From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa XII

[KittensRuleBeetsDrool]

Sansa and Sweetrobin, Part II (or why I think she wants to help him instead of stand by and see him poisoned):

- He's family; as far as Sansa knows he is the only family she has left.

- Sansa's own innate sense of compassion and her Stark sense of what is good and honorable mean that it's very unlikely she would want to climb to a high position over her little cousin's dead body. Sansa is not ruthless or heartless enough to do something like that. The Lannisters kill children. Ned Stark informed Cersei of the charges of incest and treason before arresting her, to give her time to escape so that Tommen and Myrcella would not be harmed. I just cannot see Sansa Stark saying "Oh yay, I will be Lady of the Eyrie if I just wait for 'Daddy' to kill my cousin!"

- All this talk from Littlefinger, that bastion of truthfulness, about when Sweetrobin dies, Harry Hardyng will be heir to the Eyrie and Harry is just so gallant and handsome that everyone will love him they way they don't love Sweetrobin and that Sansa will just ADORE Harry and they'll get married and take back the North for her and live happily ever after.

If Littlefinger tells you the sky is blue, you had better go outside to check.

We have no real evidence that the lords of the Vale dislike Sweetrobin or don't want him as their lord. Bronze Yohn Royce wants to be his foster father so that SR will get a decent upbringing, which suggests that BY, at least, cares about the boy and wants to make him into a proper lord. All the resentment from the various Lords Declarant appears to be directed not at poor Sweetrobin, but at LF, and partly on SR's behalf. So there is no evidence other than Petyr's lying mouth that the lords and knights of the Vale are eager to see SR die and Harry take the Eyrie.

Nor should anyone take Petyr's plan for Sansa at the end of AFFC (a handsome husband, the Vale and the North, wow!) at face value. This is Littlefinger speaking. He's a liar and bullshit artist. He tells people what they want to hear. He's told Sansa that he lies and bullshits. So why should Sansa take this plan at face value when it is almost certainly more lies and bullshit? Not only has Sansa soured for good on the idea of a handsome knight rescuing her, she knows by now that LF is a liar and BS'er. What LF says he plans to do and what LF is actually planning to do are two separate things. We left that chapter on a cliffhanger - significantly, without Sansa's response. We will have to wait until TWOW to see, but the fact that GRRM has elected to NOT read from a Sansa chapter makes me think that her reaction (at least her inner reaction) is not going to be very enthusiastic or believing.

- Another reason why Sansa would want SR alive: Right now she's "the biggest piece of meat on the Westeros marriage market" (Kittykatknits, in another thread). She doesn't want to be this. She hates the thought of being married for her claim. Right now she wants to be married for love or not at all. (Even her prospective engagement to SR, masterminded by Lysa, was for her claim.) With SR alive she's spared having to marry HtH (who sounds like Robert Baratheon, Jr. with his "gallantry" and two bastards at the age of 17). LF seems to think she's the same old Sansa he met back in AGOT who wants to be a great lady and believes in handsome knights. Only, this Sansa has moved beyond this. She wants a home, a husband who loves her or else no husband at all, and children. She doesn't want to be a piece of meat. If not for altruistic reasons, she might want to keep SR alive and healthy for the selfish reason that there is one less claim to draw the matrimonial sharks to her.

Seeing to SR's welfare not only is in character for Sansa (compassion and honor) it keeps her a little less on the meat market. And as I said, there's no real evidence that the lords of the Vale hate SR or love HtH; that's all LF talking and in his own words, "You should know better than to trust me."

[brashcandy]

Thanks for a great review, KRBD.

I see Sansa's helping SR over the narrow stone saddle as a foreshadowing of her helping him out of a perilous situation. Whether she will save his life herself or merely alert Bronze Yohn Royce or some other powerful lord to the danger and manage to have SR put in his charge, I do not know. But SR is now in peril (from Petyr); Sansa is also in peril partly from Petyr; but Sansa managed to get both SR and herself across the stone saddle. The fact that she says "I couldn't have done it without brave Ser Sweetrobin" makes me wonder if helping him will be a catalyst toward her regaining her own freedom.

