#the unkiss

[houndove]

she could still remember how it felt, when his cruel mouth pressed down on her own. he took a song and a kiss, and left me nothing but a bloody cloak.

[atopvisenyashill]

The Unkiss: A Story in What's Unsaid

i've mentioned it in passing a few times, but i thought i'd just collect it all together. what is "it"? well, it's the idea that the infamous "unkiss" and similar "trouble spots" in sansa's memory are being caused by bran. "wow are they even gonna make the unkiss about bran?" you bet your ass i am, now follow me on this journey! there's four parts here:

What is the UnKiss?

What are other trouble spots in Sansa's memory?

What do those trouble spots have in common?

What they could all mean!

FIRST. What even is the unkiss? a refresher-

Alla had a lovely voice, and when coaxed would play the woodharp and sing songs of chivalry and lost loves. Megga couldn't sing, but she was mad to be kissed. She and Alla played a kissing game sometimes, she confessed, but it wasn't the same as kissing a man, much less a king. Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.

Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy's kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. As the boy’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.

"Oh, yes. He died on top of me. In me, if truth be told. You do know what goes on in a marriage bed, I hope?" She thought of Tyrion, and of the Hound and how he’d kissed her, and gave a nod.

Three (3) instances of Sansa thinking about the Hound kissing her on the night of the Battle of the Blackwater...except the Hound never actually kissed her. I don't want to post the whole scene bc it's long but if you reread it you will note - he pushes her onto the bed, demands a song, she sings mother's mercy, touches his cheek, and he gets up and leaves. That's all that happens. And that's all Sandor says that happens too, as a confirmation:

"And the little bird, your pretty sister, I stood there in my white cloak and let them beat her. I took the bloody song, she never gave it. I meant to take her too. I should have. I should have fucked her bloody and ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf."

"well," you say, "everyone is always yelling about lemongate but we've gotten hints all that was was george not remembering his own sprawling canon." that is correct! BUT!!! When George talks about the lemon thing, he's a bit jokey with it. But this...

You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.

he's saying it's going to mean something. i've said before it could just be trauma but i do think that if he's calling attention to it, that means it's not just trauma, or not just a trauma we've seen on page. plenty of people have theories about it - it's a metaphor for sansa's burgeoning sexuality, it's sansa repressing a time joffrey raped her, it's a sign that she's actually interested in petyr - but i think none of these stand up to snuff (and also - to me! - are just completely uninteresting).

But SECOND. This is not the only time Sansa's memory is a little off, nor is she the only character to struggle with her memory in odd ways.

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.

And that’s not even the only weird dream she has. Three others stand out to me-

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."

That was such a sweet dream, Sansa thought drowsily. She had been back in Winterfell, running through the godswood with her Lady. Her father had been there, and her brothers, all of them warm and safe. If only dreaming could make it so … She threw back the coverlets. I must be brave. Her torments would soon be ended, one way or the other. If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now.

That night the dead man sang "The Day They Hanged Black Robin," "The Mother's Tears," and "The Rains of Castamere." Then he stopped for a while, but just as Sansa began to drift off he started to play again. He sang "Six Sorrows," "Fallen Leaves," and "Alysanne." Such sad songs, she thought. When she closed her eyes she could see him in his sky cell, huddled in a corner away from the cold black sky, crouched beneath a fur with his woodharp cradled against his chest.

Purposefully glossing over relationship with the old dog here, but notice she has a similar fixation as her siblings, on running in the woods with Lady, and of course that bird's eye view of Marillion which I've talked about before here, that very much echoes when the kids see things through an animal's eyes without quite realizing it. And then here, where she seems to gloss over a gap in time-

At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams. When Sansa opened her eyes again, she was on her knees. She did not remember falling. It seemed to her that the sky was a lighter shade of grey. Dawn, she thought. Another day. Another new day. 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.

