I agree. The words “we do not sow“ are designed to negate both the fawn and the flight options. The greyjoys fight. They take everything by force. They pay the blood price. So when the fight option is taken away, then the characters lose their identities. And their self worth goes into the toilet.
Theon is traumatized even before Ramsey and before being taken hostage by the Starks. He may have also been assulted by Euron as well: - In the books, Robb has a bad impression of Euron due to Theon's stories about him. This shows Theon does not have a high opinion of Euron and has not forgotten him during his 10 years of captivity even though he did forget Asha's face. - When Theon returns to Pyke, he is relieved to not see Euron's ship. Theon associates Euron's ship with words like "lean" and "terrible". - Theon in the books was very sexually active and his sexual conquests were directly linked to his self esteem and sense of control. This could be a reaction to sexual abuse, as no one would put it past Euron to not abuse Theon, who was much younger than Aeron and Urri. Theon always felt a need to prove his sexual poweress and has bragged about his expriences to Robb. This promiscuity fits into Rape Trauma Syndrome. His party boy persona and sleeping around resembles Aeron's first reaction before he nearly drowned. - Theon has an almost panicked reaction when merely seeing Umber's eyepatch, just because it reminded him of Euron. Umber saved him and Jeyne from being recaptured by Ramsey and dying in the snow, but Theon wants to rip his eyepatch off just to make sure Umber doesn't have a "black eye shining with malice" like Euron does. Theon uses the word "malice" to describe his uncle, and according to Miriam Webster, it means: "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another." So, Theon may have been on the receiving end of Euron's desire to cause pain. - The obvious memory issues which could be linked to assult, like you mentioned More trauma to be added, beyond Euron: -Asha and Theon both remember Theon fearing his older brothers who physically abused him. - The captain's daughter says: ""My father. Once you're gone, he'll punish me, milord. He'll call me names and hit me." Theon's reaction? "Fathers are like that." This is later proven when Balon backhands Theon and calls him "whore", "daughter" and "wolf", he even wished for Theon to have died so he wouldn't stand in Asha's way. - Theon being kidnapped from his home and culture only to live in ostracism as a hostage in the north while fearing for his head. This is the source of his identity issues. - Everything involving Ramsey
If you want to believe that one theory, you could argue that Euron is also shaped by trauma thanks to Bloodraven's visions. His response to getting traumatised by monster, rather than suppressing, rejecting or trying to overcome the trauma, was becoming the very thing that traumatized him in the first place (kinda like how some abused kids sometimes end up becoming abusers once they grow up). I know that it's one of the more "out there" theories, but I think that it adds something very human to this character who has so far been represented as nothing but cold-hearted monster. And, as we know, that's the kind of thing that George likes to write about.
He’s a failed experiment of Blood Raven. Blood Raven is trying to find the single most powerful warg in order to defeat the Old Gods and free himself and all those sacrificed to the weirwoods from their eternal torture. Euron wasn’t good enough. Blood Raven should’ve ended his life. I think he assumed Euron would go crazy and not be a problem. Euron instead went extra crazy and decides that Cthulhu is actually a chad who should rule the planet, and he’s got the dedication to work for it.
I mean crow eye and blood eye seem to make that connection fairly obvious. Also that bran has ice leaping to impale him, and Euron impails the gods. bran and Eurons stories are about fear, and it just makes thematic sense to hsve them tied
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 WHAT? Bloodraven should have killed a small child for failing his dream invasion tests? Bloodraven is an inhuman dark wizard who invades the dreams of children. He's the monster who constantly does heinous evil things. He's the one who sought out all the spooky esoteric dark magic and he definitely chose to seek out the children of the forest and the old gods to begin with. In Bran's dream, he sees the dead remains of a thousand other dreamers. Was what Bloodraven was working at worth killing a thousand children over? Here's a prediction for the Winds of Winter: Euron will become a new Night's King and Bloodraven will have, through his evil nonsense, created the greater evil he was seeking to stop the whole time. It's like Marwyn tells Sam, "Prophecy will bite your dick off every single time." What do you think GRRM is getting at by having a child sacrificing, blood magic wielding, kinslaying, incestuous, eugenics obsessed, Machiavellian dark wizard who fused himself to a tree to live an inhumanly long life in his story? It's not to portray that man as a good person whose works will result in good, I can tell you that for certain.
Despite the serious topic, it makes me chuckle somewhat that for like half of House Greyjoy the turning point is just being in the vicinity of Stannis Baratheon. On a more serious note, When Euron falls, I do wish that Stannis has a hand in it. The two of them feel almost like perfect opposites. The man who did not wish to be king, and the one who sought more power at all cost. The one who grieves for and regrets so much about what he's done to his brother and the one who revels in his actions. The one who was named Messiah by others despite his hatred of religion, and the one who seeks godhood for his own selfish desires.
The true hidden purpose is that GRRM needed an adult POV to get back into the North for Winterfell getting destroyed. Such was the original plan with Tyrion, after all, but he ended up as HOTK.
They didn’t say it was *bad*, just that there was another reason driven by storytelling convenience. And if we’re not supposed to think about the reasons writers write the things they do… well then literally why even watch this video?
Ramsay would only cut the limbs that theon begged him to, as ramsay had already flayed them. If Ramsay has castrated him, it is possible that he followed this line of reasoning. If this happened, i would say it's way worse than the teeth.
