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Episode 165: A STORM OF SWORDS, SANSA II: "Say Yes to the Dress" ft. Sarah Skilton Show Notes!
🕑 Added 2021-11-29 14:01:02 +0000 UTCHello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.
And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.
Welcome to the one hundred and sixty-fifth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Say Yes to the Dress: An Analysis of ASOS, Sansa II” in which good guy Cersei decides to give Sansa a beautiful dress for no reason at all. Simple generosity. You love to see it.
Introduce Sarah
[ I first learned about ASOIAF from a New Yorker article that focused on the fans’ frustrations with having to wait for Dance, and I thought, “Those poor suckers, remind me to never read this series, haha” cut to ten years later: DAMMIT!]
This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:
- Hand of the King WolfmanZack
- Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
- Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
- Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
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- Lord Micah, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
- Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
- Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
- Lady Xena Valyrian
- Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
- His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
- Laurence, Prince of Dorne
- Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
- Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
- The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
- Lady Stephanie
- Lord Carlos
- Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
- Ser Sourcedelica
- Sugar Tits Dent the Troglodyte Warrior
- Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
- Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan, Herald of Cher, and Bastard of Chromatica, Exalter of Black Lives and Defender of Trans Lives, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems and the Not A Cast’s Nonbinary Not an Army.
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- Lord Peter
- Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
- Holdup, the holder of cups
- Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
- Lord Nick
- Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
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- Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
- Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
- Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
- Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
- Lord Kyle
- Lord Samuel Seaworth
- Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
- Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
- Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
- Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)
- Lord Sir Septon Ruthers
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- Lord Tyler, the prince that promises to wait patiently, for the winds of winter
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- Lord Moncef
- The severed head of a Targaryan prince, rotting on the council walls
Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!
Question
Guilty Undertaker, a Sworn Sword patron, asks:
How deep do you think Sybell Spicer's involvement in planning the Red Wedding was? We know that she took steps to prevent Jeyne from getting pregnant, however, I'm skeptical of the idea that the whole marriage between Jeyne and Robb was plotted in advance. To do this, Sybell would have needed to know that Robb would attack the Crag; that he would be wounded; that Jeyne would be able to seduce him; and, most crucially, that Robb would not do what many would do in his position: refuse to marry Jeyne even after bedding her. It seems far more likely to me that Robb and Jeyne's marriage came as as much of a shock to Sybell as it did to Cat. She realized that Robb was likely to lose his war and that it would go very badly for House Westerling if he did, which prompted her to reaffirm her house's allegiance to the Lannisters (perhaps embellishing the facts of what happened to do so). If Sybell is to be the POV of the TWoW prologue, as some have suggested, we may get more insight into the exact circumstances of her deal with Tywin. She may also get her own Red Wedding. It would be very like George to make us hate a character, and then have them killed in a horrifying fashion.
So, thank you Guilty Undertaker for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword of higher-level patron over patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can also get show notes, bonus episodes, merch, access to the NotASlack, weekly minisodes and shout-outs at the start and end of every episode!
Yes indeed. Check us out at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.
But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Sansa, she had seen the Tyrells enter King’s Landing, attended an innocent dinner with Olenna and Margaery Tyrell and heard wonderful news: she was going to get out of King’s Landing and marry Willas Tyrell. Let’s continue the good times in this synopsis of ASOS, Sansa II!
Synopsis
“A new gown?" she said, as wary as she was astonished.
"More lovely than any you have worn, my lady," the old woman promised. She measured Sansa's hips with a length of knotted string. "All silk and Myrish lace, with satin linings. You will be very beautiful. The queen herself has commanded it."
2015 version of me is shrieking in horror at the start of this chapter. 2021 version of me is saying, “Hm, how interesting.” It’s a Sansa chapter, and we will have fun with this.
Sansa asks which queen commanded her to wear this dress, and Sansa is told that it’s Cersei. Wait. Cersei said that? Oh yeah, the old woman says. Sansa needs to dress like a real woman now. Sansa gets her arms measured, thinking that she did need a new dress given how much she’d grown and how she’d burned most of her wardrobe when she burned her bed when she had her first period.
"Your bosom will be as lovely as the queen's," the old woman said as she looped her string around Sansa's chest. "You should not hide it so."
The comment made her blush. Yet the last time she'd gone riding, she could not lace her jerkin all the way to the top, and the stableboy gaped at her as he helped her mount. Sometimes she caught grown men looking at her chest as well, and some of her tunics were so tight she could scarce breathe in them.
Sansa asks the color of the dress, and the old woman says, um, uh, it’ll be awesome. Yeah. The color will be awesome. She’ll take care of the colors. No need for further questions. And when will Sansa wear this dress? Way, way before Joffrey’s wedding to Margaery for, um, reasons.
Sansa thanks the woman and Cersei for the dress, and the old woman leaves. Sansa is suspicious of this. She thinks maybe this is Margaery’s or Olenna’s work. Margaery had been nice to her since that dinner, bringing Sansa into the fold of ladies in the Tyrell court. Lady Leonette gave Sansa harp lessons. Lady Janna was a gossip. Merry Crane was a good storyteller, and Lady Bulwer reminded Sansa of Arya. And then there were the Tyrell cousins:
Closest to Sansa's own age were the cousins Elinor, Alla, and Megga, Tyrells from junior branches of the House. "Roses from lower on the bush," quipped Elinor, who was witty and willowy. Megga was round and loud, Alla shy and pretty, but Elinor ruled the three by right of womanhood; she was a maiden flowered, whereas Megga and Alla were mere girls.
The cousins took Sansa into their company as if they had known her all their lives. They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept . . . and often one or two of them would be chosen to share Margaery's bed, where they would whisper half the night away. Alla had a lovely voice, and when coaxed would play the woodharp and sing songs of chivalry and lost loves. Megga couldn't sing, but she was mad to be kissed. She and Alla played a kissing game sometimes, she confessed, but it wasn't the same as kissing a man, much less a king. Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He'd come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.
