From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa XIV

[brashcandy]

Milady, those insights into Psyche's tasks were enthralling, thank you. I particularly enjoyed the comparative mythology and Jungian studies. As Elba noted, we've seen Sansa begin the first part of that hero journey, and significantly, she does so as a mother figure - in charge of Sweetrobin.

[bgona]

Thanks to all: Brash, Elba and Little Wing. They are beautiful (I haven´t watch before that one and I like how it sounds ;) )

Elba good point as Sansa begining the hero journey.

Lummel It can be perfectly and that fixes so well with Cocteau movie!

Also it seems to me that the helm is looking for a good master. Who more will wear it? It won´t be ironic that a "good knight" as Loras end it wearing it?

Anyway I believe that it has a purpose that Lem ends wearing it when he is one of the tallest (if not the tallest) of the BWB.

[Caro99]

*On the Symbolism of Psyche’s Four Tasks:

Milady, fantastic research!!! I learned a lot :D

These 3 points however are what I would like to talk about with more detail:

]Theosophy and Philosophy: She is a figure that represents the soul, which is in itself beautiful due to being an image and child of the divine, yet she is parted early from her parent by ignorance. And because of this, she must begin a long search during which hardship, disappointment and failure are the hallmarks of her inner growth, until she reaches a higher dimension requiring qualities that she brings forth as she completes the tasks forced upon her by Venus.

So this definitely sounds familiar! Not only because Sansa was parted from her parents at a early age and when left alone to fend for herself in KL, it was the beginning of a long journey full of trials which we can see have only made her stronger and capable of surviving the game, not only as a pawn who chirps pretty lies to please a mad psychopath king, but as a player who can outlive the ones we thought of as clever in the beginning, and maybe even win back the north in her family’s name, or help in that.

But also because before Ned died she was indeed a sort of image of the perfect child or like the Maiden, but in the course of 4 books she has grown so much that we are already associating her with the image of the Mother.

]Psychology: Venus is here in the place of the motherly archetype that gives comfort and security, but, at the same time, resists inner growth and consciousness (as exemplified by the manner in which she manipulates, bullies and infantilises Eros, who is the potential for love) and thus retards the normal progress of a woman towards wholeness.

First of all, I just wanted to say that I am glad something good came out of me watching the film Dangerous Method because I was therefore aware of who Dr. Jung was!

Again, we see i think a reference of a motherly archetype we can apply to Sansa, but what caught my attention here was the “But, at the same time, resists inner growth and consciousness (as exemplified by the manner in which she manipulates, bullies and infantilises Eros, who is the potential for love) and thus retards the normal progress of a woman towards wholeness,” because it reminded me of Sweetrobin, LF and maybe even HtH. Sansa is rapidly becoming a beautiful young woman, but she can’t openly allow herself to act like one in the sense of being flirty and such because LF is around, and I think she knows it could be pushing his resistance to go further, thus she has to resist not only his advances, but her own growth. The way Venus manipulates and infantilizes Eros reminded me of Robert Arryn of course because he was a former suitor of Sansa, and now she has to do just as Venus if she wants to get Robert on his feet and get down a mountain or eat his porridge.

I can’t see Sansa bullying LF or Sweetrobin yet. Maybe if she were to become a woman like Cersei she could bully HtH, but that is just so similar a fate to Cersei & Robert’s that it’s too painful to imagine for Sansa. Since she is rapidly learning from LF, it will be interesting to see how she can manipulate HtH and maybe even Petyr himself in the next book. I guess she could also infantilize Harry as well when he is boasting about his famous knightly deeds, and Sansa can pretend to be in awe of him.

]Comparative mythology: According to classicists Juanita Elford and Ellen Finkelpearl, Psyche’s trials have some elements that allow comparisons to the story of Aeneas, Prince of Dardania, a son of Venus by a mortal lover, who after fleeing the fires that destroyed Troy, had to undergo a rosary of trials because he’d earned the enmity of goddess Juno (Hera), and after a long voyage that took him to Carthage, would finally establish himself somewhere in ancient Italy.

This bit actually reminded me of Sandor. Sansa, a maid of the highest blood and princess of Winterfell, could be Venus who ends up having a child with a mortal lover, (Sandor who can be “Mortal” due to his lower birth”, and who is a man who has fled the fires that almost destroyed KL. I guess he could be said to have undergone a lot of hardships and unfair trials because he won the enmity of the smallfolk mainly because of his brother and the house he used to serve.

