#sansa meta

[sayruq]

What’s the deal with Arya fans pretending Sansa stans are the ones who like to downplay Arya’s suffering as if it wasn’t the other way around? They project so much, it’s unbelievable. They say we claim Arya looks down on traditional femininity. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve read lots of metas written by Sansa stans that acknowledge Arya respects women in general. That’s why I hate the way so many people condescendingly write post saying that “it’s okay to love both sisters” “you don’t have to put the other down just to prop your fave up”. As if both sisters receive the same amount of hate. Well, I think it’s also okay to NOT love both sisters and have a favorite one. I hate how many bloggers pretend to like Sansa when they obviously don’t (sansabuts) and pretend Arya is not a extremely loved and popular character (there’s nothing wrong with that) and Sansa is not a controversial one, that many people love, but it’s still misunderstood by lots of readers as a shallow, selfish and weak girl. It’s just so mean spirited.

What’s the deal with Arya fans pretending Sansa stans are the ones who like to downplay Arya’s suffering as if it wasn’t the other way around?

They want to be us so badly it makes them look stupid.

There's over a decade of metas on why

people shouldn't downplay Sansa's suffering

people should respect and appreciate Sansa's strengths including her intelligence, charm, wit, resilience, etc

people should understand that being feminine isn't bad at all even in a fantasy book.

etc etc

Arya stans just copy and paste and then point the finger at us ☠️.

The meanest things I've seen Sansa stans say regularly is #shipgirl or making fun of Arya for not knowing sigils.

Arya stans will wake up and say the most misogynistic thing you've ever heard in your life. The kind of shit that would make a 4chan incel blush.

I hate how many bloggers pretend to like Sansa when they obviously don’t (sansabuts) and pretend Arya is not a extremely loved and popular character (there’s nothing wrong with that) and Sansa is not a controversial one, that many people love, but it’s still misunderstood by lots of readers as a shallow, selfish and weak girl. It’s just so mean spirited.

I think a big reason those stans have been so pissed off the past couple of years is because Sansa is no longer the controversial character. She's fairly popular these days among book readers. It's no longer commonplace for people to sprout hate towards her (outside of certain fanbases). People like her and people appreciate her the way they didn't in the 90s and 2000s. It helps that the show indicated where Sansa will end up - on the Northern throne after returning to Winterfell and playing a key role in defeating the Boltons (Ramsay or Roose, take your pick).

Sansa is no longer in Arya's shadow, she's not the 'irrelevant' Stark. She has her own fierce fandom. She clearly has an exciting story in the next two books. She's arguably the one who won the Game of Thrones. All those theories about Sansa marrying the Hound and disappearing from the story or Sansa staying in the Vale no longer read like viable theories but antis coping.

#Anonymous #Sansa Stark #song of ice and fire #anti arya stans #sansa meta #queen sansa

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

Are Jon and Sansa both "idealists" on AGOT that have their dreams being crushed?

(This meta was inspired by a conversation I had with @docpiplup )

I've seen a couple of posts claiming that Jon and Sansa go through parallel arcs on AGOT because "both have idealistic dreams which get crashed". I do like all the Starklings and I find interesting pointing out parallels - even underrated ones - between any combination of them however in this case I find the parallel rather shallow.

First of all, let me begin by saying that Jon, Sansa AND BRAN ( who often is forgotten in order to make this parallel only about his older siblings) all express an ambition of theirs at the beginning of the first book. Jon wants to join the Night's Watch, Sansa wants to go to the South and become the Queen and Bran to become a knight.

Sansa and Bran's ambitions are more related because their ideal scenarios are inspired by the South and their mother's culture. Meanwhile, the Night's Watch is considered a respectable choice only on the North and Jon, the sole sibling raised only by a Northern parent couldn't possibly have a southern ambition.

In my opinion, what makes Jon's "dream" different than those of his younger siblings is the position he occupies within the family. Let me elaborate. Sansa and Bran are two well cared and sheltered kids living in a loving environment who are allowed to have their big dream (and honestly? Good for them, that's how kids on their age should be allowed to be). Plus, those are the two Starks who love reading fairy tales and I would describe romantic at heart.

Even if their dreams won't come true they will still have a bright future ahead of them (even if Sansa doesn't travel South and doesn't become Joffrey's queen, her father would arrange for her a noble marriage of her status/ even if Bran doesn't become a knight, he would still be welcomed to his father's and later to his brother's council and he could also have a noble marriage with lands to rule).

Unlike them, Jon feels unwelcome to Winterfell ( mostly bc of how the Castle's lady is treating him). He needs to make his life somewhere else. But what are his options? His father didn't make him apprentice of a craftsman so one day he could have a job of his own to make his living. Instead he was given a lording's education alongside his brothers - but bc of his bastard status, he's not expected to rule anything- and he was trained at the sword. Living in the North were sellsword companies and knights don't exist, becoming a Black Brother was the only road for him. So for Jon, wishing to join the Night's Watch isn't a romantic dream but instead the only solution a realistic teen could come up with.

Here are his own thoughts right after he tells his uncle he wants to join the Night's Watch:

He had thought on it long and hard, lying abed at night while his brothers slept around him. Robb would someday inherit Winterfell, would command great armies as the Warden of the North. Bran and Rickon would be Robb's bannermen and rule holdfasts in his name. His sisters Arya and Sansa would marry the heirs of other great houses and go south as mistress of castles of their own. But what place could a bastard hope to earn?

And since this meta is getting too long I won't gointo detail and describe how Jon and Sansa react once their dreams get crushed (maybe I'll make a part two of this meta someday?). I'll just say that once again they have totally different reactions. Which is to be expected since those two siblings are very different in terms of personality.

#house stark #jon snow #sansa stark #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a post of ice and fire #jon snow meta #sansa meta #bran meta

[hello-nichya-here]

Sansan Meta - Beauty & The Beast

(Obscenely long wall of text ahead, you have been warned)

Tale As Old As Time

George R.R. Martin is a fan of the classics. He is influenced by authors like Tolkien, and by the stories told in different mythologies and fairy tales - so much so that, during his time working in TV productions, he was one of the writers of a modern version of Beauty And The Beast. There are many references to this particular tale in A Song Of Ice And Fire, and there is a character that fits the role of the Beauty perfectly: Sansa Stark the girl who spent the vast majority of her story being held hostage, and that is so beautiful that pretty much every boy and man of story lusts after her, even though she's yet to turn 14 in the books. She is also a hopeless romantic and dreamer, and wants her prince and epic love.

He's No Prince Charming

Sansa has quite a list of potential suitors/love interests, and they're all wrong for her in one way or another... more often than not, they're all wrong for her in MANY ways, including morality, age, power imbalance due to status, and even incompatible sexuality. For the sake of simplicity, I'll stick to the ones that, so far, are the most important for her story and development as a character.

