In Game of Thrones, Sansa Stark has a pretty rough relationship history.
She’s betrothed to Prince Joffrey, and he turns out to be a psycho.
Then briefly there’s a plan to marry her to a Tyrell – Loras in the show and Willas
in the books – but the Lannisters find out the plan and quickly marry Sansa to Tyrion
– who is then sentenced to death and flees the country.
In the show, Sansa then goes north and marries Ramsay, the worst psycho of all, though in
the books she instead goes to the Vale and is promised to a guy called Harry Hardyng
. Harry’s kind of a douche , but he is the heir the Vale – marrying him could make
Sansa very powerful . So will Sansa settle down with this guy?
Maybe not.
There’s some really interesting evidence in the books that Sansa may have one more
suitor.
Game of Thrones author George Martin has written some prequel stories set a hundred years before
the main series, about the adventures of the characters Dunk and Egg.
In the first of these stories, Dunk and Egg go to a tournament at Ashford.
In the tournament, combatants fight to be named one of five champions of the young Lady
Ashford.
The final five champions, in order, are Lyonel Baratheon, Tybolt Lannister, Leo Tyrell, Humfrey
Hardyng, and Valarr Targaryen.
Which just happens to almost perfectly line up with the men Sansa’s married or been
promised to – a Baratheon, a Tyrell, a Lannister, and a Hardyng.
There are complications – the Ashford Tyrell and Lannister aren’t quite in the right
order, Lyonel might actually be second, and Joffrey isn’t a true Baratheon – he’s
a Lannister who people think is a Baratheon.
But still, this pattern lines up too well to be a coincidence – especially given the
inclusion of House Hardyng, which is a pretty obscure house.
So the point is that the Ashford champions seem to seem to predict Sansa’s suitors
– and since the fifth champion is Valarr Targaryen, it seems that Sansa will marry
or be promised to a Targaryen.
So who could this be?
After Robert’s Rebellion – and the deaths of the Mad King, and Prince Rhaegar, and later
Viserys, Daenerys seems to be the last of the Targaryens, and unless Westeros introduces
gay marriage, Sansa, sadly, probably won’t hook up with her.
But there actually are other living Targaryens.
At the end of Season 6, we learn that Jon Snow is the son of Ned Stark’s sister Lyanna
and Dany’s dead brother Rhaegar, meaning that Jon is a Targaryen – so maybe Sansa
will marry him.
This could make sense politically – as the son of Prince Rhaegar, Jon could make a claim
on the Iron Throne, as King of Westeros, and marriage to Sansa could win him the support
of the north.
In the show, Jon already rules the north, but he’s in a weird tension with Sansa created
by Littlefinger – maybe marriage could settle that conflict.
So in the both books and show the politics probably could work, the tricky question is
how this would work on a personal level.
Jon and Sansa are cousins, and it’s not unusual for people in Westeros to marry their
cousins – for example Tywin Lannister married his cousin – but Jon and Sansa grew up thinking
they were siblings, or half-siblings, cause Jon was believed Ned’s bastard.
They were never very close – Jon and Sansa don’t have a single conversation in any
of the books – but still, they think of each other as brother and sister , so it does
feel pretty gross for them to get together.
But would that stop George Martin?
In an early outline of Game of Thrones, Martin had Jon and Arya falling in love, so he has
considered Snow on Stark romance before.
Also for what it’s worth we do know Jon likes redheads.
So it could go either way – maybe Sansa will marry Jon.
But there is another possibility, because Jon isn’t Rhaegar Targaryen’s only child.
With his wife Elia, Rhaegar had a daughter called Rhaenys, and a son called Aegon.
We’re told that these kids were killed by Gregor Clegane in Robert’s Rebellion – but
in the books, Varys claims to have saved Aegon and to’ve secretly raised him to be a perfect
king, and in Book 5, Aegon begins an invasion of Westeros.
Popular theories suggest that this Aegon is a fake, no true Targaryen at all – check
out the Varys video for details – but Aegon could probably still fit this Ashford pattern,
because, well, Joffrey isn’t a true Baratheon but he still seems to fit.
So could Aegon be the Targaryen Sansa marries?
Again, the politics could work – to take over Westeros, Aegon needs allies, and Sansa’s
the “key to the north” . This could possibly also work romantically – Sansa and Aegon
are both young, pretty, and basically decent people, so it’s easy enough to imagine them
falling in love.
It could also fit nicely with the prophecy of a “younger and more beautiful” queen
coming to cast down Cersei Lannister – Sansa could become that queen.
So there are points on both sides.
Maybe Sansa will marry her cousin Jon Targaryen, or maybe she’ll marry Aegon Targaryen.
Or maybe this pattern means nothing and she’ll marry someone else, or no one at all.
It’s too early to know for sure, but after Sansa’s history of evil exes, you can only
hope she’ll end up with someone she likes.
Thanks for watching.
If you want to know more about Jon’s parents, or about Varys and Aegon, check out the video
links in the description.
Also, if you haven’t read Dunk and Egg, the Game of Thrones prequel stories, you might
want to check them out – they’re much shorter and lighter than the main Thrones
series, and well worth a read if you’re a fan.
There’s an Amazon link to buy them below which supports this channel at no extra cost
to you.
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