#but i feel like the most interesting and important parts of sansa’s story are going to be what she does in the next two books

[atopvisenyashill]

there’s a few potential sansa romantic endgames that i think have some textual basis and i think all of them come with a lot of issues wrt sansa being able to publically claim these relationships which is why i think sansa will say her children are “fathered by a wolf” because regardless of Who she’s with or even the legality of it, she’s going to be actively concealing their identity AND YET she needs to have children.

i think especially that even though arya’s love life is guaranteed to be less complicated, sansa will feel obligated to take this “burden” of ensuring their line onto herself; she wants arya to have the freedom to go where she pleases, be with who she pleases, and follow her passions and that is not easy to do if everyone is expecting you to come home and start popping out kids. I consider them a sort of reflection of ned and lyanna in this way in that sansa, second born and not meant to rule, uses her newfound power to let the wild, youngest girl (but not youngest child) in the family follow her passions wherever they may take her.

this is all kind of weird with the nixed time jump but considering that george has talked about writing stories from arya’s pov about her adventures, I think it’s going to be fairly important in story regardless of their ages that arya will attempt to offer to stay home and marry and have children as a way of helping to protect sansa’s very shaky claim on winterfell but that sansa encourages arya to do whatever she wants. to travel, to help shepherd the boatloads of refugees from the various wars to wherever they want to call home, to settle displaced northerners in other parts of westeros as well, to get involved in the lives of the people arya is helping and agree to help them liberate their own homes by using her skills (crucial here that arya is A leader but not the SOLE leader), or to go out into the woods and be a secret not-quite-an-outlaw (bc sansa isn’t outlawing anything that could hurt arya’s lil crusades, probably is helping bankroll arya) to bring justice to the smallfolk, like whatever it is arya wants to do with her life, the point is that she offers to give it up and sansa refuses to take the offer.

and then we have the idea that her kids are fathered by a wolf. not elizabeth-ing herself here exactly because she’s having children but never publicly acknowledging a father or a husband or even a lover.

i think the candidates most likely are jon snow and theon, with both brienne and podrick as like “i’m not saying he’s gonna do it but i am saying they make a lot of sense narratively” and aegon vi as a huge long shot but still undeniable contender. if briensa does go canon everyone owes me five bucks each tho. i think the options other people float are not just wildly unserious they also clearly don’t think sansa will be The Ruling Lady Of Winterfell, but some much more minor or less emotionally resonant title and i just do not vibe with that shit at all. harry the heir, sandor, sweetrobin, tyrion, littlefucker, like never mind sansa never once showing any real interest in these guys and NONE of these dudes being satisfied by the idea of being her secret husband, if sansa says to arya “yeah i’m marrying tyrion” arya is going “blink twice if you’re being held hostage and you need me to kill him” but it’s too late because jon snow is already unsheathing longclaw and bran is attacking with every raven in winterfell. it’s not fucking happening and imo it’s unserious to pretend like it could happen in canon. (and if it DOES happen in canon you will find me rocking up to george’s house in jersey and demanding to know why he’s so weird about teenage girls). i think margaery is a huge long shot here (and not just bc it would make them both canonically on screen gay) because i don’t think she’s gonna live to the ending, and jeyne poole is too traumatized at this point in time for me to feel confident in putting her in the same category as brienne and pod.

(theon’s trauma is WHY i think he’s still a contender - post reek theon is going to struggle a lot with figuring out where he’s supposed to be, who he’s supposed to be, and who he can trust as he puts himself back together, and that lends itself nicely to the idea of a secret husband/lover imo. once again, we are talking extreme trauma bonding here - that’s just the only way i see sansa’s romances going).

if you’re asking “who do you think arya is winding up with” it’s gendry. i don’t doubt that there were some plans for edric dayne, arya, and gendry but i think gendry was always going to be her great love here, that she’s always going to turn down the idea of marriage to him but gendry doesn’t care so long as they are still together. there’s a neon blinking sign over gendry’s head that says “endgame material” and i think it’s unserious to pretend it’s not there too!!

[greenhikingboots]

Hey, for the bts of Fic Writing : 4 10 12 15 17. Thanks and Happy New Year🥰❤️

LOULA! Thanks for playing along. I'm so flattered you care to know. Here are my lengthy answers because I do not know how to be concise.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? I outline but I stray A LOT. Wait, let me explain that more accurately. It’s more like a continuous cycle of outline, write and stray, publish a chapter, re-outline the next few chapters, write and stray again — and on and on like that. Usually the straying happens because I can’t commit to secret pining as long as originally intended. Like, I give in and let my characters reveal some feelings too soon, then I have to figure out how to make the later plot points I have planned fit into a different emotional context. Which sometimes means changing the plot points. And then! Because the other changes that have occurred, I often feel as though I can no longer include some gut-wrenching conflict I had planned. I'm like, “They've come too far for that buffoonery now." So I have to soften the blow instead. Basically, I’m not as good at letting my characters suffer as I’m “supposed" to be according to typical writing advice. But that’s when I remind myself it’s fanfiction and I'm here to have fun! So it's all good. ��� 10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot, the most? That’s a question for me. I think I’m pickiest about dialogue because I value it the most. I mean, these are romance stories I'm writing, right? And people fall in love by connecting emotionally which happens in large part through dialogue, right? That’s how I see it anyway. So it’s a double-edged sword. Dialogue is the part I like least because I put pressure on myself and then overthink it. But it's also the part I like best because it’s so important and feels SO GOOD when it turns out well. Plus I just LOVE making Jon say romantic things to Sansa — in both understated and over the top ways. It's my favorite thing ever. BUT! I’ll also add that I have some stretches of exposition I’m really proud of. In Chapter 1 of Inevitable I did a big background information dump right away, which (to bring up typical writing advice again) is a no no, right? But I don’t care. I think the whole chapter flows really well and it sets up Jon’s characterization perfectly. AND! Him thinking he can never be as good as Ned or offer Sansa a relationship as good as her parents is the whole crux of the story dammit! And it’s all subtly included right there in Chapter 1. Hell, it’s all right there in the first sentence! And I’m proud of that. 🤪 12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to? I had a S7/8 Fix It Fic that I took down while it was still a WIP. I re-worked and re-published the first half, ending it in a happy but intentionally ambiguous way. Mighty Love & Better Dreams — one of my less popular works, about 25k words if anyone is interested. But anyway, I’ve got another 12,000 words or so left — the second half of the incomple version I took down — that I’d still like to clean up and get back on AO3 someday. To finish it, I have to lean further into Political!Jon and Dark!Dany than I’ve done before, which I find intimidating (especially writing Dark!Dany. I agree that's how it'll go in the books, but how do I write it!? Someone help!) But like I said, I’ve got about 12,000 words already and a lot of it I really like. So it would be a shame to waste it, so to speak, by never finishing. So that’s my answer: Fix It trope featuring Political!Jon and Dark!Dany. 👀 15. A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics? Which fic would you want it to be?

Sorry, this answer might not be fun because it isn’t a Jonsa fic. Also I'm going to cheat and say I want it to be a TV show not a film. No that that's out of the way... I have a Dramione story I took down quite a while ago, Between the Lines, because I want to eventually rework it and republish it. It’s got the makings to be a 300k word epic told in a non-linear way (which is an idea I revisited recently when I wrote A Good Chance) and a teen ensemble cast type thing, which is popular on TV, right? Also... okay I’ll admit it, I daydream about changing that fic enough you can no longer recognize it as fanfiction. Then I could publish it as a traditional, original book (slim chance but that's why I called it a daydream).

I’m pretty over Dramione though, so maybe if I started thinking of it as a Jonsa AU it’d be easier to to craft it into something new but with some of the important plot points I still like. Maybe?

Woof. Really letting my true self show here. How embarrassing! ☠

17. What fic are you most proud of?A Boy in His Cups might still be my favorite fic I’ve ever written — my first Jonsa one-shot. IMO, the emotional beats are a tiny bit rocky towards the end, but otherwise it’s a very polished fic (maybe because I’ve gone back and edited it so many times.)

It’s Jon’s POV with pining and angst and fluff and confession of feelings and it fits so well with canon concepts. So bascailly all of my favorite things rolled into one. I am the target audience and I just love it!! Maybe someday I’ll write a sequel from Sansa’s POV and call it A Girl in Her Cups. 💋 Holy cow! That's a lot of words. Did you even read it all? Won't blame you at all if not. Thanks again for the ask, Loula. You're a gem. XO.

[mikasaerens]

My point about her not playing the game was that she's not doing it to control some sort of chessboard. In one of Barristan's chapters he says something like how he likes Dany because she doesn't play the game like all the other lords at Westeros. Dany doesn't treat politics like some game. That's what I meant for Sansa. Like she is in an emergency situation and you're right she needs to play a little dirty to secure herself. She will need to learn to "play the game" but I mean she isn't going to treat it like some frivolous thing. It will be very interesting to see her make some morally gray decisions. This will be a part of her journey to discover her identity and what she really values.

Sansa felt like an outsider among her family in a more narrative sense. She loses her direwolf, betrays her family, supports the Lannisters over them, and the rest of her siblings think of her far less than they think of each other. To me her journey to be a well rounded arc has to end with her connecting to her home and mending her relationship with her remaining family. Idk if they know that she sold out Ned and wasn't there some shady letter bc of Cersei that she wrote or was that just in the show (depending on who knows this/will find out, this could cause the Northern lords not to trust her and her family to feel angry) I think her not being similar to the other representations of Northern women is precisely what makes that journey for her so interesting. She doesn't have to be like them in order to realize that is her home. There is no one way to be that Northern women. Catelyn lost her life for the North and sacrificed SO MUCH and was the Lady of Winterfell for years, she is a Northern woman just as much as she has Southern ties. I think Theon is also an interesting example of this. He has ties to the Iron Islands but he realizes that was never his real home and that his real father died in KL and how he thinks he should have died with Robb. And I mean Sansa IS a Northern women, she was born and raised there, it's just her connection back home and with her family that will solidify that the North is exactly where she belongs and they are who she should be fighting for. Yes, GRRM has not developed her connection to the North that much because when I say she is a Northern woman I don't mean it in the sense of a very patriotic way but rather more of her finding internal peace and safety in her true home. For Sansa her ultimate culmination of her character development should follow with her journey back to the North, it is a symbolic way to show she has reached the end of her character development.

In terms of what you said about her political importance in the North and how Jon, Arya and Bran will most likely not need her help. I disagree. Sansa's siblings will need her in the North. That whole quote about how Arya and Sansa are like the sun and the moon and they do need each other, and how Arya's fake name is Cat and Sansa's is Alayne making up Catelyn. They SHOULD all be contributing to each other's story. Also the whole quote about how the pack will survive and the lone wolf dies? They all have to be together and work together. Sansa is skilled. She is very adaptable, intelligent (her manipulation of Joffrey and quick thinking was great) and I don't think she even knows her own strength or what she is capable of and I'm excited to see that unfold. In your endgame, she will be Lady of the Vale but how can she do that if she does not become a leader and become politically skilled? So you are saying she will have that arc. And I think she will have that arc too, and she'll be able to apply those same skills when she goes back to the North. Family needs each other, it's not a group project where they each have one very specific task to contribute but about the strength of the whole pack TOGETHER. Also Sansa will most definitely outsmart LF and to do that she has to become politically savvy and we already see her start that journey and do well in AFFC, those are skills she can use in whatever the Northern plot will be. That's not to say Arya, Jon and Bran don't have those skills. All their skills overlap too. How GRRM will incorporate Sansa into those stories is for him as a writer to figure out, but there is a basis for it and it is not unreasonable or unrealistic for fans to expect that. It is not out of left field, IMO.

Sansa really only likes the Vale at the beginning and that's only because she is free from KL. And the first things we see her do when she gets there is build Winterfell. I mean that is some pretty heavy symbolism that's where she wants to go in the end. And I think in her last chapter in AFFC she says something about how beautiful the Vale is but she truly hates it there and could never see it as home. I am paraphrasing since I don't have access to the books to quote them.

I do think Sansa being a central character in her arc IS important. It's true that the Northern plot has become very crowded with several characters. I don't know if this has just become a flaw in the story or if it is intentional. How George will manage all this is beyond me, but I think the fandom largely seems to expect Sansa to come North that I think it would be a huge shock if she never did (not everyone feels this way but I think most do) Such a fandom expectation comes from the feel that her arc has to end in the North even if it means her very last chapter is her returning to Winterfell. I think George would have to do a lot of work to convince the audience that Sansa living and dying after a long life in the Vale would be the satisfactory end simply on the basis that Sansa doesn't want to stay there. I mean why would she stay there when her whole family will be in the North at some point? It would just be out of character for her to hear that Jon, Arya, Bran etc are all at home and Sansa to be like nah I'm just gonna stay here in the Vale. It could be some sort of bittersweet ending, I guess if she stays in the Vale that's the only way I can somewhat see it happening.

The Dany dragon theory in the Vale, you're right is tough with the timeline because that means she has to outsmart LF quickly to end up in a position of power to give Dany the Vale's loyalty. Unless, Dany doesn't come to the Vale first but much later. The timeline in general is the biggest issue with the series. It is very crammed. I think you've made some valid points about how difficult and unbelievable it would be if Sansa did a 180 within 4 chapters and outsmarted one of the best players of the game. Maybe it truly will drag on to the end of ADOS, but that is just such a long time for her to realize something so damn obvious. I mean this man is sexually abusing her. Maybe some major catalytic event has to happen to justify her moving quickly against him. Also I don't think its necessarily that unjustifiable if she gets six long chapters: that COULD be enough for her to outsmart him. Her chapters in the Vale were fucking long and she changed quite a bit and quite quickly in those chapters. As she started to lie about her age and say she was older she actually started to act a lot older and smarter too.

