Sansa and birds: a false lead?

[Lady Howell]

It occurred to me lately that Sansa's heavy association with birds is a big part of almost every theory surrounding what her future holds.

Most having to do with her and the Vale, warging birds, or generally to do with her becoming a player in her own game.

However, I also noticed that most people also believe identity is a big theme in asoiaf. Who are you? What are you? Is that who you truly are?

As we've seen, part of this theme is people showing their true selves despite whatever facade or mask they wear. Whether it be that they are actually very different from how others percieve them or exactly like that but for good reason.

So wouldn't it be a little odd for Sansa, who has been percieved as nothing but caged bird or harmless little bird through out the whole series to turn out to be just that. A caged little bird.

True, the idea of the caged bird escaping her cage finally is appealing. But what about others in the series like Arya, who has shown us that while you can change your appearance or how you act (in Arya's case to hide, and then later completely try and erase her own identity) you can't change what's on the inside. In Arya's case, a wolf.

But isn't Sansa a wolf, too?

This is where I get to my point. Sansa is a Stark. Just as much a stark if not more so than some of her siblings, as she has continually proved as the series progresses.

Starks are wolves, Sansa is a Stark. Sansa is a wolf, not a bird.

I think what will happen is that Sansa will prove she is not a bird soon. She'll show everyone who ever thought she was just a caged little bird or pet of theirs that they aren't dealing with a harmless little bird but a direwolf of the North.

Maybe this is one big lesson about not treating dangerous, wild animals like pets and keeping them locked up in cages.

[Mladen]

Birds, my dear, don't symbolize cages, they actually symbolize freedom, and the contrast between caged bird and free one is huge...

Also, Sansa is a wolf, she is a Stark, but that doesn't mean that other animal symbols can't be incorporated in her storyline, like her other siblings:

Arya - weasel, rat, cat

Jon - crow, dragon

Bran - crow --- winged wolf

Lastly, Sansa has also been connected with bat symbolism... Wolf has no exclusivity here...

[IRON BANK]

When I think of Sansa and birds 4 things come to mind, 1 Sansa has gone hawking in the books and is quite successful, 2 the hound and her captors refer to her as a little bird, 3 Varys spies are refered to as little birds, 4 house tully's symbol is some type of bird.

Sansa Imho will receive the Vale but not with a ploy from little finger she will manuvere him, If the Vale can suffer Lysa they can suffer Sansa I believe the family crest points to this. (Also Catelyn was a tully)

Spies in a song of Ice and fire, especially in the form of young children, or women captives are refered to as birds. LF has spies on his pay roll and has Sansa trapped in a peculiar position whether she wants to be or not.

As you mentioned a free bird can point toward independence, However birds of prey can also represent power. We can recognize this by the fact most countries as symbols have birds of prey. The Hawking within the story may symbolize Sansa as a potential deadly predator hovering over her prey from a perch high on top the Vale.

[Lady Isobel]

When I think of Sansa and birds 4 things come to mind, 1 Sansa has gone hawking in the books and is quite successful, 2 the hound and her captors refer to her as a little bird, 3 Varys spies are refered to as little birds, 4 house tully's symbol is some type of bird.

Sansa Imho will receive the Vale but not with a ploy from little finger she will manuvere him, If the Vale can suffer Lysa they can suffer Sansa I believe the family crest points to this. (Also Catelyn was a tully)

Spies in a song of Ice and fire, especially in the form of young children, or women captives are refered to as birds. LF has spies on his pay roll and has Sansa trapped in a peculiar position whether she wants to be or not.

As you mentioned a free bird can point toward independence, However birds of prey can also represent power. We can recognize this by the fact most countries as symbols have birds of prey. The Hawking within the story may symbolize Sansa as a potential deadly predator hovering over her prey from a perch high on top the Vale.

You mean house Arryn's symbol, the Tully symbol is a fish.

[hardhome]

When I think of Sansa and birds 4 things come to mind, 1 Sansa has gone hawking in the books and is quite successful, 2 the hound and her captors refer to her as a little bird, 3 Varys spies are refered to as little birds, 4 house tully's symbol is some type of bird.

Sansa Imho will receive the Vale but not with a ploy from little finger she will manuvere him, If the Vale can suffer Lysa they can suffer Sansa I believe the family crest points to this. (Also Catelyn was a tully)

Spies in a song of Ice and fire, especially in the form of young children, or women captives are refered to as birds. LF has spies on his pay roll and has Sansa trapped in a peculiar position whether she wants to be or not.

As you mentioned a free bird can point toward independence, However birds of prey can also represent power. We can recognize this by the fact most countries as symbols have birds of prey. The Hawking within the story may symbolize Sansa as a potential deadly predator hovering over her prey from a perch high on top the Vale.

Tully is a fish House Ayrrn and house Baelish are types of birds though.

Edit Ninjaed

[Rahgh Neqaj]

The wiki tells us that the bond between warg and wolf is like a marriage: »[...]one has to forge a lasting bond, much like a marriage. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf.« http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Warg (This is referenced to Haggon in the ADWD Prologue but I can't look it up atm.) I've always suspected that Sansa had quite a strong bond with Lady as Lady mimicked Sansa's behaviour to an almost unnatural degree (unnatural for direwolves) and Sansa fell in love with a "beast" which was very surprising for her character. Based on this assumption it must have hurt Sansa fundamentally when Ned killed Lady. She was too much of a Lady herself to let all the hurt show (and what we see could be a stubborn, spoiled child) but I would assume that there's a lot more lingering beneath the surface.

