#bookwise

Hi there!

I'm not aware of special Jon & Alayne metas (as in Jon will get together with Alayne, not Sansa), but Jonsa metas have alerted us to several things that connect Jon and Alayne (Sansa) in the Vale

- Sansa learns about Jon being LC via Myranda, and slips out of her role quite blatantly in that moment (to such a degree that Myranda might have become aware of Alayne being Sansa)

- Sansa hears the "ghost" wolf

- Sansa fashions her "bastard" persona of Alayne after her knowledge of Jon (Alayne being older than Sansa, "bastard brave" and not as fond of dancing as Sansa)

- Alayne is a bastard and Jon a lord - a reversal of their roles at the beginning

- There might be something to the fact that two castles are named Snow and Stone.

- The food situation in the Vale is so much better than elsewhere that Jon thinks about sending for help to the Vale.

- The Royces, a noble family of First Men blood, connects the Wall and the Vale very prominently and it is possible that Lord Royce has an inkling about Sansa as well. I'm sure they'll be prominently on the Starks' side in the wars to come.

That is just what is at the top of my mind. I'm sure others can add and I'll put it in the tag.

I personally think that Sansa won't stay Alayne that much longer (after all her true colour at the roots of her hair keeps returning).

Thanks!

Hi there!

Some of the Gendry@ scenes are actually Jonsa foreshadowing, you know interactions between a dark haired King's bastard and. Stark daughter.

🤫🤭

We tend to not talk about this a lot. Because Ary@ fans tend to be pissed if we point out that some of Ary@'s chapters have foreshadowing for Sansa (some of Sansa's chapters also have foreshadowing for Ary@ but that's not bad because Ary@ is one of the key five and Sansa is not). And the offence is even greater when it's not just Sansa as Queen foreshadowing but Jonsa. Usually Gendry@ and Jonsa get along and I never had any problems with any of them. Still. I censure the name here. Knowing GRRM it is perfectly possible that it is both : Jonsa and Gendry@ and I think it is.

As she sat in the common room in her stupid girl clothes, Ary@ remembered what Syrio Forel had told her, the trick of looking and seeing what was there. When she looked, she saw more serving wenches than any inn could want, and most of them young and comely. And come evenfall, lots of men started coming and going at the Peach. They did not linger long in the common room, not even when Tom took out his woodharp and began to sing “Six Maids in a Pool.” The wooden steps were old and steep, and creaked something fierce whenever one of the men took a girl upstairs. “I bet this is a brothel,” she whispered to Gendry. “You don’t even know what a brothel is.” “I do so,” she insisted. “It’s like an inn, with girls.” He was turning red again. “What are you doing here, then?” he demanded. “A brothel’s no fit place for no bloody highborn lady, everybody knows that.” One of the girls sat down on the bench beside him. “Who’s a highborn lady? The little skinny one?” She looked at Ary@ and laughed. “I’m a king’s daughter myself.” Ary@ knew she was being mocked. “You are not.” “Well, I might be.” When the girl shrugged, her gown slipped off one shoulder. “They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle. Not that he didn’t have all the other girls too, but Leslyn says he liked my ma the best.” The girl did have hair like the old king’s, Ary@ thought; a great thick mop of it, as black as coal. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Gendry has the same kind of hair too. Lots of people have black hair. “I’m named Bella,” the girl told Gendry. “For the battle. I bet I could ring your bell, too. You want to?” “No,” he said gruffly. “I bet you do.” She ran a hand along his arm. “I don’t cost nothing to friends of Thoros and the lightning lord.” “No, I said.” Gendry rose abruptly and stalked away from the table out into the night. Bella turned to Ary@. “Don’t he like girls?” Ary@ shrugged. “He’s just stupid. He likes to polish helmets and beat on swords with hammers.”

So, here we have: Tom singing “Six Maids in a Pool” which must be a song from the Florian and Jonquil cycle (Remember Florian saw Jonquil and her sister in a  pool).  Gendry coming very close to having a tryst with his sister, who is called Bella which is an allusion to “La Belle et la Bête”. Gendry being blackhaired and stupid.

