Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 22 - AGOT Sansa Stark VI/Outro

Episode Date: October 12, 2018

 Thrust into a magical world where the line between truths and lies blurs more often than not, Sansa Stark finds herself battling for survival, hidden beneath a veil of her courtesy. intro by Anton Langhage https://old.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/9m9b41/spoilers_extended_the_greyest_sheep_pycelle/ by Quackadeus on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6198zy/spoilers_extended_like_father_like_daughter/?st=jn0xnp6b&sh=c00463a2by our very own Eliana! Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/  Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon episode 22, Sansa 6, and Sansa A Game of Thrones outro. I'm Chloe, one of your hosts. You can find me on the internet as at Liza Narber on Twitter and Tumblr. And I'm Eliana, the other one of your hosts. And you can find me as GlassTableGirl on the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit and the maester monthly podcast. And on Twitter as arithmetic. Thank you for joining us. We're feeling 22. Yeah. Get it.

Get it. Yeah. Cause it's a Taylor Swift song and it's episode 22. Yeah. Another, another one. Oh my God. That's her thing.

And by the end of our Sons of Chapters, we're going to have a look. Well, but by the end of this chaptera chapters we're gonna have a look well but by the end of this chapter we're gonna have a look what you made me do moment so oh yeah yeah another why not another one that's that's dj khaled though how have they not collaborated all right so i don't know so we're at the end of a game of thrones with Sansa. We do have a couple lightning rounds, though, still. But we will get to that after we go through our one email or tweet of note, which was not an email, not a tweet of note. It's a note, I guess. It doesn't have to be, but we're going to make it a note.

It didn't have a note. Actually, it is a rating from iTunes. Eliana, do you want to describe what this rating is? All right, so on iTunes, as you all know, you can leave us stars, I guess. And this bar is very much light gray as opposed to dark gray. There's a small little blip next to this bar that only has one star next to it. And someone left us a one

star rating. Face me, you coward. Or maybe they have the system backwards, you know? Like how people think that. Like, we're their star. Yeah. We're the single. We're their Evangeline like in uh i enjoy that

you're trying to like soften me though like it's okay chloe it's not for you it's for me i mean yeah i don't care anything about these reviews yeah that is kind of ironic i guess so other than like this one star review whatever, we did also have something that doesn't always happen every week. And I find this to be so cool. So we got a tweet from Ben Sale, whose Twitter handle is SaleBen, spelled S-A-Y-L-E. So it's like a sale in which things are discounted but with a Y in it saleben says at notacast aswaf and at

girlsgoncanon inspired me to do a quick talk about Pycelle before I spend a whole week neck deep in articles for the PhD so blame them for this awesome slash terrible take and bensale who's we're going to now dox on this podcast but he did it to himself his username on reddit is

quokkadeus wrote a post called the gray sheep pie cell character discussion it's a really interesting discussion a gray sheet or a red sheet or whatever you want to call it uh it's about pie cells loyalties and what really drove him to be loyal toward Tywin and his entire personality and that Jaime's first chapter in A Feast for Crows sums that up. He has that little passage back and forth with Maester Pycelle where it's, I have served six kings, he told Jaime after the second service, while sniffing doubtfully about the corpse, but here before us lies the greatest man i ever knew lord tywin wore no crown yet he was all a king should be and then he goes on to talk about old town about the gray plague taking half of the city and three quarters the citadel of lord hightower burning every ship in

the port closing the gates commanding guards to slay people who tried to flee, whether they were babies or women or men. On the very day that Lord Hightower opens the port, he gets dragged from his horse and they slit his throat and his young sons as well. So to this day, the ignorant and old town spit at the sound of his name, but Quentin Hightower did what was needed. Your father was that sort of man as well. A man who did what was needed. So that's sort of man as well a man who did what was needed so that's kind of messed up just putting that out there because tywin slaughtered people for the rule and for a king to ascend a throne quentin hightower killed people so they would stop spreading disease pretty pretty like i mean feudalism is a disease but whatever yeah it's different but I do think it's an astute observation

on the part of Quokka Deus aka Ben Sale yeah and he also goes on that like to talk about how Pycelle would burn Edric Storm right like he would have taken the ships from Meereen he would have killed the child hostages he would have taken the ships from Meereen. He would have killed the child hostages.

He would have done the Red Wedding. Like, all with tears, but without a second thought. Because any man, and this is a great quote that Ben actually writes, any man who wouldn't has no right to power in his eyes. In other words, if we assume Tywin is a dark reflection on what Stannis could be, Pycelle is a dark reflection of what Davos could have been post-knighting, etc. Yeah. So it's a really just a really interesting, good analysis. I really like the Davos comparison.

I mean, I'm one person that definitely would never really shit on Davos. You know, Grandpa Davos. I can't wait to get to his chapters because he's... Oh my god, it's going to be so good. Pretty much just like a good character. Yeah. He's a good guy. But it does kind of make you think of things in that light.

Had Davos, you know, not had his backbone, if he had given up his backbone instead of his finger bones, you know? Yeah. It's interesting the way that they talk about like, Pycelle obviously seems to think that the killing of the Targaryen children are necessary to him, or sending hired knives

across the sea to assassinate Daenerys and I think the idea that it was informed by his experiences in Oldtown during the great plague is an interesting connection you know it goes back to how we were talking with lml about all these different things that inform a character and that shape a person right the experiences that shape who they are yeah and we're gonna hear a lot about those experiences today in this last sansa chapter well not last forever of course

we do have a clash of kings coming up and the storm of swords and a feast for crows even and wait wait did you say eliana what was that what was it was it was that a wind that i heard i felt the wind of russell was it the wind of winter? a gust of gins? nevermind that came out a lot better in my head I think we're gonna have a slight breeze bringing us some Elaine Stone eventually exactly

we both love that chapter that's gonna be a five hour episode oh my god yeah just dissecting all of it I can't wait oh I have so much to it. I can't wait. Oh, I have so much to talk about, I can't even wait. Wow, that is gonna be...

But, of course, for now, we are staying in a Game of Thrones, and there was a lot between Sansa 5 and Sansa 6 that we need to cover. We'll skip a few of the outer chapters that don't really affect her that much, but here's what we missed in this week's lightning round.

Oh my gosh. Again, how are we here again? Eddard 15. It's like the dream never stops, dude. Like, we're just reliving the nightmare. Which is exactly what happens in this chapter, you know. This is us. Varys visits Ned in the Black

Cells, telling him that Sansa plans to plead for his life in front of the court. In Catelyn IX, Catelyn negotiates Robb's host crossing at the Green Fork with Walder Frey. Jeyr Mormont gives Jon a very special sword against this protest, and Maester Aemon gives Jon a lesson in empathy, revealing that he is the son of King Maekar I. Maker's Mark. Yum. I still prefer Amon booze.

