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From Pawn to Player: Rethinking Sansa XVI


brashcandy

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Elba, that's great, I added it. :)

I added that Littlefinger was touching her, and kissing her, and the chapter ended with him wanting another kiss, too, I think that's important to know, right? I left out some things, he kissed her nose and he put his fingers to her breast and ...

Tell me if there's any more, or if I got anything wrong.

I wanted her to be more present, when I was going over it, I kept noticing we heard how others were feeling and how they were responding to things happening to her, but not her.

I used the wording pretty much straight from the book except I summed up her reaction to the Red Wedding as "devastated". That was told through Tyrion's eyes, she was sobbing unconrollably behind an oak door.

The last part of AFFC, after she comes down the mountain, was chilling, Littlefinger was all over her, and she was just going along with it, I don't know if I got that across, other than to show she stopped reacting as Sansa?

Also we can understand what that the unkiss means maybe ia little better if we see more of what happens before (she was thinking of Sandor positively three times that night before he came to her room, for example).

I left out some of their interactions, and also the part about the hound dog, I was just trying to present a more balanced picture of him.

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Le Cygne I think you conveyed much more about her connection with the Hound and also some of her more "active thoughts" so I think that accomplishes a more balanced approach. Also, I wanted to elaborate on my comment where I referred to the details of what was going on with the war as Sansa watches from the battlements. I said they were irrelevant but I didn't really mean that. They were irrelevant to Sansa's character so didn't belong in her section. If they wanted to put those details in about some of the pre-BBB maneuvers and skirmishes that could have easily been included in a Tyrion chapter, say after he sends the clansmen away for ex., or in a Davos chapter, for ex. the parts about how after Renly's death his bannermen went over to Stannis.

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Good, I knew it was you I was talking to, was about to reply to something else.

Areo Hotah, love it. :)

Another note, I referred to Sandor as "the Hound" because she usually did.

it seems that Sansa goes directly from this point to Cersei, but in fact it comes a few days later, on the day that king Robert dies.

I added this, thanks!

Sansa is conflicted because of her feelings for Joffrey. She thinks of going to King Robert, but he dies.

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I have to start by stating that mismemory is a category for a variety of cognitive processes that only have in common the fact that the recalling of an event is not accurate; there are dozens of types neuropsychologists have classified and each type is different from the other, has different causes, motivations and outcomes, can happen to perfectly healthy people and to those with neurological or psychiatric issues. The usage of this term is generic, and the presence of mismemory doesn’t necessarily imply the presence of an ongoing or future disorder such as dissociative ones; sometimes lapses can be simply the product of the brain’s struggling to keep trace of data in the face of information overload, or develop because people have unconsciously assimilated new information. Each type has its own explanation.

Very important information there Milady. It seems like a fairly obvious thing that we would have to distinguish between different types of mismemories and how they develop, but there's a tendency to read Sansa's as indicating some psychological trauma or otherwise evidence of her continued investment in childlike romanticizing. Given the events on the night of the Blackwater, I would argue for what you note above, that she's struggling with the information overload and other stressful factors, as well assimilating new information.

That said, Milady has to declare that, speaking as a clinician with knowledge of real life mismemory cases, GRRM’s depiction is messy and makes bloody little sense! Sansa’s mismemory doesn’t resemble a mismemory as much as it resembles a sexual fantasy. And Milady would go even further and contend that GRRM has taken an utterly typical and comprehensible teenage first sexual fantasising and passed it off as mismemory for narrative purposes. His lack of specific psychological knowledge is evident here. Of course, he has a basic grasp of the mechanics of the mind, but not accurate enough, and, besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he twisted some well-established scientific rules to suit his plotline requirements. The laws of genetic inheritance come to mind as just one example.

Agreed, and it raises the question of just what those narrative purposes will entail. For a writer as fairly subtle as Martin, he's been as "obvious" as he can be with Sansa's memories of the kiss, and it's only gotten stronger as time goes on. The first time it appears is when she's with the Tyrell cousins, young innocent girls, who are still imagining their first kisses and talking giddily of handsome knights. The last reference to the kiss is during her conversation with Myranda Royce, someone who is by no means innocent of men and sex. Given Sansa's attempt to push the memory out of her mind when SR kisses her, saying that day was done and so was Sansa, it seems like Martin is setting the kiss up to connect in some way to Sansa's identity and sense of self. If we think of the old fairy tale motif of the kiss awakening the sleeping princess, then it isn't hard to see how that translates to the similar functioning for the unkiss, re-awakening Sansa from her "sleep" as Alayne.

