D&D saying that one of their favorite plots from the books is the Boltons in Winterfell is a massive sign of their sexism. Now, for anyone one else, I'd probably not care, in fact, I'd agree it's a very interesting part. However, when it comes to the showrunners who needlessly wrote in excessive rape and violence against women, I see it as a red flag. That's compounded by the way they wrote it.

From the beginning of the show, D&D sabotaged the storyline by removing Jeyne Poole. Keep in mind, ADWD was released in 2008, while GOT premiered in 2011, meaning there was no possible way for D&D to not know everything necessary to bring about that specific plot. Add to that the fact that GRRM was heavily involved in season one, them blatantly ignoring Jeyne makes even less sense if they truly cared about adapting it properly.

Knowing this, that D&D themselves sabotaged their own story, the way it was handled makes a bit more sense, though not nearly enough. Without Jeyne there to play the part of fake Arya, a new bride for Ramsay was needed. Sansa was D&D's favorite character, they were unsatisfied with the story GRRM had written for her, they wanted more screen time and plot relevance for her. It seemed like making Sansa take Jeyne's place was a good solution to both these issues.

Except it wasn't. Littlefinger sending Sansa out of the Vale to marry Ramsay makes no sense. Not only is Sansa the object of Littlefinger's obsession, a replacement for Catelyn in his mind, she also was important to Littlefinger getting the Vale on his side (in the show). She was charming the lords and knights, balancing their intense dislike for him with their desire to help/protect her. Not to mention she was his only alibi to save him from accusations of Lysa's murder. Sending her away from the Vale harms Littlefinger's plans. She also would definitely not be "protected" from Cersei; after all the Boltons were loyal to the Lannisters and hated the Starks, what's to stop them from killing Sansa or handing her over once the Northern lords are more settled?

Speaking of the Northern lords, D&D removed the Northern Conspiracy. Throughout the book plot, the Northern lords are plotting to save Arya and depose the Boltons (in a nutshell, it's actually much more complex, but I'm not going into that rn). It's an excellent expression of how the Northerners loved the Starks and hate the Boltons. In the show, the lords are a bit disgruntled, sure, but they have no interest in deposing the Boltons and saving Sansa.

Another major part of the storyline minimized by the show is Theon/Reek. Theon's struggle with identity is a major part of his character throughout the series, and ADWD is no different. He's been stripped entirely of his identity by Ramsay's torture and Theon's own choices. Part of his arc in this book is discovering himself apart from the Starks and the Greyjoys.

That's definitely not what the show did. As I said earlier, Sansa is D&D's favorite character, so naturally she became the center focus of this arc, while Theon was pushed aside. He's essentially reduced to the method of Sansa's escape and goes on track to return to his pre-season one perception of himself: a Stark. This is a massive disservice to his character, Theon isn't a Stark; his life with them is important to his storyline and will definitely inform what he becomes, but it's not the true culmination of his arc. Basically, Theon was turned into a side character in his own story. It's through his pov we see this story, he's the character most tied to Ramsay. Obviously Jeyne is important and a main character in her own right for this arc, but she is not the central character we see the story through. So why is Sansa? She has no stake in this story, Jeyne is forced there after being sex trafficked and Theon is a captive.

So what does this leave for the show version of the plot? There's no conspiracy, Theon's pushed to the side, and politics and overall story are sacrificed. Well that leaves torture and violence against Ramsay's bride. Without the many moving parts of that storyline, it's just a story of a woman being abused horribly by her husband and eventually escaping. However, the escape isn't even the main aspect of the story focused on, that's always the abuse. It's also purely Sansa's abuse, not Theon's or the many people tortured and murdered by Ramsay, Sansa is the sole focus.

So basically, D&D took a plotline that's filled with the inner workings of Northern politics and the complexities of battling identity loss and reduced it to another excuse to show a woman be raped and abused on screen. The desire to turn this stroy into another way to make Sansa suffer is disturbing, and to make matters worse she fucking thanks Ramsay later on?? This whole storyline in the show is disgusting and yet another sign of how sexist D&D are.

What's mindboggling is that D&D loved Sansa but also put her in a situation where she's tortured and abused. You know, almost like they enjoy their favourite female characters to be so victimized...

Reek II, A Dance with Dragons

ASOIAF Moodboards: Jeyne Poole

It was not right that she should look to him for rescue. What had she been thinking, that he would whistle up a winged horse and fly her out of here, like some hero in the stories she and Sansa used to love? He could not even help himself. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with meek.

