chrisdaw

LF's primary role is that of Sansa's tutor, and that's nearly done, but there's a chance he sticks around to clash wills with the Spider.   Harry or LF are going to die at the Gates and civil war is going to erupt in the Vale, the carefully crafted hostility between the Royces and all the other little moving pieces are not for nothing. Harry and Sansa aren't going to marry and it all get left behind. Nestor and LF hold all the cards and defensive position at the Gates, Yohn has all the men and backing and when Harry or LF dies all the righteous reasoning to come collect.

Because what Sansa wants is a major stumbling block in her arc, that she has decided it offscreen between chapters simply because she is doing as LF says (as she's done the whole time since being in his care) is nonsense. She sits down and creates what she wants, WF as it was before the giant came, filled with family and people she loved and people who loved her, WF as it can never be again. Beyond that there is no real determination, there's only ideas planted by LF for which emotionally there is mostly no acknowledgment or at best an apathetic acceptance, and Sandor constantly popping up without invitation. GRRM has been drumming into us that Sansa's original mode of operation is to consider and attempt to satisfy what the other wants first and foremost, rarely does she do otherwise. That Arya doesn't do the same fries her brain.   That only contrary thought is pretty fucking important. She doesn't want SR dead, she's going along with the plan because that's what she does and she hasn't thought about it, that's why her thoughts and actions conflict. Her protection of SR is instinctive, motherly, she doesn't really realise she's doing it, or that wooing Harry is going to collide with it. Sansa doesn't want Harry, Sansa isn't happy in the Vale, Alayne wants Harry and Alayne is happy in the Vale. Sansa hasn't acknowledged it yet (bit of a trend), but Sansa wants Sandor.   The biggest issue here is Sansa fans. In their minds it's obvious what Sansa wants, Sansa wants what they want. They also see things in for and against for Sansa, so you end up with posts implying judgement where there is none. Apparently I'm being harsh on her, overly critical, not understanding she's a child, etc, when I've offered no actual judgement.

What you're alleging, having provided nothing textual to back it with, is that Sansa has thought about what she wants and derived a plan to achieve it, all off screen without any allusion. Now to achieve this plan she must have either decided she is fine with SR's death or derived her own plan to achieve it contrary to LF's in which SR doesn't die. I'm perfectly happy to wait for TWOW to prove otherwise as it's apparent I'm not going to get anything from the text here. What I allege is that she hasn't given it thought, she is simply doing what she is directed to in the manner she is directed. That she is acting the parrot that GRRM had Sandor describe her as. She doesn't really want Harry and she doesn't really want this plan, she just hasn't realised it yet, but she will and when she does it will be a partial awakening, she will begin her playing for herself, her own plans for her own power. Only partial though, because really she doesn't want to play at all. They made her into a player, she was never asked if she wanted to play, and she doesn't, it's too dangerous, ultimately her arcs when she decides not to play, her first real act of self.

No, she mustn't have thought about anything, that's you projecting, assuming, and oh please do quote me where she tells us those one and two goals. Come now, lack of any textual evidence hasn't stopped you projecting on her anywhere else, why now?

It's not me doing the assuming, you're the one assuming thoughts for Sansa that are not provided in the text.   So while you're at it, how does she feel about LF's ominous prediction, that it's not if but 'when' SR dies? I mean, by your reckoning she's obviously thought about it, so are we to assume she's fine with ploughing a path that includes the death of her cousin?   You don't make sense, there's nothing to reconcile, she does as she's told without regard to what she wants, she doesn't think the opposite, she doesn't think anything, she's told, she does. Of course It doesn't help that besides going back in time to when everyone was alive and in WF she doesn't really know what she wants.

One would assume independent thoughts are meaning with regards to playing the game, not common memories or everyday thoughts every person has, it's not independent thought as much as paying attention. I noted the Winged Knights as her initiative, a LF method for LF's purpose, but more progress none the less.   What the chapter shows most overwhelmingly is that she is currently dedicating herself in full to LF's plan. She has done so naturally, instinctively, without having ever really stopped to consider and then decide on what she wants. Someone points, she goes.

Sansa's not independently thinking or self determining. She is merely doing what LF directs and does so without regard to what she herself wants. The initiative she takes is to further LF's will and could be from a LF playbook.   When LF is cast aside Sansa will run her own show, she will be independent in her climb to the throne, but she won't be self determining, she'll be doing not what she wants but what she was taught, how she has learned she is supposed to react in the situation.

What an original idea that is.

