Character Analysis
Worst. Family Reunion. Ever. And we thought our families were difficult to deal with… Check out these sad sacks:
Aeron Greyjoy
Aeron is Theon's uncle and a priest for the Greyjoy's god. A grim and all-too serious fellow, Aeron seems to take no joy in life, having completely devoted himself to his religion; when he sees Theon for the first time in ten years, he immediately baptizes him (12.Theon.77). Then again, when your god is called Drowned God, how much fun can you really expect?
His nickname, Damphair, is pronounced damp hair. Pretty fitting when you consider his personality, isn't it?
Balon Greyjoy
Balon Greyjoy is Theon's father, and he's a hard, depressing kind of fellow. He believes everything worth having should be paid for with the "iron price" (12.Theon.155), meaning you own only what you take off the corpse of your enemy.
When Theon returns to him after being away for ten years, Balon feels the green lands have made him more Eddard's son than his own, and so he doesn't trust Theon with responsibilities on par with Asha's. He takes the title "King of the Iron Islands" and plans to cut a kingdom out of the north while Robb and his forces are down south fighting the Lannisters.
Asha Greyjoy
Asha Greyjoy is Theon's sister and a total tomboy. She captains the ironborn and jokingly refers to an axe as her "lord husband" and a dirk as her "sweet suckling babe" (25.Theon.172). With her brothers dead and Theon a ward in Winterfell, she was raised by Balon as a son and heir—in a telling moment, when Balon is laying out his plans, he refers to both Asha and Theon as his sons (25.Theon.202).
Asha understands people well and tries to help her self-centered brother reintegrate into Pyke society. She even travels to Winterfell to advise Theon to relinquish the castle, but her wisdom goes unheard because, as she puts it, "'what would a shy maid know of such things?" (57.Theon.50). More than Theon, that's for sure.
Dagmer Cleftjaw
Dagmer Cleftjaw is the captain of Foamdrinker, and he has a taste for glory and a jovial demeanor, especially for an ironborn. Theon thinks of him as an uncle and realizes that the man has given him more smiles than his father and Ned Stark combined (38.Theon.34). When Theon hatches his plan to take Winterfell, Dagmer agrees to assault Torrhen's Sqaure to draw Ser Rodrik and his knights away from the castle.
He got the name Cleftjaw from an axe wound he received as a boy. The axe broke his jaw leaving him the "most gut-churning scar Theon had ever seen" (38.Theon.29). In a book like this, that's really saying something.
Wex
Wex is Theon's steward. He's loyal and courageous, and he is the first to volunteer to fight against Ser Rodrik's knights. This is surprising not because he's a steward because he's a steward willing to fight and die for Theon. Which has us asking… Why?