Sansa's memory related to Sandor

[3LittleBirds]

[...]and Sandor forgot his cell phone in Cersei's tent so no one was able to call him to give him any orders based on that. :rolleyes:

Oh my, and how did Sandor come to leave his cell in Cersei's tent? Sounds like the premise of a bad fanfic, which of course they all are ;)

I'm sorry I just had to go there...the image in my head, of him like, leaving it on the bedside table...ROFLMAO. I feel like Sandor uses a really shitty Nokia from 1999, and Cersei finds it, and is all, "WTF who let a poor in my tent?! Ohhh, shi...the Hound, mmmm... CRAP! Better get rid of this before Jaime gets here..."

*chucks it out the tent flap, conks Joffrey on the head*

*stunned Joff looks around*

*Sandor slinks in and picks up his phone, drunk dials Sansa and hangs up*

*passes out*

Aaaaand, I'm done here, I think :smoking:

EDIT: Damn, missed the texting posts in my haste! All so funny!

[Black Amethyst]

I am not sure she regrets not leaving with him and she might remember the kiss fondly and as having enjoyed it but still have bitter feelings on how it actually led nowhere but a bloddy cloak.

I'm SURE she regrets not leaving with him. And if factors had been different I think she might have actually left with him. If it wasn't in the middle of a battle with wildfire everywhere, if he hadn't been drunk, etc. To be fair though, if I were put in the same position, I would be scared to leave as an adult. In the middle of a war? I'd be afraid to get killed in the street.

Choosing the Ser Dontos option has only put her in a different cage, with a different captor, with different motives. Why shouldn't she be bitter about that? I think Sandor would have actually tried to get her back to family somewhere, like he did with Arya. Sure, he might have taken some ransom money, but I don't think she would have come to harm. (By his hand anyway). Some people seem to like believing that he is a rapist, but I completely disagree. I never thought that was a possibility.

[Cadiva]

3) GRRM is using her as an unreliable narrator (it is known) and the kiss is a red herring. We're so distracted by this damn kiss-that-never-happened that I can't help but feel that we're not paying attention to something we should be. What, I don't know, but something! We know Sansa's wrong about the kiss but what else is she wrong about?

This is what I think, I think the kiss is a red herring, it's there as a distraction from the real memory which Sansa is misremembering. Now finding out which is the true false memory is going to be fun ;)

[Starbird]

The real facepalm was his "get your coat love, I've got a knife" moment. I'm in the precious minority that think the Hound's intentions were actually fairly decent when he wanted to steal Sansa away, but he was definitely setting off rape alarms with that crap.

I'm in that minority as well. Poor Sandor! Earn an honest living as a hired thug and everyone thinks you're a bad guy. :(

It would have been dumb for her to have even entertained the idea at the time. Some huge drunk dude turns up in your room covered in blood and says he'll look after you? Riiiight.

LOL Well, when you put it like THAT! I'm still not convinced option B (weasel-faced, punk-ass, daddy-decapitating Joffrey) was a much sounder choice. She's suffered at his hands but not Sandor's. If it wasn't for the rape alarms and drunkeness, I bet most of the readership would have been willing to pack her bags for her.

[Black Amethyst]

What I thought was interesting about it was that she WAS actually considering it, at the time. If you read it through, she asks him several questions about it. Like how would they get through the gates, and he said the white cloak gave him a free pass, or something like that. She might have asked something else too, I can't remember.

[littlebird_]

This is what I think, I think the kiss is a red herring, it's there as a distraction from the real memory which Sansa is misremembering. Now finding out which is the true false memory is going to be fun ;)

I enjoy thinking of it like this also, perhaps because this way it looks like a puzzle I need to solve and we have like 5 years until a new book so its something to do :D We have to think of the events only Sansa herself has told us and we haven't gotten a different perspective from by other POV characters.

What I thought was interesting about it was that she WAS actually considering it, at the time. If you read it through, she asks him several questions about it. Like how would they get through the gates, and he said the white cloak gave him a free pass, or something like that. She might have asked something else too, I can't remember.

I think she actually did consider it but Sandor didn't think she would just like when she thought he was going to kiss her and closed her eyes he thought it was because of his scar (oh WOW they really are like a couple out of a romantic comedy) he just put a knife to her neck, if he waited 10-15 minutes and you know actually discussed it with her like a calm person I think she would have gone (I still think it would have been a mistake) but yes she would have gone, she does trust him more than anyone else he just needed to act a little trustworthy in that moment.

