Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (6 page)

She might be making the best of a bad situation. But that only makes sense if she has no other choice.

Littlefinger: You have a tender heart just like your mother did at your age. I see so much of her in you. She was like a sister to me. For her sake, I’ll help get you home.

Sansa: King’s Landing is my home now. (2.10)

Offered several opportunities to let strong, somewhat honorable men (namely Sandor Clegane and Petyr Baelish) escort her back to her family in season two, she refuses. Why? Every character has said she’s in danger. She doesn’t appear to being spying as Arya has been – she’s never in important council meetings, only the public throne room. If she’s loyal to the Starks, she should try to sneak back to them, but we haven’t even seen her send a covert letter (which admittedly, could condemn her to death). Imagine how Catelyn will feel upon hearing that Sansa keeps refusing to leave, even with offers of safe passage.

Of course, Littlefinger has a somewhat slimy crush on Sansa, and strokes her shoulder during his invitation. Directly after that scene, there’s one between Varys and a bruised Ros, in which Varys points out that Littlefinger exploits women rather than protecting them. Sansa may sense this or know that he betrayed her father to his death. Does she fear him too much to accept? Does she want to stay in King’s Landing to play the Game? To stay protected as a valuable hostage?

The final possibility is that she’s too scared or traumatized to act, even by running away, and possibly make things worse. She’d rather stand around, no longer queen-elect, and let Joffrey abuse her, rather than acting and possibly being executed as her father was. This is psychologically valid, especially with all she’s been through, from losing her family one by one to her humiliations and injuries at Joffrey’s hands. She’s been taught that nice girls do embroidery, lead the women of the castle in hymns, nod and smile at the men, choose their words carefully, bear humiliation proudly. But this pattern of thought will only lead to a worse and worse life as she gives up her own happiness to be mistreated for the delight of others. If she’s going to be anything other than an anti-feminist punching bag that the Lannisters degrade in every episode for her family’s crimes and for being a “nice girl,” she’ll have to get mad. Or at least grow up.

In the book, the knight Sansa saves at season two’s beginning pledges his loyalty. Though he’s been made the king’s jester, Ser Dontos finds ways to help her subtly and they meet in the Godswood. Their relationship is platonic, an image of courtly love in which the knight offers to lay down his life for his lady, and above all, to smuggle her home once they find the opportunity. Thus, in the book it’s clear Sansa is biding her time until that comes. Her turning down more corrupt protectors makes sense, as she has her one true knight.

Season three emphasizes her status as desirable pawn – the Tyrells, the Lannisters, and Petyr Baelish all want her. With Sansa’s passivity in this arena, as she mouths polite platitudes and refuses to accept or decline these matches, let alone make a run for it, she realizes she has no real choice – if Cersei, Joffrey, and Tywin decree her fate, or even chop her head off, she has no escape. And no one mentioned truly wants her for herself, only for the North. She has her scheme to marry Loras (in the book, it’s his heterosexual, crippled elder brother, clearly trimmed to avoid unneeded characters). However, she modestly folds her hands and waits for Margaery to arrange it, not reflecting how precarious her situation is – after all, such a wedding could be arranged after she’s safe with Robb and her mother. Her schemes, or rather, her agreeing to be a pawn in others’ schemes, in fact come from a position of terrible weakness.

Many fantasy series feature the naive childlike protagonist, from Bilbo Baggins to Dorothy Gale. Martin subverts this by having most of his characters be quite worldly—those who are not die or quickly learn. Sansa cannot be the happily-ever-after princess, but she might absorb how to scheme. “Is it
all
lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything,” a disillusioned Sansa finally asks (III:839). She’s slowly learning that it is.

Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that all the other characters around her “win” or “lose” – many in the Battle of Blackwater. Since the death of her father, Sansa doesn’t noticeably do either. She pacifies, nods, smiles...and survives. “I am loyal to King Joffrey, my one true love,” Sansa says, fully of dignity after Joffrey has had her beaten in public. Though she delivers the words with trembling and cringing sincerity before Joffrey, her words here have more than a touch of cold sarcasm when repeated to Tyrion. “Lady Stark, you may survive us yet,” Tyrion observes (2.4). Like him, she knows when to keep silent and when to mouth off – when to lose her dignity and when to reclaim it. Like Tyrion, she’s learned to survive in a world without allies. If she’s killed, many fans would say she’s had it coming a while, as she puts her trust in corrupt Littlefinger and Joffrey. But it would be a far more interesting story if she grows from naive captive to someone who can truly play the game, or who at least finds happiness with someone other than a handsome prince.

Why Is Brienne so Loyal to Renly?

A flashback in the books reveals this: When Renly Baratheon came through Tarth on a lord’s progress, he was kind to an adolescent Brienne, dancing with her and treating her like a lady, rather than an ugly freak as most others did. At that time, she knew she wanted to spend her life in his service. He in turn, is struck by her desire to serve in contrast to his other knights’ greed and ambition.

What Does Craster Do with the Sons?

As Jon discovers through spying, he sacrifices them to the White Walkers, who presumably make them into fellow undead creatures. (Craster’s wives comment in book three that if Gilly and her baby don’t flee, “his brothers” will come for them.) Because of this sacrifice, the walkers don’t attack Craster, almost the only wildling who hasn’t joined Mance Rayder. Along with demonstrating Craster’s immorality, this subplot shows how desperate life is in the haunted North.

Who or What is Jaqen H’ghar?

The Faceless Men of Braavos are perfect assassins – for pay, they kill their target and usually make it look like an accident. They worship the Many-Faced God, whose watchwords are
valar morghulis
, “All men must die”; the formal response to this is
valar dohaeris
, or “All men must serve.” (Both are episode titles.)

Jaqen is one of these men – when Arya frees him during a fire, he offers her three kills. He also offers her assassin training, though she must go to Braavos for it. Instead, Arya prefers to find her family. It’s unclear how long he was in the dungeons of King’s Landing, or whom precisely he murdered. He’s seen in the fourth book, as his description matches the alchemist that meets the prologue character Pate in Oldtown (prologue and epilogue characters have grisly fates, like the Night’s Watch deserter of the show’s first scene or the elderly priest of the Seven who tries poisoning Melisandre.) Jaqen may even adopt Pate’s face afterwards. It’s unclear, however, what his new mission is.

Braavos is also the home of Arya’s “dancing master,” Syrio Forel, who most likely died defending her (his death is not certain, just likely). There’s a popular fan theory that Jaqen was Syrio in disguise (suggesting the Faceless Men are so interested in season one Arya they’ll send one of their own to train her at swordplay – a rather unlikely circumstance). This theory is complicated by the fact that Jaqen was certainly in the dungeons while Syrio was teaching Arya, excepting the possibility of face-switching. It’s likely they were two different people and Syrio is dead. Jaqen, however, is alive and brimming with tricks.

Why Didn’t Arya Kill Someone Important?

After
Jaqen
 
H’ghar offers to kill three people for her,
Book Arya considers her options for a few days
. She finally names
 
Chiswyck, who led a gang rape. When the habitually cruel understeward strikes her, Arya
 
names him, and his dog appears to tear out his throat. While considering a third name, Arya
 
realizes she likely should have picked more powerful people.
Her third name in book and movie is a clever trick – she names Jaqen in order to force his aid in saving her life. In the book,
he helps her free the Northmen in the dungeon and stage an uprising.

Show Arya
 first names the Tickler, who has tortured many innocents, and nearly killed Arya’s friend Gendry. Clearly the world would be better without him. In the following episode, she names the guard about to betray her to Tywin – this is treated as an emergency. When Tywin rides out, she insists that he must be killed right that instant. When told that is impossible, her next request is to allow her escape – perhaps she means to kill Tywin herself.
When she names Jaqen
 
to compel his help as she does on the show, h
e arranges an escape for her and her two best friends, though without the massive revolt.

