From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa IV

[Kittykatknits]

It is just conjecture, really, about the Mormont family line. The females tell others that they mate with bears, yet their offspring all have the surname Mormont. Thus, they either marry cousins, or they marry common men who adopt the Mormont name and don't make a big deal about it, to allow their daughters to continue to inherit Bear Island.

If they married cousins, though, why are there no male Lord Mormonts now?

That is why I think my theory (I dunno if I made it up or read it on the forums actually) about marrying commoners (who would have no surnames) who take the name Mormont is correct. Also, that would be another reason for them to not just say "Yeah my husband is Pate Stableboy" because that would offend other nobles' sensibilities.

This is my theory too. I hope we learn more about the Mormont family in future books, I find the whole family fascinating. The important thing to note about the Mormont women is that they are very much the head of their House and there has never been a mention of a husband for any of them.

Maybe they do warg bears who are the father of their children. That would be,,hmmm, yeah nevermind.

[Silmarien]

This is my theory too. I hope we learn more about the Mormont family in future books, I find the whole family fascinating. The important thing to note about the Mormont women is that they are very much the head of their House and there has never been a mention of a husband for any of them.

Maybe they do warg bears who are the father of their children. That would be,,hmmm, yeah nevermind.

Ew, I think bestiality would be kinda gross. Also none of the Mormont ladies seem unnaturally....hairy, ya know? ;)

[Kittykatknits]

Ew, I think bestiality would be kinda gross. Also none of the Mormont ladies seem unnaturally....hairy, ya know? ;)

No they don't. Unlike Jorah, who appears to have quite a bit of it.

[Valkyrja]

Exceptionally tall vs exceptionally small. If he had been of an average height,or simply tall he wouldn't be called the small.

I thought it was simply a joke that he was 'small' but only as compared to his namesake, Duncan the Tall (who was extremely tall). Confusing, yes, but so is the whole Big Walder/Little Walder thing. Where does it say Duncan the Small was actually extremely short? I'm honestly curious, I don't remember reading that -- due for a re-read soon. :)

ETA: Oops, sorry that was off-topic.

[Bushido]

I am just drawing a conclusion out of that comparison,it hasn't been said anything of the explicit sort.

However,being the small,and of dragonflies,the idea just imposes itself.

Sorry for steering off the topic!

[Lady Faceless]

This is kind of off topic, but does anyone else think that if Dany takes the throne, women will be given better rights and claims?

Sansa may yet inherit Winterfell before her little brothers.

[jons nissa]

This is kind of off topic, but does anyone else think that if Dany takes the throne, women will be given better rights and claims?

Sansa may yet inherit Winterfell before her little brothers.

i'm not sure. while dany is definitely a champion of those that suffer, i also think she has learned that you can't upset an entire system of laws, rules and customs overnight without severe consequences. i think she would do what she could and make changes gradually but i am starting to doubt that dany will get the throne.

[Kittykatknits]

This is kind of off topic, but does anyone else think that if Dany takes the throne, women will be given better rights and claims?

Sansa may yet inherit Winterfell before her little brothers.

You may like this thread: The last several posts are about Dany and what she could do for women.

If Sansa discovers her brothers are alive, I doubt that she'd want to inherit over them. Sansa considers her claim to be a burden to her right now as it makes her a prize for other families. If her claim to WF was taken from her, I could see her viewing it as a relief.

[Silmarien]

i'm not sure. while dany is definitely a champion of those that suffer, i also think she has learned that you can't upset an entire system of laws, rules and customs overnight without severe consequences. i think she would do what she could and make changes gradually but i am starting to doubt that dany will get the throne.

Yes but overthrowing slavery has always required very destructive action, historically. IMHO, she probably should've evacuated all the slaves and burned the slaver cities to the ground. But that might be kinda mean and overkill....

[brashcandy]

i'm not sure. while dany is definitely a champion of those that suffer, i also think she has learned that you can't upset an entire system of laws, rules and customs overnight without severe consequences. i think she would do what she could and make changes gradually but i am starting to doubt that dany will get the throne.

The significant thing is that changes are occurring in Westeros before she even gets there. By the time Dany arrives or when the dust settles, there may be more women in charge of their respective houses, more women holding power in governance etc etc, so her rule might not consist of radically changing the landscape, but instituting measures that protect women's rights and concerning the inheritance laws that restrict women from inheriting before their brothers.