[Alais]

I don't think Sandor knew how to act. He said before that the only women he had ever had were whores I think. So he has no idea how to treat a lady, much less a young girl. That and the fact that he had apparently gotten so drunk he passed out on her bed - he wasn't thinking all that clearly.

I always had the impression that he wasn't sure himself why he ended up in her room. It almost sounded like the whole "I'll keep you safe" thing was all he could think of to say - he implied that he wanted her to come with him but never actually asked her.

[Black Amethyst]

I enjoy thinking of it like this also, perhaps because this way it looks like a puzzle I need to solve and we have like 5 years until a new book so its something to do :D We have to think of the events only Sansa herself has told us and we haven't gotten a different perspective from by other POV characters.

I think she actually did consider it but Sandor didn't think she would just like when she thought he was going to kiss her and closed her eyes he thought it was because of his scar (oh WOW they really are like a couple out of a romantic comedy) he just put a knife to her neck, if he waited 10-15 minutes and you know actually discussed it with her like a calm person I think she would have gone (I still think it would have been a mistake) but yes she would have gone, she does trust him more than anyone else he just needed to act a little trustworthy in that moment.

I firmly believe that they will meet up again in a later book. I can't even really speculate what might happen though. I don't think she is going to run off with him and have little Clegane babies though. There seems to be something too tragic to Sandor for that, although hey, I guess anything is possible.

[FaithfulHound]

I'm brand new to this so I've not looked in all the threads but does anybody think that Sandor has somehow taken the place of Lady? Either symbolically or in a more mythical warg like nature? i.e. replacing a direwolve with a dog.

There are a couple of clues to this I think. When King Robert orders the death of Lady he also says about getting Sansa a dog instead as it will make her happy, and the next named person Eddard meets after killing Lady is Sandor.

Sandor also seems to change slightly after the death of Lady.

Perhaps the "kiss" is Sansa mis-remembering touching Sandor with her Warg abilities?

(Could this also further explain Sandor jumping to defend Loras against Gregor?)

I must admit Sandor is one of my favourite characters and hope we see more of him (I wonder if he'll get a POV however that may spoil it).

[Starbird]

I'm brand new to this so I've not looked in all the threads but does anybody think that Sandor has somehow taken the place of Lady? Either symbolically or in a more mythical warg like nature? i.e. replacing a direwolve with a dog.

There are a couple of clues to this I think. When King Robert orders the death of Lady he also says about getting Sansa a dog instead as it will make her happy, and the next named person Eddard meets after killing Lady is Sandor.

Sandor also seems to change slightly after the death of Lady.

Perhaps the "kiss" is Sansa mis-remembering touching Sandor with her Warg abilities?

(Could this also further explain Sandor jumping to defend Loras against Gregor?)

I must admit Sandor is one of my favourite characters and hope we see more of him (I wonder if he'll get a POV however that may spoil it).

Sandor-as-Lady-replacement has been suggested (I'm a believer in that theory) but I haven't seen anything about Sandor-as-warg-stimulus. It's an interesting thought but, without Lady, I'm not sure Sansa can warg at all.

You raise 2 interesting points: Ned running into Sandor immediately after killing Lady, and Sandor changing slightly after Lady's death. You've got me reaching for my book . . .

[Été]

Sandor-as-Lady-replacement has been suggested (I'm a believer in that theory) but I haven't seen anything about Sandor-as-warg-stimulus. It's an interesting thought but, without Lady, I'm not sure Sansa can warg at all.

You raise 2 interesting points: Ned running into Sandor immediately after killing Lady, and Sandor changing slightly after Lady's death. You've got me reaching for my book . . .

Is it that he changes, or simply that we get to see more of him? If there's a change, I'd put it some time after Ned's death. He definitely seems to have had more sympathy for her than the rest of the Lannister camp. I find it pretty suspicious how often Sansa ran into him in her midnight wanderings, to the point of wondering if he was putting in some overtime to keep an eye on her.

[Starbird]

I don't think Sandor knew how to act. He said before that the only women he had ever had were whores I think. So he has no idea how to treat a lady, much less a young girl.