The UnKiss may have appeared as a result of self-imagination––that is: imagining something from a personal emotional perspective––whilst Sansa lay awake in her bed for some days previous to the first mention of the kiss, thinking about this episode and her own decision not to leave with the Hound. During those reflections, as she tried to recognise what she’d witnessed, how she felt about it, and incorporate these feelings into her new understanding of herself and her blooming womanhood, the image of the kiss came to be, and it was voluntarily constructed, not unlike any other normal fantasy with romantic components. Some may not realise this, because we aren’t privy to its genesis: when Sansa mentions the kiss for the first time, the fantasy is already in a middle stage evolution-wise, and looks like a mismemory that is replacing her recollections of the incident, because the author chose not to let us know about its earliest stage.

Quite interesting. I think that opening chapter of ASOS where she's contemplating Margaery's invitation, speaks to your point about how the unkiss could have developed, and the "personal emotional perspective" that was involved in its creation. I've always felt that this passage in particular was one of the most revealing (and endearing) glimpses we get of Sansa's feelings toward Sandor:

I wish the Hound were here. The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambers to take her from the city, but Sansa had refused. Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering if she been wise. She had his stained white cloak hidden in a cedar chest beneath her summer silks. She could not say why she'd kept it. The Hound had turned craven, she heard it said; at the height of the battle, he got so drunk the Imp had to take his men. But Sansa understood. She knew the secret of his burned face. It was only the fire he feared. That night, the wildfire had set the river itself ablaze, and filled the very air with green flame. Even in the castle, Sansa had been afraid. Outside ... she could scarcely imagine it.

Not only does the passage highlight Sansa's empathy and concern for Sandor, but we also have evidence of other things that cannot be explained to her rational mind. She doesn't know why she kept the cloak, but she goes so far as to hide it beneath her summer silks - not exactly a place where you would expect to find a bloodied, dirty garment. There's also her inability to quite imagine what outside must have like for Sandor to experience, but she knows that it must have been terrible based on her own fear on the inside. So a connection has been formed, and it's not one that necessarily has to function according to the laws of logic and exact understanding. Instead of a traumatized Sansa, the passage highlights someone who's been profoundly affected by an encounter, even though she can't quite articulate its effects. I think this has relevance for our appreciation of the genesis of the unkiss.

The interpretation of the episode as sexual fantasising linked to bodily and psychological development can contribute to comprehend this better. The stage of psychosexual development corresponding to Sansa’s age is the transitional stage, in which she’s no more a child and not yet a woman.

Then it was a fitting choice by Martin to have the first mention of the unkiss when Sansa is with the Tyrell cousins. At this point, she's happy to have friends again to laugh and talk with, but she's also realizing that these girls are still existing in an idyllic stage, where they have not experienced the horrors of betrayal, abuse and the death of loved ones. They are naive about sexuality, and haven't been properly kissed by a man. Like the later dream she has at the Fingers, Sansa has been transformed by death and desire, and is moving towards womanhood.

Sansa obviously hasn’t forgotten nor is trying to forget what happened during that night. But, why would she have a memory of a kiss that didn’t exist and with this man and at this point in particular? The answer might be found in the way emotionally-driven cognitions work. Dr. Daniel Kahneman often says it’s memories and not experiences themselves that we remember, and that the experiences we remember are defined by change, for they are new and have therefore greater significance. This expert says: “We actually don't choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences.

Just wanted to say that I love this idea, and think it's very true.

