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The Fate and Purpose of the Greyjoy Children


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So, let's talk about the Greyjoys. As of the end of A Dance with Dragons:

  • Asha and Theon have reunited under the auspices of Stannis Baratheon
  • Aeron is being held prisoner (re: tortured) by Euron who preparing to face the Redwynes in what's bound to be one of the biggest/ugliest naval battles in the history of Planetos
  • Victarion is looking to court Daenerys Targaryen

We've already talked and speculated a lot about the purpose of the Victarion/Daenerys and the Aeron/Euron stories...but I haven't seen too much of anything about Asha or Theon. What I have seen can be basically surmised as this:

  • Theon dying within the first 100 pages of Winds, all references and mentioning of him ceasing by the end of Winds or the beginning of Dream 
  • Asha simply disappears, because she is pregnant (?!?!?!)

It's patently obvious now that the Greyjoy family and the Ironborn at large have a big role to play in the series endgame (re: what is dead may never die).

But what do guys think The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring has in store for the Greyjoy kids? Do you guys think that Balon's children are going to separate sometime in Winds (probably within the first half) and resume their own independent stories? Do you think that one of them will die? Or do you think that they will tag-team and start telling the same story from a diametrically opposed point-of-view?

But I guess what I'm trying to say is what has been their purpose in this series?!

For example:

  1. Cersei is an exploration of the evil queen trope and the long-winded parable of how "money can't buy happiness," "beauty is only skin deep," and "people who lust after power and wealth don't have a clue what to do after they get it."
  2. Arya's story is basically a fusion between Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland and Assassin's Creed.
  3. Sansa's story is a delightfully dark deconstruction of the Little Mermaid, Red Riding Hood and every other fairy tale and fable where the protagonist is a girl or young woman.
  4. Melisandre and Aeron are basically religious inversions of "The Little Train That Could" ("The Big Train That Thought It Could But It Ultimately Couldn't)
  5. Tyrion is literally Breaking Bad.
  6. Jon Snow is one-fourth Hamlet, one-fourth Harry Potter, one-fourth the Green Mile and one-fourth Rick Grimes.

What of Theon and Asha?

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  • 8 months later...

Theon has been a great character for the George to develop. He was set up to fall, and now he's on a redemptive arc, a lot like Jaime. And it seems to me that he will be used as a pawn by Stannis or another (Daenerys? Aegon?) to overturn Euron's kingsmoot. But I suspect Asha will be the one that rules the Iron Islands. 

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Theon

GRRM seems to be discussing/examining boys growing up with surrogate father figures where the character/beliefs of the surrogate clash with the biological. He has several boys like this with variations on the situation for contrast.

Theon is a study of character where the biological father lives and is known, which seems to keep the surrogate father from taking complete ownership of the boy, and as a result the boy not recognising the surrogate as a father.

Both father figures having died now gives Theon more freedom to simply choose. And he's going to get a second bite at things, as his other Stark brother is going to be KITN and march south on the IT, and Theon will be given the opportunity to support him.

 

Asha

Asha I haven't given much thought. Seems to be the vehicle for some actual societal progress, but only with regards to the Ironborn. She alone seems to have enough vision to see that the ways of the Ironborn are not sustainable and that they must either adapt or perish. I don't know why the Ironborn ways are not sustainable now given that they have survived so long, but the text is clearly running that way. Asha is going to lead what is left of the Ironborn out of Euron's catastrophe to standard settlement at Sea Dragon Point.

And/or maybe she is pregnant and her's is another story about women turning when they become mothers. Asha particularly from brash and fearless in the face of death to cautious, silent and smart. Maybe in motherhood she is to contrast Brienne, and/or advise and contrast Arya.

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The Ironborn have not been completely expelled from the North...if I can recall, they still have one remaining stronghold at Torrhen's Square.

I'm just beginning to wonder if the siblings are going to be separated again. Or if they are going to be providing different views during the Battle of Winterfell. Kinda like how Barristan, Victarion and Tyrion are slated to all tell the story of the Battle of Meereen just from different perspectives and positions?

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  • 3 weeks later...

On the larger scale of things, the purpose of the Ironborn are to introduce another people, another bloodline which influences the mythic schemes. Theon is our eyes in that world, and probably not much else, since I tend to think we're concerned with how that bloodline passes through Hoare to Lothston to Whent to the Stark kids... and if the Bride of Fire line 2 prophecy refers to Victarion as many believe, how that bloodline could pass to Daenerys' second child. Theon is a genetic dead-end thanks to Ramsay, so we don't really care much about his bloodline at this point.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/18/2019 at 10:15 AM, Damon_Tor said:

On the larger scale of things, the purpose of the Ironborn are to introduce another people, another bloodline which influences the mythic schemes. Theon is our eyes in that world, and probably not much else, since I tend to think we're concerned with how that bloodline passes through Hoare to Lothston to Whent to the Stark kids... and if the Bride of Fire line 2 prophecy refers to Victarion as many believe, how that bloodline could pass to Daenerys' second child. Theon is a genetic dead-end thanks to Ramsay, so we don't really care much about his bloodline at this point.