Agreed. Aside from Sansa and Arya, do we ever see him interact with any women? I can't think of any. When Falyse (?) asks about Lollys after the riot, he just gives a curt, "Didn't see her," but, otherwise, I don't recall him speaking to any women, not even Cersei.

That's something I'd dearly love to see, though. How is he with the whores? Surely not romantic but I don't think he'd be brutal, either. If the whores he frequents are on LF's payroll, they could supply some information as to how he is outside of the male-dominated knight arena. And, if LF knew of Sansa's interactions with the Hound prior to absconding with her to the Vale, I think he'd want to know as much about his 'competitor' as possible.

Really, I just want to see more of Sandor. He's intriguing and I'd like to know more about him. :)

[littlebird_]

I have a question for those who are more knowleadgable about the books than I (and I can't check cause I don't have my copy with me but I 'll try to find a pdf copy to check) does Sansa after marrying Tyrion ever think of her meetings with Ser Dontos and/or her escape plan until Joffrey's wedding.

[littlespider]

Sandor uses a really shitty Nokia from 1999

This is awesome; I used the same up until last year when my ancient phone broke, and I still can't figure out how to use my new one. I distinctly recall being called a hobo by several of my smug iphone-totin' friends.

Anyway... two points on this lovely morning.

First, I'm pretty certain Sandor never mentions anything about whores or anything along those lines. It's LF (or Varys?) who tells Tyrion that the Hound is known to frequent bars and brothels, when Tyrion is planning to get Joff away from him and out for a night on the town. Great idea of Tyrion's, btw. Does your nephew have a sadistic tendency towards sexualized violence? Have him lose his virginity, that'll cure him of it!

Second, I am LOVING the idea a couple of people mentioned above about the revised memory as an indication that something else is going on in Sansa's head. (Makes it sound like she's a secret Russian spy or something.) Are we talking a similar faked memory that is floating around in her chapters? Or has she repressed memories of things that happened to her?

But what I REALLY don't want to happen is to have this whole "unreliable narrator" detail turn out to be a "poor little soft-headed Sansa" thing. That would be fantastically annoying. Call it cliched, but I really want her to grow into a tough-as-nails survivor.

[Été]

I have a question for those who are more knowleadgable about the books than I (and I can't check cause I don't have my copy with me but I 'll try to find a pdf copy to check) does Sansa after marrying Tyrion ever think of her meetings with Ser Dontos and/or her escape plan until Joffrey's wedding.

When she finds out she's being married to Tyrion, she realises Dontos was right about the ruling families just wanting her claim to Winterfell. Apart from that, no. As much as she wants to put her faith in Dontos and the plan works out, she doesn't think he's capable of pulling it off. As I recall she was really disappointed when the original message turned out to be from him.

In other news, I want to start a rock band and call it the Dontos Escape Plan.

First, I'm pretty certain Sandor never mentions anything about whores or anything along those lines. It's LF (or Varys?) who tells Tyrion that the Hound is known to frequent bars and brothels, when Tyrion is planning to get Joff away from him and out for a night on the town. Great idea of Tyrion's, btw. Does your nephew have a sadistic tendency towards sexualized violence? Have him lose his virginity, that'll cure him of it!

:lol: Quoted for truth. Parenting lessons from Tyrion. From ACoK:

“The dog is never far from his master’s heels,” he’d observed to Varys, “but all men sleep. And some gamble and whore and visit winesinks as well.”

“The Hound does all these things, if that is your question.”

Varys knows his business; I don't see any reason to doubt him, even if the Hound doesn't happen to regale Arya with stories about whoring when they were on the road :stunned:

Second, I am LOVING the idea a couple of people mentioned above about the revised memory as an indication that something else is going on in Sansa's head. (Makes it sound like she's a secret Russian spy or something.) Are we talking a similar faked memory that is floating around in her chapters? Or has she repressed memories of things that happened to her?

I believe we are. That would be a hell of a twist. It would have to be her original perception of an event that was wrong rather than how she recalled it later, but it would have to be small things that only she observed; at no point in ACoK and ASoS did her understanding of events in KL explicitly diverge from Tyrion's.

GRRM says the kiss itself is an important lapse in memory which will eventually mean something. That makes me think this was a specific, isolated event, not foreshadowing some mind-bending Zoolander-style conclusion to Sansa's story, as fucking cool as that would be.