The physical and psychological trauma of losing your teeth now in modern times is pretty significant so I agree that smashing theon's teeth was horrific. It is completely permanent for him and it disables his very ability to eat. If we had seen more of theon's torture I imagine he would've had horrifying fever dreams often from the reccuring infections from splintered teeth until he begs Ramsey to pull them which he doesn't even do him the kindness of pulling them all at once. Source- my mom had her teeth extremely weakened after a hard pregnancy and they eventually started to shatter occasionally and it was horrible especially without healthcare until she was finally able to have all the fragments removed via surgery. The physical toll was massive but the psychological was worse, ultimately she left her job out of humiliation and her inability to work through the daily pain and recurring infections and she lost so much weight it was frightening until the shards were pulled and she could finally eat without pain
So sad to consider that Theon has just been passed around from trauma to trauma, fawning and shaping his personality, mimicking those around him his whole life. Trying to be Robb's loyal brother and being rude to Jon, idolizing Ned... To think those are all just Fawn responses, which of course just melted away as soon as he left them, only to be replaced by new ones once he got home? It's a heartbreaking thought.
For anyone interested, the 5th and 6th trauma responses alluded to are "flop/faint" and "fine", both of which are fairly self-explanatory. A lot of people often merge flop with freeze, although I think there are some differences. I hadn't even heard of "fine" being talked about as a trauma response until recent times though, so I'd be very impressed if George RR Martin knew about it 2 billion years ago when the last novel was released.
You don't have to explicitly know about those typings to utilize them in a story. Dostoevsky characters act like they're traumatized and those books are from 150 years ago.
17:35 it definitely is. Ever since he was a kid, his response was to please. To try to fit in. To behave, even tho clearly he wasn’t really happy. This response to survive keeps going until he become the thing he is pretending to be, a stark. And this continues into reek, he thinks if he behaves the pain will stop, and so he plays along, at first just speaking the words, but eventually he really actually becomes reek and faithfully serves and fawns for his abuser.
You forgot the seventh response: “Finger in the bum” as demonstrated by Show!Euron. Man, didn’t D&D really perfectly encapsulate the conflict of the Greyjoys? /s. Aeron was robbed in particular.
Victarion's excuse that Euron "made him" kill his salt-wife might actually hold some water, even if Victarion is too dumb to have actually noticed it when trying to justify himself. Euron is a smart cookie, he manipulates people as if already knowing how they will respond to his provocation, and I think whatever Euron was doing to get under his brothers skin was intended to cause him to lash out - it would be an easy guess how a dyed-in-the-wool Ironborn like Victarion would deal with a situation involving that sort of complicated emotional abuse and you can't just fight your way out of that sort of thing, which is all he knows how to do really. It's a bit of a masterstroke if true for Euron, as Victarion kills the only person he could have confided in or sought comfort from, meaning Euron then had a perpetually-angry roided-up warrior devoid of any way out of his situation but too honourable a man to do anything against his abuser.
I think Theon falls into the fawn type of response to trauma. With Ramsay, he is so afraid he tries to please and do as Ramsay tells him. But, before that, he was always pleasing. His trauma with his father figure made him do as he told him when asked to conquer the north, even when he loved the Starks, Robb the most. Theon pleases the people who traumatize him, fear makes him do so.
I love that you and My Little Thought Tree got together! His videos are the reason I view Sansa in such a different way. It very much helped break down these Greyjoys in ways I haven't heard.
To be fair Cat has a very good reason to be vindictive towards Theon she thinks he killed her sons. By that point, Robb is basically all she has left. Sansa is a hostage in the south, Arya is MIA, Ned is dead and now so are her boys. She talks a lot about killing Cersei herself for having Ned killed, I don't think it's abnormal for her to feel a sense of joy that the man who(allegedly) killed her sons got his commupence.
@@GallowglassVTlike the person above me said, you’re forgetting that at this point in the story Cat had been left to believe that Theon had literally skinned and murdered her two little sons. She had a LOT of reason to hate him and was fully justified in doing so based on what she knew
I started the tv show late last year and I loved it and it made me want to read the books I borrowed my dad’s old editions and read them all in a few months I’ve even read most of dunk and egg and started fire and blood. I just want to say I much I’ve loved your videos they’ve taught me so much and I really enjoy. So thank you and never stop making content
I love your videos and that’s an understatement, don’t take this the wrong way but I will often fall asleep to one I have heard before. Keep up the great work!
Man, I really enjoyed this video. One of the most interesting I’ve seen in a while. This channel has become a firm favourite of mine. Keep up the good work, Quinn.
They were my favorite house reading the books, because they are fun and varied and I had the sigil as a phone background but my casual show-only friends were confused by that and couldn't understand why I would like Theon that much, since they didn't know the other Greyjoys
What a great analysis! The themes of trauma and coping make the world of ASOIAF feel so human though I have to admit I wasn't interested that much in the Greyjoy chapters until now. While I only remember a fraction of knowledge from psychology class, I think Bonifer Hasty to be a good example of the sublimation defense mechanism. He turns his impossible love for Rhaella into love for a higher cause, the worship of the divine Maiden.
