It has been brought to light by Entertainment Weekly that in an audio commentary on the upcoming Game of Thrones season 5 DVD/Blu-ray box set, screenwriter Bryan Cogman offers some explanation on a scene that has proven controversial in fan circles.
This is the first time someone so closely associated with the creation of the show has spoken publicly about the scene.
Commentating on episode 506, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” along with Maisie Williams and Tom Wlaschiha, Bryan gives some very heartfelt words in defense of the scene in which Ramsay rapes Sansa on their wedding night, while Reek is forced to watch:
I think it’s important to talk about because of the response this storyline got. It’s sort of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’ If you don’t talk about it, people think you’re ashamed of it; if you do talk about it, everything you say is taken out of context. Basically, when we decided to combine Sansa’s storyline with another character in the books it was done with the idea that it would be hugely dramatically satisfying to have Sansa back in her occupied childhood home and navigate this Gothic horror story she’s found herself in and, of course, to be reunited with Theon – setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story. That said, when we decided we were going to do that we were faced with the question: If she’s marrying Ramsay, what would happen on her wedding night? And we made the decision to not shy away from what would realistically would happen on that wedding night with these two characters, and the reality of the situation, and the reality of this particular world.
To the suggestion that Sansa should have attempted to kill Ramsay, Bryan has the following to say:
Yes, it would have been hugely satisfying [for Sansa] to have a shiv up her sleeve and gut Ramsay, but that’s not Sansa. We can’t all be Arya and, in fact, most people aren’t Arya. Most people in that situation, they have to play a longer game. She goes [into the marriage] without the right information about Ramsay, she gets the sense that he’s dangerous, and when he turns out to be even worse than she thought, she’s not broken by the attack, she immediately sets to getting the hell out of there and planning her next move.
According to EW, he becomes quite emotional at one point, and wants there to be no misunderstandings about his intentions with the scene:
It was a very difficult scene for me to write. I’ve known Sophie since she was a kid… I think it was the attack on our motives behind it that upset me. Because I love these characters. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade with these characters, and I love these actors – I’m getting emotional talking about it – I love Sophie, I love Alfie, I love [Maisie] and it’s … very personal to me and it’s not an easy thing to put a character that I love through a scene like this.
Another argument – and I get why this criticism was leveled at us – is idea that we took Sansa’s story away from her and made it all about Theon. I personally don’t believe that’s the case … Certainly Theon’s redemption journey is an element of the subplot. But if you really watch this scene it’s played from Sansa’s viewpoint, for the most part. The main reason we cut away at the end, frankly, is that this was Sophie’s first scene of this nature, and we didn’t want to show the attack. And so we cut to Theon to hear the attack. I understand why many people reacted to that, [thinking] we were making this scene about Theon and not Sansa. I’m sorry it was viewed that way. All I can say is it’s certainly not my intention when I wrote it or when we were producing it … We could have stayed on her face of the entirety of the attack, that would have been a perfectly valid choice. To me it was about being respectful to Sophie.
It’s an upsetting scene, it’s a horrifying scene, it’s meant to be … [But] the accusation that our motives were [that we] just threw in a rape for shock value, I personally don’t think the scene as shot, or as written, or as acted by our wonderful actors, supports that argument. Nor do I think the aftermath of the scene supports that argument. Not only in these episodes, but also in future episodes. This story is not over. This is a long ongoing story. Sansa has a journey ahead of her, and what happens to her in that room is a huge part of that journey, and one that we’ve thought through.
Maisie Williams also made sure to voice her support of the decision made by Bryan, director Jeremy Podeswa, and the other showrunners:
It’s important to have your say openly and honestly, and not just through headlines and Twitter and things like that… there is so much more to the whole sequence than people are allowing.
She also spoke to EW, informing them that:
[Bryan] was really sad, he was heartbroken. He loves these characters and all the actors on the show.
Have Bryan’s words coloured your perception of the scene in a different light? Please ensure you discuss the topic civilly.
Hodor!!!
Good for you B Cog. UUU was a brilliant episode and one of my all time favorites.
Kudos to BC, but I generally dislike the justification of art. Let it flow, divide and conquer.
This was very much needed, at least for some people. There can be disagreements about how well they executed the scene and the plotline, but to say it was inserted purely for shock value or because they’re sadists is just insulting and absurd.
Seriously. Imagine them filming it as it is in the books.
“Gets comment in before The Dragon Demands”.
I don’t personally want to retread ground (again), but the Gothic element of that storyline that Cogman touches on was exceptionally done and really came across. I love Gothic literature and film, so I loved how Gothic the atmosphere was in the scenes.
One wonders how long it will be before people start twisting their words.
Hmmm. Does he mean just emotionally/mentally? Or….is he referring to something else too?
That was a much nicer response than when he told a fan to “fuck off” when she asked about it online.
The issue is framed in the narrowest possible focus here, i.e., if Sansa ended up married to Ramsay and in a room with him on the verge of consummation, this is what would logically happen. Variations of that, such as the question of why she didn’t stab him (which wouldn’t any sense, I agree) , don’t address the real issue, which is why the writers felt that Ramsay getting a bride to rape while Theon watches was the only aspect of the entire story that could not change, even when they were changing everything else about the scenario, including the POV (as they see it), the motives of the parties, the follow-up, etc. Indeed, that’s really the only part of the ADWD Theon story that kept.
“Have Bryan’s words coloured your perception of the scene in a different light?”
No. In fact, his words just confirm my thinking. I thought the scene was well-written, well-shot, and handled with appropriate care, especially given what was going on in the scene. I am glad, however, he defended his choices, especially against those who, in a very, very unfortunate turn (imo), chose to levy some really foul and, again, imo, perverted accusations, such as they were chomping at the bit to have Sophie turn 18 so they could have her character raped, as though they derived some sort of sick pleasure from it.
Keep kickin’ ass and takin’ names, Mr. Cogman!
I never really cared about the argument of ‘on whose face the camera is’. And the ‘the rape was just for shock value’ is frankly ridiculous. But personally, I think that where Cogman went wrong is with the statement that
This is, for me, a strawman, because it completely avoids the possibility that she did not have to kill him, but she could have been more consciously manipulating of him, in accordance with her S4 development.
In other words, if he tried to write this
then I can only say I understand his intent, but by me, he failed.
Judibatt,
Do you have a link to this? I’m sure some context would shed some light on his response.
It did not change my perception of the scene, it validated it. I felt from the first viewing that it was a nightmare that Sansa was going through and would continue to go through, but I expected absolutely nothing less from Ramsay. The actors did a great job, especially Alfie as the witness to this horrid act.
Thank you Mr. Cogman for sticking to what you do best and make great shows for us to enjoy. Forget about the haters, they are going to hate no matter what. Many more do appreciate what you do and the brilliant way you do it.
Yes Sir Amen to This
They really shouldn’t need to justify their creative decisions. It’s their show, they can do whatever the hell they like with it! It’s just this ridiculous new media “environment” we live in that “demands” answers like this. Some people are always going to be offended and outraged, even in response to TV shows which feature entirely artificial scenarios and characters. “Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken” was one of the strongest episodes of the entire series; the wedding sequence is particularly spellbinding. I hope Cogman remains a part of the GoT team for the foreseeable future, always love his episodes!
I’m glad they finally got a chance to explain their creative decision. Like Cogman said, when they main the decision to have Sansa marry Ramsay they had to have that scene since it is a realistic outcome to the situation. The main reason the scene got the reaction it got was because we have been with Sansa for 5 seasons and that gave a different emotional impact than when Dany was raped in the pilot(yes, I know different situation and characters). We won’t be able to judge Sansa’s S5 story line accurately until we find out what her book story line is and what was replaced.
I think it’s one of those things where you can agree/disagree with whether or not their storyline decisions reflected their intentions for the overall story well enough. But this commentary clearly has the markings of someone who felt they had to desperately defend themselves against some more rank and disturbing accusations flung their way (accusations which I think were completely unfair and baseless) so I’m feeling for Cogman in that regard, most certainly.
I’ve always thought the scene itself was both written and executed very well.
I didn’t have a gripe against that rape scene like some other people have. Like most crazy scenes in the series so far, we often accept it and move on and forget there even was such a scene until we come back to it to find it less intense and more part of the show.
I already accepted the scene because of the fact that I knew the show adaptation wouldn’t be as accurate as the books because of time constraint and budget reasons–especially knowing that the novel contains too much content to even adapt every single tidbit of it.
However, if there’s one scene to choose that wasn’t too much of a hit for me, it’ll have to be the mid-plot point of the Sand Snakes (where the outdoor action takes place and how at that moment they just happen to luckily stumble on Jaime and Bronn). Thankfully that’s easily watchable and forgivable for how it’s only a fraction of the whole of season. We somewhat forget that by the end.
Glad to finally know the initial thoughts and opinions on the rape scene on their end~
I’m well bored from reading about that ‘controversial’ episode. Why were people so upset by it when the show has actually shown rape and violence already?
In my eyes, Season 5 got stick because quite a lot of people just didn’t like how popular Game of Thrones had become and just decided to slate it. Every single scene and character was discected to find fault. That’s how it seemed to me anyway.
The Walking Dead is consistently bad week after week, yet all I see is ‘BEST EPISODE/SERIES EVAR!’ and summet about Daryl.
Sansa’s story in the series not only makes more sense than Jeyne Poole’s story in the books, it’s also so much more dramatic. In fact fan reaction illustrates that point more than anything.
The abuse and type of sexual assaults Jeyne was put through by Martin in his books affected readers, but no one called for his head. Sansa’s abuse was MUCH milder on the show and people lost their minds.
Many of those who were so angered are admittedly sullied, who’ve experienced both versions of the story. Why would they be so opposed to the milder scenes in one format, and so open to the much more violent scenes in the other? The only difference is the character involved and therein lies the answer.
Judibatt,
He’s under no obligation to be overly nice to people on twitter who are being nasty to him, as they were being. Not sure why there are some who think famous people are required to take verbal abuse from everyone.
“Certainly Theon’s redemption journey is an element of the subplot…”
Brb, gonna go huddle myself in a corner, clutching my copy of ADWD and proceeding to have a big ol’ cry.
Nah but mostly, I think it’s a great interview. I sympathise with him on the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing”, so I don’t wanna focus on one thing that bothers me. I think Cogman did very well with these questions. I wouldn’t want to be a script-writer on a show with a book following as big as this one’s.
I know that Cogman has the best interest of the story at heart, but this doesn’t change my opinion that they should have reconsidered Sansa’s whole S5 arc rather than going in this direction in the first place, or figured out a different way of playing out her stay at Winterfell. It’s too bad that he felt enough pressure to feel the need to explain the scene at such length, but the narrative decisions they make will get a fan reaction one way or the other, and you can’t ever please everyone.
In that particular scene, the cutaway to Theon’s face was a bit of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” moment. If you cut away from Sansa’s face to Theon’s while she’s being raped, you’re making a traumatic moment for a female character all about some guy’s manpain. If you don’t, you’re voyeuristically lingering on the face of a barely legal female actor as she simulates being violently penetrated. There were third options (cutting to a shot of some other part of the room while Sansa’s cries, etc. can be heard offscreen), but I can see why they went with the lesser of two evils in cutting to Theon’s face.
Assuming Cogman is telling the truth about Sansa’s rape being a huge part of her journey going forward and not just blowing smoke, what could he mean? Sansa swearing off marriage, maybe? I don’t think a Sansa pregnancy is likely, because Cogman sort of made it sound as if going through with the rape was a deliberate choice made by the writers as opposed to something mandated by plot requirements.
That is what I was going to say. Imagine what they would would have done. Show watchers got off easy in a way, as horrible as it still was.
Good for him for addressing this. Now I’m sure everyone can understand the situation and let it rest, since he’s given the explanation so many were demanding.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oh god, I almost convinced myself, hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha.
Don’t think I’ll subscribe to this one, as the notifications will consume my inbox. But I’m happy he talked about the reality of the scene and consideration of all involved. 🙂
I admire Mr. Cogman’s work a lot and I’m sorry he had been annoyed with rude remarks and acusations. Imo he gave an honest and dignified answer, but it’s a shame he had to justify his vision.
To be honest, this has not done anything to hange my perception that the scene and overall plot line at Winterfell was a terrible idea in the first place. I’ve read the books, but I’m not a purist. I love a lot of the changes they make. But having Sansa being raped was stupid. To me the scene was beautifully filmed until the end where they made it about Theon’s pain and not hers. The whole storyline undercuts her character, and butchers Littlefinger as well. But probably the biggest crime is that the whole storyline destroys Theon’s arc as well. Theon in the books is the main character of the Winterfell storyline. It’s about his redemption, his redemption in attempting to save Jeyne and escape Ramsay’s influence. I get that they did that on the show, but honestly it just felt rushed and it did not develop his character. I think the biggest crime was thenshowrunners making that storyline about Ramsay. Thy even confirmed this in a news article – sorry I forgot which one if someone demands a link.
Also, while season 5 was my least favourite season, I still enjoyed a lot about each episode. UNBOWED, UNBENT, UNBROKEN was the only episode that felt so, so off and unfocused and not natural to what we expect.
If had been writing the season, I would have left Sophie Turner like Isaac and then next season, reveal her as this changed, smart and Littlfinger-like character who can use her charm to further her situation. Then She and Littlefinger could have arrived with the Vale forces and defeated the Boltons with Jon and the wildling and the other northern lords. As Lady of the North, she could have ordered the death of the Bolton traitors and affirmed her position as ruler of the North.
Wow. Most comments so far are level headed. Kind of amazed.
Also by the way man pain isn’t a thing. Both sexes feel pain but continue to try to divide us.
Where is the “like” button?
Sean C.,
Exactly.
The fact is they changed everything else but kept the wedding night rape. And the only logical conclusion is that that particular event was the only part from the story they felt worthy of adaptation.
What does that say about them?
Good Lord!!! Now THIS is a topic I want to discuss. But damn it all to hell if I’m not at work right now. *Booooo* Will have to come back. But I mean…besides the giant rape elephant in the room…did anyone else catch:
“…setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story…”
Like, we need to discuss THAT little titbit as well, cause things are looking on the up and up! Because as of where we sit right now, these things haven’t happened.
Her story shouldn’t of been merged with Jeyne Poole’s in the first place. I found that arc more tragic considering she’s just a meaningless charade, shoe horning Sansa into that scenario just felt like a shock tactic to me.
Oh well, the damage has already been done.
Noel,
We have no idea what Sansa’s TWOW story line is. We don’t know that she will end up Littlefinger like and charming or whatever. Sounds more like you want Sansa to become some manipulating smart leader, but you don’t want her to go through any adversity to get there. Character development isn’t like a video game RPG where it is always improving and going in one directon. What would you do about Jeyne? You cant just leave out the Ramsay marriage storyline since it is so critical to the entire North story and even includes characters like Jon and Stannis. Jeyne is never mentioned in the show and you cannot just have her come out of nowhere in the 5th season and to try to give her all of this back story.
I feel way too many conflicting emotions about this scene to be coherent.
So I will just say, my opinion depends entirely on what Sansa’s storyline is next season. It’s not yet clear to me that they had to have her marry Ramsay, that it was necessary to where her arc goes. And if it wasn’t ESSENTIAL, then yes, that entire plot was merely done for shock. And rape for shock value is one of the most despicable plot devices you can you.
True and choosing to cut to Theon for me, didn’t make it feel like it was all about Theon. For me, him having to watch a girl he had felt brotherly established a reconnection between the two of them. He was horrified that she was being tormented now, putting them in the same boat so to speak. She is ultimately what pulls Reek and Theon apart, allowing Theon to resurface. And I’ve always seen her victimization as something that will, like so many other women, give her two choices. Give up, be submissive, not able to handle the effects of your abuse, or gather the strength to fight back in some way shape or form. And with Sansa I believe we are going to see the latter, which will be monumantal for her character, and will show the strength and courage women can embody when faced with dire circumstances.
He has to consult with Lindaario no doubt before he can delight us with his opinion.
Sorry, but I’m not moved by his tears. It would have been far more interesting to show Sansa manipulate Ramsay based on what she has learned from Littlefinger, Cersei, and Margaery. She might have had to do some weird things, but at least her character wouldn’t have regressed. A series of interactions between them that were similar to those between Margaery and Joffrey, for example, would have also shown how much Sansa has grown as a character and how she’s learning to play the game, instead of victimizing her again and again.
I would have probably been ‘ok’ with this character arc if they didn’t cough up rape or attempted rape scenes every season for no reason (see: Meera, Gilly). It’s just lazy writing and unnecessary at this point. I love this show, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with every decision they make. Hopefully they redeem themselves next season, but I’m not holding my breath.
Al Swearengen,
What damage has been done?
And if Sansa doesn’t get raped in the next book, I will eat my hat.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
I can try and find it again but I think he should have just said this in the beginning. It was a tweet or whatever so I don’t know the expiration date on those things. I can look. It has been months though.
Syrio,
They had to keep the rape since it would have been out of character for it not to happen. Theon needed to witness it since it shows the power that Ramsay has over him and give Theon more character motivation to help Sansa at the end of the season. It makes Theon’s character development more efficient and natural, whereas in the books GRRM almost underlines Theon’s character development by having widlings there to essentially force him to help Jeyne.
Jon Snow’s Curling Iron,
Sansa tried to manipulate Ramsay and may have done so when it comes to Walda’s baby.
I’m going to get a opinion on here that seems to be pretty rare:
Yes, the show has a rape problem (the scenes at Craster’s Keep in season 4) but I think this one was actually the best instances of handling rape. It wasn’t only about the rapist (again scenes at Craster’s) and it actually showed Sansa being traumatized but not completely ruined. Furthermore, the scene was intended to be a rape scene and not something that looked like rape but maybe wasn’t intentional so it felt weird character development wise (you know what I’m talking about). Nor romanticized it rape (Daeny in season 1). It isn’t perfect in this regard (the only show that can claim that is Marvel’s Jessica Jones) but overall the story-line felt pretty good to me.
I’m giving the writers the benefit of the doubt because one can’t really judge the story until this arc is completely finished.
Pancakes,
I wouldn’t call it manipulation as much as rubbing salt in the wound, since he was obviously upset by the pregnancy. Plus, Ramsay still had the upper hand in that scene at the end. Nonetheless, I was still happy she said it and everyone in my viewing party cheered.
Brandon,
It would have been out of character for LF to leave Sansa with the Boltons, it would have been out of character for Sansa to agree to marry Ramsey. Being out of character does not seem a problem for the writers as long as they are catalysts to the end goal of Sansa being raped by Ramsey.
And yes it was done for shock value, Cogman is either lying to us or lying to himself about that.
I can understand why he waited. With the complete meltdowns that were happening in the immediate aftermath of the episode being shown, I think anything that was said would have fallen on completely deaf ears. There are some who will never change their view of that scene, but I’ve seen a lot of people who were really upset at first, who after some time, calmed down about it, at least to some extent.
As far as looking for that particular tweet, forgive me if I took your post the wrong way, but it read to me like you were saying someone just simply made an inquiry about the scene, and he got rude with them. Given some of what I read after that episode, my strong suspicion is it wasn’t just an inquiry, but one in a number of pretty vile attacks.
Sean C.,
They kept the marriage to Ramsay aspect. They needed to keep that aspect because the only reason for Sansa to be in Winterfell would be to marry Ramsay. The only way to avoid what happened would be to delay the marriage the entire season.
Syrio,
I disagree on both. So you think the writers sat in a room and said ” Lets have Sansa get raped and lets see how we can manipulate the entire story to fit that”? Lol, get real. LF has a plan to take the North and it is working. Nothing he did was out of character. So you know the writers better than they do? You’re guilty of what you are accusing them of doing.
Sue the Fury,
I agree and I cannot find it online. I keep running in to articles that explain why Cogman left twitter. Being famous does not mean you are either impenetrable or deserving of personal attacks.
I just think a response like this above could have been better several months ago. I don’t need it, but clearly others do.
Good, I hate so much the “shock value” argument…in the books you have dogs, c’mon, DOGS!, that’s subtle.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
No prob 🙂
Brandon,
“Lol” is not an argument.
Try again.
As always, Mr. Cogman’s work was well done. My complaint was the basic change to both Sansa’s and Theon’s characters. It seems that D&D made a decision to not do justice to either storyline. And one suggestion – run sensitive scenes like this by at least one woman during the writing process. Think they would have been better off in many aspects for the long run. Having said this, I realize the book story and the show story are not the same and don’t have a problem with that.
Good for Mr Cogman, the sansa story arc was one of my favorite parts of season 5.
Wasn’t really necessary for him to talk about it like this, but I enjoyed reading thought process.
Can’t wait to see where sansa goes in season 6, should be interesting to see her story.
Brandon,
I agree. Ramsay doesn’t seem the type to show up on his wedding night with candlelight, wine and roses. If they were in it for the shock value, they would have played out the book version. Just thank God they didn’t go there.
Nope, seeing it through Alfie’s emotions was plenty.
Sullied by Knight,
” If they were in it for the shock value, they would have played out the book version. Just thank God they didn’t go there”
You read the book. You came out of it ok. Thank god
Syrio,
Your statement is so ridiculous that all I could do was laugh. They are not changing the entire story so one scene can have “shock value” when there are so many other scenes that have shock value. The scene was not done for 100% shock value unless your saying that GRRM is guilty of this too since his scene has even more shock value. Give me one reason why this was done for 100% shock value, because I haven’t heard it. I have given arguments for why the scene had to happen when they made the decision to have Sansa go to Winterfell and marry Ramsay. If you want to argue that Sansa should never have gone to Winterfell that’s fine, but we have no idea what her TWOW story line is. For all we know, Sansa’s TWOW story line is going to be worse than the show story line.
Cosine,
I was going to say the exact same thing.
Brandon,
Why do you need to compare it to the book?
Meh, also because some of them fanboys are incapable of finding any faults in their beloved books and its author. It’s way easier to throw tomatoes at the “inferior” TV adaptation.
Brandon,
Ramsey/Sansa/LSH Devil’s Tricycle.
Deesensfan,
Because Sansa’s S5 story line was heavily criticized but we don’t know what got replaced by having Sansa go to Winterfell and marry Ramsay. Did the writers make a better decision by having her interact with other known characters rather than another subplot with 10 new (boring) characters? What happens at the end of the Vale story line that gets Sansa to the North? People say that the writers were stupid for changing her story line, but we won’t know until TWOW comes out.
Noel,
Definitely disagree here
Not having Sansa and bran in one season? Two Starks? definitely not
I haven’t read the books but I hear Sansa has barely any material in the books during that time
Sooo glad that they changed that and sent her to winterfell. Excellent idea. I think, based on conversations I’ve had with people. Starks are a big part of the show, definitely much bigger than theon – to show only / casual fans
Re: this episode. I LOVED it. One of my all time favourite episodes, especially the wedding. Yes I was sad for her and what happened , but I also remembered that this is FICTION lol. It was so beautifully shot and directed and I didn’t think for once they made it about theons suffering, in fact, it showed me that behind reek, he defintely still cares for Sansa and made me hope that he will help her out, all the while feeling sad hearing Sansa screaming.
Also, I really really don’t think that he or any of the show runners need to defend themselves or decisions they make
Jesus, this is one of the best shows to ever grace our tvs!
And finally, I had no idea about the insults and name calling that were directed towards the show runners were that bad? That’s just terrible
The fact remains very simple. They jumped through a ton of logical hoops, made 2 characters act completely out of character, just so they can insert Sansa in a place where it would be “in character” for her to be raped.
That’s why a defense of “well it’s in character for Ramsay to rape her” doesn’t work. Why is that the only character consistency they care about maintaining?
“That said, when we decided we were going to do that we were faced with the question: If she’s marrying Ramsay, what would happen on her wedding night? And we made the decision to not shy away from what would realistically would happen on that wedding night with these two characters, and the reality of the situation, and the reality of this particular world.”
So despite the fact that sansa marrying ramsey doesn’t make any logical or realistic sense at all, when it came to the actual wedding night being realistic was all that mattered? got it.
Brandon,
I feel like they should be assessed separately to be honest
But yeah, if you wanna compare for fun, then I get it.
I haven’t read the books so that’s why I asked
Jon Snow’s Curling Iron,
Also I would point to the scene where Myranda is washing Sansa’s hair. While Sansa doesn’t maniulate Myranda she does show power over her by deducing that she is in love with Ramsay. I too would have preferred some more manipulation on Sansa’s part, but I think Ramsay is a guy that is pretty damn tough to manipulate.
brown ben romney,
How didn’t it make sense for her to marry Ramsay? In the show, it made
Lots of sense!!!
Dazzatron221b,
This so much.
Syrio,
If Ramsay didn’t rape Sansa I would have been shocked
Also, what about all the violence towards theon? Where is all the outrage
My problem has never been with the decision to focus on Theon’s face (it was an atypical bit of restraint on the show’s part) or with what they had Ramsay do given that Sansa married him. It has always been with the bizarre decision on Sansa’s part to deliver herself into the hands of people she knows to be despicable enemies of her family. Littlefinger used underpants-gnomes logic to convince her, and the character should be smarter than that (particularly when it comes to trusting him).
Unreasonable people won’t care what he says. They’ll just twist his words to validate their unreasonable outrage. Mind you, I was one of the people who really hated (and still hate) the decision to have Sansa be there AT ALL… but the scene bothers me from a story-telling perspective because Sansa shouldn’t be there. The idea that they couldn’t introduce Fake-Arya is something I don’t buy.
But the idea that the show runners, director, writer, and anyone else were careless with the scene, I find just as ridiculous as the decision to have Sansa in Winterfell.
JCDavis,
This
Deesensfan,
Sadly some people even feel the need to call D&D Dumb and Dumber, shows how mature some of these people are XD
Also besides the writing, acting, and Directing, The wedding had a breathtaking score that just sealed the whole package, really brilliant material. The whole scene felt like a really dark fairy tail, I really enjoyed the wedding.
Syrio,
So you think that the writers hate Sansa so much and wanted her to get raped so badly that they would greatly alter the entire Northern story line just to do it? That is absolutely absurd. If the rape scene was 100% shock value they could have done so many things different to give us even more shock. I do not think that it was out of character for either LF or Sansa. Lets just agree to disagree. You clearly have this idea in your head the writers hate Sansa and want to get raped for 100% shock value and are willing to alter the entire Northern story line that intertwines with so many different characters and other story lines to make sure that one scene in the 5th season happens and has “shock value only”. I don’t think there is anything that anybody could say to convince you different since you claim that Cogman is a liar and that anybody who attempts to argue with you is wrong.
While it may be your opinion (and the opinion of some others, too) they jumped through logical hoops and LF and Sansa acted completely out of character, not everyone shares that opinion.
I’m one of those people to whom it didn’t make sense. Could you explain? She wasn’t getting closer to the Boltons in order to kill any of them, since she didn’t even attempt that. If Stannis was expected to defeat Ramsay, she could have waited for that to happen elsewhere and then reappeared.
Totally agree
rape for shock value?
Murder for shock value?
Penis being cut off for shock value?
Edit: BURNING A CHILD
Come on, it’s a fictional tv show with lots of violence
Ugh
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions of how this scene affected them , I know that, but I hate seeing comments where people think they know more than the show creators or what thei intentions were for a particular scene or story line
Just sit back, relax, and watch the show.
Littlefinger didn’t tell her the truth of where they were headed until they were on the road in the middle of nowhere. I touched on this a few months ago, in a similar conversation. My point was, what the heck was she supposed to do under those circumstances? Oppose sneaky Lord Baelish? on an empty road in the middle of nowhere? He said he wouldn’t force her to marry him, but if he was honorable in the first place, he wouldn’t have sprung the idea on her at the last minute where she had no choice.
FictionIsntReal,
But what would she have done for all of season 5? And then reappear in season 6?
