From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa XIII

[saryan]

Here are the stages from Wikipedia...hmmm ;)

Stages of courtly love

(Adapted from Barbara Tuchman^[27])

• Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance
  
• Worship of the lady from afar
  
• Declaration of passionate devotion
  
• Virtuous rejection by the lady
  
• Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue and eternal fealty
  
• Moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire (and other physical manifestations of lovesickness)
  
• Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady's heart
  
• Consummation of the secret love
  
• Endless adventures and subterfuges avoiding detection
  

[Beets]

Here are the stages from Wikipedia...hmmm ;)

Stages of courtly love

(Adapted from Barbara Tuchman^[27])

• Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance
  
• Worship of the lady from afar
  
• Declaration of passionate devotion
  
• Virtuous rejection by the lady
  
• Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue and eternal fealty
  
• Moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire (and other physical manifestations of lovesickness)
  
• Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady's heart
  
• Consummation of the secret love
  
• Endless adventures and subterfuges avoiding detection
  

I find this excessively amusing.

"Virtuous rejection by the lady" is a STAGE.

As is "endless adventures"

Bahahahahaaa~

Cheating has a formula, guys. The form a queue, now, and remember - no shoving!

Joking aside, Sandor has already been rejected by Sansa once at BBW.

[Valkyrja]

I got back a bit early from the gig I was attending tonight, so I thought I'd just pop in really quickly to see how things were faring here, and....

...Wow, some really wonderful posts on this thread tonight! Mahaut, welcome, and thank you for the description of courtly love...something we've only briefly touched on, but of course a very fitting topic for Sansa's storyline.

Also, my most sincere apologies for being an annoying nitpicker, Milady, but I just have to make one little correction (that probably doesn't even matter in the scheme of this thread so you can just ignore me): the York rose is the White Rose, and the Lancaster rose is the Red Rose. I just couldn't *not* say something, as I'm sit here looking at my flag with the White Rose of Yorkshire emblazoned upon it... ;)

ETA: Regarding Botticelli's auburn-haired version of Venus, it is widely thought (though never known for absolutely certain of course) that she was based on the famous beauty of Florence, Simonetta Vespucci. I am way too tired to do a proper write up on her at the moment, other than to say she is most likely Botticelli's inspiration for the Birth of Venus (amongst many other of his works). There is something very interesting about her story that reminds me of the ASoIaF world and of Sansa....

From Wikipedia (forgive me, I really am too tired to write it out):

Simonetta and Marco were married in Florence. Simonetta was instantly popular at the Florentine court. The Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano took an instant liking towards her. Lorenzo permitted the Vespucci wedding to be held at the palazzo in Via Larga, and held the wedding reception at their lavish Villa di Careggi. Simonetta, upon arriving in Florence, was discovered by Sandro Botticelli and other prominent painters through the Vespucci family. Before long every nobleman in the city was besotted with her, even the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano of the ruling Medici family. Lorenzo was occupied with affairs of state, but his younger brother was free to pursue her.

At La Giostra (a jousting tournament) in 1475, held at the Piazza Santa Croce, Giuliano entered the lists bearing a banner on which was a picture of Simonetta as a helmeted Pallas Athene painted by Botticelli himself, beneath which was the French inscription La Sans Pareille, meaning "The unparalleled one". From then on Simonetta became known as the most beautiful woman in Florence, and later the most beautiful woman of the Renaissance.

Giuliano won the tournament and the affection of la bella Simonetta, who was nominated “The Queen of Beauty” at that event. It is unknown, however, if they actually became lovers.

:D

[Milady of York]

Oh, yes, Valky! I got the colours mixed in my head, thank you for the reminder.

Edit:

I tend to favour the theory that Botticelli's Venus was an attempt on the part of the painter to reproduce a now lost similar fresco by Greek artist Apelles, which had the same title, "The birth of Venus." Therefore Botticelli did choose to ignore canon Greek iconography, which depicted Venus as a golden-haired woman. You've got to understand that hair colour held special meaning for the Greeks in regard to Venus in particular, to the point they rejected a certain piece of art with the figure of the goddess because she had no golden hair and ordered a new one that would serve as a model for future works.

[KittensRuleBeetsDrool]

Welcome, Mahaut, Arabella, Saryan and anyone else I missed! It's so great to have fresh blood and new insights. Yay Sansa fans!

