SANSASTARKMETA

But I did, and maybe I should not have been surprised that Sansa and Cathy, two pubescent girls, are strikingly similar in experiencing their first periods, experiencing betrayal of people and institutions they once trusted, the deaths of their fathers, with more loss along the way. This is on top of being incredibly sexualized by the people who are around them, to put it lightly. There are certainly differences between medieval Westeros and 1950's Virginia. Sansa is constantly exposed and has to carefully mind her manners around new people, whereas Cathy is forced to hide in an attic for three years.

When the two girls escape their respective prisons, they both have similar thoughts about how they've changed so much in response to their trauma.

"Where was that fragile golden-fair Dresden doll I used to be? Gone. Gone like porcelain turned into steel." Cathy -- the last chapter of Flowers in the Attic

And of course, I could only think of one of Sansa's most famous lines in the whole series.

"My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel." Sansa V -- A Storm of Swords

I don't really think that these two quotes really show if GRRM was inspired at all by VC Andrews. There is something amusing about a guy with a super pretentious fandom being inspired by what is often considered a trashy novel, one that I remember girls whispering about to one another my freshman year of high school.

By Siren, do you mean the half bird and half woman creature from Greek Mythology? Or by Siren, do you mean Mermaid?

Through history, both concepts have merged and that's why I think Sansa Stark is associated with both.

SIREN

Siren, in Greek mythology, a creature half bird and half woman who lured sailors to destruction by the sweetness of her song.

Art credit: Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse

In Homer’s Odyssey, Book XII, the Greek hero Odysseus, advised by the sorceress Circe, escaped the danger of their song by stopping the ears of his crew with wax so that they were deaf to the Sirens. Odysseus himself wanted to hear their song but had himself tied to the mast so that he would not be able to steer the ship off its course.

“Friends, it’s wrong for only one or two to know the revelations that lovely Circe made to me alone. I’ll tell you all, so we can die with our eyes wide open now or escape our fate and certain death together. First, she warns, we must steer clear of the Sirens, their enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers. I alone was to hear their voices, so she said, but you must bind me with tight chafing ropes so I cannot move a muscle, bound to the spot, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast. And if I plead, commanding you to set me free, then lash me faster, rope on pressing rope.”

[...] We were just offshore as far as a man’s shout can carry, scudding close, when the Sirens sense at once a ship was racing past and burst into their high, thrilling song: “Come closer, famous Odysseus—Achaea’s pride and glory— moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song! Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart’s content sails on, a wiser man.

—Odyssey, Book XII - Homer

Sirens were believed to look like a combination of women and birds in various different forms. In early Greek art, they were represented as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings, playing a variety of musical instruments, especially harps and lyres.

The tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda says that from their chests up, sirens had the form of sparrows, and below they were women or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women's faces.

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As you can see, we could find many allusions to sirens in Sansa Stark:

Siren: Half bird and half woman & Sansa: little bird, mockingbird.

Siren: Sweetness of her song / Honeyed voices & Sansa: "So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words." —A Storm of Swords - Arya IV

Siren: Lures sailors to drown & Sansa: "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." —A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Siren: Harps and lyres & Sansa: "Sansa could sew and dance and sing. She wrote poetry. She knew how to dress. She played the high harp and the bells." —A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Siren: Lives in flowery meadows & Sansa: Linked with flowers and certain meadow.

Siren: Represented as little birds /sparrows & Sansa: little bird, mockingbird.

MERMAID

Mermaids are also called Sirens. Sirena is the Spanish word for Mermaid.

Art credit: A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse

Mermaid, masculine merman, a fabled marine creature with the head and upper body of a human being and the tail of a fish. Similar divine or semidivine beings appear in ancient mythologies (e.g., the Chaldean sea god Ea, or Oannes). In European folklore, mermaids (sometimes called sirens) and mermen were natural beings who, like fairies, had magical and prophetic powers. They loved music and often sang. Though very long-lived, they were mortal and had no souls.