Without shipping San/San particularly (I think it's possible but certainly not probable, as much as I enjoy their interactions), each seems pretty important to the other's arc and it would be really surprising if they never met again. It's hard to see why the unkiss would important if not.

As discussed elsewhere, Bran's first green dream in AGoT has Jaime and the Hound defending Sansa and Arya from UnGregor, and I reckon that would make for a pretty awesome showdown to wrap up a few of the subplots.

[littlebird_]

Second, I am LOVING the idea a couple of people mentioned above about the revised memory as an indication that something else is going on in Sansa's head. (Makes it sound like she's a secret Russian spy or something.) Are we talking a similar faked memory that is floating around in her chapters? Or has she repressed memories of things that happened to her?

haha yes, I think it can be either, a faked memory that we have no other POV perspective on and she fakes it as she is originally living it or she might be repressing and/or omitting things that are happening to her at the Vale.

When she finds out she's being married to Tyrion, she realises Dontos was right about the ruling families just wanting her claim to Winterfell. Apart from that, no.

Ok so let's say that at this stage she is not adding stuff but omitting stuff from her thoughts. We know or assume she meets with Dontos and is planning an escape because we hear of her going to pray but we never actually have her think 'ok tomorrow I am escaping YAY me' of course this might just be so that we as the readers didn't know but why would someone planning an escape never actually think about it, like when Tyrion talks to her about Bran, she thinks to herself 'why is he asking me this' but she doesn't think 'oh no did he figure out my plan' perhaps I am wrong but I don't remember her giving away the escape at that moment

I believe we are. That would be a hell of a twist. It would have to be her original perception of an event that was wrong rather than how she recalled it later, but it would have to be small things that only she observed; at no point in ACoK and ASoS did her understanding of events in KL explicitly diverge from Tyrion's.

Yes, it would have to be something that we can not understand is being added because she originally tells it as such. Hence it will have to be something from the Vale where she is the only POV character. So the turning point is the night Sandor comes to her room because that is the one she changes, and then she starts omitting stuff (Dontos escape plan, I don't know again I might be wrong here) and by the time she's at the Vale she might be omitting things and also adding things.

GRRM says the kiss itself is an important lapse in memory which will eventually mean something. That makes me think this was a specific, isolated event, not foreshadowing some mind-bending Zoolander-style conclusion to Sansa's story, as fucking cool as that would be.

lol I know it is not actually going to happen but its one of my favorite crackpot theories along with Sansa warging into a bird and I do love thinking and talking about it.

Sorry I am getting carried away with the theory and it sounds out there and kind of stupid but I do like it :D

[LittleDragon]

Sansa was full of fear that day, I think. She has spent the whole day with the queen waiting the end of the battle, thinking whole day about being raped and killed. all she wanted is going back to the safety of her room, and when she is there, she founds there the Hound. she must have been terrified, waiting being raped and killed at this late hour of the day when she expected to be escaped. when i've first read their conversation, I thought something is missing here, some more have happened, but she is half-dead by fear, and doesn't realize what's happening around her. i think she was simply frozen and have some black out during that conversation, later on she has tried to complete the story with this false-kiss memory.

But reading through all of your previous conversiations on it, i think another thing can be also interesting here: the momentum of kissing in Sansa's life. She was never kissing with a man! She was kissing with the other girls for trying how it feels, and later on being kissed by Littlefinger and Sweetrobin, but never got a real kiss. If we regard this and the way she is loosing hershelf as Sansa and develop a new personality as Alayne, kissing is an element: a kiss cause the death of her aunt, Littlefinger reclames always kisses from her etc. I have the impression that missing a forced kiss was an important element to "kill" the agressive and angry Hound and reborn as Sandor, hopefully a better man, and interestingly it was the end of the innocent Sansa's dreamworld, and with falsifying the memory, the birth of a potentially dangerous new woman, Alayne, as if they had changed their roles! i am sure they will meet again during next books. After calming down, and as a strong and skilled warrior, Sandor can find a new life in the faith army, and become the good knight he always should have been. Sansa will certainly get deeper in the world of lies and falsification, especially with the guidance of Littlefinger. The way she convinces hershelf in the Feast for Crows that lies are OK with good purposes is a dangerous one, showing the darkening of her personality. The way she kisses Littlefinge dutifully, shows how she is frozen in her feelings. I think Alayne will go far on this road, and as a kiss was the beginning of it, maybe a real, long, hot kiss will be the solution, leading her back to refind some innocence, love and trust. From romantical point of view, it's with Sandor, from realistic point of view, with someone who fulfilles the crieria of a good knight.

