From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa V

[Raksha the Demon]

Not picking a fight just curious. One of the reasons put forth against the Tyrion/Sansa marriage is the age difference with Tyrion being older (mid 20's?) while Snasa is still a child (14?). Actually many posts have gone as far as to say a consummation of their marriage would have been child rape. Now contrast this with the threads above whereby readers are swooning over the thought of a Sandor/Sansa relationship. By all accounts Sandor is the same age as Tyrion. Why does the clearly adult Sandor get a pass on the child rape charges and Tyrion does not? I can understand that people dislike Tyrion (he is a Lannister). But why attack the Tyrion/Sansa marraige on the age issue and completely ignore the age difference as it relates to Sandor?

I'm not swooning over the thought of any sexual relationship for Sansa until she is a few years older (I'd prefer 18, but would settle, given that this is Westeros, for 16). The difference between the Sandor Blackwater scene and the wedding night with Tyrion is that while Sandor may have intended to rape Sansa, he did not grope her breast or other parts of her, he did not remove his clothing and he did not rape her; he wept and left. Both men scared her. Tyrion let Sansa undress at a point where she did not really know how to proceed, touched her and said that he wanted her even though he was a child and undressed himself; only refraining from continuing with the unwelcome consummation at the last minute. Tyrion made a much stronger assault on Sansa's intimacy. Sansa was about 12 and a half, I think, during Blackwater, and almost 13 at the time of her wedding.

I don't absolve Sandor of having scared and threatened Sansa; but he did not rape her or come as close to it as Tyrion did.

[Lady Lea]

I'm not swooning over the thought of any sexual relationship for Sansa until she is a few years older (I'd prefer 18, but would settle, given that this is Westeros, for 16). The difference between the Sandor Blackwater scene and the wedding night with Tyrion is that while Sandor may have intended to rape Sansa, he did not grope her breast or other parts of her, he did not remove his clothing and he did not rape her; he wept and left. Both men scared her. Tyrion let Sansa undress at a point where she did not really know how to proceed, touched her and said that he wanted her even though he was a child and undressed himself; only refraining from continuing with the unwelcome consummation at the last minute. Tyrion made a much stronger assault on Sansa's intimacy. Sansa was about 12 and a half, I think, during Blackwater, and almost 13 at the time of her wedding.

I don't absolve Sandor of having scared and threatened Sansa; but he did not rape her or come as close to it as Tyrion did.

This, and I'm one of those who don't actually believe he ever intended to rape her (Sandor I mean) when he went to her room. (this has been discussed though)

You don't see this disclaimer, Howling, because it's something which everyone here already assumes. We always talk about the future and in the future she will be older. It's just logic.

[brashcandy]

I understand the issue of Sansa (or the readers) disliking Tyrion and loving Sandor. I don't understand why Sandor gets a pass on sex with a minor and Tyrion gets added to a sex offender list. Why the double styandard on this issue? If child sex is contemptable behavior it shouldn't matter who is involved.

ETA I don't buy the "its when their older argument" as this disclaimer is rarely if ever mentioned in the same posts expousing a San/San relationship.

The disclaimer doesn't need to be mentioned because it should be obvious. Many times we've stated that Sansa was not ready for a sexual relationship with anyone during her time in KL, but that it's clear since then that she's beginning to blossom into womanhood and have romantic/sexual thoughts about Sandor. You will notice that Martin seems to have separated them to highlight this very issue: they came together and learnt from one another as much as they could during AGOT/ACOK, but each needed to go off and grow on their own.

The issue with Tyrion is that he forced Sansa into a marriage, and that is what would have made it rape.

[Howling Mad]

The disclaimer doesn't need to be mentioned because it should be obvious. Many times we've stated that Sansa was not ready for a sexual relationship with anyone during her time in KL, but that it's clear since then that she's beginning to blossom into womanhood and have romantic/sexual thoughts about Sandor. You will notice that Martin seems to have separated them to highlight this very issue: they came together and learnt from one another as much as they could during AGOT/ACOK, but each needed to go off and grow on their own.

The issue with Tyrion is that he forced Sansa into a marriage, and that is what would have made it rape.

Its your position then that there is nothing wrong with a sexual relationship between an adult man (Sandor) and an underage girl (Sansa) if the girl has feelings for the man? You say that this is wrong at 13 but its ok at 14 or 15? At least one poster has said 16 is ok. Let's be clear Sandor is in his mid to late 20's. He's not a late teen such as Lancel.