Theon Month 2022 || Day 29: Theon’s Evolution as a Character

Theon goes through such dynamic evolution and change. He brings up deep and often thorny questions about personality and its relation to trauma and about identity in general. But I think what is one of the most satisfying aspects of his story is how our own understanding of him as readers evolves throughout his journey. As the details of his situation is gradually revealed to us, each layer reveals an even more complicated layer. 

What I love so much personally about Theon is that that everything you say about him is undercut with another opposing truth. Theon is considered a traitor, a turncloak but he was a hostage. Winterfell was his home but he was a prisoner there. He loves the Starks, but he could never be one of them. He is scapegoated for crimes he didn’t commit, but he also commits heinous crimes. He is a victim of abuse but he has also been abusive. Even his name- Greyjoy- brings up this duality, this complexity. 

And his arc brings up so many questions. What do you do when your home is not your own? How do you reclaim your identity if you never knew who you were? At what point do all the tricks and postures you use to survive actually become your true identity? How do you go on living when you should be dead? 

And then there is the nature of his evolution- I’ve seen people interpret it as being born of his abuse with Ramsay. And yet… his identity of Reek was one of static survival. When he was in the Reek reaction to torture he could not truly evolve- no one could under those circumstances. Yes, he was truly changed from Theon of course- but the change was forced upon him. 

It is not until Jeyne reaches out to him with empathy that he is able to begin his journey of finding his true identity. Which is such a powerful thing. And in spite of all the complexity of his story, at the heart of it, there is this really simple and beautiful theme of saving oneself and others through empathy- of finding who you are through empathy. 

It was warmer in the godswood, strange to say. Beyond its confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell. The paths were treacherous with black ice, and hoarfrost sparkled in the moonlight on the broken panes of the Glass Gardens. Drifts of dirty snow had piled up against the walls, filling every nook and corner. Some were so high they hid the doors behind them. Under the snow lay grey ash and cinders, and here and there a blackened beam or a pile of bones adorned with scraps of skin and hair. Icicles long as lances hung from the battlements and fringed the towers like an old man’s stiff white whiskers. But inside the godswood, the ground remained unfrozen, and steam rose off the hot pools, as warm as baby’s breath.

The bride was garbed in white and grey, the colors the true Arya would have worn had she lived long enough to wed. Theon wore black and gold, his cloak pinned to his shoulder by a crude iron kraken that a smith in Barrowton had hammered together for him. But under the hood, his hair was white and thin, and his flesh had an old man’s greyish undertone. A Stark at last, he thought. Arm in arm, the bride and he passed through an arched stone door, as wisps of fog stirred round their legs. The drum was as tremulous as a maiden’s heart, the pipes high and sweet and beckoning. Up above the treetops, a crescent moon was floating in a dark sky, half-obscured by mist, like an eye peering through a veil of silk.

Chapters of A Song of Ice & Fire - A Dance With Dragons - The Prince of Winterfell Theon found himself wondering if he should say a prayer. Will the old gods hear me if I do? They were not his gods. He was ironborn, a son of Pyke, his god was the Drowned God of the islands…but Winterfell was long leagues from the sea. It had been a lifetime since any god had heard him. He did not know who he was, or what he was, why he was still alive, why he had ever been born. “Theon,” a voice seemed to whisper. His head snapped up. “Who said that?” All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered them. The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate. A god’s voice, or a ghost’s. How many died the day that he took Winterfell? How many more the day he lost it? The day that Theon Greyjoy died, to be reborn as Reek. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek.

theon's gender was always broken

Theon's gender has never belonged to him, but rather to the various authority figures in his life - Ned Stark, Balon Greyjoy, Ramsay and Roose Bolton; Asha, who does not own his gender so much as inhabits it. In general the roles Theon plays are separated from his inner world (ward vs. hostage identity, with whom his loyalty and affection lie, what customs he values/follows), and in service to the men around him.

Part of what makes Theon's gender performance so unsatisfactory is how obviously he works at it. However Theon acts while ward to Winterfell, it's viewed with the idea that it's not his true nature. That Iron Islanders are not known to act that way. Balon and Theon's uncles never deviate from the belief than Theon's masculinity is Stark-made, too weak to survive their way of life. The violence of Reek's gender is inescapable because it's written onto his body. This doesn't serve because the work of gender isn't meant to be obvious, it's supposed to appear innate.