Oh yeah, the Amon. I should bring that again. That was not a great shot or cocktail, but I'm gonna do that again this year. Make it better next time. Whatever. Oh my god. In Catalan 10, Rob has led his host to Riverrun, and Catelyn waits with her guards while her son ambushes the Lannister army. Rob holds Jaime as a captive, but several members of the Stark army die.

Arya 5. Catching up with Arya, Arya has been surviving on the streets, hunting pigeons. She ends up in the crowded Baylor Sept and watches her father confess his quote-unquote treason. She tries to climb her way through the crowd to him, but Yoren stops her and takes her with him. Question, do you think that Arya is secretly now Lil Pigeon? Yes.

Oh, they're going to have a rap battle, she and Lil Pigeon, for the pigeon oh my god i can't wait for season eight for aria little pigeon duke it out for the name oh my god i want art of this now just an actual like oversized human-sized pigeon wearing a backward baseball cap like holding the microphone with his feathers off oh Oh, so on Maester Monthly, Michael shared a story where he and Sanrixian were at Con of Thrones and drunk, and Sanrixian saw a pigeon being beat up by other pigeons, so she picked up the pigeon and moved it away so it wouldn't get beaten up, and someone in the comments later was like

oh, Sanrixian Sigil is a pigeon it's so cute though like her yeah it's the most pure story in bran seven bran and rickon share a dream of their father in the crypts of winterfell before maester lewin receives the news and that brings us to sansa stark. Life is not a song as Sansa learns to her sorrow. In a dark room, Sansa grieves the murder of her father until the prince, now king, comes calling for her to get pretty, abusing her each time she displeases him. He takes her to the top of a tower to see Ned once more, where for a brief moment, Sansa gets the courage to fly her cage and take Joffrey with her, before returning to being a lady. Sansa finds herself once more in the tower in Maegor's Holdfast. She's drowning in her grief and dishes of spoiled food are littering and climbing the room. Servants periodically clear them, like they keep going back, picking them up

and clearing them, like a total TV montage. She's depressed, right? Like, if you've ever been depressed, you'll totally get this mood. Which, I mean, she has every right to be. Absolutely. It's sad, man. Sansa sleeps on and off, sometimes dreamless. And none of her dreams are refreshing.

She sometimes likes the dreams, though, because she gets to see her father, but then they suck because she dreams of her father dying when she does dream, and she also sees the same horror when she's awake and sees it when she's not, so she's just kind of seeing him dying all over and over again. It's like a shitty Groundhog Day. Her prince had smiled at her. He smiled, and she'd felt safe, but only for a heartbeat until he said those words on her father's legs. That was what she remembered. His legs, the way they jerked when Sir Illyn... when the sword... Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come, the singers would write songs of her grief.

Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedroom and throw open the shutters. But then her courage left her and she ran back to her bed, sobbing. Totally some Helena Targaryen and ashara dane vibes happening in this passage in fact sansa finds herself at a crossroads almost in a situation similar to helena which we hear about her in the princess and the queen for the most part begging for mercy for someone but being served no true mercy though blood and cheese had spared her life queen helena cannot be said to have survived that fateful dusk afterwards she would not eat nor bathe nor

leave her chambers and she could no longer stand to look upon her son mailer knowing that she had named him to die so i love that passage because obviously sansa didn't name her father to die although her words helped to condemn him in the end. And another passage that totally reminds me of it. That very day, not long after sunset, another horror visited the queen's court.

Helena Targaryen, sister, wife, and queen to King Aegon II and mother of his children, threw herself from her window and maegers hold fast to die and paled upon the iron spikes that lined the dry moat below she was but one in 20 so had sansa been forced to stay longer than she had to in king's landing and had the original timeline gone on for her to wed joffrey and their children we may have seen her turn into something like queen slash princess

velena right we may have seen her go from being who she was you know the highborn girl from the north that loved the south and slowly turn into just like an empty shell of a being and possibly even throw herself out of her tower but though i am very glad that that's like not how the story went. Like Sansa is just so young and I don't know, believing that killing herself would shame all those around her. I don't know, maybe it would have because she is very highborn. But I don't know, like it works well enough for the way Ashara Dayne is portrayed. And as you pointed out, like all these stories are remembered about Helena Targaryen, but I wonder if like, no,

it could have ended up with no one paying attention to Sansa's death either. Like much like how she says that there were no songs sung for Ser Hugh of the Vale when he died, how many people would like actually write any about her? Like how many people die throughout this entire series? And so for so many of them, no songs are sung for them there are no songs about ned yeah a lot of these people die like we would probably die no song are you telling me you wouldn't write a song for me if i did

i'd write i'd write one for you i mean i would hearse is the song of locusts and bell yeah i'd write a song for you hers is a song of sandor and ashara but not together yeah that's a weird ship let's move on so we also learned that like you know as sansa's father as ned was thrown down for the punishment sansa keeps thinking about how she couldn't look away which of course mirrors that language and sansa too bringing it back again to sir hugh of the veil and how sansa kept thinking that oh it was so strange that she couldn't look away from Ser Hugh's body but obviously as we know from Arya's chapter where Sansa's screaming that it was a completely different it was a completely different reaction we have this entire chapter here where

her reaction is very different from the way that Ser Hugh died and also the way that this is written you know we kept stopping before santa talks about ned's actual beheading and it's written in some ways the way that ned's chapters are written right like ned's chapter skips over the actual beheading of lady the wolf we never actually see liana stark and think about her actually dying we don't see that scene same as how sansa cannot bear to actually relive and think the words of what happened when ned died and was beheaded yeah the construction of these chapters are very similar it's very much so start in the aftermath of what just happened and slowly recant what actually happened and of course Sansa's chapters are how we know that I guess Ned's actually dead.

Yeah, it's the confirmation. Yeah, because before this you're all like, oh no, her hair's gonna make it out. He's a pigeon. Yeah, he worked into ice. It's fine. Sansa refuses to speak to the serving girls who come to visit her and they try to talk to her sometimes when they bring her meals. That's a total role reversal, right? From the last chapter? Sansa pulled

major Arianne moves and tried to get the servants to talk to her last chapter, but now she wants absolutely nothing to do with them or food or anyone. And she's not wrong also in her observation that part of why she doesn't want to speak to them, A, she's super depressed and in mourning,

but she's also like, no, those are Lannister servants. No one, I have no one here. No one's loyal to me. And then Grand Maester Pycelle comes in on one of these days and he has Sansa's bedmaid hold her down while he touches her all over, asking if she's ill. That is like such an overlooked small sentence and it's so gross that I want to highlight the actual words from the passage here. That is like such an overlooked small sentence.

