Tormund Giantsbane's outrageous origin story is absolutely perfect, real or not

Please, tell us more Tormund.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers through season eight, episode two in “Game of Thrones.”

Tormund Giantsbane rarely disappoints with entertainment value. While fans of “Game of Thrones” didn’t know much about his background, he is always around to kill the undead, crack a joke and shamelessly attempt to woo Brienne of Tarth.

But we finally got a taste of Tormund’s backstory during the second episode of season eight. Tormund, an accomplished warrior and raider for the Free Folk, joins a big group including Brienne, Davos Seaworth, Podrick Payne, and the brothers Lannister, Tyrion and Jaime. They are sitting in front of a fire anxiously awaiting the Battle of Winterfell, where the living will fight the dead, the White Walkers. This night may be the last that they ever live.

“They call me Giantsbane. Want to know why?” Tormund asks.

No one responds. But that doesn’t deter Tormund, who pulls up a chair.

“I killed a giant when I was 10,” he says. “Then I climbed right into bed with his wife. When she woke up, you know what she did?”

Davos looks like he’s visibly in pain.

“Suckled me at her teat for three months,” Tormund continues. “Thought I was her baby. That’s how I got so strong: giant’s milk.”

Then he guzzles his horn of ale, like he’s Rob Gronkowski chugging beers on the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl float. Brienne watches with a look of intrigue and disgust. Tormund is trying desperately to reassert himself as relevant in a love triangle, possibly of his imagining, which includes himself, Jamie and Brienne. And Tormund is wise to shoot his shot, because Brienne seems to be leaning toward Jamie.

So is he just trying, in a somewhat ill-advised way, to impress Brienne? Or is the story true?

Tormund is one of the fiercest in Westeros, and he grew up North of the Wall where he may have actually had confrontations with giants before Mance Rayder united the Free Folk, who had been previously separated into warring clans, to fight the White Walkers. Perhaps the story is true — perhaps Tormund did, in fact, kill a giant and take some magical strength from his wife’s breast. Then again, perhaps Tormund is just another warrior telling a tall tale. Either way, his story is perfectly suits his character, and makes him an even more hilarious man child.

In an episode when tensions were high and the tone grew dreary, Tormund’s general goofiness was the perfect form of comedic relief.