Megga tells Sansa that Joffrey has beautiful lips and how Sansa must have been so heartbroken when Joffrey broke up with her.
Joffrey made me weep more often than you know, she wanted to say, but Butterbumps was not on hand to drown out her voice, so she pressed her lips together and held her tongue.
Elinor was betrothed to Alyn, a squire of Lord Ambrose, and she gushes that her favor made Alyn brave in battle.
"He says he shouted her name for his battle cry, isn't that ever so gallant? Someday I want some champion to wear my favor, and kill a hundred men." Elinor told her to hush, but looked pleased all the same.
They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.
Gotta admit: those are great lines.
The thing that keeps Sansa going is Margaery who takes her out to the city ramparts to see the remnants of the battle and also to go hawking. Margaery tells Sansa that Willas is a great birdsmith … is that a word? He uses eagles. Margaery then calls Sansa sister, and Sansa’s all like, I would love a sister like Margaery. She had Arya, and Arya sucked as a sister. But how could she let Margaery, her sister, marry Joffrey.
"Margaery, please," she said, "you mustn't." It was hard to get the words out. "You mustn't marry him. He's not like he seems, he's not. He'll hurt you."
"I shouldn't think so." Margaery smiled confidently . "It's brave of you to warn me, but you need not fear. Joff's spoiled and vain and I don't doubt that he's as cruel as you say, but Father forced him to name Loras to his Kingsguard before he would agree to the match. I shall have the finest knight in the Seven Kingdoms protecting me night and day, as Prince Aemon protected Naerys. So our little lion had best behave, hadn't he?" She laughed, and said, "Come, sweet sister, let's race back to the river. It will drive our guards quite mad." And without waiting for an answer, she put her heels into her horse and flew.
Sansa thinks that Margaery is brave, but she has doubts that all would be well. She remembers the stories of how Aegon IV didn’t hurt Queen Naerys because of Aemon the Dragonknight. Then again, Aegon Iv murdered another kingsguard for sleeping with one his mistresses. Also killed the mistress.
Still, Sansa wonders about how Loras Tyrell will conduct himself. Sure, Joffrey might not be a total shit for a little while, but he would return to his old ways. And when he did, Sansa thinks there’ll be a new kingslayer, and the gutters will run red with Tyrell and Lannister blood. How is that Maegaery and Mace didn’t see this? Maybe Sansa was being silly? Nope. You’re being smart, Sansa.
When she told Ser Dontos that she was going to Highgarden to marry Willas Tyrell, she thought he would be relieved and pleased for her. Instead he had grabbed her arm and said, "You cannot!" in a voice as thick with horror as with wine. "I tell you, these Tyrells are only Lannisters with flowers. I beg of you, forget this folly, give your Florian a kiss, and promise you'll go ahead as we have planned. The night of Joffrey's wedding, that's not so long, wear the silver hair net and do as I told you, and afterward we make our escape." He tried to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Sansa tried to slip away from him as Dontos told her that the arrangements for her safety were all made. Sansa doesn’t need arrangements. She’s going with the Tyrells. They’ll keep her safe.
"But he does not know you," Dontos insisted, "and he will not love you. Jonquil, Jonquil, open your sweet eyes, these Tyrells care nothing for you. It's your claim they mean to wed."
"My claim?" She was lost for a moment.
"Sweetling," he told her, "you are heir to Winterfell." He grabbed her again, pleading that she must not do this thing, and Sansa wrenched free and left him swaying beneath the heart tree. She had not visited the godswood since.
Though Sansa hadn’t gone back to the godswood, she kept thinking about Dontos’ words about her claim. It didn’t make sense. Robb was still alive, and he would be married and have children. Anyways, what would Willas or the Tyrells want with Winterfell. They had Highgarden. Sansa had been doing a lot of thinking about Willas these days, whispering his name, thinking she shouldn’t care about his lame leg. She fantasizes about sitting together with puppies, listening to music and floating down barges.
If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters, too. In Sansa's dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.
But Sansa keeps thinking about Loras instead of Willas, telling herself it wasn’t right. She could not be seen to be disappointed when she met Willas. And Willas may not be all that good-looking. He could look like Mace! But that didn’t matter. She had to be good to him.
Unfortunately for Sansa, she still had dreams, or rather: nightmares, of marrying Joffrey who turned into Ilyn Payne. Sansa thinks that she didn’t want Margaery to suffer, but she had warned her, and Margaery was keeping on keeping on about the whole thing. Sansa figures that Margaery will learn Joffrey’s true nature soon, and she decides to light a candle to the Mother to protect Margaery and a candle to the Warrior to aid Loras too if it came to that.
She would wear her new gown for the ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor, she decided as the seamstress took her last measurement. That must be why Cersei is having it made for me, so I will not look shabby at the wedding. She really ought to have a different gown for the feast afterward but she supposed one of her old ones would do. She did not want to risk getting food or wine on the new one. I must take it with me to Highgarden. She wanted to look beautiful for Willas Tyrell. Even if Dontos was right, and it is Winterfell he wants and not me, he still may come to love me for myself. Sansa hugged herself tightly, wondering how long it would be before the gown was ready. She could scarcely wait to wear it.
And that is the synopsis of ASOS, Sansa II. Now, you might be wondering if I’ve changed my mind about this being the worst chapter in all of ASOIAF, and for that … well, you’ll have to wait, because both Emmett and Sarah deserve the space to speak first. So, what did you both think?
