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Why does Littlefinger kiss Sansa after she builds a Snow Castle? It’s not for the reason most people think...


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30 minutes ago, Prof. Cecily said:

Uf. A friendship with our saucy Myranda does NOT bode well for Sansa. Not at all. 

 

 

Sansa's friends important to her?

Dunno.

Here's Sansa on the subject of her friend Jeyne, whilst dressing for her appeal to Cersei:

And after that harrowing afternoon signing letters asking her family to come to KL and submit to Joffrey

Both quotations from A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

 

I'll confess that I see Sansa as a type of Scarlett O'Hara.

Yes, it's shallow of me, but there you are.

So I can't help wondering just how important other women are to her.

Of course, that my own take and I'm more than interested to read others' opinions!

 

 

Nice one, @Lord Wraith

 

"A friendship with our saucy Myranda does NOT bode well for Sansa. Not at all." 

Bode well for Littlefinger's plans concerning Sansa? Or bode well for Sansa's freedom? I would actually love if Sansa's friendship with Myranda and her acquaintance with Mya Stone helped unravel Littlefinger's plans.

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5 hours ago, Prof. Cecily said:

Uf. A friendship with our saucy Myranda does NOT bode well for Sansa. Not at all.

Actually I disagree.  I'm actually writing an essay that involved signs Myranda is a friend.  Just to keep a long story short, Myranda is very close friends ("as close as sisters") with Mya Stone, who seems like a really solid good character.  If Myranda seems a little suspicious, it's because she's suspicious of Alayne Stone.  It's a natural question to ask.  Who is this daughter of LF and what are they doing in the Eyrie?  Especially after Lysa's murder and the fact that her father benefited from her death and is in bed with LF.  There's hints of a strained relationship between father and daughter.  She definitely has a suspicion she's Sansa Stark, so she goes up the mountain only to come back down right away.  What better way to suss her out than on the harrowing decent when she's under pressure?  But there's also signs she's satisfied with Sansa's character by the end of the trip.    

5 hours ago, Prof. Cecily said:

Sansa's friends important to her?

Dunno.

Here's Sansa on the subject of her friend Jeyne, whilst dressing for her appeal to Cersei:

I'm just going to flat out say it.  George is not a good writer when it comes to writing relationships between women.  He can write great female characters, but he writes female friendships in a much more negative light (and they barely exist) than male-male or male-female.  Catelyn Stark has no female friends at all.  Not one lady in her company.  That's bizarre.  It's really hard to think of until maybe some later books of a positive relationship between two women of more-or-less equal status.  Dany has Irri, but that's a master / slave relationship, completely unequal.  Catelyn grew to like Brienne, but again that's Lady / "knight" in her service relationship and it's very brief relationship.  Brienne is written to never have had one good interaction with any woman in her entire life.  There's a brief start of an interaction between Asha Greyjoy and a Mormont woman iirc?  That's it.    

Meanwhile, you have very positive relationships between Jon and some of his brothers on the Wall even they started out kinda on the wrong foot with Jon being an ass.  Arya can fight with Gendry and even be bullied by Hot Pie, but you don't doubt they have friendship.  Bran, Jojen, and Meera all get along wonderfully.  

Finally when we get the arrival of Margaery and the Tyrells, you see a group of women all interacting and discussing politics over tea and cakes.  However, they invite Sansa to meet them for their own agenda and we see that they are plotting to marry her to Willas for her claim. Sansa is also afraid of coming out and being honest about Joffrey's true nature.  At that time, she doesn't know if she can even trust the Tyrells, but she warns Margaery that Joffrey is a monster.  When they go hawking she warns Margaery again that Joffrey will hurt her and she's very concerned about her marrying him.  She risked a beating to repeatedly warn another woman about domestic violence.  However, when Sansa gets forced into marrying Tyrion the Tyrells drop her like a hot potato.  She's worthless to them now.  The friendship is not reciprocated.  She doesn't get invited into their company again.

