#sansan fandom

[99flare99]

"Hate is good as any to keep a person going, better then most."

-Sandor Clegane

The first Game of Thrones character post is about one of my favorite characters in the entire series. Sandor Clegane, the Hound.

At first i didn't think it would be that important to the story but in the end it was. His tormented and pain-filled past made me fall in love with this character. The hatred for his brother Gregor who gave him that scar on his face disfiguring him, kept him alive so he could take revenge.

I LOVED the relationship he had with the Stark sisters. He always tried to help them. This shows that he is not a bad person in the end!🥺

I think he's a very underrated character!!

I really like his way of expressing himself because sometimes he's very funny😂 and in my opinion Rory McCann was very good at playing him💕

But am I the only one who thinks he's extremely CUTE?!? He's an adorable tsundere ahah I love it 🐶❤️

[catofoldstones]

Sansa doesn’t accept Sweetrobin as her suitor but she accepts Tyrion? Did you read the books? This is another nail in the ashford theory’s coffin besides the obvious fact that lady Ashford didn’t marry her suitors and valarr married another lady and soon died

you’re right, you’re right. instead sansa is going to marry sandor because dunk disturbed the tourney or whatever copium is it that you lot snort

[gotranting]

I love how there are so many warnings for minors to not interact with smutty stories. I guess it is for the writers to shield themselves in a way.

But come on now. As if most of us didn't read the most filthiest of smut stories when we were 15. Some younger than that probably.

[banadraw]

sansan pony🐎

[liaa--qb]

No but the dark hound n Sansa vibes Rhaemond could have served....

Sorry not Ramsay/Sansa as someone previously asked me but Aemond/ Rhaena would actually give more Dark Sandor/Sansa vibes to me. Imagine the scenario if Rhaena stayed there with her Grandmother Rhaenys instead of going with her Dad/step mother.....😭[ I had so many scenarios for them before reading FNB ]

[queen-helaenas-pet-spider]

Listen, I know it's SUPER out of character for him, but I CANNOT stop thinking about what would happen if Sandor crowned Sansa the Hand's Tourney's Queen Of Love And Beauty instead of Loras?!?!

Like all I can see is him getting a wreath of flowers {bonus points if they're blue winter roses, the same flowers that Rhaegar gave to her aunt Lyanna before shit hit the fan}, making eye contact with Cersei {who's narcissistic ass is GRINNING}, only for him to just turn back around and walk directly towards Sansa, the supposed younger and more beautiful queen that will take everything from Cersei?!?! It would be so funny to watch, but it's also a HUGE risk for him to take for two reasons:

1. USUALLY the women that get crowned QOLAB are either the wives, fiancées, or crushes of the men that crown them. It's no secret that Sandor is attracted to Sansa in MANY ways, but he's ashamed of himself for thinking such things about her, which is one of the reasons why he tries to scare Sansa off. Also, a man crowning a woman while he or she is either already engaged or married is a BIG scandal {cough cough Rhaegar crowning Lyanna instead of his wife, Elia cough cough}.

But surely, if Loras could get away with it, then so could Sandor, right?! WRONG!

The biggest difference between Loras doing it and Sandor doing it is that Loras wasn't the crown prince's bodyguard. Sandor was. Plus, at that time I don't think that Sansa and Joffrey's engagement was known by the rest of the public, they just knew that Ned Stark became the new Hand of the King, and brought his daughters with him. Can't blame Loras for not knowing, but Sandor knew.

2. Him crowning Sansa would instantly put a target on both of them {though they were already targets the moment the Lannisters laid eyes on them, but still}. Sansa's life and reputation would be at risk, the Lannisters would accuse Sandor of being a Turncloak, Sansa's lover, or both, he'd be killed, and Sansa would be alone.

So as funny as it would be to see Cersei's face while she's watching her slave crown his queen instead of feeing her ego, I'm glad they didn't have him do that. Cause despite their VERY rocky relationship, Sandor is the ONLY person outside of the Stark's that truly loves and respects Sansa.

[smramida]

something interesting

[snake-berry]

ok guys im doing a series where im going to draw some asoiaf ladies as disney princesses. starting w sansa bc she is a disney princess who was dropped into the wrong world

[nevermorered]

Do you ever read a fic so OOC or just straight up hate porn that you just can’t shake it? Like it makes you feel uncomfy and almost makes you hate a ship you absolutely love?