And it's so gross that I want to highlight the actual words from the passage here. Once Grand Maester Pycelle came with a box of flasks and bottles to ask if she was ill. He felt her brow, made her undress and touched her all over while her bedmaid held her down. Yeah, it's a it's that's a little quick little molesting yeah it's a very subtle but with the way that the rest of sansa's storyline goes the insinuation i think is definitely there um especially during this time when she's catatonic yeah uh i think that's the biggest thing she's like catatonic and depressed right now. She doesn't even know what's happening or what has happened. It's that unreliable narrator-ness and she's like

she doesn't ever think about this again or whatever because everything else that happens to her is also awful. Yeah, she ends up shutting a lot of it out which is something we will go into in further episodes. Part of that trauma for Sansa comes from ill and pain of course. She's dreaming of ill and pain of course she's dreaming of ill

and pain he's coming for her with eyes to take her head she woke murmuring please please i'll be good i'll be good please don't but there was no one to hear so that foreboding chill you can just feel it feel it that chapter is actually that passage of the chapter is really beautiful too it just has so much imagery in it and scary and kind of like you can feel the dream in real life joffrey is who actually comes for sansa in her chamber with sandor at his side sansa is curled up in a ball she has her curtains drawn she's no clue what time of day it is dallas she stays curled up when they enter and they slam open the curtains which is like completely rude yeah and also i don't know he's just coming in like whatever i'm over this yeah because joffrey decides he's gonna come in here and command sansa to bathe and dress and attend his court today, which, like, you're not my dad,

Joffrey. Man, that's a total boyfriend move. We are going in public. You are taking a shower. Yeah, right. Right. I would never shower. Same.

Sansa begs him no, and he commands Sandor to get her up. Do as you're bid, child. Dress. He pushed her toward her wardrobe, almost gently. Sandor starts to not only look like the kinder option at this point, to the men in chainmail that have been guarding her, which, who's ever said that, right? But by chapter's end, he's even the most preferred. But by chapter's end, he's even the most preferred.

I also think a lot of this kind of soft contrast has to do with the language George uses to establish Sandor's outfits, believe it or not. He spends a really ridiculous amount of time on the Kingsguard armor, which we get those snowy, scaly pieces of shit people, whatever. whatever but sandor's plain woolen model sticks out like a sore thumb especially in king's landing and especially as a direct echo of him refusing to take his knightly vows like dunk the lump right absolutely a parallel to dunk never truly being knighted in a way but of course being the most true knight there is which we can talk about this another day but it's just an interesting little snippet yeah sandra is not pretending to be anyone that he's not in it his clothing points that out and we'll come back to that a little more with like fucking sir maron trant he needs to go like fallen i don't know 20 holes sanza tells him that she did what she was told to do. She sent the letters.

He promised to be merciful. She begs him to let her go home, that she'll be good, she won't do any treasons. She, of course, finishes this rant with a courteous as it please you. And in doing all this, Sansa's desperate here. She now knows

that being good isn't going to save her, but from this and from earlier her yelling, please, please, I'll be good, you can see that she's still hoping, giving human decency and mercy one last shot, that maybe if she's good, nothing's going to happen, but obviously that's not the case. The gods aren't good.

Yeah, and it is a waste of courtesy because joffrey turns around he's such a dick bag right like he's all well mother says i have to marry you so you have to obey me and she doesn't want to marry him she literally screams like you chopped off my dad's head yeah like i don't understand how he doesn't understand. Like, there's just a strange disconnect, and Joffrey just doesn't seem to understand it. Because Joffrey's like, uh, you were lucky, right? Joffrey begins to tell her that she's lucky because he gave Ned a clean death, as opposed to torturing him, and Sansa thinks that she's seeing Joffrey for the first time. Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time.

He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth of gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain and his eyes were vain and cruel. Hate you, she whispered. King Joffrey's face hardened. My mother tells me that it isn't fitting that a king should strike his wife. Sir Meryn? The night was on her before she could think, yanking back her hand as she tried to shield her face and backhanding her across the ear with a gloved fist. Sansa did not remember falling, yet the next she knew, she was sprawled on one knee amongst the rushes.

Her head was ringing. Ser Meryn tranced over her with blood on the knuckles of his white silk glove. Dude, he had blood on his glove. Like, mhm. That's a glove fist.

It's going along with what you're saying, a glove fist. A, first of all, why did he have to go for her face? He moved your hands away from her face, right? Like other, later on, we're going to see some of them like hit her in the stomach, which none of the parts are good. Don't, why would you do that? But also like. Don't get it twisted, but like the face, that's the moneymaker.

That's the start moneymaker. It's not just that. It's also like, this is, this ismaker that's the start money it's not just that it's also like this is this is what everyone the realm was gonna see it looks bad for you and as you were saying about clothing earlier and what sandor wears like this is an obvious sort of imagery that george is using to tell that story of how shitty the knights of the king's guard are right like because it's not just blood on the like a mailed glove it's on his white silk glove it's that blood marring the purity of that

whiteness and that honor yeah we see a lot of stained white on the king's guard there's also some robert and cersei introspective bits here right because this is of course the chapter where sansa's world gets shattered, and it all starts to make sense, especially as we get toward the end of this chapter, where Joffrey says something that will dawn on Sansa and us as the reader like a bucket of ice water about his mother and her viewpoint on her. There's a line that makes me think of in Eddard 13, of course, where Eddard and Cersei are in the godswood discussing Robert beating her. Ned touched her cheek gently. Has he done this before?

Once or twice, she shied away from his hand. Never on the face before, Jaime would have killed him, even if it meant his own life. Cersei looked at him defiantly. My brother is worth a hundred of your friend. And of course, there's the passage in Jaime 9 and the Storm of Swords. Oh, don't be absurd, Cersei closed the window. Yes, I hoped the boy would die. So do you. Even Robert thought that he would have been for the best. We kill our horses when they break a leg and our dogs when they go blind but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children he had told me he was blind himself at the time from drink robert jamie had guarded the king long enough to know robert baratheon said things in his cups he would have denied angrily the next day were you alone when robert said this so the whole idea of joffrey

being the one that sent the cat spa after brand that's confirmed in the world of ice and fire app uh to attempt to get a pat on the back from his dad right and of course the idea that cersei would have told him kings don't beat their woman like that's not a kingly thing to do joffrey like that's the compromise he comes to. It's completely in character for the little psycho. I absolutely agree. It's very, it's never really stated outright, right? But it's something that you definitely catch on rereads that so much of Joffrey's cruelty is attributed to Cersei and, of course, the cruelty that we see from the Lannisters but the abusive nature that Joffrey shows to Sansa is learned from Robert. Robert's actions towards Cersei are what normalized

it and Cersei saying as you pointed out like Cersei saying that kings ought not strike their wives or shouldn't hit their wives is him saying it in reaction to Robert hitting her. It's her complaining about it. And this is just this is the household that Joffrey grew up in. Yeah, just like we noticed during the feast when they go to leave the feast when his parents start fighting and he just freezes up completely. Yeah, so Joffrey thinks this is the way that things are supposed to be. I guess it's not right. It's really terrible,

but this is not learned from Cersei. Not completely. The, the, yeah, the manipulative part, the perversion of it, the loophole that he sees in it,

