Sansa and Cognitive Dissonance

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

18 hours ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

And maybe you should read The Weirwoods Eye's posts, because that has not been said in any of them.

 

Thanks. 

 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

16 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Whoa.   That's a new prophecy: if all the Stark kids find their way into an altered mental state around the same time, we could see a big turning point chapter of the warg- realm meeting of their minds.  A chance to get on the same page with one another, to rejoice, to plan together their resurgence, so one's efforts dovetail with the strategies of the rest and everything comes up Stark in the end , when their efforts converge.  Maybe it wouldn't all be conducted through the limited wolf consciousness either, but would seep into their human dreams so they could understand and speak to one another.  Sansa in particular may be bolstered by this revelation that there's still something to fight for, and may find the will to reclaim her identity with startling gusto.   

Yeah, I've been wondering about this a lot lately. I've had some good discussions about Bran's entering into other peoples dreams. His siblings/cousin Jon. And been wondering if he might be able to link them all up. 

He and Rickon share a dream with Ned the night before he is executed. 

Quote

 

The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad."

"And why was that?" Luwin peered through his tube.

"It was something to do about Jon, I think." The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. "Hodor won't go down into the crypts."

The maester had only been half listening, Bran could tell. He lifted his eye from the tube, blinking. "Hodor won't …?"

"Go down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was truly there. At first he didn't know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn't go down. He just stood on the top step and said 'Hodor,' like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nan is always doing." He saw the way the maester was frowning and hurriedly added, "I didn't, though."

 

"Why would you want to go down to the crypts?"

"I told you. To look for Father."

The maester tugged at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable. "Bran, sweet child, one day Lord Eddard will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father's father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the North … but that will not be for many years, gods be good. Your father is a prisoner of the queen in King's Landing. You will not find him in the crypts."

"Stubborn boy," the maester sighed, setting his book aside. "Would you like to go see?"

 Bran is led into the dream by BR, it seems BR has linked Bran into a dream of Neds to enable Ned to tell Bran about Jon. A friend on another forum recently proposed that the Three Eyed Raven is BR's dram avatar. And that Bran's dream avatar is the slender weirwood sapling Jon see's him as in their shared dream. 

Note both shared dreams involve the crypts. 

I propose that Bran sleeping next to Rickon in their bed inadvertently pulled Rickon into this dream. Rickon might have been having a wolf dream at the time? We know the wolf dreams allow them to access their siblings wolf dreams and sense one another. 

We don't get a further POV chapter from Ned himself as we see his execution through Arya's POV so we don't know what he thought of this dream. But both boys want to go down into the crypt to see if Ned is there. Showing us that it was a very realistic dream. This is how we know Rickon dreamt it too as he is is the crypt and shaggy dog bites Luwins arm. Luwin tries to dismiss their dream but later Osha tells Bran that sometimes dreams ain't just dreams. 

Then Bran enters Jon's dream when Jon is having a wolf dream, he appears as a weirwood sapling. 

In TWOW  Mercy I 

Spoiler

Arya awakes from a wolf dream in which she is racing through dark pine dense woodlands. She see's a tree watching her and says that in her dreams she hears her true name. I think Bran has again accessed his siblings dream and is showing up as his weirwood sapling avatar. 

 

Now should Bran learn how to link multiple peoples dreams we could get some thing like you suggest. 

Sansa needs a new familiar I think, but there could potentially be possible for him to draw her into the loop without one? I do think though that she will have a Merlin soon. They're in the Vale after all home of falconry and she likes hawking, has done it before and chose a Merlin then. It is our smallest bird of prey too, so a Little Bird. 

[Kandrax]

14 hours ago, Bullrout said:

Robin

Robert, not Robin.

