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butterflies-dragons · 4 years ago

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i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

(Title from the namesake poem by e.e. cummings)

Jon Snow, Sansa Stark & Winterfell. An exploration.

A/N: This composition in no way denies the connection of the other Stark children, Robb, Arya, Bran, and Rickon, with the north, Winterfell, the weirwood tree, and the old gods, but focuses primarily on Jon and Sansa.

I. WHITE AS BONE, RED AS BLOOD

(Art credit: White Wolf by Kay-Ra)

Have you ever stopped to think about how Ghost, Jon's direwolf, is always described as the weirwood tree?

The weirwood is a species of deciduous trees found in Westeros, now found most commonly in the north and beyond the Wall. The five-pointed leaves and the sap of weirwoods are blood-red, while the smooth bark on their wide trunks and wood are bone white. Most weirwoods have faces carved into their trunks. This was done by the children of the forest in ancient days, and is now done by the free folk as well as other descendants of the First Men, such as followers of the old gods in the Seven Kingdoms praying to heart trees in godswoods. In some cases sap has collected in the crevices of the carved faces, giving the trees red eyes which have been known to drip sap as if the trees were weeping. A weirwood will live forever if undisturbed. Weirwoods are considered sacred to the followers of the old gods, and children of the forest believe weirwoods are the gods. [Source]

The weirwood tree is always watchful and silent:

The gods of Winterfell kept a different sort of wood. It was a dark, primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousand years as the gloomy castle rose around it. It smelled of moist earth and decay. No redwoods grew here. This was a wood of stubborn sentinel trees armored in grey-green needles, of mighty oaks, of ironwoods as old as the realm itself. Here thick black trunks crowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopy overhead and misshapen roots wrestled beneath the soil. This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father's gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran VI

The weirwood tree is also called the heart tree:

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. "The heart tree," Ned called it. The weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle's granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

The most famous weirwood tree in Westeros is the one in the godswood of Winterfell:

When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves, and solemn face. The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said … but to save the castle Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman’s hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Now, let’s see how Ghost is described:

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

And suddenly Ghost was back, stalking softly between two weirwoods. White fur and red eyes, Jon realized, disquieted. Like the trees …

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Benjen watched Ghost with amusement as he ate his onion. "A very quiet wolf," he observed. "He's not like the others," Jon said. "He never makes a sound. That's why I named him Ghost. That, and because he's white. The others are all dark, grey or black."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

Even Ghost backed off a step, baring his teeth in a silent snarl. The direwolf was big, but the mammoths were a deal bigger, and there were many and more of them.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon II

In the dark, the direwolf's red eyes looked black. He nuzzled at Jon's neck, silent as ever, his breath a hot mist.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon III

As the weirwood is called the heart of Winterfell, Ghost is also part of Jon:

When he finally put the quill down, the room was dim and chilly, and he could feel its walls closing in. Perched above the window, the Old Bear's raven peered down at him with shrewd black eyes. My last friend, Jon thought ruefully. And I had best outlive you, or you'll eat my face as well. Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

The face carved in Winterfell’s heart tree, is described as “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding”:

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran III

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves, and solemn face.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

These features: “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding,” are distinctive of House Stark, and we find them specially in Ned Stark and Jon Snow:

Jon’s eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

"I see." His uncle glanced over his shoulder at the raised table at the far end of the hall. "My brother does not seem very festive tonight." Jon had noticed that too. A bastard had to learn to notice things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes. His father was observing all the courtesies, but there was tightness in him that Jon had seldom seen before. He said little, looking out over the hall with hooded eyes, seeing nothing. Two seats away, the king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was flushed behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed loudly at every jest, and attacked each dish like a starving man, but beside him the queen seemed as cold as an ice sculpture. "The queen is angry too," Jon told his uncle in a low, quiet voice. "Father took the king down to the crypts this afternoon. The queen didn't want him to go." Benjen gave Jon a careful, measuring look. "You don't miss much, do you, Jon? We could use a man like you on the Wall."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

Jon grinned, reached over, and messed up her hair. Arya flushed. They had always been close. Jon had their father’s face, as she did.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

She [Arya] even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

The boy absorbed that all in silence. He had the Stark face if not the name: long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away. Whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in her son.

—A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

When he had gone, Eddard Stark went to the window and sat brooding. Robert had left him no choice that he could see. He ought to thank him. It would be good to return to Winterfell. He ought never have left. His sons were waiting there. Perhaps he and Catelyn would make a new son together when he returned, they were not so old yet. And of late he had often found himself dreaming of snow, of the deep quiet of the wolfswood at night.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII

"Why should Lord Karstark want him dead?" Catelyn asked. Robb looked away into the woods, with the same brooding look that Ned often got. "He … he killed them …"

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow's face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts? "Lord Baelish, what do you know of Robert's bastards?" "Well, he has more than you, for a start."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye.

—A Clash of Kings - Jon I

“Who’s this one now?” Craster said before Jon could go. “He has the look of a Stark.” “My steward and squire, Jon Snow.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon III

And after the war, at Winterfell, I had love enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath Ned's solemn face.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

Even after stumbling into his narrow bed, rest had not come easily. He knew what he would face today, and found himself tossing restlessly as he brooded on Maester Aemon's final words. […] Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born."

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

As you can see, Jon Snow’s face is as “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding” as the face carved in Winterfell’s heart tree.

To sum it up:

The children of the forest believe that the weirwoods are the old gods themselves.

In Ghost (red eyes, white fur, watchful eyes, silent), we have a symbol of the weirwood tree (red leaves, white bark, watchful eyes, silent).

The weirwood is called a heart tree, and Winterfell’s weirwood in particular is called the heart of Winterfell.

The weirwood is a part of Winterfell (its heart) as Ghost is part of Jon.

The face carved in Winterfell’s heart tree, is described as “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding”. This description also fits Ghost’s master: Jon Snow.

In Jon Snow and Ghost we really have symbols of the weirwood tree. Jon Snow and Ghost represent the heart of Winterfell.

Now, let’s talk about Winterfell.

II. RAISED AFTER THE LONG NIGHT

Have you ever wondered what the name Winterfell means? Has it something to do with the Stark’s motto Winter is coming?

Let’s analyze the semantics of the words that form the name. The word ‘winter’ doesn’t need a major explanation, we all know its meaning. And for the word ‘fell’, we have this:

Noun: 1. The English word fell comes from Old Norse fell and fjall (both forms existed). It is cognate with Danish fjeld, Faroese fjall and fjøll, Icelandic fjall and fell, Norwegian fjell with dialects fjøll, fjødd, fjedd, fjedl, fjill, fil(l) and fel, and Swedish fjäll, all referring to mountains rising above the alpine tree line. [source] 2. A hill or other area of high land, especially in northwest England. [source] 3. A high barren field or moor. [source]

So, the name “Winterfell” could mean “wintry mountain(s)”.

Verb: 1. Past simple of “fall.” 2. Transitive verb: a) to cut, knock, or bring down; b) kill.

Adjective: 1. evil or cruel [source] 2. a) fierce, cruel, terrible b) sinister, malevolent c) deadly [source]

I think George masterly played with the word “fell” as a verb and as an adjective here, because:

As the past simple of “fall,” winter + fell could refer to “the arrival of winter.”

For example:

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously. "The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?"

—A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

It is also from these histories that we learn of the Long Night, when a season of winter came that lasted a generation—a generation in which children were born, grew into adulthood, and in many cases died without ever seeing the spring. Indeed, some of the old wives' tales say that they never even beheld the light of day, so complete was the winter that fell on the world.

—The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Long Night

Rhaenyra's chief supporters were her good-father Lord Velaryon, her cousin Lady Jeyne Arryn, and Lord Stark (though his help was slow in coming, as he kept every man to harvest what they could before winter fell on the North).

—The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

Then, “Winterfell” (winter + fell) could be used as the Stark motto, once the winter arrived.

But the verb “fall” also means:

1. to be beaten or defeated [source] 2. to be defeated or fail [source] 3. to suffer ruin, defeat, or failure [source]

So, “Winterfell” (winter + fell) could mean that “the Long Winter (Long Night) was defeated.”

Indeed, Brandon the Builder could have chosen the name “Winterfell” (winter + fell) for everyone to remember that the First Men and the Children of the Forest defeated the Long Night:

The greatest castle of the North is Winterfell, the seat of the Starks since the Dawn Age. Legend says that Brandon the Builder raised Winterfell after the generation-long winter known as the Long Night to become the stronghold of his descendants, the Kings of Winter.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The North: Winterfell

But if we use “fell” as an adjective for winter (fell + winter) it means: a fierce, cruel, terrible, sinister, malevolent, deadly winter, that would be the perfect description for the Long Winter (Long Night).

For example:

However, if this fell winter did take place, as the tales say, the privation would have been terrible to behold. During the hardest winters, it is customary for the oldest and most infirm amongst the northmen to claim they are going out hunting—knowing full well they will never return and thus leaving a little more food for those likelier to survive. Doubtless this practice was common during the Long Night.

—The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Long Night

I think George paid homage to J.R.R. Tolkien with the Long Winter (Long Night), because some similar events happened in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings World:

Fell Winter (First Age), was an especially long and bitter winter, with ice and snow from November to March.

Long Winter, was an extremely cold and long-lasting winter in Middle-earth, covering Eriador, Dunland and Rohan.

Fell Winter (Third Age), was an extremely cold and long-lasting winter in Middle-earth.

See: “Fell + Winter” (The Long Night) & “Winter + Fell” (Victory over the Long Night). We have to admire George here, it's amazing how good he is with the English Language.

Now let’s go back to Winterfell the castle. “Legend says that Brandon the Builder raised Winterfell after the generation-long winter known as the Long Night.” A castle rising after the end of winter... Where did I read about a castle rising after the winter fell before??? Oh yes! That’s from my favorite Sansa chapter:

The snow fell and the castle rose. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

This is such a beautiful scene with such a beautiful wording. GRRM not only gave us foreshadowing of Sansa re-building Winterfell in the future, but he also crafted that scene as a reminder of the First Men and the Children of the Forest victory over the Long Night at the Battle for the Dawn.

Dawn is what follows after the night ends, and it is Sansa Stark, a descendant of Brandon The Builder, a character heavily linked with the sun and morning and light (in other words: heavily linked with the Dawn), that wakes up, at dawn, to build a castle out of the snow that fell over the Eyrie’s Godswood, to build her home, the greatest castle of the North, Winterfell.

And as history repeats itself, the Long Night could be back again, so that’s why the Starks are always saying that “Winter is coming”. The Stark’s motto sounds like a warning for all the realm.

Yes, suddenly all of the Stark’s sayings, pronounced by our good old Ned, sound like warnings about the Long Night:

"The winters are hard," Ned admitted. "But the Starks will endure. We always have."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya II

And my favorite line from Ned:

'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true … but what if we prevail?'

—A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

So, the second coming of the Long Night is certain, this has been foreshadowed since AGOT:

North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. "Why?" Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran III

But we also know that the Starks will endure and prevail at the end. Even if Winterfell should fall, which is very probable, a new symbol of their victory over the Long Night will rise again. With a new Dawn, there will be a new Winterfell.

Now, let's talk about what Winterfell means to Jon.

III. HE WANTED IT AS MUCH AS HE HAD EVER WANTED ANYTHING

(Art credit: Jon finds Ghost, by Magali Villeneuve © Fantasy Flight Games)

In a few words, Winterfell is what Jon wanted, as much as he had ever wanted anything. He had always wanted Winterfell. But of course, since we are talking about Jon Snow, his strong desire for Winterfell would fill him with an enormous guilt; first and foremost due to his bastard status and secondly due to his vows as a brother of the Night’s Watch:

When Jon had been very young, too young to understand what it meant to be a bastard, he used to dream that one day Winterfell might be his. […] All he had to do was say the word, and he would be Jon Stark, and nevermore a Snow. All he had to do was pledge this king his fealty, and Winterfell was his. All he had to do … …was forswear his vows again.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XI

“That morning he called it first. “I’m Lord of Winterfell!” he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, “You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.” […] Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father’s heir. […] Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want? […] He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

In the end Jon rejected Stannis’s offer and gave up Winterfell and he did it mainly for the love he had towards his family. With that decision he also remained loyal to his vows to the Night’s Watch, so, in other words, he kept his honor by doing his duty.Someone please tell Lady Stoneheart that Jon Snow, among all the Stark children, is the one who more profoundly internalized the Tully words: “Family, Duty, Honor”.

If Jon had accepted Stannis’s offer, he would have had Winterfell, but at an extremely high price: burning the weirwood tree, which, to him, would be sacrilege:

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

What precisely helped Jon find an answer to Stannis’s offer was his beloved direwolf, Ghost; that is to say, a symbol of the weirwood tree.

Indeed, after their separation beyond the Wall, Ghost returned to Jon just in time to help him choose between his deepest desire and his family and duty:

It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. “Ghost?” He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. “Ghost!” he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. When he reached Jon he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. “Gods, wolf, where have you been?” Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. “I thought you’d died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I’ve had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams.” The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon’s face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns. Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow. He had his answer then.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

And at this point, we all know what was Jon’s answer, right?

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Yes, Jon’s answer was Sansa. Winterfell belongs to Sansa. He could have said ‘Winterfell belongs to my sisters Sansa and Arya’ or ‘Winterfell belongs to my trueborn sisters’ or ‘Winterfell belongs to the Starks’ but no. He said, more than once, that Winterfell belongs to Sansa. And I think there is an important reason for this wording. And that reason is that Jon and Sansa are destined to rebuild Winterfell and continue the Stark legacy.

Now let’s talk about Sansa, Winterfell and the weirwood tree.

IV. COME TO THE GODSWOOD TONIGHT, IF YOU WANT TO GO HOME

Sansa’s journey back home starts with a godswood.

(Art credit: Sansa meets Ser Dontos in the godswood of the Red Keep by Jonathan Burton)

“Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home.” With these words Littlefinger trapped Sansa using her deepest desire to go back home, to Winterfell.

"But . . . my lord, you said . . . you said we were sailing home." "You look distraught. Did you think we were making for Winterfell, sweetling? Winterfell has been taken, burned, and sacked. All those you knew and loved are dead. What northmen who have not fallen to the ironmen are warring amongst themselves. Even the Wall is under attack. Winterfell was the home of your childhood, Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You're a woman grown, and you need to make your own home."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Littlefinger words were a vile lie, but the author’s words were telling the truth: Come to the godswood and you will be home, only in the godswood you will find home. But not any godswood. Only Winterfell’s Godswood is Sansa’s home.

It’s not a coincidence that every castle that Sansa visited in the south so far, had a godswood but not a weirwood tree. This image represents Sansa (the godswood) without Lady (the weirwood tree).

The south meant loss after loss for Sansa. And every one of those losses were seen as a cut from her northern roots. Without Lady, she lost her connection to the old gods. Without Ned, she lost her connection to House Stark. Without her hair color and true born status she lost her own identity and pride (Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone).

But while at a superficial level Sansa could be seen as not a Stark anymore, she was always a Stark, a wolf, a skinchanger, a child of the wintry mountains of the north, it’s just that the author decided to make it subtle, hiding all those signs of Sansa’s Starkness in a form of poetry that can be easily ignored at a cursory reading.

IV.1. SANSA AND WINTERFELL

The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter.

Sansa Stark was born at Winterfell, most probably during winter. She was the first Stark of the current generation that was born at Winterfell. Robb was born at Riverrun, Jon was born in Dorne, and while Arya, Bran and Rickon were born at Winterfell as well, they came to life during the long summer.