Sandor has also undergone a long journey from the first time he appeared in Winterfell’s courtyard mocking Robb to the man he is now in the QI, not only geographically but physically and emotionally, and thus I hope he can one day establish himself somewhere in the ancient North with a little bird in tow.

[bgona]

Milady another insightful essay.

I like the ideas that Caro has expressed.

While reading it, I got some of my own. But I only can highlight them.

- First: Why is the spiritual travel of the woman? Why this difference from the man? As if a man has to grow differently than a woman, while they can be also just explained for both.

Task 1

- The name of Aegina brings to my mind the name of Aegon. Can they have any similarity? Some of the known Aegon?

- The sentence that ants are animals for winter makes me want to yell: Winter Is Coming! :lol:

Anyway the fact that "they accumulated a huge amount of grain" again makes me think about the Vale that have a lot of grain. The war hasn´t touch it. The North has been keeping grain, but less that they should have.

I love another sentence: "Olympians choose ants to teach them important lessons about love, charity, diligence and helpfulness when neccessary". That is so true. Where you less imagine you can learn a great lesson. Normally just watching people is where you found more. And when this lesson strike you, then you just can keep looking and thinking about the foolish and arrogant that you were before.

These lessons are all good ones, the kind of things that we barely see at Westeros.

Task 2

The Unification and Truth, the Wisdom and Strength of Spirit and the Investing of Energy can be associated with diplomacy.

The Unification of a treat or a country is due to great amount of diplomacy (if people wants to do this unification peacefully).

The Wisdom and strength of spirit are two things that diplomacy needs to do right its purpose, all without aggression (rams).

The diplomatic tasks carry a lot of effort and invest a lot of energy to get it done.

And also diplomacy has that dark side: corruption, that all person must regret but it is so easy to fall in.

Sansa is learning diplomacy: first from her mother, after at KL, and now with LF. But she must be aware of the risk of the corruption.

Task 3

Again here it is present the risk of corruption. This corruption is a "danger of losing itself (the soul) while preparing for transformation through spiritual death and ribirth".

The decisions that we take can be wrong or not, but they will mark us and change us to a better or worse person.

And now we see Sansa at the middle of that process: we can imagine what she would choose to do but we don´t know for sure yet.

Task 4

The sentence "after reborn must share this knowledge" brought me the idea that the temptations are not chosen and now there is a better person. That person must help others thru knowledge, but maybe also by other ways.

I can imaging so easy Sansa helping others (maybe one of her brothers) with her skills for diplomacy. (Just a crazy idea, but why no? ;) )

About descending: Sansa in all her trips is descending. Coming down from North, at KL where she was staying at the top of the Red Keep, and even at the Vale where she was living at the Eagle Nest and now has descend to the Moon Gates. But also she has descend from her high status and now she is the daughter out of marriage of LF. Furtherrmore, before she didn´t speak with smallfolk and now she is begining to do it (so she is also descending at her haughty concepts).

Edit: Just to say I´m sorry if anything of this makes nosense, it just my mind was running free.

[brashcandy]

Venus wanted to kill her, and so she did. She “killed” the old persona of Psyche by sending her on a path to maturity.

Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) has told his story in the epic poem The Aeneid, written approximately a century earlier than Apuleius’ The Golden Ass. In many ways, Psyche’s tasks are a parody or subversion of Aeneas’, for they go from the epic scale of Aeneas’ escape from Troy, his travels and his role in the birth of Rome down to the level of love, marriage and children.

I wanted to highlight these two quotes since I think they hit on the important point we've been making about Sansa's development throughout the series, and how it's explored through her engagement with issues such as love, marriage and motherhood. As we see with Psyche and Venus, Sansa's relationship with Cersei plays a prominent role in her confrontation with ideas surrounding female sexuality, gender differences, and women's roles in marriage; however, unlike the direct challenges issued from Venus to Psyche, there's a kind of warped interplay taking place between Sansa and Cersei, where the latter doles out "advice" on intimate experiences, and where Sansa is called upon to define herself in opposition to what Cersei represents and values.

I think it's important that unlike Psyche, Sansa no longer has any interest in being Cersei's daughter-in-law, and despite the necessary pretense she has to keep up, both women know this. It leads in my opinion to more personal revelations on Cersei's part, as she almost gleefully exposes Sansa to the harsh realities of womanhood, freed from the idealized and sanitized versions of femininity and Queenship.

