Will Sansa’s Unkiss amount to nothing more than the active over imagination of a young girl concerning the guy that protected her?

[Le Cygne]

He was confused, Arya is the one who remembered it wrong. His larger point was that he has his viewpoint characters often remember things (narrate things) wrong. He talks about how he uses unreliable narrator in the POV's often.

GRRM: "You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom... but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it's a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on."

So let's look at the threes for that. Sansa remembered Sandor kissed her three times. Another three times in the making, she puts on Sandor's cloak twice (and with all the marriage hints, there will likely be a third time).

[ravenous reader]

Some here are projecting their own 'stuff' onto Sandor and Sansa, which would be better worked out with a therapist.  Let's stick to what GRRM has actually written -- whether one approves or disapproves of his depiction of male-female relations is a separate issue, and some might even say irrelevant to understanding the text at hand.  It's too simplistic to say that Sandor only represents the power fantasies of a disempowered girl.  And if anyone is shown to be suffering from 'PTSD' it's Sandor, not Sansa.  On the night of the Blackwater, he was the traumatized one disintegrating before her eyes (the fire triggered a debilitating flashback to being burned/assaulted by his brother in childhood).  Sure, he lashed out at her in his misery; yet Sansa was still somehow able to see through to the suffering behind the bluster -- or she wouldn't later refer to the 'hound' she embraces as a 'sad' old hound.  She sings him a song about the Mother, indicating that ironically she is more the adult here to his regressive childlike state.  Sandor is GRRM's lesson in 'the true seeing' for Sansa Stark -- each of the Starks has his or her own lesson.  It's not power Sansa needs from him; it's honesty -- or, if you like, authenticity.

Sandor Clegane is the opposite of the cloying lemon pie.  

If one needs an explanation for the 'unkiss,' I like the idea given above of Sansa having established a momentary telepathic connection with him...As Bran does with Meera, startling her, Sansa intuitively 'reached for' Sandor's mind, which he in his severely compromised physical and mental state (which predisposes a person to telepathic experiences of this nature) did not and/or could not resist, unlike Meera.

If Sansa 'invaded' poor Sandor's psyche in that moment, with some 'mild warging/skinchanging' (I agree with @Cowboy Dan that this is a 'thing'; the 'third eye' is not 'all-or-nothing', i.e. not completely open or completely closed); then perhaps we should consider whether Sansa symbolically 'raped' Sandor, and not vice versa!

[Le Cygne]

Well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If anything, Sansa has it more for Sandor than the other way around. But no, he's mooning around the Riverlands like a lovesick puppy, going on and on about her pretty little song, and sobbing about the little bird with his dying breath.

Anyway, she sure seems to be enjoying the thought of kissing him. If you just look at this passage alone, it's clear she has thought about him kissing her a lot, and is enjoying the thought of his lips pressing on her own (by the way, Dany describes Daario's kisses that we know she enjoyed the same way).

And he left her. He came to her, but then he left her! She sounds like a jilted bride. And a little while later, when she's asked about the marriage bed, she remembers the Hound, and how he'd kissed her.

As the boy's lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.

[Meera of Tarth]

6 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If anything, Sansa has it more for Sandor than the other way around. But no, he's mooning around the Riverlands like a lovesick puppy, going on and on about her pretty little song, and sobbing about the little bird with his dying breath.

Anyway, she sure seems to be enjoying the thought of kissing him. If you just look at this passage alone, it's clear she has thought about him kissing her a lot, and is enjoying the thought of his lips pressing on her own (by the way, Dany describes Daario's kisses that we know she enjoyed the same way).

And he left her. He came to her, but then he left her! She sounds like a jilted bride. And a little while later, when she's asked about the marriage bed, she remembers the Hound, and how he'd kissed her.

As the boy's lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.

Good point! she enjoys it. There is nothing thT suggests that she is forcing herself to enjoy it bc of a weird trauma mechanism. If the text suggested so..

..Bu

But nope

[Meera of Tarth]

Ut would really be difficult to force oneself to enjoy the daydreams of kissing a man that has traumatised you!!!!! 

And at the same time.........dom't develpp ANY OTHER MECHANISM for your other MUCH MUCh more bigger traumas!!!!!!

