(Spoilers Extended) Arya will wear Sansa's face to kill the savage giant - Littlefinger - in a castle built of snow.

TL;DR: Littlefinger and Sansa will support Aegon against Dany, and Arya will be in opposition to Aegon. Arya and Sansa will go to war, and in the end Arya will give Sansa the gift of mercy and wear her face to kill the savage giant - Littlefinger - in a castle built of snow.

​

What? Why?

Arya suffers the Ghost of High Heart over two chapters. In them, she gets two sets of prophecies thrown at her. In the first chapter, we get:

“The old gods stir and will not let me sleep,” she heard the woman say. “I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more. Do you have gifts for me, to pay me for my dreams?”

Arya IV, ASoS

That's one prophecy for Stannis, one for Balon, and one for Cat. But the next time, we get:

“I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief,” the dwarf woman was saying. “I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya. “You cannot hide from me, child. Come closer, now.”

Arya VIII, ASoS

Which is a prophecy for Robb, another about Sansa, and the next one about... Sansa again?

Why the break from the threes? GRRM loves his threes. Dany gets three sets of three prophecies from the Undying, three treasons, three fires, three mounts. There are three heads of the dragon, three members of the team Aegon the Conquerer, three cities of Slaver's Bay, three prophecized heroes - AA, tPtwP, the Last Hero, three popular regigions, three eyed crow, etc. So why did the Ghost of High Heart fumble the pattern here?

Well, maybe she didn't. We all know what Gorghan of Old Ghis says about prophecies:

Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time." He chewed a bit. "Still . . ."

Samwell V, AFfC

I know for a fact that a lot of people here are feeling good about Sansa killing Littlefinger and fulfilling the prophecy, but what if that's not what's being said at all? Minding the danger to your prick, take a look at how the Ghost of High Heart behaves after making the uncharacteristic break from the threes:

And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya. “You cannot hide from me, child. Come closer, now.”

Cold fingers walked down Arya's neck. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she reminded herself. She stood and approached the fire warily, light on the balls of her feet, poised to flee.

The dwarf woman studied her with dim red eyes. "I see you," she whispered. "I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death . . ." She began to sob, her little body shaking. "You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!"

Arya VIII, ASoS

So she says she dreamt the maid again, and then turns right toward Arya and tells her that she can't hide from her - tells a person who is now in the business of changing faces that she can't hide from her. Tells her she sees her. She also calls her dark heart, which I suppose will be Arya's state after taking her sister's face.

​

Have I gone crazy?

Well, that's a perfectly natural question to ask, especially after taking into account where the two characters are right now, and how far their arcs will need to go, and in how much of a different direction, for what I've proposed to come true. But believe me, you haven't seen anything yet.

What you must remember, however, is that this prophecy, and all the other foreshadowings from ASoS and before that appear in this poast, were made before the five year gap was scrapped off. Had the five year gap happened, and we would have seen Sansa and Arya where we are seeing them at the start of TWoW at the ages of seventeen and fifteen respectively, what I am proposing would have looked much more possible.

But, is that even relevant? The five year gap was scrapped off, so does it matter? Won't the plot be changed? And won't the inconceivable parts have to be dropped? I'll address this question at the end of the post. For now, just keep an open mind. And if ever you find yourself saying that's absurd, it doesn't fit the characterization at all, ask yourself whether you could have envisioned the said characters in this position if the five year gap had actually happened.

For now, let's go to our subjects of interest.

​

Littlefinger and Arya

There are people that hold that Robert's doll that Sansa ripped and mounted on the walls of her Winterfell is the giant featured in the prophecy. Others, like me, think this event a red herring. Littlefinger is the said giant, they believe, and there are plenty of established things tying LF to the giant imagery, so I won't go into that. There are also plenty of reasons why Sansa killing LF is so easy to envision, it shows revenge, justice and disillusionment, and most importantly, the trope of the student surpassing the master, a trope that will be very satisfying to see in case of Littlefinger in this trope-subverting saga.

Yes, I think this potential trope is a red herring. The ties between Littlefinger and Sansa with regards to this prophecy are a red herring. So what are the ties between Littlefinger and Arya?