I am assuming season 6 for Sansa will have her remain in the north and around winterfell and attempt to get it back somehow. So it makes sense that she was married to Ramsay ,in her old home, finds out that “the north remembers”, and that the Starks have support on the north still, finds out her brother is lord commander, finds out her two other brothers are still alive, escapes, and does something about it and her situation-like going to find her brothers or something if that nature
If she gets back to the vale and LF in season 6, then yeah, season 5 story line Would have been pointless
FictionIsntReal,
LF has a plan to frame to Boltons by giving Sansa to them. LF then runs back to KL and tells Cersei that the Boltons have Sansa and are traitors and for permission to lead Vale forces to attack the winner between Boltons and Stannis. So it’s a win win for LF. Basically LF tells Sansa that by doing this she can eventually get revenge since in LF’s mind either Stannis defeats the Boltons or he does with the forces of the Vale and LF needed a reason to tell the crown why he was bringing Vale forces to the North.
Deesensfan,
It amazes me that people get so shocked and offended watching the song of ice and fire. It’s entirely about bad things happening to people you care about. If you’re so offended go back to Harry Potter
Funny he mentions not shying away from it which is exactly what they did.
I understand the argument ‘Sophie grew up with us’ but perhaps they should have just asked her if she was ok showing a little more in this scene. If she wasnt no harm done. Same with the Shireen burning… There too we didnt get to see a ‘burning’ shot while we did with Mance… I didnt mind seeing Theon’s reaction but ONLY seeing Theon’s reaction. That was quite weak. Which puts me at the different end of the spectrum clearly. As Bryan says you can never do it right with scenes like this it seems.
Matthew The Dragon knight,
I’ve never heard that either
That’s terrible
D&d may be the only ending to this story we may ever get.
I wish they would stop talking about this topic and just let it go. With season 6 looming, this discussion has become tired and boring. No matter how many explanations Cogman or anyone else gives, a certain faction of obnoxious Sansa fans/SJW/ Tumblr folks are not going to be accepting of any explanation. D&D did it for ‘shock value’ and ‘they were salivating over Sansa getting raped’ and ‘they are women haters’. I can understand Cogman being hurt by such comments but he should really learn to ignore the idiots of the GOT fandom. There’s no changing their minds. Then what’s the point in having the same discussion again and again?
I am sure the GOT threads on Westeros.org is all fired up about this comment from Cogman. They will now shred him and David and Dan to pieces for another 100 pages of vitriol and we will get long essays on why he is wrong. It’s better not to indulge them or try to explain things. The fact that pure, innocent Sansa got raped is an outrage that will never be forgiven.
More importantly, it seems like Sansa is going to reclaim Winterfell and become a major player! That’s a big clue for her future story line on the show. I doubt she is ever going to do any of that in the books. So she may end being a more significant character on the show.
Pancakes,
She doesn’t do anything with that information to gain power. The writers could have easily had Sansa try and use Myranda’s jealousy against her and cause some actual conflict between her and Ramsay. They had already set up a scene where Ramsay was annoyed by Myranda’s jealousy, but did nothing with it. Sorry I’m unconvinced. Ramsay isn’t that hard to manipulate, especially when Sansa herself sees how Roose and Ramsay’s relationship is like and notices his weak points. Instead she’s just victimized like she was on season 2.
Zeus,
Yes! This
SerNoName,
This
It is actually really sad that people behave this way.
And yeah, I agree
Let’s discuss what cogman said about her storyline in the future and being a major player!
Deesensfan,
I have faith that George will finish the books, it might not be as fast as some might want.
George will get it done on his own time 🙂
Sansa is def gonna be pregnant season 6
I’m glad that Cogman finally got an opportunity to provide his full thoughts on the scene and the subsequent fallout. I appreciated his eloquence and clear reasoning on the subject, as well as the obvious emotional burden he’s carrying. Debates about the necessity and execution of the scene will continue to persist, but – at the very least – I sincerely hope that these lazy, reductive, asinine takes asserting that Benioff, Weiss, and Cogman made a cynical, cold-blooded decision in order to achieve a requisite level of “shock value” can finally be extinguished (Probably not … but, again, I hope). If anyone reads Cogman’s words on this issue and still believes that narrative, then I really don’t know what to say to you.
My opinion on the scene hasn’t changed. From a creative perspective, I thought it was a valid choice for the writers to make, both as a realistic depiction of life in the world of Westeros and as an adaptation of the parallel storyline in the novels (which is far more brutal and – in my opinion – not handled as well, at least when it comes to the victim). From a technical perspective, I thought that the scene was executed with a remarkable level of craft, care, and sensitivity – perhaps the best that could have been achieved given the unambiguously horrific nature of the subject matter. More importantly, this story isn’t over – I have full confidence that Sansa’s storyline in Season 6 will not brush over the ordeal that she went through in Season 5, but will in fact build on those events in an organic, appropriate way.
Regarding the treatment of Theon’s arc, I generally thought it was very well-handled. I was mildly disappointed by the absence of certain beats like his confession before the heart tree, but his confession to Sansa offered a similar degree of catharsis. Alfie Allen’s magnificent performance had a great deal to do with that, of course.
You know Sansa actually watched her father be beheaded by her betrothed, right? I’m pretty sure that will would give you PTSD. I guess that doesn’t fit into the outrage agenda
SerNoName,
Given this was from the commentary that goes with the episode, and the season is about to be released on DVD, I can see why it’s come back up. I think, in the case of the commentary, it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. If there was no commentary about the scene, people would be screaming about how they don’t have the balls, blah, blah, blah, if there is commentary, the debate will rear its ugly head, again, and some, as you said, still won’t see it any differently. Still, though, while I’m sorry he felt like he had to do it, I’m glad to have a window into the thoughts behind the decisions made.
Still the most boring character (both in books and series). As boring as Sansa are maybe thechapters of Brienne, Davos and Victarion, does anybody has the same ?
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
I whole heartedly agree with your opinion.
Matthew The Dragon knight,
I hope so, just saying maybe!
Ditto that for me.
I like to refer to them as Wise (Weiss) and Brilliant (Benioff) 🙂
Some of my discomfort with the scene comes from this one interview I read where one of the show runners referenced a really great scene with Ramsey they were very excited about from ADWD. That scene being when Ramsey force Theon to be involved in the rape of farya. Who turned out to be Sansa.
Here’s the deal. If they really wanted to include that scene, why not include SOMETHING about why and how Sansa was working towards her own ends? Literally the only thing she did before she was raped was tO get an escape plan in place, and that was one where she relied on others.
I fully expected Sansa, after her last convo with LF to at least TRY any or all of the following. Now, any or all of these would likely fail, but would have given her something to do besides wait to get raped or rescued:
1. Try to seduce or mollify Ramsey in some way, such That she can put off being raped.
2. Convince Roose to put off the marraige for some
Reason, such as needing northern lords there, or needing their consent to rule successfully.
3. Somehow work with the smallfolk of WF who she has known SINCE SHE WAS BORN. The old lady should have just been a start but she was an ending. Lost opportunity.
4. Negotiate behind the scene with one of many factions outside WF – she had the old lady – talk to Stannis, or Jon, or Northern Lords like the Mormonts, Glovers, etc. BE Ned Starks daughter.
In short there is a lot of distance between “wait to get raped” and “stab Ramsey”. Sansa did only the former. And it was specially annoying given the Setup from LF convo was that Sansa would actually DO something.
Jack Bauer 24,
I like that:)
First, no, that’s not the only reason for Sansa to be in Winterfell. Come up with an actual revenge plot (it doesn’t have to work, since clearly the Boltons aren’t going anywhere, but you can get a good cat-and-mouse out of it, ending with her escaping), which the show conspicuously did not do in Season 5, one of the main reasons the whole storyline doesn’t work. And even if somehow marriage was the only reason, you said it yourself: delay the marriage. There’s no reason for it to happen immediately; the Boltons make no use whatsoever of the marriage during the season. Have it scheduled for when Baelish returns, or have Sansa use her supposed player skills to delay for calling for the lords to attend (which would also be at least some sort of justification for why she thought she had to go to Winterfell, or whatever.
See, those are the kind of issues that I’d like to hear from the writers on, not why she didn’t stab Ramsay (which would have led to her being killed).
Er, not in the show’s telling. Neither Jon nor Stannis heard anything about it, and it had no impact whatsoever on their stories.
They might just be getting sansa pregnant on the show.
This.
I totally agree with this. Sansa would NEVER EVER EVER go near the Boltons or the Freys without a massive army at her back. They broke all the laws of gods and men at the RW and NOBODY trusts them now, not even their allies. The idea that Sansa would go near them is laughable and Cogman/ D&D had to of known that when they were writing s5.
It goes beyond that. It is not “Jeyne Poole’s story” in the book: it is Theon’s and only Theon’s story. Jeyne is nobody: unless you had just read Game of Thrones immediately before you read Dance with Dragons, then you never had heard of Jeyne. (I did not remember that she had been in Thrones, even though I read the first three books again over a few weeks prior to Dragons release.) The audience would have no reason to sympathize or empathize with her, beyond the horror of being some victim of Ramsay’s. Indeed, the book makes you lose sympathy for her, once you learn that Jeyne was basically a “beta bitch” who helped torment Arya.
And Theon creates the other problem He just is not significant enough of a character to continue to get an entire plotline for his storyline. So, combining Sansa’s story with Theon’s (in the sense that their story used the same plot) killed three birds with one stone. One, it made Sansa part of the Crows/Dragons “kill the child, let the adult be born” story. Two, it eliminated a useless character that would simply have cluttered the visual narrative. Three, it let them show a plotline that almost certainly is going to be important in Winter without having one of the lesser leads carry it all on his own.
On another note, it actually did make Theon’s story a redemptive one. People often claim that of the book: but there Theon never voluntarily does anything: he is very much forced against his will (or, really, against Reek’s will) to help. Here, he gets one small act of free will where Theon finally overcomes Reek and thus slightly makes up for his past deeds. (Of course, Theon is a classic “Damned if you do, Damned if you do not” character: had he defied his father and returned to Robb, then he would have been widely condemned as a traitor to his own people, even by many of Robb’s supporters!)
I, for one, did not lose any sympathy for a girl who was being tortured and raped on a daily basis because she had once been a bit mean in a schoolyard sense. I would hope nobody else did either.
Why? He’s had his own storyline for, what, three seasons by that point? And other than his intersection with Bran for a few episodes in season 2, he’s been the sole focal point.
I’ve said it a few times already but the wedding sequence is one of the most breathtaking sequences I’ve seen on TV, I remember having chills as Sansa walked through the snow in her beautiful wedding dress, by the Godswood. The art direction, the score, all of it just reinforced my belief that GoT is the most visually striking show out there.
I appreciate Cogman’s comments, it’s evident he lives and breathes these characters, especially Sansa. I am holding out for some well needed retribution in S6, and in that context the rape scene will serve as the final catalyst for her, hopefully. My only minor criticism would be that the absolute final shot should have not been Theon’s crying face, but Sansa’s, maybe a lifeless, deadpan expression post-abuse. I know that would have been horrid to watch, but the scene was already heartbreaking, ending with Sansa the way it began would have completed it for me. Anywho, I remember watching and feeling sick, defeated, demoralised, so it did it’s job.
Hmm that line about Sansa reclaiming her home and becoming a major player is interesting.
A couple thoughts on the differences between what happened to sansa on the show and jeyne in the books.
While what happened to jeyne in the books was worse than what happened to sansa in the show, theres also a big difference on how the characters impact the story. Sansa is one of the most important characters on both the show and in the books. She also spent over two seasons in which she was mostly being terrorized by joffrey and the lannisters in KL. She finally got out and her storyline and character arc finally began heading in a new and at least imo, more interesting direction. And then they give her to ramsey and we just see an even worse version of what happened to her in KL. Character arcs that go in circles kill tv shows. When the circle contains the types of things that have happened to sansa on game of thrones, it starts to feel gratuitous and distasteful.
In addition to this, being raped is one of the most scarring and traumatic events that can happen to someone. If you decide in a show that you’re going to write a scene in which a central character gets raped, you have to handle it with the proper sensitivity, and deal with the aftermath in a way that acknowledges the seriousness of what happened, and the effect that it would have on a character. A good example of this was in season three of the sopranos, and hell, even sons of anarchy did a relatively good job dealing with the aftermath of rape and how it affected the victim. However, imo at least, game of thrones did not handle this responsibility well enough to justify the initial inclusion of sansa’s rape.
Jeyne on the other hand, is a minor character. We see through theon’s scenes that how LF and Ramsey have treated her has clearly scarred and affected her deeply, but we don’t need to see the full nuanced version of how she’s handling it because of how relatively unimportant her character is to the story. However in the scenes she does appear in, we see the effects of her experiences in a more realistic way than how they’ve handled sansa’s character post Season 5 Episode 6, at least imo.
Sean C.,
But it is important to the overarching story because it puts Sansa in the North. GRRM probably is going to try to get by with just Jon and minor protagonists like Davos and Theon in the books, but that would not fly on TV. They need to keep the focus on the primary leads, and although Theon is a bigger character on the show than in the books, he’s still not big enough.
Ultimately, I think that the biggest difference comes down to the fact that B&W have intended to make Sansa one of the primary characters of the overarching story from the start, whereas GRRM came to that decision belatedly. As such, B&W have done a for Sansa’s dynamic development than GRRM has. (Of course, “any” would top what GRRM has done!) They are telling some sort of “damned if you do/don’t” story, and for that to work in the end, we have to have seen the primary characters who are going to make the final decisions get burned by unwinnable situations in the past. If Sansa really has joined the original Big 5, then she needs to start getting herself burned through trial and error: otherwise, there will be no context for whatever contribution she makes in the end.
brown ben romney,
We will most probably see the aftermath of the rape and the subsequent impact it will have on Sansa in S6. You’ve also got to remember Sansa is one amongst a hundred other characters that take up screen time, she literally had maybe 10 minutes after episode 6, and some of that alloted time had to include her escape. I agree, I’d like to see how her worldview and the decisions she makes has changed as a result of a truly traumatic experience, and I think we will.
I just think the real scene from last season that they should be apologizing is the pathetic Sand Snakes vs Jaime and Bronn battle.
It’s called Instant Karma. If nothing else, then it is always harder to see bad things happen to nice people than to foul ones: and learning that she was a foul person detracted from the tragedy.
Theon had his own storyline, but in a minor plotline. Remember, they are juggling both story and plot here. The northern plotline suddenly got big last year: and it was more than Theon’s story justified. By dividing the plot between two protagonists (one of whom might be a primary protagonist), it justified much heavier development of the plotline. Moreover, they probably are setting it up for Sansa to take over Davos’ plotline in the book: and that again will help because Davos is a minor lead (in both media) whereas Sansa is a major one (at least on the show).
Meh, the funny thing is I don’t think THIS fandom cared so much about that particular scene.
I’ve got a bitchload of gripes when it came to women issues on this show as compared to the books (*sigh* I won’t rehash them AGAIN)… but Sansa’s rape wasn’t one of them – other than the jarringness with the “Goddess Raven of Kickass” outfit from the previous season. Once they made the storyline swap decision – it was 90% well done, I wish she kept the corkscrew after escaping, and did a bit better job of it before Theon showed up – that’s about it.
Hmmm… I’m swearing a lot, heated issue I guess. But “done for shock value”? Nah, certainly not…
Anyone else opening a bottle of wine and settling in for another dull as dishwater Sansa discussion?
Why isn’t the real discussion here that the commentaries on Season 5 are coming out? I love the commentaries.
Syrio,
Agreed.
For the people who think some fans are upset because Sansa is their favourite character, the show runners hate women, etc; may I suggest listening to the podcast “Unspoiled! ASOIAF” (for S5E6), they perfectly articulate why fans like myself are upset by the decision D&D made. (Hint: it’s not because Sansa is their favourite character or that they think D&D hate women).
The quote you’re responding to was about how even putting Sansa in the North does not require the story they actually did. They changed everything about the Winterfell story except the rape of Ramsay’s bride.
Sansa has had far more development under GRRM; the show pretty much ignored her development throughout her time in KL in favour of focusing on supporting characters, and since leaving she showed an out-of-nowhere spurt of ‘player’ potential in episode 408 and then went back to her KL characterization afterward (with more glowering and less effectiveness).
Setting aside that getting burned by trial and error is hardly foreign to Sansa’s story to date, trial and error only works if the things you try provide some credible basis for learning. The Season 5 story is a complete failure in that regard, because Sansa never tries anything. The only possible thing she could learn is not to walk into your enemy’s fortress and offer yourself up as a hostage, which, duh. If Sansa does turn into a Player this season, it will have a real credibility issue, because the show has not done the work of building up to it (which is what GRRM is doing in the Vale, as we see her test the waters and start small).
This. Sansa’s wedding night is controversial, but the filming and acting was absolutely top notch. Now, that SS vs Jaime abomination…
Deesensfan,
She’s a wanted fugitive. Roose, who’s supposed to be smart, takes a very risky bet that Cersei doesn’t find out, which she does, for very little gain. LF places his most important pawn in a very risky situation with a lot of unknowns. Also, apparently the guy with all the spies doesn’t know ramsey is a sadist? LF also risks cersei/the crown not finding out he was the one who delivered sansa to the boltons. I still have no idea what hes going to tell the vale lords.
Jeyne wasn’t a “foul person”. She was a naive, romantic girl, even moreso than Sansa, with whom she shared a very cute friendship, from what we saw of it; she was also a bit of a bully. That’s called character complexity. The idea that being raped and tortured could ever be interpreted as “Instant Karma” for being bratty is disquieting.
The Northern plotline was bigger, but there were plenty of characters there other than Theon, and if you remove all the screentime dedicated to getting Sansa into the place the writers needed her to be, it’s not really that big at all (indeed, in the final three episodes it has about six minutes). Moreover, as I said, you can send Sansa there if you want; but there is no intrinsic requirement that this involve her being raped.
Shaz,
this is exactly why they shouldn’t have had her get raped in the first place. they don’t have the screentime to properly show the aftermath.
You cant polish a turd.
Sansa’s only marginally smarter in S5 than when she got most of her family killed by ratting her dad out to Cersei. I’d find it relatively implausible for her to have risen to master manipulator level by now.
In the books
. If she’d have shown up in WF in the show & used Boltons & LF like tools, that would truly been out of character.
That didn’t happen in the show (setting aside debates about causality).
Queenofthrones,
My thoughts exactly.
Hi, I am a lurker here and never comment, but for once I will.
As a young female and former survivor of rape, let me tell you all how this scene was incredibly triggering.
I appreciate GOT, as a whole, both books and series.
But I never can get past the violence toward women, especially when it involves rapes. Of course I know the series cannot be vanilla. And, I do not ask for it to be smooth and censored. I just want to highlight the fact that such scenes can be awful for women to watch. Therefore it makes hard to follow the series because we are subjected to images, whereas we can close the book when the lines get too harsh.
Also, I am a bit sick of D&D or any of the writers and producers involded always diminishing the trauma this series can revive.
I understand they don’t like the controversy around the rape scenes, but it is SANE we can argue about it and discuss it. It is also important they acknowledge some disturbed minds could get excited at the sight of such images, and that those scenes contribute to rape culture.
This is what I respectully needed to say.
The fact of the matter is that we really don’t know where Sansa is headed in the books. She is not part of the big 5 (Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Bran who will probably play a vital role in defeating the Others) and thus far she has served mainly as a narrator of events and is our window into LF. She has had 25 POV chapters till date. That’s as many chapters as Catelyn had and we all know what happened to Catelyn. Cat suffered a great deal, watched her entire family die and then died herself. Sansa may not make it to the end of TWoW. She may not have any impact on the end game. We don’t know. Her story has changed significantly on the show compared to those of the main 5.
The fact that she is an important character has no relationship to whether she gets raped or not. Dany gets raped in the books when she is 13 and ended up losing a baby. GRRM then turns that into a love story. Where’s the exploration of the effect of all that trauma that Dany went through? She gets dragons and is all a-okay?
It’s funny how GRRM gets a pass for all the nasty stuff he puts in the books. Apparently Jeyne Poole getting raped by dogs is not for ‘shock value’ but is there to serve a story. And all that nasty stuff that happens to Jeyne really does not matter, because she is not a main, ‘important’ character like Sansa. Who cares what happened to her? Even GRRM did not care, because that story was all about Theon coming back from Reek. She was a character thrown in there to unnecessarily dwell on Ramsay’s sadism and Theon’s awakening.
Well David and Dan actually managed to get people to care about Ramsay’s victim because it was Sansa. But suddenly, the rape and abuse became all about ‘shock value’.
I am damn sure that if Cersei’s forced naked parade through KL was a show only invention, David and Dan would have got hell for it because they did it for the ‘shock value’ . But because it was GRRM, it’s to tell the story about how crap Westeros society is.
As for the exploration of the effects of rape on Sansa, the show has always not spend enough time on in depth character moments. Every character has gone through something brutal and suffered plenty. With hundreds of characters and varied storylines one cannot expect GOT to deal with such topics like the Sopranos. That’s best left to the books but I tend to disagree with GRRM’s idea of romance. He seems to think that abusive, rapey relationships like Dany/Drogo and Sansa/Sandor are romantic. And what little we saw of Jeyne was through Theon’s viewpoint.
This scene didn’t upset me because I’m not a part of outrage culture.
Wow, this was absolutely the most perfect response Bryan Cogman could have possibly given. I’ve always loved Cogman’s writing, and now I can fully appreciate his thoughtfulness, care, and concern. His response is so much better than the fuck-you response that D&D gave fans when asked about the Jaime-Cersei scene of controversy.
https://youtu.be/TfvVluNxujc?t=49m20s
The Sansa scene bothered me mostly because of the rape scenes that preceded it: especially the eerily gratuitous-feeling Karl Tanner mass rape scene at Craster’s Keep and the Jaime-Cersei scene that sent the message that “no” doesn’t really mean “no.” Considering this rape revelry, I was deeply concerned when D&D were proudly ignoring all criticism on the matter, at least according to David’s response above. But I’m thrilled to know that at least one of the writers will be taking concerns to heart and thoughtfully, critically evaluating how such scenes are handled. I hope that D&D may be more open to reflecting over constructive criticism now, too.
The most redeeming part about the Sansa scene is that the actual violence and nudity were off-screen. I’m sad that so many misinterpreted that as Theon stealing the limelight – as if anyone wants the limelight in a scene like that!
Not true. She’s had a story and character development of her own all the way through, her own themes, etc.
A lot of people, reading fan discussions. I certainly do. She’s a minor character, but an affecting one.
Bryan’s opinion is Bryan’s opinion, and he’s naturally entitled to it. But a scene like this will not be perceived in a vacuum, and there are arguably shows that deal a lot better with rape in a brutal, medieval society than GOT does (Vikings is one that comes to mind). GOT also does a lot of T&A for the fun of it, and sometimes the lines here are maybe more blurry than they really believe (hiring porn actresses to play Crasters’ wives so rape scenes could be acted out nakedly probably wasn’t such a thrilling idea in that respect). As for Sansa herself, she’s already a character who seems to suffer just to suffer, and after having her finally get a bit of agency and seemingly becoming Littlefinger’s apprentice, slapping her back to damsel status until Theon grabs his dearly departed manhood and rescues her just seems extra cruel.
Finally, it always surprises me how wounded writers get when they get negative reactions to scenes like this. What did he think would happen?
Wow, feels like I’ve just stepped out of a time machine in the middle of last season. Seriously, D&D haters, let it go! LOL
As for the question about Bryan’s words changing my perception of the scene… nope. That’s pretty much exactly the perception of it I already had.
I still think it’s one of the best shot and most heart wrenching scenes of the series…what the hell were people expecting to happen?
That bit confirms Luka’s speculative summary of what’s going to happen in Season Six, at least as it pertains to Sansa.
:Googled: https://twitter.com/b_cogman/status/656904187075276801
I actually like that scene.
Deesensfan,
I respectfully disagree with a few of your points. Not every storyline needs to have action, shock value, big, sweeping dramatic and climatic moments. While Sansa’s storyline in the books (AFFC) is not particularly exciting on the surface, it does a much better job of developing her character from a pawn in the game of thrones to being a person who though still is “technically” a pawn, is becoming a very serious player in the game and is using the lessons thought by Baelish to further her situation. On the show, she does not display any of these subtle traits instead of three quote on quote “badass” speeches in season 5.
If we cannot have Sansa absent, then at least reduce her storyline and focus on her learning intrigue from Littlefinger and the subtlety of the “game”, preparing for her eventual establishment as a serious player. It could have also been a nice parrallel with how Arya is being trained. That’s why a lot of people like Game of Thrones – the political intrigue that separates it from other fantasy shows.
What does this show excell at doing so well? Making unlike able characters fan favourites of the audience. Jaime is a perfect example. Alfie Allen is an amazing actor. There are visual and writing cues that the show runners could have taken to exemplify Theon’s redemptive arc even further. I understand that his redemption is shown through his connection with Sansa, but imagine if he had saved a girl who he did not know? That would have been more powerful and shown toe viewers that Theon is a changed person and a better man,
The rape (or expected norm by GOT standards as deemed by other fans) itself I did not have a huge problem with. It was the storyline and meaning around with. If the show runners had tried to focus on Sansa and the pain she is experiencing being tormented from sexual maritial assault, and Theon’s conflict about seeing the girl he grew up with being physically abused by his psychological oppresser, then this would have been an amazing story. However they did not. And a lot of the backlash (some warranted, some not) was a consequence for that.
This is an excellent show and this season had my favourite episode of GOT ever (Hardhome which destroys Episode 6 in every factor by the way) but it was not the best season in the television cycle of 2015. Many other show were better like Mr Robot, Hannibal, The Americans, Better Call Saul, The Leftovers, Silicon Valley, Jinx: The Life and Death or Robert Durst, Orange is the New Black, Bloodline, Transparent, Wolf Hall, The Flash (imo), Fargo, The 100, American Crime.
Lol good for B Cog. Angry GoT Fan is a douche.
Agreed. We are 9 weeks away from a brand new season and we are highly anticipating the trailer dropping and this is the top article in late February…
The Flash? Lmao.
Good for you, mate. To me, it was like a bad scene from Xena The Warrior Princess. But make no mistake, I think this is a wonderful show, probably one of the best ever, and I’m hyped as hell about the new season. It’s just that scene and the wholr Dorne arc was son below the standard of GOT…
*peeks into room*…….yup.
Ginevra,
It’s pricks like this that make creators less likely to respond. Show them some respect, because although they don’t always get it right they are doing what they think is right and have largely succeeded.
Noel,
Just curious. If you would have left Sansa in the Vale (either cutting her completely for a season or only including a few scenes of her with Littlefinger) then how would you have handled the Jeyne Poole Storyline? Would you have adapted it accurately from the books, casting a new actress whose only inclusion would be to get raped and humiliated for Theon’s redemption, or would you have cut that storyline too? Or something else?
Noel,
In your opinion, all these shows were better in 2015
Definitely not everyone’s opinion
I didn’t and don’t think that every storyline needs action or big things
Personally I think Sansa staying at the vale and developing her character would have been boring, not saying I need action, but it’s nice to see her story intertwine with another character like Theon and bring her story closer to , say, her siblings. She now knows that they are alive
Also, I think theon saving Sansa has a greater effect than theon saving some random girl, because of the connection fans have with the stark children. (Most are stark fans)
Anyway it’s your opinion:) too bad you didn’t enjoy her story, hopefully they please you in season 6
I thought it was great and one of my favourites of season 5!
Sean C.,
COK p 59 (paperback)-
Cersei- “…we might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn’t come to me and told me all her father’s plans…”
Tyrion was surprised. “Truly? His own daughter?”