Overall, I do agree with some points. I just think the political situation in the Vale is not the most intriguing story arc and doesn't seem to be justified in dragging out for two long ass books even though she wouldn't have tons of chapters. I know a lot of people love the Vale stuff though. George has a real strength in moving the story along quickly within few chapters when he wants to, I mean look how incredibly fast Dany's arc in ASOS moves, one of the most effective arcs in the whole series, he could move Sansa along quickly if he so desires. As of now I would prefer to see GRRM find a way to fit her into the Northern storyline and I think he ultimately WANTS to do that but how he will do that is tough, and I agree, but there is a precedent for Sansa being involved and having the skills to aid her family.

I've really enjoyed your discussions on Arya, Bran and Jon and was wondering what are your realistic endgame predictions concerning Sansa's story. Out of all the Starks, she's the one I'm struggling with because I do believe Harry dies and with it any hopes of being Lady of the Vale. Nor do I believe she'll be QoTN. I'm not sure where her story is leading up.

I don’t think Harry the Heir will die. I do think SweetRobin is not surviving LF’s plotting and machination and poor Coleman is going to get framed for his death à la Marillion.

I think Sansa’s plot in the next two books will be centered around gradually understanding and unraveling LF’s plotting and  gaining power in the Vale. While Arya has parallels with Lyanna, Sansa has parallels with Lysa Arryn in terms of their traits and journeys. And yet this time around Arya and Sansa may have happier endings and do things differently in their journeys. So while poor, unhappy Lysa got taken advantage of by Littlefinger and manipulated into her death, Sansa will gradually acknowledge that LF’s ambitions are selfish and that he is mainly responsible for what happened to her family. She will then learn from him, get her hands dirty and outwit him at his own game slowly shifting what power LF has from him to her.

There’s also a chance that we will get LF Vs Varys in which case yes, Sansa’s plot may intersect with Young Griff’s in some way. Though I don’t see Sansa ever going south to KL as long as Cersei is in power, if she wants to get marriage to Tyrion annulled she needs to request for one from the High Septon as Sansa Stark.

It’s clear from the OG outline that GRRM did not have much planned for the character. She was created as Arya’s foil, betrays her family in KL and then is most probably killed by Jaime on his way to the Iron Throne. Now, her story has no doubt expanded and grown as GRRM has watered and gardened a separate side plot for her in the Vale. Littlefinger is an important human antagonist, the fertile Vale is an important location and Sansa is the only POV there. The more Sansa learns, the more we get to see into what LF is actually trying to do.

I see her ending in the Vale. Either she could still die taking down LF or she will be Lady of the Vale and the true power behind the Lord of the Vale. The Vale food stores have been mentioned way too many times for it to not be important as Winter slowly descends all over Westeros. Sansa will need to control those food stores at some point as the masses flee the North and head south.

I don’t see her going North because that would make her a tertiary character. Sure, it would be a happy ending for Sansa to finally go back home to Winterfell. However, what would she do in the North in terms of story? Jon, Arya and Bran have got both the political and the magical covered and the OG outline only refers to the three of them in the North. As a character Sansa simply has more to do and contribute in the Vale than she does in the North.

[weirwoodking]

what do you think sansa's endgame is? and i'm not talking ships. like what do you think she'll be doing by the time the books end.

Anon, you accidentally made me write an essay.

So, to try and guess where Sansa could be at the end of the story, we have to look at where she’s heading currently.

She’s currently in the Vale, stuck under the control of Littlefinger. I think Sansa’s arc in TWOW will revolve around breaking free of his manipulation. There’s a line in Bran’s first ASOS chapter that seems to foreshadow this:

Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

—Bran I, A Storm of Swords

It’s hard to find the path back out, but not impossible. I do believe Sansa will return to “the wilds” that belong to her and her siblings.

George was asked once if Sansa still has skinchanging powers even though Lady is gone, and he said she does. We’ll probably see that aspect of her character start to make an appearance in Winds, especially since the presence of magic ramps up with each book. I think it would make sense if she bonded with a bird (such as a falcon or a hawk), seeing as she has quite a lot of bird imagery (particularly caged bird imagery) in her story. Sansa “flying free”, both literally and figuratively, seems like a logical step for her arc.

I do wonder how her connection with the “pack” will be handled. All of the Stark kids except for Sansa have the telepathic bond through their wolves, so I wonder what GRRM will do with Sansa there. It’s heartbreaking, that she doesn’t have that mental connection that the others do. I don’t know if that could somehow be reformed without Lady? There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Stark kids skinchanging powers (and the telepathic bond). Why did their powers only show up when the wolves did? How far do their powers go? How powerful could they become once they’re properly trained? How does the telepathic bond work? Is that a thing that other skinchangers can do? Is it there because of the wolves or is it through the kids themselves? Is it forever broken with Sansa because Lady is gone, or could Sansa reform that connection through another wolf that joins the Stark warg pack? Would it make sense narratively and thematically for GRRM to give Sansa another wolf?

Anyway, no idea what he’ll do with that. (Some sort of scene where Sansa is like “I don’t have a wolf anymore”, and then all the other Starklings crowd around her for a giant group hug and say “that’s okay, you’re still a part of the pack no matter what” is something I could see happening. It’s not like the other kids would treat her any less for not having a direwolf, she’s still their sister.)

A common speculation I see for Sansa’s endgame is that she could become the new head of House Arryn. And, well, the aesthetic of Sansa being Lady of the Eyrie/Lord Protector of the Vale/Warden of the East is definitely cool. The Queen of Birds up in a mountain palace with her flock all around her like a winged army? That’s some gorgeous imagery.

But...

I don’t think Sansa would ever willingly choose to stay in the Vale if she had the option to go home to Winterfell:

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.

—Sansa VII, A Storm of Swords

One of the largest themes in the stories of the younger POV characters (Theon, Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon (even though he’s not a POV character)) is that of home. Just go on A Search of Ice and Fire and search for the word “home” in each of those characters’ chapters. I think Sansa will end up at her home, with her pack. We know she must return at Winterfell at some point, as she has the final part of this prophecy to fulfill:

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow."

—Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords

The wolf howling in the rain is Grey Wind (or Shaggydog/Rickon, since it’s raining on Skagos when Jon dreams of his “black brother”), the clangor is the Red Wedding and the bells are the ones on Jinglebell’s hat when Catelyn sawed at his throat, and the maid at the feast is Sansa. And Sansa will “slay a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” That castle is obviously Winterfell, although the fandom has yet to concretely agree on who the “savage giant” is.

Evidently, Sansa will return to Winterfell, and she probably has to get there before winter really starts setting in, or else the journey would be nearly impossible in the deadly weather. So, probably at some point in the next book.

Now, I believe that there’s a big moment coming for Sansa in TWOW: the moment where she unrepresses/uncovers her memories. Sansa knows a lot of important things. She knows the truth about Jon Arryn, she knows that her hair net was used to poison Joffrey, she knows that Littlefinger was involved in the disappearance of Jeyne Poole. Sansa’s memory swapping/adjusting/erasing/repressing (whatever you wanna call it) is important to her character. It’s her brain’s way of coping with the trauma she’s been through.

I think that one of these memories coming to the forefront is going to trigger something big: Littlefinger’s downfall. I speculate that what will most likely come out in the open first is what happened to Jeyne Poole. Sansa finding out what Baelish did to her closest childhood friend could definitely be what turns her against him.

Warning, I’m going to mention the sh*w here for a second. George has said that he wrote Sansa and Jeyne’s interactions into season 1, and that he tried to build Jeyne as a character, but her scenes were cut by the showrunners. Clearly, George cares about her, her friendship with Sansa, and her value in the story, he was very upset about the deletion of her character and of Sansa’s friendship with her.* I believe the reveal of what happened to Jeyne will be a major part of Sansa’s story in Winds. She’s repressed her memories of Jeyne and her disappearance because it is, understandably, too much for her mind to handle thinking about.

The reveal of this memory could be a catalyst to the other memories coming forward, especially since they involve Littlefinger. I think Sansa will be a key part in wrapping up the political aspect of the story, she can reveal the truth of why the Stark-Lannister conflict began all the way back in book 1. She can expose Littlefinger’s lies and schemes. That’s where I think her narrative is heading, at least in TWOW.

I’m not sure what Sansa’s story arc will be in ADOS (I’m not sure what anyone’s story will be in ADOS, but Sansa’s is a bit more of a blank page than others). If the Littlefinger conflict gets wrapped up in TWOW, I don’t know where her story will go from there. Supposedly, she could be in Winterfell at that point. What will happen then… well, then it’s Long Night time. Sansa is not one of the “key five players” (Tyrion, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Jon), but I still think she’ll have an important role in the book. I think Sansa and Arya’s relationship is something that will be focused on a lot through both of their chapters in the final novel. We’re going to see Ned’s quote, “you need her, as she needs you”, really matter.

No matter where her arc goes over the next two books, though, I do think she’ll end up at Winterfell. And like I said, I don’t think Sansa would choose to leave her home again after returning. I think that her story will end with her staying at Winterfell with the other kids. The Stark children would never willingly leave each other after reuniting. Jon literally describes the separation from his siblings as “a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.” And, of course, the iconic line Ned delivers to Arya: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” I don’t see any of their endings being them as “lone wolves” again.

So, to answer your question, I think the endgame for Sansa will be her back in Winterfell with her family, where she belongs, where she is strongest. I do suspect, however, that there will be some sort of epilogue at the end of ADOS, possibly a “10 years later” or somewhere along those lines. Where she’ll be then, I have no idea. She’ll probably be involved with something politically by then, like ruling or advising.

*Based on what George himself has said about the show’s post-season 4 portrayal of Sansa, I don’t think her story will be similar in any way to the show’s very different version of her character (same goes for everyone). George is typically very mild when talking about the show, saying stuff like “they chose to go down a different path with the story”, but this is one of the only times he flat out criticized the show for how wrong it is. He was very upset the show cut out her storyline. He has also said that “every character has a different end” in the books. So take from that what you will.

[agentrouka-blog]

What would be your self-indulgent ending to ASOIAF? Or, if that's too much, just Sansa. Where do you want her story to go, and how is it getting there? Who are her friends and allies she makes along the way? Where does she travel on her journey? etc.

Hi anon!

I don't actually have too many thoughts on Sansa's ending that I would consider self-indulgent. Most of what I picture are things that I simply expect the plot to be. Queenship in the North simply makes sense. I can never tire of emphasizing that I was converted to Jonsa by the pure and simple logic of it. And the myriad hints in the text foreshadowing it. This is not wishful thinking on my part but a concrete expectation based on what I think is the most probable from GRRM's end.

Now, what self-indulgent thing would I adore about her journey there? What am I not certain about but would love?

(A lot of random things, it turns out.)

Sansa having shenanigans with the mountain clans. Just, after drama in the Vale, they help her travel, and she loathes the discomfort of the wilderness, she has inner snark even while appreciating the natural beauty around her. She perseveres in spite of neither liking nor being good at it. She learns about how their culture with the same polite curiosity she had for Ellaria Sand. And she finally forms genuine relationships with others once she is removed from the pressure of having to perform to captors or being unable to trust anyone. I would love to just watch Sansa in the process of finding her feet in a strange environment on her own terms.

I also want to see her feel safe enough with someone to just be herself. And who appreciates her in turn. Jeyne Poole and Sansa sneaking into the kitchens together to grab a secret snack and just talk and cry and comfort each other would be splendid. A sad but warm mirror to their strawberry tart escapades in KL.

I want GRRM to show us Sansa singing again. And I want him to finally make good on her talent with needlework. We've been told but we have not been shown, and since Arya's needlework is thematically important, Sansa's also has to be. And since that discrepancy is voiced in the text in the context of Jon Snow... well... some kind of garment with the Stark sigil for Jon would just make sense. With "exquisite" stitches. I want needlework metaphors that emphasize the contrast to the sword, the process of connecting and constructing.

I want big hugs, especially with Arya, who needs hugs and acceptance from Sansa, as well. I want every Starkling who ever uttered that Sansa's interest in songs and romance is "stupid" to utter something admiring about her intelligence or her soft skills. I want her to have some kind of paternal relationship that values her strengths, without an abusive or neglectful element in it (Bronze Yohn?), and I want her to have the ability to make peace with her relationship with Ned, probably in the context of someone else who has similar issues with him (Jon), and I want her to reflect on Lady and her connection to her without it being framed as inferior to full-fledged warging.

I want Sansa to get drunk and dance. Elegant courtly dancing and then just wild, jumpy, sweaty circle dances where everyone's on the verge of stumbling over each other's feet and giggling. Party all night, Sansa, you’ve earned it.

I want Brienne and Sansa to meet and Sansa to practically implode with the inner validation: A True Knight, and have her say all kinds of admiring things to Brienne who will very bravely try not to cry at Being Perceived by someone who loves every single thing she stands for.

I want Sansa in the snow again. I want her to look at Winterfell, be davastated and then straighten her spine and remember her snow castle.

I want Sansa and Ghost to form a deep bond. Essentially, her white-cloaked queensguard when Jon is in the South.

I want Sansa and Rickon to see each other again, I want him to be hugged by someone who reminds him of his mother, and for Sansa to develop a nervous twitch at having a little wildling on her hands even more temperamental than Sweetrobin.

Just.. lots of stuff! That centers around Sansa finally being free and being allowed to shine. Or form real connections, even when they are hard. Or just genuinely be annoyed at something without it being a delicate balancing act. 

[esther-dot]

At one point I was thinking that maybe Jonsa is romanticised more in show than it would be in books. D&d had romanticised many relationships in show so I thought maybe jonsa will also be romanticised one. But after looking so many visual parallels with almost all couples in GOT made me think why are they super focussed in this ship. Why did other ships get some kind of closure but not Jonsa? In books too Jonsa clues are there and it seems most positive. So why the makers backed out?🤔

There are so many possibilities, anon!

Jonsa wasn’t ever a thing (books or show), and we’ve made connections no one intended to exist

Show Jonsa was something that happened as a result of Kit and Sophie’s unexpected chemistry and the writers played with it just because it was good tv without ever planning to actually go there

Show Jonsa was something they came up with, toyed with, thought about making explicit, but then abandoned

Book Jonsa is a thing and D&D wanted to hint at it but were never going there themselves

Book Jonsa is a thing and D&D didn’t want to do it but Kit and Sophie had such great chemistry we made show Jonsa a thing despite their distaste for it

I’m probably missing some variation, but you get the idea. Personally....

