#godswoods

[ravensword22]

Game of Thrones: Episode: “Winter Is Coming”

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

It was not Florian and Jonquil, but it was a song - by Hanieh Salehi (artstation/twitter). Posted to tumblr with permission of the artist.

[thebluelemontree]

We know Sansa has a connection to the Seven through her wishes, but do you think the same could be said of the Old Gods? Also, do you see magic in her future storyline like the rest of her siblings? Thank you!

Of course, she has a connection to the Old Gods too. GRRM confirmed all the Stark children are wargs, even if Sansa’s abilities didn’t have the chance to manifest at the same time as her siblings since she lost Lady so quickly. Skin changing was already inherently in her and still is. It’s just that the ability is dormant for the most part. The connection between Sansa and Lady never weakened either. I already wrote about this here a while back, and it may have to do with Lady’s bones and hide being interred in Winterfell. She still longs for her, dreams of her, and even feels her direwolf’s presence close by sometimes. I don’t think she’s aged-out (if that’s possible) of ever skin changing an animal since she’s still younger than Robb and Jon when they received their direwolf pups. 

Sansa was also bonding with the old blind dog on the Fingers, but their time together was also cut short. Dogs are the easiest to skin change according the Varamyr prologue, so in theory Sansa could have started to have “dog dreams” if she’d stayed in physical contact with the dog. Her time in the Vale has had her separated from animals, but that doesn’t mean it will always be so. There’s always the possibility of skin changing a bird like a falcon perhaps.  

And ya know, she does have a greenseer little brother that she was always close to that might be able to help her grow her magical side. Maybe even break in an animal for her to make it easier to slip into perhaps? That’s a thing.  

Slipping into Summer's skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. "A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly." -- Bran III, ADWD.

I don’t see any evidence that the door is permanently shut on her skin changing something eventually. 

But if you mean does she have a connection to the Old Gods through prayer, the answer is yes too.

The night the bird had come from Winterfell, Eddard Stark had taken the girls to the castle godswood, an acre of elm and alder and black cottonwood overlooking the river. The heart tree there was a great oak, its ancient limbs overgrown with smokeberry vines; they knelt before it to offer their thanksgiving, as if it had been a weirwood. Sansa drifted to sleep as the moon rose, Arya several hours later, curling up in the grass under Ned's cloak. All through the dark hours he kept his vigil alone. When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." -- Eddard V, AGOT.

It might be something that Sansa dreams of her greenseer brother in the godswood after they’ve received word of Bran awakening from the coma where his own third-eye was opened by the three-eyed crow. If this scene isn’t a glimpse of the future in ADOS, I’ll eat my hat. 

Sansa is a person of faith who observes both her religions, albeit for a time she favored the aesthetics of her mother’s faith more than her father’s.  

She prayed in both the sept and the godswood for her father, unfortunately to no avail on that one. In the crisis of her captivity, she makes more space for the Old Gods in her religiosity.   

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.

Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . . -- Sansa II, ACOK.

I don’t think Sansa ever really turns away from her belief in the Seven to embrace the Old Gods as much as some claim. It’s the Seven she prays to during the Blackwater and the Mother she invokes when she sings for Sandor Clegane. She wants to light candles in the sept to ask the gods to protect Margaery and Loras. It’s more that she’s disillusioned with some of the earthly institutions and that causes a momentary flash of anger at the gods for (in her mind) never hearing her prayers. 

When she’s in the Eyrie, a place devoid of spiritual connection or comfort, Sansa feels the pain of loss of both her religions.

It was the old days she hungered for. Prayed for. But who could she pray to? The garden had been meant for a godswood once, she knew, but the soil was too thin and stony for a weirwood to take root. A godswood without gods, as empty as me. -- Sansa VII, ASOS.

Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. -- Sansa II, AFFC.   

During this period of time, Sansa’s faith has taken a real beating from being manipulated and coerced into being a part of Littlefinger’s crimes. Cynicism and corruption appear to be winning for the time being as Littlefinger rises and succeeds in the Vale. The presence of spirituality in her inner dialogue has grown ever more faint and weary; however, as I’ve shown above, a restoration of faith is likely as she progresses toward Winterfell and reuniting with her siblings. Does that mean she will begin to embrace the Old Gods (and magic) and to let go of the Faith of the Seven? Maybe, we have to wait and see. Or it’s possible she expands her consciousness to accept more of both in her life. 