But Jayne Poole’s ordeal in the books was rendered, like Theon’s torture, ‘offscreen’ and only relayed as third-party information. Still repellent, but we don’t ‘see’ it happening. In any case I think that posing the showrunners’ choices as being limited to either A) showing Jayne being raped and worse or B) showing Sansa being raped is a false dichotomy.
Thank you, Ellam Fren. I grew especially concerned about the show fostering a culture for rape when posters on here started saying things like “where are her tits?” during Sansa’s rape. GRRM was right when he said that only the sickos would find rape titillating, but it is the sickos we should be worried about.
What is “agency”??
Someone doesn’t have to be important to the end game to be a main character. Cat did suffer a lot, and grrm explored how that affected her psyche in a really nuanced and tragic way imo. The effects of statutory rape and the type of rape sansa went through are completely different, especially since dany doesn’t think she was raped nor has she come to terms with it. And i actually think her abuse at the hands of viserys and her relationship with drogo have both contributed a lot to how her character has been shaped in the books.
I wouldnt say that jeyne getting raped doesn’t matter, but no i don’t think it matters nearly as much as sansa getting raped, or as much as theon coming back from reek. And i also wouldn’t say jeyne was unnecessasary to theon’s arc.
most people don’t know what’s in the books and what’s in the show and unsullied didn’t react badly to cersei’s walk. It certainly didn’t cause the controversy that sansa’s scene did.
If got can’t deal with topics like rape, they shouldn’t of had a character of sansa’s caliber get raped. Also I don’t think grrm is saying dany/drogo is romantic but saying that dany thinks dany/drogo is romantic and he reflects that in her chapters.
Henry Gordon,
I believe I said I wasn’t interested in debating causality (in any event, Sansa was far less important that Cersei suggests there; notably, she omits that Ned told her all his plans in advance).
Jeb,
I do have an enormous amount of respect for D&D. I don’t agree with their handling of sex and sexual violence, but I believe that D&D have made Thrones perhaps the best series on television EVER. That is no small feat, even when you start with a phenomenal book series. Lots of writers, directors, and producers have truly fucked up awesome books. D&D are special. They are awesome. And I will continue to try just about anything they agree to produce. But I will still respectfully criticize them when I feel it is deserved. Respect shouldn’t make us blind to critical evaluation.
Jack Bauer 24,
Pigeon,
It’s a nice Pinot Gris. I’m on my second glass and thinking of looking through craigslist casual encounters ads for a giggle.
Oh I could compile photos of every GoT actor who has done a nude scene in anything ever and making a big collage in the shape of a chair. Then I’ll paste a photo of Gethin Anthony in the middle.
I’ll call it Art-her.
Maplethorpe’s got nothing on me.
I think they mean this definition, with respect to Sansa:
Did someone open a bottle? Can I join, even if I’m bitching? I’d love a glass of wine.
Make it an Iron Throne…with a set of really nice butt cheeks at the front of each armrest, and, well, I don’t think I need to tell you what to use for the swords. 🙂
Yeah… that’s a pretty weak justification of how it was handled. Aside from reducing Sansa back to being abused by some sociopath bastard, it makes no logical sense for Little Finger to be unaware of Ramsay true nature.
For some one who’s supposed to be pulling the strings for the majority of the story he comes across as an idiot- and where suppose to just buy it. All this nonsense to get Sansa back in winterfell… and for what? A bathing scene, some old lady who remembers things, and a jump off the walls with Theon- not much of her exploring a “dark and gothic horror story”.
I think Cersei coaxed much of it out of her, but at that point Sansa was so naive and starstruck by Joff, she probably would have said anything to gain his/her favor. It wasn’t until the Hound pounded some sense into her that she started to grow a bit.
I wonder how Bran will react, if at all, when he greensees her discussion with Cersei….she may want to watch for loose branches in the trees…but I’m sure he will forgive her. Her time is coming.
Ginevra,
Only if you get purposefully more ridiculous with each argument until it’s all because D&D hate gingers. I mean, they killed Catelyn. They killed Robb. Sansa gets raped. It’s an anti-ginger conspiracy!!
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
I was more thinking of Jaime’s line to Brienne about if the Iron Throne had been made of cocks they could never have gotten Renly off of it. 😉
(When in need of GoT snark, I always turn to Jaime.)
The Iron Throne of Dildos for your viewing pleasure!
http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2015/03/28/1227282/335018-3f62831e-d4f2-11e4-94a5-02ce8012bfae.jpg
Ginevra,
Thanks
I see it being used a lot
I don’t think she can become a cersei Lannister overnight
Yes we saw her transform after season 4, but she has to go through things on her OWN before she can become “agency” lol
Ginevra,
HotPinkLipstick,
Did someone say wine ? Haha!
DavyJones,
Who are you to go and call these people idiots just because you don’t agree with something they did on the show?
Have some respect
Sean C.,
Oh. I was responding to “didn’t happen in the books” not causality, by which I took you to mean the question of whether Sansa tipped off Cersei before Eddard had a chance to do it himself. Cersei seems to answer that in a borderline admission against interest to Tyrion.
Deesensfan,
I’m doing the full Cersei.
By the way, I can’t wait for the next big commentary turned article to be David Nutter discussing how he decided to shoot the death of Stannis. And a million StanFans will scream, “But he’s still alive in the books!” and then go cry in the shower while listening to Alicia Keyes.
HotPinkLipstick,
Hahahaha
The full cersei! Soo good!
Lol! Omg, that’s going to be hilarious. Totally forgot about that!!!
So OT but just read that Vinyl was renewed for season 2 after one episode!
Ha. Picturing The Crying Game.
More wine. Or in my case, scotch. But either way…
Oh my goodness! And Ygritte. They had Olly take out Ygritte only because she was ginger, and then they had Olly take out Jon Snow only because he kissed the fire. Clearly. GRRM never intended for Jon to really die. It’s all part of the grand ginger conspiracy.
Deesensfan,
Because we need more throwback shows about genius white men fucking up the world with their mid-life crises. And drugs. Don’t forget the drugs.
If only it were on network TV so they could intersperse it with commercials about women who love mopping floors.
Don’t forget that Orange is the new Black had a rape scene that almost mirrored this scene perfectly, and not a peep was uttered but praise. A man wrote the scene, a man directed it, a girl was raped and its misogyny. A woman writes and directs a rape scene and it’s bravery. While the overuse of sexual violence in media is a valid topic, that warrants considered discussion, let’s keep the discourse fair.
HotPinkLipstick,
Hahaha
Good point!!
Bob,
Interesting
Ginevra,
I KNEW I was missing a dead ginger. You know why this is all happening, right? Well, when Weiss was in fourth grade, he had a crush on ginger Shelley Horton and she called him a turdface. And then Benioff asked ginger Stella Witt to the prom and she said no. Dave and Dan were then drawn together like ginger-hating magnets. In fact, this conspiracy goes so far into the publishing world that the editors of GRRM’s novels changed the appearance of certain characters in the books just to make them gingers so D&D could brutally kill them off over 20 years later.
Ginger-hate runs deep.
HotPinkLipstick,
I avoided it cause it looked formulaic, though I hadn’t considered that particular formula. I almost shot whisky out my nose when I read your description, thanks.
*pulls up fainting couch*
Now THAT is torture!
HotPinkLipstick,
And Ros! Wow, how did I not see this before? It was so obvious.
Don’t forget the ones where 5 children and a large dog run through a spotless white kitchen, cover it in mud, and spill a huge jug of Kool-aid, and ‘mom’ just smiles complacently as she reaches for one magic paper towel that will clean up the entire mess.
Ginevra,
Not sure the carpet matched the curtains with Ros. Not that that invalidates the Ginger jihad theory.
HotPinkLipstick,
Lysa Fucking Arryn!
Let me show you the moon door, he says. Come a little closer, he says. Only Cat, he says. Only he doesn’t say that because of the grand ginger conspiracy!
Ginevra,
HotPinkLipstick,
You know ladies-this theory of yours has the potential to render all of the above teeth-gnashing over a certain northern ginger’s story arc moot pretty quickly…
Henry Gordon,
I’m here for all your alcohol-sneeze needs.
Ginevra,
SEE! Gaga better get rid of that flammable orange wig she’s been wearing before Cogman writes her into the show as a dosh khaleen so he can kill her off.
Pigeon,
Oh I particularly love the commercials where the wives parent their husbands because that’s what every woman wants from a relationship, the opportunity to nag a man about loading the dishwasher.
Oh fuck me running. How could I forget Lysa Arryn??
Has there been any “good” character on the show who died who wasn’t ginger or ginger-adjacent? (Stannis/Melisandre) and Shireen did look a bit strawberry blonde.
I think we have discovered the key to the series. It’s The Song of Fiery Gingers and Icepick Lobotomies.
Yep. He kissed the fire, too. That’s why D&D had to off him. I’m not sure if Nutter will be nutty enough to confirm the grand ginger conspiracy or not, though.
Henry Gordon,
In the books, Jon describes Ros as a redhead, but they don’t say if he got the red-carpet treatment.
Ginevra,
I suspect Tyrion would know, since he probably did “that thing-with your tooong,” as ygritte would say.
I know, right? Now we understand Black Sansa. I better dye my hair, too.
HotPinkLipstick,
I love Scorsese, but thus far that show feels like somebody decided we needed a continuation of Mad Men with less subtlety and more cocaine.
I said it didn’t happen in the show, not the books.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the question of whether Sansa tipped off Cersei before Eddard had a chance to do it himself”. There’s no question there; Ned spoke to her days earlier. Sansa only went to Cersei like an hour beforehand.
All while playfully rolling their eyes in mock exasperation and piping “Oh, you!!!”
Wimsey,
LOL, “beta bitch”. Arya Horseface anybody?
Hear, hear!
You make an interesting argument. However, I think your conclusions are reflecting a certain perspective you’ve already committed to. The didn’t change the POV for the scene. They didn’t change anyone’s motives. And I’m not sure how the “follow up” was altered in any way.
Ultimately, I think the “drama” that this scene, and everything building to it, conveys- is a brilliant example of adaptation, and very useful in further developing all three characters involved. Also, I would argue that Theon’s Dance story is abbreviated mostly due to the show’s absence of the characters surrounding him in the book.
Sister Kisser:
Wimsey,
I worked with those girls a few years back: the ex-cheerleading, boob-push-upping, ever-so-much-better-than-you sort. We called them Bitch #1 and Bitch #2, but alpha bitch and beta bitch describe them perfectly.
Lol. OMG, Becky, look at her butt! It’s just so…. BIG!
I am no expert. But beware the Beta Bitch! You may never see her coming!
What is out of character is entirely subjective. This is YOUR opinion. Which, may I say, you manufactured to prove your point.
As for the rape, this is a misogynist world where women are raped continuously. It isn’t really surprising that it does happen on screen sometimes. Even moreso because we follow some total psychopaths.
Wimsey,
brown ben romney,
Once again, because I feel I did not explain myself well earlier:
My beef is not exactly with the scene. It is with the entire storyline. Its purpose was to combine Sansa’s TWOW arc (learning manipulation) with the necessity of putting Sansa among known actors AND in the North.
And I would have been fine with it if Sansa had at least tried to manipulate Ramsay before coming to disastrous consequences. That would be trial-and-error, part of the learning process. And it would be even realistic, in the sense that you can’t expect everything to go well at once just because you try (vide Jon getting killed, Arya getting blinded, Jaime having to witness Myrcella’s death, Cersei getting walk-of-shamed; it’s been a wonderful year for failures, that one!). So, if the story went, Sansa tries to manipulate, Ramsay says ‘lol no’ and then comes the rape – I would be OK with it.
But my point is, they did not even have Sansa try. She learned nothing. Unlike Arya, she learned nothing. She stuck there, being passive. That was the narrative error, as far as I’m concerned. And it started from Cogman’s idea that ‘she is not like that’. That man is too wedded to the books, and does not realise that those books were the early ones in the story and the purpose of the story is to change the character so that she becomes exactly that.
Ellam Fren,
What was your reaction to Dany’s rape?
Uh, it may not have started off with the intention of straight up shock. But that’s what happened. The episode literally ended with the rape. In fact, her whole arc in season 5 peaked with it. Finding out about her brothers = falling action, gave her the will to live past the rape. Her escape from WF = conclusion.
I don’t have a problem with the shock of rape or deciding to have a main character be raped, I’m just reading the intention and pacing of the scene. It was building up suspense just to shock, nothing else.
And that’s a creative decision. I can’t get behind this creative decision. They could have had Alayne masquerade, she could’ve been a part of the Northern Lords attending Fake Arya’s wedding, she could have had internal thoughts that it could’ve been her, which would be harrowing for her. THERE WERE SO MANY CREATIVE DECISIONS and this commentary only mentions 1. This commentary is operating under the premise of “well we already decided to have Ramsay and Sansa marry.” It’s not the commentary I’ve wanted since that episode ended. The real criticisms behind the scene are this, not shock or seeing Sansa be raped. I see so many people defending “well it’s a brutal world” “well it would happen, it’s realistic” It’s not even remotely the point.
The fact the rape was the logical step in Ramsay’s wedding night is moot. She shouldn’t have married Ramsay and she shouldn’t have been there as Sansa in the first place. A lot have already argued why Sansa wouldn’t agree to marrying him, but not many have discussed why the Boltons would need such an arrangement to hold the North yet at the same time have to keep such an arrangement private knowledge, lest the Crown catch wind.
There were so many logical hoops just to make it a convincing story, it’s unlike anything else attempted in this adaptation so far. Worse than Dorne, by far.
“Basically, when we decided to combine Sansa’s storyline with another character in the books it was done with the idea that it would be hugely dramatically satisfying to have Sansa back in her occupied childhood home and navigate this Gothic horror story she’s found herself in and, of course, to be reunited with Theon.”
This is the part of the story that I have not enjoyed nor found “dramatically satisfying.” Because I did not care for the choice to merge the characters’ storylines, I was uncomfortable with all the events that followed. I don’t have a quibble so much with the aesthetic choices made by the director/show runners/writers; however, I do wish Sansa wasn’t there in the first place. I’ll reserve judgement on whether or not I find the changes were necessary or “dramatically satisfying” in the broader arc of Sansa, Theon, and Ramsey’s stories for when I’ve seen S6/S7. I hope they are shown to be.
I do think the show runners/producers/directors could show a bit more discretion about depicting rape or torture too often. I think it loses its emotional impact when overused.
By the gods old and new, I am tired of this topic. Can we get back to trailer forecasting?
[Orange in the New Black spoilers] The argument in favor of that scene over Sansa’s is that Pennsatucky is the focus of the scene, while Sansa’s shifts to Theon, and arguably (within season 5 at least) her rape is there for dramatic effect and plot reasons rather than character ones. The OITNB episode goes into Pennsatucky’s past, if I remember correctly, and delves into her relationship with her attacker in a long slow buildup. Meanwhile, Ramsay is a horror villain, and Sansa is again and again in the series a victim. There isn’t enough narrative time in GoT to go into a nuanced portrayal of Sansa dealing with it.
Viewers see rape used as a narrative device and not similar to their real life experience of trauma, in other shows and previously in Season 4, and they don’t give GoT the benefit of the doubt.
Did anyone watch Jessica Jones? The showrunner wrote it, she said in interviews, in direct response to being uncomfortable with Game of Thrones sexual assault storylines. Psychologically it’s very layered, and both the villain and victim have a lot of detail. When people criticize the Sansa scene I think they want that level of nuance to the portrayal of assault.
HotPinkLipstick,
One mustn’t forget the drugs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw
Felt Pelt,
You make a good point regarding nuance. That is one issue I’ve had with GoT consistently- for all the “gray” characters, for all the “difficult decisions” and “layers of conflict” -I think this show is sometimes just too big to really convey much nuance. With such emotionally heavy content, some of which happening quite frequently, the viewers are often denied the opportunity to experience the nuance of an event- the struggle and emotional hardship (or lack thereof) that characters go through before and after such traumatic events. Only so many minutes to go around…
I never had a problem with the portrayal of that scene, or the decision to put Sansa in Winterfell. It made me much more invested in that storyline than I was in the book, because it was a character I actually cared about. I know not everyone will agree, of course, and I won’t pretend to have the only valid perspective on this.
I’m glad BC explained the reasons and thought process behind that scene, rather than just ignoring it. I thought he explained himself well, and for me personally, this was a satisfying explanation. Again, I know not everyone will agree…
For me, the more interesting parts of this article were his hints towards the future of Sansa’s storyline, and the simple fact that the commentaries are starting to come out.
I despise “Social Justice”. It’s like a left wing cultural authoritarianism. Won’t be happy until they’ve bullied or excluded everyone who disagrees with them and they have complete conformity. It’s ugly as hell.
We’ll look back on this era as we do the social conservative religious right. With disdain.
But some responsibility does fall on the artists. Artists shouldn’t be able to be bullied. They should have the strength to stand by their work and to tell the inquisition to fuck off.
I was not that negative about the scene to begin with. I mean I never reacted that dramatically as many people did. And I totally get what the writer says. This is what would happen in real life. Not all of us are Arya. I have been in a situation like that myself – and believe me, I was not Arya either. I do think though that the scene could have been cut earlier, or shot in a different way.
Still, I believe that what is important when filming abuse is not the immediate Arya-like revenge, because it is unrealistic. It is much better to show redemption that takes its time. This is what happens in real life. Or what I wish would happen.
Sou,
who’s redemption are you talking about?
Sansa needs no redemption.
From where exactly do readers know that Sansa’s TWoW arc is about ‘learning manipulation’? Is there an advance copy of TWoW lying around somewhere or has GRRM come out and said that Sansa’s TWoW arc is about learning manipulation?
I was arguing that from day one. Roose wanting Sansa to help him control the North, but somehow believing that absolutely no one in the entire North would talk to absolutely anyone in the South? That’s absurd. Worse yet, Littlefinger bet his life on no one telling anyone. The moment he arrived in King’s Landing, his head should have been on a spike. Not that Roose shouldn’t have already put it on a spike as soon as Littlefinger and Sansa arrived in Moat Cailin on the way north.
The entire northern plot was a multi-layered conflagration of plot holes last season, and unfortunately I expect this to continue. But that water is under the bridge. The rape scene, for what it was worth, was about what I expected it to be – a compromise between the utter brutality of the books, wussiness of TV audiences, and what would be legally possible to film. I thought it was done as well as could be hoped given the limitations of what is acceptable.
The fact that it took B.C. all these months to finally offer up an explanation on the storyline, proves to me that he knew he made a big mistake. When Unbowed went wide, the writers, producers, and actors never said a word. They sidestepped and/or completely avoided the subject. They didn’t defend their work because they couldn’t. They knew they made a mess. They painted themselves in a corner, and now they are working overtime to dig their way out of it.
The reason why I was so upset is because in season 4 they deliberately built Sansa up, and made me think that she was on the rise. Instead of making Sansa and Petyr into a power couple, and capitalizing on all the growth Sansa achieved, they slam her down even lower than she ever had been. It’s like they would rather keep her in the lowly position than let her shine. It not sound writing just to keep your character in perpetual danger, just like it is not sound to keep them in perfect safety. Sooner or later, the tide has to change. In five years, Sansa’s tide hasn’t changed. Alot of people feel that her character is boring. Well I can say I blame them for thinking it. In five years, there had been hardly any changes to her character. In a story where there is a constant evolution, Sansa has none. The writers had a wonderful opportunity to expand Sansa’s character and they squandered it. The writers are trying to convince me and themselves that they wanted to keep Sansa center stage and in the forefront, but in truth, she was nothing but a prop in Theon’s story.
I am more than ready to put Season 5 behind me. On to the next!
moonlightof1982,
No…this “explanation” is an excerpt from the DVD’s audio commentary. Which he’s doing for that episode because he wrote it. Which is why EW decided to release this now. That’s what the timing of this means. Nothing else.
HotPinkLipstick,
Me too?,especially the ones from Nikolaj/Gwen &Nikolaj/Michelle are so funny. Pretty sure that Nikolaj is doing one for season 5?
No they didn’t. In fact, I’d say they changed the rape to the same degree they changed everything else!
The HBO Schedule goes up to April 1st today. Just three weeks and two days, and it starts showing April 24th.
Every little thing counts as long as we don’t even have the trailer!
Unfortunately the show runners/writers had largely run out of Book Sansa’ s story [well there is that WoW chapter where she’s attracted to the young man who would become lord of the Vale if anything happened to little Robin which I found underwhelming if I’m honest]. And thinking about “Feast” and “Dance”, let’s be honest, they lack the impetus of the first three books albeit there are some worthwhile parts interspersed – I don’t know if I’d exactly call it a plot hole but I thought the bit about the northern fatty lord learning the truth about Bran and Rickon because Theon’s squire (character cut from the show) had been hiding in a tree when the younger Starks and companions left Winterfell was woeful. I certainly did an eye roll when I read that. I didn’t particularly like the book fake Arya plot – or the Ironborn (who seem to lose an awful lot) plot. In the adaptation from page to screen I was more bothered by book Ellaria being transformed into a vengeful female version of Darkstar than the Winterfell storyline. From a practical point of view the showrunners may have felt they had to find something for Sansa to do in case Sophie Turner went off and found other projects.
While Sansa returning to Winterfell made sense thematically and helped to keep the story focused (as the show is always struggling with so many characters and storylines spread out over two continents), it really makes Littlefinger come across as rather incompetent in his plotting.
That’s the only problem I had with the storyline and the scene.
Sad as it is, but no one would have complained about this scene if it would have been in the books. Oh wait, it is in the books, but not with Sansa but Jeyne Poole and in the books it is even worse as Theon has to take part in raping Jeyne Poole and not just watching. And there are hints that Jeyne has been even abused by dogs! Can’t remember that anyone complained about the shock value of GRRM. Now a lot milder version has been done in the TV show but it involves now Sansa and an outcry happens. Sorry, that is just hypocritical.
Personally I do not have any problem with Sansa’s story arc in the series, I think it was a clever idea to move her out of the vale instead of starting endless new boring sub-plots with a lot of new characters. I think she will also experience rape in the books and that will be the final rift between Littlefinger and her.
Indeed. It had a lot of plot holes, but IMO the issue was that season 5 felt like a transitional season so you thought about the plot holes more. I expect this year to have a lot more pay-offs ala season 4, or at least I did, until I heard filming of Oldtown/Riverlands/Iron Islands/season 8.
I don’t know what to expect now.
Yegods. Sansa is a primary character. She should evolve. Her story should be about her evolution. Now, what evolution? What useful thing can she learn from the characters among whom she is? Arya is among the physically threatening; she is learning how to efficiently kill. What can and should Sansa learn among the politicians?
moonlightof1982,
While I do not agree with the statement about the ‘prop in Theon’s story’, this. It was the fifth season, and Sansa should have exhibited some signs of character evolution. Even if she ultimately failed, like Arya did, just trying – trying to be smart, cunning, devious, manipulative – would have been enough for me.
I agree about the WoW sample chapter, it may be a necessary step in Sansa’s story but certainly as a standalone – while we wait to see where it leads – it’s not desperately interesting even taking into account that Book!Sansa is that much younger, still growing up, and therefore we can’t expect a rapid transition to a “player”. I know many said they loved it when it came out but some of the dialogue read to me like fan-fiction (sorry!).
grailking,
Redemption as in rescue, delivery from evil. And getting back one’s self. Not in a catholic sense.
Sansa marrying Ramsey does not make logic sense in any way. She can gain NOTHING by doing so.
She can only be viewed as a traitor by other northmen by doing it, as if marrying a Tyrion Lannister isn´t bad enough.
And how the hell is LF going to explain all this to the Lords of the Vale?
It´s just poor writing after a promising season 4 finale for Sansa that fell trough in season 5. End of story.
There are really three separate questions that need to be answered, and I think there are believable answers to all of them.
Question 1) Why would Littlefinger arrange this in the first place? What does he gain from it?
Based on his actions, I conclude that he wants to get the Vale army into the North (and presumably use it to secure control there). To do that, he needs two things. First, he needs permission from Cersei, so that she doesn’t realize that his ambitions go far beyond petty scheming for a promotion. He gives everyone the impression of being a scheming minor noble hanging on the coattails of whoever he thinks will win, hoping for the best scraps. This makes them see him as a potentially useful, but not too dangerous pawn, when in fact he seems more interested in bringing down all of the Great Houses so he can be “King of the Ashes”. Sansa Stark being back in Winterfell to marry Ramsay gives him the pretext to get Cersei’s permission to invade the North.
He also needs permission from Roose Bolton to pass Moat Cailin. They’ve already shown that Roose needed Ramsay & Theon to remove the pathetic force of Ironborn left to guard it through trickery, before he could move his large, well-equipped army through it. Littlefinger might have been able to get Cersei’s permission for the invasion by simply lying about Sansa being there (and not actually placing Sansa in danger), but to get Roose’s permission to bring an army into the North, he needed to provide a significant token of good faith. Roose was somewhat reluctant to trust him even with real Sansa’s presence. Without Sansa, Roose would never agree to let a Vale army into his lands.
People ask why he would be willing to put Sansa in that risky, horrible position, but I think despite some lingering sentimental attachment due to his feelings for Catelyn, I don’t think Littlefinger is capable of really caring for anyone’s wellbeing except his own. Sansa’s only real value to him is as a pawn, and sometimes pawns need to be sacrificed to put your knights (of the Vale) in position to strike.
Question 2) Why would Sansa agree to it?
She clearly didn’t want to when she first realized what Littlefinger’s master plan was. She was also in a very vulnerable position though. Her head was #2 on Cersei’s “most wanted” list, and Littlefinger was the only one who seemed to be protecting her. Her apparent options at the time the decision was suddenly and unexpectedly forced on her were to go along with the plan, or to turn around and head back into a land ruled by a woman who wanted her head on a spike, while disappointing the only person “protecting” her.
He also manipulated her by playing on her desire to get her home back and get control over her life. He made her think she was his protege, learning to play the Game and take back Winterfell, when in fact he was just using her as another pawn, and he almost certainly knew (or at least suspected) she wasn’t really ready to manipulate the Boltons, even if he didn’t know exactly how bad Ramsay is. He convinced her that she was ready to take control, so that she would willingly play the part he wanted her to play, even though it was ridiculously risky for her.
It would be interesting if her ordeal gives her the strength to finally become the player that she was trying to become, and she realizes that Littlefinger was just using her, and had betrayed her father, and she eventually brings about his downfall in some way. The pawn escapes the trap, reaches the top of the board, and becomes a queen, then gets revenge on the “player” who tried to sacrifice her.
Question 3) Why would Roose Bolton agree to this plan?
It’s quite clear that Roose was quite concerned about a Northern uprising against him, and Ramsay’s brutal tax collection tactics weren’t helping matters. This was not an immediate threat (the northerners were not rising up against him at the moment), but it was one lingering in the background that could potentially materialize at any point if his position became weak (which was a genuine possibility, with Stannis’s army on its way, and not yet stuck in the snow). Having Ramsay marry Sansa could help him keep the Northerners on his side.
Why keep the marriage relatively private at first? Well, any northern lords who were unhappy with his status as the new Warden of the North might be equally unhappy with the idea of Ned’s daughter marrying a traitor’s bastard “legitimized” by Tommen Baratheon. It might have even provoked an early uprising of northern lords intending to stop it from happening. If he announced it early enough for all the lords to attend the wedding, it gives them time and opportunity to plot a coup. If he announces it only after it’s done, and Sansa is already married and possibly pregnant, then supporting him is supporting Sansa’s heir, and the northern lords are more likely to go along with it.
Also, Roose knows that Cersei & Tommen have no armies to spare to help him against Stannis, while Littlefinger has the Vale army. Since Littlefinger is clearly betraying Cersei, Roose has a choice: turn down Littlefinger and be left on his own against Stannis, or ally with Littlefinger, knowing that Cersei is too busy with her own troubles to threaten him, and even if she did have an army available, he could hold them off with a small force at Moat Cailin, which has never fallen to an attack from the south.