First we have Joffrey Baratheon and Loras Tyrel. They both fit into the traditional idea of what a girl like Sansa would want, the first being a literal prince, who Sansa is engaged to for quite a while, and the later being a handsome knight that she fantasizes about despite already being promised to another. She falls for both of them pretty hard - not in the sense of truly feeling love for them, but rather experiencing very intense crushes based on the idea of them, and on a shallow "connection." Once Joffrey shows his true colors, revealing himself to be a sadistic monster, Sansa's affection turns into hate. His appearance suffers no transformation and he is a monster mentally, not physically, but after Ned's death Sansa full on asks herself how she could have ever found him (physically) attractive, and due to the truth about his parentage, he is considered an abomination to their society. Sansa is still not completely over Loras (she fantasizes about him and is still very infatuated in the third book, and thinks of kissing him in the fourth) but not only is he a member of the King's Guard, meaning he cannot take a wife, he is also not interested in women, meaning there's zero possibility of them ever getting together - and they'd both be ridiculed if they did. Loras is not the Beast, or the transformed, redeemed prince. He is Beauty's idea of the prince.

Secondly, we have Tyrion Lannister, "the Imp" and Petyr Baelish, "Littlefinger". Both are much older men, who are very rich, very smart, and feel entitled to have Sansa - the first due to an inferiority complex and deep trauma brought on by being a dwarf in a deeply ableist society and for the tragic circumstances regarding his first marriage, and the later due to a life-long obsession with Sansa's mother, Catelyn Stark, who was "stolen" from him by Brandon and Ned Stark. Tyrion's physical appearance leads to many people calling him a monster, but instead of it being a punishment for his cruelty, he becomes cruel after a life of mental abuse, trauma, and manipulation, as well as his drinking problem. Petyr also doesn't fit the role of the cruel man who was cursed to look like a monster, since he is a monster that looks like a completely ordinary, harmless man. Sansa is not interested in either of them, but is forced to marry Tyrion (who is, at first, a far more humane character than Baelish, and their marriage is seen as a big joke by everyone), and is then rescued/kidnaped by Petyr.

Finally, we have Sandor Clegane. He is much older than her, his family doesn't have any real status, power, or money. He worked for the Lannisters, is a deeply traumatized man who is very prone to violence, was horribly disfigured, and is so dehumanized by everyone, including himself, that he is known as a dog - as The Hound, a loyal animal that shows no mercy to anyone he is ordered to attack. He is by far the one that has the least in common with Sansa's ideal lover. Yet he still ended up becoming the man Sansa compares everyone around her to, and despite him being a walking disaster of a person, she always seems to conclude that he is the superior option. And Martin clearly agrees, so much so that he constantly has him say the Beast's line of "I'm no ser."

So, we have the Beauty and we have the Beast. But how does their story play out in this version, and how can we even be sure we found the right Beast?

Be Our Guest

Right from the start, Martin is changing the formula. Instead of being a traveler that is imprisoned by the Beast after entering his home without permission/stealing something and is later freed by his self-sacrificing daughter, Ned Stark is a man that would have never left his home if it wasn't for the insistence of others and his fear that his friend was in danger, and Sansa comes with him willingly. She sees it all as the beginning of her song, of her epic romance, a dream that has come true. She has a prince and knight, and they will surely defeat and slay all the evil monsters of the realm, protecting the innocent and being seen as heroes. She finds that one or two people are not what they seem, like Sandor Clegane who despite being far from a good man is still much better than his brother, Gregor, who is as wicked as any traitor despite being a knight, but overall, everything is just like in the stories, just like in the songs.

Once she finally realizes what her situation truly is, it will be too late for her to save herself - or her father, who she will have accidentally sold out to his enemies. And while Sansa will beg for mercy for her father, Ned is the one who is going to make a sacrifice for her, admiting to a treason he did not commit and being ready to spend the rest of life away from the people he loves, only to then be killed anyway because, unlike the Beast, his captors (who would then have his daughter as their prisoner) did not stay true to their word. On top of that, her grief will not be seen as proof of her immense love for Ned or of what a kind heart she has, but rather as evidence that, in this version of the story, Beauty is a traitor.

"Take Me Instead"

Joffrey and Sansa's "romance" is a cruel alternative version of Beauty and the Beast, that seems to begin at the end and work its way back to the start. Sansa is happy and in love with her handsome prince, but he turns into a monster that holds her hostage and shows her father no mercy despite her pleas and of the promise he made her. The only thing that stayed the same was the Beauty finding herself in a situation in which her captor is replacing the company of her family - Joffrey is the one who gives her away to her husband on her wedding day.

Speaking of her husband, Tyrion also "doesn't play his part right." Not only does he never hold anyone of her family hostage, he offers Sansa to choose another husband for herself, younger and taller, but just as much of a Lannister, just as much of a captor. Sansa decides not to risk it and sticks with Tyrion, but she never really warms up to him enough for a romance to bloom, or for him to truly replace the presence of her family. Tyrion also develops a bond with Jon Snow and shows kindness to Bran, but he does because he feels a connection with them, not with Sansa. On top of all of that, he was held hostage by Catelyn and was denied guest rights by Robb at Winterfell.

The one that "fits" the traditional formula the most, at first glance, is Littlefinger. Sansa is replacing her mother as the object of his obsession, and he also makes her take her aunt Lysa's role as his co-conspirator after he murders her. But he goes a step further, seeing Sansa as his daughter and wanting to replace Ned (whose death he plotted) as a father figure in her mind, making his sexual advances towards her even more disturbing. The problem is that their "connection" is completely one-sided, since even though she tries to "be his daughter in her heart" and addresses him as father even when they're alone (because he told her to, not because she felt he deserved that title), she doesn't seem to want to be with him, in any way. She full on thinks to herself that, while Petyr treats her well enough, Littlefinger is no friend of hers and is not to be trusted.

As for Sandor, he also does a bit of a reversal of the tale, asking Sansa to leave with him to Winterfell, is turned down, lets her go - and then kidnaps her younger sister, who he will develop a platonic bond with, but there will still be quite a lot of bad blood between him and Arya.

The thing he does right, however, is "replacing" her family in a much more natural way than all the others, and it starts before they even have any kind of meaningful connection. When Ilyn Payne scares her, she bumps into Sandor and mistakes him for Ned. When Sansa's dire wolf is killed, King Robbert says Ned should give her a dog, and during the battle of Blackwater she runs to her room, wishes that Lady was with her, and then realizes Sandor is hiding there as well. In the fourth book she once again wishes for her dire wolf to be with her, but instead finds a blind dog on her bed and refers to him as a "Sad old hound", and it all happens right after she dreams of Sandor on her marriage bed, replacing Tyrion on their wedding night. After Stannis fails to take King's Landing, she dares to hope, despite knowing it's practically impossible, that the man who stopped him is her brother Robb and that he is there to rescue her. When she's at the Veil, she is saved from an attempted rape, and despite knowing he simply could not be there, her first thought is that her savior is Sandor. That last one shows that Sansa has come to see him in a much more positive light than one could expect considering Sandor's typical behavior.

"You Should Learn To Control Your Temper"

Sandor Clegane is a violent man. He drinks too much, his trauma makes him lash out, he has anger issues, he's almost completely cynical and bitter (almost), he is impatient, rude, and can often be a huge jerk. Even though his "transformation" into a Beast (physically) was not a punishment for his awful personality, said personality did come to exist, just like it happened with Tyrion. He is Joffrey's dog and kills an innocent boy because Cersei told him to. He threatened to kill Sansa twice, both on the first big scene together, and then again at their farewell during the battle of Blackwater - the later involving him actually having a knife at her throat. In the third book, when he is "mortally wounded", he says that he should have fucked her bloody and killed her instead of leaving her for Tyrion.

