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Sansa really is Alayne


Seams

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4 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I don't know about that. Perhaps when Lady was still alive, but watch what happens to Sansa after she dies: the shy, polite young girl becomes more wilfull, defiant ...

We know from Varamyr Sixskins and Orell that when the warg dies, he goes into his animal. We can surmise that both Robb and Jon passed into their wolves when they died, since their names were the last words they said, and even coma-Bran became restored when his wolf was near. So what if the reverse is true? That wolves pass into their wargs upon their deaths? Might there be a little bit of Lady in Sansa to this day, and might this account for her sometimes faulty memory? 

Sansa may have become a little more wilful and defiant after Lady was killed but I'm not sure it had anything to do with their Warg relationship.  It may simply reflect the fact that the adults in the room treated her and Lady very unfairly so some of her trust and naivety is reduced.   Bran and Arya both experienced trauma and darkness before their warginess manifested but Sansa hadn't had lady for very long or experienced any trauma in her protected life growing up in a castle.  I suspect that the death of the wolf could result in them retreating into the mind of their human but I don't think Sansa and Lady had created that special warg bond yet. 

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10 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

Sansa may have become a little more wilful and defiant after Lady was killed but I'm not sure it had anything to do with their Warg relationship.  It may simply reflect the fact that the adults in the room treated her and Lady very unfairly so some of her trust and naivety is reduced.   Bran and Arya both experienced trauma and darkness before their warginess manifested but Sansa hadn't had lady for very long or experienced any trauma in her protected life growing up in a castle.  I suspect that the death of the wolf could result in them retreating into the mind of their human but I don't think Sansa and Lady had created that special warg bond yet. 

lol, "warginess." I'll have to remember that one.

Yes, this could all be a sign of Sansa's maturity. And since we only get one Sansa POV before Lady dies, and she performs a rather willful act by riding off alone with Joffrey despite Ned's order that they not leave the column, it might be nothing. But the fact remains that afterward, even Sansa is surprised by her own actions as her story unfolded.

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On 9/23/2018 at 6:34 AM, Seams said:

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon's mother had been common, or so people whispered. Once, when she was littler, Sansa had even asked Mother if perhaps there hadn't been some mistake. Perhaps the grumkins had stolen her real sister. But Mother had only laughed and said no, Arya was her daughter and Sansa's trueborn sister, blood of their blood. Sansa could not think why Mother would want to lie about it, so she supposed it had to be true.

(AGoT, Sansa I, Chapter 15)

You know how GRRM likes foreshadowing? And irony? That passage about Arya being a trueborn Stark, who does not look like Sansa, is in Sansa's first POV.

If Arya is trueborn, what if Sansa is the bastard?

This would be an attractive prospect, were it not for Cat's POV, in which she explicitly recalls not seeing Baelish at all between the Riverrun duel and when she came to King's Landing to seek clarity about the dagger wielded by Bran's would-be assassin.  

The only way the OP's thesis could make sense, is if one argues that Cat is an unreliable narrator in the manner of Sansa's self-deceptive 'Unkiss', which might be stretching credulity.

Sansa betrayed her family, but that doesn't mean she's not genetically a Stark.

Quote

AGOT Cat VII

That fight was over almost as soon as it began. Brandon was a man grown, and he drove Littlefinger all the way across the bailey and down the water stair, raining steel on him with every step, until the boy was staggering and bleeding from a dozen wounds. "Yield!" he called, more than once, but Petyr would only shake his head and fight on, grimly. When the river was lapping at their ankles, Brandon finally ended it, with a brutal backhand cut that bit through Petyr's rings and leather into the soft flesh below the ribs, so deep that Catelyn was certain that the wound was mortal. He looked at her as he fell and murmured "Cat" as the bright blood came flowing out between his mailed fingers. She thought she had forgotten that.

That was the last time she had seen his face … until the day she was brought before him in King's Landing.

 

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On 9/29/2018 at 7:09 PM, ravenous reader said:

This would be an attractive prospect, were it not for Cat's POV, in which she explicitly recalls not seeing Baelish at all between the Riverrun duel and when she came to King's Landing

Well, this obviously means that Baelish appeared at Winterfell englamoured, like Uther Pendragon. Cat thought it was just another night with Ned. Not as satisfying, but men do have their ups and downs.

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@Seams ... You know I agree with you on GRRM and wordplay (even if you see a lot more of it than I do, I always enjoy reading your views). Now comes the BUT...