Please learn to tag your fics appropriately. Tag triggers! Tag hurt/no comfort! Tag angst with no resolve! Tag Dead Dove! Tag smut! Tag explicit sex! Tag non con! Tag no HEA! Tag enough for informed consent! Give readers warnings they can heed and steer clear of fics that they don’t want to read.

Can they just stop reading? Sure, but most of the time when something is tagged with a ship, a reader expects that ship to be together by the end unless it’s specified in the tags otherwise!

I honestly don’t care what you write. I’ll never yuck someone’s yum, but also…just use the frickin tags!

[princessneleam]

Announcing SanSan Kinko!

Challenge yourself to earn a bingo or even a blackout! This event is geared toward drabbles, tumblr posts, twitter threads, and sketches, but all types of creations are welcome. Multiple bingo squares can be stamped with a single work and accumulate with each work. SanSan Kinko will run from October 1st – 31st. Tag your work with #SANSANKINKO on AO3 and social media. Any bingos and/or blackout win the pride of being an amazing SanSan creator 🧡🧡🧡

[g0lightly]

tinfoil-encrusted brienne/sansa "foreshadowing" that makes me feral

so i love the blog @jonsaforeshadowing bc i think it's such a fun look at shipper goggles in this fandom regardless of your thoughts on that particular ship. while i do not ship j*nsa i think it's healthy to remember how absurd shipping in asoiaf is even if (especially if?) you are a shipper! largely bc like... what do we even think of as endgame in this series? being married? we know not everyone who marries in a feudal system even likes the person they're married to. also... pretty much anyone could die! and so many characters are thematically linked in significant ways that aren't necessarily romantic! so i think there's a ceiling on how sure anyone can be of any ship being endgame. especially since we may never get another main series book lmfao! so just want to be clear that i'm not coming at this from an angle of knowing better than people who prefer other ships, we are all equally right and wrong unless/until the series is completed IMO.

in that spirit i wanted to post my own niche shipper theories in wildly varying degrees of seriousness about brienne/sansa because i believe in gay ships' right to be as delusional as straight ships. mostly for fun but i'd being lying if i said i don't hope you read this and think "oh i never thought of them together but this eats! i should start shipping the one true pairing briensa and also read tumblr user g0lightly's post-canon fanfic mostly about them on AO3 🤔" while they’re my otp, I want to be clear that I only ship them as adults.

starting strong with the dumbest one: brienne's ancestor dunk has a romance with rohanne webber, a redheaded woman who has had several husbands/betrotheds die on her and eventually marries a lannister like sansa. i know ppl say this is about jaime bc rohanne is his great-grandmother but in the spirit of getting silly with "foreshadowing" jaime is now a sansa stand-in for the purposes of this post 🙂‍↕️

in AGOT sansa i, sansa says that joffrey is "so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants..." as ned later points out, joffrey is nothing like the knights of the songs sansa dreams of. littlefinger's sigil is a giant. serwyn is one letter off from selwyn, brienne's father's name. perhaps brienne will help sansa get away from littlefinger.

mirroring (ha) the above point, in AFFC brienne vii, randyll tarly gives a whole speech to brienne about how he thinks her father would rather have a living daughter than a "shattered shield." while i think the shattered shield imagery in this text (also in F&B when jaehaerys has saera's lover executed and in ACOK sansa vi when cersei talks about highborn ladies' "golden shield" against SA) represents a "ruined" woman, i think the imagery is also evocative of a mirror shield.

in AGOT sansa vi, sansa reads about aemon the dragonknight, florian and jonquil, lady shella and her rainbow knight. sansa is related to lady shella whent and in ACOK brienne becomes a rainbow knight for renly's kingsguard. i can see brienne mirroring aemon the dragonknight in the sense that she and sansa would have a forbidden love like aemon and naerys but for different reasons.

in ACOK sansa ii, sansa prays for a true knight and a friend to champion her. of course, she gets dontos as her "florian" instead and learns that life is not a song. later in catelyn ii, catelyn meets brienne who later swears herself to bringing sansa to safety. catelyn notes her similarities to sansa. brienne is also connected to jonquil through her maidenpool chapters; does this mean sansa will end up with a jonquil rather than a florian? perhaps a jonquil darke type? idk but i want to believe!

also in ACOK, both brienne and sansa hang onto bloody kingsguard cloaks that were technicaly supposed to belong to barristan selmy. i have written about this in far greater detail here and here.