Now we GRRM unfolds his twists and secrets in a well documented three fold strategy:

The first, subtle hint for the really astute readers, followed later by the more blatant hint for the less attentive, followed by just spelling it out for everyone else. (Anne Groel, GRRM's editor)

The Ghost of High Heart event, with the old woman being so blatant as to look right at Arya and telling her she can't hide from her even if she changes her face, seems like the second stage of the strategy. It is in ACoK that we begin to get the first subtle hints:

Here's what Littlefinger says to Tyrioin:

"I've never been frightened of shepherds. It's the sheep who trouble me. Still, I suppose an escort might be in order." Tyrion VIII, ACoK

So Littlefinger is afraid of sheep, and at around the same time, Arya is... a lamb!

The direwolf was the sigil of the Starks, but Arya felt more a lamb, surrounded by a herd of other sheep. She hated the villagers for their sheepishness, almost as much as she hated herself.

Arya VI, ACoK.

Another one is where Joffrey is practicing his crossbow with hares, calling the hares one by one and missing them by yards. And at the same time, inside the castle is Tyrion, calling his council one by one and looking to bait them with a trap. Pycelle falls for the trap, but Tyrion misses with Petyr. Tyrion thinks Petyr will inform Cersei on him, but he comes to find he was mistaken. His arrow is misdirected, just like so many of Joffrey's. He also fails with Varys, true, but then there's this:

"The bolt missed by two feet. The hare stood on his hind legs and twitched his nose at the king."

Tyrion IV, ACoK

and inside:

"That's a handsome knife as well."

"Is it?" There was mischief in Littlefinger's eyes. He drew the knife and glanced at it casually, as if he had never seen it before. "Valyrian steel, and a dragonbone hilt. A trifle plain, though. It's yours, if you would like it."

"Mine?" Tyrion gave him a long look. "No. I think not. Never mine." He knows, the insolent wretch. He knows and he knows that I know, and he thinks that I cannot touch him."

Tyrion IV, ACoK

Later, we have

"Cursing, Joff spun the wheel to winch back his string, but the animal was gone before he was loaded."

Tyrion IV, ACoK

And Petyr the nose twitching hare is gone to the Reach and subsequently out of Tyrion's reach for a long time before Tyrion can take another shot. And Tyrion definitely wants to take the shot. In real world, hares are known to be fast and are hard to catch, rather like a mockingbird sporting giant we know. But there's also a lot of hare mythology out there.

"Hare people are linked with ambition, Hares are also thought of as greedy and selfish. A Hare is seen as a jokester, linked with trickery and fraud and frequently thinking of themselves."

The hare is the impatient in the story Tortoise and the Hare, and for LF, we get

"Tyrion nodded, waiting, knowing Littlefinger could never abide a long silence."

Tyrion IV, ACoK

And there's more, but long and short of it is that Petyr is a rabbit. And what's Arya getting called at the same time?

Lumpyface Lumpyhead Rabbitkiller."

Arya III, ACoK

We get another potential connection in the words of Cat of the Canals:

"My father was the oarmaster on Nymeria. A bravo killed him for saying that my mother was more beautiful than the Nightingale. Not one of those camel cunts you met, a real bravo. Someday I'll slit his throat. The captain said Nymeria had no need of little girls, so he put me off...

Samwell III, AFfC

A Bravo killed the father of the girl that was then put off Nymeria. The girl now wants to kill the Bravo. Ergo, Arya is going to kill Petyr. Now lets take a look at how she goes about that.

​

I can even become you. All I need, is your face.

As I've said above, I believe Arya will be wearing Sansa's face while killing Littlefinger. Which means, I hope, that Sansa will be dead. But is there text supporting that Sansa will die? If so, how? And at whose hands? Well...

