#but in terms of whose parallels are interesting in the narrative robert and cersei

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Note that this can be in the sense of foils who compare and contrast with each other, characters who play a similar role in the narrative, or in the sense that their arcs go on roughly the same path

[princess-in-a-tower]

Sansa Stark & Arianne Martell: The Hard Road to Marriage

With a first look, Arianne Martell and Sansa Stark are as different in terms of personality, as the sun and the moon. Arianne is fierce-tempered and sultry, while Sansa is meek and demure. Arianne is all fire, while Sansa is ice-cold. Yet, there are many parallels to be had between them. Out of all those parallels, here we will examine the ones concerning their marriage options and the male attention they have attracted in general throughout their lives.

Arianne Martell had grown up expecting that one day she would wed some great lord of her father’s choosing. That was what princesses were for, she had been taught… though, admittedly, her uncle Oberyn had taken a different view of matters. “If you would wed, wed,” the Red Viper had told his own daughters. “If not, take your pleasure where you find it. There’s little enough of it in this world. Choose well, though. If you saddle yourself with a fool or a brute, don’t look to me to rid you of him. I gave you the tools to do that for yourself.”

The freedom that Prince Oberyn allowed his bastard daughters had never been shared by Prince Doran’s lawful heir. Arianne must wed; she had accepted that. Drey had wanted her, she knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

Here we not only learn that Arianne shares Sansa’s view on marriage, but also that, as a teen she was desired by the Dalt brothers, Drey and Deziel, who had been her friends since childhood. Yet none of them ever dared ask for her hand. Something similar, as we know, has happened to Sansa, even though she never found out about it.

He remembered a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child’s fancy. 

A Dance with Dragons - Reek I

Theon Greyjoy, who grew up in Winterfell as Eddard Stark’s ward also desired Sansa and dreamed of taking her as his wife, but he, like the Dalt brothers, never asked her father for it.

Daemon Sand had gone so far as to ask for her hand. Daemon was bastard-born, however, and Prince Doran did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman. Arianne had accepted that as well.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

Elia was her cousin, but half a child, and Daemon Sand… things had never been the same between her and the Bastard of Godsgrace after her father refused his offer for her hand. He was a boy then, and bastard born, no fit consort for a princess of Dorne, he should have known better. And it was my father’s will, not mine. 

The Winds of Winter - Arianne I

The first man to ask for Arianne’s hand in marriage was Daemon Sand, the handsome bastard of Godsgrace, who is Arianne’s age. Before the marriage offer, Arianne had already given Daemon her virginity, presumably because she was in love with him, but after her father refused to give Daemon her hand, things between them were not the same again.

The first man to ask for Sansa’s hand in marriage was another bastard, Joffrey “Baratheon”, who was not only handsome but also the same age as Sansa Stark. Since Eddard did not know Joffrey was a bastard, he consented to the match, despite his aversion to the bastard prince, but he rushed to terminate it the moment he found out about Joffrey’s parentage. Just like Arianne, after Sansa’s father terminated the betrothal, Sansa’s relationship with Joffrey was never again the same. She never gave her virginity to Joffrey though, despite the fact that she was in love with him.

One year King Robert’s brother came to visit and she did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused than inflamed by her overtures.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

According to Arianne, her next “love-interest” was Renly Baratheon, who not only had the right family name, but he was every young girl’s dream as well, with his good looks and his charisma. Of course, Arianne’s attempts at seducing him fell into the void, since Renly was homosexual.

Sansa’s constant crush throughout the books was none other than Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. Loras is also a charismatic young man, skillful with the sword and fair of face. Like Renly, he is something like a Westeros celebrity. Sansa, following on Arianne’s footsteps, tried to capture his attention, yet it proved to be an impossible task, because Loras, as Renly, preferred the company of men. It is also quite ironic that Loras and Renly were a couple, but I digress…

Later, when Hoster Tully asked her to come to Riverrun and meet his heir, she lit candles to the Maid in thanks, but Prince Doran had declined the invitation.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

The next “marriage proposal” for Arianne came from the Lord Paramount of the Trident, Hoster Tully, on behalf of his son and heir, Edmure, who had remained a bachelor for years, refusing settle down with any woman.

Ser Kevan got back to his feet. “It is the wish of the King’s Grace that his loyal councillor Petyr Baelish be rewarded for faithful service to crown and realm. Be it known that Lord Baelish is granted the castle of Harrenhal with all its attendant lands and incomes, there to make his seat and rule henceforth as Lord Paramount of the Trident.

A Clash of Kings - Sansa VIII

At the end of ACOK, the Crown declared Petyr Baelish the Lord Paramount of the Trident, despite the fact that Edmure was still alive at the time.

I would have made Sansa a good marriage. A Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel might have suited, or one of his younger brothers. Petyr Baelish had offered to wed the girl himself, she recalled, but of course that was impossible; he was much too lowborn.

A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

The timeframe of Littlefinger’s proposal for Sansa’s hand is not exactly clear in Cercei’s narrative. Taking the basic facts into account though, it’s safe to assume it happened the moment he informed Cercei of Olenna’s plot to marry Sansa to Willas. So, according to Cercei, the new Lord Paramount of the Trident, who had also avoided marriage for many years, asked for a princess’ hand. And like Edmure, he got thwarted.

