SanSan next season?

[Le Cygne]

Books, he's 15 years older. Show, they said he's playing down in age (they said 35). There's a 16 year old in Sansa's last chapter who married a 50 year old. Westeros ages are off. But age gaps are common in period romances. Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester have a 20 year gap, and there are many things he borrowed for that story in this one. Ugly, the scarring is part of the story. When she dreams of him in bed with her, she says scarred only on one side.

He's also very tall and muscular. There's something about him that appeals to her sexually. She's worked herself up, lying in bed at night thinking about him, even pretending they kissed. She's sighing because he's not there, hanging onto his yukky cloak, hears his voice when he's not there, remembers everything he said and did, over and over and over again. She's got it bad, in other words. This is coming from HER. So what I want is what she wants. And she sure seems to want him.

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, Masha said:

Why Sansa's happy ending couldn't be - ending up with Winterfell and not being forced to marry just because?

Why can't it be 'the guy I want and who wants me'?

Personally, romance to me is about two people desiring each other. If they both want it, who am I to say "nah, should better stay alone". I find the latter paternalistic.

[brightflame princess]

On 7/8/2016 at 5:34 PM, TheKnightOfJests said:

Now that The Hound is back, will there be a chance that he and Sansa will get together? I know a lot of fans like the idea of her swearing off romance, but I actually think The Hound wouldn't be bad for her. She's become a hard woman, and he was always a hard man. Imagine it being a Stark contrast (yes that was intentional) to Cersei having the Mountain be her bodyguard, only where Cersei is hateful and has nobody to love anymore, and the emotionless zombie Mountain that follows her fits with that, Sansa and Sandor will have loyalty through love and compassion. I know it sounds silly maybe, but it would be an interesting parallel.
Other fans argue it may be odd because of age differences, and even though Sophie Turner is of age, I could understand that as we saw her character go from a young girl to an adult, but at the same time it's not like you HAVE to have a sex scene between the two.

So anyway... opinions?

In my opinion, sansa is too important to get with the hound. If she marries anybody, it will be somebody with lots of influence and power 

And I can't imagine her being romantically involved with anybody, regardless of marriage. 

But anything is possible.

 

Sidenote.. I never noticed that both their names start with SAN. That's very interesting.. are there any other characters whose names start that way?

[Le Cygne]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

Why can't it be 'the guy I want and who wants me'?

Personally, romance to me is about two people desiring each other. If they both want it, who am I to say "nah, should better stay alone".

This, and also we have to go with the story the author or showrunners write. It's about Sansa and Sandor, and what they want, and if that's each other, and that would make them happy, then so be it. We have to see this from their perspectives, as written. And as written in the books, they both want each other. And neither wants to be alone. They are both the marrying kind, and they seem to have settled on each other. So we'll see how it turns out, I'm wishing them happiness, at least for a time. I don't expect much happiness in this series, which is a flaw in the writing, in my opinion. But it's his story to tell.

[wolfsbae]

37 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

This, and also we have to go with the story the author or showrunners write. It's about Sansa and Sandor, and what they want, and if that's each other, and that would make them happy, then so be it. We have to see this from their perspectives, as written. And as written in the books, they both want each other. And neither wants to be alone. They are both the marrying kind, and they seem to have settled on each other. So we'll see how it turns out, I'm wishing them happiness, at least for a time. I don't expect much happiness in this series, which is a flaw in the writing, in my opinion. But it's his story to tell.

I agree with much of this. I've seen a lot of "but Sansa is too important to marry a Clegane! She needs to marry a highborn!" which is not only missing the point but missing the most compelling and fascinating aspect of their relationship. Sansa and Sandor ARE NOT the great love story of our time; they are not the stuff of songs and they most likely won't get a happily-ever-after. If SanSan DOES happen, it will be shortlived and bittersweet -- such is the nature of the series.

[Le Cygne]

They could have a happy marriage in the end, it's certainly not unheard of in sagas like this. Someone has to rebuild. Like Eowyn and Farmir in LOTR. Sam and Rosie. And so on.

Marriage and kids is a normal part of life. It's not clever writing to end a saga with everyone miserable. Life is not like that. And they've already experienced much misery throughout.