jaime is a sansa stand-in because they are both maiden-coded and called kingslayers (this is a deeply unserious point btw)

speaking of jaime, his attraction to brienne mirrors sansa's possible attraction to mya. both sansa and jaime are conventionally attractive characters used to being praised for conforming to their gender roles reckoning with the beauty of a gender-nonconforming woman when they have come to understand their own beauty through a conventional framework. i have also written about this in greater detail.

both sansa and brienne are paired up with a lannister twin who holds the gendered societal role they aspire to (queen and knight of the kingsguard, respectively). their respective lannister twins show them the dark reality of those roles while brienne and sansa fight to remain hopeful.

famous lesbian rhaena targaryen was too gay with larissa velaryon so larissa got shipped off to marry the second son of tarth. she also had a favorite from the vale named alayne royce. she also had a red-haired, mail-wearing favorite named melony piper - kind of like an inverse of brienne and sansa visually. her true love, elissa farman, was from fair isle which is kind of like the west coast version of tarth; they also had the same age difference as brienne and sansa. rhaena was the eldest sister, like sansa, and dealt with a lot of loss in her life due in no small part to the strength of her claim making her a sought-after bride. i am aware this proves nothing but i do seriously think rhaena is the in-universe historic figure sansa is most like. gay sansa confirmed!!!!!!!! (jk... unless...)

and finally, i present what is either my most tinfoil hat theory or my oh-shit-i-cracked-the-code theory: brienne is foreshadowed to be the next bearer of the hound's helm so when GRRM said there's "something there" with sansa and the hound, he was actually talking about brienne and sansa :) if you enjoy the idea of sansa finding love and beauty in a brave, gentle, strong protector figure with low self-esteem whose face is covered in scars but you also (very reasonably!) hate the idea of her ending up with a man who held her at knifepoint and tried to SA her when she was a child, may i suggest hound!brienne x sansa? again, on an age appropriate timeline!

and if you're curious what i mean by hound!brienne foreshadowing and shattered shield references, i've included my running list of quotes, an analysis of those quotes, and a conclusion below the cut bc this post is long! TW for canon-typical references to sexual violence.

i think the references to brienne being "the hound with teats" and later references to the hound cutting off women's teats may connect to pretty meris, a sellsword with the windblown who is theorized to represent what GRRM had planned for brienne after the five year skip. quentyn notes that it's said that men cut meris' breasts off. if this hardened sellsword is some version of GRRM's original five year gap plan for brienne, who's to say that she won't be the hound instead of a sellsword in the forthcoming books? but that's assuming we'll get more books lmao.

the threat of SA is uncomfortably present in brienne's AFFC chapters. whether or not brienne experiences the types of gendered violence mentioned above, i think that the hound's helm would provide brienne with safety from that threat of SA on the road. for male characters, on the other hand, it may just draw more attention from people who wish to kill the hound for (mostly) rorge's crimes. there is a lot of talk across the books and across POVs about the hound being dead. you get tyrion describing him as dead after the blackwater when we know that's not true, septon meribald (which kinda sounds like meris now that i think of it 🤔) tells brienne that he is dead, jaime talks a lot with the freys and lannisters about killing the hound. there's also a lot of talk about the hound killing other people, namely brienne and sansa.

since it's all but confirmed that sandor clegane is now the gravedigger on the quiet isle rather than the hound, i think that "death" in the context of the hound is about letting your old self die so that the new you may be born. brienne needs to let her rigid ideals about what it means to be a knight die and sansa needs to let her rigid ideals about what it means to be a lady die. i think that lady's death at least partly symbolizes the fact that sansa can be a perfect lady and still face dire consequences through no fault of her own. and for brienne, she will most likely learn through lady stoneheart that not all oaths can be kept.

some people take the below quote as romantic foreshadowing for sansa and sandor. i take it to mean that to sansa, sandor and his cloak represent the opportunity she had to escape the life of a dutiful lady in a castle. perhaps brienne will wear the hound's helm when she rescues sansa, and sansa will give her the hound's cloak -- brienne's very own kingsguard cloak -- to complete the "uniform" of the hound.

i also want to offer my debunk to the idea that sansa keeping sandor's cloak is marriage imagery. sandor does not give his cloak to sansa, he does not put it over her shoulders as is done in a wedding ceremony. he leaves it on the ground because he does not want to be a member of the kingsguard anymore. sansa chooses to wrap herself in the kingsguard cloak. to me, this signifies her growing disillusionment in the systems set up to keep her safe and the autonomy she has to leave that system. perhaps she will be brave enough to ask brienne to take her away from the eyrie (or wherever she ends up) when they meet (again, assuming we get more books lmao).

