Episode 143: A CLASH OF KINGS, SANSA VII: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.

Welcome to the one hundred and forty-third episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Portrait of a Lady on Fire: An Analysis of ACOK, Sansa VII,” in which Sansa runs back to her room to find Sandor, who begs a song from the fair maiden...while putting a knife to her throat.

This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack
• Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves, Captain of the war galley NIGHT WOLF, the ship that stalks the Seven Seas, and Wielder of the Valyrian Steel trident SUMMONER, the blade that brings the Deep Ones
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Micah, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• Ser Sourcedelica
• Low Energy Dent, True Master of the Banefort and True Master of Coin
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan and Bastard of Chromatica, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints, Maker of Drawings and the Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• The Dead Sheppard Reborn, Preacher of the Poor Fellows
• Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
• Olaf, proponent of establishing a feudal, pseudodemocratic system of Great Councils, wherein every count votes
• Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
• Lord Nick
• Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
• Pat Yronwood, the bloodroyal and guardian of the Boneway
• Lord Charles Tyrell of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, Warden of the South, and The Heir of House Tyrell
• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
• Master of Zorse
• Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
• Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
• BWord, Queen Beyond the Wall
• Lord Kyle
• Lord Samuel Seaworth
• Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
• Blackberry the Bold, Champion of Feel Good Times
• Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
• Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
• Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)

Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Lord Travis, our Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves, who will be taking a leave of absence from the small council to sail to the ends of the earth aboard the war galley NIGHT WOLF, asks:

We all believe that Bran will be even more essential in Winds and Dream, however, and may have a vital role not only in stopping the Others, but in revealing Jon's true heritage and helping to mend Westeros following the second War for the Dawn.

The show provided two general reasons for Jon murdering Dany — she was pushing for war and liberation without end, and her actions could potentially lead to ensnaring and destroying both the North and House Stark.

The show framed antagonism more between Sansa and Dany (which I’m sure will occur in some fashion).

Northern independence and Jon's claim were expressed through Sansa, but do you think there's any potential for Dany-Bran conflict towards the end of the series that could force Jon's hand, or do you think like in the show King Bran is a “twist” at the end?

So, thank you Lord Travis for the question, and happy voyage. Bring back that horizon. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can also sign up at various levels and get show notes, access to the NotASlack, weekly minisodes and bonus episodes!

Yes indeed. Our most recent bonus episode: our retrospective analysis of the AGOT Prologue will be out for all Poor Fellow and above patrons throughout the week for those listening to the livestream and out for all Poor Fellow and above patrons if you’re listening on the general release date. So, head on over and listen as a patron or sign up and listen as a patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF!

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Sansa a decade ago (That is: last week), she had been Cersei’s captive audience in Maegor’s Holdfast. Let’s find out what happens when she gains a small amount of agency in this synopsis of ACOK, Sansa VII!

Synopsis

When Ser Lancel Lannister told the queen that the battle was lost, she turned her empty wine cup in her hands and said, "Tell my brother, ser." Her voice was distant, as if the news were of no great interest to her.

Ser Lancel Lannister, covered in blood from a wound under his arm that had sent some of the people in Cersei’s court screaming, says that Tyrion is probably dead. Mandon Moore too. Why the fuck did Cersei order Joffrey back? Everyone started deserting after that. They had a fighting chance before that.

Then Osney Kettleblack pushes into the room, saying there’s fighting on both sides of the Blackwater. Maybe Stannis’ lords are fighting each other? Also, Sandor Clegane is gone. Ser Balon Swann has retreated into the city. Stannis’ army is ramming the King’s Gate. Men are deserting, mobs are about burning and fighting.

Gods be good, Sansa thought, it is happening, Joffrey's lost his head and so have I. She looked for Ser Ilyn, but the King's Justice was not to be seen. I can feel him, though. He's close, I'll not escape him, he'll have my head.

Strangely calm, the queen turned to his brother Osfryd. "Raise the drawbridge and bar the doors. No one enters or leaves Maegor's without my leave."

And the women who went to pray? Fuck ‘em. The gods will defend them, so says Cersei. Now, where’s Joffrey? He’s at the gatehouse, commanding the crossbowman who are mowing down peasants howling just outside the Red Keep.

"Bring him inside Maegor's now."

"No!" Lancel was so angry he forgot to keep his voice down. Heads turned toward them as he shouted, "We'll have the Mud Gate all over again. Let him stay where he is, he's the king-"

"He's my son." Cersei Lannister rose to her feet. "You claim to be a Lannister as well, cousin, prove it. Osfryd, why are you standing there? Now means today."

Osfryd rushes back with his brother as some women flee while others call for more wine. Lancel pleads with Cersei to keep Joffrey out in the field. Joffrey is going to die anyways if you pull him back. But Cersei, sweet as always, slaps Lancel in his wound and pushes him out of the way. Lancel nearly faints from the pain as Cersei stares ahead.

Sansa thinks that Cersei has forgotten about her, but Ilyn Payne will kill her as an afterthought. A woman cries that the battle is lost, and they’re lost. Sansa realizes that fear is overwhelming the crowd. She rises to her feet.

"Don't be afraid," she told them loudly. "The queen has raised the drawbridge. This is the safest place in the city. There's thick walls, the moat, the spikes . . . "

"What's happened?" demanded a woman she knew slightly, the wife of a lesser lordling. "What did Osney tell her? Is the king hurt, has the city fallen?"

"Tell us," someone else shouted. One woman asked about her father, another her son.

Sansa raised her hands for quiet. "Joffrey's come back to the castle. He's not hurt. They're still fighting, that's all I know, they're fighting bravely. The queen will be back soon." The last was a lie, but she had to soothe them. She noticed the fools standing under the galley. "Moon Boy, make us laugh."

That’s some queen shit right there, Sansa. I love it.

Moon Boy starts doing cartwheels and juggling wine cups. People nervously laugh as Sansa goes over to Lancel. Lancel calls this madness and how Tyrion was right. Sansa orders two serving men to help Lancel. One servant looks and runs. So, Sansa and another serving man get Lancel to his feet. She orders the serving man to take Lancel to Maester Frenken.

Lancel was one of them, yet somehow she still could not bring herself to wish him dead. I am soft and weak and stupid, just as Joffrey says. I should be killing him, not helping him.

The torches in the room burn low, but Cersei doesn’t return. Ser Dontos gets to the dais and tells Sansa to lock herself in her bedchamber. He’ll come get her when the battle is over. But Sansa wonders if it will actually be Dontos who fetches her. Maybe she should beg Dontos to defend her? Nah he’s not brave enough. She’d be killing Dontos.

It took all the strength she had in her to walk slowly from the Queen's Ballroom when she wanted so badly to run. When she reached the steps, she did run, up and around until she was breathless and dizzy. One of the guards knocked into her on the stair. A jeweled wine cup and a pair of silver candlesticks spilled out of the crimson cloak he'd wrapped them in and went clattering down the steps. He hurried after them, paying Sansa no mind once he decided she was not going to try and take his loot.