Martin is a lapsed Catholic and atheist himself, but he never treats Catelyn or Sansa’s religiosity with the Seven as a joke or as less than religions that have demonstrable magic attached to them. I think it helps to keep in mind GRRM’s position on the nature of the relationship between characters, religion, and magic:

“Well, the readers are certainly free to wonder about the validity of these religions, the truth of these religions, and the teachings of these religions. I'm a little leery of the word "true" — whether any of these religions are more true than others. I mean, look at the analogue of our real world. We have many religions too. Are some of them more true than others? I don't think any gods are likely to be showing up in Westeros, any more than they already do. We're not going to have one appearing, deus ex machina, to affect the outcomes of things, no matter how hard anyone prays. So the relation between the religions and the various magics that some people have here is something that the reader can try to puzzle out.”

[kazetoame]

There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.[22]

—thoughts of Sansa Stark.

(Taken from A Wiki of Ice and Fire)

I was looking up some stuff on awoiaf and stumbled onto the Godswood page. Low and behold, of the two quotes about them, they use this one from Sansa (the other is from Jojen, if anyone is wondering). I just thought to myself, it’s kinda quite a specific number of eyes Sansa states, it brings to mind Bloodraven (yes, it’s a thousand and one, though that one is referring to his one remaining eye). Could it be that Sansa felt Bloodraven watching?

Just something to ponder.

[thequeenofdreamsblog]

surprise mf

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Sansa and Lady by Arantza Sestayo for the A Song of Ice and Fire 2022 Calendar

Sansa sat up. "Lady," she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and… and… trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Theon Greyjoy brings “Arya Stark” to her wedding, by Sam Hogg, for the A Song of Ice and Fire 2021 Calendar

Above their heads the trees were full of ravens, their feathers fluffed as they hunched on bare brown branches, staring down at the pageantry below. Maester Luwin’s birds. Luwin was dead, and his maester’s tower had been put to the torch, yet the ravens lingered. This is their home. Theon wondered what that would be like, to have a home. Then the mists parted, like the curtain opening at a mummer show to reveal some new tableau. The heart tree appeared in front of them, its bony limbs spread wide. Fallen leaves lay about the wide white trunk in drifts of red and brown. The ravens were the thickest here, muttering to one another in the murderers’ secret tongue. Ramsay Bolton stood beneath them, clad in high boots of soft grey leather and a black velvet doublet slashed with pink silk and glittering with garnet teardrops. A smile danced across his face. “Who comes?” His lips were moist, his neck red above his collar. “Who comes before the god?” Theon answered. “Arya of House Stark comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?” “Me,” said Ramsay. “Ramsay of House Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, heir to the Dreadfort. I claim her. Who gives her?” “Theon of House Greyjoy, who was her father’s ward.” He turned to the bride. “Lady Arya, will you take this man?” She raised her eyes to his. Brown eyes, not grey. Are all of them so blind? For a long moment she did not speak, but those eyes were begging. This is your chance, he thought. Tell them. Tell them now. Shout out your name before them all, tell them that you are not Arya Stark, let all the north hear how you were made to play this part. It would mean her death, of course, and his own as well, but Ramsay in his wroth might kill them quickly. The old gods of the north might grant them that small boon. “I take this man,” the bride said in a whisper. —A Dance With Dragons, The Prince of Winterfell

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Sansa in the godswood, by Jonathan Burton, for The Folio Society’s illustrated collector’s edition of A Clash of Kings

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes. Sansa had favored her mother’s gods over her father’s. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me... She moved from tree to tree, feeling the roughness of the bark beneath her fingers. Leaves brushed at her cheeks. Had she come too late? He would not have left so soon, would he? Or had he even been here? Dare she risk calling out? It seemed so hushed and still here... “I feared you would not come, child.” Sansa whirled. A man stepped out of the shadows, heavyset, thick of neck, shambling. He wore a dark grey robe with the cowl pulled forward, but when a thin sliver of moonlight touched his cheek, she knew him at once by the blotchy skin and web of broken veins beneath. “Ser Dontos,” she breathed, heartbroken. “Was it you?” “Yes, my lady.” When he moved closer, she could smell the sour stench of wine on his breath. “Me.” He reached out a hand. Sansa shrank back. “Don’t!” She slid her hand under her cloak, to her hidden knife. “What... what do you want with me?” “Only to help you,” Dontos said, “as you helped me.” –A Clash of Kings, Sansa II