I think this is a salient analysis. In fact, Sansa is likely being very truthful here; it is the need to get SR down the mountain without a catastrophic incident that spurs her into action and gives her added courage to undertake the crossing. We've seen this pattern established already, where she responds to another person's weakness with her own instinctive strength.

[Ragnorak]

Gratz Kittykatknits!

Queen Cersei I, IIRC God did not lie about Adam and Eve dying if they ate the fruit. It referred to the mortality that would result from being cast out of the Garden of Eden.

In general I see Sansa as a series of opposites from the Adam and Eve story. It is Littlefinger trying to seduce Sansa with an offer of fruit that she refuses. He could be viewed as the serpent failing or as Adam offering the fruit to Eve in a role reversal. The "evil" seductive feminine influence Eve is typically associated with for her role with Adam is not really seen at all in Sansa. Her beauty may have this effect on many men but it is not something we've yet see Sansa actively do. In fact we see the positive mirror image of this seduction with her inspirational redemption role with Sandor.

The notion of a forbidden tree and Garden of Eden is also an opposite. Sansa is cast out of her Garden of Eden (the North and Winterfell) while still innocent and she looks to be the last of her siblings to taste of this not-forbidden godlike weirwood tree of knowledge. Instead of her loss of innocence resulting in her being cast her out of a garden, it seems her loss of innocence and taste of the tree will allow her to return to it.

Sansa was described as an apple and seems to be playing the role of forbidden fruit in Littlefinger's temptation tale. I see all the Adam and Eve elements: fruit, garden, tree, loss of innocence, being cast out, temptation, etc but Sansa seems to me to be in the opposite role or position in just about all of them. Even in what seems to be her upcoming temptations, in Sansa's case we will always want her to choose this one specific tree of knowledge given to her by her gods-- and definitely to not seduce LF.

(But I totally understand where you're coming from regarding the Eve/Sansa treatment)

[Milady of York]

Here's the updated list for our Beauty and the Beast project:

a. Origins, History and Symbolism of Beauty and the Beast:

1. Origins of the myth in ancient Greece and Rome: Milady of York.

2. The tale in other early civilisations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, India (choose any): available

3. Medieval retellings of the tale across Europe up to the Renaissance.

3.a Northern Europe: Valkyrja

4. Psychological interpretations of the symbolism in Beauty and the Beast: KittensRuleBeetsDrool

5. Modern retellings (Villeneuve, Perrault, etc., and other versions the contemporary ones are

based upon): bgona.

b. Beauty and the Beast in Popular Culture:

1. TV series: brashcandy and Valkyrja

2. Films:

2. a Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: caro99

2. b La belle et la Bete: Lady Lea

3. Influences in Literature (Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Jane Eyre.

If interested in other works, they must be major literary masterpieces only): Elba the Intoner.

4. Music (musicals, opera, songs with this theme): bgona.

c. Beauty and the Beast and ASOIAF:

1. How what we’ve learnt so far applies to Sansa’s arc: available.

As you can see, there still are some themes available. If any of you ladies and gentlemen is interested, go ahead and PM me for details, please.

Edit: Updated.

[brashcandy]

Just a note: Valkyrja will also be working on the tv series analysis :)

[wonder1859]

Here's the updated list for our Beauty and the Beast project:

1. TV series: brashcandy and wonder1859

While I'm very much looking forward to adding to the discussion when it reaches this point, I'm not comfortable being listed as a major contributor to this theme. I simply can't guarantee I'll have the time such a project would require.

[brashcandy]

While I'm very much looking forward to adding to the discussion when it reaches this point, I'm not comfortable being listed as a major contributor to this theme. I simply can't guarantee I'll have the time such a project would require.

Oh not to worry :) Valkyrja and I will take the lead, but the plan was always to just discuss any pertinent similarities we came across.

If someone else wants to look at a specific topic relating to the tv show, they're welcome to do so.