Now, did he try to kiss her and could her memory be based on that? We have scarce textual details to assert beyond a doubt whether he had that intention in his mind or not, but to me, his body language in that specific instant doesn’t suggest that he did. We have Sansa’s thoughts––for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her––yet this reads more like a well-known (for clinicians, of course) reflex reaction to fear: in a situation like this, men make direct eye contact to look for what the threat is, but women avert their gaze downward slightly towards the nose and mouth, which looks strangely as if they were expecting the following action to come from the mouth. This is due to women being more sensitive to the negative consequences of making direct eye contact than with what’s really going to happen. The only time when it’s quite clear that he did express a wish to kiss her was in the episode at the Serpentine steps, and she didn’t get the clues then as we can see by her innocent replies to his words and behaviour. Then, her fantasy is a result of her overall assessment of her interactions with him, especially the latter part of Blackwater, and that also explains why it’s evolving into more and more complex images as her emotions get clearer.

I would tend to agree with this, especially as I've never been quite satisfied with the idea that she's solely reacting to what she perceived to be his intention. I think it's the totality of her experiences with him, and perhaps even the ones where he's merely giving his characteristic rough advice - although all their scenes in ACOK have an underlying sexual tension. If we look at the chapter when she's at the Fingers, her first thoughts of him are connected to what he told her concerning the liars in KL. She values this, and as such, she values him as a friend, confidante and protector. It's not a stretch to see how this would create a sense of intimacy, of being able to trust someone, along with the other components in their relationship - hence why she thinks that Lothor Brune is him for that brief, bewildering moment. And since we're on the topic of how memory works, it is Marillion's promise to have her singing louder than the Lady Lysa, that works retroactively(?) to divulge the meaning behind Sandor's early statements, and to aid in Sansa's psychosexual maturation. Memory and meaning definitely do not have to correspond to a linear, rational script.

But bear in mind that for a mismemory to be considered as such, it has to come out of the mental realm into the realm of reality, otherwise it’s fantasising, pure and simple. Thus, as far as Sansa’s imaginary kiss remains in her thoughts, it’s only her imagination at work. We cannot say yet if GRRM will decide that it will develop into a permanent mismemory or will be dispelled either by herself or Clegane, but we do know that the developing of her sexuality that started with it hasn’t finished yet, and her fantasy has already started to disconnect from the Blackwater, moving on to another stage where sexual dreams take place, dreams that have the purpose of rehearsing attachment-related scenarios during sleep, to process affective and mental content from daytime life, and that, were this not fictional, should be already explicit at this point.

It looks like Martin is moving it into the realm of reality based on Sansa's response to Randa about whether she knows what goes on in the marriage bed. She's no longer simply fantasising, but is using the memory now to objectively verify her experiences. I'm definitely intrigued by where this goes.

In any case, I see nothing to warrant the odd speculations a segment of the fandom indulges in. It has no negative significance with regards to her mental health, and I haven’t seen any signs of a psychological disorder or a major cognitive malfunction about to happen as a result of this. What the kiss reveals to me is her psychosexual maturation, how she’s formed that connection with Clegane, and how her characteristic emotional expressions work, with all its strengths and failings.

And again, I want to thank you for offering such a comprehensive analysis of the unkiss, and managing to render some complex psychological theories and jargon intelligible for us laymen :) Considering Martin's choice to treat the unkiss as a mismemory, your reading was equal parts compelling and compulsory.

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I added that Littlefinger was touching her, and kissing her, and the chapter ended with him wanting another kiss, too, I think that's important to know, right? I left out some things, he kissed her nose and he put his fingers to her breast and ...

The last part of AFFC, after she comes down the mountain, was chilling, Littlefinger was all over her, and she was just going along with it, I don't know if I got that across, other than to show she stopped reacting as Sansa?

I noticed this as well. It's a hidden cliffhanger, really. The last thing we read about Sansa is Petyr promising her the Vale, Winterfell, and to be Sansa again - and then asking for another kiss.

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Very interesting thoughts about the unkiss Milady and Brashcandy. It was enlightening to have a psychological view of mismemory. I’m not sure if what follows has been discussed before, I apologise if so.

There are many types of kiss: motherly/fatherly kisses, chaste kisses, fervent kisses… they are a way to express emotions. A kiss is a mark of affection, acceptance and intimacy. It also shows an inner connection between people. Keeping all those significations in mind, I find it interesting that Sansa considers that Sandor is about to kiss her. At that point in the story, due to her blossoming sexuality and the sexual undertones in that scene, she could also be envisaging the possibility of intimacy with Sandor. Later on in the narrative, she creates a mismemory and has sexual fantasies about him. These could be signs of her finally conciliating Sandor and intimacy.

