happy birthday @amueliaand@shebsart ^__^ i drew your boys…. just a couple of wolf hunters…. i find it interesting that roose actually succeeded at doing the things theon attempted to do/is blamed for
The walls of Winterfell were behind him, but Ser Rodrik faced them squarely and could not fail to see. Theon watched his face. When his chin quivered under those stiff white whiskers, he knew just what the old man was seeing.
He is not surprised,he thought with sadness, but the fear is there.
"This is craven,“ Ser Rodrik said. "To use a child so … this is despicable.”
"Oh, I know,“ said Theon. "It’s a dish I tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken from my father’s house, to make certain he would raise no more rebellions.”
"It is not the same!“
Theon’s face was impassive. "The noose I wore was not made of hempen rope, that’s true enough, but I felt it all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw.” He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came spilling out he saw the truth of them.
So I wanted to make something for Theon month. The first prompt was ‘favorite quote’ which, I have so many about Theon…
but I chose this one particularly because I feel it’s underappreciated and I had never drawn it before, so.
The walls of Winterfell were behind him, but Ser Rodrik faced them squarely and could not fail to see. Theon watched his face. When his chin quivered under those stiff white whiskers, he knew just what the old man was seeing.
He is not surprised,he thought with sadness, but the fear is there.
"This is craven,“ Ser Rodrik said. “To use a child so … this is despicable.”
"Oh, I know,“ said Theon. “It’s a dish I tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken from my father’s house, to make certain he would raise no more rebellions.”
"It is not the same!“
Theon’s face was impassive. “The noose I wore was not made of hempen rope, that’s true enough, but I felt it all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw.” He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came spilling out he saw the truth of them.
So I wanted to make something for Theon month. The first prompt was ‘favorite quote’ which, I have so many about Theon…
but I chose this one particularly because I feel it’s underappreciated and I had never drawn it before, so.
how would you save theon from getting executed or burned by stannis ?
here are the options i can think of: - bran intervenes - asha & friends bust him out (but where do they go?) - jeyne pretending to be arya demands him to be spared, her wish is granted, he’s shipped off to castle black, where jon doesn’t kill him - jeyne reveals the truth and stannis shows mercy (not out of compassion for theon’s suffering we already know he showed none but for the principle of not killing someone for a crime he didn’t commit) - asha successfully bargains with stannis (what does she bargain with?)(potentially bla bla theon latecomer we’ll be allies though i find that weak bargaining myself) - conveniently, rickon reappears - direwolf intervention ??? - brought to castle black first to get burned by melisandre in person to maximise the godly power of the burning or whatever & she has a vision that she shouldn’t - stannis somehow gets convinced that theon is more helpful to him alive than dead for whatever and keeps him as his prisoner - theon (maybe with jeyne) just manages to flee ON HIS OWN during some confusions happening (but where do they go?) - theon for whatever reason of “we got to keep a really good blood sacrifice alive for when we really need it” is kept alive longer than expected until the political order changed in such a way that someone else (sansa, jon, whoever) is in charge; they spare theon - ???? add to it ?
I’m going to try to add to this later but reblogging for now in case others have ideas/ know of more theories.
I basically have zero ideas of my own. BUT. I did stumble upon a few good ones on this forum here.
(A) Tycho Nestoris making a play that could change things up, or
(B) an expansion of the “Bran intervenes theory” by NotSoSilentSister who said, quote,
“Theon, post-Reekification, is primo warging material. We’ve seen in the Varamyr Sixskins prologue what a struggle it is for a skinchanger to take control over an adult in full possession of their mental faculties. Bran can warg Hodor, because Hodor is more easily exploited than the average person would be. But Hodor is just as trapped in this cave as Bran and therefore of limited usefulness. Theon however…..
Dogs, we have learned, are the easiest creatures to warg. A big point has been made about Theon being treated like and eventually downright identifying with Ramsay’s dogs. I don’t think he could put up much resistance against Bran in his current state. He might not even want to.
Bran-as-Theon could accomplish quite a bit - eg. alert Stannis to the secret passages he and Rickon used to escape from Winterfell….. Furthermore, Bran-as-Bran would likely be trapped in this cave for the forseeable future. Theon-warging is his best shot at going where the action is.
Seems a lot more immediately useful than some vague sense of “restoring the power of the Old Gods”, whatever that would accomplish. (Mel’s burning of people has yet to produce any tangible results either). I’m almost certain that it won’t be about “King’s Blood waking the dragon” (mainly because I suspect the King’s Blood accomplishing this is actually Jon’s own, and has already been spilt).
So, even from the most cynical perspective, Bran certainly has a tangible interest in keeping Theon alive for a while.
1) Bran needs someone close to the action to warg into
2) who can be brought in close proximity to a weirwood tree under some pretexte
3) who’s mentally broken down enough to relinquish control
4) who might even consent to the whole deal, out of a sense of obligation, as a form of atonement
5) or failing that, won’t make Bran feel too guilty about the violation….”
