#most of the art featured here is so old weep

[krys-loves-otome]

4, 10, 11 👀

Give Me A Number OC Meme!

4. Any Villain OCs?

Technically speaking, he's more of an antagonist than a straight up villain, but in his early days, Haiiro did have some villain qualities, if tame ones, as shown from this old, old comic page when I tried to make a comic of about Takashi (his half brother he's talking about) and his adventures. Forgive the artwork for it is old and creaking and I do not know how to comic (it does read left to right tho!).

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10. Favorite OC Design

I was doing the Christmas color scheme long before Hideyoshi von IkeSen came into my life, lol

Here is Skyler, who is a vampire. He was from an era in my life where I loved giving character two-toned hair (him, Takashi and his waifu Arianna) because I thought it looked cool (you can also tell I was a YGO kid because of this). He's had eras of cutting his hair but it's always with black bangs while the rest was green.

Runner up after Skyler would have to be Houki, because her design is easy for me to remember: straight center part in her hair, round glasses, green eyes, blue and pink kimono.

------

11. Would you consider yourself nice to your OCs?

...I'd be lying if I said the answer was a resounding yes.

A short list of my OCs troubles and ills: -Takashi is a Fallen Angel, accused of a crime he didn't commit. Not to mention, whenever he summons his wings, they tear through his back, blood spattering included. It's quite painful, so he only calls on them out in a dire emergency. If one was to see him without a shirt on, they'd see the two long scars his wings emerge from.

-He also met his waifu at a bar where she was going to sell herself to support her family, but Taka tricked everyone with paying for her in key rings rather than actual money. He then swept her family away on his adventures rather than facing an angry mob.

-Haiiro is a magical test tube baby, a mixture of angel and demon dna. The means to collect specimens from his parents were... well, not ethical, to say the least. It's why he and Takashi are half brothers as they share the same father, technically speaking.

-Skyler sells his venom to make ends meet as he lives in a polycule with a dragon friend and a wizard that took in his nieces when their parents died.

-OC in the tube comic, his name is Bara (it was a time before I knew the connotation of that word, I just wanted to name him Rose, but in a different way), he gets his memories taken away frequently so he could become the perfect hunter of magical creatures. (He eventually gets to have romantic feel-feels for one of Skyler's wizard boyfriend's nieces, so good for him)

-Thea never knew her birth father and she'd liked to keep it that way, after seeing how he affected her mother.

-Maddie was bullied when she was young for being 'a weird kid'.

-Abby and Miri came from abusive homes.

Thanks for the ask!

[twst-kumi]

Weeping Maiden [ACT II]

My tablet died recently, so there will be no art to go along with it.

[Act II] CHAPTER 2

The fight against Leona was strangely faster. Unlike the fight against Riddle, Yuu was more willing to beat him up. It was almost like he had a personality switch. Ace and Deuce were the most confused of his changes. They felt like he was supposed to be aloof. Somehow they were sure he was like that. 

“_So what about my sister? Who did you say you were keeping? Huh?”

Leona’s blot was gone, and the fight was finished but Yuu didn't let go of the Lion Prince. He looked thin but he sure was strong. 

Yuu's overprotective drive was strong. He didn't let Leona go, punching him again and again. It was [Name] who stopped them, or at least tried. 

“_Yuu, it's okay. Let's stop now…”

She grabbed his arms to pull him away. Pulling his arm back, Yuu accidentally jabbed her nose. Both siblings didn't move an inch as they looked at each other for a minute. 

“_It wasn't on purpose…. Don't cry!”

Without missing a beat, the young girl teared up. Yuu hated it, when she cried like that. It made him panic and lose his cool. He wiped her tears while trying to quell her.

If Vil didn't know about Yuu’s twisted attachment to her, he would have thought they were normal siblings. 

Ace and the others looked at them a little confused. Yuu and the pretty girl seemed close. The black-haired young man pulled her in his arms in an attempt to get her to stop. Leona groaned painfully as he rubbed his jaw. He didn't think the herbivore could hit that hard. 

“_ I'm so happy! Do you know how worr-!

_ What the hell are you doing here?”

[Name] was startled by Yuu’s harsh tones. She looked at him to see the horrified look on his face. 

“_ What do you mean? I should be the one to ask that. I searched for you everywhere!

_ You shouldn't be in this world. It wasn't in the deal!

_ What deal?

_ That's none of your business. What about your careers? You should return home instead of -!”

Yuu stopped in the middle of his words as he felt the sting of her slap on his cheek. She looked at him hurt. 

“_ None of my business? You disappeared for 3 years. 3 fucking years!

_ That’s not-! What do you mean 3 years?”

Yuu asked, confused, he was 16 years, and she should be 13 years old. His little sister was 3 years younger than him. Looking more carefully, she looked different from what he remembered and it made him even more worried. It was strange he was sure it had been a few months. Unless…

Yuu couldn't help but feel a long shiver going down his spine. 

[Name] sniffed while trying to wipe her tears off. She glared at him. Yuu grimaced before pulling her into his arms. He had many questions but pushed it back wanting to only focus on the moment. His lovely sister was there with him. Although he didn't know why they still sent her into this world, he felt reassured to have her near. 

Yuu never noticed how dependent he was on his sister until he lost his only link to her. His eyes closed, and he took a deep breath in the familiar scent. It was the same smell, warmth, and child he used to hug tightly. 

“_What is happening?”

Heric asked as he came running. When he noticed there was some commotion and the matches were delayed. He immediately looked for [Name]. He was surprised to see her in some random guy's arms. He couldn't help but feel jealous. They had both similar features but also…. Different. Every time he looked at the two, the RSA student surprised himself by having a strange thought. It was almost as if something unnatural pushed him to do something he never wanted.

[Name] looked toward Heric before wiping her tears. The young girl pushed Yuu slightly to look at him. Vil sighed before using a handkerchief to pad her eyes. Her eyes were going to be puffy, and even worse her mascara was getting smeared. 

“_Sorry about that Heric. 

_It’s nothing… But rather who is he?”

He didn’t want to sound like a jealous boyfriend, but his word got out rather abruptly. She wasn’t even his girlfriend. He did have a small crush but it wasn’t to that point yet. 

Yuu couldn’t help but grimace at his tone while his sister just frowned confused. 

“_I’m her brother, Yuu. 

_Ah… I see…”

Heric looked at him a little weirded out. He understands that as a brother he could be overprotective. Even more so since [Name] seemed to attract troublesome people around her. But that stare wasn’t normal. Heric felt a long shiver going down his spine like he was going to die if he took a more step. 

Observing him more, the RSA student was even more suspicious of Yuu. [Name]’s brother was 3 years older, so he should be around 18. That man looked no more than 15, since he is an NRC student he must be 16 at least. 

“_I’m Heric, I’m [Name]’s schoolmate, If you don’t mind me, you look really  young, how old are you?”

The young girl looked at him strangely. As she was going to say something, Yuu interrupted her and answered the question.

“_I’m 16 years old, thank you for taking care of my little sister but it would be better if she stayed with me. She is only 13 after all.

_13???”

Everyone looked at Ruggie whose ears flattened, the hyena coughed a little in his fist.

“_She looks 16, I’m surprised. She looks older.

_I don’t look 16, I AM 16.

_Uh?”

This time it was Yuu’s time to be confused. He was certain she was still 13. 

<previous next>

tag: 

@cocomollo @owodi @illytian @mmysticc-ev0let @oreolover1

[captainremmington-13]

𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖋 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖔

show!Luke Castellan x daughter of thanatos!reader

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the image above or any of Rick Riordan’s characters/world-building.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: mentions of death, crying, sadness, physical pain, and parental neglect

A/N: i deeply apologize, i felt i needed to set up more context and establish Luke and readers relationship more before getting to capture the flag, i PROMISE it’ll be in this next chapter or the one after that💕

“Castellan!” 

Sixteen-year-old Luke’s head snapped up abruptly to see his brother, Connor Stoll running towards him frantically. If Connor, who was usually lighthearted and cheerful, was panicked, something was really wrong. 

“What’s going on?” Luke stood up, abandoning the art project he was helping a younger camper with. “Is someone hurt?”

“I-I’m not sure. I just heard a girl screaming in the woods, and calling for your help.” 

Luke’s skin went cold. He knew exactly who was in trouble. 

The only child of Thanatos, his best friend.

Connor beckoned for Luke to follow him. The two sons of Hermes sprinted towards the woods, trying to conceal their fear. 

Luke’s heart pounded aggressively in his chest. He couldn’t bear to lose another loved one, it would destroy him.

Finally, Connor came to a halt and pointed into the trees. “She’s that way.” 

“Thank you,” Luke said breathlessly. Running through the woods and ignoring the stares of the nymphs, he strained to hear anything that could lead him to you.

Then, he heard a muffled sob coming from a nearby clearing. 

Cutting the stray branches aside with Backbiter, Luke practically flew through the trees until he spotted you, kneeling on the ground. 

He froze. You were weeping, holding your face in your hands. Your body trembled, but he couldn’t tell if it was from sadness or fear. You hardly ever cried, you were a mellow person for the most part and rarely had emotional outbursts, so seeing you like this worried him immensely.

But most shockingly, you had black wings protruding from your back.  

They didn’t look like bird wings. They had the shape of angel wings, but instead of feathers, they were made of black smoke that swirled gently and occasionally omitted wisps into the air.  

“W-Wh-“ Luke stammered, struggling to find words. “How?”

“I don’t know!” you cried, refusing to look at him. “They just…started appearing. It felt like someone was digging hot knives into my shoulder blades. I ran out here so that nobody would notice them, but then Connor found me.” 

Your best friend knelt down in front of you, gently uncovering your face by taking your hands in his gently. His hands were calloused and rough, thanks to years of rigorous training. But they were comforting nonetheless. 

“Are they still hurting?” he asked, instinctively checking your pulse by pressing your wrist carefully. 

“No…I’m just scared, Luke. I don’t understand what’s going on,” you said, feeling your intrusive thoughts spill out. “What if they don’t go away? What will everyone think of me?” 

Luke sighed. “If they don’t go away, it’ll just be another thing that makes you you. And it doesn’t define you, or take away from the person you already are. If other people can’t look past your new features, they’re fucking idiots who aren’t worth your attention anyways.” 

“But…I feel like a monster. And even worse, I look even more like my father. He has wings too, I’ve read enough about him to know that for sure. I don’t want anything to do with him, why did he make this happen to me?”

“I don’t know why it happened,” Luke said honestly. “We can talk to Chiron and see if he has any advice. He won’t judge you, you know that. And I promise you’ll always have me. I’ll be your friend, whether you have wings or not.”  

Wiping away your tears, you felt the painful feeling in your chest begin to subside. Knowing that he didn’t see you any differently despite this new development settled your nerves, at least a little. Sure, the other campers may see you as monstrous, as a terrifying mutation that needed to be avoided at all costs. All of the new friends you’d made over the past couple years may leave you, but you would survive.

At least you had Luke.

Your Luke.

________________________________________________

After calming down, Luke lead you to Chiron’s office in The Big House. Luckily, the rest of the campers were at lunch, and nobody saw your very noticeable new features.

Chiron wasn’t nearly as surprised as Luke had been concerning your wings. “I suspected that they would appear around this time,” he said. “Your father has passed down yet another one of his gifts to you.” 

You certainly didn’t seen the wings as a gift. They were a curse, yet another thing that made you appear monstrous compared to other demigods.

“So, are they just there forever now?” you asked, fighting down the bitterness in your voice.

Chiron thought for a moment. “Wish them to go away, and see what happens.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

“Just try,” Chiron insisted. “Your willpower is more powerful than you know.” 

Relenting, you shut your eyes, focusing on your disdain for your wings. Desperation and frustration overtook your thoughts, and you felt your head begin to throb painfully.

Thankfully, the sound of Luke calling your name snapped you out of it. 

“They’re gone,” Chiron’s low voice declared. 

Sighing in relief, you opened your eyes and looked at the centaur standing before you.

“I advise you to spend time learning to control your new features,” he said. “You must discover the extent of the abilities they give you. Otherwise, they may pose a threat to your safety, as well as the well-being of the other campers.” 

You nodded, despite the feeling of dread creeping over you. “I will. But I may miss some camp activities for the next few days.” 

“That’s alright,” Chiron said. “I’ll let Mr. D know that you are caring for yourself, and need adequate time to do so.”

“I’ll accompany you,” Luke said immediately. You shook your head.

“You have responsibilities, Luke. Who else is going to run sparring classes for the younger campers? Who else is going to make sure the Hermes kids attend archery practice and don’t set a fire somewhere?”

“I’ll have Chris take over,” he said. “He can handle it.”  

“But-“

“I’m not changing my mind,” Luke said firmly. “I’m helping you, and that’s final.”

Gods, as much as it sometimes irritated you, you loved that he was so stubborn. 

________________________________________________

After a few days that felt like an eternity, you came to the realization that you’d gained more power than you initially predicted. 

You could fly. That was to be expected; what else would the wings be for?

You could turn invisible. You only discovered this because a howl coming from the depths of the woods startled you. When you looked down, you could no longer see your body. 

And finally, your senses had heightened considerably. You could tell when someone or something died, even if it was outside the borders of camp. Beforehand, you could only sense it if they were within close parameters. 

The change was scary, but exhilarating at the same time. You knew that once you got used to your new abilities, you’d be even more intimidating than you already were.

Luke had been a huge help. He accompanied you while you experimented with your powers in the woods, but respected your request for him to keep his distance. He would check in on you at every meal, and made sure you ate an adequate amount. At night before bed, he sat with you on your mattress in Cabin 11, listening to you ramble on and on about various frustrations. He understood your anger at your father better than anyone else. He shared the same resentment towards Hermes. 

When you’d tired yourself out, he would bid you goodnight, give you a sweet kiss on the forehead, and climb into his own bed. And within minutes, he was out cold. 

But you stayed awake, staring at the worn-down wooden ceiling of your Hermes’s cabin. 

The fear you’d felt when your wings had first appeared had faded considerably. You felt powerful, invincible almost. 

And with the best swordsman in three centuries at your side, there was nothing in the world for you to be afraid of.  

taglist: @orionspaperwork, @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy, @marvelescvpe, @lovingjasontoddmakemewanttocry, @louweasleymalfoy, @stars4birdie, @stargurl-battleship

Thank you for reading! Pls let me know what you think in the comments!!! Btw, the powers I gave the reader are based on Thanatos’s abilities according to Rick Riordan’s version of him.