[Springwatch]

22 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

I think the far north is home to another order of life that re-organizes the ice crystals into Others and then seeks to apply this to everything else it encounters, such as our dead, which is why we built the wall.   Not just to halt specific Others but to halt this 2nd Order of Life from speading its infestation over the globe like the ghost grass example in essos.  So...what if after it sinks its roots into a region the dead in that region just rise because the ambient energies of Life2 are present, re- ordering all the foreign matter.   Life2 is Not able to reformat us living specimens of Life Type 1, but once we die and go inanimate, it is able to incorporate us / reanimate us into its grand design of crystal- encrusting everything.   The hive mind of the wights = multiple facets on a snowflake spun into a mathematical design.  So Others slay us Not out of super special spite, just the spite with which you swat an ant that Doesn't Belong in the house because it's not your kind of living thing.  But once a bunch of ants have been Rearranged, put into an antfarm, you have no trouble with them being on the countertop anymore because they've been slaved to your vision of how things should be orderly in the house.  ...Now what about the trees?

It's a great theory, I'd be happy with that. I'm not sure we have to die, because the Others want something with Craster's sons - not killing for pleasure, because they hate that hot red blood; not to create wights either, because the boys too small. If Other society is also insect-type - I'm thinking ants farming aphids - the boys could be the drones. The Night's King was a sort of drone.

[Springwatch]

On 03/05/2018 at 5:46 PM, zandru said:

This really is the key. CAN Sansa overcome her cognitive dissonance? WILL she start seeing with her eyes, etc? WHEN will she begin to remember events honestly, instead of rewriting her most painful memories to depict herself as the Beautiful Young Princess of Song? WHAT might trigger this change in her?

Well, she's already got over Cersei and Joff, and that was the major example. I also have less faith now in Syrio's advice to look with your eyes - because that gives you the wrong answer if you're looking at a faceless man, or in the House of the Undying, or even looking at Cersei's beautiful kind eyes.

I'm not even sure Sansa should drop all forms of cognitive dissonance. Sandor sees the hypocrisy of knights and the futility of honour - and as a result he drops his highest ideals. Against his advice, and against all the evidence of her eyes, Sansa continues to believe in true knights. It's an idea that probably helps them both.

[zandru]

6 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

Against his advice, and against all the evidence of her eyes, Sansa continues to believe in true knights.

This isn't "cognitive dissonance" - it's holding to ideals. By definition, ideals are ideas of what the best should be - and not what you actually see. I continue to maintain that Sansa needs to see and listen better than she has so far. And, insofar as ideals go, she's been quick to rationalize violating them when it's convenient for her - then changing her memories to avoid having to admit to herself that what she did wasn't quite right.

Sure, Sansa "got over" her attachments to Cersei and Joffrey - but look how much ***t she took from each of them before she figured it out. That was because she was wowed by their great beauty and good manners, and how they flattered the gallant "song" of her life. CD.

[John Suburbs]

6 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

We don't get a further POV chapter from Ned himself as we see his execution through Arya's POV so we don't know what he thought of this dream. But both boys want to go down into the crypt to see if Ned is there. Showing us that it was a very realistic dream. This is how we know Rickon dreamt it too as he is is the crypt and shaggy dog bites Luwins arm. Luwin tries to dismiss their dream but later Osha tells Bran that sometimes dreams ain't just dreams. 

Nice. What do you make of the fact that following that dream, Hodor suddenly doesn't want to go down there when he had no fear of the crypts before, or since?

 

[Springwatch]

7 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

It is an interesting scene isn't it.  One which I was looking at recently in an analysis of Sansa leaving the north and that this scene has so much to note in it. 

Here I'll pull it together and we can take a look at it. 

Now when I was looking at this scene I was doing so with her relationship with Lady in mind and also with a view to what would happen to her in KL. I too have always been struck by the power of her ill feeling towards Ilyn Payne. And would love to get to the bottom of it. 

Got to be a premonition, in my view. Ilyn is described as both a 'stranger' and the 'other', which is hint enough.

All the same, there's got to be a real-world story for Ilyn and what motivates him. I can't make him out.

