Who will Sansa marry?

[Lost Melnibonean]

Timett son of Timett...

...

No seriously...

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Little boyman, Shagga roared, will you mock my axe after I chop off your manhood and feed it to the goats?

But Gunthor raised a hand. No. I would hear his words. The mothers go hungry, and steel fills more mouths than gold. What would you give us for your lives, Tyrion son of Tywin? Swords? Lances? Mail?

All that, and more, Gunthor son of Gurn, Tyrion Lannister replied, smiling. I will give you the Vale of Arryn.

Tyrion VI, Game

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A Lannister always pays his debts.

Tyrion VI, Game

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Gunthor son of Gurn was raising the other clans even now.

Tyrion VII, Game

So, Tyrion still needs to help the Mountain Clans claim the Vale of Arryn, which Timett and Gunthor seem nearly ready to do...

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His dream of selling Arya to Lady Arryn died there in the hills, though. "There's frost above us and snow in the high passes," the village elder said. "If you dont freeze or starve, the shadowcats will get you, or the cave bears. There's the clans as well. The Burned Men are fearless since Timett One-Eye came back from the war. And half a year ago, Gunthor son of Gurn led the Stone Crows down on a village not eight miles from here. They took every woman and every scrap of grain, and killed half the men. They have steel now, good swords and mail hauberks, and they watch the high road--the Stone Crows, the Milk Snakes, the Sons of the Mist, all of them. Might be you'd take a few with you, but in the end they'd kill you and make off with your daughter."

Arya XII, Storm

They just need a strong ally and maybe a legal claim.

Eventually, Daenerys will come to Westeros. I suspect she will ally with and possibly wed Aegon before the dance begins, but that Aegon will betray her. Petyr may treat with Daenerys but when its time to dance, he will side with Aegon, and Daenerys, probably influenced by Tyrion, is likely to push him in that direction...

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Thank you, but no. Littlefinger flashed his mocking smile. Drink with the dwarf, its said, and you wake up walking the Wall. Black brings out my unhealthy pallor.

Tyrion IV, Clash

So Petyr will be rejected by, or reject, Daenerys and throw in with Aegon. Daenerys could become the Mountain Clans' strong ally, and Tyrion could provide a legal claim for Timett.

As we all know, Timett is Robert Arryn's true heir, not Harold Hardyng, right? But he just might be even more...

So, there's that little box about the Mountain Clans in the Vale, TWOIAF that says the Burned Men were spun off the Painted Dogs when they were enthralled by a fire a witch with a dragon. I read Alys into this when I first read it but the more likely candidate was Nettles since the fire witch commanded a dragon, but that would muck up my theory on Brown Ben, and I think Alys is a better candidate. So... What if the dragon wasn't a dragon like Sheepstealer but the child of Aemond One-Eye?!? And what if Timett (who has one eye ) is not only the true heir to the Vale (as we all know is true, right?), but also a descendant ol' One-Eye?!?

OK, OK... Maybe having Timett descend from Alys and Aemond is more crackpot than having him descend from Nettles and Daemon, but either way, not only is Timett the true heir to the Vale, but he also quite likely has a drop of dragonblood. Dude's gonna ride Viserion after Brown Ben gets whacked. I will bet half a groat. 

Way back in Game, we learned that Andal blood was strongest in the Vale, but since then the gardener has showed us that there is a lot of First Men blood in the Vale too, notably in the blood of House Royce. Perhaps Bronze Yohn will side with Daenerys and Tyrion against Petyr and Harold. Of course they'll need a rival to Harold. Perhaps Tyrion can convince Lord Bronze Yohn of House Royce, which traces its ancestry back to the First Men, to back Timett against the wayward Se Harold Hardyng? That would be especially easy if Timett mounted Viserion, no? And to seal the deal, why not have Sansa wed him? 

Before the Battle of the Nine Stars, King Robar Royce allied with a sorceress known as the Bride of the Merling King. If we can associate Petyr with the Merling King and by extension with Harry the Heir, perhaps Yohn will be able to secure Sansa somehow, and perhaps she will be reunited with her current husband. I wonder how that reckoning will go? 