Though sometimes kindly, mermaids and mermen were usually dangerous to man. Their gifts brought misfortune, and, if offended, the beings caused floods or other disasters. To see one on a voyage was an omen of shipwreck. They sometimes lured mortals to death by drowning, as did the Lorelei of the Rhine, or enticed young people to live with them underwater, as did the mermaid whose image is carved on a bench in the church of Zennor, Cornwall, England.

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Art credit: Illustration of The Little Mermaid, mid-19th century, by E. S. Hardy.

Probably the most famous mermaid in popular culture is Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

Reading the Danish fairy tale, it's almost impossible not to draw parallels between The Little Mermaid and Sansa Stark, both so avid to leave their homes to see a new world and find love.

Both girls are young, beautiful, romantics, possess beautiful voices and are full of gentleness and kindness.

You can also find sad parallels, like this one explained by@mryoyo000

Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid has a bittersweet ending as our heroine fails to make the prince fall in love with her and witnesses his wedding to another girl.

The Little Mermaid then resigned herself to die and become sea foam, but at the very end she is rewarded for her kindness.

If you are interested, you can read The Little Mermaid here.

APHRODITE

Art credit: La nascita di Venere by Sandro Botticelli

Let's make a little stop here to talk about Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is neither a mermaid nor a siren, she is an Ancient Greek Goddess, born from the froth of the sea:

Aphrodite, ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, identified with Venus by the Romans. The Greek word aphros means “foam,” and Hesiod relates in his Theogony that Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus (Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea.

As you can see, both in the myth of Aphrodite and in the tale of The Little Mermaid, the froth of the sea has a determining importance, meaning life and death:

The Birth of Aphrodite The genitalia themselves, freshly cut with flint, were thrown Clear of the mainland into the restless, white-capped sea, Where they floated a long time. A white foam from the god-flesh Collected around them, and in that foam a maiden developed And grew. Her first approach to land was near holy Cythera, And from there she floated on to the island of Cypros. There she came ashore, an awesome, beautiful divinity. Tender grass sprouted up under her slender feet. Aphrodite Is her name in speech human and divine, since it was in foam She was nourished. But she is also called Cythereia since She reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born On the surf-line of Cypros, and Philommedes because she loves The organs of sex, from which she made her epiphany. Eros became her companion, and ravishing Desire waited on her At her birth and when she made her debut among the Immortals. From that moment on, among both gods and humans, She has fulfilled the honored function that includes Virginal sweet-talk, lovers’ smiles and deceits, And all of the gentle pleasures of sex. —Theogony - Hesiod

"We can live until we are three hundred years old, but when we cease to exist, we become foam on the water, do not even have a grave down here among our dear ones. We do not have an immortal soul, we will never live again, we are like the green rushes, once they have been severed they can never grow green again!"

—The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen

Here we need to remember that the Freys dump her (Catelyn) body naked into the Green Fork, a mockery of House Tully's funeral customs, after Catelyn has been dead for a day and a night. Three days after her death, Catelyn's corpse is retrieved from the Green Fork by Arya Stark's direwolf, Nymeria, who runs away when humans approach. Catelyn is resurrected by Lord Beric Dondarrion, who gives his life for hers through the last kiss.

We also have the Ironborn Ritual Drowning. The priests of the Drowned God know how to drown a man and then bring him back to life, using the kiss of life. This is done as part of the rites of the god, consecrating the drowned person to him. Not all men are successfully revived, however. While the priest or one of his acolytes uses the kiss of life on the drowned man, other acolytes might pray around them. It is custom to give a newborn child to the Drowned God shortly following his birth. Some priests believe that this should be done in a similar manner, but more frequently the child is simply dipped into a tub of seawater to wet the infant's head.

Also, if you check the multiple representations of Aphrodite in art, she is clearly depicted as a mermaid, with floating long hair (often red), emerging from the sea foam, carried in a giant shell, surrounded by sea creatures, etc.

JONQUIL

“Six maids there were in a spring-fed pool …”

—A Storm of Swords - Jaime III

Art credit: Nereiden by Eduard Veith

And talking about mermaids and ancient goddesses, bodies of water and beautiful naked ladies coming from said bodies of water, all of that reminds me of the tales about Jonquil bathing in a sweet water pool (Maidenpool) at the Riverlands.

