HIATUS. (ap)

PARALLELS WITH LYANNA STARK

 mark twain --- probably --- said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes, and i’m fairly certain that grrm said, somewhere, that history takes similar steps in asoiaf. it has been dissected a lot in reddit and tumblr itself how many of the characters of today can be paralleled with character of the history of westeros, their stories following similar beats (the case for azor ahai and jon, for aegon and dany, for aerys and cersei, and so on). it’s no surprise that you can trace so many parallels, and it’s no surprise that sansa’s story is able to mirror lyanna’s in many ways. i won’t dwell in much on these because i don’t think they are as important, but here are some beats as it follows: 

betrothed to a baratheon (robert baratheon // joffrey baratheon)

both find out the true nature of their betrothed (robert’s ‘affairs’ // joffrey’s execution of her father and further abuse) 

said betrothal falls out (lyanna is kidnapped & eventually dies // joffrey is betrothed to margaery instead) 

held captive in the south (dorne // king’s landing)

both reject their betrothed*

these may or may not have a significant impact on the storytelling, but you can not deny that such parallels exist. 

** i wanted to further this last one out because it’s quite an interesting one and something that was cut from the show which bothers me to this day. whereas lyanna’s rejection comes in form of a complaint that she makes to ned:

"Robert will never keep to one bed," Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm's End. "I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale." Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."    ---- A GAME OF THRONES. 

sansa never ever made a single public complaint of joffrey. in the first book she was in love, and then in the others she was too afraid to do so, but it is a fact that she was also betrothed to tyrion and that’s where she rejects him. see: 

His uncle's part went less well. The bride's cloak he held was huge and heavy, crimson velvet richly worked with lions and bordered with gold satin and rubies. No one had thought to bring a stool, however, and Tyrion stood a foot and a half shorter than his bride. As he moved behind her, Sansa felt a sharp tug on her skirt. He wants me to kneel, she realized, blushing. She was mortified. It was not supposed to be this way. She had dreamed of her wedding a thousand times, and always she had pictured how her betrothed would stand behind her tall and strong, sweep the cloak of his protection over her shoulders, and tenderly kiss her cheek as he leaned forward to fasten the clasp.She felt another tug at her skirt, more insistent. 

I won't. Why should I spare his feelings, when no one cares about mine?  ----- A STORM OF SWORDS.

now, the thing about WOLF BLOOD is that it is much clearer in lyanna than sansa. sansa, unlike some of her siblings, is able to control her emotions very well. you can argue that because she can do so she doesn’t have the ‘wild wolf blood’ but i, personally, believe that is bullshit. sansa isn’t less of a stark because she’s able to control her emotions, and she is CONSTANTLY referred by others and herself as a wolf. a very telling moment occurs in A CLASH OF KINGS, see: 

"For what crime? She did not fight her brother's battle."

"She has the blood of a wolf."

"And you have the wits of a goose."

what..... snasa...... who lsot her wofl...... has the blood of a wolf...... 404..... impossible....... i forgot for a moment this was a serious™ analysis please Forgive Me. anyway, lyanna has been described as having the wolf blood by ned:

"It has a name, does it?" Her father sighed. "Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."

now, it is worth noting that he is TALKING TO ARYA. arya is more often than sansa compared to lyanna, because their personalities are very very similar (both are quick to anger, both like pranks, both refuse the ideal of a lady, both dress up as men, etc). i don’t think that sansa and lyanna have many personality parallels besides the fact that they are both kind --- which ARYA also is btw ---, but their NARRATIVES are quite alike. please keep that in mind while you read this. i can not stress this enough. 

on the subject of KINDNESS, it is shown by standing up for the weak. lyanna does it my standing up to howland reed when he was being bullied by three squires. meera reed tells the story in A STORM OF SWORDS:

“None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. ‘That’s my father’s man you’re kicking, howled the she-wolf.”

“A wolf on four legs, or two?”

“Two,” said Meera. “The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

sansa stands up for the weak when she convinces joffrey to spare ser dontos’ life in A CLASH OF KINGS: 

The king stood. “A cask from the cellars! I’ll see him drowned in it.”

Sansa heard herself gasp. “No, you can’t.”

Joffrey turned his head. “What did you say?”

Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn’t meant to say anything, only . . . Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm.

“Did you say I can’t? Did you?”

“Please,” Sansa said, “I only meant... it would be ill luck, Your Grace... to, to kill a man on your name day.”