The princess might even have considered Willas Tyrell, crippled leg and all, but her father refused to send her to Highgarden to meet him. She tried to go despite him, with Tyene’s help… but Prince Oberyn caught them at Vaith and brought them back.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

That cannot even be considered a parallel. This is the exact same thing happening to two different girls. Arianne tried to sneak off to Highgarden to meet Willas with the help of Tyene, while Sansa tried to escape to Highgarden to meet Willas with the help of the Tyrells. Both of them failed and never got to meet the elusive Willas.

That same year, Prince Doran tried to betroth her to Ben Beesbury, a minor lordling who was eighty if he was a day, and as blind as he was toothless.

Beesbury died a few years later. That gave her some small comfort in her present pass; she could not be forced to marry him if he was dead. And the Lord of the Crossing had wed again, so she was safe from him as well. Eldon Estermont is still alive and unwed, though. Lord Rosby and Lord Grandison as well. Grandison was called the Greybeard, but by the time she’d met him his beard had gone snow white.

At the welcoming feast, he had gone to sleep between the fish course and the meat. Drey called that apt, since his sigil was a sleeping lion. Garin challenged her to see if she could tie a knot in his beard without waking him, but Arianne refrained.

Grandison had seemed a pleasant fellow, less querulous than Estermont and more robust than Rosby. She would never marry him, however. Not even if Hotah stands behind me with his axe.

A Feast for Crows - The Princess In The Tower

From that point on Doran, Arianne’s father, started pursuing betrothals for her, yet they were all extremely insulting to her person. All of the men he sent proposals to were old, sick, frail and dying. Arianne declined them all in defiance. In this excerpt she is even thinking that she wouldn’t marry Grandison, whose sigil is a sleeping lion, even if Hotah stood behind her with an axe.

“I understand your reluctance. Cry if you must. In your place, I would likely rip my hair out. He’s a loathsome little imp, no doubt of it, but marry him you shall.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Of course we can. You may come along quietly and say your vows as befits a lady, or you may struggle and scream and make a spectacle for the stableboys to titter over, but you will end up wedded and bedded all the same.��� The queen opened the door. Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Osmund Kettleblack were waiting without, in the white scale armor of the Kingsguard. “Escort Lady Sansa to the sept,” she told them. “Carry her if you must, but try not to tear the gown, it was very costly-”

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

Brave. Sansa took a deep breath. I am a Stark, yes, I can be brave. They were all looking at her, the way they had looked at her that day in the yard when Ser Boros Blount had torn her clothes off. It had been the Imp who saved her from a beating that day, the same man who was waiting for her now. He is not so bad as the rest of them, she told herself. “I’ll go.”

A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

Sansa, unlike Arianne, was indeed escorted to the Sept to wed Tyrion at sword-point. Her husband to be, had also a lion as his sigil and even though he was not as old as Grandison, he was a dwarf and that was possibly an even more humiliating match for a princess. It is also quite notable that Sansa thinks Tyrion is not as bad as the rest, something Arianne thought of Grandison as well.

Another parallel could also be made between Lord Rosby and Sweetrobin, who was Sansa’s betrothed for a short while. Both Rosby and Robin Arryn had been extremely sick for many years, despite their extreme wealth and good name, suffering from an illness no Maester could treat.

As for the rest of the old men, Beesbury, Estermont and Frey, there are no men in Sansa’s story to compare them to, because Sansa has not had as many betrothal offers as Arianne. Despite that, I believe they generally represent every older man who has desired Sansa while she was still a child.

Arianne watched him warily. He is highborn enough to make a worthy consort, she thought. Father would question my good sense, but our children would be as beautiful as dragonlords. If there was a handsomer man in Dorne, she did not know him. Ser Gerold Dayne had an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a strong jaw. He kept his face clean-shaven, but his thick hair fell to his collar like a silver glacier, divided by a streak of midnight black. He has a cruel mouth, though, and a crueler tongue.

A Feast for Crows - The Queenmaker

Another man who captured Arianne’s eye was Ser Gerold Dayne, the Knight of High Hermitage, who goes by the name Darkstar. He is a handsome man and a skilled swordsman, but he is also a ruthless killer, with a cruel mouth and a crueler tongue. Even though Arianne notes that he is highborn enough to be her consort, he is in fact just the head of a knightly cadet branch of House Dayne (in short a landed knight).

Sansa Stark had a complex relationship with her very own “bad-boy”, Sandor Clegane. Of course the Hound had never been described as an attractive man, much less a handsome one, but the way his character was depicted is quite similar to Darkstar’s. Both of them would kill a child without remorse (Darkstar failed to kill Myrcella, while the Hound actually killed Mycah quite savagely). Both of them are members of a knightly cadet branch, since the Cleganes are also landed knights, and both of them are depicted as skilled and dangerous with a sword. It is also notable that they are also described as cruel men with cruel mouths.

As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky.

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

If TWOW had been published, maybe a parallel could be made between Harry the Heir and Ser Arys Oakheart, considering Sansa is trying to seduce Harry, just like Arianne seduced Ser Arys. But TWOW is not complete yet, so I will not fabricate parallels where there are none as of yet.

As for the rest of the parallels, it is obvious that not everything fits perfectly. Theon was one person, while the Dalts were two, Daemon Sand is probably a good man who loved Arianne, while Joffrey was a sadistic psychopath, Robin Arryn is a child while Rosby is an old man, Darkstar is handsome while the Hound looked hideous and not all the older Lords match up. Despite all that, there are still too many parallels between Sansa and Arianne in regards to marriage and male attention to dismiss as coincidental.