So Jonquil is surrounded by Mermaid/Aphrodite aesthetic.

And fair Jonquil reminds me of certain girl from the maternal line of House Tully, half fish, with long auburn hair and sunlit blue eyes....

Anyways, now lets go back to mermaids.

DISNEY'S THE LITTLE MERMAID

Pictures credit: Disney's The Little Mermaid

Disney's animated version of The Little Mermaid changed the bittersweet ending of the original tale by giving to our heroine Ariel the fulfillment of her love story with her beloved prince Eric.

You can find a very sweet parallel between Sansa, Jon, Ariel and Eric, here.

Now, we all know that Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (based in one of the first versions of the fairy tale), is one of GRRM's favorite films, but the author has said that he likes Disney's The Little Mermaid even more than Disney's Beauty and the Beast:

GRRM is also very aware of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and it's bittersweet ending:

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020 - (Translation)

With all that said, now lets see for direct references of mermaids in ASOIAF.

MERMAIDS AND ASOIAF

Merlings are legendary aquatic creatures with the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish. Merfolk include mermen, merwives, and mermaids.

Mermaids are featured in Westerosi carvings, place names, and in songs. They are often featured in places near the sea, such as White Harbor.

The sigil of House Manderly of White Harbor is a white merman with dark green hair, beard and tail, carrying a black trident, over a blue-green field.

The Merling King is a Braavosi trading galley. Its figurehead is a golden-crowned merman blowing on a seashell horn.

The Merling King comes to King's Landing after the Battle of the Blackwater. There it is hired by Lord Petyr Baelish to take him to the Eyrie to wed the widowed Lady Lysa Arryn. Petyr and Sansa Stark flee on the galley after the death of King Joffrey I Baratheon at his royal wedding. Their voyage north is dangerous, as two men are swept overboard and a third breaks his neck. After putting Petyr and Sansa Stark ashore at the Fingers, the Merling King sets sail for Braavos.

Off the bow of the Merling King stretched a bare and stony strand, windswept, treeless, and uninviting. Even so, it made a welcome sight. They had been a long while clawing their way back on course. The last storm had swept them out of sight of land, and sent such waves crashing over the sides of the galley that Sansa had been certain they were all going to drown. Two men had been swept overboard, she had heard old Oswell saying, and another had fallen from the mast and broken his neck.

[...] That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

Are you telling me that our Little Mermaid Sansa Stark sailed on a ship called the Merling King??? And when she disembarked at the Fingers, she became Alayne Stone??? Like a death and a birth after crossing the sea??? Like the sea foam meaning death and life in myth and folklore??? Interesting....

And finally, this passage could be a homage to Disney's The Little Mermaid:

The last of the Bronze Kings was Yorwyck’s grandson, Robar II, who inherited Runestone from his sire less than a fortnight before his sixteenth nameday yet proved to be a warrior of such ferocity and cunning and charm that he almost succeeded in stemming the Andal tide.

By that time the Andals controlled threequarters of the Vale and had begun to fight amongst themselves, as had the First Men before them. Robar Royce saw opportunity in their disunity. Across the Vale, a handful of First Men still held out against the Andals; the Redforts of Redfort, the Hunters of Longbow Hall, the Belmores of Strongsong, and the Coldwaters of Coldwater Burn chief amongst them. One by one, Robar made alliance with each of them, and many smaller clans and houses besides, bringing them to his cause with marriages, grants of land, gold, and (in one celebrated case) by outshooting the Lord Hunter in an archery contest (legend claims that King Robar cheated). So honeyed was his tongue that he even won the allegiance of Ursula Upcliff, a reputed sorceress who called herself bride of the Merling King.

—The World of Ice and Fire - The Vale

A sorceress named Ursula??? Bride of the Merling King??? Oh George, you adorable nerd.