[Blue-Eyed Wolf]

This is part of an essay I've written.  It's not the topic of the essay but it is one subsection.  If we look at the final incarnation of the unkiss in Alayne II, I would suggest re-reading that entire scene in Robert's bedchamber and "zoom out."  There's striking resemblances to the interaction between Robert and Sansa that closely parallels the Blackwater scene in Sansa's bedchamber.  There's too much to quote, so I'm going to go over the parallels and re-read that section as you will.   The difference is there is a role reversal where Sansa is taking control of the situation.  Sweetrobin is playing the role of Sandor which is fitting as both are deeply wounded and frightened children.

•   The scene opens, both Sandor and SR are lying in bed.  There is a traumatic danger outside relevant to both of them.  The wildfire outside one, the dangerous descent from the Eyrie that SR is avoiding.
• Both have childhood trauma.  Sandor was burned.  SR's mother was pushed through the Moon Door and he's afraid of falling like she did.
• Both have been humiliated.  Sandor was called craven for leaving the battle and he was thereafter mocked for it.  SR's own servants snigger and gossip about his babyish behavior.  Sansa understands their trauma and reacts with compassion.  Alayne shuts the heavy door of the bedchamber on the servants to prevent them from hearing their conversation and gossiping.  She even firmly admonishes the squires and tells the servants basically "find something more productive to do" and stop eavesdropping.  Sansa keep's Sandor's secret after he's gone.  She treats them both with respect in protecting their privacy in their respective vulnerable states.
• Sandor goes to seek comfort from Sansa after he deserts.  He desperately wants affirmation that he is brave, but he goes about it by calling Sansa afraid of everything.  He's the one falling apart.  She is someone who is willing to give compassion, but she doesn't like the inappropriate and aggressive manner in which he is seeking it.  SR also wants comfort from Sansa for his anxieties.  Sansa affirms that he is "brave" and "strong."  SR doesn't want to admit he's afraid, he's only "choosing" not to go.  In his fear, SR is also lashing out at people inappropriately like Mya Stone who only wish to help him.
• Sandor demands a song, specifically "Florian and Jonquil."  A romantic song about a true knight and his lady.  SR demands stories of Artys Arryn, the Winged Knight, that he often references in terms of bravery.  Sansa finds Sandor's request irrational and inappropriate considering the battle outside.  Sansa does promise SR more stories once they reach the bottom of the mountain, but his demands for more and more stories and lemoncakes is becoming excessive.  In both scenarios Sansa is not unwilling to give either a song or a story. but it's the timing that is wrong and the way it is being asked for is too demanding.  With Sandor she couldn't push back and set her own personal limits.  With SR she sets firm limits on when and where she will give, with him meeting her half-way.  He must get out of bed and get dressed.  
• She also keeps her anger and frustration with SR's behavior in check, where Sandor had not.  She only firmly corrects his behavior and sets limits.   
• She thinks Sandor means to kiss her and later thinks that he did.  SR culminates the scene by kissing Sansa and sparks the final incarnation of the unkiss.  She tells him that he may kiss her again when they reach the Gates of the Moon, if he keeps his word.  Sandor also made a promise that he failed to deliver on, that no one would hurt her again and he would keep her safe. He failed because he failed to see how his behavior was not safe at all until she snapped him out of it.  So she would be willing to give a kiss for a promise kept.

So if this entire scene can be read as a Blackwater redo, it's Sansa who is in control.  She's willing to give in the relationship, but she also wants a say in when, where, and how.  She wants her boundaries respected and she wants SR to give in return.  She's taming SR's inappropriate behavior, not rejecting him.  So we can say with the Blackwater, this is the way she would have preferred things to happen.

To put it into context, Sansa is playing the role of the rescuer of SR who is in the tower.  Where Colemon initially went to Lothor Brune to drag SR out of bed, Lothor Brune goes to Sansa to talk him out of bed "nice."  By her method of dealing with SR, he makes the better choice on his own to get out of bed and get dressed for the decent.  He wasn't drugged or forced for his own good, which would have further traumatized the boy.  Sansa is showing the right way Sandor should have approached "rescuing" her from her own tower.  

@ravenous reader  very well said! 