But here's the catch of that last scene: Sandor says all of that to Arya, not just hoping that it will make her kill him and put him out of his misery, but because he feels he deserves to die. He lists all of his sins with tears in his eyes. He admits his lust for a girl he knows is way too young for him, admits he was inappropriate and even violent towards her, and brings up how he always let Joffrey's other guards beat up Sansa, just standing there in his white cloak (a symbol of honor, used by those who were supposed to protect the innocent) - the same cloak that he tore and threw to the ground, stained with his enemies' blood, on the night he tried to offer her his protection, but ended up almost killing her due to a PTSD episode (combined with excessive drinking). He was also in tears at that moment. Sansa's kindness, and his failure to properly repay her for it, brought him to tears twice.

Sandor is, to put it mildly, a terrible person, and there is no one in the whole world who hates him for it more than Sandor himself.

There is, however, one person who, despite being well aware of his monstruous side, still cares for him. Sansa Stark herself. She wished he was around to protect her right before the Blackwater incident, and while it was happening she sang him a song about mercy, brought a hand to his face to comfort him while he cried (I'll never forgive Martin for not making it clear if she's touching his scars or not) and then not only chose to wrap his cloak around herself for a second time (we'll get to the first time later) but also kept it her chest with her summer dresses. She even wonders if she should have left with him, despite how unstable he was at that night and of how dangerous it would have been for both of them since she was far easier to recognize than him or Arya. The guy did a ton of bad things, but he clearly got some stuff right as well - but how exactly did he gain so much sympathy from Sansa?

There's Something Sweet, And Almost Kind

When I first read the books, I did not expect kindness to be a word that I'd ever associate with either Sansa or Sandor based on their initial behavior. Sansa was snobish and even a little cruel at times, and Sandor fucking murdered a child. I was fully prepared to hate both of these characters forever. Yet by the end of the first book I liked both of them (and their dynamic), and by the end of second one they were my favorite characters in the series - and my favorite pairing as well.

From the moment Sandor tells her about how his brother disfigured him and she tries to comfort him, I knew they were both more complex than I first thought, and that there was no way George R.R. Martin had that scene happen "for no reason" or just cheap exposition about Sandor. In Martin's own words, "there's something there."

That one, simple gesture, that one person treating him as something other than a monster meant a lot to Sandor, to the point that tried his best to show Sansa the same kindness she continued to show him. He tried to help her avoid Joffrey's wrath many times, the fact he touches Sansa in a surprisingly gentle way is brought up many times, and he actually found the courage to scream "enough" when she was getting beat up and having her clothes thorn in public, and the second he was able to, he gave her his cloak so she could cover herself up - meaning he did NOT just stand there and let it happen as he said he did; he simply didn't have the power and influence to get the king to stop doing as he pleased.

There was one person who did, though: Tyrion Lannister. Despite their less than ideal behavior, both men saved Sansa from Joffrey many times, and she is grateful - but Sandor is undoubtably the one she has more affection for, because while Tyrion helped her when things were already bad, Sandor was the one trying to help her prevent things from escalating to that point. His advices weren't always the best, but he bothered to put on the effort of offering said advice and, of all of her suitors, he was the only one Sansa had an actual emotional bond with. There's a reason why Martin had Sansa wrapped in Sandor's cloak (a marriage tradition) twice, but refusing to kneel so Tyrion can put his cloak on her during their wedding. She is rejecting the symbol of Tyrion's protection and romantic advances, while accepting Sandor's.

If anything, Tyrion and Sansa's marriage seems to be a subversion of Beauty And The Beast, because although she has no ill will towards him, Sansa clearly has no desire to ever see him again. She doesn't want him in her life, and she definitively doesn't want him to be her husband. Considering Tyrion forgot about her the second he found out the truth about Tysha - aka the woman who actually was moved enough by his kindness to fall in love with him despite their society having labeled him as a monster - it is very clear that compassion alone isn't enough to build a friendship, let alone a romance.

True As It Can Be

The South is a viper pit, especially King's Landing. Pretty much everyone is plotting something against someone, and using somebody else as a pawn in their game. That is true of almost all of Sansa's suitors.

Joffrey had no real interest in her besides torturing her, only ever treated her minimally well at the beginning of the story because he was obligated to (and even then his true personality would come up every now and again), lied to her about his plans to be merciful to Ned to give her false hope before having her watch his execution, and then only continued being engaged to her because his mother said he had to.

Tyrion wanted her for her beauty and because marrying her meant the North was his. He is usually pretty nice to her, but he is still a Lannister, and he put himself and his own family (that he doesn't even like) over her and the other Starks because even though he is kind enough not to be her enemy, he is still an ally of her captors. He doesn't let her in, meaning she never gets to know him on a deeper level - she knows nothing about how much he was looked down on by everyone, or about how badly his own family hurt him every single day of his life, and she doesn't know the "true" story of his first marriage. Yet Tyrion is unhappy that she won't open up to him, and also gropes her ont heir wedding night despite her and despite knowing that she was forced into this marriage, is upset by her basically saying there's no way she's ever going to want to have sex with him, because even though he feels genuinely sorry for her, his "right" as her husband and her "duties" as his wife matter more to him than her actual wants and needs - both of which include not being married to him.

Petyr is by far the worse of her suitors when it comes to being truthful. He helps Cersei manipulate her into writing the letters to her family telling them to bend the knee to Joffrey, gives Joffrey the idea to kill Ned, pays Dontos to pretend to be her ally and make her (indirectly) involved in the king's death, kidnaps her, lies to her saying Catelyn used to be his lover before marrying Ned, gets her involved in another murder (Lysa's), and then pretty much forces her to play a part on his weird daughter/lover fantasy that is a freudian nightmare that lasts 24/7.

None of them was ever truly, 100% honest with her. None but Sandor. He is attracted to her, yes, but he knows better than to try anything with a noble woman (especially one that is engaged to the king - to king Joffrey), and Sansa is likely not the first nor the last pretty lady to ever catch his eye, so that is not the reason he gets close to her. His "ambitions" begin and end with a roof over his head, getting enough money for some food, lots of wine, and maybe fucking a whore every now and again, so he definitively has no interest in the North.

He is drawn to her for her personality, her kindness, and because he recognizes the unfairness of her situation. He is completely honest, including about his highly inappropriate attraction to her, his violent tendencies, and that he thinks all of her beliefs are wrong. She even knows of his biggest secret/trauma, because he told her about it (or rather blurted it out at a completely inappropriate time, in a very deranged way). He put all his cards on the table from the very beginning, and he constantly reminds her to keep her eyes open so she won't be fooled by anyone. He might not be the most polite and pleasant person to talk to, but he is the only one Sansa knows isn't lying to her since he quite obviously has no ulterior motives.

Hell, Sandor even goes as far as lying for her to spare her from being punished by Joffrey at the beginning of the second book. He claims to be the king's dog, and says "A hound will die for you, but never lie to you", but the person he never lied to, and almost died for, was Sansa. And on top of that, their dynamic starts with him trying to open her eyes and make her see that world isn't like in the songs and in the sheltered reality of Winterfell. Sandor is the one person in her life that never hid anything from her.