So when it comes to Jeyne and Sansa, we learn that although they are not really social equals they spend a lot of their time together.  They gossip (mostly about who they think is cute) and confide in each other.  Very normal bonding for their age group, but again that type of bonding is often depicted as less pure than the way boys bond.  After the Stark men are killed in KL, Sansa and Jeyne huddle in bed together and hold each other.  So we get these very brief glimpses of a close bond and mutual support, but the negative aspects of their friendship (the treatment of Arya, Sansa's critical thoughts about Jeyne) are soooooo much more highlighted.  They are always at the forefront.  But male-male, male-female friendships can have fights and bullying but somehow they overcome that and can still be friends.

So there's a pattern here with George and it's really problematic.  I personally think he has realized this and is trying to correct that with Mya and Myranda.  He's also written in later books Sansa thinking of moments when she and Arya played together with Jeyne Poole.  Snow ball fights and running around Winterfell.  He's retrofitting positive elements back into the sisters relationship.  It would have been nice if we had seen in AGOT that once the girls had a good relationship, but things changed with Septa Mordane's teaching methods that helped encourage bullying Arya and caused the sisters to fight more than normal siblings.  Sansa even says she tries not to think about Jeyne or her family too much because it's just too painful at times, but when she does the thoughts are positive.  So George is trying to kinda balance out what was overly negative.   

There's also the fact that Jon can have moments of jealousy over Robb being the true born heir to WF, but he can overcome that because he loves Robb and their brotherhood is more important to him.  But two girls can't overcome jealousy and value their friendship over a potential romantic interest?  It's a really bad stereotype in not just this series, but in fiction that the more girly-girl the character is the more likely she'll be mean or jealous or disloyal.  Only male-male and male-female relationships are more pure and true and tomboy girls are the more trustworthy.  

Spoiler

Referring to the supposed jealousy Myranda has about Sansa marrying HtH.  There's hurt, but somehow that means Myranda and Sansa can't be friends because a man came between them.  I really don't think George is going that route.  He writes the running scene in TWOW where Myranda's cloak is cast off while the girls are having a race.  As if the marriage cloak is cast off in favor of the friendship between them.  I see Sansa's tone of voice in the sample chapter as changing to being far more confident, mature, and less wall of courtesy.  I do think that is Myranda's overall positive influence.  

 So yes, we have instances of Sansa seeking to bond with other women, but George really had an unfortunate pattern in his writing.  It's taken him this long just to even hint that he's trying to change that.  It may be just as a male writer he just isn't as comfortable writing about female bonding.  Of course, because it's such a pervasive trope, readers tend to accept readily that female friendships are just naturally more rare and more fraught with insurmountable negativity.  Total bullshit.   I think Sansa really needs female peers to draw strength and confidence from in order to get free of her abuser.  I do think the author is ultimately very feminist when it comes to the big picture and in individual characters, so my hope is that he does correct this.  I really think he is.  If he doesn't, it would honestly make him a lesser writer. 

Sorry, didn't mean to derail anything! Just wanted to answer that question.  Moving along now! :leaving:    PM me if you wish to discuss it further.             

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2 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

After the Stark men are killed in KL, Sansa and Jeyne huddle in bed together and hold each other.

Sure, there's an element of friendship there, but remember - ALL the noble women have "bed servants" whose job is to sleep with them and keep them warm (or whatever). So huddling in bed is not that much a sign of great affection. And don't forget those passages where Sansa is glad that Jeyne and her inappropriate and annoying tears over the slaughter of her family, friends, and everyone else from Winterfell, is finally gone.

2 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

But two girls can't overcome jealousy and value their friendship over a potential romantic interest?  It's a really bad stereotype in not just this series, but in fiction that the more girly-girl the character is the more likely she'll be mean or jealous or disloyal.

Well, yes. Because in Westeros a woman's future and well-being is so tied up with how good a man she can catch. Jealosy and back-biting among women was common (and exists to this day, although it's not as bad.) Sansa, as "prom queen" and trained snob (note how she never thinks of Mya without a comment upon her bastardy) would be more prone to disregarding female friendships which would just waste time that could have been more productively spent in attracting and influencing the people who count: the guys. Oh, and kissing up to the Great Ladies.