Depth
So we’re back with my favorite character arc in ASOIAF: Jeff’s arc, in which he learns to love Sansa Stark. What a long, strange trip it’s been! Seriously though, I get why this chapter throws some people off; on first read, it seems like nothing much happens. Sansa II could’ve been designed for a reread podcast, because it only fully takes shape once you come back to it. Knowing that Sansa gets married off to Tyrion against her will instead of Willas Tyrell lends a powerful dramatic irony to this chapter. On the surface, this may well be the happiest chapter in ASOIAF, but a current of doom runs underneath, a sense of inevitability that George expresses through an innovative structure that jumps around in time. Sansa is still trapped; she just doesn’t know it yet.
Sarah’s opening statement
You’re so right that it’s ideal as a re-read, because I honestly thought the Tyrells were going to save Sansa the first time around. I was a show-watcher first, and the scene from Sansa’s last chapter that also played out similarly in the show, in which Olenna and Margaery (and Butterbumps…) ask her for the truth about Joffrey, I was holding my breath and so full of hope that they’d whisk her away. It was a huge relief to see her being honest for the first time about what she’s endured! Of course it doesn’t go that way, her ordeals are just getting started really.
The irony is that in a sick way, both Sansa and Arya got what they wanted, but in the most horrible incarnation possible. Sansa is getting a wedding in King’s Landing in front of the high lords and ladies, a beautiful dress… And Arya got her own sword and lessons in how to wield it, and if you follow that wish to its worst conclusion, it’s turned sour. Sandor tells Sansa point blank that “Knights are for killing.” Arya learns that from experience. Instead of the excitement of learning in the company of safe and trusted adults, she’s thrust into the world alone, no family, no pack, and forced to put her lessons to use. She wanted to learn how to use a sword, but not to have to use it. Now it’s for survival. Now she doesn’t have a choice. But each Stark sister’s current plotline did actually start from a seed of their own wishes.
What is a nightmare if not the flipside of a dream, right? That’s what makes it so painful. Arya’s disillusionment is expressed externally. (Doesn’t she break the toy soldiers she sees kids playing with?) With Sansa, it’s all internal, and we get a good look at her thought-processes here. She senses something’s not as it seems. She has only herself to mull it over with, though.
So. Here we are. Another Sansa chapter. And the verdict is … this chapter is GOOD, ACTUALLY. I know. I’m as surprised as all of you by my own admission. Emmett, you’re absolutely right that this chapter works as a brilliant re-read chapter. And Sarah, you’re right that Sansa is getting prepped to receive what she wants in the worst possible way. To me, what makes this chapter a really good chapter on this re-read is that Sansa realizes that something is amiss amidst all of the seemingly good times. More than that, Sansa demonstrates that despite the horrors she’s witnessed, her heart remains noble. She still cares about people and desperately wants them to avoid experiencing the horrors she’s witnessed and felt in King’s Landing. Damn. This is a really good chapter even if it kicks off with a dress.
- Introducing the gown
- “A new gown?" she said, as wary as she was astonished.
- Right from the start of the chapter, we’re dealing with the possibility that nothing is as it appears
- Sansa knows enough to be suspicious of such sudden generosity; as she said in her last chapter, life in Joffrey’s court taught her not to trust
- But she doesn’t have enough information to put the puzzle pieces together, in large part because there are just so many pieces at play
- Even finding out who sent the dress is complicated! When the seamstress says it was the queen, Sansa wonders if she means Margaery. She was Renly’s queen; he’s considered a traitor, but now Margaery is marrying a new king, so maybe people have just started calling her a queen, like how some folks in the Riverlands are already calling Edmure a lord
- Or maybe Olenna sent the dress! She’s called the Queen of Thorns, after all...but no, it was Cersei, the Queen Regent
- That little confusion is so revealing--the Tyrells and Lannisters are officially allies, about to be One Great House, but in practice, this town often isn’t big enough for the two of them. How many queens can there really be?
- It’s a zero-sum game of musical chairs; you win or you die, and the Tyrells and Lannisters are often working at cross-purposes behind the scenes
- It’s also revealing in terms of Sansa’s arc. As the seamstress says, Sansa’s becoming a woman, not a little girl, and she should dress the part
- Sansa has grown, both up (three inches in the past year) and out: her breasts are now too big for her clothes, and men are starting to stare
- With Catelyn so far away, Cersei has become Sansa’s maternal figure--albeit a manipulative and untrustworthy one
- (yes! Worst mentorship ever? And she’s my favorite character!) I’m always struck by the fact that one of the first things Cersei does once they’ve left Winterfell is strip both Stark girls of their direwolves. Right away they’ve lost that level of protection. Cersei does have a lot to teach Sansa, and there seem to be occasional glimmers of wanting to impart real advice, or of letting things slip a bit when she’s drunk during the Battle of the Blackwater, but more often, Sansa uses Cersei’s words and behavior as examples of what NOT to do)
- They do have a lot in common in terms of their circumstances: some Cersei / Sansa parallels:
- Both arrived in Kings Landing at 11 or 12
- Both are daughters of the Hand of the King
- Both were kept in the hand’s tower awaiting betrothal or marriage
- Both fell in love with the aesthetic and imagery of a prince, not a real person
- Both were forced into miserable marriages they didn’t choose
- Cersei had to marry the man who killed her “ideal” betrothal, Rhaegar (and “never forgives him for it”)
- Sansa had to marry the man who killed her father / or at the very least into the family of the people who killed her father, and have kids with that person!
- Sansa learns how to utilize soft power like the Tyrells
- Cersei uses sexuality and seems to disdain soft power but is never effectively taught how to use hard power (though she seems to believe she knows.)
- But although their circumstances are superficially very similar, they couldn’t be more different in the ways they respond to those circumstances.
