Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy, the two NotStarks, Part 2 - on Executions, Hostages/Captivity, & Ned Stark's Sword (Part 1)
theon carrying the ancestral stark heirloom valyrian steel sword as a duty at executions and living in fear of it vs. jon handling said sword as an honor and lusting to truly possess it (+ jon seeing valryan steel swords as father figure signifiers vs. theon viewing ned's valyrian steel greatsword as impediment to true father figure status)
They forced his head down onto the hard black wood. Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward[/hostage] Theon Greyjoy brought forth the sword. "Ice," that sword was called. [...] The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel. -Bran I, aGoT
When Jon turned it sideways, he could see the ripples in the dark steel where the metal had been folded back on itself again and again. "This is Valyrian steel, my lord," he said wonderingly. His father had let him handle Ice often enough; he knew the look, the feel. [...] no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. [...] I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. [...] He[Lord Commander Mormont] is not my father. The thought leapt unbidden to Jon's mind. [...] no matter how many swords they give me. Yet he could scarcely tell Lord Mormont that it was another man's sword he dreamt of … -Jon VIII, aGoT
Lord Eddard had tried to play the father from time to time, but to Theon he had always remained the man who'd brought blood and fire to Pyke and taken him from his home. As a boy, he had lived in fear of Stark's stern face and great dark sword. [....]
I was a hostage here. Lord Stark had not treated him cruelly, but the long steel shadow of his greatsword had always been between them. He was kind to me, but never warm. He knew that one day he might need to put me to death.
-Theon I, aCoK & The Prince of Winterfell(/Theon IV), aDwD
theon impulsively advising someone else (someone in a greater position of power) to kill a wildling spearwife after she'd surrendered vs. jon anxiously deciding not to behead a captured wildling spearwife even if a superior had commanded her death
She[Osha] was a head taller than he[Robb] was, but she dropped to her knees at his approach. “Give me my life, m’lord of Stark, and I am yours.” [...] Theon Greyjoy sauntered closer. “Give her to the wolves,” he urged Robb.
[...] "She’s a woman,” Robb said. -Bran V, aGoT
Jon’s throat was raw. He looked at them all helplessly. “She[Ygritte] yielded herself to me.”
“Then you must do what needs be done,” Qhorin Halfhand said. [...] He thought Ygritte might try to run, but she only stood there, waiting, looking at him. “You never killed a woman before, did you?” [...] Jon lowered his sword. “Go,” he muttered. -Jon VI, aCoK
theon urging a soon-to-be-king to kill his most important prisoner as punishment for his sins against them vs. jon appealing to an aspiring king of westeros to spare his most important prisoner even though the man was a night's watch deserter who'd just brought war against them
“Kill him[Jaime Lannister], Robb,” Theon Greyjoy urged. “Take his head off.”
“No,” her son[Robb] answered, peeling off his bloody glove. “He’s more use alive than dead. And my lord father never condoned the murder of prisoners after a battle.” -Catelyn X, aGoT
[Jon, to Stannis:] "[...] The only man who can bind them[the free folk] to your cause is Mance Rayder."
"I know that," Stannis said, unhappily. "[...] Even if he were to renounce his kingship, though, the man remains an oathbreaker. Suffer one deserter to live, and you encourage others to desert. No. Laws should be made of iron, not of pudding. Mance Rayder's life is forfeit by every law of the Seven Kingdoms."
"The law ends at the Wall, Your Grace. You could make good use of Mance." -Jon I, aDwD
both finding unexpected affection among enemies (as official hostage in theon's case and de facto captive/undercover spy among the wildling armies in jon's), especially from someone with reddish hair, then, once apart from those people, openly admitting to the bond formed to authority figures who would despise the said redhead from a different culture
[...] For Robb himself, Theon did have a certain affection, as for a younger brother . . . but it would be best not to mention that. In Pyke, it would seem, the old wars were still being fought.
[...] [Balon, to Theon:]"This wolf king heeds your counsel, does he?" The notion seemed to amuse Lord Balon.
"He heeds me, yes. I've hunted with him, trained with him, shared meat and mead with him, warred at his side. I have earned his trust. He looks on me as an older brother, he—"
"No." His father jabbed a finger at his face. "Not here, not in Pyke, not in my hearing, you will not name him brother, this son of the man who put your true brothers to the sword. [...]" -Theon I, aCoK
Every day he spent among the wildlings made what he had to do that much harder. He was going to have to find some way to betray these men, and when he did they would die. He did not want their friendship, any more than he wanted Ygritte's love. And yet . . .