Women like Myranda, who is less attractive, are better candidates for "girl friendship" because they're less of a threat. Women like Jeyne Poole and Mya Stone, being low born, are okay, too, but deserve significantly less consideration because they're just "the help." Note that even as a "bastard", Sansa suffers no apparent loss of status - she's still bathed by servants, dressed by servants, has her hair done by servants, and has no work that she's compelled to do herself. Ordering the servants to put together a light meal? Ha.

A major part of Sansa's arc and character is how she perceives herself as isolated and alone. In the beginning, she immediately disavows her Stark-hood and moves on to branding the whole family as "traitors." Her house arrest, with absolutely ZERO awareness on her part that she's a valuable hostage or that part of her brother Robb's war is being fought to get her back, increases her belief that it's just her alone. The reported deaths of the rest of her family members pretty much confirms this to her. So Sansa is there to help anyone who will help her. Or "help" her, as the case may be. Because she has no larger affiliation.

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18 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

The subsequent evidence is in  GRRM's writing and the way he worded it ("You're supposed to kiss her." Sansa glanced up at Lysa's balcony, but it was empty now.)  "Empty now". As in she recently left and Sansa is just noticing. 

Also another evidence that she returned? The fact that Lysa WITNESSED the kiss. I doubt she would have seen it if she did not return. It's like everyone expects that Lysa flew to the balcony in the seconds that it took the kiss to happen and then flew back out without being seen.

Lysa returned and Sansa saw her which is why she looked to the balcony and said "You're supposed to kiss her," with the belief that Lysa was still there ONLY to realize that Lysa was gone.

Er, I did not deny that Lysa returned.

The point is that Sansa did not know she had returned, and neither did Littlefinger.  If Sansa was meant to have seen Lysa return, that would be in the actual narrative, but it's not.

And as I noted, Sansa's subsequent behaviour makes no sense if she thought Lysa had seen Littlefinger kissing her.

10 minutes ago, zandru said:

Sure, there's an element of friendship there, but remember - ALL the noble women have "bed servants" whose job is to sleep with them and keep them warm (or whatever). So huddling in bed is not that much a sign of great affection. And don't forget those passages where Sansa is glad that Jeyne and her inappropriate and annoying tears over the slaughter of her family, friends, and everyone else from Winterfell, is finally gone.

We see no sign in the books that Sansa normally has "bed servants".  Huddling together is indeed a sign of great affection in the narrative.  See also, all the times Sansa thinks about Jeyne as her "dearest friend", in her own words.  

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Well, yes. Because in Westeros a woman's future and well-being is so tied up with how good a man she can catch. Jealosy and back-biting among women was common (and exists to this day, although it's not as bad.) Sansa, as "prom queen" and trained snob (note how she never thinks of Mya without a comment upon her bastardy) would be more prone to disregarding female friendships which would just waste time that could have been more productively spent in attracting and influencing the people who count: the guys. Oh, and kissing up to the Great Ladies.

Also wrong.  Sansa has never been shown disregarding female friendships -- indeed, in this period, it would be generally considered inappropriate to be too friendly with men who are not her kinsmen, so female friendships were where the game was.  As for the rivalry stuff, Sansa was raised under the assumption that her father would pick out her husband; her own efforts didn't really enter into it at all, so she was not trained to regard other beautiful women of similar status as competition.

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35 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

As for the rivalry stuff, Sansa was raised under the assumption that her father would pick out her husband; her own efforts didn't really enter into it at all, so she was not trained to regard other beautiful women of similar status as competition.

Okay - but it's really hard to pin this down, as Sansa is betrothed to the Future King of Westeros from the moment we first meet her, and she regards him as a dreamy, handsome, wonderful prince. (For WAY too long.) We really don't see Sansa's actual behavior (vs what would be "logical" for her to do). Nonetheless, betrothed Sansa flirts with beautiful Ser Loras at the tourney, suggesting she's attracted to men and open to using her own beauty to woo them. Plus the fact that there are no other "ladies" at Winterfell (as has been mentioned) and thus no actual "competition." So again, the textual evidence that Sansa doesn't regard other women as competitors is missing.

42 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

Huddling together is indeed a sign of great affection in the narrative.  See also, all the times Sansa thinks about Jeyne as her "dearest friend", in her own words.  