Let me know in the comments if you want to be added to the taglist!

[giorno-plays-piano]

Thorns In His Mouth

Part I

Pairing: fae!Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: obsession, dubious consent, minor character death, drugs (neither reader nor Steve are involved), slight eating disorder, mentions of tumor, high tech elves.

Words: 1.8k

Summary: Maybe it was a good idea to chat with a waitress a bit more once she brought you your order. Perhaps she could at least tell you with whom you should speak because you simply couldn't force yourself to look at others, most of them already high, shouting something loudly or laughing or weeping. You could constantly hear the flapping of someone's wings, weird whispers and noises, and the sound of boots and hooves that made your hair stand on end.

________

This place gave you the creeps. You certainly didn't expect it to be the same as those lovely little cafés you enjoyed visiting on your days off, but this hellhole was by far the scariest place you had ever been, and it took all your strength to stay seated at the dirty little table instead of running out to the street.

When you saw one of the fairies to your right preparing a needle as her friends giggled, already drunk or high or whatever, you quickly stared at the table top, praying not to see or hear anything at all. If not the promise given to the elf, you would never ever come here. In fact, you wouldn't even know a place like this existed at all.

You still couldn't believe it when you stumbled upon a man who had healed a stray cat when he thought nobody looked. It was way past midnight, and the street was empty if not for you, stopping to rub your bruised feet - you had worn a new pair of shoes that evening to brag about them to your friends. And then, when you saw the man bringing his glowing hand to the cat's torn ear, you thought you were just drunk. You were certainly old enough to know magic didn't exist, and as you stared at the perfectly shaped cat's ear, you wondered if you're sick or drugged or insane.

You weren't, you realized when the elf rose to his feet, startled by you, his own ears too long and sharp for a human, his too-graceful features making you stare at him with your mouth agape while he stilled, unsure what to do with you. He was most likely to wipe your memories like most of the fair folk did if mortals spotted them in the human realm, but you were lucky to convince him otherwise.

"Hey human," a young woman's voice made you rouse from you thoughts, and you stared at the waitress with bright pink hair and pointed ears in front of your table, her once pretty deep blue uniform soiled and unkept with oily stains covering the fabric here and there. "What's your poison?"

You stared at her, unsure what you should say. Was that some kind of code? The elf didn't mention anything about it. He just said you were most likely to meet fallen elves and other creatures in this place, but he said nothing about poisons. You hoped you didn't have to take any.

"I'm sorry," you smiled meekly at the girl. "I don't think I understand."

The waitress blew a big pink bubble and popped it with her sharp teeth, chewing gum as if she couldn't care less, "If you found this place, I bet you already know who we all are. We're the fair folk, hun. The exiled."

"I know," you said quickly, becoming more and more nervous as if feeling other creatures suddenly started paying attention to you.

"Well, then you should know each of us have our own poison. What's yours?" she narrowed her sharp, cat-like eyes at you, growing impatient. "If you don't have any, you can't be here."

Ah. Yes. An obsession. Each and every of the fair folk living away from the Sacred lands had a certain mania, the elf you met on the street said. Missing the magic surrounding them from the moment they were born, they were bound to have an unhealthy attraction to something else in the world of humans, so foreign to them. When you asked if it was arts or an obsession with human technology, perhaps, the man only chuckled.

"It's drugs," he said, cutting you short.

When you stilled, a troubled expression on your face as you had a hard time processing his words, he added, "But not always. Sometimes, it's alcohol or cigarettes. I heard some have battled their addictions and picked something less heavier to obsess over, but I don't think my brother did. I bet you can find him among drug addicts."

Ah, and so you were there, among the drug addicts and drunks and misfits whose sick smiling faces nearly made you retch as you thought of how to find a man you never saw before and knew nothing of him except for very few details the elf from the street was willing to share. It was nearly impossible, he said, but you couldn't back down on your promise because something much more important was at stake.

"I have an eating disorder," you gave the waitress a polite smile you had been showing to the especially demanding customers of yours over the years. "Does it count?"

Her face suddenly changed, and you saw her smiling widely at you in return as if you having unhealthy relationship with food somehow made you one of them. "Sure! What would that be? Sugar, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'll be back in a minute, hun," she said too happily and flew back to the counter, passing your order to someone on the back while you nervously licked your lips. What was she going to bring you? Just cubes of sugar? A whole cake? A poisonous cake?

Hiding your hands under the table and clenching the fabric of your wide workpants, you took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on your goal. You needed to find a man the elf was looking for. Maybe it was a good idea to chat with a waitress a bit more once she brought you your order. Perhaps she could at least tell you with whom you should speak because you simply couldn't force yourself to look at others, most of them already high, shouting something loudly or laughing or weeping. You could constantly hear the flapping of someone's wings, weird whispers and noises, and the sound of boots and hooves that made your hair stand on end.

Why were you here, again? Ah yes. For the sake of your sick mother who the elf you met on the street had been treating faithfully for the whole week.

You could do it. You just needed to be careful and stay out of troubles. You only needed to find a lost man and bring him back to the elf.

But, perhaps, it wasn't in your nature to stay out of troubles, you thought when you saw a stranger with rather long bleached hair and pointed ears joining you at the table, his face, certainly very handsome once, looking tired and grim.

"It's not often we have new faces here," he said nonchalantly, tilting his head to the side as you gaped at him, wide-eyed and slightly scared. "Especially human faces. What's your name?"

For a couple of seconds, you debated whether you should tell it to him. You knew the fair folk were prohibited from putting spells on humans, and it was one of the few laws the exiled magic creatures were abiding by, but giving your name to a weird-looking stranger didn't seem like a good idea.

You still didn't know why you told him your name.

"Steve," he replied quickly, throwing a glance at the waitress who was coming back to your table, a cupcake on her tray. "What a sweet obsession you have."

"That's not funny," the pink-haired girl cut in, placing a plate with a bright red cupcake and white frosting on its top on the table for you. "Your usual."

She then handed him a thin black box people used to store CDs, and you eyed it with curiosity. What was that? There was no label on it, no name, nothing that would help to identify it. You weren't even sure it was a CD inside, but you thought it was unlikely to be used for drugs. The disc box looked way to shabby as if it could open any time, and you suddenly found yourself wondering what Steve's obsession was.

Following your gaze, the man grinned, showing you the box. "There's just a CD inside, nothing else. You see, I'm a very boring creature."

"Yeah, sure," the waitress said, narrowing her gaze and quickly returning back to the counter before you had a chance to talk to her.

Irritated, you forced yourself to stay civil, smiling to the stranger sitting in front of you. You just lost your chance to figure out anything at all, and now you had to get rid of him, too.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" You asked politely, hoping he would leave you alone.

"I just said it. We rarely have fresh blood here," he said and then added immediately, seeing your bewildered expression. "Don't fret. I don't mean any harm. I'm just curious to see why a decent human woman ended up in this hole. As you can see, we have very little entertainment here except for booze and stimulants."

Stimulants. What a lovely synonym he found, you thought and ordered yourself to stop, knowing your disgust would soon show clearly on your face, and you certainly didn't want to upset the elf on the other side of the table. You came here for information, nothing else.

"I, uh, I'm looking for someone." you mumbled, staring man in the face and seeing his eyes were blue like the opening sky, and that his cheekbones were high and wide, and his lips, albeit dry and cracked, were full and well formed. He'd look lovely if not the shadows beneath his eyes, hollow cheeks, and wrinkles on his forehead and around his mouth that looked strangely unnatural on his young face.

The more you looked at him, the more his strikingly handsome eyes seemed hollow to you.

"Searching for a friend? A lover?" The elf asked you as if he didn't mind you staring at him intently, and you snapped out of your thoughts, chewing your lips as you glanced at the cupcake waiting for you on a plate.

"Neither. I'm looking for a relative of my... friend." The second you said it, he gave a hearty laugh, shaking his head as if you said something amusing, and your cheeks heat up. Why was he laughing at you? You did your best to swallow your protest, acting as polite as a store clerk in the presence of their boss. "Why is it funny?"

_______

"Don't mind me," Steve chuckled, wiping his lips with his thumb. "I don't suppose you know what it's like to deal with the fair folk from the Sacred lands. To put it simple, they just love it when somebody's willing to do their bidding. That's what it all is about, right? Some elf or fae or phooka asked you to search for their relative in exile."

Part II

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki   ​@helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @buckybarnesplumwhore @jaysayey @megzdoodle @gotnofucks @lux-ravenwolf @biiskuitx @stupendouslovegardener @melodierin @yeolliedokai @what-is-your-wish @lou-la-lou @gachawipes133 @eralen @magnificantmermaid @lovelydarkdaydream @illyrianprincess @youngdreamer3214

[shimmerloid-ai]

Preliminary Considerations - Which Vocal Synthesizer Software is Right for You? - Free Softwares

Although this blog puts a major emphasis on the VOCALOID 4 editor, it, or VOCALOID in general, is not the only vocal synthesizer that exists. There are tons of other software that have the same function and a variety of different voicebanks, with some being cheaper and of higher quality than VOCALOID, or even free! That’s right, there are quite a few free vocal synthesizers out there (however the lack of frills may come at the expense of some missing features or difficulty of usage), which I recommend trying out before pouring your hard-earned savings on a program that you may not even use. What if you learn that you do not enjoy tuning or do not have the time to use the software? It would be a huge waste of money that could be invested in other stuff, such as basic necessities (GOOD FOOD) or other leisurely items, like video games, clothing from your favourite bands, art supplies, or merchandise. In addition, there has been a rise of a lot of smaller companies coming out with vocal synthesizers with incredible UIs that not only look appealing but are easy to navigate, and voicebanks that sound far too human and advanced than hATsUnE mIKU (don’t worry, I love Miku with all my heart, I am just trying to prove a point here). There are also some really sick features that you may not find in the franchises with bigger names.

In this post, I will be describing the features of different free vocal synthesizers and their advantages and disadvantages so you can find the one that meets your vocalo-p needs. Please note, I do not own all of these synthesizers, some of these are from reviews on Reddit and VocaVerse Network. In addition, some cons like lag could just be a me problem and better computers may not experience such issues. Also , I will not be covering every single singing synthesizer in existence, just the well known ones and those with proper UIs because there are so many. I am omitting NEUTRINO because it does not have a UI despite having such high-quality vocals, along with ALTER/EGO, as it does not have a piano roll.

UTAU

(Song: Meltdown by iroha(sasaki); UST: Tanjiro Taidana)

UTAU was designed to be the free sister software to VOCALOID. Not only can you use it without spending a cent, but it allows you to make your own voicebank as well! There are tons of popular voicebanks out there, including the Vipperloids, Gahata Meiji, Kohaku Merry, Matsudappoiyo, Denatsu Sora, Shuu Mawaine, and my personal favourite, SUZU.

Pros: 

Almost every single voicebank is free to download

Different types of voicebanks (CV, VCV, CCVC; Monopitch vs. Multipitch; Power, Weak, Soft, Whisper, Growl, Screamo; tons of languages)

Can make your own voicebank right in the software

Pitch bending on the piano roll instead of a parameter box!

Variety of job plugins to make usage easier

Credited for its growl and vibrato handling

Cons:

EXTREMELY dated, UTAU has not been updated since 2013

Not friendly for beginners, especially due to its old UI

Need to change your system's locale, and installing voicebanks can be frustrating

Most voicebanks (namely Japanese) can only read Hiragana phonemes and not Romaji ones; but job plug-ins can fix this issue

Open Utau

(Song: The Lost One's Weeping by neru; UST: Tanjiro Taidana)

If UTAU is the sister software to VOCALOID, then Open Utau is the younger sibling to normal UTAU. Open Utau is an open-sourced vocal synthesizer on GitHub with every feature in the original software while being easier to use.

Pros:

Dark mode with a sleek, easy-to-navigate UI!

Pitchbend with a click of a button; piano roll tuning is still consistent

Splice tool; useful for note-bending

No need to switch locale to Japanese

Easier to get the hang of

Frequent updates

Can use VSQXs and svps. without needing to convert them into USTs

Cons:

No Defoko…

Choppier and buggier than classic UTAU

Slow with rendering wav. files and launching the software

Phonemizers are tricky to work with, you don’t always get the same output as the same phonemizers in normal UTAU

External resamplers can cause overheating and slow down the software

Tuning is more dependent on job plugins than the original UTAU

Many users claim that otoing is easier in classic UTAU

SynthesizerV Studio Editor R1

(Song: Tengaku by Yuuyu; VSQx by Adam Edmond)

This preliminary edition of SynthesizerV was a major breakthrough for the vocal synth community when it was first released. With its realistic-sounding voicebanks and minimalistic aesthetic, this software has changed the game by a landslide for synth users. Although it's quite limited, R1 was an amazing start for what will become a godly program in the future. Pros:

Pitch bending on the piano roll and in the parameter box (very smooth, I experienced no lag when using it nor did I have to make pitch points or pause while editing the parameters)!

Voicebanks sound quite human

MIND BLOWING GLOTTAL EFFECTS (nine different growls, two screams, and a vocal fry that do not sound robotic!)!

Really simple UI, easy to pick up, great for beginners!

Cons:

Outdated; is no longer being updated by Dreamtonics

Needs a recording license for commercial use (though I highly doubt it is still being upheld)

Only four voicebanks are available; Eleanor Forte, Yamine Renri, GENBU, and AiKO - who is paid and an outdated version of her R2 voicebank (R2 versions of the same voicebanks sound much cleaner and realistic)

A little too minimalistic; aside from the addition of glottal effects and the typical pitch deviation, loudness, tension, breathiness, voicing, gender, and vibrato parameters, there is not all that much you can do in this edition of the editor

SynthesizerV Studio Basic

(Song: Antibeat by Deco* 27; UST: Mayu Sama Desu)

Also known as SynthV R2, this is the free edition of the software that is currently being updated, despite having fewer features than its complete, paid version. 

Pros:

Ready to play with as soon as it is installed

Twenty-five free voicebanks; sixteen Japanese, seven English, and two Chinese; all with unique sounds

AI voicebanks!

