#Lysa/Sansa parallels

[ariamariastark1]

Parallels and Foils: how Cersei, Lysa and Catelyn are a warning.

It isn’t news that Cersei and Daenerys, Arya and Catelyn and Lysa and Sansa are deeply connected narratively and that you can learn a lot about them through each other. When you look into it, Cat, Cersei and Lysa are more than just parallels and foils, they also are warnings and a preview of what each girl will or was supposed to become! They warn us about the worst possible outcome for the girls and what they must recognise and avoid.

They are in three different parts of the journey through the books:

Arya, I think, has already won her battle against becoming Catelyn and is now fighting other battles; despite her personality, she had a chance of becoming just as sour and prejudiced as Cat in the beginning and even after Ned died, however, Arya’s ability to be friends with everyone from everywhere as well as her empathy to others, even those who hurt people, made it so that any chance of that happening was destroyed. Jon's love and validation also gave Arya a base of support that Catelyn probably didn't have. ---- Arya Stark has avoided her fate and now is moving on to other things.

Daenerys and Cersei are foils of each other, Cersei being essentially what people believe Daenerys is going to become (the show's Ending doesn't help). Many people, both readers and In-Universe characters, believe Daenerys to be a Mad Queen or that will she burn KingsLanding, however, Cersei is the one that will be known as the Mad Queen (she is literally going crazy) and she will burn KingsLanding. And while we can say with certain confidence that Daenerys will never be like Cersei, in the books she still needs to work and prove herself a bit more. ---- Daenerys is still avoiding this ending.

Sansa, unfortunately, we can't say with certainty that she won't be like Lysa Tully. Maybe in the beginning Sansa wasn't going to become like her aunt but as the story progressed and Sansa continued with the same beliefs and with a general lack of character growth, it is becoming harder to see an ending for Sansa that won't make her Lysa 2.0; Unless Sansa either drastically changes her views on every one that isn't her, stops being willfully ignorant, starts taking care of herself and makes allies or has a deeply life-changing journey in the next two books, I don't see how can Sansa avoid becoming a deeply sad, lonely woman (Sansa is isolated from her family) who was essentially tricked and manipulated her whole life (tricked by society into believing that acting certain way would guaranty her a good life/ manipulated by almost everyone) and that is trapped in a deeply unhappy marriage (Lysa married to an older sexist dude/Sansa possibly married to Henry, who has bastards and probably won't stop having affairs). Thankfully there is a chance that a life-changing journey might happen in the next two books since Little Finger might get caught trying to poison SweetRobin and the fact that Sansa is not his bastard daughter but a lady accused of conspiring to assassinate the king. That might force Sansa to live with the Small Folk and finally force Sansa to grow. -------- Sansa is losing

[agentrouka-blog]

That angry anon who is talking about Tyrion Sansa as if they are going to become the second coming of Ned Cat should realise that Tyrion Sansa marriage is more likely to have headed towards a Jon Lysa path than a Ned Cat path.

Oh that is a BEAUTIFUL comparison!

Tully-looking girls wishing their much older, previously married, blond, unwanted husbands dead. <3 Watch your wine goblet, Tyrion, lest someone leave some tears in there.

[atomicniire]

They are just! Wow! Arya is mad at Sansa for defending Joffrey. Sansa is mad at Arya because she got Lady killed. Goddd why are you fighting when Joffrey and Ned are right there and literally did these things.

[motorway-south]

using my entire ten minute break to write this but i do feel like the question of “what would jaime and cersei be like if they were each born the opposite gender?” is interesting bc cersei would literally be tywin. like she and tywin are already ruthless and cutthroat, they act emotionally, and they’re quick to justify their own wrongdoing. everything that makes cersei unique is in her interactions with the systemic barriers of her gender

but jaime is a different story, bc i feel like the character jaime would be most like is sansa, but also catelyn. sansa for the “going away inside” and romanticization of songs, but catelyn for a little more of the emotional side. jaime is brash and emotional, he makes snap judgements and decisions, and his cruelty, even in his inner monologue, is very often matched by cat. not to mention their struggles with their respective roles of mother and knight. i even feel u can draw parallels between cats reaction to agot lysa in the vale and jaime’s reaction to cersei in affc. anyway girl!jaime if boy!cersei brought home a targaryen bastard