[Angel Eyes]

47 minutes ago, Ylath's Snout said:

I wasn't trying to say that Sansa/Edmure would be a "happy" match just that is would make more sense than Jon/Sansa for maintaining the Stark-Tully alliance.

The age gap is actually one of the reasons why I don’t support Sandor and Sansa. 

[Springwatch]

I hadn't read any Jonsa posts till today - just too, too crackpot. But I don't know, maybe I was wrong. I liked the Dragonknight quotes from last year's thread.

But mainly, I'm very attached to the idea of repetitions and cyclic events, which Jonsa sort of achieves in a few ways:

• Sansa's string of horrible suitors continues. Jon isn't horrible (unless undead), but both of them would hate this match.
• On the bright side, Sansa finally gets her true prince.
• The Targ princeling gets to marry a close relative, as they like to do.
• The Ramsay/Jeyne forced marriage becomes foreshadowing: the legitimised bastard marries a daughter of Winterfell. (I don't know if Ramsay shadows Jon much, but Jeyne is Sansa's shadow in AGOT.)

I'm not a shipper; this tops off a list of bad betrothals, and reasons for it happening at all are pretty slim. The Others might ship it though: we know they have a use for living humans because of Craster's sons, and there seems to be some weird ancient magic involving the Starks and Winterfell (probably in opposition to the Others). So maybe the Others can make use of captive Starks - breed them for their special winter kingsblood perhaps, or create a King in the North with the power to break the Wall. That kind of thing.

And if she ever escapes from all that, she might just settle down quietly with Sandor, who actually likes her and doesn't care about her claim.

[Lollygag]

2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Am I the only one who ships Sansa and Podrick?

Nope.

Kings and Queens in this world are miserable and effectively have their lives turned into something twisted and ugly. I'd like to see Sansa take Jaime's advice and marry a nice tradesman and find a cute little cottage away from all of the nonsense. Pod's perfect for that. Rather doubt I'll get this though but it's the ending I'd like to see for her.

[Ylath's Snout]

2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

The age gap is actually one of the reasons why I don’t support Sandor and Sansa. 

Yeah that does make it pretty icky.

[Springwatch]

On 6/27/2018 at 12:18 AM, Ylath's Snout said:

Yeah that does make it pretty icky.

It's icky if it happens now. When Sansa's grown up, her choices are her own affair.

I don't think we'll see every character wedded and bedded by the end of the books.

[Belgarad]

One of the Jonas brothers

[shameeka]

Tyrion Lannister or Willas Tyrell. Sandor and Sansa may have an affair but they will not likely end up married. Strangely, I'm not put off by Jon/Sansa marriage and I think it makes sense but it seems unlikely to happen in the books.

[Nevets]

On 6/26/2018 at 4:08 PM, Lollygag said:

Nope.

Kings and Queens in this world are miserable and effectively have their lives turned into something twisted and ugly. I'd like to see Sansa take Jaime's advice and marry a nice tradesman and find a cute little cottage away from all of the nonsense. Pod's perfect for that. Rather doubt I'll get this though but it's the ending I'd like to see for her.

Kings and queens are a pretty small sample size, though.  If you take High Lords (essentially great houses), the picture is a bit different.  Sansa has a decent chance.

Ned and Catelyn Stark had a very strong marriage.  The Tyrells have in general done pretty well for themselves, and if Margaery can get Cersei off her back, the match with Tommen could work (if he lasts that long).   Tywin And Joanna Lannister was a strong love match, and Hoster Tully and his Whent wife seemed pretty good as well.

Of course, you also have the Martells, Baratheons, and Arryns, whose marriages didn't work out so good.  What that means though, is that Sansa should be picky, and do the choosing herself.

 

[Faera]

On 6/25/2018 at 3:20 PM, Angel Eyes said:

Maybe Podrick?

He's a little too lowkey. Besides, would she really want to marry the cousin of her father's headsman? 

If Sansa if going to pick her own man while also becoming a political mastermind, she ought to find herself a decent match with a man she can wrap around her little finger and reap benefits from an honoured and grateful family. Maybe a second-, third- or fourth-son from one of the Houses of the North, or its nearest neighbours in the Vale or the Riverlands. Someone who has way more to gain from taking the Stark name and being Sansa's consort than trying to make a name for himself and whose family will be thrilled to get off their hands.

