Sansa is truly one of the best characters and her development is fascinating

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

2 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Agreed on Jeyne Poole. She was relieved that Jeyne Poole was gone, who told her horrible things she did not want to believe and block out of her mind.

Yes! this. She only felt glad after she was gone because of the uncomfortable truths Jeyne was talking about. Sansa was still attempting to pretend everything was going to be OK at this point, and after she misses her friend. We then don't get much else on Jeyne and whatever there is is memories, happy memories. There are certain things Sansa still doesn't want to confront. But oh when she does....

[LiveFirstDieLater]

19 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Agreed on Jeyne Poole. She was relieved that Jeyne Poole was gone, who told her horrible things she did not want to believe and block out of her mind.

As for Dontos:

 

 

If we compare this with her ability to watch Ser Hugh dying unperturbed in aGoT, then obviously Sansa is bothered by it, a lot. This time it makes her sick. It's not the first time Sansa has seen people die: Ser Hugh, Stannis' men that remained faithful, and so on. Apparently she can "stomach" all those (pun intended), but the moment Dontos dies, she retches. Clearly, his death does affect her so much that she has an instant physical response to it.

 

I agree that Sansa is not an "empath" (people with a very high ability of empathy). She actually falls more in the range of average empathy. It feels as if affective empathy is an either/or thing, but it is actually scaled, from zero (personality disordered) to real lot and everything in between. High empaths are altruistically inclined and feel empathy for strangers they never met before. But a large set of people only feel affective empathy for those they know and are close to - family and friends - but nobody beyond that really. Sansa falls in that me-and-mine category imo. The paragraph about Ser Hugh's death highlights the mindset and emotionality of me-and-mine empathy.

 

She thinks the Kingslayer a monster for having killed Jory, but cannot believe that Joff had anything to do with it.

Cersei's empathy is close to zero: it's all "me".

That's kind of a misrepresentation of that passage about Dontos dying... I mean keep reading... It's all about her...

But he saved me."

 

"He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey's death. The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse. Dontos . . . well, you heard him. He sold you for gold, and when he'd drunk it up he would have sold you again. A bag of dragons buys a man's silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel buys it forever." He smiled sadly. "All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff ‘s tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw."

 

Sansa felt sick. "He said he was my Florian."

 

"Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your father sat the Iron Throne?"

 

The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa could not say. "Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?"

[Winter's Cold]

24 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Yes! this. She only felt glad after she was gone because of the uncomfortable truths Jeyne was talking about. Sansa was still attempting to pretend everything was going to be OK at this point, and after she misses her friend. We then don't get much else on Jeyne and whatever there is is memories, happy memories. There are certain things Sansa still doesn't want to confront. But oh when she does....

This behavior disqualifies her from becoming a masterful player. Blocking out painful truths just leads to self delusion and makes it easier for her to be used as a pawn by actual players.

[Lost Melnibonean]

50 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Yes! Absolutely. I think Jeyne will be a huge turning point for Sansa. I don't have time for a huge post right now. But basically someone posted a quote above from early on, where Sansa thinks that she misses Jeyne, this is after initially being pleased she no longer has to listen to her tears.. And after that we don't get any worry or concern, but we do get her remembering their childhood from time to time. And Sansa does indeed love her best friend. That much is clear. What is significant in it's absence though is her asking LF about her fate, we know she heard Cersei say Jeyne would be taken to his chambers, and he would find a place for her. Yet she doesn't seem to have asked him. I think deep down she kinda suspects something unpleasant happened to Jeyne. And is afraid to ask. She isn't dim, and she knows Peytr is capable of disposing of people he no longer has use of (Dontos) I actually think it will be discovering what he did to Jeyne which triggers Sansa to have him beheaded (or indeed execute him herself perhaps) Jeyne is headed to Jon at the wall currently, and Jon eventually once he is healed or resurrected or whatever will I think head to Winterfell, even though his initial reason was to take Arya from Ramsey, discovering that it was Jeyne who was married to the bastard bolton won't necessarily mean he abandons that purpose. I think a general fall back from the wall will become essential at some point. Sansa we know wishes to return home, and the culmination of her Vale story line will likely see her headed there too. I think all roads lead to the same castle basically, and we will see all the Starks head there( I actually think Bran is facilitating this too through his ability to influence). Once she learns or indeed see's first hand what happened when she is reunited with Jeyne. Then shit will hit the fan for LF.  I think the Snow castle scene was foreshadowing and he will be important or at least his money and connections will be, in the actual re build of WF, but that she'll turn on him. I know there is a lot to be said for the argument he will try to force her into sexual activity, but I think Jeyne is a ticking bomb when it comes to these two. 

