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[BOOK SPOILERS] Discussing Sansa IX: The birth of Alayne Stone


Mladen

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This one comes before airing due to evading the expected overload... Usual reminders that this thread contains spoilers from the entire book series, that me, as the OP, would appreciate to keep it civil.



My opinion will be available when I watch the episode, but be free to discuss Sansa's arc in this episode without me :)



Once more, welcome to Discussing Sansa thread...


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Being Petyr's "niece" instead of his "daughter" adds a bit of a different dynamic (a less creepy one, for sure), but I don't think it's such a terrible change, so we'll see



Also, when Petyr is giving her the whole "Bloody Gate 101" thing I thought this is A ) foreshadowing for when the Lords Declarant besiege the Eyrie or B ) information that Sansa will use much later when (if the Gods are kind!) she takes some kind of control of the Eyrie



What else?...Oh, yeah. Sweetrobin's affection for LF. I don't know, it adds another layer of deviousness to his character, but I always thought it was funny how LF was basically disgusted by Robin and how Robin basically gave zero shits about LF in the books



Overall, Sophie's acting was very strong


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I'm just kind of annoyed at her being his niece because who's daughter would she be in the first place? I don't know, being a bastard from some random woman is such an easier identity to play out, there was no need to change this...


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So many questions! (Mostly variants of "What the hell?")



1. No dark hair or even differently-coloured hair for Alayne, when a point is made of how distinctive Sansa's red hair is as a mark of her identity?


2. Alayne is Petyr's niece and not her daughter?


3. TV Petyr has siblings or at least thinks he can lie convincingly about having siblings?


4. Is TV Alayne a bastard or still legitimate?


5. Why is TV Sweetrobin fond of Littlefinger when Book Sweetrobin is not?


6. Why is Sansa still wearing her wedding ring?


7. Why did TV Lysa let Sweetrobin in on Sansa's identity?



I will say that Sophie Turner's acting was aces in this episode.


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Alternate Subtitle: Eyrie Sounds In the Night



:P



I enjoyed Sansa's bits a lot. Im ok with the Jon Arryn reveal this early too. Putting it in a quieter scene (so to speak) lets the audience digest the reveal a lot easier. (Even dad when "uhhmm...")


Sansa does seem to be much more aware of her surroundings, but also is letting her guard drop a little because Lysa is family. Sansa's rude awakening at Lysa's craziness was interesting. It also lets the audience know what Littlefinger has planned cuz Lysa is not wrong to suggest what she suggested. Shes just wrong in that Sansa has any idea that its a thing. Now Sansa knows....



Sansa knows...



That will be a theme this season. Sansa is continuing to absorb information. Lysa's plan to have Sansa marry Sweetrobin and Sansa's reaction to that is really cool. Sansa quiets down and looks both shocked and almost intrigued. Theres also some realization in her face. (Thanks Sophie Turner for being able to act.) Like "Omg this song and dance again?"



As for Alayne being LF's niece, im ok with it. Being his bastard daughter wouldnt make too much sense. Random family member is a little easier.


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The hair color thing is probably something we just have to accept. They'll have her wear her hood in public instead.



Probably not feasible to dye her hair, or maybe Sophie didn't want to. Maybe they tried a wig and it looked horrible


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The title should really be "the birth of Alayne (Stone?)".



Honestly, would it have killed the writers to actually spend thirty seconds explaining this cover? Is Petyr's niece still a bastard, or she supposed to be trueborn? What's the point of changing their supposed relation? Also, why call attention to the distinctiveness of the Tully red hair when Sansa is keeping it? Why is she still wearing the same clothes she had in King's Landing when she left without packing anything?



That irritant aside, I generally liked her scenes this week. Her interaction with Lysa was nice, though they're telegraphing Lysa's jealousy pretty hard here (though taking the surprise out of things is pretty common for this show). The dialogue on this show can often be terribly unsubtle, so I liked the unexpected linkage between Catelyn supposedly liking sweets and Lysa's later rant.