- Cersei doesn’t care if the world’s unfair, just so long as it’s unfair in Cersei’s favor; just so long as the rules that keep other women down won’t apply to her anymore. Her attitude is, “I survived it, so can you,” rather than, “Maybe we could make this less horrifying.” She’s fine to keep the world the way it is, just with herself at the top of the hierarchy,(fuck them other women!) while Sansa seems to want a genuine sisterhood.
- Lo the Lynx and Rohanne’s essay on Cersei called “A Most Uncommon Woman” includes a great analysis of this and helped me understand and articulate her attitude.
- Unlike Sansa, Cersei wants to dominate (“she dreamt she sat the iron throne, high above them all”). She wants to be feared and obeyed, existing on a separate, higher level, not forced to mingle with the unwashed. Sansa thinks, “If I’m ever queen, I'll make them love me.” Sansa seems to want to participate, walk among the people, possibly make life better for them.
- The difference? One of them had Catelyn Stark for a mother, and Ned for a dad. The other had no mother, and the worst possible Dad, and if not for a fuck you from the Gods, that unfair twist of fate (in her view), she could have easily been born a man. She grew up intimately aware of what that life might have been like, because she has an actual twin, whom she views as the male version of her.
- While Cersei doesn’t directly appear in this chapter, she haunts it. Sansa thinks about her entry into womanhood, setting her wardrobe on fire while trying to hide the evidence of her first period; it was Cersei who confronted her afterwards, and now Cersei is replacing all the clothes she burned up
- The seamstress compares Sansa’s growing bosom to Cersei’s, and indeed, Cersei remembers the men starting to stare just like Sansa:
- Men had been looking at her that way since her breasts began to bud. Because I was so beautiful, they said, but Jaime was beautiful as well, and they never looked at him that way.
- As you were saying, Sarah, Cersei’s resentment of how she was treated does not lead her to empathize with other women--quite the opposite!
- She knows the gilded cage of noble femininity so well that she’s able to lock Sansa inside it. I was forced into this; why shouldn’t you be? What are you, special? What are you, better than me? No one’s better than me!!
- On reread, the red flags stand out: the seamstress doesn’t tell Sansa what colors the dress will be, and insists that it has to be ready before the king’s wedding. You can feel the irony dripping off the page when Sansa and the seamstress agree that Cersei is just so generous. They both know better. Cersei said that love is a sweet poison, and this gown is a poisoned gift
- The opening of this chapter continues the theme of weaponizing chivalry and femininity.
- Here, the seamstress plays the role of the kindly peasant woman to the highborn who is kind to Sansa because kindness is good.
- Unfortunately, this seamstress is an employee of Cersei’s, and she has learned the best way to stay alive is to lie on her employer’s behalf.
- Cersei has no qualms about killing smallfolk or selling them to slavers; so, completely understandable!
- At the same time, it’s another sad note that the nobility continue to make the peasantry complicit in their misdeeds.
- In a weird way, the seamstress reminds me of characters like Steelshank Waltons who are just normal, run-of-the-mill people who do shitty things when their lord orders them to do so.
- Again, it is completely understandable why the seamstress lies by omission to Sansa.
- Still, there’s a moment in the chapter where you can sense that this woman wants to tell Sansa the truth.
- You shall have smallclothes and hose as well, kirtles and mantles and cloaks, and all else befitting a . . . a lovely young lady of noble birth.
- She was probably about to say befitting a bride to be or some such, but she’s been told by Cersei to hide why she was measuring Sansa for her wedding gown as Sansa is about to be married off to Tyrion.
- Yet even as Cersei plays at deception, the Tyrells are playing their own game of deception.
- The Tyrell cousins
- Sansa assumes the dress must have something to do with the Tyrells, because she is all about the Tyrells right now!
- This thought triggers the first of several nested flashbacks. Sansa II has a sophisticated analeptic structure, in which George starts with Sansa and the dress, tunnels back in time to fill in the context, and then returns to the present moment, which has now been reshaped by that context
- Unlike Cersei, the Tyrells have been “unfailing” in their kindness. This is exactly what Sansa has been missing: the company of other women
- In isolation, it’s easy to forget how good companionship can feel. It’s like Sansa’s hanging out with people for the first time in the pandemic
- The older women in the Tyrell court teach her lessons and share the gossip, but Sansa spends most of her time with Margaery’s cousins Megga, Alla, and Elinor, closest to her own age
- If Cersei shows Sansa the cynical, destructive person she could become in response to disillusionment, the Tyrell cousins show her the opposite: what those youthful illusions look like from the outside
- On one hand, they’re so casually generous with their friendship, not wanting anything out of Sansa except to spend time with her. They sing, they do needlework, they eat lemon cakes--all of her favorite things
- On the other hand, the Tyrell cousins show Sansa what she looked like before the fall, before her handsome prince had her father beheaded
- It’s the gender flipside of what Jaime thinks about another Tyrell, Loras:
- He's me … I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young.
- This self-recognition is a painful process. You can’t recognize your delusions until you shed them, and there’s always someone coming up behind you ready to inherit that gauzy songs-and-stories filter on the world
- Just as Jon is starting to learn that Old Nan’s stories were full of exaggerations and omissions, Sansa has enough distance from her previous worldview to recognize how much it was hiding from her
- What do we hide from kids? Sex and death: the most powerful forces in existence, opposites that always feed off each other like ice and fire
- That doesn’t stop the Tyrell cousins from thinking about them, though--they obsess over sex and death precisely because they’re taboo
- Megga is “mad to be kissed,” and has been practicing with Alla. These childhood social circles are where they rehearse for adulthood
- It’s all play, it’s make-believe, as Sansa only realizes now. She’s experienced the real thing with Sandor...or has she?
