect match for the Bastard of Bolton. She first appeared in Season 3, when she and her friend Violet tricked Theon Greyjoy into letting his guard down before Ramsay removed his manhood. That only provided a hint about how demented Myranda really was…in fact, Violet told Theon that Myranda had been training to be a Septa, before her sexual urges prevented her from officially becoming one. That could not have been farther from the actual truth.

In Season 4, she took the next step along the path to becoming Ramsay’s favorite when she mercilessly hunted down another of Ramsay’s girls, Tansy, and shot her in the leg with an arrow, before the dogs had their way with her. Clearly, Myranda was no ordinary kennel master’s daughter: she was a sadist willing to do whatever it took to please her man.

Before Season 5 began, Myranda traveled to Winterfell, where she remained Ramsay’s lover even after he had his bastard status erased by Roose Bolton, his father and the newly installed Warden of the North. It was here that Myranda’s devious nature revealed itself. Perhaps it was her jealousy over the fact that Ramsay would marry another, or maybe she was always this terrifying, but Myranda eagerly began to prey on Sansa Stark. Her efforts weren’t always successful, but her cloyingly sweet attempts to intimidate the eldest Stark girl represented a Myranda who was ready to step out of Ramsay’s and became a villain in her own right.

Right before her death, Myranda apparently decided that she was done playing mind games with Sansa, and was ready to start inflicting real harm. As an observer, I was taken in by the fact that Myranda was fully ready to start systematically torturing Sansa, and probably would have had Theon not thrown her from the battlements. If not for his intervention, Sansa’s Season 5 story would have had a horrifyingly different ending.

Of course, the effectiveness of Myranda’s turn as a villain can be largely attributed to the acting skills of Charlotte Hope, who has acting in TV and film since 2010. Apart from her work on Game of Thrones, her highest profile role may have been playing Philippa Hawking in the Academy Award-nominated The Theory of Everything. She also had a role in Testament of Youth, which starred fellow Thrones cast member Kit Harington.

Perhaps my favorite performance by Charlotte Hope, beside her work on Game of Thrones, occurred during this interview with Flicks and the City. Note how expertly she danced around answering the question of what happens to her character in Season 5. As you can see, Charlotte is not at all like her alter-ego, and that’s a good thing, because I’m not sure the world is ready for Myranda.

Fare thee well, Myranda, it was a pleasure to watch you hone your dastardly craft. Ramsay will miss you.

• Published on 06/16/2015 at 5:19 PM CDT
• Last updated on 06/16/2015 at 5:19 PM CDT