The Ultimate Irony: Sansa & Tyrion

[Woman of War]

Why would you want her to end up with Tyrion then? I wouldn't wish him for a husband and lover on my worst enemy.

You may have realized by now that many fans disagree.

I think Tyrion, like any character, might be offered by the author what he always wanted most - only to find out out that it has gotten stale and that he has emotionally grown beyond it, Casterly Rock for example, easily switched by then for a remote life with a loving person and a vast library in a moderate house.

So I guess he would not even want the "old" Sansa, the tormented child who does not dare to speak up, even less than he wanted her when he had to marry her.

That Sansa neither wanted the dwarf nor the Lannister, this we have seen. Apart from that, it would have been a little bizarre to imagine a twelve year old actively going for hot sex with any man so much older, this is a pedophile wet dream to exonerate the abusers in forced or arranged marriages with child brides all over OUR world.

Sansa the little girl would have tried to play adult and to do what her misogynist upbringing made her believe to be her duty: open her legs, bravely emulating the lady if that man was remotely acceptable. Only Tyrion wasn't, not at all. But he left her the way out Lancel or Willas might not have.

If there should ever be something like a relationship between Sansa and Tyrion it would restart under very different conditions. It would happen out of free will from both sides. And Sansa would be a very different person by then, shaped by adult experiences, someone who makes adult decisions and who would for sure have to be accepted by Tyrion as adult vis à vis, on eye level emotionally.

So if Martin intends to write a Tyrion/Sansa story it would start from scratch, both being very different people with a painful history, and their interpersonal past would be part of it. If under these circumstances Sansa decides for Tyrion and Tyrion decides for Sansa would be a free decision from both sides. Simply an adult one, if the reasons might be political, a feeling of being at home with each other or something like love (if someone knows what is the precise way to define the essence of "love" they would beat Adorno and Freud together).

And if both decide to go separate ways it would of course be a decision just as adult and free. Or do you think Sansa would feed Tyrion some love potion in order to prevent him from being with Tysha or Tyrion would chain her to the castle walls because red hair goes so nicely with stone grey? This is something Martin will for sure not write, so why worry as reader? Even if Sansa decides for Tyrion it will be a fate she has decided for. Sansa and Tyrion may not survive the books in the end but within the story they will actively choose the fate of their relationship and they will have their reasons - the reasons the author wants them to have.

[Doublestar]

It does in fact seem that Sansa's story is heading this way because she clearly has growing feelings for someone who is ugly and not a knight. It's just not Tyrion.

Missed your point there. Who might that be? (No Robert Arryn, please :D .) And if you mean LF... no, I don't think so, And he is not so ugly either. As for Sandor... well, he's either dead or digging graves on the Quiet Isle. Small chance for them to meet. Although... GRRM knows.

[Doublestar]

Woman of War, I could not say better. That was what I'm heading at.

[Mrs_Darcy]

Why would you want her to end up with Tyrion then? I wouldn't wish him for a husband and lover on my worst enemy.

:agree: The most troubling part of Tyrion's behaviour are his acts against the women he sleeps with.

[Annara Snow]

ugh... its amazing how delicate any theard that Involves Tyrion and Sansa is, because all it seems to boil down to is whose well-being does someone prioritize over the other.

I don't get that. Why would Tyrion's well-being require Sansa to stay married to him or accept him as a husband? I care for his well-being (he's still in my top 6-7 characters, and used to be one of my top favorites until the fandom and the show's treatment of him soured him for me... partly because of this kind of threads), but the continuation of the Tyrion/Sansa marriage is just a terrible idea that wouldn't be good for either of them.

Tywin gave Tyrion a choice - he could marry Sansa or marry Lollys Stokeworth, if I remember correctly; and the threat that he would marry Sansa to a Lannister cousin. Tyrion was not in danger of being hurt, only having an inconvenient choice of two brides. What would have been the most honorable choice? Lollys. It's doubtful that Tywin would have actually risked a mentally challenged woman becoming the mother of any of his legitimate Lannister grandchildren, and even if he had, Tyrion could have gone through the ceremony and left it unconsummated. But Tyrion was visibly tempted by the prospect of a beautiful young bride with Winterfell as a dowry; never mind that his family had destroyed hers.

That's not what actually happened.

Tywin never told Tyrion that his other option is to marry Lollys. He told him that another bride would eventually be found for him if he doesn't want to marry Sansa, probably a daughter of some minor lordling who would accept to give his daughter to the Imp, who's a Lannister after all. (Remember, the people Tywin had previously offered Tyrion as a son-in-law to were the likes of Tullys, Royces, Martells, Hightowers - was he ever surprised at the rejection?) If anything, it sounded like a promise more than a threat. He only mentioned Lollys off-hand (though no doubt strategically to manipulate Tyrion) as one option that has already occurred; he never told Tyrion he would actually make him marry Lollys.

