Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 32 - ASOS Sansa Stark VI/VII FT.LadyGwyn of Radio Westeros

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Sansa dreams of a snowy palace that she used to call home. Intro by Anton Langhage Lady Gwyn's twitter: https://twitter.com/ladygwynhyfvar Radio Westeros' twitter: https://twitter.com/radiowesteros Lady Gwyn's blog: https://ladygwynhyfvar.wordpress.com/  Radio Westeros' Webpage: https://radiowesteros.com/    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

Hey guys and welcome to episode 32 of Girls Gone Canon, Sansa in a Storm of Swords, chapter 6 and Chapter 7. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. You can find me on the internet as at Liza and Arbor or lizanarborgold.com. And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana. And you can find me as Glass Table Girl on the Maester Monthly podcast on the Asanga Vice and Fire subreddit or Arithmetric. And of course, we also have with us today, we are so excited to have this guest, one of my personal favorites, Lady Gwyn, Lady Gwynevar

from Radio Westeros. You might know Radio Westeros if you've ever been on the internet and you like a Song of Ice and Fire. They're only the Omega. They're the best. I love them. Some of the first people I listened to when starting to listen to things in the fandom. But Lady Gwyn is here. She's an accomplished writer on her own. Hey, Lady Gwyn, thanks for

coming on with us. Well, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you guys, gals, to talk about one of my very favorite characters. Not that we have favorites. They're like my kids. Kind of like Sansza is my favorite dark eldest daughter character not your favorite kid right not my favorite okay good i mean both chloe and i were favorite kids so yeah i'm starting to feel a little jealous about this sansa stark character that's what i'm saying well we're excited to have you on i just got done listening uh just this week i want to say it was like tuesday at work i just got done listening to your hedge knight episode you guys put out and it was awesome it has a lot of people from the fandom that you might know voicing some different voiceovers in it

zach from game of owns hayley from the manimals scad from davos fingers aziz from history westros and mikhail from vassals of king's grave all were on it it was really cool it was a really good episode I'm very fond of the Dunkin' Egg series so it was awesome to see you guys foray into that well thank you and all those friends who answered our call when we called banners for

voice acting fabulous efforts by all of them we are so excited to be doing Dunkin' Egg. That is something that I've looked forward to for a long while and you can probably guess that what we have going on next

is the Sword Sword. Eliana and I I don't know if you knew this, but the lore is Eliana and I fell in love doing Drunken Egg the Hedge Knight together. So having you guys on or you on, after doing this episode is really special for us. Thank you.

Yeah, that's exciting. The Sworn Sword, it has the hottest scene in the entire series. I'm not joking. You think about this scene every day, Eliana? Yeah, I do. Oh, well. Which scene are we talking about? The scene with Lady Rohan Webber and Dunk.

Yeah. And then they pull each other and then be cut away. But he's like, oh, but I have this. And I'm like... That reverse Samson and Delilah going on. The ponytail. Yeah. Or the braid, yeah.

Well, I mean, if that's what you're into, Eliana, don't let us stop you. Neither Lady Gwyn or i will stop you i'm very vanilla i'm sorry we got a comment from our buddy june and june wrote esteemed ladies i meant to heap praying for a while now i'm heaping i love your podcast it really allows for analysis of each arc and allows us to appreciate each character as they develop or fail to i think one of the things that ge George is trying to do in his series is look at tropish characters from a fresh perspective. And Sansa is a great example of this.

She forces us to realize that this apparently naive and timorous person is striving for survival as much as any warrior and acquitting herself admirably. I wish we could discuss a song of ice and fire over gin and tonics. June. Agreed. first off. We can call these drinks that we have with her, we can call them June and tonics. Thanks so much, June, for sending us a nice comment.

Apparently you can comment on Podbean, and you can also send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com or a DM or a tweet at Twitter at girlsgonecanon if you guys want to chat about things in the episodes, characters that are failing to, you know, become better, which there's a lot of those. Of course, we need to jump into what we missed. Eliana, can you give a quick explanation of our lightning round

just in case people are wondering what it's about? Yeah. So because, as June says, we are doing this POV reread, we have a lightning round that covers all the different chapters that happen between each POV so that we can understand the context in which each scene unfolds. So we're going to just quickly, like lightning, go through all the different chapters that have occurred since our previous Sansa chapter. Anyways, in Jaime 7, Jaime urgently makes his way home

to comfort Cersei in front of the gods. Tywin has new plans for the Lannister clan, but Jaime doesn't want to hear about them. Davos 6, Davos plans an escape route for Edric Storm. Maester Pylos gives Stannis a new objective. Jon 8, Jon takes the lead in the battle at Castle Black Arya 12 Wolf by night, girl by day

Arya is stuck with the Hound As he reconfigures his million dragon plan in ransoming her Tyrion 9 Claiming innocence in his trial Tyrion is locked in a tower in the Red Keep Awaiting a trial by combat By chapter's end, a champion emerges Jaime 8 So many vows,

they make you swear and swear. Jamie gets some work done. Sansa 6 overview. Sansa is forced to take a new name and face, Anne as Littlefinger's natural daughter, brought home from a sept to the Vale of Arryn. Liza, her aunt, Petyr weds her the moment he arrives, and while they enjoy a wedded bliss, Sansa fends off a singer's unwanted touches, Merillion. And so the chapter opens with Sansa climbing a steep stair, thanks to the help of Ser Lothar Brun. Eliana's favorite knight, of course. He better not let me down. I've been standing him too hard for him to do that to me. I'm gonna be so bad.

Eliana is going around and she's just telling people how much she loves Lothar Broome. She's at like the supermarket and she's like, wow, have you heard about Lothar Broome? She's too much. Lothar is kind of wearing some scrappy garb for a night, right? I think it's described that he's wearing some dun, which reminds me of our friend Sandor, right?

Wearing that dun brown and green mantle. And it turns out in a bit, we'll find out it reminds Sansa of it as well. Sansa thinks that Ser Lothar is a lot stronger than he looks. They're still aboard the Merlin King. A storm has been keeping them off course. And several of the ship's men have fallen overboard or died, according to Oswell. Oswell that ends well. And Sansa stays in her cabin

most of the time. She's seasick. She's also feeling anxious. She's haunted by the image of Joffrey dying. He's still got a pie crust on his lips. Like, wipe your mouth, boy. Choking air and he's purple. He's purple. He's clawing at his little finger, then decides to visit her cabin at one point to check in on her.

Like, are you alright? And she says Tyrion didn't do it she continues to defend him saying that tyrian couldn't have killed joffrey and littlefinger of course knows this and he says as much but he tells her that tyrian is far from innocent in fact he used to have a wife before sansa and she's like yeah i know people just love telling me their secrets for some reason and did he tell you that when he grew bored with her, he made a gift of her to his father's guardsman? He might have done the same to you in time. Shed no tears for the imp, my lady. Littlefinger is basically trying to keep Sansa poisoned against Tyrion with this false information

that we as the reader obviously know differently. Yeah, what drives me nuts about this is this is just true enough that it might be verifiable. I mean, someone could hear this story and then find out that it's kind of true. I mean, it's just typical Littlefinger dick move. Or is it? Well, I mean, chaos is a ladder, you guys. That's true. I mean, I don't know. I can't tell if he's making it up or if it's something that he honestly believes,

like the way that he thinks that he took Kat's maidenhead. Because there are a lot of rumors flying out there about Tyrion, especially when he goes around like what, threatening to kill his nephews and he gets painted as a monster often. And is this part of his reputation and thus what the masses believe? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a good point. The window blows salty air through Sansa's hair. what the masses believe. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a good point. The window blows salty air through Sansa's hair. She wants to puke again. Like, she really just needs

a hot, long shower right now after this trip. And Littlefinger, like, he comes over and he's jovial and he's just like, I love boating. I love adventure. Man, you look like crap, Sansa.

Which Sansa's like, yeah, yeah, I'm like puking. I'm seasick. This is horrible. He says he'll get her some wine when they're ashore. And where is ashore, you ask? The wonderful, dreary Fingers. Sansa's confused. She thought they were going to White Harbor and then to Winterfell, and Littlefinger had told her they were sailing for home. But the ship next leaves from the Fingers to Braavos, so off they board at the Fingers. And so he gives her a speech about how his seat sucks, if it's not like a great lord's seat like Winterfell or the Eyrie, but it's his. It's all his.

He tells her that there's no way they were going to get near Winterfell because it's burned and lost, but he's taking her somewhere near family there's her aunt who he's about to marry the lord of Harrenhal and the lady of the Eyrie are getting hitched yay that's a wedding another wedding

see she must be so psyched this one goes off pretty well it's alright we'll get to it Littlefinger seems to be really amused by his match, and Sans is like, uh, okay. That's kind of weird. And she thinks that, wasn't it my mother that you loved, and not Lysa?

So silent, my lady, said Peter. I was certain you would wish to give me your blessing. It is a rare thing for a boy born heir to stones and sheep pellets to with the daughter of hoster tully and the widow of john aaron right i mean again he's really pushing it in her face like i shouldn't have any of this ha ha ha but i'm so clever look at me ha ha twiddles mustache like okay like what's your point little finger butinger? But of course, this is a great place to just chat about political matches and these matrilineal type marriages. Littlefinger wouldn't have been able to marry Liza at all had he not claimed Harrenhal after he brokered the

wedding deal with the Tyrells, which he goes into detail in a bit here about how he brokered that and how he made all of this happen. Had Chapter 7 not gone the way it goes with Liza attacking Sansa, Littlefinger, I don't know, I wonder if he would have waited until Liza had another child with him before he got rid of her and killed her off. Does this go into his few years of peace that he wanted to let things grow, not just counting on Sansa growing? Yeah, I think as far as what he would have done you know he's such a master of backup plans it's hard to say but a child maybe to claim his seat in

Harrenhal um probably would have been okay Lysa was though in my opinion doomed to die one way or the other uh but childbirth might have been a very convenient excuse given her history yeah and i mean we all know sweet robin will be on his way out at some point maybe you know whatever and little finger has big plans for that so he gets his kid in that kid's out guess what that kid has kind of a mini fabricated claim on the veil i mean there's only so many contenders sansa of course is too busy thinking she maybe has family alive that might, you know, actually care about her, maybe be nice to her a little. She will be kind to me, for my mother's sake, surely. She's my own blood.

And the veil of Arryn was beautiful, all the songs said so. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to stay here for a time. not be so terrible to stay here for a time uh since one of the key takeaways from those earlier sansa chapters um especially since the red wedding is loneliness and her longing for home uh i really found this to be so poignant this moment of her just hoping that maybe someone is gonna be there to love her a family member you know, Peter dashed her hopes of ever going home so she's feeling like maybe she's not alone in the world

for a minute. Dot dot dot for a minute. Later on she won't be alone. She's going to come back to her pack for a show that starts. The pack survives. Guys, we just have to wait a long time.

We've just been waiting a very long time and some days are back together. We're gonna get the band back. There is nothing worse though in the show than that moment when Michelle Fairley looks at Richard and she's like, we get the girls back and we

kill them all and Richard's like, yeah you do. Yeah, you do get those girls back. Kill them all. Even though like we've read the books, like we know what happens. Go cat. Yeah, mom. Servants meet the boat as Lothar and Oswell row them to shore. Older serving people come to greet them and they kneel to Peter. Lothar and Oswell wade into shore. Older serving people come to greet them and they kneel to Peter. Lothar and Oswell wade into the water to get Sansa out so she stays dry, which I was like, what a princess ass thing. She's like, they wade in, they pull their pants up, they lift her up and keep her dress up.