Constructing gender in front of everyone's eyes is taboo in hyperpatriarchal settings, in a class-based societies, because it lets everyone in on the trick. If everyone gets to judge and be judged by how well they adhere to heavily gendered social rules, then it's essential that gender and class appear seamless. That outliers are like Brienne, or Tyrion, or Varys are othered or else the cracks start to show.

Theon begins asoiaf as an able-bodied apparently gender-conforming guy, if disconcerting. Masculinity is commonly performed for the benefit of other men, and in Theon's case this holds true, yet he rarely benefits from doing so! We can argue that his gender is fundamentally different by the end of ADWD, because abuse is forever-changing and he's no longer able to present in the ways he took comfort in... but what's consistent is that his gender was never really his.

More about the how's & who's of Theon's gender performance beneath the cut~

​Theon Month 2022 || Day 25: Humorous or “Classic Theon” Moments

Chapters of A Song of Ice & Fire - A Dance With Dragons - Theon I In the songs, the hero always saved the maiden from the monster’s castle, but life was not a song, no more than Jeyne was Arya Stark. Her eyes are the wrong color. And there are no heroes here, only whores. Even so, he knelt beside her, pulled down the furs, touched her cheek. “You know me. I’m Theon, you remember. I know you too. I know your name.”

Theon Month 2022 || Names​

reminder that GRRM coined the term “false arya” and isn’t something arya or dany fans started

Literally George, quoted from the Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon book, by James Hibberd:

All this Sansa suffered the most, only character who has suffered and therefore deserves the best ending ever oppression olympics is hilarious if one thinks of TWoW.

Tyrion is a slave in the middle of battle, Jon is lying dead in the snow, Bran is in a cave eating Jojen paste, Dany is starving in the middle of nowhere and having hallucinations, Theon is hanging from a wall in Stannis’ camp, Jeyne has lost her nose, Arya’s sample TWoW chapter is so damn dark

and then we have Sansa -

Organizing 64 dish feasts and having 12 feet tall lemon cakes made especially for her!

Theon Month || Day 14: Guilt

I’ve seen the debate that book Theon does not feel guilt about the things he has done. I’ve also seen it argued that book Theon doesn’t ever take responsibility for his crimes. I really disagree with this and I’ve collected some quotes to explain why.

In A Clash of Kings, it is true that Theon does not yet take responsibility for the things he is doing. He always blames it on someone else- Reek (Ramsay), The other Ironborn, or the victims themselves. However, you can see the guilt he experiences, even if he is trying to deny it, through the many nightmares that he has about the people he has harmed:

His guilt is also apparent in the way he dwells on the things he has done, even if he is still trying to pass the responsibility onto someone else such as with Farlen:

And then there is also the dream where he predicts Robb’s death at the Red Wedding. I am going to save that for later into Theon Month since I believe it is a prophetic or green dream as opposed to a guilt dream. Although the guilt he feels does play a role in it:

It is because of all the evidence in A Dance with Dragons that I completely reject the idea that Theon does not take responsibility for what he did. I think that him taking responsibility is intrinsically linked to his identity arc. It happens gradually however. In Reek I, while still in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, he is haunted by what happened to Kyra but he is still trying to run from the guilt he feels:

The memory of Kyra being brutally slaughtered fills him with helplessness and guilt, so he victim blames her and turns away from the memory. It is the same thing he attempts to do with Jeyne at first when he is still in the Reek mindset. It is not until he is gradually becoming Theon (and given a reprieve from some of the worst torture- that’s important) that he is able to accept responsibility. Theon taking responsibility for what he has done and understanding why he did it is intrinsically linked to knowing who he is. It is also intrinsically linked to his reprieve from constant torture and captivity. Granted he is still a prisoner and the abuse is ongoing. But while he was being tortured with flaying as well, he had no ability to do this at all. 

Here are some of the moments in A Dance with Dragons where Theon takes responsibility:

Day 12: the people of Winterfell

Theon VI Acok

The prince of Winterfell adwd

Bran I agot

The prince of winterfell adwd

The prince of winterfell adwd

Theon VI acok

Bran VI acok

Theon V Acok

Theon I adwd

Theon IV acok

That was long ago, though. They were all dead now. Jory, old Ser Rodrik, Lord Eddard, Harwin and Hullen, Cayn and Desmond and Fat Tom, Alyn with his dreams of knighthood, Mikken who had given him his first real sword. Even Old Nan, like as not.

Theon I adwd