From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa XIV

[bgona]

At the end of the two months, Beauty had a dream where the Beast lay dying, cursing her for being the cause of his death. The lady also appeared and chastised her for taking too long to do her duty; that she had promised to be back at the end of 2 months and they had expired, and one day more would be fatal to the Beast; that the trouble she was causing at her father’s house and her sisters’ anger should only make her want to go back even more.

We don’t actually know anything about this lady at point in the story, but really, blaming Beauty for “causing trouble” at her father’s house? When she had been very explicit about not returning anyone’s affections? That is so not cool. It’s like Lysa blaming Sansa for “enticing” Littlefinger.

This image of the Beast lay dying also reminds me to the Hound death, where he laid at the ground and with a tree.

The Hound was hurt due to the fact that he drunk too much with Sansa and Tyrion marriage new. So he wasn´t able to fight properly. It was the last thing to kill his spirit.

So Beauty went back to the Beast’s palace. She wanted to see the Beast, but also wanted to see the Unknown man in her dreams. She started to question herself. “One moment she reproached herself for not returning the affection of a lover who, under a monstrous figure, seemed to have a beautiful soul; the next she was sad about giving her heart to a fantastic image who had no existence except in her dreams. She questioned whether she should prefer a phantom over the real love of a Beast. The dreams in which she saw her beautiful Unknown advised her not to heed her eyes”.

That night the Beast did not come to visit her, and, concerned, she started looking for him. She missed her boring conversations with the Beast, and was surprised to have so much feeling for him. She reproached herself for not having married him. Then she found him, nearly dead. She revived him and said: “How you have worried me! I did not know how much I loved you. The fear of losing you made me recognize that I was attached to you by stronger ties than those of gratitude. I swear to you that I had determined to die if I had failed in saving your life”.

The Beauty has started to fall in love with the man she is dreaming about. Sansa is starting to fall in love with the Hound dreaming about him.

The Beast replies: “You are good, Beauty, to love a monster so ugly; but you do well; I love you more than my own life. I thought you would never return: it would have killed me. Since you love me I will live. Go rest, and be certain that you will be as happy as your good heart deserves”.

That was the first time Beauty heard the Beast pronounce so long a speech. She thought it was not very eloquent, but it was sweet and sincere all the same. She had expected to be scolded, and from this moment started to have a better opinion of the Beast’s character – no longer thinking him to be so stupid, she started to think his short answers were even a mark of prudence.

At night Beauty dreamt of her Unknown, who said the only way for her to be happy was to marry the Beast. The lady also appeared and said she was pleased, but Beauty protested that she was partial to the Unknown and could not consider the repugnant Beast loveable. The lady smiled at her objections and said that her feelings “were not incompatible with her intentions to fulfill her duty”.

Beauty seems torn about the Beast. She says she is bound to him by stronger ties than those of gratitude, and says she would have died if she had failed to save him, but then says he is repugnant and unloveable. She thinks his conversation is boring, but misses it all the same.

This lady, when appearing to Beauty, always seems to characterise her union with the Beast as a "duty". She does not explain why she has a duty to marry the Beast, only that she does.

Beauty duty was to obey her father, as a good daughter. So she had to follow his fathers orders to marry the Beast. But she explaines that her feelings are accord with "her duty".

[bgona]

Lady Lea thanks for that quote. I like it a lot!

Ragnorak I have read about that idea of Tywin here at Westeros and it opened my minds. I was like: "Of course, it has a whole sense".

I just want to remind how Tyrion act with the redhair whore at the Free Cities. It always bring me out the idea that he let out all the fury that he had towards Sansa with the whore.

It is also significant that after being with her, he saw Jorah with a whitehair whore. And Tyrion thinks that if he had sought her before the red one, he would have chose the white hair whore. I see this as a symbolism. Tyrion will prefers having Dany than Sansa (this could happens or not).

[Lady Lea]

Some really interesting ideas, bgona!

Belle ask for a rose: why a rose? They are associated with Aphrodite that she was often adorned with them. In addition, a rose bush grow within Adonis blood (her death lover). The rose symbolizes an inmortal love, that will not end with the death. Also it has the meaning of secrets.

And why the father pick the rose? Normally when you cut a rose, you don´t cut one full open. It is one that it has to end blooming at the hand for whom is the rose to be (it can be a vase). The blooming of a woman is her first menstruation. It can be reflected as a meaning that Belle is not yet get to a grow woman. She´s still at the process of being.