i think it's relevant that sandor's place in the kingsguard - and by extension, the cloak as a symbol - had originally belonged to barristan selmy. i did a thread on this in relation to true knighthood and brienne if you're interested in reading more. sansa has a heroic deed in common with barristan selmy that also involves the hound in ACOK: like barristan, she saved dontos hollard from execution by a cruel king that she was sworn to. sansa was sworn to joffrey as his betrothed and barristan was sworn to aerys as a member of his kingsguard. i'm not even anti-sandor, i just don't think that his redemption arc needs to or should include the girl he held at knifepoint falling in romantic love with him.

to conclude with my point about characters having deep ties within the text not necessarily equaling romantic foreshadowing, i want to acknowledge that i don't think brienne and sansa need to have a romantic relationship for these textual connections to be meaningful. one way another i think these two are meant to be important to one another's stories. however i think that putting these two together romantically would be a beautiful way to tie together some key themes (gender, true knighthood, romanticism, idealism) and set up some really interesting character development.

however the romantic in me loves the idea of the aemon the dragonknight figure in sansa's life being a woman, specifically brienne who has sworn to defend her without even knowing her. they're both women, so there's nothing for brienne to gain from sansa's claim and nothing for sansa to gain from brienne's claim. brienne is the gentle, brave, and strong person ned wanted for sansa and catelyn sent her in sansa's direction and i think that's beautiful okay :')

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

If you don’t mind me asking (I saw you mention it in your tags) what is the Russian Sansan song?

It's this sweet song called "Санса" (Russian for "Sansa", naturally) by the band Айре и Саруман - I've reblogged it a few times (including a video!) and you can see it under this tag.

[catofoldstones]

The bemoaning of s@nsan's loss of popularity by shippers fascinates me because iv'e seen a lot of ancient fans stance on it was that sansa's flaw is liking pretty things/people so her lesson should be to marry the hound for humility yet not ONE of them look inside the text that all the men that attack/abuse/molest sansa all find her pretty or are infatuated with pretty women worst abuse them, the double standard of fans against sansa fascinates me as they ignore one of sansa's character traits is to treat people with courtesy,they also ignore every character has been attracted to pretty people even j0n yet not one person says that hes vain for liking val based on her attractiveness, the only person iv'e seen thats been as criticized is d@ny simply for her infatuation in daario and dismissal of quentyn and while we as readers didnt like that she did that she's also a teenager(and doesnt know quentyn) again there's huge double standard for girls and boys in this fandom yet no one saw it

im getting off track but basically s@nsan's loss of popularity shouldn't be such a surprise when there's a whole new generation of readers that might not have the same readings or bias from previous years especially when a lot of it was just misogynistic undertones

Has san/san lost popularity? It’s still heralded as one of the most iconic ships to come out of the game of thrones and late 2000s/ early 2010s in general, isn’t it? And the san/san posts I see have a good number of notes, always around and upwards of 400, which is a hefty number to me. But yes, it has definitely left major pop-culture discourse centres.

I have heard a lot about this “flaw” you are talking about and I consider myself extremely lucky that i didn’t join the fandom earlier. I absolutely cannot imagine being in the fandom from the 90s to 2018 as a Sansa stan, when hating her was the norm. I was just about to bring up this point you mentioned, that all men, who are full grown adults btw, lust after Sansa based on her looks. They consider her pretty and want them all for herself, and all the while she’s a 12 year old.

“Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me, and most especially not the part that seems to want her.”

Tyrion VII, ASOS

“Give your Florian a little kiss now. A kiss for luck.” He swayed toward her. Sansa dodged the wet groping lips, kissed him lightly on an unshaven cheek, and bid him good night. It took all her strength not to weep.”

Sansa IV, ACOK

And these are just two people, with one out of many such instances each, among a hoard of men who think of her like that. A very simple answer to all of this is misogyny, in and out of the universe. Of course the entire san/san fandom has no hive mind, they were apparently the first ones to come up with the qitn Sansa theory while also coming up with the cottage theory, but shipping a 12 year old with a grown man who almost raped her at knifepoint is an open letter invitation for haters to find a settling point for making sansa suffer without actually getting called out for it. It becomes such a perfect cover for actively hating a 12 year old because even the haters realise how insane that actually is.