I can't see Cat having a dalliance with Petyr, as you suggest. I think she's only ever wanted to see him as a friend - barring children's kissing games, which were just games to her.

I don't think Maelys the Monstrous anagrams alone are enough without other hints in the storyline. I'll make another suggestion though, because I've given a bit of thought to Sansa's bloodline in other threads.

Through Cat, Sansa has Whent blood and may be Lady Whent's heir. The Whents were for years stewards to the Lothstons and share their prominent trait of red hair. It's highly likely (IMO) that the Whents carry Lothston blood (and maybe a fair amount). It was rumoured (hinted) that Lucas Lothston's daughter Jeyne was actually fathered by Aegon the unworthy (and possibly that Aegon had his way with her as well) ...so it is possible that all Cat's children carry a drop of Targaryen blood ,,, just not close enough to qualify as incest.

I'm totally betting on Tyrion's share, though.

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No. Absolutely no chance that Cat slept with Baelish to produce Sansa. We get Cat's POV, not once does she think about Sansa as being any different in parentage to her other children. Never once does she think about her shame (and it would be a grievous shame to Cat to have cheated on Ned). She even says she hasn't seen Baelish since the duel with Brandon. If there was any hint to this inanity, it would have been in one of Cat's chapters. 

12 hours ago, kleevedge said:

Is it just me or does Sansa seem a bit dim-witted, like a Lollys Stokeworth?

Just you. If you read Sansa's Feast chapters, you see the definite progression and blossoming of her intelligence. And, she's learning to play the game under Littlefinger. In her first Feast chapter, she's able to answer LF's questions about the meeting and the Title given to Nestor Royce, with a little nudging from LF (that LF signed the deed giving Nestor Royce the Gates of the Moon in perpetuity, thus if Nestor wants to keep it he needs to back LF, thus tying his support to LF). In her second chapter, we first see her prepare for the visit by the Lord's Declarant, and she shows her smarts in the arrangements of the chairs... she sees it's going to be the 6 Lords on one side, against LF and Nestor on the other, thus arranges the chairs that way. After the incident with Lyn, and LF is given a year to show his worth by the Lords, Sansa is immediately able to deduce that Lyn was working for LF all along, and that the meeting was a set up from the start. In her third chapter, she's able to see through the confusion of Harry's ancestry to figure out that he's Heir to the Vale. 

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4 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

No. Absolutely no chance that Cat slept with Baelish to produce Sansa. We get Cat's POV, not once does she think about Sansa as being any different in parentage to her other children. Never once does she think about her shame (and it would be a grievous shame to Cat to have cheated on Ned). She even says she hasn't seen Baelish since the duel with Brandon. If there was any hint to this inanity, it would have been in one of Cat's chapters. 

Just you. If you read Sansa's Feast chapters, you see the definite progression and blossoming of her intelligence. And, she's learning to play the game under Littlefinger. In her first Feast chapter, she's able to answer LF's questions about the meeting and the Title given to Nestor Royce, with a little nudging from LF (that LF signed the deed giving Nestor Royce the Gates of the Moon in perpetuity, thus if Nestor wants to keep it he needs to back LF, thus tying his support to LF). In her second chapter, we first see her prepare for the visit by the Lord's Declarant, and she shows her smarts in the arrangements of the chairs... she sees it's going to be the 6 Lords on one side, against LF and Nestor on the other, thus arranges the chairs that way. After the incident with Lyn, and LF is given a year to show his worth by the Lords, Sansa is immediately able to deduce that Lyn was working for LF all along, and that the meeting was a set up from the start. In her third chapter, she's able to see through the confusion of Harry's ancestry to figure out that he's Heir to the Vale. 

The Unreliable Narrator trope is the reason why we have threads like this, suggesting that something’s different than what’s on the page. The trouble with Sansa’s progression and blossoming of her intelligence is that she’s not very proactive with it. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Skip this if you hate wordplay.

Sansa has auburn hair. Au + burn.

Au = periodic table symbol for gold.

burn = melt

Does Sansa have a melted gold crown, like Viserys? When she becomes Alayne, though, she dyes her hair. 

hair = heir . . . .

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On 10/7/2018 at 2:36 AM, kleevedge said:

Is it just me or does Sansa seem a bit dim-witted, like a Lollys Stokeworth?

No just you. 

 

5 hours ago, Seams said:

Skip this if you hate wordplay.

Sansa has auburn hair. Au + burn.