Here, they are "huddling" in response to the bloody slaughter of all the Stark people. There may be affection, even "great" affection, but not necessarily. There's at least shared horror. And, in spite of Jeyne being Sansa's  dearest friend, Sansa sure was glad to be rid of her, and hardly ever thought of Jeyne at all after she was gone. Sansa might have asked after her, since she regarded Cersei as her friend much longer than was warranted, but there's no indication that she did from the narrative we have.

As I observed earlier, probably badly, a key feature of Sansa's character and arc is her sense of isolation. She literally has no loyalties. This was noted in GRRM's initial outline (Sansa's betrayal and ultimate separation from her family to join forces with the enemy). Of course, everything has evolved and many changes to characters and arcs have taken place since that outline was written, and we don't know where Sansa will end up at this point. But do note: she was written to be separated from family and feel isolated. Female bonding (how PC!) was not a big part of her character arc when the current books were written. It could change.

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27 minutes ago, zandru said:

Nonetheless, betrothed Sansa flirts with beautiful Ser Loras at the tourney, suggesting she's attracted to men and open to using her own beauty to woo them.

She's acting as a proper lady when Loras offers flowers to the various attendees, which is part of chivalric pageantry.

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Plus the fact that there are no other "ladies" at Winterfell (as has been mentioned) and thus no actual "competition."

Again, there's no competition because Sansa hasn't been raised to pursue men.  

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So again, the textual evidence that Sansa doesn't regard other women as competitors is missing.

The textual evidence is that there is no evidence of it, and when she is invited into the Tyrell entourage in ASOS, she is ecstatic and remarks how much she's missed the company of women.

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Here, they are "huddling" in response to the bloody slaughter of all the Stark people. There may be affection, even "great" affection, but not necessarily. There's at least shared horror. And, in spite of Jeyne being Sansa's  dearest friend, Sansa sure was glad to be rid of her, and hardly ever thought of Jeyne at all after she was gone.

Sansa explicitly notes in the text that she tries not to think of everybody she's lost because it makes it too hard to keep up the facade she has to maintain.

The "out of sight, out of mind" moment where she's glad Jeyne is gone at the end of AGOT is anomalous with the rest of her relationship with Jeyne, and reflects her desperation at that moment to convince herself that things are normal and the situation is in hand.  She's shortly disabused of that notion.

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As I observed earlier, probably badly, a key feature of Sansa's character and arc is her sense of isolation. She literally has no loyalties. This was noted in GRRM's initial outline (Sansa's betrayal and ultimate separation from her family to join forces with the enemy). Of course, everything has evolved and many changes to characters and arcs have taken place since that outline was written, and we don't know where Sansa will end up at this point. But do note: she was written to be separated from family and feel isolated. Female bonding (how PC!) was not a big part of her character arc when the current books were written. It could change.

Sansa does, in fact, have loyalties.  Her loyalty to her family throughout her captivity in KL is a recurring theme, and she's loyal to the Tyrells (at considerable risk to herself) until they stab her in the back.

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1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

Sansa does, in fact, have loyalties.  Her loyalty to her family throughout her captivity in KL is a recurring theme,

Sorry, I missed that part. Insisting how they're all traitors, that's what you call "loyalty" now?

It needs to be stated that there are no Starks anymore. The name is dead. All the male Starks are at least presumed dead. Bran, though secretly alive, is probably a eunuch functionally. Nobody knows anything about Rickon yet. Jon is a bastard; at best a Targaryon, most likely a Targaryon bastard, but definitely not a Stark. Sansa's currently a Lannister, but any children she may ever bear will not be "Starks" - they'll be Lannisters. Or Boltons. Or Arryns. Or Stones, Snows, Rivers, Flowers .... well, you get the point. The Stark name is gone from the world.

Even if Sansa actually did retain some "family loyalty", as you insist, there is no family. There's only the property, Winterfell, that she provides a link towards some man possessing. And the Iron Throne gave that to the Boltons, so it's gone, too.

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I'm delighted to read so many different interpretations of Sansa's character!