“When I offered you to Dorne I was told that the suggestion was an insult,” Lord Tywin continued. “In later years I had similar answers from Yohn Royce and Leyton Hightower. I finally stooped so low as to suggest you might take the Florent girl Robert deflowered in his brother’s wedding bed, but her father preferred to give her to one of his own household knights.

“If you will not have the Stark girl, I shall find you another wife. Somewhere in the realm there is doubtless some little lordling who’d gladly part with a daughter to win the friendship of Casterly Rock. Lady Tanda has offered Lollys...”

Tyrion gave a shudder of dismay. “I’d sooner cut it off and feed it to the goats.”

“Then open your eyes. The Stark girl is young, nubile, tractable, of the highest birth, and still a maid. She is not uncomely. Why would you hesitate?”

And really, does anyone believe that someone as proud and as prejudiced as Tywin would ever allow his son, even a despised one, to marry a woman who was carrying a child conceived by gang rape, and the entire King's Landing knew about it?

And what choice did Tywin offer Tyrion between marrying someone (someone who, regardless of any wish of their own, was going to be married off to someone whether it was him or not) and not marrying anyone?

None.

Actually, since Tywin wasn't forcing him to marry anyone in particular, Tyrion had the choices of marrying some minor lordling's daughter, or not marrying anyone.

If she didn't want him, she could have chosen Lancel. She knew that her duty would include doing that which produces heirs no matter which one she chose.

:bang: Yes, what a wonderful choice. "Now, which Lannister do you prefer to rape you for the rest of your life so your body could be used by your captors to lay a claim to your family's lands, in hope that they'll manage to kill off the rest of your family just as they did your father?"

[Lord Freypie]

Whatever Tyrion would have chosen, Sansa would still have had no choice but to marry a Lannister, be him Lancel (Tyrion imo chosen as he was one of the gentlers options) or another cousin like Daven, or others we don't know much about. And if a lesser cousin was chosen, that husband would have been far more likely to allow Joffrey to have his ways with her than Tyrion.

Best he could have done was marrying her and organizing her escape, betraying his family, but why would he have wanted to take the risk to lose all he had for a daughter of a woman who took him hostage, he had nothing more than some pity and vague sympathy for ?

Tyrion is no hero that's true, but very few characters in the serie are.

[Le Cygne]

Ah, the Tyrion married her to protect her rationale. I was waiting for that.

He could have helped her escape BEFORE the marriage.

He knew she was Joffrey's "plaything" and could have sent her back to her mother to protect her, too. She was in severe pain from the beatings, which were fairly public/easy enough to know were going on. He knew this was going on before he walked into a room and scolded Joffrey for the millionth time, which he knew he could get away with. She was often doubled over in pain from being punched in the stomach, bruised to the point she had to wear long sleeves to cover them, etc. Yes, her mother had Jaime, but she, in fact, sent Jaime back out of love for Sansa. Tyrion could have taken the same leap of faith. Hence, Catelyn called Tyrion "faithless" because he did, in fact, promise to send Sansa back, and instead, he forcibly married her.

Also, this great danger he was in if he didn't marry her - there is no sign of force, forcing him to marry her, and the author repeatedly made it clear he wanted Winterfell. And in addition to that, the author had him put her through the traumatic experience of making her strip and groping her (no small thing for a young maiden, and she's still troubled by it, she tells us so, and calls him a liar). But he doesn't go ahead with the rape, and Tywin knows, and nothing at all happens to him. So nothing happened when he didn't do the thing that was the whole point of the marriage, consummation. The marriage could be set aside. In addition, nothing happened to Jaime when he refused to marry Margaery.

[Lord Freypie]

Ah, the Tyrion married her to protect her rationale. I was waiting for that.

He could have helped her escape BEFORE the marriage.

Why ? Tyrion had no idea Catelyn had accepted the deal for Jaime at this point.

Catelyn calling Tyrion "faithless" is just her imagining he could know.

[Le Cygne]

Because if you are going to pitch him as doing a noble thing by forcibly marrying her to protect her, then you have to go with the logical step that he could have protected her before the marriage. THAT would be noble, because that would be without him gaining from this.

Again, I said if he was noble, he would have done what Catelyn did, which was doing something in good faith, in the interest of the helpless victim, Sansa. Jaime was a prisoner of war, Sansa was a teenage girl who got caught up in war, and was being beaten within an inch of her life by his family.

[Lord Freypie]

I'm not "pitching him doing a noble thing by forcibly marrying her to protect her".

