A Read of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows, Part 30

Pretty sure Petyr’s not counting Dany, since she’s not currently actively causing chaos in Westeros, so Cersei, Margerey and Myrcella would be the three.

As for his ultimate plans, well, as soon as Sansa is suitably beloved in the Vale and beyond and has produced a child (preferably a male one, but given the state of the bloodline already a daughter works fine), Harry becomes entirely redundant, doesn’t he?

RE: the “news” about Dragonstone vs. Riverrun…I can’t think of other examples off the top of my head, but I remember that as I read the books I am consistently amused at the poor accuracy of the stories that make it far away from the action that we observe.

Tyrion’s reappearance would also mess up things – LF seems to be relying on Cersei to take care of that problem for him which strikes me as a mistake. You want something done right – do it yourself.

Oaths under duress – if it was just Brienne, I would say that she was bound to uphold her oath, she should have chosen to die if she wasn’t willing to. But we have Pod here also, so I think its okay for her to lie to save his life and not fulfil her oath.

Re: Three queens – I have always read this as Cersei, Margaery and Daenerys, and this was a clever jab indicating that Petyr was aware of what was happening beyond the narrow sea.

Please let the “TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD” line be a Pinky and the Brain reference. Please.

I believe his plan truly is world domination. So I would bet it is Sansa, Cersei/Margaery, Dany.

Cersei/Margaery I treat as one entity as the issues between them would be unlikely to cause open war and chaos because noone really likes Cersei.

In addition to Sweetrobin, I propose another nickname for Lord Arryn: Littlerobert! You know, to distinguish him from the bigger, better known King Robert.

Oh yes, the Jon slipup. I believe Myranda was doing exactly what Arianne did in the previous chapter — chatter about “everything and nothing,” at one point *incidentally* mentioning a name that elicited a revealing response.

@29: True. In this story, though, the exceptions have quite a presence.

@43: Cool! I hadn’t heard about that. So Mya could be half mule…if Robert liked that sort of thing.

@48: Ooh, I didn’t notice the Whent connection. *checks the genealogy on the Wiki* Boy, that house has had even worse luck than Arryn.

Harrenhal is also held in the name of Baelish, so if she were to
consider herself an Heiress of these claims it could put her in direct
conflict of Littlefinger unless he is willing to part with the title.

Well, she’s his (illegitimate) daughter, right? Alayne Stone?

Has LF named her as heiress to Harrenhal yet? I mean, if he dies, who gets it? She could end up with two decent claims to Harrenhal, one in each identity!

26: the “crueller mouth” is Joffrey, surely.

@@@@@ 64 (+ #62) – I posted just after you did, so I just saw what you said; I stand corrected.

@@@@@ 61, first paragraph: That’s exactly where I see Brienne and Jaime ending up. And I think Brienne’s honorable enough to let herself lose. I’m looking forward to the next book with a mix of anticipation and depression. . .I guess “foreboding” is the right word for it.

@26, 27 – There’s absolutely no confusion as to who Sansa was thinking about when “remembering” the kiss. Who is it that had “come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky”, asked her to sing him a song, and left a bloody cloak? She also later thinks of it when Myranda asks her if she knows what sex is (i.e. what goes on in the marriage bed): “She thought about Tyrion, and about the Hound and how he had kissed her.”

The only potentially confusing thing is that this kiss never happened. However, it’s a fake memory she’s already constructed – she already “remembered” it happening in A Storm of Swords, in her second chapter. I checked the comments to this chapter and I’m surprised that neither Leigh nor anyone else, I believe, commented on that. My reaction when I first read that chapter in ASOS was “WHAAA…? That never happened!” and then going back to ACOK to re-read the chapter and confirm it.

None of these are spoilers (this is Sansa’s last published chapter, this story thread has not paid off yet), just quotes from previous volumes:

A Clash of Kings, Sansa VII (the night of the Blackwater battle) – aka what really happened:

Sansa backed away from the window, retreating toward the safety of her bed. I’ll go to sleep, she told herself, and when I wake it will be a new day, and the sky will be blue again. The fighting will be done and someone will tell me whether I’m to live or die. “Lady,” she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead.

Then something stirred behind her, and a hand reached out of the dark and grabbed her wrist.

Sansa opened her mouth to scream, but another hand clamped down over her face, smothering her. His fingers were rough and callused, and sticky with blood. “Little bird. I knew you’d come.” The voice was a drunken rasp.
“If you scream I’ll kill you. Believe that.” He took his hand from her mouth. Her breath was coming ragged. The Hound had a flagon of wine on her bedside table. He took a long pull. “Don’t you want to ask who’s winning the battle, little bird?”

“Who?” she said, too frightened to defy him.

The Hound laughed. “I only know who’s lost. Me.”

He is drunker than I’ve ever seen him. He was sleeping in my bed. What does he want here? “What have you lost?”

“All.” The burnt half of his face was a mask of dried blood. “Bloody dwarf. Should have killed him. Years ago.”

“He’s dead, they say.”

“Dead? No. Bugger that. I don’t want him dead.” He cast the empty flagon aside. “I want him burned. If the gods are good, they’ll burn him, but I won’t be here to see. I’m going.”

“Going?” She tried to wriggle free, but his grasp was iron.

“The little bird repeats whatever she hears. Going, yes.”

“Where will you go?”

“Away from here. Away from the fires. Go out the Iron Gate, I suppose. North somewhere, anywhere.”

“You won’t get out,” Sansa said. “The queen’s closed up Maegor’s, and the city gates are shut as well.”

“Not to me. I have the white cloak. And I have this.” He patted the pommel of his sword. “The man who tries to stop me is a dead man. Unless he’s on fire.” He laughed bitterly.

“Why did you come here?”

“You promised me a song, little bird. Have you forgotten?”

