From Pawn to Player? Rereading Sansa IV

[Fire Eater]

The two swords Tywin had reforged from Ice that didn't belong to him in the first place, yet the owners for whom the swords were intended suffer mishaps. Joffrey dies the same day it is given to him while Jaime loses his sword hand.

Tyrion may be a little self-centered, but his response would be that he only has himself. Yet, when he is given Sansa he still is self-centered. I guess in ADwD he starts to learn that to survive he has to care about more than just himself.

[bgona]

I don´t know why but I have this feeling that each of the fighters against the giant will be carrying the swords. (If there is a giant to defend Sansa, and if there is two fighters one in gold, maybe Jaime, Brienne or even Tyrion, another with the Hound helm, maybe Sandor or any other fighter). That is just a kind of crazy crackpot theory.

But it can have it´s point due to the fact that the both swords came from Ice, and now they are in "fire" (they are dye in red).

[Winter's Knight]

The two swords Tywin had reforged from Ice that didn't belong to him in the first place, yet the owners for whom the swords were intended suffer mishaps. Joffrey dies the same day it is given to him while Jaime loses his sword hand.

Tyrion may be a little self-centered, but his response would be that he only has himself. Yet, when he is given Sansa he still is self-centered. I guess in ADwD he starts to learn that to survive he has to care about more than just himself.

But he's not alone,even before his marriage-he and Jamie are close,his squire is ludicrously fond of him, and even his mountain clans obey and respect him.

[bgona]

Tyrion is a really smart and funny character, but indeed, he is "selfish". He only has him. He knows that he can count in Jaime, but not in Cersei. He uses the clan to get kind of army power. He trusts Bronn as much as he can knowing that he is a mercenary.

[bgona]

AND....here I come with a slight derailment before we get to the next chapter....this has been bugging me, though. I just don't know where to fit it in. (I APOLOGIZE FOR ANOTHER SIDE TOPIC)

Unreliable Narrator:

So Sansa remembers the Mob scene where she is nearly pulled from her horse. The man grabs her and she almost falls but then another stronger hand pushes her back on the saddle.

So......ASOS

Sandor is talking to Arya

..."well maybe it does, but I saved your sister's life, too. The day the mob pulled her off her horse, I cut through them and brought her back to the castle, else she would have gotten what Lollys Stokeworth got...."

She recounts almost being pulled off and he flat out says they DID pull her off.

so who is the unreliable one (this bothers me as there is the Sansa lion claw sword thing...and the unKiss...seems to be a trend with her being unreliable)

IIRC, Sandor also said that he tried to help Santagar, even being dead. In some time they could change places. But I don´t know where but I recall an old movie (black and white) where the cowboy just sit passing the legs up (how can explain this?? near the horse neck instead of the normal way of sitting on a horse). And also remember seen that in some kind of rodeo. Anyway I will never try it (I just get in a horse in the normal way).

[bgona]

Another thing that also it is show in this chapter it is the fact that Tyrion is not a good husband. He is kind to Sansa, yes. But he doesn´t really respect and he doesn´t care really for her.

[Grail King]

I need to reread other POV chapters to find similar instances.....but yes i agree it was Tyrion who said she was behind the Hound which means,...well....she was. Sandor mentions her falling off the horse.

Sansa recalls nearly falling....so she most likely DID fall and just blocked it out.

During Tyrion's chapters he mentions how she phases out. Always lost in her own world. Now it would make sense if she appears that way as she isn't interested in interaction with him yet....

what if she really IS "phasing out" which is why she has lapses in memory? Arya isn't consciously warging her wolf but is aware of it. Robb isn't much mentioned about it but we know he does. Jon and Bran definitely warg with full knowledge.