I have a hard time believing that the same showrunners who tried to shoehorn in a last minute reason for Dany burning KL (even though they knew that was happening for seasons and she talked about her willingness to burn cities to the ground from like s3 on) were thoughtful enough to create a meaningful dynamic between Jon and Sansa (while they simultaneously kept hinting at Sansa being a traitorous bitch) that spanned three seasons. 

Even if I can accept that as a happy accident, I don’t believe for a minute that D&D came up with the idea of Jon and Sansa reuniting first of all the Starks or working to protect the North/their family together. They whitewashed villains, but they cast a lot of doubt on whether or not Sansa was loyal to her family, and they stripped her of her romanticism, and they didn’t give her a love interest although all the other mains had one, so, their habit of painting with a gentler brush never extended to poor Sansa.

What could have happened is that they looked at what Martin told them and thought they’d mix and match, shuffle the order of things to make it work better for their audience. As in, Cersei and Dany, the only women in power were dying in the end, so they thought making Sansa queen after that would forestall accusations of sexism. I think Sansa will be queen in the books too, but it’s possible that Jon is chosen KitN, his identity becomes known, and he marries Sansa to unify the North when it might all fall apart otherwise. She could be queen earlier in the story, but obviously, that ticks different boxes than her being chosen by her people to lead. If that were how the books were to play out, then I could imagine D&D thought it felt more empowering to do away with the Jonsa marriage and allow Sansa’s rise to power to be about her alone and it might make their lives easier if it happened in the same episode in which Dany was killed.

Or, another option is that book Jonsa is a chaste love. Emotionally rewarding and fulfilling for the characters, meaningful as they choose each other over and over, but ultimately, can’t be together. If it’s something that romantic but not absolutely plot necessary, D&D could have decided to have their cake and eat it too. Still use the Jonsa relationship as an important part of the arcs emotionally, but never acknowledge the nature of their feelings, and instead do Jxnerys which was far more popular with the fans.

I really don’t know what to make of what D&D did, especially because it doesn’t feel like they dropped it before s8 in which they had Sansa behave in such a noticeably jealous way people who hated Jonsa before started to wonder after 8x04 if it was real. My tendency is to think that when they opted to hide Dark Dany, the nature of Jon and Sansa’s bond (whether it was ever meant to be acted on or not) couldn’t be revealed until after the burning of KL, but then they realized how badly this all was going to come across and scratched it.

[cappymightwrite]

Hi! While reading your latest post on Romanticism, I was wondering about Jonsa acceptance. Do you think other characters especially their siblings would be disgusted by them or would gradually accept them? It's interesting that Ned, Cat and Robb are already dead and Rickon is too young to understand the relationship. Most we would get Ary@ and Bran reaction to it.

(Post being referenced, I think)

Hello!

Apologies to you and to all the ASOIAF asks I've yet to answer! I am very much aware of them and will get to them all eventually 😅 But anyway, your question...

I wouldn't be surprised, no, if there's some uncomfy feelings towards Jon and Sansa's relationship, once the truth of everything is revealed. Plus, in the linked Romanticism post, I talk about how people's adverse reaction to these relationships is part of the trope itself. So, for sure, I definitely expect some backlash. Would be weird if not.

But one of the strengths of Jonsa is that, setting aside the romantic element, they do make a lot of sense politically as a duo who can unite and maintain House Stark & the north. Also, they have this foundation, or lack of it, that sets them up to be easier to accept:

No evidence, whatsoever, of a particularly close bond growing up

Raised in such a way as to have kept them separate anyway — the bastard half-brother and the perfect lady, daughter to Lady Stark

Further distanced from each other since then — Jon at the Wall, Sansa in KL and then in the Vale.

And most significantly:

The reality that they are actually cousins, i.e. acceptable to marry

So, if I was a vassal of the Starks, for instance, personally I might raise an eyebrow about the circumstances, privately it'd likely serve as some fireside gossip, but publically... the necessity for peace and importantly STABLE Stark rulership would to take priority here.

The remaining Starklings are more interesting to consider...

I think you're right that Rickon might perhaps be the least adverse, so really it's Arya and Bran who could express some opposition. Certainly Arya, due to her close bond with Jon... I could see her struggling with even just Sansa and Jon spending more time together, before a romance between them is revealed, her feeling displaced in his affections etc. Emphasis on feeling and on her own perception. Narratively, that could be well worth exploring and could tie into there being a teasing of the Stark faction showing cracks, particularly between the sisters, when actually they'll come together, overcome their differences, and be stronger as a pack for it.

Bran, though? Hmm, I think it really depends on what kind of person he is by this point in the story. How far along in his magical training is he? Is he going to have an emotional response to it like his sister, or will he take a 'wider picture' type approach? Personality-wise, Bran doesn't have as fiery a character as Arya... so I can see the latter being the most obviously opposed, e.g. verbally voicing her disgust, since she's more expressive that way.

Ultimately, though, I think the way to resolve the likely issue of Jonsa for the rest of the Starklings is to emphasise the importance of the pack and how Jonsa being together actually strengthens that:

"Let me tell you something about wolves, child. 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. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm." – AGOT, Arya II

We have to keep coming back to the above when it comes to the remaining Starks, I think. Jonsa will test them as a pack, for sure, but overall I think Arya and Bran will be able to rationalise it through the mentality of the above... that importance concerning the pack, and in particular, the pack in Winter, in times of crisis and uncertainty. So, by all means, fight with those who would truly do you harm... but know that Jon and Sansa being together romantically isn't a threat to the Starks, really, they're the packs' salvation... and its future.

Thanks for the ask! 😊🐺

[sansacherie]

“sansa’s feminity is defined by social constructs that the man made world created. its materialistic and performative and restrictive. it harms all women. thats not to say women can’t... enjoy certain aspect of it but the objective is female subjugation and that cannot be disregarded.”

There is just a.... lot with that statement.

First off, you can really tell that OP does not understand Sansa as a character (or girls like her) when they say her femininity is “performative”.  

Sansa’s interests in particular things aren’t her attempting to put on some kind of “performance”, it is a natural part of who she is. it would exist regardless of whenever she is canon Westeros or in a modern AU. Could you argue that Sansa has been shaped/influenced by the women around her (Catelyn, Septa Mordane, Margaery, Cersei) Yes, to a certain extent. Because Sansa “being a lady at three” (and going by normal developmental stages, would have been in diapers not that long ago) again suggests to me this is who she is inherently. Using words “performative” suggests falseness and that doesn’t work because a proper look at Sansa’s chapters would understand that her interests/desires/behaviour is sincere.  

Regarding her femininity being “materialistic” …. In that same post, the OP defines Sansa’s femininity as “fancy dresses, pretty embroidery, floral perfumes, dainty desserts, slippers on polished floors, music and dancing, love stories, traditional marriage, courtly intrigue, smiling when you want to cry”

I look at the statement above with OP’s own definition of Sansa’s femininity… and I’m like, where’s the bridge?

This is where you actually need to understand the words that you are using instead of just throwing them in to make yourself sound revolutionary.  The word “materialistic” means “excessively concerned with physical comforts or the acquisition of wealth”.

None of that really applies to the things OP listed.  First off, a lot of the items they listed “floral perfumes, dainty desserts, music and dancing” could actually be considered a form of self-care- that is to maintain “one’s emotional and spiritual health.”  Looking after yourself doesn’t just mean keeping a proper sleeping schedule or drinking water because self-care is unique to the person. Self-care is about that person making themselves feel good.  It is not materialistic.  

Let’s move onto “fancy dresses and pretty embroidery”.  I don’t think liking “fancy dresses” makes you materialistic. If it is, then why are so many Arya stans insistent on arguing that Arya actually likes dresses? Because being materialistic is defined as being “excessively concerned” so in other words, “overly, extremely” – so basically obsession. Sansa loves pretty clothes, but not to the point of being obsessed.  She understands the need for her to dress in simple clothing in the Vale, even if she resents it.  She was genuinely surprised by the dress fitting because Cersei neglected her clothes.

“Pretty embroidery” … I would argue (and somebody correct me if I’m wrong) but embroidery is related to sewing… and that’s actually a really important, practical skill that transcends class lines (something I’ve talked about before)?  People in Westeros – even the rich- simply do not have the luxury where if they were me, the local shopping centre is 10 minutes away by car and at this centre, I have thousands of dresses to choose from right then and there (if money wasn’t an issue) Instead, the clothing that Sansa and Arya wear (both at the beginning of their stories and throughout), as well as the clothing of Catelyn, Cersei, Arianne, Margaery, Daenerys, Beth Cassel, Jeyne Poole, to the small-folk (i.e. Pia) also took the time to make- but the difference lies in that Westeros hasn’t undergone a textile revolution where clothing can be produced at a mass-scale.  That dress Sansa wore for her wedding? Took weeks to make, and if something had happened it the day before- they would not be able to get another copy of it elsewhere.

Furthermore, there’s also the fact that sewing circles/doing embroidery together can actually be a way for women to bond, share conversations, perhaps hatch plans because it is done within a feminine space that their husbands/brothers/fathers don’t cross.

“Music and dancing”. How? Why? Loving music and dancing don’t make you materialistic.  Loving music and dancing- things related to the arts, is deeply human.  It brings joy to people, helps us to connect with others. People often use music as a form of self-healing. The same for dancing, which enables people to express and tell entire stories/send messages through movement.

Fuck off with this “materialistic” bullshit.

“Love stories”.

LOL, what?  How is liking love stories “materialistic”?

And if it is… then why are Arya stans also huge Gendrya shippers? (Which I also ship btw, although I definitely wouldn’t say I’m invested. I can take it or leave it.)

“it harms all women. that’s not to say women…can’t enjoy certain aspects of it but the objective is female subjugation and that cannot be disregarded.”

The issue with that statement is that it is IMO putting the blame entirely on women/girls who happen to enjoy these things naturally (for example, I like to wear pretty clothes because it makes me feel good) rather than the men in their society with the actual power.

Ned Stark might have indulged his 9year old with sword lessons but it is abundantly clear through his POV that he saw it as a passing interest. “She would tire of it soon”. Tywin wouldn’t even consider doing the same for Cersei.  Selwyn Tarth finally relented after Brienne broke three-four betrothals.

Sansa or any girl liking “pretty dresses, perfume, music, dancing, love stories” is not the thing driving female subjugation. You know what I tend to think of when reading the books? I think of how girls can be forced into marriages they don’t want/have their entire futures decided for them at the age of 11/12, be subjected to marital rape, queens being abused by their husband’s Kingsguard, a sex worker being murdered in bed, an eighteen year old girl’s virginity treated as a contest, that same girl being told by Tarly not to look to him for justice if she gets raped,  the fact that smallfolk women if Kingslanding had fallen would have been at most risk of violence/rape, the fact that women can be excepted to keep having more children even though it would be dangerous for them to do (Naerys, Alysanne)

Just… the amount of conscendation and arrogance in that statement (as well as the entire post) is staggering.  imagine thinking you’re writing some sort of feminist post only to degrade women/girls like sansa because they don’t fit your way of being. you do realize you are no different than the adults in arya’s life who keep trying to force her to be someone she’s not? smdh

[ladyofasoiaf]

Jon ‘One Eye’ & Sansa Stark

In this meta I will try to point out the clues of Jon’s death- warging into his direwolf- coming back to life process. 

Our main hint is going to be : ONE EYE motifs... 

And interestingly this hint is always close to Sansa... 

[Most of these clues etc have been already examined by many people but I will try to put them all in order to show the pattern..]

A GAME OF THRONES:

Waymar Royce

Waymar Royce appearence and story are very similar with Jon’s. 

They look similar:

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife.

[AGOT; Prologue]

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.  

[AGOT; Bran I]

They are both young men of Night’s Watch but they were not very welcomed by their other black brothers:

His cloak was his crowning glory; sable, thick and black and soft as sin. “Bet he killed them all himself, he did,” Gared told the barracks over wine, “twisted their little heads off, our mighty warrior.” They had all shared the laugh. It is hard to take orders from a man you laughed at in your cups, Will reflected as he sat shivering atop his garron. Gared must have felt the same.

[AGOT; Prologue]

“Yes, life,” Noye said. “A long life or a short one, it’s up to you, Snow. The road you’re walking, one of your brothers will slit your throat for you one night.” “They’re not my brothers,” Jon snapped. “They hate me because I’m better than they are.” “No. They hate you because you act like you’re better than they are. They look at you and see a castle-bred bastard who thinks he’s a lordling.” The armorer leaned close. “You’re no lordling. Remember that. You’re a Snow, not a Stark. You’re a bastard and a bully.”

[AGOT; Jon III]

Others are a very important part of Jon’s arc and story and Waymar meets with them in Prologue:

Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch.

[AGOT; Prologue]

This phrase also reminds us Jon:

It is more than impatience, Jon realized. They are afraid. Warriors, spearwives, raiders, they are frightened of those woods, of shadows moving through the trees. They want to put the Wall between them before the night descends. 

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You’ll dance with me anon.

[ADWD; Jon XII]

In Prologue, Waymar gets killed by Others:

Royce’s body lay facedown in the snow, one arm out-flung. The thick sable cloak had been slashed in a dozen places. Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy.

[AGOT; Prologue]

And Jon dies in ADWD:

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

[ADWD; Jon XIII]

But Waymar comes back to life as a wight with ‘ONE EYE’:

Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him. His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye. The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.

[AGOT; Prologue]

So: A young man of Night’s Watch who looks like Jon dies and comes back to life with ONE EYE. 

Let’s continue with the second book...

A CLASH OF KINGS:

Orell

Orell is Wildling who is also a skinchanger. His animal is an EAGLE. 

Jon kills Orell in ACOK; Jon VI:

Jon nodded toward the one by the fire. It felt queer, picking a man to kill. 

[...]