 

6 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

Actually I disagree.  I'm actually writing an essay that involved signs Myranda is a friend.  Just to keep a long story short, Myranda is very close friends ("as close as sisters") with Mya Stone, who seems like a really solid good character.  If Myranda seems a little suspicious, it's because she's suspicious of Alayne Stone.  It's a natural question to ask.  Who is this daughter of LF and what are they doing in the Eyrie?  Especially after Lysa's murder and the fact that her father benefited from her death and is in bed with LF.  There's hints of a strained relationship between father and daughter.  She definitely has a suspicion she's Sansa Stark, so she goes up the mountain only to come back down right away.  What better way to suss her out than on the harrowing decent when she's under pressure?  But there's also signs she's satisfied with Sansa's character by the end of the trip.

Spoiler

 

   

I'm just going to flat out say it.  George is not a good writer when it comes to writing relationships between women.  He can write great female characters, but he writes female friendships in a much more negative light (and they barely exist) than male-male or male-female.  Catelyn Stark has no female friends at all.  Not one lady in her company.  That's bizarre.  It's really hard to think of until maybe some later books of a positive relationship between two women of more-or-less equal status.  Dany has Irri, but that's a master / slave relationship, completely unequal.  Catelyn grew to like Brienne, but again that's Lady / "knight" in her service relationship and it's very brief relationship.  Brienne is written to never have had one good interaction with any woman in her entire life.  There's a brief start of an interaction between Asha Greyjoy and a Mormont woman iirc?  That's it.    

Meanwhile, you have very positive relationships between Jon and some of his brothers on the Wall even they started out kinda on the wrong foot with Jon being an ass.  Arya can fight with Gendry and even be bullied by Hot Pie, but you don't doubt they have friendship.  Bran, Jojen, and Meera all get along wonderfully.  

Finally when we get the arrival of Margaery and the Tyrells, you see a group of women all interacting and discussing politics over tea and cakes.  However, they invite Sansa to meet them for their own agenda and we see that they are plotting to marry her to Willas for her claim. Sansa is also afraid of coming out and being honest about Joffrey's true nature.  At that time, she doesn't know if she can even trust the Tyrells, but she warns Margaery that Joffrey is a monster.  When they go hawking she warns Margaery again that Joffrey will hurt her and she's very concerned about her marrying him.  She risked a beating to repeatedly warn another woman about domestic violence.  However, when Sansa gets forced into marrying Tyrion the Tyrells drop her like a hot potato.  She's worthless to them now.  The friendship is not reciprocated.  She doesn't get invited into their company again.

So when it comes to Jeyne and Sansa, we learn that although they are not really social equals they spend a lot of their time together.  They gossip (mostly about who they think is cute) and confide in each other.  Very normal bonding for their age group, but again that type of bonding is often depicted as less pure than the way boys bond.  After the Stark men are killed in KL, Sansa and Jeyne huddle in bed together and hold each other.  So we get these very brief glimpses of a close bond and mutual support, but the negative aspects of their friendship (the treatment of Arya, Sansa's critical thoughts about Jeyne) are soooooo much more highlighted.  They are always at the forefront.  But male-male, male-female friendships can have fights and bullying but somehow they overcome that and can still be friends.

So there's a pattern here with George and it's really problematic.  I personally think he has realized this and is trying to correct that with Mya and Myranda.  He's also written in later books Sansa thinking of moments when she and Arya played together with Jeyne Poole.  Snow ball fights and running around Winterfell.  He's retrofitting positive elements back into the sisters relationship.  It would have been nice if we had seen in AGOT that once the girls had a good relationship, but things changed with Septa Mordane's teaching methods that helped encourage bullying Arya and caused the sisters to fight more than normal siblings.  Sansa even says she tries not to think about Jeyne or her family too much because it's just too painful at times, but when she does the thoughts are positive.  So George is trying to kinda balance out what was overly negative.   

There's also the fact that Jon can have moments of jealousy over Robb being the true born heir to WF, but he can overcome that because he loves Robb and their brotherhood is more important to him.  But two girls can't overcome jealousy and value their friendship over a potential romantic interest?  It's a really bad stereotype in not just this series, but in fiction that the more girly-girl the character is the more likely she'll be mean or jealous or disloyal.  Only male-male and male-female relationships are more pure and true and tomboy girls are the more trustworthy.  