Sansa feels pride to be a Stark of Winterfell and she uses that pride as a source of courage in frightening situations:

Sansa struggled to steady herself. She felt like such a fool. She was a Stark of Winterfell, a noble lady, and someday she would be a queen.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

The hot water made her think of Winterfell, and she took strength from that.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

Sansa tried to run, but Cersei’s handmaid caught her before she’d gone a yard. Ser Meryn Trant gave her a look that made her cringe, but Kettleblack touched her almost gently and said, “Do as you’re told, sweetling, it won’t be so bad. Wolves are supposed to be brave, aren’t they?”

Brave. Sansa took a deep breath. I am a Stark, yes, I can be brave.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Sansa would shine in the south.

(Art credit: Loras Tyrell gives Sansa Stark a rose at the Hand’s Tournament by Jonathan Burton)

Sansa has always loved Winterfell, I have no doubt about it. But she wanted to see more, the whole new world of the south, warmer and colorful places like the Riverlands from her mother’s childhood tales, she wanted to attend tourneys and feasts, to listen the songs from famous singers and poets, to play the high harp, to dance with gallant knights. In a few words, Sansa wanted to be a lady in a song, she wanted to live her own song.

But the north and Winterfell lacked all of that:

Amon Shin in Maine asks, “If you lived in Westeros, which house would you like to be part of, or in which area would you like to live?” GRRM: Well, you know, there’s something to be said for being an honorable Stark, but you’re kinda cold all the time and poor and so forth. And you have a lot of land, but there’s not a lot of stuff on it, you know? On the other hand, if you’re a Lannister, you have a nice house and all the gold you want and all of that stuff. So, there’s a lot to be said for being a Lannister. I don’t know. Maybe I could probably see me being a Lannister. And I would always pay my debts.

—A Dance with Dragons | George R.R. Martin | Talks at Google - July 2011

And so they left her direwolf and his bodyguard behind them, while they ranged east along the north bank of the Trident with no company save Lion's Tooth. It was a glorious day, a magical day. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of flowers, and the woods here had a gentle beauty that Sansa had never seen in the north. Prince Joffrey's mount was a blood bay courser, swift as the wind, and he rode it with reckless abandon, so fast that Sansa was hard-pressed to keep up on her mare. It was a day for adventures. They explored the caves by the riverbank, and tracked a shadowcat to its lair, and when they grew hungry, Joffrey found a holdfast by its smoke and told them to fetch food and wine for their prince and his lady. They dined on trout fresh from the river, and Sansa drank more wine than she had ever drunk before. "My father only lets us have one cup, and only at feasts," she confessed to her prince.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa’s breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind…and the knights themselves, the knights most of all. “It is better than the songs,” she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

She loved King's Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet, harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not bear the thought of losing it all.

[...] They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.” They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

And who could blame her for those dreams and wishes? Certainly not the author. GRRM has projected his love for medieval tourneys, heraldry, pageantry, knights and chivalry on Sansa Stark:

That whole story (The Hedge Knight) is built around a tournament. I love medieval tournaments, reading about them, writing about them. There's of course some of them in the main books, but this was an oportunity in a time of peace, not war, to look at a mediaval tournament with all its pageantry and the jousting and the combat and reveal a little of Westerosi History.

—In conversation: George R.R. Martin with Dan Jones FULL EVENT- August 2019

Tolkien imitators who came after him, a lot of them created a sort of Disneyland Middle Ages, you know, a sort of Middle Ages like you might see at a Renaissance Faire, but you don't have the dysentery, or the torture, or the leprosy, or the innate sexism, or classism, or racism that was so built into so much of that world for so many centuries, you really have to take, you know, I like the knights in shinning armor, the heraldry and pageantry as much as anyone, but you also have to include the fleas.

— Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival - NIFFF 2014

The novelist is midway through something of a European tour. After his trip to Switzerland, he is due in Scotland for the Edinburgh book festival. It has often been suggested that Ivanhoe (by the Scottish 19th-century novelist Walter Scott) was, alongside the War of the Roses, a major influence on A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Martin was first turned on to Ivanhoe by the 1952 MGM movie starring Robert Taylor, George Sanders and a young Elizabeth Taylor. "I think it was Elizabeth Taylor at the peak of her...," his voice tails off before he clarifies. "She was the most beautiful woman in the world. I think I was nine years old when I saw that movie. How could you not fall in love with her? But the jousting and the pageantry of it made me love that story. Later, in high school, I did read that book. For a modern reader, it's a little tough to get through. The prose is very Victorian and thick but if you fight your way through it, the story is there. It has everything the movie has and more – the heraldry and jousting and the insight into the times. It was an influence in that sense."

—GRRM - Independent - 2014

Firstly, thanks for that very thorough response on the tournaments and knighthood. Fascinating. In particular given the notes about _Ivanhoe_ and its influence -- I've only witnessed the A&E production of it, although maybe about time I read it. Seems it might be ripe for ideas. GRRM: IVANHOE is well worth a read, although the style is very old fashioned, of course. Still it has some fabulous characters and scenes, and so far as I know the definitive portrayal of a medieval tournament, both melee and joust. It has been filmed three times that I know of. The recent A&E production had some good moments, as did the older Sam Neill version... the CLASSIC version, however, is still MGM's 50s version, starring Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, and George Sanders. The jousts are wonderful, Liz is radiant, and George Sanders steals the film as Bois-Gilbert. You should definitely rent that one and have a look.

—GRRM - 1999

He was asked or mentioned most of the stuff that’s already been covered, but one thing he talked about that I found particularly interesting was Romanticism. He said that he is a romantic, in the classical sense. He said the trouble with being a romantic is that from a very early age you keep having your face smashed into the harshness of reality. That things aren’t always fair, bad things happen to good people, etc. He said it’s a realists world, so romantics are burned quite often. This theme of romantic idealism conflicting with harsh reality is something he finds very dramatic and compelling, and he weaves it into his work. Specifically he mentioned that the Knight exemplifies this, as the chivalric code is one of the most idealistic out there, protection of the weak, paragon of all that is good, fighting for truth and justice. The reality was that they were people, and therefore could do horrible cruel things, rape, pillage, wanton killing, made all the more striking or horrifying because it was in complete opposition to what they were “supposed” to be. Really interesting stuff.

—US SIGNING TOUR (SEATTLE, WA) - NOVEMBER 21, 2005

Happy Anniversary Parris, Here's to almost 40 years and hopefully many more <3 The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one. ~Honore de Balzac

—GRRM - 2021

So, the perfect opportunity to leave the north and start to live her song came in the form of a betrothal with the Crown Prince and Sansa left her home with a heart full of hope and illusions:

She had last seen snow the day she’d left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she’d ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world. I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But the great wide world outside Winterfell wasn’t as idyllic as Sansa has thought… On her journey to King’s Landing, she lost her direwolf Lady.

Lady wasn’t there. Lady was good. Lady never hurt anyone. She was innocent. But they kill her anyway.

(Art credit: Sansa with Lady. Illustrated by Smirtouille © Fantasy Flight Games)

All of the Stark children were blessed with a direwolf and the ability to change skins with those magical creatures.

The direwolves were sent by the old gods to protect and guide the Stark children:

Arya darted back, frightened now, but Joffrey followed, hounding her toward the woods, backing her up against a tree. Sansa didn't know what to do. She watched helplessly, almost blind from her tears.

Then a grey blur flashed past her, and suddenly Nymeria was there, leaping, jaws closing around Joffrey's sword arm.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Bran’s wolf had saved the boy’s life, he thought dully. What was it that Jon had said when they found the pups in the snow? Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord. And he had killed Sansa’s, and for what? Was it guilt he was feeling? Or fear? If the gods had sent these wolves, what folly had he done?

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

She showed Brienne her palms, her fingers. “These scars … they sent a man to cut Bran’s throat as he lay sleeping. He would have died then, and me with him, but Bran’s wolf tore out the man’s throat.” That gave her a moment’s pause. “I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have, elsewise … I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now.”

—A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

“Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father’s gods, the old gods of the north.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn II

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

"The king is gone hunting, but I know he will be pleased to see you when he returns," the queen was saying to the two knights who knelt before her, but Sansa could not take her eyes off the third man. He seemed to feel the weight of her gaze. Slowly he turned his head. Lady growled. A terror as overwhelming as anything Sansa Stark had ever felt filled her suddenly. She stepped backward and bumped into someone.

[…] He did, and had since she had first laid eyes on the ruin that fire had made of his face, though it seemed to her now that he was not half so terrifying as the other. Still, Sansa wrenched away from him, and the Hound laughed, and Lady moved between them, rumbling a warning. Sansa dropped to her knees to wrap her arms around the wolf.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Sansa found herself thinking of Lady again. She could smell out falsehood, she could, but she was dead, Father had killed her, on account of Arya.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

The direwolves share the eye colors of the Children of the Forest:

“In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun (Grey Wind, Lady, Nymeria and Summer), but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood (Ghost), or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest (Shaggydog). By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Read more about the direwolves’s eye colors here.

The direwolves are not only protectors and guides for the Stark children, they are also one with them, since every Stark child is a warg:

And there’s the heart of it, Catelyn thought. “He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you.”

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn II

Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him.

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

"Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?" "Two," he sighed, "and one."

—A Storm of Swords - Bran I

“Lady,” he said, tasting the name. He had never paid much attention to the names the children had picked, but looking at her now, he knew that Sansa had chosen well. She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

With Lady’s death, Sansa not only lost a protector and guide, and the possibility to develop her warging abilities, Sansa lost a part of herself.

But what is the meaning of Lady’s death? For the story and especially for Sansa’s arc?

As a plot device, Lady’s death directly meant a breach in Sansa’s relationship with her father and sister. As foreshadowing, Lady’s death presaged Ned’s own death. Furthermore, the sacrifice of the direwolf’s life was also necessary for Bran to wake up from the coma (only death can pay for life).

But in a more profound and personal level, Lady’s death intertwined Sansa’s story with Lyanna’s and Jon’s story, and it also deeply connected Sansa with Winterfell by foreshadowing that she will be the Stark in Winterfell at the end of the story. Let’s see.

Sansa lost Lady as a result of several factors:

Prince Joffrey Baratheon being his usual psychopathic self, hurting Mycah and threatening Arya.

Arya Stark striking a royal (*).

Queen Cersei Lannister’s vengeance. Nymeria, defending Arya, bit Joffrey’s arm; but since Nymeria ran away, Cersei demanded for Sansa’s direwolf’s life.

King Robert Baratheon’s allowance of Cersei’s vengeance as a way to apease his wife’s wrath.

Eddard Stark’s lack of reaction against the unfairness of Robert’s decision.

Joffrey’s true nature was known by Robert, and the King also knew of Cersei’s bad influence on his heir. Even so, Robert didn’t do anything to try and rectify that situation before or after the Trident incident:

"I am sorry for your girl, Ned. Truly. About the wolf, I mean. My son was lying, I'd stake my soul on it. My son … you love your children, don't you?"

"With all my heart," Ned said.

"Let me tell you a secret, Ned. More than once, I have dreamed of giving up the crown. Take ship for the Free Cities with my horse and my hammer, spend my time warring and whoring, that's what I was made for. The sellsword king, how the singers would love me. You know what stops me? The thought of Joffrey on the throne, with Cersei standing behind him whispering in his ear. My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?"

"He's only a boy," Ned said awkwardly. He had small liking for Prince Joffrey, but he could hear the pain in Robert's voice. "Have you forgotten how wild you were at his age?"

"It would not trouble me if the boy was wild, Ned. You don't know him as I do."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

(*) Arya’s actions, despite being a crime, were made to defend Mycah. Arya Stark, a child of 9 years old, defied an unjust rule in order to protect and save an innocent boy, something that not even the honorable Lord Stark was capable of doing in order to save Sansa’s direwolf.

So, Sansa was put in a very difficult situation, she was left to chose between her royal betrothed, the Crown Prince, and her sister and family. Take note that Sansa told the truth to her father, but at the prospect of defying a royal and her future husband or admit that her sister committed a crime punished by maiming or death, she opted for not agreeing with any of the parties, she said: “I don’t know, I don’t remember”.

So, let’s talk about adults actions here, because whatever Sansa might have said, either agreeing with her betrothed Prince Joffrey’s version or agreeing with her sister Arya’s version, it wasn't going to change Lady's fate.

Even before Arya was found, Queen Cersei Lannister, wanted her maimed or dead. And Jaime Lannister was very willing to do it:

"Do you see that window, ser?" Jaime used a sword to point. "That was Raymun Darry's bedchamber. Where King Robert slept, on our return from Winterfell. Ned Stark's daughter had run off after her wolf savaged Joff, you'll recall. My sister wanted the girl to lose a hand. The old penalty, for striking one of the blood royal. Robert told her she was cruel and mad. They fought for half the night . . . well, Cersei fought, and Robert drank. Past midnight, the queen summoned me inside. The king was passed out snoring on the Myrish carpet. I asked my sister if she wanted me to carry him to bed. She told me I should carry her to bed, and shrugged out of her robe. I took her on Raymun Darry's bed after stepping over Robert. If His Grace had woken I would have killed him there and then. He would not have been the first king to die upon my sword . . . but you know that story, don't you?" He slashed at a tree branch, shearing it in half. "As I was fucking her, Cersei cried, 'I want.' I thought that she meant me, but it was the Stark girl that she wanted, maimed or dead." The things I do for love. "It was only by chance that Stark's own men found the girl before me. If I had come on her first . . ."

—A Feast for Crows - Jaime IV

King Robert Baratheon was done with Cersei’s wrath about the incident, and even knowing Joffrey’s true nature, he let Cersei kill a direwolf, because at least it didn’t involve maiming or killing Arya Stark, a member of a great noble and allied house, and the daughter of his best friend.

So, since Arya was exonerated of the penalty for striking a royal, and Nymeria ran away, Cersei took away the least she could get, the life of Mycah, the butcher’s boy, and Lady, the direwolf that wasn’t even there.

Now, about Ned Stark, he could have done a lot more. I can understand that he was astonished by his best friend Robert Baratheon not being the just man that he used to be in his youth, even after Catelyn had warned about it. I can also understand that he was triggered by his memories of Lyanna begging him to protect Jon’s life from Robert’s wrath in the past. But still, he could have done a lot more to stop Lady’s sacrifice. Jory did more by helping Arya to protect Nymeria.

In the end, after some attempt to beg for Robert’s change of mind or mercy, Ned Stark complied with an unfair rule, and following a flawed sense of honor and duty, he killed Lady. He killed an innocent. He was part of Sansa’s punishment for a crime she didn’t commit. He left his own daughter unprotected, depriving her of a gift sent by the old gods.

Ned’s inaction are a contrast to Arya’s actions that impulsively defied Joffrey’s status as a royal member in order to protect an innocent. Arya’s actions emulated Dunk’s actions striking Prince Aerion Targaryen in order to defend Tanselle, the puppeteer girl. A true knight.

And this is not the first time that Ned’s actions were called out by one of his children (the heroes of the story), this happened before with Bran questioning this flawed sense of honor and duty after witnessing Gared’s execution.

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

Two of the responsibles for Lady’s death, Robert and Ned, were deeply associated with Lyanna Stark. GRRM has also used Robert and Ned to connect Lyanna with Sansa:

"Come south with me, and I'll teach you how to laugh again," the king promised. "You helped me win this damnable throne, now help me hold it. We were meant to rule together. If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

Before Lady’s death, Ned pleaded to Robert to change his decision on putting down the direwolf, appealing to the memory of Lyanna, the woman Robert loved:

All Ned could do was take her in his arms and hold her while she wept. He looked across the room at Robert. His old friend, closer than any brother. “Please, Robert. For the love you bear me. For the love you bore my sister. Please.”

