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Sophie Turner talks to Vulture in a new interview released today about Sansa Stark’s state of mind in Game of Thrones, and what it’s like on the set of the show’s seventh season. When we saw Sansa in the season six finale, “The Winds of Winter,” the oldest Stark daughter appeared to be uneasy with the declaring of Jon Snow as King in the North. It was the Knights of the Vale summoned by Sansa who saved the North in the Battle for Winterfell, but all eyes are on her half-brother. How does Turner believe Sansa feels about that, and how will that play out next year?
The actress tells Vulture:
At the end of the season, Sansa gets a taste of power — and it’s the first time that she’s had that ever, really. She feels like it’s deserved because she did so much for Jon and the North, so when she saves the day and doesn’t get any recognition for it, it was like she had that first taste of power and then was immediately stripped of it. She was stripped of the respect that she really feels she deserves. She was trying to give her input to Jon and trying to be a collaborative leader, but it’s difficult when it’s a patriarchy and when there’s sexism. It would be a real adjustment for Jon to listen to her and do what she says. So she was looking to Littlefinger like, oh, you’re right. Maybe that pretty picture you painted of me on the throne and you by my side isn’t such a bad one. And then there’s the smile as well, her walking away after killing Ramsay. That’s also quite interesting. You wonder if it’s just a smile because it’s her first kill, because this man is out of her life, or whether she’s going to get a taste for it. Whether she enjoyed it. Whether it’s a power trip. But she definitely is a lot more powerful, and it’ll be very interesting to see how she handles that coming up this season.
Sansa’s complicated relationship with Littlefinger will factor into next season, with Turner commenting on the power her character holds over the man who once used her as a pawn:
She holds a power over him. And after she confronted him about selling her to the Boltons, he owes her big time. He knows he has to be loyal to her now, and he has to serve her well, because she holds so much over him. It would destroy his reputation if she revealed any of the stuff that she knows about him. It’s tricky. She has power, but it’s a question of whether people listen to her or not. You’ll see more of that in this upcoming season.
Sophie’s completed her work on the season, and there’s only one more year of Game of Thrones after that. She tells Vulture she can feel that, on the set
It’s definitely emotional. We can really feel everything slowly coming to an end. We’d have these discussions like, What are we going to do on the last day on set? What are you going to get the producers? It’s all becoming quite real now that we’re coming to a close. It’s quite somber on set, but everyone’s just trying to enjoy it as much as possible. Trying to get the most out of it. Trying not to take anything for granted.
Sophie Turner has much more to say about Dark Sansa, getting her character into therapy and Thrones tats, so head on over to Vulture to read the rest!
Hodor
They certainly were efficient in shooting the Winterfell stuff this year. I’d guess Maisie is probably done too, since she’s similarly been absent from Belfast for a while now.
I’ve long had the impression that Sophie would enjoy the idea of Sansa becoming an outright villainous character. She’s always talked about the prospect of Dark Sansa with a lot of enthusiasm (and otherwise talked about wanting Baelish to win because it would be a dark and cynical ending, talked about her interest in psychopathy, etc.).
She’s been so whiny about things. Is it due to how much of a failure her character has been, so she developed this headcanon that has no roots in the actual show? It’s like she believes in this AU Sansa, who does everything while others do nothing. Way to keep belittling other characters. She can’t promote Sansa without doing so. And lol at her invoking the sexist issue while thinking Jon should do what she says like a good dog. She’s made so many mistakes over the years, and she still trusts and gets played by LF despite saying only a fool would trust him, so why should anyone pay her any mind?
Sophie’s been doing lots of interviews lately, and she’s not even promoting anything. Is it just to grab some attention during break or because it’s coming to an end for her next year?
If there’s one good thing about s7, it’s Jon getting out of Sansa’s black abyss and fairly early too.
Sophie pass the blunt around love
I always take much of what Sophie says with a grain of salt. Although it’s interesting to note that she admits Sansa is aware of LFs treachery (and we’ve certainly see that play out on screen). I’ve always felt she knows way more than we imagine she does. For example LFs betrayal of Ned and House Stark… there’s no way would she not be aware of this, considering she was a captive in the Red Keep for two years after.
I’m sure Sophie would love Littlefinger to have the ultimate power at the end and for Sansa to be by his side
If she does indeed become power-hungry because ‘oh my Littlefinger, you sold me out to a sadistic rapist but you now want me as you Queen Consort so we’re cool’, then it’s yet another 180 done on her from where she was last season. It’s like they’re changing her character from episode to episode. They’re so wishy washy with her.