Remember, Littlefinger has consistently played the role of a petty schemer riding the coattails of whoever he thinks is winning. If Littlefinger is abandoning Cersei to support Roose, Roose would likely take that as a sign (which turns out to actually be quite true) that Cersei is in a very precarious position, and is not a useful ally nor a credible threat. Most people see Littlefinger as an untrustworthy, but potentially useful pawn, and he consistently uses this perception to manipulate people into letting him “help” them, while he’s really leading them to their doom.
*rolling eyes*
Sansa was not “Sansa” since the moment you have her bullying other characters (Shae at first, Robin, Theon himself), not planning any way to escape (like cutting Dontos scenes) and not charming people so she doesn’t get more bullied (Joffrey, the Tyrells,
. Instead we have her crying again and randomly being snarky to Ramsay (WTF? Is she suicidal or what?).
Character development on season 4 was reduce to the Darth Sansa costume.
Merging Sansa with Jeyne changed Sansa’s plot, Brienne’s, Stannis, part of Jon’s, Jaime’s and LF. And still don’t understand LF’s plan at all. Someone explain this for me, please. If he wanted WF, he just have to marry Sansa to Robin so he has a full army on his own. If he wanted WF, he just have to waint until Stannis destroy Ramsay and then go there and reclaim it to the winner, instead of left his ward in a middle of f*cking siege, with people he barely know (LF said himself) and completely alone. If he wants everything, marry Sansa (regicide accusation, anyone?) to a Bolton bastard (Lannister loyalist and Stark traitors), pissing off the Tyrells (his declared ennemies) and the Lannisters (again, regicide).
And Jeyne Poole was not only the tool for Theon’s rendemption. There were about
… if you cut all that, it’s just a rape and Theon rescuing the damsel in distress. Being an asshole before, because for his fault the Old Lady Remembers is dead too.
And still angry because some of the best lines about the Game of Thrones were missed (thank you, LF!), since LF didn’t bother to teach her anything at all.
HotPinkLipstick, Ginevra, Nymeria Warrior Queen, Deesensfan,
I am sorry I wasn’t here to take part to your gossip&wine party, sounds the best!
Anyone who thinks I’m filling in a form giving details of my income (especially bearing in mind this is a GoT site and the form has nothing even tangentially connected with GoT) has another think coming.
Uh huh. Couldn’t have been that they knew they would be crucified by outraged fans no matter what they said, because the backlash was, on the whole, massively unreasonable.
LF teach her some things of the Game of Thrones at the end of ACOK. Actually, it’s the first time her character listen to a verbalized version of the “Game of Thrones” concept (only LF, Cersei, Tyrion, Ned and Varys used that).
But she was kinda playing a lot time ago. Flirting with Joffrey in the begining was to secure a happy marriage and to be queen someday. In the chapters before, she’s being nice and “invisible” as a mechanism of defense. Noone knew exactly where she is (Tyrion assumed she was at the sept most of the time, when she was freely in the Godswood planning her escape with Dontos) and at the same time, being nice to Joffrey (to avoid more bullying) and nice to the Tyrells (wedding with Wyllas = escape from KL and maybe a future army, since she’s planing to give him a lot of children and to educate them to hate the Lannisters). All of this was almost erased from the show.
In the chapter sample of WoW
To me, it’s sounds pretty manipulative XD
People, read the TWOW excerpt of Sansa.
Personally I think that book-Sansa is awaiting a really traumatic story arc.
Unfortunately, we will never know how it will play out in the book. After reading that excerpt chapter I gave up any hope that GRRM will ever be able to finish his series.
SlayerNina,
This is hilariously silly. We’re in Sansa’s head, it’s pretty obvious she isn’t flirting to Joffrey because of the political benefit. She buys into the romantic stories of knights and prince’s completely. Ditto with the Tyrells, there’s no manipulation.
It’s not a fucking controversial scene.
It’s more painful when you realise anytime Sansa behaves like a lady she’s mocked by other characters or punished for it, and Arya was given history and heraldry knowledge (something she sucks at) and the magic changing faces learning offscreen, and also a gratuitous scene of sexual abuse who ended with her assaltant killed by herself. It’s like screaming “tomboys girls rules, girly girls sucks!” out loud.
I don’t understand why people use the “Theon’s dick” card. We have see him for three seasons how the punishment of rally WF and betray the Starks, killing two children in the process affected him, and how at the end of season 5 he’s free and with a possibility of rebuilt his life (since there’s no Stannis to execute him or something).
I guess you need to rewatch the season, for example the way she handles Myranda in bath scene before the wedding. She also steals a corkscrew to pick a lock and tries her best to manipulate Theon (to take the candle to the broken tower) and Ramsay (with comments about Fat Walda being pregnant).
She tries her best. Unfortunately, Ramsay is bit out of her league when it comes to manipulation.
She screamed at Arya that some day she will bow to her. Even if it just to piss off Arya, you forgot how the “lady learning skill set” include rule a house. I mean, she knew how to do it at the Vale, she was the ruler when LF was not there, and she was like 13. And she lied to Joffrey about “love/hate” horses to please him. Patriarcal learning is always useful in Westeros. XD
f.uck it, where is the trailer?
SlayerNina,
I think there is a difficulty in conveying some of the way book Sansa’s stood her ground when adapting the source material for the show because much of the book portrayal of Sansa’s character evolutintakes place as internal monologues (for example book Sansa’s thoughts on refusing to kneel for Tyrion to put the cloak round her I the marriage ceremony though I’ll concede that was changed in the show). I agree with your point that a female character need not be a tomboy to have merit.
A few days ago I was discussing adaptation generally, not particularly ASOIAF, with some acquaintances (well if it pertained to anything it was to the recent BBC adaptation of War and Peace which I must be honest and say I haven’t watched yet. (Being the BBC it’s bound to be repeated). One lady said that as a general rule she never watches a TV show/film if it is based on a book she has read because there are inevitably changes in translation from book page to screen.
Just wanted to add, how vital a part of the show Cogman is. He provides substance in the middle of every scene. D&D usually write the opener sand the big, dramatic episodes, but cogman does the heavy lighting in the middle with his crisp scripts that always have a little more character details. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken is a terific episode. The rape disgusts me so much, but the whole was very written, acted and especially shot. Kissed by Fire is another magnificent cogman episode, and also the great what is dead May never die. I even belong to the minority, that really apreciated the Mutineers-subplot and Karl Tanners Apocalypse now vibe. Cogman wrote those episodes too. It was ugly and disgusting but provided a colorful periodic villain. Can’t wait to see what he does with the ironborn story in s6. Im sure he’s writing the kingsmoot, since he is a fan of Aeron Damphair. Cogman is a vital part of why I love this show so much
Haven’t read War and Peace but I thought the BBC (short) adaptation was really enjoyable. As ever book readers will have gripes, but as someone who would have balked at a really long series ( they did in the 70s ?) it worked for me! I might even try reading the book ( which has been on my eReader but unread since nineteen hundred and frozen to death!
Should be “character evolution takes”……. A “deliberate mistake” to see how observant people are …of course..and I never tell porkies! *
[*porkie – English slang for a lie. Comes from rhyming slang “porkie pie”. Thought I’d better put an explanation as some folk visiting the site don’t have English as a first language].
Except for the usual 2-3 people and some trolls this thread is quite nice and positive.
Dame of Mercia,
Thank you, it’s so nice of you to think of us, people with English as a learnt language. No matter how good we are/ try to be, we can’t compare us to people who have English as their mother tongue. Or even to people who live in an English speaking country.
I’m glad of every opportunity to learn more, expecially slang, which I like because it shows how imaginative a language can be, at the same time being funny.
SlayerNina,
I wouldn’t be so simplistic to claim ‘tomboy good, queen bee bad’. Like I said, I think it’s more Cogman’s fault in not recognising that show Sansa has moved beyond her book story and developed her character. If you look at it closely, the story is just fine between episodes 1-4 (Sansa plots with Littlefinger, gets into Winterfell) and 6-10 (rape, plan failed, pressure on Theon, escape). Basically, most of what Homplomplom said.
The problem lies in E5, which is between Littlefinger leaves and the plan fails – that Bolton family dinner, in particular. That scene is the lynchpin and that is the place where the writing actually failed. This scene should have had the player Sansa, consciously probing for weaknesses, trying and testing, being active and independent in LF’s absence – and instead, it had the old Sansa. Cogman simply did not update her character for this scene, and I think this may be because of all the show writers, he is the most married to the books without recognising that it’s time to move past them. This was the time to show the player Sansa off, and she did not really even try to flirt with Ramsay, ffs!
Like I said multiple times before – I’m all for characters trying and failing. But Cogman did not even have her *try*. That’s my beef with him, not a rape scene.
Also want too join the other people in saying that UUU was one of my favourite episode last season.
The wedding was perfectly filmed and directed.
Disagree with those who say that showing Theon instead of Sansa made the scene less powerful or took away from Sansa’s traumatic experience. On the contrary to me it made the scene even more powerful.
Dame of Mercia,
I think you should watch War and Peace. I read the novel when I was a teenager and, even if I forgot a lot of details, I remember the atmosphere, the feeling one get while reading very well. I have seen several adaptations and I think this one is the best if you take into account the casting (I don’t mean only the actors’ value, but also their suitability to their parts), actors’ play, the sense of the present drama changing characters, the scenes selected to tell the story.
I’m on record here on WotW as a staunch defender of this scene in particular and Sansa’a whole storyline. Cogman only reinforced the belief I’ve already held. I only hope that he didn’t let the vicious, insulting, and sick criticism leveled at him from all quarters get to him. His episodes are uniformly outstanding; the last thing the show needs is that he begin to self-censor. That would be the real tragedy of this faux-outrage. That said, I’m not sure how any sane human being could remain unfazed with all the bullshit thrown his way.
Telling off Myranda is no big thing to me. If she wanted to do something of note is season 5, she should have lit the candle. To me, if she had done that and said “to hell with what The Boltons and Littlefinger wants” and MADE HER OWN PLANS FOR HER FUTURE, then I would be impressed. Picking up the corkscrew was a sharp move, but she did after the rapes began. Yet I am thankful she did pick up the corkscrew and got out of there. I love Sansa, but she has a long way to go!
SlayerNina,
Are you in any way related to Anarra Snow from westeros.org? Sometimes you sound so much like her, especially when discussing Sansa.
Lord Parramandas,
I’m just waiting for Harry to rape Sansa and LF not giving a shit.
Their reactions should be hilarious.
The evolution that took place was not Sansa’s, but Theon’s. She didn’t show any evidence of being smart, cunning, devious, or manipulative because it is not her story. It had nothing to do with Sansa. She suffered the abuse so Theon wouldn’t have to, so he could heal and take back control of his life. I stand by my thought that she was nothing but a prop. They built her up in Season 4, just to make her a prop in Season 5. I’m sure they will make Sansa Queen in Season 6, but by then, it will feel forced.
moonlightof1982,
And that is your opinion.
Harry is not Ramsay. Anyone can see that.
Glad, you’re willing to give the show the benefit of doubt. 🙂
Big Mac,
Yes!!
moonlightof1982,
Ah, you must be able to read the show creators minds
Nah. They didn’t need to explain them selves, they did so because they had the right platform to do it through the specific scene commentary
Personally, I think if Sansa in S6 end up using her wits to help you-may-guess-who unite the North to take back Winterfell, you probably will somehow forget this part of this episode ever exist…
Yeah, that’s the kind of idiotic exaggeration that has me bow out of the discussion. …Consider yourself a prop in my character development. I cannot be on the side of anyone who so much fails to understand the terribly sophisticated nuance of ‘it’s possible to develop two characters at once’.
Shy Lady Dragon,
No worries
There will be more 😉
moonlightof1982,
Ramsey is a very nice guy, when he wants too.
But no point in talking about this. I’ll be here tough too witness the meltdown.
Shy Lady Dragon,
I heard a very good version of War and Peace on BBC4 back in the 1970s – when the BBC radio still did drama productions in-house (before the late Mrs Thatcher knocked that on the head i.e. BBC in-house productions). I found Natasha irritating as a character though – I saw the film and even Audrey Hepvburn couldn’t redeem her in my eyes. But then in real life intelligent men (if one costrues Andre and Pierre as being intelligent in W&P) do fall for silly women – and intelligent women fall for silly men. Some people have said they found Lily James irritating – but then that could be the character she is playing, but then one can’t really judge by secondhand opinions.
It’s funny to see the extremes here
We have people who loved season 5, loved Sansas arc and thought it works out great, and then you have people who disliked it and thought it made no sense who also believe they are more knowledgable and competent then the show creators.
Hahaha
I really hope Cogman doesn’t change his ways of writing to please some of the “fans”
Thought Lily James was fine, myself.
I thought the scene was quite romantic actually, so yes BC, you have indeed failed if that was not your intention.
The question is not what he stands to gain, but what he stands to lose. Specifically, his head.
If Roose turns down the deal, Roose would lie, invite LF and Sansa north, flay the former and capture the latter for a sweet reward from the crown…perhaps even Sansa herself. Even if Roose accepts the deal, how is this supposed to work? How can Roose use Sansa to cement his son’s status in the north without this being public information? And if it is public, how is this supposed to not leak back to the crown? And if it does, how is LF supposed to keep his head when he returns to King’s Landing?
LF essentially made two really bad bets with his life, and with no sensible explanation won them. That’s not good story-telling and not in character. But that’s the past, so we just have to suspend rationality and try to enjoy the rest of the ride.
I just re-watched this scene last night.
I have always found this debate fascinating. The question of why (i.e. why was Sansa raped) aside, the controversy primarily seems to hinge on the decision to shift the camera from Sansa to Theon/Reek during the rape. Some have argued that this makes the scene about Theon/Reek and how this event shapes his character going forward. Personally, I never bought into that argument, though I think that it is theoretically sound. However, when I watched the scene last night it occurred to me that we should really be taking into account the characters involved here, specifically Theon/Reek (bear with me). In this scene, Theon/Reek is not Theon/Reek. He is just Reek. Not a person, perhaps a shell of a person. A sad and servile little creature who has nothing left of Theon in him. Ramsay reminds us that Theon knew Sansa and saw her grow up, but there is nothing of Theon in Alfie Allen’s performance. Therefore, it is easy to see Reek as an instrument through which Sansa’s suffering is channeled. For me, when I watched his face contort in pain and shame I don’t see Theon’s suffering, but rather Sansa’s. I hear what Reek is hearing and I see Sansa’s fear, pain, and shame reflected in Reek’s face. Sansa’s, not Theon’s, in large part because Theon is not really there.
It is very helpful to have the writer’s statement about his intentions in creating this scene. Now one can only argue that this is how they interpret the scene, not that this is how it was meant to be interpreted. And personally, I agree with the call to not show the rape itself. Pulling back to Reek is a strategy that allows the viewer some respite from something truly awful: seeing a character we have known since childhood badly abused. Personally, I feel that the fear / shame / pain of Sansa is already palatable, and that showing the rape was unnecessary. Pulling back to Reek was a clever device, and I personally do not believe that it takes away from Sansa’s tragedy.
Chad Brick,
Um….this same LF also confided his tactics to some whores playing with their buttholes. So, when you say “not-in character” you are joking right? Or are comparing the show vs the books? If its the latter, then how is that working out for you? Agitate, much?
Chad Brick,
The story leaking south too Cersei is the entire point.
LF then invades the North.
Cersei thinks he is there too kill the Boltons and bring her Sansa.
Roose thinks he is there to help him fight against Stannis or rebels.
When in truth he is there too take over the North for himself.
Cersei asks no questions why a Vale army is in the North.
Roose lets him pass Mount Cailin.
He doesn’t care about Sansa’s well being, too him she is a pawn to be used.
His plan makes perfect sense. It is a gamble that is true, but LF himself told Roose he is a man who likes to gamble.
But the plan makes sense. It’s just that like always you simply choose not too like it.
I only read the first 10 posts from some of my favorite and long-standing members of this community (and I won’t read the rest as I don’t have the time or capacity for such frustrations today) and I whole-heartedly agree (and have always agreed) with their, and now BCog’s, feelings about/analysis of this scene. It is true to the world and true to the charaters and their individual journeys (all 3 of them) and I find the whole wedding sequence to be one of the best (if not THE best) of the show to date. As for the retraumatizing argument: people suffer all kinds of trauma in life and come across reminders of those traumas from time to time. That is life and it is ugly. It is mind-boggling to me that a viewer of this show that has suffered or knows someone who has suffered this unimaginable horror didn’t see this coming in time to tune out.
Thanks for keeping it real, BCog. In you I trust.
Demon Monkey,
Agreed and very well said.
Only with feminists can a rape scene be met with more anger than the countless scenes in this show where (sometimes innocent) men get urinated on, beaten, stabbed, burned, their eyes pushed out, their brains pulverized, their limbs cut off, their genitals cut off and on and on. I also don’t agree that this scene was ‘controversial’. The fact that a couple of radical feminist women and a senator complain about a scene, does not make that scene controversial. If the same amount of men had complained about the scene where a couple of guys get chopped up by the Mountain before his duel with Oberyn (while Cersei casually steps over their intestines), nobody would have said that scene was ‘controversial’.
Demon Monkey,
Very well said
Smh,
LMAO
All of this!
The plan of Littlefinger in the books would have only worked, if Harry the Heir, a grown up man, would exactly act like Littlefinger has planned for him after the wedding to Sansa. Does not sound like a good plan to me…
So much of the negative reaction to an artistic, theatrical depiction of sexual violence, I felt, was part of our cultural denial of the persistence of such conduct historically and cross-culturally. I will be honest: I avoided GOT because of the reports of sexual violence and exploitation and all the politically correct stuff. Once I actually started watching the series, and became a fan of the television production (no I have not read the books), I have been continually impressed by the artistic decisions, the consistency with the concept that this is tale set in a medieval culture. Women were considered to be chattel, sexually available and sexually desirable especially as proof of dominance by one group of males over another. In Unbowed, Unbent and Unbroken, these macro concepts were perfectly distilled into the interactions between three people. The episode was as emotionally harrowing, in terms of its depiction of sexual realpolitik as Hardhome.
Artistically it reminded me of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The juxtaposition of the gorgeous setting of the wedding (which might be the most aesthetically beautifully composed scene in the series) with the sense of foreboding and claustrophobic dread contrasts much like Hardy would’ve done.
Judibatt,
Wait,so in that case if someone deserves personal attacks,here’s mine for you: Go fuck yourself !
Jessica,
He’ll rape, beat or abuse her 100%.
I wasn’t certain of this before last season but I am now. It would be quite a bad story if it turns out he’s prince charming, when Sansa’s entire story was about how that doesn’t exist.
Smh,
Feminism is not of itself a bad thing – it’s only when when it is extreme that things go bad. Considering that it’s less than a century since women [in the UK at least] received the right to vote I would say that the feminists who campaigned back in the day for women to have the franchise did a good thing. As for when feminism becomes extreme – well it’s male equivalent (is there such a term as ‘masculinism?) is as bad.
Another important question is the shock value. I am seeing a lot of debate on whether or not this scene and Sansa being ‘shoehorned’ into Jane Pooler storyline was gratuitous. I believe it was without a doubt done for shock value. One of the most popular characteristics of this show is its ability to shock the viewers. It does not follow, however, that the shock is gratuitous. I think that there is a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise in this case. (Caveat: the show has had plenty of gratuitous nudity and some gratuitous violence, if not a lot.) Of course, I was personally rooting for a more capable Sansa, a more manipulative Sansa last season but her interactions with the Boltons, say at dinner, had already belied her ability to be that manipulating character, though she seemed to be making some effort.
Mihnea,
Yes, I am also convinced that that will happen, I hate Harry the Heir already after reading the excerpt chapter and I think he will be very cruel to Sansa. So it makes absolutely sense to combine two similar plots (Sansa-Harry, Jeyne Pool-Ramsay) into one (Sansa-Ramsay) from a show perspective.
Dame of Mercia,
I agree you for the most part. I would add however that some parts of the feminist narrative give off the wrong impression. For example, here in the Netherlands the right to vote for women was introduced in 1919. What feminists over here often leave out is that the non-ruling class men got the right to vote in 1917. Before that you had to pay a certain amount of taxes in order to get to vote as a man. (I’m a Dutch lawyer)
Now, with regards to this scene, I don’t recall people being up in arms about this scene when it aired here in the Netherlands. It might be that this ‘controversy’ is more of an American thing. I don’t know what kind of weird, hyper-sentitive, overly politically correct culture Americans have concocted for themselves over there, and frankly I don’t want to, but I strongly suggest they leave it at that side of the pond. We’re all stocked up on crazy over here. Maybe it’s me, but I’m from a part of the world where if you’re offended by a piece of art, you simply stop listening to it, reading it or watching it. I can assure everyone it works pretty well.
That puts us at March 14th, 1 day before the Blu ray/DVD Season 5 release and 6 weeks before the premiere. We will hopefully have a trailer by then.
I totally agree with this. Or some variation where we see her in the Vale here and there. Listening, observing and truly starting to understand what LF is truly all about. When she was talking to LF when they came upon Winterfell, she trusted him. Well, trusted him enough to agree to his plan. Maybe it was the allure of being back home but the “I know what you want” from Season 4 felt like an afterthought for the girl who descended the stairs, ready to be a piece on the game board.
The rape bugged the shit out of me but I get it. It is understandable why the writers merge characters and the whole episode was so well done. Sansa was done being a victim the second she took off with Ser Dontos at the Purple Wedding, she finally had a chance to take her fate into her own hands. Since then, she has been forced to do so again. I just hope that the pay-off, after 5 seasons, is worthwhile. I never expect happy endings with this show but I hope to see, no matter the fate, a Sansa who is an active participant in her end game and not just a victim of the circumstances around her. The jump, with Theon, was the start of what I hope will be a start.
“Not Arya”
Goes back to the season 1 finale, rewatches when Sansa attempts to kill Joffrey
What reward? Roose explitly said that the Lannisters, after Tywin’s death won’t help them.
What is unclear?
It probably would have become public information after Sansa get pregnant.
Roose doesn’t care what the crown thinks.
LF will probably never return to KL, and his trip there in S4 was too soon for that information to leak.
Jessica,
Based on what, exactly?
Mihnea,
You know there’s some ground between “prince charming” (which he’s clearly not) and “cruel rapist” (nothing suggests that either), right?
I agree with your assessment of Littlefinger’so strategy. My only concern is what is he going to tell the Lord’s of the Valencia who knew he had Sansa under his protection. He will need a convincing story to keep his support in the Vale, no?
Sean C.,
It’s done just to annoy you.
Mihnea,
And there is no reason for Cersei not to trust LF. In her eyes, he was always there to do the dirty work for the Lannisters, their obedient dog.
He was part of her plot against Ned Stark, she used him to get informations about Tyrell’s plans for Sansa, she used him against Loras and Margaery Tyrell (for that Cersei was extremely grateful),…
She trusts him and she completely underestimates him.
I also think that is quite likely; anyone thinking Sansa will somehow become a Fairytale Princess when/ if she weds Harry the Heir is seriously deluding themselves; the posts in the ASOIAF forum about this are actually quite hilarious and read like Fan fiction concoctions that George wouldn’t write in a million years. The Sansa storyline from last year portends of something Bad happening to Sansa in Winds before she picks herself and dusts herself off and rides off North into her late Winds and Dream of Spring Plot. After all, D & D are familiar with the character arcs of all the principal players (from their “endgame” story meeting with George in 2013.) D&D simply cut through the chase and put her up North already where her endgame is going to be ( “slaying Giants in Castles in the Snow”, potential Stark reunion, etc., etc.)
He is portrayed as a very arrogant person and I have a bad feeling about him based on that excerpt chapter. Maybe I completely misinterpret GRRMs writing but I really doubt that Sansa and Harry will have a fairytale romance.
And for what it would help, if Sansa gets raped or beaten or treated badly by Harry the Heir? It would create a final rift between Sansa and Littlefinger, it will be one of the reasons why she will betray him. The same effect will have the wedding to Ramsay on her. She has trusted him and agreed to a marriage which was a horrible failure. Her trust in Littlefingers plan has brought her in a very bad situation. And I guess that will happen also in the books.
Shy Lady Dragon,
You know when it’s not a good time to watch a dead horse being beaten? When you’re hungover.
You should have been here to drink some of the wine so I would drink less!
Demon monkey,
My little guess. I could be entirely wrong and frankly I expect to be.
LF tells them that Sansa insisted that he bring her to the North. Not the Boltons!
But rather some allies of her family. He told her she wants her home back, she wants revenge for Rob, her mother, Bran and Rickon…etc.
He tells them he couldn’t refuse her, or something like this.
But in the meantime he found that the ”plan” failed and the Boltons managed too find and take her.
He then sugests they go save her.
This is one of the ideas I got. Don’t think it will happen. But I don’t think it will be too much of a problem too convince the lords to march north.
moonlightof1982,
Harry doesn’t have to be Ramsay to be capable of rape.
Demon monkey,
I’m interested in that also, but I think he could tell them the truth. He didn’t (formally) forced Sansa to marry Ramsay. That was her decision as well.
Based on nothing. Just like every speculation about Sansa in TWOW is.
Mihnea,
The most common justification I’ve seen for this idea is that it would turn Sansa against Littlefinger, but I don’t see how that works at all, because it doesn’t fit within the narrative that GRRM has constructed for Sansa and her siblings in AFFC/ADWD (and onwards).
I am a feminist. Have you read my posts? I think that it is unfair to blame feminism for the overreactions of some politicians. I agree that this scene was more politicized than others, but that is in part a reflection of our society’s tolerance for violence, so long as it isn’t sexualidad violence. Feminism is not to blame.
Sean C.,
Arya got blind. Punished for killing a guy.
Sansa rode a donkey.
There is simply no conflict, no suspanse, nothing. She gets married, the guy is lovely and all she ever dreamed. This is utterly boring.
But no point in talking, you made your mind.
My opinion hasnt changed, in fact i am even more annoyed. He still didnt address why they felt the need to show how much Sansa has ‘grown’ after telling a lie to the lord declarants, only for her to experience a worse version of her imprisionment in Kings landing? They kept promising that she’d play the game, only to lock her up in a room. And if they wanted to be realistic then fine, its completely reasonable after all Sansa is only 15 and the Boltons wields all the power, but they kept talking about how the need Sansa to validate their claim, yet there weren’t any nothern lords at the weeding, nor did we see the uprising outside of winterfell’s walls, at least we could cling to that hope in the books, that Stannis and the nothern vassels would come to fArya’s rescue, but the show it just feels like the Starks are forgotten, or even worse that the north doesnt really care now that Robb is dead.
varyas,
”Bear Island knows only one king, the king in the North and his name is Stark”
They care.
But just like the II they simply come this season.
This is really good! You have obviously thought it out. Perhaps you should be consulting for the series!
I am glad my tablet’s crazy spell change didn’t throw you off. Lords of Valencia, indeed. I am not speaking of Ruy Diaz in 11th century Spains.
Demon monkey,
Thanks!
I really doubt that this will happen, but you never know.
Sean C.,
And why will Sansa turn against LF in the books?
And don’t tell me about Ned Stark please, because in the books Sansa already knows that LF killed Jon Arryn and it makes absolutely no sense that she didn’t figure out LF involvement in her father’s death.
So, GRRM is allegedly writing her to become the “player”, but after 5 books he is completely unable to connect the dots.