Instant mode; allows you to automatically tune the pitch of an entire track with the press of a button, although it may make the voice sound too pitchy

Waveform that allows you to see the volume and pronunciation of certain notes

Can use paid voicebanks in the free editor!

Just as easy to figure out as SynthV R1!

Cons:

Can only have a maximum of three vocal tracks in a single svp. file

Pitch bending is a lot more finicky compared to SynthV R1

Lite voicebanks sound mono-pitch

Lacks a ton of features that are available in SynthesizerV Pro; scripts, auto-pitch tuning, rap vocals, cross-lingual synthesis, vocal modes, alternate phoneme choices, and many other features are not included in the basic edition (even paid voicebanks can not use cross-lingual synthesis, vocal modes, etc)

The glottal effects parameter that was in SynthV R1 is sadly not included in both the Basic and Pro editions of the current program

VoiSona

(Song: iNSaNiTY by Circus-P; VSQX: Cirty_09)

Previously named “CeVIO Pro”, VoiSona is a vocal synth that uses AI technology to create beautiful vocals with characters that originated from a variety of other vocal synthesizers (such as VOCALOID!) and are created with the recordings of talented singers and voice actors. CeVIO project has also launched a trial speech vocal synthesizer called “VoiSona Talk” for their first anniversary.

Pros:

Users get Chis-A’s full voicebank upon downloading the synthesizer!

The program itself is entirely free to download

AI technology makes tuning easier

Piano roll pitch-bending

Has some features that are missing in its sister software, CeVIO AI

The “husky” parameter is great for making whispers

Can be used as a VST plugin in most DAWs or a standalone editor

Cons:

All other voicebanks are paid; either you purchase the entire voicebank once, or get a subscription to use all of them

HEAVY LAG; the program is quite slow with processing commands

Free-hand pitch-bending is not as easy to perform compared to UTAU or SynthesizerV; can be quite sensitve and the AI may not always yield the desired result

DeepVocal

(Song: New Darling by MARETU; UST: Mimisan15)

The successor to the Sharpkey Galaxy software, this vocal synthesizer was designed for Chinese voicebanks. Its UI is a combination of VOCALOID4 and UTAU, giving it a sense of comfort and familiarity. Speaking of which, you can create your own voicebank in DeepVocal as you can in UTAU and OpenUtau, and there are some pre-made voicebanks of popular UTAUs, including Namine Ritsu, Inari Akane, and Kuro Bousuka. In addition, there is also a Kiana voicebank commissioned by MiHOYO and based on the protagonist of Gun Girls Z and Honkai Impact 3rd!

Pros:

Ready to use as soon as its out of the box

Great engine for Chinese voicebanks

Can create your own voicebank

Runs smoothly

Has all of the necessary parameters needed to create songs and covers

Cons:

Voicebanks can be kind of shaky, choppy, and more sensitive to pitch changes compared to other engines like UTAU and VOCALOID

Pitch bending can be quite clunky

Voicebanks may have difficulty reading certain phenomes from converted USTs; you may need to edit them if you don’t want lyrics being read as “a” or “ra”

These were all of the major free softwares I found, but if I come across another vocal synthesizer in the future, even if it is not talked about in the vocal synth community much, I may make a post about it.

I know there are a ton of cons I found for much of the vocal synths on this list and they sound like nitpicks on my part, but as I stated at the start of this post, some of these issues could be a Shimmer Thing™ and they may not arise for you when using these softwares. I won't be surprised if you read through this post and are now feeling thrown off by the various features and pros and cons of these programs, so here's my two cents on what I think beginners should go for:

If you like realistic voicebanks and want a very simple software to start with, get either SynthesizerV Editot (R1) or SynthesizerV Studio Basic (R2). If you would like to experience them (spicy) glottal effects and very kind pitchbending (like it does not make you want to bash your head against the wall because Renri won't cooperate) along with unlimited vocal tracks, then try out R1, and if you want more features, voicebanks, and continous updates, go for R2. Or even better, try out both and decide which one suits your interests better.

If you have a preference for robotic voicebanks, would like a variety of vocals to play with, and find plug-ins interesting, then UTAU may be for you, especially if you want VOCALOID but you can not afford it at the moment. Although I shitted more on Open Utau than I did on regular UTAU, I recommend the former over the latter as it is still being updated and the UI is signifcantly easier to navigate, along with its phenomenal pitchbending function.

Finally, please take my words with a grain of salt. If you like the voicebanks or are interested in a specific software, or discover one that is even better than any of the listed vocal synthesizers, by all means, go for it! This is just a surface guide by an idiot who spends most of their time trying to make Fukase not sound like a computer dying, and I have not used any of these softwares as much as I have messed with VOCALOID. Plus, my computer is an absolute bitch, so you guys will probably have much better luck than me.

I hope this guide was of use and provided a better insight on the various engines out there. My next post will compare different paid vocal synthesizers, including CeVIO AI, Piapro Studio, and of course, the various VOCALOID softwares. Don't worry, I'll get to the actual tutorial bit very soon.

Also, feel free to ask any questions about vocal synthesizers, or... literally anything! I'm practically starved for asks-

Thanks for reading!

[charlotterhea]

I've done more reading for the Summer Fic Reading Challenge and oh boy, did I find amazing stories! Plus I have my first bingo! 😆

4. New (to you) fandom

I asked dear @lizzy0305 to rec me one of their stories for this prompt because we chatted a bit lately and I knew they'd written for other fandoms than HP, so I got to read "When an Angel Suffers, Even Death Weeps" and I was not prepared for how amazing this story would be! The suspense, the writing style, all the little moments of wisdom! I loved it, even though I know next to nothing about Star Trek. 🥹

9. 5+year old fic

This story... This story! I was crying so hard at the end and yet I loved every single line of it. Well, to be fair, I always love those stories the most that break my heart and make me cry. So be prepared. 😆 Anyway, it's this gem: "Second Life" by Cassandra7 and nwhiker. It's a Snack for a change and at first, I wasn't even sure if this was the right story for me. I'm a fan of their mutual hate, and the more messy and complicated it is the more I love it. Not that their relationship in this story wasn't complicated but there's no hate and yet... 🥹 Without a doubt a story I will reread at some point. A piece of art that has my heart so beautifully broken needs to be reread.

2. De-aging/kidfic

Although this is a popular trope in HP, I've actually never read a de-aging fic so far. But I'm happy to have remedied my ignorance now. ^^ "Nargles, Wrackspurts, Oh My" by LadyLanera is a sweet story that features a de-aged Severus who gets resorted into Ravenclaw and encounters Luna and both her sillynesses and earnestnesses. I'm a sucker for Luna/Severus encounters, they are always something special, and I enjoyed the ones here a lot. But not only is Severus de-aged in this fic, he's also married (not to Luna) and I enjoyed that a lot as well. ^^ Really a wonderful story.

14. Multiple authors

I could say I chose this story specifically for this challenge to read but that would be a lie. I'd have read it anyway, I just cannot resist when @frenchpresswriter is involved and @slytherinsally additionally sold me for "i don't know why i like you (but i do)". 😊 And let me tell you, it was a blast! This story is peak 'Idiots in Love' and the banter was amazing. Go read the story if you're in the mood for some light-hearted Snamione idiots to lovers. ^^

22. Fic written by someone who follows you

This story as well is one I would have read anyway but maybe it would have taken me a bit longer before I'd come around to it. Which would have been a shame because "Of Spell Burns and Black Hearts" by @lucky-daisy-writes was so much fun to read on a Friday afternoon! I had such a good time with the humour of the fic, with the curse I haven't read like that before, and with the beautiful depictions of Hermione and Severus slowly growing closer. Check it out!

Only nine prompts to go now, yet I'm not sure if I'll make it until September 22. I have some writing to do myself at the moment. But I guess comments are always welcome, even if they come past September 22. ^^ Still, if you can rec me a story for the still open prompts, feel free to do so! 💚

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ADWD: Jon VII (Chapter 35)

"We'll want an escort. Ten rangers, armed with dragonglass. I want them ready to leave within the hour."

"Aye, m'lord. And to command?"

"That would be me."

Edd's mouth turned down even more than usual. "Some might think it better if the lord commander stayed safe and warm south of the Wall. Not that I'd say such myself, but some might."

Jon smiled. "Some had best not say so in my presence."

The trappings of power.

Personally I don't have a problem with Jon escorting new recruits beyond the Wall. I think the Lord Commander should be present when all men take their vows.

+.+.+

The wind was gusting, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan had told when Jon was a boy. 

Everyone laugh at Ned's suffering.

+.+.+

Glass, Jon mused, might be of use here. Castle Black needs its own glass gardens, like the ones at Winterfell. We could grow vegetables even in the deep of winter.

You could plant roses!

"No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer." She stood, towering over the great white castle. "I can't think how to do the glass roof over the gardens." - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

The best glass came from Myr, but a good clear pane was worth its weight in spice, and green and yellow glass would not work as well. What we need is gold. With enough coin, we could buy 'prentice glassblowers and glaziers in Myr, bring them north, offer them their freedom for teaching their art to some of our recruits. That would be the way to go about it. If we had the gold. Which we do not.

I can't tell if this is more than Iron Bank foreshadowing.

+.+.+

Word spread fast at Castle Black. Edd was still saddling the grey when Bowen Marsh stomped across the yard to confront Jon at the stables. "My lord, I wish you would reconsider. The new men can take their vows in the sept as easily."

Update: pomegranate still unhappy.

+.+.+

"The Weeping Man may still be out there, watching."

"The grove is no more than two hours' ride, even with the snow. We should be back by midnight."

George R. R. Martin would like me to believe there isn't a single weirwood south of the Wall within two hours. Okay, sure.

+.+.+

The others were good men too. Good men in a fight, at least, and loyal to their brothers. Jon could not speak for what they might have been before they reached the Wall, but he did not doubt that most had pasts as black as their cloaks. Up here, they were the sort of men he wanted at his back. Their hoods were raised against the biting wind, and some had scarves wrapped about their faces, hiding their features. Jon knew them, though. Every name was graven on his heart. They were his men, his brothers.

Big shift from AGOT Jon.

+.+.+

Leathers and Jax were older men, well past forty, sons of the haunted forest, with sons and grandsons of their own. They had been two of the sixty-three wildlings who had followed Jon Snow back to the Wall the day he made his appeal, so far the only two to decide they wanted a black cloak. 

I only want to highlight Leathers, the new wildling recruit.

+.+.+

"Talk is there was some trouble at Harlot's Tower last night," the master-at-arms said.

"Hardin's Tower." Of the sixty-three who had come back with him from Mole's Town, nineteen had been women and girls. Jon had housed them in the same abandoned tower where he had once slept when he had been new to the Wall. Twelve were spearwives, more than capable of defending both themselves and the younger girls from the unwanted attentions of black brothers. It was some of the men they'd turned away who'd given Hardin's Tower its new, inflammatory name. Jon was not about to condone the mockery. "Three drunken fools mistook Hardin's for a brothel, that's all. They are in the ice cells now, contemplating their mistake."

[...]

Bowen Marsh had not been all wrong. Hardin's Tower was tinder waiting for a spark. "I mean to open three more castles," Jon said. "Deep Lake, Sable Hall, and the Long Barrow. All garrisoned with free folk, under the command of our own officers. The Long Barrow will be all women, aside from the commander and chief steward." There would be some mingling, he did not doubt, but the distances were great enough to make that difficult, at least.

"And what poor fool will get that choice command?"

"I am riding beside him."

The look of mingled horror and delight that passed across Iron Emmett's face was worth more than a sack of gold. "What have I done to make you hate me so, my lord?"

Jon laughed. "Have no fear, you won't be alone. I mean to give you Dolorous Edd as your second and your steward."

There goes Dolorous Edd and Iron Emmett, two good men.

Does anything ever happen with this tinder waiting to spark? I forget.

Edit: yes. lol.

+.+.+

Do not confuse the Thenns with free folk. Magnar means lord in the Old Tongue, I am told, but Styr was closer to a god to his people, and his son is cut from the same skin. I do not require men to kneel, but they do need to obey.

Sounds like something a King Jon Stark might say.

+.+.+

Jon smelled Tom Barleycorn before he saw him. Or was it Ghost who smelled him? Of late, Jon Snow sometimes felt as if he and the direwolf were one, even awake. The great white wolf appeared first, shaking off the snow. 

Stop.

+.+.+

A few moments later Tom was there. "Wildlings," he told Jon, softly. "In the grove."

[...]

Jon was not of a mind to fall back to the Wall, however. If the wildlings are still alive, it may be we can bring them in. And if they are dead, well … a corpse or two could be of use.

Dot, dot, dot.

I bet a corpse or two could be of use.

+.+.+

Ahead he glimpsed a pale white trunk that could only be a weirwood, crowned with a head of dark red leaves.

King Bran or Queen Sansa foreshadowing. Tree boy had the previous chapter, while Sansa always gets the weirwood treatment. I'll let you decide.

Will they lay Sansa down naked beneath the Iron Throne after they have killed her? Will her skin seem as white, her blood as red? - Catelyn III, ASOS

x

Soldier pines were everywhere, drawn up in solemn ranks. In their midst was a pale stranger; a slender young weirwood with a trunk as white as a cloistered maid. Dark red leaves sprouted from its reaching branches. Beyond was the emptiness of sky and sea where the wall had collapsed . . . - Brienne IV, AFFC

x

Lysa's apartments opened over a small garden, a circle of dirt and grass planted with blue flowers and ringed on all sides by tall white towers. The builders had intended it as a godswood, but the Eyrie rested on the hard stone of the mountain, and no matter how much soil was hauled up from the Vale, they could not get a weirwood to take root here. - Catelyn VII, AGOT

x

Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. - Sansa VII, ASOS

+.+.+

The weirwoods rose in a circle around the edges of the clearing. There were nine, all roughly of the same age and size. Each one had a face carved into it, and no two faces were alike. Some were smiling, some were screaming, some were shouting at him. In the deepening glow their eyes looked black, but in daylight they would be blood-red, Jon knew. Eyes like Ghost's.

Weirwoods always look like the lords of the castle. What do these faces represent? Humans that were sacrificed? Greenseers?