IDK, like Edmund Blackwood? Wallace Waynwood? 

[BlackLightning]

1 hour ago, Faera said:

He's a little too lowkey. Besides, would she really want to marry the cousin of her father's headsman? 

If Sansa if going to pick her own man while also becoming a political mastermind, she ought to find herself a decent match with a man she can wrap around her little finger and reap benefits from an honoured and grateful family. Maybe a second-, third- or fourth-son from one of the Houses of the North, or its nearest neighbours in the Vale or the Riverlands. Someone who has way more to gain from taking the Stark name and being Sansa's consort than trying to make a name for himself and whose family will be thrilled to get off their hands. 

IDK, like Edmund Blackwood? Wallace Waynwood? 

If she has to go with a highborn person, a Blackwood, a Mallister, a Ryswell, a Waynwood, a Royce or one of the mountain clansmen would be an excellent choice for Sansa.

As a matter of fact, Sansa can do alright for herself by marrying one of the Free Folk, the Skagosi or the Vale wildlings if she can find one who commands respect and will honor her.

2 hours ago, Nevets said:

Kings and queens are a pretty small sample size, though.  If you take High Lords (essentially great houses), the picture is a bit different.  Sansa has a decent chance.

Ned and Catelyn Stark had a very strong marriage.  The Tyrells have in general done pretty well for themselves, and if Margaery can get Cersei off her back, the match with Tommen could work (if he lasts that long).   Tywin And Joanna Lannister was a strong love match, and Hoster Tully and his Whent wife seemed pretty good as well.

Of course, you also have the Martells, Baratheons, and Arryns, whose marriages didn't work out so good.  What that means though, is that Sansa should be picky, and do the choosing herself.

 

The marriages of the Martells, Baratheons and Arryns are quite different though.

The problem with Baratheon marriages lies with the Baratheon men. Robert, Stannis and Renly have all been terrible husbands, so much so that I'm beginning to doubt whether or not I can call them good people. #SorryNotSorry

The problem with the Martell marriage was a matter of culture. Doran married a foreign woman from a very different culture who was very strong-willed and fought him every step of the way on matters of cultural difference. And one thing I noticed about Doran is the fact that has a communication and a procrastination problem. He is not very good at sharing information and having a free discussion with it with other people (i.e. Arianne's arc in Feast) ...and that's if he gets around to it at all because he waits far too long to say something. 

The Lysa/Jon marriage was also an exception. Jon seemed to get along very well with his first two wives and I've never heard of any other problems the Arryns have had in matrimony. The Arryns apparently have had good relations with the Starks for many, many, many years - even exchanging sons and daughters in marriage.

If Sansa marries Sweetrobin, any problem she has to deal with will be a consequence of the way Lysa decided to raise him.

[Lollygag]

21 hours ago, Nevets said:

Kings and queens are a pretty small sample size, though.  If you take High Lords (essentially great houses), the picture is a bit different.  Sansa has a decent chance.

Ned and Catelyn Stark had a very strong marriage.  The Tyrells have in general done pretty well for themselves, and if Margaery can get Cersei off her back, the match with Tommen could work (if he lasts that long).   Tywin And Joanna Lannister was a strong love match, and Hoster Tully and his Whent wife seemed pretty good as well.

Of course, you also have the Martells, Baratheons, and Arryns, whose marriages didn't work out so good.  What that means though, is that Sansa should be picky, and do the choosing herself.

 

Yeah, they're a very small sample size. But I don't overlook that whenever GRRM writes about them, that's how they turn up. And this fits in with that world were balance (beauty/intelligence/power/goodness/happiness, etc, you don't get them all) is such a significant thing. Even power-hungry Cersei admits that ambition is bad for happiness as she thinks something not unlike Jaime's suggestion to find a blacksmith or an innkeep:

AFFC Cersei VIII

When Maggy the Frog opened her eyes, Jeyne Farman gave a frightened squeak and fled the tent, plunging headlong back into the night. Plump stupid timid little Jeyne, pasty-faced and fat and scared of every shadow. She was the wise one, though. Jeyne lived on Fair Isle still. She had married one of her lord brother's bannermen and whelped a dozen children.