She finds her bedchamber dark. She bars the door and rips back the drapes only to find the southern sky on fire with multiple green, orange, red and yellow fires spreading a fiery light across the sky. The air smelled on fire as embers drift around her. She backs away from the window.

When I wake it will be a new day, and the sky will be blue again. The fighting will be done and someone will tell me whether I'm to live or die. "Lady," she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead.

Then something stirred behind her, and a hand reached out of the dark and grabbed her wrist.

Sansa opened her mouth to scream, but another hand clamped down over her face, smothering her. His fingers were rough and callused, and sticky with blood. "Little bird. I knew you'd come." The voice was a drunken rasp.

Jade light swirls outside of her window, spilling green light into her room. Sansa sees the blood on Sandor’s face looking dark as tar. But the light fades, and Sandor returns to being a hulking darkness with a stained kingsguard cloak.

"If you scream I'll kill you. Believe that." He took his hand from her mouth. Her breath was coming ragged. The Hound had a flagon of wine on her bedside table. He took a long pull. "Don't you want to ask who's winning the battle, little bird?"

"Who?" she said, too frightened to defy him.

The Hound laughed. "I only know who's lost. Me."

Sansa realizes he’s super drunk, and he had been sleeping in her bed. Why is he here? She asks what he’s lost. Everything. Sandor attributes it to Tyrion, thinking he should have killed him years ago. Sansa repeats what she heard about Tyrion being dead. But Sandor doesn’t want Tyrion dead. He wants to kill him, burn him. But maybe the gods will take care of that. He’s leaving.

Where’s he going? Sansa asks trying to struggle from his iron grip.

"Away from here. Away from the fires. Go out the Iron Gate, I suppose. North somewhere, anywhere."

Sansa says that Sandor won’t escape, but Sandor will use his white cloak to get out of Maegor’s and out of the city. He’ll kill anyone who stops him. Okay, so then why is Sandor here again? He’s here for his song. Song? Sansa doesn’t feel like singing with the sky on fire and thousands of people dying. So, she says she can’t. Sandor is scaring her. That’s because everything scares Sansa, according to Sandor. He demands that Sansa look at him.

The blood masked the worst of his scars, but his eyes were white and wide and terrifying. The burnt corner of his mouth twitched and twitched again. Sansa could smell him; a stink of sweat and sour wine and stale vomit, and over it all the reek of blood, blood, blood.

Sandor Clegane claims he’ll keep Sansa safe. He’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt her. He pulls her closer up to his face, tells her that she can’t bear to look at him. He wants his song, holding the knife to her throat.

"Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life."

Her throat was dry and tight with fear, and every song she had ever known had fled from her mind. Please don't kill me, she wanted to scream, please don't. She could feel him twisting the point, pushing it into her throat, and she almost closed her eyes again, but then she remembered. It was not the song of Florian and Jonquil, but it was a song. Her voice sounded small and thin and tremulous in her ears.

Gentle Mother, font of mercy,

save our sons from war, we pray,

stay the swords and stay the arrows,

let them know a better day.

Gentle Mother, strength of women,

help our daughters through this fray,

soothe the wrath and tame the fury,

teach us all a kinder way.

She had forgotten the other verses. When her voice trailed off, she feared he might kill her, but after a moment the Hound took the blade from her throat, never speaking.

Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers. The room was too dark for her to see him, but she could feel the stickiness of the blood, and a wetness that was not blood. "Little bird," he said once more, his voice raw and harsh as steel on stone. Then he rose from the bed. Sansa heard cloth ripping, followed by the softer sound of retreating footsteps.

I had forgotten how powerful this moment was. It hits on so hard.

Sansa gets out of bed a long time after Sandor is gone and finds his cloak still on the floor. The sky was darker than it was and a cold wind was blowing. Sansa feels cold, takes the cloak and huddles on the floor underneath it. And then the bells start sounding from every corner of King’s Landing. She tosses off the cloak and races to the window.

Dawn was coming from the east, and now the Red Keep’s bells join the swell of bell sounds ringing from the city. Sansa remembers how the bells rang for Robert, but this was a different sound. Men were shouting in the streets, cheering.

It was Ser Dontos who brought her the word. He staggered through her open door, wrapped her in his flabby arms, and whirled her around and around the room, whooping so incoherently that Sansa understood not a word of it. He was as drunk as the Hound had been, but in him it was a dancing happy drunk. She was breathless and dizzy when he let her down. "What is it?" She clutched at a bedpost. "What's happened? Tell me!"

"It's done! Done! Done! The city is saved. Lord Stannis is dead , Lord Stannis is fled, no one knows, no one cares, his host is broken, the danger's done. Slaughtered, scattered, or gone over, they say. Oh, the bright banners! The banners, Jonquil, the banners! Do you have any wine? We ought to drink to this day, yes. It means you're safe, don't you see?"

Sansa demands to know what happened, and Dontos reports that they came up through the ashes while the river was burning. The army came and attacked Stannis in the rear while he was on the river.

"Oh, to be a knight again, to have been part of it! His own men hardly fought, they say. Some ran but more bent the knee and went over, shouting for Lord Renly! What must Stannis have thought when he heard that? I had it from Osney Kettleblack who had it from Ser Osmund, but Ser Balon's back now and his men say the same, and the gold cloaks as well. We're delivered, sweetling! They came up the roseroad and along the riverbank, through all the fields Stannis had burned, the ashes puffing up around their boots and turning all their armor grey, but oh! the banners must have been bright, the golden rose and golden lion and all the others, the Marbrand tree and the Rowan, Tarly's huntsman and Redwyne's grapes and Lady Oakheart's leaf. All the westermen, all the power of Highgarden and Casterly Rock! Lord Tywin himself had their right wing on the north side of the river, with Randyll Tarly commanding the center and Mace Tyrell the left, but the vanguard won the fight. They plunged through Stannis like a lance through a pumpkin, every man of them howling like some demon in steel. And do you know who led the vanguard? Do you? Do you? Do you?"

Sansa, in one of the saddest moments, wonders if it was Robb. But it isn’t Robb.

"It was Lord Renly! Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers! Lord Renly with his tall spear in his hand! They say he killed Ser Guyard Morrigen himself in single combat, and a dozen other great knights as well. It was Renly, it was Renly, it was Renly! Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!”

And that is ACOK, Sansa VII! What an amazing, thrilling chapter. Damn. Is this a top-five in ACOK, I ask. What did you think, ser?

Depth

This is my favorite Sansa chapter in the book for sure! Previous Sansa chapters in ACOK felt like being confined in a little box, appropriate given her situation. Sansa VII feels ragged and wild by comparison. Everything that was restrained or suggested before is unleashed in a torrent of emotion. Every extreme is represented: the threat of hellish violence contrasted with heavenly deliverance. It’s an unpredictable chapter in which every decision is within a hair’s breadth of going the other way. It’s one of those chapters where at the end, you realize you’ve been holding your breath all along.

