Sansa's betrayal consequences partly overestimated?

[Nagini's Neville]

3 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And I only linked it to empathy in the case of Arya being a natural rider who manages to get a horse to maximize their speed without resorting to abuse.

yeah, but in the same context you immediately pointed out that Sansa was NOT good at riding. (which I don't disagree with)

[sweetsunray]

4 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

yeah, but in the same context you immediately pointed out that Sansa was NOT good at riding. (which I don't disagree with)

She isn't good at riding. She is a skilled rider, but not a good rider, not a bad rider either. Skill alone does not make for a good rider.

And thank you for not disagreeing with that. Which is why the allusion to Sansa's "not good horseriding" in post #410 wasn't aimed at you.

[Nagini's Neville]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

She isn't good at riding. She is a skilled rider, but not a good rider, not a bad rider either. Skill alone does not make for a good rider.

I have no problem with sansa even being an extremely bad rider. My problem was that you linked Arya's good riding skills to her empathy and than immediately pointed out that Sansa was not a good rider after that.

So if you read that you imply, that mentioning Sansa right after, while you claim is the whole time, that she has little empathy. you are trying to make a statement about her while linking her riding skills and her empathy as well.

The way you wrote that, it's not crazy to read it that way. That was the reason I reacted. I could care less, if Sansa doesn't manage to stay on her horse for just 2 seconds. 

[Elegant Woes]

Well Sansa going to need her horse riding skills in the upcoming. That's for sure. 

[Karmarni]

On 11/16/2019 at 5:55 AM, sweetsunray said:

Sandor definitely says he "should have fucked her bloody and rip her heart out", aka "wish I'd raped her".

The point of Sandor saying he “should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out” is that he would have then SAVED her the pain and humiliation of being married to Tyrion. Yes, he desired her, but his reason for his emotional response is to save her from Tyrion, which to Sandor is a fate worse than death.

This is an illogical yet typical thought of men, that they think women would rather be dead than be forced to put up with something the man thinks of as excruciatingly terrible. Men think of this angle (better dead) as being protective, never realizing women put up with terrible shit all the time. In his own way, this is Sandor saying he really cares for Sansa. It amazes me that so many do not get that.  This is a hard man. He is not going to be going in for fluffiness. When he expresses himself, he’s always got it buried in euphemisms and double entendre. And, of course, it’s hyperbole. He wouldn’t have killed her. He wanted her to go with him.

As for Arya and Sandor, I think she would have been alright (not happy, not sad, but relieved) with it if he had died. Just as long as it wasn’t by her own hand. She is still not happy with him, but she knows him well enough, has been protected by him and has protected him, that they have a relationship of sorts that has left her vulnerable to her emotions and to his here. She might have liked him if he had not killed her friend. But he did, he admits it here, has regret, is crying, and she has LONG been unable to kill him. That the opportunity now presents itself, he is well aware of. He jumps at the opportunity for them to end it this way, he is suffering, mightily, and he wants her to ease that suffering. If she had, she would have fulfilled both their wishes. Since she did not do that, it seems evident to me, from a story point of view, that this will be addressed upon a future meeting of Arya and Sandor. It leaves open the possibility of a nice segue into a future burying the hatchet meeting. 

Sansa is the one who discovered that Sandor’s bark is worse than his bite. That’s how we discovered it too, as readers. Yet for the story between them to work, for the anxiety and schism between them to be stretched out, we have to fear that he might harm Sansa. So GRRM keeps layering on Sandor as the killer, kills Mycah, has this terrible face, has this fearsome older brother. Yet the Hound is a bodyguard of Cersei’s who she has assigned to her son, the crown prince. His job is to protect. When he catches Sansa, “turning away all the way down the kingsroad” he is bothered. So bothered that when drunk, and asked by his little rat of a prince to escort her safely back to the Red Keep, Sandor can’t help it, he has to tell her, especially after she is able to literally tell him the TRUTH (something the Hound stands for), that “No one could withstand him (Gregor).” So Sandor tells her the truth, though he thinks perhaps she’s just an airhead (“a pretty little talking bird”). And the moment he frightens her, note, her “heart flutters in her chest.” Hmmm. He’s mocked her, and then she’s been honest, and now he’s stopped and she’s alone with him in a dark field. She’s told him he’s “unkind.” And she’s spoken up that he’s frightening her (at that moment). She wants to go back. She doesn’t want anymore of this, and yet ... he does. He’s drunk and he’s moved by this exchange with her. Moved enough that he wants her to look at him.

