From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa VI

[Ser Preston Greenfield]

I dont think Sansa is having a personality conflict ie Alayne is some kind of alternate personality who is great at politics. The main reason is because shes had some of the greatest teachers when it comes to this kind of thing : LF, Cersei, Tyrion. As a child she learned how to be a courtly lady, and when she got to court she put that to practice while eventually picking up on all the subterfuge and machinations that occur. To me it seemed like she came into her own in AFfC and figured out how to play the game and think on her own.

btw for those who would like to see Sansa marry some commoner and take a fake name, thats a big difference in quality of life from marrying the heir to the vale and possibly retaking Winterfell.

on the topic of Arya becoming cartoonish in her quest for violence, i believe that the books support my idea that Arya is not just a wild tomboy on the loose, but actually someone with a dark(but not necessarily evil) role to play in the world. She seems obsessed with killing and death from a very young age, having no problem with killing. i think she is on a more interesting and more fantastical path than if she were just stuck in a castle in the riverlands somewhere. the reason shes not stuck in westeros like Sansa is because she survived a harrowing journey that required her to kill to escape. Sansa's courtly demeanor was the primary reason she survived KL, which is something Arya does not possess at all

[Christina Ceriddwynn]

btw for those who would like to see Sansa marry some commoner and take a fake name, thats a big difference in quality of life from marrying the heir to the vale and possibly retaking Winterfell.

Well.....we all know LF has more money than god (almost)

Alayne Stone is his bastard and currently his only heir?? OK she isn't a son but......if LF starts prancing her about as his daughter, then there is a good chance that if he meets with an untimely demise, his vast fortune would fall into the hands of his heir.

He is now a Lord (of Harrenhal)....so his bastard won't be "just some commoner" just as Ramsey Snow isn't.

if LF "legitimizes" her....then she could stand to gain a FORTUNE as "just a commoner"

With that kind of gold, she could rebuild Winterfell

[Raksha the Demon]

I don't think that LF will legitimize Alayne. He'd have to petition the Iron Throne to have her made legitimate; and I don't think Littlefinger wants to draw the attention of the Small Council to his long-lost natural daughter any more than he has to. Also, I do believe that he eventually plans to reveal her as Sansa Stark, preferably after Cersei has utterly crashed and burned.

[Lyanna Stark]

If LF has no other children when he dies, his bastard will inherit anyway. It's just if he wants the child legitimised during his lifetime he will need to petition the king.

Depending on how this pans out it is a possibility that Sansa may get her hands on some of his money.

[Natalie_S]

She knows he can't be the knight of flowers in the dark because it was a preposterous claim to begin with. Tyrion's mode of seduction is to pretend he can be someone else when the lights go out, but Sansa is no longer willing to invest in such illusions. The fact that she goes on to have a sexually charged dream about Sandor reveals that above all else, what she's really attracted to is an honest man who challenges her to accept him as he is.

TBH, given Loras' preferences, in the dark Tyrion is probably a much more suitable partner (which is what Garlan tried to tell Sansa).

I don't think it was a preposterous claim, nor that he pretended to be someone else, but he knew that his looks were repulsive to Sansa and tried to reassure her. He said "I am made no worse than other men" so in my opinion it didn't mean that he wanted to pretend to be Loras, but that to a certain extent all men, ugly or beautiful, are made in the same way.

It seems to be a common opinion in the series, since it's precisely what Septa Mordane told Sansa (all men are beatiful).

Also, I don't believe there's much thought about honesty in Sansa's attraction to the Hound.

Most of attraction is made by chemicals and ancestral associations (large shoulders= protection etc) and I think there's a definite physical quality in Sansa's attraction to Sandor.

[Lyanna Stark]

I dont think Sansa is having a personality conflict ie Alayne is some kind of alternate personality who is great at politics. The main reason is because shes had some of the greatest teachers when it comes to this kind of thing : LF, Cersei, Tyrion. As a child she learned how to be a courtly lady, and when she got to court she put that to practice while eventually picking up on all the subterfuge and machinations that occur. To me it seemed like she came into her own in AFfC and figured out how to play the game and think on her own.