It’s a great unpredictability fed through multiple reversals: that’s what George does so well here in heightening the tension. The Lannisters have lost the battle. Sansa’s life is in danger. But wait. Cersei flees the room without ordering Ilyn to deliver the killing blow. So now Sansa is safe for the moment. She should really go to her room where it’s even safer. Uh-oh. Sandor Clegane is there, and he’s holding a knife. But he hasn’t come to kill Sansa, maybe. He just wants her to come with him north. But she refuses. Now her life is in danger again. But she sings her way out of it. And Sandor leaves. Then the bells start. But they don’t signal the death of a king. No, it’s another reversal: this one from the outset of the chapter. The Lannisters have won. Hooray? Through this literary device, George creates tension and mood for this chapter, letting readers live vicariously through Sansa, using her limited information, the shifting danger and the rising/falling action all to make a masterful chapter.

• Breakdown in Maegor’s
  • Coming off the chaos at the end of Tyrion XIV, the first thing we learn in Sansa VII is that the Lannisters appear to have lost the battle
  • This is perfect setup for a later twist. We’ll spend the rest of the chapter assuming the Lannisters have lost, only to be told at the end they won
  • George is playing fair with us here. Tyrion caught a glimpse of fighting on the southern bank; Osney reminds us about that in this chapter
  • On reread, we know that’s the Tyrells showing up to hit Stannis from behind with a folding chair. As a first time reader, we don’t have enough info to figure it out, any more than the Lannisters can in the moment
  • The fog of war has taken hold. All they know here on the north bank is that Stannis’ men are about to enter the city, which Tyrion said was game over:
    • “Once our walls are breached, we are lost, I've known that from the start.”
  • That’s bad enough. But we also see how Cersei’s leadership has made everything worse. Lancel lays out the consequences for her
  • Pulling Joffrey back ruined the shadow on the wall, and now the gold cloaks are fleeing Plato’s Cave en masse. In trying to preserve Joffrey’s life, Cersei killed his legitimacy. His men saw him leaving and followed
  • Lancel’s wound broke the mood in the room. The illusion of peace is giving way to the realities of war. Defeat is coming, with fire and blood
  • Cersei’s voice is calm, her orders precise, her movements swift. If you ignore what she’s actually saying, it might seem like she’s taking charge
  • But if you pay attention to what she’s saying, it’s clear that Cersei’s distant tone is that of some emotionally detaching themselves from reality
  • One by one, she’s unplugging her last connections. All she tells Lancel is to break the news to Tyrion. All she does in response is bar the door, abandoning the women who went to pray, and order Joffrey brought to her
  • Even as Cersei asserts royal power, she abandons the system to burn, clinging to Joffrey no longer as the king (as Lancel says), but her son
  • Who knows what her plan is next. Murder-suicide, as with Tommen on the show? Regardless, Cersei has broken, every bit as much as Sandor. I think of real-world tyrants as they crumble like Hitler in the bunker, but also fantasy characters like Denethor...or more to the point, the Mad King. “Madness,” Lancel gasps, putting it all together too late
  • Lancel stands in for every crony/flunky/toady who realizes all at once that their patrons were never in it for anyone but themselves
  • Lancel tries one last time to force Cersei (and by extension Joffrey) to act as legitimate authority figures, but she refuses and knocks him down
  • This, right after demanding that Lancel help her as a Lannister! Cersei doesn’t even have the courage of her convictions; there’s no loyalty here
  • It’s even worse than the Lannisters not showing loyalty to the people that are their ostensible allies.
  • You’ve been pointing out so well that the Lannisters work as a mid-20th century American crime family throughout ACOK, but y’know what made these families so successful? Partly, their use of violence when the chips were down. But also because they had skin in the game. Sonny got shot on the freeway after all.
  • The scions of the Corleone family - Michael and Sonny - exposed themselves to danger in fighting their post-war wars against the Five Families in New York City, and despite their underlings really doing most of the violence, they still played their roles.
  • But Cersei is no Vito Corleone. When the chips are down - and truly, when are they more down for House Lannister than here on the Blackwater - she pulls her boy back from exposure to danger.
  • It’s not rational, and I don’t think George wants us to come away thinking that Cersei is less for not thinking about politics and becoming a mom again.
  • Instead, Cersei is acting both rationally and irrationally. She wants her son removed from the danger, and yet she has to know that pulling Joffrey back makes him and her less safe ultimately.
  • But Cersei is all fuck the shadow on the wall here. She’s done with politics. She’s done with the pretensions. This shit is over, and she simply doesn’t give a shit if anyone else is going to suffer as she knows she’s about to die.
  • Yet, Lancel is saying it ain’t over yet. But it absolutely will be over if Cersei carries through with pulling Joffrey back.
  • If Joffrey is not fighting for his own cause, why should anyone else sacrifice their own lives?
  • If Joffrey is pulled from the battlefield, everyone fighting for him is going to run too, and the cause will totally be fucked; not just most likely to be fucked.
  • The question I ask is: what’s the difference between certainly fucked and almost certainly fucked?
  • Well, quite a lot actually. The Lannisters are almost certainly fucked - at least insofar as the information that Cersei has.
  • That means there’s still hope, a fool’s hope as Gandalf will say in LOTR. And if there’s a flicker of hope, the Stark bannermen will march through a frozen hell.
  • But the Lannisters have to be the Brady-era New England Patriots to give a shit about the season: they have to have overwhelming odds in their favor or they’re giving up.
  • In giving up, though, Cersei isn’t just damning herself and Joffrey, she’s fucking over a whole lot of other people -- like all the people in her court in Maegor’s Holdfast.
  • But she doesn’t care. She can’t view a world outside of the one she and her mirror images (her sons and daughter) live in.
  • When Cersei still had a glimmer of hope back in Sansa VI, she talked about what she could do to preserve the women from her court from rape or murder if another man besides Stannis showed up at the dry moat at Maegor’s Holdfast.
  • But now when that might actually be the case, she’s beating feet outta here. Every man and woman for themselves.
  • Cersei is Denethor here from Return of the King: “Farewell, Peregrin son of Paladin! Your service has been short, and now it is drawing to an end. I release you from the little that remains. Go now, and die in what way seems best to you. And with whom you will, even that friend whose folly brought you to this death. Send for servants and then go. Farewell!”
  • In her wake, the fear spreads. Power abhors a vacuum, and now there’s no one to believe in. The status quo is shaking apart. Sansa steps forward, instinctively, like Tyrion pulling back; it’s a subconscious change
  • She has to do what Cersei believed she couldn’t, what Cersei herself failed to do: keep the people in this room together despite the worst
  • Sansa does so by lying to them. It’s the only tool she has! Because of her age, gender, and status as prisoner, she can’t affect material reality
  • She carefully shares only the details that make it look like Cersei has it under control--she’s raised the drawbridge, there are walls and moats. She tells them that Joffrey’s not hurt and that the men are fighting bravely
  • When she runs out of courtesies, she turns to Moon Boy for help, not a knight but a fool. “Make us laugh.” I think this is George self-consciously reflecting on the role of entertainment as a diversion from horrible things
  • Many times in ASOIAF, especially in Sansa’s story, the songs are framed as shallow lies papering over ugly realities. But I think the overall perspective is more bittersweet: we need those lies to keep hope alive
  • This is Sansa’s entry onto the political stage in her own right, and it’s intimately tied to the kind of stories she used to be uncritically in love with
  • She has now learned through bitter experience how that kind of rhetorical twisting works on the political level, so she can make use of it herself
  • And unlike cynical politicians like Littlefinger, she uses her powers of persuasion for good. A lie told with honor, preserving peace in the room