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

Sansa’s pleading for Lady’s life and repeating the word “promise”, triggered Ned’s trauma over Lyanna’s death, who dies while pleading to Ned to protect her newborn son Jon:

"Stop them,” Sansa pleaded, “don’t let them do it, please, please, it wasn’t Lady, it was Nymeria, Arya did it, you can’t, it wasn’t Lady, don’t let them hurt Lady, I’ll make her be good, I promise, I promise …” She started to cry.

—AGOT - Eddard III

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

—AGOT - Eddard IV

“Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

—AGOT - Eddard XIII

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

—AGOT - Eddard XV

Ned carried Lyanna’s bones from Dorne to the north, to be buried in the crypts of Winterfell, the same way he ordered his men to carry Lady’s bones from Darry to the north, to be buried in the lichyard of Winterfell. Lyanna’s and Lady’s bones being buried at Winterfell, makes them literally Ladies of Winterfell:

“She was more beautiful than that,” the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna’s face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. “Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?” His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. “She deserved more than darkness …”

“She was a Stark of Winterfell,” Ned said quietly. “This is her place.”

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

They were all staring at him, but it was Sansa’s look that cut. “She is of the north. She deserves better than a butcher.” […] Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.” “All that way?” Jory said, astonished. “All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.

— A Game of Thrones - Bran VI

I like that Ned unofficially name Sansa, “Lady of the North” (Lady of Winterfell), when he said: She (Lady) is of the North.

The fact that Lady’s bones have already returned to Winterfell, makes Sansa the first Stark children that returned home. Also, at this point of the story, Lady being buried in Winterfell, makes Sansa the Stark in Winterfell.

In the songs, the knights never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched them and did them no harm.

The day of the Trident incident that later would determine Lady’s fate, Sansa, inadvertently, sensed Ned’s death at the hands of Ilyn Payne the first time she met the King’s Justice, that’s why she felt such a terror that made her step backward and bump into the Hound, and for a moment she thought he was her father.

Another passage that foreshadows Ned’s death, that is also related to killing a magical creature like Lady, is Sansa’s wish for Joffrey to capture the white hart:

“I had a dream that Joffrey would be the one to take the white hart,” she said. It had been more of a wish, actually, but it sounded better to call it a dream. Everyone knew that dreams were prophetic. White harts were supposed to be very rare and magical, and in her heart she knew her gallant prince was worthier than his drunken father. “A dream? Truly? Did Prince Joffrey just go up to it and touch it with his bare hand and do it no harm?” “No,” Sansa said. “He shot it with a golden arrow and brought it back for me.” In the songs, the knights never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched them and did them no harm, but she knew Joffrey liked hunting, especially the killing part. Only animals, though. Sansa was certain her prince had no part in murdering Jory and those other poor men; that had been his wicked uncle, the Kingslayer. She knew her father was still angry about that, but it wasn’t fair to blame Joff. That would be like blaming her for something that Arya had done.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

In the end Joffrey showed Sansa that he not only enjoyed killing animals, but he also enjoyed killing men. It was not the white hart what Joffrey brought back for her, it was her father’s severed head.

Read more about the white hart here.

But the paragraphs that are more laden with symbolism and foreshadowing for Ned’s death are the ones leading to Lady’s execution.

After Lady’s death, Ned lost Sansa’s trust. Sansa was left deeply wounded, she resented her sister because Lady paid for Nymeria’s fault, and she resented Ned, because he did close to nothing to save Lady’s life and was the executioner himself. That’s why, when Ned told her that she is returning to Winterfell without a proper explanation, she felt that Ned is taking away beloved things from her once again, as he did with Lady. That prompted Sansa to defy her father’s orders and tell Cersei about Ned’s plans:

"I didn't do anything wrong," Sansa pleaded with him. "I don't want to go back." She loved King's Landing; the pagaentry of the court, the high lords and ladies in their velvets and silks and gemstones, the great city with all its people. The tournament had been the most magical time of her whole life, and there was so much she had not seen yet, harvest feasts and masked balls and mummer shows. She could not bear the thought of losing it all. "Send Arya away, she started it, Father, I swear it. I'll be good, you'll see, just let me stay and I promise to be as fine and noble and courteous as the queen." […] Sansa cried as Septa Mordane marched them down the steps. They were going to take it all away; the tournaments and the court and her prince, everything, they were going to send her back to the bleak grey walls of Winterfell and lock her up forever. Her life was over before it had begun.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

"It was for love," Sansa said in a rush. "Father wouldn't even give me leave to say farewell." She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before, and she would never have done it then if she hadn't loved Joffrey as much as she did. "He was going to take me back to Winterfell and marry me to some hedge knight, even though it was Joff I wanted. I told him, but he wouldn't listen." The king had been her last hope. The king could command Father to let her stay in King's Landing and marry Prince Joffrey, Sansa knew he could, but the king had always frightened her. He was loud and rough-voiced and drunk as often as not, and he would probably have just sent her back to Lord Eddard, if they even let her see him. So she went to the queen instead, and poured out her heart, and Cersei had listened and thanked her sweetly … only then Ser Arys had escorted her to the high room in Maegor's Holdfast and posted guards, and a few hours later, the fighting had begun outside. "Please," she finished, "you have to let me marry Joffrey, I'll be ever so good a wife to him, you'll see. I'll be a queen just like you, I promise."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

By deciding to kill Lady himself, Ned killed a part of Sansa, his own daughter, so he not only killed a magical beast (In the songs, the knights never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched them and did them no harm), but this could also be considered kinslaying, both crimes forbidden and punished by the gods, the old and the new.

By defying Ned’s orders and telling Cersei her father’s plans, in order to stay in King’s Landing and marry Joffrey, Sansa unwillingly took part of the events that ended up with Ned’s execution.

During the “trial”, Ned pleaded King Robert to change his decision on putting down the direwolf, appealing to the memory of Lyanna, the woman Robert loved. Then Ned decided that he will take Lady’s life himself using his sword Ice, in order to avoid having a butcher like Ilyn Payne do the execution. Before he struck, he pronounced Lady’s name in the same fashion Robb and Jon called the name of their direwolves before they both died.

Similarly, before Ned’s execution at the steps of the Sept of Baelor, Sansa pleaded to King Joffrey to spare her father’s life, appealing to the love he has for her.

But, as we all know, both pleas fell on deaf ears and both Lady and Ned lost their lives; bringing the story full circle, as Ilyn Payne himself cut off Ned’s head with Ice.

North and north and north again, stood Winterfell.

If Lady’s death wasn’t enough to open Sansa’s eyes and see the true nature of Cersei and Joffrey, Ned’s death certainly was:

"I don’t want to marry you,” Sansa wailed. “You chopped off my father’s head!” “He was a traitor. I never promised to spare him, only that I’d be merciful, and I was. If he hadn’t been your father, I would have had him torn or flayed, but I gave him a clean death.” Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father’s head. Sansa would never make that mistake again.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

When Joffrey took her to the battlements to force her to see her father’s severed head on a pike, Sansa chose to focus on looking north, longing to return home:

And to the north … She turned that way, and saw only the city, streets and alleys and hills and bottoms and more streets and more alleys and the stone of distant walls. Yet she knew that beyond them was open country, farms and fields and forests, and beyond that, north and north and north again, stood Winterfell. "What are you looking at?" Joffrey said. "This is what I wanted you to see, right here."

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

Sadly, Ned’s death was the catalyst for Sansa to finally open her eyes to reality, but that event also awakened her inner ‘Starkness’, because if any of the Stark children is the epitome of endurance, that is Sansa.

So, after Ned’s death, we see Sansa always finding her strength and courage in the memories of Winterfell and her family, yearning to go back north, to home, to Winterfell:

The hot water made her think of Winterfell, and she took strength from that. She had not washed since the day her father died, and she was startled at how filthy the water became.

— A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

“Do as you’re told, sweetling, it won’t be so bad. Wolves are supposed to be brave, aren’t they? “Brave. Sansa took a deep breath. I am a Stark, yes, I can be brave.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so … She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now. […] Sansa was tempted to beg off. I could tell him that my tummy was upset, or that my moon’s blood had come. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed and pull the drapes. I must be brave, like Robb, she told herself, as she took her lord husband stiffly by the arm.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

The Broken Tower was easier still. They made a tall tower together, kneeling side by side to roll it smooth, and when they’d raised it Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face. Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. “That was unchivalrously done, my lady.” “As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home.” She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell. […] I am a Stark of Winterfell, she longed to tell him. Instead she nodded, and let him escort her down the tower steps and along a bridge. —A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

They made a race of it, dashing headlong across the yard and past the stables, skirts flapping, whilst knights and serving men alike looked on, and pigs and chickens scattered before them. It was most unladylike, but Alayne sound found herself laughing. For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up.

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

No matter how many time she has to say she loves her enemies, no matter how many times they put another house’s cloak on her shoulders, no matter how many times she has to pretend be another person, no matter how many times she has to lie, deep down she is always Sansa Stark:

"My father was a traitor," Sansa said at once. "And my brother and lady mother are traitors as well." That reflex she had learned quickly. "I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey." "No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves." "Lions," she whispered, without thinking. She glanced about nervously, but there was no one close enough to hear.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

"Robb's a traitor." Sansa knew the words by rote. "I had no part in whatever he did." […] Robb will kill you all, she thought, exulting. “It’s…terrible, my lord. My brother is a vile traitor.” […] "Well, Robb Stark is my father's bane. Joffrey is mine. Tell me, what do you feel for my kingly nephew?" "I love him with all my heart," Sansa said at once. “Truly?” He did not sound convinced. “Even now?” “My love for His Grace is greater than it has ever been.” […] "They tell me you visit the godswood every day. What do you pray for, Sansa?" I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death . . . and for home. For Winterfell. "I pray for an end to the fighting." […] Robb will beat him, Sansa thought. He beat your uncle and your brother Jaime, he’ll beat your father too.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

You may never love the king, but you'll love his children." "I love His Grace with all my heart," Sansa said.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

"I never meant . . . my father was a traitor, my brother as well, I have the traitor's blood, please, don't make me say more."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly. […] "You loved your brothers, much as I love Jaime." Is this some Lannister trap to make me speak treason? "My brothers were traitors, and they've gone to traitors' graves. It is treason to love a traitor."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

"So, who are you?" "Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?"

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

I am a Stark of Winterfell, she longed to tell him. Instead she nodded, and let him escort her down the tower steps and along a bridge.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

[…] “You are Alayne, and you must be Alayne all the time.” He put two fingers on her left breast. "Even here. In your heart. Can you do that? Can you be my daughter in your heart?" "I . . ." I do not know, my lord, she almost said, but that was not what he wanted to hear. Lies and Arbor gold, she thought. "I am Alayne, Father. Who else would I be?"

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

As you can see, Sansa never loses her identity as a Stark of Winterfell. She is forced to lie and pretend, to hide and disguise, to play with false identities and loyalties, but deep within she was always a Stark, Sansa Stark of Winterfell.

That’s why her journey back home is so important for her story, is the way to claim back her true name and identity, her agency and heritage, her home and heart.

The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name.

The south stripped Sansa of her wolf and her father, of her name and her identity, and later constantly tried to strip her of her claim to the north and Winterfell.

After the Lannisters killed Robb without an heir (childless), with Bran and Rickon presumed dead, and Arya lost and also presumed dead, Sansa, aged 12/13, became the Heir to Witerfell and by far the most eligible single young heiress in Westeros. Then Sansa suffered constant objectification, by every character she interacted with. She was practically transformed into a stone castle, Winterfell, and the north itself, since the one that controlled her would obtain all her lands and power. Or, to use the euphemism from the Books, Sansa Stark was the “key to the north.”

Alone in the capital, she was spurned by King Joffrey Baratheon and became a ward hostage of the crown. The kingdom was at war and the grasping people around Sansa pretended to make her a Baelish and a Tyrell, but at the end they made her a Lannister. After that they made her a bastard and then they tried to make her an Arryn, twice. But these ambitious houses and men only wanted her for her claim. She was a means to get Winterfell and the north.

Sansa Stark was thrust into the world of medieval politics in her early teens and played a vital role in these power struggles. Despite the many discussions about the legitimacy of her claim to the North and the secret will of Robb Stark, Sansa is considered the heir of the ancestral lands and domains of House Stark, she is called ‘the key to the north’ by Tywin Lannister, the man behind his royal grandsons, King Joffrey and King Tommen Baratheon. The North is the largest region of Westeros, and Sansa Stark’s claim to Winterfell and the Wardenship of the North is coveted by many lords in order to gain political power and influence.

Most of these suitors were representatives from the ex seven independent kingdoms of Westeros, with the only absentees being from the Kingdom of the North (the bride’s homeland) and the Principality of Dorne. It was like a quest for the conquest of the north, the largest region of Westeros.

1. Joffrey Baratheon, Crown Prince and then King of Westeros (representative from the old Kingdom of the Storm).

Sansa’s first betrothed, a match arranged by Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. When King Robert proposed Joffrey and Sansa’s betrothal, he was trying to reenact his own betrothal to Lyanna Stark, that was part of the so called Southron Ambitions Theory.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

After Ned died as a traitor and House Stark declared Northern Independance, Joffrey broke the betrothal and married Margaery Tyrell.

2. Willas Tyrell, Heir to Highgarden (representative from the old Kingdom of the Reach).

Sansa’s second betrothed, a match planned by Olenna Tyrell who secretly arranged this betrothal in order to expand their power over another great region of Westeros.

“I will be safe in Highgarden. Willas will keep me safe.” “But he does not know you,” Dontos insisted, “and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you. It’s your claim they mean to wed.” "My claim?" She was lost for a moment. "Sweetling," he told her, "you are heir to Winterfell." He grabbed her again, pleading that she must not do this thing, and Sansa wrenched free and left him swaying beneath the heart tree. She had not visited the godswood since. But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

The Lannisters discovered this secret betrothal (thanks to Dontos and Littlefinger) and Sansa ended up married to Tyrion and Cersei betrothed to Willas.

"Yes. You are a ward of the crown. The king stands in your father's place, since your brother is an attainted traitor. That means he has every right to dispose of your hand. You are to marry my brother Tyrion." My claim, she thought, sickened. Dontos the Fool was not so foolish after all; he had seen the truth of it. Sansa backed away from the queen. "I won't." I'm to marry Willas, I'm to be the lady of Highgarden, please . . . […] If I had refused you, however, they would have wed you to my cousin Lancel. Perhaps you would prefer that. He is nearer your age, and fairer to look upon. If that is your wish, say so, and I will end this farce." I don't want any Lannister, she wanted to say. I want Willas, I want Highgarden and the puppies and the barge, and sons named Eddard and Bran and Rickon. But then she remembered what Dontos had told her in the godswood. Tyrell or Lannister, it makes no matter, it's not me they want, only my claim. "You are kind, my lord," she said, defeated. "I am a ward of the throne and my duty is to marry as the king commands."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

3. Tyrion Lannister, Heir presumptive to Casterly Rock (representatives from the old Kingdom of the Rock).

Sansa Stark’s husband, a match arranged by Tywin Lannister without Sansa’s free consent. He married Sansa following his father’s orders in order to take control over the north.