She didn’t know what he meant. She couldn’t sing for him now, here, with the sky aswirl with fire and men dying in their hundreds and their thousands. “I can’t,” she said.

“Let me go, you’re scaring me.”
“Everything scares you. Look at me. Look at me.”

The blood masked the worst of his scars, but his eyes were white and wide and terrifying. The burnt corner of his mouth twitched and twitched again. Sansa could smell him; a stink of sweat and sour wine and stale vomit, and over it all the reek of blood, blood, blood.

“I could keep you safe,” he rasped. “They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.” He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. “Still can’t bear to look, can you?” she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed.

“I’ll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said.” His dagger was out, poised at her throat. “Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.”

Her throat was dry and tight with fear, and every song she had ever known had fled from her mind. Please don’t kill me, she wanted to scream, please don’t. She could feel him twisting the point, pushing it into her throat, and she almost closed her eyes again, but then she remembered. It was not the song of Florian and Jonquil, but it was a song. Her voice sounded small and thin and tremulous in her ears.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
save our sons from war, we pray,
stay the swords and stay the arrows,
let them know a better day.
Gentle Mother, strength of women,
help our daughters through this fray,
soothe the wrath and tame the fury,
teach us all a kinder way.

She had forgotten the other verses. When her voice trailed off, she feared he might kill her, but after a moment the Hound took the blade from her throat, never speaking.
Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. “Little bird,” he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone. Then he rose from the bed. Sansa heard cloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps.

When she crawled out of bed, long moments later, she was alone. She found his cloak on the floor, twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire. The sky outside was darker by then, with only a few pale green ghosts dancing against the stars. A chill wind was blowing, banging the shutters. Sansa was cold. She shook out the torn cloak and huddled beneath it on the floor, shivering.

A Storm of Swords, Sansa I
– the first time we see her remembering the events of the BW night; this is still a relatively accurate memory (except for Sansa thinking that there was ever a moment where she could or should have gone with Sandor):

I wish the Hound were here. The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambers to take her from the city, but Sansa had refused. Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering if she’d been wise. She had his stained white cloak hidden in a cedar chest beneath her summer silks. She could not say why she’d kept it. The Hound had turned craven, she heard it said; at the height of the battle, he got so drunk the Imp had to take his men. But Sansa understood. She knew the secret of his burned face. It was only the fire he feared. That night, the wildfire had set the river itself ablaze, and filled the very air with green flame. Even in the castle, Sansa had been afraid. Outside… she could scarcely imagine it.

A Storm of Swords, Sansa II (The first appearance of the fake memory):

The cousins took Sansa into their company as if they had known her all their lives. They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept… and often one or two of them would be chosen to share Margaery’s bed, where they would whisper half the night away. Alla had a lovely voice, and when coaxed would play the woodharp and sing songs of chivalry and lost loves. Megga couldn’t sing, but she was mad to be kissed. She and Alla played a kissing game sometimes, she confessed, but it wasn’t the same as kissing a man, much less a king. Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.

And in this chapter, AFFC Alayne II:

Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy’s kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her… and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.

It made no matter. That day was done, and so was Sansa.

Later on in the chapter:

“(…) You do know what goes on in a marriage bed, I hope?”

She thought of Tyrion, and of the Hound and how he’d kissed her, and gave a nod.

And although that chapter does not contain the fake memory, Sansa thought about Sandor a lot and saw him in a dream during A Storm of Swords when Littlefinger first took her to the Fingers, on the night of Lysa and Littlefinger’s wedding (A Storm of Swords, Sansa VI):

Sansa went down the steps and out into the night. A light rain was falling on the remains of the feast, but the air smelled fresh and clean. The memory of her own wedding night with Tyrion was much with her. In the dark, I am the Knight of Flowers, he had said. I could be good to you. But that was only another Lannister lie. A dog can smell a lie, you know, the Hound had told her once. She could almost hear the rough rasp of his voice. Look around you, and take a good whiff. They’re all liars here, and every one better than you. She wondered what had become of Sandor Clegane. Did he know that they’d killed Joffrey? Would he care? He had been the prince’s sworn shield for years.

She stayed outside for a long time. When at last she sought her own bed, wet and chilled, only the dim glow of a peat fire lit the darkened hall. There was no sound from above. The young singer sat in a corner, playing a slow song to himself. One of her aunt’s maids was kissing a knight in Lord Petyr’s chair, their hands busy beneath each other’s clothing. Several men had drunk themselves to sleep, and one was in the privy, being noisily sick. Sansa found Bryen’s old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps, and lay down next to him. He woke and licked her face. “You sad old hound,” she said, ruffling his fur.

“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.”

That’s when Marillion the creep tries to rape her, skipping most of that scene to the moment when Lothor Brune saves her:

Sansa heard the soft sound of steel on leather. “Singer,” a rough voice said, “best go, if you want to sing again.” The light was dim, but she saw a faint glimmer of a blade.

The singer saw it too. “Find your own wench -” The knife flashed, and he cried out. “You cut me!”

“I’ll do worse, if you don’t go.”

And quick as that, Marillion was gone. The other remained, looming over Sansa in the darkness. “Lord Petyr said watch out for you.” It was Lothor Brune’s voice, she realized. Not the Hound’s, no, how could it be? Of course it had to be Lothor…

That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion’s eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. “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.

This is one of my favorite chapters in the book because it’s so psychologically subtle and says so much about Sansa’s inner state of mind.