  • It half works, which feels about right. One serving man helps her with Lancel; the other runs off. It’s a balance between idealism and realism
  • The same is true of how Sansa thinks about Lancel. He’s one of her enemies keeping her captive, yet she can’t seem to wish him harm
  • She considers herself weak for that, but I think it takes strength to understand that while Lancel has committed some sinister deeds himself, he is ultimately a hapless patsy who in this moment is in need of mercy
  • This distinction is how Sansa will be able to act effectively in politics without losing her soul in the process--which so few are able to do
  • Beautifully-said. Sansa has to understand the distinction between the true bads and the people looking to live on another day. Cersei and Lancel.
  • Because I think this distinction will be vital in The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, Cersei has to distinguish between Littlefinger and Robert Arryn there.
  • Littlefinger is a true evil machiavellian, someone who is planning to use Sansa to ride high onto power in both the Vale and the North, all the while having designs on Sansa that George describes as alternating between father-figure and seeing her an idealized version of young Catelyn.
  • Robert might be an annoying kid who was enabled to be that annoying kid by Lysa’s behavior, but he reminds me of Lancel: helpless and a tool of the elite, rather than a really villainous individual like Littlefinger.
  • Game of Thrones has Sweetrobin surviving to the end, with not a lot in the way of explanation on why Littlefinger or Bronze Yohn don’t kill the annoying kid.
  • The clue for why Sweetrobin lives on might be found in a Sansa who offers comfort and help to Lancel instead of kills him by neglect.
  • Sansa is putting her words from Sansa VI to effect: When I am queen, I will make them love me.
  • Sure, she’s not in an actual queenship position here in Maegor’s Holdfast, but she makes herself worthy of love by offering comfort and help to an enemy.
  • Sansa is taking Robert Baratheon’s one true virtue a step further. Robert was magnanimous to former foes, feasting Lords Cafferon and Grandison after their defeat at Summerhall one step further.
  • Where Robert would feast former friends who had bent the knee (love in exchange for fealty), Sansa offers unconditional love to an enemy.
  • It’s a Christ-like while we were yet sinners (or enemies of God), Christ died for us care that Sansa offers.
  • But before that, Sansa demonstrates a shrew understanding of politics that eludes Cersei.
  • As we were saying in Sansa VI, Cersei does the bare minimum, the show of care by including these noblewomen in her court while doing nothing else.
  • Yet when the situation appears truly dire, Cersei flees and leaves everyone to their fates and fears.
  • That’s not what Sansa does here whatsoever. She proves her royal virtue by reassuring the women that not everything is lost. They need to maintain hope.
  • Certainly, Sansa selectively shades the truth to offer a rosy scenario which doesn’t reflect the received objective reality and truth that she heard from Lancel.
  • But what good does “Go and die your own way” do for these women? What value does it serve them to die terrified?
  • Ironically, Sansa is correct. It’s not a lost cause. Stannis has lost the battle, probably around the point that Lancel has arrived at Maegor’s Holdfast.
  • I wonder if this will be something that George will repeat-beat come A Dream of Spring when Sansa hosts her own gathering of non-combatants at Winterfell with the Others besieging the castle.
  • As much as Stannis is supposed to remind us of the Others with his ostensible non-mercy and the Stranger come to judge them, he’s not a dire threat to all human life.
  • That is the role of the Others in ASOIAF as we talked about in our most recent patreon episode revisiting the AGOT Prologue: the black plague, the haunted house mirror of what the nobles do to the smallfolk of Westeros.
  • Things will grow quite dire when the Others breach the Wall, come south and lay siege to the place where winter last fell.
  • It will be up to Sansa to actively reassure those who are not out on the battlefield to stay true, that Jon Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne, random soldier from Runestone Castle #7 are fighting bravely, that the two walls of Winterfell will hold back the tide of death coming for them.
  • That giving into despair does nothing, that hope is worth living for -- even if it’s a fool’s hope.
• Sandor breaking
  • Even as Sansa asserts herself, her survival remains in question. Cersei brought this up in Sansa VI: what shield can she still rely on?
  • Dontos tells her to bar herself in her room. Sansa’s afraid that Ilyn Payne might come for her, an omen of death unlike his cousin Podrick
  • She considers begging Dontos to defend her. He used to be a knight, after all! As soon as Sansa comes up with this idea, however, she dismisses it
  • Sansa is learning to look past surface realities. Dontos might compare himself to Florian the Fool, but he cannot physically defend her from Ilyn Payne. To ask him to do so would get him killed. Unlike Cersei, she doesn’t want to use people that way. The battle is a crucible for Sansa even though she’s not directly taking part. She’s forced to mature
  • A man knocks her down on the stairs, escaping with stolen loot. We really get the sense that the Lannister regime is coming apart at the seams
  • Sansa enters her dark room and throws back the curtains. All the color outside comes screaming in at her. ACOK has been all about the rainbow, an infusion of color into the black/white/gray color palette of AGOT
  • This is the ultimate example of that in Sansa’s chapters. The brilliant colors are compared to tides and pools sweeping over the heavens, as though the river has been converted to fire and set loose upon the sky. The air smells burnt, as Sansa thinks; the texture of reality is on fire. As at the Redgrass Field, it’s awful yet beautiful, a tableau of wonder and terror
  • This is one of those points where I wonder whether George is taking inspiration for what Sansa sees from modern warfare.
  • So much as the Vietnam War serves as inspiration for the Blackwater and war in general, I think what Sansa sees outside of her window reminds me of Desert Storm, the first of many American Gulf Wars from 1991.
  • I remember this so strongly as a child, watching television newscasts of Baghdad under air attack.
  • But unlike previous wars, war in the night could be shown with a garrish beauty with new camera technology.
  • In 1991, early versions of CNN night vision cameras captured the bombardment of Baghdad, filtering ambient light to depict the horrible beauty of death and destruction in green, garish light.
  • There’s something unnatural watching war through a sickly green filter, and I have to imagine that George was basing Sansa’s watching experiences on his own experiences watching CNN in the early 90s.
  • This is no the very air was green from Arianne’s second Winds chapter as she journeys through the natural beauty of the rainwood.
  • And yet, there is something in our lizard brains which thrills and disquiets us when we imagine what Sansa sees: unnatural fireballs created by wildfire bursting in the sky.
  • I think George wants us to have both of those reactions to the Blackwater, but to emphasize the horror, he doesn’t just make this simply a visual experience for Sansa.
  • That’s why George has Sansa can smell the burning air.
  • Air is not supposed to burn! As much as we had our debate on whether wildfire was justified on the battlefield, I think George is borrowing a leaf from Tolkien here, emphasizing that war is an affront to nature.
  • We’ve marred nature by burning the air and filling the night sky with light and fire.
  • George describes the reds and oranges of common flames as warring with the emeralds and jades of wildfire: politics v. magic, man v. nature
  • The combo births armies of short-lived shadows, like the shadows of Stannis at Storm’s End? They too were born of fire. It’s the cycle of omnipotence to transience that defines the story. Armies are born to vanish. Green dawns give way to orange dusks. Ashes to ashes
  • Stannis’ cause is literally going up in flames, yet his opponent Tyrion is also falling from power. The wildfire demon bursts into being and vanishes. Valar Morghulis, and Luwin said gods die as well as men
  • All Sansa can do in the face of that is sleep and dream and wait for the sky to be blue again--not so she’ll be happy, but so she’ll know if she is to live or die. She once again feels like she has lost all control
  • Sansa remembers her wolf. Lady. The externalized symbol of her innocence, the uncomplicated belief in dreams
