Theon is sorry.

He’s sorry for killing two blameless peasant boys who meant nothing to anyone but their mother and father. He’s sorry for hanging their burned and broken bodies in the Winterfell yard. He’s sorry for that, and for telling everyone that they were Bran and Rickon. He’s sorry for the day he ever thought he was Robb Stark’s equal, and tried to take what he knew he could never hold, what wasn’t his to take.

Theon is sorry for all of that, but what he apologizes for is the one thing he didn’t do.

What happens to Theon — and don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t piss on Theon if he was on fire, this isn’t about sympathy — in both the books and in the show is one of the most realistic depictions of abuse I’ve ever seen. What an abuser does, more than burning or cutting or beating or even shouting, is to take your story away.

Ramsay made Theon love him, made Theon believe he could be redeemed. Ramsay told Theon a story: You’re worthless, you’re nothing, you’re lower than the dogs in the kennels, except for that I favor you. You’re not Theon. You’re Reek.

He takes away Theon’s story and replaces it with Reek’s, and it’s a measure of how much Theon hated himself by then that he would rather be Reek. He’d rather be the killer of the Stark boys. He’d rather be lower than the kennel dogs, than be Theon Greyjoy any longer.

Quick takes: Man, we are moving fast, compared to the books. Some of the storylines don’t even get here until the last book that’s out there, so maybe when we get past the books we’ll learn something new.

I love Brienne standing watch, instead of storming in and trying to take Sansa out by force. She’s learning.

The Stone Men weren’t in Valyria, I thought, and for all we’ve been hearing about the haunted land where the Doom came, I expected … more. Jorah is now standing in for several people, including I think Victarion Greyjoy with the greyscale creeping in, and while I’m bummed it doesn’t look like we’re going to see the Kingsmoot or Euron Crow’s Eye, I can’t argue with anything that gives me more Iain Glen. Who is dying by inches, and still convinced he’s gonna get to bone a Targaryen before he goes.

Olly is either going to rise up and stab Jon Snow in the night, or he’s going to become Lord Commander someday. In any other show Olly would be like, “For I am the bigger person of course we should save the wildlings” and impress us all and we’d cry and the music would swell and blah blah blah. In this show he’s like, “Are you Lord Commander Kidding Me? They killinated all my friends and my mommy. Fuck you, sir.”

FUCK YEAH GREY WORM AND MISSANDEI. That is all.

Taking Ser Barristan out of the picture means Dany gets to make her own choices, and her choice is … Hizdahr Zo Loraq. This would never have happened if Drogon was still here.

Stannis marches down to Winterfell, and Jon goes to Hardhome, because they’re all part of the realms of men. And in Winterfell, Sansa Stark looks at Ramsay and at Theon, and starts to get an idea of the monsters she’ll have to become now.

A.