And she does. He makes her look, and we get the full description from her. It is clear in the text that it is only when she takes a long, hard look at his face that she cries. She cries because of what she sees there, seeing his face. What has happened to him. It’s hard on a girl who likes her pretty dresses. She’s crying not because he’s mean to her, but because of the reality she sees in his face. 

She has to have fear, somewhat, she has to be the Sansa we know from the beginning, because she’s just met a character who is going to have quite an impact on her. He’s also fearful of her, now that she knows his big secret. Which might not be such a big secret, since Ned seemed to know more and at minimum suspected Gregor was responsible for Sandor’s burn scars. GRRM needs to build a sense of anxiety in the reader about Sandor and his responses to Sansa. Sansa, though, from this moment, is on board as a Sandor Clegane fan. And roots for him at the tourney the next day. 

[Nagini's Neville]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

Now, it wasn't Ned who had Sansa fetched. She was brought in and called for by someone else already. Heck, even Ned arrived at a trial that was already happening before his arrival. Arya was found and instantly brought before the king and his court, without her father there. So, either Robert or Cersei had Sansa fetched beyond Ned's approval. All Ned really could do was lend some form of show of support to Sansa, by making some sign that he trusted her to be brave and tell the truth. He also does not blame her for not being able to.

it was absolutely Ned. That's why I said, please read the posts, that came before in this thread, there are also quotes of that scene as well. He puts her into this position, when he did not have to. We also debated already, if Ned could have just told Sansa's story himself (personally still don't think he should have done that, because that would have been selling Sansa out against Joffrey)

 

[Nagini's Neville]

10 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Arya's not a serial killer. And I disagree that being an empath makes it impossible for a person to kill another person.

If you kill three or more ppl you are a serial killer

Edit: No you are not. Didn't use the term serial killer correctly 

[sweetsunray]

42 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I have no problem with sansa even being an extremely bad rider. My problem was that you linked Arya's good riding skills to her empathy and than immediately pointed out that Sansa was not a good rider after that.

So if you read that you imply, that mentioning Sansa right after, while you claim is the whole time, that she has little empathy. you are trying to make a statement about her while linking her riding skills and her empathy as well.

The way you wrote that, it's not crazy to read it that way. That was the reason I reacted. I could care less, if Sansa doesn't manage to stay on her horse for just 2 seconds. 

Well, in literature response and abilities with animals are often used to alert the reader about the character's empathy. It's a bit of a trope. If you introduce a villain, let him kick a dog to death. Stephen King did it with Greg Stillson in his Dead Zone. Bret Easton Ellis repeated it in his 1991 American Pyscho, and so did Tad Williams in his Dragonbone Chair with Pryrates of 1988. Meanwhile other authors tended to write heroines riding horses to show how empathic they are, throughout the eighties.

It seems to me that George uses both tropes, except instead of Joffrey kicking a dog, George has Joffrey cut a cat. He has Cersei demand the death of Lady, and Ned the most empathic adult between Robert and Cersei do the deed so Lady wouldn't suffer. 

I agree that no scientific claims can be made about empathy and  horse riding in specific, at least not to say that someone who doesn't excell in horse riding does not excel in empathy. But it can be used that way in literature. Sansa loved Lady of course, but she wouldn't have protested if Nymeria had been killed. So, her empathy is closely linked to her pet, not just any animal.

George uses horses to personify characters or say something to the reader about its rider. Anyone who rides a red stallion is either deceiving people, not to be trusted and most of them end up dead too. Theon's horses mimic his physical state. Sandor's Stranger. Dany's Silver. On and on it goes. Jaime in his golden armor falls from his blood bay during the tourney and confronts Ned in a violent way. When he leaves for the Riverlands he has a red stallion and a white one. One is called "glory", the other is called "honor". They represent the two paths that Jaime might choose. If he chooses wrong, he might end up dead. Normally, Jaime doesn't "name" horses, to avoid bonding with them. It says something to us readers about Jaime actually being an empathic person, but he didn't want to feel empathy anymore for a long time, hence his cynical callous attitude. Arya sells her horse, aka is about to sell her soul, (not that she can completely) etc... Ned's "favourite stallion" falls beneath him (both the actual horse during Jaime's confrontation) as well as Robert Baratheon.

So, the fact that George has Arya declare she's better at horseriding than Sansa and reminds us in two scenes how well she can ride is indeed a literally device to tell us something about the empathizing capabilities of both sisters at the start of the series. The more Sansa's affective empathy grows in the series, the better a rider she becomes.