Like when Sandor asked, Why haven't I been punished? And his answer was, You have. Now it's time to move on, and do something good. Same with her, to everything there is a season.

One nice hint is that she keeps his cloak in a cedar chest (in the US, those are used as hope chests, to hold treasures for when a woman is married) with her summer silks.

I don't think any of this detail was chosen arbitrarily. And his last book is called A Dream of Spring.

[OldGimletEye]

10 hours ago, Newstar said:

I never get tired of people making excuses for Sandor's Blackwater ridiculousness and somehow trying to frame it as noble (it's right up there with people who argue that Sandor holding Sansa at knifepoint was super romantic), but this isn't a thread on whether Sandor is a cowardly, opportunistic asshole (and let's just say that GRRM didn't call him a "villain" for nothing). Rather than respond point by point, therefore, I'll reiterate that the argument that Sandor is going to unveil LF's betrayal of Ned for Sansa and that this will be what leads her to turn on LF rests on a number of assumptions completely unsupported by anything in the text or the show:

And I never get tired of rebutting simplistic bullshit that comes off like the worst sort chicken hawkery and war wimpery.

There is no reason to suppose that Sandor does not posses the general level of courage of an ordinary and reasonable soldier. In fact, given his overall reptuation for fighting, he probably has more. It's hard to imagine that a coward could reach such a prominent position within a major noble house.

That said, he carries the burden of a specfic mental condition, a great fear of fire, that was brought on by his childhood trauma of being burned by his brother. Yet, despite that mental disability, he faced several raging wild fire several times over the course of the night of the Blackwater. His acute mental condition, the fear of fire, brought on about by childhood trauma, is what led to his eventual battle fatigue.

I think it's highly unfair to just casually throw a charge of "cowardice" against a soldier who broke because of a specific mental disability, under which he labored for years, and which was a substantial and significant cause of his battle fatigue. I think a simplistic charge of "cowardice", here, both misses the mark and is extremely childish.

But, by all means, continue with that one.

As to Sandor's other conduct during the night of the Blackwater my overall opinion is generally: it's not exactly great. And don't approve of all of it. But, I understand the circumstances that he was in and his emotional state.

10 hours ago, Newstar said:

:1. Despite being preoccupied with fighting, Sandor noticed LF holding a dagger to Ned's throat and took special note of this as something odd or unexpected.

2. Sandor found out or is clever enough to figure out that LF was in league with Ned and betrayed him.

3. Sandor had knowledge or suspicions about LF and the circumstances of Ned's arrest despite not mentioning one word of this to Sansa in ACOK (Season 2).

4. Sandor dislikes and distrusts LF.

5. Sandor will come to dislike and distrust LF in the future and try to save Sansa from his influence.

6. Sansa doesn't know that LF is a lying snake who cannot be trusted.

7. Sansa doesn't know that LF was complicit with the queen and did not oppose her father's arrest and imprisonment.

8. Sandor has information that would change Sansa's opinion of LF.

Again, with a bit of critical analysis and skepticism, the theory completely falls apart. Really, though, if Sansa's storyline is all about her taking charge of her own life and leveraging her own talents and experiences to become a player, a scenario where she needs to be rescued from her own illusions about LF and to be saved from LF not by herself, but by a dude who's not even a player would completely undermine that arc.

Fans who on the one hand boast about what an amazing player Sansa will show herself to be and on the other confidently claim that Sandor will shatter Sansa's illusions about LF and rescue her from LF's sinister clutches are suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance, LOL. Never gets old.

The person that will ultimately engineer LF's downfall is most likely Sansa Stark for her own reasons.

But, right now, Sansa seemingly has a bit of complicated relationship with LF. The little piece of information that LF did in fact hold a dagger to Ned's throat, might be just the thing that gets Sansa to turn against LF for good. Will it happen,? I do not know for certain. But, I think it is very premature, at this time, to call it "absurd".

The more I think about it, LF really did take a unnecessary risk by holding a dagger to Ned's throat. He really didn't need to do that and certainly it's not within his normal mode of operation. Had he not done so, then there would be no evidence of his betrayal Ned Stark, known to anyone. So why did he do it? Maybe because he had an emotional need to let Ned Stark know that he, LF, in fact betrayed him. . But, that little emotional need of LF to spite Ned and to let Ned know that he, LF, had hosed him maybe the slip up that ends up biting LF in the ass in a major way. I certainly do not think that such a development is absurd.

