Previous
Chapter 50: Arya
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
Not long before Sansa and Arya are about to leave for Winterfell, Sansa defies Ned’s orders. She goes to see Cersei and tells her that she is in love with Joffrey. She hopes that Cersei will talk to King Robert and convince him to command Ned to let Sansa stay in King’s Landing. Cersei responds by having Sansa taken and locked in a room. It’s for Sansa’s safety, Cersei says. Fighting breaks out not long after, and Sansa can hear the fighting from her room. She doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, but the sound is terrifying, nonetheless. On the third day, Sansa is summoned to the small council. She hopes that she might find Joffrey there. Instead, she finds Cersei with Varys, Littlefinger, and Maester Pycelle.
Whereas Ned previously rejected Renly’s call to kidnap Cersei’s children, Cersei kidnaps Sansa. It seems like she also attempted to kidnap Arya, though Arya escaped. At the same time, Ned offered Cersei mercy (in his words) by giving her a chance to leave King’s Landing before he told Robert that Joffrey was not his biological son. Those differences make it clear that Ned and Cersei were not playing the “game of thrones” by the same set of rules. But, as Cersei previously explained, politics is a game of life or death—and if those are the stakes, then once a person decides to play, they must also have a plan to win at any cost.
Themes
Cersei tells Sansa that she has bad news: her father (Ned) is a traitor. Sansa can’t believe it. She says her father would never commit treason. Varys, Littlefinger, and Maester Pycelle all attest to Cersei’s version of events. They say that they heard Ned swear to King Robert that he would act in support of Robert’s heirs, but as soon as Robert died, Ned tried to steal the throne from Joffrey. They also intercepted a message he intended to reach Stannis, calling on Stannis to bring an army to take control of the throne from Joffrey and the Lannisters.
Cersei, Varys, Littlefinger, and Pycelle all tell a much different version of events than the version Ned told leading up to his arrest. That reinforces the novel’s idea that history is not a set of established facts but instead is a story that reflects the perspectives and biases of the people recounting it. Though Sansa doesn’t believe them, they also have concrete evidence (in Ned’s letter to Stannis) that Ned conspired to take the throne from Joffrey, which makes it more difficult for Sansa to know what to believe.
Themes
Cersei says that she can’t possibly let Sansa marry Joffrey, considering that Sansa is the daughter of a traitor—that is, unless Sansa writes letters to all the members of her family, including Catelyn and Robb, saying that Ned is a traitor, and they must pledge fealty to their new king, Joffrey. Sansa doesn’t want to say that her father is a traitor, but then she learns that Joffrey, as the king, will decide whether her father lives or dies. She loves Joffrey and knows he would never do anything to harm her father unless his hand was forced. A king has to handle rebels forcefully, she thinks, and she believes she must compel her family to fall in line. Cersei tells Sansa what to write in the letters, and Sansa writes them. When Sansa returns to her room, she realizes she forgot to ask if Arya is okay.
While most of the Starks demonstrate unbending loyalty toward their family, Sansa deviates from that norm when she seems to take Joffrey’s side over her family’s. She does that by saying to herself that kings must handle rebels forcefully, a sign that she believes that Joffrey is the rightful holder of power and that her family consists of rebels who need to be brought into submission. In her mind, she writes her family to try and ensure that Joffrey doesn’t kill Ned, reflecting the complexity of the situation that drives Sansa to seemingly betray her family.
Themes