right. Is a lesson that he took from Cersei's words. And maybe that's like a cersei thing to think of and do but the actual intent behind it is robert yeah absolutely and of course sansa thinks that joffrey's lips look like little worms and i think that there's this is probably just a this is probably just a coincidence and i think ge there's this is probably just a coin this is probably just a coincidence and i think george likes the idea of i don't know horrible people having lips that look like worms but it's not the only time that george uses this imagery to describe an

abusive person because theon thinks of ramsay uh when he meets meets Ramsay, who's masquerading as Reek in a similar fashion. His lips look like two worms fucking. And, yeah. Yeah, there's literally the only two times that that's referenced are Theon and Sansa in their chapters. That's the only two times lips are called worms. Which I guess in some ways they kind of are, you know? Yeah, I get it hashtag not all lips i don't know sure did you have some worm facts for us aliana people who pay one dollar

get hashtag worm facts yeah they do joffrey tells sanza that he expects her to be in court later this afternoon and before sandor leaves he imparts some words of wisdom on Sansa, which echo throughout the rest of the chapter. Ser Meryn and Ser Aerys followed him out, but Sandor Clegane lingered long enough to yank her roughly to her feet. Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants. What? What does he want? Please, tell me.

He wants you to smile and smell sweet and be his lady love. He wants to hear you recite all your pretty little words the way the septum taught you. He wants you to love him and fear him. And spoiler alert, all of this and a lot of the

things that happen in this chapter in summation is what the patriarchy wants from women. They want the women to smile, and they want them to lift up the shitty men and please them in hopes that they're not going to hurt us. That's why, you know, people act nice even though when they're scared, especially women. But guess what? They still act shitty. Tear down the patriarchy. Tear it down. Burn it all down.

Dance on its ashes. Later, Sansa's bedmaids wearily enter her bedchamber, and she tells them that she will need powder, perfume, and hot water for her bath. She decides to play along. She decides to make herself beautiful, anything to avoid more of these beatings.

She thinks on Winterfell and the hot water, remembering the springs, and she takes strength from it. It's also been like a week since her dad died and she hasn't had a single bath since. So like all the dirt's coming off, all the grime, all the blood. It's pretty cool, right?

She's been in her room. There's probably not that much. Well, she says there's a ton of dirt though. I mean, it's over a week's worth. She dresses up once she's nice and clean in her green silk dress from the tourney thinking it may soften joffrey to her as we mentioned in the tourney episode her green silk dress is her finest dress she owns right like that is the nice dress it's expensive it's made of silk, it's vibrant, and she looks beautiful and resplendent in it.

She is totally, like, using this as her last call, her last, like, hope. Like, maybe, just maybe, this will make my life easier. It doesn't. Spoiler. Spoiler alert, it doesn't. Cermaren comes for her in his white and gold armor, and he acts courously to Wargrass if he hadn't like fucking beaten her earlier. And Sansa asks him if Joffrey told him to hit her if she refuses

to come to court and Sirmirren's like, uh, so are you refusing? And then Sansa realizes that Sirmirren neither hates nor loves her, that she's just simply an object to him. No, she said, rising. She wanted to rage, to hurt him as he'd hurt her, to warn him that when she was queen,

she would have him exiled if he ever dared strike her again. But she remembered what the hound had told her, so all she said was, I shall do whatever his grace commands. As do I, he replied. Yes, but you are no true knight, Sir Merrin. Sandor Clegane would have laughed at Sansa Ninn. I love that line.

It's just a very like, it's like Sansa finally is like, she puts on like a leather jacket and some sunglasses. She's like, i'm on walk on the dark side now like i get the hound now i get it fuck fuck the patriarchy fuck fuck feudalism i'm over it yeah i'm over it fuck a lannister dog fuck a lannister fuck a lannister like what what has she got to lose she's just like whatever fuck you sir baron trant and i think i don't know sir baron trant's just what? It goes over his head. I do also wonder if we should be reading this, like, as this gradual decay or, like, degradation of The Order of the Kingsguard since the time of Ares II. Because, like, very pointedly, and it's very much impactful when we see in, like, Jaime's chapters how he questions gerald hightower right it was gerald um when they were standing outside of aries's room as he's raping right

rayella and he's just like are shouldn't we be protecting her too and he's questioning that of course and gerald's like oh yeah but not not from him. But it advances by this time in the story. Like, in A Game of Thrones, in A Clash of Kings, in A Storm of Swords, we see that the Kingsguard aren't just standing idly by anymore, but they're following the orders to the extent of, like, they're assaulting and, like, hurting Sansa themselves. They're sexually assaulting her when they're, like, told later on to, like, tear her clothes off.

And they're just doing all this under the guise of just following orders yeah and interestingly enough following that like there was no one for the king's guard right like half the king's guard died in the rebellion and so robert opens up and what choices does he have he doesn't really have a lot of choice on good nights right there's just not a lot of people around that are kingsguard worthy so i mean the crowd that you're left with at the start of a game of thrones is all up jumped like gross you know like street rats like yeah robert's rebellion is in some ways cleared house yeah it's in some ways supposed to be read as you you know, there was

an age of heroes many hundreds of years ago, but Robert's Rebellion is also in many ways the story of the death of the age of heroes. Who, I guess, weren't that heroic, because they just, like, sit around and shit, too. But anyways.

Your heroes are going to disappoint you. Every time. Yep. Sansa stands in the balcony anyways your heroes are going to disappoint you every time Sansa stands in the balcony with her head bowed and she's fighting back tears Joffrey sat on his throne below and he's holding court he's bored by most cases and he just like has a small council

handle them and he just like fidgets and is like super weird about it and bored while they decide how they're going to rule. The only cases that he does rule on, though, no one's able to sway him. He decides to have a thief's hand chopped off by Sir Illyn in court. It's a very dad-vose kind of thing. So wait, you mean good king Joffrey, the just king?

Yeah. Joffrey Baratheon, like Stannis Baratheon, but better? Yeah, obviously. I mean, and we're going to come back to another one of these things in a second, came yeah joffrey baratheon like stanis baratheon but better yeah obviously i mean and i'm gonna we're gonna come back to another one of these things like in a second like how joffrey's stuff like i mean obviously joffrey's just following his uncle stanis's role here right yeah he's using his uncle stanis as a role map welcome to girls gone trolling Welcome to Girls Gone Trolling. I give it two hours. Two hours after it's up

before they get with us. And another thing. And another thing. Two nights. Bring a land dispute before Joffrey. And so Joffrey has them duel to the death for it the next day. Oh, what a nice boy. That makes sense

to me. Get any kittens lately,ffrey uh a woman comes to court pleading for the head of a man she loved who was executed as a traitor and he has her carried off to the dungeons calling her a traitor herself which is like first off an obvious ned comparison but secondly was this lady like just not at baylor sept last week right like she must have just missed that news somehow like yeah like traitors aren't really a thing around the castle right now there's no mercy for traitors right like yeah was this woman like not on social media was she not not on her Twitter? Didn't she see what happened last week? Like you don't just come in here rolling up and be like, oh, we love Twitter. Not Twitters. Traders. Yeah, she just shows up and it's just all of us are like, no, that's not it's not in this week. Not in. Oh, there she goes.