ETA there's no need to respond or defend your position. Not sure why I even started this discussion, must have been the wine. Good nite.

[Thel]

Wait. That's not in good faith ! I think the point is a) no sex for Sansa! b ) Sansa's own thoughts about this figure in her life determine some readerly interest in a future liaison--one that has them meeting on more equal ground.

[brashcandy]

Its your position then that there is nothing wrong with a sexual relationship between an adult man (Sandor) and an underage girl (Sansa) if the girl has feelings for the man? You say that this is wrong at 13 but its ok at 14 or 15? At least one poster has said 16 is ok. Let's be clear Sandor is in his mid to late 20's. He's not a late teen such as Lancel.

:) I don't think you quite understood what I wrote. I don't advocate for underage girls to be involved with older men at all. Sansa is developing into womanhood, and at some point in the future she can make the choice to be involved in a consensual relationship. (Having genuine feelings for someone is very important, but it does need to be accompanied with emotional and physical maturity.)

That choice was stripped from her with the Tyrion debacle. Not only was she still too young, but she was a captive of his family, and had no consent in the entire matter.

[brashcandy]

It will never cease to amuse me when people come onto these threads, pose a question and then run away from the answer.

[Lady Kraken]

Its your position then that there is nothing wrong with a sexual relationship between an adult man (Sandor) and an underage girl (Sansa) if the girl has feelings for the man? You say that this is wrong at 13 but its ok at 14 or 15? At least one poster has said 16 is ok. Let's be clear Sandor is in his mid to late 20's. He's not a late teen such as Lancel.

I mean, in real life? No, I don't think it's acceptable at all. But in these books, I think we just have to deal with it. Martin himself considers Daenerys and Drogo romantic from what I've seen in interviews. And the rather extreme age differences are frequent in these books, even in some of the more popular pairings. Jaime and Brienne, Gendry and Arya, Margaery and Tommen, Cersei and Lancel, Dany and Drogo, Sansa and pretty much all of her potential suitors all have some weird age differences going on, and there's probably more I'm forgetting. Isn't Daario a lot older than Daenerys too? I've even seen some people want Jaqen/Arya. Renly and the Tyrells wanted to dangle 16-year-old Margaery in front of Robert for seven's sake. Walder Frey is married to a teenager. It freaks me the hell out, but what can you do?

Anyways, I personally would rather not see either the Tyrion or the Sandor relationship go that direction. But, in the future, if Sansa freely decided she loved and wanted to be with an older man rather than being forced into a marriage or sexual relationship with one then yeah, I'd probably feel differently. It depends on how Martin writes it, I guess, though he never got me on board with Dany/Drogo.

Edit: To be clear, I think if Sandor or Tyrion had acted on their desires for Sansa at the times they had the opportunities to do so it would have been rape. There wasn't consent, and she was scared of both of them. These books have just made me kind of block out the characters' ages at times. I think Martin should have made them older.

[Lady Lea]

Eh, in real life I'd be ok with 14 (legal age in my country) but then I wouldn't want her to be with Sandor. I know we're not supposed to discuss ships but all things considered S/S is one of the least weird ones out there... looking at you Tywin/Arya, Robb/Cat, Robb/Sansa... I don't really get why people hate it so much

But we should get back on track...

[Thel]

ps) ftr, I don't have an investment in thinking of Tyrion as a potential child rapist, and the Hound as bad boy with a heart of gold. To me, the terms of the question are troubling because they point up a problem of categories based on age and focused through a contemporary understanding of sexual morality. They aren't invested in rethinking the problem through consent and cultural context and power, which is where I'd take the question.

Both men have some delusions about their access to Sansa's body. Tyrion let's himself believe his access is legitimate(bc legal and sanctioned by the State ) and is seduced by the prospect, and has a hard time coming back from that edge. I don't know why The Hound threatens to rape Sansa and then doesn't. I should reread the sack , but I've lent out the first three books. But either way to me, these incidents are one-sided, power bids threatening to play themselves out on Sansa's body. In the case of SanSan, though, the separation between the two (after also a longer and more complicated acquaintance) lends itself to Sansa's own self-directed fantasies. We don't get that with Tyrion. That's why you see the rally around Sandor.