What's interesting about that last bit is that Summer thinks about a sister that dwells in the "man-rock" (note neither Nymeria nor Arya are near a city at this point) and that she is stuck in a godless place-

He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too. His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind. Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back... all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice. These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

Now THIRD. Let’s look at those moments specifically- what’s interesting to me about them is that these are all moments where Sansa is thinking about the naivety of childhood, of dreams, and of home.

In the UnKiss section, you have her talking to Margaery's cousins, and just after this section, Sansa thinks this:

They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.

And you'll notice when Sweetrobin is kissing her, she thinks again that he's just a child. And it goes the same when Myranda asks if she knows about sex - in all three moments, Sansa thinks of herself in a before and after, when her head was full of innocence and dreams and childhood, and now, where she knows better than to dream happy dreams.

And not to do a word association here that’s like “and who is a child? BRAN!” but - bran is forever a child to Sansa, because she believes he died. She has not seen him since he was in a coma - and that’s how she remembers him, a helpless child in bed, forever. And just like in her other "trouble spots", same as with the UnKiss scenes, Sansa is fixated on home, on Winterfell, on dreams.

The only "stand out" you could count would be her seeing Marrillion from a bird's eye view - except just like the UnKiss, Sansa considers this another "childhood ended" moment where an adult is projecting a history of sexual trauma onto her (Sandor, and Lysa) that she can only barely grasp. Both instances include "songs" - Sandor pressing her for a song, Marrillion singing over Sansa's crying, then singing in his cell.

All of these trouble spots in her memory, center around innocence, around home, around dreams - the dream of Bran in the godswood, all three Unkiss moments, the rebuilding moment, and the Marrillion dream. And in the godswood, when she's rebuilding winterfell, she is in a godless godswood, something she and Summer both point out, as does Ned! Which could explain why she's having so much trouble connecting magically - there is no way for Bran to interrupt her dreams because there are no weirwoods.

And if it seems like a huge stretch that Bran would connect through dreams, remember that he mentions connecting to Ghost, and we get Ghost's POV on a moment that may or may not have been what Bran was glossing over-

Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

And as I detailed here (not to toot my own horn) but Bran also reaches out to Arya (maybe) in a similar way - through their dreams. But Jon is in the North, and Arya was at Harrenhal - easier places for Bran to reach them magically.

And what's interesting about Bran and Sansa is that they have a lot of narrative connections. They are similar not just through inheriting Catelyn's Tully looks, but also that they dreamed very gender typical dreams of being a knight and a queen, respectively, that are violently stripped away from them by the end of AGOT. Like many other younger characters, they also have dark and untrustworthy mentors in Baelish and Brynden who trick them into going somewhere (the Cave, and the Vale) under the guise of "helping" them.

And of course, both are heavily associated with birds. In fact, part of Bran's magical awakening is centered around birds - fly or die. I've even suggested that Bran, who we know is one of those "ghosts of Winterfell" haunting Theon, is attempting to help Theon by opening his third eye and making him "fly."

So I posit here that Bran is trying to do this with Sansa as well. He's already doing it with Jon (with mixed success), and he's clearly awakening something in Theon because Theon's first TWOW chapter after he and Jeyne "flew" is very scattered, like he's having visions constantly. But Theon is in Winterfell, just like Jon is in the North. Sansa remains in a godless land, so Bran hasn't been able to reach her - but I think he's trying and I think he'll be at least partially successful soon. Sansa is a bird in a cage and Bran is a smart little crow who will unlock her cage and teach her to fly!

[sare11aa11eras]

Look, you can’t call Sansa a reliable narrator. Like, there’s a lot of unreliable narrators in ASOIAF (*cough* cersei *cough*) but i HAVE to give Sansa the “least reliable narrator” award. She is NOT merely perceiving events according to her own notions and biases to construct an imperfect representation of reality, babes. No. Not Sansa. No, Sansa has FALSIFIED HER OWN MEMORIES. as a COPING MECHANISM. Girlieeeee any poll of ‘most reliable’, Sansa should LOSE.