She does seem to be ok with more morally dubious actions in AFFC though, like manhandling Sweetrobin to a degree. Alayne states clearly that Maester Colemon cares only for the boy, but that father and her have other plans for him. So clearly here Alayne and Petyr Baelish share a common purpose. It seems that Sansa is really enjoying being the clever Alayne, since it means she gets respect from people around her, they trust her abilities, she's got a level of autonomy and she's challenged to use her intellect to solve problems. I think it even shows in the way she speaks: she's far less the correct, lady like Sansa Stark, and far more smooth and polished like Littlefinger. It's also interesting to note how she is a bit disdainful of "Sansa" as if she was some frightened, childish girl who is different from Alayne the bastard brave girl.

I keep thinking that she will not let go of Alayne that easily. For the first time in a long time, she seems to feel relatively safe, more comfortable in her own skin and she is getting constant appreciation for being clever, which goes completely against all the flak she got to eat about being stupid. Sansa isn't stupid, she just didn't have the right coaching (this also goes for poor Dany whose best teacher was Jorah Mormont of BEAR island. not exactly the ideal tutor for a queen), but now when she does, I think a lot of people will have to take back that they thought Sansa was stupid, gentle and tractable.

Also, I don't believe there's much thought about honesty in Sansa's attraction to the Hound.

Most of attraction is made by chemicals and ancestral associations (large shoulders= protection etc) and I think there's a definite physical quality in Sansa's attraction to Sandor.

Oh, I do believe there is a lot about honesty, since she was constantly lied to in Kings Landing and she's being constantly lied to now, but LF. She even knows that LF lies to her, even if she is somewhat ambivalent regarding what that means. She seems to justify some of them with "they were kindly meant" (to Sweetrobin) but ultimately, she knows lying is for manipulating and hiding one's true objective. On the other side of this we have Sandor, and to a large degree also the Ned, since he was honourable and truthful, to a fault, which we learnt when he went to Cersei and confessed to knowing about the incest.

Interestingly though, Ned keeps the truth of Jon's parentage from everyone, and Sandor lies for Sansa twice to help her. Perhaps what Sansa needs to learn is that there are lies and lies. Some may be "kindly meant" but even when they do, they have consequences. (She saved Dontos with Sandor's help, but ultimately Dontos died anyway, and Ned saved Jon, but antagonised his wife in the process).

Regarding the physical quality, that's another interesting thing. Sansa mentions how she's like to run her hands over Loras' chest when she is in Kings Landing, but in the next breath she thinks he looks so beautiful and innocent in white, so while she fawns over him, it's more in the vein of how you'd admire a beautiful object like a vase, or a flower. :)

While her thoughts on Sandor have a far more physical quality, perhaps even surprisingly so.

[Alissa]

I dont think Sansa is having a personality conflict ie Alayne is some kind of alternate personality who is great at politics. The main reason is because shes had some of the greatest teachers when it comes to this kind of thing : LF, Cersei, Tyrion. As a child she learned how to be a courtly lady, and when she got to court she put that to practice while eventually picking up on all the subterfuge and machinations that occur. To me it seemed like she came into her own in AFfC and figured out how to play the game and think on her own.

btw for those who would like to see Sansa marry some commoner and take a fake name, thats a big difference in quality of life from marrying the heir to the vale and possibly retaking Winterfell.

It's not a personality conflict, you're right, but she's changing, and I'm not sure it's all for the better. Sure, it's good she's becoming more self-confident and learning to use her intelligence and all that. But if she continues like this for much longer, it may well be at the expense of her better qualities like compassion and empathy.

[Kittykatknits]

It's not a personality conflict, you're right, but she's changing, and I'm not sure it's all for the better. Sure, it's good she's becoming more self-confident and learning to use her intelligence and all that. But if she continues like this for much longer, it may well be at the expense of her better qualities like compassion and empathy.

I think Sansa is finding the intelligence and confidence that has been within her all along, it's just manifesting through Alyane. But, this is also coming at the expense of other qualities as you say. It's why I say that LF and what he is teaching her is a corrupting influence. Her strength is her compassion and empathy and I think those are the skills that will enable her to play the game on her terms. Sansa still needs to figure this out though and I expect that is what we will see in WoW.

[Christina Ceriddwynn]

Well when LF tries to show her the true size of his...*ahem*....Little Finger....I guess we will see!!!!!

[brashcandy]

I think Sansa is finding the intelligence and confidence that has been within her all along, it's just manifesting through Alyane. But, this is also coming at the expense of other qualities as you say. It's why I say that LF and what he is teaching her is a corrupting influence. Her strength is her compassion and empathy and I think those are the skills that will enable her to play the game on her terms. Sansa still needs to figure this out though and I expect that is what we will see in WoW.