She’s pretending to be Alayne and is trying her best to be a method actress, so to speak, and think about herself as “Alayne” in her mind, and about Petyr Baelish as her “father”. There’s nothing Freudian about that – she has to think of him that way in order to play her role convincingly. If she slips at some point, she’s in danger of being discovered and sent to King’s Landing to be executed for Joffrey’s murder. Even though, as we have seen in her two previous AFFC chapters, she is well aware that he is a liar, and that he never really did anything to help her when she was in King’s Landing; she tries to see the best in her situation (it’s a survival mechanism, because otherwise she would feel how terrible her situation) so she tries to think of “Petyr” (the kind of funny guy who’s her friend and protecting her) as a different person from “Littlefinger”. Still, she noted in her mind in Sansa I that she would much rather be anywhere else, away from “Petyr” and “Littlefinger” both, but she currently thinks she simply has no choice. Petyr/Littlefinger at least wants her alive and will not send her to the queen to be executed, that much she can be sure of.

However, in her previous chapter, “Petyr” quickly turned into “Littlefinger” in her mind the moment he asked her to kill him in his creepy way. Littlefinger’s sexual molestation we see in this chapter is going to endanger her image of him as her “Father”. I’m not sure if the wine made him be less subtle about his attempts to groom her than he normally is (the last time we saw him acting like that was in her last ASOS chapter in the snow castle scene) or if he just thinks she is a naive little girl who’s putty in his hands.

For now, however, Sansa has been successfully blanking all his sexual advances from her mind. It is really interesting how she dwells on the kiss with Sandor that actually never happened (and her memory has become so elaborate she thinks she can remember how it felt), which she thinks was her first kiss, while she never thinks about Littlefinger’s forced kiss from ASOS. At the time, she pushed him away, called him on how inappopriate he was behaving, stood up for herself in front of Lysa when she was accused of kissing Petyr, insisting on what actually happened, that he kissed her against her will, and she wished to be away from both him and Marillion, another guy trying to force himself on her. But in AFFC, she only thinks of that kiss once – when she thinks of Lysa’s murder: “I didn’t want a kiss”. So she does remember it happening, at least at that point; it seems that she simply prefers not to ever think about it, as it it never happened. There are two reasons I can see for that: one, she has to play the role of his daughter to survive, and if she thinks of him as a creep who is trying to seduce her or forcing kisses on her, this becomes very difficult. Secondly, she simply does not want to think about Littlefinger kissing her, because this is not something she enjoys in any way. She doesn’t think about his kisses even while he is making her sit on his lap and kissing her. That’s how her mind copes with her situation and the abuse she’s being subjected to. She knows that, for now, she can’t get away from Littlefinger, so her mind tries to see her situation as not as awful as it is… but she also, in a way, “plays dumb”, as if she doesn’t understand what he is doing and that this is not a fatherly thing to do; what this also means is that Littlefinger’s attempts to groom her into his future lover/wife aren’t working, because Sansa’s mind refuses to see him in an erotic light, while it’s at the same time obsessing about a kiss with someone else which actually never happened, but which she has retroactively turned into her first kiss.

The use of names “Sansa” and “Alayne” is very interesting. No matter how much she tells herself she is Alayne and has to be Alayne in and out, she slips into thinking of herself as “Sansa” occasionally, and she dwells on the memories (and invented memories) that belong to Sansa. Her biggest slip is when she blurts out: “Jon Snow?” when Myranda (who may be trying to find out who Alayne really is) talks about the new Lord Commander of Night’s Watch. She thinks of her half-brother (as far as she knows, her only remaining family) and how sweet it would be to see him again (I think this is the first time in the books we see Sansa thinking of Jon).

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still… with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.

She also thinks of wolves… and slips back into “Sansa” as she’s thinking about them.

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.

But playing the role of “Alayne” also has its benefits beyond hiding from the crown. Sansa is starting to enjoy that role – in ASOS, she was horrified at the idea of pretending to be a bastard, but now she finds it liberating in some ways. Bastards do not have to adhere to all of the same social norms as highborn ladies do. She also pretends to be a year older because she likes the idea of being more mature. She’s also running the household and taking care of a difficult, sickly little boy. She acts bolder in the way she flirts with the three hedge knights, too.

But that seemed more something Sansa would have done, that frightened girl. Alayne was an older woman, and bastard brave.

Her role models in playing the role of a bastard are Jon Snow and her new friend Mya Stone (Robert Baratheon’s bastard daughter we first met in AGOT, when she was still involved with Mychel Redfort and very much in love with him, which Catelyn felt sorry for her for, knowing he would never marry her because of her social position relative to his). Sansa has changed so much since the girl from AGOT who was snobbish to people of lower birth, who believed that an arranged marriage to a handsome prince she hardly knew would be wonderful even when there were signs he could be a massive jerk, and tried to adhere to all social conventions she had been thought to adhere to. In ASOS, she was fascinated by Ellaria Sand, a bastard in an stable and loving relationship with Oberyn Martell despite not being married to him – thinking about how powerful and confident that woman seems despite her low birth and position. Now she likes and is sort of fascinated by Mya Stone, another bastard-born woman who leads an unconvenional life, and who also makes her own living. It’s also interesting to note that Sansa is not at all shocked by the idea of Mya having had sex with a man she loved even though they were not married; and, for that matter, she also wasn’t shocked by the idea of her mother having slept with someone she supposedly loved (Petyr) before her marriage (although that’s just Littlefinger’s lie/wishful thinking).
Her taste in men/the things she appreciates and finds appealing about men have also changed a lot. The Sansa of AGOT would have never fantasized about a relationship between a bastard girl and a lowborn man (Mya and Lothor Brune), or thought about someone like Brune, a lowborn man who’s not conventionally handsome, but who has proven his courage (gaining knightship in battle) and who she sees as strong, honest and loyal (and who she mistook for Sandor Clegane once when he came to her aid) as someone who is appealing and a great match for her friend. It’s great to see that Sansa is still a romantic; though it has to be noted that she is still very concious of how social structures work: she “ships” Lothor and Mya not just because she’s aware that Lothor is attracted to Mya, or because she likes them both, but also because that marriage would be possible, since they are both of a similar social standing (she thinks to herself that it would be different if Robert had publicly acknowledged Mya as his daughter).

