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Sansa really is Tanselle


Seams

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Skip this thread if you are not interested in literary analysis and wordplay. 

I think this idea can fit in with the "Cú Chulainn has three fathers" theory: Essentially, Cú Chulainn's mother delivered a baby for a woman in whose house she was staying. That woman disappeared but left her with the baby but the baby died. Then the god Lugh appeared to Cú Chulainn's mother, told her he had been the father of the previous baby and impregnated her. She was betrothed to someone else so she aborted Lugh's baby but got pregnant by her husband and gave this third baby the name Lugh had told her to use. Oh and Cú Chulainn is also the incarnation of Lugh. 

GRRM gives us some hints that a character such as Tyrion may be a chimera, fathered by both Aerys and Tywin. Other characters have a biological father and a foster father or step father. Or they are apprenticed to, or squire for, someone in another House or trade. Or they are knighted by someone. Grumkins may steal and replace children. Hidden bastards believe one man is their father but historians hint about an alternate pedigree. The author's point, I believe, is that characters acquire different character traits or qualities based on their affiliations, some of which may or may not be biological. Ned and Robert feel like brothers because they were fostered together by Jon Arryn. GRRM is not going to show us DNA pie charts for his characters because he wants the ambiguity or layers of identity to become part of the story.

A few years ago, I tried to make sense of the Alayne situation and some of the hints surrounding Sansa:

I just reread the thread, and I agree that there is a big problem with the idea that Littlefinger could impregnate Catelyn. As people pointed out, we have Catelyn POVs where she denies sleeping with Littlefinger, or even "seeing his face" since she married Ned. Littlefinger has told people at the court that he deflowered both Catelyn and Lysa. Even if we allow for the possibility that Catelyn is in denial about being a virgin when she married Ned, this would not explain how Littlefinger could father Sansa but not Robb.

I wrote that topic before I had read about the "Cú Chulainn has three fathers" portion of the ancient Celtic tale. If GRRM was using that as a model for some of his ASOIAF characters, we don't have to pin down facts and a timeline - it is enough to say that some people see it one way and others argue for a different interpretation or that, in a fantasy novel, all explanations could be true at once. Or that a literary interpretation can be "true" for purposes of decoding mysteries or understanding motifs, even if the timeline isn't clear. The Cú Chulainn approach would fit with GRRM's admission that he has used unreliable narrators. 

Sorry about that long introduction. I hate long introductions. 

The "Tanselle" Name Group

I noticed that some names (but not all) seem to recombine letters or evolve from other names: Alysanne, Alyssa, Alys, Alayne, Sansa, Lysa, and Lyanna, for instance.

In a recent discussion of poisons, participants in this forum had started to connect Tanselle and Nettles, two names from outside of the novels, but close enough that they probably provide clues about Tansy, a key name (or potion) in ASOIAF. @Evolett then made the connection between "tans" and "tanz," the German word for "dance" and then proceeded to make a connection to shoes (an old woman named Tansy used to collect old shoes around Riverrun) which gives us a connection to the mysterious "oranges and feet" motif - Septon Meribald walking barefoot while handing out oranges, for instance. 

It finally hit me that "Alayne Stone" is probably part of the "Tanselle" group of names with Tanselle, Tansy and Nettles. Since Alayne is really Sansa, does this mean that the first group I mentioned (the "Alysanne" group) is all linked to the Tanselle group? One anagram of Alayne Stone is "Alys Neonate." Might be just a coincidence, but it could relate to the fertility theme we were discussing in the poison thread. 

Is "Catelyn" part of the same group of names? It adds a letter C. Arya adds a letter R. What about a place name - Salt Pans? This adds a letter P. Arya becomes "Salty" for her voyage to Essos. 

Brienne's Quest to find Sansa

Brienne swears her fealty to Catelyn and promises her and Jaime that she will search for Sansa Stark. (Arya is presumed dead at that point.) 