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As you can see, we could find many allusions to mermaids in Sansa Stark:

Mermaid: Half fish and half woman & Sansa: House Tully / half fish.

Mermaid: Often depicted with red hair & Sansa: Tully auburn hair.

Mermaid: Lures mortals to death by drowning & Sansa: "You have your mother's eyes. Honest eyes, and innocent. Blue as a sunlit sea. When you are a little older, many a man will drown in those eyes." —A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

Mermaid: Likes fairies, had magical and prophetic powers. Loves music and often sings & Sansa: Loves fairy tales, her dreams come true, is the protagonist of multiple prophecies, loves music and sings.

Mermaid: In Myth (Aphrodite) and Folklore (The Little Mermaid) the sea foam means life and death & Sansa: After sailing on a ship called "The Merling King (Merman)," Sansa disembarked at the fingers and became Alayne Stone.

Mermaid: A marine creature, often depicted half naked (their human half) & Sansa: Descendant from House Tully of the Riverlands, which sigil is a trout, whose members are colloquially called half fish. Sansa's favorite stories are the ones that involve fair Jonquil, who according to the tales was seen bathing (probably naked) in a sweet water pool (Maidenpool) at the Riverlands (Mermaid/Aphrodite aesthetic).

There you have it! And this post is already too long....

the serpents mentioned above stand metaphorically for the poison that was hidden in sansa’s headpiece by the tyrells at the end of ASOS. here, the use of a metaphor conveys a sense of linguistic unease and an unclearness, which is the main characteristic of prophecy speak. symbols are open to wide variety of interpretations and prophecies must remain open to interpretation until they unfold. as we find out later, the important thing here wasn’t the maid but the poisonous fangs. still, the image created by the narrative brings to mind medusa and the ovidian narrative of metamorphosis. that myth is linked to sansa through the serpent metaphor. once that link has been made, it’s fascinating to see how the ovidian mythos echoes with sansa’s plight in king’s landing.

the ovidian story for medusa goes like this : medusa is a beautiful young woman who was raped by neptune in minerva’s temple. minerva then unfairly punished medusa for the violation, by turning her into a monster with snakes in her hair and the inability to look anyone in the eyes without turning them into stone. medusa is finally killed by perseus, who wielded a mirror in order to protect himself. perseus would later on use medusa’s decapitated head as a fearsome shield.

sansa’s story shares some structural key elements with the medusa story. just like medusa was unfairly turned into a pariah by minerva, sansa becomes cersei’s hostage in king’s landing. effectively isolated and kept under permanent watch, sansa is a monster in the etymological sense : a sign and a bad omen. cersei parades sansa around to signify to her court and her enemies in the north that the lannisters have leverage. what’s more, from that point on, sansa is constantly likened to a changeling, a person who cannot be trusted. the anti stark propaganda she hears at court likens all northerners to wargs, creatures with the ability to turn into savage wolves. the council states that since she has “traitor’s blood”, she cannot be trusted and her words must be considered deceitful. later on, sandor clegane would find a nickname for sansa that compares her to a little bird, stuck in a cage, singing silly little songs. through metaphors and symbols, sansa is constantly likened to a changeling. as such, she fits within the ovidian narrative, which features people - mostly women - who are dispossessed of their sense of self. this is exactly what happens to sansa in king’s landing. separated from her home and family, she becomes an unwilling sign of lannister’s supremacy, as she is tortured by them and eventually made to marry one of them.

even in smaller details, we can find echoes between her story and medusa’s. the scene at the sept of baelor stages the soiling of a holy place and a decapitated head, two elements borrowed from the medusa mythos. what’s more, in ACOK, sansa recalls that she was “weeping and screaming” as joffrey held up ned’s head. this scenic indication brings to mind modern medusa representations, notably the infamous caravaggio painting :