Speaking of which, how funny (and creepy) it is that Petyr tried to slip a “subtle” hint to Sansa, teling her that “young girls are always happiest with older men”. But I don’t think his hint is having the desired effect on her – she only thought about it when she was fantasizing about Mya and Lothor getting together. And judging by those fake memories about a kiss with Sandor she’s dwelling on and other things going in her head, if she were to go for an older man, it wouldn’t be Petyr.

Last but probably most important, Sansa has been thorougly disillusioned about marriage; or rather, about the marriages that are available to her as Sansa Stark, a lady of a great house and the heir to Winterfell (as far as everyone knows, including her). In ASOS, she realized sadly that everyone just wanted to marry her for her claim – the Lannisters, the Tyrells, Lysa for Sweetrobin; “no one will ever marry me for love”. Now, she thinks to herself that she doesn’t want to marry again, perhaps never again; she’s clearly sick and tired of being a pawn and treated like a thing by others who are auctioning her off to be married to this or that dude for political reasons. But, of course, she knows she can’t say that aloud to Littlefinger, so she uses her existing official marriage to Tyrion (which she otherwise doesn’t even consider except as a “mockery of a marriage” that she’s left behind) as an excuse to not get betrothed/married again.

This makes me think that she’s not going to be happy about Littlefinger’s plan for her to marry Harry the Heir – who hasn’t even been introduced, but he already seems to be a douche; he already has two bastard children with lowbown girls, similar to young Robert Baratheon. Littlefinger seems to have a completely wrong idea about Sansa, seeing her as the same girl she was at 11, since he expected her to be happy about marrying Harry, because he’s handsome, a knight, and “gallant”:

(…) You are promised to Harrold Hardyng, sweetling, provided you can win his boyish heart… which should not be hard, for you.”

“Harry the Heir?” Alayne tried to recall what Myranda had told her about him on the mountain. “He was just knighted. And he has a bastard daughter by some common girl.”

“And another on the way by a different wench. Harry can be a beguiling one, no doubt. Soft sandy hair, deep blue eyes, and dimples when he smiles. And very gallant, I am told.” He teased her with a smile. “Bastard-born or no, sweetling, when this match is announced you will be the envy of every highborn maiden in the Vale, and a few from the riverlands and the Reach as well.”

“Why?” Alayne was lost. “Is Ser Harrold… how could he be Lady Waynwood’s heir? Doesn’t she have sons of her own blood?”

Sansa seems pretty unimpressed with the talk about Harry – she wonders why people would envy her for marrying him, unless he is an heir to the Vale. She’s not naive anymore and knows that big chunks of land and political positions are the real main reasons why people find someone to be a desirable match. Also, these days she’s not really likely to fall for a dumbass douche just because he’s handsome, highborn and “gallant” (she thinks of the time she fell for Waymar Royce as a time long ago when she was just a silly little girl); and she really doesn’t want to be given as cattle to someone again in another political marriage. I don’t think she’s delighted about Littlefinger imposing it on her.

However, Littlefinger also promises something that may be genuinely appealing to Sansa – the opportunity to retake the North and go back to Winterfell. But it comes with several huge question marks. First off, Sansa can’t marry before Tyrion dies or she gets an annulment. But in order to ask for an annulment, she has to reveal herself. And she can’t reveal herself while Cersei and the Lannisters are still in power; unless she really does rally the Vale to her cause, which would likely mean war. In any case, it’s incredibly risky. Secondly, as I said, Sansa may not be crazy about the idea of marrying some womanizing douche for political reasons. (Her aunt Lyanna also did not like that idea.)

Thirdly, it’s highly unlikely that Littlefinger intends to let her live a long happy life with Harry, or anyone else; more likely, he wants her to have a child by Harry, the heir to Vale, at which point he could get rid of Harry, arranging for an ‘accident’ in battle or somewhere. But that’s really risky for Littlefinger, because Sansa could get rid of him the moment she gets some power of her own. Unless he thinks he can brainwash her into completely trusting him, loving him and feeling dependent on him… and maybe a part of this is binding her to him by making her feel like an accomplice in his crime?

Which leads me to the fourth problem… for Harry to be the lord of Vale and Sansa his lady of Vale, Sweetrobin has to die. But Sweetrobin must not die, from LF’s point of view, before Harry is wrapped around Sansa’s little finger, and Sansa is wrapped around Littlefinger’s little finger. Because, if Sweetrobin dies now, Harry becomes the lord, and Littlefinger is out – there’s no need for him to be the regent and Lord Protector of Vale, because Harry is old enough to rule. So, Littlefinger needs Sweetrobin to be alive for now… but also to die at the right moment. And his hint that Sweetrobin is definitely going to die may be seen as a prediction, because the boy is sickly – but also as a plan to make it happen at the right time.

Which is why the end of this chapter works so well as a cliffhanger of sorts – we are still waiting to learn Sansa’s reaction to Littlefinger’s plan. Of course, it’s nothing something she would tell him; she’s used to lying to him, just as she is aware that he is lying to her. But what she does will be really interesting to see.

“Although, if she is dead—she’s not—but if she [i]was[/i]—even though she’s NOT—but in the strictly hypothetical and in-no-way-resembling-reality parallel universe where Brienne is dead, that may be cause for book-throwing. I’m just warning my wall right now, there could be violence. Or rather, there won’t be, because Brienne is NOT DEAD LA LA LA.”
How can Leigh make such a horrible chapter this fun?

I want to believe that were she alive, Catelyn would at least listen to Brienne. Because the case for one of them killing Renly was at least as strong as this one (“there was a shadow” is now a defence taught to all lawyers in Westeros), and that’s how Brienne swore loyalty to her.