I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that kisses are forced on Sansa (Littlefinger, Sweet Robin). So I find the fact that Sansa creates a kiss that didn’t happen quite telling.

I feel quite corny now that I reread myself :laugh: .

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I feel quite corny now that I reread myself :laugh: .

Welcome to my world :P

Yeah, your perspective is definitely valid. For someone who's had her agency restricted and her wishes denied, there's something really powerful about the fact that she was able to create this memory, and that it's playing out in a way which empowers and emboldens her.

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Welcome to my world :P

My SanSan shipping night with my friends was cancelled because of heavy snow falls so you see, I had all these repressed feelings :lol: ...

More seriously, kisses in literature and real life are a turning point in a relationship and I think this is also the case in Sansa's narrative. After the night of the Blackwater Battle (the night the unkiss is supposed to have happened), Sansa starts to consider Sandor in a way she didn't before. With the unkiss and the dream, he becomes a sexual figure that he wasn't before in her narrative.

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Agreed, and it raises the question of just what those narrative purposes will entail. For a writer as fairly subtle as Martin, he's been as "obvious" as he can be with Sansa's memories of the kiss, and it's only gotten stronger as time goes on. The first time it appears is when she's with the Tyrell cousins, young innocent girls, who are still imagining their first kisses and talking giddily of handsome knights. The last reference to the kiss is during her conversation with Myranda Royce, someone who is by no means innocent of men and sex. Given Sansa's attempt to push the memory out of her mind when SR kisses her, saying that day was done and so was Sansa, it seems like Martin is setting the kiss up to connect in some way to Sansa's identity and sense of self. If we think of the old fairy tale motif of the kiss awakening the sleeping princess, then it isn't hard to see how that translates to the similar functioning for the unkiss, re-awakening Sansa from her "sleep" as Alayne.

Then it was a fitting choice by Martin to have the first mention of the unkiss when Sansa is with the Tyrell cousins. At this point, she's happy to have friends again to laugh and talk with, but she's also realizing that these girls are still existing in an idyllic stage, where they have not experienced the horrors of betrayal, abuse and the death of loved ones. They are naive about sexuality, and haven't been properly kissed by a man. Like the later dream she has at the Fingers, Sansa has been transformed by death and desire, and is moving towards womanhood.

I always read the scene with the Tyrell cousins as Sansa trying to find a way to gauge everyone's "level." Maybe this is a bit too game-player, but she can by virtue of things like romantic experiences, and the way in which the girls comport themselves that none would be worthy allies, or people that could help her out of her bad situation. Sansa could have been contrasting her "memory" with the present as a means of figuring out, "this is what happened to me, and it's a situation I was able to read into and comprehend, whereas these girls' idyllic imaginings prove they do not see reality, they don't look beyond what's there in plain sight or think about motivations."

I feel like Sansa experiences are shaping her powers of perception and she views people in a more heightened way than before, where she can no longer look only at the surface view but unwittingly analyzes the people she meets.

Geez. I felt like that made no sense at all. NVM, ignore the post. :leaving: Carry on. I am happy to see this thread is still going strong.

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I always read the scene with the Tyrell cousins as Sansa trying to find a way to gauge everyone's "level." Maybe this is a bit too game-player, but she can by virtue of things like romantic experiences, and the way in which the girls comport themselves that none would be worthy allies, or people that could help her out of her bad situation. Sansa could have been contrasting her "memory" with the present as a means of figuring out, "this is what happened to me, and it's a situation I was able to read into and comprehend, whereas these girls' idyllic imaginings prove they do not see reality, they don't look beyond what's there in plain sight or think about motivations."

I feel like Sansa experiences are shaping her powers of perception and she views people in a more heightened way than before, where she can no longer look only at the surface view but unwittingly analyzes the people she meets.

Geez. I felt like that made no sense at all. NVM, ignore the post. :leaving: Carry on. I am happy to see this thread is still going strong.

Haha, no no you made sense LC, and it's good to see you here again. :) I agree that her experiences are shaping her perceptions and helping her to become a lot more analytical. This is something we've noted in the past particularly with the unconventional women she's been introduced to, and the alternative lifestyles and options available to women. With regard to that scene with the Tyrell cousins, it's always struck me as very bittersweet. There's her own awareness of her experience and maturity, and a nostalgia for what she's lost.