[tangerinecherrygal]

My reading of ‘the Unkiss’:

cw: brief Sexual assault discussion

When I found out that people ship sandor and sansa I was really confused because she’s an actual child. so when i read the scene that people usually reference as a basis for their ‘romance’ out of context (I thought Sansa was around 19 before i started reading) i could see how people may think that, especially dark romance readers. i do also think sandor has some questionable feelings towards sansa.

but in context, knowing about his past and how he had his innocence strippped away from him at such a young age, i believe he was both jealous and protective of sansa’s innocence, not in love with her.

“Lady,” she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead.

The direwolves have been shown to consistantly be protectors to the stark kids, so obviously and understandably, sansa is calling out for the one thing that would protect and comfort her without question. Sandor's answer is almost like the answer of a potential guardian.

the ‘sexual’ aspect does seem like it’s there, but not in a romantic way because it would be an assault:

“Little bird. I knew you’d come.” The voice was a drunken rasp.

He is drunker than I’ve ever seen him. He was sleeping in my bed. What does he want here?

He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her.

“Why did you come here?” “You promised me a song, little bird. Have you forgotten?”

him being in her room on her bed does give the impression that he’s going to do something sexual, which is usually associated with loss of innocence. sansa’s innocence is presented in her optimistic view of human nature. sandor is still surprised that she can have faith in others despite what happened to her father, so to me it seems like he wants to show sansa how cruel people can be.

previously it was established that even though he scared her, she still knew that he was a guardian and she would be safe with him around:

“I would be gladder if it were the Hound, Sansa thought. Harsh as he was, she did not believe Sandor Clegane would let any harm come to her.”

if sandor were to betray her trust in him by harming her, he would further reiterate that people aren’t worth trusting.

“Still can’t bear to look, can you?”

She still doesn’t want to see the ugliness and unpleasantness of what humanity is capable of. besides being ugly to look at, sandor’s burns are a reminder of the capabilities of others to harm another person. especially family.

teach us all a kinder way.

the final line of the song reminds us that sansa was taught that there are ways to be good and she still somewhat believes in people, at least for now. sandor is reminded of the importance of believing that good and kindness can prevail. i think this reminds him of his childhood innocence before his brother harmed him and how important it is for children to keep that innocence into adulthood. perhaps he wonders what he would be like if that hadn’t happened to him. the part of him that wants to protect sansa’s innocence seems to kick in and he seems ashamed that he considered harming sansa like gregor did to him.

one could argue that he threatens her life, but if he really wanted to kill her then he wouldn’t offer to take her with him.

She found his cloak […] twisted up tight, the white wool stained by blood and fire.

the white on the cloak is ruined by products of humanity’s violence and destruction. this is like when sandor’s innocence in childhood was destroyed by the abuse he suffered. there is still innocence there, hence the original white still being visible. leaving the cloak with sansa shows that he’s letting what’s left of his ‘goodness’ protect sansa. his cloak has protected her before, and now acts as a reminder of his mercy. This can also be a lesson that sansa must protect herself now that he is no longer there.

I’ve only read the first two books and this is my interpretation so far. but all i know is that this man better stay far away from that little girl or i will be forced to intervene.

It is GRRM so i may be wrong, but I really hope that i’m not.

[bighound-littlebird]

I have a kind of head canon for Sansan that the bit of cloth he gives her for her lip she kept with her, it kind of weirdly reminded her of his words and his presence and was a weird comfort. She would like tuck it into her wear, it was even on her when she left King's Landing. It's stupid, but like to think she was able to keep a connection w her protector, you know? Do you have any fun ones?

In canon, Sandor wiped Sansa's mouth with his handkerchief as a ruse to keep her from shoving Joffrey off the parapet. Thus Sandor covered her true intentions with an act of chivalry - using his own personal item to clean off her bleeding lip - and ended up protecting her life.

We know Sandor is definitely not one for chivalrous displays, yet it's obvious a part of him hoped she'd see his things and remember that he saved her, along with the "lessons" he shared to survive the Red Keep. Sandor is fully aware of the symbolism behind giving her his handkerchief (and later, his cloak) and knows that it certainly isn't lost on Sansa either, a girl who loved stories.