“Didn’t you ever have a brother you wanted to kill?” He laughed again. “Or maybe a sister?” He must have seen something in her face then, for he leaned closer. “Sansa. That’s it, isn’t it? The wolf bitch wants to kill the pretty bird.” (ASOS Arya IX)

So Arya wants to kill Sansa. Well, maybe the feelings will change. But the foreshadowings don't stop:

"Arya, what did you think to do with this … Needle? Who did you hope to skewer? Your sister? Septa Mordane? Do you know the first thing about sword fighting?" [...] “For true.” He smiled. “If I took it away, no doubt I’d find a morningstar hidden under your pillow within the fortnight. Try not to stab your sister, whatever the provocation.”

Will Arya kill her sister even after the promise she made her father? As I said, Dark Heart!

That night Sansa dreamed of the riot again. The mob surged around her, shrieking, a maddened beast with a thousand faces. Everywhere she turned she saw faces twisted into monstrous inhuman masks. [...] Women swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in the belly

(Sansa IV, ACoK)

Sansa is haunted by a beast with many faces, by faces that were masks, and by women who were weasels. I think that Arya and Sansa are going to be embattled for a while before Sansa kicks the bucket. And how exactly will she die?

Before we get into that, I wish to examine this bit of foreshadowing, and what it might entail. Here's what Ned calls his daughters:

Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me."

AGOT Arya II

So Arya seems to be the sun and Sansa the moon (by order of mentioning). Sansa is also the one that's at the Eyrie, increasing the moon association. And then we have an incident where we are told the sun will kill the moon..

"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return."

AGOT Daenerys III

And this is where we enter the world of alliances.

​

A Game of Thrones

Here's a description of Littlefinger by Cat:

He had a little pointed chin beard now, and threads of silver in his dark hair, though he was still shy of thirty. They went well with the silver mockingbird that fastened his cloak. Even as a child, he had always loved his silver.

Catelyn IV, AGoT

Silver. And here is Sansa wearing silver:

His eldest daughter stepped forward hesitantly. She was dressed in blue velvets trimmed with white, a silver chain around her neck. Her thick auburn hair had been brushed until it shone. She blinked at her sister, then at the young prince. "I don't know," she said tearfully, looking as though she wanted to bolt. "I don't remember. Everything happened so fast, I didn't see …"

Eddard III, AGoT

Sansa is now almost literally chained by Littlefinger, so does the silver chain mean anything. It would seem that it does, as she is not the only one caught wearing one:

"A dream delayed, no more." Dany's tight silver collar was chafing against her throat. She unfastened it and flung it aside.

Dany III, ACoK

Varys has been trying to get Littlefinger for a while now. So it makes sense that that Littlefinger, who in GRRM's words knows more about Varys's plans than Varys does about Littlefinger's, will not look at first to throw in with Varys's poster child. But the above quote, coming coincidentally(?) after Dany is rejected by the Pureborn, seems to indicate that Dany will also associate with Littlefinger as Sansa does now, but then she will reject Littlefinger.

I believe that the three treasons Dany will know are actually three treasons she will commit, just like other prophecies were three fires she will light and three mounts she will ride. The second treason of these, the treason for gold, I think, will be toward Littlefinger. Tyrion being on Dany's side will probably aid her in that. As we see in the quote above, Dany will reject Littlefinger, probably prompting him to go toward Aegon. There are theories about Sansa marrying Aegon, and maybe Littlefinger's rejection by Dany will be the way that goes.

That was for Sansa and Littlefinger. But from the text, we can also guess at Arya's alliances, or at least her motivations.

All the colors that had been missing from Vaes Tolorro had found their way to Qarth; buildings crowded about her fantastical as a fever dream in shades of rose, violet, and umber. She passed under a bronze arch fashioned in the likeness of two snakes mating, their scales delicate flakes of jade, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. Slim towers stood taller than any Dany had ever seen, and elaborate fountains filled every square, wrought in the shapes of griffins and dragons and manticores.

Dany II, ACoK

So the griffin is clearely Jon Con, and keeping in that camp, the dragon may be Aegon, and the manticore... given that Amory Lorch is dead, we have to again look at mythology. From Wikipedia: The heraldic manticore influenced some Mannerist representations of the sin of Fraud.

So, fraud. Does this represent Littlefinger, or the entire camp Aegon, I don't know. But we do know that Arya doesn't like Manticores:

She had to think for a moment to remember.