I'm the one who posted the quotes. They clearly show that 1) Sansa knows that her dearest and truest friend was placed in Petyr's custody, 2) Sansa was glad she didn't have to hear the steward's daughter whining anymore, 3) Sansa no longer thought about Jeyne after the Battle of the Blackwater, and 4) Sansa has simply replaced her old bestie with her new bestie. At least that's what I got from what The George wrote. 

[The Fattest Leech]

37 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Yes! Absolutely. I think Jeyne will be a huge turning point for Sansa. I don't have time for a huge post right now. But basically someone posted a quote above from early on, where Sansa thinks that she misses Jeyne, this is after initially being pleased she no longer has to listen to her tears..

I think this is a great parallel to Arya and her not liking the crying little girl and wanting to get away from her, but in the end, Arya wanted someone to help the crying girl. Jeyne had a crush on Beric, but then late Arya runs into Beric.

Sansa and Arya are actually alike in many ways, but stubborn ass sisters don't ways want to agree on that. I should know, I have two sisters myself

37 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

  And after that we don't get any worry or concern, but we do get her remembering their childhood from time to time. And Sansa does indeed love her best friend. That much is clear. What is significant in it's absence though is her asking LF about her fate, we know she heard Cersei say Jeyne would be taken to his chambers, and he would find a place for her. Yet she doesn't seem to have asked him. I think deep down she kinda suspects something unpleasant happened to Jeyne. And is afraid to ask. She isn't dim, and she knows Peytr is capable of disposing of people he no longer has use of (Dontos) ...

I agree with this. Sansa has just been whisked away, framed for regicide, been kept in solitude (so to speak) and hiding on the ship with Petyr to the fingers and then to Eryie, and all the while witnessed Uncle-Father-Pedo Bear Baelish kill Dontos by slight of hand, and then kill her aunt with his actual hand and then lie about it to the other lords and then had Marillion tortured and maimed.

I don't blame the girl for acting like a naive child in the beginning (ALL the Stark kids fucked up), but then having it bite her in the ass so she learns better to do better next time. Her fairytales now have actual monsters in them.

 

Just general discussion, but, I wonder if Sansa will stop loving lemon cakes at some point?:

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

"I will. Three tales, as I promised . . . when we reach the Gates of the Moon." Alayne was running short of patience. We have to go, she reminded herself, or we'll still be above the snow line when the sun goes down. "Lord Nestor has prepared a feast to welcome you, mushroom soup and venison and cakes. You don't want to disappoint him, do you?"

"Will they be lemon cakes?" Lord Robert loved lemon cakes, perhaps because Alayne did.

 

55 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

 

I agree that Sansa is not an "empath" (people with a very high ability of empathy). She actually falls more in the range of average empathy. It feels as if affective empathy is an either/or thing, but it is actually scaled, from zero (personality disordered) to real lot and everything in between. High empaths are altruistically inclined and feel empathy for strangers they never met before. But a large set of people only feel affective empathy for those they know and are close to - family and friends - but nobody beyond that really. Sansa falls in that me-and-mine category imo. The paragraph about Ser Hugh's death highlights the mindset and emotionality of me-and-mine empathy.

 

I mostly agree with this, but, maybe it's me, but I see Sansa is capable of having a grasp of others and smallfolk, especially in a time of need, as she did during Blackwater and in the sept by the way it is described.

A Clash of Kings - Sansa V

Across the city, thousands had jammed into the Great Sept of Baelor on Visenya's Hill, and they would be singing too, their voices swelling out over the city, across the river, and up into the sky. Surely the gods must hear us, she thought.

