BIG BIG FAN

Named after his mother. insane opener. this alone should’ve gotten him escorted out of the narrative. GRRM did not do this by accident. Names matter to Petyr, and tying Sansa to his mother is the first red flag of how deep the rot goes.

Daughter of the woman he wanted (Catelyn) so she’s already a living reminder of the rejection that defined his entire personality. Catelyn is the wound. Sansa is the scar that walks and talks.

His imaginary daughter with Catelyn this is where it crosses into Freudian horror. Petyr gets to roleplay the life he thinks he was denied: Cat + him + child. Except the child is also the girl he’s grooming. Cool cool cool.

A girl he desires now and this is where all plausible deniability dies. He is actively sexualizing her while insisting on paternal authority. That contradiction is not accidental it’s the point.

A replacement for Catelyn herself. Sansa isn’t just “like” Catelyn. Petyr is trying to overwrite Cat with a version that will finally choose him. Younger, more malleable, socially isolated, dependent. That’s not romance, that’s revisionism.

What makes it worse is that Sansa clocks this. She doesn’t fully have the language for it yet, but she feels the wrongness. Alayne Stone is her survival strategy, but it’s also her cage.

And the real kicker? Petyr thinks he’s in control, but this dynamic is already unstable. The more he projects onto Sansa, the less she resembles the fantasy. He wants Cat, but Cat wouldn’t play along. Sansa will until she doesn’t. This isn’t meant to be sexy, tragic, or misunderstood. it’s meant to be deeply unsettling. Petyr is not a “morally grey mastermind.” He’s a man who turned rejection into ideology and entitlement into strategy.

"Daenerys doesnt need a man to be the greatest" nor Aragorn son of Arathorn needed Arwen to make his character complete and compaling enough to become one of the greatest fantasy heros of all times..yet he has her on his side, sharing with her a love so deep and pure that she refuse to be immortal for him. Why Daenerys cant have someone that loves her this much and still be cool?

"Arya reject gender roles and thinks women are important too and she is wild and fierce, and she chose her destiny for herself and has no need of a man" and so does Éowyn the shieldmaiden of Rohan that killed the most ferocious, insidious and cruel creature her world has ever seen..yet she is not less cool just because she felt in love with Faramir of Gondor and lived happily with him.

"Brienne doesn't need a man because she's managed to get a place in society that is usually only for men, she's not a useless damsel in distress" first of all, Brienne would immediantly dislike you for think that the maids in her so loved songs are useless..secondly Galadriel "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-Earth" too attains absolute power, far greater than Brienne's, and I say this as Brienne's lover, so much so that if she would touch the ring they wouldn't be able to stop her ever..yet she is happily married with Celeborn. Is she less cool? I do NOT think so.

The idea that a female character, to be cool, NEED to be as much detached from anything it was once perceived as typical feminine as possible is already so disgusting that i feel like i am talking with alt right pro Russia father - that also pretend to be a feminist when spent the whole time at the family christmas gathering decomposing the chemical of my brain while talking about how much women need men - but to think that a woman cant be a cool badass heroine and still find love is beyond me. Who said that? Why men can have both but women dont?

‘Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy’s kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. 

If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her … and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

As the boy’s lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.It made no matter. That day was done, and so was Sansa. ‘

yeah, possibly. but I personally don't tend to take sandor's behavior during the blackwater battle as speaking of his true character because in that moment he was not really himself. he had an episode during the battle, which on its own is already enough to mess up one's train of thoughts. and then to make matters worse he goes and gets black-out drunk. but of course things are so bad that not even excessive alcohol is enough to numb his mind anymore. so on instinct, he goes to sansa's place, because despite himself he has learned to view her as a safe space.

so when he finally meets her in her chambers he doesn't really know what to do. a myriad of thoughts go through his mind at once. and because he is not a good man, thoughts of violence obviously also go through his mind. this paragraph is very emblematic of the point I'm trying to mke:

"I could keep you safe," he rasped. "They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them." He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. "Still can't bear to look, can you?" she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. "I'll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said." His dagger was out, poised at her throat. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life."

“I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf."

I’m not here to say that Sandor did or did not want to rape her (though I genuinely don’t think he did), or want to have sex or take some form of intimacy from her. But what the text is saying here isn’t an admission of truth, it’s a comparative statement.

Sandor fucking hates Tyrion. He’s probably the person Sandor hates most after Gregor. Going into why would require a whole other meta, but let’s remember that this man basically drank himself into his grave after finding out that he and Sansa married. There are some interesting metas out there that outline how Sandor believes that death is WAY better than suffering, and I think what transpired in this Arya chapter is a perfect illustration of that belief.

