"Of course I love my father, what kind of ridiculous question is that?" Asha spat defensively. Ever since the Greyjoy family lost all of their male heirs, it was up to Balon Greyjoy to raise Asha as his only child and legacy. Shaking her head to herself, she murmured, "after all, I am the kracken’s daughter."
we will be discussing captain of the Black Wind and sole daughter to the kraken, Asha Greyjoy.
Born to Balon Greyjoy and Alannys Harlaw, Asha is sole daughter and oldest living child of House Greyjoy. Since her brother Theon became a political hostage and was taken from the Iron Islands after the failed Greyjoy Rebellion, Asha was raised as her father’s heir despite the fact that custom dictated that women cannot rule the Iron Islands. She is fierce, bold and proud woman, and has defied traditional ironborn gender roles by captaining her own ship and leading men into battle.
When Balon begins planning his invasion of the North in A Clash of Kings Asha is reunited with her younger brother Theon who has returned to Pyke as an envoy of Robb Stark, the newly crowned King in the North. She has a strained but short lived reunion with Theon before she leaves the Iron Islands to capture Deepwood Motte, the seat of House Glover, as ordered by her father as part of his invasion plans. The last we see of Asha in A Clash of Kings is when she visits Theon at Winterfell, berates him for his alleged murders of Bran and Rickon Stark, and tells him to abandon the captured castle and return to Deepwood Motte with her. When Theon refuses her, she abandons him at Winterfell.
Asha returns to Iron Islands after the death of Balon in A Feast for Crows in order to claim the Seastone Chair as her father’s sole heir. She does not come alone though, bringing captives from Deepwood Motte. At Ten Towers, the seat of her uncle Lord Rodrik Harlaw, Asha informs her him that she searched for Theon at Winterfell after it was sacked but was unable to identify him amongst the bodies. Rodrik informs her that Aeron Greyjoy, another one of Asha’s uncles, has called for a Kingmoot in order for the ironborn captains to decide who will be their next king. With several houses supporting her, Asha decides to claim the Seastone Chair and spurns her Rodrik’s offers to name Asha as his heir.
Realising that she will have difficulty in the Kingsmoot, Asha attempts to negotiate a deal with yet another of her uncles, Victarion, that would see peace made with the mainland and Asha made Victarion’s hand. Her uncle refuses her offer.
At the Kingsmoot, Asha’s proposal to make peace with the mainland in exchange for Sea Dragon Point and the Stony Shore achieves a surprising amount of support. However, the crowd ultimately favours the claim of her uncle, Euron Greyjoy, and they make him the new king of the Iron Islands. She departs again shortly thereafter, her plans unclear.
In A Dance with Dragons following the Kingsmoot, Asha learns that Euron married her to Erik Ironmaker after she fled Old Wyk, using a seal to represent her at the wedding. Asha curses this but admires uncle's cunning as this move prevents Asha from offering a marriage to another lord to win his support. She returns to Deepwood Motte with Lady Glover, while her captive's children remain at Ten Towers as prisoners.
The ironborn at Deepwood Motte dwindle and begin to starve before being overtaken by King Stannis Baratheon's army in an attempt to flee back to their ships. Asha is taken captive and continues with Stannis's host toward Winterfell. A snow storm sets in during their march, however, and the army slows to a halt at a crofters' village approximately three days ride from Winterfell, with few provisions left. Many of Stannis’s men call for Asha to be sacrificed to R'hllor in an attempt to thwart the snows but the king refuses to allow it. At the crofter’s village they are met by Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank of Braavos and Theon, who has escaped from Winterfell. With this meeting, their roles are reversed from the first time they met in A Clash of Kings, with Theon recognizing Asha and Asha not recognizing Theon due to the injuries he has suffered while in captivity.
We last hear from Asha in a sample chapter from The Winds of Winter where she is distressed when she sees how Ramsay Bolton has horrifically tortured and mutilated her brother. She is later brought before Stannis while Theon is chained nearby in the room. She tries to offer a ransom for him but Stannis refuses, stating Theon must die for his alleged murders of Eddard Stark's sons or Stannis's northern allies would abandon him. Asha, seeing Stannis will not relent, urges him then to kill Theon by beheading before a weirwood tree as Eddard Stark would have done. She likely made this suggestion to at least spare her brother the agonising pain of being burned alive.
“Asha Greyjoy did not intend to be taken alive. She would die as she had lived, with an axe in her hand and a laugh upon her lips!”