[princesssszzzz]

a lot of people were upset at character parallels being pointed out especially between Rhaena and Sansa since fandom has made Sansa à controversial character. They were mad and saying Sansa bullied Arya so Baela and Rhaena can’t be like them

I don’t know why people would get mad at that, that’s just how the characters were written. And that’s how they were portrayed on screen, even if fans choose to ignore that. It’s not verbatim they are copy and paste the same character with the exact same interactions with people. Sansa and Rhaena are still two different characters, they just happen to be written with parallels like Baela and Arya, and a multitude of other F&B characters. A good example of this is the Vale arc. Rhaena was not mistreated in the Vale and show!Rhaena I think will also have a great relationship with Jeyne Arryn, and that’s different than Lysa’s crazy behavior towards Sansa. So it’s two different relationships and experiences, but the parallel of them being in the Vale and separated from their family is still there. Also with the Hound and Corwyn Corbray. The Hound is TOTALLY different but it’s still a middle aged knight twice the age of the girls and they have some form of bonding.

Corwyn actually didn’t even need to exist, I think he was really just created for that parallel 😂 My favorite parallel is with Rhaena’s dragon and Lady. The fact that they died at a young age and then Rhaena and Sansa go on without their house sigil’s animal while the rest of their siblings still have them. Ned is also one of the better fathers in asoiaf universe but obviously we know Daemon is not. Rhaena also loses her mother alot sooner than Sansa loses hers, and Laena doesn’t come back like Lady Stoneheart but her dragon is still flying around 😭 Show sansa kinda touches on Jon being a bastard but Rhaena is in a situation where she can’t question the hair color or parentage of Jace or “tongues removed”

So there’s also lots of differences

[raventreehall]

no one wants to talk about the theon and littlefinger parallels fine I'LL TALK ABOUT THEM. they're both social inferiors in a foster family that they desperately wanted to join but are prevented from doing so which leads to all sorts of complexes!!!

littlefinger didn't really do anything wrong in seeking out catelyn's hand and dueling brandon, he only misread his importance to the tullys and tried to functionally be part of the family that he had been raised in. but that was not allowed to him because of his low birth, just as theon was always relegated to an outsider role within the stark household because he was a hostage. (also note theon's boyhood dream of marrying sansa and ned accepting him as his son; littlefinger's obsession with catelyn seems to actually have catelyn at its core rather than just being a projection of a desire to be accepted within house tully, but who knows, his obsession with cat could actually be the product of an obsession with house tully and his general ambitions to increase his social status). they both had such intense 'i hate you'/'i want to be you' emotions knocking around in their heads as a result of this that they ended up killing—or trying to convince people that they killed—their foster siblings! (i know there's a lot more complexity with the littlefinger and lysa situation, but i think this parallel is really interesting)

littlefinger also had to work for years in gulltown/king's landing to rise through the ranks, to in a way 'regain his standing' to what it was when he was a ward of hoster tully's. throughout his childhood he was constantly around lysa, catelyn, and edmure—all of whom were destined to become lords and ladies of great houses—and was raised like their brother, but after he is banished he struggles to hold even half the status that his foster siblings enjoy naturally. theon goes through a little bit of a similar rude awakening when he arrives back at pyke expecting his father to hail him as his heir returned only to find out balon could not care less about him and likes asha way more, and he takes winterfell to try to prove to balon and the rest of the ironborn that he should be respected. interestingly, we have seen both theon and littlefinger's homecomings on page and they both come across as complete outsiders in the places were they were born, acting above their station because of the circumstances they got used to during their fostering—while this leads to theon trying to reject the starks and gain acceptance from his birth family in acok, in asos when littlefinger goes home to the fingers he wants to get to the eyrie (and to one of the tullys) as quickly as possible