7 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

As to how she reacts to Sandor.  Think about how later on he still thinks that she is afraid to look on him? In the blackwater scene she closes her eyes in anticipation of a kiss but he reads it as revulsion. This inability for the two of them to clarify how they feel around each other is a classic tool in romances. A comedy of errors if you will that prevents the couple from uniting too early on in the story and has to be worked through in order for them to finally come together towards the end. 

This looking and not looking gets interesting. She peeps at Sandor and looks away, until this not looking becomes an issue between them. He asks her to look at him, makes her do it. In the Unkiss scene, whatever he was going to do or say, he changed his mind because she wasn't looking at him. I think he wanted to be read correctly, wanted that meeting of minds.

Out of all the people that Sansa tries to read, it seems that only Cersei can lie with her eyes. Even Littlefinger doesn't fake a smile in his eyes.

[Springwatch]

53 minutes ago, zandru said:

This isn't "cognitive dissonance" - it's holding to ideals. By definition, ideals are ideas of what the best should be - and not what you actually see. I continue to maintain that Sansa needs to see and listen better than she has so far.

Nice definition of ideals. Believing what you see is not 100% reliable; I'm not sure about listening, but smell is the way to detect a lie. Which must make life very difficult.

[zandru]

5 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

smell is the way to detect a lie

Well, maybe if you're a dog. Sansa - and the rest of us - are mere humans, and none of us, including Sansa have access to canine senses. So, what does a lie "smell" like? Mint? Lavendar? Nightsoil? When you last "smelled" a lie, what did it remind you of?

There's a distinction between seeing something clearly and in this way understanding it, and "seeing" everything through rose-tinted lenses. (They really work, by the way. The whole world looks brighter, more colorful.) Sure, there are illusions and misconceptions, but continued observation and integration of information are pretty reliable.

[Angel Eyes]

19 hours ago, Springwatch said:

but smell is the way to detect a lie. Which must make life very difficult.

And Lothar Frey, one of the main conspirators for the Red Wedding, passed a direwolf test.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎5‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 0:36 PM, ToysoldierXIII said:

snip

 

On ‎5‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 7:16 AM, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

snip

Let's try this: what may be the reason why Sansa seems to have false memories and is often of two-minds about what is happening around her at any given moment?

I'd like to take a look at the warging thing, which has shown us how Bran, Jon and Arya can dream through the eyes of their wolves and even receive "mind messages", for lack of a better term, in their waking moments. At the same time, we can see from Rickon at key points in Clash that his waking mind is actually more wolf-like than human, leading to the possibility that the mind-body connection between warg and wolf can work both ways.

Next, let's take a look at what happens to the warg at the point of death. Bran seems to have resided in Summer during his coma, which is probably the only reason he survived. Also, both Jon and Robb called their wolves' names with their last breaths, quite possibly signaling the same kind of transfer that Bran experienced. (And in Robb's case, this is doubly disturbing because it means he experienced two deaths at the Red Wedding). In fact, we have Varamyr Sixskins' POV pretty much confirming all of this.

So if the mind connection between warg and wolf is a two-way street, and humans can leap into their wolves' minds at the point of death, then it also stands to reason that the wolf can do the same when it dies. And when we circle this back to Sansa, we now have to consider the possibility that she is, in fact, of two minds: her conscious human mind and her subconscious Lady mucking around behind the scenes.

[Bitterblooms]

21 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Well, she's already got over Cersei and Joff, and that was the major example. I also have less faith now in Syrio's advice to look with your eyes - because that gives you the wrong answer if you're looking at a faceless man, or in the House of the Undying, or even looking at Cersei's beautiful kind eyes.

I'm not even sure Sansa should drop all forms of cognitive dissonance. Sandor sees the hypocrisy of knights and the futility of honour - and as a result he drops his highest ideals. Against his advice, and against all the evidence of her eyes, Sansa continues to believe in true knights. It's an idea that probably helps them both.

