The Tyrion/theon And Sansa/theon Parallels - Tumblr Posts

🦑 parallels all around 🦑

i amused myself thinking about character parallels to some of the other asoiaf characters. [obligatory disclaimer that parallels doesn’t mean same fate, same purpose in the story, same morality, or any ‘equating’ anything]. and since it is day 26 : …ASoIaF Character Parallels of theon month…

arya - gender performance criticised by authority figure - violently separated from family at age ~9/10 - childhood experience of war - servant of bolton / interactions with roose - the ghost of winterfell / the ghost of harrenhall - highborn character made to live as mistreated servant - enjoys riding - spoken to by weirwood tree - names lost and recovered - traumatised into near identity loss but actually not - helping ‘unimportant’ girl while in mortal danger themselves - association with death / material world transcending kind of trauma narrative

dany - survival against all odds / extreme kind of resilience - grew up in fear - the stories spread about them vs. their actual story - the exile’s elusive/unattainable idea of ‘home’ - ambition to power… - …taken as entitlement and reaching beyond their proper place because they are forever the foreigner - a beloved horse (an angry black stallion named smiler // a spirited silver filly called the silver) - sexual enslavement - inconveniencing those that prefer them dead by still not dying - said to come from ‘particularly evil’ people even though they are not especially more evil than the rest - we flew

sansa - child hostage - “traitors” - the obedient daughter / the obedient hostage who know their courtesies - mean commentary onto others - cut off from your wolf / far away from the sea (& does it invalidate?) - vague idealised dreams of glory and goodness - a story of entrapment (both literal captivities as well as conceptually) - likes to dress well - controlled by ambitiously evil and sexually predatory man they are made to help in his evil schemes - who gives them a new name - and publicly claim an intimate bond towards them - i could kill him… i could kill him right now, but i don’t (sansa not shoving littlefinger out of the moondoor, theon not stabbing ramsay with the knife) - vague idealised dreams of glory and goodness no longer / “there are no heroes….”  - “his lips were like two worms fucking” - that scene where they both walk into the snow, and snowflakes brush their cheeks like kisses

tyrion - their father’s unfavourites - their father would rather see them dead - wants to prove themselves worthy of appreciation and survival; thinks that’s something they need to earn - joyful sexuality, liveliness and ambition in the face of a hostile world - likes to dress well - tried to rule and hold a city that hated them (fssssfff tyrion did a better job we know) - scapegoated to take the fall for actually systemic / complex problems - very public mistreatment that gets condoned / accepted - background of incestuous & abusive family dysfunction - both experienced and committed sexual violence - captivity ; brutality and humiliation experienced in captivity ; runs away and takes others with him - haunted by the memory of girlfriend murdered/lost in extremely traumatic circumstances