What a great video . This channel has become my absolute favorite form of copium while we wait out the next decade for winds. I know eventually you’ll have to slow down as there’s only so many videos to be made about ASOIAF atp, but as long as you can please continue to make videos like this . They are usually very unique , the style and editing is very digestible , and you release videos very often ! Keep up the good work
Really interesting video Quinn. Makes me think the Greyjoy characters have more to do with the story than I previously thought. Some people have pointed out that Euron might also have been traumatized by Bloodraven's (or the Three Eyed Raven, depending on if these are the same entity) at an early age and this affected his development into a psychopath. Or perhaps he was always a psychopath and the contact just made him worse.
Idea for Aeron: maybe when he's imprisoned by Euron the shade of the evening takes away his ability to block out past trauma, doesn't let him freeze and forces his brain to confront these horrible things
Not to mention when the Northmen were about to take back winterfell the maester suggested Theon to take the black. To which Theon was more than happy to. He probably would've fawn with the Nightswatch in the alternate path in which he surrendered.
“This unstoppable motion of flight is ceased by the immovable object of the One True King Stannis Baratheon and his army.” Couldn’t have said it better myself
I think Theon does follow this formula of past trauma that gets resurfaced and changed by current trauma, and his past trauma is being sent away with the Starks. Thats the beginning of his fawning, and like the infected hand and broken foot, it's a tool that gets slashed by Ramsay's torture. His ability to mold his personality is crippled.
I would say he was fawning even before being taken by the Starks. Even before returning to Pyke, Theon recalls being physcially abused by his brothers and hit and humiliated by his father. He remembers how only Dagmer ever gave him the feeling of love and acceptence he needed through smiles. This is later brought up when Theon mourns how Robb lashed out instead of smiling at him when he saved Bran's life. Theon was always seeking acceptence and positive reinforcement from authority figures or people who has control in his life.
I hate the prevailing sense of Victarion being dumb. He takes things at face value faurly often and it is quite literal yes but... the burning of the Lannister fleet and the taking of the Shield Isles are the most important strategic victories the Ironborn have won since they lost the Riverlands. And the tactics that won them were Victarion's brain children. He also knew exactly what Euron was up to when in giving Vic's men titles. Hes not an idiot very far from it.
The way they depicted Euron makes me want to scream. They may as well have just excluded him from the show! Why add him if they were not going to include his end goal of becoming a God and whatever comes out of his plans? ARGH!
Interestingly, freeze and fawn are far more common in trauma over a long period rather than an individual instance, which lines up with the people who have those responses in the book. Fight and flight don't work very well when you are trapped in a repeated traumatic situation
This was excellent, pretty thought provoking theory. I think everyone agrees on just how underdeveloped Euron and the fam was in the show, shame of the century
Have just started reading the books. As an alternative to your theory. Would not the Ancient Greek concepts of fire, water, earth and air also apply. Suggestion for a future vid (if not previously covered) the ‘disappearance’ of the Stark and Lannister fleets who went west and east respectively. What if they are not actually lost by having a high old time.
13:58 I am not sure Aeron could just decide who should rule the Iron Islands even if he tried, I might need to reread Feast for Crows. It seems it would be a three way civil war with Theon missing. Asha had the backing of Lord Harlaw and Lord Blacktyde, Victarion had Aeron's and long with it the drowned men's and some other captains backing and Euron would have his own suporters in such a scenario. The best chance of defeating Euron would be for Asha and Victarion to marry and unite their claims to atempt to defeat Euron.
I still think they should make a book accurate animated series of a song of ice and fire. The tv series isn’t the same thing, 80% of the book is missing in the show, utter butchery
What hidden purpose? We all know that House Greyjoy's purpose to save the world and bring the dawn, courtesy of Victarion Greyjoy, the true prince that was promised.
I have a ASOINF theory video. Can you do mine, please? 🥺 I felt like Ned Dayne is either 4 things: 1. Rhaegar and Elia Martell son 2. Rhaegar and Lyanna son 3. Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne son 4. Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne son (I put in rank from which one is more believable for me) I got this theory after seeing a meme about "What if Jon Snow takes from his father's white Targaryen hair?". Think about it. Why would GRRM, out of all houses he created, House Dayne has so much resemblance with the Targaryen feature if it's not a set up? What other place to hide a Targaryen other than with people that looks like Targaryen but not a Targaryen aka House Dayne? (White hair and purple eyes) If Ned Dayne is Rhaegar and Elia Martell's son, it's a setup for Faegon and Golden Company that Ned Dayne is the real Aegon Targaryen. If Ned Dayne is Rhaegar and Lyanna son, so Jon Snow is actually a bastard of Ned or Brandon Stark with Ashara Dayne. Which if it's Ned, it could challenge the readers perspective on the so-called honorable Ned. Maybe honorable people do make mistakes sometimes. (This one kinda weak because of the timeline but it's fun to think of it.) Or if it's Brandon, maybe it could be a setup for the fight for right over The North (assume Brandon married Ashara, so he's not a bastard.)