[Le Cygne]

I think what he's doing in that chapter is showing Sansa's feelings for Sandor run very deep. I think this is expressed in a very loving way, I don't think she's a saint, nor he a sinner, they are both messed up.

She is honoring what he did for her, and wanted to do for her that night, he was there to rescue her. They were both afraid and they both comforted each other. (She got under his cloak that night.)

So it goes both ways. They both helped each other. They are both messed up people, but they focus on the good in each other. They cut each other slack. It's about understanding someone.

Sandor helped Sansa feel brave. Thoughts of him give her courage. There's a passage where she stays on the saddle that calls back to when Sandor puts Sansa back on her saddle. Worded the same way.

• Before, Sandor said, "Look at me," and she closed her eyes.
• Now, I could close my eyes. The mule knows the way, he has no need of me. But that seemed more something Sansa would have done, that frightened girl. Alayne was an older woman, and bastard brave.
• Before, Sandor was always there to catch her before she could fall. She could still feel the cruel pinch of fingers on her wrist as she lost her balance and began to fall. When his hand fell away, another hand, stronger, shoved her back into her saddle.
• Now, she doesn't fall. The steepness of this part of the descent made her cling tightly to her saddle. I will not fall.

So he's calling back to when Sandor rescued her. She remembers this over and over again. And now she's rescuing Sweetrobin. She's doing what Sandor showed her. Sandor helped Sansa feel brave.

"Look at me." I could close my eyes but she keeps them open, and she stays on the saddle, like Sandor (the one she "kissed" at the start of the chapter) helped her do before. She's a woman now, and she's not afraid to look.

Here's what I think the author is doing. He's showing that Sansa and Sandor are using the lessons they learned from each other while apart. He showing that they both affected each other in positive ways.

They are better for knowing each other.

[zandru]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Some here are projecting their own 'stuff' onto Sandor and Sansa, which would be better worked out with a therapist.

This. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm a prime suspect myself  ;-)

But I'd drop the "telepathy" angle. Understanding another person, and seeing (also seeing through) their feelings via their expressions (or lack thereof), "tells", and all the other little clues has always been a part of normal human capabilities, from long before we were even human. Animals do it, too. They and we don't need some kind of supernatural, magical, mystic ability. George RR uses magic sparingly. This instance would be totally superfluous.

Moreover, if Sansa had truly "reached into" Sandor's mind, she would have understood a lot more about him than she actually does - assuming she could survive the experience.

[ravenous reader]

22 minutes ago, zandru said:

This. Notwithstanding the fact that I'm a prime suspect myself  ;-)

Thank you for your sense of humour.  

Quote

But I'd drop the "telepathy" angle. Understanding another person, and seeing (also seeing through) their feelings via their expressions (or lack thereof), "tells", and all the other little clues has always been a part of normal human capabilities, from long before we were even human. Animals do it, too. They and we don't need some kind of supernatural, magical, mystic ability. George RR uses magic sparingly. This instance would be totally superfluous.

Moreover, if Sansa had truly "reached into" Sandor's mind, she would have understood a lot more about him than she actually does - assuming she could survive the experience.

Just because Lady is dead, we shouldn't discount the possibility that Sansa like her siblings (as GRRM has confirmed) has a warg propensity, however relatively dormant compared to her siblings whose wolves still live.  To reiterate, even after death a part of the wolf remains in the warg, and vice versa -- so the ghost wolf Lady still lives within her.  In the presence of her 'direwolf substitute' shaggy-man Sandor, her warg powers may have stirred to life..!

The 'reaching into the mind' of the other only occurred very briefly.  She understood his 'hunger' for her, which she confused with her own desire, analogous to how, as I explained upthread, Jon sometimes confuses his own and Ghost's appetites.  Another example, which we covered on @40 Thousand Skeletons's thread, is of Dany likening the taste of shade of the evening to 'the taste of molten gold,' which assuming it falls under the category of 'all the tastes she'd ever known,' might imply that she'd somehow telepathically partaken in her brother's death.

GRRM uses the 'telepathy' angle as a metaphor for such lofty notions as spiritual enlightenment and the universal (un)consciousness, as well as more mundane concerns such as having a 'crush' on someone, or sexual awakening.  In its essence, it's about empathy:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Meera began to cry.