That means that he is also the only one she is honest with. Tyrion, her husband and the kindest of her suitors (at least until he goes off the deep end after he finds out the truth about Tysha) is not someone she trusts in the slightest, and he falls for her lie that she is going to the god's wood to pray - a lie that Sandor sees right through immediately and that was the one time Sansa lied to him. Her entire "relationship" with Joffrey is based on the lie that she is loyal to him despite his cruelty, and Littlefinger full on says that she is not supposed to say anything that could ruin his completely one-sided, semi-incestuous fantasy.

Sandor, as usual, is set apart from everyone else in her mind and seen as preferable. I cannot blame her one bit. Yet despite this, I also can't blame her for not leaving with him when she had the chance.

Neither One Prepared

Sansa and Sandor's situation in A Clash Of Kings can be summerized as "Right person, wrong time." No scene is better proof of that than their interaction during/after the battle of the Blackwater - which ironically enough is a favorite of most fans of the pairing, myself included.

During what can only be described as a PTSD episode, Sandor turns his back on the Lannisters, on the king, and goes to Sansa. There is A LOT of marriage symbolism in that scene (Sandor swearing to protect her, Sansa wrapping his cloak around herself, the two of them are in bed together, Sandor almost kisses her, and there's blood stains on white clothing). He offers to take her back to Winterfell, swears no one would ever hurt her again because they're all afraid of him, and wants a (literal) song from her. He also very clearly wants to have sex with her, and, due to his fragile mental state, snapped and almost killed her when he felt rejected.

Now, let me get one thing out of the way: I don't believe Sandor wanted to rape her. He is a violent, unstable man, and like all the male characters in the story he is sexist, but he is no Gregor Clegane or even a Robert Baratheon. He doesn't think he is entitled to sex, and when he wants it, he pays for it. He made inappropriate comments towards Sansa a few times, but he chastised himself for it and of all Sansa's "suitors" he is the only one (excluding Loras for obvious reasons) who never touched her against her will (even Sweet Robin kisses her without consent). When he found about her being forced to marry Tyrion, he was glad that she managed to flee him, and when the men talking to him brought her beauty, he made sure to bring up her kindness. After Sansa has her flowering and everyone is basically acting like that means she's an adult, he is the one who says that while she is starting to look like a woman she is still a little bird. His attraction to her is creepy and Sandor is well aware of it - that's why he refuses to act on it.

And while in a previous interaction he said he'd have a "song" from her, with it being an euphemism for sex, he did that while scoffing at the notion of Sansa literally singing to him, by saying the song about Florian and Jonquil is about a fool and his cunt, and rejecting her offer. But on that moment, even though he is literally on her bed, Sandor explictly brings up that same song he rejected by name. He wants sex, but that's not all that he wanted, and when he held the knife to her throat and said "sing for your life", without touching her in a sexual way and not getting mad when she did start singing it proves he was being very literal and NOT threatening to rape her.

That being said, everything the Hound did on that scene is still completely unnacceptable. He was in her room, in her bed, without her knowledge or permission. He scared her because he was visibly out of his fucking mind. His idea of keeping her safe was risking her life by wanting to bring her along in a dangerous journey without any kind of plan. He wanted sex with a 12-year-old. He almost killed her. All of that is why, once he comes to his senses, Sandor cries, backs off, and leaves his stained white cloak behind as a symbol of his disgrace and shame - had Sansa not chosen to wrap herself in it and even keep it, this scene could have been read as her rejecting the possibility of a future romance between them, just like she did by not kneeling to Tyrion on their wedding day.

The Blackwater scene is brilliant and incredibly important because, while it shows the chemistry and potential for this pairing, it also highlights why they were not supposed to be together at that point:

1 - Even if the Hound can control himself 90% of the time, and Sansa is able to easily calm him down whenever he does go beserk, it is still unfair to place such a responsibility on her, and constantly being scared of her partner, even he never physically hurts her, would completely wreck her mental health.

2 - Sandor's misery will only get worse if he doesn't find some way of dealing with his trauma.

3 - While Sansa likes Sandor, and would later realize she's attracted to him, she's still a child. She might grow to love Sandor someday, but at that moment, the kind of romance she wanted and was ready for involved sweet words, love songs, a dashing young knight giving a beautiful young maiden a rose after he wins a tourney and maybe a kiss or two, not sex with a man twice her age who is drunk as dog, in the middle of a panic attack, wounded, and covered in puke and blood from the men he killed.

The message is very clear: if these two are to ever be together, in any way, Sandor can't be the Hound anymore. That side of him has to die. Luckly, Martin already took care of that for us.

"Kill The Beast"

Sandor went through a horrible trauma when he was disfigured by his own brother, and in many ways he made it worse by trying to "cope" with it by becoming (almost) completely cynical, fully accepting violence as normal and even enjoyable, and by drinking a lot. A LOT. Sandor's main survival tactic, and the thing that is slowly killing him, is his refusal deal with his emotions, or accept that he has them, out of fear of being hurt again.

In many ways, his interactions with Sansa have a lot in common with the typical romance in which an immature boy likes a girl and has no idea how to desmontrate it properly - when Sweet Robin kisses her, she explicitly compares said kiss to her false-memory of kissing Sandor, and when Arya sees him crying after being burned during his fight with Berric, she says he looks like a little boy. Even some of his cruel/rude comments can be seen as a deliberate attempt to shock people, piss them off, and keep them far away from him.

But the Hound isn't just a reflection of his immaturity. He is, above all, a manifestation of Sandor's rage and pain, pushes him to lash out against the whole world, and makes him a very dangerous... that's why George straight up made him go through the ASOIAF equivalent of therapy and rehab.

After having Sansa pray for him, hearing her sing about mercy, and confessing his sins to Arya, the hound "dies" slowly and agonizingly, being found by the Elder Brother - who somehow knew a whole lot about Sandor's life despite finding him almost dead, and said "The Hound is dead, Sandor Clegane is at rest" highliting a separation between the two. And then, on the Quiet Island, there is now the gravedigger, a huge man who just happens to have a lame leg, like Sandor, and has his horse, who is as temperamental as it's owner.

The Beast is no more. Now there is only the man. But will the Beauty accept him?

Tune As Old As Song

To the shock of no one with a minimally functioning brain, songs are very important in this book series, which is literally called A Song Of Ice And Fire and in which the author is constanly showing us songs that thematically fit with a character's story, and that even foreshadow things that will happen. Since Beauty and The Beast is Martin's favorite story, it makes sense that the characters representing that tale get not one, not two, but three different songs about their relationship and hinting at their future romance with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.

The first one is the Mother's hymn, a song about mercy in wartime, representing Beauty's kindness to the Beast as well as him freed of the curse. This song is the most obvious since it's sung by Sansa herself to Sandor on the Blackwater scene, the verses of "Soothe the wrath, tame the fury, teach us all a kinder way" fitting perfectly with her pray for him before the battle, telling the Mother to save him if she could and to gentle the rage inside of him.

The second is The Bear And The Maiden Fair, a song about sex/rape involving a beautiful, delicate young girl, and a "bear" (an older, beastial man). We see it come up while Sansa is talking to Ollena and Magery Tyrell... and fantasizing about Loras. While she doesn't imagine full on sex with him, she sees herself feeling him up underneath his cloack - which is a great sign since it shows she's starting to see sex as something she could want and enjoy instead of enduring. It is important to note that, while he is the object of lust in this fantasy, Loras doesn't fit the role of bear at all. If only Sansa had a potential love interest that is compared to an animal, be a bear, a wolf, or a dog all the time...