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It is now confirmed that Sandor fell for Sansa pretty much the moment he saw her. *awww* :D \

*Ewww* She was a kid! :D

About mismemory: in Tolstoy's War and Peace there is a more trivial but similar instance. Sonja and Natasha are playing at 'casting a spell' with a mirror to see their faith (or some such thing) and Sonja sees nothing but not wishing to admit it starts making a fuss anyway and tells a story about seeing something pink.

Some time later Natasha's lover Andrej is wounded and Sonja remembers 'seeing all of it' in the mirror. She now remembers all the details that she has never seen.

There is a distinct lack of literary critics claiming Sonja is insane, though!

[Maybe I misremembered the names, but the incident is there in the books]

Off topic: I am thinking about Sansa and needlework and I have reached the conclusion that she doesn't like embroidery. She is good at it, but on the other hand she is good at riding horses and doesn't like that either.

Contrast to music: Jon remembers her singing, Arya says she can play harp and bells, she cried when that bard wanted to leave, she wanted music lessons etc. With embroidery we only have Arya remarking on it (I think) and that because of Septa Mordaine.

I was thinking about the age when Sansa might have started to embroider in order to consider how long she has done it - at least three years and we are not shown a stitch. f1

We never see her contemplating embroidery as something she might do. We never see anything she made but we see a dress Catelyn embroidered for Arya. If Martin wanted to make her skill in embroidery count than there were numerous occasions for him to simply insert it: covering Bran's legs with a blanket she decorated, resting him on embroidered cushions, Catelyn could have something she made, Sansa could embroider to while away the hours...

This lack of showing her work devalues Sansa as a character.

f1

But that lead me to remember the trouble I had with embroidery at the ripe age of 10! => wtf is Septa Mordaine saying Arya has the hands of a blacksmith at the age of 8? I bet she didn't even start her with coarse wool and linen but went straight to fine silken (slippery) threads!

Worst. Septa. Ever.

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About mismemory: in Tolstoy's War and Peace there is a more trivial but similar instance. Sonja and Natasha are playing at 'casting a spell' with a mirror to see their faith (or some such thing) and Sonja sees nothing but not wishing to admit it starts making a fuss anyway and tells a story about seeing something pink.

Reminds me of this:

"I had a dream that Joffrey would be the one to take the white hart," she said. It had been more of a wish, actually, but it sounded better to call it a dream. Everyone knew that dreams were prophetic. White harts were supposed to be very magical, and in her heart she knew her gallant prince was worthier than his drunken father.

And with that said, I'm going to to Foreshadowing thread because I just realized something. :idea:

Sansa might be a tad prophetic.

But that lead me to remember the trouble I had with embroidery at the ripe age of 10! => wtf is Septa Mordaine saying Arya has the hands of a blacksmith at the age of 8? I bet she didn't even start her with coarse wool and linen but went straight to fine silken (slippery) threads!

Worst. Septa. Ever.

Impossibly high standards ? Maybe the Septa was part Tarly or something.

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I just found that, having had an early start at my workday:

This is Sansa for me:

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/305926/1/Lucretia-A-Fragment.jpg

Something for Sansa fans and those among you who love beautiful things like I do.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Hemessen,_Jan_Sanders_van_-_Tarquin_et_Lucretia.jpg

And this is where it comes from, another version by Jan Sanders van Hemessen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Sanders_van_Hemessen

Insert whomever you like for the guy, i guess you would choose LF though no doubt he is prettier..............

and interpret the painting the way you want, I normally do not post in this sisterly thread for fear of getting hateposts, so stay among yourselves. But you and me too will dislike the original meaning since the Lucrezia in this painting is committing suicide in the face of rape, definitely the wrong move here. (Lucretia Borgia did not commit suicide, she died at thirty nine after having given birth to a daughter.)

But the first painting on a wooden plank is just wonderful, those skin tones!