[sweetsunray]

43 minutes ago, Karmarni said:

The point of Sandor saying he “should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out” is that he would have then SAVED her the pain and humiliation of being married to Tyrion. Yes, he desired her, but his reason to actually carry out killing her is to save her from Tyrion, which to Sandor is a fate worse than death.

This is an illogical yet typical thought of men, that they think women would rather be dead than be forced to put up with something the man thinks of as excruciatingly terrible. Men think of this angle (better dead) as being protective, never realizing women put up with terrible shit all the time. In his own way, this is Sandor saying he really cares for Sansa. It amazes me that so many do not get that.  This is a hard man. He is not going to be going in for fluffiness. When he expresses himself, he’s always got it buried in euphemisms and double entendre.

I agree with this take and interpretation. But Arya wouldn't necessarily hear it that way, though she can observe that what he says is in conflict with his emotional body language.

Quote

Sansa, though, from this moment, is on board as a Sandor Clegane fan. And roots for him at the tourney the next day. 

Absolutely. His "threat" to kill her if she ever tells someone else is not something that lingers with her at all. When asked who'll win the tourney she points him out as the winner and roots for him, despite the fact that she simultaneously has a teen crush on poster boy Loras. Sandor is "real" to her and she absolutely roots for him, over anyone else.

[Elegant Woes]

@Karmarni

I am kind of skeptical of the idea of Sansa being a 'fan' of Sandor Clegane. Yes she feels empathy towards him and appreciates the fact he saved her a couple of times, but we should also keep in mind that Sansa is a child who suffered from domestic violence. Her definition of kindness is greatly distorted by the beginning of ACOK. I mean this is the girl who likes Arys Oakheart just because he holds in his punches. Her standards are at the rock bottom. Sansa is craving for someone to show her basic human decency and when someone gives her the tiniest amount of that she ends up romanticizing them. She does this to Sandor Clegane and because she relied on him for protection Sansa never dwells on the awful things he does to her. I mean there's a reason why two of her three suppressed memories Sandor is involved in them. And she won't dwell on her trauma (in general) until she is safe at Winterfell with agency, power, and surrounded by her family. Only then can we get an idea of what Sansa truly thinks of Sandor Clegane. And something tells me that her real thoughts of him won't be so kind. 

[Elegant Woes]

@Karmarni double post.

[sweetsunray]

10 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

it was absolutely Ned. That's why I said, please read the posts, that came before in this thread, there are also quotes of that scene as well. He puts her into this position, when he did not have to. We also debated already, if Ned could have just told Sansa's story himself (personally still don't think he should have done that, because that would have been selling Sansa out against Joffrey)

Yeah, just reread that part in the books. It was indeed Ned Stark who told Vayon Poole to get Sansa the moment he heard Arya was being dragged before the king on demand by the queen. My bad.

It was a rash decision and not well thought out. He should have asked her personally whether she wanted to testify, and not just assume. I also don't believe hearsay testimony would work in these circumstances, not with Cersei on the prowl.

[sweetsunray]

13 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

If you kill three or more ppl you are a serial killer

Ah, so soldiers are serial killers? Ned Stark is a serial killer? Ilyn Payne is a serial killer?

[Nagini's Neville]

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Ah, so soldiers are serial killers? Ned Stark is a serial killer? Ilyn Payne is a serial killer?

But Arya is not a soldier or a high lord. She did not have to join a death cult. 

Her first instinct is to just kill the stable boy, who wants to stop her, in KL. 

And I agree that serial killer is not the right word, since there is also a certain psychology attached to that. What I meant was she kills a lot more that just one person once. And they are not all horrible people. BUT I AGREE ARYA IS NOT A SERIAL KILLER. 

This is actually all quite difficult for me, because my english is pretty bad. So I do not always manage to express myself in exactly the way I want to.

"A half-dozen other Saltpans folks were around, going about their business, so Arya knew she couldn’t kill the woman. Instead she had to bite her lip and let herself be cheated. The purse she got was pitifully flat, and when she asked for more for the saddle and bridle and blanket, the woman just laughed at her. She would never have cheated the Hound, she thought during the long walk back to the docks."

A Storm of Swords 

That quote illustrates very well Ayra's mind set at that time. 