I agree with much of this. If she drops the ideal of true knights and bravery, and becomes as cynical as the Hound, thats a self-deception in another way. I don't think Sandor saw things as they truly were either. 

[Springwatch]

3 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

 

Let's try this: what may be the reason why Sansa seems to have false memories and is often of two-minds about what is happening around her at any given moment?

I'd like to take a look at the warging thing ,,,

You make a good case. It's possible that Lady's influence gives Sansa an enhanced senses of smell, or at least an enhanced interest in smells:

Quote

[the godswood] The air was rich with the smell of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. (ACOK)

 

[Springwatch]

23 hours ago, zandru said:

Well, maybe if you're a dog. Sansa - and the rest of us - are mere humans, and none of us, including Sansa have access to canine senses. So, what does a lie "smell" like? Mint? Lavendar? Nightsoil? When you last "smelled" a lie, what did it remind you of?

You ask the best questions. Let's do this (just for fun):

• Mint is a component of moon tea, which is a poison. (Pennyroyal is a mint, and toxic.)
• Lavendar is a washing herb, removing the natural human scent. Lavendar is purple, which is linked to poison via the strangler and poison kisses.

So if lies are poison, you might say they smell of mint and lavendar (and Varys scents his breath with lilacs, which would work the same way).

Other perfumes hide the skin's scent as well - a bit of a deception, but not much (unless the hounds are after you).

Some perfumes tell the truth about the wearer:

• Spiceflower, worn by Dany. The hot girl wears the hot perfume.

and some don't deceive at all:

• Lemonwater, worn by Ryman Frey, to hide his sweat. It doesn't.

 

23 hours ago, zandru said:

There's a distinction between seeing something clearly and in this way understanding it, and "seeing" everything through rose-tinted lenses. (They really work, by the way. The whole world looks brighter, more colorful.)

I know!  I was wearing pink sunglasses one day when a really ferocious thunderstorm blew up. I took the glasses off to get a better look at it - it looked so bad, I put them on again. Might as well be cheerful while I'm running away.

23 hours ago, zandru said:

Sure, there are illusions and misconceptions, but continued observation and integration of information are pretty reliable.

Observation and integration, yes. I assume this is what the Hound means when he says he can 'a dog can smell a lie' - using all his senses, plus a lot of experience. I doubt he'd have much luck detecting a faceless man.

I thought Sansa was echoing this with [Lady] could smell a falsehood, she could, but she was dead... (ACOK), but it seems she said it just before. That could mean Lady has smelt out a falsehood already (but what?) or that Sansa has a present sense of Lady is and what she could do.

[Springwatch]

There's a scene with Shae which says a lot about detecting false identities. Tyrion's in the garden of Shae's manse:

Quote

 

A whiff of something rank made him turn his head. Shae stood in the door behind him, dressed in the silvery robe he'd given her. I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair. Behind her stood one of the begging brothers.... The smell of him would have gagged a rat.

"Lord Varys has come to see you," Shae announced.

The begging brother blinked at her, astonished. Tyrion laughed. "To be sure. How is it you knew him when I did not?"

She shrugged. "It's still him. Only dressed different."

"A different look, a different smell, a different way of walking," said Tyrion. "Most men would be deceived."

"And most women, maybe. But not whores. A whore learns to see the man, not his garb, or she turns up dead in an alley."

 

Shae seems to be firmly in Syrio's camp here.

Apart from that, I'm struck by the way the first paragraph plays with our understanding. For a moment, it reads as if the rank smell is coming from Shae, because we don't see the begging brother until after the song.

That might say something about Shae, but I also take whores as foreshadowing the Others (because, night workers, and because of the whore/hoar pun). Shae is very pale and silvery here. She looks like a beautiful Other, but the smell is rank. The nature of the Others might be more honestly described by the rank smell than the beautiful appearance.

[The Mother of The Others]

(porn voice):  Oh Jonathan!