[Kittykatknits]

i'm not sure. while dany is definitely a champion of those that suffer, i also think she has learned that you can't upset an entire system of laws, rules and customs overnight without severe consequences. i think she would do what she could and make changes gradually but i am starting to doubt that dany will get the throne.

I won't even pretend to know what Dany could have done to avoid the problems in Slaver's Bay but I don't think elevating the status of women needs to be quite the societal upheaval that we saw in Dance. For the sake of argument, if Dany does get the IT, she could marry. If she does, and has a King Consort, that would sent a large precedent on its own. From heer, she could have women be eligible to become maesters as well as men. This would provide women with options beyond wife, septa, or silent sisters. Eventually, the law could change so that the rules of inheritance match those of Dorne. I'm sure there are several other changes that Dany could do and she doesn't have to do it all in the first six months either.

[brashcandy]

From Jarl the Climber:

I've been trying to put a post together, I've got some thoughts about some things I've read on this and some other threads but I'm not happy with how its coming out so I will summarize a few thoughts quickly.

1. I do not consider Westeros to be a patriarchy. If you said the U.S. was one in the 18th or 19th century I would essentialy agree with you but Westeros is blood based aristocracy that favors male inheritance and dominance but values preserving bloodlines over the necessity of having a male ruler. Women can inherit under the right circumstances and this right has been respected for the most part sometimes grudgingly. The preference for males is because of the prevalence of warfare and the role that men are required to play in it. Male privelege extends to the lower classes because of their greater labor capacity in a labor intensive economy and because they are needed as soldiers. I think lower class women have a lot less security but probaly have more choices in some things than a highborn woman. I do not think a Father has the power of life and death over his family like in anceint Rome. To disown a child is the most drastic step and if you come from a modest family what do you really have to lose.

Explaining the reasoning behind patriarchy doesn't mean that it isn't a patriarchy :)

2. I don't think the highborn women will necassarily feel that the death their husbands, brothers and sons is empowering towards them. Their inheritance relies on there being a certian amount of stability. Look at how things worked out for Lady Hornwood. Aly Karstarks Uncle planned to marry her, rape her, and after getting an heir or two out of her kill her, she escaped this fate by marrying a complete stranger but he seems like a real sweetheart. Right now some of Neds former bannermen are forced to sit back and let Ramsey rape a girl who they may or may not know is not the real Arya because for the time being they lack the power to stop it.

I think it's been noted before that the risk for exploitation and violence may increase when the biological father or husband is no longer around, but the larger theme concerns how women are able to use these "crises" to acquire more power, influence and personal happiness than they might have been allowed had the system remained unchanged. Lady Hornwood is an unfortunate casualty of these changes, but overall there are much more productive possibilities.

[romantic]

Goodness, there's been a lot of activity of the Sansa-realted threads in the last couple of days. I'm struggling to keep up.

But, I've just been rereading AFFC and they mention the Brune family castle at Crackclaw Point and how most of the sons/grandsons are off fighting, etc. at the moment. I wonder if Lothar Brune might take Sansa to his family castle (assuming he's one of those Brunes) either because they are fleeing from LF or things go pear-shaped in the Vale and Sansa needs to hide somewhere else. To get to Crackclaw Point from the Vale you can go right across the QI. ...Things could get very interesting then! (sorry if this has already been mentioned).

[brashcandy]

Goodness, there's been a lot of activity of the Sansa-realted threads in the last couple of days. I'm struggling to keep up.

For a girl who is derided as ordinary and weak, and lacking in qualities of the OMG Fantastic characters, she certainly inspires a lot of discussion and thought, doesn't she? Do people even realise the irony of their behaviour? She's not worth talking about, but we're talking about her!

But, I've just been rereading AFFC and they mention the Brune family castle at Crackclaw Point and how most of the sons/grandsons are off fighting, etc. at the moment. I wonder if Lothar Brune might take Sansa to his family castle (assuming he's one of those Brunes) either because they are fleeing from LF or things go pear-shaped in the Vale and Sansa needs to hide somewhere else. To get to Crackclaw Point from the Vale you can go right across the QI. ...Things could get very interesting then! (sorry if this has already been mentioned).

Hmmm, well according to the wiki:

Ser Lothor Brune, known as Lothor Apple-Eater for his feats at the Battle of the Blackwater, is a freerider-turned landed knight. He is related to the Brunes of Brownhollow in the Crackclaw Point region and but his loyalties lie with Lord Petyr Baelish.

After his father's death Brune went to the Brunes of Brownhollow to attempt to form a family bond, but they said he was no kin of theirs. He also stated he learned what he knew of arms the hard way.