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. "The heart tree," Ned called it. The weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. - Catelyn I, AGOT

x

They crossed the castle's godswood, where the heart tree had grown so huge and tangled that it had choked out all the oaks and elms and birch and sent its thick, pale limbs crashing through the walls and windows that looked down on it. Its roots were as thick around as a man's waist, its trunk so wide that the face carved into it looked fat and angry. - Davos IV, ADWD

+.+.+

The giant was the last to notice them. He had been asleep, curled up by the fire, but something woke him—the child's cry, the sound of snow crunching beneath black boots, a sudden indrawn breath. When he stirred it was as if a boulder had come to life. He heaved himself into a sitting position with a snort, pawing at his eyes with hands as big as hams to rub the sleep away … until he saw Iron Emmett, his sword shining in his hand. Roaring, he came leaping to his feet, and one of those huge hands closed around a maul and jerked it up.

Ghost showed his teeth in answer. Jon grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck. "We want no battle here." His men could bring the giant down, he knew, but not without cost. Once blood was shed, the wildlings would join the fray. Most or all would die here, and some of his own brothers too. "This is a holy place. Yield, and we—"

[...]

Jon Snow was about to reach for Longclaw when Leathers spoke, from the far side of the grove. His words sounded gruff and guttural, but Jon heard the music in it and recognized the Old Tongue. Leathers spoke for a long while. When he was done, the giant answered. It sounded like growling, interspersed with grunts, and Jon could not understand a word of it. But Leathers pointed at the trees and said something else, and the giant pointed at the trees, ground his teeth, and dropped his maul.

Good job Leathers! Looks like having wildlings in the Watch has a few benefits.

+.+.+

"It's done," said Leathers. "They want no fight."

"Well done. What did you tell him?"

"That they were our gods too. That we came to pray."

"We shall. Put away your steel, all of you. We will have no blood shed here tonight."

A bunch of greenseers just missed out on dinner.

+.+.+

"The Wall is only a few hours south of here," said Jon. "Why not seek shelter there? Others yielded. Even Mance."

The wildlings exchanged looks. Finally one said, "We heard stories. The crows burned all them that yielded."

"Even Mance hisself," the woman added.

Melisandre, Jon thought, you and your red god have much and more to answer for. 

Burned after yielding. What show storyline does that remind you of?

Of course she's next.

+.+.+

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins," they said, as thousands had said before them. Satin's voice was sweet as song, Horse's hoarse and halting, Arron's a nervous squeak. "It shall not end until my death."

May those deaths be long in coming.

The bad news is it won't be. The good news is you can go home.

+.+.+

Jon Snow sank to one knee in the snow. Gods of my fathers, protect these men. And Arya too, my little sister, wherever she might be. I pray you, let Mance find her and bring her safe to me.

"I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children," the recruits promised, in voices that echoed back through years and centuries. "I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post."

Gods of the wood, grant me the strength to do the same, Jon Snow prayed silently. Give me the wisdom to know what must be done and the courage to do it.

This kind of reminds me of something.

Catelyn put her heels to her horse and rode off, leaving her son to ponder her words. It would not do to make him feel as if his mother were usurping his place. Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor, Ned? she wondered. Did you teach him how to kneel? The graveyards of the Seven Kingdoms were full of brave men who had never learned that lesson. - Catelyn IX, AGOT

+.+.+

They did the same with the two corpses, to the puzzlement of Iron Emmett. "They will only slow us, my lord," he said to Jon. "We should chop them up and burn them."

"No," said Jon. "Bring them. I have a use for them."

Later:

The corpses he consigned to the ice cells.

Jon's going to keep two corpses in the ice cells. Hmmm. That could be useful. . . having chained up dead things.

I'm starting to think this was bullshit!

And this was bullshit.

And this was bullshit.

And this was bullshit.

And this was bullshit.

And this was bullshit.

And this was bullshit.

That's shocking.

I swear it seems like every Jon and Daenerys storyline isn't real!

+.+.+

Jon glimpsed the red wanderer above, watching them through the leafless branches of great trees as they made their way beneath. The Thief, the free folk called it. The best time to steal a woman was when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, Ygritte had always claimed. She never mentioned the best time to steal a giant. Or two dead men.

Watch me become an astrologist the second I get TWOW.

+.+.+

When Edd caught sight of the ragged band of wildlings, he pursed his lips and gave the giant a long look. "Might need some butter to slide that one through the tunnel, m'lord. Shall I send someone to the larder?"

"Oh, I think he'll fit. Unbuttered."

So he did … on hands and knees, crawling. A big boy, this one. Fourteen feet, at least. Even bigger than Mag the Mighty. Mag had died beneath this very ice, locked in mortal struggle with Donal Noye. A good man. The Watch has lost too many good men. 

Stop.

There's a giant south of the Wall. Let's feed him Boltons.

+.+.+

Stannis. Jon cracked the hardened wax, flattened the roll of parchment, read. A maester's hand, but the king's words.

Stannis had taken Deepwood Motte, and the mountain clans had joined him. Flint, Norrey, Wull, Liddle, all.

And we had other help, unexpected but most welcome, from a daughter of Bear Island. Alysane Mormont, whose men name her the She-Bear, hid fighters inside a gaggle of fishing sloops and took the ironmen unawares where they lay off the strand. Greyjoy's longships are burned or taken, her crews slain or surrendered. The captains, knights, notable warriors, and others of high birth we shall ransom or make other use of, the rest I mean to hang …

[...]

… more northmen coming in as word spreads of our victory. Fisherfolk, freeriders, hillmen, crofters from the deep of the wolfswood and villagers who fled their homes along the stony shore to escape the ironmen, survivors from the battle outside the gates of Winterfell, men once sworn to the Hornwoods, the Cerwyns, and the Tallharts. We are five thousand strong as I write, our numbers swelling every day. And word has come to us that Roose Bolton moves toward Winterfell with all his power, there to wed his bastard to your half sister. He must not be allowed to restore the castle to its former strength. We march against him. Arnolf Karstark and Mors Umber will join us. I will save your sister if I can, and find a better match for her than Ramsay Snow. You and your brothers must hold the Wall until I can return.

Did I say Asha Greyjoy has four longships? I meant zero.

Stannis has five thousand men. Do you like how confident he sounds in this letter? Pray for the northmen.

You and your brothers must hold the Wall until I can return.

And hide Shireen.

+.+.+

He was not at all sure how he felt about what he had just read. Battles had been fought at Winterfell before, but never one without a Stark on one side or the other. "The castle is a shell," he said, "not Winterfell, but the ghost of Winterfell." It was painful just to think of it, much less say the words aloud. And still …

I don't know, that could be telling us something.

+.+.+

He wondered how many men old Crowfood would bring to the fray, and how many swords Arnolf Karstark would be able to conjure up. Half the Umbers would be across the field with Whoresbane, fighting beneath the flayed man of the Dreadfort, and the greater part of the strength of both houses had gone south with Robb, never to return. 

Have we concluded this is actually Karstark foreshadowing?

I see no reason to worry about Whoresbane, Mors, or Greatjon fighting for Team Bolton.

+.+.+

Robert Baratheon would have seen that at once and moved swiftly to secure the castle, with the forced marches and midnight rides for which he had been famous. Would his brother be as bold?

Not likely. Stannis was a deliberate commander, and his host was a half-digested stew of clansmen, southron knights, king's men and queen's men, salted with a few northern lords. He should move on Winterfell swiftly, or not at all, Jon thought. It was not his place to advise the king, but …

Love how this green boy is an infinitely better battle commander than the great Stannis Baratheon.

It could not be more obvious Stannis is fucked.

+.+.+

What if Bolton never had his sister? This wedding could well be just some ruse to lure Stannis into a trap. Eddard Stark had never had any reason to complain of the Lord of the Dreadfort, so far as Jon knew, but even so he had never trusted him, with his whispery voice and his pale, pale eyes.

Mounting evidence Stannis will walk into a trap set by Roose.

Obviously Arya won't be the lure.

+.+.+

A grey girl on a dying horse, fleeing from her marriage. On the strength of those words he had loosed Mance Rayder and six spearwives on the north. "Young ones, and pretty," Mance had said. The unburnt king supplied some names, and Dolorous Edd had done the rest, smuggling them from Mole's Town. It seemed like madness now. He might have done better to strike down Mance the moment he revealed himself. Jon had a certain grudging admiration for the late King-Beyond-the-Wall, but the man was an oathbreaker and a turncloak. He had even less trust in Melisandre. Yet somehow here he was, pinning his hopes on them. 

Oy, Jon has been spot on so far.

Edit: Mance Rayder, the unburnt king. . .

They had been Drogo's people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law. - Daenerys I, ACOK

That is the last thing you want to see. I'm losing my faith in Mance Rayder.

Great catch, @decadelongsummer.

+.+.+

When Jon had been a boy at Winterfell, his hero had been the Young Dragon, the boy king who had conquered Dorne at the age of fourteen. Despite his bastard birth, or perhaps because of it, Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those.

He died, Jon.

Final thoughts:

Is it groundhog day?

Jon does not act like a Lord Commander. Jon angers Bowen Marsh. Jon integrates more wildlings. Jon sends his friends and supporters away. Jon and Ghost are one.

How can someone complain about Brienne's chapters when Jon's are an endless cycle of the exact same thing?

-> return to menu <-

[creativeashproductions]

Curiosity // Luke Patterson

Summary: After filling up another journal designed his songbook Luke is left empty handed. With the offer to a shelf of blanket journals is given he’s immediately choosing. But Luke’s curiosity leads him to a discovery. In other words Luke finds Perfect Harmony in Reader’s bedroom.

Requested: Yes by @averyharrypotterlife​ 

Warnings: None.

Words: 1.7 (including lyrics)

A/N: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the 5000+ followers whether it was years ago and you didn’t unfollow or in the future. Thank you for enjoying and interacting in something I’ve always loved: writing.

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Masterlist

Luke’s always been a curious person going as far back as his early childhood. The most consistent evidence being during the Christmas holidays. Until he was ten, yes, he’s aware that his friends stopped believing in Santa way earlier. The young lad would stay up hidden in the living room waiting to catch Santa. Without fail, Luke would wake up in his outer space planet sheets having fallen asleep in his mission.

When he was twelve years old, he was left at his aunt and uncle’s house for the weekend due to a work-related thing. His older cousin was eighteen at the time and at college, so Luke stayed in his bedroom. Luke couldn’t help but snoop through Bryan’s personal items, and in a drawer with a false bottom, he discovered magazines.

Luke had a lot of fun that weekend diligently going through the magazines his mother would skin his hide even knowing about them. He may have had to use the excuse of having a cold for the entire box of Kleenex missing. No one was the wiser on that weekend.

Now when Luke was fourteen years old, he had snuck into the Rated R film Candyman with Alex and Reggie. Luke’s parents had been strict in their rules and definitely had shot down the question of seeing the film. The three didn’t sleep with the lights out for a month after that, and the truth came out when no lie was sufficient to their concerned parents.

Luke Patterson didn’t care about boundaries. Why ask for permission when you can just ask for forgiveness? It worked with going through Julie’s dream box, but all personal items got hidden from the ghostly guitarist.

“No!” Luke exclaimed flipping through his song journal once more in hopes of a blank page. The frustration in his body snapping the pencil he had been using.

“You good?” You questioned glancing up from the essay you graded as a teacher’s assistant for an AP course. Luke’s frustrated brown met yours with a cute pout on his lips.

“I’ve filled my journal up. I hate using loose-leaf, but no money means no buying things.” Luke roughly scrubbed one hand on his face.

“You could always just forever borrow one from the- “Luke quickly shot that down with a look of absolute horror, “Okay…so stealing a no.”

“I did listen to my parents on certain aspects. I would never steal anything, other than the food when we didn’t have enough cash.” Luke’s brown hue had softened back into the hazel that caused flutters in your heart, “I have no respect for thieves.”

You nodded before scribbling a suggestion on the paper in dark red, “I have a shelf in my room dedicated solely to blank journals. If you want to, you can take one free of charge.”

With a quick smile, Luke disappeared from the room to your personal domain he sometimes hung out with you in. You had no misgivings on the teen finding solace in your room and gave him free rein; your prized possessions hidden very well.

Luke appeared in the soft blue and lilac bedroom with the queen white iron wrought style bed in the middle. A white desk in the corner with a multitude of bookcases and shelves in the room. The desk chair neatly pushed into the desk as well he went straight to the shelf.

Journals of all colours and styles with a label on the shelf noting them as empty. It was packed with dozens, but it was the midnight blue one that called to the boy. In his reach, he bumped an emerald green one off the edge. It opened having hit the edge of the desk.

As he leaned down, he noticed notations in the margins, now remember how Luke is a curious guy? He only hesitated a second before he was reading the pages of words in your signature script.

The guilt flared for a second before he justified it as being on the shelf you declared free game. So Luke settled sitting criss-cross against the side of your bed reading the words so eloquently written. Even notes allowed Luke to hear the melody in his mind.

Assignment: Write a piece of literature from two points of views. Genre doesn’t matter as long as it is a minimum of one page and not exceed eight.

Step into my world

Bittersweet love story ’bout a girl

Shook me to the core

Voice like an angel

I’ve never heard before

The words took his breath away, recalling a moment he gushed to Alex on how he had caught you singing. He had described your voice as being angelic, and it took him by complete surprise. He remembered Julie, and you entered the room shortly after with a nervous feeling if you had heard. Now Luke had his answer. His phantom heart pounded in anticipation for the reply to this first point of view.

Here in front of me

They’re shining so much brighter

Than I have ever seen

Life can be so mean

But when he goes, I know he doesn’t leave

The smile threatened to split his face with the elation as he continued reading with a subconscious hum. His fingers tapping the sides of the paper as his hazel irises tinged green ate up the words.

The truth is finally breaking through

Two worlds collide when I’m with you

Our voices rise and soar so high

We come to life when we’re

In perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

The world faded as Luke distinctly heard your angelic voice singing the parts he could easily recognize as perfect for you. There was something so powerful in this incredibly personal song only intended for your eyes and your teachers.

The next handful of lines left him breathless and astonished as he visualized not sitting across from each other. But engaging in another art form that can be so incredibly intimate for people; he imagined singing this while holding you in his arms.