"Ten."

"Ten, my lord," he reminded her. "Are you fond of animals?"

"Some kinds. My lord."A thin smile twitched across his lips. "But not lions, it would seem. Nor manticores."

Arya IX, ACoK

The presence of lions in that sentence tells me that Arya won't be aligned with Dany and Tyrion team either. In fact, I believe that Arya will soon be pulled into Stannis's politics with the Iron Bank and the Sealord of Braavos. GRRM sent all of Arya's chapters to the mapmaker (whose name I've forgotten) for him to make the map of Braavos, so that means Arya spends most of her time in TWoW Braavos. With the death of the Sealord, the knives are going to come out, and given that Aegon and Varys might be getting to KL, they may try to get the Iron Bank back on the good side of King's Landing. I think that a proxy war between Stannis/Jon faction and Aegon faction will play out in Braavos, and Arya will be a part of it. Given which side the North is on, it isn't hard to guess which side Arya will oppose. It is also entirely conceivable that Sansa has married Aegon to topple the upstarts Stannis and/or Jon and restore Rickon to Winterfell, and Arya doesn't like that. Or she just wants the southern king to leave the North alone so they can focus on the threat of the Others. Another possibility, given the Braavosi animosity toward dragons, is that the Braavosi employ the star student of the Faceless Men to get rid of the last dragonrider - Dany, and knowing what's coming from beyond the Wall, Arya decides her alliances need to change. All these reasons can also in fact also go hand in hand, and Arya will move against Aegon because of them. And then she kills her sister, which, according to the story about the sun and the moon, might be the catalyst Dany needs to win over Aegon.

Now that we have covered much of the why, let's go over to how. How exactly does Sansa Stark die?

​

ASoIaF loves It's Aunts

I think that Sansa will be fataly stabbed through the belly. There's a lot of hardship Sansa's belly has gone through over the years:

A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at her belly. [...] Women swarmed over her like weasels, pinching her legs and kicking her in the belly, and someone hit her in the face and she felt her teeth shatter. Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons. (Sansa IV, ACoK)Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons.

When she woke, the pale light of morning was slanting through her window, yet she felt as sick and achy as if she had not slept at all. There was something sticky on her thighs. When she threw back the blanket and saw the blood, all she could think was that her dream had somehow come true. (Sansa IV, ACoK)

Sansa dug her nails into her hand. She could feel the fear in her tummy, twisting and pinching, worse every day. (Sansa IV, ACoK)

The sight of the food made Sansa feel ill. Her tummy was tied in a knot. (Sansa IV, ACoK)

The invitation seemed innocent enough, but every time Sansa read it her tummy tightened into a knot. (Sansa I, ASoS)

Some of that hardship is around Littlefinger:

Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite." He put a sympathetic arm about her shoulders. "Are you quite well? You look so pale.”

”It’s only my tummy. The seasickness.”[...] "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. Nothing too heavy, my lady has a tender tummy. Some fruit might serve, perhaps. Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King.” (ASOS Sansa VI)

One foot caught Alayne in the belly, so hard it knocked the wind from her. "Oh, gods be good," she heard Petyr say, disgusted. (Alayne I, AFfC)

The chapter with the dream about the mob, Sansa IV in ACoK, ends on an ominous note that also seems to be pointing toward Littlefinger:

“I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.”

We know Littlefinger loves Sansa. So is it going to be Littlefinger that kills Sansa, or is it going to be Arya? Well, now you'll see why I've named this section as I have done. Let's look at our (second)favorite aunt:

Ned calls Lyanna dead before her time:

"She was," Eddard Stark agreed,  beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time. He lifted the sword, held it out between them...

AGOT Arya II

And here's Sansa thinking about herself:

It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time. 

AGOT Sansa V

Probably reflecting all our feelings when she does die? Ned says Arya reminded her of Lyanna, but she is not the only one:

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

Eddard IV, AGoT

Sansa shares many parallels with Lyanna: Princely affair, kept by the enemy, betrothed to a king, and dead before her time. There's also this bit:

when she reached the door of her bedchamber she could not bear to enter. The very walls of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide it felt as though there were no air to breathe.