 

Lord level isn't so bad, but even here when a character does get happiness, it's shortlived. Ned and Cat had to build up their marriage as it started rocky because of Jon so they only had some years before GRRM came along and smashed it. Likewise Tywin and Joanna. Minisa died in childbirth with Edmure, so whatever they were, they didn't last long either. I'm not sure about the others. I just know that when time is spent going into detail about these marriages, if there is any happiness (not just getting along), it's short-lived.

Am I am pessimistic in general with this series. Ice zombie apocalypses/mass extinction events tend to have a bad effect on a person's happiness. I wouldn't mind being wrong here.

 

[Springwatch]

Maybe we should be thinking about which marriages would be auspicious, and which not.

Like this: winter's daughter marrying the moon and falcon lord would be ill-omened to the max - it would be a marriage of winter and the moon, with no indication of spring. Marrying a Lannister might be just about impossible - Lannisters are so connected to the sun that they are incompatible with Starks. On the other hand, Lannister x Lannister (and on the throne) gave us the long summer.

And then there's this:

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[Bloodraven] For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present...

ADWD - BRAN III

 

I argued a while back that rivers represented destiny, the flow of events in human history. Using this, we get Hoster Tully, lord of destiny, disastrously marrying one daughter to winter and the other to the moon, neatly setting up the Long Night. Then the next Lord Tully marries himself to a daughter of the Crossing, and it's easy to pick up emblems in that of the crossover between day and night, life and death, winter and summer.

So we've crossed into winter and run out of Tullys who could make an auspicious marriage representing the return of spring - but there are half-Tully grandchildren, though only Arya and Sansa are really old enough to marry by the story's end. One of them's got to make a really good marriage - I'm guessing Frey again, or Lannister, or maybe Baratheon (I'm sure storm lord implies a change in the weather).

2 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Am I am pessimistic in general with this series. Ice zombie apocalypses/mass extinction events tend to have a bad effect on a person's happiness. I wouldn't mind being wrong here. 

Totally with you on that.

[Lollygag]

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Maybe we should be thinking about which marriages would be auspicious, and which not.

Like this: winter's daughter marrying the moon and falcon lord would be ill-omened to the max - it would be a marriage of winter and the moon, with no indication of spring. Marrying a Lannister might be just about impossible - Lannisters are so connected to the sun that they are incompatible with Starks. On the other hand, Lannister x Lannister (and on the throne) gave us the long summer.

And then there's this:

I argued a while back that rivers represented destiny, the flow of events in human history. Using this, we get Hoster Tully, lord of destiny, disastrously marrying one daughter to winter and the other to the moon, neatly setting up the Long Night. Then the next Lord Tully marries himself to a daughter of the Crossing, and it's easy to pick up emblems in that of the crossover between day and night, life and death, winter and summer.

So we've crossed into winter and run out of Tullys who could make an auspicious marriage representing the return of spring - but there are half-Tully grandchildren, though only Arya and Sansa are really old enough to marry by the story's end. One of them's got to make a really good marriage - I'm guessing Frey again, or Lannister, or maybe Baratheon (I'm sure storm lord implies a change in the weather).

Totally with you on that.

This is a fun idea to explore. I agree that the Lannisters are overwhelming associated with the sun, but I've recently noticed that there’s a well-hidden undercurrent of a two-faced nature, a darker nature. Not sure how it measures in this equation?

Tyrion himself is two-faced, having heterochromia with one eye green and the other black. Tywin scowls in life but smiles in death. Tytos the Laughing Lion’s joys turn to sorrows and he laughed no more. His son Gerion is another Laughing Lion with a daughter Joy. Some speculate and I agree that he is the Shrouded Lord (or a Shrouded Lord), Prince of Sorrows who gives boons to those who can make him laugh. Twins Jaime and Cersei are first presented to the reader as two sides of the same face:

AGOT Tyrion I

His sister peered at him with the same expression of faint distaste she had worn since the day he was born. "The king has not slept at all," she told him. "He is with Lord Eddard. He has taken their sorrow deeply to heart."

