Theon Greyjoy: The tragic hero of A Song of Ice and Fire.
George. R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is an überfantasy. The story takes place in the continents of Westeros and Essos — two mysterious lands of magic and strange creatures. In these lands, there are ice covered mountains that kiss the sky and scorching hot deserts that can melt an armoured man. In these lands, there are lakes, blue and deep, that personify serenity and there are rivers, wide and wild, that cause havoc.
These are the lands of cruel Queens, cunning Magisters, and mad Kings. There are Ladies of noble birth — courteous and beautiful in their embroidered silks. There are Lords with Valyrian steel blades and Knights in their steel armours — bold and brave. It’s an entirely different paradigm. Above all, there are heroes — Azor Ahai, Aegon the Conqueror, Barristan the Bold, Ser Gerold Hightower, Ser Arthur Dayne, Rhaegar Targaryen, Robert Baratheon, Qhorin Halfhand and and Jon Snow are a few to name. Even Ser Jaime Lannister is considered as a hero of some sort. These are the fan favourites. There are Facebook pages and Reddit subreddits named after them. And then there is Theon Greyjoy, whom no one sees as a hero. Fans have had some kind of hatred towards Theon who left Robb Stark’s side and revolted against him with quite some brio.
Theon is a veteran teenager in “A Game of Thrones” where we are all introduced to Winterfell and its folks with the beheading of Gared, a deserter of the Night’s Watch. In that chapter, GRRM has done his best to portray and underscore Theon’s character and traits, without ever trying to tell anything about his mentality directly. While the rest of the Starks were looking dreary in that scene, mostly because of knowing what was going to happen to the deserter, Theon had his gaze vested on Gared. With the swing of Lord Eddard Stark’s Ice, Gared’s head rolled close to Theon Greyjoy, who kicked it aside and smirked at Robb and Jon, as if he had just killed the leviathan of all fighters, Ser Gregor Clegane a.k.a The Mountain that Rides, in a single combat.
Did Theon know anything about his hazy future when he laughed at the rolling head? Obviously not. How could he have had any pre‑cognition? He was just a pumped up teenager who had always wanted to do something greater than Robb or Jon. After the Krakens had failed in an open rebellion against the Stags, Theon was handed over to Ned Stark as a hostage. Even though the Warden of the North treated his hostage more like a ward, Theon had an unquenchable thirst in him, a thirst to drink from the fountain of glory like all young men do, an urge to do something to set himself apart from his wardens.
Theon had a rough childhood. He was taken away from his loving mother and his playful sister. His father’s war against King Robert took his two elder brothers away from him eternally. These events had their toll on him. Even though he was a debonair person and acted cool on the outside, his mind was traumatised. Theon never portrayed his inner hysteria to those around him until he met his father. Throughout the series, he was confused as to whom he must bend his knee. His father? Or the Starks?
Theon is, make no doubt, very loyal. It was for this reason that Theon was so on the front foot in Robb Stark’s entourage during the war against the Lannisters. Everything he did, he did for Robb Stark — at least until his father Balon prodded him and forced Theon to be a turncoat. If for Anakin Skywalker the major influence to become what once he had trained and vowed to fight was Palpatine, then for Theon it was his own father. Balon Greyjoy, a minimalist, sensing the chance to usurp against the Iron Throne, broke the fetters that bonded Theon of House Greyjoy to the Starks through love and friendship. Theon’s ability to be confused was his hamartia. A few strong words and anti‑Stark innuendo from his father’s end was all the push that Theon needed to become that what he had thought not to be during the entirety of his stay with the Starks.
Even though Theon’s mad rule of the subjects of Winterfell was ephemeral, it did not fail to bring out the nihilistic intentions of his father. The North didn’t respond well to the turn cloak. The Northerners developed a strong xenophobic feeling towards the Iron Islanders. It was only after Ramsay Snow conquered Winterfell back from the Iron Islanders and started to hunt down the Starks and their loyalists did Theon understand the gravity of his mistake. Back in his father’s solar, while his father was lecturing how Ned Stark’s ward had become more like the mainlanders, Theon was provoked to jump camps. He had never given two cents about the consequences of his actions.
Back at his new Lord’s side and rebranded as Reek, listening to Lord Roose Bolton’s bastard, Theon found how antithetical Ramsay was in comparison to the more kind and reasonable Robb. Ramsay, like his Bolton ancestors, liked cruelty and was cunning. He was keen on killing every surviving Starks. The North, under Roose Bolton and Ramsay, was in a state of anarchy.
Theon, from the point he became Reek, sought out one way or another to be of any help possible to the Starks. Even though Ramsay was marrying the wrong Arya, Theon prevented the marriage and put a stopper to Ramsay’s plans of claiming Winterfell through his wife’s side and becoming the titular ruler of the North. The Reek that Ramsay had groomed, the same Reek who was austere and had tried to shut his memories of being Theon through mental pugilism, betrayed Ramsay by rescuing Jeyne Poole. Betrayal was nothing new to Theon. But this time Theon betrayed with a good purpose, for a greater cause and he followed his own orders.
The escape from Winterfell is not just some story but it conveys hidden message to the readers that Theon was reborn. The Theon who had an insatiable thirst for glory and big things was no more. A morphed person, who had gone through the early phases of life as an egotistical teenager, a brainwashed son, a being worse than a dog, was standing in place of Balon Greyjoy’s son.
Gared’s beheading scene speaks a thousand words about Theon. Theon is mischievous, arrogant, carefree, rude to people, always peeved and quick to act when faced with something. There are so many layers of a classical tragic hero in him, and as I have pointed out earlier, people don’t see the worth in him to be a hero. Most of the fictional and non‑fictional heroes that we have come across have the character traits of Theon. After thorough self‑reconnaissance, I am sure, we can all agree in unison that we all have at least one of these traits in us. To put it simply, there’s a Theon Greyjoy in all of us.
Theon Greyjoy is a complicated character to be considered a tragic hero. But he is so much more closer to us all than the heroes from classical literature.