the later part of medusa’s story, with perseus and his ruse, can also be constructed as a parallel to the later part of sansa’s ASOS narrative. littlefinger, taking on the role of perseus, frees sansa from her changeling state and breaks her out of king’s landing. just like perseus, he uses a ruse. instead of a mirror, littlefinger arms himself with a double and tricks sansa into trusting him. like perseus, he turns sansa from a monster into stone : she leaves king’s landing as sansa stark, the traitorous warg and the little bird, only to become alayne stone, the silent and obedient shadow of littlefinger. coincidentally, the chapter of sansa’s escape features a reference to a fearsome shield made out of stone, tightening the loose link between’s sansa and medusa :

there’s a lot more to be said about sansa’s monstrosity in king’s landing : how tyrion refers to her as his “wolf wife” and the stories that are told of her escape, all featuring her using magic or turning herself into a new form. it’s fascinating to see how, just like medusa, sansa graduated from chained monster to silent tool, always changing but repeatedly denied agency. just like in the most famous ovidian narratives of metamorphosis, the change is an impediment and it prevents sansa from connecting with her true identity.

Welcome again to another week of Sansa Stark appreciation, We’re looking forward to your incredible creations and love for Sansa 🕊️!

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And please keep in mind:

Harry the Heir is Sansa's latest arranged match. You can almost miss that they are intended foils to one another. Both are cousins to Sweetrobin and orphaned heirs to kingdoms with the Eyrie and the Vale for Harry and Winterfell and the North for Sansa. Their predecessors even have practically the same name in having been named for Robert Baratheon in Robb Stark and Robert Arryn.

"That will need to be determined. For the moment, you shall remain here at court, as our ward." "I want to go home." The queen was irritated by that. "You should have learned by now, none of us get the things we want." -ACOK, Sansa VIII "Lady Waynwood will not make him marry against his will, she was quite firm on that." -AFFC, Alayne II

However, it resulted in different experiences for them as evidenced by their relationships. They were looked after by ruling ladies after the deaths of their fathers with Anya Waynwood and Cersei Lannister. Of course, Anya actually took care of Harry and was sensitive to his feelings as evidenced by not marrying him against his will, and cleaning up his messes like marrying his first baby mama Cissy to a man in her garrison after Harry cast her aside. Cersei did not really care for Sansa, didn't step in when Joffrey abused her, married her against her will and even ordered Ilyn Payne to take her head if King's Landing fell.

For Sansa, her claim was a means of torment with different actors from the Tyrells and Lannisters to Petyr using her hand and claim that came with it to make her into a piece for furthering their ambitions regardless of her consent. Her claim to Winterfell made her an unwitting pawn where she was a tool with no say in her future. For Harry, it was the opposite experience as he was spoiled by the lords of the Vale with melees and tourneys rigged for him, and all trying to curry his favor. His status as the heir to the Eyrie effectively made him the darling of the Vale, a pampered prince with a life of free rides.

It is even seen in their relationship history. Sansa had two unwanted betrothals with the first in Joffrey, buying into his beauty only to witness the beast beneath his gilded appearance and later to Tyrion to which she noted: A comely monster, that’s what he [Joffrey] was. Little Lord Tyrion was kinder, twisted though he was. Of course, Tyrion was not without his issues either, but relatively speaking he was better than the rest of his conventionally beautiful family with the exception of Tommen and Myrcella. Harry by contrast got to choose for himself with two conquests in the form of Cissy whom he discarded after her pregnancy made her gain weight and Saffron, the daughter of the richest man in Gulltown whom he said was different by being "very beautiful." Sansa learned to see beyond appearances while Harry is still pretty shallow.

The sigil of House Arryn is a falcon with even the castle name phonetically being aerie or a bird's nest. Jon Arryn was the falcon in the sense that falcon fathers take part in looking after their young and defending the nest as Jon Arryn risked everything to save the lives of his two foster sons, Ned and Robert. Ned's daughter may repay that favor in looking after Jon Arryn's son in the spirit of a falcon mother. Harry on the other hand may be the falcon in the spirit of the predator that primarily preys on other birds.

Harry will likely be among the eight members of the Brotherhood of Winged Knights to look after his cousin, so he will be staying at the Eyrie for a while. He and Sansa and Sweetrobin will all be interacting with Sweetrobin being the point where the two diverge.

