A Clash of Kings — Sansa III

For Robb's victories Joffrey has Sansa stripped and beaten before the court until the Imp's voice cuts through: “What sort of knight beats a girl?”

The chapter retold

For Robb’s victories in the field, Joffrey exacts payment from the sister he keeps at court as a hostage: Sansa is stripped and beaten in front of the assembled nobility, punished for a war she has no part in and cannot influence, while the court watches and does nothing. It is the cruelest scene the book has given her yet, staged specifically to humiliate rather than simply punish.

It ends only when Tyrion’s voice cuts through the room — what sort of knight beats a girl? — shaming the Kingsguard present into stopping what none of them had the courage to refuse doing in the first place. The rescue doesn’t undo the cruelty, but it does something the book takes care to register: it’s the first time anyone with real power at court has stood up publicly for Sansa, and it costs Tyrion nothing he isn’t glad to spend.

This movement: The Kraken in the Godswood

• Theon takes Winterfell with thirty men while its strength bleeds south; Ser Rodrik's rescue is betrayed by Reek.
• Bran and Rickon vanish; two miller's boys hang tarred above the gate in their place.
• A bread riot nearly eats the court; the High Septon is torn apart in the streets.
• In Qarth, the warlocks invite Dany to the House of the Undying; she walks out through fire with Drogon screaming.