What the text is saying above is clear: Sandor believes that being with Tyrion is a fate worse than death. And him — an ugly, brutal, disgusting Hound — fucking and killing Sansa would have been better than him (unknowingly) leaving her in King’s Landing after the Blackwater, and right into the hands of Tyrion. THAT’S how much Sandor hated Tyrion, how much he’s convinced that Tyrion is the worst person Sansa could have ever been bound to.

Why? I think there’s a lot to go into regarding Sandor’s loathing of Tyrion, but I’m sure one element, at the very minimum, is likely Tysha and how everything with Tyrion’s first wife transpired. As readers, we know how it truly played out and Tyrion’s own feelings of guilt and sadness regarding it, but on the surface, from a one-sided vantage point that surely made its way through the halls of King’s Landing, Tyrion and the Lannisters brutalized this poor woman. And I’m sure that’s only one reason Sandor is so convinced that Tyrion is a terrible fate to Sansa (like I said I think this could be a whole other meta!)

whatever romantic or platonic Jon and Arya ARE soulmates and they will always choose each other before anyone else

Yes!! There truly is no other bond quite like theirs in all the books. I don't often talk about Jon and Arya because, well, lol lmao (if the person who keeps commenting on my ao3 is reading this, kindly leap, as Victarion would say). But really those two just bring me so much joy.

Do I think romantic Jonrya will happen? No. Or, not exactly. I really doubt it will ever be anything explicit; if GRRM does explore that thread, I think it will exist in the liminal—in glances, in quiet (tormented?) longing, in the unsaid. (And isn't that sweeter?)

So let us discuss in ambiguities.

I ended the other ask with: “Duty this, desire that—they always, always choose each other.” To elaborate: they are the reason the other endures, the reason the other is—not as duty demands, but as truth allows. They draw the other back from that inexorable death of self.

When Arya (as far as he knows) hangs in the balance and Jon is meant to be Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he breaks and chooses Arya—and thus, Jon Snow. When Jon (Needle) is on the line and Arya is meant to be No One, she breaks and chooses Jon—and thus, Arya Stark. They are mirrors and anchors. They are each other’s soul, salvation, heart (“What do you know of my heart, priestess?”), and smile (“Needle was Jon Snow's smile”).

And yet... they have changed. Jon is no longer the boy of Arya's childhood (“Kill the boy”), and Arya is no longer the little girl of Jon’s (“She could feel the hole inside her where her heart had been”). Still, they imagine the other as untouched, as preserved in the amber of those sweet moments. These thoughts keep alive the core self, but the self has grown a shade darker. A shade colder.

To borrow from Dick Diver in Tender is the Night, “I'm not much like myself anymore.”

How do you come back to someone after so long? After horror, after blood, after choices you never thought you'd have to make have torn you apart and stitched you into something else? After your world has turned inside out and upside down and shaken you until your teeth ache and your head spins and you know you are just not right anymore—all while you were alone? All while the other was not there to bear witness? What can you possibly say to them?

Will they still know you? Will they still love you?

I think, against all reason, the answer is undoubtedly yes.

Which leads to how Jon and Arya stand as foils to Jaime and Cersei. Both pairs share physical features and deep childhood companionship, yet where the latter was wont to withhold truth (“When Jaime had discovered [the picture of her and Rhaegar] she told him it was Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys”), the former shared it freely (“…don’t… tell… Sansa!”).

There is something unconditional in Jon and Arya that the Lannister twins never knew. Time and distance made them only closer, only fonder, while those same forces fractured Jaime and Cersei to the point where he burns her letter and walks away. Of course this finds its echo in Jon receiving the Pink Letter; the moment where, as mentioned earlier, he breaks his vows for “Arya” and ultimately dies for her. 

The parallel letters expose love under trial. One is consumed, the other endures.

And this isn’t even to touch on how Jon will be altered post-resurrection. Any theoretical/logistical speculation is way above my pay grade of basic character analysis, so I won’t attempt it. But we do know this: resurrection fixates the subject on their dying purpose, their “unfinished business,” if you will. Jon’s mission up until the mutiny was to save Arya (“I think we had best change the plan”). His last thoughts were of Arya (“Stick them with the pointy end”). 

I’ll end it here:

Consider not how these darker, colder versions of Jon and Arya (anchored by each other but changed nonetheless) will connect with each other. Consider instead (!) how they will connect with anyone who isn’t them.