Sansa and Harry both have an incentive for Robert to die. For Harry, it means inheriting all of it, the Eyrie and the Vale and for Sansa, it means being Lady Arryn, but more importantly, finally returning home to reclaim Winterfell. It means more to her than Harry as returning home was what she always wanted since the end of AGOT.

However, while Sansa does see Robert as a spoiled brat at first (not untrue), as they spend more time together, Sweetrobin becomes fond of her, seeing her as a maternal figure. He even grows to like lemoncakes because she does, and is pretty much the only person he loves at the Eyrie. He prefers her to read stories to him, and she plays the damsel in distress to motivate him to small acts of bravery. She herself comes to care for the boy over time, seeing the vulnerable, innocent child beneath. The Brotherhood of Winged Knights was her idea after all: His own Kingsguard, to keep him safe and make him brave.

“Your lordship should not believe such nonsense,” Alayne said. “I’m sure Ser Harrold loves you well.” And if the gods are good, he will love me too. Her tummy gave a little flutter. “He doesn’t,” Lord Robert insisted. “He wants my father’s castle, that’s all, so he pretends.” The boy clutched the blanket to his pimply chest. “I don’t want you to marry him, Alayne. I am the Lord of the Eyrie, and I forbid it.” -TWOW, Alayne I

As evidenced by Sweetrobin's observations, Harry wants him to die. The kid may be naïve and spoiled, but he has good survival instincts. To Harry, Sweetrobin is the only thing standing in the way between him and being Lord Arryn. Staying at the Eyrie will likely increase his hunger as he is constantly reminded of his inheritance and resents the upjumped coin counter Littlefinger ruling what should be his and Sweetrobin, the unworthy sickly boy sitting what should be his seat.

“You are in the Falcon Tower, Ser Harrold,” Alayne put in. Far away from Sweetrobin. That was intentional, she knew. Petyr Baelish did not leave such things to chance. -TWOW, Alayne I

Harry just may be just as much on board with Sweetrobin dying as Littlefinger. Harry may be closer to Littlefinger in spirit than Sansa. Both him and Petyr are of relatively lower birth, "upjumped" through their connections to Arryn women with Lysa and Harry's grandmother respectively, resentful over being denied things they felt entitled to and willing to step over bodies to achieve their ambitions.

Harry is just eager for his inheritance while Sansa would be going back home, what she always wanted, per Petyr's promises but it would come at a price: the life of an innocent child. That was where her father Ned always drew the line as well as Davos and other good characters. As Ned bluntly told Cersei "I do not kill children," and resigned in protest as Hand over Robert's decision to have Daenerys assassinated having likely learned that from Jon Arryn. Sweetrobin is effectively Sansa's litmus test.

While Littlefinger likes to think of her as his daughter, she will always be Ned's daughter. Ned was Jon Arryn's foster son, and Jon Arryn risked everything to save his foster son's life from royal wrath. Ned's daughter, Sansa, may end up repaying the favor by looking after Jon Arryn's son, Robert.

“But what need have I for heirs when I am landless and like to remain so, thanks to our Lord Protector? No. Tell your lord father I need none of his brood mares.”

Harry might find an ally in Lyn Corbray, another landless knight second in line to a great Andal house in the Vale angry over his denied inheritance as a result of a child (his yet to be born nephew/niece). Lyn is a predator used to using his sword to settle things going by his many duels.

If anything happens to Littlefinger, I can see the figurative shit hitting the fan. There would be a power vacuum over the Lord Protector. Sweetrobin would undoubtedly pick Alayne or Sansa if she reveals herself to him. She is the only one at the Eyrie he genuinely trusts and all she would have to do is ask.

She had decided that Alayne Stone should be older than Sansa Stark

Alayne was an older woman, and bastard brave.

Like she really was convinced she's an adult in this chapter. There's also this fucking part

The doll was made up to look like a man-at-arms, sort of, so the girl called him Ser Soldier and bragged how he kept her safe. “Go away,” Arya told her half a hundred times. “Just leave me be.” She wouldn’t, though, so finally Arya took the doll away from her, ripped it open, and pulled the rag stuffing out of its belly with a finger. “Now he really looks like a soldier!” she said, before she threw the doll in a brook.

