AFfC 41: Alayne 686

The Eyrie is being closed for the winter. Suddenly its impregnability does not seem like such a guarantee of safety. In the winter, and presumably during even a small siege, nothing can be brought up to it so its occupants will starve. Sansa has to coax the awful Robert out of bed. I want to hate him but he seemed to get more sympathetic towards the end of the chapter. I admire Sansa's patience, nonetheless.

On the way down the mountain she meets the amusing but dangerous Lady "call me Randa" Myranda Royce. Between gossip she shares the news that Riverrun (held by Sansa's uncle) has yielded but Dragonstone and Storm's End (Stannis') still hold. We know better about Dragonstone, but I am not sure whether Jaime really did win Riverrun first or whether the news just arrives to places like the Eyrie in the wrong order. Myranda also tells that Jon Snow is now commander of the Night's Watch. Sansa wishes she could see him but knows it will never be, so certain is she that she will be Alayne forever.

Myranda apparently had an affair with Marillion, and is a bit sorry about it since he turned out to be murderer. Except that Sansa knows he was not, and this is exactly the sort of secret that I suspect Myranda will be very good at extracting. Once again Sansa seems naive in comparison.

Petyr turns up with news that Sansa will be betrothed to Harrold "Harry the Heir" Hardyng, described by Myranda as Lady Waynwood's ward. Myranda wanted to marry him but Waynwood wouldn't have it, but now she thinks herself lucky considering he already has a bastard, and Petyr knows of a second bastard. It turns out that, via some complicated family connections, he is the heir of Little Lord Robert, who will probably die at some point. Petyr is hoping for Tyrion to die, Sansa to marry Harry, then reveal herself as Sansa and claim both the Eyrie and Winterfell. Quite where this leaves Petyr himself I'm not entirely sure, except that I am sure he would do well out of it somehow. One slight problem is that Cersei's inevitable downfall is happening faster than Petyr had planned, so he has to work fast.

AFfC 23: Alayne 368

Well Sansa. But she is pretending to be Petyr's daughter. He makes her kiss him. And that awful Robert boy is just awful. I don't blame Sansa for wanting to give him to the Lords Declarant. They want to raise him up to be a great knight: good luck with that. They also want Petyr to leave the valley. Instead he pulls a trick where he gets Lyn Corbray to pretend to threaten him in his own house, so that he can threaten to arrest the others. This works, and they give him a year to rule the valley before deciding whether he's up to the job. He'll have made sure they're all neutered by then, one way or another.

All of this is not much fun for Sansa but it is probably good schooling. Maybe she'll come out of it able to scheme and plot with the best of them.

AFfC 10: Sansa 163

Sansa is now in the unlucky position of having to cover up for Petyr Littlefinger's murder of her aunt Lysa. If she doesn't go along with this Petyr will probably end up dead and where does that leave Sansa? Also she is somewhat grateful that Petyr saved her from being murdered by Lysa, and apparently not clever enough to realise (or perhaps the truth is too terrible to contemplate) that he arranged that by kissing Sansa in full view of Lysa.

Everyone seems to agree that the various lords of the vale aren't going to be too happy with Petyr being in charge of the Eyrie. So he invites one of them up (Nestor) and flatters him into thinking that Lysa wanted him to inherit the castle at the bottom of the mountain that protects the approach to the Eyrie. He also makes sure (with some confusion over signatures) that Nestor has a vested interest in Petyr continuing to be in charge or the Eyrie. So that bit of the nine dimensional chessboard is sewn up. Meanwhile Sansa must continue to pretend to be his daughter, and the horrible little Lord Robert thinks of her as his new mother. Good grief what an unpleasant and dull existence. To think Sansa at one point thought she was going to be married to a handsome and chivalrous king of Westeros.

It's almost certain that Petyr is heading for a fall. And it will be a big one. But what is his next move?