@51: considering how Ramsay Snow got to marry and then inherit from Lady Hornwood, and even Bran (lord of Winterfell and first in line to be King in the North) couldn’t do anything about it, I think if it is possible to annul a marriage after consummation, only a king can do it (same as recognizing bastards)

Sybil came out the year I was born, but I loved that movie, and the book it was based on! Thank you for showing mercy to your wall, now you need to work on doing the same for your desk. ;)

Re: Dragonstone. There’s another possibility. Cersei’s info may be wrong. Between her and Littlefinger, I’d bet on him to know the real story.

I really disagree with Leigh about Lady Stoneheart:

But the thing is, I can’t even truthfully blame her rage-fueled murderous version of LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU here on the whole “been dead for three days and might have slightly more maggots than brain matter in there” thing, because the fact of the matter is, I can’t see alive!Catelyn reacting much more reasonably to a perceived betrayal than undead!Catelyn did. Catelyn’s is a vengeful soul, y’all, and always has been. It’s just that now she’s got a literal smorgasbord of shit to avenge.

When was Catelyn particularly vengeful? She was hell bent on justice and protecting her family – as when she was trying to find out who had ordered Bran’s murder and seized the main suspect, Tyrion, in order to bring him to a trial (let’s repeat that once again… trial). She was in fact one of the least vengeful people out there, out of those who had a good cause for revenge. She was the one who was calling for peace in AGOT, after Ned’s execution, arguing that war would only bring more deaths, and revenge at the Lannisters would not bring Ned back, and that they just needed to make a deal and get Sansa and Arya back. But Robb and his bannermen opted for war and secession instead. She didn’t want revenge against Jaime for pushing Bran out of the window and crippling him – she released him in order to get her daughters back. She had one vengeful thought about Cersei that I remember, but Sansa has also had vengeful thoughts from time to time (and tried to kill Joffrey once), but people don’t say that she’s hell-bent on revenge. And Catelyn also was able to feel some empathy for Cersei, who she blamed for Ned’s death, thinking that Cersei must also love her children and is doing everything to protect them from what would happen if their real parentage would be found out. (Imagine Cersei ever feeling empathy for one of her enemies… or anyone.) She did not try to get revenge on Jaime for pushing Bran out of the window – she released him in order to get her daughters back, which was her priority. Robb, not Catelyn, was the one who wanted revenge on Theon not Catelyn. Robb, not Catelyn, was the one who swore to kill Tyrion for having married Sansa.

Catelyn was a pragmatic and reasonable person. She was also starting to listen to Tyrion on the road to the Eyrie in AGOT when he started pointing out that he wasn’t the murderer and that LF’s story was untrue; but Lysa screwed it all up. And there’s no way in hell that Catelyn would have taken revenge on children, like Pod, just because they were somehow associated with the Lannisters. She never even wished any ill on Cersei’s and Jaime’s children.

But Catelyn went insane in her last moments, after all the horrible things she had been through, and while she was witnessing a massacre and the death of her son – as far as she knew, her last remaining child (other than Sansa, who she considered lost at this point as well – since she could never get her back without Robb’s victory, and Robb had said he thought that the Lannisters would kill Sansa once Tyrion got a child from her, the new heir to the North; she thought Arya was dead and she was sure Bran and Rickon were dead). When she threatened to kill Jinglebell, it wasn’t for revenge but a desperate attempt to force Walder Frey to spare Robb. When it didn’t work and she saw Robb die, she lost her mind. And Lady Stoneheart is not just a product of Beric’s resurrection after three days, which also may not be a perfect resurrection since it was a kiss of life from an already resurrected man; she’s also a product of the insanity that Catelyn slipped into in the last moments of her life. Lady Stoneheart is just a shell of Catelyn, a terribly twisted version of her that is indeed an unreasonable monster hell bent on revenge, something Catelyn was not.

This is what makes Catelyn’s story even more tragic than it would have been if the Red Wedding was the last time we saw her.

@74: We don’t know that for sure.

Maester Luwin asaid that vows made at swordpoint were not valid.
Bran didn’t need to do anything about Ramsay’s marriage, because Rodrik Cassel had the simpler solution: kill Ramsay. And they believed they had indeed killed him. If they knew he had survived and were in any position to do something about it, and he tried to claim his “rights” to her lands, I don’t think that would go well for him. The Manderlys were also trying to seize the late Lady Hornwood’s lands from Ramsay while he was still alive, so obviously they did not find the marriage and the inheritance to be legitimate or binding in any way.

I don’t think that Robb and the Northmen would have recognized Sansa’s marriage if they could have Sansa back. But they could not do anything about it as long as she was in Lannister hands. And Robb also planned the simplest solution – killing Tyrion, no doubt not just to make Sansa a widow but also to get revenge for Tyrion marrying Sansa against her will and presumably raping her, which Robb and Cat never questioned.

Of course, since Sansa’s marriage was not consumated, an annulment would be much easier (if she remains a virgin until that time, she can even prove the lack of consummation) – if she were able to reveal herself as Sansa Stark to the High Septon, which she can’t.

@84, 85 – Also, I just remembered, we don’t actually know that Robb disinherited Sansa. This is just what people assume. We only know that he was going to change his will in order to prevent Tyrion from claiming the North through Sansa or her child, and probably make Jon his heir. But we don’t know the actual content of the will. He may have disinherited Sansa. Or he may have just legitimized Jon, asked for him to be freed from his vows, and moved him in the line of succession ahead of Sansa. Or, for all we know, he may have actually declared Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion invalid on the basis that it was at swordpoint, her family was not asked for consent, and Joffrey was not the rightful king and therefore had no right to marry Sansa off as a ward of the crown; and barred Sansa’s husband and any children she may have from that union from succession.