I imagine Sansa finds that she draws strength from his handkerchief as a symbol of his presence and protection, much like she did his cloak.

Her maids insist she return it to the Hound, but in a twist on Westerosi tradition, Sansa kept it, accepting it as his favor to her, as her "no true knight", who saved her just the same.

My head canon is that, like his cloak, Sansa keeps his handkerchief hidden but close. Perhaps Sansa washed it out, embroidered black dogs wolves and lace along its edging. She wears it proudly but discreetly tucked into her sleeve, and disguises grounding herself with it as a nervous habit.

Sansa manages to take his cloak and handkerchief with her when she escapes the Red Keep, intending to bury the items next to Lady in Winterfell's lichyard when she is finally able to return home.

[littlefeatherr]

As the boys 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. It made no matter. That day was done, and so was Sansa. ~ Sansa Stark, AFFC

[fedonciadale]

Hi! I just read your response to another anon and I'm very intrigued by your theory of a pre-canon kiss between Jon and Sansa. If I remember well, I also once read (I don't know where) that everytime Sansa remembers the unkiss is in chapters associated with marriage, with cousins, and with Jon. Although I'm not sure about this theory, it kinda makes sense for me and I would love to read more about it. Could you elaborate more on it, please? Hope you have a nice day!

Hi there!

Sorry, it took me so long to answer! I have been really busy the last weeks.

As for the theory of a precanon crush Jon may have had on Sansa I would alert you to this excellent meta by @really-sad-devil-guy called “A hidden and forbidden love” (here).

As for the possibility that something like a kiss happened, my argument would be the following:

Sansa’s first crush being Waymar Royce, a man who looks like Jon Snow and a black brother to boot, whose fate in the prologue of AGOT foreshadows what will happen to Jon (AFFC, Alayne I)

Sansa misremembering, the so-called unkiss:

First, here is what happened:

 "I could keep you safe," he rasped. "They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them." He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. "Still can't bear to look, can you?" she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. "I'll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said." His dagger was out, poised at 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. (ACOK, Sansa VII)

Sansa feels threatened here and fears for her life. This is not in anyway a romantic scene. The Hound forces her with his dagger to sing a song.

Then there are several people who kiss Sansa against her will, Ser Dontos, Tyrion, Littlefinger, all of them are foils of the Beast. (on the Beauty and the Beast arc in Sansa’s story compare also the excellent metas by @really-sad-devil-guy, (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5). As for Jon being the beast compare this post by me and @kellyvela (here).

Littlefinger:

Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss . . . before she turned her face away and wrenched free. "What are you doing?" (ASOS, Sansa VII)

Littlefinger’s kisses become even creepier in AFFC, where is grooming Sansa.

And then there is her cousin Sweetrobin:

Before she could summon the servants, however, Sweetrobin threw his skinny arms around her and kissed her. It was a little boy's kiss, and clumsy. Everything Robert Arryn did was clumsy. If I close my eyes I can pretend he is the Knight of Flowers. Ser Loras had given Sansa Stark a red rose once, but he had never kissed her . . . and no Tyrell would ever kiss Alayne Stone. Pretty as she was, she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

As the boy'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. (AFFC, Alayne I)

The memory of the ‘unkiss’ surfaces, when Sansa was kissed by her cousin. I think the ‘unkiss’ was put down there for many reasons: It shows that Sansa’s memory is faulty and it shows that her mechanism to cope with trauma is to give her experience a romantic hue. And the scene at the Blackwater alludes to Jon: The bloody cloak is the white kingsguard cloak, a white that is connected to Snow, and the cloak is white wool stained by blood and fire (ACOK, Sansa VII). If that is not an allusion to a Snow who is a Targaryen, I don’t know....

Now these are the only kisses Sansa likes, KISSES BY SNOW:

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover's kisses, and melted on her cheeks. At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes. She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell. The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.     (ASOS, Sansa VII)

Then there is the fact, that the scene between the Hound and Sansa is mirrored by Jon and Ygritte:

"I yield." Her words steamed in the cold air.