  • Lady is who she wanted to be, and now Sansa doesn’t know who she is or who she can be in this world. Will I meet her again in death? She’s staring into the grave...and then a hand reaches out of the grave and grabs her
  • It’s a jump scare that sets the tone. This is the final SanSan scene (so far), and it heightens the contradictions of their dynamic to an intense degree
  • Has Sandor come to kill her, or to save her life? Does he think of himself as her noble guardian or her potential lover? Can he tell the difference?
  • Sandor is in Sansa’s bed, waiting for her like a lover. He says “little bird, I knew you’d come,” a pet name coupled with sexual innuendo. The sky lights up with color behind him like a fireworks display. How romantic!
  • But those are the fires of war, and far from standing in for Sandor’s impassioned ardor for his lady love, they have reactivated his trauma
  • Sandor constructed the persona of the Hound to deal with the fear and anger resulting from what Gregor did to him. The wildfire took it away
  • That’s why he’s so bitter toward Tyrion specifically, wanting him to burn in the fire he unleashed. Sandor wants karmic justice, a sign from the gods
  • The repressed has returned, and he’s been brought back to childhood, when he believed in stories about knights, and faced the fire because of it
  • So he’s acting out the script of knighthood. I want my song, let me protect you. This is what the chivalric hero in the stories we share would do!
  • There’s something very moving about the Hound persona cracking and Sandor telling Sansa that he can make it so that no one hurts her again
  • The problem is that Sandor bears the literal scars of conditioning. He can’t just shake off a history of violence. He is aggressor as much as savior
  • He is drunk, so much so that he’s not in control of himself. He recklessly violates Sansa’s physical boundaries. He threatens her with a knife
  • Alcohol is Sandor’s attempt to escape the abuse he suffered at Gregor’s hands as a child yet it’s also the tool by which he inflicts abuse on Sansa.
  • Sandor is not alone in that dynamic. Robert Baratheon would get drunk, because he was sad, and that booze would fuel his rapes of Cersei and his physical abuse of her.
  • Cersei, too, reaches for alcohol because of all of her trauma, and that becomes the tool by which she lashes out at Sansa, threatening her with Ilyn Payne.
  • But in another sense, alcohol removes inhibitions and allows someone like Sandor to express his true feelings.
  • I think he truly wants to save Sansa here, take her away from her oppressors here at King’s Landing.
  • But like you were saying: he’s doing this all while holding a knife to Sansa’s throat and threatening her life.
  • In our conscious minds, we compartmentalize, focusing on one emotion or desire, but when drunk, compartmentalization is difficult.
  • Even as he reaches out to her emotionally, he still instinctively scorns her appeals to courtesy, especially because he sees them as hypocritical
  • Sandor demands that Sansa look at his face--both as a sign of respect and as a way to recognize the horrors of life that her courtesies avoid
  • The intimacy of this scene is almost unbearable, because George is deliberately writing this as romance and as horror at the same time, and intimacy is something those genres have in common
  • The stories Sansa loves did involve an element of danger, a thrill of forbidden tension. That’s why there’s always outlaws and robber knights and such. The sexuality is unleashed and then symbolically restrained
  • George is addressing fantasy--the genre, but also the act of fantasizing. Most people enjoy, sexually/romantically, the illusion of the loss of control. Being “swept away.” What most of us don’t like is actually losing control
  • This scene between Sansa and Sandor shows us that the line between the pleasurable illusion of danger and the real thing can be very slippery
  • Sandor is an irrational irreducible mixture of the heroes and villains from her stories, revealed as two sides of the same coin, the same face
  • What if the white-cloaked knight who wanted to spirit you away was also the monster threatening you? Which is the real face; which is the mask?
  • Sansa doesn’t know what Sandor wants from her, and he doesn’t seem to know either. The war shrinks down to these two people, silhouettes against the flames. Sandor doesn’t know which side lost the battle. All he knows is that he lost. We each fight our own battle; he lost his
  • Sansa has to work through her own fears to face him. Sandor is a source of fear, but also a way to get past it; an agent of both chaos and liberation
  • The wildfire illuminates his face: black and green, the colors of the Battle of Blackwater as they were the colors of Renly’s death. It’s like the Baratheon knight outside who was in more pain than Tyrion knew. Is the same true of Sandor? Meribald says we should pity and fear broken men
  • He reeks of blood and vomit, men are shrieking outside as they burn, and all the Hound wants is to play Florian and Jonquil. He wants a reason to keep living, to believe. And Sansa gives it to him.
  • As thought betrays her, her heart gives voice to the same song she sang in the sept as the battle began, come full circle. It’s a pure plea for mercy. Sansa asks for an end to the cycle of violence that shaped him
  • Gentle our hearts; teach us a better way to be. Restore the harmony that we have torn asunder by meddling with the old powers of fire and blood
  • Sansa sings for mercy from Sandor--take the knife from my throat--but also mercy for Sandor from the gods--let him want to take the knife away
  • Even as he threatens and terrifies her, she senses that he is suffering and needs help, as with Lancel earlier in the chapter
  • So shines a good deed in a weary world. A shaft of light in a literal dark room. Like a Christian martyr, like a beauty with her beast, Sansa reaches past the Hound mask and touches Sandor in his heart
  • It’s no coincidence, too, that George when asked before ASOIAF was adapted into Game of Thrones singled out Ron Perlman to play Sandor Clegane.
  • Why Ron Perlman? Because he played the beast in George RR Martin’s reimagining of the Beauty and the Beast story set in 1980s New York City.
  • Though George cited Perlman’s ability to act through prosthetics, I think the larger reason was that George based the character of Sandor Clegane on Vincent (the Beast character) from Beauty and the Beast.
  • In George’s writing of Vincent, the Beast was both literate and savage too, and that is Sandor Clegane: having his moments of poetic splendor coupled with his brutality.
  • It’s an unabashedly romantic moment that gains its power from the atmosphere of violence. It feels like that much more of a miracle. In the middle of hell, Sansa appealed successfully to heaven
  • George writes this breakthrough as so fragile that it could break if he writes it too explicitly: Sandor’s tears are a wetness that was not blood
  • Sansa cups his face, not knowing why, as she didn’t know why she stepped forward to calm the women at Maegor’s Holdfast earlier
  • She’s operating on impulse, sensing something she’s not old enough to understand: the human heart in conflict with itself, captured perfectly here
  • Sansa has disarmed Sandor, robbed him of his persona like the wildfire did--but pushing him in a positive direction, rather than a worse one. He’s the archetypal antihero being pushed beyond the bounds of his cynicism
  • So he leaves her there, walking out of her life as an act of mercy. It’s his acknowledgement he can’t return the gentleness, even as it moves him. He’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, left outside the threshold of home
  • Sandor leaves behind his stained cloak: the symbol of his dream defiled, a totem to her for helping to partially restore it. She wears it to keep warm as the fires burn out. It’s such a beautiful expression of tattered chivalry, which captures where Sansa is right now regarding the stories and songs
  • And she keeps the white cloak with her as she progresses into her arc as our friend Lady Gwyn from Radio Westeros outlined so well in her The Bloody Cloak Theory from 2015.
  • In that analysis, Lady Gwyn traces Sansa’s attire: how she has a large wool cloak she takes with her after Dontos rescues her. The theory proposes that this is Sandor’s kingsguard cloak that Sansa dyed green at some point after the Blackwater.
  • The green and brown colors being the colors that Sandor Clegane was usually associated with prior to donning the kingsguard white cloak.
  • We also know that Sansa has dyed her clothing before. Sansa dyed the white dress that had a citrus stain on it after Arya threw an orange at her in AGOT black and that became her mourning cloak for Robert Baratheon.
  • Later in AFFC, Sansa thinks back to this moment from the Blackwater, thinking:
    • As [Robert Arryn’s] lips touched her own she found herself thinking of another kiss. She could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. He had come to Sansa in the darkness as green fire filled the sky. He took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.
  • Now, as with all theories, we have to ask why this is significant? What impact does this have on the story?
  • As many have pointed out (Chloe? Need to research), there’s the idea that Sandor has symbolically fastened his cloak to Sansa ala Westerosi marriage customs as seen later in ASOS:
    • [Sansa] had dreamed of her wedding a thousand times, and always she had pictured how her betrothed would stand behind her tall and strong, sweep the cloak of his protection over her shoulders, and tenderly kiss her cheek as he leaned forward to fasten the clasp. (ASOS, Sansa III)
  • Again, this doesn’t mean that Sansa and Sandor are married -- more that the symbolism exists herein, and that works within the chaotically, violent yet romantic mood George embeds into this scene.
  • More than that, the cloak serves as a symbol of protection for Sansa: that someone was willing to protect her and take her away from her oppression in King’s Landing.
  • If she kept Sandor’s cloak - and I think she did - it’s a symbolic reminder that Sansa is worthy of protection, that innocent life is worth defending.
  • Sansa may have stripped Sandor Clegane of his Hound facade, but Sandor Clegane will still die for you, but never lie to you. He’ll look you straight in the face.
• Dontos breaks the news
  • All the violence and suffering outside seemed to reach a fever pitch with Sandor’s knife at Sansa’s throat, and then recede as she sang. The fires burn out as he leaves, and she slips into shock for a couple hours
  • The bells bring her back to life. She throws off the stained cloak and looks outside. Dawn glimmers on the horizon, and the people are cheering
  • Sansa remembers the bells tolling for Robert’s death, but these ones are different. They seem to stand in for life, an ode to joy
  • We’ve gone through the looking glass in terms of tone, from hell to heaven, and that’s reflected when her other NotAKnight staggers in
  • Throughout the book, Sandor Clegane and Dontos Hollard have been a matched pair in Sansa chapters: her two not-quite-knightly guardians with one foot in the songs and one foot in harsh disappointing realities
  • Dontos is the comedy mask, Sandor is the tragedy mask. Dontos is the absurd knight who became a fool, and says only now has found courage
  • Sandor is the violent reflection of a world that bestows knightly oils upon monsters like his brother, decrying the values he used to believe in
  • Sansa describes Dontos as a happy drunk, whereas Sandor was the more traumatized kind. Sandor declared he would take her away from all this; Dontos comes to tell her she can stay in place
  • Sandor told her that all was lost. Dontos tells her that all is well. The battle is done, done, done! He’s dancing and practically singing his dialogue, in contrast to Sandor and his blunt brutal phrasing
  • It’s as if by singing for mercy and calming the rage inside Sandor, Sansa has summoned a happy ending into existence, a deus ex machina born from her song to save the day, now reported by Sandor’s other half
  • You thought I couldn’t bring the war shit into a Sansa chapter, you guessed wrong.
  • Though we’ll hear more about the battle’s conclusion in Sansa’s final ACOK chapter and more about it in ASOS, Dontos Hollard’s version remains our best - and not altogether trustworthy - source on events at the end of the battle.
  • Given the caveat that Dontos is very drunk, he talks like a drunk person would: anachronistically, excitedly and all over the place.
  • So, let’s sift the chronology and talk about the battle’s conclusion from a military standpoint.
  • As was covered in Tyrion XIV, Tyrion sees that Stannis’ army attempts to cross the Blackwater through the wreckage of burning bridge of ships, using that as a makeshift bridge.
  • Tyrion, Mandon, Balon and the rest of the rag-tag army successfully defeat those soldiers on the north bank, and the bridge of ships falls apart -- more likely from the catapult and trebuchet rounds than anything Tyrion did.
  • As Tyrion noted as one of the ships spins away, he sees fighting on the south bank of the Blackwater and is confused by that. That’s where Dontos Hollard takes over the narration.
  • Let’s try to sequence this chronologically.
  • As we learned from Catelyn VI, Edmure successfully repelled the Lannisters attempting to cross the fords, and Tywin was falling back to somewhere.
  • As we’ll find out from Brynden Tully in ASOS, Tyrell outriders linked up with Tywin’s army southeast of the Red Fork River.
  • From there, the Westermen and Reachmen link up at Tumbler’s Fall and float barges down the Blackwater.
  • They disembark from the barges, and given how Dontos says that the army moved up the roseroad, I’d guess that they disembarked fairly close to where the Blackwater meets the roseroad a half day’s ride from Stannis’ army into the kingswood forest.
  • This is the same kingswood forest that both Tyrion’s mountain clansmen and Stannis’ army are burning to try to fuck with each other.
  • All that smoke, fire along with the clangor of battle provides concealment for the Lannisters/Tyrell as they move towards the main line of Stannis’ army.
  • I say the main line intentionally. Tyrion had ordered the clansmen to kill Stannis’ outriders and scouts to blind Stannis about what’s to come.
  • And Tyrion’s plan seems to have worked as Tywin and the Tyrells come (phrasing) right up on Stannis’ rear (phrasing) undetected.
  • Tywin divides the army thusly: Mace is on the left flank, probably using the Blackwater to handrail his movement east with Randyll Tarly in the center and Tywin on the far right (Yup)
  • But Loras Tyrell takes charge of the vanguard along with his big bro Garlan Tyrell.
  • Speaking of Garlan Tyrell, he decides on a brilliant bit of visual deception by wearing Lord Renly’s green armor.
  • Why is this brilliant? Because most of these stormlanders and reachmen now a part of Stannis’ army had been Renly’s men until Renly very mysteriously, who-did-it, died peacefully in his tent, and his lords and knights switched to Stannis’ side right after.
  • That means that many of these guys, the knights of summer that Catelyn observed in Catelyn II-IV, were probably not super enthusiastic about Stannis. They had all signed up with Renly first before switching to Stannis.
  • And now Renly arrives at the battlefield, and headfucks the lot of them into thinking that no, no, Renly survived. He’s here, and he’s fighting for the Lannisters now!
  • In fact, from all that we can tell, it’s the vanguard that does most of the fighting here, plunging through Stannis like a lance through a pumpkin.
  • Here, we see the fatal conceit in Stannis’ planning for the Blackwater. He had to move quickly to take the city before Tywin could attack him.
  • Stannis went all-in on the attack and didn’t do the necessary work to fortify his position. Seemingly, he put up no stakes, no picket line that could slow down any force coming against him from outside of the city.
  • That’s a real failure on Stannis’ part, because he had time to do this!
  • Recall how Stannis’ army reaches the south bank of the Blackwater days ahead of his navy.
  • What did Stannis do while waiting for the navy to arrive? They burned the Kingswood Forest to smoke out Tyrion’s clansmen and built rafts to cross -- all necessary work for the battle to come, but they failed to harden their defensive perimeter as a precaution to an attack by Tywin.
  • The result is that the Tyrell vanguard charges right into Stannis’ main army as half of his men are trying to cross the Blackwater.
  • Stannis’ army breaks almost instantly with many of the former Renly loyalist throwing down their weapons and bending the knee to Renly, Garlan.
  • Garlan, himself, kills Ser Guyard Morrigen in single combat and kills a dozen more knights (probably exaggeration) which probably encouraged more of Renly’s former men to think it truly was Renly here. Or, more cynically, they knew they were about to die if they didn’t surrender or bend the knee.
  • The remainder of Stannis’ army are killed by the vanguard or start running for the shores.
  • You’ll find this oh-so-strange, but it’s the Florents who are part of the reaguard of Stannis’ army, and they are the ones closest to Blackwater Bay.
  • Somehow Salladhor Saan is aware of the rout just enough to bring his own rearguard ships to the shores to pick up Stannis’ fleeing army.
  • Amidst all of this, we learn from the Theon Winds chapter that Justin Massey urged Stannis to advance backwards and make for the ships.
  • This saves Stannis’ life and his cause (for the time being), but the cost TO Stannis is enormous.
  • In ASOS, Davos will find out that Stannis has a mere 1,500 men with him on Dragonstone: Florent men chiefly.