Bran hated being crippled then. "Don't cry," he said. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight the way his mother used to hold him back at Winterfell when he'd hurt himself. She was right there, only a few feet from him, but so far out of reach it might have been a hundred leagues. To touch her he would need to pull himself along the ground with his hands, dragging his legs behind him. The floor was rough and uneven, and it would be slow going, full of scrapes and bumps. I could put on Hodor's skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire, back out into the darkness of the tunnels. He heard her steps recede until there was nothing but the voices of the singers.

 

[Le Cygne]

Oh, I definitely think there's a powerful Hound and Lady connection and he's playing that up. I don't think she needs to actually do anything to get in touch with Sandor, any more than she would have to do anything to get in touch with Lady. They have bonded.

[zandru]

11 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The 'reaching into the mind' of the other only occurred very briefly.

Whatever. The much simpler explanation is that Sansa just used the normal, non-magical, mundane function of observation. But whatever you wish to believe. I'm vastly underwhelmed by 40K Skel's grand unified theories of everything. "Your mileage may vary."

[ravenous reader]

34 minutes ago, zandru said:

Whatever. The much simpler explanation is that Sansa just used the normal, non-magical, mundane function of observation.

 Let's agree, he brings out her empathy, which is pretty special considering she's otherwise demonstrated a high degree of selfishness, self-absorption, and wilful blindness.  The point of the current thread -- which we've lost sight of -- is to speculate on why Sansa vividly remembers something occurring which actually never physically transpired.  However one chooses to answer that, my argument is that it's about Sansa 'opening', not closing, her eyes to the reality, paradoxically.

 

Suzanne
 

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river 
You can hear the boats go by 
You can spend the night beside her 
And you know that she's half crazy 
But that's why you want to be there 
And she feeds you tea and oranges 
That come all the way from China 
And just when you mean to tell her 
That you have no love to give her 
Then she gets you on her wavelength 
And she lets the river answer 
That you've always been her lover 
And you want to travel with her 
And you want to travel blind 
And you know that she will trust you 
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind. 
And Jesus was a sailor 
When he walked upon the water 
And he spent a long time watching 
From his lonely wooden tower 
And when he knew for certain 
Only drowning men could see him 
He said "All men will be sailors then 
Until the sea shall free them" 
But he himself was broken 
Long before the sky would open 
Forsaken, almost human 
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone 
And you want to travel with him 
And you want to travel blind 
And you think maybe you'll trust him 
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind. 

Now Suzanne takes your hand 
And she leads you to the river 
She is wearing rags and feathers 
From Salvation Army counters 
And the sun pours down like honey 
On our lady of the harbour 
And she shows you where to look 
Among the garbage and the flowers 
There are heroes in the seaweed 
There are children in the morning 
They are leaning out for love 
And they will lean that way forever 
While Suzanne holds the mirror 
And you want to travel with her 
And you want to travel blind 
And you know that you can trust her 
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

--LEONARD COHEN

 

 

 

 

[zandru]

5 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

[Sandor] brings out her empathy, which is pretty special considering she's otherwise demonstrated a high degree of selfishness, self-absorption, and wilful blindness.

Bingo! I think we have agreement! And thanks for your patience.

[Le Cygne]

Fan report:

I asked about the previous day's panel, when George had mentioned intentional mistakes. Was Sansa's memory of the Hound kissing her when he actually had not an intentional mistake? Why would she think that? He said it was in fact intentional, but he would not tell us why. I said he was mean, and he laughed at me.

I also asked if Sandor would be in the upcoming book. He pleaded the fifth. I said he was mean, and he laughed at me.

We talked a bit about the children and their wolves. I mentioned Sansa just having a poor old crippled dog [Sansa refers to the dog as a hound and then dreams of the Hound] because she lost her wolf. He got a queer smile about his lips when I said that and nodded. Make of that what you will.

[Darkstream]

5 hours ago, Newstar said:

 Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey's sword 

 

5 hours ago, winter daughter said:

Arya misremembered the name of Joffrey's sword as Lion's paw, not Sansa.