Later we have the assault you talked about:

An old man sat down beside her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little peach?” His breath smelled near as foul as the dead men in the cages, and his little pig eyes were crawling up and down her. “Does my sweet peach have a name?” For half a heartbeat she forgot who she was supposed to be. She wasn’t any peach, but she couldn’t be Ary@ Stark either, not here with some smelly drunk she did not know. “I’m …” “She’s my sister.” Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Leave her be.” The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry’s size he thought better of it. “Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I’d never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn’t.” He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend. “Why did you say that?” Ary@ hopped to her feet. “You’re not my brother.” “That’s right,” he said angrily. “I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high.” Ary@ was taken aback by the fury in his voice. “That’s not the way I meant it.” “Yes it is.” He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. “Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I’ll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her.” “But …” “I said, go away. M’lady.” Ary@ whirled and left him there. A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that’s all he is. He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her. (ASOS, Ary@ V)

So, Gendry calls her her sister to save her from assault and then they talk about the fact that he is not her brother and how he is lowborn.

Peaches don’t occur very often in ASOIAF - which is funny given that they are common enough as a sexual innuendo. There is one verse of the “Dornishman’s wife” (another song that might  point to Jonsa) where peaches occur:

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed in a voice that was sweet as a peach.

Please not, that the Dornishman’s wife sings (like Sansa), takes a bath (like Jonquil) and the her voice is sweet like a peach.

So, while the obvious take on this scene is that Gendry wants to protect Ary@ and that they might have a future together (only after the epilogue please, they are both far too young at the moment), it might also allude to another dark-haired king’s son (who knows nothing) who might or might not have a tryst with a woman who is his sister (or not).

I’m not sure who the old man might be. Lysa complained about the bad breath of Jon Arryn, so it might be a stand in for Harold Hardyng? Then there is the fact that Littefinger’s breath always smells of mint, a smell that might not be to everybody’s tastes. So I think this is rather foreshadowing than an allusion to something that already happened if only because it would be strange if Sansa had been assaulted at Winterfell. First of all because she doesn’t remember that and second because it might have made her more wary in King’s Landing from the beginning.

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“You’re not,” she flared. “You’ll never be.”

His face darkened. “I am. I’m your father, and I can marry you to whoever I like. To anyone. You’ll marry the pig boy if I say so, and bed down with him in the sty.” His green eyes glittered with amusement. (ASOS, Sansa III)

Just a little tidbit to add to my Pig Boy meta.

Hi there!

I actually think it's not only for that purpose.

There are two passages that come to my mind where Sansa being the sun might point to Jonsa.

It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. "Ghost!" he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. When he reached Jon he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. "Gods, wolf, where have you been?" Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. "I thought you'd died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I've had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams." The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon's face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns.  (ASOS, Jon XII)  

I think that this is foreshadowing of Jon and Sansa reuniting.

And this:

"Snow," the moon insisted.         

The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf's pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. (ADWD, Jon I)

I think this is foreshadowing of Dany being the moon and Sansa being the sun and the white wolf running towards the sun. (just as an aside it is the moon that turns the Free Folk Woman Val into a Dany look-alike).

Ary@ as the moon is not that clear cut imho. Because it is mostly Dany who is the moon or is connected to the moon and Ary@ is set up against Dany: In Fire and Blood there is a septon called Moon who is the last obstacle on Jaeherys and Alysanne’s way to the throne and he is killed by a woman, or maybe a girl who might or might not have been one of the faceless assassins (which to me screams Ary@).

It is also interesting I think that during Ary@’s time as Cat of the Canals in Braavos it is only during the “black moon” that she is allowed to go back to the House of Black and White. I think for Ary@ the moon imagery is mostly about her ability to hide and become invisible.

In her time in the Riverlands Ary@ sometimes wishes fervently for some sun and that might be longing for home and her sister, but on the other hand, sometimes it just rains...

Hi there!

I agree. I would even say that he does not call attention to it. It’s more that it is under the radar. It is parallel to the Ned/Lyanna and Ned/Cat thoughts.

Ned thinks very often about Lyanna, but only rarely about Cat in his PoV chapter. But when he thinks about Cat it is very meaningful and shows how deeply he loves her. In the same way Jon thinks often about Arya and rarely about Sansa, and yet the times he thinks about Sansa are very important:

“There was magic beyond the wall.”

“Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa”

“Of Sansa singing and brushing Lady’s coat.”