You set me free

You and me together is more than chemistry

Love me as I am

I’ll hold your music here inside my hands

We say we’re friends, we play pretend

You’re more to me, we’re everything

Our voices rise and soar so high

 We come to life when we’re

 In perfect harmony

 Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

 Perfect harmony

 Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

 Perfect harmony

Luke went from humming to softly singing to the heartfelt tune with a flutter of butterflies deep in his stomach. When Julie saw Unsaid Emily, he had denied it as an experiment, and it was the truth. Luke wrote rock anthems and rock-pop with his living friend. He never dabbled into romantic ones.

He’d never read something so poetically beautiful it felt him weeping at the sheer amount of feelings.

I feel your rhythm in my heart

Yeah yeah yeah

You are my brightest burning star

Whoah whoah oh

I never knew a love so real (so real)

We’re heaven on earth

Melody and words

When we’re together we’re

In perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

Perfect harmony

Whoa-oa-oa, whoa-oa-oa

We say we’re friends (we play pretend)

You’re more to me (we create)

Perfect harmony

His eyes found the last line of the song setting him back in a dead silence returning to the start to reread it. On his third read, he found the notes from your teacher on a separate page.

Y/N, in my years of teaching, I’ve never read something with such meaning behind it. The longing, passion, respect and love you artfully encapsulated is rare. To have written, this means you’ve felt this. No corrects needed, and I felt compelled to not mark on the piece. Thank you for being vulnerable with me, for letting me step inside your mind and please never let this emotion fade.

Your grade is A+.

Luke’s lips pulled apart at the genuine words your teacher had written because it indeed was a word of art. Carefully Luke returned the notebook back to the shelf to retrieve the blue one that caught his attention. AS he turned, he found you leaning against the door frame with a soft smile.

“I am so sor-“

“No.” You replied, walking into the room, “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I told you any notebook on that shelf. I can’t get mad, and I’ve seen you can’t leave something half-read.”

“Probably why my book reports were insanely well done in school.” Luke joked as you stepped in his personal space. The tension faded from his shoulders as he took in your features, “You got a perfect grade.”

“I did.” You simply spoke, staring up into his eyes, “You helped me with it.”

“How?”

“You told Alex what you felt about my voice. You looked nervous when I walked in, so I let it go. It wasn’t the time to bring it up. It’s called Perfect Harmony.” You told the ghost gently grazing your fingertips on his hand. The feeling sends shudders down his spine.

“I guess it just wasn’t the right time. With the band and-“

“-the whole soul owning thing. Too much but now that you’ve read that…what do you feel?” You hesitantly asked because reading it and discovering how someone feels is another to if the feelings are reciprocated back.

“That I was always meant to live in 2020. That I was meant to love you with every atom in my very being.” Luke murmured before he crashed his lips onto your own in a searing kiss that had your toe-curling.

The midnight blue journal dropped to the floor as his large calloused hands cupped your face to feel the warmth. The very journal would be filled with songs all about this person, Luke adored not matter his state as a ghost. Two worlds collided just as two souls came together in perfect harmony.

So, wrapped up in each other Luke didn’t notice something magical encased in the warm love. In the bedroom, the two teens were kissing in had two distinct heartbeats with a glow emanating from Luke Patterson.

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[butterflies-dragons]

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

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

Jon Snow, Sansa Stark & Winterfell. An exploration.

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

I. WHITE AS BONE, RED AS BLOOD

(Art credit: White Wolf by  Kay-Ra)

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

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

The weirwood tree is always watchful and silent:

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran VI

The weirwood tree is also called the heart tree:

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Now, let’s see how Ghost is described:

"He must have crawled away from the others," Jon said. "Or been driven away," their father said, looking at the sixth pup.  His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon II

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon III

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

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

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. "The heart tree," Ned called it. The weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful.

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

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

—A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon I

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon II

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

To sum it up:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, let’s talk about Winterfell.

II. RAISED AFTER THE LONG NIGHT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example:    

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

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

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

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

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

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

But the verb “fall” also means:

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Arya II

And my favorite line from Ned:

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran III

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

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

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

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

Sansa’s journey back home starts with a godswood.

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

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

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

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

IV.1. SANSA AND WINTERFELL

The northern girl. Winterfell’s daughter.

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Sansa would shine in the south.

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

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

But the north and Winterfell lacked all of that:

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

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

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

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

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

— Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival - NIFFF 2014

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

—GRRM - Independent - 2014

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

—GRRM - 1999

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

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

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

—GRRM - 2021

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

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

—A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

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

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn II

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Read more about the direwolves’s eye colors here.

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn II

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Bran I

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

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

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

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

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

Sansa lost Lady as a result of several factors:

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

Arya Stark striking a royal (*).

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

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

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

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

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

"With all my heart," Ned said.

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

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

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

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

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Jaime IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

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

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

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

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

—AGOT - Eddard III

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

—AGOT - Eddard IV

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

—AGOT - Eddard XIII

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

—AGOT - Eddard XV

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

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

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

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

— A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

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

— A Game of Thrones - Bran VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

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

Read more about the white hart here.

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

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

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

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

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

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

North and north and north again, stood Winterfell.

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

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

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

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

— A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

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

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa I

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

But Littlefinger had other plans…  

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

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

—The Winds of Winter - Alayne I

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

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Reek I

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

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

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Cersei II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.

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

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

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

Meanwhile at the Wall…

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

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

He would make me Lord of Winterfell.

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

[…] "I agree."

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XI

And Jon Snow rejected it all!    

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

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

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

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

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

Now, let’s talk about Sansa and Godswoods.

IV.2. SANSA AND GODSWOODS

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

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II  

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

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

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

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Jaime IV

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

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

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

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Arya X

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa IV

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard V

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

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

Sweet lady, I would be your Florian.

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

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

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

They have made me a Lannister, Sansa thought bitterly.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa VIII

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa V

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

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

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Brienne II

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

A godswood without gods, as empty as me.

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

The snow fell and the castle rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She associates snowflakes with lover’s kisses.

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

She builds a snow castle that means to be Winterfell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III  

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

"Silence, fool." Joffrey lifted his crossbow and pointed it at her face. "You Starks are as unnatural as those wolves of yours. I've not forgotten how your monster savaged me." "That was Arya's wolf," she said. "Lady never hurt you, but you killed her anyway."

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III  

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

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

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

IV.3. THE HEART OF WINTERFELL

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

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

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

1. Theon Greyjoy

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

—A Clash of Kings - Theon IV

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

—A Clash of Kings - Theon V

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

2. Tyrion Lannister

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VII

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

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

3. Petyr Baelish

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

Meanwhile at the Wall…

Jon Snow

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon V

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

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

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon II

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

So…

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

IV.4. SANSA THE WOLF

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

(Picture credit: Sophie Turner)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Read more about Lady’s Shade here.

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Samwell IV

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa III

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so…

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VII

Even after her nightmares, she thinks of her Lady:

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa II

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

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa I

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne I

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

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

Now tell me, what is that if not skinchanging?

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

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

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons – Prologue

“She’s not a dog, she’s a direwolf.”

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

“The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

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

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

At Darry, the Lannisters killed Lady.

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Sansa III

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IX

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion IX

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

—A Feast for Crows - Cersei IV

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Arya XIII

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime VII

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

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

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

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

—The Mystery Knight

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

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

—A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

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

V. SO LONG AS THOSE REMAINED, WINTERFELL REMAINED

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

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

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

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

—GRRM

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Bran VII

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran II

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

Winterfell…

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

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

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

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

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

The pillars of Winterfell are stone, root and bone.

V.1. STONE

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

Sansa Stark has a lot of stone imagery around her.

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

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa III

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion IV

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

—A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Catelyn V

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

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

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

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

Stone = Strong = Stark

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

Alayne Stone is Sansa Stark. 

V.2. ROOT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winterfell belongs to the old gods

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Ghost belongs to the old gods

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

Winterfell belongs to Sansa

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

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

V.3. BONE

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

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

All those ancient bones are powerful, as Melisandre explained:

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

This is how the Crypts of Winterfell are described:  

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

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

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

All the Stark children use to play in the Crypts:

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran VII

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon IV

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

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

—A Storm of Swords - Samwell IV

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Jon II

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon I

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon X

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran II

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

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

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

— A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

There you have it!

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

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

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

V.4. STONE (STARK) AND SNOW

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

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

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

The snow castle.

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

The blood of Winterfell.

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VI

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

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Children of the mountain.

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

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

—A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

Hot springs.

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

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

— A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

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

Ghost and Lady’s Shade.

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

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

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

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

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

—A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

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

Stark and Snow

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

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon I

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

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

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

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

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

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran

And we have our sequence completed! 

Ghost belongs to Jon

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

—A Game of Thrones - Bran

Winterfell belongs to the old gods

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Ghost belongs to the old gods

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

—A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Winterfell belongs to Sansa

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

—A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV

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

The end.

[cathikesny]

Cedarmere

It feels wrong to gatekeep this just because it's MY FAVORITE PLACE ON EARTH and I don't want people going there and messing it up or seeing me weep over its immense beauty and magic.

Okay, I'm being a little dramatic here but truly, Cedarmere IS my favorite place on earth and it IS filled with beauty and magic.

LET'S START WITH THE BASICS AS USUAL BEFORE I START WAXING POETIC ABOUT A PARK ON LONG ISLAND:

💰: FREE

⏰: the PARK is open from dusk until dawn, 365 days (as of now, due to Covid, the mansion remains closed unless specified on the website)

📍: 225 Bryant Ave., Roslyn Harbor, Long Island, NY

♿️: there IS handicapped parking, but this place doesn't have paved paths, so do with that handicapped parking what you will

🏃‍♀️: beginner intensity, this isn't so much about the hikes as it is the "vibes" and the strolls

🐶: as far as I'm aware, pets are not explicitly forbidden

🚗: two parking lots, the lower lot around the curve is my preferred

📸: moderate "Instagramability",

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was a prolific poet, an abolitionist, an outspoken activist for worker's rights, the long time editor of The New York Evening Post, and was the main tenet of Cedarmere. (He's also a huge reason we have Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, so big ups to WCB for all he did for New York back in the day).

Bryant created an oasis on the North Shore of Long Island that I don't even remember finding for the first time anymore but I knew that when I did.. this was something special. It's a very small estate and only has some small hills and short paths around the mansion and pond and down to the boathouse. Cedarmere, again, isn't about "the hike"; it's solely about the feeling.. the magic.. the serenity.. the beauty.. the intentionality of each piece of the estate.

This place was made with care and love and it shows.

Cedarmere is maybe a weird first suggestion of places on Long Island to visit for a "hike" or an "adventure", especially since it's small and unknown and the Nassau County Museum of Art is just up the hill (on former Bryant property as well). I think off the beaten path, the unknown and unexpected, yet completely remarkable are worth all the time in the world and the best places to seek out.

TRAIL SUGGESTION:

I don't really have a "trail suggestion" because there really is only so much of this park to explore. It is very small and I think the only technical trail is around the large pond pictured below.

Cedarmere doesn't have the trails or breadth of space, but it does have features. It has a definitely peacefully haunted house, a beautifully restored boathouse, a serene, murky and gentle pond, a stone bridge, strategic lookout points for glorious sunset views of Hempstead Harbor, an overgrown reflecting pool leading to a dilapidated fountain that fills with tulip tree petals and radiates pink in the spring, and a boxwood maze that surrounds the most beautiful magnolia tree you've ever seen in your life. Pictures and words are not enough, this place is spectacularly beautiful in the Spring especially but really, always.

Cedarmere brings me peace just explaining it to you. It is a place that makes you exhale and feel safe and still.

DRIVING ROUTE:

This will probably be the first and last time I give a suggestion of HOW to drive to a particular park. This may sound bizarre but just hear me out, Roslyn is a phenomenally old little town that is just steeped in American history and it is deeply picturesque.

My preferred route for the full effect:

If you're driving up from the southern parts of Long Island, I recommend the scenic route of Roslyn Road going North (which will turn into Main Street once you cross into Roslyn). Some of the oldest structures and houses in Nassau County live on this street and are treated with such care by their current residents. You can always stop in on Gerry Park to your right, but that's just a lovely little unnecessary stop if you ask me. Once you hit the Clocktower, which you truly can't miss, the road forks and you want to stay to the right and drive through town, a whopping two blocks? and you will hit another fork in the road. This time, you want to turn LEFT onto Bryant Avenue (does it feel like you're getting close? You are!). You will pass Diane's Bakery on your left before you go under the viaduct, and if you're looking for a little something to eat before heading to Cedarmere or after leaving there, I do recommend stopping by this long-time Rosyln staple. Once you pass under the viaduct, you should soon see a white house on the curve of the road and maybe even a gravel-filled parking lot (this is where you will pull in for the handicapped parking). I NEVER park in the first gravel parking lot, personally, I ALWAYS round the bend and park behind the house around the curve on the left side of the road.

The website has more directions but that's certainly my route of choice, and yes, I have been here enough times that I have a literal way I prefer to get there.

I've been known to haunt this place regardless of the time of year or time of day. It is most special in Spring though I think (although that's probably my opinion on everywhere as I really love flowers...).

Cedarmere is magic.

Go and experience it as quickly as humanly possible.

This is like #1 on my "Run, Don't Walk" list of places to go.

Photo credit for the obviously not iPhone taken pictures goes to @himynameisnotjoby

[berrydoodleoo]

spring is in the world

Title from ‘since feeling is first’. Chosen with Luna in mind, who in this AU has defied her fate and is no longer confined to parentheses. Read more about the art here, or have a short fic instead:

In hindsight, she shouldn’t have assumed things were going as well as they seemed. She had no great experience in taking lovers, after all, having devoted most of her thirty-odd years to fighting the Scourge in one form or another. She had lost so much time, first to her injuries after Altissa and the coma that had swallowed her for years, and then to the terrible fear and lethargy that gripped her once Ardyn was dead and her purpose in life (seemingly) fulfilled.

Not to mention that Noctis and Prompto were Lucian, whose upper-classes still ascribed to all sorts of prescriptive rules about romance and marriage. She should have been more vigilant -- Prompto in particular still regarded Noct and the sunlit world with nervousness bordering on dread, as if they might be ripped away from him at any moment. So what if she had danced with Noctis and Prompto at the ball held for the New Dawn’s first anniversary last week? So what if she had kissed Noctis outside her room, when he very courteously escorted her to her quarters? So what if Prompto had given her a gift of watercolor paints and cold-pressed paper at breakfast, asking with a flirty smirk if she had a model for her newest painting?