( ... ) 

“He is,” Sansa said. “A fool. You’re so clever, to see it. He’s better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn’t he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death.” 

and now, finally, WHERE THEY DIFFER: 

sansa hates riding ; lyanna loves it 

sansa embraces the idea of ‘ladylike’ whereas lyanna, like arya, refuses it

lyanna takes a very realistic approach to robert, whereas sansa, initially, idealizes joffrey (this can be swapped, though, because sansa never idealizes tyrion and it can be argued that lyanna idealize rhaegar) 

sansa would never play with swords, whereas lyanna enjoyed those 

weeeeee ye that’s it im sure there are more but i can’t think of 

PARALLELS WITH LYSA TULLY 

o boy. here we go. why do i talk so much. are there still people reading this. this is literally so huge oh my god. 

sansa stark and lysa tully have many, many, many parallels. here are the ones that i don’t think are quite worthy of expanding upon:

both of them have the ‘tully look’ 

their fathers showed regrets of things that they did that was connected to them (ned killing lady // the forced abortion) 

engaged to the heir of the eyrie (harrold hardyng // jon arrryn) 

they both fled king’s landing 

i don’t think this is quite worth expanding upon for the simple reason as these are very factual things, that the experiences don’t always impact them in the same way. the tully look, though i do believe that sansa’s hair is connected directly to her sense of identity, i’m not sure of how it connects to lysa. the death of lady impacts sansa in a completely different way as the forced abortion of tansy, and therefore i don’t think they can quite be traced as a parallel between the both of them. we have not yet seen enough of sansa’s interaction with harrold to know how well they will parallel besides it being a simple narrative parallel. now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the nitty gritty: 

LOVE FOR SONGS:

though much of it comes from speculation, there’s an argument to be made that LYSA, as sansa, was very idealist and with high hopes given their love for songs and singers. it is shown on cat’s pov in asos:

“I will put some words to paper, if that please you.” She wondered who Lysa’s “wretched stripling” had been. Some young squire or hedge knight, like as not…though by the vehemence with which Lord Hoster had opposed him, he might have been a tradesman’s son or baseborn apprentice, even a singer. Lysa had always been too fond of singers. I must not blame her. - A STORM OF SWORDS 

and sansa, in A FEAST FOR CROWS: 

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year.  An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he had left them, and begged her father not to let him go.  "The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,“ Lord Eddard told her gently.  "I cannot keep him here against his will.  You need not weep, though.  I promise you, other singers will come.”

They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more.  Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and the old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer young and handsome.  But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent.

i’m sure there are quotes out there to prove this point, but i couldn’t find them, but both of them were youthful dreamers, idealistic, romantic, naive. naiveness, on lysa’s side, can be found very much on her relationship with petyr, but that will be highlighted later on. 

MARRIED TO AN OLDER MAN AGAINST THEIR WILL:

lysa married jon arryn at 15-16, when she wanted to marry petyr baelish. catelyn talks about her sadness on asos:

Lysa had wept lakes the morning of their own wedding, though she had managed to be dry-eyed and radiant when Jon Arryn swept his cream-and-blue cloak about her shoulders.  --- A STORM OF SWORDS

and she talks about it on asos as well:

“They made me marry him. I never wanted it.”

“No more than I did,” her aunt said. “Jon Arryn was no dwarf, but he was old. […] I should have refused him, but he was such an old man, how long could he live? Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath.  --- A STORM OF SWORDS

sansa, on the other hand, did not want to marry tyrion, and had long been dreaming about marrying willas tyrell instead. see:

“Yes.  You are a ward of the crown.  The king stands in your father’s place, since your brother is an attainted traitor.  That means he has every right to dispose of your hand.  You are to marry my brother Tyrion.”

My claim, she thought, sickened.  Dontos the Fool was not so foolish after all; he had seen the truth of it.  Sansa backed away from the queen.  ”I won’t.”  I’m to marry Willas, I’m to be the lady of Highgarden, please…

“I understand your reluctance.  Cry if you must.  In your place, I would likely rip my hair out.  He’s a loathsome little imp, no doubt of it, but marry him you shall.”

“You can’t make me.” ----- A STORM OF SWORDS

i suppose there’s something to be said that both of these marriages were seen as solutions. one, was a solution to guarantee that winterfell stays with the lannisters, and lysa’s was about “erasing” her sexual past. there’s also an argument to be made about the sexual abuse in both of the previous “relationships” that they were in. lysa sexually abused petyr and sansa was physically and sexually beaten by joffrey. 