Edric Dayne is several years too young to be any of those options. He’s around 11 at the start of the series, Elia’s son would have been around 16, Jon is 15, and any child of Ashara would be the same age. Elia, Lyanna and Ashara all died 4 years before Edric was born. All of those theories are pretty easily debunked. If you’re claiming people lied about Edric’s age, how exactly did they manage that? How do you explain why a highborn heir to one of the greatest house in the kingdoms just didn’t age for 4 years? Although we never see Edric’s parents, they would have been well known to other highborn nobles. How did the lord and lady Dayne explain where they suddenly got a child from? Ned bringing home Jon was overlooked because he was a bastard, but if the heir to house Dayne just appeared one day with no pregnancy, people would note that
"Mold himself into Reek for Theon" Ramsay is actually Theon and Reek is Ramsay!? The white and missing hair a result of Theon ripping it out of Ramsay's skull, to use as a wig so he could disguise himself as Ramsay? Ramsay so broken by torture he thinks he is Reek, but that he was actually Ramsay before not Theon!?!? :p
It’s ideas like this that I think separate hard working fantasy writers like Martin from someone like Rowling. House Slytheren: a group of children patented by fascists working to overthrow the magical world in favor of their leader. None of the children really get a chapter to their viewpoint, Draco “turns” good except not really, Rowling never lets us dwell into the respective members and their personalities aside from Draco, never suggests that mere existence of the house constitutes a deliberate decision by the authorities to create tensions, never dismantles the house after the final battle, and never asks us to question the black/white morality of the house beyond “well Draco wasn’t as bad.”. House Greyjoy; Readers are introduced to a house known for its cruelty and violence. Its most famous members is Euron Greyjoy, a man who may want to bring the apocalypse. The “nicest” Greyjoy is Theon who betrayed the starks. Further analysis indicates that many of the Greyjoys have differing personalities, and may in fact represent stages of trauma. If anything the house is a train of trauma that repeats itself on the house members. You begin to see most of the members with a Tinge of pity, part of their actions explained. Theon, a man you hated on the beginning, is subjected to so much horror that, you want it to stop, and even more so when you realize why theon did what he did.
I think JK was a victim to her own bias. Anyone who wadn't Gryffindor was was given less attention, and this shows her favoritism. It was also obvious that Slytherins were her least favorite and she made sure to show it George also has biases and favoritism, but this mostly shows in giving Tyrion extra chapters that he doesn't really need.
very heavily hinted, much like the rusted iron hinge for Aeron, but not stated. In Theon's case, it's the eyepatch and his reaction to it when he sees it on Umber.
A video on caded branched please,Also the real lys with valerian looking bastard lines instead of black people please. Like the lannis, Lannister of lannisport, baratheon of storms end, Kingslanding and dragonstone, Tyrrells and the serrys etc.
Can never forget the words of the Greyjoys... "We Do Not Seek Therapy".
I agree. The words “we do not sow“ are designed to negate both the fawn and the flight options. The greyjoys fight. They take everything by force. They pay the blood price. So when the fight option is taken away, then the characters lose their identities. And their self worth goes into the toilet.
😂
*We do not sow healthy relationships*
When Victarion says he's not afraid of any sea and dude calls him a fool because the dothraki sea isn't a body of water so Victarion kills him 😂😂😂😂
Theon is traumatized even before Ramsey and before being taken hostage by the Starks. He may have also been assulted by Euron as well:
- In the books, Robb has a bad impression of Euron due to Theon's stories about him. This shows Theon does not have a high opinion of Euron and has not forgotten him during his 10 years of captivity even though he did forget Asha's face.
- When Theon returns to Pyke, he is relieved to not see Euron's ship. Theon associates Euron's ship with words like "lean" and "terrible".
- Theon in the books was very sexually active and his sexual conquests were directly linked to his self esteem and sense of control. This could be a reaction to sexual abuse, as no one would put it past Euron to not abuse Theon, who was much younger than Aeron and Urri. Theon always felt a need to prove his sexual poweress and has bragged about his expriences to Robb. This promiscuity fits into Rape Trauma Syndrome. His party boy persona and sleeping around resembles Aeron's first reaction before he nearly drowned.
- Theon has an almost panicked reaction when merely seeing Umber's eyepatch, just because it reminded him of Euron. Umber saved him and Jeyne from being recaptured by Ramsey and dying in the snow, but Theon wants to rip his eyepatch off just to make sure Umber doesn't have a "black eye shining with malice" like Euron does. Theon uses the word "malice" to describe his uncle, and according to Miriam Webster, it means: "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another." So, Theon may have been on the receiving end of Euron's desire to cause pain.
- The obvious memory issues which could be linked to assult, like you mentioned
More trauma to be added, beyond Euron:
-Asha and Theon both remember Theon fearing his older brothers who physically abused him.
- The captain's daughter says: ""My father. Once you're gone, he'll punish me, milord. He'll call me names and hit me." Theon's reaction? "Fathers are like that."
This is later proven when Balon backhands Theon and calls him "whore", "daughter" and "wolf", he even wished for Theon to have died so he wouldn't stand in Asha's way.
- Theon being kidnapped from his home and culture only to live in ostracism as a hostage in the north while fearing for his head. This is the source of his identity issues.
- Everything involving Ramsey
oh my god i hate that you might be right
If you want to believe that one theory, you could argue that Euron is also shaped by trauma thanks to Bloodraven's visions. His response to getting traumatised by monster, rather than suppressing, rejecting or trying to overcome the trauma, was becoming the very thing that traumatized him in the first place (kinda like how some abused kids sometimes end up becoming abusers once they grow up).
I know that it's one of the more "out there" theories, but I think that it adds something very human to this character who has so far been represented as nothing but cold-hearted monster. And, as we know, that's the kind of thing that George likes to write about.