However, we know he was awarded lands and a keep after the Blackwater battle, and when Rapsie and I were doing our re-read, we did think that this could play a role later on in him potentially hiding Sansa.

[Lyanna Stark]

This is my theory too. I hope we learn more about the Mormont family in future books, I find the whole family fascinating.

Yep, I also always found them fascinating and got the impression that the mating with Bear things was 80% "mind your own business" and 20% scare tactics.

Butterbumps! wrote:

I know that this is incredibly late to jump in now, but I wanted to express I'd wondered something similar, or at least, that given the number of men who have been willing to take this from her, that Sandor would be the man she'd want to give it to, which I find incredibly interesting even if it's not consummated. I believe that the instances of sexual awakening you highlighted are clues that Sandor is the object of/ catalyst for Sansa's desire, but I wonder if Martin will provide this release. I know that this is almost as big a cliche as "white knight rescues and beds his willing damsel," but I wonder if their relationship will remain much more in the trope of courtly love-- the desire is more meaningful than the orgasm, so to speak. I don't believe in the dichotomy between sacred and profane love such that one is superior or more pure than the other, so I'm not trying to say that sex would be "base" or "wrong." Just that there is so much food for thought in terms of the stereotype of the "true knight" at play here, I thought maybe a very conscious yearning for the "ugly, deformed, ruined knight" could be almost as beautiful condition. (and I say "conscious yearning" because I'm not sure that Sansa can fully articulate what it is that she feels for Sandor yet).

Really good insights.

Two things to comment on here:

1. There's definitely a touch of the courtly love thing going on with Sansa's story line, further enhanced perhaps with Sandor being tossed in with the religious guys over at the QI? The dichotomy between the sacred and the profane is definitely something to consider, although I wonder if GRRM would trot that old trope out, given that he doesn't seem particularly religious? A lot of people seem to lean towards it staying within this trope though, up to and including Sandor dying for her in some act of heroism.

2. I have a larger rant about people disregarding or ignoring female desire, or finding it anywhere on the scale between icky (*cough* Daario *cough*) to irrelevant to non existant, but yes, I think it is important to Sansa's story that for once, she gets to make up her own mind and doesn't have anything pushed onto her. Whether or not the object of her desire is suitable, heroic, handsome, clever or whatever else is beside the point. The same goes for Daario and Dany here. Personally, I am far more ok with Daario than with the rather "forced" Drogo romance since Daario was at least someone Dany picked herself and not someone she was sold to and had to make the best out of it she could. I think Daario as a character has lots of issues, but I cannot disapprove of Dany's choice of him.

On the flipside of this, in the Tyrion and Sansa marriage, you have a situation where Tyrion's desire is contrasted with Sansa's lack thereof. He wants her, she doesn't want him. It's extremely common to place more value on male desire than female desire: Sansa's lack of interest and outright repulsion are things she "needs to get over", while Tyrions desire is seen as normal. It's like as long as a woman can move from the negative into neutral, it doesn't matter as female desire is weak, not as important or simply something that can be "corrected" when sufficient male desire is present. I've seen more than once that Sansa needs to "learn a lesson" and come to love Tyrion, which ties straight into this sort of thinking. Hence why to me personally, while I am slightly baffled with the outrage over Dany's and Sansa's desires and the objects of their desires, it seems to tie into this larger pattern of the irrelevancy of female desire.

[Lyanna Stark]

From Valkyrja

Regarding Sansa remaining Alayne Stone: I too am torn about this possibility. I've always thought that she was just on a long journey like Bran and Arya, and that part of this journey required her to shift her indentity for a time under a different name (just like Arya's facechanging and taking of different names), but that eventually she would reclaim her 'true' identity. However, upon thinking about it further, I am no longer certain the outcome will be so clear-cut. The theme of identity is most obviously exemplified by Theon/Reek's arc in ADwD, 'you have to remember your name'. Theon does remember his name, but it is not like simply remembering his name makes him whole again, or makes him the person that he was before. He is still incredibly damaged, and had to be forced intitially by Roose Bolton to reclaim his identity. Twistedly, Theon even keeps encouraging poor Jeyne Poole to pretend to be Arya....to 'remember her name'. :( I think the point here is that if you go long enough under a different name and identity, the line between which is your true name and which is your fake name is blurred. I still think that at least some of the Starks will return by the end of the series, so someone at least needs to remember their name. Whether Sansa will or not, I cannot say yet. :)

So, are there any signs pointing to Sansa remaining Alayne Stone (other than the So Spake Martin quote)? I could be going crazy, but I think I remember somewhere that in the tv series, they've made a conscious decision regarding Sansa's wardrobe (I think they said it was a 'hint'?) to have her dresses decorated with dragonflies (she also wears a dragonfly necklace iirc). What the heck would dragonflies have to do with Sansa's storyline??? I thought to myself. At first, I thought perhaps it was a hint that Sansa would becoming involved with/married to a Targaryen. But then I remembered......dragonflies are *not* dragons.....