We know that Brienne is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall and that she carries his sigil on her shield. 

In the Dunk and Egg novellas, Dunk is searching for Tanselle. 

The conflict between Dunk and Aerion Brightflame occurs when Aerion breaks one of Tanselle's fingers. I am starting to think again about the deeper meaning of fingers, but this seems like a direct link to Littlefinger as a "part" of Tanselle / Alayne Stone. 

I believe Littlefinger is teaching Sansa to be a puppetmaster. Tanselle was a puppeteer, specializing in operating the dragon puppet.

Florian and Jonquil

One of Tanselle's puppet shows was about Florian and Jonquil.

Sansa and Ser Dontos use the names Florian and Jonquil when they communicate about their secret plans for Sansa to escape King's Landing. 

Good Queen Alysanne has a strong connection to Jonquil as her personal bodyguard is named Jonquil Dark. The Queen is also attacked when she tried to bathe in the pool associated with Jonquil in the Florian the Fool story. 

Lysa and Baelish

Unlike Catelyn, we are fairly sure that Lysa did sleep with Petyr Baelish when he was her foster brother (but the wounded Baelish may have believed her to be Catelyn). Later, Lysa and Petyr marry and Sansa can hear Lysa's vocalizations during their lovemaking sessions.

What if Sansa was really Lysa's daughter? I know, I know, the timelines don't make sense. So maybe this has to be a purely literary, Cú Chulainn notion. 

Sansa's hair color and Tully features would be a match for Lysa's features. 

Sansa is nicknamed "Little Bird," and Petyr's personal sigil is a mockingbird while the Arryn sigil is a falcon.

Jon Arryn said, "The seed is strong." Sansa is associated with all kinds of fruit and flowers, which are the bearers of seeds. 

Both Sansa and Sweetrobin like lemons.

Catelyn and Lysa's weddings to Ned and Jon Arryn took place on the same day. Brynden Tully reminds Catelyn that Lysa had, "Two babes stillborn, twice as many miscarriages" before her son Robert "Sweetrobin" Arryn was born.

Bloodraven and the Eyrie

There is a lot of Bloodraven symbolism or detail associated with Sweetrobin. I believe that Tanselle is a symbolic Missy Blackwood (mother of Bloodraven). 

When they descend the mountain, the conversation between Randa Royce and Sansa / Alayne includes some Missy Blackwood / Barbra Bracken allusions, particularly when Randa compares their breast sizes.

Both Randa and Alayne will be offered as partners for "the heir," Harry. Missy and Barbra were both mistresses of Aegon IV.

Bloodraven's first name is Brynden. Lysa Tully's uncle Brynden was a gatekeeper for the Arryn's after Lysa married Jon Arryn. 

Nettles, The Dance and The Eyrie

Nettles rides a dragon called Sheepstealer. When Sansa accompanies Littlefinger to The Fingers, we learn that dogs have killed one of the sheep:

Quote

" ... Me and the dogs stand all the watches."

"And very well, I'm sure. No one has made off with any of my rocks or sheep pellets, I see that plainly." Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"

She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."

(ASoS, Sansa VI)

The story of Daemon and Nettles is similar in some ways to the relationship of Baelish and Sansa. Some people think Daemon is a mentor and father-figure; others say he lusts for Nettles. Daemon's wife is jealous of Nettles and orders her death. Daemon protects Nettles, helping her escape. He then dies while falling from a great height. In the Baelish story, it is Lysa who falls from a great height.

It is believed that Nettles and Sheepstealer hide in the Mountains of the Moon.

Did the grumkins take Sansa?

We know that maesters / grey rats are the obstetric specialists who deliver babies for highborn women - they would have some power to deceive a woman by telling her that her baby was stillborn, even if it was not. Would anyone have had a motive to do this with Lysa? Robert Arryn wanted a male heir. Maybe he would have given the order that a girl baby should be taken away. If he was aware that Littlefinger had been sleeping with his wife, maybe he would have had the baby removed because it was not his baby. 