- Sansa thinks to herself that Sandor kissed her during the Blackwater; that’s not true, though, and George has said this is important:
- That will eventually mean something, but just now it's a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.
- File this one under "unreliable narrator" and feel free to ponder its meaning.
- Despite how violent Sandor was, Sansa has romantically imprinted on that moment. She’s got one foot in the songs and one foot out of them
- Part of her is able to see through the naive beliefs of the Tyrell cousins. When Megga starts rhapsodizing about Joffrey’s lips, and saying that Sansa must have wept to miss out on smooching them, all she can think is that Joffrey did make her weep, because his beauty is only skin deep
- Elinor, the oldest of the three, is engaged to Alyn, a squire who wore her favor in the Battle of Blackwater
- He killed two men out there; Megga thinks it was ever so gallant and can’t wait until she has a dashing young man to kill a hundred men for her!
- Megga’s not bloodthirsty (necessarily), she just doesn’t have the experience to understand the implications of what she’s saying
- She’s not thinking of those hundred men as individuals like her, who will suffer and then be gone forever, losing out on the life they could’ve lived
- She’s thinking of romance as a game you win; the more men die for you, the more your boyfriend loves you. It’s just simple math!
- It’s all bred by the stories, which are so powerful for children in part because they lack any reference point in their own lives to compare it to
- This, Sansa thinks, is the way she used to be: innocent and ignorant, the two constantly reinforcing each other. They’re still in Plato’s Cave, they’re still plugged into the Matrix, and even though Sansa knows it’s false, part of her wants to join them, which is why she invents the “UnKiss”
- After all, she’s not any more happy or more free because she’s more enlightened than they are: all she got was the ability to see the cage
- That’s what Sandor kept telling her--this is all for show. Yet she disarmed him with her song, made him cry; her imagination takes that a step further, turning the scene into the romance he claimed was impossible
- Is it really that different from Elinor’s betrothed declaring he was braver with her favor around his arm? This is the great contradiction: artifice can be used to cover up atrocities, but artifice is also how we survive atrocities
- So naturally, Sansa feels both ways about the Tyrell cousins; George feels both ways about them too, and I think we’re supposed to as well
- That’s really brilliant, Emmett. Margaery’s cousins are not characters I’ve given a ton of thought to, and I always appreciate how you and Jeff take the time to dig in to what the minor characters bring to the texture and themes of the books. It adds so much to my enjoyment and appreciation of the work. They serve as effective contrasts to Sansa, and bring about revelations she might not otherwise have had.
- The line from this chapter that stands out the most for me, and I’m sure others as well, is: “Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.”
- It gutted me the first time I read and each time since. It doesn’t work if it’s in the opposite order. It’s more poignant this way; starts out a bit condescending, and then pivots to completely heartbreaking. She wants what they have, that she can never get back. And she knows she can never get it back, which is why she envies them. My niece is 11 and it’s so disturbing to think of how young a kid that age really is.
- Of Willas, Sansa thinks, “He still may come to love me for myself.” She still thinks there’s a hope, but the hope is fainter now than it was when she was younger, and it’s tempered with a keener sense of reality.
- Now, she’s preparing for different contingencies. Thinking ahead and brainstorming the methods, the acting, really, the role she’ll need to play to increase her chances for the best possible outcome. She has to calculate ahead of time about how to behave, which is a striking contrast to her arrival in King’s Landing, when she had her family’s protection and could just be swept away with the spectacle and the pomp. She’s grown up so much since then. Been forced to grow up.
- Among her calculations, she specifically tells herself she can’t allow Willas to glimpse any disappointment in her eyes. And maybe if she gives Willas sons--(as though that’s something within her control!)--that she could turn things around. Despite being a hostage of the Lannisters and seeing horror up close, she hasn’t fully abandoned the idea that she might yet be in a romance.
- Romance as a contemporary genre has very specific parameters, the most important of which is the requirement of an HEA (happily ever after). It’s a contract with the audience; they know if they pick up that genre of book they are guaranteed a specific ending, all the suffering will lead to reconciliation, all will be made right.
- Unfortunately for Sansa, that’s not the type of story she’s in. She’s in a story that includes romanticism in the 19th c. poetic sense; GRRM is a self-professed romantic, but that’s very different from writing a romance. A Song of Ice and Fire contains the melancholy, Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Bronte-sisters style of romance (Jaime and Cersei are Heathcliff and Cathy from in Wuthering Heights, which is partly why I’m so fascinated by them; and I think Sweet Robin is a stand-in for sickly, whiny Linton, but that’s a different topic altogether).
- The type of romance we see here can be bittersweet, beautiful and tragic, a sunset versus a sunrise, but we’re not under any illusions of Happily Ever After. There are no HEAs here.
- And even though this chapter is fairly short, I think it shows the beginnings of Sansa realizing that whatever happiness she grabs for herself will have to be based on her making the best of her circumstances, and being pro-active and careful rather than hoping the world and the other people in it will provide for her happiness or safety.
- Even while we see how real people at work here, we should be aware that these girls are not Sansa’s real friends.
- When we get to the next Sansa chapter at her wedding feast, what do we find?
- Elinor, Alla, and Megga seemed determined not to know her. My friends, Sansa thought bitterly.
- These girls are playing at being Sansa’s friends, because they’ve been told by their noble superiors that they need to be friendly to Sansa.
- They are playing their part in the Tyrell game of thrones of using soft power to win Sansa over ideologically to their cause.
- But when Sansa is of no use to them anymore, and is no longer of value as she’s married off to Tyrion before Willas, they ghost her.
- Again, similar to the seamstress, I understand why they act the way they do.
- They’re mere cogs in the machine of Tyrell politics and are simply following orders.
- Or perhaps it’s not so top-down direct as I’m making it out to be. Maybe these girls were playing as friends to Sansa, because she was connected to the cool girl in school: Margaery.