they share some behaviors/character traits, too. littlefinger is noted to dress well, he pays a lot for clothes made of fine fabrics, while we know that theon likes to do the same. littlefinger certainly does this to prove that he is rich and powerful and has made it, showing that he can pay for the same things that any great lord can, which is probably born from more than a little resentment towards hoster for taking him out of the luxury of riverrun and sending him back home to the fingers. similarly, theon dresses elaborately to set himself apart in winterfell, to impress people, and to make himself known, and again this is born from resentment and insecurity (seen best when he goes back to pyke and stresses about what to wear in front of balon). they're also both arrogant and flippant, with a tendency to smile/make jokes too much, perhaps to try to further resist and disparage the social order they feel restricted by

finally there's catelyn: theon looks to her as a quasi-mother figure while he's in winterfell and littlefinger looks to catelyn as a lover, but both of these are impossible and end up being rejected. there's no evidence that catelyn was, like, especially mean to theon, they seem to get on fine in agot, but he was her husband's hostage and we know that she does mistrust him. this attitude is obviously a result of her not trusting the greyjoys because they're reavers/rose against the crown in open rebellion, but it is also no doubt informed by her previous experiences with petyr! it would make sense for her to be wary of a foster son getting close to her children after what happened to her as a kid

[butterflies-dragons]

Jon Arryn a father figure to Ned who raised hima and Robert as his sons. He tried to protect them from Aerys wrath. Jon married three times in ASOIAF. The first one was his cousin Rowena Arryn, second was Jeyne Royce and third one was red haired Lysa Tully. He had a child named Robert with Lysa. According to Catelyn, Lysa looked radiant on her wedding day.

Ned disguised Lyanna's son Jon as his bastard son to protect him from King Robert's wrath. He grew up with his cousins in WF.

In original outline Jon is supposed to have romance with his Stark cousin sister Arya which is most probably now his radiant red hair sister Sansa. So if Jonsa happened then it will be Jon marrying his Tully cousin like Jon Arryn.

More parallels/similarities in the first part of this post:

[thaliajoy-blog]

Thinking about Littlefinger & Cersei/Lysa Arryn as twisted versions of Ned Stark & Catelyn for Sansa. Or at least, Sansa loses her parents, & is destined to never see them again ; and she finds new hellish parents, perverted versions of the love & Care she had known, if not their total opposite. Ned who cares for his girls & sacrificed himself & his honor for them is replaced by the very man who betrayed him, by a corrupt & lecherous man who completely contradicts the image of what a father ought to be (he is in a way an incestuous figure), and everything Ned was (benevolent, chaste, honorable). Both Catelyn & Lysa are figures paralleled with Catelyn in some way, and in both cases they come out as both equally protective of their offspring (who aren't Sansa) but much more foolish. Cersei wants power as much as she wants to protect her kids, and those desires don't necessarily mix well together. Where Catelyn loved & shielded Sansa and tried the best to enfure her future, Cersei manipulates her, exposes her to shocking truths, to danger, and tries to break her innocence in several ways.

Lysa is the inverted Catelyn, foolish since the beginning, in love with Littlefinger, unable to truly rule unlike her older sister...and of course, she sees Sansa increasingly less as a niece than as a rival for the affection of her husband (this dynamic isn't absent from the Cersei/Sansa one given Cersei's fear of younger more beautiful women who might "cast her down"). The loving dynamic of healthy parenting evaporates to leave place to sexually charged relationships ; the "mother" figure sees the "daughter" figure as a rival for the affection of the "father" figure, and the "father" figure begins to see the daughter as a potential sexual partner instead of his child. The introduction of sexuality in Sansa's life messes up severely the concept of the parent/child relationship.

And like it connects to the faith of the Seven, the southern faith Sansa originally feels more inclined towards, and the father & mother being key figures of that religion, key aspects of that multifaceted divinity, relevant to Sansa's own relation to the figure of the Maiden.

[dkmbookworm]

General design notes: sansa and arya largely take after their most common comparisons in lyanna and catelyn but with some minor influences from their other family members

Arya: long face and wild brown hair of the starks, however she has her mothers eye shape, chin, and freckles. She has the most between her mom and sister because she spends so much time outside. Hair is a bit more voluminous than Lyanna’s because she has a bit more of a curly/wavy texture with Cat’s side and her lips are a little fuller as well

Sansa: she has her mom’s face shape and her father’s jawline and aunt/grandmother’s nose. I imagine her with a hooked, almost beak like nose like a birds. She has the lightest amount of freckles because she’s largely indoors most during the series. She has wider, rounder eyes that resemble her aunt Lysa’s. Meant to parallel how she has a more dreamy, romantic disposition and view like her when she was young.