Mahaut, that was a really interesting post! I'd heard of "courtly love" but had no idea what it was about beyond the knights fighting for a lady's favor, etc. Interesting that it was unconsummated; I wonder if that was to protect the sanctity of marital fidelity (and insure that heirs were trueborn) while allowing people who had married for convenience an emotional outlet.

Simonetta Vespucci's story almost sounds like Lyanna Stark's, except Simonetta's young death was of tuberculosis. She certainly was beautiful, in a way very like Sansa has been described.

[Ragnorak]

I'm particularly fascinated by this idea Milday mentions with the grain task and the ants as representing smallfolk. Looking at the various mythology/ASOIAF threads it seems clear that Martin pulls from mythology but jumbles it. This seems like an ideal candidate. Rather than the smallfolk helping Sansa, I see a herculean task of feeding the smallfolk through Winter. Margaery's love from the smallfolk originates when she arrives in KL and starts handing out food. Red herring or not, this brings to mind Cersei's prophesy in real time as we see it. (Somehow Sansa warging ants just says no. The Once and Future King was enough of that)

I'm coming up empty on the sheep and fleeces (gold? wolf in sheeps clothing lambswool from Snow Winterfell /shrugs?) task. The poison water fits well with the poisoned apple/hairnet discussion after Tze's Sansa/Jon post. I think the idea of symbolic resurrection came up then too which would fit with the fourth task. Remarkable how all these fairy tale elements fit togther and recur-- well if you conveniently ignore that mysterious second task like I'm doing now...

Love the Dog Rose catch too.

Welcome Mahaut wonderful and quite interesting post.

[brashcandy]

I'm particularly fascinated by this idea Milday mentions with the grain task and the ants as representing smallfolk. Looking at the various mythology/ASOIAF threads it seems clear that Martin pulls from mythology but jumbles it. This seems like an ideal candidate. Rather than the smallfolk helping Sansa, I see a herculean task of feeding the smallfolk through Winter. Margaery's love from the smallfolk originates when she arrives in KL and starts handing out food. Red herring or not, this brings to mind Cersei's prophesy in real time as we see it. (Somehow Sansa warging ants just says no. The Once and Future King was enough of that)

Interesting. The Vale smallfolk in particular would be better off than most, but their relative peace and security might not last long for many reasons. The Riverlands are definitely in crisis though.

I'm coming up empty on the sheep and fleeces (gold? wolf in sheeps clothing lambswool from Snow Winterfell /shrugs?) task.

I see you're not a follower of my "The Fingers will be important" theory :) Perhaps it's a bit literal in this case: the sheep on LF's keep are valuable ;)

[Caro99]

It's just wonderful to come back to this thread and see so many fantastic duscussions and new people who joined us!! A big welcome to y'all! :D Btw, needless to say i MISS the Like button so much :(

So...

Mahuat, that was a beautiful post regarding courtly love! so fascinating to read all the similarities between Sansa and Sandor that rank them on the shelf of Gueneviere & Lancelot, Tristan & Isolde, etc...

About your post, this particular bit caught my eye:

The ultimate trial is called assag (try in Occitan) and consists of the two lovers lying naked in the same bed. If the knight surrenders to his passion, it means he doesn’t love his lady of fin’ amor i.e. he’s not worthy of her. Note that fin’amor considers that the longing for the beloved is as pleasant as the physical act of love.

For many reasons, the scene that happened with Sansa and Sandor during the Blackwater was slightly diffrent of course. Yet i do feel it has this essence of assag to it, since it happened near and on Sansa's bed, and Sandor ended up not surrendering to his passionate state. Thus, it could almost be considered as him valuing her too much and respecting her enough to not sucumb to his passion. By walking away and deciding to respect her choice of not being a maiden rescued from her prison tower, it could be that Sandor's journey to become a better person finally began (though, it was coming ever since he told her about his burns).

As for longing for the beloved being a pleasant thing, i guess this could be applied to Sansa who just can't stop thinking of our favorite warrior. I hope that another important scene happens with these two though were sucumbing to their feelings is not something to be thought of as unworthy though (even if the whole world thought that it was unworthy of Sansa).

Saryan:

I guess even in my own limited knowledge of courtly love there are versions where it was consummated….Lancelot and Gueneviere (right? I get confused between the Arthurian legends I read years ago and movies I’ve seen over the years).