“I will not have the rose and the direwolf in bed together,” declared Lord Tywin. “We must forestall him.” […] "The girl's happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark." "She is no more than a child." “Your sister swears she’s flowered. If so, she is a woman, fit to be wed. You must needs take her maidenhead, so no man can say the marriage was not consummated. After that, if you prefer to wait a year or two before bedding her again, you would be within your rights as her husband.” […] “She must marry a Lannister, and soon.” “The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name,” his uncle Kevan put in. “Had that not occurred to you?” “If you will not have the girl, we shall give her to one of your cousins,” said his father.” […] The key to the north, you say? The Greyjoys hold the north now, and King Balon has a daughter. Why Sansa Stark, and not her?" […] Come spring, the northmen will have had a bellyful of krakens. When you bring Eddard Stark's grandson home to claim his birthright, lords and little folk alike will rise as one to place him on the high seat of his ancestors. You are capable of getting a woman with child, I hope?" […] “You shall never have Casterly Rock, I promise you. But wed Sansa Stark, and it is just possible that you might win Winterfell.” Tyrion Lannister, Lord Protector of Winterfell. The prospect gave him a queer chill. “Very good, Father.”

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

The marriage was never consummated and after Joffrey’s death Sansa ran away from King’s Landing. Tyrion was accused of murdering Joffrey and condemned to die, but he escaped King’s Landing before his execution. Littlefinger is waiting for news of Tyrion’s death for Sansa to become a widow and then marry her with Harrold Hardyng; if not, she would need and annulment by the High Septon.

4. Robert Arryn and Harrold Hardyng, Heir and second in the line, respectively, to the Vale of Arryn (representatives from the old Kingdom of the Mountain and Vale).

4.1. Robert Arryn, Heir to the Vale of Arryn.

The match with Sweetrobin was proposed by Lysa Arryn, the mother of the little bridegroom. Lysa tried to manipulate Sansa to marry little Robert, calling her a beggar, and warned her to put aside her pride and be a submissive wife for her sickly son:

"I . . . I am married, my lady." "Yes, but soon a widow. Be glad the Imp preferred his whores. It would not be fitting for my son to take that dwarf's leavings, but as he never touched you... How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert?” The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now. “I … can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not?” "He is eight. And not robust. But such a good boy, so bright and clever. He will be a great man, Alayne. The seed is strong, my lord husband said before he died. His last words. The gods sometimes let us glimpse the future as we lay dying. I see no reason why you should not be wed as soon as we know that your Lannister husband is dead. A secret wedding, to be sure. The Lord of the Eyrie could scarcely be thought to have married a bastard, that would not be fitting. The ravens should bring us the word from King's Landing once the Imp's head rolls. You and Robert can be wed the next day, won't that be joyous? (…) Do you read well, Alayne?"

"Septa Mordane was good enough to say so." "Robert has weak eyes, but he loves to be read to," Lady Lysa confided. "He likes stories about animals the best. Do you know the little song about the chicken who dressed as a fox? I sing him that all the time, he never grows tired of it. And he likes to play hopfrog and spin-the-sword and come-into-my-castle, but you must always let him win. That's only proper, don't you think? He is the Lord of the Eyrie, after all, you must never forget that. You are well born, and the Starks of Winterfell were always proud, but Winterfell has fallen and you are really just a beggar now, so put that pride aside. Gratitude will better become you, in your present circumstances. Yes, and obedience. My son will have a grateful and obedient wife."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

"I don't want to be leeched!" "My lord, your blood needs thinning," said Maester Colemon. "It is the bad blood that makes you angry, and the rage that brings on the shaking. Come now."

They led the boy away. My lord husband, Sansa thought, as she contemplated the ruins of Winterfell. The snow had stopped, and it was colder than before. She wondered if Lord Robert would shake all through their wedding. At least Joffrey was sound of body. […] “I will tell my aunt that I don’t want to marry Robert. Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows. She wasn’t a beggar, no matter what her aunt said. She was thirteen, a woman flowered and wed, the heir to Winterfell. Sansa felt sorry for her little cousin sometimes, but she could not imagine ever wanting to be his wife. I would sooner be married to Tyrion again.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Littlefinger had other plans…

4.2. Harrold Hardyng, second in line to the Vale of Arryn.

Harry is betrothed to Alayne Stone, a match arranged by Petyr Baelish and Anya Waynwood. When Petyr Baelish proposed Harry and Alayne/Sansa betrothal, he was trying to gain more political power to further his own agenda.

Her eyes widened. "He is not Lady Waynwood's heir. He's Robert's heir. If Robert were to die . . ." Petyr arched an eyebrow. "When Robert dies. Our poor brave Sweetrobin is such a sickly boy, it is only a matter of time. When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That's worth another kiss now, don't you think?"

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

Harry, though... My Harry. My lord, my lover, my betrothed. Ser Harrold Hardyng looked every inch a lord-in-waiting; clean-limbed and handsome, straight as a lance, hard with muscle. Men old enough to have known Jon Arryn in his youth said Ser Harrold had his look, she knew. He had a mop of sandy blond hair, pale blue eyes, an aquiline nose. Joffrey was comely too, though, she reminded herself. A comely monster, that's what he was. Little Lord Tyrion was kinder, twisted though he was. […] This time her eyes met Harry's. She smiled just for him, and said a silent prayer to the Maiden. Please, he doesn't need to love me, just make him like me, just a little, that would be enough for now. Ser Harrold looked down at her coldly. "Why should it please me to be escorted anywhere by Littlefinger's bastard?"

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

5. Theon Greyjoy, heir presumptive of the Iron Islands (representative from the old Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers).

There was never a betrothal between Theon Greyjoy and any daughter of House Stark. But Theon’s case was particular, because he got to invade and control Winterfell, but he never got a Stark bride.

The maester inclined his head. "I make no apologies for oathbreakers. Do what you must. I thank you for your mercy." Mercy, thought Theon as Luwin dropped back. There's a bloody trap. Too much and they call you weak, too little and you're monstrous. Yet the maester had given him good counsel, he knew. His father thought only in terms of conquest, but what good was it to take a kingdom if you could not hold it? Force and fear could carry you only so far. A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

Later, as Reek, Theon witnesses how the Lannisters and the Boltons use Jeyne Poole, disguised as Arya Stark, to tighten their grip on Winterfell, marrying Jeyne with Ramsay Bolton, the same way Theon wanted to use Sansa when he usurped Winterfell.

Lord Ramsay filled his cup with ale. "That would spoil our celebration, my lord. Reek, I have glad tidings for you. I am to be wed. My lord father is bringing me a Stark girl. Lord Eddard's daughter, Arya. You remember little Arya, don't you?" Arya Underfoot, he almost said. Arya Horseface. Robb's younger sister, brown-haired, long-faced, skinny as a stick, always dirty. Sansa was the pretty one. He remembered a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child's fancy. Arya, though … "I remember her. Arya." "She shall be the Lady of Winterfell, and me her lord."

—A Dance with Dragons - Reek I

Sansa ignores Theon’s past pretensions to be her husband, and the only time she thought about her father’s ward, she called him Bran’s killer.

6. Petyr Baelish, Lord of the Fingers and Harrenhal, Lord Paramount of the Trident and Lord Protector of the Eyrie and the Vale of Arryn.

After Ned’s death, Petyr Baelish proposed himself to marry Sansa Stark. His proposal was rejected by the Crown, because he was too lowborn.

It came to her suddenly that she had stood in this very spot before, on the day Lord Eddard Stark had lost his head. That was not supposed to happen. Joff was supposed to spare his life and send him to the Wall. Stark's eldest son would have followed him as Lord of Winterfell, but Sansa would have stayed at court, a hostage. Varys and Littlefinger had worked out the terms, and Ned Stark had swallowed his precious honor and confessed his treason to save his daughter's empty little head. I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn. If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert's brothers.

—A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

Sansa ignores Littlefinger’s past pretensions to be her husband. Petyr Baelish publicly acts as Alayne’s father, but at the same time Littlefinger is grooming Sansa while they are alone.

As you can see, despite their intentions, Theon and Littlefinger were never betrothed to Sansa, neither secretly nor officially, and their pretensions were unknown to her. Sansa is only aware of five of these suitors: Joffrey Baratheon, Willas Tyrell, Tyrion Lannister, Robert Arryn and Harrold Hardyng. A Baratheon, a Tyrell, a Lannister and a Hardyng… Where did I read about all these last names before??? Oh yes! That’s from The Hedge Knight and the Tourney of Ashford Meadow.

The Hedge Knight novella was built around the Tourney at Ashford Meadow. Lord Ashford staged the tourney to celebrate his daughter's thirteenth name day. His daughter was the queen of love and beauty and would have five champions to defend her honor. All other entrants were the challengers, and if anyone defeated a champion, they would take their place as the new champion. After three days of jousting, the champions would determine if Lord Ashford's daughter retained her title or if another would wear it. But we only know who were the last five champions after the first day of jousting.

The last names of four out of five of these five champions, match with the last names of the men betrothed or already married to Sansa Stark:

This could be a mere coincidence, as many had claimed, because after all, there wasn’t an Arryn champion in the Tourney at Ashford Meadow, they say. But I disagree.

As I explained before, GRRM has projected his love for medieval tourneys, heraldry, pageantry, knights and chivalry on Sansa Stark. So George writing a tourney in honor of a thirteen year old maiden, the same age of Sansa, can’t be a mere coincidence.

Five final champions deciding if the thirteen year old maiden retained her Queen of Love and Beauty title or if another would wear it, as a simil of the greatest houses of Westeros deciding who would take away Sansa’s claim, can’t be a mere coincidence.

The fact that Ser Tybolt Lannister and Ser Lyonel Baratheon defeated Lady Ashord’s brothers, Androw and Robert, during the jousting, the same way the Lannisters and Baratheons killed Sansa’s family and then married her with the suitor of their choice, can’t be a mere coincidence.

The fact that there is a Hardyng, instead of an Arryn, among the champions of the tourney, that illustrates the conflict in the succession to the Vale of Arryn, with Harry Hardyng waiting for Sweetrobing to die, to become Lord of the Vale, can’t be a mere coincidence. If you don’t believe me, ask Littlefinger why he replaced Sweetrobin with Harry as Alayne/Sansa betrothed?

The fact that Ser Humfrey Hardyng won a previous great melee at Maidenpool, where he “overthrew Ser Donnel of Duskendale and the Lords Arryn and Royce in the lists,” can’t be a mere coincidence. Ser Donnel of Duskendale and the Lords Arryn and Royce… Are these names unfamiliar to you? Because they remind me of Dontos Hollard, Robert Arryn and Waymar Royce. All of them romantically linked with Sansa. See? This can’t be a mere coincidence.

The Hedge Knight was originally published on August 25, 1998, in “Legends,” an anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. GRRM has said that he wrote this tale while he “was still in the middle of writing Clash of Kings.” A Clash of Kings was published on November 16, 1998. The deadline to send the works to Robert Silverberg was December 31, 1997, and GRRM surprisingly sent the tale on the deadline.

Willas Tyrell appears for the first time in A Storm of Swords (Sansa I), published on August 8, 2000. And Harrold Hardyng appears for the first time in A Feast for Crows (Alayne I), published on October 17, 2005. So I think there is no coincidence here, GRRM has planned the list of Sansa’s main suitors since he “was still in the middle of writing Clash of Kings,” back in 1997.

This repetition of the pattern in these two lists of men (Ashford champions & Sansa’s suitors), accentuates the importance of Sansa and her claim in the political scene of Westeros. After all, all of Sansa’s betrothals were arranged to gain political power through her claim to the north, which is the largest region of Westeros.

Will there be a Targaryen suitor for Sansa? There is a lot to say about it, but the Tourney at Ashford Meadow deserves its own post, one that will be finished soon, with the blessing of the old gods and the new.

Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.

(Art credit: Jon Snow and Ghost by Lauren K. Cannon)

In the south, every great house of Westeros were fighting to get Sansa’s hand in marriage in order to take Winterfell and the north under their control.

Sansa reflects about this objectification in the Books and gives us one of the saddest lines in ASOIAF, especially coming from a girl who yearns to be loved and always dreamed of getting married: “No one will ever marry me for love,” (because everyone only wants her for her claim to Winterfell and the north).

Meanwhile at the Wall…

Jon Snow was offered legitimation, Winterfell’s Lordship and a wildling bride (Val) by King Stannis Baretheon, in order to gain the northern lords and the wildlings support to his claim to the Iron Throne:

Your northmen do not know me, have no reason to love me, yet I will need their strength in the battles yet to come. I need a son of Eddard Stark to win them to my banner."

He would make me Lord of Winterfell.

[…] When the cold winds rise, we shall live or die together. It is time we made alliance against our common foe." He looked at Jon. "Would you agree?"

[…] "I agree."

"Good," King Stannis said, "for the surest way to seal a new alliance is with a marriage. I mean to wed my Lord of Winterfell to this wildling princess."

[…] "Does this mean you will not wed the girl? I warn you, she is part of the price you must pay, if you want your father's name and your father's castle. This match is necessary, to help assure the loyalty of our new subjects. Are you refusing me, Jon Snow?"

"No," Jon said, too quickly. It was Winterfell the king was speaking of, and Winterfell was not to be lightly refused. "I mean . . . this has all come very suddenly, Your Grace. Might I beg you for some time to consider?"

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XI

And Jon Snow rejected it all!

“By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Yes, once again, Jon’s answer was Sansa. Winterfell belongs to Sansa. He could have said ‘Winterfell belongs to my sisters Sansa and Arya’ or ‘Winterfell belongs to my trueborn sisters’ or ‘Winterfell belongs to the Starks.’ But no. He said, more than once, that Winterfell belongs to Sansa.

Unlike Tyrion, Willas, Theon, Littlefinger or even little Robert, who pursued Sansa’s claim over her, there was a man who was offered Winterfell and chose Sansa over her claim: “By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa.” – “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.” Among all the high lords interested in becoming the Lord of Winterfell by marrying Sansa Stark, the bastard Jon Snow refused to despoil his sister Sansa of her rights, even if her claim is the one thing he has wanted as much as he had ever wanted anything.

It only remains for me to say that, if there is to be a Targaryen suitor for Sansa, I believe that man will be Jon Snow, not Aegon (Young Griff). Because, who else would be a better correspondence for Valarr Targaryen, “the black prince with the white guardian,” than Jon Snow, the black knight of the Wall with the white guardian Ghost? But this is a matter for another post.

And for the readers that support the argument that Dunk was the one that crashed the tourney and later won the Trial of Seven (hence Dunk was the winner at Ashford), let me tell you that Dunk and Jon Snow are more similar than you think. Another character linked with Dunk is of course Brienne of Tarth. Brienne has sworn her sword Oathkeeper (made of Ice) to find and protect Sansa Stark.

Now, let’s talk about Sansa and Godswoods.

IV.2. SANSA AND GODSWOODS

She's gone back north, she has. That's where her gods are.

As I said before, Sansa’s journey back home starts with a godswood, the moment she got the anonymous note with this message: "Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home."

Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home. The words were the same on the hundredth reading as they'd been on the first, when Sansa had discovered the folded sheet of parchment beneath her pillow. She did not know how it had gotten there or who had sent it. The note was unsigned, unsealed, and the hand unfamiliar. She crushed the parchment to her chest and whispered the words to herself. "Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home," she breathed, ever so faintly.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

But the godswoods in the south are not like the one at home:

In the south the last weirwoods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago, except on the Isle of Faces where the green men kept their silent watch. Up here it was different. Here every castle had its godswood, and every godswood had its heart tree, and every heart tree its face.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

After Sansa left Winterfell, she went south and got to live in two great castles that although they had a godswood, they didn’t have a weirwood tree. But no matter that, the godswood of the Red Keep in King’s Landing and the godswood of the Eyrie in The Vale were very important in Sansa’s arc. But there was another castle and another godswood…

Only trees bare and brooding, their black branches scratching at the sky.