I’m still going to go with Cersei, Margery, and Myrcella as the Queens. These are the three people with claims to call themselves Queen of Westeros now or in the near and inevitable future. Even without the events Petyr may or may not know about, Myrcella is the heir by Dornish law and currently in Dorne; more than enough to cause trouble. Dany is out of scope for “the next set of conflicts in Westeros”, as are people connected with minor rebellions with no real chance of doing anything militarily against the main kingdom (Jayne, Selese, any hypothetical salt wives Euron may have lying around) and the plans involving Sansa are long-term, not likely to even start until well after those three and their backers have long since resolved their differences.

@91: We don’t know yet from the books. Lots of speculation, though, if you want that.

So, basically, you want a wish-fulfillment ending for Tyrion in which he gets power, lands and a young beautiful highborn trophy wife who loves him. (All as a reward for… uh, not raping her when he had a chance?) Seriously? This is A Song of Ice and Fire, not a fanfic.

What would constitute a satisfying ending for Tyrion? Not that, certainly. What would constitute a satisfying ending for Sansa? Taking charge of her life and making her own choices. That would constitute a satisfying ending for her, not submitting herself to a forced marriage that her captors had imposed on her. Sansa has absolutely nothing to gain from that marriage. What does Sansa want? She wants to marry someone who really loves her and wants her for herself rather for her claim; if she can’t have that, she doesn’t want to marry at all. Tyrion is definitely not that guy – he wanted her because of Winterfell, and he also wanted her body, and he came to want her to be his Tysha 3.0 and make him feel good about himself, but he never loved her. He didn’t even understand her, and he never cared that much for her outside of basic human decency and the fact that she was a valuable hostage Jaime’s life depended on (when he tried to order the KG knights to save her during the riot, he was thinking of Jaime, not of Sansa herself). And I notice that you never even claim that Tyrion will fall in love with Sansa; you just want Sansa to love Tyrion, the other way round is not important. Moreover, Sansa finds Tyrion completely physically and sexually repulsive. How would it be satisfying for her to submit herself to having sex with a man who repulse her? And here we come at the double standard, again: men can only be happy if they’re having sex with the women they find attractive (Tyrion only ever goes for beautiful women!), but for women, eh, they don’t need to choose who they will have sex with, their desires are irrelevant. She didn’t even dislike Tyrion, she was grateful to him, she saw his good qualities and pitied him for his neediness, but she felt no sexual attraction or romantic interest for him at all. Love does not develop from something like that. And then, last but not least, there is the fact that Sansa hates being married to a Lannister more than anything and would never want to have her children called “Lannister”. Not to mention the fact that the marriage to Tyrion is bringing her no benefits, but is in fact hurting her politically: she wants to go home, and she has a good claim to the North/Winterfell, but the Northmen will enver accept her if she is married to a Lannister.

And no, Tyrion does not act in accordance with knightly principles. Knightly principles include honor, and protecting the week and helpless by risking your own life if needs be. Tyrion is no Duncan the Tall. He sometimes protects the helpless, but only those who are highborn and happen to be valuable hostages that his brother’s life depends on, and that he can protect because he was one of the few people in King’s Landing (while he was the acting Hand, it was just him and Cersei who had enough power to overrule Joffrey) with enough power to do so. He’s basically a decent person, but he is no saint; he is an ambitious politician who does morally grey and sometimes downright ruthless things. Being a better person than Joffrey and Cersei does not make you a “true knight”, or most of Westeros would be “true knights”. He did everything to keep his family in power and his nephew on the throne, even though he knew all along they had no claim to it. He had a singer murdered and made into a stew so he couldn’t blackmail him and tell about his mistress. He armed the Vale mountain clans because he wished revenge on Lysa, never mind that it was the innocent smallfolk they would be killing. He let his mountain clans go around King’s Landing and reak havoc. He murdered his mistress because he felt betrayed and had imagined that she was really in love with him, even though she never actually pretended to be anything but a prostitute he had hired to give him the girlfriend experience. He raped a sex slave in Volantis (and he knew how messed up that was, but he still did it). (spoiler for A Dance with Dragons) And he broke his public promise that he would get Sansa back to her mother, and agreed to marry Sansa against her will, so his family could take the lands of her family; and he did it mostly because of the possibility he could get Winterfell that way, since he couldn’t get Casterly Rock. He was also motivated by his father mentioning the possibility that he could marry Lollys (the overweight, dim-witted Lollys) instead (who, BTW, Tyrion despises and feels disgusted by, instead of feeling any empathy for her); now, that was something Tyrion outright rejected (“I would rather cut my manhood and feed it to goats”), but marrying a beautiful 12-year old girl who came with huge chunks of land and the title of the lord of Winterfell attached, was a better prospect that he could reluctantly accept, even while thinking of her as a “child” and knowing that he would have to rape her since she definitely didn’t want him. He intended to rape her (“consummate the marriage”) and, while he changed his mind, he first made her undress, showed his naked body and his erect penis to her, and groped her breast, traumatizing her, before his consience kicked in. But even then, he still felt entitled to having sex with her at some time in the future, when she gets to “know him better and maybe trust him a bit more”, and then felt bitter when she told him she might never want to have sex with him. And it never occured to him to offer to get her out of King’s Landing and let her be free.

Basically, you are suggesting the extreme version of the “Nice Guy (TM)” view, which many Tyrion fans seem to share, which is that, basically, Sansa has a duty to reward Tyrion with sex and love and everything he wants, for the “heroic” deed of not raping her, after he had married her against her will and sexually molested her. Sansa’s own personal desires and personal and political interests be damned. She should just be Tyrion’s prize to reward him for his wonderfulness, since he is the center of the world and everyone should prioritize his feelings over everything else.

And BTW, Tyrion is one of my favorite characters in the series (he’s in the top 6 or 7) but the fandom has almost soured me completely on his character, and this is why.