If the baby was sent away, would Winterfell be a logical place to send it? Ned Stark would have happily done a favor for Jon Arryn. Catelyn might have felt bad about taking a baby from her sister, but she lives by the words "Family, Duty, Honor." She might have felt it was best to help cover up the birth of Lysa's illegitimate baby, if that's what she was. 

What if the maesters deceived both Ned and Catelyn, for some reason? Maybe Catelyn was pregnant but the maesters took that baby and turned her into Jeyne Poole. They handed over the baby born at the Eyrie ("a highborn maid of three-and-ten") and told Catelyn it was her newborn daughter.

But why? Do grumkins just swap babies randomly for no reason, or is there a hidden agenda?

...

I'm too tired to finish this right now, but I'll try to come back to it in the morning. I need to examine the color brown, possibly some "two babes stillborn" anagrams, Sansa's relationship to swords and beheading (both Lady and Ned) and Tanselle's "beheaded" dragon in the puppet show. Maybe also the song Merillion plays when Lysa tries to kill Sansa: "The lady sat a-sewing upon a rainy day," Marillion sang. "Hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey." (Storm, Sansa VII). We should probably also look at Tanselle and Sansa's relationships to tourneys. Oh, also Littlefinger leading Ned down from the Red Keep and Robert's daughter, Mya Stone, leading Ned/Littlefinger's daughter down from the Eyrie (while contemplating her love for Mychel Redfort). And the puppeteers that Qyburn used as ingredients for Ser Robert Strong compared to the puppeteer Tanselle and Sansa's role as a puppeteer in training. Are Sansa, Sweetrobin and Catelyn all puppets when they dangle in a bucket ascending to or descending from the Eyrie?

 

 

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A possible link between Nettles and Sansa is a connection with The Mountain Clans, perhaps especially the Burned Men. A previous post detailed Sansa's encounters with the Mountain Clans when both were in Kings Landing, which hint that Sansa would meet the Clans again and that the clans - specifically Timmet son of Timmet (Burned Men) and Chella (Black Ears) - would recognize Sansa as Sansa, not the assumed Alayne personna.

From the Nettles Wiki entry:

Quote

When King Aegon II Targaryen regained the Iron Throne after Rhaenyra's death, there were reports that Sheepstealer had been seen at Crackclaw Point and the Mountains of the Moon.[5] In 134 AC during the reign of King Aegon III Targaryen, Ser Robert Rowan led a royal army to the Vale of Arryn to support Ser Joffrey Arryn. Robert's men encountered Sheepstealer and a ragged Nettles in a cave, and in the ensuing fight sixteen men were slain and threescore more were wounded. Nettles and her dragon were last seen flying deeper into the Mountains of the Moon.[6]

Some maesters believe that the Burned Men originated from members of the Painted Dogs who worshipped a fire-witch and her dragon in a hidden vale after the Dance, bringing gifts to the dragon woman and displaying burns as proof of their valor.[7][6]

Maybe we'll see the cave or the "hidden valley" of the Nettles story through Sansa's eyes.

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17 hours ago, deja vu said:

A possible link between Nettles and Sansa is a connection with The Mountain Clans, perhaps especially the Burned Men. A previous post detailed Sansa's encounters with the Mountain Clans when both were in Kings Landing, which hint that Sansa would meet the Clans again and that the clans - specifically Timmet son of Timmet (Burned Men) and Chella (Black Ears) - would recognize Sansa as Sansa, not the assumed Alayne personna.

From the Nettles Wiki entry:

Maybe we'll see the cave or the "hidden valley" of the Nettles story through Sansa's eyes.

This does seem important. 

The excerpt you cited reminds me that Nettles went to Crackclaw Point as well as the Mountains of the Moon. This gives us another connection to Brienne and the quest to find Sansa.