I'm like, dang, okay. Impressive, impressive, guys. Thank you. I appreciate it as a girl. It's like very, very chivalric. We don't see that a lot these days in these game of thrones books uh the servants tell peter that they've lit a dung fire for them and we've had a whole chat off off the record about dung fire uh i'm gonna tell you guys

listening please go give it a google because i did and boy i there was a lot of information to traverse right like there is just Dungfire is a thing. Just dried poop lit on fire. They literally took animal poop, dried it, and just lit it on fire to have a fire for them. It's a whole new world. Old world, I guess. I'm not gonna sing, but yeah. Well, for me it was.

You say that, but by the end of the chapter you might be singing. You might. That's how it goes here at Girl's Con. Just pitching this for Ice and Fire Con. We're going to have a dung fire. Just saying. All right. What are you going to call the dung fire, Eliana? We're going to call it dung and egg.

The dung and egg bonfire. It's going to be great. Peter introduces us to the main staff members. We meet Brian, the captain of the guards, and his dogs. Grisel, Peter's ex-wet nurse, who keeps his house. Umfred, his steward, and Kella, who mines his herd. Peter has 23 sheep. He had 29, but the dogs killed one, and they had to butcher others for mutton, according to Brian.

Are they having that much trouble, like, getting the sheep to, like, I don't know, breed? to brian are they having that much trouble like getting the sheep to like i don't know breed but also can i just say that i'm really hurt by the way that peter talks to his help like i get it you're so witty and you always have a great snarky comeback but i'm just like i mean these people are just doing their best they don't want to live here either they're just like living their lives and i'm sorry that the rushes aren't fresh you didn't send a bird saying you were on your way here and all peter does is like complain he's like i hate these sheep and their shit and the rocks and you can see how he just feels like oh i'm so much better than all this i deserve more than all of it and i mean it's his home and he can like i guess talk shit about it if he wants

and maybe we're supposed to be reading it as him having a really good, honest rapport with his servants. But I think about Fire and Blood because it's fresh in all of our minds right now. And how Alysanne, when she's brought to the Wall to meet with the Lord Commander of the King's Watch, the Lord Commander's like, oh, I'm sorry, we just have these beds and this food. And she's like, no, they're warm and nutritious thank you so much and here's peter he's just like everything sucks it's not good enough he's not gracious and can i just point out that brian his captain of the guards is like 85 years old yeah cut the guy some slack cut the whole place some slack i mean there's been no leadership right like there's no leadership as

eliana said he didn't send a raven. I mean, obviously we knew that because, you know, the whole regicide thing, but besides the regicide thing, but it's like he didn't send a raven. He doesn't come home. He's off conniving in other courts and scheming like they're just keeping the place afloat. This is their life. He there's this big I didn't really go into it, but there's a big thing about how kella has another kid finally you know and kella just keeps birthing bastards like that's what's gonna keep their whole entire place stocked with help you know they're born into that servant life and they just live there in the fingers i mean peter hates what he comes from he hates what his family

was he gets rid of their sigil and takes a new sigil uh he you know like just denies what he is absolutely and in the end it's great because he's gonna come back to that sniveling little piece of crap kid you know there's a modest hall and a bed chamber that's even higher than it it has no windows and above the hearth is a broken sword and a shield full of crack paint and then his grandfather sigil a titan's head oh the titan's head so in your last episode iliana mentioned the radio estros theory about sansa killing little finger and this is actually where it all started a long long time ago titan is a giant so the balish's sigil is a literal giant's head. And we'll just leave it there until the next chapter.

That is so important. And the first time I read that, and it sort of, the penny dropped for me. I was like, whoa. Well, especially with Arya 8 being,

you know, just a handful of rounds before this, because some of those chapters are also spaced out in this book, just because the ramping tension towards the end of the book as like the storm finally hits of everything uh so it's just interesting how george layers these chapters near each other to keep your memory on them too i think it's so good it is and i you know the fact that you guys just as a sort of digression you're the lightning round thing is really important because we also do um character analysis you know so when you just analyze a character arc sometimes you lose sight

of what is a directly you know contiguous two chapters and that's that tends to be really important stuff so good that you include that and you get like a lot of perspective i know especially when we were doing the ned chapters or even as we've seen in these sansa chapters when they've ever when we get to tyrian eventually in like 20 years um literally you have we'll be right there with you yeah you have those characters like appearing in other povs and you have to take note of like hey this character appeared there and how other people perceive them or how they act there is part of

their progression. But in reaction to learning that Littlefinger's sigil as a titan sounds like ah, that's fierce but maybe it's just too fierce for you. And Littlefinger says yes, it is too fierce for me and then

i think i'm more about the mockingbird it's more of my style it's a little more subdued i guess oswell unloads the ship and he brings casks of wine up to the hall just like little finger promised he offers sansa a fine vintage arbor gold to settle her stomach. She prays to keep it down because Peter was being so nice to her. She didn't want to retch on him for his nice behavior. First of all, what kind of idiot gives one more alcohol when they're feeling nauseous already?

But also, Sansa, do it. Just retch all over him. Just do it. Just vomit all over him. He deserves it, I promise. She didn't want to retch on him maybe it's foreshadowing oh what she's done i mean realistically we have two more books with little finger in it so i mean i don't think he's gonna go in the winds of winter unfortunately i think we still have like one like a quarter of a dream of spring until we finally get rid of that

emmeraffer so let's just she's got time she could puke all over him he wishes he was a motherfucker one like a quarter of a dream of spring until we finally get rid of that mraffer so let's just she's got time she could puke all over him he wishes he was a motherfucker he i mean technically was get it liza oh yeah i guess so i was talking about cat but yeah you right yeah that's true he thinks he was he thinks he was true it's a state of being yeah it's not really isn't a mindset speaking a motherfucker a mindset being a motherfucker is a mindset it's a state of being yeah it's not really isn't a mindset speaking a motherfucker a mindset being a motherfucker is a mindset it's all about believing it if you believe it i mean he was studying her over his own goblet his bright gray green eyes full of was it amusement or something else sanza was not certain He asks Grisel to bring Sansa something

light to eat, possibly the pomegranates and oranges he took from the king, which I love that note because it reminds me of Sandor and Arya's whole, like, didn't you steal anything before you left King's Landing? And that's what Littlefinger took. He took food, which is smart. I mean, that's pretty Littlefinger-y, you know, you know that he thought all right my best bet looking at this place this place this place i steal food i'll be good on food you know it's interesting i'll give him that i usually shit on him but he did remember food's important especially with winter coming i should get food get food so we don't have to eat mutton yeah absolutely so i can impress my girlfriend sans a start get away Get away from her. Get a job. Is mutton not good?

I thought it was like lamb, but I guess, I don't know. Is the sheep too old? Yeah, it's sheep and all, but I mean, it's dried mutton. They have dried salt mutton. It's basically, because in old times in general, that's how they preserve food. They preserve meat. They salted meat and they

dried it reconstitute it with some water and make it a little more chewy or you could just eat it brittle and that was your protein which i mean i still i love beef jerky personally but yeah i mean they have a whole 23 other sheep out there they could kill one of them and have a feast but anyway fresh mutton i'm sure it's better. Exactly. That's what I'm wondering. I don't know. Sans requests a bath, and Peter has Kella draw some more water. Littlefinger then turns his attention to setting Sans' story straight.

This is who you are. This is how you're gonna disguise yourself before your Aunt Liza comes along. And it is not safe to be Sans' dark. So you're gonna be my natural daddy. daughter yeah that's right ooh a bastard like who's scandalous which scandalous settle down Ashley's oh my god I can't believe you just recessed our podcast this is kind of an obvious ploy on power and exerting it over

your captive while Theon tends to have a more gory and horrific fate in his later chapters, we see this then as well. If you let the abuser make the rules of the game, remove your identity, choose the station of your captives, it's removing this power and agency from them. Littlefinger pushes Stockholm Syndrome hard on Sansa, right? He's implicated her in murder, he's given her a lifeline with nothing but strings attached, and now he's lowering her to not only being his, but his bastard. His garbage spawn, right? Like his throwaway kid. Sansa doesn't need his chains, and she's actually going to learn that probably by the end of the Winds of Winter. Sansa instead suggests, but what if I were Catelyn? What if I went by my mother's

name? Peter's like, no, that's too obvious. Especially when you look exactly like her. So he's like, you can be Alayne, like my mom. Which I love, of course, that parallels Arya's cat in the canals in Feast and joins together one half to one half, right? The sides of the coin. Cat slash Alayne.

Catelyn. The son of the moon. Exactly. Those two. Oh oh yeah armor and the sword but also i think there's a i'm just gonna throw this out there because you know every time you find a moment where you can slip in freud when you're reading a piece of literature just do it so i'm just gonna say freud oh my god thonza is also a little bum that she has to be lowborn. She's like, but can I be the daughter of a knight in your service? Worse off, she doesn't want to be Littlefinger's bastard.

It's an insult. He's upjumped. And he's doing this not just because it's a more believable thing, but it gives him control. So, Elaine Stone it is. Her backstory has been chosen. Her mother was a Braavosi woman who died giving birth to her. She was the daughter of a merchant prince who Littlefinger met when he was in charge of Gulltown's port. Elaine was given to the Faith, but when she bled for the first time, she decided, yeah, she didn't want to be a septa after all.

So she wrote to Littlefinger, and now here she is on the fingers. First off, really complicated backstory. Okay, like, bravosie woman died giving birth to her, she was the daughter of a merchant prince, but just enough that Sansa's gonna eat that crap up, like, okay, well, the daughter of a merchant prince, okay, sure, whatever. But second off, kind of unrealistic, like, that's what makes you wake up and go i don't want to live in the convent forever you wake up and you go i had my period i should call my father and say i want to live with him in his court i don't want to sell my maidenhood away to the gods like that makes me wake up and just say i don't want to live you know i don't i don't have any other plans than that i

just want to like lay there and die i don't think i want to go traverse across the nation to go meet my father who's a great lord now yeah no you can tell like a man wrote this but a man wrote this in story as well no exactly it's up for both for both is that what you mean yeah yeah irl both it's a little involved i don't know something to keep in mind though from here until sansa's eventual reveal that we will be covering when the winds of winter comes out next week obviously i thought we'd all laugh have a good laugh thanks i try. So Sansa's whole entire thing now is Elaine is supposed to have been hidden away in an abbey her entire life.

She has to behave as such to not draw attention. And then Littlefinger asks Sansa, do you like games? And then offers her some pomegranates. He's been asking her if he likes games for the past two chapters. Like, just let it go. Two years? What are you talking about? Yeah, that's true. The past two years. Do you talking about yeah that's true past two years

do you like games do you like games the game of thrones she politely declines like no thank you i think i'll have a pair said it's easier neater to eat and of course it's major persephone uh symbolism in this right we all know it it's major persephone symbolism so as the tale goes persephone gets sucked into the underworld, stolen away by Hades. Demeter does everything in her power to find her daughter, but doesn't quite find her. She convinces the other gods to help rescue Persephone from the underworld, but it is too late. Persephone has already accepted the fruit offered from Hades in the underworld. Specifically, that fruit in the myth was pomegranate.