"You're our captive, then." He pulled the dirk away from the soft skin of her throat.           (ACOK, Jon VI)

Consciously Ygritte reminds Jon of Arya, but what really allures him about her is her singing - and Sansa is the one person we know to sing (you might compare my metas on singing)

Then there is Jon’s bad conscience about something that might have happened at the heart tree at Winterfell:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father's face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn't, not with his father watching. (ASOS, Jon VI)

Then there is the kissing game, the Tully sisters played at Riverrun:

She had not thought of that in years. How young they all had been—she no older than Sansa, Lysa younger than Arya, and Petyr younger still, yet eager. The girls had traded him between them, serious and giggling by turns. It came back to her so vividly she could almost feel his sweaty fingers on her shoulders and taste the mint on his breath. There was always mint growing in the godswood, and Petyr had liked to chew it. He had been such a bold little boy, always in trouble. "He tried to put his tongue in my mouth," Catelyn had confessed to her sister afterward, when they were alone. "He did with me too," Lysa had whispered, shy and breathless. "I liked it." (AGOT, Catelyn XI)

Catelyn kissed you (Littlefinger) in the godswood (ASOS, Sansa VII)

So, Catelyn played kissing games in the godswood.... and she just happened to forget it for years....

And we know that kissing games might have happened at Winterfell:

Robb got to his feet slowly and sheathed his sword, and Catelyn found herself wondering whether her son had ever kissed a girl in the godswood. (AGOT, Catelyn XI)

I do think that the allusion to sex (sheathing his sword) is no happenstance here. But that’s me.

So, I am not saying, that this is conclusive evidence, I am just saying, that there is something that we might think about: Jon’s and Sansa’s stories are told with other people filling out the positions that will be held by them respectively. Sansa meets several beasts until she will meet Jon, the real beast to her beauty, and Jon who meets several women (and men) who share important characteristics or talents with Sansa (the singing e.g.) will meet Sansa who will have all these characteristics. It is as if GRRM uses blank positions he fills in with several people to show what will happen. And once the position is filled with the person that was meant for the position, it will become clear, that it was always headed there.

ASOIAF is a piece of literature and as such we can interpret it, and I think there is sufficient evidence to make it a valid theory. It is not something that is obvious by reading on the surface and for that reason it is a matter of debate in the fandom. I have read so many times, that Jon would never love Sansa because he wants no “maiden in the tower.” I shrug at this, because GRRM has made it clear again and again, the PoVs are unreliable. I won’t go into detail about how Jon lies to himself about what he wants.

Thanks for the ask!

[thebluelemontree]

Is it wrong to say that Sansa uses an out of sight out of mind coping mechanism? I noticed it because it's what I do a lot. I know some ppl say she rewrites traumatic memories to make the memories bearable but it doesn't make sense. If that was how she coped, wouldn't she have been telling herself lies about Joffrey still in acok? Or found a way to erase/rewrite Marillion's attempt to rape her?

Yes and no. She does that except all the times she doesn’t. ;) I think that characterization is extremely reductionist (and ignores character complexity and  growth) when it’s applied that broadly to every situation Sansa has been in. You have to take these things instance by instance because they aren’t all the same. Sometimes that labeling doesn’t fit at all. In many cases, it feels more like the fandom pathologizing the act of romanticizing or trying to push aside or reframe something unpleasant or even traumatic when that’s just something most human beings do now and then. Some do it more than others, but its all within the realm of typical coping behavior and being older or more educated or more “logical” doesn’t make one immune to it. So I hope you don’t let those interpretations make you feel abnormal or more fallible for identifying with Sansa in that way. Romanticizing doesn’t even have to be about coping at all, but simply expressing desire through daydreams. People imagine being in idealized scenarios with crushes all the time.  