For some reason, whited out text appears as black when you post it, even though it was white in the preview. Someone please white out the spoilery name in my post #102.

@100: LOL Indeed, how true!

Annara Snow: Given the view of true love expressed so far in the series (Robb + Jeyne, jamie + cersei, lysa + LF) it wouldn’t surprise me if Tyrion and Sansa did end up together. I don’t see them ever being in love, but just resigned to the marriage.
In some ways, I think they make a good couple, their strengths and abilities complement each other. The physical aspect is hard to overcome, but maybe they can have an open marriage?

I’m inclined to agree with Annara here. Again, Lady died; that’s metaphor, but it’s prediction too. The only way I could see Sansa end up with Tyrion — who I don’t think will survive anyway — would be for Tyrion to renounce his Lannister heritage and all thoughts of power. That’s the only way for Sansa to not be a Lady. Possible, but unlikely.

Predictions are hard, especially about the future. We all have favorite characters (mine’s Arya), but I given GRRM’s tendencies, I don’t expect happy endings for many of them. Sansa, I think, will come out alive, but as a commoner. And she might be happy that way.

Sansa staying with Tyrion long term would be undesirable for her, and for many fans, including me. Therefore, it COULD happen, since GRRM is allergic to happy endings.

@114: I think Sansa will play the GoT in order to survive, but I expect her to renounce it at the end. Just speculation on my part.

As I see it, the death of Lady severed Sansa’s connection to her Stark siblings. I don’t expect her to have any long-term role with that House.

I take metaphor pretty seriously, perhaps too seriously, so I think Lady’s death means a lot. But regardless, I read her Alayne chapters much differently. As I see it, she’s losing her Stark identity more every day.

I just had a thought about UndeadCat: she might actually be much more rational then we think she is. First of all, she definitely knows that there is still a good chance that both Sansa and Arya are alive (she knows Arya’s story from the BWB). So will it make sense for her to actually kill Jaime? I believe it would make much more sense for her to capture Jaime and keep him as a hostage (again). That would be absolutely something AliveCat could do. The “sword” could only be about testing Brienne’s loyalty.

@122: I don’t see how that comparison works for what you’re trying to prove. People pair up Jaime and Brienne because Jaime and Brienne are attracted to each other, have chemistry and feelings for each other. People aren’t pairing up Jaime with someone he is forced to marry that he doesn’t find attractive or isn’t romantically interested at all.

@124: That’s how I see it too. I’d just add some other factors in Arya’s Stark identity: she thinks of Jon Snow many times; the incident with Dareon.

Oh, I agree that Sansa and Arya would preserve their Stark identities in different ways. Some of the specifics are just examples, either way. The one notable fact about those specifics is Needle: so much of Arya’s identity as a Stark is tied up in Needle that it always remains a touchstone. The fact that Sansa lacks such a touchstone is evidence in itself.

But for me, it all comes back to the direwolves. It’s metaphor, but it’s more than that — there’s an incident when we’re in Ghost’s POV (or maybe it’s Summer) and he can sense the other wolves but not Lady. When Lady died, Sansa lost her (metaphorical) connection to her siblings, but she lost an actual one too. As long as Arya has her wolf and her wolf dreams, she’s still connected.

@129: Sansa’s physical revulsion is hardly the only reason this is extremely unlikely. I think I don’t need to repeat all the other reasons, since I’ve already stated them (from the forced marriage and the Stark/Lannister history, in which Tyrion was hardly an innocent participant who just happened to be a part of that family, to the utter lack of romantic chemistry or interest or genuine undersanding/emotional connection, and the fact that Sansa wants someone who loves her for herself and not because he wants Winterfell, while Tyrion was primarily interested in the marriage because of the prospect of getting Winterfell).

If GRRM is writing a story about Sansa and Tyrion falling in love, then it’s a really bizarely written one, since he’s written no setup at all for this to happen, and every possible setup for it not to happen on either side. On the contrary, you seem to be agreeing that he’s written a “Beauty and the Beast” style storyline with Sansa and Sandor, and the contrast between how he’s written that dynamic and how he’s written Sansa/Tyrion is obvious: that’s the difference between writing a Beauty and the Beast storyline, and writing a subverted one where the Beast does not love Beauty and Beauty doesn’t fall for the Beast just because he is asking her to accept him. Just what are the chances that GRRM is writing about Sansa’s attraction to Sandor without any wish to build up on that, and just as some sort of a stepping stone to Sansa/Tyrion? (How would that even work?)

Even in the extremely unlikely prospect that GRRM intended all this to somehow be a setup for a Sansa/Tyrion love story, this story would imply the need for Tyrion to grow, develop and change a lot, not just Sansa (in fact, I think it would primarily need Tyrion to grow, develop and change a lot) and it would require Tyrion to see and understand Sansa better and know who she is, since he was the one who didn’t really understand Sansa at all (Sansa had a much better understanding of who Tyrion was). My indignation, as you call it, is primarily caused by the fact that the majority of people rooting for Sansa/Tyrion are arguing that Sansa needs to change and “be more mature” and “learn” to love Tyrion, while Tyrion doesn’t have to do anything at all, and who want this “endgame” because they see it as, basically, Sansa becoming Tyrion’s prize so he would be rewarded for…I don’t know what, but the argument is that Tyrion “deserves” Casterly Rock, power, gold, and a young beautiful highborn wife (yes, that was the argument used in this thread; that even a lowborn beautiful woman who loves Tyrion genuinely, such as Tysha was, would not be good enough).

@134: Arya’s betrothed was Elmar Frey, I believe. Otherwise, I totally agree with you. It’s certainly possible that Tyrion and Sansa could end up together if GRRM wills it that way. Whether it’s a “satisfying” ending depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of a primarily Tyrion fan or a primarily Sansa fan.