The Accord is struck that Persephone must live half the year below, married to Hades, and the other half of the year she can spend above in the springtime. Now, all tales of captive princesses and damsels in distress have their root in this story of persephone and the princess in the tower motif specifically is very strong with sansa i think you guys mentioned it in your last episode if i remember correctly in this here even though she's moving literally from one tower to another but here in this scene sansa rejects the pomegranate now pears have a much gentler symbolism they can symbolize a lot of different things like long life or affection between

friends or the separation of friends whatever they're not as symbolically fraught as a pomegranate which I think indicates that her periods of captivity are not going to be endlessly cyclical like poor old Persephone Sansa is going to consciously

break the cycle. Yeah, exactly. Sansa declining the fruit is a huge gesture. It's her saying no thank you to Littlefinger and she's definitely going to break that cycle and outwit Hades and go home. So you know, actually, I wrote about this years ago for originally for the pond player threads and it's on my personal blog a kind of arthurian interpretation of sansa stark in which i really talked about how sansa story arc is that princess in the tower and how she's going from you you know, the Tower of the Hand to Maegor's Holdfast. She's going to alight after this chapter at the Maiden's Tower in the Eyrie. And from there, she's going to emerge during her final chapter in Feast. Sansa spends the final months of her girlhood basically in a cage.

She's called Little Bird. She's a caged bird. And her cage is represented by this succession of towers. So that's the princess and the tower motif. Her periods of controlled release, which we see little by little in King's Landing while she's married to Tyrion, and a little bit when she's in the Vale, and then finally at the end of Feast are somewhat stagnant. But they're basically, they represent the fruition of growth. So every time she gets out of one of these towers, you see that she's grown a little bit in her arc.

So we can only just hope that her growth is going to be somewhat amazing by the time we see her again in windswept yeah i love that absolutely it's really in feast we get that line from her you know that sansa stark went up the mountain but elaine stone is coming down and i think that says there's going to be a big transformation because in a way getting to lose that identity of sansa stark means she gets to she gets to shed this prisoner's skin, right? She gets to be bastard brave. That was a different girl, you know, that girl was bastard brave. And that's what she gets to be for a little bit. And I think that helps her find that route home. Exactly. Eventually find her way back to being a Stark. Littlefinger tells Sansa that,

oh, you must miss your father terribly. But in King's Landing there are two types of people. There are players and pieces. Or pawns and players. If you will. Sansa asks, was I a piece?

Littlefinger says, yes, but don't let that trouble you. You're still half a child. Every man's a piece to Stark, but then every every mate as well even some who think they are players he ate another seed cersei for one she thinks herself sly but in truth she's utterly predictable her strength rests on her beauty birth and riches only the first of those is truly her own and it will soon desert her i pity her then she wants power but has no notion what to do with it when she gets it. Everyone wants something, Elaine. And when you know what a man wants, you know who he is and how to move him.

Oh my god. So he just gave her the key to his own destruction right there, didn't he? Because once she figures out that he wants her, she's going to start using that against him. And that's going to happen pretty quickly. I mean, these are all the tools she's learned, right? I mean, you got Cersei telling her a woman's weapon, Sansa. You know, tears are not the only woman's weapon.

You have Lysa being all like, oh, you're so pretty and you think you're great. Like, she knows what she has and she's going to finally have that against him, especially when he's been standing around implicating himself in her life going, well, I did this and I killed this and I did this to this person

and oh, aren't I clever, Sansa? Don't you love me? I always laugh at these people that have this idea that Littlefinger is the greatest player of the game and he's going to be the king of everything at the end. He's going to be the last man standing because Littlefinger's the greatest player of the game, and he's going to be the king of everything at the end. He's going to be the last man standing. Because Littlefinger's arc is only continued because Sansa's is written to be his downfall. And we get handed some of those major clues in these couple chapters that we're reading.

They all kind of wind together with that Arya 8 chapter we talked about with the ghost of Highheart's prophecy. Sansa's entire arc and story revolves directly around politics. She's always been surrounded by it. Bran's arc is magic, Jon is the hero, Arya's the assassin or whatever, I don't know what they're gonna do, you know, whatever. But Sansa, of course, is kind of the political brains of the operation. She and Bran dream and everyone else does the execution. But it's been politics from the start from her. She, with the whole almost marrying the king thing, keeping her head in the viper pit of King's Landing, and now navigating the Eyrie with her own new face to wear.

Her arc doesn't end with her dead or with her married to Eyrie the Heir. It ends with her retaking her own womanhood, life, and destiny, defeating her political opponents, and also at the same time helping to bind the kingdoms back together. political opponents, and also at the same time helping to bind the kingdoms back together. And so Sansa goes on to ask for confirmation that he was pulling the strings for Dantos the entire time, which he gives her. He tells her that Dantos had no clue about the poison, though. He was just a pawn who had had his mission bestowed upon him. He tells her that the mockingbird isn't friendless, though it may seem that way. And he calls

Oswell up for them and asks Sansa who she sees. Hey guys, knock knock. Who's there? Oswell. Oswell who? Oswell went. Anyways. I'll die on this hill.

Not a hill you guys it's Oswell Kettleblack went it's the Oswell Kettle calling the went black it's the it's Oswell Kettleblack you guys the guy with three sons who came out of nowhere interesting because there are four lost males from the house went line

and he arrived at king's landing isn't that funny those three sons whose names shall never be remembered i cannot remember them any of us oz one oz two oz three or king's guard city watch and boy toy honestly that's pretty impressive though when when you gave us this knowledge of 1, 2, 3, Kingsguard, City Watch, Boy Toy. I was like, oh yeah, because I struggle to remember even what they have. I think that scene, which we talked about above

very, very briefly in our lightning round with Jamie is so interesting with them in the Kingsguard room. It's something when we eventually get to Jamie someday in the next 18 years, we'll talk about probably, I'm sure, more. But that's a really cool scene and really gives them a little bit of character. I feel like maybe if me and Eliana study that just enough, we might be able to differentiate between the three.

If we study the Kettlebacks, aren't there other things that I need to, I don't know, focus on? Look, we're bringing K back yeah yeah you other kingsguard don't know how to act yeah yeah uh and we get this interesting conversation tell me elaine which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never even see? The hidden dagger. There's a clever girl. Stay away from her. I couldn't even finish that. That was gross. I had to say that out loud. You guys heard me say that. that was gross i was like i had to say that out loud you guys heard me say that uh little finger does tell her that the kettle blacks turns out were in his employ the whole time it was me the

whole time uh and also tyrian's employ they were bought and paid for by little finger and they were those three hidden daggers perfectly placed and i mean the daggers aren't always really figurative yes we have the kettle blacks and as illuminatingating as this is for Peter's super clever strategy, it's also calling back, of course, to what he did to Ned in King's Landing by slowly driving Ned to his death by playing him the whole time and then revealing, oh, I'm the dagger and bringing it to Ned's neck. What a jerk. The best part about this line is

Sansa's going to be the one with the daggers in the end, right? The hidden daggers. It's such a good arc. I think it's interesting to consider her three daggers hiding in the dark, right? It could be any amount of people but i think especially we should pay attention to jane pool obviously sold into sex slavery uh by little finger and cersei sandor clegane in the throne room when peter betrayed her dad and the royces nester has

randa pushing and investigating already i couldn't agree more especially those first two they have some very damning information should sansa have a reunion with either one of them trouble yeah i mean she's got him condemned in the veil between nester and bronzion who saw her in 295 ac just a handful of years before asos uh i mean you also look at with the whole aria fake aria plot there's valiant ned's precious little girls i mean that's she's in the veil a place where her dad grew up these are the people that knew her dad they knew robert she was betrothed to joffrey baratheon you know she was she's ned's eldest daughter this is a big deal that she's in the Vale, and these people will know who she is. And if I'm not mistaken, Bronn's yawn voice is line, right? They have

some blood ties to House Stark? Yes. We remember. We do remember. I love those. Those are probably some of my favorite House words. We remember. Magic rooms. Yeah, they're interesting. Sansa tries to piece together

the rest of Joffrey's murder. She thinks it was one of the Kettleblacks who poisoned him, but Littlefinger, of course, does not. He tilted his chin back and squeezed the blood orange so the juice ran down into his mouth. I love the juice, but I loathe the sticky fingers,

he complained, wiping his hands. Clean hands, Sansa, whatever you do, make certain your hands are clean. Yeah, I'm doing this as a public service to you guys, so you should be thankful right now. I know. That you didn't have to do that, because it hurts me. Like, I think I just took two years off

my life reading a little finger line out loud. I'm gonna need a shower after this. I need a shower right now. Gross. Clean bodies, bodies everyone whatever you do make certain your bodies are clean they're right but yeah combining that idea of the

clean hands with the blood oranges it really plays well with the rest of how this series goes the blood orange acts as a symbol in a lot of A Song of Ice and Fire Adam Feldman on the Myrinese Blot discusses that symbolism of blood oranges, especially as they manifest in Doran Martell's storyline. You see that the overripe blood oranges, they plop on the ground off the

tree, and it symbolizes that war is approaching, as is this vengeance that the Martells have been planning for years and of course when fruit splats on the ground it is messy and like the sticky juices the blood of innocence are going to spill with war on the horizon for westeros and i think uh you know to combine with this scene of little finger it creates this question of how do you keep your hands clean of the war when the blood of innocence is at stake especially as we see that war is also at the doors of the veil or when if someone wants to seek vengeance which sansa presumably might after everything that's happened god all those kids in the water gardens are gonna die save the naked babies all dead all of them thinking about that just me okay yeah

i think about it all the time it's so sad little finger jogs sansa's memory while she's trying to figure everything out that someone played with her hairnet at the dinner it was olena tyrell sansa couldn't believe that olena would do that she wanted her to marry Willis to be her granddaughter-in-law. But of course, the penny drops. They weren't your friends, Sansa. That's why the chapters in the beginning of A Storm of Swords serve to build up this very subtle betrayal. We see it at her wedding to Tyrion as well. The Tyrells want nothing to do with Sansa Stark. Her claim's's off the table and so is their friendship

Peter though says that Sansa should be grateful she was spared of the pious and gentle Willis I don't know he seemed nice I mean he was a Tyrell but currently the Tyrells are dolts according to Fire and Blood I mean