Apollo,
leak
Perhaps her bitterness stems from Littlefinger getting executed, and she loves him.
Famous last words, Lady Sansa. We all know what happens to people who think they have the upper hand with that sociopath. #NuttyBuddyBrothelKeeper
Oh God here we go again…
“Sophie Turner talks…” *turns on Bullshit-o-matic filter*
Sansa won the war and reclaimed winterfell yet Jon snow got credit for it and become king . it was so strange
What, Emilia Clarke was spotted filming somewhere??!!!! Sophie Turner’s wig is so weak!!!!
😉 😉 😉
This is what I get for bitching about the lack of cast interviews: more sophie turner…
phantomcloud,
I don’t recall much of what the leak said about that but admittedly I don’t think I read all the details. She very clearly knows what makes LF tick at the end of S6 though (and even as soon as S4).
Whether it particularly makes sense or not, she doesn’t know anything about that in either the books or the show.
Great, let’s rehash how none of what Sophie describes was visible on screen. To be fair, she is just repeating what she was told by the producers/directors about how Sansa feels. It’s just that they didn’t do much in the way of showing Jon disrespecting her. He literally asks for her advice and she gives him nothing. She just complains about nobody listening to her. Oh she told him not to fall into Ramsey’s trap and just leave Rickon to die, but Jon actually having a fucking heart and doing everything possible to save his little brother is not disrespecting Sansa because she is a woman. Neither is telling Jon they need more men to fight, him agreeing with her and asking her where to find them, and her not telling him about the Vale. Wow, what an asshole that Jon is!
Maybe it is a little tinfoily, but I suspect this could be sansa’s last season
Sansa didn’t “summon the Vale army”; Littlefinger offered and she grudgingly accepted.
How did this turn into a moment of empowerment for Sansa in some people’s minds?
The Dragon Demands,
Because that’s how the show presents it.
The whole plot doesn’t make any sense as any sort of demonstration of Sansa’s abilities as a player, but that’s clearly what the show thinks it is. Everybody, from the actors to the writers and directors have been singing from the same hymnal on that point. Heck, it’s obvious even just from the way it’s filmed, with the triumphal scoring and Sansa looking on with a smirk as the Vale army is destroyed, and then Ramsay being fed to the dogs, and then Jon giving her credit for the victory.
If it needs to be spelled out what the character’s position is and how the other characters are positioned in relation to them, when a majority of the viewers are scratching their heads and going “Uh….really?”, then I’m sorry but someone has failed completely.
So if you connect the dots of this interview she’s basically confirming
Otherwise why bring Sansa’s taste of killing to the conversation? It didn’t play much role in season six. Anyway, if this really happens at all I’d love to see Sansa taking Littlefinger’s role in westeros. This man must have a legacy in this world.
The Dragon Demands,
Yes, she did. He offered, and she thought about it. Then she chose to send a letter, asking them to come. Hence, “summoning.” Don’t nitpick my wording because you have a problem with Sansa.
Prediction: The last shot of season 7 will show Sansa and Littlefinger plunging through the Moon Door while trying to strangle each other to death.
Sansa did jack squat in season 6. What exactly did she do? She traveled for half the season, wrote secret letters, was insulted by two senior Northern Houses and passed over for a bastard, that even Yohn Royce stood for, meaning the Knights of the Vale don’t see her as overly relevant either. Somehow this has led to a Sansa “empowerment” story. If they say so. In my opinion she was a supporting character for Jon Snow.
Show don’t tell. Isn’t that what most writers say? Well they didn’t show me a damn thing that Sophie Turner has been rambling on and on and on about since June.
Word for word agree. Yeah, they present it like that, with music swelling, but….nothing really happened.
Ack, I wrote a longer reply which got eaten;
Basically, Sansa killing Ramsay when he was already tied to a chair in a prison cell, his army destroyed, doesn’t mean she “defeated” him at all. By that logic Ilyn Payne “Defeated” Ned Stark; really she just acted as Jon Snow’s executioner. Heck, even if say….Jon had said “we can’t kill Ramsay it would be dishonorable” but then Sansa defied Jon to kill him….that would have been….something, right?
So I think the writers just kept hyping to them “Sansa kills Ramsay!” when….Sansa didn’t do anything to defeat Ramsay, she was just Jon’s executioner.
We never saw her successfully rallying any of the Northern Houses (Mormonts only joined when Davos pointed out the White Walkers).