Jon’s man leapt to his feet, thrusting at his face with a burning brand. He could feel the heat of the flames as he flinched back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sleeper stirring, and knew he must finish his man quick. When the brand swung again, he bulled into it, swinging the bastard sword with both hands. The Valyrian steel sheared through leather, fur, wool, and flesh, but when the wildling fell he twisted, ripping the sword from Jon’s grasp. 

[...]

“You ought to burn them you killed,” said Ygritte.

[ACOK; Jon VI]

But due to the magic of skinchanging, a portion of Orell’s consciousness remained in the eagle, which developed a fierce hatred for Jon.

And in ACOK; Jon VII he dreams of an eagle attacking him and people talk about vargs and skinchangers:

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun… “Ghost!” Jon shouted, sitting up. He could still feel the talons, the pain. “Ghost, to me!” Ebben appeared, grabbed him, shook him. “Quiet! You mean to bring the wildlings down on us? What’s wrong with you, boy?” “A dream,” said Jon feebly. “I was Ghost, I was on the edge of the mountain looking down on a frozen river, and something attacked me. A bird… an eagle, I think…”

[...]

“Skinchanger?” said Ebben grimly, looking at the Halfhand. Does he mean the eagle? Jon wondered. Or me? Skinchangers and wargs belonged in Old Nan’s stories, not in the world he had lived in all his life. Yet here, in this strange bleak wilderness of rock and ice, it was not hard to believe.

[ACOK; Jon VII]

So: There is a skinchanger who dies because of Jon but a part of him keeps living in his animal: eagle. 

The interesting thing is that between these two Jon chapters (Orell and eagle dream) comes a very important Sansa chapter which has many parallels with Jon VI chapter...

An example of parallels:

[…] ‘All I ask is a flower,’ Bael answered, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o’ Winterfell.”

“Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious…  

[ACOK; Jon VI]

Sansa lowered her head. “The blood frightened me.”

“The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn might have prepared you. You’ve had your first flowering, no more.”

Sansa had never felt less flowery. “My lady mother told me, but I… I thought it would be different.”  

[ACOK; Sansa IV]

For more, please check: Jonsa Book Hints: B5 

In this chapter Sansa says she wants to be loved and Cersei warns her that “love kills too...” Next chapter is Jon with his eagle dreams and warging abilities:

A half smile flickered across the queen’s face. “[…]Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?”

“Everyone wants to be loved.”

“I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.”  

[ACOK; Sansa IV]

Let’s move on to third book...

A STORM OF SWORDS:

Orell and Wargs

In ASOS; Jon I, we learn the name of the Wildling that Jon has killed in ACOK; Jon VI:

“He slew Qhorin Halfhand,” said Longspear Ryk. “Him and that wolf o’ his.”

“And did for Orell too,” said Rattleshirt.

“The lad’s a warg, or close enough,” put in Ragwyle, the big spearwife. “His wolf took a piece o’ Halfhand’s leg.”

[...]

“What’s this?” he said. “A crow?”

“The black bastard what gutted Orell,” said Rattleshirt, “and a bloody warg as well.”

“You were to kill them all.”

“This one come over,” explained Ygritte. “He slew Qhorin Halfhand with his own hand.”

[ASOS; Jon I]

This Jon chapter comes after ASOS; Sansa I. 

And these chapters have many parallels such as:

Sansa knelt at the feet of her future queen. “You do me great honor, Your Grace.” “Won’t you call me Margaery? Please, rise. Loras, help the Lady Sansa to her feet. Might I call you Sansa?”  

[ASOS; Sansa I]  

“I would be pleased to eat, Your Grace. And thank you.”

“Your Grace?” The king smiled. “That’s not a style one often hears from the lips of the free folk. I’m Mance to most, The Mance to some. Will you take a horn of mead?”  

[ASOS; Jon I]

For more, please check: Jonsa Book Hints: C1

We also learn about Sansa’s new betrothed: Willas Tyrell.. 

Willas has a bad leg and so does Jon, in ASOS:

“Willas has a bad leg but a good heart,” said Margaery. “He used to read to me when I was a little girl, and draw me pictures of the stars. You will love him as much as we do, Sansa.”

[ASOS; Sansa I]

If the mare had gone down, he would have been doomed. “A lucky thing my leg got in the way,” he muttered.

He rested for a while to let the horse graze. She did not wander far. That was good. Hobbled with a bad leg, he could never have caught her.

[ASOS; Jon V]

Let’s keep reading...

In ASOS; Jon II chapter Jon’s eagle dream from ACOK comes true and Orell’s eagle attacks Jon’s eye:

He could still hear wings, though the eagle was not in sight. Half his world was black. “My eye,” he said in sudden panic, raising a hand to his face.

“It’s only blood, Jon Snow. He missed the eye, just ripped your skin up some.”

[…]

Can a bird hate? Jon had slain the wilding Orell, but some part of the man remained within the eagle. The golden eyes looked out on him with cold malevolence.

[…]

I will need to get this tended, he thought, but not just now. Let the King-beyond-the-Wall see what his eagle did to me.

[…]

The look Mance gave Jon was grim and cold. “What happened to your face?”

Ygritte said, “Orell tried to take his eye out.”

“It was him I asked. Has he lost his tongue? Perhaps he should, to spare us further lies.”

Styr the Magnar drew a long knife. “The boy might see more clear with one eye, instead of two.”

“Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?” asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. “If so, tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell.”

Jon’s throat was dry. “My lord… what…”

[ASOS; Jon II]

Jon almosts loses his ‘one eye’ and becomes Jon ‘One Eye’ Snow because of this attack..

After this eagle attack Jon chapter comes ASOS; Sansa II 

And these chapters have many parallels such as:

Jon wheeled and followed Tormund back toward the head of the column, his new cloak hanging heavy from his shoulders. It was made of unwashed sheepskins, worn fleece side in, as the wildlings suggested.

[…]  

“I wear the cloak you gave me, Your Grace.”  

[ASOS; Jon II]

A new gown?” she said, as wary as she was astonished.

“More lovely than any you have worn, my lady,” the old woman promised. She measured Sansa’s hips with a length of knotted string. “All silk and Myrish lace, with satin linings. You will be very beautiful. The queen herself has commanded it.”

“Which queen?” Margaery was not yet Joff’s queen, but she had been Renly’s. Or did she mean the Queen of Thorns? Or…“The Queen Regent, to be sure.”  

[ASOS; Sansa II]

For more, please check: Jonsa Book Hints: C2

And after the chapter of an eagle attacks Jon’s eye we learn in next chapter that Sansa’s betrothed Willas Tyrell flies EAGLES:

“Willas has the best birds in the Seven Kingdoms,” Margaery said when the two of them were briefly alone. “He flies an eagle sometimes. You will see, Sansa.” 

[ASOS; Sansa II]

Why is Almost One Eye Jon and Sansa Stark being near to each other important?

Because the first Sansa Stark in Stark family tree was married with her half-uncle Jonnel ‘One Eye’ Stark:

So another Sansa being close to another Stark family member who almost had lost his one eye sounds interesting. 

Well, Jon didn’t lose his eye but his face got scarred:

He had almost forgotten about his face. “A skinchanger tried to rip out my eye.”

Noye frowned. “Scarred or smooth, it’s a face I thought I’d seen the last of. We heard you’d gone over to Mance Rayder.”

[ASOS; Jon VI]

Who else has a scarred face? Sansa’s husband- Tyrion Lannister:

“I like your scar.” She traced it with her finger. “It makes you look very fierce and strong.”

He laughed. “Very ugly, you mean.”

“M’lord will never be ugly in my eyes.” She kissed the scab that covered the ragged stub of his nose.

[ASOS; Tyrion II]

Varamyr 

What happens to this eagle later?

Skinchanger, Varamyr Sixskins, takes control of Orell’s eagle. Varamyr uses the eagle to scout Castle Black and spots Stannis Baratheon’s arrival at the Wall.

The eagle bursts into flames during the attack on Castle Black with Melisandre claiming she was responsible. 

The skinchanger was grey-faced, round-shouldered, and bald, a mouse of a man with a wolfling’s eyes. “Once a horse is broken to the saddle, any man can mount him,” he said in a soft voice. “Once a beast’s been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. Orell was withering inside his feathers, so I took the eagle for my own. But the joining works both ways, warg. Orell lives inside me now, whispering how much he hates you. And I can soar above the Wall, and see with eagle eyes.”

[...]

“Banners,” he heard Varamyr murmur, “I see golden banners, oh . . .” A mammoth lumbered by, trumpeting, a half-dozen bowmen in the wooden tower on its back. “The king . . . no . . .”

Then the skinchanger threw back his head and screamed.The sound was shocking, ear-piercing, thick with agony. Varamyr fell, writhing, and the ’cat was screaming too.... and high, high in the eastern sky, against the wall of cloud, Jon saw the eagle burning. For a heartbeat it flamed brighter than a star, wreathed in red and gold and orange, its wings beating wildly at the air as if it could fly from the pain. Higher it flew, and higher, and higher still.

[ASOS; Jon X]

Melisandre burns the eagle. Who else got burned in the books? 

Jon Snow in AGOT:

He had burned himself more badly than he knew throwing the flaming drapes, and his right hand was swathed in silk halfway to the elbow. At the time he’d felt nothing; the agony had come after.

[AGOT; Jon VIII]

And Jon burns himself in AGOT; Jon VII:

Jon tried to shout, but his voice was gone. Staggering to his feet, he kicked the arm away and snatched the lamp from the Old Bear’s fingers. The flame flickered and almost died. “Burn!” the raven cawed. “Burn, burn, burn!”

Spinning, Jon saw the drapes he’d ripped from the window. He flung the lamp into the puddled cloth with both hands. Metal crunched, glass shattered, oil spewed, and the hangings went up in a great whoosh of flame. The heat of it on his face was sweeter than any kiss Jon had ever known. “Ghost!” he shouted.

The direwolf wrenched free and came to him as the wight struggled to rise, dark snakes spilling from the great wound in its belly. Jon plunged his hand into the flames, grabbed a fistful of the burning drapes, and whipped them at the dead man. Let it burn, he prayed as the cloth smothered the corpse, gods, please, please, let it burn.

[AGOT; Jon VII]

This Jon chapter comes after AGOT; Sansa IV:

And these two chapters have many parallels such as:

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.

[AGOT; Sansa IV]

They took his knife and his sword and told him he was not to leave his cell until the high officers met to decide what was to be done with him. And then they placed a guard outside his door to make certain he obeyed. His friends were not allowed to see him, but the Old Bear did relent and permit him Ghost, so he was not utterly alone.

[AGOT; Jon VII]

*

Yet somehow it seemed colder with Jeyne gone, even after she’d built a fire. She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen.

[AGOT; Sansa IV]

Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten so cold?

[…]


Metal crunched, glass shattered, oil spewed, and the hangings went up in a great whoosh of flame. The heat of it on his face was sweeter than any kiss Jon had ever known. “Ghost!” he shouted.

[AGOT; Jon VII]

For more, please check: Jonsa Book Hints: A10

What happens to skinchanger Orell and warg Varamyr after the eagle burst into flames?

The incident greatly affects Varamyr and supposedly kills the remnants of Orell inside the eagle. 

After the defeat of the wildlings at the battle beneath the Wall, Varamyr has lost all his possessions in his madness from experiencing the eagle’s death; he has also lost control of his snow bear and shadowcat, but his wolves remain.

[Orell dying completely and Varamyr gets mad also reminds me another resurrected character Beric Dondarrion who also has ONE EYE and him dying for good to bring Catelyn Stark back to life... And like Varamyr, Lady Stoneheart loses her mind too... ]

Let’s move on to fourth book...

A FEAST FOR CROWS:

Jon is not even in this book? 

But Sansa is and we learn few things about her crushes:

Waymar Royce:

She had fallen wildly in love with Ser Waymar, she remembered dimly, but that was a lifetime ago, when she was a stupid little girl.

[AFFC; Alayne I]

Grrm reminds us Waymar Royce aka the biggest foreshadowing for Jon in AFFC book via Sansa’s chapter... 

Loras Tyrell:

Loras was another crush of Sansa and we learn that he got burned really bad in AFFC. 

Like the eagle and Jon. 

“Tell me,” said Margaery. “I command it.” Command it? Cersei paused a moment, then decided she would let that pass. “The defenders fell back to an inner keep once the curtain wall was taken. Loras led the attack there as well. He was doused with boiling oil.” Lady Alla turned white as chalk, and ran from the room. “The maesters are doing all they can, Lord Waters assures me, but I fear your brother is too badly burned.”

[AFFC; Cersei VIII]

More about Loras // Jon, please check: Jonsa Book Hints: A8

Let’s keep reading the fifth book...

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS:

In ADWD; Prologue Varamyr encounters with Others (just like AGOT; Prologue) and Varamyr’s body dies, but his mind lives on in his wolf One Eye. 

And Varamyr also thinks about Jon and his direwolf.. 

So we have dead warg who kept living in his animal: A WOLF whose name is ONE EYE. 

Varamyr could feel the snowflakes melting on his brow. This is not so bad as burning. Let me sleep and never wake, let me begin my second life. His wolves were close now. He could feel them. He would leave this feeble flesh behind, become one with them, hunting the night and howling at the moon. The warg would become a true wolf. Which, though?

[...]

“They say you forget,” Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. “When the man’s flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains.”

Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell’s, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.

[...]

A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself. That was his last thought as a man. True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo. When they reached the crest the wolves paused. 

[...]

The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life. She sees me.

[ADWD; Prologue]

Jon dies in his last ADWD chapter and his last word was his direwolf’s name: GHOST... 

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

[ADWD; Jon XIII]

So we have a full circle: 

It started with Agot; Prologue 

and ended with ADWD; Jon XIII

Let’s not forget that Jon’s death was foreshadowed in ASOS; Sansa VI chapter. 

Lord Petyr dismissed him with a wave, and returned to the pomegranate again as Oswell shuffled down the steps. “Tell me, Alayne—which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never even see?”  