Like batman
@@vegpedro7632
If Bruce Wayne actually became the Joker, yeah 😂
He’s a failed experiment of Blood Raven. Blood Raven is trying to find the single most powerful warg in order to defeat the Old Gods and free himself and all those sacrificed to the weirwoods from their eternal torture.
Euron wasn’t good enough. Blood Raven should’ve ended his life. I think he assumed Euron would go crazy and not be a problem. Euron instead went extra crazy and decides that Cthulhu is actually a chad who should rule the planet, and he’s got the dedication to work for it.
I mean crow eye and blood eye seem to make that connection fairly obvious. Also that bran has ice leaping to impale him, and Euron impails the gods. bran and Eurons stories are about fear, and it just makes thematic sense to hsve them tied
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 WHAT? Bloodraven should have killed a small child for failing his dream invasion tests? Bloodraven is an inhuman dark wizard who invades the dreams of children. He's the monster who constantly does heinous evil things. He's the one who sought out all the spooky esoteric dark magic and he definitely chose to seek out the children of the forest and the old gods to begin with. In Bran's dream, he sees the dead remains of a thousand other dreamers. Was what Bloodraven was working at worth killing a thousand children over?
Here's a prediction for the Winds of Winter: Euron will become a new Night's King and Bloodraven will have, through his evil nonsense, created the greater evil he was seeking to stop the whole time. It's like Marwyn tells Sam, "Prophecy will bite your dick off every single time." What do you think GRRM is getting at by having a child sacrificing, blood magic wielding, kinslaying, incestuous, eugenics obsessed, Machiavellian dark wizard who fused himself to a tree to live an inhumanly long life in his story? It's not to portray that man as a good person whose works will result in good, I can tell you that for certain.
Despite the serious topic, it makes me chuckle somewhat that for like half of House Greyjoy the turning point is just being in the vicinity of Stannis Baratheon.
On a more serious note,
When Euron falls, I do wish that Stannis has a hand in it. The two of them feel almost like perfect opposites. The man who did not wish to be king, and the one who sought more power at all cost. The one who grieves for and regrets so much about what he's done to his brother and the one who revels in his actions. The one who was named Messiah by others despite his hatred of religion, and the one who seeks godhood for his own selfish desires.
I'm hoping Euron wins personally, bring on the apocalypse!
The true hidden purpose is that GRRM needed an adult POV to get back into the North for Winterfell getting destroyed. Such was the original plan with Tyrion, after all, but he ended up as HOTK.
oh no a plot event happened because a writer wanted to advance the plot
They didn’t say it was *bad*, just that there was another reason driven by storytelling convenience. And if we’re not supposed to think about the reasons writers write the things they do… well then literally why even watch this video?
Why an adult POV? Bran was already there wasnt he?
watsonian vs doylist my man
Dumb reasoning ngl
17:00 Theon's teeth were also destroyed by Ramsey with a hammer because he disliked his smile. That's the worst thing he did to him I find personally.
I forgot about that because I don’t like to think about it
@@QuinnTheGM understandable
Ramsay would only cut the limbs that theon begged him to, as ramsay had already flayed them. If Ramsay has castrated him, it is possible that he followed this line of reasoning. If this happened, i would say it's way worse than the teeth.
The physical and psychological trauma of losing your teeth now in modern times is pretty significant so I agree that smashing theon's teeth was horrific. It is completely permanent for him and it disables his very ability to eat. If we had seen more of theon's torture I imagine he would've had horrifying fever dreams often from the reccuring infections from splintered teeth until he begs Ramsey to pull them which he doesn't even do him the kindness of pulling them all at once.
Source- my mom had her teeth extremely weakened after a hard pregnancy and they eventually started to shatter occasionally and it was horrible especially without healthcare until she was finally able to have all the fragments removed via surgery. The physical toll was massive but the psychological was worse, ultimately she left her job out of humiliation and her inability to work through the daily pain and recurring infections and she lost so much weight it was frightening until the shards were pulled and she could finally eat without pain
Reek's teeth, not Theon, Reek
So sad to consider that Theon has just been passed around from trauma to trauma, fawning and shaping his personality, mimicking those around him his whole life. Trying to be Robb's loyal brother and being rude to Jon, idolizing Ned... To think those are all just Fawn responses, which of course just melted away as soon as he left them, only to be replaced by new ones once he got home? It's a heartbreaking thought.
theon is my favorite. he totally has CPTSD and it’s so sad. i’m at least glad we got a WoW chapter between him and Stannis the mannis.
For anyone interested, the 5th and 6th trauma responses alluded to are "flop/faint" and "fine", both of which are fairly self-explanatory.
A lot of people often merge flop with freeze, although I think there are some differences. I hadn't even heard of "fine" being talked about as a trauma response until recent times though, so I'd be very impressed if George RR Martin knew about it 2 billion years ago when the last novel was released.
Loved this one, by the way. Gonna be stealing this as a start point if I ever make a video about any of the Greyjoys 😆
That last passive-agression was totally unnecesary. But otherwise thats a pretty cool comment!
You don't have to explicitly know about those typings to utilize them in a story. Dostoevsky characters act like they're traumatized and those books are from 150 years ago.
@@leandrocastello309 lol... passive-aggression? sounded more like a joke to me 😂 ppl be so soft these days
What's "fine"?