If Sandor goes to Winterfell while LF is present there, I can certainly see dramatic tension between them. Certainly both are probably going to be very surprised to see one another. at Winterfell of all places. Both, I can see, would be like,"what the fuck are you doing here?" Under those circumstances, I can see Sandor saying something about LF holding a dagger to Ned's throat, given he doesn't seemingly have much regard for anyone out of KL. If that does happen, I'm sure LF will have some reason he gives.

Of course, I can see LF pointing fingers right back at Sandor. In that case the Sansa Stark or the Starks, in general, might have to ask themselves, who do they trust more? And if that is what this thing might turn upon, I'd submit that LF might just be seriously screwed.

[Masha]

2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Books, he's 15 years older. Show, they said he's playing down in age (they said 35). There's a 16 year old in Sansa's last chapter who married a 50 year old. Westeros ages are off. But age gaps are common in period romances. Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester have a 20 year gap, and there are many things he borrowed for that story in this one. Ugly, the scarring is part of the story. When she dreams of him in bed with her, she says scarred only on one side.

He's also very tall and muscular. There's something about him that appeals to her sexually. She's worked herself up, lying in bed at night thinking about him, even pretending they kissed. She's sighing because he's not there, hanging onto his yukky cloak, hears his voice when he's not there, remembers everything he said and did, over and over and over again. She's got it bad, in other words. This is coming from HER. So what I want is what she wants. And she sure seems to want him.

The book Sansa is prone to crushing on people who say nice things to her and helped her out once or twice. It means nothing, unless GRRM disturbingly decides to make it so. 

First she was daydreaming about Joffrey, then that fool Dandos, having fantasies about him being her Florian and et al. 

Now she is transferring her daydreams toward Sandor simply because he was kind to her and never asked anything in return, and most importantly he is not there close to her. Its just basic teenage long-distance crushing due to be severely disappointed by close proximity when she freshly remembers that he was sarcastic/rude to her, that he is violent and ugly.

As why she doesn't have crushes on other people - she starting to think of LF as her father and thats why she is more than a bit disturbed when he makes romantic notions to her, plus she has subconscious distrust of him that she can't quite place as of yet.

Corbray is rude / sarcastic towards her and Harry the Heir is hostile to her. 

Yes, we have 16 year old marrying 50 year old man, but thats official arranged marriage, with no hint of love or romance involved.  So don't put that together as SanSan theory implies romance, otherwise it makes no sense for Sansa to marry Sandor 

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Masha said:

The book Sansa is prone to crushing on people who say nice things to her and helped her out once or twice. It means nothing, unless GRRM disturbingly decides to make it so. 

First she was daydreaming about Joffrey, then that fool Dandos, having fantasies about him being her Florian and et al. 

She had no fantasies about Dandos... He's called Dontos BTW. She had nobody else though at the time offering to help her escape. Dontos wanted to kiss her, and she hated it. Oh, and she wished Dontos was more like the Hound.

Her fantasies about Joffrey are asexual fantasies. It's comparable to a 9 year old saying, they're going to marry Justin Bieber. Fantasising and dreaming of a man in your bed and kissing him is a sexual fantasy. There's only one man other than Sandor that she had a sexual fantasy about and that's the Knight of Flowers. But she wants Sandor to win the tournament over the Knight of Flowers, even before she has such a fantasy of both.

Quote

Now she is transferring her daydreams toward Sandor simply because he was kind to her and never asked anything in return, and most importantly he is not there close to her. Its just basic teenage long-distance crushing due to be severely disappointed by close proximity when she freshly remembers that he was sarcastic/rude to her, that he is violent and ugly.

Daydreams? She has created a FALSE memory, and she actually DREAMS of him. And Sandor has affected her since the very first chapter she met him, and the second where he walks her home. The day after she wants Sandor to win the tournament, even over the Knight of Flowers who gave her a rose. She compares each and every suitor to Sandor, more and more, and her fantasies about Sandor and her wishes for him become increasingly sexualised. Sandor didn't come out of the blue.