Now, I personally don’t know if this would make a thematically satisfying development for Theon, or even if that’s what I’d want to root for, but I do find the concept intriguing.
the way this is worded…. ( “primo warging material” ?? my brutalised poor guy is a person not an object that’s the POINT man). certainly this would be a) very bad for theon b) very bad for bran in an ultimately self-respect for the way you acted and the life you lived kind of way, BUT, this, uh, pulls all the delicious bad angst sad horror buttons for me. MORE bad things happening to recover from!!! more theon used as teaching tool abt power and agency getting wrecked in the process. we love that here.
So… GRRM has said that things are about to get way worse for every character in The Winds of Winter AND… when I first read Varamyr’s POV I totally thought this as well- that it was foreshadowing for Theon to possibly be skin changed by Bran. And that was before I ever read the reddit post. The reason I began thinking of Theon was Varamyr was describing how EASY it was to slip into a dog’s skin:
Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. ~Prologue, A Dance with Dragons
The collar line (ahahhhhh)! I instantly thought of Theon. But…. disclaimer. I am going to think about Theon whether or not the passage is about him or foreshadowing him… it is the way I am built. (Just as a dog is built to accept a collar, I am built to read Theon shit into any asoiaf passage lol.) But since other people have thought this as well… it does make me wonder.
But basically YES. I completely agree that it would not be a good thing for Theon, especially after everything he has been through. But I do like it better than him just dying. There is this theory I keep hearing that when Stannis takes off Theon’s head at the Heart Tree, his blood will feed the tree and then Bran will drink the blood and become an even more powerful greenseer. So basically Theon paste- just like the Jojen paste theory. There is a theory that consuming Jojen made Bran even more powerful than a regular sacrifice, since Jojen is a green dreamer. And that made me think… oh shit, well, Theon does seem to have green dreams as well. But ahhhhh I hate this theory so much.
I feel like Theon’s story is SO MUCH about what happens when you were supposed to die but DIDN’T. And him dying after this magnificent exploration of that…. doesn’t…. seem to fit into that theme at all lol. And I honestly think Theon being turned into a paste to feed Bran would be worst than the show and… SERIOUSLY!? Like… it just seems anti climactic to me.
But the skinchanging thing… It’s always been something I’ve been fascinated by. In one of my fics I explored the idea that Theon allows Bran to skin change him… which would definitely be preferable to Bran forcibly doing it the way he does with Hodor. :(((( But… that still brings up so many questions of agency and power. Because even if Theon willingly allows Bran to do that to him- is he manipulated into doing it? Do this or die? Do this because you owe it? Does he do it because of guilt? In the fic I wrote, he did it because of his guilt- but that was more of a show based fic with show based characterizations. I wonder if he would be willing to do it in the books because he would see it as being a sort of prophet to the Old Gods (Bran being the Old Gods that know his name?) Which is a neat parallel with Aeron. Hmmm.
But to answer your question, the way I would save him is either Bran saves him for a reason other than Theon paste (uggg I HATE Theon paste And I hate that term lol. The skinchanging thing I am very interested in, even though I know it would be horrible. I suppose it really depends on how it is explored.) I also really like Jeyne using her Arya name to shield him- possibly taking him to the wall with her? Or Asha saves him outright (but I don’t know how realistic this would be. Nonetheless, I am definitely here for it.) I do think Stannis is practical too- like he won’t kill him if he can be useful to him. Maybe Theon can be useful in helping him defeat the Boltons? And he can promise his followers that he will execute Theon in the actual Winterfell Godswood after they retake Winterfell instead of the Island with the Heart Tree. But then Bran saves him? There’s an elaborate Night Lamp Theory and then the Much Ado About Theon essay that explains how Theon is much more useful to Stannis alive rather than dead.
honestly the more i think about it the more i love the skinchanger thing. of course that’s terrible, and obviously that would neither be yay bran! power upgrade! nor would it be yay theon! redemption at last, but … ahhhgh.
i remember a while back i was talking theon ramsay horror fic stuff with someone and the idea of mind control came up & my opinion was that what makes theon’s story good, for me, is how in a fantasy series with magic & so on what happened to theon actually was done without magic & that hits harder for me.
but, euron and the dusky woman & his crew of mind-controlled mutes and bran & hodor & the entire concept of skinchanging with associated moral pitfalls & all these magical players being moved into position & theon thematically squeezed just there, between bran and euron, that sure is something as well and i’d LOVE if something came out of it. love love
![amuelia:“By rights I should have my sister’s command,” [Theon] admitted, uncomfortably aware of ho](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0d788cc6364bc21137d827a359cad6ae/9ff2643be95b0dcd-94/s1280x1920/8f672e136623a2e1236702b6a1fb2c6c6409ea0f.png "amuelia:“By rights I should have my sister’s command,” [Theon] admitted, uncomfortably aware of ho")