Sansa IV, ACoK

Which sounds like Lyanna, trapped and helpless. Lyanna had died in her bed, and the above quote is about Sansa's bedchamber, so it might be telling us that Sansa is going to die in her bedchamber. There is also this dream:

She dreamt of footsteps on the tower stair, an ominous scraping of leather on stone as a man climbed slowly toward her bedchamber, step by step. All she could do was huddle behind her door and listen, trembling, as he came closer and closer. It was Ser Ilyn Payne, she knew, coming for her with Ice in his hand, coming to take her head. There was no place to run, no place to hide, no way to bar the door.

AGOT Sansa VI

This dream parallels Ned climbing the stairs of the Tower of Joy with Ice in his hands, only to find his sister dying in her bed.

So now tying this to the fact that Littlefinger is at odds with Sansa's tummy, I would say that Littlefinger stabs Sansa, and as she lays in her bed dying, she is found by a family member. Arya comes up the steps, like Ned once did, to find her sister dying. And then Arya gives her sister the gift of mercy, an art, incidentally, she learned from none other than the Hound, who was the first to threaten to kill her when they were in front of her bedchamber:

He took her safe all the way to the corridor outside her bedchamber.

"Thank you, my lord," Sansa said meekly.

The Hound caught her by the arm and leaned close. "The things I told you tonight," he said, his voice sounding even rougher than usual. "If you ever tell Joffrey … your sister, your father … any of them …"

"I won't," Sansa whispered. "I promise."

It was not enough. "If you ever tell anyone," he finished, "I'll kill you."

Sansa II, AGoT

Conclusion

As I've said, the above scenario is more easily seen for the version where the five year gap actually happens. Let's call this version Version 2, for reasons that will come up later. I have proposed that Arya and Sansa will be embattled for a while before Sansa actually dies. In Version 3, the version that actually got published and didn't contain the time gap, such a crusade is quite hard to envision, but it is conceivable for Version 2, in my opinion, when Arya and Sansa are older and probably wiser.

But in fact, this battle between Arya and Sansa may have roots that stretch even farther back. As you might know, in a previous version of ASoIaF, which we'll call version 1, Sansa was supposed to choose her husband over her family, the version in which she was supposed to have born Joffrey a son. Even though that choice was supposed to be one she would rue bitterly over the years to come, she would have aided her new family in the war with the old one. As you can see, these elements were carried over from Version 1 to Version 2.

But were they carried over to Version 3? Won't such a radical change in plans, killing five years from the timeline, change the plot? Well, maybe not if it's a very important plot point. And as I've shown, Sansa and Arya's fight seems to be have been important enough to be carried over from Version 1 to Version 2. GRRM has said that he has always known where the major characters were going. He has especially said that he always where Arya's arc was going. And I think this part, her fight with Sansa, her giving Sansa the gift of Mercy, and her killing Littlefinger while wearing Sansa's face, have been constant parts of their arc from the beginning. A plot point GRRM never even meant to change. And maybe because it looks so inconceivable in this Version 3 to is also one of the things that are making GRRM take so much time to write the books. The consequences of cancelling the time gap may look inconceivable, but that doesn't have guarantee that they won't be included in the story anymore.

But actually, we don't even need to speculate. Here's GRRM himself talking about the subject:

He said he would have done it sooner if he hadn't told so many fans about it. And there is no gap anymore. "If a twelve-year old has to conquer the world, then so be it."

SSM

So it doesn't seem that much plot has been changed, at least for the twelve year old, which is the age Arya will be soon. There is also the fact that it is in AFfC, after the five year gap had been deleted, that Arya expresses the desire to kill the Bravo that killed her father. So yes, I do think that soon, even as soon as TWoW, Arya and Sansa are going to enter the game of thrones, on opposite sides. Their war will end with Arya giving her sister the gift of mercy, and then wearing her face to finish off Littlefinger.

Submitted December 27, 2018 at 07:45PM by lAPPYc http://bit.ly/2SjbheN