Fire and Blood Maester killed Bane I think he knows what he's talking about because I too have been known to say the Tyrells are dolts but Willis seemed nice a nice dolt he likes dogs what else can you want from someone

you know when Littlefinger went to Highgarden he praised Joffrey to the tyrells but then he also low-key had uh these spreading of evil rumors about joffrey's disposition then he planted he inception did the idea of loris joining the king's guard yeah and if you recall sansa predicted part of this in her first A Storm of Swords chapter, but she didn't predict what was going to happen because of it. She only got halfway in. She thought Loras has a temper to rival Jaime's, and the Tyrells are not going to stand

for Joffrey's nature, which she wasn't wrong with either of these thoughts. Oh, for sure. And yeah, she notices these things because, as say sanza is smart earlier we were introduced of course little finger sigil being the mockingbird and you can really see how that comes into the play in the story here and how apt it is for him as i'm sure many of you know from the hunger games the mockingbird which was which was paired with what was it the blue jay or something uh knows how to mimic the songs and calls of other birds and this is very much how little finger plants that idea of loris joining the king's guard into the tyrells like we the quote from the chapter is but men in my party supplied grisly tales about how the mob had killed sir preston greenfield and raped

the lady lawless and slipped a few silvers to lure Tyrell's army of singers to sing a rhyme, red wine, sirwin of the mirror shield, and prince Aemon the dragon knight. A harp can be as dangerous as a sword in the right hands. Which is interesting considering the language of army of singers. But Lidlfinger uses songs same way as the mocking bird does to lure others into his plans i mean mocking birds don't really do anything that insidious they're just birds that copy other birds for like i don't know sex bird sex uh but we just discussed how sansa uses we just discussed how little finger tells sansa to use people's desires against them

and he's so good at reflecting those desires back to them. And he's plying those in order to get what he wants. He uses songs to plant those ideas in others. And as we see with Liza and Nestor Voice, Littlefinger is going to mimic another bird, the falcon, by using its power. But again, going back to this idea of the harp as being as dangerous as a sword and Littlefinger being that mockingbird in a story that's very much about Sansa, a little bird, singing sweet songs and being in the nest of the falcon, the Eyrie, again in a story that's called A Song of Ice and Fire. This plays further with this theme about songs and dreams and Sansa's storyline because even in our own world

like that's why we're all here for the story that's why we love stories and tv shows and books uh the songs and the dreams that we love i mean they reflect they shape and inspire our own hopes and desires for ourselves for the world that we have we aspire to be like our heroes and we learn how to navigate the world through warnings from stories where things go awry. Monologues. Maliana, that was really beautiful. That was a great monologue. Yeah. It was very good. Song of Ice and Fire was inside of us

the whole time. Oh my god. It was inside of us the whole time. Oh god. I'm crying. So Littlefinger says Margaery will wed Tommen soon enough, and the alliance between Highgarden and Casterly Rock will be saved for a time. Sansa thinks about how she liked Margaery and her grandmother,

but thinking about her new identity, Elaine Stone, Elaine has no husband, no claim, and is a bastard. So this makes Sansa kind of happy, I guess. She thinks about how she can start over now all new yeah she's she's the optimist man she's like maybe this won't suck smile looks into the camera this is gonna suck isn't it like that's she knows she knows i mean she's looking at marjorie just getting passed off kind of for the same reason claim for her claim only it's it's inverted

but she's just getting passed from one dude to another and sans is like god queen basketball yeah we're a sports podcast now by the way sports of ice and fire does no one else yeah we could just that's a great twitter account like you could you could just, like, post turny results all day long. Yeah, and you can be like, I don't know, X versus X. Yeah, like, one this many tilts versus this many.

Sansa spends eight days waiting for her aunt to arrive, hanging out with Brian's old dog. Littlefinger gives her the tour, and shows her some rocks where the Andals might have landed once. He shows her where his small folk live and he tells her this story, which this kind of grabbed me, this read around. He tells her a story of a hermit seer that used to live here and proclaim that Peter would do great things for one cup of wine as payment. Interesting. wine as payment interesting i i just never really paid attention to that until now there was some

seer that lived in the caves that he you know his dad took him to and they gave him a cup of wine he was like peter's gonna be great exactly but unlike other people jersey he places no weight on this prophecy, he says. But it still comes true, doesn't it, Sansa? I mean, kind of, you know? His arc is definitely just a teensy bit more impressive than Baelish's of yore. Right, Sansa? Yeah. Right, right.

Elbow, elbow. I don't know, I wonder if he does definitely believe it. You know, if that's like his sense of upjump well i was meant for great things it sounds a bit like i don't know it does sound like peter to you know lie to sansa or to anyone to make himself seem cooler so i mean if he really didn't care he would have forgotten by now right yeah why bring it up if it was like yeah liza then arrives the afternoon of the eighth day with a humble retinue she has three maids a septon very important and a handsome singer along with a dozen household knights she's a little more aged

and sagging and she's wearing a velvet jewel dress and lots of makeup. I got a Queen Elizabeth I vibe here. I don't know about you guys. Just the description. The old pathetic Queen Elizabeth I that just needed the adoration of all the handsome young men around her. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's what, like, she's been keeping Marillion around since Cat left. Yeah. That's weird.

Yeah. That's gross. Yeah. Liza immediately wants to know what gifts peter has brought her but all he offers her is his natural daughter elaine he what a surprise hey we're getting married which crazy parallels to catalyn right i mean cat came home ned walks in with a bastard so there you go there's a little something he tells her he's bringing her to the eerie and she starts to get pretty pissed at him but she calms down the moment

little finger gives her a little semblance of affection liza complains to little finger that oh i've been fending off all of these suitors such as hunter and corbret and voice i've all been trying to win me and my son and but i've been waiting for you, Peter. And it gives me this vibe of Penelope waiting for Odysseus in the Odyssey with a dark mirror of it, especially with, I don't know, the old servant and the old dog and shit. Liza wants to marry Peter right this instant, but Peter wants to wait and marry in the veil, which, of course, that would be a sign of validity for Peter with the whole court present. But alas, Liza throws a tantrum, so married they get. There's dancing, there's singing, there's food. Sansa ends up dancing with some young knights, even. But this leads to the bedding, which is, of course, extremely awkward. Sansa ends up having to help undress Peter with L liza's three maids which later on leads to liza putting on a tremendous show in bed ew peter peter this is just oh my god

cringe this is that's love that's marriage right there yeah it's gross this series is known more for food porn than bedroom porn and um meaning that i a lot of the bedroom scenes are not really that good some of them are pretty laughable and this is about the worst my humble opinion yeah mirish even though we're not really in the bedroom just like being below the bedroom is a secondhand embarrassment oh god i am crazy wait on this line of thought something that weirded me out in fire and blood was how what everyone was talking about how everyone could hear in in king's landing or the red keep could hear bail on and alissa and i'm like they're like teenagers and their parents can just

hear them i mean i guess they were married but still like i guess that's what the parents wanted fair point i guess at least they liked each other targ babies maybe this is just normal i guess for west i'm gonna mount him again tomorrow like damn girl okay i guess you know been a day people lived all in the same room you know like what did people do family slept in the same bed how did they have more kids i suppose they were all just grinding on each other oh gross i'm so glad i live in a eight-room house and everyone has their own bedroom or whatever whatever that's enough however many rooms there's enough rooms don't have to do that yeah you think that you don't hear them yelling around the keep i think that this keep and the stones would be better insulation but what if

it actually just makes it sound louder what if it echoes you know no, it does. It just travels. Echoes. It bounces. Sound bounces off of stone, Eliana. Oh my god. Yeah, the red keep, they call it red for another reason. The sound bounces off of a laid stone. Because of sex. We walk to the hall after the bedding, thinking of Loras and Sander. She wondered what had become of Sander Clegane. Did he know that they'd kill Joffrey?

Would he care? He had been the prince's sworn sword for years. Aww, they think about each other, you guys. Yeah, they do. I mean, it could be simultaneous. I think this is now my headcanon. They're looking up at the same stars

thinking about each other oh Sansa would be a cute little mouse oh I think about Sandor's burnt little mouse face he'd be a rat instead this would be cute yeah I feel like the Arya chapter that comes a little bit

after this frames it as a simultaneous as good as simultaneous with them learning that Sansa killed the king with a spell and Sandor being all good for her you know it was kind of sweet she's thinking about him though while she's listening to sex stuff I'm just putting

that out there and then of course we're gonna get into a dream in a little bit but I'm just putting that out there it's real you know it's real she ruffles brian's hound's fur and she calls it a sad old hound and she looks across at the remnants of the party and of course here comes marillion the upjumped perverted singer he tries to bang sansa he's all like let's go let's go i want to get with you and she's like yeah i'm kind of offended and loather broom comes in the nick of time as he starts to kind of put himself on her.

Sansa heard the soft sound of steel on leather. Singer, a rough voice said, best go if you want to sing again. The light was dim, but she saw a faint glimmer of a blade. The singer saw it too. Find your own wench! The knife flashed and he cried out, You cut me! I'll do worse if you don't go.

And quick as that, Marillion was gone. The other remained, looming over Sansa in the darkness. Lord Peter said watch out for you. It was Lothar Brune's voice, she realized. Not the hound's. No, how could it be? Of course it had to be Lothar. I'm gonna get real sad again.

Lothar Brun fucks this all up for me. You love him? I do kind of like him. I mean, we did base a foundation of our podcast on the fact that why would you choose Jorah when Lothar Brun was right there? Well, he gives me a Brown Ben Plum vibe, so

I don't know know i also quite like brown ben plumb he let me down but he's still at least still interesting i like him too but i just i don't have good hope i don't know what do you think do you think he'll well i think it could just be as simple he's gonna turn on little finger but whatever he does i think it's going to be detrimental to himself and i guess that's that's kind of the vibe I get because that's what I think about Brown Ben Plum whatever he does and I have thoughts about that it's

going to be detrimental to himself in the end yeah I mean I could see Lothar Brun trying to stick up for himself against Littlefinger or stick up for Littlefinger's a bad guy and then Littlefinger's striking him down. I could see that.

I hope that doesn't happen. He's been with us since that first book, when he was just Lothar Brun, not Sir Lothar Brun, and then Clash, and then he becomes a sir. But I guess if it goes like that, it wouldn't be letting you down.

That's true. It's an arc, then. I agree. At least if he does that, he's gonna still be sticking to being great i it would let me down more if he did the opposite he lives he's just a scumbag well unless he lives in his like great but like you know well sanza has a weird dream after she finally gets to bed later way on it's a total coming of age sex dream and it ends with the hound. Because Sansan's real, Eliana.

Oh, is it? Is it ever? That night, Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merlin King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clotted his throat and the blood ran across his fingers, she saw with horror that it was her brother, Rob. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed.

Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be. And when he climbed into the bed, his face was scarred only on one side. I'll have a song from you, he rasped. And Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. I wish that you were lady, she said. What a goddamn quote, right? I wish that you were lady, a wolf, a dog, the hound.

Give the girl a dog. She'll be happier for it. Oh, gosh. Oh, Sansan fans only get this. I do. I love the way, like, George shows this transformation. It reminds me of how he does it with Daenerys in Game of Thrones with the shadows, with the blood magic.

Like, how he shows just these, just these shapes and, you know, from Rob transforming from Joffrey to Rob and from Tyrion in her wedding bed transforming to Sandor in her wedding bed and of course as Lady Gwyn definitely is on the train of with the cloaking that has taken place.

Yes. Our cloaking marriage expert Lady Gwyn that we invited on this panel for the sun-san portion of this episode you guys covered it really well in the last episode I really hoped we were doing it justice

it was hard to do it because I really just wanted to wait for you to do it instead because I'm like man it's her beautiful masterpiece that she did really well it's my love my baby um you know i think uh she's got the cloak she thinks about this cloak a lot the cloak is so symbolic like you were just saying you know the marriage cloak it symbolizes protection and obviously the first time she huddled up under sandra's cloak during the black water it was for protection and then you know if the theory is true

she wore it for protection when she fled from king's landing and she has in the pocket of that cloak, I like to point out, the Chekhov's hairnet. So you never know what the cloak could protect her from in future. I love that. We might learn more about that in the Winds of Winter. It could come back.

I don't think things ever go away so like that so probably not because we there's there's still two books so so for christmas when we're all unwrapping if we celebrate christmas winds of winter under under our Christmas trees, you know. Yeah, keep that in mind as you go through all the chapters. Hopefully you're reading the Sansa chapters first, because you're gonna have to

catch up as we go through it on the podcast. I mean, you could read one of the Sansa chapters first already. Actually, we are gonna be doing that Sansa chapter, all jokes aside, since the Winds of Winter is not coming out this week or next week or the week after yet. Damn it.