- And really, the only one who seemed to be truly Sansa’s friend is Margaery who at least has the decency to give Sansa a sad look at her wedding feast.
- And, maybe my perception, but judging from this chapter, Margaery may have been bought into having Sansa as a sister.
- Margaery’s machinations
- Sansa’s thoughts then move to Margaery, as George shifts from one flashback to another, this one more recent: only the day before last
- Margaery is different from her cousins: older and wiser, still kind, but as Sansa thinks, she’s got a hint of Olenna’s steel in her as well
- So if the cousins show Sansa who she was, Margaery shows her who she could’ve been if she’d been raised to play the game
- Margaery isn’t lost in the image; instead, she’s been trained by her grandmother to wield that image to consolidate political power
- Just look at the Purple Wedding, how Olenna and Margaery never break character as they usher Joffrey into his grave
- George reflects this duality in the imagery. Margaery takes Sansa hawking, telling her how good it’ll be when Sansa marries Willas and they can be sisters, but they’re surrounded by the charred remains of the battle
- Those are the thorns lurking beneath the beautiful flowers of Highgarden, soft power and hard power working hand in hand
- Sansa was never taught how to compartmentalize; she was thrust without warning into a world with no protection from sudden violence
- So the threat of violence spoils her good time. If she’s really found a new pack, if Margaery is her sister now, how can Sansa let her marry Joffrey?
- “He’s not like he seems,” Sansa says, which sums up this chapter as a whole. Nothing and no one are as they seem: Margaery, Dontos, the dress
- The irony is that Margaery is performing every bit as much as Joffrey. It’s a fine line she has to walk here: reassuring Sansa without giving away the game. The reality is that Margaery has nothing to fear, because the Tyrells will kill Joffrey in part because of Sansa’s testimony
- But since Margaery can’t say that, she has to act more naive than she really is, just as Sansa kept quiet about Joffrey around the cousins because Butterbumps wasn’t around to cover up reality with fiction
- Right, and I think this is the strongest evidence that Margaery knew about the plot to kill Joffrey from the get-go.
- The Thrones Show had Olenna keep Margaery in the dark about what was going to go down at her wedding, but I think Book!Margaery is aware of what’s about to happen.
- A lot of noise has been made about how the aged-up Margaery from the show is much more mature and savvy than Margaery from the books.
- Even George said as much in an interview from 2013:
- My Margaery is younger than Loras, not older than Loras. So she's really just like a sixteen year old kid. And Natalie is brilliant, but she's clearly not a sixteen-year-old kid. She's very smart. She's almost what my Margaery will become in ten years.
- I understand where George is coming from here -- especially as Natalie Dormer (peace be upon her) comes off as a much more dialed-in player in Tyrell politics.
- But scenes like this one show a competent and savvy Margaery who knows that she’s not in any real danger from Joffrey.
- Show!Margaery seemed to believe that her own ability to sexually manipulate Joffrey was enough to stay his brutal nature -- the crossbow scene from S03E02 being the prime example of this.
- Book!Margaery is fifteen years old, and her blase attitude towards the danger of Joffrey is likely sourced to knowing that the plot to kill Joffrey was on.
- But Margaery can’t tell Sansa that! She has to frame her attitude to Sansa in a plausible and well … manipulative way!
- Margaery uses familiar images from the songs to get around the inconvenient truth. She acknowledges that Joffrey is cruel, but says that Loras will protect her. Doesn’t he look the part of a perfect Kingsguard knight, just like how Aemon the Dragonknight protected Queen Naerys?
- I love that Sansa, as with the dress, is smart enough to realize this doesn’t make sense, though she doesn’t have the information to put it all together
- Unlike the Tyrell cousins, she no longer thinks of violence purely as something an individual does to reflect their passions
- She’s beginning to understand Varys’ riddle about where power resides. Joffrey doesn’t have to defeat Loras in single combat. He has other knights at his command; someday, he’ll have armies of his own, ones that will follow his lead rather than his parents, his uncle, or his grandfather
- Sansa also understands that the Tyrells also have power beyond Loras’ sword arm, so this seems like a recipe for disaster, in which individual acts of passionate violence--Joffrey hurting Margaery, Loras kingslaying Joffrey--escalate into all-out war between sides with different interests
- The irony keeps growing as Sansa wonders how the Tyrells don’t see this trainwreck coming. She can only conclude that she’s being silly
- On reread, we know that Sansa is on the right track, because this is exactly how Littlefinger describes Olenna’s calculus:
- “Lady Olenna was not about to let Joff harm her precious darling granddaughter, but unlike her son she also realized that under all his flowers and finery, Ser Loras is as hot-tempered as Jaime Lannister. Toss Joffrey, Margaery, and Loras in a pot, and you've got the makings for kingslayer stew.”
- The difference is that Sansa doesn’t understand how ruthless the Tyrells can be, how far they will go to secure victory in the game of thrones
- Something this re-read has solidified for me is how ruthless the Tyrells truly are.
- If we take ASOS, Sansa I as our touchpoint, that seemed to be the spot where the Tyrell women were verifying the information they received about Joffrey from Littlefinger.
- Between Sansa I and Sansa II, Olenna, Margaery and probably Garlan Tyrell finally agreed upon the murder plot.
- So, that’s why Margaery is so blase about the danger Joffrey poses, but she can’t just out and out tell Sansa this.
- She camouflages her blase attitude with chivalric romance, hoping to bamboozle Sansa with songs and stories.
- It is of significant interest that George really starts to flesh out the backstory of ASOIAF in ASOS.
- The mentions of Aegon IV, Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight had references in earlier books.