As Lady is dead (and no i dont think she's warging Sandor), I wonder if her mind is just sorta.....scattered jumping about for brief moments??

or part of Lady is still inside her own mind and occasionally comes out so its Lady who experiences brief moments and not Sansa? OK that's stretching but......I dunno

damn post got eaten so I'll shorten it

I was wondering on Sansa's mis memory of the mob, so I re read the Tyrion and Sansa's chapters, now in two of the three Sansa is fully awake once talking to Tyrion and those of the royal entourage and she is brought in behind Sandor on a horse, the second was after meeting Dontos and she is on the roof of the red keep when the encounter with Sandor happens and again she tells us how she remembers the mob, these two description of the scene are very close to be the same, she is being dragged from the horse and as she's falling Sandor pushes her back on the horse and kills some people she also tells Tyrion and the group how she tried to talk to the crowd saying how she had no bread for them so these two narratives seem accurate, In her dream though it's more vicious and I think she relized how close to death she actually was, especially as she's calling for help from the heroes of her songs, father, brother and no one comes ( she realizes she's truly alone now ) and then we have the added part of her body betraying her she has high stress, high estrogen levels and finally her flowering.

At this point I don't feel she is an unreliable narrator, but it might change once she's in the Erie.

let's see if this goes through.

[Grail King]

I used to ride when I was younger and I could never work out how a man of Sandor's weight and size in armour could have sat in front of the saddle, because if Sansa wasn't pulled off, then she would still have been in the saddle.

Don't worry, I've been eating Ben and Jerry's Fossil Fuel this evening...my Jeans are snugger already. Sigh...also had a nice couple of glasses of Viognier!

No,No Cherry Garcia is the best! :)

[voodooqueen126]

You're also right about the him not going through with the bedding ritual because he wanted to have an easier time when it came to consummating the marriage. Again, not really worried about Sansa. I had forgotten that Sansa had to sleep in bed with him too. That must have been nightly agony for her, knowing of what she told him on their wedding night and wondering if at any time he might decide to change his mind and take his "rights".

In marriage to Tyrion, Sansa loses the ability to cry or sleep privately...

[Grail King]

Were there any Wedding gifts at all?

I don't think so, there was no pre dinner like for Joff and Marg, this is totally a mummer's play for the sole enjoyment of Tywin, Joff and Cersei.

[Grail King]

Tyrion is a really smart and funny character, but indeed, he is "selfish". He only has him. He knows that he can count in Jaime, but not in Cersei. He uses the clan to get kind of army power. He trusts Bronn as much as he can knowing that he is a mercenary.

I'll be a tad blunter, he trust Bronn about as far as he can throw him, ever since Bronn was knighted while Tyrion was in recuperation mode.

[Caro99]

I’m sorry if there are some tyrion fans here. I generally have a neutral opinion of him, but well, so far this isn’t tyrion’s best moment. I’m sorry if I am harsh in my comments

I mean, the way he talks about sansa is very bad. If this is her husband and thinks of her mental capacity in not the best of senses then I don’t think he has the right to expect anything more from her than the disgusted looks she throws at him as they are about to get some rest for the night. I don’t know if sansa ever felt that tyrion dind’t have the highest concept of her, but since we don’t get any chapters from here during her marriage time, I think it means she probably didn’t care. Also, when tyrion says he hopes sansa wasn’t stupid enough to gossip around with her maids about their marriage- we know sansa probably didn’t do this- but what else could he expect? She is a young girl after all in many ways, and if she had confided in her maids, it wouldn’t have been that unnatural. She had befriended the tyrell girls, but now thanks in a way to tyrion that is over, so would it really had been that wrong if sansa had said something..? she was all alone; her husband was a man she didn’t love whom she had been forced to marry against her will and whom she found hideous… in a way I sort of see this marriage as a master-dog relationship. Tyrion is the master who from time to time decides to give his dog a pat in the head (when he is being nice to her) and expects the dog to be thrilled by this act, when in reality the dog is left to fend for himself most of the time, and yet the master thinks that a little bit of kindness shown to the animal will be enough to have him in his eternal gratitude and never make him feel abandoned..? I know that sandor once thought that sansa was not the brightness kid as well, but even as he told her so himself, at the same time he used the Little bird nickname, which to me it lessens the harshness of the comment.