But the one remaining point, biggest point, was “but Sansa got the Vale army!”
…..she *accepted an offer* that Littlefinger already made, that isn’t “manipulating” him. Littlefinger was even already shown to be planning to attack the Boltons *in Season 5* with his conversation with Cersei. Then when Littlefinger meets her in Mole’s Town again, the first thing he says is “I’ve already mustered the Vale army at Moat Cailin and they’re ready to invade the North”. She refused his offer, then later grudgingly accepted.
Worse….they even *played up the cheap tension* of that Sansa didn’t even know if they would come or not. Sansa was never presented as in control of the situation.
Why WOULD Jon Snow thank Sansa, and not Littlefinger himself? What did Sansa do? Accept an offer of help that he had already freely made.
And to be clear, I’m not blaming “Sansa Stark” for this…..she’s a *fictional character*. She doesn’t exist! Nor do I blame Sophie Turner, she doesn’t write the character actions.
I’m blaming *how the showrunners wrote Sansa*, the fictional character.
Dear god, I think they just kept promising the actors for so long during the rape stuff in Season 5, “don’t worry, this leads to Sansa getting revenge and being ‘a player’ in Season 6!”…..and hyped them on it for so long they took it as a given, but then when Season 6 actually came it was difficult for them to mentally process that Benioff and Weiss really failed to deliver it.
I mean, “rape as revenge” is a clichéd trope, but at least it’s a coherent narrative. They were *trying* to make this season “Sansa achieves revenge and actively plays a role in defeating Ramsay” but….failed miserably at it.
You phrased this better than I did.
The dumbest lines of s6 award belongs to Sansa
Paraphrasing….
6×04 – We have to go save Rickon.
6×09 – Rickon’s dead, mate. Can’t do shit about it.
-Has it occurred to you I might have input? Why is no one asking me about my advice?
-So Sansa, let’s hear it.
-I don’t know anything. Why are you asking meee?
……aka the dumbest exchange in the history of GOT
-Jon,we have to look for more men. We have to wait.
-Sansa, no one else is willing to pledge and send men our way. And we have little time left before heavy snowfalls hit. On top of that, the longer Rickon’s in Ramsay’s grasp, the worse for him We have to strike now even with the inferior force.
-*proceeds not to tell him about the Vale troops coming right there and then.*
The Sansa plot has gone absolutely nowhere. Everything she has been given to her. She only escaped King’s Landing because Littlefinger plotted it. She only survived as Ramsay’s wife because Theon rescued her. She’s only ruling Winterfell because Jon whooped Ramsay’s ass even after thousands of people died due to her Vale army sandbagging. She hasn’t done a single thing on her own, and she feels like she “deserves credit?” For what, exactly? Being a useless drain on anyone associated with her? I hope GRRM does a better job with her story. Cersei and Daeny may be bat$hit crazy, but nobody can accuse them of being helpless and weak, or dumb.
Note to mention some of her lines that are meant to be bad-ass but comes off as idiotic.
Sansa : I will do it myself if I have to!
Her plan is to first go to the Karstarks! That would have helped, lol!
Sansa: No can protect me! No one can protect anyone!
Says the person whose ass was protected by Tyrion and LF and Theon and Brienne and Pod and Jon. She’s only survived so far because other people protected her. I mean, why did she go to the wall if no one can protect her.
Honestly, Sansa is one of the worst written main characters on the show. Especially last season, where the writers wanted to make up for her rape and wanted her to be seen as bad-ass without rhyme or reason.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOGEOqSDMdv/
Joseph Mawle (Benjen) with Iain and Kristofer.
The only useful info from this interview was that Sophie is done filming for the season. That was a very small filming time.
Otherwise it’s just the usual BS. I find it hilarious that according to Sophie’s head cannon, Sansa is so hurt with Jon not listening to her (which he in reality did) that she is willing to ally with the man who sold her to her rapist.
Davos’ Luck,
So they are still filming at wolf hill quarry? Kit was in Belfast this week as well.
Sansa’s development has been the most disappointing in both the books and the show. In the show, she’s still the same self-entitled spoiled brat. In the books, she’s still naive and overly trusting. I’m waiting to see some actual growth with the character.
Dany and Cersei are both queens. Jon leaves Sansa in charge of the north. Proceeds to whine about patriarchy.
Sansa did some dumb things last season but it’s not fair to say she was useless and “did nothing”. If it wasn’t for her pushing Jon in E4 (twice) they would never have even tried to take back Winterfell. She was the catalyst for everything.
