As we all know, it is Monday (or it was) and I tend to give the topic to someone else. Today, instead of getting a question, it was requested that I "wax geekfully" about something because said person who made the request seems to enjoy that. Very well. Oh. Warning: Spoilers and also GRRM discussion. If you are not interested in either, quit while you are ahead.
I've been watching the first season of Game of Thrones again. The first time I watched it, I was still in the process of reading the books and I knew I probably missed a lot of little details. Watching it again afforded me the chance to look for clues, hits, small bits of storytelling that will be important later but just seemed like nothing in the moment.
For instance, when Eddard sees his daughter learning to swordfight, he is at first amused, but then gets this look of both fear and sadness on his face. When I first saw this, I assumed it was because he worried she might be involved in a battle someday. Having read the books, I think it was because she so much reminded him of his sister. Lyanna could also fight and Arya looks a lot like her. It was a very interesting bit of foreshadowing.
However, I think the most masterful bit of storytelling is how they are handling Theon. In the books, Theon is just an arrogant, smarmy bastard. Until the last book, I basically hated him. In the show, they've done a very good job of showing all of Theon's future decisions and actions as making sense to him. They touch on all the times when he tries to be a part of the Stark family, only to have it thrown back in his face. He was raised along side the Stark children and clearly loved them as his own family. However, almost everything said or done to him in the first season seems to show this pattern that they feel otherwise.
So when Theon betrays them in the second season, all to prove his worth to his own biological father, it makes a lot more sense. As the audience, we love the Starks, so we don't want them to be betrayed, but given the way Theon was treated, it is understandable. He screws up badly and makes things worse for everyone, especially himself, but his reasons are valid.
I've noticed that GRRM explores the themes of motives and drives a lot. Love is a very strong drive in his books. Many of the characters' actions can be boiled down to them loving someone, sometimes beyond all reason. Other characters are driven by their sense of honor and duty.
However, I think the need to belong is possibly the strongest reoccurring character motive in the series. Most of the major characters are misfits in one way or the other. Dany is constantly in foreign lands. Jon is illegitimate. Theon is a hostage. Tyrion is a little person. Samwell is fat and cowardly in a society that values big strong brave men. Arya is a tomboy. All of them are the square pegs trying to fit into the round holes. They are constantly in conflict between their need to find a place to belong and their need to have agency over who they are. This conflict leads to a lot of their problems.
As a reader, there are certain things you want for the characters you read about. You want them to be safe. You want them to be happy. You want them to find some justice in the end so that they know all the hell they went through was worth it. Moreover, I think as readers our souls are content if the characters know they have a place where they really belong. It settles something inside of them. It allows us to close the book with a feeling of contentment.
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