"That's a lie!" Arya squirmed in Harwin's grip. "It was me. I hit Joffrey and threw Lion's Paw in the river. Mycah just ran away, like I told him."

 

Oops, looks like someone is altering their memory, and misrepresenting the facts in order to cope with, and deny the reality of a story they personally find unappealing. 

[sweetsunray]

15 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

Great to know your view. Doesn't change that Sansa has Stockholm syndrome. 

It's the view of Police Chiefs who were involved in the "Stockholm" case that coined the term and have a long career over it, that of professionals in treating abuse victims, and the encyclopedia of social sciences, therapists, etc:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22447726

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/08/opinion/oe-ochberg8

Article written by the director of a trauma victim center:

http://www.healing-arts.org/healing_trauma_therapy/traumabonding-traumaticbonds.htm

Encyclopedia social sciences:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/traumatic-bonding

Your diagnosis is more akin to the defintion of TV tropes.

15 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

At first she thought she hated him for what they’d done to Lady, but after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not been Joffrey’s doing, not truly. The queen had done it; she was the one to hate, her and Arya.

Well, I read "what THEY had done to Lady". The quote says "hating him for it" not "blaming him for it".

And in fact, while Joffrey is a shit, he is not the one responsible for Lady's death. She judges correctly that it's Cersei. She blames Arya wrongly though.

15 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

Tyrion doesn't need to mean squat for her to have a nightmare about the trauma that she experienced with him.

That is contradictory. If people represent something in a dream, then obviously they mean "something",not "nothing.

15 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

Nightmares are based on trauma. Not what someone means or doesn't mean to you.

Or based on fears. But nightmares are still dreams, and in dreams the people in it mean "something" to you in relation to the dream's subject, negatively or positively. They're not just "coincidental decor".

15 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

You have also failed to prove every claim that you made to me, I guess it works both ways. Funny thing about interpreting text, everyone has a different view.

It's your OP to defend and prove. Not mine. Asking questions and showing the holes and illogic in your reasoning and statements and assertions is not "giving my view", especially when I say "ok, so let's go with this assertion of yours, but then how does this work with this contradicting assertion of yours?" I am hypothetically adopting your assumptions, following them through in thought run into logical issues with the known facts or other assumptions of yours. So far, your responses to those issues is reiterating the problematic jumble of assertions, waving off an issue with more contradictions, cherry picking and reframing my critique that focuses solely on your claims trying to make sense of them as "just different views". 

 

[Winter's Cold]

34 minutes ago, Darkstream said:

 

Oops, looks like someone is altering their memory, and misrepresenting the facts in order to cope with, and deny the reality of a story they personally find unappealing. 

Actually Sansa did misremember the name of the sword as Lion's Paw in some editions of the novels.

Quote

 

Oddly enough, you're both right. I happen to own two different editions of ACOK (having bought a second hand copy of it when I wrongly believed my library didn't have a copy due to an error in their online catalogue, and then later having bought a set of all 5 books) and I decided to check... and it's different. And I decided to take a pic of both versions.

 

Older edition of ACOK - 2003 UK paperback - Sansa remembers it as "Lion's Paw":

 

http://tinypic.com/r/a1mj4z/8

 

Newer edition of ACOK - 2011 US paperback - Sansa remembers it as "Lion's Tooth":

 

http://tinypic.com/r/30ah06v/8

 

But in the same edition (2011 US) of ASOS - Arya remembers it as "Lion's Paw" - and I haven't heard that it's any different in other editions:

 

http://tinypic.com/r/fc09ah/8

 

So, what's going on? If GRRM intentionally had Sansa misremember the name of the sword, he should have told his editors not to treat it as a mistake to be corrected in newer editions...

And then why did he write Arya misremembering it as well? Unless they are both supposed to be unreliable narrators...

 

 

 

 

[The Fattest Leech]

Good stuff going on here.

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

Just because Lady is dead, we shouldn't discount the possibility that Sansa like her siblings (as GRRM has confirmed) has a warg propensity, however relatively dormant compared to her siblings whose wolves still live.  To reiterate, even after death a part of the wolf remains in the warg, and vice versa -- so the ghost wolf Lady still lives within her.  In the presence of her 'direwolf substitute' shaggy-man Sandor, her warg powers may have stirred to life..!