Well you could just run with the straight forward foreshadowing and take on her character arc. You've got the Sharra, Ronnel and Visenya story to run parallel with Sansa, Robert and Tyrion and so we have how she winds things up in the Vale. From there you have her rise to queen, keeping with her pawn to player arc, the younger queen casting down Cersei and her parallels of Anne Neville and Alysanne. On the way to throwing down Cersei there's the much foreshadowed Cleganebowl as a well foreshadowed trial of seven. And then you have her ditching the throne and doing a runner as per Jaime's advice.

A lot of people stumble on this and I don't really understand why. Putting aside things like her having to go North to go South at some point, the betrayals coming her way and her having to lose Drogon for him to return to her, if you don't believe people power is going to remove Dany from the throne what do you think GRRM is doing setting her up to be Westeros' most hated? What is the purpose?

I'm sure it will come up in conversation before he and Sansa would get to the altar.

Doran isn't going to declare for Aegon without a marriage pact, in the game of thrones you don't leave the crown on the table. The Vale is not LF's or Sansa's to give. The whole point of marrying Sansa to Harry and being rid of SR is to galvanise and motivate the Vale to do his bidding, if he marries Sansa to Aegon and calls the banners the only Lords besides the weak Royce to heed his call will be those he can bribe. The Vale won't rise to fight for LF and a Targaryen king. Sansa is Tyrion's wife, Tyrion saved Aegon's life and gave him, as far as he knows, the greatest advice he's ever been given. And last he knows Tyrion lives, he's not going to marry his wife.

Your last post was like this one, all over the place. I'll break it down as simply as possible. The first assertions made that you claim are subjective are below. Sansa has come to represent honour to Jaime, honour is thematically explored through JAime's character. Brienne has been labouring in servitude of her oath to Catelyn to protect Sansa for more than half her chapters. Sandor invades Sansa's romantic thoughts in a unique way. Cersei was a great antagonising force towards Sansa. Tyrion is susceptible to the manipulations of young beautiful women who are capable of filling his need for love. Sansa and Tyrion are married. It is on these that I relied upon in the first instance(s) in reply to your assertion that there is nothing in the South for Sansa. You disagree with that assertion, ok, but you also claim what I've based the assertion on to be subjective. I disagree, to attempt to paint the above as something other what is written is to just be wrong. So how am I wrong? I disagree what you've recounted as having happened to LF amounts to a character arc, he's the same character in Dance as he was in AGOT, he has just amassed some more power.

Oh please do explain what I have represented out of context and ignored. And can you explain what you actually mean when you refer to LF's character arc?

Not really, saying Jaime has a character arc concerning his honour which Sansa has come to represent isn't really subjective anymore than saying the sky is up, it's what is. As with Brienne swearing her oath to Catelyn, Tyrion being subjective to manipulations of the young and beautiful, and Sansa being young, beautiful and becoming manipulative (as per this chapter). Bran's dream is one of the largest pieces of foreshadowing in the story, fair enough the interpretation can be subject to opinion, that the man armoured like the sun might not be the character described elsewhere as armoured like the sun is possible, as it is the character with the face like a hound might not be the character called the hound that wore the helmet with the face of a hound. I'm running with the percentages on that one. The original point, that there is plenty more pointing to the South than North for Sansa is not relying on the nitty gritty detailed predictions, but large portions of existing character arc and major pieces of foreshadowing.

I started with references to large swathes of character arc in the established text, some of the biggest most blatant passages of foreshadowing and some major themes as it made sense then, but it's become a narrow window of off-topic predictions that I don't think belong here. There are other topics for that sort of thing, including my own in this forum not far off the front page that answers most of the above.

We'll see, the realm will look different and have different priorities after the Dance, there's no story if nothing changes. Those same arguments could be used against Tyrion accumulating any power, and yet he's to be snarling in the middle.

She's not going to be languishing in a dungeon in KL, putting her in KL puts her in the middle of the action with access to the factions of power as the Dance and aftermath bring chaos to the realm. Mobility is never so possible as under such circumstances, the only limit to her influence in this situation is the limit of her ability to plan and manipulate. And, soon the three most powerful people in the realm will be the three dragon riders, she's married to one. After people power throws Dany off the IT it will fall to the Faith to put the realm back to rights, Cersei's children would have to be the front runner for the crown unless someone else emerges, in which case a PR battle will ensue. Cersei won't have the power to trial Sansa, but the Faith will, Cersei just has to put the fairly reasonable looking allegation to the Faith and they'll trial her because that would be the reasonable thing to do. Sure, but when Tyrion comes back all bets are off. When the dust settles and the realm has time to draw breath, there may be a HS willing to annul their marriage, the question I would ask is by then will they both want to? Or by then have they both come to understand the marriage serves their purposes. Annulment provides the opportunity for both characters to stay married by choice.