Jon: overall I wanted to show how he took after Ned so he has more of Ned’s face shape but his father’s cleft chin (showing that one next) and his aquiline nose. Hair is also much messier like Lyanna’s and he has her smile and lips. I wanted to parallel the way that Arya takes after her aunt, so likewise Jon resembles his uncle

[fromtheseventhhell]

It's funny how jonsa stans want Sansa to have everything that Arya has: Jon being insane for her, connection with Lyanna, Helen of Troy like figure (and they got parallels with Lysa instead lmao), her being the main girl. It's so embarassing for them. It's such a shame that the books will never be finished, their meltdown would be hilarious and deserved

What's funnier is that it's not just Jonsa stans who do this, a lot of Stansas build their fanon around Arya's story. That's why they're always so desperate to downplay her intelligence, skills, and general importance to the story. So many of their "theories" are based on the idea that George split Arya's original outline story between them (with no evidence btw), thus reducing Arya's importance and increasing Sansa's. For Jonsa specifically, it's like you said...it requires replacing Arya and slotting Sansa into her position 🤷🏾‍♀️. That's why they steal "what do you know of my heart" and any other meaningful quote about Jon and Arya's relationship, try and force parallels between Sansa + Alys/Ygritte/Val/Lyanna/etc., claim Arya is just a proxy for family (i.e. Sansa), and inflate the few times Jon actually thinks about her. It's not surprising they love the show so much cause that's the same thing D&D did! There's no chance the books are going to play out the same way which is exactly why I'm hopeful about TWOW's release 🙏🏾

[catofoldstones]

j0ns@ isnt 100% to me but stans disbelieving in the ashford tourney interpretations now because it didnt fit what they wanted makes me lol now its invalid by having robert arryn when its not supposed to be a 100% recreation, harrold harryn is too much coincidence that it signals sans@'s suitors ,saying the final targaryen suitor died is coping because like Valarr Targaryen, jon also just died the difference is he'll get resurrected

my favourite excuse is "well nobody married lady ashford" well duh its a tourney,it might not even happen in a romantic light more for desperate political reasons the denial is hysterical

Hi anon,

I understand their need to constantly be “debunking” the theory because how dare Sansa have a parallel in another book and thereby be an important character in the series as a whole😤

I don’t think Robert Arryn is the chink in the armour they think he is. With all of Sansa’s previous suitors & Harry, there have been concrete plots to get her married to them. She was officially betrothed to Joffrey (the Baratheon suitor) before the Tyrells brought in Willas (the Tyrell suitor) and were actively planning to spirit her away to Highgarden right under the Lannisters’ noses, only for them to catch wind of the plan (if it can even be put that way) and forcefully get Sansa married to Tyrion (the Lannister suitor). As for Harry, Baelish’s northern plan comes into play which rests on the heels of Sansa getting married to Harry. Not to mention Hardyng is a pretty unknown House to just throw in, dontcha think?

Lysa brings up Sweetrobin in passing, with no plan or even an actual intention to marry them. This is literally never brought up again when Lysa is alive, or even after. The only one repeating any similar sentiment is Sweetrobin himself, who has a crush on Sansa but clearly doesn’t know what it means. So should we take Sweetrobin as a valid suitor? I mean, do crushes count? Because then why not include a whole legion of other Westerosi men who are interested in Sansa and make it a watertight argument. Baelish absolutely wants to marry Sansa, he even asked Cersei for Sansa’s hand in marriage, why isn’t he included? “Because…” yeah you’re there. My point is, the arguments against Baelish & SR are both strong but take a step back to what they have in common, Sansa’s story is leading somewhere else and thematically neither of them fit. One is less serious than the other & thats SR. Be fr with your SR arguments jesus.

