Game Of Thrones Season 8 Beautifully Explains Tormund Giantsbane's Name

If you've already seen the second episode of Game Of Thrones' final season, you will already know that the one true MVP of the episode was - once again - Tormund Giantsbane. The Wildling with a wicked sense of humour and a burning desire for Brienne Of Tarth (which is actually far more wholesome than the memes would lead you to believe), once more showed exactly why he is so beloved.

Hopefully, his brilliance will protect him from death, but this is Game Of Thrones and there's nothing they like more than killing characters that we love.

Anyway, there's a very good chance you now love him even more than you did before the episode started because we finally have the TV show's version of how Tormund Giantsbane got his name, and it's absolutely brilliant. It's also terribly on-brand too, which is doubly admirable.

In the books, we get the explanation that Tormund was caught in a storm and sought warmth with a sleeping giant, then cut open her belly and "crawled up right inside her." He then relates how she mistook him for her child (presumably missing the gaping wound in her belly he opened to crawl in):

"Kept me warm enough, she did, but the stink near did for me. The worst thing was, she woke up when the spring come and took me for her babe. Suckled me for three whole moons before I could get away. Har! There’s times I miss the taste o’ giant’s milk, though."

That suckling story was used in the show, but it was changed just enough to make it more badass. When Tormund is swinging his dick around trying to impress Brienne and show his superiority over Jaime, he asks aloud if anyone wondered why he's called Giantsbane. He doesn't let the fact that nobody answers him to deter him from telling his story:

“I killed a giant when I was 10. Then I climbed right into bed with his wife. When she woke up, you know what she did? Suckled me at her teat for three months. Thought I was her baby. That’s how I got so strong: giant’s milk.”

To add to the impact, he then messily gulps from his drinking horn. Which is definitely not filled with giant's milk, since there are none around to milk. Still, it adds a hilarious note to the story.

The biggest changes to the story are the length of time he spent being suckled by a giant and the fact that he killed his giant mammy's husband before climbing into bed with her. In the book, Jon doubts the story, since Tormund couldn't have killed the giant if she had fed and reared him and Tormund says that “Tormund Giantsbane has a better ring to it than Tormund Giantsbabe, and that’s the honest truth o’ it."

What a missed opportunity that is.

Whether it's true or not is probably up for debate, but if there's one mad bastard in this godforsaken murderous world who you'd believe capable of all of that, it's definitely Tormund.

Long may his reign of joy continue.