I'm actually sick of, as a Sansa fan constantly being forced to point out Arya's weaknesses. Because the second Sansa is being mention, she is immediately compared to Arya. I'm only doing it to get ppl, who are biased against Sansa to apply the same logic to Sansa they apply to Arya.

But I'll stop this discussion, because I love Arya, I don't blame her for anything. I think it is good that she doesn't have more empathy otherwise she were already dead. And I don't view anger as a bad thing. I think she is entitled to her anger. And it is a good thing it helps her to survive. And i do think she has empathy, just not as much as in your opinion. But I don't see the problem with disagreeing with that. So our problem is actually just with Sansa not with Arya not even with Ned and Cat. I'm just pointing out their weaknesses, because imo it is unfair to overlook them, while judging Sansa so harshly.

I hate being constantly put into a position where I'm forced to critique the Starks (Snow included) to defend Sansa. I love the Starks! My heart breaks for all of them. And I'm rooting for them!

[Angel Eyes]

1 hour ago, Elegant Woes said:

@Karmarni

I am kind of skeptical of the idea of Sansa being a 'fan' of Sandor Clegane. Yes she feels empathy towards him and appreciates the fact he saved her a couple of times, but we should also keep in mind that Sansa is a child who suffered from domestic violence. Her definition of kindness is greatly distorted by the beginning of ACOK. I mean this is the girl who likes Arys Oakheart just because he holds in his punches. Her standards are at the rock bottom. Sansa is craving for some human decency and anyone who gives her the tiniest amount of that she ends up romanticizing them. She does this to Sandor Clegane and because she relied on him for protection Sansa never dwells on the awful things he does to her. I mean there's a reason why two of her three suppressed memories Sandor is involved in them. And she won't dwell on her trauma (in general) until she is safe at Winterfell with agency, power, and surrounded by her family. Only then can we get an idea of what Sansa truly thinks of Sandor Clegane. And something tells me that her real thoughts of him won't be so kind. 

So is this why people like to ship Sansa and the Hound?

[Elegant Woes]

@Angel Eyes I am not quite sure who you are addressing with your post. Is it me or the person I responded to?

[Angel Eyes]

53 minutes ago, Elegant Woes said:

@Angel Eyes I am not quite sure who you are addressing with your post. Is it me or the person I responded to?

The person you responded to.

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

But Arya is not a soldier or a high lord. She did not have to join a death cult. 

No she didn't, but she only did after she exhausted most of her options before that. She even hopes to catch a ship sailing for Eastwatch at Saltpans.

20 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Her first instinct is to just kill the stable boy, who wants to stop her, in KL. 

Yup, which she regrets, and she did act in self defence there, for the stable boy wanted to alert Lannister soldiers and deliver her. There's the soldier at HH she kills to escape HH. She kills the squire at the Inn, during the fight, prompting Sandor to teach her to kill a man by stabbing them in the heart instead of the gut, for the latter is a painful long death.

She herself considers herself someone who has done bad things with these three. However, at least two of the three of the above examples were acts of self defence for her life or Sandor's: the stable boy and the squire. The soldier at HH was a tactical necessity. There's no way those three could have escaped HH without risking an alarm the moment they ran just by knocking the man out.

If you put the quote of Arya considering whether to kill the woman who's trying to cheat her out of the value of the horse in that context you can see that Arya's actually learning not to kill people who may be selfish, petty or cheating. She's right that the woman is not that good a person by cheating a young girl out of money over the horse. But it's not an offense to murder someone over. Both the squire and the stable boy also fall in that category: not sympathetic people but not necessarily something you should kill them for if you can avoid it. So, she's actually starting to govern her rage and personal distress.

In Braavos she mingles with the thieves and cheats and whores more and recognizes they're just people trying to get by. She becomes far more selective in those she kills, testing them even to verify it's only a one time offence, or just one side of them. Take for example Dareon - by the time she considers killing him she has known him to desert the NW, to abandon his brother Samwell, the older Aemon and a woman with a baby ... leaving them to starve and freeze from cold, because he wants to spend his money on pretty clothes and whores. And on the night she lures him, she has watched him with a young girl hardly the age of her sister. Whether or not you agree with her having the right to kill him, she basically did a background and confirmation check on him. It wasn't just one offense that made her decide the world would be a better place without him. Same thing with the insurance guy and Raff the Sweetling. It is cold, and she "picks" her victims, but not so much because she likes killing, but because to her there's noone she trusts to deliver justice in her world.