[Milady of York]

Thank you, my dear ladies, for the pictures and comments. Those get the brain juices flowing...

I decided to include an interpretation of the tasks from the perspective of comparative mythology when I accidentally stumbled on a paragraph in a thesis about epic literature that analysed the exposure on the top of a mountain as a recurrent motif and its meaning. I find it significant that the first Beauty in history is the first and only female in Greco-Roman mythology to have completed a hero journey, and she’s portrayed as so naïve and so helpless that no one, least of all her torturer, expects her to fulfill any of the tasks, not even herself, because she tries to kill herself out of despair. Like Sansa, Psyche has nothing but her resplendent beauty and her good heart. Or so everyone thinks. What she doesn’t know is that she’s in her a strength everyone thinks her incapable of possessing, and is able to get help for herself, and despite the ludicrousness of some situations, she summons all her courage up and goes on with the tasks.

Hero journeys seem to be mostly about glory on the surface, but as Joseph Campbell says, its ultimate aim isn’t either release nor glory for oneself, but wisdom and the power to serve a greater good or the good of others, and for that the hero must leave behind, or overcome, his weaknesses, and he must suffer dangers and/or trials even if they are in a basically meaningless context, and because of them journeys like Psyche’s are transformative, a concept confirmed and supported by Jungian theory. They begin with the hero leaving home with grand plans or because of a tragedy, they experience a brief moment of happiness, then they lose all or are the target of a superior power’s ill-will, they must undergo labors that test their abilities and bring forth qualities unknown until then, and once they complete it, they are now on a superior plane of existence, be it as gods, like Psyche, or as highly respected founders of a new land, a new home, like Aeneas. Whatever the end is, they are changed persons, role models, loved and admired. They become a legend for their people.

This little girl, Psyche, was the daughter of a king, expected of life no more than finding love and a family. She was oblivious to the dark side of reality, that hit her in the face in the form of a goddess’ bad-blooded desire to hurt her for what she had not done. She’s resigned to her fate, for she knows fighting back against the gods is what a Heracles would do, but not her, she had nothing in her to fight back but her own sweetness and hope, hope that she could make the best out of her destiny. She’s heartbroken, she cries and laments. And yet, she doesn’t bask in self-pity, in the midst of all that crushing pain, she still thinks about other people, those who are mourning and wailing because of her fate and tries to console them. A selfless, empathetic girl, like the one we analyse and love.

Our little girl left Winterfell hoping to become a Queen, she was for a time quite happy, life was sunlight and roses and songs and knights, then her world was shattered and reality hit her in the worst form possible. She saw her father’s beheading, when most of us couldn’t even witness our parents dying in a hospital’s bed, she was beaten daily, she was married against her will, she had to hear about the destruction of her home, the deaths of innocent Bran, of cute Rickon, of young Robb, of fierce Catelyn… She was given to a beast with a golden exterior and a dark monster inside; she was given to another beast with a deformed exterior and an unpleasant interior. Both beasts crushed her and pained her. And yet, in the midst of all that, she didn’t lose her empathy and managed to have a hand in transforming a third beast into a human, figuratively speaking.

Why and how did she achieve such a feat? Perhaps part of the answer can be found dissecting this legend. Eros was the Beast, that’s true, but not because he was ugly or animalistic-looking. He was in more than a way the Jaime Lannister of the Olympus. Strikingly handsome, all gold, happy-go-lucky, cheeky, arrogant, charismatic, sarcastic and irresponsible. Sounds like a typical highborn boy, nothing out of the ordinary for gods or mortals, does it not? If you are thinking along these lines, forget it. Cupid was more than a pretty-boy mama’s favourite. No, the chubby-cheeked little ball of cuteness that everyone concerned themselves about is just the luminous side. There was a Lord Vader aspect to this Anakin Skywalker: his powers, immense powers no one else had and no one else could resist, not even Zeus, and what is worse, no one cared to teach him to use them wisely. No Master Qi-Gon Jinn for him, not even a bloody Yoda. Outwardly, he was a maiden’s and a goddess’ fantasy. Inwardly, he was emotionally stunted, immature, and had a frightening reputation.

