Theon Greyjoy as 'The Stranger'?

[MostInterestingManWesteros]

I like it. It is an interesting way to think of the characters that I had never thought of before. Cheers!

[The Killer Snark]

Thank you. I just wish other people hadn't got there earlier than me, though they stopped off in the main with characterising the seven Starks.

[ViennaGirl]

I like it, and I think different characters fit at different times (Jaime was the Warrior, now he might be something else, same with Catelyn and the Mother). My one argument with it is that fitting all characters into the Seven overlooks the other major religions of Westeros. It's like taking the modern Middle East and only ascribing Christian mythology, where there should be Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. Especially with the Starks - I don't think Ned, Jon, Bran, or Arya should be seen as incarnations of the Seven - they would fit into northern religious myth...

[Ser Endrew Tarth]

can you elaborate on how you came to the details of Theon's castration (ie you were saying they def took his manhood, branded him w/ iron, then later took his ballz?)?

I think it is interesting that Tyrion seems to be the only person (or at least one of the only people) to light candles for the Stranger. Also the things the KM tells Arya about him, that every religion in the world has a version of the stranger.

[The Killer Snark]

ViennaGirl -

I myself have problems with this, and it seems to me that Martin was simply sticking with the reiligion that offered most multiplicity of facets in Westeros instead of referring to characteristics of others to confuse the situation.

Ser Endrew Tarth-

I'm drawing quotations from memory, but in his first Reek chapter Theon refers to being scared that something worse might be cut off the next time Ramsay decides to punish him. In his second Reek chapter, he refers to losing his fingers, toes and 'that other thing' and Ramsay starts talking about him no longer being a man. The use of the singular tense suggests Ramsay took his penis. My problem with this is that if this were the case, Theon would have had to be branded there to cauterise the wound to stop his death by bleeding, but there's no reference to the fact.

Ramsay likes evening his injuries out, and in the third Reek chapter Theon has received an unspecified fresh injury that makes him unwilling to be seen naked, plus the taunts of Theon's un-manment become more heavily repeated and extreme. So by deduction I assume a castration has taken place.

When Theon gets used as a fluffer, he begins to say that he can't excite Jeyne because "I have no..", suggesting he believes Ramsay meant for him to use his genitalia, but since he doesn't have any he is forced to use his tongue.

He refers to wanting to have intercourse with one of the spearwives, but otherwise loses his sexual interest in females, and the temporary desire, just as he can still feel aches in his missing digits, appears to be a phantom sensation of his missing sex.

[ViennaGirl]

I think if you plug people into the Seven religious paradigm, you can make a case for Theon going from Warrior to Stranger. You could probably even make the case that, within the religion, even the Septons would agree that people go from one aspect of god to another throughout their lives - women always do, in these religions - Maiden, Mother, Crone.

[The Killer Snark]

And I agree. Certain characters have dual roles or the roles shift. Daenarys' appears to be trinary. But my point is that the roles for certain characters are limited within the framework of the novel. For instance, Sansa never goes beyond being The Maid, and Bran can't be the Warrior.

Plus the Theon symbology is ever-present. He dresses in black, has a black horse he calls Smiler (and his own smiles are partly a deception, a way of not showing his true face: The Stranger is faceless) and he is even literally a stranger on account of his background and non-identity with both the Greyjoys and the Starks. Plus, he starts out as a bowman and hunter, the equivalent of a sniper assassin in medieval terms.