Corseque (on Tumblr) gave a really insightful post about the events of the Hand's tourney, which I thought I would repost here for consideration. The last bit is particularly relevant to what we've been discussing recently concerning Sansa's strengths vs. LF's:

It is so interesting to me that Sansa would root for the Hound and not Ser Jaime (the knight incarnate) here. And you can tell that Sansa is rooting for the Hound, too (not just making an idle comment) because she gasps when the Hound is nearly unhorsed at the first pass. Ned describes Sansa as watching this particular joust “all moist-eyed and eager” and “so engrossed she scarcely seemed to notice his arrival.”

Okay this got super long so the rest is under the read more!

(Spoilers for the first four books.)

So here is my attempt to explain what’s going on here: Sansa likes to relate to people through set roles taken from stories. An example of this: a few chapters later she cries when her father doesn’t send “the hero” Ser Loras after “the monster” Ser Gregor to bring him to justice.

When the Knight of Flowers had spoken up, she’d been sure she was about to see one of Old Nan’s stories come to life. Ser Gregor was the monster and Ser Loras the true hero who would slay him.

This is why she doesn’t get along with Arya - Arya doesn’t conform to the highborn lady role in Sansa’s story. This is why she looks down on King Robert - he doesn’t quite match her mental image of a king. This is why she looks up to Queen Cersei - she is exactly Sansa’s mental image of a queen. This is why she is so lost when it comes to Joffrey. This is how she is able to assign herself a new identity based on weird generalizations she’s heard about bastards from stories - she relates to herself through a different story role (“the bastard girl raised in a sept”) the same way she relates to others through story roles, and it’s relatively easy for her.

So what does this have to do with “I knew the Hound would win?”

Sansa heard the Hound’s story about his face the night before, and she sympathized with the story enough to try to comfort him. Obviously, the story made an impact on her and was added to her little arsenal of stories, because she sees Gregor as a hideous monster from then on. Sandor’s role in the story that she is making up is a little more muddied, and changes depending on his proximity.

When Sandor isn’t around, she romanticizes him, thinking of him (especially after he saved Loras from his brother) as someone who would never let her come to harm. But whenever Sandor opens his big stupid mouth and says things likeweak people are mutton for wolves, she has no choice but to try to reconcile her romanticized image of him with the reality of him being a scary rude horrible brute, and it hurts her feelings in the same way that Arya refusing to be a lady hurts her feelings.

It’s the reason why she doesn’t approach Sandor after he saves her from the mob - his actions are the single thing that matches up with the role she’s given him, and it’s easier for her to think about “the Hound” as someone who selflessly saves her life when his terrifying self is not around to belittle everything. Even the way he saved her life was too violent to quite match up with her story of “maiden being saved from danger,” what with her scandalized description of histransformed terrible burned laughing face while chopping a guy’s hand off.

You can see her romanticism clearly in action when she gamely tries to thank him the way she thinks people should be thanked after saving young maidens, but Sandor makes it incredibly difficult. There’s a very clear discrepancy between how the conversation actually goes and the way Sansa thinks it should go.

“I… I should have come to you after,”

she said haltingly

. “To thank you, for… for saving me… you were so brave.”

“Brave?” His laugh was half a snarl. “A dog doesn’t need courage to chase off rats. They had me thirty to one, and not a man of them dared face me.”

She hated the way he talked, always so harsh and angry.

“Does it give you joy to scare people?”

“It gives me joy to kill people.”

and a bit later

Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. “Why are you always so hateful? I was thanking you…”

“Just as if I was one of those true knights you love so well, yes.”

Her first instinct is to romanticize his actions, but it’s hard to do so with him being such a dick. This explains why her romanticism of him gets more pronounced the longer they are separated - he’s not around to correct whatever mental image she wants to have of him.

So yes. She knew the Hound would win. Because the Hound had just been given an interesting place in her covey of story characters the night before. I suspect she wanted to see the Hound joust against his evil brother the Mountain like in a story. I know I did, after hearing the story he told her.

Also, another thing about that moment - I love how Littlefinger overhears her comment and says, “If you know who’s going to win the second match, speak up now before Lord Renly plucks me clean.” This is the first time Sansa outguesses Littlefinger or knows something Littlefinger doesn’t, and I find it super cool (and maybe even a bit of foreshadowing) that it involves Littlefinger underestimating Sandor and Sansa estimating Sandor correctly.