So far, you have argumented Sandor is a pedo for kissing Sansa. When it was pointed out to you that Sandor did not actually kiss Sansa, but that it is an invention by Sansa herself, you tried to completely sidestep it and have failed to answer this rebuttal. Now you're making up fantasies yourself with Dontos as well as downplaying Sansa's fantasies about Sandor. So, basically your arguments come down to complete misrepresentation of facts, making stuff up and downplaying Sansa's actual sexually related fantasies about Sandor.

 

[Bear Claw]

Yes. Sansa always mentions Sandor. There must be a reason. It has to go somewhere. 

[wolfsbae]

41 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Sandor did not actually kiss Sansa, but that it is an invention by Sansa herself, you tried to completely sidestep it and have failed to answer this rebuttal. Now you're making up fantasies yourself with Dontos as well as downplaying Sansa's fantasies about Sandor. So, basically your arguments come down to complete misrepresentation of facts, making stuff up and downplaying Sansa's actual sexually related fantasies about Sandor.

Yes, exactly -- it's important to remember that it is a false memory. An "UnKiss," I think it has been referred to often. It's also been noted about 1000 times on here and across the interweb that GRRM described Sansa as an unreliable narrator.

[Le Cygne]

A story is not a theory. And the story is written by the author and the showrunners, not the readers and viewers. They are all aware that many like the Sansa and Sandor story, and many more will.

Sansa and Sandor both have romantic feelings for each other, that's the story. Their ages are not a problem in Westeros, and it makes sense for them to marry if they want to marry. It's pretty simple.

Also, his name is Dontos, and the whole point was, Sandor is her Florian, that's why she ran right into him. She wished Dontos was like Sandor, she likes Sandor's ferocity, she's turned on by the Beast...

[Kittykatknits]

1 hour ago, Sophie of House Stark said:

Yes, exactly -- it's important to remember that it is a false memory. An "UnKiss," I think it has been referred to often. It's also been noted about 1000 times on here and across the interweb that GRRM described Sansa as an unreliable narrator.

Sansa is much less of an unreliable narrator than many readers tend to think. George's 3rd person limited style means all of the characters are, is wrong on everything, Tyrion tends assign his dwarfism as the cause of other's feelings/interactions with him, Jaime reads Brienne wrong in Storm, Arya's lack of knowledge regarding the North makes events at Harrenhal much harder for the reader to understand events.

The really funny thing about Martin describing Sansa as an unreliable narrator is that his comment also describes Sansa getting Joff's sword name wrong, stating it as another example. However, George is the unreliable narrator here - if you look at the actual text, it was Arya that got the sword name wrong, not Sansa. 

I wrote an OP on this topic a few years back but can no longer find it 

As to SanSan, it felt good to see Sandor coming back after advocating for his return all these years. His story is done, my ass. I tried to find Martin's response to Lyanna Stark's question as to whether Sansa would get a replacement for her wolf but had no luck. IIRC, it was read and find out. Le Cygne would know it, if anyone does. 

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Kittykatknits said:

Sansa is much less of an unreliable narrator than many readers tend to think. George's 3rd person limited style means all of the characters are, is wrong on everything, Tyrion tends assign his dwarfism as the cause of other's feelings/interactions with him, Jaime reads Brienne wrong in Storm, Arya's lack of knowledge regarding the North makes events at Harrenhal much harder for the reader to understand events.

But you can detect the true events. He does not lie about the actual events. He does however insert interpretation from the POV about the events. For example in Arya's first chapter, Jeyne smiles when she gets scolded and chasticed by Septa Mordane in front of the princess, while Sansa does not. But Arya presents Sansa not smiling as a mask, as a manner thing and suggests that Sansa would want to smile. That is indeed unrealiable, since we don't have Sansa's POV. Likewise Sansa's first chapter makes a deal of Arya always ruining things. These are her personal POV feelings on what is happening. But what happens is objectively factual. Only later, we see Sansa changing and twisting what happened that day in an unrealiable way in her own POV - such as Mycah attacking the Prince. The Unkiss is similar.