"He has a large heart, our Robert," Jaime said with a lazy smile. There was very little that Jaime took seriously. Tyrion knew that about his brother, and forgave it. During all the terrible long years of his childhood, only Jaime had ever shown him the smallest measure of affection or respect, and for that Tyrion was willing to forgive him most anything.

ADWD Tyrion II

That night Tyrion Lannister dreamed of a battle that turned the hills of Westeros as red as blood. He was in the midst of it, dealing death with an axe as big as he was, fighting side by side with Barristan the Bold and Bittersteel as dragons wheeled across the sky above them. In the dream he had two heads, both noseless. His father led the enemy, so he slew him once again. Then he killed his brother, Jaime, hacking at his face until it was a red ruin, laughing every time he struck a blow. Only when the fight was finished did he realize that his second head was weeping.

 

Here, Bran notes that Jaime’s face swims up at him rising through mist (implying from darkness) which links again to Shrouded Lord symbolism as it puts one in mind of the stonemen of the Rhoyne and its mists. But Jaime himself is shining and golden. The first Shrouded Lord Garin was kept in a gold cage.

AGOT Bran III

Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. "The things I do for love," it said.

 

The bolded: maybe with the dark vein in the Lannisters, this hidden second face, maybe a Stark-Lannister marriage is more balanced than what it might appear at first? I'm unsure at this point myself...

 

Adding, now that I think on it, it seems that Joanna was the light face to Tywin's darker face, hence why he smiles again in death.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Though Tywin Lannister was not a man given to public display, it is said that his love for his lady wife was deep and long-abiding. "Only Lady Joanna truly knows the man beneath the armor," Grand Maester Pycelle wrote the Citadel, "and all his smiles belong to her and her alone. I do avow that I have even observed her make him laugh, not once, but upon three separate occasions!"

 

 

[Springwatch]

13 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

The bolded: maybe with the dark vein in the Lannisters, this hidden second face, maybe a Stark-Lannister marriage is more balanced than what it might appear at first? I'm unsure at this point myself...

Maybe? It seems like Sansa-Tyrion is the only foreseeable marriage that fits the theory - and that marriage is hanging by a thread. Their chapters together were just painful to read - neither wanted to hurt the other, but they just couldn't connect on any level, even when sex was taken off the table.

Thanks for the quotes on two-faced Lannisters, which have got to be significant. I don't suppose the Lannisters will just disappear at sunset, so maybe they show a different face during the night, a dark face or a shining silver one. Sounds more compatible with winter, anyway.

[Must go and read up on the Lion of the Night...]

[Lollygag]

Just now, Springwatch said:

Maybe? It seems like Sansa-Tyrion is the only foreseeable marriage that fits the theory - and that marriage is hanging by a thread. Their chapters together were just painful to read - neither wanted to hurt the other, but they just couldn't connect on any level, even when sex was taken off the table.

Thanks for the quotes on two-faced Lannisters, which have got to be significant. I don't suppose the Lannisters will just disappear at sunset, so maybe they show a different face during the night, a dark face or a shining silver one. Sounds more compatible with winter, anyway.

[Must go and read up on the Lion of the Night...]

I wonder about Catelyn/Stoneheart and Jaime being sworn to her. Not a marriage, but an alliance. Jaime is carrying Ned's sword (via Brienne) and is sworn to find Arya and Sansa who Ned took to KL.

When Jaime was presented to Catelyn, she was crushing on him and he appeared as a Ned parallel. Catelyn demands Ned but is given Jaime. And then they were flirting in that one chapter where the negotiated the hostage trade. From this post:

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There is no song for dawn in the hair that I found but I did find this. At the beginning of his capture, we see dawn putting the color back into Jaime's hair. Jaime coming to Catelyn is a striking parallel to Eddard's execution. 

AGOT Catelyn X (Jaime gets the color put into his hair at dawn upon meeting Catelyn;)

A mob of men followed him up the slope, dirty and dented and grinning, with Theon and the Greatjon at their head. Between them they dragged Ser Jaime Lannister. They threw him down in front of her horse. "The Kingslayer," Hal announced, unnecessarily.