- But here in ASOS, they become a bit more fleshed out -- the reason being that GRRM developed detailed backstories of the Targaryens between ACOK and ASOS, specifically on the history of the sword Blackfyre and Aegon IV’s mistresses.
- This is something I really love about ASOS: how George developed the backstory in correlation with the present story he was writing.
- It makes the history come alive, because readers connect it to the present story.
- So, the story of Aemon the Dragonknight defending Queen Naerys resonates, because we readers connect it with Ser Loras defending Queen Margaery.
- Of course, the other interesting angle tossed in is that Margaery is using the songs and stories to manipulate Sansa.
- The real stories of the abuse that Naerys suffered under Aegon IV and how Aemon defended Naerys from Aegon’s secret accusation of adultery at swordpoint by killing Ser Morgil Haystack are the stuff of songs, but a dude died, and Aegon IV was able to get away with secretly slandering his wife scot-free.
- Beyond that, Aemon the Dragonknight ended up dying for Aegon IV, and Naerys died in childbirth a year later.
- And Aegon IV barely acknowledged their lives and deaths; so, their stories lived in song.
- Speaking of historical or rather mythical figures who lived their best lives in songs, our Florian the Fool arrives in the final flashback of the chapter.
- Dontos’ denials
- So then George jumps back again in time to one more flashback, and this turns out to be the most important one of them all
- In all the excitement of meeting the Tyrells, it’s easy to forget about Dontos the Drunk, Sansa’s only NotAKnight now that Sandor has skipped town
- He seemed like her only friend in the world; he offered her escape, which meant she had to put up with his shady creepy attitude
- He promised to get her out on the night of Joffrey’s wedding to Margaery, but it’s all been in service of a benefactor he refuses to name
- Now it seems like Sansa has an escape route that’s more certain and more rewarding: Highgarden and a wedding to Willas
- Dontos, naturally, objects to this. This is a really complicated scene on reread, as you have to tease out the semi-truth of what Dontos is saying and then compare it to what he really knows and what he does next
- Dontos says that the Tyrells are just Lannisters with flowers, that Willas doesn’t know nor love Sansa, and that the Tyrells want only her claim
- He’s exaggerating for effect, just like with his endless comparisons to Florian and Jonquil. As a unit, the Tyrells are not as bad as the Lannisters, and from what we know of Willas, he seems like the best of the bunch
- But his core point is correct: Sansa is not one of them, no matter how they pretend otherwise. They seize upon her for advantage, and as we’ll see in her next chapter, they drop her just as quickly when she’s no longer of use
- For the first time reader, it seems like Sansa’s dilemma is how to integrate herself into House Tyrell. That’s what she’s thinking about--her mission is to get Willas to love her, which means letting go of Loras
- This is part of Sansa’s growth into maturity: recognizing that the person matters more than the image, and that their individual relationships take place in a political context. Maybe they do want me for my claim, but maybe I can get Willas to love me anyway. We will name our children for our dead and raise them to hate Lannisters--split the coalition from within
- On reread, though, all that fledgling hope withers as the dramatic irony hits home in full. Dontos’ secret friend is Littlefinger, who made the deal with the Tyrells and nudged them into killing Joffrey in the first place
- Their interests overlap, but only so far, just as the Tyrells and Lannisters are only friends on the surface. Littlefinger wants Sansa to himself, and Dontos knows that, so when Sansa told him about her secret marriage pact with the Tyrells, Dontos immediately told Littlefinger
- That brings up an interesting timeline note about this chapter, and I’m indebted to the Davos’ Fingers podcast for saying this a few years ago when they covered this chapter.
- Chronologically, this chapter occurs after ASOS, Tyrion III (our next Tyrion chapter) where Tywin reveals that Littlefinger told Tywin of the Tyrell plot.
- Later in the chapter we learn that two days prior to the start of this chapter, she rode out with Margaery.
- Later she meets up with Dontos Hollard, and I believe that occurred that night.
- And then Kevan Lannister tells Tywin, Cersei and Tyrion this at the small(er) council session towards the end of ASOS, Tyrion III:
- “Lord Petyr continues to demonstrate his loyalty. Only yesterday he brought us word of a Tyrell plot to spirit Sansa Stark off to Highgarden for a 'visit,' and there marry her to Lord Mace's eldest son, Willas.”
- The implication being that Littlefinger told Tywin and Kevan about the Tyrell marriage plot the day after his nighttime meet-up with Sansa in the godswood, meaning the day before the present chronology of ASOS, Sansa II.
- Cersei, then, immediately sprang into action, sending in her seamstress to measure Sansa the day after receiving the information. Wild.
- I know all of these chronological notes are super fucking nerd shit, but what I’m trying to get at is how smart of writing this is on George’s part.
- It keeps the mystery of why Sansa is getting fitted for a beautiful dress alive while a conspiracy develops in the background.
- It’s remarkable storytelling when you step back and look at it. The chapter starts and ends in the present moment as Sansa is measured for the dress. In between, the flashbacks inform what has happened, showing us how the dress came to be and what the real meaning of it is
- It’s similar to the analeptic style George uses in Sam’s first chapter. That’s a more iconic example because of the literally apocalyptic stakes
- In this case, the stakes are more personal. Sansa loves her dress in the moment. But now we know that it’s a straightjacket; it’s a noose.
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
The younger Tyrell cousins will return to prominence as part of the Margaery moon tea subplot in AFFC.
Sansa dreams that she has to marry Ilyn Payne instead; Joffrey will threaten her with that exact scenario before she marries Tyrion.
I don’t know if this will happen in any form in the books, but remember Littlefinger’s sort of unhinged quote from the Thrones show, “Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind.” Sansa’s not anywhere near that level of operating style, but she’s taken a first step in that direction, where she’s anticipating problems and how she’ll react. Under Littlefinger’s tutelage that may be where she’s headed.