A tavern singer sings a song ridiculing King Robert for dying because of a pig, but alludes to Cersei as the pig. Joffrey has him decide within the next day whether he wants to keep his tongue or his voice. Truly merciful, you know. Yes, Joffrey the Merciful. There are more Hedge Knight vibes here, since we're drawing comparisons. You know, like how Arian Brightflame sought to harm Tanzal Tutal for that play. I did think that play was suspicious, though, which may have been a critique of the Targaryen regime. I was like,

girl, what are you doing? What is this? Wait, you think the play was, like, overarching meta-commentary on the current political regime, then? Oh! Wait, are you being sarcastic? I... I would never. You would never?

I'm confused. I was being sarcastic. Obviously, that play was suspect. That play was very suspect. So obviously though, but like, Joffrey as we would never be sarcastic, isn't merciful here.

But I just want to make a spicy take in contextualizing this mercy or lack of mercy on Joffrey's part. Because he's punishing a singer who's critiquing his father, whom, as we know, he idolized, and maybe his mother? Though, questions. Do you think Joffrey even catches that the pig might be the boar might be alluding to Cersei, considering that Sansa picks it up, but we know Joffrey's not great with abstract thought.

He's not great with thought. That's true. But anyway, so regarding Tyrion, has there's a singer right simon silver tongue and who writes a song that tyrian doesn't like and tyrian does not chop off the singer's hands or his tongue he has the singer killed dismembered and distributed into various stews i'm just gonna say in this moment Tyrion is worse than Joffrey and just gonna say it yes but I do also want to put out there like

yes it's not good it doesn't make it good but I do want to say there was more motive behind it more than just like he was annoyed by it it was also like he didn't want that word of his family getting out so it was interesting because it is Tyrion showing what a Lannister he is and that he does have that Lannister pride because it's why he clings to because he has to yeah

it's that is nothing else ruthlessness that characterizes the lannister family and one last random thought i don't know what this song sounds like i don't know what the lyrics are but um it is interesting that the song does allude to cersei being the boar the pig because the death of robert baratheon to me feels very reminiscent of the myth of like the death of adonis if you guys don't know it look up the myth the the story venus and adonis adonis was also killed by a boar but as he died the goddess like venus who loved him she wept for him and there's some really interesting playfulness here in the way that George is channeling that and being a little magpie and pulling creativity from different places and incorporating that into Robert's storyline. And I think there's something

interesting by conflating that boar and the wife and conflating that boar and Venus, who is supposed to be so beautiful. And that's obviously how Circe is very much described, especially because we know that Circe is partially responsible for Robert's death. Frog-faced Lord Slynt sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth of gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Sir Illyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. But a voice inside her whispered, there are no heroes, and she remembered what Lord

Peter had said to her here in this very hall. Life is not song sweetling he told her you may learn that one day to your sorrow in life the monsters win she told herself and now it was the hound's voice she heard a cold rasp metal on stone save yourself some pain girl and give him what he wants so this is john's a foreshadowing right that's sarcasm right is this a john's a foreshadow i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna what is this word that i'm looking for shatter some world views here because i do see this actually this uh old views here because i do see this actually this uh passage come up a lot when people talk about george rr martin writing foreshadowing but actually it isn't it was actually just a fun coincidence that happened to be written in because in an original draft of the chapter that George R.R. Martin read of, what is it, John III dance, he read that chapter actually at Technicon, a convention in 2008. And in fact, in the original draft, John had hanged Janoslint, as the text has John starting to do, as it shows.

starting to do as it shows and as a fan pointed out a couple of fans actually pointed this out that it's it's uncharacteristic of john who's raised in the north by ned stark to hang janos slint so the chapter was changed from since that draft in 2008 to the final version that we have in dance where net john beheads janos which goes to show that sometimes the foreshadowing is actually just serendipity like george r martin obviously thinks deeply about his story but not every one of the words is sacred not all of it is planned out or like some sort of scripted like oh it's this is meaningful and definitely going to come into play later sometimes he doesn't i mean he has to have Elio and Linda help him remember all the things. The horses are

changing sex. The eye colors are changing. Jane Westerling's hips. What are they like? Anyway, the point is. I mean, yeah, but at the same time, and I was really being sarcastic when I was like, is it foreshadowing Janza? I don't think

necessarily it's foreshadowing. I don't think it it foreshadowing Janza? I don't think necessarily it's foreshadowing I don't think it's foreshadowing Sanza but in a way yeah I mean either way obviously Jan of Slint was gonna die oh yeah someone was gonna kill him I don't think it has to be beheading

I don't think it has to be one of the other ways but it's fitting that Jan who becomes the hero archetype of the story obviously is a hero that kills this evil man and i think we're going to see this happen with a lot of other people which if the show's anything similar which we don't know it probably won't be the exact same obviously won't happen in the same place but aria might end up taking out mary and trant that's another hero killing one of these evil people that beat the crap out of Sansa or ruined her family's life you know I don't I just think there's maybe like a heroes over the bad guy power shift I don't I wouldn't say it's necessarily foreshadowing but I wouldn't say there's nothing there like it doesn't have to be like yeah he didn't think about

it but I think that's more him writing as Sansa and her flowery language of I wish a hero would behead him. Because Sansa obviously would think this person would be beheaded because that's how she's seen justice doled out. And that's how justice is doled out in the north. And I don't disagree with that. I do think that there is. And of course, I have a hope that all of the shitty people in this chapter like Janos and Meryn will get what's coming to them. We see it happen to Joffrey this idea of

maybe justice like eventually coming for them I just think that what fans point out so often is that Sansa wants a hero to behead him and then they point out the language of oh and then Jon beheads him that wasn't

it wasn't like directly planned by George R rr martin from the beginning in that way like to be that perfect mirror yeah it was a nice parallel just wasn't planned so yeah and of course like who knew that's where he'd end up you know etc so george knew where he might end up and he could possibly kill him so it's's interesting to look at. I'd also like to point out that she gets her two mentors, the Hound first, then Peter, giving her life advice from her memories in this passage. And it's something that she actually ends up harnessing during her captivity at King's Landing.