I know that GRRM has an underlying order or meaning in the elements shared across story lines but, until that order becomes apparent, the best I can hope to do it list the items that seem to be similar.

  • A brown person. Nettles has brown skin and is also described as filthy and foul-mouthed. Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield is filthy and foul-mouthed (he literally has rotten, stained teeth from chewing sourleaf). I have wondered whether Nimble Dick Crabb is the "brown" character on Brienne's quest, or Ser Hyle Hunt who has a brown sigil. My latest guess is that the bear in Vargo Hoat's bear pit might be Brienne's equivalent of a brown person. Things these three have in common: Nettles is found in a cave, Dick Crabb is buried in a grave, Bennis tells Dunk (in a dream) that Dunk should dig a grave for him, the bear is in a bear pit. 
  • A black ear. Brienne bites Vargo Hoat's ear. The wound becomes infected, causing his ear to turn black. Sansa and Arya both have close encounters with the one-eared black tom cat that wanders around the Red Keep and may be the kitten that Princess Rhaenys named Balerion. Ser Bennis threatens to cut the ears off of men digging canals on Webber land. Dunk constantly threatens to give Egg a clout on his ear and finally does give him one (to prevent a guard from punishing Egg with the point of his blade). I think there may be wordplay on "clout" and "cloud" that would link to Sansa's vision of the cloud castles at the Eyrie. 
  • A goat and cannibalism (or, at least, carnivorism). I haven't really focused on goat symbolism, although there's a ton of it. In this little cluster of parallel characters, I think Vargo Hoat (nicknamed the Goat) is an important goat symbol for Brienne's arc (as well as Arya's). You mention the mountain clans, and that includes the famous Shagga, who is always threatening to cut off someone's manhood to feed it to the goats. This moment from the Hedge Knight, the story featuring Tanselle, also seems significant:
Quote

"It's short for Aegon. My brother Aemon named me Egg. He's off at the Citadel now, learning to be a maester. And Daeron sometimes calls me Egg as well, and so do my sisters."

Dunk lifted the skewer and bit into a chunk of meat. Goat, flavored with some lordly spice he'd never tasted before. Grease ran down his chin. "Aegon," he repeated. "Of course it would be Aegon. Like Aegon the Dragon. How many Aegons have been king?"

"Four," the boy said. "Four Aegons."

At the moment Dunk learns Egg's real name, he is eating a bite of goat. Is a goat a symbolic reference to a king or royal entity? Vargo Hoat is forced to eat his own body as he is slowly dismembered and other prisoners may also eat some of his flesh. In a conversation with Penny, Tyrion says that small folk would kill and eat a two-headed goat once they got over the novelty of it. His remark seems related to the death of Penny's brother, Groat, and Tyrion taking his place in the mummer act. If Tyrion becomes a goat when he is with Penny, this would be a strong goat connection for Sansa's arc. 

I should go back and re-read the chapters with the Mountain Clans. I think you are right that this will be a great place to find clues about the Sansa / Alayne / Tanselle cluster of parallels. The wiki reminded me that Vargo Hoat's logic in cutting off Jaime's arm was that he wanted to marry Alys Karstark and thought he could curry favor by turning on the Lannisters. If Alys is part of the Lysa / Alysanne / Alayne group, that would be another connection to examine. 

 

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I cannot agree with the connection but I will opine on Tanselle.  Aerion's reaction to the puppet show is not surprising. Lords Tywin and Stannis would have done far more to punish her if they had thought she was insulting their families.  She was foolish if her intention was to insult the Targaryens and just stupidly careless if it was an accident. 

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On 7/3/2022 at 5:33 PM, Seams said:

I can fix that. Put your head on that stump and hold still.

Or you could give them one tiny aspirin pill......at least then you don't go to prison.

"Your Honor, I would never coldly murder someone. He simply said his head hurt, and as such, I rectified it. I plead not guilty, and shall be suing you for damages and defamation of my good character."

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3 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Or you could give them one tiny aspirin pill......at least then you don't go to prison.