The third and last is one that, despite being mentioned constantly, we still don't have the lyrics to: the song of Florian and Jonquil. "A fool and his cunt" as the hound so kindly put it for us.

The fool who became a knight out of love for a woman. Sansa offers to sing this song to Sandor, and he later demands it. Dontos (who is an agent of Littlefinger) explicitly compares his situation with Sansa to this song... right before she runs into Sandor and he warns her about all the liars that surround her (once again, Sandor is naturally taking on a role that Petyr wants to forcefully insert himself into).

Considering how often the song is mentioned, we're definitively going to get it, and it will probably be when Sansa and Sandor are ready to actually be romantically involved with each other. There is a bit of an awkward situation since, despite noticeably maturing, Sansa is still very young, and will stay too young for Sandor since Martin will no longer add in a five year time jump, meaning she won't be an adult once they're reuinited - but at the very least we're already seeing Sansa's interest in Sandor developing, as well as her understanding of the world, and especially love and sex, maturing so they'll be on a more equal footing.

There May Be Something There That Wasn't There Before

"The Unkiss" is one of those things us Sansan shippers talk about over and over again, and for good reason. It is, in George's own words, Sansa correcting the events of her last interaction with Sandor, adding to their bittersweet goodbye a kiss that never happened.

Sansa "remembers" that moment a few times, but there is one specific scene that makes it very clear why Martin added it there: when Sansa is asked if she knows what happens between a man and a woman on the wedding night. Now, remember Sansa IS married. To Tyrion. Yet is Sandor she is thinking of when they are getting married, when they kissed, and she even dreams of him turning into Sandor - and during that dream she also finally understands what Sandor meant when he said he'd have a song from her, whether she sang it willingly or not.

Sansa has, unfortunately, experienced A LOT of unwanted advances from many men, and yet whenever she thinks of sex she pictures either Loras or Sandor (and like I said before, only one of these two is really an option). It's her transition from childhood to her teenage years and eventually to adulthood. The Knight Of Flowers is a nice dream, a young girls fantasy that she has not yet moved on from. Sandor is rough and often unpleasant, but he is real. He is the man she will love in the future.

We even have Cersei say that Sansa would be "Singing to the stranger, begging for his kiss" (REAL subtle there, Martin) and while she obviously meant it as Sansa begging for death, come on! Who is the guy constantly associated with death, who has a horse named after the God of death, said "knights are for killing", and that Sansa has already promissed a song to? I believe the subtext is rapidly becoming text here.

So Sansa is becoming/realizing she is romantically and sexually attracted to Sandor, he is obviously interested in her, and the Hound is dead. Everything is working as it should... but they're in completely different places. How do we know that they will ever be reunited and that this won't be just a bittersweet "What could have been"?

Ever Just The Same, Ever A Surprise

In one of Sansa's chapters in A Storm Of Swords, she is having a meal with Littlefinger, her uncle by marriage, and he offers her a pomegranate. This happens after he has stolen her for himself, and, in the words of Ned Stark, winter is coming. Anyone who knows even a little bit about Greek myths can the similarities between that situation, and the story of Hades and Persephone. The god of death taking his niece to his realm (volutarely or against her will depending of which version of the myth we're dealing with), and once she eats part of a pomegrante, she has to spend at least three months with him each year - the winter months.

Considering the seasons last YEARS in the world of Westeros, this could easily be a symbol of how Sansa will be trapped with Peter for a long time... if it wasn't for the fact that she refused to eat the fruit. Martin was also kind enough to describe Littlefinger openly shown with his hands dirty with what looks like blood on that same scene, indicating not only that Sansa will escape him, but also that his downfall is right around the corner.

There's one more story that also shows that there's just no way Peter will be able to keep Sansa around for much longer - his own life story.

Littlefinger was completely obsessed with Catelyn and did all he could to make her his wife, but lost her both to Brandon and Eddard Stark, two northerners, all the same. He has now shifted his focus to her daughter, who is very simmilar to her, and who as I've already shown you, is clearly much more interested in Sandor Clegane - a man with dark hair and grey eyes, and who tried to be Sansa's night in shining armor not too long ago.

So there we have it. All the pieces are falling into the place and the future events are set up. We just need to see them playing out now (oh Martin, forget the Targaryens for just a few months and at least give us the sixth book already, will ya?)

#sansan meta #book sansa #book sandor #sansan #sansa stark #sandor clegane #beauty and the beast #sansa meta #sandor meta #the hound and the little bird #sandor x sansa #i'll stop shipping it when martin stops shipping it

[stheresya]

sansa exists as a representation of traditional femininity in the sense that she has the personality traits that are considered "feminine" and enjoys all activities that are deemed "for women" in westeros, but also in the sense that femininity is a performance. she is a character that has to constantly overthink her appearance, her behavior and her words to see if they conform to people's expectations of a proper lady and a well behaved hostage, she has to endure horrors while forcing herself to smile and please because expressing her honest self would get her in serious trouble. sansa is traditionally feminine because she is first and foremost a performer whose life depends on looking pretty and pleasant to people who have power over her.

#does this make sense? i hope so.. #sansa stark #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #meta #gender stuff

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

If there is one line I like to over-analyze in the ASoIAF books it is a rather famous thought that goes inside Cat's head before her death. As the steel is close to her throat Cat thinks "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." And this line and her entire inner monologue is absolutely heart-breaking but one thing I fixate on is the actual sentence itself.

"Ned loves my hair."

Anyone who has read the books knows that Cat holds contempt for the fact that except for Arya, she has failed to give Ned children who look like him. It is also one of the reasons she dislikes Jon so much, because the mother of Jon (who she assumes to be Ned's bastard son) has managed to give Ned a child that looks just like him while she, his lawfully wedded wife gave birth to five of his children only for four of them to come out looking exactly like her. Red hair, blue eyes. Unlike Jon (and Arya) who share Ned's dark hair and dark eyes.

And knowing that it is so interesting to me that Cat's last thought about Ned (and her last thought ever) was that Ned loves her hair.

Because Ned loved her, he loved her hair, he loved her the way she was. And every time he looked at Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon he saw the reflection of the woman he loved, while Cat was so upset that they weren't all reflections of the man she loved.

Every time Ned ran his fingers through their hair, he ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved. He never resented Cat for the fact that four of his children didn't look like him, he loved that they looked like their mother, again, the woman he loved so much. He loved that they had the same hair he loved on Cat, and judging by it being her last thought Cat also knew that Ned loved her hair (and the way she looked), whether she ever came to the realization that Ned was perfectly happy with the way their children looked at all, or if she realized after he was dead and it was too late, it is unclear. But all those years she beat herself up over nothing.

Ned loved her the way she was, Ned loved his children the way they were, when they looked like him and when they didn't. Because when they didn't look like him, they looked like the love of his life, his darling wife.

And if the books decide to go with R+L=J it also adds another layer to Cat and Ned's relationship. Because Jon's mother was always a woman she didn't know but was still competing with in her mind for Ned's love for all these years. Turns out she didn't even exist. Turns out she didn't need to feel inferior to the woman Ned loved enough to not even talk about with her, no need to feel bad about the fact that she was able to give Ned a child that looked like him while Cat "failed".