Moreover, Tyrion's self-pity and disgust seems to be what saves Sansa. Since there is no PoV from The Hound, there's room to impute a more 'selfless' motive. Finally, maybe this distinction also plays to the 'entitlement' crowd. Tyrion initially considers taking Sansa bc he feels entitled to her body as her husband. Clegane (maybe) considers taking her because he's not. One is more likely to garner sympathizers than another...?

Just some thoughts.

[bloodymime]

Like I said, I am a bit strange ;) .....but yeah, I don't see his *act of killing* an innocent boy like poor Mycah as 'normal'. I just meant that the laughter and strange joy (at the riot as well) seemed at least slightly more familiar and understandable to me.

ETA: I'm not trying to be a Sandor Clegane apologist, I like the character as he is written and I appreciate his complexity in all its beauty and ugliness. I was just trying to say that the laughter thing was not something that really stuck out to me in such a terribly negative way like it does to certain readers.

I get you, battle joy is a common idea everywhere and even in the books you have Tyrion thinking of Jaime describing it to him and even having it himself on the Blackwater. We don't see Robert in battle but he's described as laughing in the melee beating men bloody and I doubt he was a lot different in war. It's people that love the adrenaline rush. I'm sure people more knowledeable about human evolution would be able to explain why it's an advantage becuase it's certainly a common enough trait though now we like to just play pretend with sports.

[Howling Mad]

It will never cease to amuse me when people come onto these threads, pose a question and then run away from the answer.

Oh I'm not running. I just decided I didn't want to waste my evening trying to bring logic and reason to an illogical and unreasonable discussion.

@Lady Kraken - I appreciate your post above and the seriousness of your response.

[Lady Lea]

I get you, battle joy is a common idea everywhere and even in the books you have Tyrion thinking of Jaime describing it to him and even having it himself on the Blackwater. We don't see Robert in battle but he's described as laughing in the melee beating men bloody and I doubt he was a lot different in war. It's people that love the adrenaline rush. I'm sure people more knowledeable about human evolution would be able to explain why it's an advantage becuase it's certainly a common enough trait though now we like to just play pretend with sports.

Jaime and Tyrion also comment on this feeling

[brashcandy]

I would argue that both Sandor and Tyrion care about consent. In the latter's case, he allows his own fantasies and his father's tricks to bamboozle him into an act which he knows is wrong. This is why he makes the half-assed offer to Sansa about marrying Lancel instead - he's trying to assuage his conscience. Later on he sees she is terrified, and promises not to touch her until she is ready. Again, not his finest hour, but he does the decent thing here. Consent also matters to Sandor. Even in his most abject state during the BB when he tells Sansa he would keep her safe, we can see that he's waiting on her to give her consent to his proposal. When she closes her eyes he freaks out - again, like Tyrion, not his finest moment, but he does the decent thing in the end and leaves her because she never agrees to go with him. This really shouldn't come down to a question of which man is better or worse; it has everything to do with Sansa's choice, and the person she ends up desiring is Sandor.

Oh I'm not running. I just decided I didn't want to waste my evening trying to bring logic and reason to an illogical and unreasonable discussion.

Well that's a nice way to piss in the faces of all the posters who took the time to answer your question politely. We'll get back to our unreasonable and illogical discussions then.

[Howling Mad]

Well that's a nice way to piss in the faces of all the posters who took the time to answer your question politely. We'll get back to our unreasonable and illogical discussions then.

You failed to inlcude that portion of my quote thanking Lady Kraken for her serious response to my question. The fact is I found your comment towards me rude especially considering that I had politely withdrew from the discussion.

[brashcandy]

You failed to inlcude that portion of my quote thanking Lady Kraken for her serious response to my question. The fact is I found your comment towards me rude especially considering that I had politely withdrew from the discussion.

And I found you to be extremely rude to make a claim and then pull some cheap exit strategy about how you should have known better than to bring something up. Last time I checked, no one forced you into the thread to voice your question, and the least you could do is to give posters the courtesy of responding in full to the claims you make. It seems the responses were not to your liking, or you had made up your mind about the answer before hand, so you simply decided to say, fuck it, I'm out. That's what I consider to be unfair and disingenuous argumentation, and since it's been done before I felt the need to say something.

As for your thanks to Lady Kraken, you edited that in afterwards, so I had already quoted your original post.

[Thel]

@brashcandy: agreed re: consent. Thanks for your reading.