  • That seems to be all that survived or didn’t surrender to Renly at the Blackwater. 1,500 out of the 18,000 or so that Stannis brought to the Blackwater.
  • In Davos III, Davos thought they had won the battle but the cost of this …
  • That turned out not to be a victory at that moment. It was the start of the defeat, and the cost of this defeat is staggering for Stannis. He will never recover.
  • Well said ser, both in your outline of a jumbled timeline and in your assessment of what this does to Stannis’ cause: he will never recover.
  • Even when Davos revitalizes Stannis’ flagging spirits at the end of ASOS, making for the North means leaving the Iron Throne in the rearview mirror
  • With Jon’s help, he forges an alliance of convenience with some Northmen against the Boltons and Freys, but the plain facts are laid out at White Harbor: once vengeance is achieved, Stannis has nothing to offer
  • The Lannister regime is crumbling in the south, but Stannis isn’t in position to take advantage of it (Jon Connington and the Dornish will instead)
  • This was as close as he was ever going to get, and while he was a victim of bad luck in many ways, he also made mistakes as you point out so well. When we see him again in ASOS, he’s broodier than ever
  • He has been defeated and replaced by the new Lannister-Tyrell alliance. As you were saying, George comically slow-rolls the reveal of who, exactly, has shown up to save the day. He’s after something else first
  • Even in a chapter full of ecstatically beautiful writing, Dontos’ monologue stands out. By delaying the actual plot reveal, George makes us focus on the language. It worships the image and dismantles it at the same time
  • Before Dontos tells us the names Rowan, Tarly, Marbrand, Oakheart, he describes them as godlike heroes rising from the literal ashes
  • Imagine the banners, Sansa! Imagine how bright they must have been, like the dawn light on the horizon banishing the night!
  • And, yep, even reading this passage for the billionth time, it made my heart beat faster like I was young Sansa listening to a singer. It’s that rousing, that unexpected and thrilling. It’s a full cathartic release
  • And yet...Dontos is telling a story. It is a secondhand story made up of bits and pieces from the Kettleblacks, Balon Swann’s men, the gold cloaks, etc. Dontos did not witness any of it himself! He keeps reminding us of that: “oh, to have been a part of it! The banners must have been bright!”
  • The fact that Sansa has to keep his drunk ass focused calls attention to the inherently distorted nature of perception, and hence of storytelling
  • At the heart of his narrative is “Renly’s ghost,” a brilliant gambit on the part of the Tyrells (and Littlefinger), as well as an image that perfectly summarizes the major themes of ACOK
  • It is all farce. But it works anyway. That, George has been arguing in ACOK, is the core of politics: a projection of power, essentially fiction
  • The triumph of the Battle of the Blackwater, as it’s being framed here, is not one of strategy. It’s one of storytelling: war as shadow puppets. The Tyrells wanted this tale to grow in the telling. They’re engaged in the same process as George: myth-making for an audience
  • They won the Battle of Blackwater not by wiping out Stannis’ forces en masse, but by breaking them, causing many to run and others to kneel
  • How did they pull that off? By sending in a vision of wonder and terror to lead the vanguard: Renly Baratheon returned from the dead, green armor and golden antlers, to take vengeance on his brother and those who joined him. It’s about as potent a political narrative as you can imagine…
  • ...and of course, it’s total bullshit. That’s not Renly, it’s just his armor. Renly is still very much dead, his body in a hidden grave near Storm’s End
  • But what does it matter, when all there ever was to Renly was the armor, the antlers, the projection of a perfect king? Who needs the man himself?
  • Renly certainly had his own political wiles, but the Tyrells were using him as an entry point into royal power, and they do so even after his death
  • Renly’s symbolism was so successful it outlived him, passing into the realm of legend. It’s whatever you want it to be, need it to be, because power resides where men believe it resides. There is no thing in itself, only the artifice: the shadow on the wall, perceived in passing
  • Sure, the ashes turned their armor gray, Dontos admits in passing. Sure, death bleaches out all colors (as we’ll see in Tyrion’s next chapter)
  • But that only makes us all the more determined to project our fears and desires into the rainbow of light playing out in front of us
  • This applies to magic as well as politics, both halves of ACOK. Stannis told Davos at Storm’s End that Melisandre saw a future in the flames in which Renly smashed Stannis’ host beneath the walls of King’s Landing
  • Stannis believed that Renly’s death at Storm’s End forestalled this potential future. But instead, he ironically brought it about, because Melisandre didn’t realize that it was another man in Renly’s armor
  • She watches the flickering shadows like we read stories, like Dontos passes on word of what someone else saw, and in every case, distortion is inevitable. No one gets a clear objective read on things, and yet despite our ignorance and arrogance, our actions are the instruments of destiny
  • So many died in the Battle of Blackwater. Even the survivors will one day die. Dreams live forever; we love them because they are not real
  • Look at Dontos Hollard. The Mad King wiped out his family. Joffrey almost had him drowned in booze. “Oh, to be a knight,” he says, as if he didn’t live through the realities of being a knight! And yet here he is dancing and singing like the world is exactly how it should be, a miracle like Sandor’s mercy extended to Sansa in exchange for her song
  • It’s the same reason Sansa turned to Moon Boy to distract them from the abyss. It’s the same reason she wonders for a moment if it was Robb that saved them. It makes no sense, but it’s what her heart desires most
  • That’s the power of story. It regenerates itself, rising from our bodies like ghosts, revitalizing the old words, the old pictures, the puppets on strings looming over us once more. All we want is to believe.
  • Wonderfully-said. We cling to something familiar to believe in. Dontos’ knighthood. Sandor’s child-like version of chivalry. The gods. Each other.
  • In Dontos’ case, he is living the Battle of the Blackwater vicariously through the valor and deeds of other knights, and boy is that sad!
  • As we talked about with Sandor: Dontos Hollard is drunk, and he can’t compartmentalize his feelings.
  • I wonder what Dontos would have thought the next morning when he woke up with a terrible hangover. Would he have had the stirring images of knighthood he slurred his way through with Sansa still in his head?
  • Would those images then intermix with the memories of Aerys slaughtering his entire family at Duskendale?
  • Would he remember how his knighthood nearly got him killed with Joffrey at the start of ACOK?
  • I recall so strongly the date of May 1, 2011. It was the day that Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, and I remember the jubilation I felt in that moment, living vicariously through the deeds of other men.
  • I had only been back in the United States for a few months, and I got drunk, and a former soldier of mine I was in Afghanistan with started texting me (he was also drunk), and we basically played Dontos back and forth to each other.
  • There was a feeling that this was what being a true warrior was about. Not the bullshit of boredom, the moments of sheer terror, developing CONOPS for movement from one place in the city to the next, arguing with the Afghans about doing maintenance on their vehicles, getting blown up and shot at.
  • I exalted that night, just as Dontos did, but the next morning, I woke up with a hangover and remembered the reality of my experience: I was unemployed and running out of the money I’d saved when deployed, and I was still dealing with a lot of trauma from my experiences in my day-to-day life.
  • I do wonder if Dontos Hollard had a similar experience the morning after the battle, and in that, he may be a microcosm for King’s Landing as a whole.
  • The reality in King’s Landing is that this was a glorious night. The city is saved from Stannis, but the next day, the hangover is here.
  • Joffrey, killer of peasants, abuser of Sansa is still the king. And one of Westeros’ greatest monsters is at his right hand.
  • The night is Renly and Loras, the glory of chivalry riding in to save the city. The day is Joffrey and Tywin.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Lancel’s wound will grow worse after the battle, almost killing him and contributing to his transformation into a Faith zealot

