Theon Appreciation Month 2022 Day One Favourite Quotes, Moments, Chapters Or Arcs

theon appreciation month 2022 day one • favourite quotes, moments, chapters or arcs

Favourite Theon arc: rescuing Jeyne Poole

The crossbow snapped. A bolt passed within a foot of him, shattering the crust of frozen snow that had plugged the closest crenel. Of Abel, Rowan, Squirrel, and the others there was no sign. He and the girl were alone. If they take us alive, they will deliver us to Ramsay.

Theon grabbed Jeyne about the waist and jumped.

Theon Appreciation Month, Day 9: Loyalty

And Robb. Robb who had been more a brother to Theon than any son born of Balon Greyjoy's loins. Murdered at the Red Wedding, butchered by the Frey's. Where was I? I should have died with him.

THEON MONTH 2022 || Day 10: Power and Agency

Theon could taste bile at the back of his throat, and his stomach was a nest of snakes twining and snapping at each other. If he crept back to Winterfell empty-handed, he might as well dress in motley henceforth and wear a pointed hat; the whole north would know him for a fool. And when my father hears, and Asha …

It is better to be feared than laughed at.

~ A CLASH OF KINGS, THEON IV

In A Clash of Kings, Theon has power and agency for the first time in his life, and yet he commits horrific crimes because he is completely lacking in inner strength due to his identity crisis. It is not until A Dance with Dragons that Theon becomes truly powerful when he rescues Jeyne and reclaims his name. In a reverse parallel to A Clash of Kings, the end of Theon’s Dance arc reveals him to be at the height of his inner strength and power even though outwardly he appears the most powerless.

Day 2: Personality Traits → Theon's Observation & Empathy

Theon is generally at risk throughout his time, he's held at an arm's length by Ned Stark and everyone knows why that is. In a situation like that, of course he would have to learn how to be safe in the world through trial and error. He oftens runs his smart mouth to this exact end. But there's always a line he doesn't cross:

Theon Greyjoy vaulted over the side of the boat and lifted Catelyn by the waist, setting her on a dry step above him as water lapped around his boots.

-

"Theon," she interrupted, "where might I find my son?"

"Lord Robb went to visit the godswood, my lady."

-AGOT, Catelyn XI

I like this chapter because y'know it's Theon observing his courtesies. Theon helps Catelyn out of the boat (chivalrous!), Theon uses Robb & Cat's titles even when Catelyn refers to him and Robb casually. However we also know that in the background:

Once, a boy called Theon Greyjoy had enjoyed tweaking Bolton as they sat at council with Robb Stark, mocking his soft voice and making japes about leeches.

-ADWD, Reek II

Robb, Catelyn, & Ned are Starks. They necessitate polite treatment from him. Roose isn't and he doesn't because Theon knows he can get away with it. In ADWD, he can't anymore and swiftly changes tune.

Catelyn does not trust Theon, a mistrust Theon is fully aware of despite her consistently including him in situations with high stakes (the convo about Jaime throwing Bran, Robb's personal guard of 30, sending state messages to Brynden Blackfish). In order to be aware of that, Theon has to be fairly in tune with the reality around him.

Patrek Mallister was not too ill a fellow; they shared a taste for wenches, wine, and hawking. But when old Lord Jason saw his heir growing overly fond of Theon's company, he had taken Patrek aside to remind him that Seagard had been built to defend the coast against reavers from the Iron Islands, the Greyjoys of Pyke chief among them. Their Booming Tower was named for its immense bronze bell, rung of old to call the townsfolk and farmhands into the castle when longships were sighted on the western horizon.

"Never mind that the bell has been rung just once in three hundred years," Patrek had told Theon the day after, as he shared his father's cautions and a jug of green-apple wine.

"When my brother stormed Seagard," Theon said. Lord Jason had slain Rodrik Greyjoy under the walls of the castle, and thrown the ironmen back into the bay. "If your father supposes I bear him some enmity for that, it's only because he never knew Rodrik."

-ACOK, Theon I

We don't get Theon & Robb interactions from Theon's POV but we do get this: Theon did dislike his brother Rodrik, so maybe this is honest. Maybe he's acting. Either way Theon is telling Patrek what he wants to hear and for that gets a quasi-friend/ally. He positions himself as on Patrek's side - both calling Jason Mallister paranoid & waving away Rodrik's death.

This gets me to empathy. Obviously Theon commits/suffers/is privy to acts of terrible violence, no question. However I'm of the belief that most asoiaf characters are set up from the beginning i.e. the seeds are planted from the get go. Theon's eventual saving of Jeyne (while still lying to claim she's Arya and himself benefit from it) isn't an OOC act because it's been built up. It starts when Theon lands on Pyke and reflects on how Balon's a bitter old man

his father and uncles were old, and the old lords were like that; they took their dusty feuds to the grave, forgetting nothing and forgiving less.

yet he still plans to present Robb's letter of recognition in a way that a) highlights his success and b) might even comfort his father. It's all part of the game, he tells himself, the same game he played with the Northerners. When Balon gets mad because Theon is 'bedecked like a whore' and is now more Stark than Greyjoy (something Theon anticipated because he didn't even wear his 'good doublet' lol), Theon attempts to assuage Balon several times.