[wonder1859]

Oh not to worry :) Valkyrja and I will take the lead, but the plan was always to just discuss any pertinent similarities we came across.

Cool! Thanks. :)

[wonder1859]

Woot, I just became a Freerider! :cheers:

[Queen of Winter]

Following on from the Adam and Eve symbolism, doesn't Cersei slot in very well as Lilith? She is Sansa's predecessor in many ways, and even advises her on her role, she is the voice of experience. Lilith's big crime was disobedience, and some state, from wanting to have sex on top (heaven forbid :eek: ), and Cersei follows on in this tradition, by transgressing sexual boundaries of her own. She is even a child eater! The line about licking Robert's heirs from her fingers is very Lilith-esque. I think this just strengthens the correlation of Sansa as Eve, the second, more perfect form of woman, who brings destruction down anyway, though innocent where her predecessor was monstrous.

I was thinking the same thing! :thumbsup:

An interesting parallel might also be of Cersei to the Lamia in Greek myth, where at one point it is said "she was "cursed" to never be able to shut her eyes so that she would forever obsess over her dead children."

Look at Cersei's reaction to Joff's death.....and does it also herald a belief that something might also happen to Tommen and Myrcella? (I know many people on the forum seem to think so).

[bgona]

Great job! Even I do not agree with all, it makes me think.

A question I wish to raise here: Is Sweetrobin really and truly that sick? I am inclined to say "no." Perhaps the shaking sickness is genuine, but I am looking more at a combination of Munchhausen's-by-proxy, utter coddling and a very unhealthy upbringing with no good food, exercise or social stimulation. I think you could take a perfectly healthy kid and make him sick by bringing him up the way Lysa brought up Sweetrobin.

I believe that he is really sick. We don´t know right now which exact disease he has. But he has one. It can be a neurological one (most possible). The main problem is the lack of heirs at the Vale (it is known). He has this disease (being the epilepsy just a sympton) and we (readers) don´t know how long he will be able to life. Neither people around him.

Also the problem is his personallity. Lysa spoilt him. Not by breasfeeding, but by not setting the boundaries, the limits. She teaches him that he decided if a man fly or not, but not the consequences of decisions and the responsability.

I am convinced that one of Sansa's roles with regards to Sweetrobin is to demonstrate that he is a perfectly healthy child. Already Bronze Yohn wanted to foster him and spoke of Sweetrobin being brought up with other boys his age and in a more wholesome environment. Petyr said no, and as we readers know is slowly poisoning the child to death.

Yes, in fact, he is doing it. With this act he demostrates that he doesn´t care for SR, he doesn´t believe SR will live longer, and that he is planning to keep the Vale power thru Sansa-Harry marriage.

But now Lysa is dead and Sansa aka "Alayne" is in charge. When Sweetrobin petulantly demands lemon cakes (and I'll come back to this later) and in general acts like a bratty toddler, Sansa thinks to herself that she'd like to spank him. Who wouldn't? I don't think she wants to harm him, just make him behave. I'm sure Ned spanked the Stark children more than once. Then we see Sansa coaxing SR into taking a bath and letting her cut his long-neglected hair. Sansa as new mother figure is kind, but not putting up with nonsense. Sansa is old enough to have seen Catelyn take care of Bran and Rickon and she may have helped her on occasion.

They can´t spank him. He will convulse (remember that in that convulsions he looses sphincters control). But there are another kind of punishment that can be used. And there is where they fall to teach him.

SR seems to have transferred his feelings for his mother to Sansa - who not only resembles Lysa but is now the closest thing he has to a mother (even though his own mother wanted him and Sansa to marry; more on that later). "I want Alayne!" he says when he gets ready to ride down the mountain. He even crawls into Sansa's bed to try to nurse off of her. I know, ick! But no doubt he has slept with Lysa his whole entire life and that is what he is used to doing with his own mother, so why not with his substitute mother?