Good stuff.  So Rickon' s and Shaggy Dog's soured connection is directly analogous to how the dragon clan sometimes goes off the deep end, due to the same kind of feedback along the mental link.   Mayhaps.  That's sleazy hot by itself, and then the bit about Sansa being addled due to Lady's continuing presence.  Wow.   I don't see how Lady is supposed to manifest or contribute in Sansa's human dominated world, and the warg-housed spirit is supposed to fade over time (may have already).   But it's definitely a gem to peer into and ponder, this idea. 

And the winter snow has caught up with Alayne, so if she finds herself on the run or in danger out in the cold, the wolf may assert itself then, as Lady would better understand that survival sitch than the usual Alayne problem of how to navigate a political landscape.   (Alayne's daily life may not provide Lady with the kinds of stimuli that'd wake her from her subsumed coma, so the wolf slumbers during those boring chapters, same as the rest of us are tempted to nod off.  (Kidding)  ).    .... Or, during a time of extreme identity crisis, a huge decision moment,  the wolf could surface one last time to show Alayne who she really is by sleepwalking Sansa in the direction a Stark would choose, and then Sansa wakes with that clear omen unmistakable, cries, says Alright, Lady.  Shall we walk it together?

[zandru]

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Let's do this (just for fun):

• Mint is a component of moon tea,
• [...]

Actually, I mentioned mint because Petyr Baelish, a known deceiver, always has it on his breath. And lavendar is Varys's smell when he's in the Red Keep; smelling differently (see below) when he's in disguise further protects him.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

I'm struck by the way the first paragraph plays with our understanding. For a moment, it reads as if the rank smell is coming from Shae, because we don't see the begging brother until after the song.

This is a really cool catch! It foreshadows Shae's true character and ultimate betrayal. GRRM is really good about putting in little touches like that, isn't he? It's too bad that Tyrion is so deeply enslaved to his cock; makes Varys's remark about being glad he's a eunuch even more wise.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

or that Sansa has a present sense of Lady is and what she could do.

Well, I'd go with "memory", it being simpler than presupposing that the direwolf has somehow integrated herself with Sansa's consciousness. We don't see any wolf-like senses or thoughts or behaviors from Sansa. More like, she integrated her consciousness with a rabbit, or a mouse. Sansa was too old, and had too little time with Lady to have formed the strong psychic bond that the younger children (and Jon) have forged, and we haven't yet observed animal crossing over into human, even with Varamyr Six-skins (he picked a really great name for himself, by the way.)

 

[Bitterblooms]

I just noticed this in looking something up.in the arts slaying the giant thread. It certainly shows a growth in empathy toward her friend, Jeyne. 

When everything is going down in aGoT, Sansa is pretty self centered on her thighs about Jeyne"s fragile condition. The only time she thinks of her in AFFC, however, she adds a small sympathetic adjective: 

A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

Jeyne Poole and all her things were gone when Ser Mandon Moore returned Sansa to the high tower of Maegor's Holdfast. No more weeping, she thought gratefully. Yet somehow it seemed colder with Jeyne gone, even after she'd built a fire.

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

Despite herself, Alayne found herself warming to the older girl. She had not had a friend to gossip with since poor Jeyne Poole. "Do you think Ser Lothor likes her as she is, in mail and leather?" she asked the older girl, who seemed so worldly-wise. "Or does he dream of her draped in silks and velvets?"

 

 

Does this indicate a growth of understanding for her now that she had hod more life experience? 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

On 04/05/2018 at 8:17 PM, John Suburbs said:

Nice. What do you make of the fact that following that dream, Hodor suddenly doesn't want to go down there when he had no fear of the crypts before, or since?

 

I'm not sure TBH I've never dissected that aspect. Hodor's reluctance to re-enter the crypts.   He does though in the end to hide from Ramsey during the sack.  I'd guess without having put any real consideration into it that it could be to do with the "free'd" spirit after Rickon removes that rusted sword?