17:35 it definitely is. Ever since he was a kid, his response was to please. To try to fit in. To behave, even tho clearly he wasn’t really happy. This response to survive keeps going until he become the thing he is pretending to be, a stark. And this continues into reek, he thinks if he behaves the pain will stop, and so he plays along, at first just speaking the words, but eventually he really actually becomes reek and faithfully serves and fawns for his abuser.
I'd like to think that Euron was also traumatized by bloodraven with visions as a child and just went "this is sick! I want more!"
You forgot the seventh response: “Finger in the bum” as demonstrated by Show!Euron. Man, didn’t D&D really perfectly encapsulate the conflict of the Greyjoys? /s. Aeron was robbed in particular.
the psych major in me watching this video 🥺 we love you Quinn 💜
Victarion's excuse that Euron "made him" kill his salt-wife might actually hold some water, even if Victarion is too dumb to have actually noticed it when trying to justify himself. Euron is a smart cookie, he manipulates people as if already knowing how they will respond to his provocation, and I think whatever Euron was doing to get under his brothers skin was intended to cause him to lash out - it would be an easy guess how a dyed-in-the-wool Ironborn like Victarion would deal with a situation involving that sort of complicated emotional abuse and you can't just fight your way out of that sort of thing, which is all he knows how to do really.
It's a bit of a masterstroke if true for Euron, as Victarion kills the only person he could have confided in or sought comfort from, meaning Euron then had a perpetually-angry roided-up warrior devoid of any way out of his situation but too honourable a man to do anything against his abuser.
An interesting video about those silly squids.
I think Theon falls into the fawn type of response to trauma. With Ramsay, he is so afraid he tries to please and do as Ramsay tells him. But, before that, he was always pleasing. His trauma with his father figure made him do as he told him when asked to conquer the north, even when he loved the Starks, Robb the most. Theon pleases the people who traumatize him, fear makes him do so.
I love that you and My Little Thought Tree got together! His videos are the reason I view Sansa in such a different way. It very much helped break down these Greyjoys in ways I haven't heard.
Wake up babe QuinnTheGM made another banger that’s going to make me reread the entire series
There is one mention that Ramsay sent Roose some of Theon's skin, which Cat sees and is surprisingly happy about.
Cat is way more petty in the books, for sure.
To be fair Cat has a very good reason to be vindictive towards Theon she thinks he killed her sons. By that point, Robb is basically all she has left. Sansa is a hostage in the south, Arya is MIA, Ned is dead and now so are her boys. She talks a lot about killing Cersei herself for having Ned killed, I don't think it's abnormal for her to feel a sense of joy that the man who(allegedly) killed her sons got his commupence.
@@GallowglassVTlike the person above me said, you’re forgetting that at this point in the story Cat had been left to believe that Theon had literally skinned and murdered her two little sons. She had a LOT of reason to hate him and was fully justified in doing so based on what she knew
She would have been much happier if those skin was Jon’s
@@nont18411 She'd kinda softened on Jon at this point tbh. Obviously she didn't like him but she had bigger fish to fry.
House Greyjoy has the same role in every point in history
To be dumbasses throwing a wrench in everything at all times
TRAUMATIZED dumbasses who throw a wrench on everything
Please make more psychologically videos like this!! Super insightful oh characters that I didn’t think too hard about.
I started the tv show late last year and I loved it and it made me want to read the books I borrowed my dad’s old editions and read them all in a few months I’ve even read most of dunk and egg and started fire and blood. I just want to say I much I’ve loved your videos they’ve taught me so much and I really enjoy. So thank you and never stop making content
Great theory. If it’s not GRRM’s intention, I hope he sees this and adopts it!
I love your videos and that’s an understatement, don’t take this the wrong way but I will often fall asleep to one I have heard before. Keep up the great work!
Excellent video and analysis, Quinn. Never thought of it this way or heard this discussed.
Man, I really enjoyed this video. One of the most interesting I’ve seen in a while. This channel has become a firm favourite of mine. Keep up the good work, Quinn.
They were my favorite house reading the books, because they are fun and varied and I had the sigil as a phone background but my casual show-only friends were confused by that and couldn't understand why I would like Theon that much, since they didn't know the other Greyjoys
What a great analysis! The themes of trauma and coping make the world of ASOIAF feel so human though I have to admit I wasn't interested that much in the Greyjoy chapters until now. While I only remember a fraction of knowledge from psychology class, I think Bonifer Hasty to be a good example of the sublimation defense mechanism. He turns his impossible love for Rhaella into love for a higher cause, the worship of the divine Maiden.
Wow you really hit the nail square on the head. If this is fully your own reading kudos to you. This could be someone’s undergrad psychology thesis
Great video! Your ideas about Aeron were actually on my mind when writing an Aeron chapter for Preston's fanfic haha
Its been truly wonderful to see you grow into such a polished creator so quickly, i swear it was only a few months ago you were at 2k 🙌
15:02 "It was always midnight, in the belly of the beast."
What a great video . This channel has become my absolute favorite form of copium while we wait out the next decade for winds. I know eventually you’ll have to slow down as there’s only so many videos to be made about ASOIAF atp, but as long as you can please continue to make videos like this . They are usually very unique , the style and editing is very digestible , and you release videos very often ! Keep up the good work
W shoutout to the tree! Some of the best videos to just listen and stew on.
It makes perfect sense. It amazes me how rich and deep Martin characters are.
Love the psychology aspect of the vid!!
Might be your best video so far Quinn, very good job 👏
A most surprising collab and a welcome one.