They’re different stories with different characters; the incident is not beat-for-beat. But on the question of the resolution, it makes no sense to resolve a storyline about Sansa being between identities and moralities in that manner. It doesn’t answer the question the story began by asking, anymore than Arya is going to quit the Faceless Men because they suck at murder or Bran will leave Bloodraven because he doesn’t know anything about being a greenseer.
I don’t recall anybody suggesting that this story is going to be “she gets married, the guy is lovely and all she ever dreamed.” That’s obviously not the case. A significant number of fan spec involves the dude dying in the very next chapter, even.
I couldn’t say. That’s what I’m interested to see.
Sansa doesn’t believe that LF killed Arryn, and I don’t see how she’s supposed to have figured out that LF was involved in her father’s death; what information would lead her to that? Regardless, I’m somewhat skeptical of the common fan theory that discovering that information (or being told it) will be the thing that turns her against him. I’m sure she will learn that, but I have a theory that that’s more likely to come as a result of her already working against him and actively seeking out information, rather than as the inciting event. But like I said, that’s speculative.
mau,
Because she will never be a ”player” the way LF is.
I belive her story is more about her embracing her Stark heritage, returning to the North she always disliked.
Demon monkey,
If the controversy was really about this being sexual violence, then we would have had the same amount (if not more) controversy about Theon’s genitals being chopped off before being sent to his father. We didn’t.
But the story didn’t ask any question about Sansa’s identity in the show. It is just your imagination.
Sean C.,
Him dying would be even worse.
The only reason that guy would have existed for, would have been too give her the Vale.
But I’m not going to engage in this subject with you anymore. I’m going too wait patiantly for you too explain how it isn’t rape, when Harry finally does rape her.
mau,
I’m not talking about the show, I’m talking about the books and why I don’t see how Harry the Heir raping Sansa and that turning her against Littlefinger fits into the story GRRM is writing. The show has changed things so much, I have no idea how they’re going to play it (but there’s been absolutely no suggestion from anyone involved with the show that what happened in Season 5 had affected Sansa’s view of Littlefinger — indeed, the actress clearly wasn’t told anything of the sort, from her comments — so I wouldn’t be surprised if people expecting that are going to be disappointed).
Or he’s part of Littlefinger’s plans, which are unexpectedly derailed and thus generates drama, i.e., something that happens all the time in the books. I don’t even know that I believe that theory, but it’s plausible, and the story requires twists and turns.
Sean C.,
They made it preaty obvious what will turn Sansa against LF.
On what is that speculation based? If Harry would really die in the next chapter than the whole excerpt chapter would be completely useless.
varyas,
I don’t understand why people think that after season 4, Sansa was going to be a major manipulator and a cersei margarey type character. It doesn’t happen that quickly. She felt comfortable enough in the vale to be all tough and independent but she trusts LF – but when he left her alone with the likes of Ramsay, and she saw who he really was, he’s fucking scary, so she didn’t really know how to handle him. She showed some strength and manipulation but Ultimately she decided she needed help to escape Ramsay.
I was saying they made Little finger come across as an idiot… read my comment again.
Jessica,
The general ominousness around the tourney, the question marks raised about the discontent of Lyn Corbray in particular, the sense that Littlefinger’s plans are all lined up a little too neatly (though some actually think the whole thing is a convoluted plan by Baelish to kill Harry, which I find very unconvincing) and there needs to be a shakeup.
I do not know how this traumatic event will affect Sansa going forward. Maybe she will end up pregnant. Maybe it puts her in the North and gets her more quickly under the protection of the northern lords and fuels her desire to stop being a victim and to “make justice” for her family. We can’t know that yet. However, it is easier to speculate on how all of this affects other plotlines and character motivations.
davyJones,
Too you perhaps. I think his plan is quite good.
And as of now everything goes his way.
davyJones,
My bad! I see that now
Agreed, it would have been totally out of character if Sansa would have killed Ramsay. I saw a lot of character development in the past season regarding Sansa, it is more subtile but it has happened. She is no longer the little girl which is believing in romance and knights. She has survived a lot and she has learned a lot while surviving and in future she will show this even more.
But that would than still make the whole chapter completely useless for the endgame and would be just a filler-chapter, what might be a possibility, it would not be the first time that GRRM got lost in the books.
Mihnea,
Agree
The whole context of everything that had happened to her and her family. If she is really to become a player she need to be extremely intelligent, but she is mediocre at best.
LF stood there when her father was killed, he was at Cersei’s side, he put a knife to Ned’s throat and everyone saw that, but no one spoke anything about that event at all? He killed Jon Arryn, Dontos,…
The Lannister gave him a lands and titles.
An intelligent person would realise that something is wrong here, but she is willingly become a part of his plot with Harry.
Jessica,
Exactly!!!
Don’t Littlefinger and Lysa discuss it right in front of her in the books?
Jessica,
Not really. The chief point of the chapter is to introduce Sansa’s mental state and her new status quo (I’m pretty sure this is one of the chapters GRRM wrote back when the five-year-gap was still a thing; apart from Sansa herself, some of the other supporting characters, e.g., Robert Arryn, act noticeably older). Harry’s introduction allows us to see Sansa act as Littlefinger’s agent and test out some of her skills. That’s significant regardless of what happens afterward.
I’m not an adherent of this theory, but I find it plausible enough.
Has grrm made any comments re: Sansa’s arc heading toward her being a player in tha GOT?
Sorry to interrupt this lovely discussion that yet again demonstrates how few fans are interested in Sansa’s character (I’m not judging, just depressed), but is this the first news about the audio commentaries or did we already know that Bryan, Maisie and Tom are doing this episode? I think I need to buy the dvd just to hear this one!
GRRM isolated Sansa from the story, so I can’t really see how she fits anywhere.
Sansa’s plot in the Vale is too slow paced for her to have any influence in the North. She is trapped there like Dany in Meereen.
To be honest, I find this theory quite weak. I would really be surprised if the books will go this route. And there is still the question what will turn Sansa against Littlefinger. Or will she be forever Littlefinger’s little pawn? I really doubt this, especially with regard to the prophecy that she is smashing a titan.
Sansa obviously knows that Baelish was on the Lannister side in the Stark/Lannister conflict. She has no reason to know anything about his particular role (if you think it’s an authorial contrivance that that wasn’t discussed at court in her hearing, you’re free to — it has certainly been the subject of fan debate — that that’s the case).
For his part in the Tyrell alliance.
Er, Sansa did want to get away from Baelish. She had nowhere to go. Littlefinger has exploited that to pressure her into doing what he wants and manipulate how she sees him.
Semi-obliquely, yes, which Littlefinger convinces her to view that as Lysa being crazy (it’s dealt with in her first AFFC chapter).
mau,
Non sequitur.
Like I said, I don’t know what that will be. I just believe, based on what GRRM has written thus far, that it will have to involve Sansa herself asserting her Stark identity and her own morality against his attempts to make her something else (much like I can’t imagine Arya’s time in Braavos will not come down to Arya’s inability to become ‘no one’ because she is Arya Stark). Sansa turning against him because Harry the Heir raped her doesn’t fit that, as far as I can see — anymore than some of the other common fan theories that involve Brienne/Jaime/Tyrion/Ser Shadrich/Varys/whoever dragging Sansa away from the Gates of the Moon into some other plotline).
“Dealt with”? It’s brushed aside. A pretty big plot hole, if you ask me. Lysa was quite explicit! Then Sansa just inquired about it once and Petyr’s shitty answer “she was just crazy!” apparently was enough for her. As the only point of view character around there, Sansa had to be there when Lysa revealed their conspiracy (in the show, we have the advantage of following more characters, so it made more sense, with Lysa discussing the matter with Petyr in private). However, of course, GRRM didn’t want Sansa to turn against Littlefinger yet… So he just decided to rather shamelessly brush this issue aside at the beginning of her first chapter in the next book. That was very clumsy. Honestly, except for season three, the show has dealt with Sansa as a character and the storylines around her much better than the books, as far as I’m concerned.
Dame of Mercia,
I didn’t find Lily James irritating and I think she played the character well. Imo Natasha is the embodiment of life (charming, jolly, disappointing, depressed/depressive, capable of starting again) and that’s why the intelligent, brooding Andre and Pierre fall in love with her. But, when I was a child, I was hurt when I saw that Natasha was not faithfull to the wonderful Andre. I remember my mother trying to explain that Natasha was young, easy to impress when she was left alone by her fiance and felt rejected by his family. Dear Mum, when I was an adult she confessed that she didn’t like Natasha.
When I was 10 I saw the Russian adaptation by Sergei Bondarchuck and I had my first actor crush on Vyacheslav Tikhonov, the actor who played Prince Andrey. I should watch the film again, if I can find it, to judge it with my adult mind, but it is said to be a good film. After the Russian adaptation the Audrey Hepburn-Mel Ferrer variant seemed weeker, although I’m an Audrey fan. I also watched a French-German-Italian adaptation which I enjoyed. I think the BBC is the best and it gets extra points for depicting the Russian atmosphere so well.
Luka Nieto,
I think he was probably planning to introduce us to Stockholm Sansa after the five-year-gap and sort of leave how Littlefinger managed that rather oblique; when that got abandoned, I agree, it’s one of his less-convincing character beats. Though I think you can see Sansa’s continued subconscious fear of Baelish based on things like that reflected in her stated desire to get as far away from Baelish as possible (except that she has nowhere to go, that she can see).
I don’t agree at all on the latter point. The show made a complete hash of her KL character development in seasons 2 and 3 (her non-existent relationship with the Hound, her escape being a random event rather than the culmination of her own plotline, the absence of any development in her understanding of court politics, the constant demeaning jokes at her expense), and once they got her out of KL they pretty much punted on her mentoring and the whole identity struggle, before sending her into a redux of her KL story where she’s less effective than she was in KL.
Ser Not Appearing In This Series,
I liked Lily James both in Downton Abbey and War and Peace, I think she was suitable for both parts.
Well it does not have to be rape, it can be also just another horrible experience with Harry.
There is also another hint that something like this may happen in the books:
GRRM issued the Mercy chapter when show-Arya did something similar in the show under different circumstances. GRRM issued the Sansa excerpt shortly before season 5. Personally I think that is no coincidence. And I also do not think that it is a coincidence that Ramsay has a lover called Myranda who is jealous of Sansa.
Sean C.:
Show me one example, only one, where you could read Sansa’s chapter and say “she is really smart, she is thinking two steps ahead, she is so great at manipulating people,…”
Only one!
And then you will realise that every theory about her is just a fan fiction and excuse for GRRM’s aimless writing for her.
Jessica,
Whether rape or something else, the same logic holds.
mau,
Sansa has never been two steps ahead of everyone else. But we have seen her intelligence and her learning to manipulate people consistently throughout the story. It’s a gradual evolution (too gradual for some, which is a fair enough position).
Demon Monkey,
Very well said, I totally agree.
Luka Nieto,
So you are telling me GRRM is writing Sansa as naive girl and sacrificing her development for the sake of LF? No way. That is something only D&D would do.
GRRM is writing everybody around LF as idiots, so he would unrealistically always be two steps ahead of everyone.
The show approach to LF is far more realistic.
HotPinkLipstick,
Appologies, m’lady! Next time a girl will have drinking duties.
And that is happening in the show too, even faster than in the books (Thank god!). She thought the marriage to Ramsay would be a good idea to avenge her family and to conquer the North. She believes in the books too that a marriage with Harry would be a good idea to get revenge and the North. There are so many parallels for her motivation between the books and the show. Nevertheless, D&D are condemned that Sansa agreed to that marriage in the show and she is not portrayed more as a player. But that would have been out of character, it is also clear in the show and the books that she can not play the game of thrones yet. Nevertheless she has already learned a lot and already survived a lot of bad situations.
Isn’t it a bit convenient that when Sansa is thinking of possible avenues of escape from LF, she manages to forget the one brother who was actually alive?
Examples?
Jessica,
The show gave Sansa (by making Littlefinger look really dumb) a position of security the book version never had, in the support of the Vale lords. The overriding factor in all of the decisions that book Sansa makes is that she is completely boxed in by Littlefinger and has nowhere else to go. The show let her out of that box, only to have her continue to act like she’s in it; indeed, she’s far more clueless in Season 5 than she ever was in the corresponding books. She’s marrying Harry, as far as we know, because she feels she has no other option but to go along with Littlefinger’s plans.
The actual story they wrote in Season 5 doesn’t work as a trial-and-error story because Sansa never tries anything and can’t derive any meaningful lessons from it; she fails utterly at doing anything against the Boltons, fails at calling for rescue, and then gets rescued by somebody else. The only possible lesson she could learn is “don’t voluntarily become a Bolton hostage”, which should have been obvious to anyone from the beginning. Case in point, the dead-end story with the old lady; instead of having Sansa feel out the locals for support, the old lady wanders up to introduce herself and deliver the plot token (in a repeat of the show’s version of the Dontos plot). There are ways to write a story where a character does not succeed at their ultimate goal but still shows skill development, but that didn’t happen in Winterfell (indeed, she was more successful with Joffrey in King’s Landing in Season 2/ACOK), even setting aside that her being there at all requires her to be really, really stupid.
Well, let me summarize your statement: Everything what D&D do is stupid and does make no sense. Everything what GRRM writes is great ;-).
What is with all the book spoilers? Fucking doucebags.
Jessica,
In short, he overestimates everything Sansa has done in the books and underestimates everything she is doing in the show.
mau,
Manipulation: This word is used very broadly or very narrowly, but to cite a single instance in the massive charade that she conducts during her imprisonment at court: when, after her being beaten at Joffrey’s orders in court, Tyrion offers her a room within the Tower of the Hand that would prevent her from meeting with Dontos and continuing her escape plan, she immediately comes up with an excuse to decline this seemingly great offer (from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t know about her escape plan) that completely fools Tyrion, who is hardly unintelligent. Indeed, she carries out her entire involvement in the escape while married to Tyrion without ever raising his suspicion.
If you want the simpler example of getting somebody to do something, she convinces Joffrey to spare Dontos (an action that parallels Arya releasing Jaqen, both actions setting off a chain of events that lead the protagonist into the arms of their mentor in their designated skillset).
I think they gave up monitoring this thread.
Jack Bauer 24,
I started out with them, but nobody else was and I stopped (it’s easy to forget to do it, unfortunately, and we don’t have much of an edit window here).
Sean C.,
So basically out of the three examples you could have come up with,one has been done in the show,the first one is not even worth mentioning because knowing house sigils don’t necessarily make you smart in a life and death situation,the only one you have a point with is the second one but you overplay her importance in her escape,considering it was LF who planned the whole escape and fooled Sansa by making her think it was her plan.
SHAME!
A huge part of the controversy of that scene was that it was different in the books. So a discussion would mean to put almost everything in spoiler tags.
Sean C.,
Your first example is typical exaggerating from Sansa’s fan. She identified the latter two because GRRM needed exposition.
About your second example, if that is really what makes a great manipulation, then every character is manipulator as well. Ned manipulated so many people with Jon. Was he a great player in the game? There are so many examples of much smarter moves by Arya an no one said that she is becoming a player in the game.
A third example was in the show as well. Nothing special. Just compassion and empathy for no reason. Something a great politician can’t have.
And all your examples are showing a girl who is not a complete idiot, but there is nothing extraordinary there.
I still just see Sansa as one of life’s victims. She’s yet to show me any evidence to the contrary. She’s a survivor but more by luck than judgement.
Tyrion the Myrion,
As I said, Sansa’s fans overestimate her growth in the books with their fan fiction.
Tyrion the Myrion,
Also, Sansa was never fooled into thinking it was her plan. Nor did I overplay her importance. Not being discovered required considerable effort on her part, from the moment that she chose to answer the note.
mau,
The idea that “compassion and empathy for no reason. Something a great politician can’t have” is such a nihilist notion, and totally antithetical to the books. Compassion and empathy are consistently shown to be Sansa’s strengths. Joffrey is a foolish tyrant in great part because he has neither.
Sorry Sean, but your examples sound a lot like clutching at straws. Really? Knowing sigils as an example for her intelligence? That’s basic knowledge for the daughter of an important lord.
Sean C.,
He could, but he didn’t, because he thought that was the best way to write that exposition.
That is a typical example of something completely minor that Sansa’s fan boys will blow out of proportion to show nuance, subtlety and agency.
Jessica,
I don’t see how her participation in the escape is “grasping at straws”.
mau,
This is a good microcosm of how some people are set on viewing Sansa’s chapters as only expository, as if the fact that they (like every other character’s chapters) contain exposition means they have no other purpose. There were several ways for GRRM to write that scene; he chose to write it in the way that shows Sansa’s abilities early on, abilities that she continues to use throughout the books and to which GRRM has repeatedly called attention as being both impressive and important, in other POVs as well as her own (as well as if you know anything about how medieval courts functioned in real life).
Sean C.,
About compassion and empathy….
Every leader in the books who showed that have failed. Ned, Jon, Dany, Cat…
Compassion and empathy are Sansa’s strengths. But that’s the point. She is not a player.
Sean C.,
It’s a common knowledge, there is nothing impressive about that. She is a part of a very powerful family.
Well, her actions in the first books are usually quite stupid TBH. Your examples just show that she is not completely dumb and that there is hope that she has at least learnt some stuff while being in King’s Landing. No more, no less.
Sansa is one of my favourite characters, in the show even more than in the books, but I would never portray her intelligence and manipulative skills like you, at least not yet.
mau,
None of those people failed solely or even primarily because they had compassion and empathy. And conversely, Tywin had no compassion or empathy, and he died on the toilet at the hands of a son to whom he had always conspicuously refused to extend those qualities; had he done that, he’d still be alive.
mau,
The author and the characters in-universe would seem to disagree, including Arya, who does not have this “common knowledge”.
Jessica,
The character has a long way to go yet, but the point is that GRRM shows her developing skills and potential throughout. There’s a throughline between her perception of the Lannister/Tyrell situation to her following her suspicion about Lyn Corbray to its conclusion.
Let’s play a game.
Witch storyline will cause the book-purists too rage and rant this season?
I’ll go with Sansa, Tyrion and Jaime.
Sansa, Iron Islands and Margaery/Tommen.
All of the them.
Mihnea,
Jaime appears to be circling around to his book material, from what we’ve seen.
But you label any criticism of the show from someone who has read the books as “book purism”, so from your perspective, probably every storyline.
Tywin’s death has nothing to do with the politics.
Compassion and empathy was an important part of downfalls of every character I mentioned.
But that’s the point. Arya is someone extraordinary, Sansa is a typical lady with common knowledge. Knowing sigils in really not a sign of a great intelligence.
Mihnea,
Jaime, because I think he will become a darker person after Myrcella’s death and he is a misunderstood knight in shining armor for book purists.
Sansa, as always.
Jon, because they believe he stole a story from Stannis.
Sean C.,
No I do not. I had nice disscussions with quite a lot of people about scenes/storylines they didn’t like.
There’s a difference beatween book-purists and people who simply didn’t like a story/scene. What that difference is, I will let people decide for themselves.
Yes it does. Tywin lives in a dynastic system; the personal is political. It’s not good politics to give people around you reason to hate you for no reason; it greatly increases your chances of being killed by your own men.
How is that the point? Lack of common knowledge doesn’t make you extraordinary; in the instance it was brought up, it was for Arya a frustrating moment that made her wish she had Sansa’s knowledge. They are different characters with different skills, both of which are important.
The book repeatedly calls attention to Sansa’s courtly skills, which are important to court politics, particularly when you are female. Tyrion, no less, thinks as much.
Shy Lady Dragon,
I missed most of the wine party, but at least I was around long enough to see Hot Pink Lipstick start to wave her wine goblet about in a most Cersei-like manner.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/a77dec4478d7c95808e122de7c534308/tumblr_mfzc4faRWB1qhd14co6_250.gif
#thegingerconspiracyisreal
btw – Looking for a drunk cersei gif (and to my great pleasure, there are lots of them), I came across this one.
http://www.thatsyogarbage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ibwP83NMswuGet.gif
Now I want to remake the Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” video with all GoT characters. 🙂
mau,
Forgot about this! I’ll add Jon/Stannis to my list aswell
Jack Bauer 24,
Probably this..
As I said before, I think that she has already learnt some stuff and that she will use that in future seasons/books. Her main skill is to survive bad situations, but usually this was a combination of luck, people who helped her. I think that will change in future, she will take her fate more in her own hands. But I do not think that she is a brilliant mastermind and manipulator based on her knowledge of sigils.
But I think the show does a much better job in showing her learning curve than the books, especially in season 4 and 5, I just loved her when she told the Vale lords who she is and her discussion of her reasons with Littlefinger, that was brilliant writing.
I just do not see the butchering of Sansa’s character by the show, which a lot of book reader seem to see. I find her arc in the show very interesting, personally I am really glad that they placed her at Winterfell and I find the wedding to Ramsay and the aftermath a creative way to combine several plotlines. There are lot of interesting scenes in season 5 e.g. the familiy dinner with the Boltons or her interaction with Theon and the bath scene with Myranda. I am really looking forward to her plot in season 6.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
You know they replaced Aimee Richardson with Nell Tiger Free because NTF looks more gingery on screen, right?
Hell, they made Joffrey’s skin blue so his hair would have a ginger tone.
It’s all about the Ginger Conspiracy!!!
Um, neither do I. I used that as an example of her having intelligence from the beginning (given that a lot of people act as if she was totally witless starting out, and even that she learned nothing until she got to the Eyrie), and as a starting point for discussing how GRRM shows the uses (and limitations) of her skill at the courtly arts. She’s 11 years old at the start; nobody is a “brilliant mastermind and manipulator” at 11, least of all a rather sheltered kid who has never been instructed in politics.
You are clutching at straws. Tywin didn’t die because he made a bad political move, he died because he was a terrible father.
Extraordinary was a wrong word. Arya is not a typical lady and her lack of common knowledge only shows that further.
Sansa on the contrary, knows what every normal lady should know. I believe her mother, her aunt, Cersei,…. knew house sigils. There is nothing extraordinary there.
I don’t remember Tyrion thoughts on that matter, because I didn’t reread the books for 7 times. And I don’t care for that, because knowing house singles is nothing special and if GRRM really tried to sell that as something impressive I have an even lower opinion on his writing for Sansa.
And if that is everything you could get from Sansa’s development after 5 books…. Well..
You don’t need to search for quotes and twist words out of context to show Dany’s, Jon’s, Arya’s,… development in the books.
No, it hasn’t changed my opinion of the scene, but that is because I was on the production team’s side of the argument from the start.
It was necessary. Ugly and appalling, but necessary.
I think that his open and honest defense of this scene was a lot more satisfying and comforting than Alex Grave’s ‘it wasn’t rape’ answer to Cersei’s/Jaime’s scene. And maybe because I respect and trust Bryan a lot more than most people involved in the creation of the show and the fact he was emotional about it and it wasn’t him repeating the ‘company line’, I do feel slightly better. I agree that they shouldn’t have remained focused on Sophie’s face the whole time and I was grateful that they didn’t. I realized at the time that it was a slight concession to Sophie and the fans. I still didn’t like the scene, I’ll never like the scene, I’ll forever be disgusted by the fact it happened BUT I don’t blame Bryan Cogman for it and I don’t think they did it for shock value.
But she is still no brilliant mastermind and manipulator, but some seem to see her like that and condemn D&D that Sansa married Ramsay and trusted Littlefinger. So, what is the problem with the path D&D went in season 5? There is not butchering of her character development but that seems to be the main argument of a lot people who hated the chosen path of D&D. She trusted Littlefinger and agreed to marriage to avenge her family and get the North (like she does in the book), it was a horrible mistake and she will probably have learned that she was no more than Littlefinger’s pawn. I really do not understand the hate regarding D&D for Sansa’s story arc in season 5.
Dragonslayer,
The show does not have a rape problem. The world that this story is taking place in has a rape problem. All the show does is shining a light on that problem instead of shying away from it.
I’m with Cogman on this and always have been.
Being a terrible father is a political issue in a system built around dynastic succession. Hence, why Tywin’s crappy parenting (and his daughter’s crappy parenting) is poised to bring down his dynasty.
Knowledge like that are the building blocks for participating in Westerosi court politics, which is inherent in the role of a courtly lady. The ability to perform in that role in dire situations is a regular theme in Sansa’s story thus far.
The quote was about Sansa’s skill at courtly arts in general as Tyrion watches her interact with people. People skills being important, and all.
As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s not. I cited it as the earliest example, in conjunction with several others.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but already posted above why I don’t believe this story works, why it does not fit with the trajectory GRRM has her on in the corresponding period in the novels, and why it’s very different from the Harry the Heir story. I would also say it’s internally inconsistent, because Season 4’s ending does not at all suggest she trusts Littlefinger; if anything, it suggests the opposite, that she’s going to be on guard against him going forward (which is reflected in Sophie Turner’s interviews given afterward; that was how she read and played it).
mau,
house sigils*
The issue with Sansa’s story in season 5 is not the rape scene. The main issue is her entire arc doesn’t make sense at all. What was the point in returning to Winterfell, into the arms of the murderers of her mother and her brothers, alone and with no actual plan? No sense at all, just a silly incomprehensible decision, and poor writing.
Like so many other internet “controversies”, you need a perfect storm of factors to converge. Sansa’s wedding and subsequent rape caused a shitstorm of epic proportions NOT primarily because of the way writers treated the subject of rape, much as how the outrage at Jaime’s and Cersei’s sept scene in Season 4 also wasn’t triggered solely by the fact that Jaime raped her. That was part of it, sure, but there were many other instances of sexual violence and rape in the show that didn’t result in nearly as loud and acrimonious disapproval as these two. So, there’s another factor here that doesn’t have anything to do with social justice or awareness: namely, significant departures from source material.
Think about it. Purists/fundamentalists/whatever you want to call them always vented and raged about story deviations, but the larger fandom, not to mention the media, ignored them as it was essentially a niche intra-fandom issue not all that interesting to wider audiences or TV critics.
On the other hand, social justice people (not meant in a disparaging way) had an axe to grind against the more “sexually questionable” content over the seasons. This issue certainly got some mainstream visibility over the seasons as the show, rightly or wrongly, developed a reputation for mishandling sexual violence and, more generally, sexuality itself. But given the quality of the show and the widespread approval it gained from nearly all quarters, this was viewed as little more than a blemish on an otherwise great series.
Only when these two issues converged — in Cersei-Jaime scene and Sansa-Ramsay scene — did we get the totally over-the-top I’m-not-gonna-watch-this mass hysteria that seemed to set the whole internet ablaze at one point. It essentially briefly united two groups that are very loud and very influential in the social media: hardcore book people and, more importantly, social justice people (many TV critics and other internet personalities belong in the latter group). The two narratives started feeding off each other although, when you really examine it closely, they don’t have all that much in common. Many of the “purists” (not all, but many) don’t care about the rape itself — Jeyne Poole went through much worse — but they care deeply about the perceived injustice done to an important character. SJ people, however, don’t really care about Sansa or Jeyne Poole, Jaime or Cersei, or the intricacies of Martin’s storytelling. They care first and foremost about what they perceive as an insensitive and offensive depiction of rape and the role of the victim therein. Totally different issues; neat convergence nevertheless. (Again, not to say there aren’t people who self-identify as part of both groups; I just contend that most of the participants aren’t such.)
And of course there’s the third group of people: the “vultures” or “opportunists”, those who just wait for the right moment to rip into something that is popular, or who like to “bandwagon” on a trending issue. I distinctly remember something similar happening during the now infamous Cersei-Jaime scene in the Sept of Baelor in Season 4. The episode that contained the scene was among the four that was given to TV critics well in advance. All major outlets gave their non-spoiler reviews and, as far as I can remember, not ONE even mentioned a troubling instance of sexual violence. Almost none of the regular reviews written directly after the episode drew special attention to (yet another) “mishandling” of this topic. Only once the social media and the internet had the time to “digest” the issue, a huge number of “late reviews” and dedicated essays started appearing.