REGARDING SWEETROBIN: 

both of them have a very complicated relationship to sweetrobin. lysa, because of her mental illness (more on that later), projects a lot of her sense of value on sweetrobin (and her sexuality, but that, imo is not a parallel to sansa, so i won’t dwell into it). she’s a very lonely woman, and she suffered a considerable amount of abortions. for that reason, she’s very protective of her son. see:

“Don’t be afraid, my sweet baby,” Lysa whispered. “Mother’s here, nothing will hurt you.” She opened her robe and drew out a pale, heavy breast, tipped with red. The boy grabbed for it eagerly, buried his face against her chest, and began to suck. Lysa stroked his hair.  ---- A GAME OF THRONES.

no one, however, can deny that that relationship is very odd. it is not as most relationships are, and they’re very dependent of one another. there are great lysa tully metas around here, i can’t quite recall where the best one i’ve ever read is but it is quite fantastic. 

sansa, or alayne, after lysa’s death takes that motherly role on sweetrobin’s eyes. she, for him, is there to fill in that role, that void inside of her. 

“I will.” [Sweetrobin] cuddled close and laid his head between her breasts. “Alayne? Are you my mother now?” ----- A FEST FOR CROWS. 

there’s also something interesting to be said about lysa giving him life after so many miscarriages and sansa unawarely killing him by poison since petyr isn’t telling her what sweetsleep actually does. there’s something to be said there. 

RELATIONSHIP TO SISTER:

sansa and arya’s relationship is a very complex one. both sisters think of each other differently within the progress of the series, and sansa’s thoughts of her sister are a great way of analyzing her character development. that, however, is a meta on itself, so i won’t dwell on it for long. it is safe to say, however, that neither sansa or lysa had a very good relationship to their sisters, or, at least for a good chunk of their lives, saw them in a kind light:

“[…] I have known your like before, too. But you are mistaken if you think big eyes and strumpet’s smiles will win you Petyr. He is mine.” [Her aunt Lysa] rose to her feet. “They all tried to take him from me. My lord father, my husband, your mother … Catelyn most of all. She liked to kiss my Petyr too, oh yes she did.”

Sansa retreated another step. “My mother?”

“Yes, your mother, your precious mother, my own sweet sister Catelyn. Don’t you think to play the innocent with me, you vile little liar. All those years in Riverrun, she played with Petyr as if he were her little toy. She teased him with smiles and soft words and wanton looks, and made his nights a torment.”   ----- A STORM OF SWORDS

and, also in ASOS:

Sansa had once dreamt of having a sister like Margaery; beautiful and gentle, with all the world’s graces at her command. Arya had been entirely unsatisfactory as sisters went.

there are more quotes on sansa’s case about her views on her sister, how she, throughout agot, constantly refers to arya as ‘wicked’. throughout acok, she thinks of arya as either a symbol of what she wants to herself (being at winterfell, dancing, knitting and whatnot) and rarely thinks of her as a bad sister, except for the moments where she actively blames her for the death of lady. 

IT IS WORTH MENTIONING, however, that sansa’s views of arya have been actively changing. with her character development, she continues to see her sister on a kinder light and think of her with nostalgia, and not hatred or bitterness. this, however, doesn’t make this parallel any less worthy. it’s still a very important point of both of their characters.  

PETYR BAELISH (AND LIES):

i think this is one of the first parallels to be thought of when thinking of lysa and sansa. not only is it a big relationship in both of their lives, being the cause of why one of them is still alive and why the other is no longer. their relationship to petyr baelish is also very forming to both of them. 

there are many points of intersections between them:

sexual relationship with petyr baelish 

given a lie and taking it

petyr helping them escape from their husbands

creation of a web of lies as a coping mechanism, living within a web of lies all orchestrated by petyr baelish 

poison 

you know what these are? these are a lot of parallels regarding one man, so forgive me if i’m not going to explain it fully. forgive me if i end up just putting some of them as quotes. it’s been hours. i don’t know how many. a lot. 

i. sexual relationship:

He pulled her closer, caught her face between his hands, and kissed her on the lips for a long time. “Now that’s the sort of kiss that says welcome home. See that you do better next time.” ----- A FEAST FOR CROWS 

and 

Lady Lysa and Lord Petyr had the third-story bedchamber to themselves, but the tower was small … and true to her word, her aunt screamed. […] “Petyr,” her aunt moaned. “Oh, Petyr, Petyr, sweet Petyr, oh oh oh. There, Petyr, there. That’s where you belong.” […] “Make me a baby, Petyr,” she screamed, “make me another sweet little baby. Oh, Petyr, my precious, my precious, PEEEEEETYR!” Her last shriek was so loud that it set the dogs to barking, and two of her aunt’s ladies could scarce contain their mirth. ------ A STORM OF SWORDS.

i don’t want to dwell much on this because it isn’t a subject that i am particularly comfortable with. whereas the quote that i chose was not from this moment, lysa sexually abused petyr (when they were both drunk and had sex, and he thought it was cat) and sansa is being molested by petyr baelish. she is a child. this is in no way an attack on those who ship sansa/petyr, please don’t think it is, but she is still a 13-14 years old girl. it is still abuse. okay. next.

ii. petyr helping them escape from their husbands

on very very different ways, but escaping nonetheless. petyr orchestrates jon arryn’s death and joffrey’s death and the second one helps sansa escape from tyrion. quotes time:

“There’s no cause for all these tears.”