Birds not only resemble freedom they usually have the "fly away from pain/bad things" component associated to them. For Bran, warging ravens and being able to fly provides relief from his crippled status and the wiki says: »Birds are very tempting, but a warg may soon lose contact to the mundane things of earth, and want only to fly.« So there is an inherent temptation to warg a bird and for the caged and hurt Sansa it may offer a lot of relief to warg birds.

[Snowisnobastard]

Go home you're drunk

[Dead Wolf]

I believe that her being called "little bird" foreshadows that she'll be working with Varys to bring down Littlefinger

[Arya kiddin']

Go home you're drunk

It looked a pretty genuine post to me. :)

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Go home you're drunk

lol

[Arthur Dayne's Honor]

I think Sansa will actually skin change into birds and use them as her "little birds" when she plays the game of thrones

[BanzaiZ]

Outside of the wolf connection from her Stark blood, Sansa has been associated with (through books and show) quite a few winged creatures.

After Ned's death, we see a lot of dragonfly imagery with Sansa. She wears them as jewelry constantly, and it's fitting considering that dragonflies symbolize the following:

• The opening of one's eyes - Sansa had a very rude awakening to how the world (and the Lannisters) operate
  
• Defeat of self-created illusions - Sansa's ideas of knights and chivalry, her "beloved" Joffrey, etc. are all put down
  
• Maturity and depth of character - Sansa took a lesson in growing up the hard way, and after GoT, we're presented with a far more mature and changing Sansa
  
• Power and Poise - Courtesy is a Lady's armor, and "my skin has changed from porcelain, to ivory, to steel". Sansa is earning her black belt it politeness judo.
  
• Focus on living 'in' the moment - Which is what Sansa has to do to survive, both in the Vale and in KL.
  

As Zunni commented on in his essay on Sansa and Harrenhal, Sansa's flight from KL leads the smallfolk to comment that she turned into a wolf with bat wings and flew away. Now, this could just be interesting imagery with no other meaning, but it still alludes to Sansa's ties to Harrenhal and house Whent through her mother's side. House Whent's "totem" is the bat, and the bat imagery was specifically used in reference to Sansa fleeing with LF and arriving in the Vale.

• Journeying - Well, that's pretty self-explanatory
  
• Rebirth - Again, self-explanatory, with Sansa going from a Stark to a Stone. Also with her going from a person with no power or agency to someone practically running the day-to-day of the Vale
  
• Illusion - Sansa becomes Alayne
  
• Inner Depth - I think we can argue that Sansa's internal growth and her growing understanding of politicking is kicked into a much higher degree here
  
• Intuition - Again, her flight and following stay at the Vale shows her intuition growing to a large degree. "Lies and arbor gold."
  

Then there's the biggest comparison, which is Sansa constantly being compared to "little bird" or, I believe in some examples, "little dove." It's already been covered above that birds stand for freedom, and I still think a large part of Sansa's arc is her move toward freedom. House Arryn's "totem" is an eagle. Harrold Hardyng has his prized birds. Most of the birds associated with the Vale, that we've seen, are associated with powerful birds and freedom. We have a "caged bird" essentially moved from a lion's nest of thorns to a territory associated with flight and freedom. I'd say that's a pretty powerful hint, at the least, that Sansa's journey is going to be of her escaping her cage.

Even if she's a "little bird" and not a hawk or an eagle, that doesn't mean she can't be deadly. Look at the shrike (conveniently House Stark colored at that).

As for skin-changing, unless she manages to warg Nymeria over in the Riverlands, if Sansa's going to come into her abilities at all, it would about have to be something with wings. She's simply surrounded by too much winged creature imagery for me to buy it being something else.

[papirico52]

What if someone else is Sansa's father?

[Mladen]

What if someone else is Sansa's father?

We have gone that path many times, but at the end, Sansa is a Stark... Lady proves it, her warging ability proves it...

[The Ned's Little Girl]

What if someone else is Sansa's father?

No-one else is Sansa's father.

[direwolf_of_white_fangs]

Go home you're drunk

So much for Forum naysayers....HA!

funny!

[MotherMerciless]

Interesting idea her taking a bird's body to fly away, to spy or simply get away.

I don't think we have had any glimpse of her having such habilities, or being likely to have them, such as weird dreams, like the ones Bran and Arya have. Still a possibility and an interesting one.

Sansa being compared to a bird simply because she is physically delicate and her general behaviour, and the fact that she has been caged for most of the story also fits very well, and could be simply just that.

[direwolf_of_white_fangs]

Interesting, I never thought of correlation betwwen Sanssa and birds being like a clue of events to happen.

Just more of a poetic license....preety lady, pretty bird, she is a bird....along that line...:)

[grand old duke of stark]

Interesting, I never thought of correlation betwwen Sanssa and birds being like a clue of events to happen.

Just more of a poetic license....preety lady, pretty bird, she is a bird....along that line... :)

That too, but it's used so much that it seems significant.

Although she's called 'little bird' (as are Varys's spies), she's now displaying a underlying ferocity, delicate but dangerous. It was probably always there, but carefully controlled. As one poster said, she's gone hawking. Ever since she got entangled with the Vale, I've tended to think of her as a kestrel falcon, a delicate and small falcon that hovers and then strikes. Claws for the wolf or talons for the falcon--she's got them.

[Myk Lonmouth]

Hopefully Sansa will die in the next book. Useless tart.