Of course, if we put ourselves in his shoes, we can’t expect tyrion to understand the mind of a 13 year old girl whom, so far it seems, fate does not mean for them to be destined to be soul mates… it’s sad to think he was sort of replacing shae with sansa. He probably knew all along that shae only loved what he could buy for her, and though he knows sansa does not love him, she is after all his wife, and meant to stand with him whatever happens till his death, so he is sort of resigning himself to the idea of life with sansa in a way… but then I recall that though he tells tywin that sansa is a child, he still privately longs to have her show him his lust. The way he talks about this, I didn’t get the impression that he meant for this to happen in five years or so, but that she was willingly already falling for him just cause he was the first person she could “count on” after all the months she was by herself since ned died…

And about how did sandor managed to get in front of sansa on the horse during the riot, and if maybe sansa fainted and can’t recall how did happened. Even if she had fainted & fallen to the ground, wouldn’t sandor first put her unconscious body on the horse and then climb in himself so that he could keep her from falling if she was ridding backwards..? and by the time they reach the red keep she seems to be quite awake so maybe she didn’t fainted, only fell..?

[chavalah]

I haven't posted on here for awhile for someone who's been wasting days away lately rambling about ASOIAF/Game of Thrones. This thread requires a lot of commitment, and I mean that in the best way; it's so thorough!

I hope I'm not being too general here, but on the subject of Sansa as a mother figure I always wondered if Tyrion wanted to see her as one as well. Because their relationship isn't messed up enough, lol. But frankly, to my perception, Tyrion has been looking for some maternal coddling all his life. I truly believe he would have loved and defended Cersei just as fiercely as Jaime, no matter what her deeds, if she'd only given him the time of day as a child.

The wife is supposed to represent feminine compassion in a man's life, imho. Out in the world men had to be brusque and hard but even Tywin loved his wife and Jaime loved Cersei. Wives were a place where you could let your guard down and be loved as you are (or perhaps as you're due.) High born ladies are traditionally trained to puff up male egos and later Tyrion comments to herself that Sansa excels at that, en route to Joffrey's wedding. Tyrion seems to spend most of their marriage fighting off the desperate fantasy--"she could give me a place/her love/Winterfell/away from my spiteful father and sister, if only she took off her armor/found me attractive/my family wasn't systematically destroying hers." Tyrion also wants to coddle her, as he has affection for "cripples, bastards and broken things," but unlike with Jon and Bran, say, he's directly responsible for her subjugation. So it doesn't work.

In conclusion, I'd say Tyrion looked at Sansa as a maternal type figure to love him and give him a home, a child like figure to be coddled and protected, and a sexual figure that he was attracted to...but never as a "wife" in any sense of a stable relationship. Frankly, he's the one whose head is filled with fantasies about this marriage.

Tyrion is a pretty horrible husband. For someone who wants any sort of relationship with his wife, what does he DO to reach out to her? Her early chapters this book are filled with some long-needed diversions with female companions; it was like a breath of fresh air to Sansa. But how does she spend her marriage to Tyrion? The POVs lead us to believe that she stayed sequestered in their apartments and went to the godswood, and that's about it. For someone who dislikes the way his wife "armors" herself against him he takes no real steps to move past it--like engaging her about her interests rather than the state of pease. Granted he might do this as a kindness to her since he knows she knows his family is actively using her against her homeland while he tries to soften her up to bear his children. It's also selfishness, of course, because Tyrion can't bear to hear the truth about Sansa's feelings. So he armors himself and allows her to stay armored, and yet is ridiculously frustrated by their lack of relationship.

I feel for Tyrion as a character in general. But in terms of naive characters who have fantastical views about their relationships he takes the cake in this marriage. Sansa, with blinders off, continues actively to work towards her freedom. What an arc she had this book!

[Sid2]

I have a quick question. Why was Cersei having the dress made for Sansa again? Is it for Joffrey's upcoming wedding?