Kevan Lannister uses the same language about the gutters running red with blood in the ADWD Epilogue, and while the framing there is what will happen if they confront the Sparrows, the chapter has the line: Lannister spearmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested halfhelms stood along the west wall of the throne room. Tyrell guards in green cloaks faced them from the opposite wall. The chill in the throne room was palpable signalling that the gutters of King’s Landing may still run red with Tyrell and Lannister blood.
Theory/Discussion
Sarah, let’s talk about your book!
It’s called HOLLYWOOD ENDING and it came out in paperback this fall from Kensington Books, co-written with Sarvenaz Tash under the pen name Tash Skilton because we think we’re Fleetwood Mac or something. The book came about partially from missing the show, and that feeling of Sunday-night anticipation, theorizing with my husband, and wondering if the finale marked the end of an era in terms of collective TV viewing.
Back in college, Nina and Sebastian were best friends and super-fans who bonded over their shared love of a Thrones-esque TV show, Castles of Rust and Bone. They’d host viewing parties in the dorm and stay up all night discussing it, but when the show is abruptly canceled, their friendship happens to fall apart around the same time. Cut to five years later and they’re both living in L.A., and Castles is being rebooted. Nina's a social media coordinator for the streaming service that will air the show (WatchGoNowPlus), and Sebastian is a PA for the production company.
The paperback blurb reads, “A friends-to-lovers rom-com that explores the hilarious highs and lows of adulting, Hollywood, and what happens when BFFs are forced to take a hard second look at their favorite fandoms--and at each other.”
A good piece of advice I got in writing fiction is to ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen to this character? What’s their worst fear?” And then do that thing. Figure out their specific nightmare and then subject them to it. Anything less won’t unleash their full potential to grow and learn, and it won’t be as satisfying for the reader as it could be, because readers will sense on some level you held back. GRRM never holds back.
Like we talked about with Arya and Sansa earlier, and how technically they got what they wanted, but it’s like the Witch in INTO THE WOODS, the wish got twisted all around.
In Hollywood Ending I took that edict to heart, too. The dream is to work at the favorite show. The nightmare is when the dream comes true and you learn too much. You long for the days of ignorance and innocence again. That’s the framework of the story, and we had a lot of fun working within it and imagining the awful behind-the-scenes aspects. I have interned at a network TV so there was (cough) some inspiration there. Within the love story, the fear is, “If I act on my romantic feelings for this person, will that destroy our friendship?” Having lost each other once before, they’re even more scared this time around to take that risk. But what do they lose out on by NOT acting? We wanted to make it as much com as rom.
It’s a “kissing story” so Bran would not be pleased, but mainly it’s a love letter to Los Angeles, and fandom, a tongue-in-cheek but sincere look at the agony and ecstasy of being a fan, and an unabashed appreciation for the connections fans make with each other through their shared interests.
I know that some NotACast cohosts prefer audiobooks, and it’s available that way too, as well as in ebook. And don’t worry it’s not me on the recording doing a bad Littlefinger voice or anything.
I can briefly mention how I got into the books / wanted to be a writer. As a kid I wrote Tad Williams a letter when I was 10 about Tailchaser’s Song, and he wrote back, telling me about his then-forthcoming Dragonbone Chair. I wasn’t interested in it at the time because it was about people. Ten-year-old me: A fantasy book NOT about cats? Pass! It was only recently I learned that that series helped inspire ASOIAF.
Conclusion
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- Red Rahloo Himself who has renounced his allegiance to the Squishers
- Lady of a Thousand Words
- Septon Merrybald, the Shoeless Sage
- Sister Winter - Lady of the Wolfswood
- Nessie the Elusive, warden of the Neck, Defender of the North and Keeper of Secrets
- Ser Thomas the Raven Knight, Lord of Blackwood
- Ser Way of Course
- Matt, Warden of the Sanguine Shore
- Lord Sam K
- Wisdom Benjicot, Alchemist of Sets and Quanta, Mage of the Arts of Boole and DeMorgan
- Tibs the Great of House Catnapping
- Lord J Manderly, Baker of the Frey Pies
- Hodenis, a prostitute
- Lady Silverwing
- Kaboth the Unfrozen, Lord of the Bricks and Castle Crimson Light
- Ser Keith of House Corbray, wielder of Lady Forlorn
- Lord Andrew - Warden of the Dubai Sands
- Lord Young of the Ghost Woods
- Lady Meera Reed, Wielder of Dark Sister, slayer of tinfoil
- Ser Will of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune
- Lord Clay
- Ser Small Paul, Guardian of the Stone Haven, Defender of Dunnottar Castle
- Septon T-Bone, the Low Septon
- Refined Wrangler of Icy Arachnids
- Lady Veronica, who has abandoned the orphans at the Inn at the Crossroads to become the Queen of Memes
- Lady Danielle of House Lannister
- Titanium Pirate
- Lady Joan, Lady-Ranger of the Frost Fangs
- Cydnii of House Qo, Princess of the Friendly Black Hotties in the Summer Isles
- Random: Fierce Protector of Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
- Sir Lady Jordan Defender of the God's Eye
- Lord Peter (not Petyr), Drinker of Strongwine and Lord Commander of the Flat Planetos Society
- Lady of Rainy Afternoons
- James of House Keene, Lord of the Forest City, Admiral of the Cuyahoga, and Warden of the Western Reserve
- Lady Ken of House Motown, Goddess of Sips and Wine.
- Ser Andrew of H-Town
- Join us next week for part one of ASOS Samwell I, in which we have arrived at last at a top-five chapter in all of ASOIAF as Samwell Tarly and the Night’s Watch flee the Fist of the First Men with death nipping at their heels.