“The hidden dagger.”  

“There’s a clever girl.” He smiled, his thin lips bright red from the pomegranate seeds.  

[ASOS; Sansa VI]

Next chapter was Jon:

Fore more about Jon’s death and Sansa; please check: 

Jonsa Book Hints: C12 & E7 

“Do not be so certain.” The ruby at Melisandre’s throat gleamed red. “It is not the foes who curse you to your face that you must fear, but those who smile when you are looking and sharpen their knives when you turn your back. You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold.”

“It is always cold on the Wall.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, my lady.”

“Then you know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered.  

[ADWD; Jon I]

In conclusion:

Jon’s death, him warging into his direwolf during his death and him coming back to life arc has been foreshadowed since AGOT; Prologue and its most obvious hints were given in ADWD; Prologue by echoing AGOT; Prologue. 

The ‘ONE EYE’ motif seems like a key hint for his resurrection. 

And Sansa is always close to this motif or she has some connections with this motif via other characters or her chapters. 

A Sansa Stark being close to another ‘ONE EYE’ Stark is interesting because of the historical couple: Jonnel ‘One Eye’ & Sansa Stark in Stark family tree.. 

Even the hints of Jon’s death can be found in Sansa chapters. 

All of these tell us that Sansa will be important in Jon’s past resurrection story. 

Thanks for reading. 

Some sources:

Waymar // Jon 

Disfigurements 

Jonnel / Sansa

Jon’s fate and losing an eye

[captainelliecomb]

AGOT Bran I

Late to the Party: ASOIAF

Summary: The North north of the Wall might have brought us cold, inhuman death and the old tales coming true, but the North south of the Wall brings lessons on honour, fear and bravery, and old tales dismissed. Bran watches his first beheading, they find a dead direwolf with living pups, Jon is dryly funny when speaking to and about Theon, and winter is still coming.

Young Bran is an interesting point of view to introduce us to the ways of the North, an entire group of them off to watch a beheading, including Bran himself, a boy of seven.

The morning is clear and cold, hinting toward the end of summer, and Bran has known nothing but summer; it has lasted nine years, and he is only seven. He’s so very young. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to keep their ages in mind, at least for the Starklings and Jon Snow. Part of that is the show’s influence, sure, but also, they deal with terrible things in ways that make them seem older.

“He had taken off Father’s face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.” 

That’s quite a description considering (a) he’s going to lose his head soon but even more important (b) Arya, the one child who looks like him, will be off to train with the Faceless Men.

The North is a horror story in the middle of a political fantasy.

Swords!

Ice is “as wide across as a man’s hand, and taller even than Robb. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke.” 

Seriously, Ned, why the overkill? And I love how Bran compares the height to Robb, his beloved big brother.

Bran’s bastard brother Jon Snow moved closer. “Keep the pony well in hand,” he whispered. “And don’t look away. Father will know if you do.”

Bran kept his pony well in hand, and did not look away.

Hi, Jon Snow!

That set against Jaime telling Tommen to look without seeing, etc. The Starks have known horrors, including during Robert’s Rebellion, but did not see the horrors Jaime did under the Mad King, despite one Stark being burned alive and the other strangled trying to save him.

People make fun of Daenery’s titles, but this is a mouthful itself: Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.

Robb and Jon and their differences, physical and personality, and their friendship and the tension lurking between them.

“Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid.”

“What do you think?” his father asked.

Bran thought about it. “can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”

“That is the only time a man can be brave.”

Beautiful look at a part of what it means to be human.

Looking forward to this playing out, particularly with Sam Tarly.

Another touch on honour more important than life: He is an oathbreaker, a deserter, a man who must die; a man like that is the most dangerous because he knows his life is forfeit if taken, he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile.

If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

Interesting that Ned does not, or maybe cannot, differentiate between being the one physically capable of swinging the sword and the one who looks into his eyes and hears his final words. The two do not have to go together, but Ned is unyielding in what he feels is his honour -- the same as in King’s Landing, the same that gets him killed. He can be too literal and too caught in the one path he decides is the only way to go, though his honour could allow for other things or a slight bending of the honour could protect people better. 

Obviously, if a Northern ruler can’t literally swing the sword themself, they can use someone or something else to carry out the sentence, the important part is the watching, the listening, the taking responsibility. I hate the show’s storyline for Sansa and Bolton, but her taking his last words, passing the sentence, using his dogs as the weapon to kill him, that can be read as doing just this, Ned’s rule for the honour of the North. 

What keep will Bran hold? How does one get a keep when one is a second son?

I love how Jon is calm when Jory and Theon are wary and immediately want to fight a (dead) direwolf.

I feel the need to track direwolf size through the series, though I will probably fail to do this as we continue: Dead bitch is bigger than Bran’s pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father’s kennel.

Uh, if she is twice the size of a hound and yet bigger than Bran’s pony, how big are the rest of Stark’s hounds?

Theon Greyjoy said, “There’s not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years.”

“I see one now,” Jon replied.

Jon with the dry humour! I hope we see a lot more of this.

Two hundred years since the last direwolf was sighted south of the Wall, or so we’re told by Theon. The old stories are undermined in this chapter (Old Nan’s tales of Others and Wildlings and Ned’s dismissal of them; Jory calling the direwolf a sign and Ned dismissing it) and yet supported at the same time, with a direwolf actually south of the Wall again and winter coming.

Jon the bastard standing up to his father and Theon and all the men who want the pups dead, at least in part because Bran is heartbroken over the idea of them dying. Jon protecting his siblings like this, foreshadowing how he will protect them in the future. Jon clearly setting himself aside because it is what he thinks is best for his siblings in this moment.

“The pups may die anyway, despite all you do.”

“They won’t die,” Robb said. “We won’t let them die.”

Oh Robb. The arrogance of youth here again, which we’ve already seen go badly with Ser Waymar and will very soon with Bran and his climbing against the rules, and knowing what is coming for Robb and for Grey Wind, this is heartbreaking.

“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.”

Jon and his determination and his stubbornness, how I love him.

Even in his narration here, Bran calls Jon “Jon Snow” like he calls THeon “Theon Greyjoy” at least some of the time, but even at the end, long after Jon has been introduced as his bastard brother, he calls him “Jon Snow” while he never calls Robb “Robb Stark” even as he calls his father Lord Stark and Lord Eddard Stark at least once each. Interesting separation even from someone who does consider Jon his brother and does love him.

[atopvisenyashill]

So I came upon your blog while looking through the asoiaf tag and explored it a bit. Would you please explain to me how are you against Targaryen incest, but find Jonsa fine? I’m genuinely curious, as I’ve just started reading the books (I’m half-way through a storm of swords) and find nothing fine about any form of incest, whether it is or not considered as such in-universe. I also find little to no Jonsa moments. Could you help me? Thank you!

okay so first of all i got sent an ask forever ago about what the appeal of jonsa is and i’ve been working on explaining basically where i see the plot going and why it’s thematically relevant and is2g i’m still actually putting it together it’s just doing that in a middle of a reread is tough bc my ideas are kinda all over the place lmao (just like this ask is about to be sorry!) (also once again, sorry if my tone comes across very weird, i swear i reread like twelve times to make sure i don’t sound too snarky and wasn't just vomitting up a thousand words of nonsense lmao!!).

BUT. Well there’s three points to this: what the characters may feel, what i feel about jonsa, and what i feel about targ incest. so first the characters:

I think it’s important to point out that first cousin marriage (and auncle/nibling marriage, esp if it’s a “half” relation) are not considered true incest in westeros and in many parts of our world. rickard and lyra, ned’s parents, are cousins. joanna and tywin lannister are first cousins. jonnel and sansa and edric and serena are uncle/nieces, and you’ll note that when alys karstark comes to jon for help, he is disgusted that her uncle is trying to steal her inheritance and not that he’s her uncle attempting to marry her. i point this out because not only is there nothing legally stopping a jonsa marriage, the characters themselves may also see it that way (as not incest). and if your next point is “well they grew up thinking they’re siblings” my answer is - yes and? One of the influences on this series is Mervyn Peake, who wrote gothic medieval stories, and both incest and pseudo-incest is very much a big part of gothic stories! A lot of the storylines in this world are dedicated to exploring incest as a force of socialization and romanticism, from Naerys pleading to live “as brother and sister” and Aegon insisting “we already are” to Alysanne’s “Alyssa is meant for Baelon” to Jaime’s “he heard none of it" in the sept. I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to posit that two characters we have POVs for will fall in love and grapple with what that love says about them, about society, about their role in the world - and in fact, about half of Jon’s most popular ships are between him and a female relative. Sansa makes more sense to me because she’s closer to his age than Arya, has a more troubled relationship with him, is involved in the political aspects of the story just as much as he is, and isn’t likely to immediately start setting people on fire after they meet.

Now as for me, basically - i think both types of incest are the result of socialization + extreme trauma, and I fully expect that if Jonsa goes canon it will have a tragic ending. I think Jonsa takes some of the inherent misogyny of targ incest and plays around with it - Jon having significantly less societal privilege than basically every other Targaryen and what that means for Sansa as an heiress - but just because I think an exploration of that dynamic will be interesting, doesn’t mean I don’t expect it to be rife with problems.

because the problem with incest is the power dynamic ultimately, and you cannot escape that power dynamic bc people don’t exist in a vacuum. For all the Starks have some fucked up skeletons in their closet, Lyanna doesn’t show up in Ned’s bed naked and ask him to stop her betrothal to Robert, does she? This is the fundamental difference between targ incest and Jonsa or even Lannicest; Lannicest is rampant with toxicity from both of those deranged weirdos but they feel entitled to each other's bodies because of their own trauma surrounding their tumultuous childhoods (and probably some normalization of incest from their parents and proximity to Aerys/Rhaella/Rhaegar), but no one is saying "Jaime you are owed Cersei's body" or "Cersei your womb belongs to your brother and your brother alone." So I don't feel the need to sit here and go "Lannicest is toxic" like yeah? Clearly, lmao, these two feel like they are so damaged, and made so special by that damage, that they can only love one another, that's not what anyone would call healthy. I don't think it's necessary to sit here and explain that dynamic has abuse problems; it's right there in the text!

"well what about the power dynamic between jon and sansa?" YES WHAT ABOUT IT. that's the point! i'm interested in how a dynamic that is inherently abusive will play out between two people who were raised to believe some types of incest are okay but not others, who are victims of abuse and societal alienation themselves. because at the same time that i condemn targ incest, there are obviously real feelings and genuine care in these relationships and in these people, because again, people don't exist in a vacuum. daemon backs rhaenyra into this corner and then crucially does not kill any of her children because he realizes that's a step too far, she'd never forgive it, perhaps even because he grew to love them (i mean, Lucerys and Joffrey likely barely remember any other father but Daemon!). maegor is a monster who very specifically never harms rhaena's daughters! aemon is a useless pos but it seems likely he had a hand in raising naerys' son to be better than aegon because he could see the harm he and his brother were doing to naerys even if aemon was too much of a coward to actually stop that harm in any meaningful way! the difference, to me, is that jon will see that this relationship built on trauma and grief may be the only love he and sansa will ever allow themselves to feel but it is not healthy for them, and jon will leave! and sansa will realize she is not the impassive, frozen, detached symbol that the men around her want her to be, but a living, breathing person with her own wants and desires and agency, and will let him go!

Ultimately, while i think romanticizing and sexualizing the taboo is fine and even healthy, for me, there has to be some acknowledgement that you are in fact romanticizing the taboo. This is why the shitty dudes in asoiaf work for me in a way shitty dudes outside of asoiaf don’t usually - my general bitching about parts of the narrative that don’t click for me aside, there’s firm condemnation of the people engaging in these behaviors, from cersei sexually abusing lancel to sandor creeping on sansa. just because the narrative also shows us and wants us to feel empathy for sandor and cersei and why they’ve become bad people doesn’t mean what they’re doing isn’t bad. that’s what i like! i don’t want a story that holds my hand and drags me to the moral nor do i want a story that presents a god awful person who is supposed to be morally upright and not mean for us to dig deeper into them!

(this is why i like the pt but not the st of star wars, if you want an example - for all the prequels are um. flawed. lucas has an overreaching story about the effects of war, slavery, and interpersonal abuse that he’s dedicated to, and we are meant to be horrified by anakin choking padme just as surely as we’re meant to mourn their relationship and love for each other when palpatine gleefully tells anakin she’s dead and ani destroys the room in grief. vs like. what were the sequels even fucking doing man).

So the thing here is that I actually do in fact find Targaryen incest interesting while being morally repugnant as a practice, and I'm positive Jonsa will play around with both the morality of incest and the romanticism of it in a way that I find just as interesting, varied, romantic, and fulfilling as like, the Jaime/Cersei(/Brienne/Tyrion) mess or the Daemon/Rhaenyra/Laena/Harwin debacle! I like incest and I also hate it! I contain multitudes!

[mkstrigidae]

I HAVE SO MANY THEORIES and i want a distraction from my physics hw so thank you. So what evil stuff did Petyr teach Sansa that was normal that in reality is super weird? You mentioned something about Sansa balancing Petyr's books? MYA FINDING OUT THAT THE KING IS HER DAD?? THAT GENDRY AND HER ARE SIBBLINGS?? What reeeeaaaly was up with Lysa's death? Why did Baelish feel that he had to unalive her? What's gonna come up in the trial? How is the media scrutiny gonna affect Sansa? Also I kinda want to see how Sansa peruses her career and how her new situation is gonna change her prospects/ alter her timeline/ help or hinder her? I would very much like to see Robin's buried trauma cause he's honestly a fascinating character. you've also hyped up the shopping so much im v excited with Rhae and Cate and eeeveryone (im sensing buried trauma). random also, there's something up with the lemon tree too I can feel it. I LOVE APWH and thank you so much :))))

Hello friend!!! I don't think Petyr deliberately set alarms on his phone like '3:30pm- teach my kidnapped daughter eeeevil stuff' or anything- but his idea of a normal father-daughter relationship is warped in some ways because he sees Sansa as an extension of both himself and of Catelyn in some ways- I get into this a bit more in later chapters when getting into why Petyr actually decided to kidnap Sansa in the first place. But yes, Sansa does help do some of the accounting for Baelish's businesses! Petyr considers basic Shady Accounting Skills™ to be the kind of domestic thing that dads teach their kids on weekends (instead of idk teaching Sansa how to change the oil in a car?? He doesn't know that either, so sketchy finance lessons it is) and I think it's genuinely like a dad sentiment on his part- like he considers understanding how money works to be really important and wants Sansa to be successful! So he teaches her about money and politics and she's like, secretly plotting to sneak off to the movies with Mya the entire time. Mya and Gendry's stuff- i'm still trying to figure out if it fits in the main story, but if it doesn't, they're getting their own lil mini story because it's gonna be super interesting. Everyone in this story has so many daddy issues.