Isn't it? Damn it. All jokes aside, we will be doing a Winds of Winter Elaine 1 episode and talk about Sansa's future from the Winds of Winter on sometime, I believe, next month. We're going to take a break from our fire and bloodness just to keep it Sansa because we also will be transitioning into a new point of view for February. Stay tuned to hear

more about that. No spoilers. So in the morning, Liza and Peter get breakfast-ish in bed and they call for Sansa. Outside of the chamber, Peter says that your aunt wants you and Sansa's like, great, this is fun. This is a fun time for me. It's like you guys just banged all night, I heard it. This is fun. Not at all awkward. Going in.

Probably smells like it. I'm surprised we don't talk about how it smells like it. Anyways. He's obviously told Liza already she's Kat's daughter, and Liza regards her as such when she comes in. She questions her on her marriage to Tyrion, and Sansa tells her the truth of it. She tells Sansa she has to darken her hair color with dye, and not to call Liza her aunt. Liza has kept the veil out of the war thus far, and Sansa's identity would, and obviously eventually will, only complicate things. And then we launch into Liza's very slightly temperamental mood change.

Totally slight. Because you know Liza being a Tully. She's like the mood of Aaron. Ever-changing. That's who she is as a person. She tells Sansa about the horrors that she has suffered. Her stillbirths with Jon Arryn. Jon Arryn's awful breath.

The thing Peter smells like mint, I guess. How she had to see Peter every day at court, but pretend to be loyal to her husband. She then shifts the conversation to Sansa's mom. She gives a speech on how we are alone now as women in the world, and we must be brave together. And then she grabs Sansa's wrist

and tells her, you have to be honest with me and tell me, are you pregnant with Tyrion's kid? She makes it like a huge thing too she's like i'm you have to be honest with me don't lie to me i'll know if you lie like do you think liza was planning to abort it if it was a thing like hearse was done like that kind of psychotic now you must truly suffer like i have thing that we see these adults project onto the kids, like Cersei last couple chapters. Oh yeah, I definitely think so. I mean, if being a Stark complicates things for her,

which she's already making very clear, imagine having a Stark with a Lannister baby on her hands and definitely would take those steps. Drink this. Here, drink this. Yeah this yeah good luck yeah i think sansa at least be a little smarter and she'd at least know what it was yeah uh sansa pleads that she's not with child she chooses the words then that she says about tyrian very carefully she does not try to reason with her that he was kind like she's thinking of how he was. She tells Lysa he preferred the company of sex workers. This is such a great point about

Sansa. She was not only perceiving how her aunt feels about Tyrion, obviously highly negative, but she shows some real astuteness at playing people here little finger asked her if she likes to play games and she wasn't so sure but we see here that she's gonna be really good at it because she totally plays lies there with this sex worker thing also she has to be good at it to like live so it's good she's getting on the bandwagon now good girl yeah it's a it's another good lie because it's one of those that littlefinger says this right later on where uh good lies have a little seed of truth in it and there is a seed of truth in it regarding that about tyrian and so eliza says oh that doesn't surprise me she says Tyrion had a low cunning and she says that

he was basically a garbo person and that she should have killed him when she could but my sister that idiot let her go and Bronn proved their innocence and then Catelyn also made off with Brynden Blackfish it's kind of sad we going to get into this next chapter, obviously, as we're nearing the end here. But the Blackfish went with Liza originally because he knew Liza's past. He knew what had happened to her and he wanted to protect her. And he had no place at Riverrun for himself anymore either. So kind of a bummer, especially as it all unfolds, especially with her psychosis next chapter. kind of a bummer especially as it all unfolds especially with her psychosis next chapter so lisa says now the mountain clans have grown wilder but she's planning on naming peter lord

protector of the veil and being a well-known mighty warrior she knows he's gonna set it all straight and she says i knew that boy joffrey he used to call my Robert cruel names, and once he slapped him with a wooden sword. I can't tell you who I would favor in that fight. A man will tell you poison is dishonorable, but a woman's honor is different. The mother shaped us to protect our children, and our only dishonor is in failure. You'll know that when you have a child. Hey, do you think Liza might have poisoned someone? I mean-

Do you think she, like, knows about poison? Maybe. What could they be getting at here? I don't know. Something. Sansa is all like, okay, when I have a baby, uh, that'd be cool, but why? And Liza's like, oh, well, you want a kid to love forever. It's really good because your life sucks otherwise.

So Liza pushes matchmaker and all of a sudden in her like ranting, decides Sansa and Sweet Robin, Robert Aaron, would be an excellent couple. He's of noble, great birth and you should marry him. And Sansa's like, ha, ha, ha, he sounds great. I've never met him he's emotionally stunted come on down let's get married like next what's that the ariana grande thank you thank you next thank you next next husband i guess one one taught me patience someone give her a break give her a break there is this line there right after this. It goes,

The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy and sickly. It's not me she wants her son to marry. It is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. Oh, poor Sansa. So here we are. That's a heartbreaking line.

It's so sad. And less than 12 hours after her little moment of hope there that someone here with some family that might love her shattered. Hope is shattered. Her aunt wants her claim although she then

goes on to take great pains to let Sansa know exactly how little her claim is worth, just in case she gets any ideas about the value that she's bringing to this equation. This goes right back to Littlefinger with his emotional manipulation of Sansa and that abusive nature of taking, you know, your captives' rights away, taking their power away, and Liza is totally implicit in that. Sansa has a key to a lot of the kingdoms right now, not all necessarily by blood, but right now she's Lady Lannister. She's a princess of the north. She has a claim on Riverrun, and knock out the Goldtown

Arryns and Eri the Air, she could probably topple the Eyrie into devoting themselves to the north's kingdom instead of the South's. Nudge. Liza's not very good at negging, apparently. She's pretty bad at it. Of Robert Arryn, Liza says, He will be a great man, Elaine. The seed is strong, my lord husband said before he died. His last words, the gods sometimes let us glimpse the future as we lay dying.

I see no reason why you should not be wed as soon as we know that your Lannister husband is dead. A secret wedding, to be sure. The lord of the Eyrie could scarcely be thought to have married a bastard. That would not be fitting. The ravens should bring us word from King's Landing once the imp's head rolls.

You and Robert can be wed the next next day won't that be joyous it'll be good for him to have a little companion it's interesting that we went through all of ned's chapters together right and ned of course we learned the seed as strong as john aaron's last words to end up meaning the baratheon seed is strong it has nothing to do with him it's all about the kids with the dark hair. And of course, it overarches and kind of reaches around the seed is strong with Jon Snow versus Lyanna and Rhaegar's blood. But Lysa, of course, took the seed is strong to mean her son has strong seed. His dad said so, which completely not completely missed the point blank. Like, not even, not even a little. Poor Liza.

I know. Congratulations, Liza tells her. You now are a full-time babysitter of a crying little boy who you're going to have to read to, kiss, suck up to, and overall be obedient to. She says, he is the lord of the eerie. After all, you must never forget that. You're well born, and the Starks of Winterfell were always proud, but Winterfell has fallen, and you are really just a beggar now, so put that pride aside. Gratitude will better become you in your present

circumstances. Yes, and obedience. My son will have a grateful and obedient wife. Good lord, what a nightmare. Oh my god. Worst mother-in-law. Oh my god, yeah. Good thing we're gonna get that out of the way soon. Grateful and obedient.

She's going on a long trip. Pack your bags. Pack your bags, Lysa. You guys, that was a dense chapter. Let's get into it. We did it. We did. The chapter's over. We had a second to breathe.

Let's jump into our lightning round because we have a big chapter ahead of us. We are hitting this end of the book, you guys. And when I say end of the book, I mean end of the book. Sansa is the second to last chapter of the end of the book. So, of course, as the end of this book comes rushing at us, it's a weird pace, right? There's a good handful of chapters in between both of these Sansa chapters to keep that anticipation itching. First, we have Jon IX.

Jon Snow is marked as a traitor by his fellow Night's Watchmen. Tyrion X, Oberyn, talks about Tyrion's future, but by chapter's end, it's looking pretty bleak. Daenerys VI, Dany finds that her men have been lying to her she decides to rule as queen in marine jamie nine after working hard all day jamie comes home to deal with some family drama later he ends up sending brienne on a mission to defend his honor and protect sansa start because he's too busy being on a redemption arc to go do it himself. What? Who said that?

Who said that? Who said that? It's not a redemption arc. Humanization arc. John 10. John is sent to parlay with Mance because the rest of the Night's Watch are busy being big old chickens. But the parlay is interrupted by

Stannis Baratheon. Arya 13. old chickens but the parlay is interrupted by a status parathian aria 13 is there silver gems is there food where is lord barrack where did he go how many men were with him how many knights how many bowmen how many how many how many how many how many is there gold in the village i'm glad you took that one by the reins there because i was like that's the only way i could describe that chapter right like holy wow the sense epic chapter how many how many how many how many and like just needle and just my daughter it's so much samwell four sam is pleased to meet up with Jon again, but now he has to figure out what to do with Gilly. He ponders if there can be honor in a lie as Janos Slynt gains more votes to become Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

Jon 11. Stannis gives Jon an offer he's dreamed of since childhood. Ledge to Stannis and Jon can rise as Lord Winterfell. Tyrion XI Jaime frees his brother and long-kept secrets Eventually revealing that Tywin Lannister does not, in fact, shit gold Samwell V This false sword isn't heating up, but this election is Sam speaks with some of the candidates, two to be exact, to try and prop up one other.

John 12. John. The other candidate was John. And he was. Sure was, buddy. Tampering in elections. What a wow. I know. Relevant lately. Oh boy.

Who would do that? Oh boy. Wow. Without further ado, that brings us to a much shorter chapter but not at all less action-packed. This is the chapter Sansa 7 and in Sansa 7 which I hope that when you guys read this chapter you listen to Winter by Tori Amos because that's literally the only way to listen to something while reading this chapter. It is very soft and wintry and very sad and Sansa Stark is my daughter and someone should hug her like every day. She just deserves a hug. Someone should let her finish her blunt. Anyways, a dream of winter and home lingers in the air as Sansa builds a castle of snow in the Eyrie. The dream and the snow castle come shattering down after receiving an unwanted kiss,

one that doesn't go unnoticed by the lady of the castle, her aunt Liza. Once again, in this story, we find Sansa waking from a dream. She dreamt of a time that she was little, sharing a room with Arya, but instead of Arya, now she's next to her maid. Sometimes she dreams of ill and pain. But sometimes she dreams of home, as she does now. But she's not at home. She's in the Eyrie. Which is larger than Maegor's Holdfast, and it's super

fucking boring. And the older servants, though, have great stories about how Ned and Robert used to fill the Eyrie with laughter. Sansa, though, only has this Robert. And Marillion, who is the shitty guy in your dorm who thinks that learning acoustic guitar and playing John Mayer and playing it in the hallway is going to make you want to sleep with him.

But it really doesn't, unless for some reason you are Liza and have the taste in men as Liza does. Yeah. Marillion is a creep and a predator and Sansa sees him. You listeners can't see what I'm doing. She sees him. She sees his manipulation

of her aunt too. She's so smart. I just like to point out when Sansa's smart. Which is like every second so it really is why we have a lot of time. All the time. I won't ever shut up. Me either. Don't apologize. Never apologize for Sansa Stark's intelligence and how big it is. It's so vast.