And most of all -- so what if they had made plans to celebrate Noctis’ birthday with a trip outside the city, where they would sleep (hopefully together) beneath the stars (her first test of her new resolve to walk in the dark without fear). So what? They hadn’t said anything out loud, hadn’t made any promises. She shouldn’t have assumed. She should never assume. It was such a terrible risk, forgetting to be afraid. She should have known….

It’s when she lays her hand over his, resting on Noctis’ chest, that she realizes they’ve been having two separate conversations. “He’s here to stay, Prompto,” she says, pressing gently. “I promise.”

“I know, I know.” Prompto clears his throat, forces a rough little laugh. “It’s not that.” He sniffs.

It gives her an ugly jolt to see him so distressed. They’d only been watching Noct sleep, praising his handsome features and planning how best to tease him when he awoke. Umbra is snoring cutely at Noctis’ side and Pryna is probably still in the field, chasing butterflies. Everything had seemed perfect.

Prompto glances skittishly at her frown and then begins to babble. “I just, uh -- got used to checking, you know? Making sure he hadn’t stopped breathing or started bleeding inside or something. It’ll, uh.” He shakes his head, tries to pull his hand away. “It’ll be weird not being able to check, you know, but I won’t -- I mean, I know you two -- I won’t get in the way, I won’t make things difficult, I promise--”

“Prompto,” Luna interrupts gently, struggling to follow. “I don’t understand what you’re--”

Prompto rakes his free hand over his eyes, smearing the hint of tears around. “You guys are gonna be great, you know?” He smiles bravely, props his head on his fist like they’re still chatting idly and he isn’t weeping openly. “You’ve waited for each other for so long. I guess destiny can be kind after all.” He tries to smile.

But he can’t keep the bleakness out of his eyes, and it’s clear that Prompto doesn’t believe any of this kindness has been reserved for him. “Prompto,” Luna bursts out, fumbling, confused, “are you -- breaking up with Noctis? Through me?”

Prompto recoils, or tries to; she still won’t let him get away. “O-of course not,” he stammers, “we weren’t -- I mean -- not really, we haven’t, not since -- he wouldn’t lie to you like that--”

Luna untangles this with some effort. “Do you mean you two aren’t together?” Confused, she reviews their interactions from the past few days, and then from the last time she saw them, after the final battle. “You haven’t been -- Prompto Argentum, you two haven’t been refraining because of me, have you?”

Prompto gapes at her. She gapes back.

“You have!” Astonished, Luna leans back to peer at the sky. “Why in the -- Prompto. Dear, dearest Prompto.” She checks on Noctis, in case their spirited conversation has woken him, but he sleeps on obliviously. She’ll have words with him later.

Prompto tries to sit up, retreat again, and this time Luna tugs him quite firmly back into place. “Don’t you dare,” she orders, and he freezes. “Prompto, you and Noctis love each other. You’ve been part of each other’s lives for so long, have supported and believed in one another through the worst of--” She finds she can’t find the words to continue, and tries again. “I would never, will never, seek to separate the two of you.”

Prompto’s lower lip is trembling. Luna starts to shift forward, cup his cheek, and then realizes such a gesture might be unwelcome. Dear gods, she has misread this. Such a fool she is. She’d thought--

“Quite the opposite,” she finally continues, quietly, despite the cold terror creeping through her veins. “So long as the two of you have one another, I may have peace in my heart, for I know that one good, true thing prevails.”

She blinks back a sudden flood of tears. Perhaps they don’t want her. Perhaps she doesn’t have a place with them after all. She wants her room, suddenly, her safe, prison-like room, where nothing joyful grows but nothing can hurt her, either.

“But you guys have been -- oh.” Prompto blinks rapidly, and then starts to redden. “Oh. Is this a, uh, Tenebrean thing? Like the triad thing? Oh man, is this what Iggy was trying to -- oh, man.”

Luna can’t help it; she bursts into damp, semi-hysterical giggles, despite the icy shake in her guts. Prompto smiles up at her blurrily, and then starts to laugh as well.

“Man,” he says again, suddenly beaming, eyes still tear-reddened. “He is gonna give me so much crap about this. I am literally never gonna live it down. Wow.” He takes a deep breath and squeezes her hand tenderly, overwhelmed. “Is this really -- you might have to -- I am really oblivious sometimes, but uh, I guess you know that now.” He laughs again, edged, at himself.

Luna starts to nod, changes to shaking her head, and then feels hot, wet tears dripping down her face. She’ll feel foolish later. Prompto sits up, and this time she lets him, because he’s moving to lean closer, cup her face and wipe her tears away.

“Luna,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood.” She presses his rough, large hands to her cheeks and feels herself crumple a little more. “No,” he continues. “No, please don’t cry. I can’t -- I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Luna takes a deep breath. She isn’t been rejected. You aren’t being rejected, she reminds herself. “No, no,” she says wetly, “I shouldn’t have assumed--”

She stops herself. She’s making an effort to reprimand herself less these days. She is trying so hard to be better. And in a fight for blame, she suspects she and Prompto could go round and round until the sun went down and never came up again, but that isn’t what she wants. For either of them.

Luna takes a deep breath. She refuses to start their relationship in a spiral of apologies and self-blame. She doesn’t want that anymore. She wants to open the door to a rolling world of yellow suns and indigo skies and, eventually, gentle nights that fill her with wonder and comfort instead of fear. She wants to let go of the fear and her desperate need for control -- she wants to be free, a part of the world for the first time in her life.

So instead of berating herself, she grips his hands in hers and lets their combined grip rest against their (still sleeping, seriously, Noct?) king’s chest. Umbra is watching them with interest, she notes. And then she takes another breath.

“Prompto,” she says, falling back on an old, formal proposal from a romantic show she used to watch, as a teenager confined within Fenestala Manor. “Will you grant me the honor of your affection and presence, and keep a place for me in your heart?”

Prompto’s lovely eyes widen, full of hope and delight. Pure sunlight. He’s grinning and she’s breathless. All further words fly from her mind.

His fingers squeeze hers as he leans forward for a kiss, and then another, tentative turning into playful, his smile slotting sweetly against hers again and again. Blindly, her hands work themselves free to touch his cheeks, his throat, the rasp of his short beard. He retreats for a quick breath, tracing her lips with hot, hooded eyes, and then devours her mouth in a kiss that raises her onto her knees, toes curled and body tingling. Oh, oh, oh--

“Hey,” Noctis grumbles, exactly like a grumpy cat awoken from a nap. “Uh, did I miss something? I thought we were waiting till my birthday.”

Prompto gasps, wrenching away. “That’s what that’s all about?” he demands shrilly, and Luna bursts into giggles. “The camping trip? Oh my gods, Gladio’s gonna kill me--”

Noctis pushes himself up his elbows, squinting and scowling with the sun in his eyes. “What? You seriously didn’t know?” He sits up, absently guiding Luna to sit at his side in a way that makes her heart warm. “Thought you were kidding about that.”

“--never gonna hear the end of this, crap--”

Noctis looks to Luna, about to ask something -- probably ‘what on Eos is happening right now, I was only asleep for thirty minutes’ -- but then his expression changes and he makes a wise choice of priorities. “Uh, Luna? Pryna’s after the cheese again.”

Luna yelps and Pryna yips, betrayed, and the dog knocks the picnic basket over in her haste to escape her mistress, wedge of cheese clamped firmly in her jaws. Prompto dives to catch her -- “I’ve got her!” -- but he doesn’t. Noct fails to catch him and he lands on their legs, trapping them. Umbra runs in circles and barks for the sheer, chaotic joy of it. Pryna devours her stolen prize. And in the sunlit field, with her loves bickering and playing at her side, Lunafreya laughs until she cries for the first time in her life.

[rosheendubh]

WIP...art-manipulation as visual inspiration for The Elegy of Dead Kingdoms...(crossover of StarWars/revamped Thrawn trilogy, FireFly/Serenity, and the Keltiad...also, spoof SpaceOpera-RockOpera featuring anyone from David Bowie, to LED Zepplin, NewOrder, U2, Ah-Ha...etc)...

~Background

~ At the impetus of River Tam, and the Operative, the Serenity’s renegade crew defies transit laws prohibiting unauthorized access to the wormhole connecting Terran space with the quadrant of the Republic Alliance and the Galactic Empire. Having only a fragmented record mentioning a lone survivor from a planetary massacre, the crew track rumors of a psionically gifted orphan said to have come from the Terran Fringe system of New Celtica, possessing the ability of manipulating the molecular structure of organic matter. An exile once in the service of Palpatine, whose skill of biokinesis Thrawn covets to stabilize the unpredictable violence of his cloned hybrids. A woman with adversaries on both sides of the wormhole, winning a Jedi to her cause, and determined to discover the key to a secret kept hidden for a thousand years. A buried legend of Old Terra, Earth That Was, that may be the last defense between the ancient darkness wakened by Thrawn‘s pursuit of absolute dominion, and the destruction of all life throughout the galaxy...(queue *cinematic drama music*)...

Somewhere between the battle of the Dark Force fleet, and Wayland, MonMontha offers a last ditch effort at negotiation with Thrawn. Imperial forces victorious in recent campaigns, have pushed back the RepublicAlliance to their InnerPlanetary systems. Rogue genetic scientists from the Terran quadrant, refusing to abandon their research after the PAX Hydrochlorate failure on Miranda, found a ready market amid trans-conduit Imperial war-profiteers, for their newest discovery. An archaic protogenome derived from dark-matter structures, endowing hybridized Reaver clones with real-time tissue regenerative capacity. These clones now render Thrawn’s army nearly indestructible. The scene above is merely my toying with a concept of the ethereal, and formidable River Tam crossing paths with the illustrious brilliance embodied in the GrandAdmiral Thrawn...

~scene~

On Coruscant, during Monmontha’s attempt at negotiating a peace, Rhyanon ferch Garowen (alluded to above) blatantly rejects Thrawn‘s coercive effort at bringing her to his side during a dinner banquet. B/c of this act of arrogance, Thrawn vows no mercy in the progression of his campaign, conquering and converting sector upon sector into a dark matter/anti-matter morass which becomes dubbed The Dimensional Rift, despite the valiant efforts of the Republic Alliance squadrons, directed by LukeSkywalker, and allies, to fend off the onslaught of Thrawn’s Dreadnaught fleet.

Before all that though, with the evening following the dinner still at hand, Thrawn abides by the Old Republic etiquette of host and guest, honoring civil diplomacy amongst enemies. A requisite social diversion-music or a dance-ensuing in the Palace reception hall holds no interest to him in Rhyanon’s absence. Preferring solitude, he meanders out to a balcony overlooking Coruscant’s expanse of lights, twinkling ladders of motion, reaching up to the lower atmosphere. And here, she follows after him minutes later, floating between shadows, a specter of innocence and dangerous beauty.

She pauses beneath a statue of some nameless goddess, a figure of Victory or Life, a pretension of lesser cultures. Weaker nations seeking hope in empty icons. The girl, young woman really, by the standards of human chronology, offers an entirely different contemplation.

From the sofa where he’s seated, viewing her from across the fountain, Thrawn appreciates the lithe symmetry of her form, a subtle disguise of strength and grace. Dangerous beauty. “You’re very like her, River Tam. A work of art, a living masterpiece,” he comments.

For as young as she is, not more than 20 years surely, she carries herself with a remarkable serenity. Stepping lightly around the other sofa, she leans her hip against the cushioned neck rest. Barely flickering an eyelid, she focuses luminous dark eyes on him, shining through the mottled patterns of light scattered between them.

Her voice resembles her figure, light and flowing. “A failed experiment, you mean, Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” Flawlessly, she speaks his name, though he knows they weren’t introduced at any point previous to this moment. ”I was supposed to be like them—the researchers were trying to make me like them. One of your chimeric hybrids.”

“Ah, the one who got away,“ he muses. Something at that stirs a flicker in her dark gaze. “Yes, little Albatross, I read the classified reports of your Core Parliament. About your brother, the escape. An elegant devising. And a lesson as to the deficiencies of private-contract security.“

Tension firms a line between her brows, hardens her expression as she glances away from him for a moment. “It wouldn’t have mattered.“

His derision comes out as a short, barking laugh. “Why? Because your escape resulted more from the incompetence of poorly trained guards than the alleged skill of your brigand crew mates?

Her attention swings back to him, conviction firm in her words. “No. Because my brother watches out for me. He protects me. And he loves me.”

Thrawn says nothing, stoic against her emotion, such a human flaw. Rubbing his thumb and middle finger together, of the hand draped eloquently off the arm-wrest, he continues sizing up this most intriguing amalgam of softness and mettle.

”Love is a weakness,” satisfaction grim in his tone, picking at a piece of this puzzle embodied by River Tam. Toying with it, testing how she’ll react. “It causes distraction from the warrior’s path. Makes them vulnerable to fear. And you, little Albatross, were foremost, molded as a weapon. A living masterpiece of perfection.”

Her lids slant, head tipped to the side slightly. “I dream about them still. The other test subjects. The Reavers. The dreams used to frighten me. They were worse when the scientists would be administering some new cocktail. They’re not as bad as they used to be, since Miranda. But their voices—I...hear them-“a frown ghosting over her features”-though I’ve learned to hush them.”

”I think you hear a lot more than that, River Tam.”

Challenge broods in a strange magnetism between them. ”So do you,” she says mildly, sending a wary shiver over his skin. How she knows about inoculating himself with the protogenome he can’t begin—

-of course he can. She’s a mind-reader, a telepath. What can’t she pick out of the whirl of thought composing humanoid psyches if she’s so determined?

His awareness smolders like embers in a breeze, open to the Shadow’s primordial sequences merged into his own cells. Enhancing perception, layers of reality peeled back when he channels this infernal heat coursing through his blood. Vision, smell, sound, his mind branching like light off a faceted diamond, reflecting images in a 1000 different plains. And Thrawn, glorying in the draught of fractured darkness.

River’s eyes glint in guarded scrutiny, attuned, perhaps to the whisper of power subsumed by Thrawn’s cultivated urbanity. Wandering over to where he’s seated, she lowers herself next to him on the couch. Her mind brushes against his like leaves floating upon a watery surface, remaining on the periphery without venturing into the depths.

