gemfyre | All the Theon feels (Reply)

So I seem to be having massive Theon feels lately. With Season 3 now almost finished I have been chatting to more and more friends who have watched the season, but not read the books and they utter that dreadful, but to be expected phrase, “Theon deserves it.” I generally grumble and simply say, “Theon deserves justice, but NO-ONE deserves what he is getting.” It's hard to explain in depth without revealing a nest of spoilers. These friends don't know what Ramsay Snow is, they don't even realise that Iwan's character IS dear Ramsay. They don't realise that this torture has nothing to do with Robb Stark, he doesn't even know it's happening. They don't realise that all this horrible stuff that has just happened to Theon is only just the beginning of a long arc which will result in Theon losing himself into the Reek persona. He is not going to be rescued, he is not going to escape (at least not an escape that he has any chance of getting away with, instead of being hunted down by Ramsay and brought back for more torture).

To appreciate Theon's arc you need to be of the mind that House Stark are not “the good guys” because ASOIAF doesn't have good guys. House Stark does good things and bad things and questionable things to preserve their house and traditions and legacy, like all the other houses. That's the whole damn beauty of these stories. There's no clear good guys to root for, so everyone has different favourites for different reasons.

There is also that huge focus most of the characters have on their Houses and families. People are proud of their heritage and want to continue their line. Children are taught the ways and traditions of their House, worship their Gods, live life by their House words. Theon has spent the first 10 years of his life as Ironborn, he's then taken away from that and spends the next half of his life at Winterfell, treated more like family than like a hostage. All part of Ned Stark's plan to soften the Iron Islanders a little and bring them over to the side of the Northmen. Theon thinks at one stage about an old fantasy he had where Ned would marry him to Sansa. But honestly, I feel like this may not be far from Ned's actual intentions. Thus when Theon DID become king of the Iron Islands (because that was just the way things would work, Ned would never have dreamed that, due to Theon's absence, Balon Greyjoy would develop a preference for his daughter as heir), he would be bound to the North, have learned the ways of the North, and would have helped unite Stark and Greyjoy on the political front. Of course, those plans all went to pot when Jon Arryn died and Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell.

An entry in TVTropes (I don't get why so many people diss TVTropes - it's a wealth of ideas and makes it easy to explain things that I couldn't put into words in a million years) explains what's going on with Theon and his perpetual bad-decision making really well.

A lot of his problems come from being born in a Proud Warrior Race Guy family that believes A Real Man Is a Killer who was raised by a Proud Warrior Race Guy family that believes in Honor Before Reason, and frequently getting his wires crossed. An example of this is when he talks about how shameful it would be to be known as "the Greyjoy who ran," not realizing that the Ironborn are raiders and practically always run away when the enemy is too strong. Theon assumes that his men, being proud Ironborn warriors, would willingly brave certain death to go out in a blaze of brutal glory. Noooooooooope.

Every significant thing Theon does is for the legacy of his House(s). He goes to Pyke to forge an alliance with the North, believing this is best for his house - why wouldn't it be? But of course, having been away from his own culture so long, he's forgotten the Ironborn ways, otherwise he would never have tried. He takes Winterfell because he believes it will strengthen his House. He pursues Bran and Rickon and eventually hangs the miller's boys in their place to prove he is Ironborn (interestingly, Robb experiences a similar lose-lose situation when leading an army when he has to behead Rickard Karstark).

Asha comes to realise that a gentle approach may be more appropriate after running about after Theon in the north and realising that the old ways are perhaps not the ideal ways, peace and alliance are a better way to survive than paying the iron price.

Theon in the end never chooses between Greyjoy and Stark, he is both and neither. It takes Ramsay stripping away every part of him and them his slow rebuilding of himself once Jeyne gives him some purpose, and in the end he is only Theon.

Oh gosh, I have all these notes of other things I want to say, but I'll post this for now.