[...] He[Janos Slynt] raised a hand and pointed a meaty finger at Jon's face. "Do you deny that you took a wildling woman into your bed?"
"No." Jon's grief over Ygritte was too fresh for him to deny her now. "No, my lord."
"I suppose it was also the Halfhand who commanded you to fuck this unwashed whore?" Ser Alliser asked with a smirk. -Jon V & IX, aSoS
jon being saved both from the threats of death from janos slynt (who wanted to execute him and imprisoned him in torturous conditions in an ice cell) and the power of mance rayder by the arrival of king stannis, who then offers to elevate him as an allied lord against the boltons in return for his fealty vs. theon escaping from the boltons (his 2nd captors) only to fall into captivity yet again in the custody of stannis baratheon, who holds him in torturous chains and intends to execute him, though theon volunteered a pledge of fealty and warned of the dangers of the boltons
[...] after four days in the ice, locked up in a cell five by five by five, too low for him to stand, too tight for him to stretch out on his back. [...]
[Janos Slynt, to Jon:] “If you are too craven to face this turncloak king, we can return you to your ice cell. This time without the furs, I think. Yes.”
[...] “If you’re lying to me again, you won’t be leaving here alive,” Mance warned.
[...] but when the trumpets blew again and the knights charged, the name they cried was "Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!"
[...] Stannis snorted. “I know Janos Slynt. And I knew Ned Stark as well. Your father was no friend of mine, but only a fool would doubt his honor or his honesty. You have his look.” A big man, Stannis Baratheon towered over Jon, but he was so gaunt that he looked ten years older than he was. “I know more than you might think, Jon Snow. [...]"
[...] “Tywin Lannister has named Roose Bolton his Warden of the North, to reward him for betraying your brother. The ironmen are fighting amongst themselves since Balon Greyjoy’s death, yet they still hold Moat Cailin, Deepwood Motte, Torrhen’s Square, and most of the Stony Shore. Your father’s lands are bleeding, and I have neither the strength nor the time to stanch the wounds. What is needed is a Lord of Winterfell. A loyal Lord of Winterfell.”
He would make me Lord of Winterfell. -Jon X & XI, aSoS
[...] His feet dangled six feet off the floor. [...]
Theon twisted in his chains. He knew that voice. Stannis.
Theon Greyjoy chortled. A stab of pain went up his arms, from his shoulders to his wrists. All he had done, all he had suffered, Moat Cailin and Barrowton and Winterfell, Abel and his washerwomen, Crowfood and his Umbers, the trek through the snows, all of it had only served to exchange one tormentor for another.
His shoulders were in agony. His own weight was tearing them from their sockets. How long had he been hanging here? [...] "Unchain me, and I will serve you."
"As you served Roose Bolton and Robb Stark?" Stannis snorted. "I think not. We have a warmer end in mind for you, turncloak. But not until we're done with you."
He means to kill me. The thought was queerly comforting. Death did not frighten Theon Greyjoy. Death would mean an end to pain. "Be done with me, then," he urged the king. "Take my head off and stick it on a spear. I slew Lord Eddard's sons, I ought to die. But do it quick. He[Ramsay] is coming." -Theon I, tWoW
theon going from long-term hostage to captor of his former captor's youngest children in a planned conquest vs. jon being a temporary and de facto captive of wildlings only to end up taking custody of the king-beyond-the-wall's child without even trying (with jon later taking mance's place as oathbreaking leader of the wildlings without truly realizing it, after theon tried and failed to take ned's place as lord of winterfell)
[Bran, to Theon:] "But you're Father's ward."
"And now you and your brother are my wards. As soon as the fighting's done, my men will be bringing the rest of your people together in the Great Hall. You and I are going to speak to them. You'll tell them how you've yielded Winterfell to me, and command them to serve and obey their new lord as they did the old." -Bran VI, aCoK
[Jon, to Ygritte:] "And when I'm free," he said slowly, "will I be free to go?" [...] He told himself that he was only biding his time, that when the moment came he would slip away and ride for Castle Black. The moment never came. They rested most nights in empty wildling villages, and Styr always set a dozen of his Thenns to guard the horses. Jarl watched him suspiciously. And Ygritte was never far, day or night. [....] Day and night the Thenns watched him, alert for any signs of betrayal. He could not get away, and soon it would be too late. -Jon I, III, & V, aSoS
[Mance, as Stannis Baratheon's attack interrupted his attempted parley/Jon's ordered assasination attempt:] “Varamyr, stay and see that no harm comes to Dalla.” The King-beyond-the-Wall pointed his sword at Jon. “And keep a few extra eyes on this crow. If he runs, rip out his throat.”