I wonder if Robin being aware of who Sansa is is meant to give her somebody other than Littlefinger to talk to next season.





As for Alayne being LF's niece, im ok with it. Being his bastard daughter wouldnt make too much sense. Random family member is a little easier.




On the contrary, there'd be a far higher degree of scrutiny attached to a legitimate relation (if that's what Alayne is supposed to be) than to a bastard. Noble lineages are exhaustively catalogued in a society like Westeros (and even today, hence things like Burke's Peerage), even minor nobles like the Baelishs.


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Why is she still wearing the same clothes she had in King's Landing when she left without packing anything?


Good point! Man, I forgot about that. How could she possibly have the Blackwater dress when she only left KL with the clothes on her back, being the purple PW dress?


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In a weird bit, Lino Facioli's IMDb entry had him credited for episodes 7 and 10 for months now, which we all assumed was a management thing, but he turned out to be in this episode too, and that wasn't put up. Very weird.


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As I said in the other thread, I didn't like how the Tyrion whitewashing continued to plague Sansa's narrative. I thought her defence of him was a bit much.







Good point! Man, I forgot about that. How could she possibly have the Blackwater dress when she only left KL with the clothes on her back, being the purple PW dress?




Margaery probably shipped them to her the same way she got past the kingsguard last episode.

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As I said in the other thread, I didn't like how the Tyrion whitewashing continued to plague Sansa's narrative. I thought her defence of him was a bit much.

Hey, she didn't tearfully insist she had to return to King's Landing to rescue him. It could have been worse.

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Good point! Man, I forgot about that. How could she possibly have the Blackwater dress when she only left KL with the clothes on her back, being the purple PW dress?

Petyr must have packed them with those three crates of lemons he had shipped to the Vale.

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Hey, she didn't tearfully insist she had to return to King's Landing to rescue him. It could have been worse.

Good point. In that case, I'm glad they toned it down! :P

Petyr must have packed them with those three crates of lemons he had shipped to the Vale.

Someone should mention this to Brienne. Want to find Sansa? Track the lemons!

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I thought her defence of him was a bit much.

Book Sansa, when asked about being made to marry Tyrion: "They made me marry him. I never wanted it."

TV Sansa, when asked pretty much the same question: "They did. They made us both. Lord Tyrion didn't want to."

Apart from the obvious differences, the interesting thing is that in the book version of the line, the "they" in "They made me marry him" clearly seems to include Tyrion, whereas in the show version of the line, the "they" seems to refer to the Lannisters other than Tyrion, since "they" made "both" Tyrion and Sansa marry each other.

...Not surprised the Lysa/Sansa dialogue about Tyrion having whores and so on was changed for the show, what with Book Tyrion's line on their wedding night being changed to "And now my watch begins," though.

I will say one thing that bugged me: Sansa licking her fingers after eating in the Lysa/Sansa scene. I can sort of buy it, that Sansa's "letting her hair down" by relaxing her manners around Lysa now that she believes she's with a family member she can trust, but I have trouble believing that Sansa, who of anyone would have had proper etiquette drilled into her, would ever be that ill-mannered, even in a relaxed, unguarded moment. Even in our Middle Ages, where table manners were quite a different animal, licking one's fingers was still frowned upon.

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Has Tyrion basically taken Sandor's place in Sansa's narrative? She has no bloody cloak, but she has a nice ring.



The implications of Robin's liking of Petyr are possibly important. So much of Sansa's development into a more nurturing role is shown in her interactions with Robin, who is so difficult in large part due to his hatred and fear of Littlefinger. Of course that dynamic might change once Lysa exits stage south.


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Apart from the obvious differences, the interesting thing is that in the book version of the line, the "they" in "They made me marry him" clearly seems to include Tyrion, whereas in the show version of the line, the "they" seems to refer to the Lannisters other than Tyrion, since "they" made "both" Tyrion and Sansa marry each other.