It is just, it is a, it is a, just a wide, what's like a thing, like a ditch? No, like a valley. It is a valley of knowledge. A veil. A veil. A veil. Oh, a veil. Whoa.

Oh, a dip. Vale. Whoa. Speaking of her aunt, Lysa is also very lonely since Peter's always away on these business trips. Like, right now, he's with the Corbrays. Almost all the other Vale lords are mad for some reason

or the other. Pretty much all of them hate his marriage. The Royces hate that they didn't enter the war with Robb, and they're supported by the wayne woods the red force the belmores the templetons mountain clans are all fighting amongst themselves it's really just a shit show it's really interesting uh i wrote about this a while back on my blog you can check it out i'll leave a link below about how in the winds of winter we're probably going to see a direct parallel of the Battle of the Seven Stars.

We get in this line that we learn about the Royces hate they didn't enter the war with Rob. That's a huge nod to think about, because as we said, they're going to know. They're going to find out about Sansa's identity, and she is a horse to back. But the Wainwoods, the Redforts, the Belmores, and the Templetons were all a part of the Battle of the Seven Stars in ancient history in the original taking of the veil. And there were two different factions and all of these factions are actually fighting right now versus when they were during the Battle of the Seven Stars. So I think we can get and glean a few details from the end of that battle. There's a lot heating up in the veil. Liza likes to think she kept the veil out of the worst of the war, but it's bubbling towards a head as we

jet toward Beast. The winds of winter is pretty much when it's gonna blow. Sansa turns out has too much of a headache to go back to bed, but that's okay because it's a snow day. Sansa or someone, did you know those little rituals in elementary school or whatever where you spin around a few times in the bathroom and throw ice cubes in the toilet or you wear your pajamas inside out to summon the snow? Maybe you do both. Maybe no one does this. Maybe this is only a thing that we do.

In the mid-Atlantic. I didn't know about the ice cubes. I didn't know the ice cubes. I knew the pajamas. We did that in the Midwest where we actually get snow. Same. Same. It clearly works for all of you. I'm just saying where we get feet of snow um beats foots yeah so the snow starts to cover everything and zanza remembers snow the last time zanza saw snow was the day she left winterfell when rob had melting snowflakes in his hair

i'm not crying you're crying no because i thought these were they are several so do you want to do this is what i'm saying one um yeah i'll do the sansa one and then you do the other ones right okay in sansa's chapter she thinks it hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning holland had helped her mount, and she'd written out the snowflakes swirling around her off to see the great white world. I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done. And then that reminds me of a bunch of other quotes, so we apologize for how quote-heavy the second chapter is, but generally we just outline these chapters and add some thoughts, and there's no point in outlining this.

George did it better than anyone ever could. All of these quotes are just like really soul shattering. It really shows the best of the best for George. And a lot of these remind me of this quote. And I do have one last one we'll get to that's like the reminder of the quote. So bear with me. Leaving is harder than I thought. For me too, Rob said. He had snow in his hair, melting from the heat of his body. So of course, the OG snowflake quote,

right? Like that's the one that's like, and of course, John remembers later on. He remembered Rob as he had last seen him standing in the yard with snow melting in his auburn hair. John would have to come to him in secret, disguised. He tried to imagine the look on Rob's face when he revealed himself. His brother would shake his head and smile. And he'd say, he'd say that that line especially reminds me of something in a song, you know, of like, I don't know, just some crap that would happen with some ancient person or a Targaryen or some bullshit in a song, you know, of like, I don't know, just some crap that would happen with some ancient person or a Targaryen or some bullshit

in a song, just all like, he came to save his brother disguised in the night. I don't know. Oh. Right? And of course, have a swift safe voyage and take care of her and Aemon and the child. Jon smiled a strange,

sad smile. And pull your hood up. The snowflakes are melting in your hair. That's a Sam chapter. A strange, sad smile of brotherhood. His new brother. It's their brothers now.

I'm glad you guys came to my sad talk. Instead of a TED talk, it's a capital S-A-D talk. S-A-D. This passage, though, I think I'm glad you guys came to my sad talk instead of like a TED talk it's a capital SAD talk SAD this passage though I think kind of reflects the most of the snow melting passages of like a character being at a crossroads

or a character being in a place where they can't really make a bigger decision than what we're doing John flexed the fingers of his sword hand the night's watch takes no part he closed his fist make a bigger decision than what we're doing. John flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Rob with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey, of Rigon's breathless

laughter, of Sansa brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I feel like that's just such a really like a homey chapter that completely reflects on Sansa in the eerie of these kids wanting to go home. Even Jon, he's still a kid, man. He is a kid.

kids wanting to go home. Even John, he's still a kid, man. He is a kid. They're all kids. Except for, I don't know, the people who are kids. And then Sansa puts on warm clothes and goes out into the yard. Says Sansa left the shutters open as she

dressed, which I find to be a callback to the certain chapter in A Game of Thrones. Ned crossed the room, pulled back the heavy tapestries and threw open the high narrow windows one by one letting the night air into the chamber so that's in the catlin chapter that probably is familiarly known amongst the fandom as aching loins Ned is standing there Starkers with the window open it's a Stark thing

I guess that reminds me of your Game of Thrones Sansa Ned stuff oh yeah I mean that's a lot of what's going on here in this chapter and that's why I hearkened back to it at the beginning of this chapter where we were reminded by the servants that, hey, Ned and Robert used to run around here.

Maybe you should try and have fun too, even though like shit's sad. You know, there's something I've been thinking about a lot, and I think I briefly mentioned it maybe a week or two ago, but maybe I don't think I did mention on the podcast. If Sansa darkens her hair, wouldn't she become more of the Stark look? Right. She's completely going to look more like Ned. I mean, she'll have the Catelyn look, too. But that dark hair and the light eyes, I mean, yes, Tully blue is different from the gray eyes of Stark, but it's still closer than like hazel or brown or et cetera. still closer than like hazel or brown or etc it's uh it's kind of interesting that her getting dark hair is actually really her coming closer to the stark blood and her being in the veils of course

where ned grew up and where these people would have known him from so valiant ned's precious little girl is right there with the stark looks with her hair dyed dark for sure especially as you know her hair is dark in this chapter and she's finding home again uh there's a lot of really great imagery in this chapter the saddest line is when sansa is standing there and she steps out and she goes a pure world sansa thought i do not belong here And if we look back just one chapter to John 12, there is a line. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place.

Which reinforces a lot of John references and connectivity that there are in this chapter, of John references and connectivity that there are in this chapter including in this very same paragraph ghostly silence oh yeah yeah not at all I do love that I love that as well because that line just reinforces the complete opposite we do know that John does belong there in a manner of speaking. He's Liana's son. He has a place there, especially that line when he thinks, whoever my mother was, she didn't have a place for me.

There was always a place for John, you guys. John always had a place, always. Oh, my God. Sansa stops by the statue that is of Alyssa Arryn, whether or not there's confirmation. Catelyn has always thought it was Alyssa Arryn, so Sansa also thinks that. And legend has it that Alyssa Arryn, thousands of years ago, whether it's two, four, or six, depending on what you read, saw her entire family butchered in front of her, but she didn't shed a single tear. saw her entire family butchered in front of her, but she didn't shed a single tear.

The gods decided since she did not shed a tear, she has to weep until her tears reach the Vale of Arryn to water the graves of her loved ones. The waterfall that flows from the giant's lance is known as her tears, and it dissipates as it reaches the bottom, misting out, so it creates a never-ending pour of Alyssa's tears. And of course, in Catelyn 7, in A Game of Thrones, we get, Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died. And this is fabulous.

Cat. She saw her whole family butchered in front of her. Her husband. Her sons. Her daughters. They're all dead, just her. Yeah. And, I mean, it's not like this is relevant for, you know,

the epilogue that comes right after. Not like the Tullys return to the water when they die. Not at all. Not like that wasn't a thing. Not like, you know, tears. Tears of blood. Ned loves my hair metal music oh we already have gotten like some good hate mail not hate mail it's all friends loving it but of our uh i don't even remember what we said now about our catalan seven

lightning round read through last episode eliana but we've gotten people being like, that was so sad, why did you hurt me like that? Oh yeah, that's right. Why of all the lines you could pick, why was that the line you picked? It's our lightning round. Because it's sad hour. We're here for the sad talk.

Anyone can start an Aeswath podcast these days. We did it, you could too. Yeah, yours can be happy, whereas whereas ours it's a lightning round which means there's rain of tears i don't know if you want a happy podcast though it will be very short it would be very short and it would not be about a song of ice and fire about something else sports i love the next part of the line there's just so many good things in this passage. She turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, tasted on her lips.

It was the taste of winterfell, the taste of innocence, the taste of dreams. Yeah, I didn't really know what to say. I just wanted to put that in there because I was like, we need to all stop. Appreciate it. It's beauty. Just appreciate. We love this story. And she just like, just the lines of her like falling to her knees. She doesn't remember when she fell.

She just knows she fell and she starts praying. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. It was the old days she hungered for prayed for but who could she pray to the garden had been meant for a god's wood once she knew but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root a god's wood without gods as empty as me a lot of people find this line to be significant as they think about the godswood and

you know whether a weird one can take root there or not but i think that this rumination on the idea of dawn uh as another day another new day it's especially poignant in this story because you know we're coming up against another long night and there's going to be another battle for the dawn presumably or we could all just give up whatever and surviving to a new day and but longing for the old days uh for this innocence and happiness loss is definitely something that i feel we can expect from george r martin's bittersweet ending and so sansa begins making perfect snowballs and she remembers a day with aria and bran when the two younger siblings had ambushed her with snowballs and Sansa chased Arya until she slipped on the ice

and then Arya came back to see if Sansa was okay and when she was sure that she was fine, hit her in the face with another snowball. Then Sansa grabbed Arya by the leg and pulled her down, rubbed snow on her hair, and then Jory Jory! pulls them both apart

when they're laughing and everybody's having fun and my god the taste of innocence, the taste of dreams screw you Lady Gwyn why'd you have to do that to me why'd you write this book why'd you

why did it mention Jory right had to go mention him the twist is Sansa thinks they're all dead and really the only one who's dead is Jory hey do you ever think about how Beth is just in the dungeons

of the freaking Bolton keep god anyways this entire Beth is just in the dungeons of the freaking Bolton keep. God. Anyways, this entire chapter is just about innocence and innocence lost. And just like we talked about the whole blood orange symbolism, as Adam Feldman has brought up in the last chapter, snow, snow kind of represents home for Sansa. It represents Winterfell. This is Sansa's needle was Jon Snow's smile speech, right? Her rebuilding her home, literally right in front of her eyes. She is rebuilding Winterfell, her desire for it and her desire to see it. This fuels her motivation to get her back to the north and keep her going there instead of kind of just relying on being sedentary in the Eyrie. Without anyone to throw snowballs at, Sansa begins making a castle instead,

and she begins with a tower. As her castle takes shape, Sansa realizes that her snow castle is Winterfell. And because, how weird, this girl's out here, I guess, making a snow castle, a bunch of people come out, and they'll watch her for a little while, then as the day begins to brighten

here's Liza Arryn. But turns out, I guess, Peter Baelish is here too and he's been watching for a while. He comes out of nowhere and gives advice on building snow bridges. And then he asks Sansa, can I come into your castle?