I'm just saying his other choices (when he was proposed to marry her) would just have been worse for her, and also Tyrion's character assassination suddenly making him become some kind of Brienne's like purely honorable hero .

Tyrion (at ASOS stage at least) should be seen as a neutral alignment character with some good tendancies, only if it doesn't cost too much for him to manifest them, nothing more.

If he had a choice allowing him to protect Sansa at a low cost for his own position, I think him proposing her the Lancel option, shows he would likely have chosen that (as he was abandonning Winterfell prospect, an huge sacrifice if she prefered Lancel, to give Sansa that choice).

[Le Cygne]

Actually, no, Lancel would not have been worse for her. At first he was incapacitated, then he turned religious and is celibate. Also, there are the events of the Purple Wedding that made things worse for her than ever, she's got a price on her head now.

In addition, he knew the Lancel "option" was a ruse, and it was cruel of him to even propose it. But she was too smart to not see it for what it was. He went along with their plans, there's no denying that. He did not put Sansa ahead of his own interests, and he could have.

Also, an author is not going to write a romance with someone who has done this. You can deny he's writing a romance for her with someone else all you like, but the hallmark of such stories is putting the other person first. And he's done that in a story with another character, not Tyrion.

[Le Cygne]

Also, let's not pretend he didn't write this for TWOW, which is hammering in what I was saying above, as in NEVER:

Arya as Sansa:

His cock flopped out for the rape... what a hideous thing... a bulbous head the color of a plum...

"We were meant to be together."... "Only when I'm on my knees"...

"But I am formed of darker stuff, of bones and blood and clay, twisted into this rude shape you see before you."

With that, he grabbed at her chest, fumbling for a nipple....

Mercy rose, to tower over the little man. "But you'll never grow another nose. You think of that, before you touch me there."

and Sansa:

Even his manhood was ugly, thick and veined, with a bulbous purple head...

He wants me to kneel... It was not supposed to be this way...

"I am malformed, scarred, and small, but when the candles are blown out, I am made no worse than other men."...

When he hopped up on the bed and put his hand on her breast, Sansa could not help but shudder...

She stared at... the raw stump of his nose... This is not right.... "And if I never want you to, my lord?"

[Lord Freypie]

In addition, he knew the Lancel "option" was a ruse, and it was cruel of him to even propose it. But she was too smart to not see it for what it was.

??????

A ruse by who, himself ? And Sansa wasn't that intelligent not to accept it as it would probably have at least delayed her wedding (considering Lancel was still recovering at this point), eventually giving time for the Tyrells to react.

[Le Cygne]

Go back and read the scene where they pitch the marriage to him. I can grab the quote, but Tyrion says he knows they are just pretending they want to marry her to Lancel to get him to go along with it.

Here:

“If you will not have the girl, we shall give her to one of your cousins,” said his father. “Kevan, is Lancel strong enough to wed, do you think?”

Ser Kevan hesitated. “If we bring the girl to his bedside, he could say the words … but to consummate, no … I would suggest one of the twins, but the Starks hold them both at Riverrun. They have Genna’s boy Tion as well, else he might serve.”

Tyrion let them have their byplay; it was all for his benefit, he knew.

[The Wolf Lord's Daughter]

Also, let's not pretend he didn't write this for TWOW, which is hammering in what I was saying above, as in NEVER:

Arya as Sansa:

and Sansa:

Also, let's not pretend he didn't write this for TWOW, which is hammering in what I was saying above, as in NEVER:

Arya as Sansa:

and Sansa:

Well, I don't support a Sansa/Tyrion romance and never will (Sansa deserves much better) but I really don't see how that proves anything other than George Martin likes messing with us and seeing if the readers spot the similarity.

As for Tyrion saving Sansa before her marriage, I think it's grossly unfair to ask him to turn against his family and aid the enemy by giving up a very valuable hostage. Would I have loved it if he had helped her escape? Obviously. Was Tyrion morally obligated to release Sansa before Jaime was returned to him? No. Of course, he wasn't helping her when he married her and was faithless but he didn't need to help her escape before that. And no, Sansa is not obligated to love a man who she doesn't want to love.

Still, my main problem with Tyrion is the raping of that slave and how he acted in ADWD. His marriage to Sansa wasn't his worst crime by far.

[Mladen]

I'm not "pitching him doing a noble thing by forcibly marrying her to protect her".

I'm just saying his other choices (when he was proposed to marry her) would just have been worse for her, and also Tyrion's character assassination suddenly making him become some kind of Brienne's like purely honorable hero .

Tyrion (at ASOS stage at least) should be seen as a neutral alignment character with some good tendancies, only if it doesn't cost too much for him to manifest them, nothing more.