This is an awesome analysis of some of my favorite characters from the series. I'd never have thought of them in this way
Really interesting video Quinn. Makes me think the Greyjoy characters have more to do with the story than I previously thought.
Some people have pointed out that Euron might also have been traumatized by Bloodraven's (or the Three Eyed Raven, depending on if these are the same entity) at an early age and this affected his development into a psychopath. Or perhaps he was always a psychopath and the contact just made him worse.
7:58 - That image on the right side doesn't show Victarion's wife, by the way. It shows Falia Flowers, the girl Euron picks up in Oakenshield.
Oh yeah I know, it was just the closest to an analogous image I could find so I went with it
@@QuinnTheGM Fair enough.
Victarion "The prince who was promised" Greyjoy truly is the man I aspire to be
I am pretty sure Roose Bolton gives Cat a piece of flayed skin from Theon. He says his bastard is holding him prisoner at the Dreadfort.
Idea for Aeron: maybe when he's imprisoned by Euron the shade of the evening takes away his ability to block out past trauma, doesn't let him freeze and forces his brain to confront these horrible things
Not to mention when the Northmen were about to take back winterfell the maester suggested Theon to take the black. To which Theon was more than happy to. He probably would've fawn with the Nightswatch in the alternate path in which he surrendered.
“This unstoppable motion of flight is ceased by the immovable object of the One True King Stannis Baratheon and his army.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself
I think Theon does follow this formula of past trauma that gets resurfaced and changed by current trauma, and his past trauma is being sent away with the Starks. Thats the beginning of his fawning, and like the infected hand and broken foot, it's a tool that gets slashed by Ramsay's torture. His ability to mold his personality is crippled.
I would say he was fawning even before being taken by the Starks.
Even before returning to Pyke, Theon recalls being physcially abused by his brothers and hit and humiliated by his father. He remembers how only Dagmer ever gave him the feeling of love and acceptence he needed through smiles. This is later brought up when Theon mourns how Robb lashed out instead of smiling at him when he saved Bran's life.
Theon was always seeking acceptence and positive reinforcement from authority figures or people who has control in his life.
Hmm, Succession mentioned. Logan Roy X Tywin Lannister comparison video dropping when?
You should make content on Succession!! Amazing show, and it’s finished!
I hate the prevailing sense of Victarion being dumb. He takes things at face value faurly often and it is quite literal yes but... the burning of the Lannister fleet and the taking of the Shield Isles are the most important strategic victories the Ironborn have won since they lost the Riverlands. And the tactics that won them were Victarion's brain children. He also knew exactly what Euron was up to when in giving Vic's men titles. Hes not an idiot very far from it.
Great video! We want more “insofar”
Greyjoys did not get done justice in got. Euron and Vic😔
No character got done justice in GOT lol
@@seancomyn4610Tywin is better in the show imo, just because there is more scenes given to him that are well written
The way they depicted Euron makes me want to scream. They may as well have just excluded him from the show! Why add him if they were not going to include his end goal of becoming a God and whatever comes out of his plans? ARGH!
@@Dani_1012 I remember after the show ended I found Alt Shift X’s video on Euron. That’s when I decided to finally read the books.
Quinn the GM with another banger
Really love your videos man
Reading through A Feast For Crows for the first time. The Ironborn/Greyjoy stuff is some of my favourite stuff in the series.
Your videos are what keeps me awake in my work :)
House Greyjoy have some cool house words. Intimidating.
Amazing video! Very educational 😂
Loving your content mate, keep it up 👍
Quinn dropped a long theory video..B A S E D
Succession mentioned 👍
Haha was just binge watching and u posted 👍🏽
Interestingly, freeze and fawn are far more common in trauma over a long period rather than an individual instance, which lines up with the people who have those responses in the book. Fight and flight don't work very well when you are trapped in a repeated traumatic situation
This was excellent, pretty thought provoking theory. I think everyone agrees on just how underdeveloped Euron and the fam was in the show, shame of the century
"Theon is next on the chopping block" foul
Succession heads rise
Have just started reading the books. As an alternative to your theory. Would not the Ancient Greek concepts of fire, water, earth and air also apply. Suggestion for a future vid (if not previously covered) the ‘disappearance’ of the Stark and Lannister fleets who went west and east respectively. What if they are not actually lost by having a high old time.
13:58 I am not sure Aeron could just decide who should rule the Iron Islands even if he tried, I might need to reread Feast for Crows. It seems it would be a three way civil war with Theon missing. Asha had the backing of Lord Harlaw and Lord Blacktyde, Victarion had Aeron's and long with it the drowned men's and some other captains backing and Euron would have his own suporters in such a scenario. The best chance of defeating Euron would be for Asha and Victarion to marry and unite their claims to atempt to defeat Euron.
It's not just trauma from Euron, it's their culture which has effed them up.
What printing are those COVERS from?! They are so EPIC
New print run this October!
Euron is the elder brother to Victarion, not the other way around.
I still think they should make a book accurate animated series of a song of ice and fire. The tv series isn’t the same thing, 80% of the book is missing in the show, utter butchery
W succession shoutout 🎉
@ 06:46 "placate" is actually pronounced with a hard c [ play-kayt ].
Great video
What hidden purpose? We all know that House Greyjoy's purpose to save the world and bring the dawn, courtesy of Victarion Greyjoy, the true prince that was promised.