Since i just love the whole Arthur/Gueneviere/Lance triangle, i had to comment :P I agree that there are just too many versions about these figures, but taking my favorite one into account (The Once & Future King book, and it's movie version Camelot from the 60?/70?) i see the whole consummating their love affair regarding lance & gueneviere diffrently. in the movie they consummate it and to me it seemed it was for a time at least all perfect and it didn't give me a sensation of doom for these two.

Yet i guess the book sticked more to the courtly romance pattern since when Lance finally sucumbs to his desire for the queen (in the movie he is eager for it, yet in the books he is tormented IIRC) he isn't 100% happy about it, and thus their whole affair has a factor in it that makes me read it as if they just knew they were doomed lovers and had to live with it and each other's flaws.

Well, something like that! Now... back to Sansa with regards to Milady's analysis, B&B, more courtly romances... :)

[Ragnorak]

Interesting. The Vale smallfolk in particular would be better off than most, but their relative peace and security might not last long for many reasons. The Riverlands are definitely in crisis though.

I was thinking the Vale as a food source for the North specifically but the Riverlands are pretty dire straights too. After Aegon, Euron, and possibly Dany I'm not sure who will be safe through Winter. There were seven grains in that task if I counted correctly.

I see you're not a follower of my "The Fingers will be important" theory :) Perhaps it's a bit literal in this case: the sheep on LF's keep are valuable ;)

I am unfamiliar but intrigued! Do you have a link?

[brashcandy]

I am unfamiliar but intrigued! Do you have a link?

No :) Truly, it's more crackpot than anything and doesn't really have much to go outside of my sense that anything/place LF writes off so easily must have some importance. I am intrigued by the cave on the island though, and the slight possibility that Sansa could return there for a time.

[wonder1859]

<snip>

Great first post, Mahaut! Welcome!

[Ragnorak]

No :) Truly, it's more crackpot than anything and doesn't really have much to go outside of my sense that anything/place LF writes off so easily must have some importance. I am intrigued by the cave on the island though, and the slight possibility that Sansa could return there for a time.

I recall some runes marking one of the first landing spots of the Andals and that struck me as odd in a "this matters" kind of way. LF's childhood prophesy from that cave stood out too. Might have been "Aye. King you shall be . . . until there comes another..." or maybe "I see a giant towering over a castle made of snow..."

Dany's dragons have a taste for sheep but that's probably some wishful thinking on my part.

[brashcandy]

I recall some runes marking one of the first landing spots of the Andals and that struck me as odd in a "this matters" kind of way. LF's childhood prophesy from that cave stood out too. Might have been "Aye. King you shall be . . . until there comes another..." or maybe "I see a giant towering over a castle made of snow..."

Exactly, plus LF is characteristically dismissive of the prophecy- we know he's more of the "make my dreams a reality" school of thought, but I wonder if there wasn't a double meaning in what the wise man tells him.

Dany's dragons have a taste for sheep but that's probably some wishful thinking on my part.

Same here :)

[Ragnorak]

Exactly, plus LF is characteristically dismissive of the prophecy- we know he's more of the "make my dreams a reality" school of thought, but I wonder if there wasn't a double meaning in what the wise man tells him.

Ok here's just about everythin describing Petyr's grand estate:

There was one place where the tide came jetting up out of a blowhole to shoot thirty feet into the air, and another where someone had chiseled the seven-pointed star of the new gods upon a boulder. Petyr said that marked one of the places the Andals had landed, when they came across the sea to wrest the Vale from the First Men.

Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog. “Mine own smallfolk,” Petyr said, though only the oldest seemed to know him. There was a hermit’s cave on his land as well, but no hermit. “He’s dead now, but when I was a boy my father took me to see him. The man had not washed in forty years, so you can imagine how he smelled, but supposedly he had the gift of prophecy. He groped me a bit and said I would be a great man, and for that my father gave him a skin of wine.” Petyr snorted. “I would have told him the same thing for half a cup.”

Don't they pay the Ghost of Highheart with wine as well as her song? There's definitely some important parts to that prophesy he's leaving out. Clatto Verata Ni-- yeah, yeah "great man" here's the wine. I forsee bad things.

Weren't the Whispers caused by blowholes?

That's all I can eke out for your crackpot.