We must remember that at the Hand Tourney Sansa had both days a rose (the one given by Ser Loras, but that she carries when The Hound won Jaime). And that she got her first moonblood at KL. And who was present at that blooming was The Hound.

Thank you for this. I confess I don't know much about the symbolism attached to roses, but this is really great.

I truly believe that The Hound scorn towards knights came from his deep honour belief.

That's an interesting interpretation that makes a lot of sense. In a way I suppose the Hound has his own honour system as well: he really values honesty, and doesn't draw out a death, and is extremely loyal to his masters.

[bgona]

Lykos had an interesting post in the Tyrion reread. With Mord in the Skycell, Tyrion asks for peas and a leg of lamb. In his exchange over dinner with Sansa they're eating mutton and pease. Lykos brought up Hans Christian Andersen´s fairy tales. The Princess and the Pea has some potential and I think The Snow Queen might be worth a look from Sansa's perspective at some point in the future. I'm still convinced that lamb and peas have some profound symbolism that still eludes me.

Thanks to bring here the Lykos post. I like a lot the jazz song.

It is amazing how Sansa fits with a lot of fairy tales. But not only her, also they are many different character that can fit as well.

[bgona]

Milady isn't so sure about pea symbolism, but thinks Ragnorak will find about lambs and rams in Psyche's tasks. ;)

So the wool of Psyche tale can in deed be joined with the Lannister gold.

Edit: I am missing a lot the like bottom!!!!!

[Valkyrja]

This image of the Beast lay dying also reminds me to the Hound death, where he laid at the ground and with a tree.

The Hound was hurt due to the fact that he drunk too much with Sansa and Tyrion marriage new. So he wasn´t able to fight properly. It was the last thing to kill his spirit.

I do think it is interesting that the Hound 'dies' upon the banks of a river, the Trident. It reminds of the other B&B versions where the Beauty finds the Beast is dying in his garden by a stream or a river.

(Hi everyone, by the way! I know I've not been around much, but I have been lurking a bit when I get the chance, and there have been, as usual, some excellent posts recently. :) )

[brashcandy]

I do think it is interesting that the Hound 'dies' upon the banks of a river, the Trident. It reminds of the other B&B versions where the Beauty finds the Beast is dying in his garden by a stream or a river.

And this vision of the Beast dying usually comes to Beauty in a dream first. Makes one wonder about Sansa waking up in ASOS with every nerve atingle.

(Hi everyone, by the way! I know I've not been around much, but I have been lurking a bit when I get the chance, and there have been, as usual, some excellent posts recently. :) )

I'm thinking about forgiving you, but the jury is still out :P

[bgona]

Welcome Fieki!! I didn´t know about Gilgamesh story. But the name cames to my mind as if I read it somewhere.

I found interesting that Inana, the love goddess, declairs her love to him. I have read that as Inana, she is the representation of the mother. And that her symbols is the eight head star.

Another name for Inana is Astarté that she is represented naked (or with veils) standing up with a foot over a lion.

This can be just a coincidence but I am smiling!

[bgona]

I do think it is interesting that the Hound 'dies' upon the banks of a river, the Trident. It reminds of the other B&B versions where the Beauty finds the Beast is dying in his garden by a stream or a river.

(Hi everyone, by the way! I know I've not been around much, but I have been lurking a bit when I get the chance, and there have been, as usual, some excellent posts recently. :) )

Hi!!!! :cheers:

[brashcandy]

I'm afraid I have to leave the analysing to you this time because I have a paper to turn in in 2 hours, but I'm getting so many Littlefinger feelings from the old evil fairy, who pretended the Prince was her son but then didn't want him to call her 'mother' anymore because she wanted to marry him :ack: The Queen acted much like Cersei in forbidding the engagement (although Cersei did not do it for love of Sansa) because of the Fairy's lack of social status (the Fairy and Littlefinger are both powerful in their own way, but not in a way that the Queen or Cersei valued much). And so the Prince became a Beast and Sansa a bastard, both forbidden to speak about who they really were...