Lysa's death is... complicated. I can't quite spill that one yet! But I hope the final answer will be worth it. As for the trial- lots of things will come up! Jon's there, and Dany's there and in her element, and Sansa's getting the worst crash course in North Westerosi law imaginable and also like, wildly crushing on one of the prosecutorial interns (i.e. Jon) which is a wild emotional spectrum for anyone to exist on, quite frankly. Sansa's career and her goals for the future are actually something I really plan to dig into during the trial arc- long story short, she's going to spend some time doing an internship in White Harbor that really makes her reevaluate what she wants from life and her work. And you know I'm going to dig deep into Robin's trauma/past/relationship with both Lysa and Petyr. I love APWH Robin so much and he's growing in leaps and bounds where he is right now.

The lemon tree represents home to Sansa in a way that the house in Braavos doesn't even- she loves it in the way that you can only love a gift that came from one of the people you care about most in this world, and it's something that I think is very grounding for her. She doesn't have it with her now- adding to just how off-kilter she feels still at Winterfell.

Thanks so much for your thoughts!!! I love reading these!

[jackoshadows]

The ASoIaF fandom can be so frustrating sometimes.

It’s okay to admit that one doesn’t like this or that character. There’s nothing wrong in disliking a character.

I am pretty open on my blog about my indifference towards or dislike for Sansa because of her stans. I don’t make disclaimers about how much I love the character before proceeding to criticize Sansa. I am not a Sansa stan and that’s okay. My blog is a place for me to jot down my thoughts and celebrate characters, books and shows I do like. If you love Sansa as a character, block me, don’t follow me etc.

What’s obnoxiously annoying are the folks who claim to love all the characters the same and then give their ‘unbiased’ opinions which are held up as canon facts because they came from neutral book reader experts. To hell with that nonsense.

These posts reek of hypocrisy and double standards. It often tears down some characters while subtly propping up others - and it’s gobbled up by the wider fandom as unbiased interpretation of the text.

One example is pushing forth the notion that calling Arya pretty (Something that both her father and brother tell her she is in the books) is wrong, it’s sexualizing her, it’s okay for Arya to be ugly, she’s canonically not pretty because Cat/Sansa said so and no other interpretation is allowed etc. And then the same person who says all this celebrates Sansa’s beauty and ships her with a 27 year old man who falls in lust with Sansa.

Or when they say that the Arya-Lyanna (and Sansa/Lyanna parallels, because it’s always important to mention Sansa with respect to Lyanna even if said person claims to not care about Lyanna as a character) parallels are overrated and not important and they don’t care about Robert’s Rebellion characters but on their blogs there’s all these posts, fanarts and meta about Elia Martell - a Robert’s Rebellion character.

A so called book expert would note that GRRM has several characters outright compare Arya to Lyanna or mistake Lyanna for Arya in the books while Sansa has no such comparison. But no, the unbiased book expert thinks that the Arya-Lyanna and Sansa-Lyanna parallels are equivalent and are both overrated.That post just annoyed me excessively into writing this long ass rant post.

Why are these neutral, unbiased folks so interested in stripping away from Arya’s story?

In the books Jeyne Poole is masquerading as Arya Stark - but that story is only Jeyne’s, has nothing to do with Arya or Arya’s importance to the North. 

Arya is a strong warg, Nymeria and her wolf pack are a ‘Chekov’s wolf pack’ that GRRM has hung on the wall  -  Our expert opinion is that Direwolves are not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Arya is pretty - why needlessly call Arya pretty, it adds nothing to Arya’s story and is all about sexualizing a child.

Arya-Lyanna parallels - why do we need these parallels, Arya is distinct and interesting without them.

These aspects are all important parts of the character’s story. There are so many very well written essays exploring these concepts with respect to Arya’s journey of self discovery in the books, the narrative significance of her parallels to Lyanna, her bond with Nymeria and her warging talents. For those who are interested, here are two bloggers who actually like Arya and have written about her character and character arc.

https://donewithwoodenteeth.tumblr.com/meta-masterlist

https://ashotofjac.tumblr.com/tagged/arya-stark

Some of these same people will rush to condemn any reading of the books that does not have Sansa wielding power at the end as being ‘Sansa hate’. But they will have no issues to undermine and devalue Arya’s actual book story, the relationships she has, the parallels she has, the skillsets she has, her appearance, her importance to the current story happening in the North.

There is a whole ass plot currently in the books of Northerners rallying for Arya Stark and preparing for battle against the Boltons for Arya Stark. But that’s not important because it’s actually Jeyne Poole and Arya’s story is about sailing off west of westeros.  But hey, Sansa will definitely go North and hold power and that’s like 100% happening because we are the unbiased book experts and we say it is so.

Or when all else fails - Arya is a Mary Sue, she’s a fantasy character, she’s a ‘strong female character’ because she fights with a sword, people like her because she’s a tomboy who fights. Sansa is realistic, Sansa is complex - but here are all the essays that basically transfer Arya’s complexity and story to Sansa - because it fits more with their fave, because these aspects would fit better with the traditionally feminine character even though they never tire of talking about how GRRM is deconstructing tropes. Because the trope deconstruction is only applied to Arya, Jon and Dany. Never Sansa.

And honestly, why are these people reading a high fantasy series if they hate fantasy and fantasy characters so much? We love Sansa because she’s so non-magical! Then go read non-fiction books. They also twist Jon, Arya and Dany into ‘fantasy’ characters - despite these characters going through some very real and human experiences. What’s fantasy about Arya’s experiences in war torn Westeros, Jon dealing with bigotry at the wall, Dany trying to rebuild Meereen, while dealing with famine, disease and insurgency?

Or how Jon and Dany getting any kind of happy ending or becoming rulers would be so boring, sweet, predictable, conforming to tropes, a happy ending etc. But Sansa getting love, romance, going home, becoming the Stark in Winterfell, getting her fairy tale ending - that’s totally what GRRM is going to do! No trope deconstruction there!  In may ways, Benioff and Weiss’ ending is not all that surprising -  Mad Queen Dany, Jon remaining a bastard with the freefolk, Sansa having power as a leader - are all popular theories among bnfs in the fandom. D&D wanting to wind up the show quickly with easily found fan theories is not that much of a stretch.

ASoIaF reddit is equally frustrating. Instead of Sansa stan bnfs on tumblr who pretend to like Arya and Dany while subtly undermining their story and importance, on Asoiaf reddit it’s Stannis stans who dislike Jon and Dany because these characters present a challenge to Stannis. The mere suggestion that Jon may play a role in the battle against Ramsay sends them into frothing at the mouth rage. They hate Jon, Jon is a Gary Sue because he dared advice Stannis - the greatest general ever - on Northern military strategy. Never mind that Jon grew up in the North and learned from Ned, how dare Jon Snow know more than Stannis! Unacceptable!

And I love Stannis Baratheon. I want Stannis to crush and defeat the Boltons. But unlike reddit dudebros, I can see that he is a secondary character, a tragic character who is most probably going to perish and Jon takes over because Jon Snow is a central protagonist in the story.

I feel it’s the same with Sansa. IMO, GRRM clearly doesn’t see Sansa in the same way as he does Arya, Jon, Dany, Tyrion and Bran. Whenever he is asked questions about the books, book plots, long term arcs, endings, age gaps etc it’s these characters he often brings up and references. It’s these characters who are important to him.

And that’s why there’s a lot of undermining and undervaluing of these character’s and their stories, them being described as fantasy characters, tropes, Mary Sues and Gary Sues, ableist rhetoric about Tyrion and Bran to undermine them.

I am damned certain that if it was Sansa who had all the parallels to Lyanna, or if she was the warg, or Jeyne Poole was impersonating her, this would all be ‘VERY IMPORTANT’ and on all the gifsets and essays. But she isn’t. So fandom bnfs are reduced to talking about how these aspects are not all that important anyway.

It’s like how this quote - ‘You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts’ turns up on gifsets every other day on the Arya tag but this quote - ‘Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier of Arya had been a bastard, like her half brother Jon. And Jon’s mother had been common, or so people whispered’ very rarely does and will not get reblogged when it does.

Or when Sansa sees Joffrey trying to kill Arya and sides with Joffrey or when Sansa throws Arya under the bus and tells the Lannisters that it’s Arya who is the traitor - just sisters being sisters y’all!

It’s all about maintaining a certain narrative about Sansa - and when others point out her actual relationship with Arya in the books, we are accused of hating and wanting Sansa dead and how we should be criticizing Tywin and the Mountain instead. This is nonsensical whataboutism and ignores that people talk about  these aspects of the books because sometimes bullying, getting mocked for one’s appearance, abuse and neglect from parental figures etc. can resonate with certain readers unlike getting one’s head smashed in by Frankenstein.

At the end of the day, I wish these people would be honest about the characters they like and relate to. We are all biased. That’s why our opinions and interpretations are subjective. There’s nothing wrong in saying, hey, I like Sansa more than Arya or Dany, I relate to her character more.

I relate to Jon Snow a lot, I see things from his POV, I would disagree with the characters who disagree with Jon,  I enjoy his story at the Wall and the North. My interpretations of the text are therefore colored by my bias towards Jon. 

For others, it’s Dany or Sansa or Arya or Tyrion or Jaime. And that’s okay because these are fictional characters and liking one more than the other is not going to earn anyone woke points and lead to women’s rights.

And finally, there’s nothing edgy or cool about disparaging the central protagonists of a high fantasy series as being fantasy characters - go read other books if one is not into fantasy.

[fedonciadale]

@winged-wolves: thoughts on this ASOS Sansa quote? : They look like two huge castles afloat in the morning sky....The sun was coming up behind them, and she watched them go from black to grey to a thousand shades of rose and gold and crimson. Soon the wind mushed them together, and there was only one castle where there had been two....“Come see, ” she told them. “There’s a castle in the sky.” - is it foreshadowing something? is it symbolic? (quote was too long to post in entirety)

Hi there! @winged-wolves!

Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. Usually she found him in the solar, hunched beside a candle, lost in some old scroll or leatherbound book. Sometimes the smell of the morning bread from the ovens took him to the kitchens, and sometimes he would climb up to the roof garden or wander all alone down Traitor's Walk.         

She threw back the shutters and shivered as gooseprickles rose along her arms. There were clouds massing in the eastern sky, pierced by shafts of sunlight. They look like two huge castles afloat in the morning sky. Sansa could see their walls of tumbled stone, their mighty keeps and barbicans. Wispy banners swirled from atop their towers and reached for the fast-fading stars. The sun was coming up behind them, and she watched them go from black to grey to a thousand shades of rose and gold and crimson. Soon the wind mushed them together, and there was only one castle where there had been two.

She heard the door open as her maids brought the hot water for her bath. They were both new to her service; Tyrion said the women who'd tended to her previously had all been Cersei's spies, just as Sansa had always suspected. "Come see," she told them. "There's a castle in the sky." (ASOS, Sansa IV)

If you look at Jon V in ASOS, where he feels alone although Ygritte is right behind him:

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.

By that afternoon the trees had begun to thin, and they marched east over gently rolling plains. Grass rose waist high around them, and stands of wild wheat swayed gently when the wind came gusting, but for the most part the day was warm and bright. Toward sunset, however, clouds began to threaten in the west. They soon engulfed the orange sun, and Lenn foretold a bad storm coming. His mother was a woods witch, so all the raiders agreed he had a gift for foretelling the weather. "There's a village close," Grigg the Goat told the Magnar. "Two miles, three. We could shelter there." Styr agreed at once.

It was well past dark and the storm was raging by the time they reached the place. The village sat beside a lake, and had been so long abandoned that most of the houses had collapsed. Even the small timber inn that must once have been a welcome sight for travelers stood half-fallen and roofless. We will find scant shelter here, Jon thought gloomily. Whenever the lightning flashed he could see a stone roundtower rising from an island out in the lake, but without boats they had no way to reach it.

It is quite interesting. The Sansa quote could point towards the castles at the Eyries: Stone and Snow (two castles) that become one (Sky/in the sky). I think you could read it as a Jonsa foreshadowing.

Jon in this parallel chapter starts with Castle Black (like the black castles in the sky) and ends at the castle that is not named here but that is “Queenscrown”.

Both the castles merging together in the sky and Jon being forced to seek shelter near Queenscrown are caused by wind. Jon’s story starts at Castle Black and ends with his Queen being crowned? Queenscrown is also very important because that is the point where Jon betrays the Freefolk and Ygritte. It is his “traitor’s walk” in a way.

I think it is interesting and I doubt it is coincidence, escpecially not because Jon and Sansa start the chapter with being alone.

Thanks for the ask!

[thebluelemontree]

Hiya blue lemon it's me again. Do you have any criticism in the way GRRM wrote Sansa in book1/2? EX:.Sansa and Jeyne are BFF but we amolst never see the girls talking to eachother, and when JP is sex traffikced sansa just forget about her(we could have a scene where sansa try to find what happened to JP or at least grieve for her). Every time sansa appears as a non-POV in AGOT she's been mean and whe we have her POV she's mean for no good reason(SANSA III AGOT). >PART 1<

And the worst is why GRRM wrote sansa goin to Cercei to tell her the "Ned Plans", it's just bad writing, Cercei kill lady so Sansa going to her was OOC GRRM just wrote that to we hate Sansa And in the book it's not explained what "the Ned plans" was(And it was nothing imortant at all, and would make no difference at Ned's fate) so ordinary readers blame Sansa for Ned's death and GRRM does that too in book 2 Cercei put all the blame for Ned death in sansa nd "the Ned Plans" Your thoughts?PART 2

There’s a lot to unpack here. 