[Ragnorak]

Oh, I do believe there is a lot about honesty...

Sansa is included in LF lying insider club. He may not tell her everything but he explained the Purple Wedding, let her guess at Lyn Corbray, and she is literally part of the Lysa lie. She's still surrounded by liars and plots but for the first time she isn't the one being lied to or manipulated (outside of LF's overarching Sansa manipulation.)

Ned said it to Arya and not Sansa, but even he was ok with lying:

“We all lie,” her father said. “Or did you truly think I’d believe that Nymeria ran off?”

Arya blushed guiltily. “Jory promised not to tell.”

“Jory kept his word,” her father said with a smile. “There are some things I do not need to be told. Even a blind man could see that wolf would never have left you willingly.”

...

“It was right,” her father said. “And even the lie was… not without honor.”

So will Sansa's learning to lie turn out like LF's manipulation or will it turn out like Ned's the lie was ... not without honor? This was also the lone wolf vs pack in Winter speech and I can't help but notice that Arya and Sansa are both playing a lying game tied to their fake identities.

Would have been nice to get one more Sansa chapter. Her story ends in a cliffhanger too, just a bit more subtlely. Four books trapped in a cage where all human contact is controlled and then you get this hint of her freedom on the mule ride down...to be continued.

[Natalie_S]

Oh, I do believe there is a lot about honesty, since she was constantly lied to in Kings Landing and she's being constantly lied to now, but LF. She even knows that LF lies to her, even if she is somewhat ambivalent regarding what that means. She seems to justify some of them with "they were kindly meant" (to Sweetrobin) but ultimately, she knows lying is for manipulating and hiding one's true objective. On the other side of this we have Sandor, and to a large degree also the Ned, since he was honourable and truthful, to a fault, which we learnt when he went to Cersei and confessed to knowing about the incest.

Interestingly though, Ned keeps the truth of Jon's parentage from everyone, and Sandor lies for Sansa twice to help her. Perhaps what Sansa needs to learn is that there are lies and lies. Some may be "kindly meant" but even when they do, they have consequences. (She saved Dontos with Sandor's help, but ultimately Dontos died anyway, and Ned saved Jon, but antagonised his wife in the process).

Regarding the physical quality, that's another interesting thing. Sansa mentions how she's like to run her hands over Loras' chest when she is in Kings Landing, but in the next breath she thinks he looks so beautiful and innocent in white, so while she fawns over him, it's more in the vein of how you'd admire a beautiful object like a vase, or a flower. :)

While her thoughts on Sandor have a far more physical quality, perhaps even surprisingly so.

Don't get me wrong- Sansa's arc is about honesty, about detecting lies and trusting/mistrusting people, so it's definitely a motive that comes up very often in her storyline.

I just don't think that that was what attracts her to the Hound: it's a quality that she respects and that makes her trust him, but i believe that the source of the attraction is more instinctive than based on reasoning.

There's a lot of contact between them: she makes her turn to his face and doesn't let her go when he tells her the story of his face, she loses balance and he grabs her on the stairs, he dries the blood from her lip "surprisingly gently" etc...

[brashcandy]

I don't think it was a preposterous claim, nor that he pretended to be someone else, but he knew that his looks were repulsive to Sansa and tried to reassure her. He said "I am made no worse than other men" so in my opinion it didn't mean that he wanted to pretend to be Loras, but that to a certain extent all men, ugly or beautiful, are made in the same way.

That's precisely why it was preposterous. You may call it "reassurance" but Sansa saw it as a plain lie, and she wasn't wrong IMO. Tyrion was trying to sell her an illusion, a fantasy that when the lights are out it suddenly won't matter who he is or what he looks like. That simply isn't true.

It seems to be a common opinion in the series, since it's precisely what Septa Mordane told Sansa (all men are beatiful).

It's a nice sentiment, but that's not the truth; all men are not beautiful, or perhaps I should say all men are not desirable to all women. However, just because a man isn't beautiful it doesn't mean that a woman can't be attracted to them, but the onus must be on genuine female desire and free will and not from a compulsion to find all men attractive because of marital duty. That's what the Septa was advocating to Sansa and that's what Sansa rebels against.

Also, I don't believe there's much thought about honesty in Sansa's attraction to the Hound.

