A Game of Thrones, Chapter 29, Sansa
Summary
Sansa’s dream comes true, she attends the tourney of The Hand. She watches knights joust and is unmoved when Gregor Clegane kills one of the fresh knights going against him. After the jousting is done Sansaattends feast with Joffrey. After the party Joffrey’s Hound, Sandor Clegane, escorts her to her chambers.
Quotes
Sansasat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before. (…) The young knight in the blue cloak was nothing to her, some stranger from the Vale of Arryn whose name she had forgotten as soon as she heard it.
The queen had done it; she was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened except for Arya. She could not hate Joffrey tonight. He was too beautiful to hate.
There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved the side of my face down in the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed. You saw how strong he is. Even then, it took three grown men to drag him off me.
Commentary
When I was reading this chapter for the first time I was struck by the amount of new characters Martin threw into the story. The stream of names seemed unending, the lords, knights, realms, definitely too many to remember. You might enjoy knowing the house names and their history when you’re reading the book for a second time.
As for Sansa, Martin is doing his best to make sure readers hate this character. Each passing chapter brings out her worst features. She’s still mad at Arya, but somehow managed to idealize her precious prince, who was the sole reason for her troubles.
There were two things I particularly liked about this chapter. The first one was how Martin described the jousts. I really felt excitement of watching the tourney myself. The other one was more grim, it was Hound’s story about how his face got burned. Ser Gregor Clegane, The Mountain That Rides, is introduced.
Tags: Sansa