No abduction, she goes to KL with Tyrion after the Vale wraps up. While Aegon and Dany Dance about KL she is at worst a highborn hostage, but Tyrion isn't likely to be an enemy of either so Sansa is likely just to be there decorating the halls, looking innocent, playing games. When Aegon is dead and Dany booted out it becomes a showdown for the throne, and prosecuting Sansa for Joff's death is a card Cersei has to play.

A trial for the murder of Joff.

So KL is going to become irrelevant and it can be argued Sandor is alive, yeah ok. Who sits the throne, or more that they believe that the Others are coming and prepare the defence of the realm is all that's going to matter, the Others are not going to be stopped by a handful of NW, some wildlings or even the North, this story is about the whole of the realm putting aside their differences and joining in common cause for survival. Sandor is as alive as Sansa. That's because when GRRM wrote that vision Brienne almost certainly didn't exist as a character. There's no reference to Brienne, foreshadowing or otherwise in AGOT. Now consider what the character is, Jaime pre corruption, her "Sword" moment being Jaime's Aerys moment. Now consider what she's doing, running around looking for Sansa to protect, on Jaime's behalf, what GRRM most likely envisioned Jaime would be doing. Jaime's arc got too dense, didn't fit, GRRM couldn't have him both becoming Tywin Lannister and out searching for his honour (Sansa), so he created Brienne to carry that portion. See how the two characters boomerang. Also, besides Sansa, they both seem the characters being seeded for the Sandor return, Brienne straight up knows it wasn't Sandor at the Saltpans and Jaime is given the Saltpans story but from his POV it doesn't sound right to him, doesn't sound like Sandor. Cersei isn't going to send Ungregor after Sansa, they'll all be in KL. Tyrion stays married to her because he's yearning for her love, she stays married to him because he's the marriage she must endure for power. Tyrion is her backdoor to power, control Tyrion, control the realm, Lady Lannister Joanna and Tywin and to a lesser extent tall, noble blue eyed Alysanne and well travelled Jaehaerys the great builder of drains. What position do you see Tyrion playing, HOTK? What was Tywin's lesson? That Tysha was too lowborn, that Tyrion can't just go marrying whoever he pleases, he's a Lannister. Suppose Tysha does come into play, what is Tyrion going to give up? The wife he apparently loves, or his position of power? Because no powerful character is going to be bringing a Tysha to court as his wife.

The game is in KL, it revolves around KL, the culmination of game success is in KL, the North offers not the depth of political machinations to fuel a character arc dedicated to playing the game. LF has a network of relationships which allow him influence and reach that Sansa does not and will not develop in the North. Sandor is not dead and never was, and yes his relationship with Sansa is infinitely more interesting, intricate and developed than anything relating to the Jon and Sansa non event. And it's not concluded. Sansa isn't going South to hide. Objectification, makes sense, obviously Jaime and Brienne are no longer relevant to Sansa's arc, or her to them, because objectification. The man armoured like the sun and the man with the face of the Hound are going to have to let this one pass, because objectification. Speculation that the character with the most chapters and highest word count, the author's favourite who he has said is set to come home and who we are blatantly told will cast a large shadow in the middle of dragons, yes I speculate he's going to be going to South Westeros. Wild speculation. Will his plot will include Sansa in any meaningful way? His plot which so far has been half dedicated to explaining his vulnerability to the manipulations of beautiful young women who can play to his yearning for love? Could it possibly intertwine with our young, beautiful developing manipulator? I dunno, maybe if the author had cooked up some crazy method of tying them together it would be clearer. I mean it's not those two whole cordial lines of thought Sansa spares Jon or the nothing about Stannis throughout the series, but there might be something there. Now regarding Bran, is Sansa going on an expedition on the other side of the wall, or is she going to send an invitation for this Winterfell Stark family reunion party to the cave and Bran will walk to her?

Nothing South for Sansa, besides the game she's been unwittingly groomed to play, the would be knight and protector she has romantic feelings for, the soul searching fallen knight for whom she represents the last chance for honour, the honourable knight duty bound by an oath to her mother to protect her, her returning husband and behind LF the most antagonistic force in her story, the real slayer of her wolf and conveniently set to be cast down queen. North we have a dead Jon, a character whom she's given about two lines of thought towards in the whole series, probably set to enter wolf mode, and the husk of Winterfell. What riveting potential there.

Right. And on the side but possibly relevant, someone who might not mind seeing Harry dead as per this chapter is SR, where he got this idea that Harry wants him dead for his claim seems a real question, though what patronage he is capable of presently bestowing on someone willing to do his bidding is debateable.

Nah, if Harry were to die while at the Gates of the Moon in the care of Nestor and LF then Yohn will be out for their blood regardless of how it happens, and LF would know this.