Most of attraction is made by chemicals and ancestral associations (large shoulders= protection etc) and I think there's a definite physical quality in Sansa's attraction to Sandor.

Admiration, respect and trust form a significant part of the attraction we feel towards others, especially in the case of Sandor and Sansa where we see that she still thinks of him long after he left KL. If it was simply a chemical reaction or based on their physical closeness it would have dissipated a long time ago.

[Lyanna Stark]

Sansa is included in LF lying insider club. He may not tell her everything but he explained the Purple Wedding, let her guess at Lyn Corbray, and she is literally part of the Lysa lie. She's still surrounded by liars and plots but for the first time she isn't the one being lied to or manipulated (outside of LF's overarching Sansa manipulation.)

Ah but that remains to be seen. :) Littlefinger is really dangling Winterfell in front of Sansa despite it being very unlikely that she will come in to it, but he needs her to believe it to play along (or so he thinks). LF thinks Sansa will want a handsome knight to marry and a promise of Winterfell (which no sane person would march on in winter anyway) to be a good "daughter", but he cannot give it to her. Further, Sansa doesn't even want it, since she is fed up with being pawned off for her claim.

So Littlefinger does manipulate her with the Winterfell promise (and in a more nasty way with including her in the Marillion murder and in the Joffrey murder) since the first is supposed to work as a carrot, the latter two sticks to keep her compliant.

Of course, LF doesn't know that Sansa isn't keen on being married off for her claim again and that she even meant to tell Lysa that she refused to marry Sweetrobin. At the moment, she is keeping the truth from LF, on that and on a couple of other things, too. Like that she is still Sansa in her heart, and that she made a connection with Sandor in KL. Three things LF has no idea about.

[Lyanna Stark]

Regarding the romanticising of the Hound, that's an interesting subject to consider. To what degree is Sansa romanticising him and why? What she seems to mostly romanticise is not his looks, since when she thinks about him he still has his burnt face, and he gets to keep his rasping voice too. Mostly it seems to be the more objectionable commentary that she avoids thinking about (and frankly he does say some pretty objectionable things).

Her first instinct is to romanticize his actions, but it’s hard to do so with him being such a dick. This explains why her romanticism of him gets more pronounced the longer they are separated - he’s not around to correct whatever mental image she wants to have of him.

I'm not sure it is getting more pronounced though, she seems to be fairly clear on that he "took" the song, although she seems to switch more to resenting him for abandoning her instead of resenting him for threatening her. Interestingly, I'd say that she both misses him and holds a grudge against him.

[brashcandy]

Regarding the romanticising of the Hound, that's an interesting subject to consider. To what degree is Sansa romanticising him and why? What she seems to mostly romanticise is not his looks, since when she thinks about him he still has his burnt face, and he gets to keep his rasping voice too. Mostly it seems to be the more objectionable commentary that she avoids thinking about (and frankly he does say some pretty objectionable things).

I'm not sure it is getting more pronounced though, she seems to be fairly clear on that he "took" the song, although she seems to switch more to resenting him for abandoning her instead of resenting him for threatening her. Interestingly, I'd say that she both misses him and holds a grudge against him.

Yeah, it's an interesting question. Both Sandor and Sansa romanticise each other, but I don't think it's a case where they are deliberately trying to deny unpleasant aspects in their relationship. And if anyone is, I would have to point the finger at Sandor, who tries to sell Arya a story of Sansa singing to him before breaking down and confessing the truth. Sansa doesn't appear to have such similar burdens. I agree with you here, Lyanna, she both misses him and holds a grudge against him and that's clear in her narrative. I think we have to remember as well that Sansa genuinely believes Sandor kissed her, so the later fantasies and thoughts have always seemed to me to be a natural development from the events of their final time together.

[Valkyrja]

Yeah, it's an interesting question. Both Sandor and Sansa romanticise each other, but I don't think it's a case where they are deliberately trying to deny unpleasant aspects in their relationship. And if anyone is, I would have to point the finger at Sandor, who tries to sell Arya a story of Sansa singing to him before breaking down and confessing the truth. Sansa doesn't appear to have such similar burdens. I agree with you here, Lyanna, she both misses him and holds a grudge against him and that's clear in her narrative. I think we have to remember as well that Sansa genuinely believes Sandor kissed her, so the later fantasies and thoughts have always seemed to me to be a natural development from the events of their final time together.