Lannister raised his head. "Lady Stark," he said from his knees. Blood ran down one cheek from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. "I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it."

"It is not your sword I want, ser," she told him. "Give me my father and my brother Edmure. Give me my daughters. Give me my lord husband."

"I have mislaid them as well, I fear."

...

"He mislaid his sword in Eddard Karstark's neck, after he took Torrhen's hand off and split Daryn Hornwood's skull open," Robb said. "All the time he was shouting for me. If they hadn't tried to stop him—"

 

AGOT Arya V

Lord Eddard stood on the High Septon's pulpit outside the doors of the sept, supported between two of the gold cloaks. He was dressed in a rich grey velvet doublet with a white wolf sewn on the front in beads, and a grey wool cloak trimmed with fur, but he was thinner than Arya had ever seen him, his long face drawn with pain. He was not standing so much as being held up; the cast over his broken leg was grey and rotten.

...

A stone came sailing out of the crowd. Arya cried out as she saw her father hit. The gold cloaks kept him from falling. Blood ran down his face from a deep gash across his forehead. More stones followed. One struck the guard to Father's left. Another went clanging off the breastplate of the knight in the black-and-gold armor. Two of the Kingsguard stepped in front of Joffrey and the queen, protecting them with their shields.

…

High atop the pulpit, Ser Ilyn Payne gestured and the knight in black-and-gold gave a command. The gold cloaks flung Lord Eddard to the marble, with his head and chest out over the edge.

 

 

 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

On 6/25/2018 at 12:12 AM, Kandrax said:

What???

 

He is illegal.

No he isn't. This is a world in which they married a pre teen to a toddler. 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

As to who she marries Sandor. He's already given her his cloak twice. Third times a charm.  More importantly she is actually attracted to him and has an emotional and social connection to him. There is a lot of symbolism surrounding them which implies a marriage. And I don't care how gross some people find it. This is a book no real 13/4/5 year olds are having sex with adults. And GRRM sure as shit isn't afraid of making that part of the story she wants to marry for love and she has a paper shield for all the political matches that may pop up in between now and when they meet back up. Once she is in the north and in power there; as a Stark she has power in the north no matter if she runs the show in WF or Jon does, or Rickon, or Bran shows up.  She can disolve her own marriage no Septons required.

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This is the North where we do what we want

to quote another Sean Bean program.  Fuck the seven and their crystals and vows. A newely restored Northern crown; which we will have again once the Boltons are rousted and Stannis is dead, can do what they like in terms of her marriage. But until then she has Tyrion as her shield. 

 

 

[Newstar]

2 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

As to who she marries Sandor. He's already given her his cloak twice. Third times a charm. (...) There is a lot of symbolism surrounding them which implies a marriage. 

And yet for all this talk of symbolic marriage and metaphorical marriage she is actually married to Tyrion, who is guaranteed to survive the series according to GRRM's 1993 outline. (Sandor of course has no such protection.) Furthermore, if GRRM had stuck to his original plan of having a five-year gap, Sansa would have been married to Tyrion for at least five years.

Thanks to GRRM, Sansa already has a real husband--not a metaphorical or symbolic husband, but a real husband--and he isn't going anywhere. Even Littlefinger's plan to remarry Sansa to Harry doesn't contemplate an annulment but rather Tyrion's death, which should give you some idea of where GRRM is going with this.

Quote

She can disolve her own marriage no Septons required.

LOL no. GRRM has laid out the procedure for an annulment, and it's...surprisingly difficult, not to mention pretty much impossible for Sansa to pull off given her present circumstances, being a fugitive from the Crown and all. (And the idea that Sansa would just declare herself unmarried to rid herself of her marriage and risk her future children from any future unions being treated as bastards, after having had a firsthand taste of what it's like to live as a bastard herself, is silly. We all know that Sansa's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but let's be serious, shall we?)

It's almost as if GRRM wants to make it very difficult for Sansa to remarry. I wonder why. 

[Kandrax]

7 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

No he isn't. This is a world in which they married a pre teen to a toddler. 

I know that, just read OP.