What do I try to say with this overly long wall of text? Not that you don’t have the right to be offended or to dislike certain aspects of the show. Certainly not that the show is infallible and that no criticism can be legitimately leveled against it. I’m just saying that it takes a very specific set of circumstances to produce an outrage of this magnitude and that these circumstances aren’t necessarily the consequences of D&D&C’s creative approach.
His daughter’s sons were kings. That is completely different. Speaking from the political standpoint, he played the Tyrion’s trial perfectly. Tyrion was sentenced to death and Tywin wouldn’t be considered a kinslayer.
Knowledge was nothing to do with the ability to perform. Distinction between theory and practice. Being a manipulator is a natural talent, you can’s learn lessons for that.
Then he had similar quote about her in the show as well in S2E4.
But every examples of her development are minor and unnoticeable.
The main problem is that GRRM had a good idea of a naive girl becoming a political player, but he just doesn’t know how to write it.
We don’t have a discussion about Dany’s or Jon’s development in the books or the show, because their development is so obvious it would be ignorant to claim that they are not completely different persons now and in S1/AGOT.
But for Sansa you have just a few quotes, a few occasions when she connected the dots and many others when she didn’t and everything is so up in the air. You must be extremely carefu to notice her growth
It was always my perception that the reason for switching off of Sansa was because of Sophie’s youth. I think the rest of season 5 also contradicted the initial reaction people had that it was about “Reek’s redemption”.
It was a well constructed, horrific scene in my opinion.
Mr Fixit,
Great text!
As you do not know, how the Harry the Heir story will play out in the books, you do not know that it will be very different from the show. But we will probably never know as the book will probably never finished by GRRM.
Regarding Littlefinger, show-Sansa is asked by him in season 4 after her testimony why she helped him and she answered “I know what you want”, so she thinks she can play him and that it’s better for her to stay with him.
Regarding, season 5 Sophie Turner also said that Sansa will experience a major character development in season 5.
Personally, I have the feeling, that a lot of book readers just do not like that story arc because it is different in the books, even saying that something like this does not happen in the books. Well, in the book the wedding night is even worse, but no one condemns GRRM for using that wedding night as shock value. As I said, that is really strange and tells a lot about some book reader.
I know some people who did not read the books, none of them had a problem with Sansa’s story arc in season 5. They found the raping quite horrible and felt very sorry for Sansa but they expected already that it would happen based on the portrayal of show-Ramsay. They did not see any inconsistence and are much more tolerant regarding that scene and Sansa’s story arc than a lot of book reader.
I challenge anyone who defends the Sansa arc in season to explain what exactly was Sansa and LF’s plan for revenge that required Sansa to marry Ramsay.
Sansa wasn’t going to slit Ramsay’s throat on their wedding night, as Cogman even admits, that’s not Sansa. So what exactly is this revenge plan? And why did this plan require Sansa to put herself in Winterfell to be abused sexually and physically by Ramsay? And did Sansa, in the end, even in the show, attempt to carry out this plan? It seems to me that only thing she tried to do after the marriage is to escape. Surely that couldn’t have been the plan.
The only people that marriage benefited was the Boltons. That’s why in the books they were willing to carry out the charade with a fake Stark daughter, because even a fake one helps their claim as long as nobody can prove she’s fake. And here comes Sansa and LF, they come along and gives them exactly what they want. For “revenge”.
It was a complete joke. And by the way, “dramatically satisfying” for Sansa to take Jeyne’s place means they wanted to manufacture drama, and manufactured drama is just another way of saying shock value. So even with their own euphemisms they admit it was done for shock value.
I think that’s overstating it.
On the whole it’s a slow-burn narrative, and different from the other major characters in many respects, but it’s all there.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
You should! It would be a feel good video for bad days.
It’s obvious Lena enjoys playing Cersei’s part, that’s why she does it so well. And any time she makes a parody of herself at interviews is a precious scene.
Part of what I found so well done about the scene was how ugly and appalling it was, yet without showing any of the actual act beyond ripping her dress and pushing her over. It goes to show how effective a scene can be without getting overly graphic.
btw – If this is old-school KG, what happened to your av?
Judibatt,
Keep in mind commentaries are often recorded months in advance – sometimes the actors mentioned that the episodes haven’t even publicly aired yet as they do the commentary – and Cogman probably did this a long time ago. We’re just getting to hear it now.
Yaga,
Exactly the same.
outdoorcats,
They do them in May-June, generally, I think (which would fit with Maisie saying that Sophie wasn’t present because she was filming X-Men: Apocalypse).
Well… I’ll just say this is sadly not the first time it appears we are watching different shows altogether.
One the contrary: how would Littlefinger know anything about Ramsay? There certainly is no “If anything happens, then Littlefinger does not know about it” premise. Moreover, what happens in the north seems to stay in the north: and the Boltons in particular seem to be very good at keeping secrets. Not even Varys (who has a far more extensive spy network than has Littlefinger) seems to have problems learning what is happening in the North.
Littlefinger is very knowledgable about what transpires in Kings Landing, which in turn gives him a lot of knowledge about the parts of the Realm that frequently traffic through Kings Landing (Casterly Rock, Riverrun, the Reach, etc.): but other regions simply do not send as many people where his informants are. So, what Littlefinger would assume is that Ramsay is, at heart, a commoner, and thus apt to be over-awed and cowed by “natural born” nobility. Given the assumptions that the Westerosi make about their lessers, Littlefinger would assume that he should be very easy prey for Sansa. Alas! He didn’t know: but, then, Roose did a good job of keeping Ramsay’s depredations hidden from Ned Stark and from everyone else.
I am in total agreement! I can’t get behind the Sansa in Winterfell plot either. The logic is ridiculous! It is so far out of the true vein of Sansa and Littlefinger to even be there. Why would Littlefinger leave the safety of the Vale, and Sweetrobin, to consort with the people who helped kill the woman he loved? Why would he not check out Ramsay before he got there? He is supposed to have spies everywhere, and yet, he doesn’t know about Ramsay, who is notorious in the North? Why would he risk losing Sansa, when for so long, he wanted her support?
If Cogman wanted Sansa in Winterfell, why not go in as Alayne Stone, undercover to suss out Boltons from the inside out? Why not have Sansa go into the North, and foment rebellion against the Boltons with the other Northern Houses? I could think of a dozen better routes they could have taken than that abusive, haphazard, and pointless marriage.
I know I’m against the majority, but I feel like Cogman threw away a chance to take Sansa out of the victim role. After 5 straight years of it, it is getting a little old!
It’s really quite simple: it is a long-con. One has to look at the alternatives. Sansa cannot retake Winterfell on her own. She cannot raise an army in the South: even if one was available (and one is not), then they would not follow a woman, and they would not want to go to Winterfell with winter coming. One might suggest that she could cast herself in with Stannis and hope that he puts her back into the Seat: but Littlefinger wisely deems Stannis a poor bet to win, and also, how could they even do that? Stannis is out-of-reach. Moreover, Stannis has not been friendly to the Stark cause. She could play Bonnie Prince Charlie and hide out while trying to rally support in secret from the remnants of the North: but they have no idea how she would be received and as winter is coming, very little could happen for possibly several years.
So, Sansa has to do something now, and get some sort of toe-hold before winter hits. As Sansa has learned from watching Cersei, women can carve out niches of power for themselves through marriage. Ramsay should have been particularly vulnerable to this: yes, he’s been elevated to nobility, but he’s half commoner, and thus he should be poorly educated and used to deferring to “true-born” nobles. And if Sansa can make her children more Stark than Bolton (in the same way that Cersei made her children more Lannister than Baratheon), then even if her son’s last name is “Bolton,” then he can be truly a Stark.
Of course, it does seem to immediately benefit the Boltons: but that is what you want in a long-con. After all, the bait has to be attractive, or the prey will not walk into the trap.
One, Littlefinger does not have spies everywhere. His spy network is largely based in Kings Landing, which sees very few Northerners, and probably even fewer Boltons. And even Varys (who does have spies everywhere) frequently has problems learning what is happening in the North.
Two, Ramsay is not notorious in the North. To the contrary, he seems to have been largely unknown there. In the books, there were whispers about him: but Ned Stark could get any solid stories to back up the whispers. On the show, Robb Stark has no concerns about Ramsay retaking Winterfell for him, and Robb never suspects that it was Ramsay, not the Iron Born, who torched Winterfell. As such, nobody (including Littlefinger) has any reason to suspect that Ramsay is anything more than your typical “by-blow” from a nobleman: i.e., basically a commoner.
Now, the Boltons have just gained notoriety in the North for their actions: but as Littlefinger was one of the people who helped set all of that up, he hardly is going to hold that against them! Moreover, it was Roose with whom they made the plans: Littlefinger would assume (like everyone else) that Ramsay would be a much more easily manipulated person.
Wimsey,
Well said
I found Sansas arc in winterfell to make sense, So much sense
Luka Nieto,
You’ve always been an intelligent and perceptive commentator, so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about what about her story in Season 2 you thought improved on A Clash of Kings, for instance (that’s one of the instances where I think most of the individual scenes are fine, but due to the cuts and other adaptation choices they fail to add up to anything).
Wimsey,
Exactly! And not every plot or plan is made to begin and end within one season….we also don’t always know certain motivations or ‘behind the scenes’ until later. Furthermore, not all plans end up working.
Syrio</strong
But I would like to add that to you and wimsey
If you think that the reason Little finger placed Sansa in winterfell was to execute some sort of revenge plot, then you clearly missed the point and don't understand LF at all.
LF only does what benefits him and placing Sansa in winterfell benefits him. So he convinced her to go to winterfell by telling her she can get revenge
So from Sansa perspective I agree with wimsey, that could have been her plan, but from LF perspective he's setting himself up with several contingency plans to take over the north
Oh, next season it’s gonna be fun! I can see book purists crying in the shower while singing an Alicia Keys song after every single episode.
Davos’ Luck,
Hahhhhaha
Davos’ Luck,
I think that they will hate themselves because they will like the show now that they can’t figure out what was different from the books.
They won’t admit that, of course, but they like the show deep down in their souls, because they wasted 6 years of their lives on it.
They follow every piece of news about the show. They are the fans actually. It is really sad when you think about it.
You are wrong on every count. First, TV-Roose can babble whatever he wants. It doesn’t make it true in any logical version of Westeros. In fact, given that there appears to be a Riverlands plot in S6, Roose’s statement becomes objectively false in the TV universe as well, because the crown will be helping the Freys, which helps Roose. Just like in the books, ironically. Papering over plot holes with illogical claims does not make them better.
Second, Sansa entered WF publically and was in no way hidden. Obviously the smallfolk know about her presence. It was neither a secret or presented as one, nor would it be effective if it were one. There is simply no support in the TV-universe for the idea that her presence in WF is a well-guarded secret.
Your claim that news couldn’t arrive faster than LF is just silly. Ravens, dude. All it would take is one middling northern lord, with any number of possible motives, to send the news out. And then there is general gossip, which spreads like wildfire. LF bet his life on not only out-running it, but it never catching up to him even as he appeared to spend a week or two in KL?
Here’s what really would have happened. Roose would “accepted” the offer, captured LF and Sansa, flayed LF and married Sansa to Ramsay. He’d then send the wedding announcement to Cersei on a LF-skin letter, who might rant a little but ultimately would concede that possession is 90% of ownership. Relative to what he did on TV, this is all upside for Roose. He still gets Sansa, but doesn’t have to burn his bridges with the crown. Of course, LF, predicting this, would never have made the offer in the first place.
Whether you like it or not, D&D succeded in making Sansa’s storyline one the most talked about in S5.
In the last two books, fans spend far more time discussing other characters. They almost forgot about Sansa. There are really no passionate decisions about her story in AFFC.
I was never among the people who thought the showrunners did this for shock value. It was clear this had to happen once they set Sansa on the track to marry Ramsay. However, I think this decision was maybe the worst decision they ever made and I stand by this. This should have been Sansa’s coming of age story in the Vale. Instead it was rape and misery.
Baelish will never get the North now! He married Sansa off to a lunatic and she will never go along with one of his plans again. He could come in and eradicate the Boltons, and it wouldn’t matter. I think she is finished with him. And on top of that, The Walkers are coming! They are going to have to flee the North by Season 7.
The crown will help the Freys against Blackfish. They will help them retake one castle, but they won’t help them rule the Riveralnds until the end of time.
And that is obviously Roose concern in the show. He is concerned about the long term, about his legacy, about the Bolton’s rule in the North after his death, and if he wants to create a dynasty that will rule for centuries his grandchild must be a Stark.
When you mentioned public information, I thought you were referring to the absence of the Northern lords at Sansa’s wedding.
. Like a gossip that LF put a knife at Ned’s throat in throne’s room in front of the whole court?
Why would northern lord inform Cersei about Sansa? And gossip can spread like a wild fire in one city, but on the whole continen? I don’t think so.
Why would he flayed LF?! Because he is a bad guy? A villain? There is no logical explanation for that. His allegiance with LF is more useful than allegiance with Cersei. Tyrells are becoming more powerful, LF is friend with them also.
I really don’t understand why you are opsesed with this idea that Roose needs to be in good relationship with the crown. Yes, formally speaking, Tommen is the most powerful person in Westeros, but “it’s a trick, a shadow on the wall”.
Cersei is absolutely nothing. Her son is a pathetic excuse for a king, there is no one powerful or experienced left in KL, there is aposlutly no reason for Roose to try to please Cersei in any way.
I think season one and two are basically as good as the first few books in terms of Sansa’s story. A few scenes are better in the books, a few others are better in the show, but overall I’d say they’re pretty similar. As for season three, I mostly agree with you, as you probably remember. In season four, I’d say it’s pretty much as it was in the books until Littlefinger’s trial, which I much preferred in the show, compared to the two chapters in which it is based, in which there are two different inquiries on Lysa’s murder —the first one is rather informal and tranquil, and the second one is quite serious and pretty much results in a short siege; the show condensed them together, found a middle-ground, put Littlefinger on the spot and gave Sansa something to actually do and shine while doing it. As for season five, for now it’s better by default, because it’s better than nothing at all.
I could only imagine being a writer of this show and have to deal with the obserdity of this fandom at times…lol sometimes I wish there were no books so we didn’t have to hear such wining.
Sean C.,
If you want me to be more specific about Sansa’s storyline in season two, please give me something to discuss, because as far as I am concerned it was not only a pretty well told story but also a good adaptation. The only thing I can think about is that they cut a lot of her relationship with the Hound, which seems to be deliberate. Doesn’t bother me much, to be honest, though I guess it angered the shippers the most! Anyway, the main parts of Sansa’s story in that season are great. Suffering Joffrey’s public torment throughout the season and putting a brave face while doing it was engaging to witness. There was always a slightly defiant edge to her, but she was always outwardly loyal, such as when she told Tyrion before the battle that she would pray for him as much as she did for Joffrey, which was quite fun. Then there was the setup for her relationship with Littlefinger for the following year, which was what really worked for Sansa in season three (if I was in charge of adapting, I would’ve also involved Littlefinger directly instead of a nobody like Dontos). Honestly, most of Sansa in season three worked for me —it was just the last few episodes that soured it. I would like to have seen her defiance in the wedding, and her immediate reaction to the news that she would marry Tyrion and later to the news of the Red Wedding —both scenes were seen from Tyrion’s limited perspective in the show.
Christian,
TV Sansa in the Vale would have probably had a lot of the same complaints Bran’s story unfortunately received: Too boring. And how else could they have incorporated the Ramsay and
storyline into the show and make it have an actual impact on viewer’s emotions? I think the Sansa wedding was brutal, sad, creepy, and obviously a step back in her progress… but I think it was a good decision to do it for the show. It will make Sansa even stronger I think. Anyway just would like to say I thought it was well written and masterfully performed by the actors. Alfie Allen made me tear up bigtime during the end. So cheers to Cogman and the cast!
solarflare25,
Yes, now, after things unfolded the way they did
Mitch,
I’ve watched this a few times in the past, and every time I’m wondering why GRRM would say that she couldn’t raise armies. I thought one point of the Vale plot was for her to come out as Sansa Stark at some time and inspire the Vale army to go north and fight for her birth right. Isn’t that part of LF’s plan? Also, I still very much hope that she will be a part of the army raising process in the North in S6.
Wimsey,
Yes, I always found this particular and oft-repeated line of criticism rather peculiar. How and why would Littlefinger know about Ramsey’s true nature when he was pretty much an unknown to the people of the North itself? As far as anyone knew, Ramsay was a bastard son of Roose Bolton. Were people all that knowledgeable about Jon Snow back in the day, before he rose to prominence in the Night’s Watch? What Ramsay does in his spare time is apparently a closely guarded secret known to a select few closest to him. The only two public incidents that we know of are the flaying of the Ironborn at Moat Cailin and the flaying of lord Cerwyn in Season 5. The latter was done *after* Roose and Littlefinger had agreed upon their little plan. The victims of the former, while certainly presenting a grisly picture, were “filthy Ironborn reavers” and foreign invaders that probably deserved death in the eyes of your average Northerner. Sure, they didn’t exactly need to die that particular way, but hey, we’re not talking about some exclusive sick Ramsay behaviour; flaying had long been the traditional Bolton way of dealing with enemies.
People often seem to confuse what audience knows with what characters in the story know. While Ramsay’s infamy is quite likely spreading bit by bit thanks to his growing inability to control himself, there is absolutely no reason to think that LF should have heard anything out of ordinary about Ramsay, at least accounting for his Bolton heritage.
EW is flamebaiting. They mention none of the other commentaries except the most controversial. Please.
Luka Nieto,
Basically, the cuts and changes they make result in Sansa’s Season 2 having no forward momentum.
Like I said, most of Sansa’s individual scenes in Season 2 work fine for me, but the stuff that’s not there leaves it without any larger story.
I respect Brian’s view. Of course he has the right to write the storyline as he thinks best, taking into account the different demands of the show compared to the books. I’m sure that none of his decisions were made lightly.
However, I still feel that merging Sansa’s storyline with Theon’s and Jeyne’s was a disservice to her character. Was it an unavoidable one, given that there can be only so many actors and locations in the show? Maybe. But only if Sansa’s character and personal story is seen as less important than the characters who got to keep their personal stories.
brown ben romney,
Was Sansa just Littlefinger’s most important pawn?
Or was she also the smoking gun that he had to find a way to dispose of?
If Sansa is a wanted fugitive then so is Littlefinger if he’s caught with her, and there goes any chance of continuing to play the Lannisters / the Crown like the fiddle that he has done for 4 seasons.
He uses his pawn. He sacrifices it, hopefully temporarily.
He allows Roose Bolton to capture it, thereby implicating the Boltons in Sansa’s crime and in treason rather than himself. And he casually goes to Cersei to use that move to his advantage, press all the right buttons to once again play her off against the other houses, and receive a mandate to attack the Boltons and a promise to be made Warden of the North.
Why did the Boltons take the risk? Their priority is to consolidate power in the North. The other Northern Lords are a bigger threat to them than the Lannisters. The Lannisters and the Crown are highly unlikely to invade a united North, and therefore uniting the North is worth taking a gamble over.
And what will Littlefinger tell the Vale Lords? That indeed is a tricky one. And I have to admit I’m interested to find out how they square that circle.
How about he claims that his travelling party were attacked and Sansa was kidnapped, forcibly wed to Ramsay and that they have a duty to get her back since she was captured while supposedly under the protection of The Vale?
How about that he has a plan to eliminate the Boltons and restore House Stark, the Vale’s former great allies, to power; after which he will marry Sansa to Robin and stick two fingers up to the hated Lannisters in the process?
I don’t know, there are a few ways they could rationalize it. But overall, the decision to leave Sansa at Winterfell doesn’t make as little sense as you suggest it does.
Syrio Forel,
You’re the same guy from before,if you want to sound like you are a different person at least try a different sounding username .
Syrio,
Dude,you’re not even trying aren’t you ? These are the book purists folks,if they can’t find enough people to agree with them,they create multiple accounts .
Mr Fixit,
Indeed. Robb Stark knew nothing of Ramsay’s nature when Roose Bolton sent him to recapture Winterfell and he was the King and had a whole army of advisers. Littlefinger may have spies dotted around Westeros, perhaps, but why would they be spying on what Ramsay, a random Northern Lord’s bastard son, gets up to in his spare time? There are no doubt all manner of brutal things going on up and down Westeros that never made their way into conversation in one of Littlefinger’s brothels.
I think Sansa and Pod should get together and play Fun with Flags and Sigils.
I am glad that Cogman discussed the scene in the commentary. I know that the writers and producers have commented on Sansa’s wedding night in the past, but I honestly felt like it was left to Sophie Turner (who is a 19-year-old with no control over the plot point of Sansa/Ramsey, mind you) to defend the storyline most of the time.
So it is nice to hear what the people responsible for the storyline were thinking instead of listening to a teenager trying to defend her character’s arc against a lot of displeased fans.
Nadia,
I’m SO sick of people claiming that it was done for shock. NO. The WRITER of the story said it was not. You can say whether you liked it. You can say whether it was necessary or well done or fit with the characters.
But you don’t get to decide for someone else why he wrote something! That’s ridiculous. You don’t get to decide another person’s thoughts and reasoning for them.
I thought it a very strange claim LF wouldn’t know about Ramsay, at least at first. However, I realized I was confusing what other characters know about him in the books and what other characters know about him in the show.
Did Cogman just give a major spoiler for next season?
“…setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story.”
Was he telling us what’s coming?
Or is he saying that she has already reclaimed it with this marriage?
David H,
This X 100000000000
me in this thread
I appreciate Cogman’s sincere words but I wish that this controversy could have some rest. We are almost in season 6 and this still makes headlines :/
The Boltons were ruling the north from S3E10 to S5E2 by that point. Are we supposed to believe that Ramsay was playing nice for all the North to see for twelve episodes (and ~1 year) only to immediately revert to the old Ramsay that we know and hate? Not only is this implausible, the show gave no indication of this at all. If you have to plug your plot hole with “when off screen, a principle character behaved entirely out of character, but the show didn’t mention it”, then your plot hole is still leaking.
LF being blind in the north is also implausible. In both the books and the TV universe he has the second-best network of spies and informants on the continent, and probably the best one in the north, especially around WF where his chief rival and love were located. The book Bolton’s pretty much purged the smallfolk around WF. It is unclear if the TV versions did, but either way LF would know about it. That’s certainly something that cannot be kept secret, and if they didn’t do it, then his spy network is still in place. Note that Roz winding up in TV-LF’s brothel is an indication of the LF network extending to WF. It’s much more plausible that she was recruited by a LF lackey than just randomly wound up in his establishment.
Frankly, that sounds to me like a “Queen in the North” storyline for Sansa…or at the very least Regent for Rickon.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
That’s exactly what he said “set her up to reclaim her home”. BIG, BIG, BIG SPOILER.
David H,
I think he’s definitely talking about her potential storyline. But I don’t think it’s necessarily a big spoiler.
Sansa has always had the potential to end up back at Winterfell and to become a proper player in the game, and it would have been strange if they had just ignored that potential entirely.
After all, people have been begging for Sansa to stop being the victim for a while now. The producers were pretty much bound to explore the potential that we’ve all known that Sansa had, if only through her family name.
However, being set on the path to doing something doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to achieve it.
Daenerys has been on the path to reclaiming the Iron Throne for 5 seasons and she’s still nowhere near it, nor do we know if she will actually achieve it.
David H,
Did you read my entire post? Because I am very clear about this – I have to see where Sansa’s arc ends up to see if she REALLY needed to go to Winterfell, marry Ramsay, and get raped in order to do what she does next. And I want to know how she ends up with GRRM.
Because they’re saying that her becoming Jeyne Poole is essential to her story, even though it is NOT for the actual GRRM story. So they OBVIOUSLY did it for TV drama and good viewing purposes. To act like they have such pure intentions is just retarded. The whole point that they CHANGED HER STORY shows that they wrote her story for tv drama
And you do not know ANY more than I do what the motivations are for someone who writes a television show TO ENTERTAIN VIEWERS, but to act like creating shock and drama are not goals is so stupidly naive that I’m going to assume you realize that.
Chad Brick,
So, the Boltons might have killed off some of their rivals and perhaps mistreated some of the locals after claiming the North. So what? That’s to be expected. That doesn’t mean Littlefinger would have known about Ramsay’s sadistic streak or that he would mistreat Sansa.
Tywin Lannister, for example, would have purged his rivals after a coup too, but Littlefinger would have married Sansa off to him in a heartbeat if it benefitted him and not worried about what Tywin got up to behind closed doors.
What the Boltons did in the book is misleading anyway, since we are talking about what happened in the show and the reasoning of the characters in the show, not the books.
Sorry, but this is just laughable. You’re just completely making stuff up to support your argument.
Nadia,
Well cogman said it was not written for shock value, pretty sure that’s enough 😉
Also, Then was the entire story written by GRRM for shock value to begin with?
Ned didn’t have to die at that point in the story
Come on now..
No Chad, your assertion that Ramsay is supposedly a well-known psycho is the one that isn’t corroborated by anything in the show prior to the deal between LF and Roose. I assume nothing; I simply go with what I’m presented on screen. I quoted the scenes that I believe support my position. If your position is different, it’s up to you to provide evidence to the contrary. Honestly, Ramsay is far from the first psychopath to grace our TV screens, and not to mention the real world. There are many such people who are quite able to conceal their true nature at least for a while. There is nothing remotely unbelievable about any of this. To answer your question, yes we are absolutely supposed to believe Ramsay played nice all this time. Did Ned know anything about this monstrous son of his most powerful bannerman? Did Robb suspect anything when he tasked Ramsay with retaking Winterfell? Did he suspect foul play when “Ironborn burned Winterfell”? I really do dare you: what public act of his trademark psychopathy had Ramsay done prior to LF’s deal with Roose (except the one I already mentioned at Moat Cailin that could easily be explained by Bolton tradition)?
Further unsubstantiated supposition on your part. While the show does imply that LF’s informant network is significant around King’s Landing and in the Vale, it absolutely never said nor indicated anything about his ability to gather information on the North. Your remark about Ros is even more “out there” and not based on a single shred of evidence.
I’m sorry to say this, but your reasoning is totally backwards. Instead of reaching a conclusion based on facts and evidence, you first make up your mind (in this case, Ramsay’s notoriety and the way it should figure in LF’s plans) and than construct the flimsiest of cases to support your, frankly untenable, position.
Hodors Bastard,
Yes-& if it’s in the trailer, instead of “heroes”, “sexual healing”
Deesensfan,
Yes! The whole saga is written for shock value. Either straight up shock & surprise, or the shock of subverting the tropes of where the reader thinks the story’s going.
Which now that I’ve said it, makes me wonder how likely the obvious arc of clueless-princess-wises-up-and-takes-back-what’s-hers is in a world founded on the subversion of such trite tropes.
Deesensfan,
I’m sorry but those two things are not the same. What was Cogman going to say “yeah we totally stuck a rape in there for ratings”?
I repeat, they made a choice that Sansa should take over that storyline for Jeyne. Why? For ratings and viewership, because they thought her toiling in the Vale is boring. So they sent Sansa to Winterfell to get married, raped, and run away….and now will rally the North. Could she have avoided Winterfell and the Ramsay rape and still rallied the North? OF COURSE. That’s what the bloody writer is doing. So Cogman and D&D made a choice about drama and excitement for viewing, and that meant making a CHOICE to send her there for this, knowing it wasn’t necessary.
UGH. So bored with all the rehashed backlash re: this scene- it’s been 9 months! Back then I believed it wasn’t done for shock value & didn’t doubt their intentions. It made sense to me re: Sansa’s storyline (and where I guessed it’ll go [can’t wait!]).