I have been wondering about this aspect of her Sandor-remembrance. She does indeed seem to miss him, but (perhaps?) as she becomes more 'Alayne' she almost seems to resent that he left her with 'nothing but a bloody cloak'. Its interesting.....is she resenting that he 'took the song and a kiss' before buggering off, or is she *just* resenting that he left KL without her and that he left her behind with nothing but his cloak? Saying she'd rather have had his actual physical presence (for the protection it would have offered in some ways, though perhaps not in others)? Wishing that she'd gone, or that he'd stayed behind? Given that she missed him ('I wish the Hound were here') immediately after the Blackwater, and seemed to miss him all the way into the end of ASoS (mistaking Lothor Brune for him, and then the dream about him), I can't help but wonder if that may be part of it. But I also wonder if becoming 'Alayne' also means becoming more cynical/less romanticizing towards not just Sandor (admitting that he 'took' the song) but also about herself (see: 'that day was done and so was Sansa')? And yet, it is so confusing/conflicting, because we have Sansa/Alayne remembering the unKiss, which in itself is a sort of romanticized version of that night, and then Sandor himself finally lamenting/acknowledging that he 'took' the song and that she didn't give it freely, and that he should have 'taken her' (whatever that might mean), and yet at the same time, Sansa/Alayne sort of resentfully lamenting that he left her behind. Can that be read as her almost agreeing with the dying Sandor in her revisionist thinking that he *should* have 'taken her' that night?

Or I'm just waaay over-thinking this. The whole Sansa/Alayne identity is yet another confusing layer atop these memories within mis-memories....

[brashcandy]

Can that be read as her almost agreeing with the dying Sandor in her revisionist thinking that he *should* have 'taken her' that night?

Or I'm just waaay over-thinking this. The whole Sansa/Alayne identity is yet another confusing layer atop these memories within mis-memories....

Oh that's interesting :) Yeah, it's a bit confusing. What she says is that he left her with nothing but a bloody cloak, so it sounds as though she's resentful that he got something more from the night, and also there's the missing him aspect as well. I would say that her maturity and blossoming sexuality is playing a big role in this particular sentiment. In ASOS when she's with the Tyrell cousins, her memory of the unkiss is a bit childish (oh, if those girls only knew that I had kissed a man like the Hound); but now in AFFC we're seeing an older experienced Sansa (i.e. bastard brave Alayne) who's started to have erotic dreams and desires, so her appreciation of that night is being influenced by the stage she's at in her life. Older Sansa wants more from that night because she understands that there could have been more.

[Winter's Knight]

Oh that's interesting :) Yeah, it's a bit confusing. What she says is that he left her with nothing but a bloody cloak, so it sounds as though she's resentful that he got something more from the night, and also there's the missing him aspect as well. I would say that her maturity and blossoming sexuality is playing a big role in this particular sentiment. In ASOS when she's with the Tyrell cousins, her memory of the unkiss is a bit childish (oh, if those girls only knew that I had kissed a man like the Hound); but now in AFFC we're seeing an older experienced Sansa (i.e. bastard brave Alayne) who's started to have erotic dreams and desires, so her appreciation of that night is being influenced by the stage she's at in her life. Older Sansa wants more from that night because she understands that there could have been more.

I'm not a SanSan shipper (although this boat does have the cutest name) but that sentence just gives me the shivers. Reminds of Inspector Mills by America:

I can't attempt to point you in his direction

I was blinded by the look in his eyes

If I had taken my time he'd be sitting here still.

Pronouns changed by me.

[Valkyrja]

Oh that's interesting :) Yeah, it's a bit confusing. What she says is that he left her with nothing but a bloody cloak, so it sounds as though she's resentful that he got something more from the night, and also there's the missing him aspect as well. I would say that her maturity and blossoming sexuality is playing a big role in this particular sentiment. In ASOS when she's with the Tyrell cousins, her memory of the unkiss is a bit childish (oh, if those girls only knew that I had kissed a man like the Hound); but now in AFFC we're seeing an older experienced Sansa (i.e. bastard brave Alayne) who's started to have erotic dreams and desires, so her appreciation of that night is being influenced by the stage she's at in her life. Older Sansa wants more from that night because she understands that there could have been more.

Thanks, brashcandy. :D You have once again expressed much more clearly what I could merely hint at here. I did not allow myself to be bold enough in my conclusion. ;)