I get a sense that in the early books, George was not as comfortable writing female relationships as he was writing male relationships or even male-female ones. I mean, Catelyn has no female friends, no companions like Margaery Tyrell’s cousins, no fostering wards of her own, no correspondences with other ladies except that one letter from Lysa for plot reasons. This is just weird for the lady of two major houses. It is neglectful on George’s part to give most of the important social connections to men. This doesn’t mean he was totally inept at writing female relationships, though, and it does seem like he’s tried to improve upon highlighting the positive in later books.

By comparison, the positive side of the brotherly relationships are presented so strongly that it tends to smooth over the conflicts with many readers. Jon can feel envious and resentful of Robb, but the love and loyalty is always in the foreground. The conflict between Arya, Jeyne, and Sansa does have legitimate character arc and plot purposes, so this isn’t bad writing. It’s unfortunate that GRRM presses down so hard on the constant bickering and occasional nastiness, but he did write some positives (albeit they tended to be revealed in later books) and there are understandable reasons for the dynamics. It was not done in a totally unrealistic way. What’s depicted is a typical and relatable rocky period for that age group, and there was negative adult influence at play. It’s not a permanent feature of the sisterhood. It’s all there if you pay attention and you’re inclined to be charitable toward the mistakes of young girls.       

If a reader is already predisposed to see the bonds between male characters as more pure and more able to overcome the negative aspects, then they probably also view the bonds between female characters as inherently weaker and more fraught with conflict. Fandom misogyny is not GRRM’s fault. That sector of the fandom will always have contempt for girls for being girls, especially preteen girls. They will always hone in on their faults and belittle their virtues. 

I don’t think that is true that we hardly ever see Jeyne and Sansa talking. They are nearly always in each other’s company. There was real friendship between Sansa and Jeyne, because what George does do well with them, is realistically write the way girls cement their bonds. Young girls strengthen their relationship by communicating and confiding in each other. Sharing secrets, crushes, hopes, fears, and pieces of gossip builds trust and intimacy. Jeyne and Sansa do this all the time, even though they can have different opinions and disagree about a lot.  Yes, there is some one-sidedness in that Sansa socially outranks Jeyne and believes that makes her more mature and wiser than her friend. Jeyne is dependent on her closeness to Sansa as a highborn lady and future queen to rise successfully, so she’s not going to push back on Sansa’s dominance. This is also a reason Jeyne sometimes bullies Arya to supplant her as Sansa’s “sister.” When Sansa has something to share, she goes to Jeyne to talk about it. I think it’s hilarious that the girls have a debate over which castle Gregor Clegane’s head will get spiked. Sansa wants Jeyne at her side for these new and exciting events like the tourney. When things get serious and dangerous, they comfort each other. Again, this is not all George’s fault if some readers don’t recognize or value the way girls do friendships.  

It’s stated quite clearly why Sansa tries to not think about Jeyne or her deceased family members very often. It’s fucking traumatic and her survival while among her captors depends on mentally holding herself together. 

If only she had someone to tell her what to do. She missed Septa Mordane, and even more Jeyne Poole, her truest friend. The septa had lost her head with the rest, for the crime of serving House Stark. Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. Once in a while, Sansa even missed her sister. By now Arya was safe back in Winterfell, dancing and sewing, playing with Bran and baby Rickon, even riding through the winter town if she liked. Sansa was allowed to go riding too, but only in the bailey, and it got boring going round in a circle all day. -- Sansa II, ACOK.

Following her father’s beheading, Sansa was in a suicidal depression for days. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t bathe, welcomed drug-induced sleep, and contemplated killing herself. If she thinks too much on those she lost, she falls to pieces. She can’t openly weep and mourn for “traitors” if her life depends on appearing to be loyal to Joffrey. Most of her grief is suppressed inside. This also includes asking too many questions she doesn’t feel psychologically prepared to hear the answer to. She was there when the decision was made to shuttle Jeyne off to Littlefinger; however, she has no idea this is going to result in Jeyne being sent to a brothel and worse. I would also keep in mind that even if she did ask, it’s not like Cersei or Littlefinger would ever tell her the truth. Why would they? Does she really want to hear lies and have to think about what the horrible truth might be when she can’t do anything about it?  When it comes to Arya, Sansa believes her sister escaped on the ship bound for home. She comforts herself with imagining that Arya is safe and free, and that’s enough to keep her going.  

And she prays and sings for Jeyne, wherever she is.

She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin... -- Sansa V, ACOK.

It’s only until later in the books that Sansa feels emotionally at peace enough to start remembering the good times with Arya and Jeyne without breaking down into tears. We can also see the conflicts weren’t always a thing, and the love was strong with all three.

Sansa began to make snowballs, shaping and smoothing them until they were round and white and perfect. She remembered a summer's snow in Winterfell when Arya and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They'd each had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she'd had none. Bran had been perched on the roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might even have caught her, but she'd slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn't, Arya hit her in the face with another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing. -- Sansa VII, ASOS.

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. -- Alayne I, TWOW.

So it’s not even that the girls only bond through confiding. They run, play, and roughhouse with each other. It’s interesting that AGOT!Sansa tried to be so mature and proper, but now that she’s older, she’s remembering how good and freeing it was just to be a kid. But let’s not act like this part of the story is over. Jeyne is still very much alive and seems likely to run into Arya in Braavos. We can almost be 100% certain that Sansa will find out the truth about what happened to Jeyne and what Littlefinger did to her (and her parents), then watch out. Sansa will turn all that buried pain into a righteous fury at Littlefinger.  

Now as for Sansa being mean for “no reason.” Um... yeah, LOL. Sometimes she’s just a total unwarranted bitch to her sister, and it’s not meant to be a good look. Sometimes she’s superficial, insufferably immature and annoying, judgmental and prejudiced AND THAT’S OKAY. I mean, she sounds no better or worse than your average middle-schooler if they were of the privileged nobility. Guess what? Sometimes preteens are really like that. Sometimes siblings have ugly, knockdown drag out fights where they say horrible things to each other. Most will grow past those phases and still wind up just as loving and close. It’s realistic and believable. Sansa has flaws, but they aren’t deep moral flaws. She does an amazing job at growing, learning, and overcoming those flaws over the course of the books. In TWOW, she’s warm and affectionate with people, easy-going, nonjudgmental, and genuinely more mature than ever. She took the stick out of her ass and became a happier person for it. What’s the problem? What did you want her to be? Perfect? Unfailingly kind and loved by everyone all the time? She’d be a saint, not a multifaceted human being. Even with her occasional ugly side, Sansa is still a strong, smart, compassionate badass. I don’t care if some people don’t like her as she is written or if they vilify her with their misinterpretations or ignore her strengths. What bearing does that have on GRRM’s vision for her character? He never set out to write any character that the whole fandom would either unanimously love or hate.    

This is not bad writing. This NOT bad writing. This is GOOD writing.

*Sigh* Listen... this whole nonsense about Sansa being to blame for Ned’s demise has been going on since ASOIAF was written on clay tablets. You don’t have to listen to every stupid thing the fandom says about anything. It’s just factually wrong. End of story. This misinterpretation and reader inattentiveness is not GRRM’s fault, because he lays out all the details of everything that went down between Arya, Ned, and Sansa’s POV as it was happening. It’s totally understandable why an upset and frustrated Sansa would go to Cersei, the mother figure she implicitly trusts and admires. She didn’t go to Cersei to betray her father’s plans. She went to the queen to intercede in what she thought had to be some big misunderstanding, having no idea what was really going on or at stake. 

This is not OOC for her to go to Cersei after Lady’s death. The hand that killed Lady was her own father’s, a undeniable breach of trust that wounded their relationship. Ned just doesn’t really do a lot to deal with the emotional aftermath either. Ned and Sansa are very similar in turning a blind eye when confronted with unpleasantness from someone they love. Ned is also at that moment disillusioned with Robert’s failure to do the right thing after the Trident incident. He begs Robert in the name of their brotherly love and the love he bore Lyanna, and Robert turns his back on Ned anyway. Yet Ned immediately goes right back to believing in the best of Robert’s nature, despite all evidence to the contrary. Every sign points to this being a one-sided friendship with Robert being lazy, irresponsible, and completely selfish. Like father, like daughter. Sansa has a very hard time accepting that Joffrey and Cersei are not the people she thought they were, even when she’s seen some cracks. And since she can’t understand her father’s actions and the communication has been shot to hell between them, of course she runs to Cersei with her problems. Cersei can flip a switch and pretend to be kind, loving, and understanding. 

This is so typical of a teenage thought process:  “Dad just doesn’t understand and he’s making a big mistake. I don’t understand why he’s doing this. He doesn’t get how important this is to me. This will all work out if a sympathetic adult steps in and fixes it. Everything will turn out great and we’ll all be happy.” While Sansa is pouring her heart out about how it isn’t fair she can’t say goodbye to Joffrey, Cersei pretends to be that sympathetic mother figure that really understands her. How hard would it be then to pump Sansa for information? Like “Oh my sweet little dove. I know how much you love my son. Don’t worry. I’ll help you straighten this out. You said your father wants to send you away? How? When? What’s the name of that ship again?”  

And that line from Cersei’s POV is horseshit. Cersei is a liar and regularly lies in her POV to absolve herself of responsibility and force the blame entirely on others. In this case, Cersei is acting like she didn’t totally manipulate a trusting child to betray her.  We also know this is a lie because Ned was the one that told her himself of his plans to reveal the invest and remove her as queen. Sansa had nothing to do with that. All Sansa did was give Cersei information that allowed Cersei the opportunity to take her hostage before the girls could leave by ship. Cersei’s plans against Ned were already well underway. Sansa never came to her with the intent of knowingly betraying anyone, but she did have selfish reasons for going to the queen to complain in the first place. GRRM said himself that Sansa wasn’t to blame for Ned’s capture or death, but she did play a role in the events that transpired. That’s fair. All that makes her is a kid who made a not entirely innocent mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, which she immediately learned from. Does she trust Cersei or Joffrey again? Hell no.  

Relax, anon. It’s fine for her to not be nice all the time. It’s fine for her to have some realistic, garden variety flaws. It’s one of the most universal human mistakes to fall too hard and fast for the wrong person, act the fool over them despite all the red flags, only to realize you only saw what you wanted to see in them. And Sansa learned this lesson at eleven when some adults haven’t learned it at all. Relax. She’s a great, well-written, relatable character who has overcome most of these issues successfully.  

[a-libra-writes]

How the GoT Characters Comfort You Before an Arranged Marriage

This request was interesting bc ayyy, as anon said, this is Westeros and this would probs happen! Also I just realized u requested this ages ago i am so sorry lmao. I really need to keep track of dates n shit

In this preference, you'll be comforted by: Ned Stark, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Benjen Stark, Jory Cassel, Dolorous Edd, Mance Rayder, Tormund Giantsbane, Theon Greyjoy, Yara Greyjoy, Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah Mormont, Missandei, Grey Worm, Tywin Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, Jamie Lannister, Sandor Clegane, Bronn, Podrick Payne, Petyr Baelish, Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, Margaery Tyrell, Brynden Tully, Edmure Tully, Brienne of Tarth, Ramsay Bolton, Roose Bolton, Oberyn Martell, Beric Dondarrion, Gendry

NED STARK

He’d take it upon himself to talk to you before the arrangement was official, even if your family had already decided on it. Ned would take your hands in his and reassure you, hoping he could put what he was feeling into words. He was sure you’d do well in Winterfell, which had gone so long without a proper Lady in its walls, but you were also much younger than him, which made him worry that you wouldn’t be happy. However, your genuine thanks and a sweet smile would be enough to make the “cold” Lord Stark blush a little.

ROBB STARK

He had been told about this arranged marriage some months ago, but evidently your family didn’t bother with the same consideration. You didn’t find out until you were on the road to Winterfell. Robb had a fondness for you right away, so he gave you a tour of Winterfell to cheer you up. He was very considerate, asking what kinds of things you liked and pointing out places you could go to relax if things got too overwhelming. The whole time Robb was touching and guiding you gently, trying to prove that you didn’t need to be afraid around him.

SANSA STARK

Both of you knew it was only a matter of time before your marriage was arranged, since that was the entire reason your parents brought you to the Red Keep. It didn’t mean you had to be happy about it. Several times Sansa snuck into your room, bringing stolen sweets with her, letting you vent and pout while she held you. Sansa would try to be the optimist, assuring you that you were still a courtier in the Red Keep and once she was Queen, the two of you could visit anytime. They were nice fancies, something to distract you two from the inevitable. 

JON SNOW

For a long time Jon had known he couldn’t marry you, but it still stung fiercely when you told him about the arrangement. His own pain was dwarfed by how much he hated seeing you this upset. As much as you both talked about this happening, now it was actually here, and Jon just wrapped his arm around you while you were petting Ghost. He alternated between reassuring you that it would be alright, but now that he was leaving for the Wall, he wasn’t so sure. He decided to visit you every day until he left, bringing you small gifts and making sure Ghost gave you plenty of attention. He hated having to leave you like this, so he made Robb promise to ensure you were treated well.

BENJEN STARK

It had to happen eventually, but Benjen always casually brushed off such things, and you grew used to that. When the news finally arrived and you told him, you didn’t expect such a strong reaction. He was trying to keep a cool face, but it quickly broke as he asked if you were sure. He didn’t outright ask you to try to break it off, but it was obvious he hated the idea of losing you, even if you weren’t supposed to be together in the first place. Benjen would have a hard time letting you out of his embrace as he promised it would be alright, although you knew he was already thinking of ways to keep the two of you together.