You also hit the nail on the head. Sansa just doesn’t go around making up false narratives about every objectively awful thing that happens to her. In fact, her actual responses to those moments can be a useful basis for comparison when we’re analyzing the unkiss, for example. Misunderstanding the unkiss is usually where a lot of these assumptions stem from. That’s a whole other can of worms in itself. The unkiss is just too long of a discussion to put here, so I just recommend this post as to the reasons why it isn’t about trauma and take a browse through my unkiss tag. It does bear repeating that Sansa factually remembers every scary thing that happened during the Blackwater and why it happened, indicating she has processed it honestly and critically, before any incarnation of the unkiss happens. The unkiss is a mismemory added on to the facts, which began as her being the actor that kissed him first. It’s not a lie to deny the facts or to excuse his behavior. It’s regrettable to her that Sandor was not able to be the person she could rely on to get her out of KL at that time. Nonetheless, this repressed desire is just so strong in her that it manifested in a kiss so real she could remember how it felt after the reality of his leaving KL for good sank in. 

Early AGOT Sansa tended to want to move past unpleasantness rather quickly. Just sweep those red flags under the rug so everything can go back to blissful harmony. Sansa is naturally averse to conflict and just wants her present with the royal family to be smooth sailing into a bright future. Ned had a very similar tendency when it came to concerns over Robert’s true character. He saw things that disturbed him, but he hoped and clung to his idea of Robert anyway. For Sansa, this resulted in some misplaced blame and rewriting events so she could deal with the aftermath. This is mostly seen in her processing the Mycah incident after Lady’s death and how her perception of all the characters involved shifted in varying ways. This is after she knew perfectly well what really happened, because Ned says Sansa had already told him the truth of what Joffrey did while Arya was still missing. However, it would also be unfair to completely chalk this up to Sansa’s idiosyncrasies. We have to put her flip-flopping in the context of the situation as well. She’s also experienced a gutting loss with Lady’s death and the fact that the first blow to her innocence was her father volunteering to put Lady down. She doesn’t have Catelyn to go to with her confusion and hurt, and Ned has largely been silent. She’s also still engaged to Joffrey through all this, this is still a patriarchy, there are political ramifications to speaking against a crown prince, and she doesn’t know how to deal with seeing such cruelty and vindictiveness in her future husband. Especially when he responded to her tender concern and wanting to help him with venom and hate. 

I mean, jeez, she’s 11. I don’t expect an 11 year old to understand how to identify the signs of emotional manipulation or see how this situation can escalate into domestic violence. Just because Sansa can’t articulate what is happening within her relationship with Joffrey, doesn’t mean she has blocked out any notion that Joffrey can turn his anger on her. Part of the reason she misplaces blame on Arya (and rewrites what happened) is because Joffrey turns scornful of Sansa for being a witness to his emasculating shame. He punishes her with the cold shoulder because she didn’t immediately take his side and pretended not to see instead. He regains power through making Sansa feel small and fearful of his moods. 

“He had not spoken a word to her since the awful thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him.” -- Sansa II, AGOT.

Sansa looked at him and trembled, afraid that he might ignore her or, worse, turn hateful again and send her weeping from the table. -- Sansa II, AGOT.

This is coming from someone who is supposed to love her and someone she will spend the rest of her life with. To fix things, she must be unequivocally on Joffrey’s side going forward or suffer the consequences, which we can see happening as her story completely flips over breakfast sometime later. This is not saying Sansa is fully exonerated from not supporting her sister when she needed her, but that it’s understandable how she arrived at this point. Even when things start to get really bad after Ned’s arrest, Sansa still holds out some hope that she can appeal to Joffrey’s (and Cersei’s) love for her to get him to be merciful. Is it really her fault she believed a part of Joffrey really loved her (and thus was reachable by her pleas) if he also heavily love bombed her and treated her like she was the most special girl in the world? Love bombing is a classic feature of the seduction phase leading up to abuse.  

So we can see Sansa does ignore truths and rewrite events sometimes and her personality is a factor; however, the context surrounding it matters a lot. Post Ned’s execution, Sansa does a full 180 regarding Joffrey and Cersei.

