I think you’reprobably right that what people see as a clean redemption arcprobably isn’t in the cards for those characters. But I don’tquite agree that Martin doesn’t do tropes, so much as I think helikes to pick them apart and see where those archetypes would meetwith actual human experience and psychology. Redemption arcs don’thappen in real life. Change is hard, so most people don’t do itunless they’re forced into it. Sandor and Theon have been forcedinto it.  

I also thinkredemption arcs, of which I am admittedly not a big fan, implygetting into a hole and then climbing out of it. I’m not sureSandor or Theon really start out with a fall. Sandor’s story hasbeen relatively linear. “Child-killing Lannister lackey” →“fuck it I’m out” → “grrrrr, protecting little girls is myfull-time job because grrrrrr” → “chill monk” is pretty muchjust growth. It picks up the ragged edges that are IMO true to lifein that we haven’t really seen the character benefit from becominga better person, if that makes sense. He doesn’t seem anynicer or happier at the end of ASOS than he was in AGOT, even thoughhe really has been doing more good and less harm. I don’t knowwhere that’s going. I kind of want him to just get to live hislife, maybe move on from digging graves to planting crops, so,probably not that.

Theon is kind ofin a parallel position to Tyrion at this point. Both of them spendADWD in their darkest, lowest place, then turning the corner andescaping with Jeyne/Penny. And Tyrion is a real wild card, so I don’tknow. 

I’mnot quite sure if you mean that you think I’m too hard on Ned or ifyou think people generally are too hard on Ned? Like, you candisagree with me about Ned, but you’re asking about positions Idon’t take - I don’t “blame him for everything,” believe heshould have just gotten over everything, or hold him to a higherstandard than other characters, and I don’t think any of thosethings are particularly prevalent in fandom – but I’ll try andelaborate on what I think and what I’ve noticed in other responses.

Idon’t, for example, judge Ned for not having “gotten over” thetrauma he experienced during the Rebellion. In a lot of ways, hedealt with it as well as could be reasonably expected. I do, however,judge Ned for his failure to stow that baggage for five or tenminutes a decade in order to give Jon a little bit of peace of mindabout his mother. There was no risk or cost to telling Jon theaspects of the truth that would have done the kid the most good –that his mother didn’t abandon him, that she was a good person andshe and Ned had cared about each other, and that was why Ned hadchosen to claim and raise Jon as his son – except that Ned would’vehad to suck it up and go near a painful topic for the space of asingle conversation. That’s cold.

Butyes, as you say, I do think it’s worth taking apart how his owncharacter and experiences affected so many other importantcharacters. Looking at Ned from this angle, it does take some directeffort to think critically, because so many of those characters arePOVs who can’t know why Ned acted the way he did or understand howthose actions affected them. Then there’s the general in-universehagiography which has built up around The Ned, which does rile up atat least my skepticism.

Ido, for example, really reject the in-universe framing of Theon’ssituation. You can say that taking Theon hostage is something Ned hadto do, given his social context and position (even if othercharacters who have to do some other awful stuff aren’t let off thehook nearly as often as Ned is). He didn’t have to allow his men tobeat Theon. Theon is the only one of the kids that remembers thishappening to him, and whether or not he was singled out, there’s adifferent power dynamic when you’re talking about a hostage. Hedidn’t have to make Theon carry Ice to watch executions,which is some sick shit to doto a teenager you are holding hostage. But those thingsdid happen, and it says something about Ned that he was completelyindifferent to them. (He thinks about Theon exactly twice, and onlyin context of using Theon against Balon.)

Sooverall, I think Ned is complicated. He’s lived a complicated lifeand he reacts to that in a way that strikes me as being pretty trueto how people are. He’s overall a sympathetic figure, and he copeswith some challenges in ways that I think are better than most peoplewould be able to do. But he also had some serious shortcomings whichaffected a lot of the people around him. His tendency to stick hishead in the sand when it comes to large public sphere conflictsmanifests as a streak of callousness he shows toward children in hiscare, which again, I am not saying is the worst thing ever, but for me personally is jarring. And seeing the character in that light, The Ned’s martyr-herostatus can feel a little dissonant.