[...] [Stannis, to Jon:] "[...] I have not forgotten that it was you who brought us this magic horn, and captured Mance Rayder's wife and son."
"Dalla died." Jon was saddened by that still. "Val is her sister. She and the babe did not require much capturing, Your Grace. You had put the wildlings to flight, and the skinchanger Mance had left to guard his queen went mad when the eagle burned." -Jon X & XI, aSoS
theon condemning an innocent man in an intentional framejob and feeling pressured to perform a personal execution, only resulting in a messy beheading and increased contempt from onlookers vs. jon initially trying to work with a man he had a reason to begrudge (for trying to hang him and helping to arrest ned, though janos slynt was also guilty of worse crimes jon didn't even know about) and only choosing to condemn him when pushed, then freely choosing to personally behead him and gaining approval from a king after a clean beheading with a special valyrian steel sword (those magic swords like ice and longclaw being the true key to a clean beheading rather than morality of the accused or their judge/executioner, as demonstrated by robb's beheading performance done by axe like theon's.)
He could not let the killings go unpunished. Farlen was as likely a suspect as any, so Theon sat in judgment, called him guilty, and condemned him to death. Even that went sour. As he knelt to the block, the kennelmaster said, "M'lord Eddard always did his own killings." Theon had to take the axe himself or look a weakling. His hands were sweating, so the shaft twisted in his grip as he swung and the first blow landed between Farlen's shoulders. It took three more cuts to hack through all that bone and muscle and sever the head from the body, and afterward he was sick, remembering all the times they'd sat over a cup of mead talking of hounds and hunting. I had no choice, he wanted to scream at the corpse. The ironborn can't keep secrets, they had to die, and someone had to take the blame for it. He only wished he had killed him cleaner. Ned Stark had never needed more than a single blow to take a man's head. -Theon V, aCoK
I am giving you a chance, my lord. It is more than you ever gave my father. [...] “Lord Janos,” Jon said, “I will give you one last chance. Put down that spoon and get to the stables. I have had your horse saddled and bridled. It is a long, hard road to Greyguard.”
[...] “You can stick your order up your bastard’s arse,” said Slynt, his jowls quivering. [...] This is wrong, Jon thought. “Stop. [...] I will not hang him,” said Jon. “Bring him here.” [...] The smile that Lord Janos Slynt smiled then had all the sweetness of rancid butter. Until Jon said, “Edd, fetch me a block,” and unsheathed Longclaw. [...]
Janos Slynt twisted his neck around to stare up at him. “Please, my lord. Mercy. I’ll … I’ll go, I will, I …”
No, thought Jon. You closed that door. Longclaw descended. [...]
Jon glanced back at Stannis. For an instant their eyes met. Then the king nodded and went back inside his tower. -Jon II, aDwD
theon brutalizing a lowborn mother (one of his own former lovers) and her young sons as the only way to pass them off as the formerly captive princes of winterfell vs. jon cruelly threatening a powerless wildling mother (his best friend's future lover) and the life of her son in the belief that passing off her son as the captive "wildling prince" was the only way to protect the more politically important child
[...] it had been the miller’s wife. Theon had forgotten her name, but he remembered her body, soft pillowy breasts and stretch marks on her belly, the way she clawed his back when he fucked her. [...] He’d seen her die too. Gelmarr had cut her down with one blow of his axe as she cried to Theon for mercy. [...]
On their iron spikes atop the gatehouse, the heads waited.
Theon gazed at them silently while the wind tugged on his cloak with small ghostly hands. The miller’s boys had been of an age with Bran and Rickon, alike in size and coloring, and once Reek had flayed the skin from their faces and dipped their heads in tar, it was easy to see familiar features in those misshapen lumps of rotting flesh. People were such fools. If we’d said they were rams’ heads, they would have seen horns. -Theon V, aCoK
[Jon, to Gilly:] “Refuse[to switch her child with Mance and Dalla's], and the boy[Mance Rayder's baby] will burn. Not on the morrow, nor the day after … but soon [...] If you do not take the boy away, she[Melisandre] will burn him.”[...]