And even though she didn’t really offer anything strategically, I could understand her frustration that nobody even consulted her when they were all predicting what Ramsay would be doing, how he would be feeling (“I wanted to make him angry”) and she knew that Ramsay was an unpredictable psychopath and everything they were doing would just play into his hands. So she did have something to offer, even if it was only an insight into how fucked up Ramsay really is. And she should have told Jon about LF and the KotV, but they might not have arrived in time and she didn’t want Jon to factor them into his plans just in case. I think I’m being too generous there though.
I don’t think Sansa deserves all the hate.
The northern lords took a look Jon and Sansa and decided Sansa had no real power of her own. The Knights of the Vale were not hers to command. They were Littlefinger’s and who knew what he wanted. Jon on-the-other-hand had proven that he could get an army together, men willingly to fight for HIM. Theirs wasn’t a patriarchal choice. The northern lords simply recognized that Jon had a rare skill.
So Kit should be in Belfast as well if they are filming that scene.
If she had something to offer about Ramsay then she should have spoken up. What is she? Some special snowflake who will only speak if spoken to?
As for not telling anyone about the Vale army, let’s not even get into that. It’s the most poorly written plot of the entire show. They did it because they wanted to show Sansa smirking from a hill top with the triumphant music and make her responsible for the victory so that she can be jealous and blame the patriarchy. That’s the only explanation.
SerNoName,
Yeah he was there as well
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOGVceIDRrr/
I don’t see why either Sophie or Sansa would think that Sansa saved the day or deserved positive recognition. All she did was play the part that Petyr manipulated her into playing. The Vale came due to Petyr’s string pulling just as her sending Brienne away on a pointless mission and her sending a letter to him begging for help were a part of his design. Sansa’s only contributions were all the Northern deaths she caused by hiding the existence of the Vale reinforcements from Jon and the Stark allies. If she had told them about the Vale, they could have waited for them to come before confronting the Boltons and possibly been able to negotiate Rickon’s release since they would outnumber the Boltons. Even if Rickon still died, there would have been less of a Stark army massacre with the Vale fighting beside them from the start.
Sophie’s ideas about Sansa and what she deserves are nonsense. In truth, the Northern Lord’s should have called her out for withholding vital information that cost so many lives before determining that it’s not in the country’s best interests for her to have a scrap of power. Then Jon becoming king would have made a little more sense.
“The Door” episode 4:
“Jon isn’t Tormund. Jon isn’t Davos, or the Red Woman, or Stannis for that matter. Jon is Jon. He’s my brother, he’ll keep me safe. I trust him.” – Sansa to Brienne after she lied to Jon the first time
“Battle of the Bastards” episode 9:
“I’m not going back there alive. Do you understand me?”
“I won’t ever let him touch you again. I’ll protect you, I promise.”
“No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone.” – Sansa to Jon after she refused to tell him about the Vale army yet again
I realize the dialogue was written to set up the subsequent scenes. Still, she goes from saying she trusts Jon to protect her to telling him straight to his face that he can’t. The time between was filled entirely with Jon doing everything he could to do exactly what she wanted. She had a bigger hand in their failure to gain men than he did – she didn’t help him help her. After the battle she apologizes and says “only a fool would trust Littlefinger,” yet simply calling for him and the Vale army was putting a level of trust in him, and apparently he sticks around and stays with them into next season. He had shown to have at least some kind of relationship with the Boltons when he ‘sold’ Sansa to Ramsay, and the last time they spoke she threatened to kill him. He could have just as easily wiped out both sides and taken Sansa and Winterfell for himself. I don’t think it’s coming across as her being a power player, but rather a whiny complainer that’s riding around on the coat tails of others allowing them to make decisions for her or offer her things that mostly wind up being bad for her. She’s going to end up ‘head of the house’ when Jon goes on a trip and most certainly continue to make stupid decisions until someone yet again saves her from herself.
pollyofthemountains,
Instead of whining about nobody consulting her, shouldn’t she worry more about explaining why she kept the Vale assistance to herself? Hundreds of people died so she could lie about Littlefinger.
This is one of the difficulties I had with last season. Sansa shouldn’t have been the catalyst for this. That writing choice required depicting Jon as OOC. Rickon, one of the siblings Jon loves, was being held prisoner by a sadist. That alone would have motivated Jon and the Northern Lord’s and ladies into marching Winterfell. In the books, Jon was ready to forsake his vows and march on Winterfell when he thought Ramsay had her, just as the North was riding up to rescue as well by joint with Stannis. That could easily have been the same fire the show. Sansa shouldn’t have been a catalyst for any of it at that point.