At the end of the day, all the voices in her head making her feel insecure in her marriage never needed to be there, because everything she thought of as a problem with her were not problems at all for Ned. He was perfectly happy with her and their children.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf meta #got #game of thrones #eddard stark #ned stark #catelyn stark #cat stark #catelyn tully #jon snow #robb stark #sansa stark #arya stark #bran stark #rickon stark #nedcat

[fantasynovel]

i think one of my main quibbles with a lot of sansa takes i see is the one that goes "she thinks that she's a character in a story, but this is real life, and she's fucked" when what's so interesting to me is the fact that she is doomed to be a character in a story!! just not the story she thought she would be in. she thought she was in an epic poem, and instead she's in a gritty high fantasy series that doesn't reward goodness in the same manner as a a bard's song. poor sansa is trapped!! she's trapped, and she's trapped in other people's stories. she spends so much of her time as a pawn of the tale. cersei's pawn, petyr's pawn. petyr literally renames her, turns her into a character within a character, fucks with her identity so hard that the physical structure of the story we're reading changes (her chapter headings). i realize i'm conflating sansa being grrm's character and sansa being other characters' character, but to me they intertwine. it's fiction all the way down

#sansa stark #valyrianscrolls #i just posted the same thing but in different words #but i'm rewording it now bc like #whatever #unlimited posting #until u hit 250 but i'm not gonna do that #asoiaf meta

[winterprince601]

arya, sansa and dany get ALLLL the experiences of feudal girlhood. being torn from your family and forced to erase your connection to them at a young age. having a very dangerous pet!!! attending a wedding where at least one person dies. praying but in like, a non-denominational way. killing a man in your head. hoping your mother would be proud of you :( getting a new hairstyle and changing your identity!! killing a man.

#ok so technically sansa has not yet done the last one #but she HAS been a literal accessory to murder #and she IS doing some cute poisoning rn #so forgiven #sansa stark #arya stark #danaerys targaryen #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #asoiaf shitpost #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf girlies

[ladystoneboobs]

the younger starklings about robb (robb the strong and brave big brother, the perfect heir, the fierce and unbeatable young wolf):

arya

bran

sansa

meanwhile, actual robb (robb the lord and then robb the kitn):

before arya ever promised to be strong by using robb as her benchmark, the definition of stark strength, ned had to remind robb to be strong as the ruling stark in winterfell. (strong for bran and rickon, the brothers he thought he failed by sending their would-be killer away, leading to his great moment of weakness in jeyne westerling's bed.) as his siblings' faith in his ultimate triumph held strong, even after the loss of the north, robb himself was struggling with despair.

as grenn once told sam, maybe everyone is just pretending to be brave, maybe that's how people become brave. robb was faking it to make it too, imitating his father's lordly attitude as bran later tried to imitate robb's. as his younger siblings remembered him as their shining example, robb was trying to live up to his father's example. not the ned who'd been in his circumstances, a teenager unexpectedly turned into a lord and fighting a war to save his family. no, ofc, he never knew that young ned. the ned he knew as his father, the standard to measure himself against, was an adult man in his mid-30s who'd ruled the north for ~15 years. but was that standard for a 15/16yo any more fair and valid an expectation than 8/9yo bran believing he was almost a man grown and holding himself to the standard of 15/16yo robb as robb's heir?

and the only person left close enough to see robb as the boy he still was died with him.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #robb stark #arya stark #bran stark #sansa stark #there's no mention of arya robb pointed out #Bran could feel his brother's smile #Robb will kill you all she thought exulting #catelyn stark #No man calls my lady of Winterfell a traitor in my hearing #wolf pack #(c)lsb #happy wolf pack wednesday!

[helaensa]

jon snow is the hero in sansa’s story.

jon’s probable secret name and its meaning:

Amon, or Aamon, is a great and mighty marques, and commeth abroad in the likeness of a Wolf, having a serpents tail, [vomiting] flames of fire; the name shares its meaning as ‘the hidden one.’

The etymology of character’s names by @thelaughinstorm on twt.

the dragonknight, a prince who took vows;

She called for the heroes from the songs, for Florian and Ser Ryam Redwyne and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, but no one heard.

A Clash of Kings, Sansa IV.

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I’m Florian the Fool.”

A Storm of Swords, Jon XII.

a hidden hero who answers the call;

Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head.

A Game of Thrones, Sansa VI.

Until Jon said, “Edd, fetch me a block,” and unsheathed Longclaw.

A Dance with Dragons, Jon II.

a father’s promise.

“Sweet one,” her father said gently, “listen to me. When you’re old enough, I will make you a match with a high lord who’s worthy of you, someone brave and gentle and strong. This match with Joffrey was a terrible mistake. That boy is no Prince Aemon, you must believe me.”

A Game of Thrones, Sansa III.

however, jon’ll not stand by and allow his sister to be married against her will to a man unworthy of her.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #jonsa #jonsa speculation #valyrianscrolls #jon snow #sansa stark

[thaliajoy-blog]

Honestly becoming a bit obsessed with the secondary animal association of some ASOIAF girls this Brienne symbolism has made me spiral...

Like level one you've got Sansa who's associated to several bird species - she's a little bird (evoking a sparrow or a dove), she's compared to an exotic talking bird (so a parrot or a parakeet), her false father Littlefinger has a mockingbird as a symbol, & she takes refuge in the Vale, home of the Arryn falcon. Bran wishes he was associated to so many birds...

Then you've got Brienne, who is associated to the bear and to the lion indirectly with Jaime. From there there's the whole maiden & the wild beasts dynamic to consider, this magical connection virgin women have to nature & wild animals (like the unicorn for one), how they "tame" them with their innocence and purity. Brienne "tames" Jaime physically, same with the bear, but she also most importantly does with her purity of heart & dedication to knightly values (and once "tamed" he fights to protect her). You could say Brienne has to deal with a lot of human beasts - like Vargo Hoat, "the Goat", or Rorge & Biter, who are each acting or described as animalistic men, & she fights or kill most of them.

And then you've got Arya - I found it interesting that outside of her wolf self she's associated with either much smaller & tamer animals. She's a grey mouse in Harrenhal, or a weasel & a squirrel... she's also a horse as Arya Horseface (plus association to her aunt Lyanna, the "centaur"), and a cat as Cat of the Cannals.

#sansa stark #brienne of tarth #arya stark #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta

[sayruq]

Is the person who made that post about comparing the stark girls to their parents a hater? You and the other fans seem to be mad at them. Personally, I didn’t read anything malicious in the original post. But I can understand your reaction if it’s based on previous things they said.

I don't know them, I've never seen them before but you have to understand Arya stans have a long habit of working themselves into a fury over anything that we say about Sansa (or any other character but mostly Sansa). They live to micromanage our fandom and people's perception of Sansa.

If we spend a week discussing Sansa and tourneys, for example, by the following week they'll be in Sansa's tag going on about how tourneys are awful, how Sansa is so dumb for enjoying a national past time, and how she's wasting resources by organising one, nevermind that the whole point is to bring the Vale together and by doing this, many players in the Vale now know what she looks like, idk I think that could be important later on (like, say, if she ever needs an army).

How is comparing Sansa to her father a problem? How are we flattening both characters? I'd say the opposite is true. It brought a bigger spotlight on how Ned copes with trauma and Robert's behaviour because that's how Sansa deals with trauma and Joffrey. It showed how carefully GRRM has weaved that coping mechanism into both characters and how Sansa is slowly but surely working to overcome it so she can escape Ned's fate. And that's just one thing they both share, there are others.

