Theon Greyjoy
Balon's last son, raised as Ned Stark's ward and Robb's sworn friend ÔÇö a cocky, charming young man caught between the family that fathered him and the one that raised him.
A soul of House Greyjoy, born at Pyke.
The fuller tale
Season Two
In The Night Lands ÔÇö Nine years a ward; his father sees only a Stark in iron clothes. Theon Greyjoy comes home to Pyke and finds his father unimpressed and his sister commanding ships. In What Is Dead May Never Die ÔÇö Burns the letter that would have warned Robb. What is dead may never die. Balon Greyjoy chooses crowns over kin: the ironborn will reave the North, and Theon must pick a family.
In The Ghost of Harrenhal ÔÇö A raid on fishing villages becomes a plan to take a castle. Theon sails to raid the Stony Shore, and thinks bigger: Winterfell is barely garrisoned. In The Old Gods and the New ÔÇö Took his home's home. It will cost him everything he had left. Theon takes Winterfell with twenty men and beheads Ser Rodrik with four strokes.
In A Man Without Honor ÔÇö Two small bodies, burned past knowing. Better to be cruel than weak. Theon hunts the missing Stark boys and hangs two burned farm boys from Winterfell's walls. In The Prince of Winterfell ÔÇö A prince of a burned castle and twenty unhappy men. Yara comes for Theon with ironborn sense: the castle is indefensible, come home. He refuses.
Bran and Rickon never left: they're in the crypts below Theon's feet. In Valar Morghulis ÔÇö Rallied his men with a speech; they answered with a sack over his head. Theon's own men sack him; Winterfell burns behind them; Maester Luwin dies at the heart tree.
Where they stand. Pyke and Winterfell.
Season Three
In And Now His Watch Is Ended ÔÇö Led in circles by a smiling boy back to the same cross. Theon learns what his smiling keeper actually wants from him. Everything. In Mhysa ÔÇö Reek. It rhymes with weak. The smiling boy has a name ÔÇö Ramsay Snow ÔÇö and Theon has a new one: Reek.
Where they stand. The Dreadfort.
Season Four
At the Dreadfort, Ramsay hunts a girl with hounds and shows his father what's left of Theon. Yara raids the Dreadfort for Theon and finds Reek in a kennel who won't come.
Where they stand. Moat Cailin and The Dreadfort.
Season Five
Sansa's wedding night in Winterfell ÔÇö Ramsay makes Theon watch. The North's walls hear it. Sansa begs Theon to light the signal candle; he carries the plea to Ramsay instead. Sansa and Theon jump from Winterfell's walls into the snow, hand in hand.
Where they stand. Winterfell.
Season Six
Sansa and Theon are run down in the snow ÔÇö until Brienne's oath is finally accepted. In Book of the Stranger ÔÇö Comes home to back his sister's claim, not his own. The kingsmoot crowns Euron; Yara and Theon steal the best ships of the Iron Fleet the same night. Yara and Theon reach Dany first: a hundred ships for an independent Iron Islands and no more reaving.
Season Seven
In Stormborn ÔÇö The sea took Reek back the moment the axes came out. Euron's fleet ambushes Yara's in the night: two Sand Snakes die, Ellaria and Yara are taken, Theon jumps. In The Dragon and the Wolf ÔÇö Beaten until he remembers who he is; sails to save his sister.
Where they stand. Dragonstone.
Season Eight
In A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ÔÇö Asks to guard Bran: the godswood, the bait, the debt. In The Long Night ÔÇö "Theon. You're a good man. Thank you." Then he charged. Bran waits under the heart tree; Theon Greyjoy dies a Stark's death defending him.
Where they stand. Winterfell.
How it ends for them
On the screen. Fell defending Bran at Winterfell (S8┬ÀE3)
The broken man came home to the godswood to pay for Winterfell with his life. Bran told him he was a good man ÔÇö then Theon charged the Night King alone, and died a Stark's death in a Greyjoy's skin.
The show gives him the death the whole arc was aimed at. In the Long Night he holds WinterfellÔÇÖs godswood with a handful of men, the last line before Bran, and empties his quiver into the dead until the Night King himself walks into the firelight. Bran gives him the only payment left worth having ÔÇö ÔÇ£Theon. YouÔÇÖre a good man. Thank you.ÔÇØ ÔÇö and Theon charges alone, spear leveled, at a being that has killed everything ever sent against it. The Night King snaps the spear aside and drives it through him. He dies in the castle he betrayed, defending the family he wronged, moments before Arya ends the creature that killed him.
No book counterpart exists yet: in the published volumes Theon has just been delivered out of Winterfell alive ÔÇö shattered, frost-bitten, but himself again ÔÇö and waits with Asha in StannisÔÇÖs camp for a battle Martin has not yet printed. Alive in the published books, with the hardest part of his story, by any telling, already behind him.
Their chapters, book by book
A Game of Thrones 1 chapter that name them
A Clash of Kings 6 chapters of their own, and 1 more that name them
A Dance with Dragons 7 chapters of their own, and 1 more that name them
Where the page and the screen part
The broad arc ÔÇö betrayal, ruin, Reek, redemption ÔÇö is shared, but the books tell the middle from inside his skull, and those chapters are among the most harrowing things Martin has written: the counting of fingers, the reflex of the false name, the slow theft of a self. The rescue plot differs materially ÔÇö Jeyne Poole, not Sansa, is the bride he saves, smuggled off the battlements with the help of Mance RayderÔÇÖs spearwives ÔÇö and so does the destination: book-Theon and his sister end the published volumes in Stannis BaratheonÔÇÖs snowbound camp, his fate unwritten. Everything the show gave him afterward ÔÇö the kingsmoot, the sea battles, the godswood ÔÇö awaits whatever version the remaining books intend. In the published books, he is still alive.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.