A Blog of Thrones (Chapter 51) Sansa IV: Be Careful What You Wish For

Previously on A Game of Thrones, one Stark girl managed to escape (with a lot of luck/help/reluctance). How'd the other one do?
Yeeeeeahhh... Sansa Stark has, apparently, a fairly high Int but a ridiculously low Wis.

But before we get there, a word on the chronology. On "the first day" she was imprisoned in Maegor's Holdfast. This is where the royal apartments are. It is not the Tower of the Hand. On the first night, Jeyne Poole is thrown into Sansa's room, and it appears that the fighting is largely over. On "the second day," Sansa looks out and sees Lannister guardsmen everywhere. Then...

At sunset on the second day, a great bell began to ring.

This is King Robert's death bell. Clawing back to page 524 of the US Paperback (49 Eddard XIV), we learn that Sansa had run away in a huff only a few hours before Pycelle showed up with the news that Robert died.

So... King Robert died at least two days before history records his death. I maintain that A Game of Thrones is a piece of alternate-history historical fiction designed to rehabilitate Ned Stark from his in-universe image of a would-be usurper.

Sansa is taken to see Cersei.

It was the first time she was allowed outside the chamber since Ser Arys had led her there two mornings past.  

Note: not "taken." "Led." She went willingly.

Anyway Cersei lays out some charges of treason, and they are on the whole pretty convincing - aside from that whole Joffrey is not the legitimate heir thing.  Still Ned Stark did doctor a will, and that looks bad no matter how you slice it.

On the other hand, Sansa went behind her father's back to the Queen and told her of his plans to leave the city. Not cool.  Not cool at all. 

Look. A lot of people like Sansa for (slowly, very slowly) evolving into a Strong Female Character(TM), but her utter moronitude here has ruined her forever for me. (And, note, this is basically the only explicit book-to-TV-"adaptation" change that I approve of, because it doesn't make her look nearly as much like a completely brainless twit.)

So, yes, girl, you are in for a world of hurt. Now, I'm not saying that you wouldn't be a prisoner had you not gone straight to the Queen, (gods know you don't have Yoda in your corner, although your sister didn't have the sense to run when he told her to, either).

So the Small Council starts doing the Good Cop/Bad Cop thing.

     "A child born of traitor's seed will find that betrayal comes naturally to her," said Grand Maester Pycelle. "She is a sweet thing now, but in ten years, who can say what treasons she may hatch?"
     "No," Sansa said, horrified. "I'm not, I'd never... I wouldn't betray Joffrey, I love him, I swear it, I do."
     "Oh, so poignant," said Varys. "And yet, it is truly said that blood runs truer than oaths."
     "She reminds me of the mother, not the father," Lord Petyr Baelish said quietly. "Look at her. The hair, the eyes. She is the very image of Cat at the same age."

I take it back. The Small Council is doing the Bad Cop/Bad Cop/PedoCop thing. F*ck.

And then there's Cersei, who does actually play the Good Cop, demonstrating the sort of cleverness that will wholly elude her from henceforth, prompting me to believe that Littleprick is the one who arranged this whole little charade.

Sansa agrees to write letters to her other family members to tell them to bend the knee and swear fealty to King Blondie. If they do so, they can avoid a terrible war and hideous bloodshed, so there's that.