It's what keeps her going. Sansa feels relief as the last case of the day is heard. She flees to the balcony only to find Joffrey waiting for her at the case of the day is heard. She flees to the balcony, only to find Joffrey waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs with the hound and Sir Mirren Trant. It's like The Shining. Joffrey makes her walk with him,

telling Sansa that she looks much better than earlier. And Sansa, I know, right? You look more like an asshole than earlier, Joffrey. Sansa thinks that joffrey makes her skin crawl now for once taking his arm would have excited her and joffrey asks her what she's going to give him for his name day sansa tells him that she had not thought my lord and he verbally chastises her for calling him my lord instead of your grace which she did earlier on in her chambers

as well which of course a masculinity is fragile b that's also totally placed into his rumors of his birth and his unstable rule as a bastard right and also you definitely see that the you know no man who says he's the king is a king kind of thing definitely because he's a butt joffrey tells sansa that she's stupid and that his mother is right uh and that circe is always saying it that sansa's stupid and sansa feels crestfallen because after all that had happened she thought that circe still had her back but you know sansa was wrong obviously about this uh she murmurs her courtesies at him and thinks that the hound was right. She's only a little

bird repeating the words that they taught her. And the language here when she goes, oh, she does, regarding when she finds out Cersei thinks she's dumb, it's like the same incredulous in the previous chapter, or no, no, two chapters ago, right, where

Cersei's like, oh oh you know that the prince and i love you she's like oh you too like a worm a worm worm worm facts yeah it's after the last build-up of trust after cersei really you know like played her got her to do her bidding which you know like we see with ariane and marcella uh where ariane is lying in marcella to get what she needs cersei lies to sansa to get what she needs anything to get those letters written drafted out sent like she has a totally different long game than the chaos that joffrey is playing and it's not just that because she's also like sansa we went over this your dad's a traitor like when sansa comes forth in the middle of everything, she's just trying to get Sansa to like, shut the fuck up.

Absolutely. Joffrey asks Sansa when she's going to flower, kind of bluntly. And he plans to get her a child immediately. He tells her that if their child isn't satisfactory, he'll chop off her head and find a smarter wife. She tells him she doesn't know that she's not sure but most highborn girls flower at 12 or 13 and she feels ashamed by the language he's using and how he's approaching her with this it's very discourteous not not ladylike or not lord whatever

you know yeah you don't it doesn't matter what era you're in you don't just walk up to a lady and ask when she's gonna bleed and if you can knock her out. Yeah, or just in general, you know? Only girls get to do that to each other. Like, yo, are you on your period right now? I don't know. When's your next moon blood? Yeah, when's your next moon blood?

You need a tampon? I got tampons. I got you, girl. It's the only time you can do it. Anyway. Joffrey leads Sansa to the gatehouse and then to the stairs that lead up to the battlements, and then Sansa realizes where they're going, and she tries to jerk away, but Joffrey won't let her. I want to show you what happens to traitors!

Ugh, wormy little fuck. He tells her to do as he says, although she's cringing into him and backing away from him, and the hound gently pushes her toward the king, telling her to just fucking do it. Sansa thinks that she can almost hear the rest. He'll have you up there no matter what, so give him what he wants. And so Sansa forces herself to take his hand and climb the stairs, and she can see everything from the battlements at the gatehouse. She sees the

sept of baylor where her father died she sees the street of the sisters among the black ruins of the dragon pit which hey a dragon pit mention that's the only other a game of thrones mention we get of it uh which is the other is cat's king's landing chapter almost the exact same language is used the gate of the gods the Salt Sea at her back, the Fish Market south of that, the Blackwater Rush, and then she looks north, wistfully toward Winterfell and thinks about home.

Oh. I know. My baby. Joffrey snaps at her. That's not what I wanted to hear. He's like, what are you looking at? Like, I'm sorry. Did you not? Has he never been up here before has he not looked at all the other things i i honestly think he hasn't he's only looked up here to look at dead heads um joffrey directs sansa toward the iron spikes which sansa's been avoiding looking at

he can make me look at the heads she told, but he can't make me see them. She totally takes strength in this scene, right? Like, she's thinking about home. She's like, I'm not gonna let- I got all dressed up. I'm not gonna let him, you know, do this to me. He shows her her father's head and makes Sandor turn her to look at it. The head's been dipped in tar, so it doesn't even look like him. Sansa looks at it really calmly, asking him how long he'd like her to look.

She's acting really unimpressed, right? Like, this is like Joffrey's juvenile. He's like, I want you to come see the dead thing I got. Dead. Like, he's just like a little kid. He's disappointed, to say the least, about it, and asks her if she'd like to see the rest. She's really strong here. Like, I'm really proud of her here yeah and this is sansa doing what she has to do in a lot of the following chapters where it's a full of this like inner

resilience and rebellion right and just not giving in just subtly not giving joffrey what he wants so he doesn't realize she's not she's just not responding to the trolls she's not taking the bait joffrey shows her septimordane and a bunch of other people from her house's service, and all of them are unrecognizable because their heads have been dipped into tar. Sansa wondered what had happened to septimordane,

but she thinks that deep down she knew all along. She asks why Joffrey had her killed, because septimordane was god-sworn. She's a holy woman. I shouldn't speak was godsworn. She's a holy woman. I shouldn't speak ill of the dead. She's a holy woman, not taking care of Sansa and getting drunk at the feast, whatever. I mean, I would be too.

Yeah, that's true. Joffrey responds that Septimordain was a traitor. He tells her maybe he should give her something on his name day. He tells her that her brother is a traitor he tells her maybe he should give her something on his name day he tells her that her brother is a traitor he says the hound called him lord of the wooden sword but the hound doesn't remember so to say and also just doesn't give a flying fuck about the conversation joffrey gave a petulant shrug your brother defeated my Uncle Jamie. My mother says it was treachery and deceit. She wept when she heard. Women are all weak, even her, though she pretends she isn't. She says we need to stay in King's Landing in case my other uncles attack, but I don't care. After my name

day feast, I'm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself that's what i'll give you lady sansa your brother's head a kind of madness took over her then and she heard herself saying maybe my brother will give me your head joffrey scowled you must never mock me like that a true wife does not mock the lord sir marin teach her sir marin strikes her across the face twice on each side why does he keep going for the face and like joffrey's perfectly content with all the other parts of her body anyways and sansa's lips splits and blood runs down her chin and joffrey tells sansa that she's prettier when she smiles and laughs don't tell me to smile and that she shouldn't be crying all the time joffrey tells santa to wipe the blood off of her face and honestly chloe in the scene you didn't touch on this and i i'm you know it's interesting you know that you didn't touch on how like when joffrey says that the

hound made fun of rob when they were at winterfell which i'm sure the hound did i'm sure the hound remembers it but because he doesn't want to seem like a dick to sansa who's obviously suffering enough and like sander kind of pities her for having to go through all this bullshit he says like oh oh did i say that like i didn't recall and it softens himself a little to sansa and dust but it also totally undercuts joffrey's joke. Instead of going in on it like, yeah, you're gonna bring back your father's head. It's no longer that.

Sandor takes away some of that power from Joffrey's joke here, and he kind of does it just for Sansa's sake. Yeah, I've been trying to keep a little light on the Sandor analysis lately, because, you know. Yeah. We got a whole clash of things to get through. Yeah, you're bringing in the Johnson.