I really enjoyed reading this though- thanks for sharing it! It reinforced what I already took away from that scene- it’s my own darn fault that I expected to read more positive/understanding comments this latest time around.
Nadia,
That is your opinion 🙂
solarflare25,
100% with you. There was no logic at all in the idea of marrying the son of the slaughterer of her family and the usurper of the North. No sense and completely out of any character’s plausibility . As if Dany would have decided to marry Joffrey to regain King’s Landing.
Just saw a tweet where someone called cogman a garbage human for this scene! OMG you guysssss this is FICTION
*face palm*
Deesensfan,
A boring storyline is anyway better than an illogical and pointless one. Definitely better. Moreover: nice writing, nice dialogues, nice shotting never lead to “boring” TV, even in a quiet frame.
Syrio Forel,
This is the same Daenerys who married some savage warlord who she couldn’t even have a conversation with due to a language difference, and who repeatedly maritally raped her, to help secure an army for her brother to try and take the Iron Throne?
Deesensfan,
They’re zealots. It’s a political thing for some people.
When George and I were FaceTiming last week, he told me that Sansa does indeed become a major player in TWoW. First, Wardeness of the North and then, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. In ADoS, while voyaging to Braavos to pay off the Iron Bank, a kraken takes her ship down. Sansa almost drowns before meeting the merking. Falling in love, the merking transforms Sansa into a mermaid, and she spends the next 700 years ruling under the waves of the Narrow Sea.
I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.
Look at this stuff! Isn’t it neat? Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete? Wouldn’t you think I’m the girl, the girl who has everything?
:giggle: Doucebags. :snicker: :snort:
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
Khal Drogo wasn’t the slaughterer of her family. No one on earth would willingly go to live under the same roof (and marry the bastard son!) of the people who have betrayed and murdered your mother and your brother. No one.
Pookwankers out in full force tonite.
Frustration because they´re…*cough, cough*…out of pooks ?
Oh, sorry, I forgot…pookpurists, of course.
Syrio Forel,
Stranger things have happened.
People have fallen in love with and married family member’s killers, serial killers and all manner of horrendous people in real life.
People willingly stay with partners and family members that have beaten them black and blue and treat them like garbage.
People have been convinced by lovers, family members and friends to commit all manner of criminal and reckless acts.
But you declare that a fictional character in a brutal and unequal medieval society being convinced by one of the story’s master manipulators to marry the son of the man who killed her family members in order to ultimately seek revenge against them is completely beyond the realms of possibility?
Ginevra,
Nice. No point in trying to top that!
I read that as merkin. hahahah. Sansa marries a merkin.
like always sorry for posting this Here, I apologize for breaking the flow of the conversation.
Best Period/Character Make-Up for TV/New Media Series goes to
Game of thrones
for the Makeup & Hairstyling Guild Awards
LMAO! I debated on whether “merking” should be capitalized or not, but in the end, I decided I wouldn’t have capitalized “king” in that sentence. But, yeah, *not* a merkin.
Syrio Forel,
But it was illogical to you
And logical to so many others including the show creators
It’s too bad you didn’t get to enjoy at as much as some of us did 🙂
Matthew The Dragon knight,
Please do break it hahaha
Thank you for the update
Best Period/Character Hair Styling for TV/New Media Series goes to Game of Thrones
for the Makeup & Hairstyling Guild Awards
Game of Thrones won both the awards they where nominated for at the Makeup & Hairstyling Guild Awards.
Congratulations to Kevin Alexander, and Candice banks for Hair Styling.
Congratulations to Jane walker for makeup 🙂
Deesensfan,
Happy to hear you enjoy the news ^^
We need trailer for new season. Like seriously.
Trailer that was promised.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
What is reasonable in deliberately marrying the son of the man who has just betrayed and slaughtered your mother and your brother? I can’t recall any other example of that in human history.
The good news keeps on rolling Watchers!!!
Winner for Achievements in Television Series One Hour is GAME OF THRONES
Cinema Audio Society (CAS)
David H,
Being “on the path” is not the same as getting there. It’s a recurring theme of GoT that characters who are “on the path” to doing things get the rug pulled from under them, to the great surprise of the audience.
Syrio Forel,
Did Sansa not marry Tyrion? Was she NOT going to marry Joffrey, even after what the Lannisters did to her family?
No, but a. murders within political marriages were frequent; b. spying was frequent; c. recorded history has a slant towards the achievements of men. Why do you find it so hard to believe that a spy would decide to risk her virginity for revenge?
Kriemhilde married a man for the express purpose of having a place to which to invite the murderers of her first husband. Mata Hari slept with tons of people to get information. Lucrezia Borgia called her second husband back, assuring him he was safe, to have him get killed by her brother. It’s not much different.
Kamali,
Sansa was essentially a prisoner in King’s Landing. Instead, she left deliberately the Vale to become wife of Ramsey and enter the family who just betrayed and usurped her house in Winterfell. After which, her only actual purpose was just to escape frome that place (a purpose which she could have much more simply accomplished if she would have avoided going there). Absolutely inconsistent writing. Rape was the least of issues.
You missed out the bit where Sansa slays a dragon, using only her knowledge of house sigils.
You are right, Kamali! Since the end of season 1, we have seen Sansa in the clutches of selfish, evil people who hated and killed her family. Then season 5 came out, and we see Sansa surrounded by people on her side, a brand new canvas for her, fresh and new, and what do the writers give us? More of the same! All I saw was Sansa sitting at a table eating with the killers of her family, and engaged to a lunatic! And to take this humiliation one step forward, she marries the guy, knowing full well he was a monster. That has been her story for the past 5 seasons. Sansa goes to a place. She finds out the people are evil. She suffers in silence the terrible abuse, and then she runs off. The writers had a glorious opportunity to showcase Sansa in a stronger, mature, fan-favored light, and they threw it all away. And the writers wonder why everyone is so upset.
I’m not on westeros.org O.O. Now I’m gonna check it XD
But if she (or he) writes metas or something on Tumblr analysing the show or going into TV tropes mode, it’s probably I had read something
SlayerNina,
Good,hopefully you remain there and don’t come back,trust me you won’t be missed here at all !
I would say the ‘tomboy good, queen bee bad’ was a reality. We never saw Arya interacting with other children on a “motherly” way, or women (positively, not being catty) and the “most girls are idiots” bit was specially painful. And Sansa acting not like a spoiled child, but like a rude rich child with base borns such as Shae or the septa (the one to actually teached her to be nice and courteous), crying all the time (when it’s plainly stated she doesn’t cry) or being afraind with characters like the Hound (one of the few she feel safe) or friendly with Tyrion and Margaery (when she doesn’t believe their lies). ¬¬ It’s like she doesn’t have any development or cunning at all, being the Joffrey’s bits the highlight of all her journey.
And the dinner was horrible. She was mean to Fat Walda just because. I suppose this is the idea of being “badass” and “strong”… ¬¬ Something totally stupid, because Ramsay cut her (again) introducing Theon.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
I like your argumentation.
Hodors Bastard,
Awww, Westeros variant of Sheldon’s creation in The Big Bang Theory!
Yup. I (mostly) love the show, but this is so totally the truth.
The writers basically decided to give Sansa an even more revved up “rerun” of what she went through in Kings Landing for the first 4 seasons. That was their “solution” to providing Sansa something EXCITING to do, considering the fact that George has only released 4 pretty low key Sansa chapters since “A Storm Of Swords” (15 years!).
Obviously, Sansa is waiting in the books because George chucked the original “5 year leap” conception, and basically had nothing event filled (read: TV ready) for her to do, until other major storylines got to the places they needed to be. It was a bold decision by the showrunners and they had to know it would alienate fans of the show. But I’d argue that it was more because of how derivative and “step back” it was for Sansa, than the shocking and sensationalistic rape and brutality of a beloved character.
And let’s be honest. It’s not just “book purists” who disliked it. The critics and viewers who lowered their estimation of the season compared to others, really did it only because of that one episode/ storyline. Alot of these people haven’t read the books and they had disappointed reactions. Not only because of the touchy subject of rape (although this show already touched a nerve the previous year with Jaime/Cersei. So it was a keg ready to be explode). But because it felt like a “rerun” in a show prided with feeling bold and new with each season.
I like Season 5 very much. Hell, even the Sand Snakes won me over by the jail scenes! But as much as I enjoy Sofie and Alfie having screentime together (and I guess it’s setting stuff up next season with her knowing about Jon’s lord commandership and Rickon & Bran), I really didn’t need to experience Joffrey/Kinglanding 2.0 with Sansa, before we got to her “good stuff”.
It’s an IMO weak storytelling choice by Benioff, Weiss, Cogman, but I’m able to not let it bother me too much because it’s obviously just a “rerun” designed to buy Sansa water cooler screentime, until we get to what I imagine is a very epic arc coming. Fingers crossed.
Ginevra,
LOL… The best comment in this post, imo !
I appreciate your arguments but Sansa’s plot was probably only one reason why the show runners decided to go the route.
If they would have decided to keep her in the Vale that would have meant that they have to keep the Jeyne Poole-plotline. The wedding in Winterfell triggers many other events which seems to be pivotal for the end game. Personally, I think the Jeyne Poole-route would have made bad TV. It would have meant introducing a lot new characters. And really, I am glad that I did not have to watch Jeyne Poole’s story on-screen. It was already bad enough in the books. How do you think show-only-watchers would have reacted to THAT. And of course it would be also repetitive, as we have already seen the suffering of Theon on-screen and now again Jeyne Poole?
At the same time, Sansa would have stayed in the Vale and it would have been probably quite boring or, if they would have followed the book route, they would have to introduce also a lot more new characters for the show and it would be a new sub plot. Game of Thrones is already struggling with many characters and plot lines, even more characters and plot lines would be crucial. And it might be possible that Sansa’s story line in the books is also repetitve. There is a good chance, that something bad happens to her in the Vale which will create the final rift between her and Littlefinger. The show producers know the fates of the characters in the books.
No, from show perspective it makes a lot of sense to combine these two story lines.
Speaking of Sansa, happy 20th Sophie! 🙂
I don’t know why people complain so much about this scene. I mean, it WAS horrible, of course, but we’ve watched many scenes worse than that. Like the scene where Joffrey is torturing those prostitutes. And if the producers had make the scene just like in the books, we would see Theon making oral sex in Sansa and Ramsay slaping her face. In the books it’s much worse, the difference is that it’s not Sansa, but Jeyne Poole. People that complains are Sansa’s groupies.
Renly Baratheon,
What a surprise!
Just wait for TWOW and Harry raping her. There will either be a complete meltdown or dead silence.
Ginevra,
Wow, great story, m’lady! I GOT writer vacancy is calling for you 😉
Matthew The Dragon knight,
No need to appologize ever! I’m so glad I can find about various awards from you, without spending time googling. I must admit I wasn’t even aware there are so many awards to google for.
And, like always, I’m happy-happy-happy for another well-deserved award won by GOT!
SlayerNina,
I’ve been trying to think of real life strong women of the Middle Ages who were not unfeminine. Before anybody says anything I appreciate that only connects tangentially to Sansa’s storyline and whether it should have been varied from the books. I can only think offhand of ones from British history -the Tudor Queen Elizabeth I was a capable ruler (though strictly speaking the Tudors came just after the Middle Ages). Eleanor of Aquitaine rode to battle (though I doubt she actually fought) and she is reputed to have been a beauty. Black Agnes of Dunbar kept the English at bay during one of the Scottish wars of independence while her husband was away from the castle and there was a woman who did something similar mentioned in Grant Udin’s “I, John Froissart” (a treatment of Froissart’s chronicles to make them accessible to children) though it’s so long since I read the book I can’t remember her identity. There’s a Scots ballad “Epie Moray” where the Epie of the title is kidnapped and forced into marriage but wins the day “He couldna streetch her spey” (apologies to any Scots readers).
I am not qualified to say whether the two Ds have anything against female females – there was one quite interesting female female Princess in book Dorne who was cut from the show.
It’ funny, but forme the reason I was disappointed in the wedding night scene is that I found Ramsey not devious enough. When he assured Sansa that he would never hurt her, I was certain they were preparing to have him twist his words, and make Myranda torture her in his stead, respecting the letter, not the intent!
So when it turned into us he simply assaulted her directly, I thought they made Ramsey a lesser bad guy, with no subtlety. Compare that to when he toyed devilishly with Theon’s mind in th Dreadfort!
Off Topic:
OMG sooo funny.
Glad to see whenever the Donald talks about building a great big wall with a beautiful door I aint the only one that always giggles to myself thinking of Jon Snow and The Nights Watch!
Arthur,
Cleverly done! *clapping*
*claps* Excellent! You win my goofy pop show cross-reference for the day! There was no sexual connotation to my comment at all…really…seriously….I think.
Hodors Bastard,
Thank you, good ser! As The Big Bang Theory fans know, the guys in this show watch GOT, two of them (Sheldon and Leonard) have a sword replica on their living-room wall. They didn’t show it close enough to identify the sword, though.
I believe it is Longclaw.
Syrio Forel,
It doesn’t have to be reasonable. It was obviously a huge misstep by a naive, vulnerable, isolated, traumatised young woman, being egged on to believe that this is her opportunity to take revenge and gain power by the only person she believes she can trust somewhat, who just happens to be a Machiavellian master manipulator.
As for there being no other example of that in human history, are you familiar with the finer details of thousands of years of human history?
You only have to type something like “married a murderer” into Google to find numerous examples of seemingly totally unreasonable things taking place in real life, and that’s only in the last few decades since the internet started documenting events.
If you don’t believe the Sansa character would have made that decision, or you feel that her decision-making was not adequately depicted on screen, then that’s one thing. I personally would have liked to have seen more than just that one scene to outline her decision-making process, demonstrate Littlefinger’s coercion and highlight her own naivety/vulnerability in going along with the plan.
But to state that it simply would never happen, especially given that we’re talking about a fictional character in a fantastical, medieval world where belief often has to be suspended, is not justified.
This is a common problem, and one that presents storytellers with the same sort of issue as has arisen here. Basically, if I, the viewer, knows this, then Character X should, too! We do not step back and go “oh, wait: Character X does not get to watch this show….”
People also leave out scale. Littlefinger knows a lot about what people in Kings Landing do. From this, people make the illogical jump that Littlefinger is generally omniscient. However, that does not follow: just because someone is very well-informed about people in one-region, he/she might be very ignorant about what happens in other regions. Indeed, by specializing so much on one region, someone like Littlefinger would have to sacrifice learning about other regions. (The same is true in the real world: an expert on the History of China might know little more about the History of England than you or I; and although he/she is probably better trained to evaluate critical arguments on other topics than a layman, he/she will not be aware of the latest findings on gravity waves until the same time as the general public!)
And there is good old anachronism. Viewers forget that this is a world with no internet, no Cable TV, no telephones, etc. News travels slowly and very imperfectly. What some bastard is doing in a far-flung northern fiefdom about which little is known (and about which most that supposedly is known borders on fantastic, such as flaying) just is not something that even Varys would care to learn. Stuff like that is happening in every fiefdom in all of the 7 kingdoms. You will not learn about 99% of what happens, and 99% of what you do hear about these events will be so distorted by Grimmsian effects that it will have little bearing on the truth. In a way, it’s like people from the future or another planet being incredulous that we do not know the current events on Chiron Beta Prime: after all, we only need to tune into the TachyoNet, right? 😀
Mihnea,
I think there will be some Stannis carry-over, too.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
And even then, those events become known after the Red Wedding. Given the state of near anarchy in Westeros, it is very improbable that much word of that would have filtered south. Moreover, in times like that and in a world like that, so much of what the southerner would hear would be so embellished by retellings and parochial biases that people like Varys and Littlefinger would know to be very skeptical. This would be a good case: because the Boltons are less than popular among many Northerners, people as intelligent as those two would take that story with a big grain of salt. (Of course, by the time that tale makes its way south, it would probably be much, much worse than what we read!)
We actually see this in both the show and the books. A lot of people more than half believe that the Starks do change into wolves there. And we can see the same thing in our world: just read what some American politicians routinely say about Muslims! And people believe it because they want it to be true. That would make any stories about the Boltons filtering south very suspect. After all, what must they say about the Lannisters up there, too?
And there were male characters cut from the show as well. What’s your point?
Yeah, reading Sansa’s one Winter Chapter, I thought that GRRM did a great job of developing Harry instantly as what would be a classic “date rapist” in a modern story. When GRRM is on his game, he really can do some very good instant development. Sadly, however, I think that even our wiser and more worldly Alayne is not going to anticipate this eventuality: but, then, I don’t think that she’ll fully take into account her status in Harry’s mind. (If she could, then she should have been scared into a state of constipation in her Winter chapter!)
Really? The only Dornish princess I remember in the books was duller than a rubber butter knife.
😀
(Full disclosure: I was in the “Yes, the Iron Islands sucked a lot, but Dorne sucked even more!” camp after Crows came out…..)
Hodors Bastard,
I know a few people who like that show. However, I’ve never been able to get into it: TV’s portrayal of scientists and science is just so wrong that it always drives me insane. Quite frankly, Game of Thrones invokes less fantasy than TV scientists do!
(That written, just about all of my colleagues are Game of Thrones fans! So, they got that right.)
Supernatural and The Magicians have also gave Thrones a shout out recently as well 🙂
Wimsey,
GOT fans- if you like the clever writing of the “bad pussy” line, but think it would’ve been even better with a laugh track, Big Bang Theory might be for you.
Arthur,
Absolutely hilarious! I was looking for “TRUMP” in big gold letters at the top of the wall…
Sansa didn’t leave the Vale deliberately,nor did the writers imply that, per the conversations paraphrased: LF told Lord Royce he and Sansa are going to the Fingers, in the coach Sansa notice the went West instead of East and called LF on it and asked him “where are you taking me” LF replied “where even Cersei Lannister can’t find you”
At the inn Sansa brings up the raven scroll and LF tells her his “marriage proposal was excepted” Sansa counters about him still be mourning her dead Aunt Lysa ( she does not realize the proposal is her and Boltons) they leave the inn after Brienne encounter ( Sansa doesn’t fully trust her but tries to get her to leave).
Sansa finds out LF plan when they stop at the overlook to Moat Calin, where she is hit with the truth and protest greatly, LF offers her a choice (which we know either way is a bad one) and he plays on her own words (in THE BOOK) she’s a Stark of Winterfell daughter of Eddard and Caitlyn Stark avenge them (Gods I hate that they gave that twerp those lines) she had no real options do you think LF would turn back really? I don’t; he take her to a village and bring the Boltons there to take her.
So on emotions of family and revenge she chose to go.
And despite what B & W say about giving her a choice, they did not as there was no choice, and there was no info given to her in any of those episodes for her to have knowledge of where she was going before the view of Moat Calin and by that time it was too late she was trapped.
What was said in first 4 episodes and what was filmed to me totally blow up B & W reasoning and hurts Cogman’s reasoning.
I understood why they did it (Sansa’s my favorite character and Stark)
but they created a mess with possibly a senseless outcome for her.
My problem with Big Bang Theory is the portrayal of scientists and science more than anything else!
I did not really care about “bad pussy” one way or another. Synonyms for that phrase have existed forever: that’s just a current one. Mind you, Dorne last year left me torn. The book fan in me was relieved that it was so much better than what we got in the book: but when you start at putrescent, then “really bad” is still a big improvement. On the other hand, I did find it frustrating because it took so much longer for Jaime’s storyline to unwind than it took for any other main character’s storyline. But, again, when you have more than one protagonist, then one of the protagonist’s story is going to unwind more slowly than the others. It therefore follows that when you have umpteen protagonists, then the slowest unfolding storyline probably is going to be much slower than many of the other ones. In the end, it did a good job of giving us Jaime’s kill the child/birth the adult tale, and I thought that they symbolism of having it coincide with the death of Jaime’s child at a moment where he reveals himself to truly not by Tywin’s son was powerful. I just could have done without Sand Snakes! (The Book!SandSnakes did not bother, but Book!SandSnakes also left zero impression on me, save that one of them seemed like a bad caricature of “Angry Dyke”: I remember nothing about the other two.)
Wimsey,
Why is it that whenever someone says a personal opinion that’s different from yours you feel the need to correct them, as if yours was the only acceptable one?
I didn’t like the Sands Snakes or the UUU episode, but when someone says they did, do you see me saying “You’re wrong”?
I don’t really look to that silly sitcom as a reflection of society, but the quirky focus on obnoxious, insecure, naive and understated actions and intentions of academia professionals and comic book store owners makes for a decent laugh every once in a while, although the first four seasons were much better. Even Stephen Hawking takes part, which is cool.
Henry Gordon,
Do you consider it that bad? Chuck Lorre, Jim Parsons & the gang and, last but not least, myself will cry our eyes out until we will be tired enough to go to sleep.
Wimsey,
I may be biased, because I find that sitcom really funny, but I don’t think it is meant to be a general accurate depiction of scientists. Imo the main characters have had serious educational and environmental problems in their childhood and adolescence, which explain their psychological problems. The most ironical thing is that the acclaimed psychologist is the worst mother. On the other hand, they are intelligent people and good professionals, even if totally unprepared for the real world and its relationships.
Dame of Mercia,
Also:
– Joanna I of Napoles, who wisely ruled her country on her own right.
– Isabella I of Castile, who defeated her niece for the right to the throne, reorganized the governmental system and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her brother had left behind.
– Melisende of Jerusalem (not to be confused with Melisandre), who led a coup against her own husband and started a civil war agains her son. Despite losing, she still maintained great influence and avoided total obscurity in a convent.
Would Joan of Arc count?
Are you looking to be nit-picking with people? I was trying to address SlayerNina’s points. Actually I have white-knighted D&D more than I’ve criticised them (though I’ll go to my grave hating Talisa – and wondering why they changed Ellaria so much). I’d say that the brother of the Dornish princess I mentioned was a dull character (the brother that was cut from the show). Wimsey obviously didn’t like the said cut Princess. I guess I can mention this without being “spoilery” because it’s been mentioned on one of the DVDs, but I thought Dornish culture in the books was interesting in that the eldest child was set to inherit the principality whether he/she was male or female (no Salic law).
Grailking,
I also think Littlefinger played on Sansa’s guilt by reminding her that she’s been sitting on the sidelines while her family has been dying, left and right.
Tywin of the Hill,
Didn’t Joan of Arc wear male attire? I was trying to think of women who didn’t act too mannish. I tend to think of JoA as being a bit like Arya though less ruthless. Are you alluding to the Isabella of Castile who was the mother of Katherine of Aragon (Henry VIII of England’s first wife though you probably know that) and of Juana la Loca? I’ll have to look up the other women leaders you mention.
Oh, I know that it is not meant to be a documentary about what scientists are like! It is just that I am a scientist: and I cannot get around the depiction. Moreover, it does worry me that so much of what the public “knows” about scientists (or lawyers or doctors or whatever) comes from TV & film portrayals.
I think you are an amalgamation of Dexter, Data and Dr. Who. 🙂
Young Dragon,
Absolutely.
This is a girl who’s witnessed her father and aunt being murdered, been physically abused, been nearly raped, been repeatedly humiliated and tormented by those around her, found out that her brothers and mother have all been murdered elsewhere in the country while she sat helplessly in King’s Landing.
And now she’s stood on a hillside in the middle of nowhere having poison whispered into her ear by Littlefinger, under whose grip she is firmly placed, about avenging her family and reclaiming the North.
And yet people think her decisions are likely to be entirely rational?
In this case as in probably every other such case, it was a rhetorical flourish: someone asserted that an interesting Princess from Dorne was cut, to which I replied that I remembered no interesting Princesses from Dorne. The tacit implication is that what one person finds interesting, another person finds dull. This then tacitly calls into question the subsequent suggestion that B&W deliberately cut interesting female characters: the real explanation might be that B&W deemed that character uninteresting.
When I do flatly (and non-rhetorically) state that people are wrong, then it is over facts: no, X or Y did not happen in the books, no, Character A would not necessarily know about Character B, no, a non-PoV character is not a protagonist, no, story and plot are not synonyms, etc.
Tywin of the Hill,
*sniff* I’m touched….
Now, off to sharpen my knives on another planet 500 years ago!
😀
Have you ever seen the “Simon’s Cat” short (funny-ish) films on YouTube where the cat wreaks all types of havoc (in one film on the computer). Now I know in an ideal world I should have my laptop on a table not my lap, despite the name of that type of computer, but when I use that expression it’s usually because the cat has jumped up and walked across the keyboard.
For me, yes. I don’t always watch sitcoms, but when I do, I like a cleverer level of writing. Modern Family or such.
It obviously is tremendously successful, like other Chuck Lorre stuff. But it as cleverly written as his other stuff, too.
I’m sure it doesn’t disturb him as he sleeps on a giant pile of ca$h. May your comfy bed be built of cash, too!
Young Dragon,
That too!
Lack… of …. news…. killing…. me…..
Interesting reads however…
Allow me to reply with the same good wishes! I don’t think lots of cash (in any currency) can ever apply to me, but I trust the good omen power of good words.
…almost being killed by aforementioned aunt….
Female medieval rulers wore a variety of hats in terms of gender. If you are interested, I am copying a link to an open source essay / introduction to a volume on female rulers that addresses this topic. Mostly, female rulers worked within the bounds of what was considered appropriate for their gender. They didn’t fight in battles, but they certainly led men and armies. Mostly, they married and had children in order to hold on to power. Isabel I of Castile is a great example of that. She never would have prevailed if she hadn’t married a proper suitor and proven that she could bear children. And of course, her half-brother failed as a ruler in part for that same reason (he was known as Enrique the Impotent). I would not say that she saved her kingdom from the debt that her half-brother caused, since the empire and economic model that she and her grandson created eventually failed because it was not sustainable. Of course, Isabel was queen at the beginning of what we call the early modern era. Spain has a few other interesting queens, Urraca probably being the most exceptional.
Personally, I don’t think that D&D or the show is biased against feminine women. Dany is feminine, so was Catlin, and they are portrayed in a mostly favorable light on the show. I think that the audience prefers to see more masculine, aggressive women, and even feminist women, and that plays a part in what is offered to us on the screen and in the books. There are some medieval women who were known as warriors, or who even masqueraded as men, but more commonly what we see are women who are rulers and heads of their family clans because of the absence/death of a male heir/ruler. Most of the time, these women are forced to share power with men, but that isn’t totally gender-biased either, since in the medieval ages rulership was a shared power, a family affair. Cercei is the most interesting female ruler on the show in this respect. She reminds me of those queens who refused to share power with the men in her family and then were maligned by the historians as a result. Of course, they also failed as rulers because they were unwilling to share power.
https://www.academia.edu/5205191/_Women_Gender_and_Medieval_Historians_coauthored_with_Ruth_Mazo_Karras_in_The_Oxford_Handbook_of_Women_and_Gender_in_Medieval_Europe_Judith_M._Bennett_and_Ruth_Mazo_Karras_eds._Oxford_University_Press_2013_1-17
My dear god….
http://www.stack.com/a/the-mountain-game-of-thrones-presses-284-pound-dumbbell-over-his-head
plop_plop,
OMG
When i do one arm shoulder presses, I can barely do 25 pound dumbbell per arm.
Shoulders are small muscles that take long to get stronger
Jesus! The mountain is craaaaaazy
So true. So hilariously and alliteratively true.
HotPinkLipstick,
You know, it wasn’t until after – immediately freaking after – Sansa washed that black dye from her hair that Ramsey turned truly wicked and raped her. Cause and effect, anyone? Stimulus and response?
A handful of episodes later, Sansa’s co-conspirator, fellow dye washer-outer, plummeted to her death. Splat! All for revealing some ginger.
#giantgingerconspiracy
Bryan needs to snap the hell out of it.
If his decision to cut away from the scene was out of “…respect for Sophie”, then I suppose nobody respected Emilia when Drogo went at her hind quarters like he was stamping letters down at the post office, huh?