[brashcandy]

Thanks Rag :) It's not much to go on, I know. It does add some colour to LF's background, and I wonder if he's only dismissive now looking back, or if he too at that time valued what the man said.

[Pod The Impaler]

... in the actual moment of the Blackwater scene, all Sansa does is close her eyes. Yes, this is very symbolic and can be seen to signify that perhaps Sansa was not yet 'ready' to leave/be with the Hound. Nevertheless, she does reach up, *touch* his face, and sing to him. But the closing of her eyes happens because she thinks he is going to kiss her, and that is how she thinks she is supposed to act when about to be kissed. It is Sandor himself who misinterprets her action here as rejection; and after her song, it is he who leaves the room, tearing off his white cloak in disgust at himself as he goes.

First time I have seen this brought to light in this way - it makes a lot of sense.

She thought he would kiss her ? He thought she didn't want to look at him ? D'oh!

Courtly love/fin‘amor involves a love relationship between a man/knight and a woman of higher social rank. Usually, she’s married to the knight’s lord and is thus inaccessible. ...

In short, there are some elements of courtly love in their story but they are somehow distorted.

A good observation. Somehow I think this is the sort of thing GRRM would know, and then deliberately give us a warped version of.

'Courtly love' is probably a lot closer to Sansa and Sandor's actual relationship, if a deal more romantic. At this point, Sansa and Sandor haven't even had a kiss, Sansa is married, and Sandor is either dead or getting over his issues on the QI.

Well, let's see ... He loses her, and afterwards he must confront his sins (Arya / BWB / Saltpans) and go into monastic seclusion (QI) to cleanse his soul ? Sounds like it fits.

Even the stages listed afterwards in another post seem to correspond, depending what stage of the process one thinks the story has reached.

ALSO:

Can I just say this thread seems to race along at a breakneck pace ? It's hard to keep up with anything more than quick comments!

[Lady Lea]

Well since we don't have the like button anymore (still not over it), I just want to say that I'm really enjoying these posts, and I'm learning a lot. :) Very interesting stuff about courtly love, and Valkyrja, I didn't know that about Boticelli's Venus! What a great story. How did you learn it? I wish my art classes in high school were less about making sea-shell collages and more about history of art :(

bgona and I were talking yesterday and I think the stuff we're preparing about B&B is going to turn out really cool ;)

(Also: HOW is it we're on page 10 already??)

[Ragnorak]

If Martin wrote for the Beauty and the Beast series he must have played around with this archetype extensively.

Sansa has four "relationships" so far in the series.

• Joffrey
  
• Sandor
  
• Tyrion
  
• Littlefinger
  

All four can theoretically qualify as Beauty and the Beast. Two are externally handsome but monstrous inside and probably beyond redemption. Two are ugly on the outside but internally redeemable. I agree that Sandor definitely seems to be the Beast, but I would be surprised if there wasn't some playing off the other three candidates around this theme. The injured Willas Tyrell might even qualify as well.

Other possibilities might be:

• Jaime and Brienne
  
• Alys and Sigorn
  
• Tormund and A Mormont?
  
• Jorah and Dany
  

According to Ygritte, the Wildling woman's guide to avoiding murder and getting to that second date is Beauty and the Beast.

Those are the only non-Sansa applications I can think of other than to say that warging may add a beast element at some point though I can't think of one now. Not sure if considering any of these other possibilities will shed any light.

[Lady Lea]

Other possibilities might be:

• Jaime and Brienne
  
• Alys and Sigorn
  
• Tormund and A Mormont?
  
• Jorah and Dany
  

According to Ygritte, the Wildling woman's guide to avoiding murder and getting to that second date is Beauty and the Beast.

Those are the only non-Sansa applications I can think of other than to say that warging may add a beast element at some point though I can't think of one now. Not sure if considering any of these other possibilities will shed any light.

Oh! Maybe Dany and Drogo?

(ps. I don't think Tyrion is redeemable)

[Ragnorak]

Oh! Maybe Dany and Drogo?

(ps. I don't think Tyrion is redeemable)

I thought of that and decided against it but in the beginning he was every bit a beast to Dany. That should go on the list too.

I know Tyrion is on a number of people's "dead to me" lists, I just don't think Martin is one them. (personally after Reek and with Joffrey dead I'm open to anyone but Ramsay as redeemable though I'd need steep odds on some)