I seem to recall that people mentioned it was for her own wedding, yet that makes little sense. In Sansa II: First, she's fitted with the dress. Then, she goes out hawking with her 'friends'. She has such a good time that she tells Dontos to not bother with the rescue plan due to going with the Tyrells. ***Dontos tells LF.*** Later, in Tyrion III, Tywin tells Tyrion that LF had 'only yesterday' told them about the Tyrel's plans, which shocks Cersei. She didn't yet know that Sansa was to be wed.

Perhaps I'm confused but it seems to contradict that LF was in on any Sansa/Willas plot with the Tyrells as people have put forward here (now pages ago, alas).

[Lyanna Stark]

I agree with Chavalah that what Tyrion wants is to be loved. All things considered, I doubt he ever has been, since his mother died giving birth to him and his father always hated him. Through the novels, this is also Tyrion's main weakness (which is why I get the old Meatloaf song "I will do anything for love (but I won't do that)" on my head while writing this post up. :P )

In any case, onwards to the chapter.

It illustrates clearly how Tyrion and Sansa are completely wrapped up in their own misery and unable to care for one another at all. As stated previously, the rift between House Lannister and House Stark is too deep. While Sansa later ponders that Tyrion was kind to her, in his own way, at this stage they just cannot, and will not, reach eachother.

I can't agree with everyone who thinks Tyrion is only selfish and bad here: to me he comes across as thoroughly depressed. He may be older and more mature than Sansa, but his dreams have got crushed, just like hers. On many levels he also knows his relationship with Shae is unhealthy, and it does feel as if he has to lie harder to himself all the time not to notice. While Tyrion does not make a huge amount of effort to befriend Sansa, I don't think he actually could do it even if he tried. She wouldn't let him (and rightly so, poor Sansa). Sansa does not trust Tyrion at all. In return, he doesn't trust her, so the poison planted by Cersei and Joffrey is a barrier between them.

Tyrion's view of marriage:

Regarding his thinking of how he wants Sansa, I never took it to mean that he actually wants Sansa: he wants the idea of a wife who loves him, a happy marriage etc. It's like a big picture he glues onto Sansa, but most of the time, he knows that it can never be, He wallows between hoping/wanting and despairing. It's true that Sansa has just stopped hoping at this point and is totally focused on buckling down and surviving, but Tyrion has managed to get out of pretty bad situations before, so I think despite it all, he still hopes against hope that it will somehow work out. This makes him naive and self delusional, but most of all it just makes me feel sorry for both Tyrion and Sansa.

Tyrion's view on Sansa

What is more interesting is how even Tyrion who is a pretty shrewd player completely underestimates Sansa. Sure, he notes that she is good at complimenting people, but he still considers her pretty stupid, overly pious and dutiful to the point of idiocy. Perhaps it is because he is a very different personality from hers. Contrasting this with Sandor, it seems he understood much more of what was going on, perhaps because he had had to buckle down and survive in a hostile environment himself, while Tyrion always had a smart mouth and was never able to really shut up. Littlefinger also seems to see that she has potential, but Tyrion misses it completely.

I have a quick question. Why was Cersei having the dress made for Sansa again? Is it for Joffrey's upcoming wedding?

I seem to recall that people mentioned it was for her own wedding, yet that makes little sense. In Sansa II: First, she's fitted with the dress. Then, she goes out hawking with her 'friends'. She has such a good time that she tells Dontos to not bother with the rescue plan due to going with the Tyrells. ***Dontos tells LF.*** Later, in Tyrion III, Tywin tells Tyrion that LF had 'only yesterday' told them about the Tyrel's plans, which shocks Cersei. She didn't yet know that Sansa was to be wed.

Perhaps I'm confused but it seems to contradict that LF was in on any Sansa/Willas plot with the Tyrells as people have put forward here (now pages ago, alas).

