#rhaenatheblack

whose relationship with Baelish also offers some really interesting connections…

of course a big one is Thomas Cromwell, who himself had a son who died young from the sweating sickness (Sweetrobin parallel?) and an illegitimate daughter called Jane (Alayne) whose early life is a total mystery. much like Baelish, Cromwell built himself from nothing and rose to become one of the king’s chief ministers. like Baelish, Cromwell played a prominent role in the downfall of someone very close to the king (yes, Ned Stark is Anne Boleyn). so it’s kind of like asking “what if Cromwell took Elizabeth I under his wing by hiding her as his bastard daughter?”

but one can’t help but also think of Nabokov’s Lolita, in which Humbert Humbert marries Dolores’ mother, Charlotte, solely to gain unchecked proximity to her. with Catelyn dead (Lady Stoneheart notwithstanding), Lysa is the closest thing to a mother that Sansa has… and just like Humbert, Baelish is responsible for the mother’s death and takes advantage of it to groom the child — which is why I have him refer to Alayne as the “light of his life” in my fics

if it feels incestuous it’s because it most certainly is. not only is Baelish pretending to be Sansa’s father, he’s also legally her uncle, which is why the pomegranate scene is so apt too… as it invokes the image of Hades tricking Persephone (his niece) into eating the fruit of the underworld after kidnapping her

but unlike Persephone, Sansa does not eat any seeds. she will NOT remain in the underworld with Baelish. in fact, she will kill him

“I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief,” the dwarf woman was saying. “I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.”

— ASOS, Arya VIII

Baelish, whose real sigil is the colossal Titan head, IS the savage giant in question. and Sansa, whose purple hairnet was used to poison Joffrey, is the Medusa-like figure who will slay Baelish in a castle built of snow (I think Winterfell but could be the Eyrie)

either way, Sansa symbolises life and spring. like with Persephone herself, Sansa’s return home will signify the coming of spring… the notion that Petyr Baelish’s hold on his “children” is absolute is his own delusion. unfortunately I do think that Sweetrobin is a goner, but Sansa is the wolf in a mockingbird’s nest. eventually it will bite back