"Your Honor, I would never coldly murder someone. He simply said his head hurt, and as such, I rectified it. I plead not guilty, and shall be suing you for damages and defamation of my good character."

And not impossible he wins this lawsuit knowing our justice system.

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On 6/29/2022 at 10:41 PM, Seams said:

Skip this thread if you are not interested in literary analysis and wordplay. 

I think this idea can fit in with the "Cú Chulainn has three fathers" theory: Essentially, Cú Chulainn's mother delivered a baby for a woman in whose house she was staying. That woman disappeared but left her with the baby but the baby died. Then the god Lugh appeared to Cú Chulainn's mother, told her he had been the father of the previous baby and impregnated her. She was betrothed to someone else so she aborted Lugh's baby but got pregnant by her husband and gave this third baby the name Lugh had told her to use. Oh and Cú Chulainn is also the incarnation of Lugh. 

GRRM gives us some hints that a character such as Tyrion may be a chimera, fathered by both Aerys and Tywin. Other characters have a biological father and a foster father or step father. Or they are apprenticed to, or squire for, someone in another House or trade. Or they are knighted by someone. Grumkins may steal and replace children. Hidden bastards believe one man is their father but historians hint about an alternate pedigree. The author's point, I believe, is that characters acquire different character traits or qualities based on their affiliations, some of which may or may not be biological. Ned and Robert feel like brothers because they were fostered together by Jon Arryn. GRRM is not going to show us DNA pie charts for his characters because he wants the ambiguity or layers of identity to become part of the story.

A few years ago, I tried to make sense of the Alayne situation and some of the hints surrounding Sansa:

I just reread the thread, and I agree that there is a big problem with the idea that Littlefinger could impregnate Catelyn. As people pointed out, we have Catelyn POVs where she denies sleeping with Littlefinger, or even "seeing his face" since she married Ned. Littlefinger has told people at the court that he deflowered both Catelyn and Lysa. Even if we allow for the possibility that Catelyn is in denial about being a virgin when she married Ned, this would not explain how Littlefinger could father Sansa but not Robb.

I wrote that topic before I had read about the "Cú Chulainn has three fathers" portion of the ancient Celtic tale. If GRRM was using that as a model for some of his ASOIAF characters, we don't have to pin down facts and a timeline - it is enough to say that some people see it one way and others argue for a different interpretation or that, in a fantasy novel, all explanations could be true at once. Or that a literary interpretation can be "true" for purposes of decoding mysteries or understanding motifs, even if the timeline isn't clear. The Cú Chulainn approach would fit with GRRM's admission that he has used unreliable narrators. 

Sorry about that long introduction. I hate long introductions. 

The "Tanselle" Name Group

I noticed that some names (but not all) seem to recombine letters or evolve from other names: Alysanne, Alyssa, Alys, Alayne, Sansa, Lysa, and Lyanna, for instance.

In a recent discussion of poisons, participants in this forum had started to connect Tanselle and Nettles, two names from outside of the novels, but close enough that they probably provide clues about Tansy, a key name (or potion) in ASOIAF. @Evolett then made the connection between "tans" and "tanz," the German word for "dance" and then proceeded to make a connection to shoes (an old woman named Tansy used to collect old shoes around Riverrun) which gives us a connection to the mysterious "oranges and feet" motif - Septon Meribald walking barefoot while handing out oranges, for instance. 

It finally hit me that "Alayne Stone" is probably part of the "Tanselle" group of names with Tanselle, Tansy and Nettles. Since Alayne is really Sansa, does this mean that the first group I mentioned (the "Alysanne" group) is all linked to the Tanselle group? One anagram of Alayne Stone is "Alys Neonate." Might be just a coincidence, but it could relate to the fertility theme we were discussing in the poison thread. 

Is "Catelyn" part of the same group of names? It adds a letter C. Arya adds a letter R. What about a place name - Salt Pans? This adds a letter P. Arya becomes "Salty" for her voyage to Essos. 