Interesting... I've been thinking on how LF returns from the wedding with a "gift" for Sansa and she at first wonders if it's something fairly simple like a new dress or the lemons that she's promised Sweetrobin, but it turns out to be an entrapment (as Sansa sees it), with a marriage alliance to HtH. Similarly, Beauty requests her father to bring her back a flower - the rose - but he comes to tell her that the beast requires him to give up one of his daughters to live with him forever. What's important I think in Sansa's case and differentiates her from the sense of familial obligation Beauty feels, is that 1. LF is acting here on his own authority, leaving her with little room to refuse, and 2. he's not her real father. LF is also operating from the position of power, whereas Beauty's father was the weak one, in need of the beast's generosity and in genuine fear of losing his life. Further, going to the beast's castle initiates Beauty's sexual development and her confrontation with the erotic, ultimately facilitating the break with her father, but in Sansa's case this process is already underway, and she's already had contact with other beasts; we're not dealing with the same portrayal of innocent Beauty who accepts the law of her father and heads to what she believes will be her slaughter. And based on LF's "incestuous" desire for Sansa, it's not likely that she would have been able to have a functioning, normal relationship with Harry. In Sansa's story, the father really is the monster, and marriage is not going to lead to Beauty's separation from him, but her continued imprisonment.

[Le Cygne]

Thank you for all the story references, this is great!

The Hound was hurt due to the fact that he drunk too much with Sansa and Tyrion marriage new. So he wasn´t able to fight properly. It was the last thing to kill his spirit.

Nice, bgona! Love the parallels. This directly ties the Beast's "death" in this story to Beauty.

The story builds up to it. He thinks of aligning with her brother ("he’ll make me a lordling and beg me to enter his service"), then after he's killed, gets angry and chops up a whole tree ("until they had twenty times as much kindling and firewood as they’d needed"), but he keeps looking after her sister. The news of her marriage is the final blow, and leads to his "death":

"What wife?"...

The Hound sat on the bench closest the door... He raised his wine cup and drained it straightaway.

The Hound poured a cup of wine for Arya and another for himself, and drank it down while staring at the hearthfire. "The little bird flew away, did she? Well, bloody good for her. She shit on the Imp’s head and flew off."

And Arya, like her sister (Beauty), comes to see him differently, too. We see it by what she doesn't do, what she's been wanting to do forever. Kill him!

He saves her life at the Twins, and she never tries to kill him again ("One night I’ll kill him in his sleep, she told herself, but she never did"), not even after he gives her a knife ("The Hound hefted the knife in his hand, then flipped it toward Arya"). Then at the Inn, she sees he's lost it, and comes to his defense:

The Hound’s own cuts were sloppier, his parries rushed, his feet slow and clumsy. He’s drunk, Arya realized with dismay. He drank too much too fast, with no food in his belly.

They're killing him.

And she doesn't name him in her list anymore ("She had left his name out too, she realized. Why had she done that?") He passes out and she could ride away, but instead dresses his wounds. And then she finally admits to herself, she just doesn't want to kill him anymore ("I wouldn’t have to kill him.")

[Milady of York]

Ragnorak, you’ll have to put aside your false Old Gods for a moment and sacrifice a big, fat white bull to the true gods of Greece and Rome Milady worships, for Zeus, Hera and Athena, or Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, have been good and highlighted a passage for her while reading about a certain youth with bow and arrows and his lady fair, which led her to uncover some info on the symbolism of peas:

- The Romans used bean-related metaphors to convey that the strength of their nation was the simple, rural and hardworking life they led before their legions started doing, ah, a bit of tourism around the Mediterranean and they liked it so much that they just conquered themselves the land surrounding it to get a nice little lake of their own. By pea-related symbolism, proud Patrician families told the world that the founder of their clan was one of those soil-tilling fellows, and that might account for some nomen and agnomen (gens/family names and names for individuals or branches of a family), like that of Cicero (cicer is chickpea), Lentulus (lentil), Pisolus (pea), etc. That’s one nice theory, nein? But it’s true that for both Greeks and Romans beans in general represented blessings and abundance because they are the first fruits of the earth.

- But they are also a symbol of discord. Why? Because they cause digestive problems.

- Beans are symbols of growth and of the potential of the embryo for growing until reaching full potential. And apparently of rebirth if you believe those heathens in Egypt who dare say their Ammon is Zeus, because in their mythology the souls of the dead awaited the moment of reincarnation or rebirth in a beanfield, and a part of these souls stayed in them.