“Chiis physiology-Stamina, strength, resilience against extremes of physical exposure. Superior reflexes and intellect inherent to your species, allowing adaptive advantages over the millennia. A robust psychology keeping you from succumbing to the deterioration of sensory assimilation, the way your clones eventually will. A perfect medium for channeling the Shadow.”

Thrawn wonders where she’s going with her exposition. She bears the full weight of his scorching gaze with nary a flinch. The fey-like curiosity alive across her youthful grace causes a rare unease, unused to be so unabashedly studied. He holds himself still, tensing at the light pressure of her hand taking his out of his lap, wrapping delicate fingers over a wrist corded by muscle.

”Everyone has a weakness,” she says. “Even you.”

Anger snarls beneath the surface of his poise, a broiling red froth that must have blazed up in his gaze. ”Whatever you think you see child, you take liberties of interpretation,” speaking in cold, controlled wrath before which she pales, breathing deep to collect herself. The pressure of her touch on his wrist, though, remains steady.

Her hand, slender fingers resting atop his own, no suggestion of anything other than gentleness. His own hand, larger, stronger, a grip that could crack her bones with minimal exertion. Strangle the air from her lungs, twist her fragile neck like silken twine. Tangling the rich brown waves of her hair in his grasp, forcing her head back till her spine might snap, plundering her mouth as he would plunder her body. Raze her mind till she was left a weeping pile of bruised limbs and torn clothes, cowering on the chill marble floor, her thighs bleeding like the rags of her mind.

Unperturbed, she shares every image coalesced in his thoughts. Each portrait of violence fading into the recess of darkness where the Shadow brews and twists like smoke above the infernal hells. As well, he’s viewed the record of her encounter with the Reavers after Miranda. Like Rhyanon, she would fight him with a skill capable of delaying the ultimate conquest. This wisp of a child, scarcely into womanhood, moving like sand and water, a song of death captured in every leap and twist. Every dive and slash as she wound a choreography of slaughter against an entire pack of beastial invaders. The outcome inevitably in his favor, if for no other reason than the greater strength of his sheer physicality would overwhelm, exhaust her eventually, compared to human anatomic inadequacy.

“A matter of minutes, to take you. An act of utility, really--to break you. Make you beg for a mercy that would never come.“

Her eyebrow crooks up, scolding or skepticism. “But you wouldn’t do that, any of those things.”

Her patient humoring isn’t what he anticipated. ”What makes you think so?” he asks out of mere speculation, momentarily forgetting the antagonizing subtlety guiding their conversation.

”Because you‘ve seen what I am. The weapon, not the woman. And,“ she says, sighing with an almost child-like assurance, looking out to the far horizon, “because seduction isn’t your weakness. She is.”

Damn the girl, for gut-punching through his composure with such guileless effort. His gaze follows hers, tracking the aerial traffic dotting Coruscant’s night skies in a flickering menagerie. He concentrates on keeping his breathing even, stilling his mind, as he considers his reply. The silhouettes of soaring towers outlined by shimmering lights blot out the sky, the glow which would normally be visible on a less metropolitan planet, of satellites in orbit, and stars far beyond.

”One word,” he says finally. “She could have changed the tide of this war for the Republic with one word.“

She turns, a searching intensity in her deep gaze. Seeing too much within him. “So could you, change the tide of this war for Republic,” she says softly, giving a gentle squeeze of his wrist.

Impatient and irritated with the poignancy in her tone, Thrawn shakes her hand off. “She has no idea, the fate to which she’s condemned the galaxy,” he tells her with a hard look, rising off the sofa. He looms over her, eyes burning across her face, so that for the first time, she shudders away from the brewing wrath. He marvels again, the steel disguised beneath the seeming delicacy of her body. Her sandeled feet tucked beneath her on the sofa, the fabric of her dress, simple design of polyfiber cotton, drapes fine curves of breast, hip, and thigh.

Despite her attention fastened upon the night horizon, nothing of intimidation colors her posture, but sadness tinges the turned-down line of her lips. He bows his head to her before heading back to the reception hall lying through a corridor adjoined to the balcony. A salute, a parting to conceal his remorse of the lost fate she chooses with her friends and allies.

“And you, little Albatross,“ he rasps in dire promise, the epithet snaring her surprised glance up at him. “You have no idea what’s coming. None of you do.”

A wasted masterpiece of living art, dangerous beauty.

—

Watching him stride away into the dim hall, the Grand Admiral’s disappointment aches like an overstrained joint. Bothersome, but eventually fading unless exacerbated. In his absence, the darkness hovers about her, the balcony esconsed, now, in transient quiet. Illusory peace.

Alive, so alive, the hum of myriad thoughts, voices, hopes, griefs—the gambit composing sentient life throughout the city. The planet. Her mind-reading truly can’t extend with any precision beyond the palace, but a general hum always persists in the background of her consciousness. The sound of living beings. A vibration silenced forever upon Miranda.

That silence had almost broken her sanity more than any experimentation. As scientists sought to harness innate hyper-sensory perception with neurochemical alterations, subjecting her to an intensive programming, molding her mind-body duplex into prime mental and physical conditioning. In the process, she was often torn, battered, abused, and tortured, her mind confused, shifting between lucidity and dissociation and nightmare. But never breaking.

The sound of death, of nothing. Emptiness like a vacuum, no thought, or feeling. Miranda had almost broken her. Miranda, it turned out, opened the road to a recovery of herself. What she is, what she’s meant to be? No one seems to know. At least not since Simon rescued her from the illicit lab which had been her prison. Hyper-awareness, sensory adepts, psychic traits expressed amongst humans were hardly uncommon through the Terran quadrant, both Core and Fringe systems. Posited by some scientists as a natural development of sentient consciousness, induced by interstellar travel over the centuries.

Among these foreign systems across the wormhole, peoples attributed such gifts to some metaphysical energy field. The Force. Light and Dark. The association, to River’s thinking, paradoxical for a property endemic to all beings, carrying no inherent morality until determined by the intent of the wielder. Perhaps she just didn’t quite grasp its intricacies as yet, conceding that nuances of intuition, emotion, passive reception, meditation still often eluded her. The Force embedded such concepts, rather than the more actualized focus of psychic traits held by the majority of systems native to the Terran quadrant.

What she is. What she‘s meant to be—*a weapon, a work of art*. *No*, she answers her own query, the feeling of defiance liberating. *A failed experiment. The one who got away.*

”And you forget,“ she whispers to the attentive night. “I can still hear them in my head. All the time. Just like you do, Mitt’raw’nuruodo.”

Miranda is not what Thrawn has in mind, that sort of emptiness. He wants something more. Under Imperium’s auspices, subjugating and assimilating one star system after another, spreading this corruption of time and reality, bleeding the Dark Entity’s ravenous, primordial substance like an oil-slick settling into the sinkholes of what had been viable Star-systems. Seeding these tortured hybrids cloned of Reavers, and whatever other mutated derangements of horror will fuse and divide in an incubator. With his enhanced soldiers, their minds a racket of incessant savagery, submission to Thrawn throughout the galaxy seems inevitable. Especially now that Intel, and Republic specialists working with Rhyanon, recently confirmed the adaptive capacity of certain hybrids to infect other living creatures with their intracellular genetic material.

They’ll never be completely hushed, even in the deepest caverns of her own mind. Reavers. The chimeric hybrids. They howl, writhe, snarl, and scream in agony beyond their comprehension. But the havoc of their consciouses, keeping the hybrids contained as a utilizable resource requires increasing concentrations of sedatives, hyponotics, and psychogenic pharmaceuticals.

She can feel their echo within Thrawn, too. Not of the violence, but his craving the Shadow’s power. It’s why he covets Rhyanon-her abilities of biologic manipulation, transforming the very backbone molecules of life. Healing, rejuvenating, reconstructing, restoring from disease, infection, deterioration and decay. Thirsting for the surcease she could provide, balancing the Dark Entity’s immersion of his own constitution. A living masterpiece, the kind of gifted elegance Thrawn desired, Rhyanon, like River, was another one who’d gotten away. Another failed experiment. Another dangerous beauty.

Rhyanon loathes him. Holding her captive on his flagship under the influence of cortical inhibitors, and hallucinogens. Trying to force her into stabilizing the synaptic connections of higher brain function in his hybrids. Dampening their insanity as the cloned offspring reached maturity. Coercing her in other ways as well, while she resisted the influence of intoxicants deluging her system. That was why she rejected his play at truce earlier during the dinner, an offer to join him voluntarily. That. And the fact she and the Jedi were patently lovers. A circumstance exacerbating the already furious enmity between the Grand Admiral and Luke.

Rhyanon would use those same graces of biokinesis to tear him apart one atom at a time, despite the danger of inducing her own body’s destruction. The price of biopsionic talents, a check limiting the potential for abuse of that power over life and death. Unfortunate, in that Rhyanon’s ability, synergized with the particular strengths shared between their small group of Force-wielders and sensory adepts, offers the only potential counter against Thrawn’s growing influence.

Finding some way of battling this Dark Matter entity. This Abaddon, commanding elemental forces dating from the universe’s origins. A being capable of destroying multiple star-systems if they resist its Seeding. They’d all seen what happened on Namsonis 4 in the aftermath of losing the majority of Dreadnaughts. A desperate evacuation. A world wrenched apart like a ball of mud crushed in a fist. A solar system facing a monstrous dehiscence of time and space, heart of chaos, blowing a hole through the core of a sun, and incinerating the other 6 planets spared Namsonis’s fate. Hours later, a festering wound across the void of black, rocky debris and ionized gas discharges the last traces of a star system no longer existing between tomorrows.

Contrary to the stillness in which she sits, River’s thoughts spin countless strands in the spreading web of her mind, her fingers running absently along the ridge of her collarbone. Picturing simultaneous star-maps, envisioning parallel scenarios of navigation vectors, battle engagements, the stratified calculations worked in trans-dimensional matrices. Always hearing the Reavers seething in the recess of her soul.

Finally, arriving at some conclusion, she reveals to the passing night, ”I do know exactly what’s to come.” And maybe, maybe there’s a chance. One distant, improbable-verging on impossible-chance they have of subverting this menace before it reaches the Terran quadrant.

[rileymarie]

Fahrenheit 451 Quotes

“Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” And then he shut up, for he remembered last week and the two white stones staring up at the ceiling and the pump-snake with the probing eye and the two soap-faced men with the cigarettes moving in their mouths when they talked. But that was another Mildred, that was a Mildred so deep inside this one, and so bothered, really bothered, that the two women had never met. He turned away.

Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?”

Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.

Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!”

School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?”

More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience.

Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal.

Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.

You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle.

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the Government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it.

Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won't be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely.

And the second?” “Leisure.” “Oh, but we've plenty of off-hours.” “Off-hours, yes. But time to think? If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can't think of anything else but the danger, then you're playing some game or sitting in some room where you can't argue with the fourwall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be, right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'”

“Jesus God,” said Montag. “Every hour so many damn things in the sky! How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it? We've started and won two atomic wars since 1960. Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumours; the world is starving, but we're well-fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?

Lord, how they've changed it — in our 'parlours' these days. Christ is one of the 'family' now. I often wonder it God recognizes His own son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He's a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn't making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs.”

The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

"Number one: Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more 'literary' you are. That's my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.

Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the inter-action of the first two.

They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.' Most of us can't rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book.

Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”

The old man nodded. “Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents.”

[bopinion]

Album of the month / 2021 / 08 August

I love listening to music - gladly, all the time, everywhere. That's why I would like to share which music (or which album, after all I'm still from the vinyl generation ;-) I enjoy, accompanies me, slides up my playlists again and again...

The Beatles & George Martin

LOVE

Rock-Remix / 2006 / Parlophone, Apple, EMI (Universal Music Group)

When you hear the term "remix," it's usually a DJ putting a danceable techno beat under a pop or rock song. And often enough, this leaves the original performer or composer turning in his grave to the same frantic beat. But there are also exceptions. And one of them this time is my album of the month.

34 years ago in Québec I visited a kind of circus performance that was new to me. There were no animals, but excellent artistry. The whole thing was embedded in an almost psychedelic production of sounds and music and light effects and projections. Although individual acts, the whole was dramaturgically staged like an opera or a musical in one piece. The name of the circus was "Cirque du Soleil". A concept that in the following years and decades went from French Canada around the world and celebrated legendary successes everywhere - including artists in residence in Las Vegas. The visionary founder Guy Laliberté also became known worldwide as an impresario and, incidentally, a billionaire.

There are bands I really regret never having seen live. For example, The Queen with Freddie Mercury, although at least I met the latter once in a club in Munich - well, we were in the same room for a few hours. But there is also the opposite, for example The Beatles. As much as I appreciate these musical titans, a concert seems rather witless to me: film footage shows four musicians on stage, initially even dressed alike, operating their instruments without notable movements or show effects and trying to permanently drown out screaming young ladies. But maybe I only comfort myself with this assessment, because I was and am simply too young to be able to experience John, Paul, George and Ringo in their active time on stage. Anyway.

Guy Laliberté and George Harrison were friends. And at some point - I imagine the two of them over a cup of yogi tea after meditative yoga, one handing the other the joint "You, I have an idea..." - the idea was born to bring together the two cultural phenomena Cirque du Soleil and The Beatles. As a composition for all senses, new and timeless, ecstatic and colorful. After all, it was Harrison who was always eager to experiment. He converted to Hinduism in the 60s, gained experience with psychedelics and transcendental meditation and introduced oriental instruments, first and foremost the sitar, into Western music and is thus considered one of the most important pioneers of world music. A development that goes hand in hand with my personal taste: the longer their hair got, the more I liked their music.

It was only after Harrison's death that Laliberté was able to close the deal with the rights holders of the music (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison), which can thus probably be considered a kind of Harrison's legacy. For the show was not to simply put together a soundtrack of the old familiar hits, nor were the compositions to be reinterpreted by other musicians. No, the original multi-track recordings were to be used to create new adaptations of the original songs. And who would be better qualified for this than George Martin, who had already produced groundbreaking albums with the Beatles themselves. In the process, he advanced from mere producer to arranger and idea generator, who also revolutionized recording technology by using overdubbing, for example. It's hardly surprising that he is often referred to as the "fifth Beatle".