You could question the state of mind of a girl deciding she can judge other people's right to life. But then she has witnessed an immense amount of injustice, and how those with the power to do something about it either end up dead or purposefully send others to commit atrocities. The only person imo who can witness more injustice than her is Bran, because he'll end up seeing atrocities done by people across a timespan of thousands of years. Cersei, Robert, Joffrey, Amory Lorch, the Mountain, Tywin, Vargo Hoat, Roose Bolton, and then she puts her hope on Beric, knowing he's a well meaning righteous man, but he fails too, ... She becomes a vigilante.

I do not condone vigilante justice and I'm against the death penalty, but I do understand that in certain societies, people resort to this type of action to ensure justice happens, even in our own world. I'm reminded of Guatemala, where a peace accord was made and the death squads were made jobless. But those men in the death squads didn't end up in prison, and all they knew was violence. So they moved from killing civilians on the orders of dictators to becoming robberers and drug bosses, killing people over 50$. If villagers caught such a man they didn't deliver them to authorities, because the authorities would release them. They'd lynch them. And I cannot condemn those villagers for it. After all, they had to survive with such threats, not I.

Now as for comparing Arya and Sansa, there are moments where Arya is self-absorbed too, and I do agree that she required to be talked to and learn to see things from Sansa's perspective. I'm glad Ned did that, and I'm sad that he never sat down with Sansa in a similar way. I'm sure it would have helped. I don't mind seeing the weaknesses in Cat, Ned, certainly not Mordane. And while I still think Sansa a-bit-of-a-shit in aGoT, I don't blame her for the decisions and actions the adults took. She's not responsible for their decisions and crimes. She grew out of that phase, has indeed shown talent in surviving the backstabbing ways of court, wit, knows how to play the one people underestimate, as well as has grown more compassionate and considerate than she displayed before Ned's beheading. I really liked how she dealt with the Margaery situation. On the one hand she was relieved it wasn't her anymore who had to marry Joffrey, but also pitied Margaery for having to be his wife. Sadly, she comes to believe that Margaery and her might become friends, only to be shunned by the Tyrells on that awful wedding day of hers. Sansa's story has me hooked from the chapter when she contemplates pushing Joffrey of the ledge. I love her perceptions on the name day tourney of Joffrey, and admire her ability to remain courteous. And while her insulated fantasy world aggrevates me before Ned's beheading, and is her weakness, she manages to turn it into a strength and resilience. Most of her aSoS chapters are magical to me. And I cannot wait to see LF's downfall and how Sansa will accomplish it. 

[Nagini's Neville]

6 hours ago, Karmarni said:

The point of Sandor saying he “should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out” is that he would have then SAVED her the pain and humiliation of being married to Tyrion. Yes, he desired her, but his reason for his emotional response is to save her from Tyrion, which to Sandor is a fate worse than death.

I agree. I think if the reader plays close attention to what he actually says here, it is quite clear anyway. 

When he says "I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out," he is taking about the last thing in the world he should have done. It is the worst thing that can possibly happen to Sansa as a girl in this world, and what is constantly a thread to her.

So when he says he should have done the worst thing, that could possibly happened to her (while simultaneously crying right before that about not protecting her) before leaving her for Tyrion, that just means he should have never in a million years just left her there. It is an expression of deep regret.

He could have also just said "I should have ripped my own guts out before leaving her for that dwarf." It would have had the same meaning in the end.

That he chooses exactly those words might reflect, that he indeed desires her emotionally and sexually. Why all the Westeros men desire twelve year old girls, I have no idea and seems to be a deliberate choice by the author, since the Hound is not the only one.

[Elegant Woes]

1 hour ago, Angel Eyes said:

The person you responded to.

Even though I am highly critical of their dynamic and Sandor Clegane as a character I can see why people see the appeal of it. They have a Beauty and the Beast imagery (though I would argue Sandor is a foil of the Beast rather being the TRUE Beast to Sansa's Beauty), Sandor plays an important role in the character development of Sansa, and lastly, but most importantly, to the extent Sansa romanticizes him it's very easy to assume she has romantic feelings for him.

The thing with Sansa though is that you shouldn't take her thoughts and words at face value. You should read between the lines. She is an unreliable narrator after all. If you think about it her thoughts of Sandor is pretty similar of what she thinks of Joffrey in AGOT. She's convincing herself that he's a good guy to keep herself sane. She does the same towards Dontos, the Tyrells, and Littlefinger. 

Sansa will continue to do the same until she's with someone she can genuinely trust, and that can only be her family at this point.