#but good is still worth fighting for. brienne affc chapters my beloved <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[2maegor2cruel]

glad you liked my tags. like i said previously, i think your original reply to wexpyke was a little more unkind than was necessary. i've followed wexpyke for a while and know that they're a nice person who meant well. i'm also not trying to get into an argument with you, i just think we have two unique and somewhat conflicting interpretations of a particular character's actions.

yes, theon captured winterfell. no, he didn’t sack it. yes, people can die or be otherwise seriously harmed when a castle is captured. this is well-established in the world of asoiaf. the important thing to note about theon's taking of winterfell is that it is entirely within the "rules of the game", and not even especially brutal compared to how those like tywin or roose operate in the riverlands. that isn't excusing theon's actions, which were terrible, it's just putting them in the context of westeros.

i was just about to make a separate post because i find this topic really compelling, but part of what i like about theon as a character is how he holds a mirror up to the starks. for instance, in ACOK we hear about several castles that robb and the northern cause have stormed and captured, including ashemark and the crag.

the crag is probably the best direct comparison to winterfell, as it is similarly poorly garrisoned, and it is in part taken by scaling parties going up over the walls. grey wind mauls a man to death during the fight, and it can be assumed that many more loyal men to the westerlings died. but we never see these deaths, and we're safe in the assumption that the starks are "the good guys", so of course they'd never hurt people the way theon does. theon is just a villainous outlier, right?

except as we learn in arya's ACOK/ASOS chapters, the northern army is just as brutal as the westerlands army. stark men rape, murder, and steal just as lannister men do. the smallfolk hate and fear both of them, regardless of whether one side's cause is right or just or "honorable".

another interesting comparison can be seen in chapters 37-39 of ACOK. in chapter 37, theon III, theon is raiding the stony shore with the ironborn. he doesn't really partake in the rape and murder, but he also doesn't care about those that are raped/murdered. it's a few short lines, but it's pretty heinous.

then, in chapter 39, catelyn V, in ACOK:

the northern army isn't just raiding, it's raiding along the coast. it's a pretty direct parallel in my eyes. this northern raiding only gets a mention, and like the taking of the crag, we never have to see the brutality of it. catelyn cares nothing for the westerland smallfolk's suffering, but that callousness on her part isn't interpreted as villainous. it's war, and that's how war is.

it should also be noted that these two chapters are only separated by an arya chapter, and so much of arya's ACOK and ASOS chapters are concerned with the actual toll of war. i think this theon-arya-catelyn structure was very deliberate in joining these themes of power vs. powerlessness, "what needs to be done" vs. villainy/brutality, and "good" vs. "bad" guys.

so yeah. sorry to derail a fun post. i just think sometimes people assume that theon was uniquely terrible, when the books are constantly hitting us over the head with how untrue that is. it's meant to show us that even "righteous" war is still war, and war will always be brutal and evil and hurt those without power the most.

scariest guy you have ever seen in your life who smells like a week old latrine: you need men afield. i could be your man.

theon greyjoy for some reason who has his whole entire own army of people who just successfully sacked winterfell and also are not going to lock him in an underground bunker and cut pieces off of him for a year: we really are short on manpower and i think a fine man like you could make all the difference