@Howling4Reed: I tried twice to reframe the argument to address your question (which I thought was an interesting one). I'm, admittedly, a little disappointed you didn't engage my response to you!

Edit: excuse all the crazy edits. I'm typing on a tablet and am, apparently, not very good at it. :)

[Lady Lea]

You failed to inlcude that portion of my quote thanking Lady Kraken for her serious response to my question. The fact is I found your comment towards me rude especially considering that I had politely withdrew from the discussion.

This is unfair, Brash is one of the most polite and articulate people in this board and she was not rude at all, and neither do I think that Raksha, Thel and I were. You asked a question and we replied, honest answers all. I don't see what else we could have done.

[Pod The Impaler]

Why is Lancel worse?

Do you think he imagined Sansa would enjoy consummating the marriage more with him than with Lancel? Or perhaps more along the lines that he didn't really consider that angle.

LOL, "enjoy" doesn't enter into it. These are Lannisters we're talking about. Given a choice between marrying any Lannister and throwing herself out a castle window, castle window looks pretty good. We're talking the lesser of evils here. Tyrion was kinder to her than Lancel ever was, though obviously Lancel is the better looking one. The fact that Tyrion actually did stand up to Cersei and Joffrey is a mark in his favour - Lancel is too weak to stand up to anyone. And that means eventual Joffrey-rape. But nobody kids themselves, not even her - she is a prisoner, the marriage is more than just arranged, it's forced at swordpount. She's the daughter and sister of "tratorous" Starks, and all her captors want is to have her bedded, pop out a Lannister claim to the north from her loins, and then have her beheaded for using the wrong salad fork or some other excuse. (And think, this is even a step up from the original arrangement, which was marrying Joffrey.) So yeah, of all the options given her by her captors, Tyrion is the least shitty one.

(The irony here is at the time she would have been married, Lancel was half a corpse, and beginning to turn religious and somewhat rebellious to his family's plans, which nobody predicted.) But these are paths not taken. Fake Arya

But Tyrion is not 13, he is in his mid 20s. What do you imagine Tywin would do had he said no? Jaime said no and what happened was that Tywin didn't speak to him any more.Tyrion is of age and he could have passed Sansa over, but Tywin sells Winterfell to him big time.

Again, the word is tyrant. Not just "stern father". Rains of Castamere, public humilation of his own dad's mistress. Keeping people like Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch, and Vargo Hoat on his payroll.

There's also the fact Tywin hates Tyrion, and the only reason why Jaime gets away with saying no to him (if you can call being told you are no longer a son) is because he is the golden firstborn son, and he holds out hope this refusal will one day change. to have Tyrion around, he needs to see him as a valuable resource. To get rid of Tyrion, he only needs a good excuse.

That plus how he broke Tyrion's spirit so utterly at 13 means, Tyrion could have said "no", at the cost of much greater harm to himself and to her, and Tywin Lannister always made good on his threats. (And even then, Tyrion did offer to Sansa to call off his own marriage to her.)

Enough of this though, this is a Sansa thread. My main point is she was a POW, and this marriage was a coerced sham anyway. Tyrion was part of The Enemy, and both of them knew that. His "loyal duty" in the midst of a war was to ruin what few parts of her life had not been ruined already. Yet he at least tried to treat her better than horribly. This tangent began because it seems as part of her development that Sansa seems better able to integrate her experiences with the Hound than her ones with Tyrion.

[Howling Mad]

And I found you to be extremely rude to make a claim and then pull some cheap exit strategy about how you should have known better than to bring something up. Last time I checked, no one forced you into the thread to voice your question, and the least you could do is to give posters the courtesy of responding in full to the claims you make. It seems the responses were not to your liking, or you had made up your mind about the answer before hand, so you simply decided to say, fuck it, I'm out. That's what I consider to be unfair and disingenuous argumentation, and since it's been done before I felt the need to say something.

As for your thanks to Lady Kraken, you edited that in afterwards, so I had already quoted your original post.

I entered tis thread and asked as serious question. I received several responses most of which sidestepped my question or played lose with the premise. Rather than engage in further discusion I chose to politely opt out. WHen I came back to the thread to read a response I found your thread taking umbrage with my departure. BTW I had the courtesy to notify you that I was dropping out I could have simply stopped responding. My response to your rudeness I will admit was curt. Now shall we agree to go our seperate ways?