ASoS 80: Sansa 1098

Sansa is a bit fed up at the Eyrie, since there isn't a lot going on and she doesn't have any friends. She builds a snow-Winterfell, but Petyr joins in and then kisses her. I'm pretty sure he knows Lysa will see and get jealous, and sure enough that's what happens.

Lysa is really a crazy cat lady. She summons Sansa and blames her for seducing Petyr. Then drags her to the Moon Door out of which is a sheer 600 foot drop. It's the door Tyrion would have been dropped out of had he lost his trial after Catelyn brought him to the Eyrie. Petyr turns up and saves Sansa.

We learn that Lysa wanted to marry Petyr before, and almost gave him a son, but Lord Hoster murdered the son (tansy being one of the ingredients of the poison, all of which explains Hoster's death-bed murmerings). Lysa spills the beans about Petyr telling her to kill Jon Arryn, which is how Ned Stark became King's Hand right at the beginning of all this. We also learn that Petyr told her to tell Catelyn that she suspected Lannisters of killing Jon Arryn. I'm not sure what this achieved apart from Ned doing some investigating: perhaps that helped him to get in trouble and get killed. I'm still not entirely sure what Petyr is trying to do but it is very complicated.

Anyway, having calmed Lysa down, Petyr pushes her out of the door. I suppose that has got her out of the way. Petyr will probably try to marry Sansa next, and become lord of Winterfell as well as the Eyrie.

Oh, and he put the blame on Marillion. That guy had it coming, to be honest.

ASoS 68: Sansa 927

Sansa arrives by ship to Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish's family home. He makes much about how humble it is. Lots of revelations in this chapter. First we learn that Cersei's Kettleblacks were planted by Petyr and they are really beholden to him. Their dad is one of his servants. So that explains their mysterious (and largely fake, I would imagine) background.

And we find out that the hilarious old lady Tyrell poisoned Joffrey! I knew it! Sort of. What annoys me is that I didn't notice until now about the hairnet-straightening. All the clues were there all along. I could have worked it out. Argh! It makes sense though. Apparently the Tyrell's knew all along what Joffrey was like (since Petyr had his servants spread rumours about him). We are also supposed to believe that Petyr planted the idea of making Loras a kingsguard just so that the Tyrells would expect the combination of Loras + Joffrey + Maergery would be such a kingslaying recipe that it would be better to just poison Joff upfront and have Maergery marry Tommen instead. How many dimensions of chess is he really playing? He seems like the best informed character anyway. I suspect his analysis of Cersei, that she only thinks she is clever and powerful but is in fact predictable and weak, is correct.

Sansa's aunt turns up. Petyr marries her. They're off to live at the Eyrie. But Sansa has to pretend to be a bastard girl until Tyrion is executed for Joffrey's murder (also planned by Petyr, helped by the dwarf jousting he organised), then she can marry her cousin, the sickly Robert who Lysa has raised to be a complete pussy, almost to the point of child abuse. That sounds a bit yuck but I can sort of imagine Sansa is learning a lot and will eventually be able to manipulate him and get more powerful. Except I think Tyrion may live longer than they expect, unless Petyr has also fixed the trial by combat somehow. Is their anything not caused by Petyr? Or Petyr and Varys? Is that the moral of the story? Some people are players, some are pieces, and it's not who you expect. Sir Humphrey is the real power, the Prime Minister is the piece.

ASoS 61: Sansa 832

Sansa is pleased that Joffrey is dead, but realises that she might get the blame. Anyway she is being rescued by Dontos. He had told her to wear a "magic" hairnet encrusted with black amethysts. Sansa discovers one is missing and thinks this may be the poison that got Joffrey. This would make Dontos the murderer. It seems an extreme step just to help Sansa escape from the wedding.

They climb down the cliff and into a waiting boat. They row out to sea and Sansa gets onto a ship. To find none other than Petyr Baelish waiting for her. He's a blast from the past! Where has he been all this time? The big shock of this chapter is that Dontos was selling Sansa, not rescuing her. He gets paid in crossbow bolts. As Sansa says, *everything* is a lie.