Brienne's Quest to find Sansa

Brienne swears her fealty to Catelyn and promises her and Jaime that she will search for Sansa Stark. (Arya is presumed dead at that point.) 

We know that Brienne is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall and that she carries his sigil on her shield. 

In the Dunk and Egg novellas, Dunk is searching for Tanselle. 

The conflict between Dunk and Aerion Brightflame occurs when Aerion breaks one of Tanselle's fingers. I am starting to think again about the deeper meaning of fingers, but this seems like a direct link to Littlefinger as a "part" of Tanselle / Alayne Stone. 

I believe Littlefinger is teaching Sansa to be a puppetmaster. Tanselle was a puppeteer, specializing in operating the dragon puppet.

Florian and Jonquil

One of Tanselle's puppet shows was about Florian and Jonquil.

Sansa and Ser Dontos use the names Florian and Jonquil when they communicate about their secret plans for Sansa to escape King's Landing. 

Good Queen Alysanne has a strong connection to Jonquil as her personal bodyguard is named Jonquil Dark. The Queen is also attacked when she tried to bathe in the pool associated with Jonquil in the Florian the Fool story. 

Lysa and Baelish

Unlike Catelyn, we are fairly sure that Lysa did sleep with Petyr Baelish when he was her foster brother (but the wounded Baelish may have believed her to be Catelyn). Later, Lysa and Petyr marry and Sansa can hear Lysa's vocalizations during their lovemaking sessions.

What if Sansa was really Lysa's daughter? I know, I know, the timelines don't make sense. So maybe this has to be a purely literary, Cú Chulainn notion. 

Sansa's hair color and Tully features would be a match for Lysa's features. 

Sansa is nicknamed "Little Bird," and Petyr's personal sigil is a mockingbird while the Arryn sigil is a falcon.

Jon Arryn said, "The seed is strong." Sansa is associated with all kinds of fruit and flowers, which are the bearers of seeds. 

Both Sansa and Sweetrobin like lemons.

Catelyn and Lysa's weddings to Ned and Jon Arryn took place on the same day. Brynden Tully reminds Catelyn that Lysa had, "Two babes stillborn, twice as many miscarriages" before her son Robert "Sweetrobin" Arryn was born.

Bloodraven and the Eyrie

There is a lot of Bloodraven symbolism or detail associated with Sweetrobin. I believe that Tanselle is a symbolic Missy Blackwood (mother of Bloodraven). 

When they descend the mountain, the conversation between Randa Royce and Sansa / Alayne includes some Missy Blackwood / Barbra Bracken allusions, particularly when Randa compares their breast sizes.

Both Randa and Alayne will be offered as partners for "the heir," Harry. Missy and Barbra were both mistresses of Aegon IV.

Bloodraven's first name is Brynden. Lysa Tully's uncle Brynden was a gatekeeper for the Arryn's after Lysa married Jon Arryn. 

Nettles, The Dance and The Eyrie

Nettles rides a dragon called Sheepstealer. When Sansa accompanies Littlefinger to The Fingers, we learn that dogs have killed one of the sheep:

The story of Daemon and Nettles is similar in some ways to the relationship of Baelish and Sansa. Some people think Daemon is a mentor and father-figure; others say he lusts for Nettles. Daemon's wife is jealous of Nettles and orders her death. Daemon protects Nettles, helping her escape. He then dies while falling from a great height. In the Baelish story, it is Lysa who falls from a great height.

It is believed that Nettles and Sheepstealer hide in the Mountains of the Moon.

Did the grumkins take Sansa?

We know that maesters / grey rats are the obstetric specialists who deliver babies for highborn women - they would have some power to deceive a woman by telling her that her baby was stillborn, even if it was not. Would anyone have had a motive to do this with Lysa? Robert Arryn wanted a male heir. Maybe he would have given the order that a girl baby should be taken away. If he was aware that Littlefinger had been sleeping with his wife, maybe he would have had the baby removed because it was not his baby. 