The only reason OP and people who agree with them even care is because Sansa is the one being compared to Ned, not Arya, with the obvious implication that eventually Sansa will take on Ned's role as the ruler of the North.

#Anonymous #Sansa Stark #anti arya stans #song of ice and fire #sansa meta

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

Are Jon and Sansa both "idealists" on AGOT that have their dreams being crushed?

(this is the second part of a meta inspired by a conversation I had with @docpiplup. You can read part one here)

I can see why would someone make the case for Sansa's agot arc to be expectations vs reality. Because it's only at the end of book one that she realises that her prince (and King's Landing in general) is far from the beautiful ideal picture she had painted in her head

It's not the same for Jon, though. He realises that the Night's Watch isn't an order of honorable people even before he arrives at the Wall (during his journey towards it). So the argument that those two go through a parallel arc in book one falls flat bc Jon has already realised that there is something rotten in the kingdom of Denmark the Night's Watch on the first third of the book.

Moving on, another thing these siblings don't have in common is how each of them reacts when they witness their "dream" being crushed.

In Jon's case, as I've already mentioned, he finds out while he's on his way to the Night's Watch. When Tyrion Lannister first points out the true nature of the Night's Watch, Jon angrily tries to debunk him but this has more to do with him being irritated by Tyrion's teasing attitude and less with actually believing it. Tyrion even says so:

"Well, no doubt the Starks have been terribly good to you. Lady Stark treats you as if you were one of her own. And your brother Robb, he's always been kind, and why not? He gets Winterfell and you get the Wall. And your father...he must have good reasons for packing you off to the Night's Watch"

"Stop it," Jon Snow said, his face dark with anger."The Night's Watch is a noble call!"

Tyrion laughed " You are too smart to believe that.[...]"

After he makes peace with Tyrion, Jon simply accepts the awful truth. No more sugarcoating.

"It's true, isn't it?" he said when he was done. "What you said about the Night's Watch."

Tyrion nodded.

Jon Snow set his mouth a grim line. " If that's what it is, that's what it is".

Which prompts to Tyrion to say this statement about Jon:

"That's good, bastard. Most men would rather deny a hard truth, than face it"

The same statement could never be said about Sansa. Because denying hard truth is her copying mechanism when she's dealing with unpleasant events.

First time Sansa witness Joffrey's cruelty is during the Trident incident. Despite the fact that she was present when Joffrey hurt Mycah and also attempted to harm her sister (and we witness the scene through her own pov chapter), she later fabricates a different version of the story and even believes it.

Here is what she says about the incident during one of the fights between her and Arya:

"It's not the same" Sansa said. " The Hound is Joffrey's sworn shield. Your butcher's boy attacked the prince".

On the passage below we witness how she convinces herself that Joffrey is not to be blamed so her idealistic dream can remain intact.

At first she thought she hated him for what they'd done to Lady, but after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself it had not been Joffrey's doing, not really. The queen had done it; she was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened except for Arya.

See? Totally different reaction to her "dream being crushed in front of her eyes" than Jon's.

I understand that people love to draw parallels between characters (I'm guilty of that, too)and I see nothing wrong with that. However, not all characters or all situations can be paralleled. Jon and Sansa have very different personalities and experiences decpite being siblings and growing on the same castle so it makes sense that their perspectives and the way they deal with things are different,too.

Making a plethora of characters who react different on various situations is one of the author's strong points. That's why I love reading all these POVs. Because each of them offers a different perspective.

#jon snow #sansa stark #house stark #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a post of ice and fire #jon snow meta #sansa meta

[hello-nichya-here]

Stark Girls & Their Wolves - Why/How Sansa Will Survive

When I was first reading the books, I was convinced that, at any moment, Sansa was going to die. I kept bracing myself for it, waiting to lose yet another character I liked.

The reason I was so convinced of it up until she escapes King’s Landing, was pretty simple: her wolf gets killed because of the Lannisters. 

The Stark children all have a deep, straight up magical relationship with their wolves, and said wolves tell us a lot about their fates (Jon will die and then live on a “ghost”, Arya will travel from place to place until she finds her home just like queen Nymeria, Robb will truly become one with his wolf in the most brutal way after many talks about how they’re one in the same and he can turn into the wolf, etc)

Cersei demands Lady to killed. Ned is forced to do the job himself, and notes on how Sansa chose the perfect name for her wolf, because the poor thing is extremely docile around Ned - who is about to end her. He even sends Lady’s skin to be buried at Winterfell. It looks like some pretty strong foreshadowing for Sansa being doomed to eventually die once Ned cannot protect her anymore, especially when we consider Martin used the imagery of a stab and a wolf killing each other to represent that the Baratheons and Starks would clash and the leaders of both houses would die.

But now Sansa is nowhere near the Lannister’s anymore, and Littlefinger, despite being a creep, won’t let anyone hurt her because he sees her both as his own daughter AND as a replacement for Catelyn.

Then what the hell was the wolf thing about?

Like I said, the Stark kids have deep, MAGICAL connections to their wolves. Every single one of them has shown they have some level of magical power, some level skinchanging - except for Sansa, because the wolves were their way of developing said powers, and Lady was killed before Sansa could manifest her own.

And as I thought about why Martin would have that happen, I came to a simple conclusion: Sansa won’t literally take over the body of an animal to escape danger (like Bran); she’ll do it in a metaphorical way.

Sansa is rarely referred to as a wolf. Sandor Clegane constantly refers to her as a “little bird” that repeats all the pretty words she was taught. That is proven true when Sansa doesn’t tell the truth about Joffrey attacking the butcher’s boy and then again when she writes the letters to her family, asking them to bend the knee - she is going along with everything the Lannisters say, both out of fear and because she genuinely wants their approval. She is their little bird.

But of course, it doesn’t last. They kill her father, and that permanently turns her against them, and makes her more aware of the danger around her. She has tougher skin now - Martin straight up says that in that famous quote “My skin has turned from porcelain to ivory, to steel.” Because of Ned, Lady isn’t docile anymore. She knows what will happen to her if she lets her guard down around the wrong person.

But Sansa can’t literally fight the Lannister either. So she has to make herself look non-threatening so she’ll stay alive long enough to escape them. She can’t be a wolf anymore. She can’t be Stark. 

So she says everything people want to hear, she puts up with all their cruelty to avoid even harsher punishments, she tries to marry a Tyrell (which would have given her a way out) and when that fails and she is forced to marry Tyrion, she goes along with it to survive and does (nearly) everything she is expected to do as his wife.

But she doesn’t kneel for Tyrion on their wedding, so he can put his Lannister cloak on her. She makes herself strong by remembering Winterfell. She imagines her future family, and pictures sons that look like her brothers and a daghter that looks like Arya.

She might be wearing different skins, but within she’s still a Stark.