Sansa knew most of the hymns, and followed along on those she did not know as best she could. She sang along with grizzled old serving men and anxious young wives, with serving girls and soldiers, cooks and falconers, knights and knaves, squires and spit boys and nursing mothers. She sang with those inside the castle walls and those without, sang with all the city. She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off on the Wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin, for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today, and for the children and the wives who would mourn them, and finally, toward the end, she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound. He is no true knight but he saved me all the same, she told the Mother. Save him if you can, and gentle the rage inside him.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

That's kind of a misrepresentation of that passage about Dontos dying... I mean keep reading... It's all about her...

But he saved me."

 

"He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey's death. The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse. Dontos . . . well, you heard him. He sold you for gold, and when he'd drunk it up he would have sold you again. A bag of dragons buys a man's silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel buys it forever." He smiled sadly. "All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff ‘s tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw."

 

Sansa felt sick. "He said he was my Florian."

 

"Do you perchance recall what I said to you that day your father sat the Iron Throne?"

 

The moment came back to her vividly. "You told me that life was not a song. That I would learn that one day, to my sorrow." She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa could not say. "Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?"

No, its not a misrepresentation. A physical reaction is instant and has to do with feeling, before it becomes an emotion. Emotions are intellectualized feelings (the sensation)... feelings that went through a cognitive state of giving it a name. Some people may feel fear but turn it cognitively into anger, and thus will say and think they are angry, while at the base is fear. The retching is a primitive response, and therefore pre-cognitive, and therefore her truest response to Dontos' death. The rest is intellectualization of it. 

And I never claimed that Sansa was an altruist. She isn't. She has average me-and-mine empathy.

[sweetsunray]

47 minutes ago, Winter's Cold said:

This behavior disqualifies her from becoming a masterful player. Blocking out painful truths just leads to self delusion and makes it easier for her to be used as a pawn by actual players.

Agreed. That is exactly what Littlefinger and Cersei do.

Littlefinger uses one particular sentence in relation to Nestor Royce, Marillion, etc. "Do you wish more blood on your hands?" (paraphrasing). She sees Marillion floating before her, and then Dontos. And to this she gives in finally and says "no".

Sansa shows a peculiar mix of reactions to Marillion. She can't help think of his eyes and fingers, and she hopes Maddy just made it up. She tells herself not to feel pity for the creep, reminding herself what an anwful man he is. And she wants him dead to have the singing stop that reminds her she's lying.

So, on the one hand we see her wanting to get rid of the source who makes her feel guilty, reminds her of her lies. But she also feels pity (pity is an intellectualized emotion coming from affective empathy), and tells herself not to, and yet she can't stop it. 

It's imo wrong to make her out to be an empath who cares for strangers (she doesn't), but it's just as wrong to claim she is incapable of empathy and purely selfish. She's right smack in the middle, average.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

28 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I'm the one who posted the quotes. They clearly show that 1) Sansa knows that her dearest and truest friend was placed in Petyr's custody, 2) Sansa was glad she didn't have to hear the steward's daughter whining anymore, 3) Sansa no longer thought about Jeyne after the Battle of the Blackwater, and 4) Sansa has simply replaced her old bestie with her new bestie. At least that's what I got from what The George wrote. 

Thanks, my memory is shit. 

I didn't interpret it like that, early on Sansa really wants to just stick her head in the sand, and pretend everything is gonna be ok. And Jeyne's tears and talk of the killing prevents that, so she is at first relieved to be rid of her. But later on Sansa does think of Jeyne, as was just posted at the Sept before the Blackwater she prays for her, amongst others whom she has either already lost, or whose lives are in danger. Bar Jon who is as far as she knows relatively safe at the wall, but she includes him non the less. 

I think deep down Sansa suspects Jeyne has gone for good, and she uses her coping mechanism, which is to put it out of her mind as it's too painful. She even thinks at one point how she tries not to think of her dead family as it hurts too much. But Jeyne does crop up from time to time in her memories, and usually they are happy ones, Sansa associates Jeyne with home and the life she lost. And I think when she is faced with what Peytr did to her, she'll snap.  Sansa of AGOT probably convinced herself that LF gave Jeyne a place somewhere, a handmaid maybe but she doesn't want to contemplate the more likely options.  