You're bringing in the Johnson. I know. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm split on the two, so it's very hard. Very hard. But he does do that. He does undercut that. At the same time, I do think I could hear Sandor just bullshitting, saying that because he

hates all boys and knights that have a childhood growing up being a knight or being a fighter when he didn't have that same choice his was out of you know his childhood turning into a fighter was more like aria turning into you know a fighter and having to learn how to you know know, be on the road. It was out of necessity. It wasn't out of like, he just got to, he didn't get to go squire for anyone. He didn't get to,

he, he ended up in the sack of King's Landing for the promise of some food. You know? Yeah. I would have been pretty mad though. Like if things went down as they did in the original outline, like that was a trolly ass move, right?

Where Joffrey ends up actually, I think, killing Robb Stark. Especially since you know his prowess and him up here. I'm going to lead a guard to go kill your brother? You couldn't lead a fucking sheep to the water. I don't know. He's an imbecile. The Red Budding. Slightly less infuriating?

I don't know. I don't know. soul the red budding slightly more less infuriating i don't know i know sansa thinks on how she could shove joffrey off of the parapet right there 70 80 feet down but the hound interrupts her thoughts he kneels between her and joffrey which i think is really interesting imagery especially because between is italicized here so it highlights the incredulity that a man of sandor's station and size would come between the king and his betrothed who he's having eat currently right like baristan take notes first off i'm not saying that sandor's like the paragon picture of eloquent gentleness here but he at least tried to soften her blow both

verbally as you discussed eliana and physically he dabs softly at her lip to keep the blood off and it doesn't really say what he dabbed with but i'm willing to bet it was probably maybe with his throat a body part like his i'm sorry i don't know the girl has suffered enough the moment was gone sansa lowered her eyes thank you she said when he was done she was a good girl and always remembered her courtesies so oh my god you are a good girl, baby. That's how it ends. That's it. It is, but before we get too far into our Sansa outro, we have a lightning round of what we're missing between the end of Sansa 6 and, of course, the end of A Game of Thrones. We haven't gotten to do this in a bit.

So, what we missed, what happens after Sansa ends. And we are going to go full out here and talk about a couple other chapters just to give you the full picture. So here's the race from this to the end of the book. Daenerys Nine, awakened from awful nightmares, Dany learns her child did not survive and Drogo is comatose, albeit alive. Blood magic has cost her terribly, and she later has to smother her husband with a pillow to put him out of his misery. In Tyrion 9, the Lannister loss at Riverrun creates tensions for the officers. Hywin gives Tyrion some insider info after he dismisses his officers,

and sends him to King's Landing to be Hand of the king and to stop Joffrey from ruining everything. Tyrion plans to take Shae with him just to spite his father. That works out really well for him. Yeah, totally. It goes great. Maybe listen to your parents, I guess, even if they're Tywin. Jaime did and he's doing great. He's doing fantastic.

They're all doing great. Give him a hand. Hey! Was that all I was? A sword hand? John 9. Ready to obtain vengeance by joining Rob's cause, John attempts to desert.

But his friends catch him outside of Molestown and bring him back. John, what are you doing in Molestown? J.R. Mormont knew where John was the entire time, but convinces John to stay on the watch, going on a ranging with him beyond the wall. Ooh. Field trip! Come on the magic school bus!

In Cattle and Eleven, returning to Riverrun for the first time in years, Cat sees her sickly father. Returning to Riverrun for the first time in years, Kat sees her sickly father. She finds Rob in the godswood praying with his bannermen, and Rob calls a war council to plan their next move and which king to support. Great John Umber declares Rob the only king he needs to follow, and the rest join in chanting, The king in the north! Daenerys 10 The king of the north! The king of the north! The king of the north! Daenerys 10. Daenerys meets resistance when she attempts to lead the Dothraki and as night falls, burns her husband with her three dragon eggs. By morning break, she is unburnt, nursing three baby dragons.

And one burnt daddy. So this puts us at our A Game of Thrones Sansa Stark outro, and we will keep it so light because A Clash of Kings is only going to get heavier when we start that up next week. I think there's a lot we can talk about when it comes to Sansa Stark here that we've mentioned, roughly, but there's a lot that's happened over these last six chapters that i really want to touch on like sansa losing her wolf and what that means to the story i think there's a lot of interesting stuff that we've read not just with sansa but also with ned right especially ned disengaging from her and from her formal education ned sticks sansa with septimordane and doesn't check in on her because septimordain should be capable of raising a young woman, right, from a noble house.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Instead of watching over both of his daughters closely in the capital, a brand new city, brand new huge world, he loses himself in King's Landing, while Sansa loses herself a little bit too in a southern

culture yes i think there's a lot here that we've like kind of discussed in like some of those ned chapters but it's absolutely that i know that people talk about how the wolves are tied to the storyline like because lady's dead it means sansa will die i don't think it necessarily means that i think that in many ways it shows that turn from sansa sansa storyline like she's still going to be acting a lady but it's that dismantling of what it means to be a lady right it's a really strong deconstruction and it also shows that she was able to survive without her wolf whereas rob died with his well maybe if he had kept the wolf with him you know yeah maybe if he'd listened with john i don't know if only someone told them that only someone just kept the dogs around like eliana you would have been perfect for that like hell no my dog's coming with me for sure someone just kept the dogs around.

Like, Eliana, you would have been perfect for that. Like, hell no! My dog's coming with me, for sure. I also think there's something really interesting in how Sansa turns into, obviously, a glorified hostage, right? Compared to Theon. Theon goes home to try to

win back his daddy after being a lifer in the Winterfell cell blocks And he realizes after that goes horribly wrong That he lost his real dad in the wars A.k.a. the Sept of Baelor And he had it pretty okay in the end Like yeah it sucked but it turns out so does your real family And also food and toes are nice right?

Yeah I like those things I don't know about you Do you want your toes? Do you like food? Someone recently thought that, like, they looked down and they're like, oh, it looked like you didn't have toes for a second. I'm like, yeah, no, I clearly have toes. That's how I'm keeping my balance right now as I stand here as a person.

Yeah, you would just fall forward. I'm sure you could learn to, I mean, Theon has to, right? You could learn to do it, but it's not. You have to be on the balls of your feet i guess i think you just like no yeah sansa loses her family while she's in king's landing and she realizes she took home for granted while she's held hostage right and of course jane pool's storyline is explored through Sansa's and Theon's, which I think is so important. The theme of identity, the theme of Jane wanting to be a Stark and Theon always wanting to be a Stark and both never being capable of. That exploration and seeing the shadow of Jane as a Stark sister, as we get later in the books, is just so good. And it's so sad it's so haunting there's also a lot of

first of all the way you describe the on storyline kind of reminds me of the second guardians of the galaxy movie you see that maybe yeah he might have been your father but he wasn't your daddy i don't know yeah like yeah yeah exactly um not that ned and theon stark as yonder yeah not that Ned and Theon Ned Stark as Yondu yeah not that Ned and Theon ever had moments like that but no yeah it's what I felt when you brought that up but it's also a lot of Sansa learning to right re-embrace her Stark identity