By way of explanation Petyr says a lot of cryptic stuff about Catelyn giving him her daughter. It seems like Petyr is playing the game of thrones: he must have quite the long con going on somewhere. I can't see what it is yet. I wonder if Tywin is really behind all this. Perhaps he is going to marry Sansa to Bolton: that would explain his comments back in chapter 53, when he discussed finding a bride for Bolton, about Littlefinger (Petyr) knowing where Arya is. Sansa would suit just as well. Then again, she is still married to Tyrion, so there must be more going on.

ASoS 59: Sansa 799

Sansa wakes up and Tyrion is not there, natch. Probably he's off eating bread in the kitchen /rolleyes. Shae turns up and helps give Sansa a bath, managing not to give her any insolent looks this time. Sansa tells Tyrion to get changed, since he looks so dishevelled.

It is Joffrey's wedding day, so they go to have breakfast with him. Tyrion gives him a book. Tywin gives him a sword. Joff chops the book in half with the sword. Yes, Joff is still a dick. Tyrion offers to give Joff a dagger with a dragonbone hilt instead (you know, the kind that someone used to try to murder Bran back when he was in a coma after he was pushed off the tower by Jaime). Joff seems startled by this, but tries to hide the fact that he is startled. So Joff knows who tried to kill Bran but doesn't want others present to know that he knows. It's not Sansa he's keeping things from, though, he seems more than happy to torment her.

They leave for the wedding and have a chat to Prince Oberyn of Dorne (who is likely to cause some trouble at the wedding). There is some discussion of how good a king Viserys Targaryen was (not Dany's brother, some old Targaryen king). I'm not sure how significant this is, but Tyrion seems to think Viserys was a decent chap. Oberyn does not conceal his contempt for Joffrey; neither does Tyrion.

Tyrion asks Sansa some questions that confuse her. I think he's trying to figure out how much she knows about the various attempted murders of Bran. We know Tyrion feels pretty bad about the Lannisters being responsible for the deaths of her entire family. Sansa seems a bit slow figuring out that Tyrion is more on her side than other Lannisters.

ASoS 28: Sansa 382

Oh Sansa, Sansa, Sansa. Poor Sansa. She thinks she's being fitted for her lovely new frock, only for Cersei to whip out the wedding cloak at the last minute, and suddenly she is being whisked away to marry a dwarf.

It's the best wedding King's Landing has ever had! It's got a crying bride, a humiliated groom, and a family argument. The highlight of the evening is going to be stripping the bride and groom naked and listening outside the door while they have sex. Because Westeros is oh so civilised compared to those Dothraki or those wildlings...

Tyrion isn't having it, though. Sansa is only 13 and his heart's not in it. He probably is going to be a fairly decent husband. All Sansa has to do now is avoid Joffrey's attempts to use her to make bastards.

Lovely family, the Lannisters.

ASoS 16: Sansa 220

Sansa is getting a new wardrobe courtesy of Cersei and/or Maergery. It turns out life is not so bad now that the Tyrells are in town and Sansa has lots of new friends who are nice to her. So much so that she's told Dontos she doesn't want to escape any more.

She sees herself as far more worldly-wise than the various Tyrell girls, since she has seen battles and her dad's head chopped off, and she has a point. She keeps warning Maergery about Joff but Maergery seems unconcerned and thinks her brother the Flower Knight, now kingsguard, will protect her from him, presumably by turning kingslayer and throwing the realm into new chaos. But how much has Sansa really learned? Despite Dontos' warnings that he's only after Winterfell, she thinks marrying Willas will be lovely. But he might well be just as much of a monster as Joff.

Anyway, she's got until the night of Joff's wedding to decide, because that's when Dontos' boat will be ready to rescue her. It'll be the best wedding Walford, I mean Westeros, has ever had!