Get a damn grip, Bryan. Twitter is 90% comprised of escaped mental patients who don’t realize that Sophie is NOT Sansa, and that Sophie is an actor. You cannot respect the actor by failing to show her face acting.
And, as for the scene being “horrifying”: I’ve seen people disemboweled on GoT. I’ve seen their intestines hanging from their open bellies. I’ve seen little children nailed to crosses. I’ve seen gushing blood from more slit throats and beheadings than I can count. I saw people being burned alive.
Don’t speak.
Don’t speak again until you’ve grow back your *!%^.
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?!
Ginevra,
I thought about that last night! Her auburn-ness renders any discussion of her arc moot, as she’s certainly doomed, and soon. #dedredhed
Luka Nieto,
Ramsay is the sadist, and Sansa had good reason to believe he was as the Boltons are known for flaying, that is aside from the fact that they murdered her mother and brother.
Sansa was told, explicitly, by Miranda that Ramsay used dogs to “hunt” girls that displeased him. It was clear to her that something awful had been done to Theon; Sansa saw him sleeping with the hounds, a mere shell of his former self, yet she told Theon that she wished she could do to him whatever Ramsay had done.
When you start looking into it, there were quite a few skilled female politicians and military leaders just in the English Middle Ages.
Aethelflaed, “Lady of the Mercians”, seems to have been both an astute politician and a military commander, taking after her father, Alfred the Great. She seems to have been very popular with her people, though the sources are not clear enough to determine how “feminine” she was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelflæd
“Empress” Matilda, daughter of Henry was married to Germany, and grew accustomed to wielding great power only as a teenager, as she acted as the regent over the vast territories of the Holy Roman empire, when he husband was fighting. After her husband’s death, she returned to England to claim the throne and fought a bitter civil war against Stephen, known as the Anarchy: 1135-1154.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda
In the Wars of Roses, when her husband Henry VI was incapacitated, Margaret of Anjou commanded the Lancastrian armies, and carried the Lancastrian cause with a stubborn determination that reminds me Cersei (I think that’s where GRRM drew inspiration for the character).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_of_Anjou
Later Princess Margaret of York, who was married to Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, proved to be a very astute and active politician, even after her husband had been defeated and died and the whole realm was collapsing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_of_York
Ginevra,
The man is frightened. If I was frightened. I’d say “Sansa is going to come into her own this season!”
But, I’m not him, and I’m not frightened. I say Sansa will continue to do what she’s always done: try to escape Winterfell, not “reclaim” it.
Nothing has happened yet – that I can see – that would cause her to make a 180 and become a champion of the North which she has spent the last few years running away from. She has called her parents “traitors”. She has said she has “traitor’s blood”. She has grovelled on the floor at court… When she was given opportunity to go to the Vale the first time Littlefinger offered, she chose to marry Lancel and go to Highgarden to be “sisters” with Margery. This is while her mother and brother still lived.
So, here are 6 more nails to hammer into that red-headed heifer’s coffin, for those who can’t stand her character.
Yes.
Judibatt,
Did he, really? I like that Bryan better than this weepy, sentimental one.
Yaga,
Her season 4 “development” is a fiction.
…Maybe because he’s lying. Sansa Stark fanatics are easy marks in the sense that you can say anything vaguely positive about her and they are filled with hope. But, if they look at who her character really is, they’ll see for themselves that the elements don’t yet exist for heroism.
….It was Theon who pushed Myranda to her death; and, it was Theon who grabbed Sansa’s hand and climbed onto the wall for their jump.
Chris,
I hate when they day this kinda stuff, it’s like a woman can’t be ready for revenge until she’s raped. It’s not realistic that she was raped because her marriage to Ramsay was to help the Bolton actually hold the north and stop the rebellion, so upsetting her and keeping her locked away isn’t realistic at all… but I guess in GOT a woman can’t be a major player until she’s raped.
Stoneheart,
There are at least 3 strong women, that I count, on Game of Thrones; however, they are not strong by seeking “revenge”.
There is Lady Olenna and her granddaughter, Margery. They use intelligence and information to manipulate very bad circumstances. And of course, there’s The Mother of Dragons.
Other honourable mentions: the female Wilding leader at Hardhome, who just couldn’t kill the dead children, and Ygritte (though she was vicious). Missandei, who as a former slave, could read and speak multiple languages.
I’m sure others can come up with more strong women.
I suspect that in the future, someone WILL tell her what happened to her father. LF will die when she learns of this.
Does anyone know any characters who possess this information, have a fondness for Stark women, and aren’t dead yet?
Chad Brick,
Are we talking about uncommonly large persons that dig and pet dogs? 🙂
If so, I must admit that thought crossed my mind as well…
Stoneheart,
Of course it’s realistic that she was raped. Up and down Westeros over the centuries wives would have consummated their marriages on their wedding night whether they liked it or not.
Sansa is the Boltons’ prisoner. She’s not going anywhere. She’s got no army, no say, no obvious means of escape. They merely need her name and an heir to legitimize their claim to Winterfell.
And if she ends up as broken and subservient as Reek then that’s probably preferable to her actually retaining any designs on revenge or rallying the North to her side.
It’s hard to know whether Roose would be particularly happy about Ramsay brutalising her, given that he was annoyed about what Ramsay did to Theon; but considering the circumstances of Ramsay’s conception, where Roose raped Ramsay’s mother under the hanging body of her husband, I doubt he’d have too many qualms about Ramsay forcibly impregnating Sansa in order to secure an heir and their legacy, just as Tywin urged Tyrion to get Sansa pregnant by any means necessary.
So it was a “long con”, that’s the best you’ve got. And for that con to work Sansa would have to marry Ramsey, bear him and heir, turn the heir against him, so that 20 years later she’d get her revenge?
I’m sorry but if this is the best “it was logical because ‘revenge’ ” crowd can do then seriously, you guys have nothing.
1) As even Myranda said to Sansa on the show, as soon as she bears an heir, she’s useless to them and they will probably kill her. So even a base born kennelmaster’s daughter understands this. Their is no long con because Sansa’s only value is her claim to winterfell, she doesn’t have a powerful lord who’s backing her and who’s alliance is important for marriage, ike Cersei who has her family ruling the Westlerlands. There is no “long con” for her, she’s dead in the short to medium run in a marriage to Ramsay.
2) Stannis and his larger than the Bolton’s army is marching on Winterfell. There is no long con because the army marching on the Boltons will force the issue in a matter of weeks and months. If Stannis wins (which was LF’s guess), then tying your self to the Bolton’s before the fighting starts makes no sense, and if Stannis loses, well, if she hadn’t married Ramsay she could rally the Northern Lord to fight the weakened Boltons, but only if she hasn’t already made the Ramsay Bolton the legitimate lord of Winterfell by marrying him.
Under no scenario does the marriage further any remotely plausible plan of “revenge”. All that happened to Sansa after the marriage is that she was raped and locked in her room as a prisoner. Which anyone with an iota of sense would have been able to predict.
It’s me. I just changed my email address and haven’t gotten around to updating my account here. I can’t remember the password, and meh this works.
Go see my cheerful discussion on the teaser if you doubt it’s me 🙂
Homplomplom,
Aethelflaeda of Mercia founded my hometown though I think of her as being just before the Middle Ages (though I’m not a professional historian). I suppose the Irish pirate Grainne Ne Mhaile was quite a character though I think of her in relation to Asha/Yara Greyjoy.
Testing with my old address. I guess there’s no reason I can’t use it …
There we go.
Syrio,
You seem to be struggling under the misapprehension that Sansa achieving revenge through this marriage was either entirely logical or intended.
Does Littlefinger actually intend her to achieve revenge this way? No! Because he intends to ride in and smash either the Boltons or Stannis and claim Winterfell for himself.
He uses Sansa to gain the Lannisters’ and the Crown’s mandate to invade the North, destroy the House they just installed as Wardens of the North and a promise to be named Warden of the North himself if he succeeds.
That was his intention. Not revenge.
As for Sansa, as has been explained earlier in this thread, she is a naive, vulnerable young woman of clearly questionable judgment. Just because Littlefinger tells her that this is a means to seek revenge does not actually make it a plan other than in theory.
He’s trying to convince her to go along with his plan, so he manipulates and emotionally goads her into believing that she can achieve revenge by marrying Ramsay, wrapping him round her finger and playing the Game of Thrones.
Does he have any practical plan to do so? Does she? Is her decision meant to have been entirely logical and well thought out? No. Not necessarily.
Her decision to go along with Littlefinger’s plan isn’t necessarily meant to be entirely rational!
Ah, one of the burhs she founded? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is full of mentions of her building fortresses: http://omacl.org/Anglo/part2.html
The Middle Ages is usually defined as the period from the fall of Western Rome to ca. 1500 (reformation, book printing and discovery of the Americas). It further divides into:
The Early Middle Ages (or Dark Ages), ca. 500-1000
The High Middle Ages, 1000- to Black Death, ca. 1350 (reached southern Europe a couple of years earlier than northern).
The Late Middle Ages, 1350 to ca. 1500 (in England 1485 & Tudors winning the Battle of Bosworth)
So, the Anglo-Saxon period is medieval.
Yeah, it’s funny how GoT influences how you read about history. In my imagination Margaret of Anjou now looks like Lena Headey 😀
In the Middle Ages in the real world, intelligent, ambitious women from ‘good families’ had another route to power besides marriage that they don’t have in Westeros/Essos: working their way up through a religious order to become an abbess. There are many examples in European history of abbesses who became influential through their writings and were consulted as advisors by monarchs, lords and high clergy. An abbess could wield a fair bit of political influence from behind the scenes in a variety of ways, including conveying messages without arousing suspicion, providing sanctuary to fugitives, stockpiling food against shortages, healing sick and injured people of importance and so on. Abbeys were exempt from taxes and military levies. And the leader of an army would have to be desperate enough not to care about incurring the opprobrium of the Church in order to resort to attacking an abbey, so they were usually treated as neutral territory in a war. That gave both abbots and abbesses a fair bit of immunity and room to maneuver in political dealings (not always, but often).
In GRRM’s world, there is no cognate role for women – unless you count the Red Priestesses, who don’t seem quite comparable to me, since they don’t have the weight of a hierarchy or an important local socioeconomic institution behind them. In the Faith of the Seven, we never hear anything about a High Septa wielding significant influence. It’s the author’s prerogative to set up his secondary reality any way he likes, of course, but this always feels a bit like a missing piece on the chessboard (or cyvasse board) to me.
Anon,
Or maybe you should shut the fuck up,Bryan is a cool guy and he even posts here from time to time and you are just as your username states,a random nobody . I trust him and his judgements more than i trust your dumb theories .
You do know she said all that under duress and a visible facial threat by a-hole Joffry.
You took both those out of context.
Chad Brick,
The Hound.
Another skilled ruling queen, and lesser known perhaps outside Scandinavia is Queen Margaret I of Denmark.
In real life, there was never a female Pope.
In the Faith of the Seven, septas fulfil the role of nuns. In fact, the Faith is more tolerant to women than the real life Catholic Curch (Septa Unella is a Most Devout, the Westeros equivalent of a cardinal, which women could never become).
True, we never see a septa with ta lot of influence, but we don’t see any septon having too much power either (with some exceptions like Septon Barth). Since the Targaryen invasion, the Faith as a whole has been stripped of it’s military and politically power, up until book 4/season 5.
I’d say Martin’s portrayal of the Middle Ages as been quite solid in that regard, but that’s just my opinion.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
GOLD!
I was trying to say this earlier. You write better than I do!
Anon,
maybe it was the age. Sophie was 18 when it was filmed, Emilia around 23. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is.
The absence of the show mentioning something does not imply it does not exist. Why on earth would LF not have spies around WF, where his chief rival and love of his life reside? That would be out of character.
As for Roz, there are two explanations as to how she would up in LF’s brothel:
1: She was recruited by an agent of LF
or
2: Plain old hack-writing-super-coincidence
If you chose #2, you are just causing the water to burst through a different plot hole.
For LF to make this mistake, you have to believe five implausible things – that he had no spies in the north in recent times, that he didn’t send new spies before he made this head-risking move, that Roz was just a super-coincidence, that Ramsay’s pre-Winterfell horrific behaviors never leaked out, and for a number of months between S3E10 and S5E02 he behaved like a gentleman.
If you can suspend disbelief like that, good for you. But I sure can’t. Crap like that just slaps me in the face and takes me out of the show.
Tyrion the Myrion,
Maybe you should shut the “fuck” up. In fact, maybe Deesensfan and Tywin of the Hill and Grailking and everyone else, except you, should shut the “fuck” up. Shutting the “fuck” up in a blog comment section is a novel business model. Then it will be the Tyrion the Myrion Blog, not the Watchers on the Wall Blog. Do you want this blog to fail, Tyrion the Myrion?
And, exactly what is unique about your username? I’d like specifics, please.
Bryan has told a fib. Maybe he has been advised to appease certain fans, or he just doesn’t want the hassle of Twitter flaming. He got it right the first time when he told them to “fuck off” – if that story is indeed true. There is great contrast between “fuck off” and what he’s said here.
He’s a big boy and can speak for and defend himself far better than your limp attempt.
-cheers
grailking,
Those words seemed to fly out of Sansa’s mouth far too easily. There comes a point where you can no longer denigrate your family. I kept waiting for some pride, some disgust, some display of courage in Sansa – but it never came.
Sansa told Margery, I believe, that all she wanted to do was “escape” Winterfell. Is that a bad thing for an ambitious country girl to want to go to the city and marry a prince? No, it’s not. Once she got there and saw what it truly was, and when she was presented with two choices – go home or marry Lancel and go to Highgarden – she chose to Marry Lancel. That’s a strange choice for someone in supposed distress.
Every time she set her sights on something, or someone, she changed her hair, and was quite rude to her Septa who, on noticing these changes, told her it was good to remember where she came from – five seconds later, she was all smiles with Joffrey.
Chad Brick,
Goodness me, you’re not still sticking to that laughable fantasy about Roz being recruited by Littlefinger’s spies, are you?
Roz went south to King’s Landing because she saw no future for herself in the North especially with all her Northern customers marching off to war in defence of Lord Stark. She said so herself. And she ended up auditioning at Littlefinger’s brothel because it’s the most notorious establishment in King’s Landing. Hardly a great leap of the imagination.
Your complete flight of fancy about her being recruited by one of Littlefinger’s network of spies, however, and then using that supposition to insist that Littlefinger must have inevitably known about Ramsay’s deviance, is just complete nonsense.
Littlefinger may well have spies around Winterfell. He probably does. But suggesting that Roz ending up at his brothel is evidence of that is complete conjecture.
And even if true it still does not mean that Littlefinger’s spies would necessarily have any particular knowledge of what Roose Bolton’s bastard son does to women behind closed doors.
And even if they reported back to Littlefinger that Ramsay had been rather heavy-handed with some Stark loyalists after the Red Wedding, Littlefinger would probably consider it merely par for the course, given that the Boltons had just committed a murderous coup against the Starks. Half the Lords in Westeros would do the same if in the same position.
None of this necessarily leads on to Littlefinger concluding that Ramsay would brutalize his new wife.
Deesensfan,
It’s all very strange when you’re responding to public opinion. When you’re faking sex, or faking the charred bodies of children, how people respond to those things. The alleged “fuck off” Bryan from Twitter is the truthful one. What he’s saying here doesn’t make sense.
These are perilous times. In times like these, we need The Hound.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
It’s pointless. He will never change his opinion on anything. I found that out by ”discussing” Stannis with him. (it was mostly him ranting on how I and the writers don’t understand him)
Like someone said, in this thread I belive, Chad makes up his mind first and then tries too find arguments that support that point of view, while he ignores arguments that are against his opinion.
So while laudable your attempts at reasoning with him, witch I liked, are pointless, because he will simply ignore your arguments.
Anon,
Everything can be taken out of context
Yes, his FUCK OFF response was the perfect response, in my opinion. He need not explain himself or his work.
But I don’t think what hes saying here doesn’t make sense. He is saying this while doing the commentary for the specific episode and scene that everyone cried about, and I understand, from a business perspective, why it was addressed.
And in my opinion his explanation is truthful and makes sense.
also, yes, on point about the hound. lol
Was it right of Bryan to say “fuck off”? Perhaps not. No matter how much vitriol a troll might spout, it is still disrespectful to say “fuck off,” especially as a public figure. Do I understand the temptation to do so? Absolutely. The more posts I read on here, the more I can relate to the need to lash back.
What Bryan said on the DVD he said to the rest of us: the non-trolling fans who would genuinely like to hear his reasoning and thought process, even when we respectfully criticize as long as we do so without hate.
Mihnea,
I’m not necessarily expecting to convince him, especially since I suspect he doesn’t actually believe half of what he writes anyway and is simply being contrarian.
But I think it’s worth refuting and debunking such unsubstantiated theories and assumptions anyway, especially if they’re going to be trotted out to challenge others’ opinions and criticise the show and its creators.
Ginevra,
Well, I think if you say “fuck off” you INTEND to be disrespectful.
Ginevra,
Well said! *clapping*
Ginevra,
If someone called me a garbage human on twitter, I may say fuck off.
Haha.
But yeah, toats agree 🙂
Hahaha. Yeah, I remember thinking to myself, the av isn’t there, but that must be the original KG. 🙂 Good to see the av, though.
As for Bryan Cogman telling someone to “fuck off” when they asked about the Sansa scene, someone was kind enough to locate those tweets and post a link to them somewhere in all these posts. His “fuck off” was not in response to someone asking about the Sansa scene, but in response to a particularly foul troll who, when Bryan mentioned Knight of the seven Kingdoms being released, and the troll commented he was glad Bryan and D&D hadn’t had the chance to ruin those, yet. Given the sorts of things that troll would go on about, for example, that particular troll was at the forefront of the whole “the Sansa scene stemmed from some perversion on the part of the show runners,” and seriously, there was no depth too low for that troll to go, Cogman probably just had enough, and I can’t say I blame him.
Since we’re talking past each other, there’s no need to continue this particular conversation. You still haven’t said what exactly is it that Ramsay did that was so psychopathically horrible and, more to the point, public prior to LF’s plans to marry Sansa to him? You do know that in our own lifetime there have been a number of horrible psychopathic serial killers that went undetected for years and decades with no one knowing a thing about them?
Yes, Ramsay is a psycho. Yes, he likes to hunt women with dogs. He likes to rape, murder, and flay them. He likes to torture people. And he did all of that in secret. So what exactly is your problem?
Mr Fixit,
It’s different in the book..
In the end everything boils down to this.
The horse is a bloody mess let him be already
Ginevra,
Well, I think if you say “fuck off” you INTEND to be disrespectful. I think he genuinely meant for that person to “fuck off”. However, that sentiment is rejected. Some people only genuinely want to hear what he says when it’s, basically, made-up bullshit.
JCDavis,
He’s going to answer…I can feel it.
Anon,
You seem rather fond of stating over, and over, and over that Cogman is lying, fibbing, whatever you want to call it.
You must be a mind-reader.
Eugh, this really is the topic that just won’t die the death it deserves. It happened, deal with it and move on, people!
The camera on Theon’s face was perfect, right when you think he couldn’t suffer more he’s forced to watch a childhood friend suffer/raped by the most vile creature alive
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
The entire Western justice system is built on discerning whether someone is stretching the truth, lying, fibbing, fabricating, omitting or bullshitting, and it’s not comprised of mind readers.
His statement is full of logical fallacies.
Oh, so now Cogman is in a court of law. Who sits on the panel of judges? I nominate Lindaaa, Dragon Demands, and yourself. I trust you will serve with distinction and reach a just verdict.
Mr Fixit,
The most obvious indication is that Bryan is under confidentiality agreement. He CANNOT reveal any detail of un-aired episodes.
So, he sticks to inanities: Sansa “reclaim”(s) her home. A statement that has no real meaning, except what the escaped mental patients give it.
You’re being either deliberately obtuse, or naturally obtuse. Your choice.
So, did you three reach the verdict unanimously or is there a dissenting opinion? I’m dying to find out!
Hahaha, yeah, my first thought was, “I wasn’t aware this was a court of law.”
So, he’s either a mind-reader, or this internet fan-site is actually a court of law, and were it not for Anon’s informing us of that, we still wouldn’t realize it.
Ooooo…and now you’re a psychiatrist, too. Impressive.
Anon,
How do you know I’ve escaped? Maybe I’m a current mental patient. They give us access to the internet here, you know! They just block all the porn sites.
I came across this quote last night. It seemed so wise and germane, for some strange reason.
HotPinkLipstick,
I’m all torn up about your blocked porn, HPL! You should demand your first amendment rights (abridging the freedom of lust, infringing on the freedom of lust) not be stripped of you so that you can see men stripped of their clothing. Speaking of men stripping, the porn police recently arrested this male beauty queen when he was streaking the local airport. (Don’t look, Ethyl!) Apparently the porn police wanted to deny everyone in the airport their first amendment rights, too.
Ginevra,
Oh way to set me back when I was on the road to recovery.
THANKS.
Chad Brick,
In S01E03, when Cat arrives in KL and asked Littlefinger how he knew she was coming he says “My dear friend told me” and points to Varys. So either he was lying (and I don’t see any reason why he would) or he has very few, if any, spies in the north.
Wall Builder, I always thought it was weird Varys was just hanging out at Littlefinger’s pad, but it makes sense he was there to tell him since Varys had no connection to Cat & he’s so damn nosy.
Lord Parramandas,
No way. She is chill in comparison.
HotPinkLipstick,
Ginevra,
Well, as long as you girls presumably have the wine open, I’m going to pour a scotch.
*runs in carrying bourbon*
They tried giving me a beer menu tonight. I was all, keep your grains; give me grapes. Give me your grapes, or I’ll give you my wrath.
I feel the same about scotch and bourbon, but at least they sound so sophisticated. I’d like to like them. Alas.
Gin, on the other hand. Yum. Who needs tonic when you can have gin, right?
*pours a packet of sea salt in the tequila bottle, shoves in four lime slices, covers top with her thumb and shakes, chugs like a champ, wipes mouth with back of hand, re-applies lipstick, takes your silly Scotch away*
Sorry, Henry, liquor is for women, not boys. I stopped sitting at the kiddie table decades ago.
By the way, Michelle Clapton won the Designers’ Guild Award for TV Fantasy Series.
HotPinkLipstick,
*happily drinks his scotch from a sippy cup*
Who? Annara Snow or SlayerNina?
Annara Snow was the reason I left westeros.org, along with Toth and Borodin. She insulted me and called me a rape apologist, only because I told her that several medieval wedding nights were similar to Sansa’s. She proudly declared herself a hate-watcher even though she stated that she stopped watching the show after “Sons of the Harpy”. She described season 5 as one of the most terrible TV shows all the time, a parody of itself (like the acting and the visuals don’t matter at all). And she also follows The Cultural Vacuum (a Tumblr site which is very insulting towards TV show – “Season 5 was loosely based on three-page summary of AFFC and ADWD…”) thus using statements like “Tyrion the Saint” and “Carol Lannister”.
It was too late. She’d already got a free shot. As have several of our fellow Watchers by the looks of it 😀
Lord Parramandas,
Same here, left just after that Borodin guy started posting.
That’s the guy who told me I’m not smart enough too understand the books. He also yelled and raged at me, when we discussed ”gone with the winds”, if I remenber right that was on his very first post, he talked about Martin’s remark on ”how many children does Scarlet O’hara have”.
He was adamant that she had 3. When I told him she had 1 in the movie, he told me the movie doesn’t matter because ”it’s a sh*t adaptation”
That was the last time I went to that website. It was clear that these people don’t know the meaning of ”adaptation”
I was viciously insulted for liking the show, by him and that JonCon. Thankfully I already left, when EP6 came out, so I wasn’t there too witness the meltdown.
Yes, especially when “Gone with the wind” is considered one of the greatest movies ever made and GRRM praised it several times. It’s funny how many book purists have misinterpreted GRRM’s statement and came to the conclusion that he hates the show now.
I encountered Borodin on the thread “What was your favorite season 5 moment” and he was the first one to respond with “The moment when season 5 ended”. If that isn’t pathetic… Soon after that, he opened a thread about listing arguments why AFFC and ADWD couldn’t be properly adapted. He wanted season 5 to be a carbon copy of AFFC including characters being split geographically each season. Every time he responded “They did it with Bran so they could also gave Tyrion, Jon and Daenerys a year off. True fans (a.k.a book purists) would not stop watching it.”
Mr Fixit,
So, are you naturally or deliberately obtuse? I’m not dying to know.
Ginevra,
What “debate”?
HotPinkLipstick,
So, you’re one of those. Nice to meet you.
Cogman’s comments were greatly appreciated – compared to Benioff and Weiss making no subsequent comments.
But Cogman didn’t really address the real question, and I’m not even the first person in this third pointing it out: the real question isn’t “well, once we chose to combine Ramsay’s storyline with Sansa’s, of course he’d rape her” but “why did you choose to combine the two storylines in the first place?”
He didn’t really address that.
It’s the logic of “well once we changed Tyrion’s storyline to have him fall into a lion’s den OF COURSE we had to have the lion eat him! That’s what lions do”….yeah, we’re questioning your decision to have him fall into a lion’s den in the first place.
I strongly suspect that what really is going on is that Littlefinger is going to rape Sansa in the next novel, and they condensed this by moving the act to Ramsay….which might not even be that bad of a change. I don’t know, I can’t judge it without reading the next novel. And thus the reason they don’t really give in-depth explanations of “the discussion we had about condensing these two storylines” is they’re trying to avoid book spoilers.
Possibly. The other option is that they honestly thought faced with a choice between giving Sansa the year off – like Bran – or merging her storyarc like this, they honestly felt this was preferable. Even though MANY critics point out that it made less sense than just giving her the year off.
But in case this wasn’t clear before: I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t fond of it, but I have a “wait and see” attitude; if our accusation is “how the heck does Sansa’s storyarc recover from this?” — well, we watch Season 6 and see, then judge. I so strongly suspect that it’s based on something form the next novel that I don’t think I’m really in a position to strongly judge it.
What I DO judge is that I think Benioff and Weiss are unprofessional to not given any public interviews in a full calendar year now, avoid talking about the scene, and only Cogman has talked about it. Even if I don’t think Cogman gave a satisfactory explanation and is clearly avoiding the real question, at least he talked about it.
The problem is that I don’t think Benioff and Weiss ever did anything for just “shock value” — what we call shock value they think is real drama. I mean, specifically, was full frontal nudity rape at Craster’s Keep “shock value”? Many of us thought it was, but I don’t think they did; I mean I think this was “unskilled” storytelling but I don’t think they were being dishonest in their intentions.
But I don’t know. This just reinforces my “wait and see” attitude. I’m more annoyed about other stuff in Season 5, really – others have already said so much about this.
I also entirely agree with Mr. Cogman’s further point about the camera moving off of Sansa at the end; *I* understood at the time that this was just to be tasteful, and they never intended it to be showing the impact of the scene on Theon’s perspective, the whole thing is Sansa’s POV. I was surprised that so many were upset at that particular aspect, but I agree with his comments completely (he understood some were upset but reassured that it was to be tasteful).
Huh… you should be able to judge it whether it’s based on the books or not. I guess that’s your problem —you can only see the show in relation to the books, never on its own right.
This makes absolutely no sense. Art should speak for itself. If anything, explaining one’s choices is closer to being unprofessional than not doing it at all! I guess you must absolutely despise the likes of David Fincher for avoiding explanations of his movies.
It’s such a sad perspective on art… Artists having to explain their choices beyond the scope of the piece itself is absurd. There is nothing wrong with it if they really want to, but they shouldn’t feel compelled to do so, let alone socially pushed into it.