Au = periodic table symbol for gold.

burn = melt

Does Sansa have a melted gold crown, like Viserys? When she becomes Alayne, though, she dyes her hair. 

hair = heir . . . .

Seriously? Oh god

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Re: "fooling" wolves

Nothing was wrong about Sansa's body language because she believed her own Starkness.  Tis a state of mind.  And the wolves saw that Sansa had the other Starks' full trust, so they extended Pack status to her.   She loved her wolf true enough, so it reciprocated, but maybe they shared a non- warg kind of love, and Sansa didn't get the full smart- blood package of perks?     But then Robb had that and is dead because he ignored those wolfwarnings, so she wasn't missing out on much.  Hunting dreams weren't her style anyway.

Baelish Blood

The charm of Baelish is he's doing it all as a mutt outperforming the top human purebred types.   You may be diminishing him by giving him secret Targeryen blood!    As for how he impregnated Catelyn, the Bill Cosby method or the Revenge of the Nerds switcheroo in a dark room?   Mordaine as Petyr's watchwoman at winterfell I like.  But you guys.  If he's the father of Sansa we're left with the problem of ....

ALL THE TONGUING.  My God the tonguing.   It's worse now if he's her pops.   Yeah..... so what if Catelyn's revenge fling was with that man- at- arms guy instead- -  Rory Castel?  Rodrick?

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13 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Re: "fooling" wolves

Actually, the Fire & Blood excerpt with Queen Alysanne Targaryen and Lord Alaric Stark opens a new possibility in my mind. Maybe there is a special affinity between the direwolves and Targaryens, like the slow-simmering romance (it seems) between Alaric and Alysanne. You are probably right that Sansa / Alayne wouldn't have the same warging ability that a Stark would have, but she may have had some skinchanging ability and this special Targ / Stark mutual attraction that we saw in an earlier generation.

14 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

The charm of Baelish is he's doing it all as a mutt outperforming the top human purebred types.   You may be diminishing him by giving him secret Targeryen blood! 

I know. It does seem as if his achievement in spite of relative lowborn status is one of very few reasons to like this character. But it always gnawed at me that Hoster Tully and Jon Arryn inexplicably showed him such warm hospitality and mentorship. If they knew a secret about his paternity, that might explain their interest.

And I have a new possible theory that might keep his "mutt" status alive. Previously, I suspected that he was a descendant of Blackfyres, Velaryons or of Aerion Brightflame. But what if he is a descendant of Bloodraven? I haven't looked at the details, but this would be a wonderful plot twist, if it works.

Littlefinger does refer to himself as a juggler, I think, and Jon Snow says he would like to see the direwolf Ghost learn to juggle. Ghost has the same coloring as Bloodraven . . .

And Littlefinger would be a great name for a descendant of a famous HAND of the King . . .

14 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

ALL THE TONGUING.  My God the tonguing.   It's worse now if he's her pops.

Totally agree. The only rationale I can think of for this is that it is not a kiss of passionate love, in spite of the tongue. I hope it's more like Beric Dondarrion kissing Catelyn to bring her to life as Lady Stoneheart. Baelish is waking up Sansa to a new identity; reanimating her. He is also trying to provoke Lysa, who he may have been aware would be watching him wherever he went.

Sansa mistakenly believes that she was kissed by The Hound, who represents the Night. Instead, she is kissed by (possibly) a hidden Targ, who may represent fire, the Hound's greatest enemy.

The tongue is associated with flames - in the skull discussion, I just read an excerpt where Melisandre envisions Jon Snow "limned" ( = painted) with tongues of red and orange flames, or something like that. So the tongue could be important in a Targaryen, flame-related kiss or rebirth ritual.

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  • 3 months later...

Before I forget altogether I wanted to link here a key scene with some of the Sansa = Targ symbolism that started this line of thinking. Scroll down to the "Snake Skin, Silk and Cocoons" section of this comment:

Earlier in that re-read thread (or somewhere in this forum), I posited that orange and the combination of orange and white / silver ( = argent in heraldry) are Targaryen colors.

When Arya throws the blood orange at Sansa, she sarcastically addresses her as, "Your Grace." The orange juice stains Sansa's dress.

As mentioned in the link, above, the first mention of butterflies is associated with Sansa. Later in the linked thread, I offer an interpretation of the House Mullendore butterfly symbolism as well as the Lord of Harmony / Naath butterfly symbolism. I'm not sure I mentioned, though, that the monarch butterfly has orange wings. I think GRRM is deliberately using that orange = monarch symbolism, and Sansa is the character associated with both butterflies and the blood orange symbolism.

