ASOIAF: Are there any valid theories as to how the 'unkiss' will affect events in future books of A Song of Ice and Fire?

Not only the unreliable narrator aspect, but especially the comments by George R.R. Martin that it will eventually mean something and that it is a much more important lapse in memory than an earlier one of Sansa's.

I have my own theory/prediction but you are not going to like it.

This is going to be unpopular — but remember, this is only MY theory: the question asks for predictions and theories.

And the answer is YES there are some.

Here is one. Whether it’s ‘valid’ or not…(shrug) I haven’t had it officially approved by the Offically Authorized Theory Validators or anything. Until GRRM writes it, it is pretty much my own story. I think it would make a good one.

Anyway, I developed this theory because a couple of years ago I asked myself the very question that the question here is posing…and this is just the narrative I came up with. I haven’t come up with another. Maybe someone else has.

Sansa and the Hound and the Unkiss that Binds Them Theory

1. WE know the Hound is on the Quiet Isle. I mean, we knew already, but Season 6 has confirmed it for the few stubborn hold outs there were.
2. I believe that the Elder Brother might have been one of the three knights that met with Littlefinger in A Feast for Crows. (One of them, if you remember, was Shadrich, who we know is searching for Sansa for Varys. Another one of them, though, physically kind of matches the Elder Brother— though he had a stubbled head, not a bald head. Fun fact: when you stop shaving your head, you develop stubble.
3. Whether the above be true or not, I firmly believe that Sandor Clegane will attempt to rescue Sansa. He loves her in a way; and he will be looking for his own redemption. And I think there is some Beauty and the Beast tale that GRRM is playing with with Sandor and Sansa…but, you know, subverted.
4. Here is the catch: Sandor Clegane’s rescue attempt will not succeed. Because of Sansa, perhaps: because she is mooning over Harry the Heir, or maybe because she will have just been Stockholm Syndrome-d by Littlefinger..
5. Sansa is going to remember something that didn’t happen. But it is not going to be a kiss. Her false memory will have blossomed.
6. It’s going to be a rape she remembers. Maybe it will be planted there by LIttlefinger…maybe it will come up on its own.

And there will be fall out…for the Hound, certainly. And I think ultimately this is going to somehow lead to Sansa’s doom.

(Then the Hound will be sent in chains to King’s Landing. For Cleganebowl, of course.)

The memory is false of course: Clegane says to Arya I should have fucked her bloody! Implying that he didn’t.

It may be that the idea will be suggested to Sansa by one of her captors…and her fertile imagination will take over from there.

But who are the nobles of the Vale going to believe? A vicious monstrous thug? Or a traumatized beautiful little girl with tears in her eyes, the descendant of kings, the distant relative of the Royces and Lysa Arryn’s own niece?

My theory is that the unkiss shows that Sansa is becoming a little unhinged due to the massive, long-term stress she is under; and her all-too-willing eagerness to disassociate with reality sometimes.

Now I love Sansa, as my many posts in support of her indicate. I hope that she ends up the badass Queen with a heart of gold that some of us root for. But her story may not be the triumphant one we wish it to be.

Written November 9