The 'reaching into the mind' of the other only occurred very briefly.  She understood his 'hunger' for her, which she confused with her own desire, analogous to how, as I explained upthread, Jon sometimes confuses his own and Ghost's appetites.  Another example, which we covered on @40 Thousand Skeletons's thread, is of Dany likening the taste of shade of the evening to 'the taste of molten gold,' which assuming it falls under the category of 'all the tastes she'd ever known,' might imply that she'd somehow telepathically partaken in her brother's death.

GRRM uses the 'telepathy' angle as a metaphor for such lofty notions as spiritual enlightenment and the universal (un)consciousness, as well as more mundane concerns such as having a 'crush' on someone, or sexual awakening.  In its essence, it's about empathy:

 

I do agree with this. George has said all of the Stark children have their talent to some degree, but they also do not have a "trainer" like they would in the far north where people know and accept skinchangers and wargs. The Stark kids are left to figure these things out for themselves, and their talents sometimes pop up when they least expect it, and some of the kids even deny what is happening. At this point I would be more surprised if this is not what happened in this scene, and maybe since Sansa lost her wolf she will be more of a wind dancer and use her talents this way. Just an idea.

 

7 hours ago, Seams said:

I think The Hound is turning into Sansa's puppet. Like the wooden marionette soldier that was Gregor's toy. I should probably ask @The Fattest Leech to weigh in, as the expert on the Pinocchio symbolism. (Or maybe I should go back and re-read - I apologize if this has already been covered.) Sandor says that Gregor's wonderful wooden knight was appealing to him as a little kid because you could make him fight. Of course, Gregor discovers Sandor playing with the wooden knight and holds his little brother's face in the fire, disfiguring him for life. Their father makes up the excuse that Sandor's bedding caught fire.

Haha! Pinocchio. I like that thread Some slightly unexpected bits if info came out of that one.

George seems to use his historic world building as a way to explain what is about to happen in the near in-story future to either a specific character, or with a specific event. It could be a really big hint, such as the last hero, or it could be a seemingly smaller hint. Mind you, the broad strokes are what matter, not necessarily each tiny detail, and the endings are often omitted or are adjusted to make way for the current story.

I think it is possible that George inserted a line about Florys the Fox as a possible hint for Sansa, and maybe this could be from his love of fairytales, which could include some elements to the Fox and the Hound??? Two creatures, a half-blood hound dog named Copper that is paired up with a red furred fox, who should be at odds with each other by the laws of nature and society, end up apart and learning their own ways, only to rejoin later.

6 hours ago, Houseofthedirewolves said:

What about ASOIAF suggests that George intends to keep anything simple? 

 

" The author bases a story on his favorite romance and centers it on a kiss."

This is not Harlequin romance :/

The longer the wait between books, the more complicated we fans make things (myself included sometimes). George warns us fans to use a little caution with our elaborate theory crafting:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1623

He assured us that we will someday find out how seasons work in his world, and that it will not be a scientific explanation because hello, it's a fantasy novel. He said that some fans have written him with fantastic explanations involving two suns, one of which is a black dwarf but that they will be disappointed.

6 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Imagine that, having fun!  

I wish this happened a little more often

[ravenous reader]

5 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I do agree with this. George has said all of the Stark children have their talent to some degree, but they also do not have a "trainer" like they would in the far north where people know and accept skinchangers and wargs. The Stark kids are left to figure these things out for themselves, and their talents sometimes pop up when they least expect it, and some of the kids even deny what is happening. At this point I would be more surprised if this is not what happened in this scene, and maybe since Sansa lost her wolf she will be more of a wind dancer and use her talents this way. Just an idea.

What's a 'wind dancer,' Leech?  

[zandru]

10 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

The longer the wait between books, the more complicated we fans make things

Amen! We're all, I think, desperately in need of more data to see which theories are confirmed and which are ready to be laid aside. I keep hoping GRRM will triumphantly announce "The Winds of Winter" at the next Bubonicon ... going on three years now. (And he'll be skipping this year's because of some little thing he feels compelled to attend in Helsinki. (Hey! Maybe he'll announce it there!)