If the baby was sent away, would Winterfell be a logical place to send it? Ned Stark would have happily done a favor for Jon Arryn. Catelyn might have felt bad about taking a baby from her sister, but she lives by the words "Family, Duty, Honor." She might have felt it was best to help cover up the birth of Lysa's illegitimate baby, if that's what she was. 

What if the maesters deceived both Ned and Catelyn, for some reason? Maybe Catelyn was pregnant but the maesters took that baby and turned her into Jeyne Poole. They handed over the baby born at the Eyrie ("a highborn maid of three-and-ten") and told Catelyn it was her newborn daughter.

But why? Do grumkins just swap babies randomly for no reason, or is there a hidden agenda?

...

I'm too tired to finish this right now, but I'll try to come back to it in the morning. I need to examine the color brown, possibly some "two babes stillborn" anagrams, Sansa's relationship to swords and beheading (both Lady and Ned) and Tanselle's "beheaded" dragon in the puppet show. Maybe also the song Merillion plays when Lysa tries to kill Sansa: "The lady sat a-sewing upon a rainy day," Marillion sang. "Hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey." (Storm, Sansa VII). We should probably also look at Tanselle and Sansa's relationships to tourneys. Oh, also Littlefinger leading Ned down from the Red Keep and Robert's daughter, Mya Stone, leading Ned/Littlefinger's daughter down from the Eyrie (while contemplating her love for Mychel Redfort). And the puppeteers that Qyburn used as ingredients for Ser Robert Strong compared to the puppeteer Tanselle and Sansa's role as a puppeteer in training. Are Sansa, Sweetrobin and Catelyn all puppets when they dangle in a bucket ascending to or descending from the Eyrie?

 

 

An interesting post. I like the detail about Sansa, Tanselle, Alysanne etc. all being within the same name group. Honestly, I find the symbolism discussed here to be spot on. I never connected Sansa's "little bird" motif to the Arryn's falcon, though it is obvious now you point it out. And I agree wholeheartedly with your observation about Sansa being trained as a puppetmaster. All in all, this post is a good analysis of literary motifs and symbolism throught ASOIAF. Where everything starts breaking down for me are the various theories drawn from it, such as the "Sansa is Lysa's child," or the "Sansa is a changeling" idea. Sure, you could make those arguments using the established motifs as evidence to support the claim, but that begs the question, why? Why would the author choose this particular route for Sansa's, Catelyn's, Littlefinger's, Lysa's, Jon Arryn's and Ned's stories? Sansa being switched between Lysa and Catelyn at birth while secretly being Littlefinger's spawn affects all of the characters listed, massively. So why would GRRM choose to place this complex subplot into the narrative? What does Sansa being a changeling say about her puppeteer ark? The symbols and motifs analyzed here are fascinating, and the theories are fun and interesting, but how do they connect to the story? The parts are all good, but they do not come together.

Anyway, this was my first time reading through one of your posts. I admit I was a little intimidated before, but I found this to an interesting and fun read that made me look at ASOIAF in a new way. Even if I don't agree with your analysis, I am still interested to see where you go with it.

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On 7/11/2022 at 3:17 PM, Nathan Stark said:

Anyway, this was my first time reading through one of your posts. I admit I was a little intimidated before, but I found this to an interesting and fun read that made me look at ASOIAF in a new way. Even if I don't agree with your analysis, I am still interested to see where you go with it.

This is wonderful. Thank you for this kind reply. I don't start out with the intention of being intimidating but I realize I sometimes get wrapped up in my theories. 

I know that the books can be enjoyed on different levels, so I never expect everyone will be interested in literary analysis. On the other hand, some people who are going nuts waiting for the next books might find they can re-read the available books and find something new and engaging by looking into the deeper layers.