Nope. You sure can't. You sure can't come into her castle. You need to stay away from her castle. Her castle is not allowing any visitors for the next ten years. This castle is closed. Closed for business. You need ten jobs to come into this castle. Yeah, you need a whole resume, and

Sansa, for some reason, the language is she replies to don't break it and please be gentle oh well if you've ever wondered what that game come into my castle was all about yeah that's it this is it and it's gross so thank god we have our our uh And it's gross. Thank God we have our recently married guest. Jen, you're like, this is what it's about, girls. And it is gross.

I feel like mom just gave me a sex ed class there. Don't touch Littlefinger or you'll get pregnant and die. So just stay away from it. Just don't let anyone ever come into your castle with their little fingers ever little finger says he thinks of winterfell as a dark cold destitute place and sans is like no that's wrong winterfell was always. There are hot springs that heat the castle and the glass gardens, but then she gets stuck on how to make glass gardens. So Littlefinger helps her with sticks and leaves, and he's slowly like putting the moves on her. She's trying to make gargoyles, and he's like, oh, well, it would have snowed, so just make them snowy lumps. And

Sansa is kind of having fun, right? She's in her element, her snowy element. You know, I loved A Maid of Winter, right? She throws snow in Littlefinger's face, and he was like, well, that was unchivalrously done. Sansa's like, so you were supposed to bring me home. You brought me here. That was unchivalrously done as well. And she wonders kind of where she got the courage to speak, right? Silently, she's like, wow, I was really bold right there.

I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell. Yeah, boom. So she was like, oh, how dare you lie to me? And then he's like, yeah, I lied about that. But I'm also lying about this. And then he's like kissing her. You just got to let her go. Just don't. Get get a job it's so gross because it's so weird he's like holding her and then she's like i tried to fight it off and then i just like gave up i'm like shit dude had a fucking job little finger

holy crap stay away from her it felt really good to say that it's been a while and just stay away from her and get a job because jesus this is not how you get an underaged girlfriend oh my god waiting for chris hansen to walk on out right now and be like well peter it's funny that we found you here which i guess that'll be like brandon aria or some crap and rolling out like interesting we found you here peter can we interest you a drink of spring. Rolling out like, interesting we found you here, Peter. Can we interest you in a drink? You want to sit down? We should chat. It's on the dateline.

Oh my god. Sansa is like, wow, you should be kissing Liza, not me. Because Peter's like, I'm kissing a snowmaid. Peter's like, yeah, I could kiss Liza, but you're pretty beautiful.

Sansa feels at that moment like peter is acting a bit like marillion and she remarks i could have been your own daughter might have been he admitted with a rueful smile but you're not are you you're eddard stark's daughter and cats which you know he's justifying it, I guess, at the same time. But I think you might be even more beautiful than your mother was when she was your age. Oh, good job. Oh, oh my God. It's so uncomfortable.

It's so gross. Like, oh my God. Am I doing a good little finger though? Do you think that's good? Am I creepy? Thank you. That's all I wanted. Just wanted to know uh to elaborate on what's

happening in this scene along with the last chapter uh george r martin has actually spoken about the way littlefinger feels towards sanza in a video that's been released by hbo and martin says you know i can't actually do a george r martin impression i'm sorry so that i'm just gonna read this, alright? Sometimes he sees Sansa, and she's the daughter he never had, Martin says. The daughter that he might have had with Cat. But at other times, he detaches himself from that, and he's less Peter and more Littlefinger, and she's just another piece in the Game of Thrones.

Yet other times, she's not Cat's daughter, she's young Cat. She's his teenage fantasies returned again. She's ew let it go let it go this this is what we call like stunted growth throughout these two chapters you can see like peter and yeah ping-ponging between all these different versions or visions that he has of sansa and for sansa to say that peter's acting like marillion like that's code word for predatory hey but sweet robin shows up and saves the day oh the only time we will ever say that he's got this doll and he's like it's a giant and he begins to destroy sansa snow castle not being gentle with it it's not so great the boy knelt before the gatehouse look Look, here comes a giant to knock it down. He stood his doll in the snow and moved it jerkily.

Chomp, chomp, I'm a giant, I'm a giant, he chanted. Ho, ho, ho, open your gates or I'll mash them and smash them. Swinging the doll by the legs, he knocked the top off one gatehouse tower and then the other. For that, Sansa says to stop and then she accidentally ends up ripping the doll apart, which upsets Robert, and he begins to have a seizure. A lot of people kind of like to say this fulfills the Ghost of High Heart's prophecy, but I think it's a blatant fake out, like obviously, since we just heard the prophecy a little bit ago, it's supposed to string the plot along. What do you think, Lady Gwyn? Oh, definitely definitely and for those of you that need the refresher here's the line it says the ghost of

high heart said i dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair venom dripping from their fangs purple wedding of course and later i dreamt that, again slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow. So, yeah, that's a fake out because remember the Baelish sigil? And when Arya approaches Braavos for the first time in Feast, we're going to see... So when Arya approaches Braavos for the first time and sees the titan in Feast for Crows, she thinks he could step right over the walls of Winterfell. And what did old Peter

Titanhead do when he came into Sansa's castle? He stepped right over the walls, right? Only then Sansa metaphorically tore the head off of a giant and spiked it to those very same walls. So of high hearts castle i think and probably a lot of us think is actually winterfell the scene is really just a connector

between her prophecy and something as yet to happen like peter balish's titan's head literally spiked on the walls of Winterfell. Yes. Yeah, and I wouldn't even say that it's a fake out. It just feels like another layer in George R.R. Martin's threefold revelation or his threefold strategy for how he brings something about. It's another one of those hints, as you said, after the prophecy, and it bolsters it of sansa defeating peter and i think there's so much language just throughout this entire chapter

that's pointing back to this prophecy that it can't just be this thing like right like we're seeing winterfell covered in snow sansa thinking i'm stronger than winterfell then liza being like you're supposed to be stronger than snow and like the scene absolutely just isn't a fulfillment of that prophecy that'd be anticlimactic especially because we have all those other things that happen here but rather a reinforcement of the prophecy um also but i have a question for our panel of people the other people on this cast there are theories uh that the language that's here right like you know as you were saying about a giant just stepping over the walls of Winterfell or how we've been

talking about coming to my castle and then Sweet Robin going open your gates or I'll mash them and smash them people take this to be wordplay meaning that Littlefinger might like take Sansa's maidenhead or try to I'm just

wondering what everyone's thoughts are on those theories as I mentioned earlier I'm a strong 60 40 it could happen but I don't want to talk about it ever again I would like you never to speak any more about it because it's gross and that's what I would like to say just Just kidding, but it's a probable thing. I do think, like I said, she's going to escape, you know, no harm, no foul. When I say foul, I mean bird, a.k.a. mockingbird. I got there.

But get a job also. Like, God. But I don't, I think her virtue is, like, so important. Her innocence is such a recurring like oh she's such a maiden so i hope he just stays away from her yeah she doesn't need more right now i just want to say ew but having said that it would only make sense that he's gonna try he's gonna make the attempt but i want I want to add a sidebar. We mentioned Freudian things earlier,

and Ileana, you wanted to you know, always thought it was a good idea to maybe point out some Freudian things, so I'll just say leave this here. The Freudian meaning of beheading, apparently, is castration.

So. Because you're taking the head off. I'm okay with that, you know. Yeah, so. The head of the. Do what you will with that. Just how little is his little finger, asked Randa.

Why would she ask that? It's so weird. Who asks that? I mean i mean like we know why she's asking that i know she's trying to figure out if sansa's having relations with him you know i know i know but it's just like oh gross anyways so much ew uh maester coleman and some servants appear and they've brought uh sweet robin to the maester's chambers after he has that seizure and then sweet robin's saying it wasn't me it was a giant who's running the castle then he wails about how he hates sanza and then sanza's like well that's my that's my lord husband i guess and then she decides to put the doll's head upon a spike at the gatehouse of winterfell

and allegedly according to little finger it is not the first giant to have its head on a spike at winterfell and it won't be the last either if sansa has her way will it now sansa waits in her bedchamber for liza to call for her and then she thinks upon the royces and we hear about nestor and miranda she plans to say she won't marry robert and that she preferred tyrian in order to be sent away she starts kind of get herself going riled up on that right she does that in clash and in game of thrones when she's in her captivity and she goes between all those moods kind of like we see arianne go through you know the stages of denial there of all people merillion is the one that is sent to collect sansa and apparently he has a reputation

for being an asshole among the rest of the staff which we are definitely seeing yeah he's just a huge creep also to the rest of the women the way that we saw he was to sansa in the previous chapter and i don't know it should i shudder to think of what happens to the ones who don't have like a Lothar Brew in order to protect them but I don't know he gets away with it because Liza likes him too much I guess and he's like oh Sansa but he doesn't say Sansa he's like

oh Elaine I'm writing a song called The Roadside Rose about a baseborn girl who's so pretty everyone loves her. There is a little bit of that R plus L equals j nod in there right the roadside rose i think that's totally a little mini nod just a little uh uh you guys see the whole recurring theme thing that i do is that george sure he escorts sansa to the high hall which is now open for business highly unusual because no one's been in there a while.

And then it's just Elaine and Liza and Marillion is there and he's playing his music louder and louder and louder. Liza is decked out. She's wearing cream velvet, sapphires and moonstones. She's pulling all the stops out, all the outfits, and she has the banners of House Aaron behind her. It's a total power move. her it's total power move it's a total power move these are her finest right this is her best her sunday's best as i like to say on the cast she's wearing the cream of house erin she's asserting her power in her own household and it's just interesting to see how in order to seize that power as you said liza's claiming these colors despite you know later revelations about liza and john but it also speaks to how much she shuns that tully identity

because it was so painful for her and she says to sansa i know what you did and sansa's like i'm sorry about robert and size is like no i saw you kissing him and Sansa's like whoa this is not what I expected this conversation to be about like hold up everyone yeah Liza is totally convinced Sansa threw herself at Peter and Liza is trying to wrestle a confession out of Sansa and then they'll have a girl whipped in her stead she says as she has for robert she says it's supposedly the custom of the free cities and of course right now in kind of where we are common a swath modern a swath tommen has one pate the whipping boy and it also makes me think on agon the thirds with fire and blood's release with game and pale hair as well oh no one's throwing themselves at Peter except for Liza.

Anyways, Liza says that she apparently cannot abide a liar, which whatever, like it's in your name and also everything else that happens in this chapter, what else? Would you say Elizandarver? Yeah, indeed I would. Is that who you identify with, Chloe?

No, I don't. I'm sorry. No, you're not. I'm not. Liza's out here, she's just slut-shaming Sansa for things that never even happened, and then she goes, Kat also used to toy with Peter.

And apparently Liza's never let this go. She's just really held on to this for all these years that catlin danced with peter six times uh the time that lords blackwood and bracken brought their argument to one another one of many arguments i'm sure that they've had over the years to hoster tully and then peter was very drunk, which I guess a lot of people were that night too, and tries to kiss Catelyn. She just goes, nah. And she supposedly laughed at him.