I didn't even think about that. You're right!

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Has Tyrion basically taken Sandor's place in Sansa's narrative? She has no bloody cloak, but she has a nice ring.

Now that's an interesting observation. They did cut out *a lot* of Sandor's stuff with Sansa. I hope you're wrong though.

The implications of Robin's liking of Petyr are possibly important. So much of Sansa's development into a more nurturing role is shown in her interactions with Robin, who is so difficult in large part due to his hatred and fear of Littlefinger. Of course that dynamic might change once Lysa exits stage south.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Robin and Sansa interact. Even with Robin trusting Littlefinger, I doubt LF will want to have much to do with Sweet Robin.

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The implications of Robin's liking of Petyr are possibly important. So much of Sansa's development into a more nurturing role is shown in her interactions with Robin, who is so difficult in large part due to his hatred and fear of Littlefinger. Of course that dynamic might change once Lysa exits stage south.

I don't think that's really important. Littlefinger isn't remotely interested in nurturing the kid, so even if Robin likes him, he's not going to be the one he leans on for emotional support.

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Has Tyrion basically taken Sandor's place in Sansa's narrative? She has no bloody cloak, but she has a nice ring.

The big problem with the wedding ring is that I can't think of any other female married character in Westeros who wears one (and forget about the men): Talisa doesn't wear one, Margaery doesn't wear one, and even Lysa isn't wearing a wedding ring after wedding Petyr this episode (she's wearing the same flashy ring on her ring finger both before and after marrying Petyr). I didn't even think that Sansa's ring was a wedding ring at first for that reason, but if you look at Sansa's hands in 3x08, she's not wearing a ring before the wedding ceremony, and at the first shot of her at the wedding feast, there's a ring on her finger, so I guess that's what we're supposed to think.

The ring didn't bother me too, too much at first, since I was expecting that Sansa would rip the ring off and fling it into the sea while on Petyr's ship as a symbolic demonstration of her liberation from the oppressive Lannister yoke, and that the point of the ring was to mark her transformation from Lannister pawn to Alayne Stone. Not only did that not happen, but she's still wearing it, even though she's already started to masquerade as Alayne. She's even wearing it in bed in the scene where she's trying to ignore Lysa's screams, even though there was a shot of her night table (or whatever the medieval equivalent is) where she could have placed the ring (like most people do with their rings at night). I guess the "rip the ring off and throw it away" scene could be upcoming, or the ring could just disappear discreetly before Sansa's next episode, but I still don't know why the writers bothered with the ring in the first place, unless they think that the audience is going to forget that Sansa was married without a visual reminder.

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The niece change seems really strange and pointless. Why did they change it? It introduces more complications than it solves, unless they want us to believe LF is the sort of man who couldn't convincingly have a bastard.



It was good that Sansa got some considerable screen-time this episode, but most of her scenes were strange. I could buy the scene with Lysa and the desserts, and the noisy sleeping scene was vaguely comical. The Bloody Gate discussion was kind of silly, and it made the Eyrie look like it wasn't very high at all -- certainly not anywhere near the top of Giant's Lance.







I will say one thing that bugged me: Sansa licking her fingers after eating in the Lysa/Sansa scene. I can sort of buy it, that Sansa's "letting her hair down" by relaxing her manners around Lysa now that she believes she's with a family member she can trust, but I have trouble believing that Sansa, who of anyone would have had proper etiquette drilled into her, would ever be that ill-mannered, even in a relaxed, unguarded moment. Even in our Middle Ages, where table manners were quite a different animal, licking one's fingers was still frowned upon.





Great point -- that bothered me too! It's just lazy -- shows a bit of a lack of attention. It quite reminds me of that scene where they had Sansa belittle Septa Mordane for no apparent reason. They seem to want to portray her as a modern spoiled teenager for the sake of audience identification, instead of someone for whom "courtesy is a lady's armor" was almost a mantra.


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