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(Book Spoilers) Theon and the reveal


SerWest

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Theon and Ramsey's scenes were my favorite parts of the season--both men were wonderful actors. Theon was my favorite character in the book, so I am glad they gave him some screentime. I knew good things were coming after last season with Theon's powerful monologues, but never expected that they would put in his Reek persona so early. I was taken by surprise in the books when they brought him back, though I appreciate the on-screen transformation.

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...My nitpick is that Theon still had enough mental fortitude to call himself Theon Grejoy, and then suddenly he's okay with Reek. It seemed too sudden...

I thought it seemed a sudden, too...

BUT...

I also wondered what I'd do, were I Theon. How many times do I let this guy hit me before I say, "Reek." Because let's face it, eventually I'm going to say it. Do I really think he'll get tired of hitting me before I get tired of getting hit? Even if he does tire of punching me in the face, what horror will he perform instead? At what point does my being stubborn result in even greater punishment? Screw it. I'll just swallow my pride and say it now.

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Ahh, I see the usual Theon Thread Creepiness is ahead of schedule. Usually it takes a day or three until the unironic "omg this is so hot"/"theon deserves this and worse"/"i sure do love torture"/"ramsay is literally my hero irl" posts start rolling in~~

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I guess I thought the reveal would be more significant, since they've been building it up ALLLLLL season. like, it would actually relate to another plot point. oh well. it was nicely done. just felt a little underwhelming after the buildup.

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GRRM wrote the episode where Theon loses his penis, thus putting to rest a lot of fruitless discussion on something that is blatantly hinted at through ADwD's Reek chapters to the point of telling. His metamorphosis seems a bit too sudden in this episode, and a lot of bad stuff happens to Theon in the books before he can countenance his change of identity. Under the circumstances of the second season's source deviations, I think they've done a great job in bringing all these Dreadfort scenes to life. Iwan Rheon is creepy as hell in this part; I was dubious at first, but they made a perfect choice there. Also, the cock in the box thing is actually an improvement over the scraps of skin that are sent off in the novels. To nitpick, ASOIAF Ramsay would not actually have referred to himself in the letter as 'Snow'.

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IMO it adds a lot more to the terror surrounding Theons situation... I mean people survive torture, even if a few fingers are cut off - but once you take away the sausage...

Regardless, I loved the whole Ramsay/Theon additions to the show... They certainly build up Ramsay and Reek.

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Edited -- sorry, came off snippier than I meant.

Here's Iwan Rheon on that specific scene:

I wanted it to be quite sexual… because he’s kind of like [a] weird little asexual thing, but he’s not asexual. But he’s weird. … I wanted it to be erotic, almost, and it was weird doing that and I’m right in his face and it’s pretty brutal what I’m doing to him. It was a hard day’s filming… and Alfie, bless him, up on that cross all day. It’s not nice for him.

He had some nice comments about the part in general.

I had some really great chats with Dan and Dave about it. … One of the keys for me was joy he gets from doing what he does. … He really enjoys it. You could have played it in different ways and he could have been like, just a vicious, horrible, no joy, like dead inside [man], but he’s not, he’s really enjoying it. This is what he likes doing. … He was conceived under the hanging corpse of his mother’s new husband, through rape, and she had to bring him to Lord Bolton because she couldn’t cope with him. He was too much and he killed his own brother, supposedly. … So it’s just this — he’s a psychopath, like completely. Void of empathy. But it’s just the joy, and I think that was the key for me was to really tap into the joy of it, which is really dark. [but] it’s all playing. It’s not real.

I think he is interested in Theon because of his history. Ramsay is a bastard, so he’s had to struggle all his life for the attention, whereas Theon, he was a ward at Winterfell. He wasn’t a son, so he’s an outsider as well. And I think that kind of thing fascinates him and I think he sees a very weak person that he can destroy, basically. I think he senses that Theon is weak in many ways and I think Ramsay really identifies that and it’s an easy target for him, and it’s still enormous fun (laughs).

I guess he’s kind of [waiting] for maybe some form of retaliation from the Greyjoys, so preparing himself for that. I feel that the only person in the whole world that he would listen to [is] his dad, so I guess he’s waiting to see what he does … and waiting to see what the Greyjoys decide to do. Bring it on, I would say (laughs).
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I doubt anyone's denying that the tone isn't sexual at all, as mentioned Ramsay's obviously a sexual sadist.

We're saying it's sorta gross and creepy for the viewers/readers to sexualize a broken man and fetishize his relationship with his abuser. There's a big difference between the source material portraying something in such a way as to be intentionally discomforting/horrifying, and for people to go "oh my gahd my feels all this stockholm syndrome is too damn sexy".

If you can't see why most normal people outside of fandom find it sort of skeezy when people do this, then IDK what to say. Can we please not go into this horrible subject again

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Fo' sure! I get what you're saying. I still thought it was cool to read Iwan Rheon's perceptions of the character. I'm not sure if he's read the books or not.

The only thing that peeved (in a tiny way) was him signing the letter "Ramsay Snow." Even if he hasn't been legitimized yet, he'd sign it Bolton.

I had to darkly chuckle when Roose calmly said "Ramsay has his own way of doing things."

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Partly because of the overkill acting (both Rheon's and Allen's), partly because of the fact that everything's staged in a single room, and partly because of the stupid mystery-card HBO played this whole time, I'm more and more convinced that the decision to go on-screen with Theon in Dreadfort was a mistake. I mean, is anyone really terrified by show-Ramsay? His letter to Boltons was more menacing than Ramsay himself ever been in the show. Of course, they couldn't possibly match what readers were imagining based on Theon's ADWD mental agony and his ever-present dread to even think the way Ramsay wouldn't appreciate, but then again, maybe they didn't need to go there. I guess the unsullied viewers didn't mind this storyline (though more than few reviewers did), but it surely wasn't nearly as memorable as Theon's ADWD chapters, in which readers finally got the chance to meet Ramsay up close and personally. Now it's water under the bridge, but perhaps it would've worked that way on screen, too.

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Partly because of the overkill acting (both Rheon's and Allen's), partly because of the fact that everything's staged in a single room, and partly because of the stupid mystery-card HBO played this whole time, I'm more and more convinced that the decision to go on-screen with Theon in Dreadfort was a mistake. I mean, is anyone really terrified by show-Ramsay? His letter to Boltons was more menacing than Ramsay himself ever been in the show. Of course, they couldn't possibly match what readers were imagining based on Theon's ADWD mental agony and his ever-present dread to even think the way Ramsay wouldn't appreciate, but then again, maybe they didn't need to go there. I guess the unsullied viewers didn't mind this storyline (though more than few reviewers did), but it surely wasn't nearly as memorable as Theon's ADWD chapters, in which readers finally got the chance to meet Ramsay up close and personally. Now it's water under the bridge, but perhaps it would've worked that way on screen, too.

With the lack of inner monologue, there's no way to portray exactly what happened to Theon without showing it. In the books, the scenes themselves weren't necessary because GRRM could spend half Theon's chapters with him remembering what happened. You can't do that in a show like this, so inventing a plot to portray it was very welcomed.

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