I think the “flaw rectification” argument was birthed to fuse the thought that yes, sansa did bad things, here’s how we can still enjoy her character while the undercurrent of unfounded hatred runs through the ship while we conveniently never acknowledge it. Obviously new readers came along who had never interacted with the fandom and realised “hey, what the fuck?” and had a different opinion of “that’s a defenceless 12 year old girl who actually did nothing wrong”. I’m sure there were voices who expressed such opinions before but were silenced. Internet is such a friendly place after all.

The “courtesy” thing is so true. She literally has no option but to respond the way she does. One wrong word and she might get beaten or killed. That girl is terrified and only trying to survive. Considering Sansa’s action as anything but survival mechanism is so superficial. This is so analogous to how women today are polite to men while because they’re scared that the men might hurt them/kill them. It’s the same shit, times ten, with Sansa. This also goes for when San/dor catches her during the battle of black water and demands a “song” from her (which is a thinly veiled euphemism for rape), and Sansa sings him a hymn of Mother’s mercy as a way to protect herself.

As for the Dany thing, I just want to say, what exactly is wrong about a teenage girl having a crush? Why is she termed as “lovesick” and “stupid” and “annoying” anytime she shows any interest in a guy? And it’s always the dudebros screaming this the loudest. Obviously, Daario is not a good choice and Dany herself acknowledges that.

“Daario might whisper words of love when the two of them were as one, but she knew it was the dragon queen he loved. If I gave up my crown, he would not want me.”

Daenerys VII, ADWD

I mean, the other shoe will definitely drop with this guy but this the first time we see Dany have a consensual relationship, which I feel is important to her arc - the relationship and the man she has the relationship with. Moreover, she has bigger fish to fry like her governance/dragons/moving towards westeros etc.

And berating her over Quentyn? Wasn’t she supposed to get married the next day to Hizdar? Didn’t she herself say that she’s not sure if Quentyn is the real deal or not? Moreover, she remembers Quaith’s prophecy about the “sun’s son” and double backs (Dany and prophecies are a whole another thing which we can talk about later) and solidifies her decision to go forward with her wedding with Hizdahr.

“Enough,” Daenerys said. “Prince Quentyn has crossed half the world to offer me his gift, I will not have him treated with discourtesy.” She turned to the Dornishmen. “Would that you had come a year ago. I am pledged to wed the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

“The sun’s son. A shiver went through her. “Shadows and whispers.” What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun’s son…”

Daenerys VII, ADWD

Although, the Martells will not understand that Dany didn’t order Quentyn’s death and might antagonise her so that’s a chekov’s gun waiting to go off. Clearly, Quentyn was clearly the first leg of a bigger arc that we’ll likely see in TWOW (consider Quaith’s whole prophecy) and a part of a bigger theme Dany has to fulfill. Her decision to make Quentyn wait was not based on whether she found him ugly or not, it was based on being right in the middle of a political crisis with another volatile variable being added that has the potential to uproot a lot of what she has struggled to maintain (which ultimately does happen). Dany does have a knack of picking the worst option and that does not bode well for her governance/politics but that is not the point here. The point here is how dare a 16 year old doesn’t find a guy attractive and another guy too attractive (which is a part of a bigger theme btw) and sometimes, it’s a thin line between misogyny and valid criticism. Let’s stop flattening female characters into digestible one-dimensional beings, especially when it comes to teenagers. The fact that they have more than one motivation to act a certain way, makes them so much more enjoyable and interesting and honestly, human, like you and me.

Let’s also stop pigeonholing (12 year old) female characters into high-school mean girl clique leader trope who is so shallow and superficial that she needs to be assaulted by an “ugly” middle aged man to come to her senses. Also, that is called projection. The character that we are talking about isn’t like that at all. But whatever 🙄

Sorry I got carried away and got angry, things like these piss me off so bad. Never change, fandom, never change.

[queen-helaenas-pet-spider]

"Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants."

"What...What does he want? Please, tell me."

"He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love", the Hound rasped. "He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way your septa taught you. He wants you to love him...and fear him."

Me thinks Sandor wasn't talking about Joffrey 👀

[whentheynameyoujoy]

The real issue with GRRM never finishing the books is that to anyone even semi-literate it's clear they were written with the oldie approach of "let's just go nuts and try find emotional resonance in the weirdest, most IRL socially inappropriate shit" approach to storytelling, meanwhile the world got saddled with the current crop of inspirational tweet-readers who view writing as a moral venture in imparting good Christian values onto the young-uns and for some reason see their complete inability to distinguish between fiction and reality as my problem.

[kateofthecanals]

The Hound Girls at the RenFaire! 🥰

@kimberlite8

@squidproquo-ink