After I read about classical Greek ideas about love I understood why Eros was a Beast. He was a force of nature, a capricious one, a destructive one, honey and poison, the source of all fire, of all that burnt bright, joy and passion, lust and yearning to its extremes; he made fools of mortals and immortals, he made their lives and he destroyed them on a whim, his or some deity’s. He was the son of Ares, after all, and like his father, he had the warrior prowess that made him fearsome in battle –yes, pretty-boy and effete Cupid was deadly– and wreaked havoc everywhere when he wanted to, he loved practicing “archery” on humans and gods alike, it was not difficult to convince him to shoot at whatever that moved, or order him to do that, like his mother and others asked him frequently, and he would follow that order with efficiency, never caring about what it might mean, and because of that he was involved in things good and tragic. Similar to Clegane as a saviour of a girl about to be raped in a riot and as killer of Mycah, he had in his hands a good thing like the love of countless couples above, in the sky, and below, on the earth, and he had on his hands the blood of tragedies and destruction. He was a complex, ambiguous “tyrant of gods and men,” as the great playwright Euripides called him, and because of that he was feared.

And, ironically, Love did not love.

“Unloved and unlovable,” that’s how Venus, his own mother, described him, echoing a certain Elder Brother’s words regarding a certain beastly beast. It’s interesting because even if both Venus and the EB know about the women in these men’s lives, they seem to underestimate their importance and how their feelings for them could affect their futures. And like the monk, Venus was wrong.

Because there was a girl who did demonstrate that he was not totally unlovable, like there was one for Clegane. She showed him a way out of his beastly self, she killed the beast by humanising him, by making him who cared about nobody to care about a bloody naïve girl to the point of defying his mother, refusing to make her miserable or kill her, marrying her in secret, escaping, and asking almighty Zeus for something that could never be done: to turn a mortal, with not a drop of divine blood (in cases like this, the candidate usually was a descendant of some god) into his immortal partner. But why Psyche of all people? Was it her appearance that made her special for him? Was it just because of her beauty that he set eyes on her, like some seem to think was the case in ASOIAF?

I must confess here that it was Beast that drew me to Beauty. It was Sandor Clegane who got me interested in Sansa Stark, not the other way round. I can recall with painstaking clarity the moment I became a Sansa fan, when and why and how. For very much half of AGOT, I was only mildly interested in her. Not a fan. Not a hater. There were so many plotlines and interesting characters that she just was pushed to the background for me… until the night he told her about his burns. I was startled at that confession, and began wondering why had he done that, then, and later again when I saw this man, ferocious, fearless, brutal, and so deeply hurt, begin to slowly break through his interactions with this little girl, seeing how he went from The Hound to Sandor to The Hound to Sandor to The Hound as if in a running wheel, until he finally is shattered and the deathbed confession takes place, brutal and honest, like him, and off-putting and heart-piercing, like him. I began to wonder in that chapter what was that this little girl had in herself that made him spill his beans and slowly want to be what he didn't even realise he had the potential to be? Was it the power of love to transform a man, like the Beauty and the Beast tale seems to imply? No, because love didn't "heal" him, and he didn't know what love was. Lust, then? She was so young at that time, and whatever sins he's committed, we have reasons to assert that sins of the flesh are not amongst them. Innocence? There are lots of naive little girls, Sansa wasn't the first nor the last he encountered in his life. Her beauty? She was too young and besides she's not the first beauty he has met. Cersei, for one, is certainly stunning. What, then? I wondered and thought and wondered, and then I settled on her compassion, her heartfelt compassion towards him. A friend called it her humanity. And he was right. Thoughts and motives were not so well organised then as now whilst I started to read her POVs with eyes wide open, like I hadn’t done ‘til that scene, but by the end of the book one thing was clear and got clearer in the next books and in these threads, this project: that girl had more in her than what met the eye; she had to, she’d made the terrifying Hound of all men go on his knees, tell her his deepest secret nobody but his brother knew about, and accept her touch, even if he snapped at her later.

Back to Cupid, the beauty of Psyche was a plus, the icing of the cake so to speak, not the main reason for his infatuation, either. True, she was extraordinarily beautiful, but Cupid was used to these, his own mother was a breathtaking beauty, as were all the women he knew and he was present in most of Zeus’ adventures with celebrated human belles femmes. Moreover, he himself had lovers before, some affairs with this nymph and that, yet no more than that. He had what we would call a technical knowledge of love, it was his occupation, until his mother sent him to hurt the girl he would fall for.