Stacy,
But Rickon being held by Ramsay is what motivates Jon to march against the Boltons. It is a misconception that Sansa pushed Jon to reclaim WF. Sansa tried, but Jon outright refused her. It was only the arrival of the Pink Letter by Ramsay, which mentioned Rickon being a captive, directly threatening Rickon, Sansa, the Wildlings and the NW that convinced Jon to march against the Boltons. It was NOT Sansa.
What did Sansa do in s6? Broke out of her prison, sent up her signal, was prepared to die “while there is some of [her] left,” jumped from a parapet, ran from a pack of dogs, managed to shake some humanity back into Theon, accepted her first sworn sword, rallied her brother to fight when he just wanted to go hang out on a Dornish beach somewhere and leave the North to the Boltons…. And that’s just the first half.
Jon didn’t rally a Northern House either. Not onscreen. It was Davos.
She’s like a colt, still wobbly on her legs. She’s going to screw up, That’s why we like stories like GoT: characters act like real humans and screw up. But she does have power over LF because he’s obsessed with her. And his hubris is that he never thinks anyone can beat him.
Sansa trusts Jon to do the right thing, but not to always do the best thing. No matter how they’re related, he was raised by Ned Stark, the man we love, but was doomed to die the moment he left the North because the was too loyal and too naive for the rest of Westeros. And after being burned one too many times by trusting men, she’s kinda down on it.
It sounds like the angle they’re going for isn’t that Jon didn’t acknowledge her bringing in the Vale and warning him about Ramsey’s mindgames in private, but that Jon didn’t acknowledge it in public. There’s also the challenge of the North judging her because of her marriages, which is sexist in that medieval patriarchal way, and something I think will come up next season. They did a lot to underscore the Northern lords don’t trust her because of those marriages. and no one at the gathering of lords even on princincial countered with “But she’s Ned’s legitimate daughter.” She didn’t contest Jon for Winterfell, that’s not my point. It’s that none of the lords even floated the balloon. The Vale saves them, there’s a person with a better claim to Winterfell, and they all go “We want Jon.” Not Jon *and* Sansa (which is what she really wants). Just Jon. Mixed into that will be the idea, that was also touched on last season, that she may know how the game is played in the rest of Westeros, but the North has a different board and different rules. To become a leader in her home, she’ll have to adapt again.
Personally, I think that look at the very end between Sansa and LF was more “Oh s**t.” Creeper just told her what he does to the things that get in the way of his pretty picture, and Jon just got in the way. This is the part I feel like she and the crew are trolling us on. I hope so anyway. Sansa’s going to be torn with how much she can get away with re. LF, she may even be tempted, but family is all to her now. Even more than power for power’s sake a la Mr. Chaos. It’s the power to protect what’s hers.
Hound heading North. I hope he and Sansa get to have a little chat, because he knows what happened with Ned and LF in King’s Landing.
Side note on the war council and Rickon: of course Jon has a heart. So does Sansa, but she’s the one who knew Rickon was lost, who rode to Moat Cailin knowing she’d never see her baby brother again. Jon realized it on the battlefield, but just had to try anyway, knowing he was risking the lives of all his troops. While everyone was yelling at Rickon, “Serpentine!,” they should’ve been yelling at Jon, “The Halfhand, dude!” You prove you can be in command when you can send a charge to their death (even if the charge is yourself) for the greater good.
Now I hate Sansa even more.
She thinks she deserves something? No chance. If she has told Jon about the Vale many soliders who died in a battle against Boltons would have lived. She is responsible for their death.
Saviour, my ass.
Your *actual defense* is that “The Damsel in Distress provided moral support for the Male Protagonist?”
The Dragon Demands,
A better way to look at it is that the supporting character provided moral support for the main character.
Hey, at least the writers bothered to show Jon Snow rallying *the wildlings* to his side, in a political meeting. In that sense we saw him as a political player. More than can be said for Sansa.
It’s hilarious: in the behind the scenes video for episode 6.7, the part that talks about the meeting with Lyanna Mormont, Benioff and Weiss *only* talk about how Jon is reacting to this child lord; they don’t mention Sansa at all. It’s like she’s just an accessory to Jon in that scene.