In fact Sansa explaines that he slept with his mother until her marriage with Petyr. After SR went searching a bed to sleep with, until he ended up at "Alayne". She expresses the two main factors why she doesn´t like: his habbit of sucking her breast and that he relaxs sphincters at bed, so she wakes up wet.

I see Sansa's helping SR over the narrow stone saddle as a foreshadowing of her helping him out of a perilous situation. Whether she will save his life herself or merely alert Bronze Yohn Royce or some other powerful lord to the danger and manage to have SR put in his charge, I do not know. But SR is now in peril (from Petyr); Sansa is also in peril partly from Petyr; but Sansa managed to get both SR and herself across the stone saddle. The fact that she says "I couldn't have done it without brave Ser Sweetrobin" makes me wonder if helping him will be a catalyst toward her regaining her own freedom.

I totally agree that Sansa demostrates a great courage coming dawn from the Nest with SR. She manages him with a lot of intelligence and empathy. She knows when he is going to have a convulsion.

But I must say that she does the going down easily for her because she is in charge of him. The only way of explaining this that I have is by my personal experiences. I´m afraid of deep water (not swimmingpools), since childhood. I won´t jump from a boat at the sea, less when I am with my daughter or another child wants to go to the shore and there is not another one to go with. At that cases I will jump and swim with them. First I don´t want to transfer my fears to my daughter. Second I will go with the child and I will be encouraging him all the time and even helping him. These personal experiences makes me realize that you can forget your fears when you are concentrate in taking care of another, or when you are really focus in another thing. In my case: helping the children. In Sansa case: to go down to the Moon Door at time with SR not having an attack in the way (or at least having it at the least dangerous place). She is able to forget herself.

I want to close out this Part I of my Sweetrobin analysis with some links between Sansa and Sweetrobin: Birds, lemoncakes and stories.

A robin is a bird; in fact, in the US, "Robin" brings to mind more the bird than the name. (Also, the name Robin in the US is a girl's name and refers to the bird; it is never used for a boy as diminutive of "Robert.") Sansa is "Little Bird," Robert Arryn is "Sweetrobin."

The morning before they are supposed to come down from the Eyrie, Sweetrobin demands lemon cakes. We all know what Sansa's favorite food is. I don't think it's a coincidence that both love lemon cakes.

Sweetrobin loves hearing stories about gallant knights and so on - the same kind of songs Sansa used to love.

I love that you bring out that robin is another bird. I had forget that (reading at spanish you lose it).

Edit: grammar mistakes (sure a lot more)

[Caro99]

Great analysis KittensRuleBeetsDrool!!

You made me realize that LF’s sly words regarding Sweetrobin in a particular issue had managed to fool me all this time: that the Lords Declarants don’t have a problem with having Robert as heir to the Vale.

Anyways, we can really see hints of a grown up Sansa as she cares for her cousin. There’s the mother association of course, as well as how brave she was at crossing that stone bridge thing as they descended the Eyrie as she encouraged SR to be brave for her. But there’s also how she indeed would want to have him around to “keep her a little less on the meat market.”

I agree with you that George hasn’t read so far any of her chapters from the next book because it would just put many theories we’ve had for years at bay, since I believe that in Sansa’s first chapter in Winds, a lot of things will be set on the table, like her take on this marriage with Harry, the demise of her little cousin, and her possible alliances or friendships with Mya Stone and maybe Myranda.

--

Oh and I just wanted to say that all these talkabout Adam&Eve/Forbidden fruit/LF reminded me of the time in the FPtP threasds were we explored Sansa’s chapter at the Fingers and came up with all these sexual symbolism regarding the fruit that LF and Sansa were eating, and how by Sansa refusing the (was it a pomegranate?) Petyr offered her, then it could mean good things for her in the future, and how it was curious that in was in that same chapter that Sansa had her first “erotic” dream and learned the meaning of what truly singing for a man is.

