Game of Thrones

[Spooky]

Regarding Sansa...

Some dude on Reddit: "She is still just a pawn."

Some other Reddit dude: "But a pawn that survives all the way to the back of the board becomes a Queen"

I never looked at her like that.

[AdmiralDigby]

Some other Reddit dude: "But a pawn that survives all the way to the back of the board becomes a Queen"

I'm really looking forward to Sansa opening up a can of whoopass .
( then she'll probably die of dysentery )

[Eric]

Regarding Sansa...

Some dude on Reddit: "She is still just a pawn."

Some other Reddit dude: "But a pawn that survives all the way to the back of the board becomes a Queen"

I never looked at her like that.

*crosses off Sansa from the "characters who may die in book 4 or 5" list*

[Spooky]

That's what you get for lollygagging and not reading. 

[Eric]

That's what you get for lollygagging and not reading. 

I wonder if I'd enjoy it better if I knew which ones were to survive? 

I just don't think it's my kind of book series.

[Spooky]

Spoilers for all books.

A great piece on Theon. http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2012/02/22-prevented-stark/index.html (text in spoiler below)

[spoiler]Theon Greyjoy is one of the most complex characters George R. R. Martin has written for A Song of Ice and Fire, passing through three major development arcs. Over the course of the books he conducts a journey through two of these character arcs, and we get numerous hints of the third in his distant past, rooting the character where he is - a man between all seats, loved by none, belonging nowhere and deeply tragic in his disposition. It is hard to find much compassion for Theon, who is not only a cocksure bastard, but also commits gruesome acts and shits on loyalty and honor for sake of his own vanity. But if you read A Dance with Dragons and are not moved by his plight, you are indeed heartless. No one deserves the fate that Theon suffers. But to understand him - a task that no character in the books ever undertakes - we have to start at his very childhood on Pyke, which is barely described in the books yet crucial for his character.

Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy (Photo by Helen Sloan)
Theon is the fourth child of Balon Greyjoy, the latecomer, the nestling. He has two older brothers, strong and loved by his father, and an older sister, who too is stronger than he is. His uncles are dark, stern and strange, with the only exception being the family fool and drunkard, the only Greyjoy with whom Theon has an at least partially pleasant relation. His father, of course, is hard and unforgiving; a man to whom smiling comes as naturally as it does to Tywin Lannister. With a boy who likes to smile, that's not bound to end well. Let's take a look at his father first.
Balon Greyjoy is a man of the past, brooding over the bad situation he is in and hoping to revive what he thinks are the good old days. He must have been sour company even before his first rebellion, always telling everyone how bad everything is. In fact, his wife can't take it anymore and flees to Harlaw. Being the only kind element in Theon's surroundings, Theon now has only his father's expectations to cope with. Knowing Balon isn't exactly the most lenient person, this must have been a similar childhood as for Tyrion Lannister in Casterly Rock, minus being a dwarf on top of it. A father's disappointment or at least flat disinterest however is hard enough to bear.
There are also his two brothers to consider. They are the defining element of Theon's psyche. Let's consider what we know about them. Rodrik and Maron are older and stronger than Theon, experienced warriors. Theon is terrorized by them, repeatedly abducted in the black of night and brutally beaten in a way that compares even to his later sufferings. Beatings that bad cannot possibly be hidden from their father, by the way, which reinforces the statements about Balon Greyjoy above. The only way Theon has to escape all this is to give a bit of it back to Asha (whom he insults for having pimples), and to develop an ironic world view (you know, the world is a secret jape only he knows). The alternative is to go mad, I assume, a fate he eventually meets at the Dreadfort.
For ten years of his life, Theon's childhood is bleak and dismal. Now, however, comes the first of his three character changes, and a profound one at that. The Greyjoy Rebellion fails, and Rodrik and Maron die in Seagard and Pyke, respectively. Balon kneels, and Theon is sent to Winterfell as a hostage. Eddard Stark, however, is a kind man and treats Theon more as a step-son and ward than hostage, allowing him to grow up with his own sons and being trained in being a lord - which is more than one could say about what he learned on Pyke until then. As the years go by, his heritage as an Ironborn fades away more and more, and his theoretical position as heir of Pyke becomes only a claim not seriously aspired. But what happens almost immediately when Theon arrives at Winterfell is something different.
Theon is suddenly the oldest of his cohort in Winterfell, since Robb and Jon Snow are four years younger than him. He instantly jumps from being the youngest brother to being the oldest. And he wholeheartedly embraces this new identity. He wants to be the older brother to Robb (not to Jon) that Rodrik and Maron never were for him. He wants to make it better. He trains with Robb, shares his conquests in women with him and connects with him on the basis of being a lord. That's a totally new feeling for him, and it is what he wanted all these years in Pyke. He can never have it totally, since he is a hostage, and a Greyjoy, but he tries hard to forget about it. When Robb stands before the decision to call the banners, it is Theon who pushes him towards war, and it is Theon to pledge his sword to Robb. He means it, then. The corny, overdramatic style of Theon's oath of allegiance is caught perfectly in the series.
And then, something happens. Robb transforms from Robb the Boy to Robb the Lord and then to Robb the King. Suddenly, he isn't Theon's younger brother anymore, but his lord and king. To allow Theon to maintain the inner image he has of himself, he desperately needs a status upgrade. Luckily, Robb offers him one: when he sends him to Pyke with an offer of alliance, Theon transforms from being Robb's loyal friend and mentor to a crucial ally, with power at his disposal, invaluable in perilous times as these and trusted. This image, however, is only that - an imagination. In truth, he reverts to a more insignificant position. Robb now needs and trusts the likes of Rickard Karstark and the Greatjon, but none of them trusts Theon, and they don't need him. In order to get the attention Theon craves for, he needs to become important. The brokering of a Stark-Greyjoy alliance seems to allow exactly that.
Tragically, the idea now manifesting in Theon's head just shows how dislocated he is. He is not, cannot be accepted as a Northman, for he is not. But he also is no Ironborn. He never really felt at home in Pyke, but now it's just a distant memory, clogged by the idea that he is somehow entitled to the Iron Islands and simultaneously despising them as a harsh, cruel and backwards place. He cannot feel different, given his experiences with both worlds, and under kinder circumstances and with a more mature, reflecting mind, he could have been the one man to bridge the differences and heal the wounds between the two people. Unfortunately, he is neither. His bad character traits, the vanity and arrogance, shine through, and the years in Winterfell as the older brother and lordling have only improved the notions in Theon's head.
When Theon arrives at Pyke, his notion is that his father will accept him as heir (why shouldn't he, he always knew back in his head that he is Robb's equal, and this equality rests solely on being the oldest living son) and accept his sensible proposition. Theon would then provide Robb with the forces he needed, proving his worth, showing the Iron Islands what he's made off and finally gaining the Rock as his own seat, thereby elevating himself to the same position as Robb. It's a ridiculous pipe dream, of course, but that's the world Theon lives in at the moment. It gets brutally shattered. His father doesn't even recognize him as his son anymore, his sister stole "his" place, and the plan he has made is burned to ash in an instant.
This marks the second big character transformation. Theon drops all his plans with Robb and pushes his feelings towards the Starks to the back of his head. What he wants is to be regarded as equal by Robb. He wants to be his older brother, the guy he trusts. He can't be that without an army and status. So, he needs to get the attention elsewhere. In this situation it shows that Theon instinctively knows that he can't be a Stark just by being obedient. The family is nice, but it's also a closed cosmos. He was with them for ten years, and he has seen the trusted vassals regarded with warmth and respect. He aspired to become that, bound with Robb like Eddard was with Robert Baratheon. Would he return to Robb empty handed and warn him of Balon's attack, he would forego this chance forever. He wants to be a Stark, desperately, but not at the price of being insignificant. So, radically, he decides to become the better Stark himself.