ASoS 6: Sansa 75

I don't know who it was who first said the Sansa chapters were boring, but I've always quite liked them, probably because I sometimes feel as naive and clueless as her when it comes to GRRM's world and can relate to her. And this one is a corker, thanks in part to the wonderful Lady Olenna who might become my new favourite character if she makes more appearances.

Sansa is invited to supper by her replacement for the spot of Joff's wife-to-be, Margaery Tyrell. She doesn't know what it's all about but as I immediately suspected, it's to find out how Joff treats his women. Lady Olenna doesn't beat about the bush, she doesn't give a fuck in a way only old ladies truly don't have to, and she speaks the truth and doesn't care who hears it. She's unimpressed with this whole marrying into royalty lark. "We should have stayed well out of this bloody foolishness if you ask me, but once the cow's been milked there's no squirting the cream back up her udder. [...] All these kings would do a good deal better if they would put down their swords and listen to their mothers."

Olenna could be the most intelligent character in the book so far. By getting the fool Butterbumps to sing loudly so the spies can't hear, she extracts from Sansa the information she needs: that Joff is a monster who had her beaten by the Kingsguard.

The reaction: "That's a pity." Even Margaery seems nonplussed. Which makes me thinks they've got a way out planned. I wonder what it could be.

Anyway, the Tyrells also plan to marry Sansa to their crippled but kind son. Which doesn't sound too bad compared to being stuck at King's Landing and tormented by Lannisters.

ACoK 65: Sansa 817

It occurs to me that Sansa is the only one who hasn't got the memo about Bran and Rickon's "demise". Anyway, she goes to the great hall along with all the other nobility for the great reckoning after the battle, where all the knighthood and lordships are handed out.

The Flower Knight Loras Tyrell becomes a kings guard. Various other people are awarded lands or places on the council.

Ooh, rather importantly, Tywin arrives and takes his place as Hand. I'm not sure what that means for Tyrion, but he's currently out of action with a head injury anyway. There's no mention of Pod.

Ser Garlan Tyrell asks Joffrey to marry his daughter, Margaery (who was previously married to the dead Renly (we still don't know who the new Renly is, and he's not been mentioned so maybe it was all just the ravings of Dontos)).  Joffrey pretends to protest that he is betrothed to Sansa but everyone makes excuses for him and he agrees to marry Margaery. Sansa is over the moon at this, but later Dontos points out that Joff probably wants to use her for making bastards anyway. Does Sansa ever learn?

Littlefinger turns up and, for his part in getting the Tyrells onside, is awarded Harrenhal, even though the Lannisters don't actually have it yet to give.

Captives from the battle are given to the chance beg for mercy but one of them has a rant about Joffrey being born from incest and not being the true king. He's so wound up by this he manages to cut himself on the sharp bits of the throne. Which makes him look like not the true king. And crying for mummy in front of everyone is not very regal, either. Oh dear.

Sansa sneaks off to the godswood and Dontos tells her he has planned her escape for the night of Joffrey's wedding, when everyone will be distracted. Which sounds like a half-sensible plan. He also gives her a weird +1 Magical Hairnet of Retribution. Or something.

ACoK 62: Sansa 778

And we're back at the party again. We get the news that the battle is lost. Cersei has a hissy fit about the whereabouts of her son and storms off. It seems Joffrey's retreat hasn't helped matters. There are riots. It's probably all Cersei's fault. Sansa stays behind to help out a bit, then goes to her room to find the Hound waiting. He's pretty pissed off at Tyrion and is planning to do a runner, but first he wants a song. Sansa gives him a literal song, and he seems happy with that and leaves.

Sansa wakes up to be told by Dontos that they've won the battle after all. Tywin helped, and somehow so did Renly. Perhaps it is Renly's heir, the boy the Castellan of his castle would not release.