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Sansa Stark (italics - original from the app, bold - suggestions, used the wording from the books as much as possible)

Lord Eddard's eldest daughter takes after her mother with her auburn hair and blue eyes, but Lady Catelyn can see that Sansa will be even more beautiful when she comes of age. Sweet, innocent, and charming, Sansa excels at the courtly arts expected of a lady, and dreams of handsome knights paying her court. When her betrothal to the beautiful heir to the Seven Kingdoms, Prince Joffrey, is announced, she believes that all her dreams have come true.

[...]

snip

Great summary.

I've been thinking a lot about why Sansa gets so much hate for her supposed failings and "treachery" and I think I discovered something... (although no doubt somone has already thought of this somewhere). Actually two things.

[1] The first couple of chapters in aGoT obviously has a big impact on how we view the characters described therein. And we get two Arya chapters before we get a Sansa chapter. And guess what? Arya is super negative about Sansa. She doesn't hate her, but her tone is quite resentful. She feels inferior to Sansa, she feels that everyone appreciates Sansa more than her and she's basically being a jealous sulky little girl.

However. Arya's also a fun character to read. She's all badass like. And lets be honest, modern fantasy (and basically all literature ever) has trained us that the only acceptable female heroes are those that are basically Dudes with Boobs. If you wanna be a female hero, gods forbid that you try to be feminine! And you most especially cannot want to fit into society!!

My inner feminist gets super pissed at this notion.

Anyway. The result is that the reader is forced to view Sansa in a negative light. Through Arya's eyes, she appears to be a miss-goodie-good, stuck up, full-of-herself snob. And that's our first impression of her. Following this is the disastrous affair at the river with Joffrey and Mycah. This chapter influences the reader in several ways. For me, it was a shock. After the first few introductory chapters that portray the Starks as The Perfect Family everything suddenly falls apart. And because the chapter was written from Sansa's PoV and, more importantly, because Sansa acted the way that was expected of her (i.e., respecting her future husband... not calling her future husband a liar in front of his parents and peers etc.) the reader immediately blames everything that went bad on Sansa.

From here, a big chunk of readers discard Sansa and judge everything about her negatively.

But my inner feminist spoke up again and had me review all things Sansa. Most things have been covered in depth in this thread series already (like the male gaze and Sansa, agency and Sansa, the women's role in medieval society and Sansa...) but I think we've not really looked at the author and reader bias(es), and the effect this has on our interpretation of the text. Martin is a product of his time. He can't escape that. No matter how much research he's done on medieval society etc. he cannot unlearn what he's learned or erase all of our collective sociological progression and the impact it has on him. And of course, the same applies to us as readers. The fact that we live in a modern society necessarily influences how we see the characters, how we judge the characters and how we feel about the characters. Sansa especially touches upon a whole bunch of... controversial subjects. Despite the amazing progress made towards incorporating feminism in academia, it's not really something that's all that accepted by mainstream society. And I'm not just talking about "equality". There are many other, equally vital debates regarding feminism, gender, gender construction etc.

[2] In a lot of respects, Sansa embodies an "awkward" entity in literature. She's female and feminine. She's young. She's attractive. She's covetted. She's also master of her own will. Shes developing her own sense of sexuality; her likes and dislikes and fantasies. She has a brain. Plus she's super caring. And she's a heroine.

Mostly, females in literature fall into strict categories:

- the mother (caring, protecting, nurturing)

- the young maiden (beautiful, kinda meh, covetted, usually ends up a "prize" for some worthy dude)

- the wanton women (naughty naughty! usually ends up a female trickster and mostly doomed)

- the femme fatale (which is like, the epitome of evil for sure)

- the wise crone (ugly and wise, sometimes even intelligent!)

and recently

- the tomboy heroine (badass fighter chic, outcast, spends most of her time imitating boys, suffering from penis envy and/or disguised as a boy). Seriously like try to find a female heroine that's actually feminine. It's almost non-existent.

Sansa doesn't really fit into any one of these categories. She's unique. And despite how enlightened we all are, many people seem to have difficulty dealing with her, sympathising with her, and bothering to try and understand her.

So.... my questions to you, dear PtP readers, are:

- Did Martin set her up to be hated on purpose? Why start off painting such a negative picture of her, then moving to a slightly more sympathetic picture, and weave all these super subtle, deep stuff about her into her narrative. I mean, you really have to focus and put a lot of effort into it to find the "real Sansa". A lot of people have confessed to having thought her an idiot at the start and gradually warming up to her; but the majority seem to just not care enough and are happy hating her

- Where exactly is he going with her? We predict her being a pawn but would it be really surprising if she just "retired" (like disappeared from The Scene, lead a quite life alone somewhere)

- How much is he playing into our expectations and how much is he defying gender bias?