[Kittykatknits]

26 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

But you can detect the true events. He does not lie about the actual events. He does however insert interpretation from the POV about the events. For example in Arya's first chapter, Jeyne smiles when she gets scolded and chasticed by Septa Mordane in front of the princess, while Sansa does not. But Arya presents Sansa not smiling as a mask, as a manner thing and suggests that Sansa would want to smile. That is indeed unrealiable, since we don't have Sansa's POV. Likewise Sansa's first chapter makes a deal of Arya always ruining things. These are her personal POV feelings on what is happening. But what happens is objectively factual. Only later, we see Sansa changing and twisting what happened that day in an unrealiable way in her own POV - such as Mycah attacking the Prince. The Unkiss is similar.

Well, sure, I'm not disagreeing with you. My point is that the POV can influence a reader's perception all the time. I'd say your example of Arya's opening chapter is a pretty good example of it. And Sansa does it, but no more so than any other character in the books. I haven't visited these boards much in the past few years but the idea that unreliable narrator was an especially big issue for Sansa specifically used to  be a common opinion. An opinion that doesn't really hold water. All the characters are unreliable.

[Joan Jett]

23 minutes ago, Kittykatknits said:

Well, sure, I'm not disagreeing with you. My point is that the POV can influence a reader's perception all the time. I'd say your example of Arya's opening chapter is a pretty good example of it. And Sansa does it, but no more so than any other character in the books. I haven't visited these boards much in the past few years but the idea that unreliable narrator was an especially big issue for Sansa specifically used to  be a common opinion. An opinion that doesn't really hold water. All the characters are unreliable.

Yeah, all of the characters are unreliable, but Sansa takes the cake IMO. She twists events in her head and even lies to herself. Cant think of another character on her level when it comes to that. 

[LongRider]

If GRRM wants to write about the human heart in conflict, what better conflict than two lovers trying to navigate the conflict of class?  To get together Sansa and Sandor will have to overcome that conflict.  GRRM could do it easily, but the d's?  Well, that's a whole 'nother story.

However, Sansa and Sandor meeting again has great potential for the story and hopefully the d's won't blow it, and get the two together! 

[Kittykatknits]

21 minutes ago, Joan Jett said:

Yeah, all of the characters are unreliable, but Sansa takes the cake IMO. She twists events in her head and even lies to herself. Cant think of another character on her level when it comes to that., 

Nah, the worst in the series are Cersei and Thick Vic. Thanks for providing a great example of what I'm talking about though.

 

[tmug]

11 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The Vale won't stay safe. It's going the be very bad in the Vale. Some speculate murder plots, others that Sansa's identity will be reveald. I have argued that there a lot of foreshadowing is present for a natural disaster involving that big ass 'Mountain' called the Giant's Lance to wreak havoc (avalanche) and that the Mountain Clans will attack the Bloody Gate and for the first time in history will breach the Bloody Gate (because the natural disaster will damage it enough to make it less defensible). Lord fo Chaos LF will see all his plans go to hell by chaos not of his doing imo. Sansa will witness most of this part. Harry ends up dead. LF ends up dead. And Sansa will be extracted from the Vale, likely by the Mad Mouse, who could then run into the "gravedigger".

Interesting. I guess this would fulfill Tryion's original debt to the Mountain Clans technically. He promises them the Vale yet this was never concluded in the shows. I assume that Tywin either 1) paid them off with weapons and gold like they promised or 2) just murdered the whole lot of them and obliterated another group of people. They omitted the clansmen that Jon told Stannis to recruit probably to avoid confusion. It would be nice to see the Mountain Clans make a comeback in some fashion.

[Le Cygne]

Here's hoping they don't. The Mountain clans in the books are raping and murdering the smallfolk. Tyrion said he wanted to "reduce the Vale of Arryn to a smoking wasteland" to spite Lysa. That's why Sandor and Arya couldn't make it to the Vale:

Quote

"There's frost above us and snow in the high passes," the village elder said. "If you don’t freeze or starve, the shadowcats will get you, or the cave bears. There’s the clans as well. The Burned Men are fearless since Timett One-Eye came back from the war. And half a year ago, Gunthor son of Gurn led the Stone Crows down on a village not eight miles from here. They took every woman and every scrap of grain, and killed half the men. They have steel now, good swords and mail hauberks, and they watch the high road - the Stone Crows, the Milk Snakes, the Sons of the Mist, all of them. Might be you'd take a few with you, but in the end they'd kill you and make off with your daughter.”