Can Sansa Catch a Break in 'Game of Thrones'?

Even with all the turmoil last week — Tyrion and Shae! Asha and Theon…er, Reek! — I breathed an ever so slight sight of relief knowing that Sansa made it safely to the Eyrie on Game of Thrones. Well, you know, as safely as you arrive anywhere while traveling with Westeros’ most notorious pimp, who kind of seems like he’s in love with you, but also keeps calling you by your dead mom’s name. But I’m also an avid deconstructor of teaser trailers, and catching a glimpse of Crazy Aunt Lysa dangling Sansa’s auburn Tully locks over that gaping hole in their throne room quickly evaporated any sense of safety for the eldest Stark daughter. Just like Sansa, I'll probably never learn. Let’s look to the books to see how Sansa might fair in her own personal trial by combat with Auntie Lysa and gravity.

Though Sansa has point-of-view chapters all throughout the third novel in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice, on which this season is based, her individual story, doesn’t really pick up until she’s left King’s Landing with Peter Baelish, aka, Littlefinger. Last week, we saw Sansa arrive in the Vale to find out that she would need to pretend to be “Alayne Snow,” Littlefinger’s niece, and that they would be traveling to the Eyrie for him to wed her Aunt Lysa. A wedding — how delightful, right?! Wrong. After waving a bunch of delicious lemon cakes in front of Sansa’a face, Lysa freaks out on her niece, telling her that she knows who Sansa is, she knows Littlefinger always loved her sister—Sansa’s mother Catelyn—more than her, and questioning why Littlefinger is now so obsessed with helping her daughter. Sansa’s all, “I DON’T KNOW WHY HE’S SO OBSESSED WITH ME!” (But really, she’s all, **tears, tears, tears** “He tells me I’m a stupid girl with stupid dreams, who never learns, and is a terrible liar!” Oh, sweet thing —she is learning.)

Lysa settles the hell down, and once convinced that Sansa has never had sex with Littlefinger or any of her other various betrothed, she tells her not to fret…she’ll be able to marry her gross, breastfeeding, slightly homicidal little cousin, Robin, as soon as her current husband, Tyrion, is executed. A true Westerosi romance! So what takes Sansa from Lysa’s intended daughter-in-law, to her intended Moon-Door-sacrifice, as shown in the Episode 7 trailer?

**Spoilers ahead from Sansa’s storyline in A Storm of Swords**

It seems that Sansa’ storyline from the latter half of Game of Thrones is being sped up dramatically, and might just reach its climax this Sunday. As we know from the A Storm of Swords, Sansa feels not quite at home in the Eryie, what, with the potential pedophile trying to keep her safe for ambiguous reasons at best, and one of the few living family members she has left seeming to think she’s trying to sleep with her husband, that very potential pedophile. We’re reminded that Sansa is really just a girl when she gets homesick and begins building a snow replica of Winterfell in the Eyrie’s courtyard.

The scene shown in the teaser trailer for Episode 7 appears to be when Littlefinger finds her building tha castle and lends a hand. Oh yeah, and he kisses her… sort of. It’s not really that bad — or, not as bad as it could be, considering all the leering that guy does. Unfortunately, Lysa witnesses the kiss from her window. Cue the jealous rage, enter Moon Door stage right.

Unless Sunday’s episode ends on the literal cliffhanger of Lysa dangling her niece over the Moon Door, plan to see the next development in “Sansa’s Life is Non-Stop Out of Her Own Hands.” Littlefinger arrives in the throne room just in time to save Sansa, and calms Lysa down by assuring her he’s only ever loved one woman...“Only Cat," and boom, he boots Lysa out the Moon Door, with Sansa safely traumatized behind him. And that’s where Sansa’ story ends in A Storm of Swords, so it would seem Episode 7 is a little early to wrap everything up. But given Littlefinger’s last line to her in the trailer, it seems he’s talking her down from witnessing her aunt be murdered by her savior, rather than settling her into 8 Simple Rules to Not Getting Murdered By Your Aunt in the Eyrie.

“Given the opportunity, what do we do to those who hurt the ones we love?” Methinks it’s not “let them live, because we’re fair and non-vengeful people.”

Image: HBO