It’s almost as if GRRM highlights these as important while the incidents are rare enough that a casual reader might overlook them. And don’t let me go on about all the foils and stand-ins of each other Jon and Sansa meet in their arcs. Again something a casual reader might overlook.

I actually think that the non-sibling nature of their relationship is what will make the difference. They will sort of start from scrap. Jon might have memory issues, Sansa might have lost all trust in men that are not her family. And this will ignite their feelings for each other.

The point is that the Starks need to be different than Lannisters and Targaryens: There will be attraction, love, longing but I doubt there will be a consummation of their love. Jaime and Cersei and their irresponsible love will be a foil to Jon and Sansa, I’m sure of it. And the fact that Jon and Sansa did not grow up close to each other, they they basically will meet as strangers and adults, while they have gradually come to understand the other better because of what they learned in the time they were apart. It is beautiful really: Imagine this. They see each other after all these years, and Sansa is a bastard and Jon is a Lord, Sansa, the Beauty, has met many Beasts, but not the true Beast, which is Jon - the man with the true heart and with respect and love for the Beauty. Jon will see the princess in the tower, the singing Lady, who escaped herself. Her song will bring him back to his true life. And yet at the same time, they will instinctively trust each other because of their shared history. I think it’s really cleverly plotted and done. And I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for the ask!

Hi there!

Well, spanking is the common form of punishment in WoT and women spend way too much time thinking about their cleavage and being self-conscious about it and men spend way too much time looking at cleavage.

Hi there! @winged-wolves!

Her lord husband was not beside her, but she was used to that. Tyrion was a bad sleeper and often rose before the dawn. Usually she found him in the solar, hunched beside a candle, lost in some old scroll or leatherbound book. Sometimes the smell of the morning bread from the ovens took him to the kitchens, and sometimes he would climb up to the roof garden or wander all alone down Traitor's Walk.         

She threw back the shutters and shivered as gooseprickles rose along her arms. There were clouds massing in the eastern sky, pierced by shafts of sunlight. They look like two huge castles afloat in the morning sky. Sansa could see their walls of tumbled stone, their mighty keeps and barbicans. Wispy banners swirled from atop their towers and reached for the fast-fading stars. The sun was coming up behind them, and she watched them go from black to grey to a thousand shades of rose and gold and crimson. Soon the wind mushed them together, and there was only one castle where there had been two.

She heard the door open as her maids brought the hot water for her bath. They were both new to her service; Tyrion said the women who'd tended to her previously had all been Cersei's spies, just as Sansa had always suspected. "Come see," she told them. "There's a castle in the sky." (ASOS, Sansa IV)

If you look at Jon V in ASOS, where he feels alone although Ygritte is right behind him:

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.

By that afternoon the trees had begun to thin, and they marched east over gently rolling plains. Grass rose waist high around them, and stands of wild wheat swayed gently when the wind came gusting, but for the most part the day was warm and bright. Toward sunset, however, clouds began to threaten in the west. They soon engulfed the orange sun, and Lenn foretold a bad storm coming. His mother was a woods witch, so all the raiders agreed he had a gift for foretelling the weather. "There's a village close," Grigg the Goat told the Magnar. "Two miles, three. We could shelter there." Styr agreed at once.

It was well past dark and the storm was raging by the time they reached the place. The village sat beside a lake, and had been so long abandoned that most of the houses had collapsed. Even the small timber inn that must once have been a welcome sight for travelers stood half-fallen and roofless. We will find scant shelter here, Jon thought gloomily. Whenever the lightning flashed he could see a stone roundtower rising from an island out in the lake, but without boats they had no way to reach it.

It is quite interesting. The Sansa quote could point towards the castles at the Eyries: Stone and Snow (two castles) that become one (Sky/in the sky). I think you could read it as a Jonsa foreshadowing.

Jon in this parallel chapter starts with Castle Black (like the black castles in the sky) and ends at the castle that is not named here but that is “Queenscrown”.

Both the castles merging together in the sky and Jon being forced to seek shelter near Queenscrown are caused by wind. Jon’s story starts at Castle Black and ends with his Queen being crowned? Queenscrown is also very important because that is the point where Jon betrays the Freefolk and Ygritte. It is his “traitor’s walk” in a way.

I think it is interesting and I doubt it is coincidence, escpecially not because Jon and Sansa start the chapter with being alone.