I have a ASOINF theory video. Can you do mine, please? 🥺
I felt like Ned Dayne is either 4 things:
1. Rhaegar and Elia Martell son
2. Rhaegar and Lyanna son
3. Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne son
4. Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne son
(I put in rank from which one is more believable for me)
I got this theory after seeing a meme about "What if Jon Snow takes from his father's white Targaryen hair?". Think about it. Why would GRRM, out of all houses he created, House Dayne has so much resemblance with the Targaryen feature if it's not a set up? What other place to hide a Targaryen other than with people that looks like Targaryen but not a Targaryen aka House Dayne? (White hair and purple eyes)
If Ned Dayne is Rhaegar and Elia Martell's son, it's a setup for Faegon and Golden Company that Ned Dayne is the real Aegon Targaryen.
If Ned Dayne is Rhaegar and Lyanna son, so Jon Snow is actually a bastard of Ned or Brandon Stark with Ashara Dayne. Which if it's Ned, it could challenge the readers perspective on the so-called honorable Ned. Maybe honorable people do make mistakes sometimes. (This one kinda weak because of the timeline but it's fun to think of it.)
Or if it's Brandon, maybe it could be a setup for the fight for right over The North (assume Brandon married Ashara, so he's not a bastard.)
Edric Dayne is several years too young to be any of those options. He’s around 11 at the start of the series, Elia’s son would have been around 16, Jon is 15, and any child of Ashara would be the same age.
Elia, Lyanna and Ashara all died 4 years before Edric was born.
All of those theories are pretty easily debunked.
If you’re claiming people lied about Edric’s age, how exactly did they manage that? How do you explain why a highborn heir to one of the greatest house in the kingdoms just didn’t age for 4 years? Although we never see Edric’s parents, they would have been well known to other highborn nobles. How did the lord and lady Dayne explain where they suddenly got a child from? Ned bringing home Jon was overlooked because he was a bastard, but if the heir to house Dayne just appeared one day with no pregnancy, people would note that
"Mold himself into Reek for Theon" Ramsay is actually Theon and Reek is Ramsay!? The white and missing hair a result of Theon ripping it out of Ramsay's skull, to use as a wig so he could disguise himself as Ramsay?
Ramsay so broken by torture he thinks he is Reek, but that he was actually Ramsay before not Theon!?!? :p
It’s ideas like this that I think separate hard working fantasy writers like Martin from someone like Rowling.
House Slytheren: a group of children patented by fascists working to overthrow the magical world in favor of their leader. None of the children really get a chapter to their viewpoint, Draco “turns” good except not really, Rowling never lets us dwell into the respective members and their personalities aside from Draco, never suggests that mere existence of the house constitutes a deliberate decision by the authorities to create tensions, never dismantles the house after the final battle, and never asks us to question the black/white morality of the house beyond “well Draco wasn’t as bad.”.
House Greyjoy; Readers are introduced to a house known for its cruelty and violence. Its most famous members is Euron Greyjoy, a man who may want to bring the apocalypse. The “nicest” Greyjoy is Theon who betrayed the starks. Further analysis indicates that many of the Greyjoys have differing personalities, and may in fact represent stages of trauma. If anything the house is a train of trauma that repeats itself on the house members. You begin to see most of the members with a Tinge of pity, part of their actions explained. Theon, a man you hated on the beginning, is subjected to so much horror that, you want it to stop, and even more so when you realize why theon did what he did.
I think JK was a victim to her own bias. Anyone who wadn't Gryffindor was was given less attention, and this shows her favoritism. It was also obvious that Slytherins were her least favorite and she made sure to show it
George also has biases and favoritism, but this mostly shows in giving Tyrion extra chapters that he doesn't really need.
When I first heard this video, I thought you were ill, then I realised I just didn’t have you playing on x1.75 speed as usual
Are those the new cover's for the books😍?
In the winds of winter sample chapters I think it’s stated that euron also abused Theon sexually as he did aereon but I’m not 100% sure
very heavily hinted, much like the rusted iron hinge for Aeron, but not stated. In Theon's case, it's the eyepatch and his reaction to it when he sees it on Umber.
@@LeeLe412 yeah this is what I thought certainly some ptsd there. That forsaken chapter is one of the best grrm has written. It was horrifying
The Damphair’s story is quite sad
Do house Bolton Next
Very interesting.
Can you do a video on the Mance Rayder is Arthur Dayne theory
What's next? The real receipe of a big mac.....
Comment to the Drowned god and the algorithm
A video on caded branched please,Also the real lys with valerian looking bastard lines instead of black people please.
Like the lannis, Lannister of lannisport, baratheon of storms end, Kingslanding and dragonstone, Tyrrells and the serrys etc.
wait, Theon was definitely abused by his dead brothers. I remember reading something that really proved that
Oh such a good point
The Damphair lay upon his cot, his arse was bruised and sore.
The Crow'seye came when darkness fell, and used him like a whore.
nice stuff
interesting video
More like House NoJoy am I right
unpopular opinion : i prefer show yara over book asha (the characterization, not the story arc)
And another video on youn griff with new visuals....
The true enemies are Baelon and euron😭😭
OTHERWISE!!
Isn’t asha theons sister not Aeron and Victarions
He didn’t say Asha was Theon’s aunt
Kevin Hart = Fawn (at least in his comedy)