Several reasons: Tywin can be lying about LF's words, the chapters are not always completely chronologial and it is also possible that Tywin intended for Sansa to marry Tyrion before LF brought him news of the Tyrell plot. The latter is pretty likely all things considered. LF just wants to create mistrust between the Lannisters and the Tyrells and as we have seen other examples of, he doesn't like Tyrion and takes every opportunity to mock him and create problems for him.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

This is slightly pointless as an observation, because we will never know, but I got the impression that despite being attracted to her physically, Tyrion may have had his own reasons to be afraid of consummating his marriage.

#1 Tyrion has no clue whether he is capable of fathering a child. With modern medical knowledge, we know that achondroplastic dwarfs typically have low fertility rates. Obviously they would not have put it in those terms in Westeros, but based on esoteric knowledge they may be aware that dwarfs have trouble impregnating and being impregnated. And if people are laughing now at Tyrion's failure to consummate, imagine the levels of hilarity if he did, and could not get Sansa pregnant.

#2. Tyrion may have entertained horrific ideas of producing a dwarf child with Sansa. If people at this time are inclined to believe that women who eat rabbit while pregnant will have a child with long floppy ears, on whom would the blame fall if Sansa produced a dwarf child.

#3 Because the heads of achondroplastic dwarfs tend to be outsized even in relation to average human heads, if Sansa were impregnated with aich a child, she might very well die in delivery, just as Joanna did. Tyrion is already blamed for his mother's death, I am sure he would prefer not to be blamed for his wife's.

I don't hold Tyrion's selflessness or self control in very high esteem, nor does he enjoy being the butt of widespread jokes. I personally believe it likely that he would at some point have said "the hell with it" and gone forward with the consummation, if he did not have his own personal, selfish reasons for putting it off as long as possible. Obviously Sansa's happiness was not high on his list of priorities, nor is he known for his gentlemanly and considerate attitide towards women when it comes to bedding. I think there were other considerations besides Sansa's youth and distaste for him holding him back, especially under the combined pressure of his father and being a laughingstock over the nonconsummation.

[voodooqueen126]

I agree with Chavalah that what Tyrion wants is to be loved. All things considered, I doubt he ever has been, since his mother died giving birth to him and his father always hated him. Through the novels, this is also Tyrion's main weakness (which is why I get the old Meatloaf song "I will do anything for love (but I won't do that)" on my head while writing this post up. :P )

In any case, onwards to the chapter.

It illustrates clearly how Tyrion and Sansa are completely wrapped up in their own misery and unable to care for one another at all. As stated previously, the rift between House Lannister and House Stark is too deep. While Sansa later ponders that Tyrion was kind to her, in his own way, at this stage they just cannot, and will not, reach eachother.

I can't agree with everyone who thinks Tyrion is only selfish and bad here: to me he comes across as thoroughly depressed. He may be older and more mature than Sansa, but his dreams have got crushed, just like hers. On many levels he also knows his relationship with Shae is unhealthy, and it does feel as if he has to lie harder to himself all the time not to notice. While Tyrion does not make a huge amount of effort to befriend Sansa, I don't think he actually could do it even if he tried. She wouldn't let him (and rightly so, poor Sansa). Sansa does not trust Tyrion at all. In return, he doesn't trust her, so the poison planted by Cersei and Joffrey is a barrier between them.

Tyrion's view of marriage:

Regarding his thinking of how he wants Sansa, I never took it to mean that he actually wants Sansa: he wants the idea of a wife who loves him, a happy marriage etc. It's like a big picture he glues onto Sansa, but most of the time, he knows that it can never be, He wallows between hoping/wanting and despairing. It's true that Sansa has just stopped hoping at this point and is totally focused on buckling down and surviving, but Tyrion has managed to get out of pretty bad situations before, so I think despite it all, he still hopes against hope that it will somehow work out. This makes him naive and self delusional, but most of all it just makes me feel sorry for both Tyrion and Sansa.