And Peter was just so sad and upset that he got drunk and passed out. And then Brynden Blackfish was like, that's not a good look. And then brings Peter back up to his room. This is the night, I guess, that Lysa up to peter's room and took advantage of him yeah peter thinks that he took cat's virginity but it was liza it was eliza and our bird oh my god i'll go liza erin was frightening her as much as the queen cersei ever had yeah Yeah, I mean, internalized misogyny is really scary and frightening, for sure. Yeah, imagine if

Sansa had an adult figure in her life that was maybe worried about her well-being. So Lysa reveals that Peter was supposed to have been banished, but not for the duel with Brandon, but rather because she had become pregnant by him

and now she's never gonna let anyone take him from her ever again so sansa attempts to confess liza twists it and grabs her summoning marillion to play the false and the fair ironically ironically see Liza thinks Sansa is false and she is fair but in reality it's the opposite you were bold enough in the snow

and she orders Sansa to open the doors herself she says at least Kat was brave and Liza's just like forcing Sansa to look out of the door and marillion singing and like it's a perfect parallel though to that first storm of swords chapter where like that big thing where sansa was talking about how awful and terrible joffrey is to the tyrells happened uh under the cover of else singing and Liza's trying to do that here too. Yeah, Sansa actually

as she's about to go down, you know, she's slowly being edged closer and closer through the moon doors, which in the books, they're vertical doors, right? In the show it's just a big hole in the floor, but in the books, it's actually doors in the wall.

So, Sansa is like grabbing liza's hair because liza is grabbing at her and the language kind of echoes cat's last thoughts i really love that zanza doesn't go down without a fight here it's also an echo to her last chapter in a game of thrones of lying to push joffrey off of the battlements and taking him down with her and then of course little figure comes in and it's like, you know, that gif of Troy from Community coming in and then there's like this pizza and the fires and that's about it.

Liza then says, Sansa has no gratitude after I agreed to let you marry Robert Arryn and I don't want her here. And then Peter's like, it's fine, it's fine. All right, just let her go. We can send her back to King's Landing then, if you want. And I can see why Peter thought that this

was gonna placate Liza, because if Liza had been like Cersei, or even the least bit lucid at this moment, sending Sansa back to King's Landing isn't just, oh, we're gonna send the kid that we don't like back to boarding school so we don't have to deal

with her. It's sending her back to king's landing is basically a death sentence because she's wanted for regicide and sansa at this moment is like grasping at the pillar the marble she's like what the fuck you're sending me back to king's landing what the what the fuck what what happened to home? Great, like, first it was home, then you said, no, we're going to the Erie. Now you're like, well, it's time to die. Like, what? I thought you wanted me. Liza freaks out, and this is everything ever that ever comes out.

She just loses it. You can't want her. You can't. She's a stupid, empty-headed little girl. She doesn't love you the way I have. I've always loved you. I've proved it, haven't I? Tears ran down her aunt's puffy red face. I gave you my maiden's gift. I would have given you a son, too, but they murdered him with moon tea,

with tansy and mint and wormwood, a spoon of honey and a drop of petty royal. It wasn't me. I never knew. I only drank what father gave me. That's past and done, Liza. Lord Hoster's dead and his old maester as well. Littlefinger moved closer. Have you been at the wine again?

You ought not to talk so much. We don't want Elaine to know more than she should, do we? Or Marillion. Lady Liza, ignore that. Cat never gave you anything! It was me who got you your first post, who made John bring you to court so we could be close to one another! You promised me you would never forget that! Nor have I! We're together, just as you've always wanted, just as we always planned. Now let go of Sansa's hair. I won't. I saw you kissing in the snow. She's just like her mother. Catelyn kissed you in the godswood, but she never meant it. She never wanted you. Why did you love her best? It was me. It was always me. I know,

love. He took another step. And I am here. All you need to do is take my hand. Come on. He held it out. There's no cause for all these tears. Tears! Tears!

Tears! She sobbed hysterically. No need for tears. But that's not what you said in King's Landing. You told me to put the tears in John's wine. And I did. For Robert. And for us.

And I wrote Catelyn and told her the Lannisters had killed my lord husband. Just as you said. That was so clever. You were always clever. I told father that. I said Peter's so clever. He'll rise high. He will.

He will. And he's sweet and gentle. And I have his little baby in my belly. Why did you kiss her? Why? We're together now. We're together after so long. So very long.

Why would you want to kiss her? Damn. Thank you, Lady Glyph. Yeah, that was the best. We'll never ask anything of you again. You can coach from here on out. There's a lot to unpack here and you sold it, so

A plus to Lady Gwen. She sold it. Oh, I knew she could do it. I knew she could and I was like, let's do that. That was good that was good good call eliana i knew i'm a director you know you know what i don't care what other people say about you eliana i like me too did anyone say it like whatever anyway did they uh so no it's really emotional because liza is this pathetic like sympathetic but pathetic character and you're just like she just put all of her her uh you know her eggs in this basket right like

she's like this is it I love Peter and like it we learned so much Liza's kid or kids whatever were killed by Hoster as implied over the chapters in River Run with Kat and Hoster as he's dying which of course is probably why Brendan ran off with Liza with Hoster always pushing a marriage at him and him pushing abortion on his daughter and that's probably why Liza's so upset he runs off with Catelyn too because Kat was always taking away from her the few things she had as the younger sister Peter Uncle Blackfish what i find interesting is that peter of course knows that the second time the time after the duel with brandon he was actually having sex with liza which is why he puts around the story that he's had both the sisters maidenheads

because he assumes that that's what he did on that occasion. But here she's ranting about that first time and he doesn't even have a clue. He still doesn't get it. And did we mention, like, Liza killed Jon Arryn and Cersei didn't, which everyone's led to believe after the first couple books? Like, it was Liza, by the way. Tears of Lee. Ah, tears. Yeah. Tears, tears. All the tears stuff. led to believe after the first couple books like it was Liza by the way tears of Liza tears

all the tears tears of Liza exactly I mean we wouldn't want Elaine to know any more than she should right or the singer who tells everyone everything

oh shit Liza you're drunk again you've been at the wine Who tells everyone everything. Oh, shit, Lysa. You're drunk again. We've been at the wine. Just stop talking. Or possibly just tell everybody, these two witnesses, everything. Oops. He's lucky that earlier in the chapter, Lysa was just spewing untruths about Sansa throwing herself at Littlefinger. Because otherwise, you know, everything that happened here would have seemed a lot more plausible to Sansa.

Yeah, yeah. I think one day she'll maybe replay this scene in her head and maybe start to pick out some of the true bits. and maybe start to pick out some of the true bits. I'm pretty sure Sansa will understand the true bits by the time she needs to understand them. If we're talking about a dagger in the dark, this is the very last dagger that's going to go into Littlefinger right here. I mean, him killing Liza, that's big. Her testifying right now falsely in the future here as we get going

is one thing, but in the future when her testifying right now falsely in the future here as we get going is one thing but in the future when her testifying truthfully that little finger killed liza i mean that's that's death for sure so yeah of course now little fingers like fuck my life liza just yeah she just talked about everything and so what he does is i'm gonna bring i'm gonna bring liza in for a kiss and sansa just looks down at herself and goes wow i'm a fucking mess i guess my shoe fell out the door which r.i.p shoe i love that she loses her shoe here because it's that it's that inverted rags to riches thing and that princess in disguise cinderella trope kind of going on. Which is probably going to come into play later, especially with some knight called

the Mouse. The Mad Mouse. And then of course we get the scene of, I've only ever loved one person in my whole life. That's not the exact word, it's close enough. And it's only Kat. Yeah, he does that same thing he did in the chapter

before when Liza was upset. He calms her down with false affection enough to get her close enough physically to him and then, whoosh, right out the moon door. Yeah, Merlion's stunned. He's like, whoa. What just happened here? You, you, as he

says. There's a lot of things that can go on there. But what happens? His little finger stands there and says, hurry guards, this man's just killed my wife! And that is the end of the chapter. The official end of A Storm of Swords,

not counting the epilogue, which is very epic in its own right. We will be getting to those sometime, and that is A Storm of Swords, Sansa. This book has been the ride. There's so much that happens in this book. Especially for Sansa. The whirlwind.

Yeah. I don't know. What's your overall thought on the episode, Eliana? What, uh, how do you feel about those last two chapters? They're really formational chapters for Sansa, right? That's the foundation of her starting in A Feast for Crows, being Elaine Stone. It's a foundational chapter for Sansa,

as well as being a fulcrum for the entire series, as we realize the Lannisters weren't necessarily behind everything the way that we thought it was Littlefinger. And that instantly elevates not only Sansa's development, as we see throughout this book, but her position in the story if she's the one who has to now contend with Littlefinger. Lots to live up to. Well, I will say that I actually love Sansa chapters in Storm of Swords.

They're my favorite Sansa chapters. I like what you said about the fulcrum. I think a lot of the action in this book for her, it's quite pivotal. She's moving from one state of being to another. These two chapters are so dense and so important. And I'm really, really honored that you asked me to come and talk about them with you. me to come and talk about them with you. Oh, thank you so much for coming and talking with us. I mean, from, you know, Ponda Player and from all of your work with Radio Westeros and of course on your actual blog on WordPress where you post a lot

of your personal takes. You have been a foundation in the Sansa Stark community in A Song of Ice and Fire. All of your works are really respected and to have you on for one of our Sansa episodes is kind of a big deal. I'm not trying to make a big deal out of our sansa episodes is kind of a big deal i'm not trying to make a big deal out of it but it's kind of a big deal you're kind of a big deal so thank you for

joining us it's a big deal thank you so much it's fine that's very kind of course starting not this week you guys or next week because we will not have an episode until the new year for the public we will have a part two to the dance of the dragons coming out by the end of december for patrons five dollars and up you can check us out on patreon at patreon.com slash girls gone canon for that but otherwise this is our last episode of the year you guys we went out with a bang on a storm of swords sans. We didn't plan it this way. We got lucky after our 1,233 hours of Sansa the Blackwater. So thanks again so

much, Lady Gwyn, for coming on with us. And please let everyone know one more time where we can find you. Okay, well, you can find me, for the most part, at RadioWesteros.com. You can follow us on Twitter at Radio Westeros.com You can follow us on Twitter at Radio Westeros. You can also

find me on Twitter at LadyGuinevere, which you won't be able to spell, but make a stab at it. We'll leave it in the description, I promise. Check out our latest episode on the Hedge Knight that you mentioned

at the top of the episode. We're really proud of that one. But we've also done episodes on Sansa, on Sandor, and a great massive two-parter on Littlefinger, which I'm super, super fond of because he's really, as much as we hate him, he's really interesting to write about. So thank you. He was really interesting to write about. So thank you. So Girls Gone Canon fans, be sure to join us after the new year as we pop off 2019 with Sansa in a feast for crows

and transition into our next point of view. And make sure you subscribe to us. You can find us on Spotify, on iTunes, on Google Play, on Acast, and on Stitcher. And of course you can find us on social media and on email. Like, leave us some season's greetings. You don't have to do anything. But if you wanted

to, we are on Twitter as Girls Gone Canon. You can shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Hey, apparently you can leave comments on Podbean, and you can also leave us a review on iTunes. So, there's so many ways that you can talk to us. We are always online and canon.

So big shout out again to Lady Gwyn for joining us. And as always, I have been Chloe. You can find me on the internet at liesandarborgold.com. And I'm your other host, Eliana, also known as Glass Table Girl and other places in the internet. Thanks again so much, you guys. We'll talk to you after the new year.