Moreover, the Ashford theory and Sansa’s suitors don’t have to be perfect analogues of each other. Hell, we know nothing about Lady Ashford except that she’s 13 and involved in a tourney that was disrupted, and that Sansa is 13 and involved in a tourney that will be disrupted. Man, does this girl have to be named Pansa Ptark now for it to be a valid parallel? Why does George even bother naming his books, he should start calling them the war of the roses and be done with it. Why are we even reading political fiction, let’s just open today’s newspaper. Tf.

And I don’t think I can add anything to the Jon - Targaryen suitor theories that hasn’t been proposed + your points too. We consider R + L = J to be true, first and foremost. The “white guardian”, “dark hair” “the Targaryen suitor being dead” etc etc. In the same vein as the argument above, does he need to be named Jonnel/Jonos now to be taken seriously? Well, he is in another parallel but even that is “reaching” so what can I say? 🤷‍♀️ They’re not going to see what they don’t want to see, but, like you said, watching them jump through hoops and perform mental gymnastics and open a whole circus in the process is truly hilarious lol.

You do bring up an excellent argument, anon, that all of Sansa’s previous suitors have been for her claim to the North, so her marriage with Jon might also be for political reasons. However, the slight exception of Joffrey who was a King in his own right (lmao) exists; which again sort of foils Jon and his actual claim to the iron throne. So I feel that while a political marriage is totally on the cards (solves one too many problems for my liking 😤), Sansa might marry him out of love considering her theme of independence and not-marrying-for-claim. But who am I to say 🤷‍♂️

Lastly, nobody crowned Lady Ashford the queen of love and beauty so Sansa isn’t marrying anyone is sort of funny. Well, Loras gave Sansa a red rose amongst all the young maidens present there, are they a foreshadowed endgame pairing now? Also, how does one come up with Sansa is gonna end up as Lady of the Vale by marrying HH and Sansa is going to end up alone in the same breath?

[agentrouka-blog]

It's strange how people are obsessing over Sansa as Ned 2.0 while denying the more obvious paralleling relative that is her aunt Lysa. Maybe parallels with a tragic villain does not bode well for Sansa.

You think?

I made a post on the subject of parallels between Sansa and Lysa in the past. Hint: foils.)

Also let's not be hoarding Lysa just for Sansa, shall we? Just as they both share parallels with Lyanna (triggered yet?) they also both share some parallels with their other aunt. Willful, jealous younger sisters who know how to plot, aren't afraid of poison or violence, champions of their father's less privileged ward who grew up like their brother? Arya is also Lysa's foil.

The most rewarding part will be seeing Arya and Sansa reconcile in the way Cat and Lysa never could. ❤

[esther-dot]

lysa wanted to marry sansa and robert arryn, does that debunk the ashford theory?

I haven't read the Hedge Knight so this isn't my thing, anon, but Martin has talked about how much he knows regarding the as yet to be written story, and it is a lot. Not only do we know of certain mysteries he's unraveling across the series (R+L=J), he's spoken about how he likes to have things readers will catch on rereads, so it makes sense to me that Martin knew Sansa had been betrothed to to Joffrey, would be marrying Tyrion, that he also knew her endgame romance, and that while writing the novella, he created a little nod to it. Aligning it completely doesn't need to be the goal, anymore than we would expect a carbon copy of pre canon events replaying in canon in any other scenario, but we certainly see the echos and references of pre canon in canon, and I have to think that's the case here.

Also, Sansa is about to be present at a tourney in TWOW, she's talking about her favor, there's this whole pre canon thing about a Stark girl and Targ at a tourney, so it doesn't feel weird to think maybe Sansa was on Martin's mind. And of course, in canon, Sansa is the maiden fair which is interesting when the Ashford girl is referred to as fair maid, and this idea of a revolving door of champions is very reminiscent of Sansa's unfortunate experiences thus far, with men who help her, fail her/hurt her, and then on to the next (the Hound, Tyrion, Dontos, LF...).