And how does she escape King’s Landing? She plays the role of Jonquil for Ser Dontos/Littlefinger. A pretty maiden in distress, having no one to turn to but the fool that wants to be a knight. At Joffrey’s wedding, she’s next to her husband, a Lannister, and wearing a hair-net that supposedly represents Dontos’s family - and that carries the poison that would kill the king. Sansa, unknowingly, helped Littlefinger murder Joffrey, her abuser, by presenting herself as something other than what she is. When she flees with Petyr, some people refer to it as her “turning into a bat and flying away." Sandor also echoes this sentiment, saying that the little bird flew away (and shat on her husband because Sandor is very fond of such delightful imagery) 

And where does she end up? At an infamously difficult place to reach, the Eyrie. Once again, we have the bird symbolism, and Martin even went as far as having Sansa not die when Lysa tried to push her off the moon door - which Sweet Robin calls “making them fly.” 

Her signature red hair was also dyed brown, and she is no longer even called Sansa Stark, but Alayne Stone, who is in the good graces of Petyr, her “father”/uncle, and Robin Arryn, the heir of the Eyrie. She might also marry Harry “the heir.”

The message is clear. There’s no invading that place or kicking her out of there. Sansa, or rather, “Alayne”, is safe (or at least, safer). 

But again, she still thinks of Winterfell, and Littlefinger explicitly stated his intention of winning it back for her. And she won’t be his pawn for long, because she knows that even though Petyr is pleasant and kind, Littlefinger is no real friend of hers. We also know that Sandor Clegane, who she still thinks of and thought was the man who saved her from being raped by Marillion, and who once tried to be her knight in shinning armor (and failed terribly) got his shit together. And Brienne is still out there trying to find both her and Arya. And Stannis Baratheon, who has at least some respect for Jon Snow, is about to fight the Boltons.

Sansa is also definitively NOT the only Stark that will inevitably make it to Winterfell again - Jon, Arya and Bran are definitively going home eventually, and unlike in the show Rickon might make it too. And once she’s finally there, with her pack, Lady’s skin, her wolf skin, is already there, waiting for her to be able to wear it again.

Sansa is going to make it to Winterfell, and once she’s there, no one will hurt her again.

#sansa meta #sansa stark #book sansa

[stheresya]

"I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight […]" (Sansa III, AGOT) “Wed?” Sansa was stunned. “You and my aunt?” “The Lord of Harrenhal and the Lady of the Eyrie.” You said it was my mother you loved. But of course Lady Catelyn was dead, so even if she had loved Petyr secretly and given him her maidenhood, it made no matter now. (Sansa VI, ASOS)

I find that these little passages reveal something interesting about sansa's personality. specially when you juxtapose how she's characterized in the text and her worldviews here, and how at first glance they may seem contradictory. but first, let's take two things into account:

the patriarchal society of westeros is very strict on women's sexuality. which means that not only is female virginity held in great value, but also female adultery is very firmly condemned by everyone, unlike men who are allowed to maintain public mistresses and flaunt their bastards everywhere.

sansa is characterized as the conformist, the one who internalizes her society's rules. she's very religious, she's a proper lady in every sense of the word and she often says and does exactly what she's told.

and yet, in these passages we can see that sansa does not care much about societal rules when it comes to intimate feelings. she often hails aemon and naerys' (supposed) forbidden love without a single care that queen naerys was bound by duty to a husband and aemon was meant to be loyal to his king. but most astonishing of all is her nonchalant response to petyr's (false) information that her mother was not a virgin when she married. on one hand it may speak on sansa's views towards women's sexuality, since her current friends (mya and randa) are girls who engage in sex out of wedlock, and she never judges them, just like she doesn't judge her mother for apparently doing the same, and catelyn continues to be the person she admires the most. sansa also doesn't view her parents' relationship any differently because of this, the marriage between ned and cat is still as happy as she remembers, because all that matters to her is that there was love in the home she grew up in. the thing about sansa's character is that she plays by the rules up until a certain point, but on the inside she always prioritizes emotion over societal norms, and that's why she looks more upset at petyr for marrying someone while claiming to love another, because in her mind he's being unfaithful to his heart by marrying out of practicality. we have examples that showcase sansa's prioritizing feelings in AGOT when she, the good daughter, disobeys her father for the first time because she thought she was in love with joffrey, and in ASOS where she never thinks she owes tyrion anything just because he's her husband. so it comes as no surprise that she's so infatuated with the love story of an adulterous and incestuous relationship like aemon and naerys'. one of the main themes in this series is that feelings don't care about honor. and if love is the death of duty then sansa seems more than happy to see duty killed for the sake of love.

of course this doesn't mean she'll stay that way, specially when she's already lost her so much of her innocence and is now tangled in petyr's schemes where she must set her own feelings aside in order to act on his plans. and despite her silent judgement of petyr marrying someone he didn't love, her current betrothal with harry is an entirely practical union on her part since she feels nothing for him and only sees him as a means to an end. there have been many instances since book 1 where she was able to turn off her feelings in order to withstand certain situations. so... what even is sansa's mind? an interesting universe on its own for sure.

I just think sansa's romanticism is one of her most interesting traits (for better and for worse), something that truly contributes to the distinctiveness of her character, and I really hope petyr or anyone else are unable to completely kill that in her.

#sansa stark #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #meta

[alaynestcnes]

people can look down on shippers all they like but i’m having a blast in this bitch. rereading acok is just so much more fun when you’re just stumbling upon jonsa crumbs left and right like i just read “Sansa turned towards the sept. Two stableboys followed, and one of the guards whose watch was ended. Others fell in behind them.” and i’m literally giggling kicking my feet twirling my hair like I just read a makeout scene

#jonsa #to me this reads as foreshadowing sansa as a leader and who will be by her side #two stableboys could kinda be anyone. bran and rickon? sandor and another protector (brienne?) or brienne and pod? #and then jon ofc #and ‘others fell in behind’ is them amassing power / an army together #………or it all means nothing at all 🥴 #meta

[sare11aa11eras]

So like. The Riverlands, or at least Harrenhal, have like a gravitational pull. Which is why Catelyn, Jaime, Brienne, and Arya can’t ever escape there. Even in death, Catelyn can’t leave. Her memory and her body are bound together and to her homeland once more. And Jaime and Brienne spend all their time in ASOS in the Riverlands, and you think they’ll escape back to civilization and King’s Landing, and they do, but a) they are changed irrevocably from the people who started out so like did they really leave? and b) King’s Landing turns out to be a brief respite only. They must return once more, and they may even die there. And then Arya spends like two whole books there, wandering and traveling and never getting to where she needs to go. And even when she leaves, even with the whole Narrow Sea between her and those forests and streams, her consciousness and her soul still reside there, and she returns there every night, renewing her connection. Okay? They are stuck. They’re trapped. It’s just endless forest and rivers and the occasional band of outlaws or travelers or abandoned castles. Which, none of them can leave, either. Gendry and the Brotherhood are still there, even when their original purpose is lost and their leader dies. Jeyne, the orphans at the inn, Ravella Smallwood, the Freys, the Brackens and Blackwoods, the Bloody Mummers, the bear from the Harrenhal Bear Pit— they are all trapped. Okay?

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #the riverlands #asoiaf meta #arya stark #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #catelyn stark #okay?? it’s a gravitational well. and it seems to have harrenhal at the center but like. also the whole thing. #like a stark should never go south but like DEFINITELY don’t get stuck in the Riverlands. #sansa is fine bc she’s locked up in this portable isolated cage but arya puts down roots and now she’s fucked. #like. it’s naomi Novik uprooted. it’s yellowjackets wilderness. okay? #NOT SAYING THEY ARE ALL DYING THERE. just. they are all currently stuck there.