What, then? Psyche was the soul he lacked, a balance, the best part of his job made flesh, what he needed to balance his powers and himself. She had this innocent yet brave outlook, this good heart and preoccupation for other people, she meant peace and rest and a loving relationship, a home. So, when he saw this girl dreaming so peacefully, with the contented half-smile of those who had no reason for restlessness, he realised he could not follow his mother’s exceedingly cruel command to shoot the arrows that would prevent her from ever loving anyone and being loved in return (he had two kinds of arrows: one to love and one not to love). His pulse trembled. He disobeyed. He put himself in the place the real monster meant for her was to be, and because a god could not be seen by a mortal –it meant death and in some cases being transformed into objects and animals, that’s why gods who had relations with humans usually were disguised as beasts– he could not let her see him until he could present before his peers the result of the best part of him and the best part of her: Delight, his little daughter, the harmonious mix of soul and love.

And thus, ruthless and soulless Eros got to know he had a purpose. Over were the days of carefree archery and destructiveness without remorse. This was the first and only person he had been able to connect with, he was blunt and conflicted in her presence, but he was also gentler. He had small gestures toward her, like wiping her tears with his own hair, a sign of devotion and care in many old cultures (What does this remind you of?). And she, in turn, made him feel the same, giving the lie to his mother’s confident assertion that nobody would care about him. In ASOIAF, Beast has a pet name for Beauty… and in an interesting inversion, in this myth it’s Beauty that has one for Beast. Psyche had a pet name for this same young man that scared the living daylights out of everyone far more powerful and strong than her: mi mellite. Honey-Sweet.

This might sound laughable to our modern ears, but it´s very tender in ancient Latin and one of the highest compliments. Let me explain. Honey was the sweetest pre-sugar, pre-artificial sweeteners they knew, it was associated with their deities and was a prized food, and they used to compare all good things and even feelings to the taste of honey. Amongst others, when a Roman wanted to express that his lady was “the sweetest thing there is,” he would call her meum mel, my honey.

Need not wonder about how and why we got used to calling our loved ones “honey.”

This is the oh-so-feminine protagonist of one of the most enduring stories in existence; enduring and compelling despite lacking the grand epic adventures and swashbuckling quality so appreciated in traditional journeys like those of Odysseus or Aeneas. This is almost a deconstruction of the classical hero journey, like ASOIAF is a deconstruction of many traditional motifs such as B&B, its plot is so internal, a layer after a layer after yet another layer of psychological development, inner workings that have fascinated psychologists for almost a century. Such an achievement for a tale with a girl in a main role apparently more fit for someone like Achilles, and who apparently was not special if you stripped her of her good looks, but who got herself through such ordeals like a true Greek hero and humanised a beast! I disagree with those who insist that the appeal is the fantasy of reforming a bad boy, not in this tale. This journey transformed the journeyer as much –or more– as the object of those affections that got her there in the first place, for they both changed and matured. Moreover, the goal of a journey like this is never to transform the other but oneself, and when completing it, coming back from the dark caves of a dreamlike state akin to death as a reborn person, to unite with the ones the hero loved, mother with daughter, father with son, and lover with loved, and apply the knowledge or the powers acquired during that journey, restart.

We have our northern Beauty in the first stages of her own journey. Will the next phase of her story take her somewhere that might have an underworld symbolism to it? To answer that in one sentence: Gates of the Moon. Doors and doorways mark the descent to the underworld, a state of being betwixt and between in preparation for the rebirth. She doesn’t look like a hero, neither did Psyche; she has desires that seem small in the grand scheme of Westerosi realpolitik, and her goals aren’t so dissimilar to the ones the woman in the myth had, small when looked at superficially, and unheroic. But as a journeyer she has the possibility of experiencing and/or actively provoking a change in her circumstances –and others’ as well– by which she gets closer and finally reaches that state of wholeness and fulfillment that comes when the journey is completed successfully and the hero emerges as transformed, or more balanced and mature. It will not turn out to be like an Odyssey or an Aeneid, but like Martin himself said once, “everybody is the hero of their own story;” and this is her own, unique and unrepeatable hero journey.

[bgona]

Oh! Milady! I love how your friend express it: her humanity. In deed, she is the most human of all the Stark child.

And I just want to remember that she was defined as "sweet as honey" by The Tickle at the Inn.

