We’ve all had one full day to process the fact that after eight years of drama, stories, and heartbreak, Game of Thrones is over. I still don’t think it fully sank in that there won’t be anymore episodes. This is how I felt when Breaking Bad and Adventure Time ended; it’s weird and I don’t like it. However, I digress, and have to say it… I’m #TeamTheon and always have been.
Let’s rewind to September 2013. I’m sitting in my apartment with some friends from college and it’s about 3:00 am (going to my apartment after bars closed was often how our nights ended). One friend is flipping through my channels and passionately exclaims, “Bri! You have HBO!” I probably just nodded, but thought “Duh. I have to watch True Blood.” This friend was thinking something totally different-- “Ahhh we gotta come over here to watch Thrones.” I explained how I hadn’t seen it and naturally, the entire group was forced to watch the first episode. I remember finishing episode one and thinking, “I stayed up for that?” Fast forward one year later and I’m dating this other passionate Thrones person (who is now my husband). My second Thrones interaction was a bit different and he basically said, “You can’t not like Thrones…” From then on, I’ve been as deep as every other fan. So deep that I sometimes spend hours making up character analyses and imagining therapy sessions with them. I just laughed to myself while typing that out, but the love for this show is real.
So, here I go, saying what I hope others are thinking… Jon Snow is not my favorite and I’d honestly pick Theon Greyjoy any day. Pick as in as a client or just someone to talk it up with and get to know in a bar! Now I know, I know, Jon is sweet and handsome and “are you f**king crazy?” (That last part is courtesy of my mother.) Jon is great, I’m not saying he isn’t, but Theon has more realistic depth and complexity that I’m here for.
Let’s look at Jon first.
He has this undeniable, fixed moral code. It’s so fixed that he lost two lovers and constantly made decisions that didn’t stray from what he labeled as “right.” Come on Jon, live a little. I’d truly enjoy him more as a character had he been like, “Okay, Dany, you’re nuts, but I love you and we’re gonna do this crazy life thing together and meet somewhere in the middle.” Instead, he followed that code and sacrificed his happiness as a result.
Now what would Theon do? Not kill his woman! And I love that about him.
Yes, Theon had some serious identity issues from being kidnapped at a young age, impulse control struggles, and at the end, some really sad and understandable trauma from Ramsay Bolton, but all of those experiences made him interesting and powerful. You didn’t know what to expect from Theon because he tried and did what he thought felt right in the moment. I mean, that’s life-- doing what we think feels right moment to moment. Theon was living. We go through our days doing what we think is best in every moment and sometimes figuring out that we in fact were terribly wrong and have to make amends. That making amends part is difficult and admirable. Jon, on the other hand, went through his life being so afraid of making a mess that he’s miserable and alone in the end.
Towards the end of the series, Theon says to Jon "I always wanted to do the right thing. Be the right kind of person. But I never knew what that meant.” Do we ever really know what the “right thing” or "right kind of person" is? No, we just kind of make decisions based on our thoughts and experiences and hope for the best, just like Theon. Life is full of choices and chances to take and all we can do is our best at picking the “right thing.”
Let’s all be a little more like Theon and live.