Ned killed Lady at Darry. The castle had a godswood, but not a weirwood:

The castle yard was full of eyes and ears. To escape them, they sought out Darry's godswood. There were no sparrows there, only trees bare and brooding, their black branches scratching at the sky. A mat of dead leaves crunched beneath their feet.

—A Feast for Crows - Jaime IV

There is no other description of Darry’s godswood. Jaime would have noticed if there has been a weirwood there; instead he mentions the black branches of the trees, the opposite to the white bone branches of a weirwood.

During the “trial,” Sansa chose to keep quiet about the Trident incident, she didn’t support Joffrey’s nor Arya’s version, she just said “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember”. And while it wasn’t exactly a lie, many readers considered her silence a betrayal to House Stark and they think she was punished with Lady’s sacrifice for not telling the truth.

It was a very complicated situation for Sansa, and as I said before, Lady’s death was the result of the sum of several factors (several other character’s actions/inactions), but this absence of weirwoods in the south (In the south the last weirwoods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago), also serves to illustrate how the further Sansa goes south, the more she losses and the more lies she is forced to say.

Later, Arya was glad to know that Darry was going to be burned by northern men, remembering that it was there where Lady was killed:

Arya was glad to hear that the castle of the Darrys would be burned. That was where they'd brought her when she'd been caught after her fight with Joffrey, and where the queen had made her father kill Sansa's wolf. It deserves to burn.

—A Clash of Kings - Arya X

Arya’s reaction is very similar to Sansa’s wish for the Sept of Baelor to be burned by Stannis, since that was the place where Ned was killed:

Dontos nodded. "He made a great pyre of the trees as an offering to his new god. The red priestess made him do it. They say she rules him now, body and soul. He's vowed to burn the Great Sept of Baelor too, if he takes the city." "Let him." When Sansa had first beheld the Great Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she'd thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. "I want it burned." "Hush, child, the gods will hear you."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

Perhaps the gods heard Sansa's wish, and it will come true... We'll see.

The heart tree there was a great oak, brown and faceless.

The Red Keep had a godswood, but not a weirwood. Ned and Sansa could still sense the presence of the old gods, nonetheless:

The godswood was empty, as it always was here in this citadel of the southron gods. Ned's leg was screaming as they lowered him to the grass beside the heart tree. "Thank you." He drew a paper from his sleeve, sealed with the sigil of his House. "Kindly deliver this at once." [...] How long he waited in the quiet of the godswood, he could not say. It was peaceful here. The thick walls shut out the clamor of the castle, and he could hear birds singing, the murmur of crickets, leaves rustling in a gentle wind. The heart tree was an oak, brown and faceless, yet Ned Stark still felt the presence of his gods. His leg did not seem to hurt so much.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes. Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . .

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

Ned took his daughters to pray in the Red Keep’s godswood after knowing that Bran woke up from the coma:

Arya bit her lip. "What will Bran do when he's of age?" Ned knelt beside her. "He has years to find that answer, Arya. For now, it is enough to know that he will live." The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

Sansa’s dream about Bran smiling is very telling, since Bran woke up from the coma precisely thanks to Lady’s sacrifice (only death can pay for life).

In this passage we can also appreciate the moon and sun imagery around the Stark sisters: Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later (Arya is the moon). When dawn broke over the city... "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." (Sansa is the dawn/sun).

Sweet lady, I would be your Florian.

Littlefinger not only used the godswood and the old gods to lure Sansa into his trap, he also used the songs. That’s why he sent Dontos Hollard, a defenestrated knight turned fool, a poor version of the legendary Florian, to help Sansa escape King’s Landing:

“I prayed to the gods for a knight to come save me,” she said. “I prayed and prayed. Why would they send me a drunken old fool?” […] “The singers say there was another fool once who was the greatest knight of all…” “Florian,” Sansa whispered. A shiver went through her. “Sweet lady, I would be your Florian,” Dontos said humbly, falling to his knees before her. […] “I vow, with your father’s gods as witness, that I shall send you home.” He swore. A solemn oath, before the gods. “Then…I will put myself in your hands, ser. But how will I know, when it is time to go? Will you send me another note?” Ser Dontos glanced about anxiously. “The risk is too great. You must come here, to the godswood. As often as you can. This is the safest place. The only safe place. Nowhere else.”

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

During their encounters in the godswood, Dontos and Sansa planned her escape from King’s Landing.

It was there where Sansa told Dontos about her betrothal with Willas Tyrell. That’s how the Lannisters discovered this secret betrothal (thanks to Dontos and Littlefinger) and Sansa ended up married to Tyrion and Cersei betrothed to Willas.

They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

And It was also there where Dontos gave her the hairnet with the poison that later killed Joffrey:

"You've waited so long, be patient awhile longer. Here, I have something for you." Ser Dontos fumbled in his pouch and drew out a silvery spiderweb, dangling it between his thick fingers. It was a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight. "What stones are these?" "Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight." "It's very lovely," Sansa said, thinking, It is a ship I need, not a net for my hair. "Lovelier than you know, sweet child. It's magic, you see. It's justice you hold. It's vengeance for your father." Dontos leaned close and kissed her again. "It's home."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VIII

Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow.

(Art credit: Sansa Stark in the godswood of the Red Keep by Lauren K. Cannon)

Later Sansa realized that it was all Littlefinger’s plan. That Dontos sold her for a bag of golden dragons, that she carried the poison that killed Joffrey in her hair, that she was not going back home, to Winterfell, that life is not a song…

"He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey's death. The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse. Dontos . . . well, you heard him. He sold you for gold, and when he'd drunk it up he would have sold you again. A bag of dragons buys a man's silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel buys it forever." He smiled sadly. "All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff's tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw." Sansa felt sick. "He said he was my Florian." "Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your father sat the Iron Throne?" The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa could not say. "Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?" "Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course." He smiled. "Come to the godswood tonight if you want to go home." "The note . . . it was you?" "It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red Keep is safe from the eunuch's little birds . . . or little rats, as I call them. There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them with swords."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

As I said before, this absence of weirwoods in the south (In the south the last weirwoods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago), illustrates how the further Sansa goes south, the more she loses and the more lies she is forced to say.

At Darry, she lost Lady. At the Red Keep, the Lannisters capture her father, friends and loyals to later kill them or put them into sex trafficking. She also “lost” her last name Stark to become “Lady Lannister,” and was forced to call her whole family traitors and profess how much she loved her captors and how very loyal she was to them.

After her escape from King’s Landing though, a different tale started to be forged, the legend of Sansa Stark, ever a traitor to the crown, a devoted daughter of the old gods of the north:

In King's Landing, Brienne had found one of Sansa's former maids doing washing in a brothel. "I served with Lord Renly before m'lady Sansa, and both turned traitor," the woman Brella complained bitterly. "No lord will touch me now, so I have to wash for whores." But when Brienne asked about Sansa, she said, "I'll tell you what I told Lord Tywin. That girl was always praying. She'd go to sept and light her candles like a proper lady, but near every night she went off to the godswood. She's gone back north, she has. That's where her gods are."

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne II

Oh the popular folklore! Always the best: During the day Sansa prayed to the Seven like a proper lady, but at night she was a wolf that was always howling in the godswood, talking to her nortern gods…

A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

The Eyrie had a godswood, but not a weirwood. Sansa couldn’t even sense the presence of the old gods now:

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In winter this will be a cold white prison.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

The Vale of Arryn and the Eyrie were as beautiful as the songs said, but Sansa couldn’t love them, they were no home:

"You look distraught. Did you think we were making for Winterfell, sweetling? Winterfell has been taken, burned, and sacked. All those you knew and loved are dead. What northmen who have not fallen to the ironmen are warring amongst themselves. Even the Wall is under attack. Winterfell was the home of your childhood, Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You're a woman grown, and you need to make your own home." […] It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister. She will be kind to me for my mother's sake, surely. She's my own blood. And the Vale of Arryn was beautiful, all the songs said so. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to stay here for a time.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Old snow cloaked the courtyard, and icicles hung down like crystal spears from the terraces and towers. The Eyrie was built of fine white stone, and winter's mantle made it whiter still. So beautiful, Alayne thought, so impregnable. She could not love this place, no matter how she tried. Even before the guards and serving men had made their descent, the castle had seemed as empty as a tomb, and more so when Petyr Baelish was away. No one sang up there, not since Marillion. No one ever laughed too loud.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home. The Eyrie was no home. […] When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

A godswood without gods (a godswood without a weirwood), as empty as me (like Sansa without Lady).

A godswood without gods (a lone wolf), as empty as me (lost without its pack).

A godswood without gods (a body without its heart), as empty as me (disillusioned with love).

The snow fell and the castle rose.

(Art credit: Sansa Stark making a snow-castle of Winterfell at the Eyrie - by Michael Komarck.© )

Snow imagery is very important in Sansa’s arc. Snow means home, family and love:

Sansa is prophesied slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow (Winterfell reference).

The snow falling before dawn is what wakes her up from her dreams of Winterfell, the day she builds her snow castle.

She remembers Robb with snowflakes in his hair during their farewell.

She remembers the summer snows from the day she left Winterfell.

She remembers a snowball fight with Arya and Bran back at Winnterfell.

She associates snowflakes with lover’s kisses.

She associates the taste of snow with Winterfell, innocence and dreams.

She builds a snow castle that means to be Winterfell.

Sansa building her snow castle is a reminder of the First Men and the Children of the Forest victory over the Long Night at the Battle for the Dawn.

Sansa building her snow castle at dawn is foreshadowing of Sansa re-building Winterfell after the second Battle for the Dawn.

She calls the Eyrie “a castle made of snow” (Winterfell reference), the day she descends to the Gates of the Moon.

She (Alayne Stone) is called the daughter of a snowy mountain (Winterfell reference).

The snow is falling all around when she hears of Jon Snow and the wind howls fiercely like a ghost wolf, big as mountains.

That’s why Sansa building her snow castle is one of GRRM’s favorite scenes from the Books.

It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. [...] Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. [...] She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell. [...] Sansa said, “It’s meant to be Winterfell.” [...] “Winterfell is the seat of House Stark,” Sansa told her husband-to-be. “The great castle of the north.”

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Read more about George’s love for Sansa and her snow castle here, here, and also here.

Sansa is hiding in a strange and alien place, pretending to be another person, with another family and other roots. But her dreams, her deepest desires and even the weather are there to remind her who she really is. So, as an act of defiance, she builds a snow version of her true home out of memory. On the outside, this could simply be seen as a child playing in the snow, but deep down Sansa was yelling at the world that she was a Stark, that she was a wolf, a ghost wolf, big as mountains.

Sansa Stark went up the mountain, but Alayne Stone is coming down.

Alayne Stone, the natural daughter of Petyr Baelish, was born at Gulltown. She is fourteen years old and has dark brown hair. Her mother was a gentlewoman of Braavos, daughter of a merchant prince. Alayne was raised by Septas and devotedly instructed in the Faith.

Again, the absence of a weirwood, or any other species as a heart tree, meant that Sansa was surrounded by lies and something else was taken away from her. This time her hair color and true born status.

Sansa’s coloring: fair porcelain skin and rich auburn hair, works as a reference to the weirwood tree. We can also observe this reference in this passage:

She shrieked as Arya flung the orange across the table. It caught her in the middle of the forehead with a wet squish and plopped down into her lap. "You have juice on your face, Your Grace," Arya said. It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again. "You're horrible," she screamed at her sister. "They should have killed you instead of Lady!"

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

Ivory (whitish) and red are the colors of the weirwood tree. The old gods reference and the mention of Lady make this passage very symbolic. The dress was a betrothal gift from Cersei, now stained with blood. Similar to Lady’s death that stained Sansa’s betrothal with Joffrey, who never forgot what happened at the Trident:

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

So, taking away her rich auburn hair color, was once again an attempt to cut her northern roots. Yes, Sansa’s hair color was a Tully feature, but a reference to the red weirwood leaves as well.

This is more evident when Jon reunites with Ghost and finds his answer to Stannis’s offer and refuses Winterfell in order to save the weirwood tree from the Lord of Light fires and protect Sansa’s claim to the castle. During this processes Jon says: i) Winterfell belongs to the old gods, ii) Ghost belongs to the old gods; and, iii) Winterfell belongs to Sansa. At this point the connection between Sansa and the weirwood tree is obvious and undeniable.

But what Sansa resented the most, was having lost her last name and true born status:

"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,' I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her." I am a Stark of Winterfell, she longed to tell him. Instead she nodded, and let him escort her down the tower steps and along a bridge.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

"I know Lord Nestor, sweetling. Do you imagine I'd ever let him harm my daughter?" I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

"Bronze Yohn knows me," she reminded him. "He was a guest at Winterfell when his son rode north to take the black." […] Lord Royce saw . . . he saw Sansa Stark again at King's Landing, during the Hand's tourney."

[…] A man fighting in a tourney has more to concern him than some child in the crowd. And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

So, when Sansa says: “Sansa Stark went up the mountain, but Alayne Stone is coming down”, it almost sounds like a death. The author himself said that “Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone”.

But “winter is coming,” and the cold is ruthless, the old gods are sending snow (and Snow) for Alayne Stone, to nourish her subtle acts of rebellion like, building snow castles, blurting out her bastard half brother’s name, and indulging herself with lemony, lemony, lemon cakes.

IV.3. THE HEART OF WINTERFELL

The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood.

I tried to explain how Sansa started to become a symbol of Winterfell, no matter how many times other characters attempt to strip her of her true identity, and how many times readers question her Starkness. But the loss of Lady’s physical existence and the absence of weirwood trees in the south, made her feel empty, like a godswood without gods. But the heart of Winterfell, the heart of home, the weirwood tree, still stands back home and is fighting hard against invaders.

Some of Sansa’s suitors got to know Winterfell’s godswood, but the old gods rejected their presence and made them feel unwanted, just like Sansa does with some of them:

1. Theon Greyjoy

A pity Ned Stark had taken his daughters south; elsewise Theon could have tightened his grip on Winterfell by marrying one of them. Sansa was a pretty little thing too, and by now likely even ripe for bedding. But she was a thousand leagues away, in the clutches of the Lannisters. A shame.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

He watched the forest go from grey to green below him as light filtered through the silent trees. On his left he could see tower tops above the inner wall, their roofs gilded by the rising sun. The red leaves of the weirwood were a blaze of flame among the green. Ned Stark's tree, he thought, and Stark's wood, Stark's castle, Stark's sword, Stark's gods. This is their place, not mine.

—A Clash of Kings - Theon V

Meanwhile Sansa completely ignores Theon’s past pretensions to marry her, and the only time she thought about her father’s ward, she called him Bran’s killer.

2. Tyrion Lannister

Tyrion had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him as Lord of Winterfell. The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark.

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or ten, or fifty.