[Raksha the Demon]

I can't remember - does Alayne/Sansa first remember the SandorKiss that never happened after Littlefinger plants one on her by the snow castle at the Eyrie, or before? If Sansa has dreamed up her first kiss as being given her by Sandor, a man she has very conflicted feelings about but did believe was honest; after Littlefinger started crossing the line he had drawn as Sansa's self-proclaimed protector and father-figure, then the false memory is very understandable. Littlefinger's kiss, and subsequent attempts to cajole and coerce non-daughterly kisses from Alayne, is creeping her out. It would be much easier for the girl, who is alone again in a confusing and sexually dangerous environment, to think that her first kiss was from someone who she rather liked as a man, someone who had truly tried to protect her without designs on Winterfell, someone who had been a truth-teller , then from Littlefinger, who set himself up as Alayne's father and protector and teacher after murdering poor Dontos and then starts trying to seduce her.

I hope that Sansa does meet up with Sandor again in the future. I'm not at all sure that she has a future with him, but they both have unfinished business with each other; and it would be ironic if Sandor, the antithesis of a knight in shining armor, turns up to save her again from harm; and then they both started to relate to each other as man and young woman rather than Little Bird and Hound, though not necessarily in a sexual way, just to see each other as people. Or to see each other as people as well as Little Bird and Hound; because, as much as Littlefinger and possibly GRRM have said that Life Is Not A Song, this series is called A Song of Ice and Fire, it is a grand story as well as a human drama, and there is a romantic aspect of the story of The Hound and the Little Bird as well as a brutal, gritty human tale.

[Été]

It's too good that one of the anti-heroes of the song of ice and fire is pyrophobic. ;) One of the major themes of the series seems to be people using different titles to reflect different facets of themselves. We've first seen that in Sansa/Alayne's story, where she's dealing with Sandor/the Hound and Petyr/Littlefinger. And then there's the little bird thing, which has to come up again now she's the protege of a dude with a mockingbird for his sigil.

I don't expect a happy ending, but it would be pleasantly ironic if after all their beef with knights and songs, it turned out they've been slowly playing out their own rather twisted courtly romance all along.

Re: the unkiss, Sansa first thinks of it in ASoS when she's hanging out with Margaery's girly cousins, long before Petyr starts perving. Guess it's kind of interesting that she puts herself in the position of power at first:

"Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song."

[Raksha the Demon]

Hmm. If Sansa dreams up the unkiss before she leaves King's Landing with Littlefinger, that's more problematic. It is unusual that any girl would be so wrong about the memory of her first kiss; that's usually something a girl remembers pretty clearly for years and years. But it is true that the episode of the Hound in her room was part of a horrific period in the longer misery of Sansa's time as a captive - the Battle of the Blackwater, when Sansa was trying hard to be noble and courteous while terrified that either Stannis' troops would rape/kill her or Ser Ilyn would kill her as he had her father. And then, when she returned to her room, the Hound holds a knife to her throat; Sansa was so terrified that GRRM mentioned she could hardly speak, but she somehow managed to diffuse the situation and get the Hound to drop the knife and cry instead of raping/killing her. It's a terrifying episode; and perhaps Sansa's injecting a kiss into its memory makes it easier for her.

I think one reason that many fans respond to the Sandor/Sansa relationship is that it is simultaneously a classic romance, The Hound and The Little Bird, and a twisted knightly romance as well. There's a girl who has been betrayed by Chivalry while longing for it, who is helped and protected by a warrior who rejects knighthood but acts more like her knightly protector than the actual knights who either beat her up or allow it to happen; and yet he is not a gentle soul but an extremely violent man who threatens to harm her but also says he will let no harm come to her if she goes away with him...The relationship can be told either way, as a courtly romance or as a powerful passionate drama, or in its totality, and it is always compelling.

Now I'm wistfully fantasizing that at the end of the series, Sansa, as Regent of Winterfell or widowed Lady of the Eyrie (raising a son of Harry-the-Heir), will give Sandor a castle of his own and a title, and marry him and they might actually be happy. It will probably never happen, alas.