— Arya VII, ASOS

“Robert, stop that.” Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll’s head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow. [...] She picked up a broken branch and smashed the torn doll’s head down on top of it, then pushed it down atop the shattered gatehouse of her snow castle.

— Sansa VII, ASOS

"Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become." Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. […] Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue".

The context of this quote was warging, an ability which, as far as we know, has been stripped from Sansa due to the death of her direwolf. Having the ability to fly means birds can see the world in a way other earthly creatures cannot, that is, from above. Here we also see that birds are associated with worldliness and imagination. If flight is in a bird's nature, then the prospect of being limited to the ground would be very jarring to them. Sansa is often getting called out by other characters for not being grounded in reality, a way of saying that she's got her head in the clouds, "a head full of songs" and fantasies. And it is true Sansa uses songs as the standard to which she compares real life, and that causes her immense frustration because reality can never be as magic as the songs.

Furthermore, eventually even Sansa begins to associate birds with freedom and even wishes to be one with them:

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant's Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa's Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well. (Alayne I, AFFC)

SANSA EXCHANGE IS BACK FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

The 2026 round of the Sansa fic (and art) exchange will follow this schedule:

Sign-ups: February 20, 2026 - March 6, 2026 Assignments sent: by March 10, 2026 Assignments Due/Deadline: April 17, 2026 Works Revealed: April 24, 2026 Authors Revealed: May 1, 2026

All ships and gen relationships involving Sansa, from either ASOIAF or GoT, are welcome to this event. This is a relatively low-pressure fic exchange with a minimum of 500 words, but with the possibility of opting into receiving and giving art.

Follow this blog to not miss important announcements and information. Our pinned post has all the important information/links, but to get you started (and excited):

Read the full Rules

- Sansa IV, ACOK

When she was small, her nurse had filled [Brienne's] ears with tales of valor, regaling her with the noble exploits of Ser Galladon of Morne, Florian the Fool, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, and other champions. Each man bore a famous sword, and surely Oathkeeper belonged in their company, even if she herself did not. "You'll be defending Ned Stark's daughter with Ned Stark's own steel," Jaime had promised.

I get you! Think of the social geography of the Vale that Sansa's interacting first. The nobles she's dealing with are conservative, courtly, big on honour, with a level of predictability because of all of this. The smallfolk are less of a factor since they've been relatively unaffected by the ravages of war, and so don't have the motivations that the smallfolk of the crownlands or Riverlands to start agitating and organising.

If this was a video game, this would be Sansa's first trip out of the tutorial area. The enemies have clear weak spots for her to take advantage of, it's not throwing every mechanic into the mix, it's built to test whether she's got the fundamentals down.

i don't think he ever claimed to be weirded out? i know he gave an interview where he said he doesn't get why women find characters like sandor and theon appealing (ok lmao i don't believe him) but in another one he said that the response he's gotten from fans about sandor and sansa has been "interesting" and that "he's played with [sansan]" that there's something there. which is less surprise at fans being invested in the first place and more at fans showing interest with what little he's given them. because he already wrote sandor & sansa's relationship with romantic undertones. a lot of people have discussed this, she keeps his bloodied white cloak in a cedar chest = maiden's cloak symbolism etc but the narrative structure of sansa's arc also establishes sandor as a potential romantic interest, main one even.

sansa's storyline is drawing from fairy tales about monstrous bridegrooms—bluebeard and beauty & the beast—because she's the primary point of view character for the books' exploration of the unequal nature of most marriages in westeros, the lady in question is either threatened by an arranged marriage to a 'monster' or the fear that marriage itself will be the death of her. and if i had to identify two of her most prominent supporting characters, it would be littlefinger: her bluebeard figure and sandor: her beast figure. they're both sansa's direct narrative mirrors, from what little we know of petyr and sandor through aborted childhood tales (sandor's offence was playing with gregor's toy knight, petyr got into a duel with brandon for catelyn's hand, begged for her favour) like sansa, they grew up with songs before their victimisation and disillusionment with romantic chivalry and they threaten sansa with the same thing -