JORY CASSEL

He didn’t think much about marriage, only that he should eventually get around to it. He had always privately thought that, since he was from such a minor family, he would choose his own bride, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Still, you were a pretty girl and clearly beloved in Winterfell. He wanted to make a good impression, so he tried to talk about different things and show you around the keep. Sometimes he’d become nervous and stumble over himself, and your cute laugh didn’t help him feel less fumbling. 

DOLOROUS EDD

He always said he’d pity the bride who got “stuck” with him, and that was true now. He was genuinely curious to meet you, since this arrangement helped his family far more than your’s. You were far more reasonable than he expected, but he still lowkey suggested that you could back out if you wanted to. You two actually spent a long time talking. He found it easy to talk to you, since you weren’t immediately off-put by his dour humor and you thought it was more amusing than rude. He was still worried you’d regret the match, and figured you’d call it off eventually. 

MANCE RAYDER

Your father was the leader of the largest group of wildlings that had yet to join Mance. He would only accept the promise of a marriage. You agreed to the arrangement, but Mance already knew you weren’t some Southern bride. He admired your strategy and stories of your battles, and genuinely wanted to get to know you. He could tell you’d make a capable strategist, even second-in-command, and he wanted you to know he valued you as more than a simple agreement.

TORMUND GIANTSBANE

He was not happy with Mance about the arrangement, even if he knew it was the only way your tribe would join the massive army. He did a complete 180 once he realized who you were. He’d heard stories about you, and suddenly he was beside himself with excitement. Once you arrived, Tormund was quick to regale you with stories of his own triumphs, hoping to impress you and gain your approval. Mance was totally entertained by this change, figuring the both of you would get along. Tormund would find out your tribe’s courting traditions and do them, wanting to prove he would be a capable partner even without the arrangement.

THEON GREYJOY

Right away he’d brag about what an honor it was to be marrying a Greyjoy, and when he tired of that, he’d casually mention being a prince to the Iron Islands, too. This hadn’t impressed you much, since your family was one of the biggest ones on the Iron Islands, and just as old as the Greyjoys, besides. Still you humored him, and since Theon was attracted to you right away, he wanted to get to know you. He wanted to see how you fought and sailed, but also how you rode and if you knew some archery. It was amusing how much he liked the idea of a tomboy wife, as opposed to the proper ladies he met in the North.

YARA GREYJOY

Shit like this happened all the time to women, and you and Yara already knew it wasn’t going to keep you two apart. Yara didn’t have to worry about such things, but you were from a less powerful family that needed connections. To cheer you, she took you on a wild night before your wedding day. You both would hit up a chain of wine sinks, drinking and dancing your way into all sorts of debauchery. At one point, she’d honestly tell you what you meant to her, and if you were the slightest bit unhappy in your match … She and her axe would be there. 

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

She wasn’t happy about the announcement, but she understood the politics of it. You had a say in it, at least, although she could tell it wasn’t what you wanted. You both could carry on your relationship - who was going to stop you? - but she still hated that it was necessary. On your wedding night, Daenerys would find your husband during the feast and pointedly tell him that if he did anything to cause you pain or distress, she had three dragons just outside that she was more than happy to introduce him to. Daenerys would ask you several times if you were comfortable with this arrangement, and she’d begin to think on ways to get you out of it. 

JORAH MORMONT

He knew he didn’t have much to offer, so the proposal from your parents came as a surprise. Jorah had always admired how polite and graceful you were at feasts and in court, you’d even spoken kindly to him several times, even when most brides were told to disregard the Mormonts as a serious match. When you two met up, he made a point to bring flowers he heard you liked and was nothing but kind as he promised you’d be comfortable with him. He didn’t need to say how considerate he’d be; you could tell by the gentle way he held your hand and spoke so honestly. Even if you’d be living modestly, you knew he’d be loyal and amiable.

MISSANDEI

She was familiar with the marriage customs of most cities in Essos, so you telling her about the arrangement shouldn’t have been such a shock. Missandei should have known it was going to happen, but she was just so happy with your relationship and the time you spent together. Things would still stay the same between you two, since it was a marriage of convenience, and that cheered her some. While she helped take off the stress of planning it, she shared ideas of how you two could still meet, especially since you were an important advisor to Daenerys. Before long Missandei had come up with several plans that made you tease her about being so sneaky. 

GREY WORM

While he understood the reason you had to go through with this arrangement, especially since it benefited Daenerys’ army, he wasn’t pleased about it. Grey Worm hadn’t imagined for a moment that you and him would have anything like that, but … It still hurt to see how displeased you were with making plans. He became even more protective of you, pointedly glaring at your “betrothed” anytime they were in the room together. He’d also make a point to bring you simple, nice things, like a cup of tea you liked or flowers, especially on days when the pressure of the date was grating on you. 

TYWIN LANNISTER

This marriage was part of a larger plan he made, and your family was in no position to refuse. He would never marry a fool, however, and while he wouldn’t admit how much he liked your cleverness and wit, he knew there was no sense in making an enemy of you. Tywin would make it clear that you had every luxury available in Casterly Rock, your family could visit, there would be feasts and galas. As he expected, you took the news well, although you wondered when and how you’d come to the attention of such a powerful man. 

TYRION LANNISTER

Well, the day had finally come, his father suddenly decided Tyrion was useful for a political match. He figured he should meet you before the day and warn you about what sort of family you were marrying, and what kind of husband you were going to have, as if both weren’t obvious to all of King’s Landing. Tyrion was pleasantly surprised by how considerate you were to him, and understanding of the situation, as your family had gladly offered you up to be a Lannister bride. Still, he carefully stressed that it could be dangerous for you. He promised to look after your safety and ensure you had every comfort you wanted, and he’d always treat you respectfully no matter what. 

JAIME LANNISTER

It seemed to Jaime that the gods were punishing every aspect of his life they could get to. He really didn’t think his father was truthful in this threat of arranging a marriage, but here you were, just an hour after he was informed of the decision. He had a nagging feeling that you didn’t understand the extent of his family’s ruthlessness, like his sister - and worse, in the past, he would’ve left you at their mercy. He was different now, and he knew you from court. You didn’t deserve to be thrown into a lion’s den. Jaime tried to be casual as he explained to you the marriage was a bad idea, but since there was no way to avoid it, you had to be careful. He asked you to come to him if you saw anything suspicious, or especially if Cersei said anything. He’d even ask Tyrion to keep an eye on you. 

SANDOR CLEGANE

Your “arrangement” was so thoughtfully put together by King Joffrey, who thought his dog needed a woman to keep him from barking so much. It was all a big jape to the court, a slight against you and your family… and there was no getting out of it. After days of avoiding each other, Sandor finally cornered you in the evening. He was totally drunk, but spoke to you bluntly. He wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want, and he’d never hurt you. You two could completely avoid each other. He was quite calm as he said all this, drunk as he was, and it surprised you. You’d heard such awful stories about the Hound, but here he was speaking softly and trying to reassure you. 

BRONN

The fact that he, a great stuffy knight, would have to go on with a typical, stuffy arranged marriage. Your family was fairly wealthy, but a new name most old families weren’t interested in. He met you as a formality, but he was surprised by not just your looks, but how easily you sized him up and told him off. He was expecting a timid proper girl, not a woman who spoke fouler than most men under his command. Bronn made a point to visit you several times, bringing bottles of expensive wine and wanting to keep talking to you, even if you were prickly. Tyrion told him not to push your buttons but now Bronn was too interested.

PODRICK PAYNE

The arrangement was a surprise to the both of you, and something Podrick never expected, as he was always treated as a less important member of his family. He’d immediately go to Tyrion for advice, and if possible, a way to call it off. He was sure whoever was going through with this was an old spinster or a frightfully young girl. Worse than either, he was told by Tyrion that you were his age, pretty and well-liked in the court. When he met you, he tried to make conversation, but his nerves kept biting at him. He finally asked if you were alright with the arrangement, as he couldn’t fathom why you’d want to marry into his family. He appreciated your honestly, and figured you two could at least be on friendly terms, even if thoughts of a sept and wedding night was a bit too much at the moment.

PETYR BAELISH

He’d made this arrangement in the first place, all but backing your family into a proverbial corner to ensure they’d comply. Since you knew him as little more than a friendly acquaintance, he made a point to visit with you before any official wedding. Petyr was all charm and amiability, promising you’d have whatever your heart desired, and he’d treat you better than a princess, especially since the arrangement was so sudden. Each day before the event, he’d send a gift with a nice letter attached. All the sentiment made you wonder if this arrangement was your family’s idea after all. 

STANNIS BARATHEON

Stannis isn’t the best with comforting words, and arranged marriages were expected of lords and ladies. But you were a much younger woman being arranged to marry an older man as a second wife, and he could understand how that could make you uneasy. He’d make a point to tell you about Dragonstone and the sort of comforts you could have there, and promise you could change things if you wanted, like rearrange a library or have a stable to yourself. He’d also promise to be loyal and respectful to you, since ideally, he wanted a wife who could help him run the household. 

DAVOS SEAWORTH

He never dreamed of being part of a “political” match, because when would he ever have the position that was sought after? He’d been a widow for years, besides, but this was still presented to him. He felt bad for you, a fourth daughter being sold off to a man far too old for her. When he met with you, Davos was clearly nervous, but your understanding made him feel a little better. He tried to reassure you that there could be a way to get around the arrangement (somehow), but even if it had to happen, he assured you that he’d be nothing but gentle and would make sure you were cared for. Davos had seen some terrible conditions ladies had to live in, and while he was pleasantly surprised by your wit and understanding of the situation, he still thought you deserved much better. 

MARGAERY TYRELL

She wasn’t able to prevent a match from happening, but she could ensure you were matched with one of her brothers or even a cousin. Margaery’s family was aware of her fondness of you, and she was stubborn in wanting to keep you close. Her grandmother warned her against such sentiment, but you knew she wouldn’t be swayed. Long ago you both had talked about what you’d do when duty called, and Margaery made it clear she would keep you as close to Highgarden as possible. She was so confident in herself that she’d help you plan the wedding, giving suggestions on jewels and wanting to be the first to see your gown once it was finished.

BRYNDEN TULLY

It happened, he was finally worn down and forced into a match. The fact you were so young and the match was highly beneficial to the Tullys was even more irksome. He argued with his brother that Edmure would be a better choice, an obvious one, but the deal was done. By the time you arrived he had simmered down. It wasn’t your fault this happened, and he admittedly began to get a soft spot for you as you two chatted. He still felt he was too old for you, but he straightforwardly said that he’d be loyal and make sure you were provided for. He was quite serious as he said this, but he was also holding your hand very gently and had to lean down because of how tall he was, so … it just ended up being endearing. 

EDMURE TULLY

He was very delighted by this marriage proposal - Edmure remembered you from a gala several years back. You were the prettiest girl in the room, so it was great luck that you were engaged now… Except he learned that you weren’t told anything about it until the last minute. He hated the idea of you being unhappy in Riverrun, or worse, with him, so when you arrived he tried to give you a nice tour, showing the nice room you’d have, the pretty Godswood and sept, the lovely view of the river, and so on. His desire to please you would be obvious to everyone.

BRIENNE OF TARTH

The only thing that lessened the blow of your arranged marriage was that she could still be your personal knight. Had anyone tried to send her away, they’d have to deal with the two of you. You tried to reassure Brienne and promise that she’d always be by your side, and it would be easy to keep the relationship under wraps. It wasn’t an ideal situation, and you know she struggled with it, but as a Lady of a prominent House, your options were always limited. Brienne was comforted by your constant reassurances that you were always her’s, and in turn, she promised to protect you if your husband ever attempted anything untoward.

RAMSAY BOLTON

His father made it clear that you were a beloved daughter of a powerful family, and Ramsay wasn’t to toy with you in any way. If being scolded wasn’t irksome enough, you’d already heard unsavory rumors about him. When you arrived, Ramsay put on his best charm, treating you like the lady you were. There wasn’t much to the Dreadfort, so Ramsay asked questions about you and showed you his most docile horse and hound. He’d be pleased if you were a rider, as it was something you both could do with little talking. The charade was annoying, but it didn’t take long for him to form an interest in you.

ROOSE BOLTON

This arrangement had been a long time in the making, unbeknownst to you, as Roose had desired you ever since he first met you years ago. You only knew his family’s questionable reputation, and he knew he had to ensure your first visit to the Dreadfort was a good one. Roose was very gentle in speaking to you, considerate of your space and made a point to ask you how you wanted things arranged. You could have your own room if you desired, horses to ride, the Godswood to yourself, and so on. There was no way for you to back out of the marriage, but Roose didn’t want you to be unhappy. In time, he wanted you to enjoy being at the Dreadfort, and with him. 

OBERYN MARTELL

His family finally managed to tie him down with an arranged marriage, and he would have refused it had he not already known of you. Oberyn was intrigued and attracted, and he did want your powerful family to ally with his. When you arrived in Sunspear, it was easy for Oberyn to be his charming and slightly scandalous self - even if his brother begged him to tone it down - and he gladly gave you a grand tour of the liveliest places in the city. He’d want you to meet his daughters, since they were your age, and he regaled you with all the fine rooms and things you’d have as a Princess of Dorne. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, but you could tell he really wanted your happiness. 

BERIC DONDARRION

He was a knight of good standing from an honorable house that had long needed a Lady, so Beric understood the arrangement, but he also understood why you might be uneasy. With his well-known sunny smile, he’d want to know your honest feelings and how he could make you more comfortable. It didn’t matter if it was filling a room with your old things or going out riding alone, Beric would indulge you. Truthfully, he was fond of you from your first meeting, and he wanted to make a good impression.

GENDRY

Being legitimized was already terrifying, then he learned he had to marry a proper lady. It gave him stress headaches just thinking about it. To make matters worse, you were beautiful and you greeted him nicely. He’d try his best to sound”confident, but once you both were alone, he’d just come clean and apologize to you. He felt like you expected something different, a “real” lord, not a glorified bastard. Gendry would be relieved how considerate you were, not at all like most ladies he heard about, and hoped you two could at least be friends.