Jon closed the fingers of his sword hand. “Take both boys and the queen’s men will ride after you and drag you back. The boy will still burn … and you with him.” If I comfort her, she may think that tears can move me. She has to realize that I will not yield. “You’ll take one boy, and that one Dalla’s.” [...]
[..] "We saved him[her own baby], Sam and me. Please. Please, m’lord. We saved him from the cold."
[...] "Put your hand over the [candle] flame.” Her big brown eyes grew bigger still. She did not move. “Do it.” Kill the boy. “Now.”
Trembling, the girl reached out her hand, held it well above the flickering candle flame. [...] Gilly lowered her hand. An inch. Another. When the flame licked her flesh, she snatched her hand back and began to sob. [...] She wiped at her tears with the back of a small pale hand. “I won’t. I won’t.”
Kill the boy, thought Jon. “You will. Else I promise you, the day that they burn Dalla’s boy, yours will die as well.” [...]
Gilly’s boy was older, Dalla’s more robust, but they were close enough in age and size so that no one who did not know them well would be able to easily tell one from the other. -Jon II, aDwD
theon leveraging low-status winterfellians, starting with a child, as hostages (and citing his own experience as hostage to ned stark to explain his choices) in an attempt to keep a captured castle in a needless conflict (which could have been averted, sparing theon, if he had left with asha or gone to the wall) vs. jon taking wildling children as hostages in a claimed "blood price" as part of an agreement to allow the hostages' parents and other wildlings to pass peacefully through the wall and become allies serving in night's watch castles, joined against a common enemy (and citing the example of ned stark, the same man who held theon hostage to be raised among his own children for most of jon's childhood, when asked if he'd be willing to execute any child hostages whose parents proved faithless)
“This is craven,” Ser Rodrik said. “To use a child so … this is despicable.”
“Oh, I know,” said Theon. “It’s a dish I tasted myself, or have you forgotten? I was ten when I was taken from my father’s house, to make certain he would raise no more rebellions.”
“It is not the same!”
Theon’s face was impassive. “The noose I wore was not made of hempen rope, that’s true enough, but I felt it all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw.” He had never quite realized that until now, but as the words came spilling out he saw the truth of them.
“No harm was ever done you.”
“And no harm will be done your Beth, so long as you—
[...] Forswear your oath and murder me, and you will watch your little Beth strangle at the end of a rope. [...] If this host is still in arms before my gate when the sun sets, Beth will hang,” said Theon. “Another hostage will follow her to the grave at first light, and another at sunset. Every dawn and every dusk will mean a death, until you are gone. I have no lack of hostages.” [...]
If I hang the girl, the northmen will attack at once, he thought as he loosed a shaft. If I do not hang her, they will know my threats are empty. He nocked another arrow to his bow. There is no way out, none. -Theon VI, aCoK
“The wildlings will remain upon the Wall,” Jon assured them. “Most will be housed in one of our abandoned castles. [...] Men with wives and children, all orphan girls and any orphan boys below the age of ten, old women, widowed mothers, any woman who does not care to fight. The spearwives we’ll send to Long Barrow to join their sisters, single men to the other forts we’ve reopened. Those who take the black will remain here, or be posted to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Tormund will take Oakenshield as his seat, to keep him close at hand. [...] The free folk have neither laws nor lords,” Jon said, “but they love their children. Will you admit that much?”
[Bowen Marsh:] “It is not their children who concern us. We fear the fathers, not the sons.”
“As do I. So I insisted upon hostages.” I am not the trusting fool you take me for … nor am I half wildling, no matter what you believe. “One hundred boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. A son from each of their chiefs and captains, the rest chosen by lot. The boys will serve as pages and squires, freeing our own men for other duties. Some may choose to take the black one day. Queerer things have happened. The rest will stand hostage for the loyalty of their sires.”
The northmen glanced at one another. “Hostages,” mused The Norrey. “Tormund has agreed to this?"
It was that, or watch his people die. “My blood price, he called it,” said Jon Snow, “but he will pay.”
[...]"but them[past child hostage-wards] whose sires displeased the Kings o’ Winter,” said The Norrey. “Those came home shorter by a head. So you tell me, boy … if these wildling friends o’ yours prove false, do you have the belly to do what needs be done?”