[Elba the Intoner]

Beautiful post!!

Milady, if I could like this 1000 times I would!! This was so beautiful. What a wonderful thing to read first thing in the morning. Thank you for this.

[Lyanna Stark]

Brilliant post, Milady. I really enjoyed reading your analysis.

I began to wonder in that chapter what was that this little girl had in herself that made him spill his beans and slowly want to be what he didn't even realise he had the potential to be? Was it the power of love to transform a man, like the Beauty and the Beast tale seems to imply? No, because love didn't "heal" him, and he didn't know what love was. Lust, then? She was so young at that time, and whatever sins he's committed, we have reasons to assert that sins of the flesh are not amongst them. Innocence? There are lots of naive little girls, Sansa wasn't the first nor the last he encountered in his life. Her beauty? She was too young and besides she's not the first beauty he has met. Cersei, for one, is certainly stunning. What, then? I wondered and thought and wondered, and then I settled on her compassion, her heartfelt compassion towards him. A friend called it her humanity. And he was right. Thoughts and motives were not so well organised then as now whilst I started to read her POVs with eyes wide open, like I hadn’t done ‘til that scene, but by the end of the book one thing was clear and got clearer in the next books and in these threads, this project: that girl had more in her than what met the eye; she had to, she’d made the terrifying Hound of all men go on his knees, tell her his deepest secret nobody but his brother knew about, and accept her touch, even if he snapped at her later.

I wish I could just copy paste this to everyone who thinks Sandor's connection with Sansa is simply him being attracted to beauty and innocence. I've argued so many times that it's the compassion and the humanity, those are the things that formed their bond, and I love your reasoning here. It really brings out what makes their connection different and unique. Sansa is able to reach him just because she can offer him this that nobody else seems to be able to, or find him worthy of.

There is also second hand evidence of how unique her action was in that in later chapters, we see Cersei and Kevan reflect on him as a tool. A useful tool, but a tool all the same. Tyrion and Tywin seem to lump him in with his brother: a useful hellhound to let loose on your enemies, but nothing you feed at the table (Tywin's own words). Sansa, on the other hand, sees his humanity and reaches it, when everyone else sees him as something akin to a useful machine.

[bgona]

And Lyanna do you remember when Sansa was feeding Lady under the table?

I like how you have compare Cersei-Kevan and Tyrion-Tywin.

[ArabellaVidal]

Lovely, lovely summation and analysis, Milady! I don't think you've left us with much to add.

What you related about your interest in Sansa is true for most of us. It was that moment of compassion on Sansa's part. And for me, it was the roar that he gave when she told him his brother was no 'true knight'. In my mind, that was such a stark indicator of the Hound being the Beast to Sansa's Beauty that I was rather stunned. (But for some reason I'd forgotten that roar.) It was something exactly out of a fairytale, or myth rather than a fantasy novel told with gritty realism.

Caro, you talked about Sansa manipulating Littlefinger and I realized that Sandor was Sansa's 'hidden dagger'. It's really strange and significant that neither Littlefinger nor the Spyder have any clue of the Hound's interest in Sansa while they are all at King's Landing. For LF, Tyrion is the most significant variable in his plans for Sansa but in Sansa's mind (and Alayne's) that place belongs to the Hound. I must be really slow not to have got that one before! In my defense, I read the novels between April and July this year so I haven't quite grasped all the little things that this fantastic thread has already covered!

Where are the rest of the essays? I'm hungry!

[brashcandy]

Beautiful thoughts, Milady.

I disagree with those who insist that the appeal is the fantasy of reforming a bad boy, not in this tale. This journey transformed the journeyer as much –or more– as the object of those affections that got her there in the first place, for they both changed and matured. Moreover, the goal of a journey like this is never to transform the other but oneself, and when completing it, coming back from the dark caves of a dreamlike state akin to death as a reborn person, to unite with the ones the hero loved, mother with daughter, father with son, and lover with loved, and apply the knowledge or the powers acquired during that journey, restart.

Cannot be stressed enough. There's been so many superficial labels applied to the relationship Sansa has with Sandor, with the focus you noted on "bad boy" reformation, but when one actually looks at their dynamic throughout the series, we see it's about their internal growth, and the peculiar affect they were able to have on one another. Now that we're grounding their relationship within the B&B mythology, it becomes more evident how it's not just about any Beauty and any Beast, but the particular qualities of both that have made it special.