This is the thing, people seem to think that talking about Sansa's development means you think she has fully evolved and is now some master of the game. But she hasn't, she is slowly growing up as are they all. It's the direction she is headed in which matters at this point imo. 

She has demonstrated that she has learnt several lessons, and is gaining various skills. But she is by no means done yet. I personally can't wait to see where she goes and if I am right in my deductions about her. 

 

[sweetsunray]

27 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I mostly agree with this, but, maybe it's me, but I see Sansa is capable of having a grasp of others and smallfolk, especially in a time of need, as she did during Blackwater and in the sept by the way it is described.

Well, the singing in the sept is a peculiar situation. It reminds me of say Lady Di dying and suddenly everyone is weeping and sharing and bonding. She's somewhat swept up into it by the crowd's emotion.

When I say me-and-mine empathy that does not mean I think Sansa wants to see strangers harmed. She has intellectual empathy for people beyond her personal sphere. But when it comes to actually being affected by it as a sensation (retching, crying, screaming), and being upset when actual harms comes to people beyond that personal sphere - people she never met before, just a name and a face - she is hardly affected by it. Then she only has intellectual, cognitive empathy in the form of "no songs will be sung of him. That's sad." 

[kimim]

38 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

She's right smack in the middle, average.

This. I think readers expect Stark kids to be exceptional. Arya and Bran definitely are, but Sansa and Robb are, really, pretty "average." Not a compliment, not an insult.

[Runaway Penguin]

Unfortunately the main part of her learning the game is that if she lies about something often enough, she will start believing it herself... 

 

Re. the Dontos, not sure how much it shows empathy. It rather shows reaction to another shock after night full of shocks. Her Florian turned out to be not Florian... and just then he gets shot. That just after being in a rather stressful and unpleasant evet and seeing her ex betrothed choking to death... Even if she wished him dead, it was quite a lot. So no, I do not think she retched because of empathy for Dontos, it was just because HER Florian turned out to be false and dead and she was in a weird situation, not knowing what is happening.

And yes, everyone has stronger empathy to "me and mine" That is not a bad thing - but Sansa seems to be awfully quick to stop being distressed about even "mine". And yes, it is understandable, I just do not see that much development TO THE GOOD in Sansa. She will have to go through quite some stuff to get over the cognitive dissonance. Maybe when Hound tells her that he did not kiss her and that as surrogate daughter he likes murdermachine Arya better?  

 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

No, its not a misrepresentation. A physical reaction is instant and has to do with feeling, before it becomes an emotion. Emotions are intellecutalized feelings (the sensation)... feelings that went through a cognitive state of giving it a name. Some people may feel fear but turn it cognitively into anger, and thus will say and think they are angry, while at the base is fear. The retching is a promitive response, and therefore pre-cognitive, and therefore her truest response to Dontos' death. The rest is intellecutalization of it. 

And I never claimed that Sansa was an altruist. She isn't. She has average me-and-mine empathy.

Huh, I always got the impression she was sick because she was worried about herself... Also, a gut reaction happens before she gets a chance to think, but I think it's the threat to herself that scares her not seeing violence, since we know the tourney death barely phased her...

but I fully admit this is my interpretation, I appreciate the other angle

[sweetsunray]

34 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

So no, I do not think she retched because of empathy for Dontos, it was just because HER Florian turned out to be false and dead and she was in a weird situation, not knowing what is happening.

She retches before she learns he was false.

[Runaway Penguin]

19 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

She retches before she learns he was false.

He is killed just after asking for the 10,000 dragons he was promised. ie Florian turned mercenary delivery boy, subsequently killed. She learns the details afterwards, but I guess the moment he asked for payment and was getting ready to leave was pretty clear.