Because that’s what the show thinks happened.
yeah, and we were repeatedly promised that Sansa was going to turn into a “main character” this season who makes her own political decisions which affect the plot – you know, “a player”, as they keep insisting.
….I just accused “they promised Sansa would rise up to be a main character this season and they failed to deliver on that”….and your response….was to say “well, it’s better to think of Sansa as a secondary character relative to male lead Jon Snow”.
Yeah.
I’m….humbly and deeply grateful that others in the thread have similar criticisms about the Sansa storyline in Season 6. Phrased better than I can with my constant shouting and hyperbole.
It’s just….it’s good to know that other people share our criticisms. It often feels like I’m the only one in the room – I mean, in real life discussions – who even feels this way. As if you’re automatically wrong just for saying “this really wasn’t satisfying”.
Text can’t express this well. Godspeed to you all.
NinaD,
I don’t agree with everything you said, but you’ve made some great points here.
The point that everyone seems to be missing is that Sophie is talking about what Sansa thinks. Thinks. Not what she should think, but what she thinks at the moment. Her character IS developing while she is considering, not when she is acting. This kind of thinking (why don’t I get credit for bringing the Vale? For saving the day?) parallels Cersei’s demented thoughts about how to obtain power and all of her scheming and actions just cause destruction of what she craves the power to protect. This thinking on Sansa’s part diverges from that parallel when, instead of seeking revenge and using power that she really doesn’t have, she’s going to observe and realize where the power really lies in her patriarchal world. Cersei had more power to protect the people she loved when she was behind the throne than she does sitting on it now. Sansa will realize that, thereby ensuring her own preservation and the protection of her family better than Cersei did. You have to play the role that you were trained for–where your strengths lie. “Courtesy is a lady’s armor,” she was taught, and that lesson combined with LF’s will make her a better player in the Game. She’s not whining; she’s learning.
With the way Sophie Turner has a media buzz around her right now, Sansa sounds like a goner this season tbh. I feel like the leaks are not telling the whole story.
She won’t have power with LF either because he said he would be on the throne with her by his side.
I can do even better!
“Home” episode 2:
“Once we are with Jon, Ramsay won’t be able to touch us” – Sansa to Theon
“Battle of the Bastards” episode 9:
“I won’t ever let him touch you again.I’ll protect you, I promise.” – Jon to Sansa
“No one can protect me.No one can protect anyone.” – Sansa to Jon
With the way Sophie Turner has a media buzz around her right now, Sansa sounds like a goner this season tbh. I feel like the leaks are not telling the whole story.
The fact that both Sophie and Maisie might have finished filming scares me even more.
My argument is simply that gender has nothing to do with it.
What difference does it make what Sophie feels Sansa “thinks” when at the SDCC panel for Season 6 this past July, during the Q&A section Sophie was asked *word for word*, “hey, why didn’t Sansa tell Jon about the Vale army?”…..and she just openly admitted that she had no idea, nor had the writers ever told her why? Benioff and Weiss were at that panel but didn’t speak up to help her answer.
Sophie…..and a whole lot of viewers…..are just….retroactively trying to apply a coherent explanation to an incoherently written story.
This is Sophie Turner *guessing* why Sansa is doing things on screen. She doesn’t know any more than we do. And through their inaction the showrunners basically admitted there was no reason.
I mean Sophie concluded her SDCC 2016 response by saying she had no idea why Sansa didn’t tell Jon about the Vale army….and then laughing it off by saying, “well, you know, it was to set up the Vale army’s sudden arrival to rescue them at the last minute – to be dramatically satisfying”.
She admitted that “Sansa, the fictional character” had no coherent motivation to be doing anything in this circumstance…..by extension, I don’t really think there was a coherently thought out motive for a lot of her actions in the season.
So once again we’re listening to Sophe turner trying to guess or rationalize why Sansa did things. They might even be “good” guesses – but they’re still guesses because she didn’t even think about it at the time when she was acting it.
It’s one thing if she were to say “I’m not sure, but at the time I did it,, I thought it was because Sansa was angry”…..instead it’s turned into “I don’t know, I just now how to cry on cue for the cameras. We’ll make up a reason later.”
…..Nothing to do for the showrunners? Or for the fictional story? Or….I’m not sure what you mean.
you can’t separate this from gender. There’s widespread criticism that they marginalized a major female character. Apparently Sansa was supposed to be “empowered” in Season 6 to make up for that. The argument is that attempts to show this were not successful.