On 7/11/2022 at 3:17 PM, Nathan Stark said:

Why would the author choose this particular route ... The symbols and motifs analyzed here are fascinating, and the theories are fun and interesting, but how do they connect to the story?

That's the $64,000 question.

I think I read an interview with the author where he said that disparate threads will start to come together in the last books. 

He has also said we should be paying attention to Old Nan's stories. I suspect we will see some parallels between events in the lives of contemporary characters and their legendary counterparts. 

We will also start to connect parallel story lines that didn't initially appear to be parallel. For instance, maybe Aegon and his two sister wives are similar to a king and two siblings who will end up ruling Westeros at the conclusion of the series. 

Maybe the author just likes to add underlying meaning to his novels by borrowing from mythology and history and fairy tales. For me, some of he puzzle pieces fell into place when I stumbled across that ancient Celtic legend about the hero who had three fathers. I know GRRM seemed to use other elements from ancient myth and legend, and it helped to clarify some things about some ASOIAF characters if I accepted that their paternity was either deliberately ambiguous or magical or symbolic. 

In another current thread, I am learning from another forum participant about the strong links between Dante's Inferno and ASOIAF. The Aeneid was also an influence. I had already spotted allusions to the Odyssey. It enriches the story if you can spot connections to other works of literature and understand where the author may be going or how he is updating the old stories. 

If the question is about the specific case of Sansa, and why the author would want to imply that she has more than one father, my best guess is that he wants us to compare characters to things like swords or castles. Maybe a sword was melted down and made into a new sword or two swords - there was an original smith who made the sword but then a second smith who reworked it. Maybe it was originally named Justice or Ice but it became Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail. Similarly, Sansa is remade into Alayne. Castles may have more than one builder and/or they may become ruins for one reason or another. 

I assume the point with characters who have multiple parents is that they pick up some qualities from each parent, enriching their powers or skills. 

I'm becoming increasingly interested in hair color. I knew this was an important pun (we know that Cersei's children are not Robert's heirs because they have the wrong hair color). One of the weird little details about Lysa is that her beauty has faded in every way except she still has beautiful hair. Catelyn is very proud of her own lovely hair and she tells Brienne she used to love brushing Sansa's hair. If all three have auburn hair, the author linked them for a reason and we can have fun trying to figure it out. In this case, I suspect there might be wordplay on "Au" as the chemical symbol for gold and "burn" as a word associated with fire. 

The union of Sansa, Lysa and Catelyn would also cover the wolf, fowl, flow wordplay trio: Sansa is a Stark (wolf), Lysa becomes an Arryn (fowl) and Catelyn is a Tully (river). There was a medieval European belief that whatever existed on the earth had counterparts in the sea and the sky. So narwhals were "proof" that unicorns must exist somewhere (don't know what they pictured in the sky).

I realize this doesn't necessarily explain all of the clusters of apparently related names and the ambiguity about parenthood. I guess we'll either have to keep working on decoding the symbolism or wait for new clues and converging threads in the next books. 

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At the risk of running away with a "meta" discussion, I will also add that I think the author is deliberately exploring the process by which myths and lore are handed down. One version of a story includes one set of details, another story-teller decides a different set of details makes the tale more interesting or more politically-acceptable. The line between legend and religion is blurred when someone from another culture retells the stories that were part of the religion of a conquered people. Similarly, history and mythology are blurred when one hero's tale of bravery is merged with the tale of another hero. 

At one point, Ygritte tells Jon Snow that the Gendel and Gorne story has one ending below the Wall and a different ending beyond the Wall. 

So the ambiguous births and the multiple parents are likely part of this "unreliable narrator" and "fun with history and legend" approach by the author. 

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...the author is deliberately exploring the process by which myths and lore are handed down.

An example of myths in the making in a very short time is the myth-like tale of Sansa's role in Joffrey's death. At the Inn the Hound and Arya are told:

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"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head." (ASOS Arya XIII)

 

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