ACoK 60: Sansa 763

Sansa is still hanging out at Westeros' worst dinner party. Cersei is drinking too much and becoming more of a dick as the evening wears on. They learn that the battering ram has made it to the gates and Tyrion is leading a sortie to stop that. Cersei thinks this is a sure sign that they are about to lose. They also learn about Joffrey launcing Antler Men across the river. Cersei wants him brought home to safety.

She drops the advice that making sure your people fear you more than the enemy is the key to their loyalty. That hasn't worked out so well so far: they'd possibly have more troops if Lannister was a banner people wanted to flock to. I do wonder if, when Cersei tells a Kettleblack to shoot some merchants who are asking for shelter, that's going to cause a riot and add to her troubles.

Cersei ends up reduced to complaining about the patriarchy.

Finally, she drops the bombshell that if the city is breached she means to have Ser Ilyn Payne chop of her and Sansa's heads to keep them from being taken alive. Gulp.

ACoK 57: Sansa 733

The battle is starting. Joffrey makes Sansa kiss his sword and she tells him her brother is cooler than him because he's a man grown and Joffrey is just a stupid little kid. Then she goes off to pray for everyone except Joffrey.

Now all the women and children are hiding in a hall in an inner castle with Queen Cersei. Cersei is full of cheery advice, like how Sansa had better get ready for some hardcore city-sacking.

ACoK 52: Sansa 678

Sansa goes up to the tower to look through the smoke for signs of Stannis' approaching army. She gets hassled by the Hound again. Then she visits Dontos in the godswood, who is drunk and wants a kiss. And also isn't going to be able to get her out of the city for ages. Probably until after the war, if you ask me. We also learn that there are limits to what Stannis can achieve by land because of the river and he could really do with more ships which won't arrive for a long time.

Then Sansa goes to bed, has terrible dreams, and wakes up to discover she's had her first "flowering". She tries to burn the evidence but gets caught in the act. Interestingly she pretends to Cersei to be more naive than she really is, claiming she was scared of the blood and expected it to be more magical, when in fact she's just scared of having to marry Joffrey. Cersei seems to buy that line, even if she sees straight through the lie that Sansa loves Joffrey with all her heart.

What if Sansa is going to get smarter without anyone noticing, and then take them all by surprise later on? Another clue to this might be Dontos pointing out that nobody pays lady Tanda's daughter any attention because she is too stupid. For that matter, is Tanda's daughter up to something?

Addendum: when Sansa got blood in the sink, she realised the maid would see it and her secret would be given away. She couldn't empty the sink because she doesn't have indoor plumbing. Let that sink in (yes, I know). She's the 1%; the nobility; and she doesn't have plumbing. That's how impoverished Westeros is.

Sansa 440

The blogoficeandfire guy didn't like Sansa and didn't care what happened to her because she was too stupid to live, but I feel sorry for her. Especially after this chapter where she has a really bad day.

Robb has been doing some of the fighting alluded to in previous chapters and beat up some Lannisters, so naturally Joffrey must punish Sansa for it. There is some medieval logic to it, I suppose: terrorise the sister to terrorise the brother and maybe he'll ease up on his peace demands to free her. But we all know Joff gets off on a bit of cruelty and this is just an excuse.

So he has his men beat poor Sansa up and they go at it with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Dontos tries to make a joke of it (supposedly he's trying to help her); the Hound tries to keep out of it and even tries to stop it; but Boros just loves beating up girls. In a bizarre twist it starts to turn in to some sort of bizarre niche humiliation porn, when thankfully Tyrion turns up and puts a stop to it. Interestingly the threat of telling his mum scares Joff.

Tyrion takes Sansa back to his place and looks after her. When she asks him about the story Joff spun about Robb using demon wargs to beat Stafford Lannister, Tyrion wins the chapter with his wisdom: "Sorcery is the sauce fools spoon over failure to hide the flavor of their incompetence." It's quite obvious Tyrion should be king.

Sansa decides to return to her own quarters so she can escape to the godswood and meet Dontos. What could possibly go wrong?