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

Meanwhile, Sansa refuses to kneel for Tyrion to be able to cloak her (Dontos serves as stool), refuses his sexual advances with icy courtesy, never opens her heart to her husband’s offers to comfort, lies and outsmarts him about her visits to the godswood where she plans her escape from the capital, she makes him feel unwanted and hated, she puts a wall of icy courtesy between them that Tyrion never could climb or break:

No one had thought to bring a stool, however, and Tyrion stood a foot and a half shorter than his bride. As he moved behind her, Sansa felt a sharp tug on her skirt. He wants me to kneel, she realized, blushing. She was mortified. It was not supposed to be this way. She had dreamed of her wedding a thousand times, and always she had pictured how her betrothed would stand behind her tall and strong, sweep the cloak of his protection over her shoulders, and tenderly kiss her cheek as he leaned forward to fasten the clasp. She felt another tug at her skirt, more insistent. I won't. Why should I spare his feelings, when no one cares about mine? The dwarf tugged at her a third time. Stubbornly she pressed her lips together and pretended not to notice. […] He hopped down from the dais and grabbed Sansa roughly. "Come, wife, time to smash your portcullis. I want to play come-into-the-castle." Red-faced, Sansa went with him from the Small Hall. What choice do I have? […] "Well, talk won't make you older. Shall we get on with this, my lady? If it please you?" "It will please me to please my lord husband." That seemed to anger him. "You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall." "Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that. "I am your husband. You can take off your armor now." [...] "On my honor as a Lannister," the Imp said, "I will not touch you until you want me to." It took all the courage that was in her to look in those mismatched eyes and say, "And if I never want you to, my lord?" His mouth jerked as if she had slapped him. "Never?" Her neck was so tight she could scarcely nod. "Why," he said, "that is why the gods made whores for imps like me." He closed his short blunt fingers into a fist, and climbed down off the bed.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

Sansa's misery was deepening every day. Tyrion would gladly have broken through her courtesy to give her what solace he might, but it was no good. No words would ever make him fair in her eyes. Or any less a Lannister. This was the wife they had given him, for all the rest of his life, and she hated him.

And their nights together in the great bed were another source of torment. He could no longer bear to sleep naked, as had been his custom. His wife was too well trained ever to say an unkind word, but the revulsion in her eyes whenever she looked on his body was more than he could bear. Tyrion had commanded Sansa to wear a sleeping shift as well. I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Yes, and I want to be tall as Jaime and as strong as Ser Gregor the Mountain too, for all the bloody good it does.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

The way she looked at him, her stiffness when she climbed into their bed . . . when he was with her, never for an instant could he forget who he was, or what he was. No more than she did. She still went nightly to the godswood to pray, and Tyrion wondered if she were praying for his death. She had lost her home, her place in the world, and everyone she had ever loved or trusted. Winter is coming, warned the Stark words, and truly it had come for them with a vengeance. But it is high summer for House Lannister. So why am I so bloody cold?

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VII

He wanted to reach her, to break through the armor of her courtesy. […] He had always had a yen to see the Titan of Braavos. Perhaps that would please Sansa. Gently, he spoke of Braavos, and met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he had walked once in the north. It made him weary. Then and now.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

Once again, as it happened with the Hound, Sansa’s courtesy armors her against men that attempt to invade her body. In a similar way that the heart of Winterfell, the weirwood, makes the invaders feel unwanted and rejected.

3. Petyr Baelish

Littlefinger was never at Winterfell or the godswood, but he feels a deep hatred for the castle, he always dreamed of Winterfell as Catelyn’s dark and cold prison:

He walked along outside the walls. “I used to dream of it, in those years after Cat went north with Eddard Stark. In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold.”

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Littlefinger is the cause of the War of the Five Kings that killed Sansa’s parents and older brother and separated her remaining siblings. The war also caused the fall of Winterfell that was, invaded, sacked and burned by the Greyjoys and Boltons.

But there is a connection between Littlefinger, Winterfell and the godswood. Littlefinger has involved Sansa in several murders, Joffrey’s and Lysa’s being the more important (Dontos and Marillion also suffered murder and mutilation). The King’s murder was planned in the Red Keep’s goodswood, and Lysa’s murder was a direct consequence of Petyr kissing Sansa in the Eyrie’s goodswood.

Now Littlefinger is grooming Sansa, forcing sexual advances on her, and those started during the snow castle scene. The symbolic image of a giant invading Winterfell also plays as an innuendo:

"May I come into your castle, my lady?" Sansa was wary. "Don't break it. Be . . ." ". . . gentle?" He smiled. "Winterfell has withstood fiercer enemies than me. It is Winterfell, is it not?" "Yes," Sansa admitted.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

The ambitious men that pursed Winterfell through marrying Sansa, also had to take her maidenhead and conceive an heir, in order to consolidate their claim to the castle and the north. So “coming into the castle” also means having sex and making children.

Littlefinger is too machiavellian, it seems he has used the godswoods not only to trap Sansa but also to reenact his children fantasy of being Catelyn’s love:

I saw you kissing in the snow. She's just like her mother. Catelyn kissed you in the godswood, but she never meant it, she never wanted you. Why did you love her best? It was me, it was always meeee!"

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Sansa, like Catelyn, never wanted and will never wants Petyr Baelish as lover.

Meanwhile at the Wall…

Jon Snow

Unlike Theon, Jon doesn’t feel rejected by the heart of Winterfell. Jon got a direwolf sent by the old gods that shares the weirwood’s coloring:

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Unlike Theon that invaded Winterfell and allowed the Ironmen to sack, pillage, kill and rape. And later let the Boltons into the castle to burn it. Jon wants to rebuild Winterfell:

They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell … grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones … how could Winterfell be gone?

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Jon wanted Winterfell, as much as he had ever wanted anything, but unlike Tyrion, Jon rejects the castle in favor of Sansa. And Jon would never forced himself on Sansa if she doesn’t want him as well.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. I want to comfort her. I want to hear her laugh. I want her to come to me willingly, to bring me her joys and her sorrows and her lust.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

The wording of these two passages (“He wanted it” / “I want her”), the Winterfell references, and the guilt and angst for desiring something forbidden (“May the gods forgive me” / “I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is”), is way too similar to be a mere coincidence. Winterfell and Sansa are merged in the text.

Tyrion and Littlefinger sexually desire Sansa and used the same Winterfell reference as an innuendo:

"Come, wife, time to smash your portcullis. I want to play come-into-the-castle."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Both Tyrion and Littlefinger have giant imagery around them, both even talk to her about the Giant of Braavos, both wanted Sansa politically (Winterfell) and sexually (her body), and Sansa has been prophesied slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow (Winterfell reference). I think that Jon might help her to fulfil that prophecy.

Indeed, Tyrion associates Sansa’s rejection of his advances as icy courtesy and compared that rejection with a castle wall and the Wall in the north:

"You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall." "Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

Sansa's misery was deepening every day. Tyrion would gladly have broken through her courtesy to give her what solace he might, but it was no good.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

But Sansa is “stronger within the walls of Winterfell” and Jon at the Wall is “the shield that guards the realms of men.”

Sansa also throws a handful of snow at Littlefinger’s face during the snow castle scene:

The Broken Tower was easier still. They made a tall tower together, kneeling side by side to roll it smooth, and when they'd raised it Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face. Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. "That was unchivalrously done, my lady." "As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home." She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

A handful of snow… Wouldn’t be awesome if Jon Snow continue the Stark men tradition to beat Littlefinger out?

I was always suspicious of Littlefinger helping Sansa build her snow castle, but since Petyr Baelish has giant imagery around him, it all makes sense after reading this passage:

She looked as if she thought he was making that up. "How could men build so high, with no giants to lift the stones?" In legend, Brandon the Builder had used giants to help raise Winterfell, but Jon did not want to confuse the issue. "Men can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there's a tower taller than the Wall." He could tell she did not believe him.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon V

Sansa will be certainly grateful if she can take advantage of any help Baelish could offer to rebuild Winterfell, but she will slay him anyway, as in the songs:

“If the tales be true, that’s not the first giant to end up with his head on Winterfell’s walls.” “Those are only stories,” she said, and left him there.

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Unlike Petyr’s forced kisses, Sansa associates “snow” with lover’s kisses:

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks.

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Unlike Petyr, that has used the godswoods of the Red Keep and the Eyrie, to lie and trap Sansa, and is an awful replacement as a father figure for Sansa, Jon would never lie to Sansa in front of the old gods, like Ned taught him:

Jon said, "My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying."

—A Clash of Kings - Jon II

As I said before, if Jon had accepted Stannis’s offer, he would have had Winterfell, but at an extremely high price: burning the weirwood tree, which, to him, would be sacrilege:

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Sansa feels empty like a godswood without gods, like a godswood without a weirwood tree, mostly because she lost Lady, but also because she feels like a lone wolf without its pack, and a body without its heart due to the extreme disillusionment she has suffered so far.

But Jon Snow has a direwolf that is a symbol of the weirwood tree, Jon himself is a symbol of the weirwood tree. And Sansa has become a symbol of Winterfell and the godswood, but she feels empty without her wolf. Then Ghost might complete Sansa’s empty godswood, and Jon might fill Sansa’s heart again. And together they could be a pack. And together they could rebuild their home. Please play North by Sleeping at Last here.

So…

…One would have to wonder why GRRM is always comparing and contrasting Sansa’s suitors with her bastard half brother Jon Snow? What is the reason for that? Does that mean that something romantic will happen between Sansa and Jon in the future? Is that just a mere coincidence? If the same thing (Sansa’s suitor being compared and contrasted with Jon Snow) happened three times, can we really call it a mere coincidence? One would have to wonder… Why?

IV.4. SANSA THE WOLF

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.

(Picture credit: Sophie Turner)

Acording to GRRM, all the Stark children are wargs or skinchangers:

“I don’t think this is necessarily a ‘Stark’ ability, though all the children have it to one extent or another. They also realize it to one extent or another”. [Source]

Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves? A: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely. [Source]

Oh, George said all the Stark children of this generation were full Wargs. I thought they were like one shot Wargs and were only bonded to their wolves but no they can warg into just about anything. Bran is just the only one working on it. [Source]

Since Lady died, Sansa lost the opportunity to form a deeper bond with her wolf and to further develop and recognise her skinchanger abilities.

But I believe that Lady’s soul still remains in the world, and that’s why Bran calls and counts Sansa’s wolf as “Lady’s Shade.”

Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. "Though it is stronger in some than in others," she warned. Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?

—A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Read more about Lady’s Shade here.

We also have this passage about a Child of the Forest long dead but part of her still remaining in a raven:

“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.” “A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

So it is possible that part of Lady still remains inside of Sansa, and that’s why Sansa always dreams with Lady (wolf dreams). Only Jon stopped dreaming with Ghost for a time, coincidentally, when they were separated by the Wall:

The warg, I've heard them call me. How can I be a warg without a wolf, I ask you?" His mouth twisted. "I don't even dream of Ghost anymore. All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Robb's voice, and my father's, as if they were at a feast. But there's a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me."

—A Storm of Swords - Samwell IV

Most of Sansa’s dreams with Lady is about both of them running in a godswood (Lady’s bones are buried near Winterfell’s godswood), and although Sansa doesn’t remember much of her dreams, she always whispers and/or wakes up with Lady’s name on her lips:

Sansa sat up. "Lady," she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and … and … trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

Tyrion dressed himself in darkness, listening to his wife's soft breathing from the bed they shared. She dreams, he thought, when Sansa murmured something softly—a name, perhaps, though it was too faint to say—and turned onto her side.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VII

Even after her nightmares, she thinks of her Lady:

"I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Some readers have speculated about Sansa and her link with other animals, and the possibility of Sansa changing skins with them, like the black tomcat of the Red Keep, the old blind dog of the Fingers, and even the blue falcon that she observed flying above the Eyrie.

From the Prologue of A Dance with Dragons we know that cats aren’t good to warg into:

Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you.

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

During her encounter with the black tomcat of the Red Keep, Sansa “almost jumped out her skin.” This is a very interesting wording that almost sounds like skinchanging:

The serpentine steps twisted ahead, striped by bars of flickering light from the narrow windows above. Sansa was panting by the time she reached the top. She ran down a shadowy colonnade and pressed herself against a wall to catch her breath. When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

“Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you”, maybe, that’s why after approaching Sansa willingly, the black tomcat “spit at her and leapt away”. This scene happens when Sansa was coming to the godswood to meet with Dontos for the first time. After Sansa arrives, she immediately thinks of Lady.

From the Prologue of A Dance with Dragons we also know that dogs are the easiest animals to bond with:

Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog's skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see.

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

Sansa bonds with the old blind dog of the Fingers fast and easily. The dog is affectionate, tries to defend Sansa from Marillion’s attack, and is next to her after the nightmares of past sexual abuse by the Hound and Tyrion, provoked by the singer’s attack:

It was eight long days until Lysa Arryn arrived. On five of them it rained, while Sansa sat bored and restless by the fire, beside the old blind dog. He was too sick and toothless to walk guard with Bryen anymore, and mostly all he did was sleep, but when she patted him he whined and licked her hand, and after that they were fast friends. […] "Alayne." Her aunt's singer stood over her. "Sweet Alayne. I am Marillion. I saw you come in from the rain. The night is chill and wet. Let me warm you." The old dog raised his head and growled, but the singer gave him a cuff and sent him slinking off, whimpering. […] "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

And about birds, this is what the Prologue of A Dance with Dragons tells us:

"Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become." Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. "Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know skinchangers who've tried hawks, owls, ravens. Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue." Not all skinchangers felt the same, however.

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

We know that Sansa likes to go hawking, and she is better than Stannis at it:

“Do you hawk, Sansa?” “A little,” she admitted.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

The day before last she’d taken Sansa hawking. […] Sansa’s merlin brought down three ducks while Margaery’s peregrine took a heron in full flight.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

But once again trapped in a tower, Sansa wishes she has wings:

A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

Sansa warging abilities are hidden so deep in the text, they only shyly appear in the middle of George’s prose as little pieces of poetry:

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.

Now tell me, what is that if not skinchanging?

And talking about birds, Sansa has already changed her skin with some birds, she was a talking little bird of the Summer Islands (repeating the right things to survive), then a mockingbird (as Petyr Baelish daughter), and she’s about to become a falcon (if she marries Harry).

And since cloaks could also be considered another skin, Sansa has already changed various cloaks. She was cloaked by a Lannister, then by her new father Petyr Baelish, and is about to be cloaked again by an Arryn.

But Sansa is a wolf, no matter how many skins she wears, she will always be a wolf:

A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf.

—A Dance with Dragons – Prologue

“She’s not a dog, she’s a direwolf.”

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

“The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

As you can see, Sansa’s true skin is waiting for her at Winterfell…

A direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, her golden eyes shining sadly through the dark . .

At Darry, the Lannisters killed Lady.

At King’s Landing, Joffrey used to punish Sansa in public, humiliating her for having the blood of a wolf, for being an unnatural creature like her brother Robb that defeated Lannister soldiers fighting with an army of wargs:

"Silence, fool." Joffrey lifted his crossbow and pointed it at her face. "You Starks are as unnatural as those wolves of yours. I've not forgotten how your monster savaged me." "That was Arya's wolf," she said. "Lady never hurt you, but you killed her anyway." […] “This girl’s to be your queen,” the Imp told Joffrey. “Have you no regard for her honor?” “I’m punishing her.” “For what crime? She did not fight her brother’s battle.” “She has the blood of a wolf.”

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

So, the Lannisters thought that Sansa was a tamed wolf. Tyrion used to call her his “child bride” or “child wife”, for everyone in the court she was the imp’s “little wife,” or the “little bird” in her gilded cage. But after Joffrey's death, Sansa began to be seen by her captors as a cunning wolf who hid under a sheepskin, an ungrateful wolf who bit the hands that fed her:

“That night, alone in his tower cell with a blank parchment and a cup of wine, Tyrion found himself thinking of his wife. Not Sansa; his first wife, Tysha. The whore wife, not the wolf wife.”