In season three, Gendry asks the question most fans are dying to know – why didn’t she name a major player? She could have ordered the death of Tywin, Joffrey, someone who mattered. Even her first “test case” could have been someone important.

On the show, Arya is rushed, and in the books, she feels she’s been foolish in her modest choices. Besides that, the answer is complex. Arya is in fact a child – she knows the players but not the finer points of the war. Would killing Tywin help Robb? Possibly. But Robb is currently winning against the Lannisters, and if Tywin were taken out, someone worse, like Mad King Joffrey might get charge of the army. Besides, Arya has a sense of fair play and Tywin hasn’t hurt her – in fact, he’s been kind to her and to her friends. He’s not on her personal attack list.

Nonetheless, Arya fingers a knife and stares at Tywin’s bare neck on the show, wondering if she should – she can fight her own battles without the Faceless Man to help her. Certainly, Arya could have made her third name a deadly strike at someone like Joffrey, sacrificing herself in her brother’s cause, but she’s a survivor. Though she whispers names to herself at night, of those she intends revenge against, she appears to want to kill them herself. In fact, in the book, she’s the one to kill the Tickler, as she stabs him repeatedly and sarcastically demands to know where gold and jewels are kept. Many fans were disappointed that scene won’t take place. On the show, she says:

“Show me how – I want to be able to do it too,” she tells Jaqen.

“If you would learn you must come with me...The girl has many names on her lips: Cersei, Joffrey, Tywin Lannister, Ilyn Payne, the Hound. [In the book, she doesn’t repeat Tywin’s name, and she has several more minor characters on her list] Names to offer the red god. She could offer them all…one by one.

“I want to but I can’t. I need to find my brother and mother…and my sister.” (2.10)

Arya wishes her enemies dead, but at her own hand, not that of a disinterested assassin. Only her need to save her family comes first. Once her family is taken care of, however, she holds the coin that will take her to train with the Faceless Men and see everyone who wronged her dead.

Like the Brotherhood Without Banners, Arya seems to have appointed herself a champion of individual justice: Long after everyone has forgotten a single butcher’s boy, killed on the king’s orders, Arya is still repeating his name and determined to kill Joffrey, not for the good of the realm, but for murdering a single innocent. As she, like her sister, is disillusioned, she chooses not to pacify and be polite but to fight back for each individual. One critic notes:

Mycah and Lady are killed almost as an afterthought, with nearly no effort being made to do what is just in the presence of the overwhelming power of the Iron Throne….A little girl, raised with illusions of justice and safety, must suddenly confront the reality of her world. Those in power, often with a thoughtless flick of the wrist, can destroy those things we hold most dear. It isn’t long before trauma builds on trauma, as Arya witnesses the destruction of her family and the brutal execution of her father. Yoren may cover her eyes, but she knows what is happening.
^[9]

She responds to this injustice by righting it: kings and queens fill her vengeance list, along with the humblest of torturers and foot soldiers. As she recites them each night, she vows to bring justice to the world, man by man if she must.

Why Was the Freys’ Bridge so Essential?

Robb Stark’s host needed to go south towards Riverrun quickly to break Jamie Lannister’s siege. The Freys’ bridge was close, and going around to the south would expose them to Lannister troops and waste time they couldn’t afford. Conquering the Freys or walking the long way round would take too long and expose them to danger.

Theon shook his head. “The river’s running high and fast. Ser Brynden says it can’t be forded, not this far north.”

“I must have that crossing!” Robb declared, fuming. “Oh, our horses might be able to swim the river, I suppose, but not with armored men on their backs. We’d need to build rafts to pole our steel across, helms and mail and lances, and we don’t have the trees for that. Or the time. Lord Tywin is marching north...” He balled his hand into a fist.

“Lord Frey would be a fool to try and bar our way,” Theon Greyjoy said with his customary easy confidence. “We have five times his numbers. You can take the Twins if you need to, Robb.”