[sweetsunray]

9 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Huh, I always got the impression she was sick because she was worried about herself... Also, a gut reaction happens before she gets a chance to think, but I think it's he threat to herself that scares her not seeing violence, since we know the tourney death barely phased her...

but I fully admit this is my interpretation, I appreciate the other angle

I would say her crying later on is both for herself and Dontos: for herself in learning that not even Dontos is a hero, an illusion less, while also mixed with the loss. Primal fear expresses itself differently than nausea and retching. In Sansa, fear works paralizing, like a deer caught in a headlight. She doesn't freeze up in the scene.

BTW I think LF portrayed it rather black-white to her. Yes, he was bought, but I don't see him risking it all for the money alone. I think Dontos did want to save her from KL, but also wanted to procure himself a pension so he could arrange for his own flight at some point, and talked himself into believing LF was safest and best, because she'd be with her aunt, with family. On the other hand, exactly because he was such a coward and an alcoholic, the risk indeed was too great that he'd talk the moment he'd be interrogated. Once he'd believe she was safely away, Dontos would look after only himself again. 

[sweetsunray]

9 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

He is killed just after asking for the 10,000 dragons he was promised. ie Florian turned mercenary delivery boy, subsequently killed. She learns the details afterwards, but I guess the moment he asked for payment and was getting ready to leave was pretty clear.

And yet the first thing she says is "You killed him!", she retches and when LF tries to tell her he was untrustworthy she still says "But he said he was my Florian." So, no, she did not vomit because she felt betrayed. LF has to spell it out sentence by sentence, despite her having heard them talk of money. It was a direct physical response to seeing him quarreled and die.

If you can't grant her even that amount of affective empathy to Dontos, then you're basically supposing she's a psychopath.

[Runaway Penguin]

I did not wrote she vomited because she was betrayed. I wrote she vomited as a reaction to stress of the entire evening, Joffrey's poisoning, the flight, climbing the rock... Crowned by yet another betrayal and murder. 

 

"But he was my Florian" is just holding on to her fantasy of being rescued by gallant knight etc., not specifically to Dontos.

[sweetsunray]

6 minutes ago, Runaway Penguin said:

I did not wrote she vomited because she was betrayed. I wrote she vomited as a reaction to stress of the entire evening, Joffrey's poisoning, the flight, climbing the rock... Crowned by yet another betrayal and murder. 

 

"But he was my Florian" is just holding on to her fantasy of being rescued by gallant knight etc., not specifically to Dontos.

Her first response is "You killed him!" and then she retches, immediately after seeing him killed.

If it had been stress for all that went before, she would have felt the nausea before that.

I just note that you cannot grant her affective empathy when it's clearly, right before you, linked to a death scene of someone she counted as one of hers. That would make her being one with a very low affective empathy level, bordering that of psychopathy and narcissism, while she fails seriously on the other symptoms for it - she feels guilt, including at lying, she lacks the glibness, no sign of narcissistic injury (aka resentful of imagined slights).

[LiveFirstDieLater]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Her first response is "You killed him!" and then she retches, immediately after seeing him killed.

If it had been stress for all that went before, she would have felt the nausea before that.

I just note that you cannot grant her affective empathy when it's clearly, right before you, linked to a death scene of someone she counted as one of hers. That would make her being one with a very low affective empathy level, bordering that of psychopathy and narcissism, while she fails seriously on the other symptoms for it - she feels guilt, including at lying, she lacks the glibness, no sign of narcissistic injury (aka resentful of imagined slights).

You sure she wasn't just sea sick? Haha

I still think she reches because of fear for herself and not empathy but I can see how it could be read both ways... 

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Runaway Penguin said:

He is killed just after asking for the 10,000 dragons he was promised. ie Florian turned mercenary delivery boy, subsequently killed. She learns the details afterwards, but I guess the moment he asked for payment and was getting ready to leave was pretty clear.

Actually, he didn't ask for payment then. He just said he had to return before he was missed. Petyr then coaxed it out of him, so Sansa would see that he did what he did for money, not for her. Then Petyr had Dontos murdered by crossbow bolts to the heart, throat, and belly, as his Lothar dropped a torch into the rowboat, burning Dontos to dispose of him.