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[Book/TV Spoilers] The Turncloak...


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One think I really loved about Theon's arc in the show is that they did a good job especially in season one of showing that the Starks weren't all that friendly to Theon, which I don't really recall in the book. Yes Theon was a douche but you could really appreciate some of the reasons he might have to turn on them. Starks aren't the saints some people think.

Ned treated Theon as the non-Stark he is, and rightly so. He was always a guest at Starks, and probably got the same treatment as Jon Snow. There are levels of trust in each family, and Theon was kept out of some privileges as he should have been. There is no defending him.

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Theon is a tragedy. It is mostly because of the stupidity of his own father. Balon thought he could rebel against everyone with no other allies and do what? Take over the 7 kingdoms. That is being an idiot. It is his fault his 2 sons were killed and Theon was taken from him. What did he think was going to happen. Theon has no family now. The starks and the greyjoys both don't trust him. He chose the Greyjoys so now he has to do things like the ironborn do which is to rule with a heavy hard hand. Unfortunately for him he can't do it.

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Ned treated Theon as the non-Stark he is, and rightly so. He was always a guest at Starks, and probably got the same treatment as Jon Snow. There are levels of trust in each family, and Theon was kept out of some privileges as he should have been. There is no defending him.

About that ,the most annoying Theon scene in the first season imo was Robb contemptuously reminding Theon he's not a Stark . That was totally made up in order to justify his future crimes;,the only time we see Robb getting mad at Theon in the book is after the wildlings attacked Bran, and though I understand why they would want to make him more sympathetic, I think the character is way more interesting when he's left with his whole share of responsibility.

I for one think he committed horrible crimes, but I still pity him and I don't hate him -- I just don't -- and I love his story arc. I agree that he should have been justly punished for what he did (ie not tortured by a psycho).

That exactly! Though the pity came after Dance of course. But even before I always found him more contemptible and pathetic than detestable.

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we only pity him because WE know what Ramsay does to him.. at the time of the winterfell incident i couldn't stand him but now i hope he finds his way

i've always pitied him. i only recently (with in the last month) have gotten into adwd, so i did not know theons fate. i pity the fool.

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About that ,the most annoying Theon scene in the first season imo was Robb contemptuously reminding Theon he's not a Stark . That was totally made up in order to justify his future crimes;,the only time we see Robb getting mad at Theon in the book is after the wildlings attacked Bran, and though I understand why they would want to make him more sympathetic, I think the character is way more interesting when he's left with his whole share of responsibility.

i agree. i thought they went overboard with theon being constantly reminded he did not belong with the rest of them in the first season. it's one of my biggest complaints about the first season over all.

Ned treated Theon as the non-Stark he is, and rightly so. He was always a guest at Starks, and probably got the same treatment as Jon Snow. There are levels of trust in each family, and Theon was kept out of some privileges as he should have been. There is no defending him.

defending theon for what? this is what i mean by being too stark centric, these books are full of castles being taken over, yet theon taking winterfell is some unforgivable crime. book theon took winterfell bloodlessly. which of these is worse, theon trying to take winterfell from the starks (who are not his family), or renly trying to take the 7 kingdoms from his brother?

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defending theon for what? this is what i mean by being too stark centric, these books are full of castles being taken over, yet theon taking winterfell is some unforgivable crime. book theon took winterfell bloodlessly. which of these is worse, theon trying to take winterfell from the starks (who are not his family), or renly trying to take the 7 kingdoms from his brother?

Agreed. I was just saying that being mistreated by Starks wasn't the reason for his attack. He is just trying to find his identity, now that he's of age. That's the beauty of GRRM's work, it shows the trials teenagers go through making choices in their newly discovered adulthood. Robb errs by marrying for love, Dany errs by falling prey to Maegi's words. Theon errs by rising against his caretakers/foster parents.

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I think Theon is tragic character. He isn't a Stark or Greyjoy. He hasn't been raised by the Ironbloods so he doesn't know their ways. His father and sister don't respect since he acts like a Stark. He betrays a family that raised him and treated him as a guest in their homes to try to earn the respect of a family that will never respect him.

You can see it is a hard decision for him to kill the man that trained him to use a sword. He has to kill a man that he respects for the respect of people that he doesn't know or respect. It makes him pitiful.

I loved the scene where he wake Bran. Bran thinks of Theon as his brother. He doesn't react to him at first because he doesn't see him as a threat. Bran being a child does what he is told although he doesn't understand until Roderick is threatened.

I wonder how much of Theon's story will be shown this season. I doubt that Ramsey will pretend to be Reek in the television edition. I visualize him coming up there, killing everyone outside Theon, burning the castle and carrying Theon away. That works to get all the characters were they need to be for the next season.

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Yeah, this is the thing that people seem to keep forgetting with regard to Theon. He didn't just capture Winterfell; he also murdered the miller's children so that people "wouldn't laugh at him". Hurray, he didn't actually kill Bran and Rickon; he just slaughtered an entire family instead.

I agree that he's by far the most compelling character in S2, though, and Alfie Allen has been phenomenal.

That does not put him beyond pity. Months of brutal torture are not justice. Justice would have been Theon's imprisonment for life or (in Westeros) execution. What Theon did is unforgivable, but he did not deserve what he suffered at Ramsay's hands, as almost any modern justiciary would agree.