- Philosopher Pythagoras, blessed by Athena with a big brain and bigger peas (of the non-plant species) and, though a Greek, was himself a bit of a heretic (no, not one of those in the Heresy threads), and agreed with the Ammon worshippers, for he and his pupils had to avoid peas and beans because eating beans was like eating their parents’ and ancestors’ heads, precluding them from reincarnating and rebirth. He banned beans from his table for that reason and four more: they were similar to the universe in form (they were living matter, like the universe itself), they resembled the unjointed Gates of Hades, they were like male and female reproductive organs, they weren’t so healthy (troublesome food because of minor digestive problems, and besides they observed birds fed solely on beans dropped dead after a while, whether true of just some fanciful Hellene observation is not known) and because in a time before voting machines, they used beans to select a candidate for public office, which Pythagoras saw faulty and contributing to tyranny (in the Greek sense, not the modern).

Now, what was the name of the little man who hated his daddy and ate peas, again?

- Back to Rome, these beans were offerings to the gods in spring and agricultural festivities, especially to goddess Carna, who cared for our internal organs, because these beans strengthen these organs; also as offerings to dead ancestors in commemorative ceremonies, amongst others. In marriage ceremonies, beans represented male offspring they desired the union to be blessed with. But forget about offering them to the gods in Greece, unless you wanted to anger Demeter and Persephone. Their followers were forbidden to eat all food that had any connection to these deities and the Underworld, such as beans, mullet, crabs, birds, apples, etc., especially when participating in the cult called the Eleusinian Mysteries that honoured both goddesses. And a little detail: they also couldn’t eat… pomegranates!

- In astrology, one of objects associated with Virgo –the maiden– is the pea.

Who would’ve suspected reading about the Roman tale as old as time would bring in that amount of info for you to begin crackpotting merrily… Is that white bull ready? Make it two, one more for Cupid and Psyche.

[bgona]

oh good not a random connection then, I like their analysis that Tam lin is closer and cruder to earlier versions (which suits the Wildlings) while Beauty and the Beast is a brushed down and cleaned up version - more suitable to the courtly sophistication of kings Landing

I also think that is a pair at Beauty and Beast that is missing: Jon (the Beauty) and Ygritte (the Beast=the Wilding).

[Mahaut]

bgona’s post gave me the idea to dig up into the rose’s symbolism. So here is the result of my little research :read: .

The rose is the most used symbolic flower in the Occidental world. The rose could be a symbol for regeneration because of the semantic kinship in Latin between rosa (rose) and ros (rain or dew). For this reason, people have been flowering graves with roses since the Antiquity. As bgona has already mentioned, roses are connected with Aphrodite thus symbolizing love, the gift of love, passion but also the pains of love because of the thorns. The rose is also the symbol par excellence of women, beauty and purity. In Christian iconography, the rose is associated with the Holy Grail, the chalice that collected Christ’s blood. Sometimes it’s even associated with Christ’s blood itself because of its color. It also brings back to mind Christ’s passion: the color red being the blood and the wounds and the thorns being the crown of thorns. In the Middle Age, the rose became the symbol of the Virgin Mary. Still in the Middle Age, the pope used to bless a golden rose which was a symbol of power, intellectual intruction but also resurrection and immortality. Roses have also been frequently used in heraldry as it is the case in England with the houses of York and Lancaster. Nowadays, the rose still stands as a symbol of England.

In short, picking a rose in the Beast’s garden is maybe not such a trivial gesture as it could mean robbing him of his chances of love, but also regeneration and rebirth :bawl: .

ETA: Actually it was Milady of York who connected Aphrodite to roses in thread 13. Sorry Milady :blush: .

[brashcandy]

@Kittykatknits, check your PM please :)

I also think that is a pair at Beauty and Beast that is missing: Jon (the Beauty) and Ygritte (the Beast=the Wilding).

I actually think Jon was the beast in that relationship :) But Ygritte did introduce him to some sexual delights ;)

[Lummel]

But didn't Jon give as good as he got? ;)

[Lyanna Stark]

But didn't Jon give as good as he got? ;)

Jon is also a Warg, meaning he is a bit of a monster too. But both Jon and Ygritte have facets of the B&B as well. :) One of many of those type of relationships, it seems!

[Lummel]

Although Jon is a beastling this is more of a life for a life story than a life for a rose I would have said. Although I have heard that if you boil it down there are only a handful of stories in the world anyway. There no need for GRRM to have used the motif only once if it suits his purposes I suppose.

[brashcandy]

Ah yes Lummel, I forgot the Lord's kiss :) There's also the hidden Targ prince issue.

[Elba the Intoner]

Good points about Jon as beast. And when we get to the Jaime reread, I know this BatB theme will come up again as well and be a big part of the discussion. ;-)