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Referring to the supposed jealousy Myranda has about Sansa marrying HtH.  There's hurt, but somehow that means Myranda and Sansa can't be friends because a man came between them.  I really don't think George is going that route.  He writes the running scene in TWOW where Myranda's cloak is cast off while the girls are having a race.  As if the marriage cloak is cast off in favor of the friendship between them.  I see Sansa's tone of voice in the sample chapter as changing to being far more confident, mature, and less wall of courtesy.  I do think that is Myranda's overall positive influence.  

 So yes, we have instances of Sansa seeking to bond with other women, but George really had an unfortunate pattern in his writing.  It's taken him this long just to even hint that he's trying to change that.  It may be just as a male writer he just isn't as comfortable writing about female bonding.  Of course, because it's such a pervasive trope, readers tend to accept readily that female friendships are just naturally more rare and more fraught with insurmountable negativity.  Total bullshit.   I think Sansa really needs female peers to draw strength and confidence from in order to get free of her abuser.  I do think the author is ultimately very feminist when it comes to the big picture and in individual characters, so my hope is that he does correct this.  I really think he is.  If he doesn't, it would honestly make him a lesser writer. 

 

Sorry, didn't mean to derail anything! Just wanted to answer that question.  Moving along now! :leaving:    PM me if you wish to discuss it further.             

I'll be very interested in reading your essay! I think the subject is of interest to a number of posters and probably merits its own thread. Be my guest!

1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

The textual evidence is that there is no evidence of it, and when she is invited into the Tyrell entourage in ASOS, she is ecstatic and remarks how much she's missed the company of women.

...and she's loyal to the Tyrells (at considerable risk to herself) until they stab her in the back.

Curiously enough, this is a reversed mirroring of a situation found in Pride and Prejudice, where the womenfolk of mr Bingley befriend Jane, til they realise there's a very real chance Bingley thinks of Jane as a potential wife.

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13 minutes ago, zandru said:

Sorry, I missed that part. Insisting how they're all traitors, that's what you call "loyalty" now?

It needs to be stated that there are no Starks anymore. The name is dead. All the male Starks are at least presumed dead. Bran, though secretly alive, is probably a eunuch functionally. Nobody knows anything about Rickon yet. Jon is a bastard; at best a Targaryon, most likely a Targaryon bastard, but definitely not a Stark. Sansa's currently a Lannister, but any children she may ever bear will not be "Starks" - they'll be Lannisters. Or Boltons. Or Arryns. Or Stones, Snows, Rivers, Flowers .... well, you get the point. The Stark name is gone from the world.

Even if Sansa actually did retain some "family loyalty", as you insist, there is no family. There's only the property, Winterfell, that she provides a link towards some man possessing. And the Iron Throne gave that to the Boltons, so it's gone, too.

So, Arya's chopped liver?  Also, the Mormont women give the House name to their daughters.  No reason why either Sansa or Arya couldn't name their child as a Stark.  Either of them as Lady of Winterfell could work.

i have no idea what the population of the North is, but area wise, it is similar to the other six kingdoms together.  They have a distinct culture, I could see them adapting and adopting different customs, and having the size and spread to do so unchallenged.

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58 minutes ago, zandru said:

Sorry, I missed that part. Insisting how they're all traitors, that's what you call "loyalty" now?

You missed her internal dialogue, where she is steadfast in maintaining her affinity with her family.

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It needs to be stated that there are no Starks anymore. The name is dead. All the male Starks are at least presumed dead. Bran, though secretly alive, is probably a eunuch functionally. Nobody knows anything about Rickon yet. Jon is a bastard; at best a Targaryon, most likely a Targaryon bastard, but definitely not a Stark. Sansa's currently a Lannister, but any children she may ever bear will not be "Starks" - they'll be Lannisters. Or Boltons. Or Arryns. Or Stones, Snows, Rivers, Flowers .... well, you get the point. The Stark name is gone from the world.

No, Sansa is Sansa Stark.  And if she had children, they can take the Stark name, if she wants them to.  Same with Arya.

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Even if Sansa actually did retain some "family loyalty", as you insist, there is no family. There's only the property, Winterfell, that she provides a link towards some man possessing. And the Iron Throne gave that to the Boltons, so it's gone, too.

