The Myth of Persephone and Sansa/Jon. I found this wonderful essay that goes deeper into the connection between Jon and Sansa and their parallels. It also brings up the myth of Persephone. Something I had not even considered. (Beautiful daughter of Zeus and Demeter; sometimes considered an Olympian. While gathering flowers in a field one day, Persephone was abducted to the Underworld by Hades, who arose in his chariot from a fissure in the ground. Demeter, goddess of the harvest, was heartbroken, and while she wandered the length and breadth of the earth in search of her daughter, the crops withered and it became perpetual winter. At length Hades was persuaded to surrender Persephone for one half of every year, the spring and summer seasons when flowers bloom and the earth bears fruit once more. The half year that Persephone spends in the Underworld as Hades queen coincides with the barren season. Someone has written a nice story about here as well... mythicarts/writing/Persephone.html) Both Jon and Sansa encounter “the pomegranate” Sansa is offered a literal pomegranate by Littlefinger, while Jon’s rulership arc in ADWD was confronted at every turn by the Old Pomegranate, Bowen Marsh. The pomegranate, in Greek mythology, is what causes Persephone to become Queen of the Dead in perpetuity, and it’s the reason winter comes in the first place—-winter, in Greek mythology, being viewed as Demeter’s grief at her separation from her daughter when Persephone descends every year to rule in the Underworld. The pomegrante causes Persephone to undertake two disparate roles, to become a creature of two separate worlds: she is both the Goddess of Spring and the Queen of the Underworld simultaneously (and concurrently), she rules in both the sunlight and the darkness. That idea—-of a person moving between two contradictory spheres of existence, of a person gaining strength by a capacity to move between the darkness and the light—-is a theme GRRM has played around with in other works, so there’s an excellent chance he’s exploring it in ASOIAF as well. Both Jon and Sansa choose to reject “the pomegranate”: Jon rejects the Old Pomegranate’s demands for the future of the Watch, Sansa rejects Littlefinger’s attempt to have her eat an actual pomegranate. But look at what happened to Jon in ADWD: he refused to acquiese to the Old Pomegranate’s wishes, but the Old Pomegranate would not quietly accept rejection, choosing to physically attack him: there’s been a lot of speculation that the attack on Jon will lead to some death-based transformation, that he (like Persephone) might find himself transformed (and possibly occupying a new leadership role) because of the Old Pomegranate. GRRM apparently had some Sansa chapters prepared for ADWD, but he pushed them back to TWOW. I’m very curious about what those chapters contained. Because winter has now come, and in winter, Persephone rules over the dead. Sansa’s arc has tracked Persephone in some pretty substantial ways: at the beginning of AGOT, when summer was in swing, she was the Stark most heavily associated with the warmth and frivolity of the South, just as Persephone was the flower-loving Goddess of Spring; Sansa was forced to marry, against her will, a man heavily associated with worldly wealth (in Greek mythology, Hades is associated with wealth because gold, silver, and jewels are drawn from beneath the ground, and Hades of course rules the Underworld). As winter approaches, Sansa loses her childlike innocence and naivete. And winter has now hit Westeros, and will presumably hit with a vengeance during TWOW—-so what will Sansa become in the winter? Where winter is a time of imprisonment for Persephone, with spring/summer freeing her to walk the warm world above, it seems that summer was a time of imprisonment for Sansa, and winter might end up freeing her. And the story of Persephone ends with Persephone holding dominion over the dead during the winter. This might be a hint toward our pomegranate-associated characters’ future, especially given the heavy associations both Jon and Sansa have with the living dead. (With Jon, those associations are obvious—-he’s a living man who wears black, his direwolf is named Ghost, he’s fighting wights. With Sansa, the associations are less obvious but no less profound: Sansa’s direwolf is dead (and since the Starks “are” their direwolves, Sansa is both alive and dead simultaneously because part of her is dead while part of her lives on), Littlefinger associates her with Catelyn reborn (and Catelyn has literally become the walking dead), not to mention the Hound: “The Hound is dead” we are told, and this “dead man” of course hated fire—-I doubt it’s a coincidence that this description of the Hound, as a walking dead man who hates fire, sounds quite a bit like a wight.) And then there’s this bit from AFFC: All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains. It’s easy to forget sometimes that AFFC and ADWD were originally meant to be one super-book. Could Sansa have been “sensing” Jon’s “death” here? Is the “ghost wolf” Ghost? Or is there a hint here for Sansa herself? She’s become a Stone, and she’s been told that a stone is a mountain’s daughter. The cold winds are howling, and she thinks the cold winds are becoming a ghost wolf—-is Sansa, she of the dead direwolf, en route to her own eventual death and resurrection? The show might have even leapt ahead of this and created dark Sansa already... the Queen of the Underworld and Winter. I do see jon being between Ice and Fire ...life and death. Which will make him the ideal go-between for humanity and the Others. If anyone can make a peace, he can. And what he does for the North, maybe Sansa can do with the South. Petyr is already setting her up to marry Harry the Heir, and who knows...Aegon along the way. That would secure a great deal of the South already: The Vale, The Riverlands and who maybe following Aegon at that time. Aegon has already ( SPOILERSSSSSS) taken Storms End. So the Stormlands might be behind him already. They could be the unifying factor for Westeros. A True song of Ice and Fire. Light and Darkness. Without one, there can be no other. Most of GRRMs other stories revolve about a sort a balance and the search for it by different characters. The choices they have to make to achieve that balance. Or die trying. I think ASOIAF is also about that same delicate line between Darkness and Light. Between Tradition and Freedom. Old and New. To solve the riddle, a person must understand ...not just fight for dominance. In the end that will not be the solution. Not in GRRMs world anyway. There will be no magical spell or sword or ring that will give peace...but hard work between both sides to achieve it. Understanding and Empathy are key. And that is something Jon and Sansa both are developing in their story arcs. So it makes sense to me that they will be the cornerstones of a new peace. Thank you for reading! Read the rest of the essay here: asoiafuniversity.tumblr/post/34493737317/spoilers-sansa-and-jon-connections
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 12:00:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015