In general, Sir George Henry Martin, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, is a man of musical superlatives. He is recorded as the producer of 4,836 titles, but one assumes considerably more. And that includes not only The Beatles, but also a wide variety of works for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Manfred Mann, Little River Band, Ultravox and many more. His 30th number one hit was "Candle in the Wind" by Elton John. Martin founded the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts with McCartney, was one of a handful of producers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received the BRIT Award for "Best British Producer of the Past 25 Years" in 1977, among countless other honors.

So George Martin went into the studio with his son Giles Martin, who had produced INXS and Kate Bush, among others, following in his father's footsteps. And not just any studio - of course it had to be Abbey Road Studios (again). With the original recordings, the team not only created new variations of the original pieces, as they could have been created alternatively with the Beatles themselves. For example, they enriched the acoustic version of "While my Guitar gently weeps" with an orchestral accompaniment and combined the rhythm of "Tomorrow never knows" with the vocals of "Within You without You". Thus, a soundtrack project for a circus stage show ultimately became a new album by the Beatles. No wonder that Sir Paul himself described "Love" like this: "This album puts The Beatles back together again. It's kind of magical." And Ringo added "George and Giles did such a great job combining these tracks. It's really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd recorded."

The documentary "All together now - A Documentary Film" by Adrian Wills (director) and Heidi Haines (screenplay), which won a Grammy in the category "Best long form Music Video", also fits the project's ambition. It tells the entire story of LOVE's creation, from the first meetings of the creative team around Martin and Laliberté to interviews with, among others, McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, and Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' longtime road manager and event technician, to the first rehearsals of the stage show in Montréal.

LOVE is more than a medley of hits by the mushroom heads, but rather a kind of rock opera that is a first-class listening experience even without the accompanying show. Says George Martin: "The Beatles always looked for other ways of expressing themselves and this is another step forward for them." And father and son succeeded with remarkable creativity. The new version of "Because" is still directly harmless, since it uses the birdsong of "Across the Universe" as well as the final chord of "A Day in the Life" played backwards. "Glass Onion," on the other hand, became a grandiose collage with elements of the songs "Things We Said Today," "Hello, Goodbye" (background vocals), "I Am the Walrus" (background vocals), "Penny Lane" (flute), "A Day in the Life" (orchestra), "Magical Mystery Tour" (effects) and "Only a Northern Song" (effects). State-of-the-art technology in digitization, mixing and mastering also ensure the finest sound quality.

Speaking of sound quality: a show that relies so heavily on music must of course also rely on a perfect acoustic performance. Created by French designer Jean Rabasse, the LOVE theater at The Mirage / Las Vegas houses 2,013 seats set around a central stage. Each seat is fitted with three speakers, which sums up to a spectacular sound system with 6,351 speakers designed by Jonathan Deans. The stage includes 11 lifts, 4 traps, and 13 automated tracks and trolleys. The theater features 32 digital projectors creating very large high definition digital 100' wide panoramic images, even on four translucent screens that can be unfurled to divide the auditorium. That's what I call "being in the middle of the action".

Reportedly, the theater cost more than $100 million - which doesn't even include the development of the show. And unfortunately, it also means LOVE can never go on tour. So I won't be able to avoid traveling to Las Vegas one day for that reason alone. Which I trust will be on the event calendar for a few more years to recoup its costs. And so the circle closes: Decades later, I would once again enjoy Cirque du Soleil in North America - and thus also experience The Beatles live in a somewhat different way.

Here's a trailer for the Las Vegas Show LOVE from the Cirque du Soleil:

https://youtu.be/hIJZAfyRlD4

[weltonreject]

“look homeward, angel, now”

James lives and comes to find Oliver. Immediately post-canon. || Title and references from Milton’s Lycidas

I was crouched in my chair, looking for another pen, when there was a shallow knock on the front door. I paused for a moment, waiting for Meredith’s call to say she was answering. I pushed my chair back, remembering she was still out filming. I knew I had to stop relying on her for things, it was unbecoming. Felt like Dellecher all over again. Tied up between her and-- well, there was no other post to wrangle myself around. Just her. And still one end hanging lifeless in the wind.

“Coming!” I said, sliding my hand down the banister to keep myself from running. The knock sounded like it was a slow-response away from ditching.

Any other greeting I expected to say died on my tongue the moment I saw who had come-- who had found me.

“James.”

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead

It startled me to see he was soaking wet, like he’d walked right out of the sea and straight back to me-- but how could he have heard me? I cried silently and angrily in the hidden shadows of sleep, and isolated moments when Meredith would slip from the house for days at a time. I noticed, finally, that it had begun to rain outside. The explanation felt like a lie. Not the whole truth, as usual.

He seemed to notice my staring, my long dragging glances over his clothes, over his body. He was so much leaner than I remembered, than I ever dreamed of either, but he was still James. How could I find him unfamiliar?

"I’ve been here for over an hour... Trying to see if I should knock.” James sounded unsure if he’d done right. I pushed the door farther back to tell him he had. He didn’t move. “Truth is, I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Whatever you would like.” I said.

I tried not to overwhelm him with the truth of what simply the sight of him was doing to me. The return of a sailor we all thought had been lost to sea. I wasn’t even angry that he had been alive for years without a visit or a note-- except the one Filippa sent to me-- I didn’t care about the life he had before. It didn’t really matter. His had only started now that he was with me. And I felt the relief with as much greed as I thought to.

“We aren’t friendly enough for that anymore.” He whispered and it nearly disappeared into the rain.

"James,” I sighed and held a hand out to him. He’d begun to shiver. He resisted and I sighed, catching the wind of the rain. I spoke between the falling sheets. “ For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill, / Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; / Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd / Under the opening eyelids of the morn.”

My verse stopped him, shivering and all: surprised but not put-off. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but then again, we were different boys than those that could converse with only another man’s words. We were lost-and-found men. It felt wrong, at such a raw and exposed reunion, to start putting up the thin veil of our old selves, our old routine.

He stepped inside and I grabbed his coat, hanging it on the doorknob. The wet bottom hem stayed on the doormat, staying with James’s wet boots, as he toed them off. I half expected him to start shimmying out of his jeans, getting ready for bed after a long rehearsal.

Oh, how I wish there had been one. Maybe I would’ve had better lines prepared.

“What happened, James?” I started for the kettle as I lead him into the kitchen. I wanted to distract myself, but also didn’t want to take my eyes off of James. How had I gone without a single real glimpse of him for years? How had I allowed myself to become so starved?

I remembered it hadn’t been me who had made the decision.

“What do you want me to say?” He was genuinely asking. Calling for a line prompt. “The guilt swallowed me, Oliver. And I thought once I hit rock bottom it would be over. But it kept swallowing me. Over and over, right over my head, like--”

Like waves.

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, "What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?"

“You’re alive.” I prompted him finally.

"After the hospital,” James spoke softly, easing himself into the chair. The pain on his face told me of the time he spent, most likely cooped up and staring his guilt dead in the face, unable to utter it. Unable to heal. “I went to my family but, mostly to keep quiet. Gather myself without you knowing.”

“Me?” Anger flared in my chest suddenly, the hiss of the kettle a whimper compared to my impending growl, ferocious and unhinged after years in a cage. “Does everyone else know?”

“Meredith isn’t filming. She’s with Wren right now. I told her... I wanted to tell you myself. Alone.”

I glared at him, nostrils flaring as I tried to grapple with the sudden exposed strings tied to me. I heaved a breath, ready to scream, to rally a fight, but-- I sighed, seeing the guilt etched, again, on James’s features. They’d never return to the ones I used to study on stage; from across the room; once, right under my nose.

I couldn’t be angry at him. Between the two of us, what good was it? There was no score anymore. Just an extended intermission. Unfinished verse.

My anger caved and washed out of me and I nearly collapsed into the seat across from him.

Who would not sing for Lycidas?

“I can understand not seeing me, but you could’ve, at the very least, told me you were alive.” I said, trying to remain firm. “That’s all I cared about. Not the-- not an apology.”

“God, apology.” James became distraught again. He looked too weak to stand, but panicked enough to express another desire to disappear. “What can I even say to apologize? You wouldn’t let me-- and now there’s nothing I can say to give you back that past ten years of you life. I mean,” he choked on a long sob. “what could I possible do to give you any of that back?”

“Tell me you know why I did it.”

“What?” He ran the back of his sweater sleeve-- already soaked-- along his upper lip, composing himself.

“Tell me you know why.”

“I--” The truth was right there, held in our own held breaths. In the way our hands were both flat against the table top, finger tips too far apart to be purposeful, but trembling enough to say they were missing another half. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” James said more desperately. The words were as unrehearsed for him as they were for me.

I, again, chose words not of my own, hoping to dislodge the ten years of rust I’d let form around them. Never spoken, never practiced.

“Where, other groves and other streams along, / With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,” I blinked twice, looking down at my own hands. They weren’t as harsh red and thawing as James’s. I looked back up, knowing the rest of the verse, but changing it anyway. “And hears the expressive nuptial song, / In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.”

"I-I don’t know Milton this well.” Fresh tears had started in his eyes. One dangled over his cheek, his trembling body threatening his composure again.

I was pleased he at least knew the poem. I wasn’t just speaking in scattered verse, not just in a foreign tongue. It was code again. A secret layer of communication we could tuck between, like a warm blanket and firm mattress.

“Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more:” Against my better judgement-- against all judgement, really-- I rose from my seat and reached to brush the tear from James’s cheek. My hand never retracted. It stayed on him, thumb gently braced on his sharp, jutting cheekbone. “Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, / In thy large recompense, and shalt be good / To all that wander in that perilous flood.”

Weakness be damned, James himself stood again. He reached for me over the table, my shirt too simple for his grasp and going for my shoulders. He nearly folded me over across the table, bringing me to his lips. He was fully weeping by then, no sparse or embarrassed tears to be found. These tears were hot and pitiful: only I, a lost shepherd staring out over the sea, would be so foolish to be in love with him. Would forgive him with a heart so light it could so easily be handed over, passed from lips to lips.

“Don’t ever do that again.” He said, finally finding my face with both of his freezing hands. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

I wanted to make a joke-- a note that it wasn’t my decision, not really-- but I kept my mouth shut. Or, otherwise pre-occupied.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean it entirely. So I went on. “I wouldn’t have ever let you trade with me, but I’m sorry it meant you had to be with the guilt--”

“All without you.” He took my sentence and tied it up, keeping it ended. “There’s no one like you.”

“James,”

“No, no,” he said, pushing my hair back and cradling my face like he’d gotten to touch a marble statue: intimately and with wonder. “fuck ordinary and nice and disposable. Oliver, there is no one on this Earth like you, and I can’t believe that I let you fall for me.”

“There’s no one else like you.” I said, stepping around the table to take him in my arms.

He was sturdier than I would have thought, but maybe that was just years of harsh reality building a shell around him. I kissed him again, ignoring his quiet whimper of disagreement to my confession. His hand laid flat against my chest, an echo of a memory never finished. His fingers pressed against my collar bone, trying to find my heartbeat. As if he needed a jumpstart to his own.

“No one else worth knowing, quite like you.” We were both breathing heavy, my words nearly lost in James’s continued shy nips at my lips. He was trying to stop me from speaking, but I could tell he was eager for absolvement. Not of sins, but of shame.

Finally, I brought him to rest against me. Fiery passion and frail relief encased us both. Our arms tightly tried to keep the other impossibly closer-- as if it would push the rest of the world away. I thought to myself, incorrectly but with a hidden smile:

But O the heavy change now art gone, Now art gone, and never must return!

[closer-stars]

Old Passions and New Hopes

Member: San Genre: Fluff/Angst/Comfort Content: Losing your passions is hard, especially if your friend still has the same passion you did.  Note: Lots of thoughts. Kinda messy. Apologies my guys. A lot shorter than my usual since I haven’t been writing properly lately. 

“Don’t lose that passion.” 

San looks up at you, you positioned yourself to sit on top of the table. He takes a closer look at you. Your eyes are weary, similar to how your sneakers look after years of constant use. He knows that look. He’s seen the glow in your eyes fade away in the years he’s known you. It’s not his responsibility to put the fire back in your eyes but he wishes he could. He knows what you mean. 

You decided to keep him company in the studio, watching him rehearse until his moves turn sloppy. Not like it ever will. His passion for performing and being on stage was just as strong as yours, only it has lasts longer than yours. You’ve seen him grow, from the kid who could barely do the most basic dance moves to becoming a man who has nearly mastered a difficult dance style. You were there to teach him every step of the way and even if you’re lost in where to go with your own life, you’re proud of him. The look on his eyes forces you to repeat yourself. “Don’t lose that passion, San. Don’t lose your why.” 

He knows his why. He knows why he fell in love with performing. It’s thanks to you that he discovered his love for this art. He wonders if there’s something in the future for you, something that can bring back that glow, that vigor in you. He didn’t like how dim your eyes seem, like coals that have been extinguished. “No other art can top dance huh?” He mumbles as he straightens himself to look at you properly. He studies your clothes: even if you don’t dance anymore, you still preferred sneakers, your shirt carries the logo of a team you looked up to, your pants still looking flexible enough to do a split or two. Your clothes still carry the passion you’ve lost. 

It’s hard to let go of something that gave you a reason to continue living. 

Without any prompt, he presses his lips gently against your forehead. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. Until you find your passion,” he mumbles against your skin. He doesn’t miss the way your jaw tightens under his touch. “It’s okay to cry, y’know.. it’s just the two of us here.” His arms wrap themselves around your shoulders, his hand combing through your hair as he lets you weep. 

He doesn’t need to know the details of how important this is-- or was, to you, he’s seen how it affects you to understand.

So you cry quietly, mourning the what could have been, the should haves, and what ifs. It’s only then that your shoulders feel lighter, but your eyes still feel heavy. You take a deep breath and push yourself away from his hold as you wipe away any evidence of what you’ve let go. 

He looks at you, his usual sharp features softened by his love and respect for who you’ve become, because even when life tries to take away everything from you, you still find a way to fight back. A true fighter. His thumbs wipe away the trail of tears left on your cheeks. He offers his hand to you and you look up at him in question. “Let’s go grab some food. It’ll cheer you up. I know it cheers me up too.” 

You’d be a fool to say no to that, so you take his hand and hop off the table. He loves performing but he loves his friends as well, if not more. The studio will always be there but people will come and go. He doesn’t want you to slip away from him. 

“Until you find something that makes you look forward to each day, I’ll be with you.”