A potential match with Sweetrobin doesn't feel like an obstacle to everything that does make this feel like a thing, especially when, it is not merely the matching names that connect the two, it's the details that create all sorts of parallels with Jon, making him seem like the canon Targ this will ultimately be about. Let's revisit that revolving door of "champions" for Sansa, who is the guy who killed her monster in canon? 🤔 butterflies-dragons wrote a lengthy meta in 2021 about all of the Jon hints, and I find there's too much pointing to it all as quite intentional, even with a missing Robin.

Since I've been digging around in old posts and saw a bit of the evolution on this theory, I'll just point out, a lot of people were happy to consider this foreshadwoing for Sansa and Aegon, but the "Sansa is going North" fans rejected that, and it's funny that when people started to consider that her likely path, the theory had to be abandoned when, there's a Targ in the North too.

I'll go ahead and link to a several more posts I saw about it, in case anyone is interested. 2017 post (show verse), possible reference to it in GoT, and a 2018 meta that also considers Jon.

These two 2015 gifsets use the Ashford theory for the Sansa x Aegon pairing (1, 2), these two use Jon or Aegon (2016, 2018), and here's a Jonsa one.

There's also a Jonsa fic inspired by the theory, originally posted in 2016.

[queenaryastark]

Of all the parallels Jonsas try to make for their crackship, the funniest is now "Sansa is like Lysa" (this is correct, so good job on them 👏🏼) "so that's evidence for Jonsa bc Lysa married her brown haired foster brother, Petyr, so Sansa will marry her brown haired foster brother, Jon". 😄 😆 🤣 😂

They're right. Jon will fling Sansa to her death, saying, "Only Arya."

[dyannawynnedayne]

Round Three: Which character parallel is your favorite?

Jon and Sansa: art by @elenyaart (1, 2)

Cersei and Lysa: art by @amuelia (1, 2)

Jon and Sansa

Fanciful

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. 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.” Or Robb would say, “I’m the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I’m Ser Ryam Redwyne."

ASOS, Jon XII

She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

AGOT, Sansa I

Lysa and Cersei

Killed their shitty husbands

No need for tears … but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. 

ASOS Sansa VII

Oh, indeed. Cersei gave him the wineskins, and told him it was Robert’s favorite vintage.“ The eunuch shrugged. “A hunter lives a perilous life. If the boar had not done for Robert, it would have been a fall from a horse, the bite of a wood adder, an arrow gone astray … the forest is the abbatoir of the gods. It was not wine that killed the king. It was your mercy. 

AGOT Eddard XV

Lysa/Cersei parallels were pulled from this essay

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

I saw someone say once that Sansa was more like Ned and Arya more like Catelyn personality wise. Whats your opinion on that comparison? Is it accurate?

I don't really agree with it.

Arya's most important parallel to the previous generation is that she shares with her aunt. Time after time, people who knew Lyanna say Arya is like her - not only it terms of looks but in terms of personality, too. When it comes to her parents, she shares her father's values and follows the lessons taught by him and at the same time she shares some traits with her mother as well. I don't have a strong opinion over which parent she's linked to as long as fans don't overlook that her most highlighted resemblance is that of Lyanna.

However, I do have a strong opinion about Sansa and her favouring her mother. Out of all Catelyn's kids, she's the closest to her. Sansa prays to the Seven favouring her mother's gods over her father's, she likes southern things ( which come from her mother's culture) and she looks up to Catelyn in a way she doesn't do with her father. I'm not saying there is no love there because she loves her father as well but some kids favor one parent more and that's okay. Furthermore, Sansa's story really highlights her connection with Catelyn: from Littlefinger's obsession with her, to Lysa's jealously and to Jaime&Brienne and oathkeeper. Sansa's bond with her mother is so much more highlighted than the one she shares with her father. And I can't really say she favors her father in terms of personality, either.

I suspect that some fans' want to link Sansa to Ned instead of Catelyn comes from the sexist notion that since kids take the father's surname his family is superior to mother's- and the only one family they belong to.

In asoiaf, Stark are presented as the major pov family while Tully are not and therefore having parallels with the former is making the characters superior in some people's eyes. But all Stark kids (except Jon ofc) don't only have a father but a mother, too and both Ned and Catelyn are presented as equally good people in the text. So looking more like one of them over the other doesn't make any of these kids superior or inferior to the rest.