George reuses the dressing up in someone else’s armor in ADWD at the Battle of Astapor when the Astapori dress up someone in Cleon the Butcher’s armor, except this time, it’s actually Cleon the Butcher. But he’s quite dead as they pop open his visor after the battle and discover the dead Cleon full of maggots and worms inside.

The climactic battle of ASOS is at the Wall, and it goes down a similar way: an unexpected cavalry charge saving the besieged party at the last second. In that case, though, Stannis is the one leading the charge, rather than the one being swept away. Sansa thinks “Robb” here; Jon thinks “Robert” in ASOS when he sees Stannis’ banners

Theory/Discussion

Coming back after the show has ended, how do we feel about SanSan now?

Conclusion

• Thanks for listening!
• Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Soundcloud, Podbean etc.
• Check out our Patreon at patreon.com/notacastasoiaf
• Follow us on Twitter @NotACastASOIAF, email us at NotACastASOIAF@gmail.com
• Emmett’s social media, Jeff’s social media
• Thank you to our High Lords and Ladies on patreon!
  • Red Rahloo Himself who has renounced his allegiance to the Squishers
  • Lady of a Thousand Words
  • Septon Merrybald, the Shoeless Sage
  • Sister Winter - Lady of the Wolfswood
  • Nessie the Elusive, warden of the Neck, Defender of the North and Keeper of Secrets
  • Ser Thomas the Raven Knight, Lord of Blackwood
  • Ser Way of Course
  • Matt, Warden of the Sanguine Shore
  • Lord Sam K
  • Wisdom Benjicot, Alchemist of Sets and Quanta, Mage of the Arts of Boole and DeMorgan
  • Tibs the Great of House Catnapping
  • Lord J Manderly, Baker of the Frey Pies
  • Septon Merifullheadofhair
  • Lady Silverwing
  • Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
  • Kaboth the Unfrozen, Lord of the Bricks and Castle Crimson Light
  • Ser Keith of House Corbray, wielder of Lady Forlorn
  • Lord Andrew - Warden of the Dubai Sands
  • Lord Young of the Ghost Woods
  • Lady Meera Reed, Wielder of Dark Sister, slayer of tinfoil
  • Ser Will of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune
  • Lord Clay
  • Ser Small Paul, Guardian of the Stone Haven, Defender of Dunnottar Castle
  • Septon T-Bone
  • Refined Wrangler of Icy Arachnids
  • Lady Veronica, Caretaker at the Inn at the Crossroads
  • Lady Danielle of House Lannister
  • Titanium Pirate
  • Lady Joan, Lady-Ranger of the Frost Fangs
  • Lady Aemy Blackfyre, Analyzer of Chinese Literature and Dismantler of the Patriarchy
  • Cydnii of House Qo, Princess of the Friendly Black Hotties in the Summer Isles
  • Random: Fierce Protector of Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
• Join us next week for ACOK Dany V, in which George follows up with his literary tour de force of the Blackwater with … sigh … Qarth.