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IX

"It was sweet," lied Tyrion, "but I am married. She was with me at the feast, you may remember her. Lady Sansa." "Was she your wife? She … she was very beautiful …" And false. Sansa, Shae, all my women …

—A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion IX

“Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa,” said Pycelle. The queen bristled. “I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf.” She refused to say the girl’s name. “I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son.

—A Feast for Crows - Cersei IV

And while Sansa wishes she had feathery wings, unbeknownst to her, she became part of the popular folklore when the smallfolk began to imagine her as a witchy kingslayer that later vanished in a puff of brimstone or changed into a “wolf with big leather wings like a bat” and flew away:

“I forgot, you’ve been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head.”

—A Storm of Swords - Arya XIII

“The dwarf’s wife did the murder with him,” swore an archer in Lord Rowan’s livery. “Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws.”

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime VII

In the same book and with a very similar wording, Jon dreams of a ghastly direwolf wandering around the Crypts of Winterfell:

The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. “Ygritte?” he whispered. “Forgive me. Please.” But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his her golden eyes shining sadly through the dark . .

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

My personal theory is that the ghastly direwolf is Lady, because, among other reasons, this wouldn’t be the first time that Jon confused Ygritte with another redhead.

These legends of Sansa the witch, the unnatural warg, the beastling, the skinchanger, the winged wolf that flew away from a tower window or vanished in a puff of brimstone, are at the same level of the legends about Bloodraven warging into a one-eyed dog and turning into a mist from a century ago:

How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one. Some claimed the King's Hand was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, put on the likeness of a one-eyed dog, even turn into a mist. Packs of gaunt gray wolves hunted down his foes, men said, and carrion crows spied for him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were only tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informers everywhere.

—The Mystery Knight

If Sansa or Lady’s Shade have really changed skins with the old blind dog of the Fingers, that would be almost the same as Bloodraven warging or shapechanging into a one-eyed dog. By the way, the old blind dog’s master’s name was Bryen, a name way too similar to Brynden (Bloodraven’s name)…

But back again to the “wolf with big leather wings like a bat.” This interesting image reminds me of dragons instead of bats, and I think that was precisely George’s intention, he was subtly referring to dragon wings:

[…] “They say the child was …” […] “Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. […] “Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat.

—A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze. Twenty feet tall she reared. She had a woman’s face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion’s curled and venomous tail.

—A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

So, this fascinating image of a “wolf with big leather wings like a bat” could be foreshadowing of Sansa wearing a Targaryen cloak in the future. Or at least having the support and protection of someone related to dragons.

V. SO LONG AS THOSE REMAINED, WINTERFELL REMAINED

Stone and Snow, that was all that was left of Winterfell. Just like she and Jon.

As far as I know, this line: “Stone and Snow, that was all that was left of Winterfell. Just like she and Jon.” comes from a piece of fan-fiction. Sadly I don’t know what fan-fiction it is from (if anyone knows please inform me, so I can cite it properly). But no matter its non-canon origins, this line summarizes a huge and beautiful theme in Sansa and Jon’s arcs: Rebuilding their lost and broken home, Winterfell.

Stone and snow is basically what the north is to someone from the south:

Well, you know, there’s something to be said for being an honorable Stark, but you’re kinda cold all the time and poor and so forth. And you have a lot of land, but there’s not a lot of stuff on it, you know?

—GRRM

"I trust you enjoyed the journey, Your Grace?" Robert snorted. "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I've never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?" "Likely they were too shy to come out," Ned jested. He could feel the chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within the earth. "Kings are a rare sight in the north." Robert snorted. "More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!"

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

Moreso, after Robb Stark lost the north at the hands of the Greyjoys, people in King’s Landing considered the northern lands just a pile of stone and snow:

"And if we accept this alliance?" inquired Lord Mathis Rowan. "What terms does he propose?" "That we recognize his kingship and grant him everything north of the Neck." Lord Redwyne laughed. "What is there north of the Neck that any sane man would want? If Greyjoy will trade swords and sails for stone and snow, I say do it, and count ourselves lucky."

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

But the stone is strong, the snow means home, love and family for the Starks, and the north also has its ancient trees and bones:

At the edge of the wolfswood, Bran turned in his basket for one last glimpse of the castle that had been his life. Wisps of smoke still rose into the grey sky, but no more than might have risen from Winterfell’s chimneys on a cold autumn afternoon. Soot stains marked some of the arrow loops, and here and there a crack or a missing merlon could be seen in the curtain wall, but it seemed little enough from this distance. Beyond, the tops of the keeps and towers still stood as they had for hundreds of years, and it was hard to tell that the castle had been sacked and burned at all. The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I’m not dead either.

—A Clash of Kings - Bran VII

Like Bran, Jon Snow also considers stone (grey granite), root (oak, weirwood), and bone (stone kings) as the fundamental pieces of Winterfell:

They can't be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell . . . grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones . . . how could Winterfell be gone

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Maester Luwin also distinguishes stone and root as the main pieces of Winterfell:

The place [Winterfell] had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stone tree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran II

The toughness of stone and root has been highlighted by the author through the description of Yoren:

Yoren was stooped and sinister, his features hidden behind a beard as black as his clothing, but he seemed as tough as an old root and as hard as stone.

—A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

Even the intruders recognize the strength of Winterfell’s stone walls:

He remembered Winterfell as he had last seen it. Not as grotesquely huge as Harrenhal, nor as solid and impregnable to look at as Storm's End, yet there had been a great strength in those stones, a sense that within those walls a man might feel safe.

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

Winterfell…

…Sacked, burned, broken and without a Stark within its walls (save by Lady’s bones). But the stone is strong and the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained.

Have you noticed already? Have you noticed the references to Sansa and Jon (and Bran) in that quote?

The stone is strong = The walls of Winterfell = Alayne Stone = Sansa Stark.

The roots of the trees go deep = The weirwood tree (the heart of Winterfell) = Ghost = Jon Snow (and Bran the three-eyed raven in his weirwood net).

Under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones = I believe this is a reference to Jon, Sansa and Bran eventual crowning as monarchs of the north and/or the whole kingdom.

The pillars of Winterfell are stone, root and bone.

V.1. STONE

The stone is strong = The walls of Winterfell = Alayne Stone = Sansa Stark.

Sansa Stark has a lot of stone imagery around her.

Winterfell’s walls are made of grey granite. Grey is also a color of House Stark and I believe that Sansa will be the girl in grey on a dying horse from Melisandre’s vision.

As the Heir to Winterfell, Sansa was practically transformed into a stone castle, Winterfell, and the north itself, since the one that controlled her would obtain all her lands and power. Or, to use the euphemism from the Books, Sansa Stark was the “key to the north.”

Tyrion associates Sansa’s rejection of his advances as icy courtesy and compared that rejection with a castle wall that he never got to break:

"You hide behind courtesy as if it were a castle wall." "Courtesy is a lady's armor," Sansa said. Her septa had always told her that.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

Sansa's misery was deepening every day. Tyrion would gladly have broken through her courtesy to give her what solace he might, but it was no good.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

He wanted to reach her, to break through the armor of her courtesy.

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

The castle wall that armored Sansa and Tyrion never got to break is a clear reference to Winterfell:

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

And certainly, Sansa feels stronger and protected withing the walls of Winterfell:

Sansa stuck her fingers through the top, grabbed a handful of snow, and flung it full in his face. Petyr yelped, as the snow slid down under his collar. "That was unchivalrously done, my lady." "As was bringing me here, when you swore to take me home." She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Sansa feeling stronger within the walls of Winterfell, sounds pretty similar to “the stone is strong” line from Bran quote cited above.

Later, while descending from the Eyrie to the Gates of the Moon, Mya Stone tells Sansa that “a stone is a mountain’s daughter.”

Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.” She put her hand on a jagged spur of rock, and got to her feet. “Best finish. We have a long way yet to go, and I can smell a storm.”

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

One of Winterfell’s possible meanings is “wintry mountain(s).” And Sansa Stark is “The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter”.

As the daughter of Petyr Baelish, Alayne Stone also becomes the Heir to Harrenhal, another great castle made of strong stone. Only dragon fire was able to melt Harrenhal’s stone walls:

Stone does not burn, Harren had boasted, but his castle was not made of stone alone. […] And even stone will crack and melt if a fire is hot enough. The riverlords outside the castle walls said later that the towers of Harrenhal glowed red against the night, like five great candles... and like candles, they began to twist and melt, as runnels of molten stone ran down their sides.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest

Moreover we have the parallels that Sansa shares with Jenny of Oldstones. And Oldstones serves us as an example of the strength of the stone.

Just like Winterfell was the stronghold of the ancient Kings of Winter, Oldstones was the stronghold of the ancient River Kings (House Mudd of Oldstones), both dynasties descendants of the First Men. And if we read about Oldstones, thinking about Winterfell is an inevitability:

They reached Oldstones after eight more days of steady rain, and made their camp upon the hill overlooking the Blue Fork, within a ruined stronghold of the ancient river kings. Its foundations remained amongst the weeds to show where the walls and keeps had stood, but the local smallfolk had long ago made off with most of the stones to raise their barns and septs and holdfasts. Yet in the center of what once would have been the castle's yard, a great carved sepulcher still rested, half hidden in waist-high brown grass amongst a stand of ash. The lid of the sepulcher had been carved into a likeness of the man whose bones lay beneath, but the rain and the wind had done their work. The king had worn a beard, they could see, but otherwise his face was smooth and featureless, with only vague suggestions of a mouth, a nose, eyes, and the crown about the temples. His hands folded over the shaft of a stone warhammer that lay upon his chest. Once the warhammer would have been carved with runes that told its name and history, but all that the centuries had worn away. The stone itself was cracked and crumbling at the corners, discolored here and there by spreading white splotches of lichen, while wild roses crept up over the king's feet almost to his chest.

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

Despite the pass of time the foundations of Oldstones remained and the stones were even used by the smallfolk to rise new buildings. The stone is really strong.

What also remained despite the centuries was the tomb of King Tristifer IV Mudd, also known as the Hammer of Justice, which immediately reminds me of the crypts of Winterfell and its stone kings sitting on their thrones with their swords across their laps.

And just like songs are still sung about a girl named Jenny from Oldstones who found true love with a Targaryen prince, I’m pretty sure that many songs will be sung about Sansa Stark from Winterfell and her own Targaryen prince.

Finally, is worth mentioning that Stark means “strong” in German. And there’s a theory about House Strong (extinguished) being linked to House Stark.

Stone = Strong = Stark

So by saying the stone is strong, we are also saying the stone is Stark.

Alayne Stone is Sansa Stark.

V.2. ROOT

The roots of the trees go deep = The weirwood tree (the heart of Winterfell) = Ghost = Jon Snow

The roots of the trees going deep is a clear reference to the trees from the godswood and especially to the weirwood tree, the heart of Winterfell, as Ned always said.

As it was explained above, in Jon Snow and Ghost we really have symbols of the weirwood tree. Jon Snow and Ghost represent the heart of Winterfell:

The weirwood tree = red leaves, white bark, watchful eyes, silent, belongs to the old gods.

Ghost = red eyes, white fur, watchful eyes, silent, belongs to the old gods.

The face carved in Winterfell’s heart tree = “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding”.

Jon Snow’s face and features = “long”, “melancholy”, “solemn”, “watchful” and “brooding”.

This sentiment of correspondence and belonging becomes more evident when Jon reunites with Ghost and finds his answer to Stannis’s offer and refuses Winterfell in order to save the weirwood tree from the Lord of Light fires:

Winterfell belongs to the old gods

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Ghost belongs to the old gods

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

By saving the weirwood tree Jon also stood up for Sansa’s claim to Winterfell:

Winterfell belongs to Sansa

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

These quotes form an important sequence that joins Jon and Sansa and Winterfell thematically and symbolically. However, I must say that the sequence is incomplete. The first quote is still to be revealed at the end of this work.

V.3. BONE

And under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones = Jon and Sansa (and Bran) eventual crowning as monarchs.

The Crypts of Winterfell contain the tombs of past members of House Stark, but only the past Kings and Lords have statues (the stone kings). Despite the tradition, Ned has statues made for Brandon and Lyanna. But inside the tombs and statues there are bones. The Crypts of Winterfell is basically an ossuary below the castle.

All those ancient bones are powerful, as Melisandre explained:

"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

—A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

Brandon The Builder must had known about the power of bones and that’s why he designed the Crypts of Winterfell to be the foundation of the castle.

In fact, all the north is full of barrows (the ancient graves of the First Men):

"The barrows of the First Men." Robert frowned. "Have we ridden onto a graveyard?" "There are barrows everywhere in the north, Your Grace," Ned told him. "This land is old."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

This is how the Crypts of Winterfell are described:

"Your Grace," Ned said respectfully. He swept the lantern in a wide semicircle. Shadows moved and lurched. Flickering light touched the stones underfoot and brushed against a long procession of granite pillars that marched ahead, two by two, into the dark. Between the pillars, the dead sat on their stone thrones against the walls, backs against the sepulchres that contained their mortal remains. "She is down at the end, with Father and Brandon."

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

As the granite walls on the surface work as a frame for the living, the granite pillars under the ground work as a frame for the dead. And the stone kings also work as the foundation of the castle, not only in a systemic way, but also as the ancient legacy of House Stark, their history through the centuries, a past that they should not forget. The bones remember.

Also, the long procession of granite pillars placed two by two makes me think about all the pairs of Kings and Queens of Winter, and Lords and Ladies of Winterfell, that existed from the beginning, since all those couples are also the foundation of House Stark.

All the Stark children use to play in the Crypts:

Bran could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play down here with Robb and Jon and his sisters. He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran VII

Later the Crypts protected Bran and Rickon when the Greyjoys and later the Boltons invaded the castle.

Jon has a particular relationship with the Crypts of Winterfell. It was there where Jon disguised as a ghost covered in flour to scare his younger siblings. Later he named his direwolf Ghost and much later Jon was killed and will probably reside inside Ghost for a while.

As I said before, Winterfell is what Jon wanted, as much as he had ever wanted anything, but his strong desire for Winterfell fills him with an enormous guilt. And all that guilt is represented in “the Winterfell dream” which is more like a repetitive nightmare for Jon, that always ends at the Crypts of Winterfell:

And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering.

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

Until this point during those dreams, it was Jon himself who said “I’m not a Stark” and “this isn’t my place”, since he would never be the Lord of Winterfell or have the right to be buried there, but with every “Winterfell dream”, the stone kings gain more prominence:

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

"What everyone knows is that Ser Alliser is a knight from a noble line, and trueborn, while I'm the bastard who killed Qhorin Halfhand and bedded with a spearwife. The warg, I've heard them call me. How can I be a warg without a wolf, I ask you?" His mouth twisted. "I don't even dream of Ghost anymore. All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Robb's voice, and my father's, as if they were at a feast. But there's a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me."

—A Storm of Swords - Samwell IV

In these later dreams, the stone kings are the ones telling Jon “You are no Stark,” “There is no place for you here. Go away”. These words are pretty similar to the words Catelyn Stark told to Jon when he said goodbye to Bran:

Lady Stark looked over. For a moment she did not seem to recognize him. Finally she blinked. "What are you doing here?" she asked in a voice strangely flat and emotionless. "I came to see Bran," Jon said. "To say good-bye." Her face did not change. Her long auburn hair was dull and tangled. She looked as though she had aged twenty years. "You've said it. Now go away." Part of him wanted only to flee, but he knew that if he did he might never see Bran again. He took a nervous step into the room. "Please," he said. Something cold moved in her eyes. "I told you to leave," she said. "We don't want you here."