Sansa occupying the "snakeskin" cloak shed by Ser Barristan may be further symbolism of her secret Targ heritage, if you accept that snake references are part of the dragon symbolism in the books.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that Littlefinger's possible Targ heritage could come from several possible sources:

On 9/23/2018 at 1:34 AM, Seams said:

I have to admit, some of my clues for this Sansa = Alayne Baelish theory work only because I have a long-held suspicion that Littlefinger is a hidden Targaryen of some kind -- could be a Brightflame, Blackfyre or Velaryon descendant, but he is surrounded by Targaryen hints and clues.

I now believe that at least one of his Targaryen bloodlines comes from Elaena Targaryen, sister of Baelor I Targaryen. Most likely her Plumm descendants (she also has Penrose and Waters descendants, and she later married a man named Michael Manwoody who played the harp). Like Petyr Baelish, Elaena is described as being shrewd and intelligent with money. Her husband, Ronnel Penrose, served as Master of Coin for King Daeron II, but everyone at court knew that Elaena was actually performing the duties of the office. Readers have been introduced to Brown Ben Plumm and Rennifer Longwaters, both descendants of Elaena. We saw Ser Cortnay Penrose as the castellan at Storm's End giving a scolding to Renly's bannermen who switch to support Stannis after Renly's death.

Alayne as a variation on the name Elaena is a promising clue.

The Plumm line is suggested to me by Petyr's doublet, worn in scenes with Ned Stark and Tyrion:

Lord Petyr was seated on his window set, languid and elegant in a plush plum-colored doublet and a yellow satin cape, one gloved hand resting on his knee. . . .

"Is the doublet new?"

"It is. You're most observant"

"Plum and yellow. Are those the colors of your House?"

"No. But a man gets bored wearing the same colors day in and day out, or so I've found."

"That's a handsome knife as well."

"Is it?" There was mischief in Littlefinger's eyes. He drew the knife and glanced at it casually, as if he had never seen it before. "Valyrian steel, and a dragonbone hilt. A trifle plain, though. It's yours, if you would like it."

"Mine?" Tyrion gave him a long look. "No. I think not. Never mine."

(ACoK, Tyrion IV, Chap. 17)

Purple and gold are the colors of House Plumm.

Of course the dragonbone hilt of the dagger is the clearest evidence of Littlefinger's Targaryen heritage.

I understand the skepticism of people who say that Catelyn would have had a conscious thought about Petyr if she had had an affair with him or if he had fathered her second child. Her exact phrases about marriage to Ned and to later encountering Petyr both mention seeing or not seeing faces:

I never saw Ned's face until our wedding day. (ACoK, Catelyn VI, Chapter 45)

Petyr challenged for the right to my hand. ... Afterward my father sent him away. I have not seen him since." She lifted her face to the spray, as if the brisk wind could blow the memories away. (AGoT, Catelyn IV)

This could be too convenient, but I have long suspected a strong tie between the Bank of Braavos and the Faceless Men. Petyr is strongly associated with the bank through his money management responsibilities. Could he also be a master of disguise? He may not be an assassin, but he might have learned some of the tricks of the trade employed by the Faceless Men, allowing him to impersonate someone Catelyn would willingly sleep with.

The mockingbird sigil is another clue. It is cowbirds (I believe) that lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, crowding out the trueborn chicks and taking all the nourishment provided by the unsuspecting foster parent birds. But I think GRRM may intend this allusion with Littlefinger's personal sigil. The implication is that he has left an egg in someone else's nest. Maybe Septa Mordane swapped out Ned / Catelyn's daughter and put Littlefinger's baby Alayne in her place. That wouldn't explain how Sansa looks so much like Catelyn, however.

Sansa would be too young to be from the premarital pregnancy of Lysa Tully, who (we have been led to believe) had an abortion or miscarriage before marrying Jon Arryn on the same day Catelyn married Ned. I am intrigued, however, by the references to Lysa's lovely hair as the only part of her beauty that has not faded. We are so often reminded of the beauty of Sansa's auburn hair.

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On 9/23/2018 at 2:55 PM, Dorian Martell's son said:

8 years between book releases will make people come up with all sorts of crazy non-sensical  plot ideas that make no sense and will never be written

I couldn't agree more.  Some of the ridiculous things being posted on this board lately are beyond laughable, this thread chief among them.

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