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears … but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us!”   ----- A STORM OF SWORDS.

for lysa, killing jon was a way to escape from her marriage. it was, in her head, a way for her and petyr to be together. and sansa’s:

“But he saved me.”

“He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. […] A bag of dragons buys a man’s silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel buys it forever.” He smiled sadly. “All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff’s tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw.” ---- A STORM OF SWORDS.

iii. poison

sansa is unknowingly poisoning sweetrobin whereas lysa knowingly and willingly poisoned jon arryn.

“Time will not matter if his lordship has a shaking fit and falls off the mountain. If my father were here, I know he would tell you to keep Lord Robert calm at all costs.” ----- A FEAST FOR CROWS 

vs

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears … but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did.” ----- A STORM OF SWORDS

iv. LIES LIES LIES

this one requires a bit more of explaining, so i don’t think i’ll be giving any quotes. there are plenty of metas around that talk about how sansa’s coping mechanism is her lying to herself, to make the story easier to swallow, to twist the narrative until it is less harmful to her own mental health. sansa dislikes lying but she is constantly lying to herself. 

grrm himself has said that sansa is an unreliable liar, and she is for those reasons. 

the web of lies that sansa creates with petyr -- in the form of ALAYNE -- can be seen not only with alayne. it can be seen, too, with the ways that she thinks of petyr. she is constantly talking about how it was him who saved her, about how, without him, she’d be dead, of how there’s petyr and there’s littlefinger. some of those are true, and some of those are creations of her mind to make survival possible. sansa has to be able to pretend to trust and adore littlefinger… so she rationalizes and rewrites in her head until she’s able to separate all that she doesn’t like about littlefinger from his seemingly good traits into “littlefinger” (the evil facade) and “lord petyr” (her “true friend” and actual “florian”).

it’s a coping mechanism, and it’s her coping mechanism. 

lysa, on the other hand, lied to herself about her relationship to petyr, of how it worked and that was, essentially, her undoing. because she created in her mind a love story between the two of them, where the villains were jon and her sister and her father who were doing everything to keep them away from one another. she created all of these lies that created and made possible for her to kill her own husband, for her to do anything, anything, anything for petyr. the lies that she created ran so deep that they followed her to the moment of her death.

“Lysa,” Petyr sighed, “after all the storms we’ve suffered, you should trust me better. I swear, I shall never leave your side again, for as long as we both shall live.”

“Truly?” she asked, weeping. “Oh, truly?”

“My sweet jealous wife,” he said, chuckling. “I’ve only loved one woman, I promise you.”

Lysa Arryn smiled tremulously. “Only one? Oh, Petyr, do you swear it? Only one?”

“Only Cat.” He gave her a short, sharp shove.   ----- A STORM OF SWORDS

the reason why she feels so threatened by sansa isn’t necessarily because of jealously, though that definitely factors in, but because she is such a threat to her lie. she’s cat’s daughter, and she’s the one that petyr is protecting. she’s cat’s daughter and she looks like cat and petyr was kissing her. on the last moments of her life she’s vicious to sansa because sansa breaks the lies that she creates in her mind. 

petyr is extra cruel to her when he kills her because of the “only cat” line. he’s taking everything away from her. he’s leaving her with nothing. the man she gave everything up for -- the man that may as well have caused the demise of her sister’s family -- lied to her and manipulated her to the very end. it’s cruel and it’s sad. 

FINALLY, HOW LYSA’S DEATH DETERMINES SANSA’S SUCCESS. 

if you’re not horrified by these parallels, you should be. they are quite scary, imo. the fact that sansa and lysa have the same coping mechanism (creating a narrative that won’t hurt them as much, creating a believable lie and eating it up) and that that mechanism is being taken advantage by the same man is scary. but i do strongly believe that lysa’s death, and sansa being there to see exactly how she dies, is what will make sansa succeed over littlefinger. 

because, you see, that murder, makes her much more weary of him than she ever was. she doesn’t trust him as much. she trusts him very little. she is, because of that, very aware that he has his own set of goals. and that is something that lysa did not have.