Ask Janos Slynt. “Tormund Giantsbane knows better than to try me. I may seem a green boy in your eyes, Lord Norrey, but I am still a son of Eddard Stark.” -Jon XI, aDwD
theon being forced to participate in the wedding (and even the bedding) of a fellow captive (known from their shared winterfell childhood) passed off as "arya stark" (to use arya's claim to winterfell) while thinking of killing her or the groom as she looked to theon for rescue vs. another northern girl once thought to be arya (whom jon had actually met at winterfell when both were small children) running to jon snow for rescue (from relatives wishing to use her claim to karhold, and whom were secretly allied to theon/jeyne's bolton captors) and then willingly participating in a wedding he arranged for her as an alternative to an unwanted coupling (after jon took her would-be-husband/rapist captive--a man hunting her down like ramsay would hunt girls--and refrained from killing him)
[Theon, to Jeyne Poole/"Arya"]“My lady. It is time.” [...]
["Arya"/Jeyne Poole, to Theon:] “Help me.” She clutched at him. “Please. I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords. You were so handsome.” She squeezed his arm. “If we ran away, I could be your wife, or your … your whore … whatever you wanted. You could be my man.”
[...] "It is time. Wipe those tears from your eyes." Brown eyes. They should be grey. Someone will see. [...]
Arm in arm, the bride and he passed through an arched stone door, as wisps of fog stirred round their legs.
[...] It was not right that she should look to him for rescue. [...] Every time he looked at the girl who had been Jeyne Poole, he felt the presence of that steel[dagger] at his side. I have no way to save her, he thought, but I could kill her easy enough. No one would expect it. I could beg her for the honor of a dance and cut her throat. That would be a kindness, wouldn’t it?
[...]And on his hip his dagger rested, sleeping in its leather sheath, but heavy, oh so heavy. It is only my pinky gone on my right hand, Theon reminded himself. I can still grip a knife. “My lord. How may I serve you?”
“You gave the wench to me. Who better to unwrap the gift? Let’s have a look at Ned Stark’s little daughter.”
[...] Theon drew the dagger. All I need do is turn and stab him. The knife is in my hand. He knew the game by then. Another trap, he told himself, remembering Kyra with her keys. He wants me to try to kill him. And when I fail, he’ll flay the skin from the hand I used to hold the blade.
[...]Ramsay rose, the firelight shining on his face. “Reek, get over here. Get her ready for me.”
For a moment he did not understand. “I … do you mean … m’lord, I have no … I …”
“With your mouth,” Lord Ramsay said. “And be quick about it. If she’s not wet by the time I’m done disrobing, I will cut off that tongue of yours and nail it to the wall.”
[...]The dagger was still in his hand.
He sheathed it. -The Prince of Winterfell (/Theon IV), aDwD
She does look a bit like Arya, Jon thought. Starved and skinny, but her hair’s the same color, and her eyes. “I am told you have been asking after me. I am—”
“—Jon Snow.” The girl tossed her braid back. “My house and yours are bound in blood and honor. Hear me, kinsman. My uncle Cregan is hard upon my trail. You must not let him take me back to Karhold.”
Jon was staring. I know this girl. There was something about her eyes, the way she held herself, the way she talked. For a moment the memory eluded him. Then it came. “Alys Karstark.”
That brought the ghost of a smile to her lips. “I was not sure you would remember. I was six the last time you saw me.”
“You came to Winterfell with your father.” [...]
"[...] Should my brother die, Karhold should pass to me, but my uncles want my birthright for their own. Once Cregan gets a child by me they won’t need me anymore. He’s buried two wives already.” She rubbed away a tear angrily, the way Arya might have done it. “Will you help me?” [...] Alys knelt before him, clutching the black cloak. “You are my only hope, Lord Snow. In your father’s name, I beg you. Protect me.”
Alys Karstark slipped her arm through Jon’s. [...] Jon turned to Alys Karstark. “My lady. Are you ready?” [for a wedding to Sigorn, the Magner of Thenn]
[...] Cregan Karstark had turned up a day behind his niece. With him came four mounted men-at-arms, a huntsman, and a pack of dogs, sniffing after Lady Alys as if she were a deer. Jon Snow met them on the kingsroad half a league south of Mole’s Town, before they could turn up at Castle Black, claim guest right, or call for parley. One of Karstark’s men had loosed a crossbow quarrel at Ty and died for it. That left four, and Cregan himself.
Fortunately they had a dozen ice cells. Room for all. [...] And this marriage is mine own work, after all. [...] I should make his[Cregan Karstark's] head a wedding gift for Lady Alys and her Magnar, Jon thought, but dare not take the risk. -Jon IX & X, aDwD
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