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. "I hate you," she whispered. -- Sansa VI, AGOT.

Once she had loved Prince Joffrey with all her heart, and admired and trusted his mother, the queen. They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again. -- Sansa I, ACOK. 

"A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well." -- Sansa I, ASOS. 

There’s also her conscious efforts to push away thoughts of her dead family and Jeyne Poole, but she states why she does that. It’s traumatic, the tears start flowing uncontrollably, and she is desperately trying to avoid falling into another suicidal depression. Her survival in KL depends on her holding it together and appearing loyal and obedient to Joffrey. Mourning her loved ones would imply to Joffrey she is plotting treason. Besides, she knows that even if she did ask Cersei or LF about Jeyne, she has no reason to believe they’d do anything but lie to her face in a patronizing way. There’s no point being plagued with wondering what the truth might be when she can’t do anything about it. Still, she prayed for Jeyne wherever she might be. She genuinely thought Arya had made it to WF on the ship and was safe at least until she got word of her brothers’ deaths and her home being sacked by the Iron Born, though there was initially a touch of projection and fantasizing about Arya being free while she remains captured. As of Feast, she believes she is the last Stark left alive and she has no one but Littlefinger to help her. So while she is suppressing her grief, it’s done with good reason, and it’s not being replaced with any false narratives to cope. 

We also cannot ignore that her relationship to Sandor Clegane has instilled in her an appreciation for the un-sugarcoated truth now that she has experienced betrayal and injustice first hand. In his own way, he’s encouraged her to listen to her own inner bullshit detector. The rose-tinted glasses have become a lot more clear compared to where she started. This is a newly learned skill though, and her self-confidence has been wrecked by internalized verbal abuse. She’s also been left on her own to figure out people’s intentions by herself, which runs parallel to her mounting desperation to get out of KL as Joffrey’s violence escalates. Developing a touch more of a jaded, skeptical side does sometimes clash with her enduring idealism and faith in other people (like with the Tyrells). This struggle is not a bad thing. The goal isn’t to become as cynical as the Hound, but to arrive at an earned optimism that has been tempered by wisdom and practical experience.

Her situation with Littlefinger is much more challenging than anything she faced in KL. He moves her where he wants her to go with complex web of lies, manipulation, grooming, isolation, coercion, dependence, guilt and shame. Her safety and desire to go home are tightly bound to being complicit in his lies and criminal activities. She feels indebted to him for getting her out of KL, even though his methods push her past her boundaries and force her to compromise her moral integrity. The thing is, there are things Sansa does know about LF, but she doesn’t seem to be ready to try and put the puzzle pieces together. She’s not daring to ask probing questions about Lysa’s reference to the “tears” and Jon Arryn or about the possible dangers of Maester Colemon prescribing sweetsleep for Robert’s convulsions. While the subject of Jeyne’s fate is still one she doesn’t want to revisit, somewhere in her mind she does know LF took custody of her friend. If it feels like this is somewhat of a regression back to her early AGOT self, there’s probably some truth to that; however, it’s perfectly okay for positive character arcs to be an imperfect progress. There can be relapses, regressions, setbacks, missteps, and misguided actions. All that growth isn’t lost. Everything she knows is just stored in the back of her mind, not forgotten completely. The general trend line moves her toward successfully confronting Littlefinger with the truth when GRRM is ready to pull the trigger. She’s definitely aware of Littlefinger lying to her more than she lets on and she knows his help is not out of the kindness of his heart, but motivated by what he wants her to be to him. But it’s not like she has the option to go anywhere else, does she? She’s a wanted criminal with a bounty on her head and has no other friend or ally in the Vale she can trust with the truth of her identity. Confronting LF without any means of neutralizing his power over her isn’t the smartest thing to do when he’s shown her he can literally get away with multiple murders. Again, it’s not just her personality that makes her hesitant to pull back the veil and face the horrible truth head on. The outside forces pressuring her perceptions and behavior cannot be discounted either.