He smiled crookedly, wondering what his father would say when Theon told him that he, the last-born, babe and hostage, he had succeeded where Lord Balon himself had failed.

-ACOK, Theon I

He was playing the part of a dutiful young prince for the moment, while he waited for Lord Balon to reveal the fullness of his plans. If it turned out that he did not like those plans or his part in them, however, well...

-ACOK, Theon II

Of course it's obvious that Theon really did hope to get some warmth & affection from his parent, because he lashes out in resentment later at the icy treatment. If Theon's intentions were actually what he believes they were then he wouldn't be so hurt.

But he has his reasons for being empathetic to Balon, for trying to give him some comfort. It's even necessary because Theon's position is precarious and in part depends on Balon's affirmation of him as heir. Later on, we see Theon perform the same brand of empathy, that is, the look I'm on your side but what can I do with people who don't "matter." Begging for understanding over and over again.

As for Chayle, he had to give someone to the Drowned God, his men expected it. "I bear you no ill will," he'd told the septon before they threw him down the well, "but you and your gods have no place here now." You'd think the others might be grateful he hadn't chosen one of them, but no.

-

"There will be no flaying in the north so long as I rule in Winterfell," Theon said loudly. I am your only protection against the likes of him, he wanted to scream. He could not be that blatant, but perhaps some were clever enough to take the lesson.

-ACOK, Theon IV

Last night he had dreamed himself back in the mill again, on his knees dressing the dead. Their limbs were already stiffening, so they seemed to resist sullenly as he fumbled at them with half-frozen fingers, tugging up breeches and knotting laces, yanking fur-trimmed boots over hard unbending feet, buckling a studded leather belt around a waist no bigger than the span of his hands. "This was never what I wanted," he told them as he worked. "They gave me no choice." The corpses made no answer, but only grew colder and heavier.

-ACOK, Theon V

Reek remembered the desperate, frightened look in Kyra's eyes. She had never looked so young as she did in that moment, still half a girl, but there was nothing he could do. She brought them down on us, he thought. If we had separated as I wanted, one of us might have gotten away.

-ADWD, Reek I

The heartbreaking version of this is the miller's boys, of course, the sort of kids nobody particularly cares for yet they haunt Theon (both inwardly and outwardly because everyone believes it's Bran & Rickon). They're not, Theon is pleading anyone to realize, but that doesn't happen. Theon does what he does in part because nobody sees him; they're laughing or mocking, they're plotting, they aren't listening, they don't know. They've known him half his life and they still don't see!

People were such fools. If we'd said they were rams' heads, they would have seen horns.

-ACOK, Theon V

Brown eyes. They should be grey. Someone will see. Someone will remember.

-ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell

Theon recognizes that this girl isn't Arya despite earlier saying he didn't notice anyone besides Robb & Jon (probably true because Arya doesn't think about Theon once), he recognizes she's Jeyne Poole, and what do you know, she recognizes him too

"Help me." She clutched at him. "Please. I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords. You were so handsome."

-ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell

Though Arya never spoke to any of them, they could not fail to see her bruises. It is her own fault. She has not pleased him. "Just be Arya," he told the girl once, as he helped her into the water. "Lord Ramsay does not want to hurt you. He only hurts us when we... when we forget. He never cut me without cause."

-ADWD, The Turncloak

When it's him and Jeyne on that wall looking down into the snow, can Theon go back? When the spearwives come to him and demand his help, can Theon say no?

He had come this close to telling them the truth when Rowan had delivered him to Abel in the ruins of the Burned Tower, but at the last instant he had held his tongue. The singer seemed intent on making off with the daughter of Eddard Stark. If he knew that Lord Ramsay's bride was but a steward's whelp, well...

-ADWD, Theon I

He could have told the truth! But then they wouldn't have saved Jeyne. If it were just him, he wouldn't attempt escape. If it were just Arya, Mance or Jon with his army of free folk could have saved her. But it's Jeyne Poole instead who motivates Theon, and it's Theon who saves her. Who else? It took someone willing to see & someone motivated by even a selfish empathy.

I will never be over Cersei telling Ned that yeah Jaime shoved his son from the window and Ned being like ‘hmm I’d probably have done it. Cat definitely would’ve done it. anyway swiftly moving on’

Truly the original Jaime apologist

Detail: Ixion Chained in Tartarus, 1824, Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol (French, 1785-1861)