and then Theon one of the greatest moments and we've mentioned this before in any in the entirety of the book series right is that end of that Asha chapter where he goes it's me theon i remembered my name and you're like god he did it like yeah you're like yeah boy my squid son yeah and it's a lot it's that's something that they both have i mean it's just like jamie's line you know sansa stark is my one last chance at honor and then theon thinking about jane and how like she should look to any something that they both have i mean it's just like jamie's line you know sansa stark is my one

last chance at honor and then theon thinking about jane and how like she should look to any other man to be saved right now but then he doesn't because when can a man be brave when he's truly afraid i do think it's interesting though that you've like i don't know why i've never really thought about it that of course we think about how both Sansa and Theon are suffering, right? They're at the hands of people. But the way, you know, as you've pointed out, their situations mirror each other very much. And it's through both of their POVs that we get that closest study of two of the most heinous people in the books right you get ramsey you get joffrey you get all of that it's uh it's very much so i mean very much so they are cameras to a lot of events

but their insights are what are so important i mean sansa's insights and her internal monologues and her thoughts and her figuring things out politically as a 11 12 year old is just it's what propels us through these chapters and hashtag worm lips worm lips hashtag worm facts worm facts there's a you know earthworms aren't really native to the u.s i did not know that where i don't know probably europe or some shit i don't know one of the mods said this to me once and then i made auto moderate i don't know i made like this bot constantly say say the same worm fact all the time anyway oh my gosh the end of a game of thrones also of course uh signals sansa's journey back to the

north like both internally and externally like she's yearning to go back home as like all the stark children want to do because that's how you feel when things are shitty you're like i want to go home and sansa so much of like her a game of thrones story is about her yearning to be this southern lady. And then she learns that the south actually kind of sucks and its songs are just full of lies. And as shown in this chapter, she

stands on this other balcony, the second balcony, or third balcony, I don't fucking know, really high up. And she looks north and north and north back to Winterfell, and that's where she starts drawing strength from again, like the north and that identity and in many ways like this chapter is the beginning of her tracing back her father's steps like we talked before about how sansa's learning to rule or wanting to rule making people love her as they had for ned is something that she learned from ned um as opposed to having them fear her

which is a very tywin and lannister way of ruling people but the language in this chapter like sansa's lapse last chapter in a game of thrones actually greatly reflects the language in ned's last chapter ned 15 and it shows how similar the daughter that he distanced himself from is to him. So, for example, in Eddard 15 and in Sansa 6, we have similar language when it comes to that setting and darkness. Like, Ned thinks, there was no window, no bed, not even a slop bucket. Slop bucket. Once the door had slammed shut, he had seen no more. The dark was absolute. He had as well been blind. And it's similar in Sansa's opening, right?

In the hotel room at the heart of Maker's Holdfast, Sansa gave herself to the darkness. There's like more shit in here. And time blurs for both of them. Like when Ned's down there in the dungeons, lines are, For how long he could not say there was no sun and no moon for sansa she was in bed curled up tight her curtains drawn and she could not have said if it was noon or midnight they have some similar language and events but like um similar sounds and sensory uh imagery but there are different circumstances

like this idea of footsteps and how that shows up in these chapters like ned saying ned was half asleep when the footsteps came down the hall at first he thought he dreamt them it had been so long since he had heard anything but the sound of his own voice whereas for sansa it's when they finally came for her in truth sansa never heard their. And there's a lot more of this. We'll link an essay, like, not really an essay, a fucking thing that I wrote that compares this language. But this idea of the footsteps, I kind of find this interesting because, like, Sansa thinks she dreamt of footsteps on the tower stair, an ominous scraping of leather on stone as a man climbs slowly towards her bedchamber step by step. Though this is supposed to be, like, I don't know, about

ill and pain and death. I don't know, for me when I think of a man climbing a stair in a tower, I kind of think of like Ned climbing to the Tower of Joy to meet Lyanna. Oh yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that so much. We'll definitely have

to link that below. That's a great piece that you wrote. It's crazy seeing essays that we wrote wish we would write them wait we write things we don't write things that would be a constant state of writing which we do not do yeah i do think that there are a lot of very purposeful parallels of course as we get into a storm of swords we're going to see Sansa catapulted into the Vale, just like Ned once was as a youngster himself, same age. So a youngster, young Ned.

So I think there's a lot to pull off, especially with these chapters being framed similarly in the language. This chapter references Joffrey's name day, and it keeps asking what Sansa got Joffrey which of course he doesn't deserve anything ever but it gives us a great setup for where we're going to pick up with Sansa's story in A Clash of Kings Joffrey's name day and the gift that she does give him is partial to her escape slash next capture yeah it's kind of like how what the end of storm sets up some of jamie's what feast storyline you see that here here with sanza oh my god who does that who's like oh what did you get me for my birthday joffrey yeah dude he's the worst he's also like

that on top of the i'm the king like what yeah it's like uh she's a prisoner she doesn't have fucking money right now how's she gonna get you i that is also a question i have how does he expect her to get him anything also she's like in the bedroom all day i got you this curtain i got you this here's a piece of my hair that was laying on the yeah i got you this- Here's a piece of my hair that was laying on the floor. Yeah, I got you this rotten food that I haven't eaten in the past few days. That would be a great gift for him. He deserves it. Just shove it in his face.

Smush it. Fuck a Lannister. Fucking hate Lannisters. You can at me about it, I hate Lannisters. We have so much to go into next week in A Clash of Kings, Sansa's intro and the first chapteristers we have so much to go into next week in a clash of kings sansa's intro and the first chapter i'm so excited for that i'm excited every we've said this every single time i think we come across a new chapter we're like i'm so excited for the shot that's how

i feel about this yeah that's true literally all good i don't know what to tell you. It's true. They actually are all good. So join us next week, friends. Yeah, we're going to cover episode 23, Sansa intro to a Clash of Kings and Sansa 1 Clash of Kings. So do not forget to subscribe to us on social media at Girls Gone Canon on Twitter. And also send us an email if you're feeling spicy that is girls gone canon at gmail.com yeah we love getting these emails and as you guys know we read them loud someone didn't people didn't send them any emails whatever anyways and also subscribe to us

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Just a pre episode Skype meeting where we just kind of talk about food and characters and life and a song by some fire and get in the zone for the episode so be sure to check that out and of course never fear patrons that signed up before we went live and are waiting for their sticker their bell lost is their better sticker those stickers are being printed as we record so yep it is soon enough. It is shipped. We should receive it by the time this releases to the public. And then we will send them all out. I was going to say, you guys get a really cool

we spend a lot of time deliberating on the color of the envelope that we were going to send you. Yeah, we're not going to tell you what color it is. You're just going to have to be surprised. As always, I'm Chloe. I am one of your hosts you can find me on the internet as at lies in arbor on twitter and tumblr and also as drunk a song of ice and fire history on youtube and twitter and i'm eliana another one of your hosts and you can

find me as glass table girl on the maester monthly podcast and on the asanga vice and fire subreddit thanks so much guys goodbye