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Doesnt matter what a modern anybody would think about anything in this story. Westeros seems to be fairly "eye for an eye" when dealing out justice.

Theon should have been flayed until he was dead, unless they killed those boys before they flayed them. Then I'd be happy with an old-school Eddard head lopping(I actually hope Jon is still alive and this is how it goes down, Janos Slynt style).

And I do agree that Theon is just a dumb, hot-headed child. That's what I was trying to get across. Even so, in Westeros, he's plenty old enough to know better and take full responsibility for his actions.

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Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a lot less powerful than in the books, since Theon wasn't solely responsible for the sacking of Winterfell. For whatever reason, D&D wanted to make Dagmer a big accomplice and instigator ("make him pay the iron price!") to take the heat off Theon. That's what I don't like. With the amount of torture he goes through as Reek, he can be empathized with regardless of what terrible things he did in the past, even if the entire sacking of Winterfell was 100% his idea. That was one of my favorite moral dilemmas of the book. Do I still hate Theon, the guy that overtook Winterfell all on his own, even though now he's being tortured beyond recognition, or do I empathize with him some, regardless of his past crimes? Modifying that in the show is a little sad.

However, adding in Bran watching Theon hack off Rodrik's head was pretty brutal and made up for some of the heat taken off of him, even though he was being encouraged by Dagmer (doubt that matters to Bran). That was a high point of the plot. That and him burning the letter. Great scene.

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Doesnt matter what a modern anybody would think about anything in this story. Westeros seems to be fairly "eye for an eye" when dealing out justice.

Theon should have been flayed until he was dead, unless they killed those boys before they flayed them. Then I'd be happy with an old-school Eddard head lopping(I actually hope Jon is still alive and this is how it goes down, Janos Slynt style).

And I do agree that Theon is just a dumb, hot-headed child. That's what I was trying to get across. Even so, in Westeros, he's plenty old enough to know better and take full responsibility for his actions.

actually the only thing that matters is what a modern anybody thinks about this.

the children were flayed postmortem to disguise who they were. nobody deserves to be flayed.

of course theon is responsible for his actions and decisions. but he is not JUST a dumb, hot-headed child, you oversimplify to make it easier for yourself to hate him. he's easily the most interesting character in acok, and in season 2 of got.

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Yeah, please continue to explain how I justify my opinions to myself. I seriously hope you're some kind of shrink the way you do that constantly. It's seriously annoying and very condescending.

Anyways, the point of this post was to say how much I liked the addition of the note burning scene. The show continues to add great stuff.

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Unfortunately, I think it's going to be a lot less powerful than in the books, since Theon wasn't solely responsible for the sacking of Winterfell. For whatever reason, D&D wanted to make Dagmer a big accomplice and instigator ("make him pay the iron price!") to take the heat off Theon. That's what I don't like. With the amount of torture he goes through as Reek, he can be empathized with regardless of what terrible things he did in the past, even if the entire sacking of Winterfell was 100% his idea. That was one of my favorite moral dilemmas of the book. Do I still hate Theon, the guy that overtook Winterfell all on his own, even though now he's being tortured beyond recognition, or do I empathize with him some, regardless of his past crimes? Modifying that in the show is a little sad.

on my first viewing i also thought that the idea seemed to be dagmers, but on a rewatch of the scene, dagmer never suggests anything specific, and only really seems to be giving theon the harsh truth about the fact that his men aren't going to respect him. theons the one who mentions toren square, and theon has his wheels turning during the discussion and realizes himself that winterfell can be taken. i think it seems like dagmer is leading him if you know where theon is going to end up, but i think dagmer is actually rather indifferent about the whole thing.

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Yeah, please continue to explain how I justify my opinions to myself. I seriously hope you're some kind of shrink the way you do that constantly. It's seriously annoying and very condescending.

"we like females enough to be irritated by the character's mistreatment of them"

constantly, huh? ok, so that qoute wasn't condescending then? because it seemed to me like you were implying that because i can appreciate theon as a character, that i don't care about women being mistreated.

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Yeah, it was a cheap shot to get people to think about their stance on the character, but it was not directed at any specific user of this forum. I apologize if anyone was offended. Rereading that makes me sound awful. buuuuttttt.....

You're obviously obsessed with this one, single character because Arya had a much more realized plot in aCoK(moreso than any other character, imo). Theon did something dumb and got destroyed for it, that's it(via the book, at least). I am very glad the showrunners decided to expand the Theon character in season 2. It makes his arc almost as noteworthy as Tyrion's and Stannis'.

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Yeah, it was a cheap shot to get people to think about their stance on the character, but it was not directed at any specific user of this forum. I apologize if anyone was offended. Rereading that makes me sound awful. buuuuttttt.....

You're obviously obsessed with this one, single character because Arya had a much more realized plot in aCoK(moreso than any other character, imo). Theon did something dumb and got destroyed for it, that's it(via the book, at least). I am very glad the showrunners decided to expand the Theon character in season 2. It makes his arc almost as noteworthy as Tyrion's and Stannis'.

arya's plot was fine, but she does not even reach into my top 5 characters in acok, but to each his own.

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I have a mix of emotions for Theon a part of me hate him for betraying people that think of him like family and the other part of me just feel bad for him cause hes trying to show to his father and people that he can be someone and hes desperate for a little respect!!! That character is just amazing!!!!

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