YES it is more offensive when a female character is reduced to supporting status to a male one – even if the writers didn’t consciously intend it, that’s what ended up happening. And also because….
….really, objectively, after all of the firestorm of media focus after the Sansa rape stuff in Season 5….
….what *possible* further pressure could there have been on them to get Sansa’s story “right” in Season 6? Instead it’s full of plot holes. On the scale that even Sophie Turner bluntly admits during SDCC Q&A, “I have no idea why Sansa didn’t tell Jon about the Vale army – it was to be dramatically satisfying”.
but really, sitting back and thinking on it….when has another TV show, movie franchise, comic books, whatever, had as much overt pressure as D&D must have had, to competently tell an empowerment story about Sansa in Season 6?
And they *still* sort of ended up forgetting about her in her own revenge story!
SerNoName,
The main problem I have with Sansa’s storyline is that she’s NOT one of the main characters, but they’re trying to make her one. Finding ways to beef up her story and insert her in places she doesn’t belong is the reason her story is kind of a mess.
Ugh really not a fan of Turners interpretation of Sansa.
She’s that member of your group project who vanishes at the start, doesnt do anything, complains nobody listened, then expects all the credit for some strange reason.
I agree.
If they promised to make her a main character they clearly failed. Not every female character needs to be a lead. The obsession with trying to will characters to bigger roles by fans because IRL political or social issues is frankly annoying.
Sometimes I wonder if GOT had an all female cast if ppl would still find a reason to complain.
Yes, this. Sansa is not a main character. Every effort to turn her into one in the show feels sloppy and nonsensical. Her inclusion ruined many of Jon’s scenes. He was written out of character just to make involvement work. Seriously though, why screw up a main character’s arc and characterization just to bolster a supporting character whose subplot isn’t important enough to make the adaptation?
It’s sad that the first Stark reunion was wasted on Jon and Sansa instead of Jon and one of the siblings he loves.
El-Bobbie,
This is ONE thing that lies behind my Sophie/Sansa “issue.” Of course none of us know where she’ll end up in George’s story so it’s impossible to assign her a final level of importance on the page. So far though I don’t personally think he’s elevated her very far. While some don’t agree with the word assigned to her, I have thought of her as more of a portal for the actions of the non-pov bad guys in the books. So, on the show I do think D&D have pushed it in an attempt to make her more interesting, but also perhaps because they like Sophie…
Maybe I’ll write more on this later when I’m at a computer and not my cell.
Her character ruins every storyline she’s in it seems.
Wait What? Sansa is not a main character? Are we Watching the same show? Sansa (the same as all her siblings) are main characters along with The Lannister siblings and Daenerys, no one can deny that.
You may or may not like Sansa but you can’t deny the fact that she is a mayor character.
And why all the hate towards Sophie, is more than clear that she is a crazy Sansa fan, but that’s not a reason ti hate her, just take everything she says with a grain of Salt (I do the same with all the crazy fans out there).
Sansa is one of my favourites, I really enjoy her plot, specially in the books, Mainly because despite all the think she is been through, she still has KINDNESS and HOPE, she is not broken nor corrupted and that’s like a Brise of fresh air in Westeros, I think the show has failed to portray that, the want her yo me “cooler”, they want her as a ruthless, manipulative bitch (Cersei), a badass leader (Daenerys) and as a person who enjoys killing (Arya) when Sansa has her own special quialities (her grace, her kindness, her (MANY) mistakes, her social “skills” and her empathy (even thought in the first books she didn’t show it that much hahah) and her wits (yes, Sansa is smart, she was naive at first but that doesn’t mean that she is stupid, GRR Martin said himself that she has her wits, the same as LF has).
Stacy,
Jon and Sansa’s reunion was a beautiful moment. I hardly think it was “wasted”. It was that much more emotional BECAUSE they weren’t ever close, and Sansa even admitted how much she regretted the way she had been towards him. It was nice to see her cherish being back with another Stark.
The silly Nothern recruitment tour was Sansa’s idea who wrongly thought the Northmen would come running at the mention of a Stark name, so wtf is she on about no one listening to her? And Jon listened, he even asked her for advice to which she said “I don’t knoooow”. Isn’t it about having agency? Then why is she whining about not being asked for her input? She could as well have spoken up at that second war council on her own like she did at the first one. Did she suddenly think she needed a special invitation or permission? That goes against her having agency. Talk about Sophie misusing the sexism card. She seems to believe in this GOT’s warped alternative universe. And the way she keeps idealizing Sansa while putting dowb other characters. Ni other actor does that, they can even point out their characters’ flaws.