"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful. Now fly away, little bird, I'm sick of you peeping at me." Sansa IV, ACOK "Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?" "Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course." Sansa V, ASOS

the epithet of the little bird sandor insultingly bestows upon sansa is of interest to me because a) it's his words that lead her to the revelation—"i'm only a little bird, repeating the words they taught me"—that she's been taught to parrot and perform idealised gendered expectations that have enabled her entrapment and b) petyr's personal sigil is the mockingbird. the threat he poses to sansa is of depersonalisation into alayne, into a faceless ideal of The Lady, suited for simply mimicking social expectations at the expense of her personhood. catelyn was that lady and then she died and came back a hollow woman. lysa was also that lady. both petyr's former wives in a sense, both dead, discarded, nothing. martin's a romantic so we know sansa won't stay in the vale and become a successor to those dead wives and why i think he (originally) wrote sandor into her chapters. while they're both about marriages and deceptive appearances of suitors, beauty and the beast differs from bluebeard because it works as fantastical reassurance, that despite marriage as an institution being the potential site of death, there's possibility of transformation and romantic love. and unlike petyr he did write sandor for redemptive purposes. he has the typical beast transformation thing going on from the hound and back into the boy he used to be. worst, most dangerous knight in the seven kingdoms and he's defeated by the thirteen year old girl who won't be corrupted into becoming a cynic. sansa sings songs about knights saving entrapped damsels in towers but she's the one doing the saving here. in a sense she was someone else's true knight. at a time when she's finally beginning to fully internalise petyr's beliefs, it would be poignant for her (one of) true knight to be one of her own making. that she had a sense of compromised agency here and littlefinger is a liar who can be resisted as well. and sandor being her true knight can coexist perfectly with the fact that he traumatised her in king's landing. she knows he was going to rape her on the night of the battle of the blackwater bay but she thinks fondly of him because sandor and tyrion were the only two people at court who displayed any amount of care for her during her prolonged captivity, just as dany knows that she was drogo's property (why else would she contemplate suicide in her first week of marriage?) but she also loves him for what respite he offered her from viserys and neither girl is deluded for it.

No, this is absolutely grooming. Littlefinger is slowly escalating his sexual behaviour towards Sansa. First it's the kiss he forces on her in the Vale's godswood, and as of AFFC he's soliciting more kisses - in Alayne I he lets Sansa go with a more daughterly kiss, but in Alayne II he kisses her again on the lips and tells her to do the same next time.

This is also paired with Littlefinger's comments about family and relationships to Sansa:

Mya was much younger than Ser Lothor, but when her father had been brokering the marriage between Lord Corbray and his merchant's daughter, he'd told her that young girls were always happiest with older men. "Innocence and experience make for a perfect marriage," he had said. Alayne II, AFFC

And what possible ulterior motive could Littlefinger (20 years or so Sansa's senior) have for saying this to Sansa, I wonder.

"Winterfell was the home of your childhood, Sansa, but you are no longer a child. You're a woman grown, and you need to make your own home." Sansa VI, ASoS

First, Sansa is not a woman grown (read: ready for a sexual relationship and moving in with a partner). Second, this is part of the broader context of isolation Littlefinger's working on creating. He wants her to trust him and only him:

She felt tears in her eyes, but whether she wept for Ser Dontos Hollard, for Joff, for Tyrion, or for herself, Sansa could not say. "Is it all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything?" "Almost everyone. Save you and I, of course." Sansa V, ASoS

And he wants her to believe that she's only safe if she throws in her lot with him:

Some lies are love," Petyr had assured her. She reminded him of that. "When we lied to Lord Robert, that was just to spare him," she said. "And this lie may spare us. Else you and I must leave the Eyrie by the same door Lysa used." Sansa I, AFFC

she's actually royally bad at keeping herself in check when excited about her family so like idk where theyre getting this