Tyrion's view on Sansa

What is more interesting is how even Tyrion who is a pretty shrewd player completely underestimates Sansa. Sure, he notes that she is good at complimenting people, but he still considers her pretty stupid, overly pious and dutiful to the point of idiocy. Perhaps it is because he is a very different personality from hers. Contrasting this with Sandor, it seems he understood much more of what was going on, perhaps because he had had to buckle down and survive in a hostile environment himself, while Tyrion always had a smart mouth and was never able to really shut up. Littlefinger also seems to see that she has potential, but Tyrion misses it completely.

Several reasons: Tywin can be lying about LF's words, the chapters are not always completely chronologial and it is also possible that Tywin intended for Sansa to marry Tyrion before LF brought him news of the Tyrell plot. The latter is pretty likely all things considered. LF just wants to create mistrust between the Lannisters and the Tyrells and as we have seen other examples of, he doesn't like Tyrion and takes every opportunity to mock him and create problems for him.

Anyone think that Tyrion is a monster of incuriousity when it comes to Sansa?

[Elba the Intoner]

This is slightly pointless as an observation, because we will never know, but I got the impression that despite being attracted to her physically, Tyrion may have had his own reasons to be afraid of consummating his marriage.

#1 Tyrion has no clue whether he is capable of fathering a child. With modern medical knowledge, we know that achondroplastic dwarfs typically have low fertility rates. Obviously they would not have put it in those terms in Westeros, but based on esoteric knowledge they may be aware that dwarfs have trouble impregnating and being impregnated. And if people are laughing now at Tyrion's failure to consummate, imagine the levels of hilarity if he did, and could not get Sansa pregnant.

I have been wondering about whether Tyrion can father a child too. He's supposedly been with many whores by this point, right? I got the feeling that he could give Robert Baratheon a run for his money regarding how many women they have been with. So how is it that he does not seem to have any natural born children (I hate using the term bastard) by any of them? Surely he must have gotten at least one pregnant.

[1234567]

I have been wondering about whether Tyrion can father a child too. He's supposedly been with many whores by this point, right? I got the feeling that he could give Robert Baratheon a run for his money regarding how many women they have been with. So how is it that he does not seem to have any natural born children (I hate using the term bastard) by any of them? Surely he must have gotten at least one pregnant.

There maybe hints both for and against his fertility. Shae, does say she could give him sons. He has a relationship with Shae lasting roughly a year and in that time she has not conceived as far as we know. She could be using Moon Tea, or be infertile herself, however we know that Gerion Lannister's illegitimate daughter Joy, is being raised at the Rock, which would suggest any illegitimate child of Tyrion's would also be raised by the family. Tyrion talks about frequenting the brothels in Lannisport, so one would imagine if any of the prostitutes or his previous mistresses got pregnant, they would know there was a chance the child would be treated well. Shae is a bit grasping and a bit of a gold digger, and I can't think why she would drink Moon Tea, when a child by Tyrion would secure her offsring a better future and also a place for her once she lost her looks.

On the other hand there is some hints in the text that the Sailor's Wife in Braavos maybe Tysha and that her daughter Lanna, who is also a prostitute, is Tyrion's daughter (this is so sad if this is the case). This would support his ability to father a child.

Compare this to Sansa, whose mother got pregnant the first time she slept with someone and her aunt who got pregnant either the first or second time she slept with someone. The Tully side of the family seems quite fertile.

@Lady of the North

I'm not sure there is any textual evidence that Tyrion was concerned about Sansa having dwarf children or that it might kill her in childbirth.

However the idea he couldn't consummate the marriage may have been a rumour going round: it is the first question Lysa asks Sansa when she finds out the marriage wasn't consummated. She asks if he was incapable?

As for eventually consummating it regardless of her feelings and his vow to her, I think you are right. In facts there is textual evidence that could possibly support this in one of the upcoming chapters. Although it is speculative.

[Avicella]

Hello everyone,

Just thought I'd introduce myself to you all because I've thoroughly enjoyed reading through this topic and previous similar ones - the posts are just so insightful that I find them a pleasure to read. This is my first post on here and hopefully every now and again I'll have something something interesting to add!

Thanks for such a great topic!