☕ the other thing Ramsay took (From Reek II:"He has only taken toes and fingers and that other thing, when he might have had my tongue, or peeled the skin off my legs from heel to thigh.")
ty for asking!!! i know the most common interpretation of this line is that it proves theon's castration. "that other thing" being his penis or his testes or both.
i think it is deliberately left vague here to give us, the reader, a moment to pause and wonder what the other thing may be. his manhood? that would be the most obvious thing for theon to be shy about. he lists everything else, what is there left to take that he wouldn't want to mention outright? it must be especially embarrassing.
i don't read the line that way. i'm not saying that if you do you are Wrong or that you're reading the line incorrectly. the very point of leaving a line like this ambiguous is for readers to ask questions and to draw their own conclusions.
i think "the other thing" that ramsay took from theon that he is too scared to name, even in the privacy of his own mind's narration, is his former identity as theon greyjoy. he has not, at this point, gone back to thinking of himself as theon. though it has at this point in the text become obvious who "reek" is, theon refers to himself only as this pseudonym. he isn't ready to refer to himself as anything else, yet, and only vaguely alludes to "the time before he learned his name".
since we're playing schrodinger's peen again i will also talk about this line from the prince of winterfell chapter:
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."
this line seems far more direct and explicit. theon cannot "get jeyne ready" for ramsay to use because he has no penis
but that doesn't make sense to me. you wouldn't get jeyne wet and ready to take her husband's dick. with your dick. like the point of ramsay's rape by proxy, here, of both theon and jeyne, is that taking the time to arouse a woman you are going to fuck, for the purpose of her vagina feeling better for your dick to go into, is beneath him. making the wife you are going to rape "comfortable" before doing so is a demeaning task to be delegated. ramsay is going to do the "real fucking" and theon gets to do the lowly foreplay stuff. (i hope i have used enough scare quotes here to indicate that i do not agree with the thought process that i am explaining)
i think it makes much more sense that theon was about to say "fingers". he has 7 left, of course, but it is easier to finger someone when you have five on each hand and are used to, in your prior sexual experience, having all five to use.
there was also a post by nosafeanchorage where they said that theon was about to say "i have no right" which is an interpretation i also really like
is it possible that theon interpreted ramsay's instruction as "fuck jeyne first for me and i'll go after" and was responding by telling him he lacked the body part to do so? yes, it is possible. i just don't read the line that way.
i'm not sure how to end this post but this is always a topic i like chatting about, so thank you for your question 🍆🔪💦
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