Loved your post here and the thoughts on Dragonfly symbolism. :)

After all they've been through, I would be surprised if either Sansa or Arya went the traditional route of a highborn lady. If the Dragonflies are symbolic or something, it seems likely that Sansa will have the possibility or gaining a very high position on society but that she will turn it down. Perhaps even in such a dramatic fashion as once again choosing to become Alayne Stone.

I know there has been some discussion on whether Sansa can take over Littlefinger's businesses after him and that is a definite route she could go down which would afford her a nice amount of autonomy as a lesser noble, but also perhaps more importantly quite a lot of financial security. If she is not "outed" as Sansa instead of Alayne to people in the know, she could revert back to this identity later, but that almost certainly means that she needs to fake her own death or something equally dramatic.

[ElizaMartell]

Sansa 'taking over Littlefingers business' is a bizzare notion. She doesn't understand the complex web of ecoconomic transactions Baelish does to do business so for her to 'inherit' it at Alayne Stone will be more difficult than it seems.

Sansa's sexual awakening is rather complex due to the way she has been tramatised by previous events (regardless how much some would love to romanticise future romantic desires and her issues would be finding clarity in her experiences. At this stage she's still confused about her sexual identity and doesn't really have an object of desire more as she's trying to understand her own feelings.

[Lyanna Stark]

Sansa 'taking over Littlefingers business' is a bizzare notion. She doesn't understand the complex web of ecoconomic transactions Baelish does to do business so for her to 'inherit' it at Alayne Stone will be more difficult than it seems.

Is this based on Arya's comment that Sansa has no head for figures? Or that Tyrion found LF's book keeping arcane?

Sansa's sexual awakening is rather complex due to the way she has been tramatised by previous events (regardless how much some would love to romanticise future romantic desires and her issues would be finding clarity in her experiences. At this stage she's still confused about her sexual identity and doesn't really have an object of desire more as she's trying to understand her own feelings.

Speaking as someone who had a pretty upsetting/traumatising event relating to sex happening to me at 12 (which I got over without any resulting issues), I can't see that Sansa has an unnatural, confused or traumatised sexual identity. In that regard she's described as pretty straight forward, I think.

What would you say are the textual clues that she has a confused sexuality, or that she's traumatised enough to somehow have a stunted sexual awakening/growth, or not understand her own feelings on the matter?

[ElizaMartell]

I am referring to her environment. Sansa is a 13 year old left to the wills of a man who tells her to call him 'father' but tries to sneak kisses from her. The same child who a few months prior was forced into a marriage and gropped both by her groom and the Boy king who let his guards beat her. This environment doesn't appear to be one where a healthy sexual appetite can grow as her emotional development and understanding of romance has been corruptes by outside sources.

[Lummel]

Sansa 'taking over Littlefingers business' is a bizzare notion. She doesn't understand the complex web of ecoconomic transactions Baelish does to do business so for her to 'inherit' it at Alayne Stone will be more difficult than it seems...

Is this based on Arya's comment that Sansa has no head for figures? Or that Tyrion found LF's book keeping arcane?...

I don't see Littlefinger's economic activites as being something that can be taken over by another person. It's not like a lordship or a property that has independant legal form and status, it appears to be borrowing, lending and investing with bits of blackmail and manipulation involved too.

The books Tyrion has seen would be the offical royal accounts and if they are arcane that can only be to hide some of what Littlefinger was using royal money for.

Somehow unless Littlefinger keeps a little black book that records essential pieces of information like that Randyll Tarly likes to dress up as a Septa and be whipped by his serving maid while she calls him a naughty little girl I doubt there will be anything that can be taken over.

Littlefinger likes to keep his hands clean after all, sets of accounts would prove exactly how dirty his hands were and surely that would never do.

ETA there is of course the economic powerhouse that is the mighty sheep shit estate on the fringes of the fingers. Littlefinger shows no flash. Mind you that tower house would be enough if somebody wanted to live modestly and didn't mind a diet of seaweed and mutton.