If he had a choice allowing him to protect Sansa at a low cost for his own position, I think him proposing her the Lancel option, shows he would likely have chosen that (as he was abandonning Winterfell prospect, an huge sacrifice if she prefered Lancel, to give Sansa that choice).

Do we even know that Sansa would be in greater danger married to Lancel than to Tyrion? No we don't. We actually, quite logically, claim that for Sansa it would be the same. First, Lancel, after Blackwater, was completely different man, he became extremely pious and at the moment he wasn't even capable of doing the deed, so Sansa objectively would remain a virgin. Regarding Joffrey, do you think that Kevan would actually allow that his daughter-in-law, wife of his firstborn son, is being tormented by Joffrey? He was the one who spoke first when Joffrey announced that he will torment Sansa with heads of her family after RW. So, to claim that Tyrion was Sansa's only choice for safety is rather wrong.

Well, I don't support a Sansa/Tyrion romance and never will (Sansa deserves much better) but I really don't see how that proves anything other than George Martin likes messing with us and seeing if the readers spot the similarity.

As for Tyrion saving Sansa before her marriage, I think it's grossly unfair to ask him to turn against his family and aid the enemy by giving up a very valuable hostage. Would I have loved it if he had helped her escape? Obviously. Was Tyrion morally obligated to release Sansa before Jaime was returned to him? No. Of course, he wasn't helping her when he married her and was faithless but he didn't need to help her escape before that. And no, Sansa is not obligated to love a man who she doesn't want to love.

Still, my main problem with Tyrion is the raping of that slave and how he acted in ADWD. His marriage to Sansa wasn't his worst crime by far.

His marriage to Sansa is not his worst crime and I agree on that. But, nonetheless is a crime. He was active participant in what can basically be assessed as "Castamerization" of Starks. He wasn't forced and it is blatantly obvious from the books that he has done according to his own volition. So, not only that he was part of a heinous act of marrying a girl against her own wishes, wishes of her family, but he actually broke his word, a word Catelyn acted upon. So, this marriage has more layers of basically wrong-doings than one can imagine.

And, I am sorry, but Tyrion knows whose blame is for the war. He chose his family. That doesn't make him a bad buy, but he certainly wasn't innocent since the moment he started covering up for heinous crime of breaking the guest right/defenestration of Bran his siblings committed.

[Lord Freypie]

Go back and read the scene where they pitch the marriage to him. I can grab the quote, but Tyrion says he knows they are just pretending they want to marry her to Lancel to get him to go along with it.

Here:

IMO it only makes Tyrion looks better to have proposed Lancel to her.

He did this while certain it would completely piss Tywin and Kevan who had already discarded that option, had her prefered Lancel.

Had Sansa chosen Lancel and Tyrion supported her by refusing to marry, Tywin would have had no possibility to force another choice, not involving letting time for the Tyrells to react waiting for another cousin to reach KL, out of marrying her himself perhaps (never envisionned in the books, so I guess Tywin had no will to remarry).

[Le Cygne]

TWOW scene -

The chapter is about rape. Arya plays the victim, then turns the tables. He wants us to see this is the wedding night (complete with groping) they are acting out, that's the whole point. He's spelling out how wrong it was to do this to Sansa.

But he's also showing that Sansa turns the tables (just like Arya). Only when Sansa kneels does Tyrion get to have her, and here she rises to tower over him (she has risen above him, she's not kneeling anymore), and rejects him with finality (once again, "never").

He's saying Sansa fights back, just like Arya, in her own way. Like Sansa said, it wasn't supposed to be that way. She made him stand on the back of a fool to make her wear his cloak. And she wasn't buying his Knight of Flowers in the dark pitch, she said "never."

He's saying they don't belong together. He was saying it before, and he's hammering it in again, in case someone didn't get the message. He does that, he repeats things for emphasis, and he makes it clearer each time. It was certainly clear to a lot of us...

(tagging this)

[ARYa_Nym]

Well, I don't support a Sansa/Tyrion romance and never will (Sansa deserves much better) but I really don't see how that proves anything other than George Martin likes messing with us and seeing if the readers spot the similarity.

Arya

missed Bobono at the end of the chapter. For a lot of the chapter she is in character and not showing genuine emotions.

She would miss her, and she would miss Daena and the Snapper and the rest, even Izembaro and Bobono.

She didn't care enough to really be mad at Bobono which is definitely different to Sansa/Tyrion. She is the same one capable of wanting Dunsen dead for taking Gendry's helm. I doubt she was really mad at Bobono.

[RavenKing23]

Huh? Tyrion couldn't protect himself much less Sansa during Joffery's wedding. She was gonna be Joffery's plaything as long as she was in KL