Sansa Stark and a tale of two (or three) tourneys
@punkrocknerdfighter replied to your post “Hi, in the last chapter of Sansa...”
Do you think the Tourney of the Winged Knights will be the last tourney Sansa attends in the books? if it is, GRRM could make some really strong inverse parallels to her first tourney, like thematic bookends
At this point? I really don’t see any place for yet another tourney, what with the stakes rising and the action starting to kick into high gear. I mean, this will be the ominous Winds of Winter, and then the last book should be a roller coaster ride of doom. But who knows how long the denouement of the series will be after the last battle and all -- I’ve generally thought of it as one chapter, but it could be 2, 3, 5, or even a chapter for each POV character left alive. Or twice that many. A tenth of the book, who knows. So there could be room in the endgame chapters for one last tourney, which could parallel the Hand’s Tourney.
But whether that post-War for the Dawn tourney happens or not, there’s already parallels and matching themes with the Hand’s Tourney and the Tourney of the Winged Knights. Sansa and her betrothed, a handsome blond arrogant heir; Sansa and her father Ned / Alayne and her “father” Petyr; a joust and a melee; competitors coming from all over; great prizes; and so on. And major differences as well -- no archery contest, only the melee is for money while the joust is to select Sweetrobin’s personal guards; the competitors for the Hand’s Tourney came from all over Westeros whereas the would-be Winged Knights are from all over the Vale only; the Hand’s Tourney feasts didn’t have a twelve-foot-tall lemon cake; and of course the Hand’s Tourney was to honor Ned Stark while also being an excuse for Robert Baratheon to spend lavishly, while this Winged Knights tourney bears more resemblance to the tourney Aegon the Conqueror wanted to select his first Kingsguard before Visenya told him that was a bad idea. Though only time will tell if this tourney will also have an “accidental” death of a young Valeman with promise, or an unauthorized personal fight that has to be stopped, or any more specific parallels (competitors and such).
Nevertheless, there should be enough similarities that Alayne may have some old memories come forward, and may have to fight off thinking about things that didn’t happen to Petyr Baelish’s bastard daughter from Gulltown, but to some other girl she doesn’t know. And of course there should be parallel and anti-parallel themes, the pageantry and spectacle of knighthood in flower grand enough to echo this glorious moment:
Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind… and the knights themselves, the knights most of all.
"It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling.
They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last.
But since so much has changed (in just two years!), starting with the middle of that very chapter (Sansa witnessing Hugh of the Vale’s horrific death), and then its end (Sandor revealing his past and the hypocrisy of knighthood), Septa Mordane is dead, Jeyne may as well be dead for all Sansa knows, many of those grand heroes are dead or terribly changed (Thoros of Myr for example) -- well, no matter how glorious the Winged Knight-candidates may be, Alayne’s thoughts about tourneys and knighthood should be much more cynical, and her unwished-for memories will be quite bittersweet. Perhaps these memories will be what sparks Sansa to recall that Littlefinger said he’d find a place for Jeyne, and ask him about it... and thus start her breakaway from him? I do hope so.
So... maybe after all is done, once Westeros starts to rebuild, there will be one last tourney that Sansa attends, some great celebration of life and healing and reconstruction and restoration. And if we see that last tourney, certainly there will be parallels and reflections to the first tourney we saw. But the Tourney of the Winged Knights will also be a fascinating parallel to the Hand’s Tourney, especially from Sansa’s point of view, and I greatly look forward to seeing what happens. Hope that satisfies!