—A Game of Thrones - Jon II

And what was the reason for this change? I think the answer is that Robb Stark became King in The North:

Jon was still not certain how he felt about it. Robb a king? The brother he'd played with, fought with, shared his first cup of wine with? But not mother's milk, no. So now Robb will sip summerwine from jeweled goblets, while I'm kneeling beside some stream sucking snowmelt from cupped hands. "Robb will make a good king," he said loyally. […] "I've always known that Robb would be Lord of Winterfell." Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. "A lord's one thing, a king's another." He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. "They will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on her. You'll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they'll call Your Grace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon . . . and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it." Jon drew himself up, taut as a bowstring. "And if it did trouble me, what might I do, bastard as I am?"

—A Clash of Kings - Jon I

Robb, who always had the right to have all that Jon wanted, now had also become a young king, like Daeron Targaryen, one of Jon heroes. Jon has an even higher standard to reach in order to prove the world that he is a man that worth despite of being a bastard:

Bastard children were born from lust and lies, men said; their nature was wanton and treacherous. Once Jon had meant to prove them wrong, to show his lord father that he could be as good and true a son as Robb. I made a botch of that. Robb had become a hero king; if Jon was remembered at all, it would be as a turncloak, an oathbreaker, and a murderer. He was glad that Lord Eddard was not alive to see his shame.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon X

You can't be the Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born, he heard Robb say again. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

And here is a good moment to say: Oh the irony! Because we all know what happened with Robb, he died just like Daeron Targaryen, young and with no children to succeed him. And is most probable that Robb had named Jon his heir in his will. So Jon Snow is likely to be the next King in the North, with the right to be buried in the Crypts of Winterfell, just like the ancient Kings of Winter that are sitting under the ground on their stone thrones.

But not only that, unbeknownst to Jon, he actually belongs in the Crypts of Winterfell, not only because he will probably become the next King in the North, but because his mother, Lyanna Stark, is buried there. Jon’s mother’s bones are buried in the Crypts of Winterfell. And the bones remember.

Lady’s bones are also buried near the Crypts of Winterfell, in the lichyard, and Jon had a dream of a ghastly direwolf wandering around the tombs:

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

As I mentioned before, my personal theory is that the ghastly direwolf is Lady.

Ned carried Lyanna’s bones from Dorne to the north, to be buried in the crypts of Winterfell, the same way he ordered his men to carry Lady’s bones from Darry to the north, to be buried in the lichyard of Winterfell (near to the crypts). So Lyanna’s and Lady’s bones being buried at Winterfell, makes them literally Ladies of Winterfell.

Traditionally, only the Kings of Winter and Lords of Winterfell have their statues carved in stone in the Crypts of Winterfell, with the sole exception of Ned’s siblings Brandon and Lyanna (And Artos Stark from the past). I believe this particular could be a hint that Bran (represented by Brandon) and Sansa (represented by Lyanna), will be crowned monarchs as well, with the right to be buried in the Crypts of Winterfell, just like the ancient Kings of Winter that are sitting under the ground on their stone thrones.

Winterfell is stone, root and bone. And through the years the castle has even taken the form of a tree, a labyrinthine stone tree:

To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn't even be sure what floor you were on. The place had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stone tree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran II

This image of Winterfell taking the form of a tree makes me think about the weirwood tree, the heart of the castle, and how the castle itself is emulating its heart growing in the same way as the heart tree. And at the same time, this image of Winterfell as a “stone tree” makes me think so much about Sansa as the stone, and Jon as the deep rooted tree.

To sum it up: If the heart tree is the heart of Winterfell, its ancient roots going deep represent the circulatory system and the stone kings in the ground play the role of the skeletal system, leaving the stone walls to be the exterior frame that contains all these parts.

As a simile of a living organism, Winterfell has its own blood as well:

Of all the rooms in Winterfell's Great Keep, Catelyn's bedchambers were the hottest. She seldom had to light a fire. The castle had been built over natural hot springs, and the scalding waters rushed through its walls and chambers like blood through a man's body, driving the chill from the stone halls, filling the glass gardens with a moist warmth, keeping the earth from freezing. Open pools smoked day and night in a dozen small courtyards. That was a little thing, in summer; in winter, it was the difference between life and death.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

“In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold.”

“No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer.”

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

There you have it!

As long as Sansa Stark and Jon Snow remain, Winterfell remains.

Sansa and Jon are the two pillars on which Winterfell will stands. They are destined to retake and rebuild their home together.

If Sansa and Jon join their lives in marriage and fill Winterfell’s walls with Stark children again, Winterfell will also remain through their heirs. The blood of Winterfell will continue. The Stark legacy will last.

V.4. STONE (STARK) AND SNOW

Winterfell is stone, root and bone, and snow is the castle’s cloak.

Winterfell walls are grey granite but the snow covering them like a cloak, especially during winters, makes the castle snow white. A perfect marriage.

Grey and white are the colors of House Stark. The Stark sigil is a grey direwolf racing across a field of white. The bastard sigil is the same but with the colors reversed. In the same way, Jon and Sansa seems to be complementary of each other.

The snow castle.

Littlefinger falsely promised Sansa to take her home. But then he told her that Winterfell is gone, so she must make herself a new home:

"But . . . my lord, you said . . . you said we were sailing home." […] His grey-green eyes regarded her innocently. "You look distraught. Did you think we were making for Winterfell, sweetling? Winterfell has been taken, burned, and sacked. All those you knew and loved are dead. What northmen who have not fallen to the ironmen are warring amongst themselves. Even the Wall is under attack. Winterfell was the home of your childhood, Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You're a woman grown, and you need to make your own home."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

So, as an act of defiance, despite being under the guise of Alayne Stone, Sansa built a snow version of her true home out of memory, yelling at the world that she was a Stark of Winterfell:

What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand. I could build a snow knight instead, she thought. Or even…

[…] The snow fell and the castle rose. Two walls ankle-high, the inner taller than the outer. Towers and turrets, keeps and stairs, a round kitchen, a square armory, the stables along the inside of the west wall. It was only a castle when she began, but before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell. She found twigs and fallen branches beneath the snow and broke off the ends to make the trees for the godswood. For the gravestones in the lichyard she used bits of bark. Soon her gloves and her boots were crusty white, her hands were tingling, and her feet were soaked and cold, but she did not care. The castle was all that mattered. Some things were hard to remember, but most came back to her easily, as if she had been there only yesterday. The Library Tower, with the steep stonework stair twisting about its exterior. The gatehouse, two huge bulwarks, the arched gate between them, crenellations all along the top…

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Sansa and her snow castle passage foreshadows Sansa’s actively participation in Winterfell’s restoration.

And who else wants to restore Winterfell? Jon, the Snow of Winterfell:

“Drink this.” Grenn held a cup to his lips. Jon drank. His head was full of wolves and eagles, the sound of his brothers’ laughter. The faces above him began to blur and fade. They can’t be dead. Theon would never do that. And Winterfell … grey granite, oak and iron, crows wheeling around the towers, steam rising off the hot pools in the godswood, the stone kings sitting on their thrones … how could Winterfell be gone?

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

That’s why this line: “The snow fell and the castle rose” makes me think that Jon will help Sansa to rebuild Winterfell, their lost and broken home.

The blood of Winterfell.

And Jon and Sansa could also “rebuild” the Stark dynasty, as they both share the dream of having children to fill the void of their lost family, their lost parents and siblings:

Willas would be Lord of Highgarden and she would be his lady. She pictured the two of them sitting together in a garden with puppies in their laps, or listening to a singer strum upon a lute while they floated down the Mander on a pleasure barge. If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa’s dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister’s son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly’s boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We’d find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance’s son and Craster’s would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Indeed, among all the Stark children, Sansa and Jon are the only ones that are called –or call themselves, the blood of Winterfell:

Jon’s throat was raw. He looked at them all helplessly. “She yielded herself to me.” “Then you must do what needs be done,” Qhorin Halfhand said. “You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night’s Watch.”

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

“What if Lord Nestor values honor more than profit?” Petyr put his arm around her. “What if it is truth he wants, and justice for his murdered lady?” He smiled. “I know Lord Nestor, sweetling. Do you imagine I’d ever let him harm my daughter?” I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and Lady Catelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Children of the mountain.

And remember that Winterfell could mean wintry mountain(s)? Well, this possibility makes me think about one of my favorite Sansa and Jon parallels. They are the only Stark children that are called children of the mountain:

Soon they were high enough so that looking down was best not considered. There was nothing below but yawning blackness, nothing above but moon and stars. “The mountain is your mother,” Stonesnake had told him during an easier climb a few days past. “Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won’t drop you.” Jon had made a joke of it, saying how he’d always wondered who his mother was, but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. It did not seem nearly so amusing now. One step and then another, he thought, clinging tight.

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

“You’re mistaken. I never fall.” Mya’s hair had tumbled across her cheek, hiding one eye. “Almost, I said. I saw you. Weren’t you afraid? “Mya shook her head. "I remember a man throwing me in the air when I was very little. He stands as tall as the sky, and he throws me up so high it feels as though I’m flying. We’re both laughing, laughing so much that I can hardly catch a breath, and finally I laugh so hard I wet myself, but that only makes him laugh the louder. I was never afraid when he was throwing me. I knew that he would always be there to catch me.” She pushed her hair back. “Then one day he wasn’t. Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and a stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.” She put her hand on a jagged spur of rock, and got to her feet. “Best finish. We have a long way yet to go, and I can smell a storm.”

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

In both cases, Sansa and Jon are under the guise of bastards (Jon was under the guise of a bastard since he was born). In both cases we are talking about snowy mountains, the Frostfangs and the Eyrie with the winter upon them, that is to say: “wintry mountains”. So I think in both quotes those mountains are a symbol of Sansa and Jon’s true parentage: in Jon’s case, Stonesnake said that the mountain is Jon’s mother (Lyanna Stark) and in Sansa’s case, Mya Stone said that the mountain is Alayne’s father (Ned Stark). And those mountains will never drop or let their children fall. Those mountains are a symbol of Winterfell. Sansa and Jon are the children of the wintry mountains of the north (Winterfell), the blood of Winterfell, the two pillars on which Winterfell stands.

Hot springs.

Both Jon and Sansa think of the hot springs of Winterfell while while bathing in hot water:

The hot water made her think of Winterfell, and she took strength from that. She had not washed since the day her father died, and she was startled at how filthy the water became. Her maids sluiced the blood off her face, scrubbed the dirt from her back, washed her hair and brushed it out until it sprang back in thick auburn curls. Sansa did not speak to them, except to give them commands; they were Lannister servants, not her own, and she did not trust them.

— A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

It was short walk to the bathhouse, where he took a cold plunge to wash the sweat off and soaked in a hot stone tub. The warmth took some of the ache from his muscles and made him think of Winterfell’s muddy pools, steaming and bubbling in the godswood. Winterfell, he thought.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Very interesting similarity between the filthy water of Sansa’s bath and the muddy pools of Winterfell that Jon was reminiscing.

Ghost and Lady’s Shade.

Not only do Jon and Sansa seem to be made complementary to each other, it happens the same with their direwolves.

Ghost stands out among the other direwolves, not only for his white fur, but for his red eyes, similar to the most especial Children of the Forest:

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

This description: red eyes, not robust frame and quick few years upon the earth, is similar to the first description we had of Ghost:

"He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said. "Or been driven away," their father said, looking at the sixth pup. His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind. "An albino," Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. "This one will die even faster than the others." Jon Snow gave his father's ward a long, chilling look. "I think not, Greyjoy," he said. "This one belongs to me."

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

But despite this preliminary description as the “runt of the litter,” Ghost grew up to be larger than his litter mates:

Nymeria stalked closer on wary feet. Ghost, already larger than his litter mates, smelled her, gave her ear a careful nip, and settled back down.

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Lady was the smallest of the litter and sadly the first to die:

“Lady,” he said, tasting the name. […] She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur.

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

This is a very interesting contrast between Ghost and Lady, as if their places were switched.

Sansa lost her wolf and Ghost lost his master, leaving these two Stark children somehow incomplete. But there is hope that both can fill in the missing part of the other.

Then Lady becomes a “shade” that is a synonym of “ghost.” The same way that Sansa becomes a “Stone” that is a bastard surname like “Snow.”

And Jon will probably come back to life more beast than man, more savage, in contrast to ladylike/queenly Sansa.

Jon dreamed of a ghastly direwolf wandering around the Crypts of Winterfell, that seems to be Lady’s Shade:

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

In a similar way, the wind howling fiercely around Sansa while she descended from the Eyrie to the Gates of the Moon, reminds her of a ghost wolf, big as mountains. This passage could be interpreted as Sansa sensing Jon’s death at the Wall:

"Ser Sweetrobin,” Lord Robert said, and Alayne knew that she dare not wait for Mya to return. She helped the boy dismount, and hand in hand they walked out onto the bare stone saddle, their cloaks snapping and flapping behind them. All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

Take note of the similar wording between the “ghastly direwolf” and the “ghost wolf”. GRRM uses this resource (same or similar wording) a lot when he wants to establish a correlation or parallel.

Stark and Snow

Lady’s bones being buried at Winterfell makes Sansa the Stark in Winterfell. In the same way that Jon is the Snow of Winterfell:

The singer rose to his feet. "I'm Mance Rayder," he said as he put aside the lute. "And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell."

—A Storm of Swords - Jon I

And both have the possibility to become the head of their house and the monarchs of the north.

Despite not being Ned Stark’s bastard and having a secret parentage, “Snow” is part of Jon’s identity, the same way the snow cloaks Winterfell’s walls. And as to reaffirm Jon’s identity, the old gods sent him a direwolf as white as snow.

Jon and Ghost were separated for a time, when the Wall stood between them. During that time Jon even questioned being a warg, because he felt he lost his wolf. It was also during that time that Jon was tempted with legitimation as a Stark and the Lordship of Winterfell. But when Jon reunites with Ghost he found his answer to Stannis’s offer precisely in the wolf.

Jon refused Winterfell in order to save the weirwood tree from the Lord of Light fires (Ghost is the weirwood tree) and protect Sansa’s claim to the castle (Sansa is Winterfell). This was the time when Jon said: i) Winterfell belongs to the old gods, ii) Ghost belongs to the old gods; and, iii) Winterfell belongs to Sansa.

But at the beginning of the story, in the first chapter of the first Book (A Game of Thrones - Bran I), after saving the life of the direwolves (In the songs, the knights never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched them and did them no harm), Jon said a similar line:

—A Game of Thrones - Bran

And we have our sequence completed!

Ghost belongs to Jon

"An albino," Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. "This one will die even faster than the others." Jon Snow gave his father's ward a long, chilling look. "I think not, Greyjoy," he said. "This one belongs to me."

—A Game of Thrones - Bran

Winterfell belongs to the old gods

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Ghost belongs to the old gods

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one.

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Winterfell belongs to Sansa

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

Just as the weirwood tree is the heart of Winterfell, it seems that all these quotes are there to tell us that Jon is Sansa’s heart. Because, it almost seems as if the final line will be (has to be) “Jon belongs to Sansa.” But with the same logic, we can also said “Sansa belongs to Jon”. Hence the title of this long essay is i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart), one of my favorite poems by the genius e.e. cummings:

The end.

#Sansa Stark #Jon Snow #jonsa #Winterfell #Godswood #Weirwood #Heart Tree #Ghost #Lady #Lady's Shade

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