Sansa gets a great deal of criticism for believing (I initially wrote beliebing there, ha! what a typo) that her fairytale ending is going to come true complete with a perfect knight. And for the most part that’s reasonable – growing out unreal expectations is part of becoming a mature adult.

However, the idea that Tyrion is the “ideal knight” is questionable, even without the usual physical requirements of such a trait. Is he always kind and chivalrous? To Sansa, mostly, but that’s only because he’s motivated to be that way (because of her beauty, and/or his wish for a perfect marriage). But to everyone else? Not so much really. Does he always protect the innocent and the weak? Sure, when there’s something in it for him, like at Blackwater when his own life was on the line. (But he can be vindictive and is quite ready to make commoners pay for the mistakes of their crazy leaders, as we saw with his desire to send Mountain Clans to ravage the Vale). Does he fight for justice, and truth, and honor? Really no. This is the guy who spent an entire book ensuring that his psychotic nephew and his cruel sister would keep the throne that they stole. Tyrion fights for power, he fights for the Lannisters, and now that they’ve disowned him, he fights for himself.

I honestly don’t see why people actually believe that Tyrion is a perfect knight (minus the physical characteristics). GRRM has clearly described him as the “grayest of the gray”, a category under whihc which a nice, honourable knight would not fall under. Even if Tyrion had chivalrous intentions when he was younger, years of being a Lannister has stamped that out for him. You can say that Sansa and Tyrion can marry because of their similar affinities for politics. You can say that they belong together because this is a crapsack world and no one really gets what they want. But you honestly can’t say that Tyrion deserves her because he’s the “knight” she’s looking for. Because, seriously, he isn’t.

This has been a very interesting and highly entertaining discussion to read, so I feel encouraged to chime in.

Regarding Lady’s death. It think it would be a mistake/misreading to see that as a foreshadowing of either Sansa’s death or her losing her “Starkness” (I always hated the notion of an essentialist family identity that can only be exhibited in certain behaviours).
Lady’s death certainly functions metaphorically, but it is important to put it in context, so my reading differs from most of those common within fandom.
When Ned prepares to kill Lady he comments on the wolf as the most trusting of the children’s wolves (I haven’t the book in my current home, so please correct me if I am wrong). He also ponders the similarities between Sansa and Lady. I think that the “trusting”aspect is highly important here, especially in the context of later events in the first book. Read this way, Ned literally and metaphorically kills his daughter’s trust – and, IMO, fails Sansa as a parent, which he does several times in the book. In the book it is made clear that Sansa had told her father the truth about the conflict between Joffrey and Arya. However, in the confrontation he doesn’t support or reassure Sansa to tell the truth, so she opts for the option of not remembering since she’s caught between Arya and her future family-in-law. In King’s Landing he fails to explain to her how dangerous their situation is (although he does take the time to fill in Arya), instead opting for giving her orders she doesn’t understand because they are unexplained and thus seem arbitrary to her.

Of course it was Cersei (and Robert) who ordered Lady’s death, but it was her father that took her beloved wolf’s life. He did it was his idea of honour, but that might be very hard to explain to a heart-broken child, and a child she was. What one knows rationally and what one experiences emotionally are often two very different things, which is why (combined with the immediate context of Lady’s killing) I read Lady’s death as a metaphor for the death of Sansa’s trust. And Sansa’s overall arc has, until, now very much been about the death of her trust (in people, in the world) – she loses it, it has been betrayed (fx the Tyrell betrothal). at this point in the narrative (AFFC) Sansa trust anyone at all.

The short of this long-winded post is, that the fate of the children’s direwolves may very well symbolize different things according to the context of the narrative. Ned’s death was foreshadowed and symbolized in the dead direwolf mother they found, and as such it is a very heavy-handed use of its symbol value. I think that Lady’s death should be read more subtly and I do think that the immediate narrative context is important. Longterm is harder to predict. I have a feeling that Sansa will survive, but we never know. I’m not buying the theory that she’s loosing her identity either. They are many examples in the text that this isn’t the case.

Another poster brought up the similarities between Elizabeth I and Sansa, and they’re are a lot of parallels.
– Elizabeth spent a certain portion of her youth as a “virtual” political prisoner (under her sister Mary), under guard, in the Tower and she came very close to the executioner’s block
– she was also subjected to Thomas Seymour’s attempts at seducing/molesting her when she lived with her step-mother Catherine Parr (who was married to Seymour). After his wife’s death, he attempted to broker a marriage with Elizabeth, which put him on the scaffold and made him a head short. (the parallel’s to sansa in LF’s care are interesting, especially if Martin takes English history as a reference/inspiration for his story).

Of course the reason for the Tyrion hatred here is the what I would call rather voracious third wave (aka man hating) feminism of some of our posters and readers. The hatred of Daneyer’ses storyline and the hatred many people have for GRRM because of that storyline (many people have called him sexist I believe). This said yes of course Tyrion isn’t a saint….do you know anyone who is? Certainly not in this book…which is the point.

The death of trust that sansa does go through with the death of lady and her further story is the growing up everyone has to go through as trust is very much something you can not rely on in life/world. Cynicism is much better armor.

Also before we forget, and to mention the arranged marriage I though the earlier poster (I am not going to go back and find the number…we need a forum section for comments not a blog version or at least the ability to comment on comments) was mentioning. The starks marrage was an arranged marraige and they certainly came to love each other. The mention about how terrible Danny’s early marriage was I also think is way over done and calling the love she felt stockholm syndrome like belittles it way to much. Love is a many faceted beast and does not take one form or come from one situation and measuring one type of love as better than another is very very dangerous.

I wonder whether Marillion is truly dead or not. Sweetrobin claimed to hear his singing, so I wonder whether the boy’s dellusional or the singer is alive and either left to die alone or Petyr for some reasons later smuggled him out.