[PetitOiseau]

Was it the power of love to transform a man, like the Beauty and the Beast tale seems to imply? No, because love didn't "heal" him, and he didn't know what love was. Lust, then? She was so young at that time, and whatever sins he's committed, we have reasons to assert that sins of the flesh are not amongst them. Innocence? There are lots of naive little girls, Sansa wasn't the first nor the last he encountered in his life. Her beauty? She was too young and besides she's not the first beauty he has met. Cersei, for one, is certainly stunning. What, then? I wondered and thought and wondered, and then I settled on her compassion, her heartfelt compassion towards him. A friend called it her humanity. And he was right. Thoughts and motives were not so well organised then as now whilst I started to read her POVs with eyes wide open, like I hadn’t done ‘til that scene, but by the end of the book one thing was clear and got clearer in the next books and in these threads, this project: that girl had more in her than what met the eye; she had to, she’d made the terrifying Hound of all men go on his knees, tell her his deepest secret nobody but his brother knew about, and accept her touch, even if he snapped at her later.

I used to discuss Sansa and Sandor a lot with my sister a couple of years ago and that's what we both agreed on. Sansa simply being Sansa, a compassionate young woman is what got through to The Hound and got Sandor to come to the surface.

[Caro99]

ArabellaVidal, it would indeed be a great move if after all his clever planning and dirty schemes, he is brought down by Sansa turning against him, and if Sandor offers her his help i would not be complaining :D It doesn’t have to be actually killing Petyr, just ruining his plans so that everything starts to fall apart!

Bgona, this isn’t crazy at all!

I can imagine so easy Sansa helping others (maybe one of her brothers) with her skills for diplomacy. (Just a crazy idea, but why no? )

If Sansa is Rickon’s regent, he would definitely need someone skilled in diplomacy to valance his wild behavior ;D

Ahh Milady, as someone said above, beautiful- just beautiful and well-thought of post!!

I wondered and thought and wondered, and then I settled on her compassion, her heartfelt compassion towards him. A friend called it her humanity. And he was right. Thoughts and motives were not so well organised then as now whilst I started to read her POVs with eyes wide open, like I hadn’t done ‘til that scene, but by the end of the book one thing was clear and got clearer in the next books and in these threads, this project: that girl had more in her than what met the eye; she had to, she’d made the terrifying Hound of all men go on his knees, tell her his deepest secret nobody but his brother knew about, and accept her touch, even if he snapped at her later.

:crying: :bowdown: :bowdown:

[bgona]

Arabella It is the first time that I think Sandor as "hidden dagger" :lmao: . But it is true. Nobody knows about their moments together and less about their feelings.

[Lyanna Stark]

Cannot be stressed enough. There's been so many superficial labels applied to the relationship Sansa has with Sandor, with the focus you noted on "bad boy" reformation, but when one actually looks at their dynamic throughout the series, we see it's about their internal growth, and the peculiar affect they were able to have on one another. Now that we're grounding their relationship within the B&B mythology, it becomes more evident how it's not just about any Beauty and any Beast, but the particular qualities of both that have made it special.

:agree:

I'm actually not sure why people are so super keen on looking at it with such a reductive view. It's very often you see posters, even commited fans, insisting that it's shallow, cliche or predictable, when it's anything but. As we have seen through the reread and rethinking threads, the Sandor/Sansa relationship is raelly dynamic. It's changing and evolving on the pages. It strikes me as the opposite of shallow.

It's also interesting to note for the naysayers that a lot of their respective character growth takes place when they are parted, but that the connection between them remains.

Regarding the hidden knife scenario:

It is indeed peculiar that it is the one connection Sansa formed that is not mapped out by either Varys, Littlefinger or Tyrion. It seems to have taken place completely under the radar of everyone. Which makes it unlikely that it is a coincidence, especially as Littlefinger takes some pains to point out to Sansa that the hidden dagger is the most dangerous one. This is something nobody knows about, and what is more: the Hound is supposed to be dead. Not even LF knows that he is alive, or if he "knows" then it's probably either Rorge or Lem Lemoncloak he has heard rumours of.

It's also a connection formed of something that is unlike what Varys, Tyrion and Littlefinger uses. There are no ploys, payments or agreements of future rewards involved. In that way, Sandor is the opposite of a sellsword since we know sellswords will take money to fight, but they will not die for you, and will desert when the tide turns. In this case, he's already stated how things stand with his "A Hound will die for you, but never lie to you". He has no allegiance that can be bought with any currency that Varys, LF or Tyrion possess.

