don't overlook Sansa & Bran
or, why does everyone always go straight to Sansa/Jon or Sansa/Robb when Sansa/Bran is in existence???
This post was inspired by a recent ask that donewithwoodenteeth received. Someone asked if Robb and Sansa had as strong of a relationship as Jon and Arya (her answer was no.) Jon and Arya have the strongest bond out of any of the Stark kids, though admittedly Sansa/Arya is my personal favorite and also very popular around tumblr. I’ve seen Bran/Sansa get some love around here, but definitely not as much as Jon/Sansa or Robb/Sansa, and that confuses me. Let me explain why.
So we all know that Sansa can get some unwarranted hate for her early idealism and ‘southron ambitions’. Yes, she was very idealistic and naive. Yes, she wanted to go south because that’s where she thought her destiny lay waiting. Yes, she put too much faith in the stories that she loved.
Except that those three things applied to Bran, too.
Sansa grated for several other reasons as well in the first novel — I just wanted to point out the parallels because really, Sansa and Bran had a lot in common. Gentle-hearted, idealistic young Starks with a fondness for stories (albeit different types of stories) who harbored dreams of a faraway south:
Bran was going to be knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. AGOT
She was a Stark of Winterfell, a noble lady, and someday she would be a queen. AGOT
Just as Sansa didn’t really want to be a queen for the power and only vaguely grasped what such a position truly meant, Bran knew nothing of the harsh realities of knighthood in Westeros. In this they suffered similarly; neither were able to accomplish their initial dream, and Sansa now knows perfectly well that the queens and knights of her world are often nothing like the ones in the stories.
Though Sansa and Bran share mentor parallels, their stories also seem to sharply diverge: Sansa’s becomes even more rooted in the politics of Westeros, the Game, whereas Bran’s ends up firmly entrenched in the Song.
Yet they remain the two Stark kids who are closest to the sky, symbolically if not always literally. Wings, and the lack of them, are incredibly important in both of their story lines, and they both express a desire to fly — perhaps because they’re both being held captive. Sansa is a pretty little songbird stuck in a cage; Bran is a “winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains”.
There’s bird imagery everywhere in Sansa’s storyline, from her time spent at the Eyrie to her mentor’s sigil (the mockingbird) to her little cousin Sweetrobin, whose life may currently hang in the balance. And weirdly, while Sansa is called a “little bird” numerous times, Varys of all people is currently looking for her — the man famous for his network of spy children. His “little birds”.
Meanwhile, Bran’s name even means “crow”, and he is learning from Bloodraven: more wings. Feeling trapped in his crippled body, he desires more than anything to fly.
And finally, one last reason that Bran/Sansa is wonderful is the fact that they always seemed to have a caring, loving relationship. Jon hardly thinks of Sansa, nor she of him; and wrt Robb, I don’t think he always prioritized Sansa as highly as he should have. But Bran and Sansa didn’t suffer from these problems; Bran even defends Sansa when Robb speaks harshly of her.
And I’m ending this with a few quotes that I find particularly sweet (and sad):
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."
—Ned, AGOT
Tommen was all of eight. He reminded her of her own little brother, Bran. They were of an age. Bran was back at Winterfell, a cripple, yet safe. Sansa would have given anything to be with him.
—Sansa, ACOK
Back in Winterfell Sansa had told him that the demons of the dark couldn’t touch him if he hid beneath his blanket. He almost did that now, before he remembered that he was a prince, and almost a man grown.
—Bran, ASOS
If I give him sons, he may come to love me.She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon…. In Sansa’s dreams, her children looked just like the brothers she had lost.
—Sansa, ASOS
