Here's Something I Never Understood. How Can Sansa Be The Smartest Character In The Series When Dany

Here's something I never understood. How can Sansa be the smartest character in the series when Dany was able to figure out Xaro Xhoan Daxos was gay just by his actions but Sansa couldn't figure out the same of Loras Tyrell?

CHECK. MATE.

I haven’t read the books but I always see those 2 quotes “ghost wolf big as mountains” and “in the distance a wolf howled, it made her feel sad and lonely but no less hungry.” Why do Sansa and Dany both hear Jon die? Why not just Dany or just Sansa? Why both? Why either of them at all? How come Arya and Bran don’t hear it? Especially bc Sansa has no connection with animals or warging.

Oh no, no, anon. The howl Sansa hears happens an entire book before Jon’s death. In other words…

Sansa did not hear Ghost howl.

How am I so certain? Ghost doesn’t howl.:

Benjen: A very quiet wolf.Jon: He’s not like the others. He never makes a sound. That’s why I named him Ghost. That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey or black.

Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever. Will he howl for me when I’m dead, as Bran’s wolf howled when he fell?

He found Ghost atop the hill, as he thought he might. The white wolf never howled.

Ghost doesn’t howl. He’s silent. Sansa heard the howl in A Feast for Crows, which is one full book before Jon dies in A Dance with Dragons. And that is important. Because Ghost does not howl on his own, it is implied that he howled for Jon upon his death, probably because Jon warged into him with his last moments on earth:

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered.

Yet… Daenerys did hear Ghost howl.

I know, I know, Ghost doesn’t howl. Not on his own, anyway… What Daenerys heard was likely a plea from a dying skinchanger. And oh, is this a fun tale! One of my favorites.

First of all, the timing matches up. Twenty-five pages after Jon is killed, Daenerys hears a wolf howl that made her feel sad and lonely.

At the time, Daenerys is in the Dothraki Sea, a world away from Jon. There aren’t really wolves native to the area, so we can rule those out.

Out in the plains, Daenerys is having trouble finding food. What she does find are some strange green berries that end up giving her some trippy visions and a very graphic depiction of a loose bowel movement (poor Dany).

These two symptoms paired together sound a lot like a drug here on earth, Ayahuasca:

“The psychedelic effects of ayahuasca include visual and auditory stimulation, the mixing of sensory modalities, and psychological introspection that may lead to great elation, fear, or illumination. Its purgative properties are important (known as la purga or “the purge”). The intense vomiting and occasional diarrhea it induces…“

The psychoactive ingredient in Ayahuasca is dimethyltryptamine (DMT):

“Rick Strassman has theorised that the human pineal gland is capable of producing the hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) under certain circumstances. In 2013 he and other researchers first reported DMT in the pineal gland microdialysate of rodents.”

…The pineal gland.

“The pineal gland represents a kind of atrophied photoreceptor.In the epithalamus of some species of amphibians and reptiles, it is linked to a light-sensing organ, known as the parietal eye, which is also called the pineal eye or third eye.”

Through the use of these berries (which seem to have a lot in common with Ayahuasca), Daenerys might’ve ’opened her third eye’.

Bran Stark gives us an important clue about third eyes:

“Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.”

What makes this so intriguing is that, like Bran, Daenerys is also a skinchanger. It’s subtle, but the proof is there in the first book:

“The slightest pressure with her legs, the lightest touch on the reins, and the filly responded. She sent it into a gallop, and now the Dothraki were hooting and laughing and shouting at her as they jumped out of her way. A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she gave the filly her head. The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.”

From the Wiki:

“An untrained skinchanger may unconsciously enter the mind of an animal.”

and

“The interaction between the skinchanger’s and animal’s minds influence both personalities.”

Dany suddenly found a ‘daring she had never known’, likely from bonding with her horse.

Lastly… (and this is my favorite part)

This is a controversial theory, but the berries she ate might’ve caused a miscarriage:

“As she splashed her face, she saw fresh blood on her thighs. The ragged hem of her undertunic was stained with it. The sight of so much red frightened her. Moon blood, it’s only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow.”

And remember…

“Only death can pay for life.”

In summary: Jon dies. He wargs into Ghost. He howls as a plea for help. Daenerys hears his howl. And with her miscarriage, might’ve provided the death that will pay for Jon’s life.

If, like me, you’d like to believe that Dany and Ghost share a connection, then perhaps Jon and Drogon do, too (after all, the name Drogon in Tolkien languages translates to ‘male wolf’).

These two dark-colored dragons (Drogon and Jon) were both just stabbed. A distraught Drogon conveniently takes Daenerys right to the berries that might’ve opened up a psychic connection between Jon and Daenerys…

Anyway. This theory is way too fun so it probably can’t be true. *sighs*

"Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher's boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block. Just the sight of him was enough to make Sansa feel sick, but Arya seemed to prefer his company to hers."

^ This is Sansa's first chapter in AGOT. I'll be the first to say we shouldn't judge a child at the beginning of her arc, pre-character development. But this is Sansa's canonical view of peasants and people who aren't highborn at the start of the story.

And this is from Dany's first chapter in AGOT:

"The square brick towers of Pentos were black silhouettes outlined against the setting sun. Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo's manse."

Dany and Sansa have remarkably different upbringings, but there's no denying which character shows classist traits and which character doesn't.

Quick sketch: Dany and the lemon tree.

daenerys targaryen and daenerys targaryen martell + parallels

DAENERYS TARGARYEN APPRECIATION 2018 HOME: That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.