We were discussing the period where the family was active.

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Y'know, I may be coming around to the theory that Littlefinger has been surrepititiously dosing Lysa with sweetsleep. Not that he was doing it for years, way back in King's Landing. Note that Lysa is fat and shockingly unhealthy looking when Catelyn first meets her after many years absence, way back in book 1. But I could easily believe, after several nights on board ship and on the road, that Baelish got really tired of Lysa's screaming in his ear all night and carrying on like a ha'penny whore, and once he had access to a maester with his drug supply, asked if maybe Coleman might have something that would help the Lady Lysa to get some rest? Poor thing, she's so wound up with concern for her ill son and her responsibilities that she's hardly had a good night's rest! But we can't tell her, because she's so conscientious and self sacrificing - something we might slip in her drink? And, to himself, Oh, and he says there's the possibility of overdose, and how the effects can be cumulative - and fatal? That's very interesting - and useful.

There's little evidence that Littlefinger was ever attracted to Lysa, either physically or personality-wise; likely she was just the annoying little sister back at Riverrun, and later the annoying but powerful wife of the Hand in King's Landing. Now that Lysa has "let herself go" (and look, the woman has had several pregnancies), she would be even less desireable to a man who employs young, good looking professional sex workers. Plus, surely Lysa involved dear Petyr in stripping her breast milk every time they "did it." As we all know, mammalian females will go dry unless milked regularly, a process which takes a number of days and is excruciatingly painful as the hydrostatic pressure builds up. So Lysa would have to "milk" herself until her joyous reunion with Petyr, if she expected to continue to be able to feed little Robert - which she does. This might further disgust Petyr, leading him to look for ways of turning Lysa off at night.

Now, about addiction and habituation. Just because sweetsleep is a "drug" doesn't imply it's physically addictive, and I don't recall anywhere that it's said in the text (perhaps you all could enlighten me). We know "milk of the poppy" is - it's an opioid, and is explicitly noted as addictive. Sweetsleep, not so much. That little Robert craves "sweetened" milk is most likely just a sugar addiction, which is not only common but is socially condoned these days.

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On 6/10/2017 at 2:03 PM, Colonel Green said:

No, Sansa is Sansa Stark.  And if she had children, they can take the Stark name, if she wants them to.  Same with Arya.

Sorry, no. The woman's children take the husband's name, if they're married. If not, the children inherit nothing. And it takes a King on the Iron Throne to decree otherwise. What are the odds little King Tommen / dowager Queen Cersei would do that?

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3 hours ago, zandru said:

Sorry, no. The woman's children take the husband's name, if they're married. If not, the children inherit nothing.

Tell that to Maege Mormont, Anya Waynwood, Arwyn Oakheart, and Lyessa Flint, among others.

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It's not automatic that a wife takes her husbands last name.  I believe George did confirm this.  As a rule of thumb, a wife will change her name if the husband has the higher-ranking or more prestigious name.  If he doesn't or if they are equals, she has the option of keeping her own family name and it's perfectly normal.  A good example of this is Genna Lannister who is married to Emmon Frey.  The Lannister name is obviously the more prestigious one, hence why she is always known as Genna Lannister.  This is actually benefits the husband by attaching himself to her family name.  Their 4 children all bear the name Frey and they're perfectly legitimate heirs.    

Catelyn Stark does have the option of being still called Catelyn Tully as they are both paramount houses.  However, Starks have the kingsblood which lends more prestige than the Tully name.  She also genuinely loves Ned so she chooses Stark, but she still had the option. 

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9 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

It's not automatic that a wife takes her husbands last name.  I believe George did confirm this.

Interesting! I had no idea (well, clearly...) Thanks!

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On 9. Juni 2017 at 1:13 PM, Prof. Cecily said:

 

  Hide contents

1) Sansa happily organising something Ned loathed: a tourney. 2) And that garishly ostentatious 12 foot high lemon cake.

I suspect GRRM has something fittingly ....georgish in mind for Sansa and Baelish.

Spoiler

I wonder who might jump out of this giant cake? Hells, its big enough for Brienne. :D

 

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