I think Syrio was more about keeping Arya out of trouble while they were actually in Kings Landing than it was about her actually learning to defend herself, though. He didn’t have to do it at Winterfell because she was safe if she was following Jon and Robb around, or just generally running around the castle. 

And yes, we know Robb would override Arya’s wishes, because he did.

He doesn’t have any particular investment in the Freys, but he doesn’t object to making Arya marry one of them. He only argues when he hears he has to do the same. Robb does like Theon, even if Arya doesn’t care about him one way or another.

Ignore the situation for as long as they could, and then probably marry her to one of those ancient but distant houses like the Reeds or Mormonts. Her parents aren’t likely to encourage her to learn how to fight, so much as they’ll see her tomboyishness as something for which they’ll eventually have to cover and compensate.

Another outside possibility - more likely if the decision falls to Robb instead of Ned - would be to marry her to Theon. The best-case outcome of Theon’s time with the Starks would be that he return to inherit the Iron Islands after Balon’s death, with stronger ties to the mainland. That’s jarring because of the kind of terrifying psychological reality of it; moreover, the reader understands that the resurgence of the old way is probably too strong a current to make this work. But if everything hasn’t gone to hell then nobody knows that yet, so it might seem reasonable to seal that new alliance with marriage. Sansa, being the oldest and far more conventionally feminine, would probably end up in a higher-status match, but it might seem like a good option for Arya.

To be fair, we don’t know that Hallis Mollen isn’t with the Brotherhood. He disappeared somewhere between Riverrun and Moat Cailin, which is their turf. There’s 3-4 months between his leaving Riverrun and Arya’s break from the Brotherhood, then another 8-9 months until Theon encounters the hooded man. That’s a believable timeline for him to go north a ways (leaving Ned’s bones at Greywater Watch, maybe? Since Howland Reed gets sucked into all the rest of the Stark drama), meet the Brotherhood, and be sent to Winterfell. I don‘t have much of an argument to say that is the case, just that I don’t see reason to rule it out.

There’s less time for Harwin to go north, since he’s present when the BWB encounters Brienne and doesn’t seem to have any interest in leaving before they’ve dealt with Jaime. But as you say, there’s just as much reason for them to want an agent there as in Riverrun.

I like the Theon Durden theory. It doesn’t even matter so much whether it’s factually true (probably not) but that it’s possible. Theon’s chapters in ADWD are nightmarishly surreal, with his sense of reality so unstable that we don’t know what’s real either. Whether he’s talking to himself or not, the externalization of the character’s internal recriminations and his halfhearted defenses of himself are a part of his journey back to Theon.

Well, Theon didn’t turn against his family. He turned against the Starks - his captors - to support his father’s cause. His breaking faith with Robb was a violation of an oath he swore to a brother in arms, albeit one made as a hostage and therefore under circumstances of questionable consent.

Hey there! Thanks for the question.

Asha's perspective is definitely a lot more pragmatic than the suicidally stupid/insane Greyjoy tradition. I don’t know if she’s exactly pro-Stark, but at least she’s smart enough to know that being overtly anti-Stark is a dead end. That’s an interesting comparison to draw to Jon and Arya, actually. Certainly Arya would try to emulate her. And the ironborn are like the wildlings in a lot of ways, so Jon would at least know how to deal with her.

I think her current plan is to use Theon’s survival as pretext to call another kingsmoot. This time around, Victarion is on the other end of the world and can’t split the anti-Euron vote. (Of course, he could come back and play the same card, but there’s good odds that he’ll die on his mission, or at least not think of the legal loophole.) She can either run herself, or put Theon forth as her puppet.

I’m going to talk a little bit about one of the released TWOW chapters, so it’s under the cut in case you’re avoiding spoilers altogether.

Thanks, I’m glad to hear you got something out of the post.

I’m actually not so much up on the ASOIAF fic world (nojudgment, I’m just on a meta kick) so I don’t exactly know, but I take yourgeneral point. There’s a lot about this conversation that I find troubling aswell. (Translation: here, have a quasi-coherent 30% of my episode review that I didn’t have the nerve topost the first time around, SORRY ABOUT THE TL;DR.)