[Lummel]

I suspect that Sansa is the hidden dagger. If she needs people to assist her to move against Petyr Baelish, there is really no shortage of them. Who hasn't been tricked, disadvantaged or put at his mercy through extortion or bribery in the Vale? All that it takes to move one or two or more of those many well connected and dangerous people to move against Petyr is for somebody inoffensive, sweet and sympathetic to talk to them, show them how the dots are connected and how weak Lord Baelish position is in reality, quite how illusory his power is - just a shadow on a wall.

[brashcandy]

It's also interesting to note for the naysayers that a lot of their respective character growth takes place when they are parted, but that the connection between them remains.

Indeed. And it mirrors the B&B central plot where the connection between Beauty and the Beast grows stronger when she returns to her father's house and they're separated.

It's also a connection formed of something that is unlike what Varys, Tyrion and Littlefinger uses. There are no ploys, payments or agreements of future rewards involved. In that way, Sandor is the opposite of a sellsword since we know sellswords will take money to fight, but they will not die for you, and will desert when the tide turns. In this case, he's already stated how things stand with his "A Hound will die for you, but never lie to you". He has no allegiance that can be bought with any currency that Varys, LF or Tyrion possess.

Yup :) It's funny because LF imagined that by killing Dontos, preventing the Willas Tyrell marriage and framing Tyrion for Joff's murder that he had gotten rid of all the inconvenient challengers for Sansa's love or loyalty. Ensuring that she was isolated in the Fingers and the Vale was not enough, he needed to isolate her affections as well. But we know he's spectacularly wrong on this when it comes to the relationship she was able to develop with Sandor. Thinking back to tourney on Joff's name day, LF takes advantage of Sansa's visible act of kindness which spares Dontos' life. But this public act was only possible because Sandor backed up her story about it being bad luck to kill someone on your birthday. The true connection is between Sandor and Sansa, and he misses it completely.

[Lyanna Stark]

I suspect that Sansa is the hidden dagger. If she needs people to assist her to move against Petyr Baelish, there is really no shortage of them. Who hasn't been tricked, disadvantaged or put at his mercy through extortion or bribery in the Vale? All that it takes to move one or two or more of those many well connected and dangerous people to move against Petyr is for somebody inoffensive, sweet and sympathetic to talk to them, show them how the dots are connected and how weak Lord Baelish position is in reality, quite how illusory his power is - just a shadow on a wall.

Oh, I completely agree, and in doing so Sansa would also follow LF's lead and keep her hands clean. But Petyr knows about these people. He knows he has wronged them and he knows they do not like him. They are not really hidden, in that regard. Sansa may be considered hidden, but then LF is aware of her, too. And he knows that she knows. What is peculiar about Sansa's connection with Sandor is that nobody knows. Absolutely nobody.

To clarify, I don't think that connection is necessary in itself to bring Littlefinger down, since I tend to believe this will be Sansa's task alone. From the very beginning, she and her family have been the victims of Littlefinger's onslaught and she is the one closest to him and who knows more of his secrets than anyone, possibly barring Varys.

But it seems to me that LF, Varys and Tyrion were all looking for allegiances and connections between people in Kings Landing as we have seen in Tyrion's ACOK chapters. Yet this one nobody noted. Even Varys is stunted and sends out hedge knights looking for Dontos and Sansa, while Littlefinger rattles off a list of people she needs to forget, but Sandor isn't on that list. The only one who could have connected the dots is perhaps Tyrion, but even he doesn't see it.

[Little Wing]

I suspect that Sansa is the hidden dagger. If she needs people to assist her to move against Petyr Baelish, there is really no shortage of them. Who hasn't been tricked, disadvantaged or put at his mercy through extortion or bribery in the Vale? All that it takes to move one or two or more of those many well connected and dangerous people to move against Petyr is for somebody inoffensive, sweet and sympathetic to talk to them, show them how the dots are connected and how weak Lord Baelish position is in reality, quite how illusory his power is - just a shadow on a wall.

Do you maybe see Myranda Royce as a possible accomplice? Her introduction seemed important in some way and she seems savvy enough... and as someone Petyr wouldn't see as a possible threat.