The decision to attack and capture Winterfell seems inspired by the same songs Sansa loves so much, and Theon really is a romantic at this point. He doesn't think it through. In his imagination, he'll take Winterfell and be a better, kinder lord than everyone else, but especially better than his father. He despises the whole Ironborn culture, but he can never free himself from it. He needs the Ironmen, and they despise him in turn, following him only on orders of Balon and the Damphair. When he captures Winterfell and stands in the Great Hall, looking at the sullen, resentful faces of the people he spent his youth with around him, the dream shatters. He has lost both worlds now, for good. The capturing of Winterfell makes it impossible for him ever to return to Robb, and he soon has to grasp that he can't rule as Prince of Winterfell. It was stupidity, from the beginning, and now he only can die. For a short moment, when Maester Luwin proposes to take the black, he convinces himself to see an escape and another goal to aim for - being Lord Commander - but in his final bad decision, he trusts Ramsay Snow, of all people.
And now he enters his third and, until now, final stage of character development. He becomes Reek. This transformation is the most horrifying. Theon is almost completely eradicated, and Martin does a hell of a job in transporting that. Ramsay takes everything that was Theon's identity away from him and makes him a creature, less than a man, just a beast, and the lowest of all. Theon is deprived of his identity in several ways. First, his name. He has to take the name of Reek, which is almost meaningless at that point (they already need to count the Reeks to be clear about who they talk). Second, his clothes and manner. They only give him rags and forbid that he behaves in any way that could be taken as a lord. The constant need for Theon to beg for everything repeatedly is also part of this, depriving him of his status not only as lord but as a human being. And third, pieces of his body are taken from him, as a physical manifestation of this deprivation. Being experienced in the matter, Ramsay would almost completely succeed in this, if not for Bran Stark.
Martin makes it perfectly clear by the headlines of the Theon chapters what is happening. Three of them are named "Reek", the first three to be precise, and in all three Theon really is Reek, utterly terrified even to think of anything else. Then we have "The Prince of Winterfell." It is a function, a role he plays, but he's not Reek alone anymore. Roose Bolton brings back his identity as the lord of Pyke, which Theon accepts only as a ruse and act, but it can't be erased, even though Ramsay tries. In the next chapter, Theon is "The Turncloak." This is a new identity already. He accepts his past now, whereas before, as Reek, he denied even having a past, and embraces the role of the pariah. This is still in line with the degradation Ramsay put him through, but he begins to find back. "The Ghost in Winterfell" is an obvious reference to Arya's days in Harrenhal, and a sign that Theon starts to think of himself as an individual, rather than a role that his surroundings put on him (the turncloak is an ascription, whereas the ghost of Winterfell isn't). In the last chapter, he is Theon again, finding back to his former self, although deeply changed. He is Theon now, not Reek or any other thing the Boltons wanted, but he is of course not the Theon we left in Winterfell back in A Clash of Kings.
Where Theon's journey will lead, or if it will find a quick end after his recovery, remains to be seen. Theon is at least partially demented, and his maiming makes any return to his former self totally impossible. He will not be able to ever sleep with a woman again, nor to woo one, he won't be able to fire a bow or fight with sword in hand, and his broken teeth and white hair let him appear like a ghost, which makes it rather unlikely that he will ever hold power over people. He is a poor creature, caught up in his own past, but he now deeply regrets what he's done. It is too late for him, personally, but not too late to make up for it, if only a bit and he knows it.
In the end, Theon wanted to be a good man. His character flaws got in the way more often than not, however. His vanity, arrogance and lack of self-reflection prevented him from truly understanding people, of expressing empathy and compassion, and let him instead go for empty gestures and great, dramatic moments. Lady Dustin has a sharp eye when she asks him, why he so desperately wanted to be a Stark, because that's what he really wanted all these years, without ever acknowledging it himself. Instead, he clung to the dream of being able to be Robb's big brother and the future lord of Pyke at the same time, a dance on the volcano that he couldn't possibly manage. Even a truly great man must fail at such a task, and Theon never was one. It's no wonder that both options slipped through his fingers and left him with nothing. It is the great drama of Theon Greyjoy, easily one of the most complex and intriguing characters Martin has written for the series.[/spoiler]

[TinkTanker]

According to my Kindle Fire, I'm almost 20% through the first book. I had ADD or something. I can only read a chapter or two at a sitting.

[AdmiralDigby]

According to my Kindle Fire, I'm almost 20% through the first book. I had ADD or something. I can only read a chapter or two at a sitting.

I usually read a couple chapters a night right before bed .

Every now and then I'll knock down a hundred pages or so .
I started GoT last week and am at the part where Ned kills Lady .

[Spooky]

According to my Kindle Fire, I'm almost 20% through the first book. I had ADD or something. I can only read a chapter or two at a sitting.

I usually read a couple chapters a night right before bed .

Every now and then I'll knock down a hundred pages or so .
I started GoT last week and am at the part where Ned kills Lady .

I am about on my second read and about 35% through CoK. I just want to have it finished right before S2 starts and then start Swords right after the final ep.

[TinkTanker]

I started GoT last week and am at the part where Ned kills Lady .

Coincidentally, so am I. But I've been reading it off and on (mostly off) for about three months. I keep forgetting where I left off, but I'm sticking with it. I really want to finish the book and and start the next one before the second season starts.