[Milady of York]

Many thanks for such an insightful analysis, Kitten:

This bit caught my attention, because you've been considering the same ideas regarding Sweetrobin's health I had been toying with when I first met him in the books:

A question I wish to raise here: Is Sweetrobin really and truly that sick? I am inclined to say "no." Perhaps the shaking sickness is genuine, but I am looking more at a combination of Munchhausen's-by-proxy, utter coddling and a very unhealthy upbringing with no good food, exercise or social stimulation. I think you could take a perfectly healthy kid and make him sick by bringing him up the way Lysa brought up Sweetrobin.

.....

I am convinced that one of Sansa's roles with regards to Sweetrobin is to demonstrate that he is a perfectly healthy child.

I also thought of Munchausen at first, but later ruled it out after examining the DSM-IV syptomatology. I just found it too problematic to apply to this specific case. And I also thought about the possibility that Sweetrobin was born prematurely, which would account for his smallness and fragility. But after much thinking, I'm inclined to say there's more that points to another possibility: benign infantile epilepsy, of the subtype more common in boys aged 4-10, that has really good long-term prognosis and usually doesn't preclude children from leading active and normal lives if they're taken care of properly, which Lysa wasn't doing quite well due to overprotectiveness: exercise, nutrition, medicines to control seizures when necessary, social stimulation, and not much more, for the great majority grow out of it before hitting adolescence. I think the fact that Sweetrobin sought his mum and Sansa in the night may be another clue pointing to this specific illness, for children suffering from it usually tend to have seizures in the night, and some are prone to night terrors as well. Sansa, by providing an healthier and less constricted environment for her cousin, would help him overcome this particular sickness in time, and "healthier" includes that a certain short man with a mockingbird as a sigil should be out of the picture.

[bgona]

I didn´t know that SR was premature. Oh! I have miss that point!!

I´m really sensitive about prematures and I don´t believe his disease is related to that. Depending on which week the child is born more or less organs will be affected. Or if it is at the last weeks you can have non organ affect. I don´t believe that the neurological problem that SR has developed is related to being premature. (A point favor to breastfeeding is related to premature children).

I must say that SR has been like a puzzle to me. I had even ask friends that works at neurological departments. And there is a 40-50% of still having epylepsy after adolescence.

[Elba the Intoner]

Great post KittensRule! I have been eagerly awaiting the Sweet Robin discussion to see what others thought about things like is Sweet Robin truly sick. I agree with you that while he is sick, I don't think it's something fatal that he can't outgrow. My take is that with the proper care he will grow and thrive and I am hoping that is what will happen now under Sansa's care. (I have more I want to say but I unfortunately have to get ready for a funeral now. :-( ).

Also, just a quick comment regarding Cersei as Lilith discussion, there's also the fact that in the books she is responsible for the purging of Robert's bastards.

[brashcandy]

Did any one listen to the podcast by Linda and Elio where apparently they've seen some one of the TWOW chapters and indicate that Lemoncake fans have a reason to be happy?

Source

I'm trying not to freak out :)

[Queen Sansa Stark]

Did any one listen to the podcast by Linda and Elio where apparently they've seen some one of the TWOW chapters and indicate that Lemoncake fans have a reason to be happy?

Source

I'm trying not to freak out :)

I read it twenty minutes ago on Tumblr, and all I can feel is pure envy. Why am I not allowed to read it?

[brashcandy]

I read it twenty minutes ago on Tumblr, and all I can feel is pure envy. Why am I not allowed to read it?

The only thing that can legitimately make Sansa fans happy is if she somehow manages to escape/defeat Littlefinger, and all that entails (no HtH marriage, saving SR). This of course would validate our central ideas about her arc and her path towards agency.

[lilenadheas]

Umm, could someone point me in the direction of the podcasts? I'm shamefully inept it appears :crying: . I wanna hear it!!!!!

ETA: Okay so I clicked the first five fifty links on google, first one looked legit, but it said files not found, so I went rogue and started clicking everything. Still no joy, and I may have a virus. Sad panda

[bgona]

Arggggggghhhhhhh!!!

I want also read it!! Jajajajajaja!!!

I missed so much a Sansa POV at ADWD!