Sorry but I'm really not quite seeing the magic of Hoare bloodline.

Especially not as it pertains to the Greyjoys.

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4 minutes ago, LadyBlackwater said:

Victarion marries Asha and passes off Qarl the Maid's bastard as the heir:P

Asha can do that without marrying Victarion.

That ship has sailed.

Get it?! Isn't it punny?

2 hours ago, Damon_Tor said:

Grey King descendancy is the most relevant bit to remember.

Hmm....

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6 minutes ago, LadyBlackwater said:

You sir are awesome. Love it!

Thanks.

But on a more serious note, people act like Cersei is the inventor and sole proprietor of paternity fraud. She's not the first woman to purposely misidentify the father of her unborn child nor is she the first to try to completely shrug off questions of paternity as irrelevant, superfluous and treasonous.

And she will not be the last.

Asha can easily do the same. Especially since she is already married to an morbidly obese old man who could keel over any minute. Hell, she can even take one of Stannis' highborn soldiers for a ride or two.

As a matter of fact....I don't even think Asha knows she is pregnant. Give her a couple of tumbles in the hay and she might legit not know who the father is. And given the circumstances, will she care?

Winter is here, she's caught up in the middle of someone else's war, Theon is a car wreck of a human being, the R'hllor worshippers want to sacrifice her and Theon both, ravens are talking in complete sentences, Chekov's Small Army of Ironborn are at Torrhen's Square and the Others are not far. Priorities.

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43 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Thanks.

But on a more serious note, people act like Cersei is the inventor and sole proprietor of paternity fraud. She's not the first woman to purposely misidentify the father of her unborn child nor is she the first to try to completely shrug off questions of paternity as irrelevant, superfluous and treasonous.

And she will not be the last.

Asha can easily do the same. Especially since she is already married to an morbidly obese old man who could keel over any minute. Hell, she can even take one of Stannis' highborn soldiers for a ride or two.

As a matter of fact....I don't even think Asha knows she is pregnant. Give her a couple of tumbles in the hay and she might legit not know who the father is. And given the circumstances, will she care?

Winter is here, she's caught up in the middle of someone else's war, Theon is a car wreck of a human being, the R'hllor worshippers want to sacrifice her and Theon both, ravens are talking in complete sentences, Chekov's Small Army of Ironborn are at Torrhen's Square and the Others are not far. Priorities.

I have a bad feeling about her time with Stannis. He resents her for being a woman who behaves as a man. I really, really hope Cersei doesn’t have a baby at all. Three children...

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2 hours ago, LadyBlackwater said:

I have a bad feeling about her time with Stannis. He resents her for being a woman who behaves as a man. I really, really hope Cersei doesn’t have a baby at all. Three children...

Me too.

I have a feeling Theon's execution is going to be prevented by Bran but Theon is not safe. Nor is Asha. If Stannis continually refuses Asha's counsel and/or offers, the two of them need to make a quick getaway sooner rather than later. Because I just cannot even bear the thought of Asha or Theon falling into Bolton custody. If Theon is sucked back into Winterfell, he is dead. If Asha gets sucked back, well...it wouldn't be boring.

But yeah: the further and the faster they get away from Winterfell, the better. Go to Torrhen's Square and try to use the Ironborn therein to depose Euron. They might even get some help from the Northmen too. The Ironborn are as First Men as the northerners and there seems to be a close *but not so friendly) tie between the Ironborn, the CoTF, the old gods of the weirwoods and the old gods of the Ironborn, the drowned one and the storm one.

If Cersei has a baby at all, it will be a phantom pregnancy or a miscarriage that occurs within the first trimester. The phantom pregnancy is my bet because it has a legendary historical precedent

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What's left for theon but redemption and wrath? Not like he's got a great sex life ahead of him ! I think he'll interact or perhaps join the starks (honestly I don't think the ironborn ways come as a love to him).

Asha is harder to judge, she's kind of a wild card, I think she'll throw in with anyone who offers her 1. Kindness and respect and 2: the blood price (battle and conflict)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that in the books Asha and Theon might actually end the way their show counterparts. Asha as a ruler of Ironborn (though maybe wiser and open minded than the one-note caricature from the show) and Theon sacrificing himself to the great cause and for the Starks (I don't think it will play out exactly as in the show, but the idea will be the same - Theons redemption and death for the Starks and as a Stark).

 

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