Hope this isn't too far off the general topic. Just some thoughts and questions. Don't know a lot of people who read the books and the few I do know are men so I'd like to hear your thoughts.

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I just found that, having had an early start at my workday:

This is Sansa for me:

http://www.1st-art-g...-A-Fragment.jpg

Something for Sansa fans and those among you who love beautiful things like I do.

http://upload.wikime...et_Lucretia.jpg

And this is where it comes from, another version by Jan Sanders van Hemessen.

http://en.wikipedia....rs_van_Hemessen

Insert whomever you like for the guy, i guess you would choose LF though no doubt he is prettier..............

and interpret the painting the way you want, I normally do not post in this sisterly thread for fear of getting hateposts, so stay among yourselves. But you and me too will dislike the original meaning since the Lucrezia in this painting is committing suicide in the face of rape, definitely the wrong move here. (Lucretia Borgia did not commit suicide, she died at thirty nine after having given birth to a daughter.)

But the first painting on a wooden plank is just wonderful, those skin tones!

Interesting painting Woman of War. I may be wrong but I don't think it's Lucretia Borgia. I believe the Lucretia in this painting is the one who was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the last king of Rome).

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There has been some discussion that seems releveant to P2P over in the best-written character thread. I got in to a sidebar conversation with Jons nissa and a couple other people on why Martin chose to write Sansa (and Catelyn) so unsympathaticically while doing the exact opposite with Arya and Tyrion. What point was Martin trying to make? And, is it possible that his feelings towards characters are influencing these decisions? I plan to *try* and put this in to an OP as this could turn in to some great discussion. However, in the meantime, I found these quotes from Martin to be rather meaningful, especially as I had not seen some of them before. I am sure it will come as no surprise to some of you that I'm a bit disappointed to read it.

(Chicago, IL; May 6-8)

At the koffeklatche, George said the two favorite characters were Tyrion and Arya. The least favorites were Sansa and Catelyn. (This annoyed me to no end, as Sansa is my personal favorite.)

Amazon.co.uk Interview

[Note: The precise date, beyond July 2000, is unknown.]

(3) Arya was one of the first characters created. Sansa came about as a total opposite b/c too many of the Stark family members were getting along and familes aren't like that. Thus, Sansa was created; he ended by saying they have deep issues to work out.

Amazon.co.uk:
You write children well.

Martin:

<snip>

The hardest chapters for me to write are the ones about Bran, just because he is the character most involved in magic, the youngest child and he is so seriously crippled--I have to write in that sense of powerlessness and it has always to convince. Sansa was the least sympathetic of the Starks in the first book; she has become more sympathetic, partly because she comes to accept responsibility for her part in her father's death. Jon Snow is the truest character--I like his sense of realism and the way he copes with his bastardy.
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I would say Yes and No to this.

Sansa is lucky that Tyrion didn't rape her. If it had been Bronn, or Ramsey or Roose Bolton, or Joffrey, no amount of defiance would have saved her. Tyrion did make the decision, though he desired Sansa sexually, not to rape her; and he deserves some credit for making that choice; because many men in his culture and class would have forced her to do her 'duty'. I still think he's a jerk for forcing a scared young girl into a marriage with someone in his family (the family who is destroying hers), though.

No, Sansa is not lucky. It is her courtesy shield that again defends her (she didn´t lowered as Tyrion required her to do it that night). Also by no creating any reaction to Tyrion (even if she believes him ugly she was still going to perform her duty as a bride). It is something that Tyrion knows that she will consume the marriage as a duty.

It is as if Tyrion needs a reaction (even if it is a fake reaction from a whore). And he showed that need at ADWD and the red haired young whore that was crying and he slept with her.

He only was a little magnanimus toward his wife, because he wants a nice marriage, but he ends falling at it because he didn´t take in consideration the true feelings of his wife, only his own feelings.

With all this, I must stablish that until ADWD I liked a lot Tyrion.

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