SerNoName,
Sansa’s character and her lines are all over the place. She even often contradicts herself. Her arc and character are ones of the worst written on GOT. They really need to put her out of her misery.
Catspaw Assassin,
Hahahaha I love your comments, truly.
Can someone kill her already?
It is already season 7 and we don’t care what she thinks she deserves.
Her screentime should be minimized to Dorne level!
Catspaw Assassin,
where did u hear this?
The argument is that Sansa is not a main character, of the same level as Tyrion, Dany, Jon or even Arya, however the show writers have tried to make her one by putting her into other people’s storylines and turning that storyline into hers. For example, the Winterfell storyline was supposed to be Theon’s, but the writers turned it into Sansa’s. The north remembers storyline, which were supposed to involve Jon, Stannis and different northern houses has been turned into a “Sansa gets revenge on her rapist” arc. However forcing her into storylines she doesn’t belong hasn’t always worked, for example, her not telling Jon about the Vale army.
Sansa is now meant to be seen as a smart, manipulative political player, however this transition has not been very convincing. So Sophie’s words do not match with Sansa’s actions on the show.
I love Sansa too and I agree with your assessment of her qualities. However these qualities seem to get lost in trying to portray her a “badass bitch”.
ghost of winterfell,
I Don’t agree about the fact that Sansa is not a main character, in the books she has her own fascinating (in my opinion) storyline with LF where she is learning how to play the game, and she is getting better and better (at least she is a good seductress), however totally agree with you that on the show, they switched her storyline (I Don’t even know why) with Jeyne Poole’s one, and then tried to make Sansa a cold-minded, pragmatic woman, a “player of the game”, but they failed, Sansa only recruted the Knights of the Vale and didn’t even tell him (wtf?).
I think D&D know that Sansa will become a player of the game (if she doesn’t play the game, why is she alive? she must have a purpose) but without the guidence of the author they failed to make her look like a real player.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how Sansa’s storyline on season 7 goes.
Alvaricomg,
I’ve a suspicion that Sansa might be the younger more beautiful queen who takes Cersei for all she holds dear – true Sansa didn’t take Cersei’s children (though we don’t know what happens to book Myrcella and Tommen yet – I don’t think that’s a spoiler).
I usually don’t have a problem with the adaptations in the show and I feel the showrunners are in an unenviable position trying to complete an unfinished story, but I think you are right in that they seem to want to make characters that weren’t “bad ass” in the book “bad ass” in the TV adaptation (Ellaria and Shae also come to mind).
Likes and dislikes are always going to be subjective of course. I’ve never had a problem with Sophie or with Emilia Clarke as actresses but there are obviously people who do have problems with them. Having said that, I always take what are said in these interviews with a fairly liberal pinch of salt as the actors are bound by a non-disclosure agreement so of course they are going to talk around the subject so as not to give anything away (though there do appear to have been leaks this year which I am trying – not always successfully to avoid). Given that GRRM takes inspiration from real history and then changes it somewhat, I have wondered if Sansa is in part based on Elizabeth I (of England) before she became queen. She was kept a virtual prisoner during part of her youth though she didn’t as far as I know have a sadistic fiancee and some people have noted that her (Elizabeth’s) step-uncle by marriage, Thomas Seymour was creepy and Sansa has a devious (maybe in the books a bit more intelligently devious) uncle by marriage in Baelish. Elizabeth was I believe a redhead (as was her unfortunate cousin, Mary Queen of Scots – a black-haired Mary was one of the [many] reasons I couldn’t get into “Reign”).
Pigeon,
???
The massive outrage in the comments whenever Sansa or Sophie challenge sexism is astounding.
All she did, really, was question the straight white hero’s primacy and judgement – and for good reason. That alone was enough to send the militant fanboys raging. Talk about fragile masculinity.
Seriously, if it was Robb or Bran in Sansa’s place, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
I suspect Sophie is as sick of predictable fantasy narratives as many of the viewers/readers are, though. Well done, Sophie, and keep stirring it up.
The Dragon Demands,
You said it all ?
Dame of Mercia,
For some reason although I tried to cover anything that might be (book) spoilerish, it hasn’t worked.
One she knew full well didn’t come without a price. So it was at the very least a sacrifice on her part. You really think she wants to rely on some like Littlefinger?
She clearly would have prefered to strengthen their army’s numbers with Northerners instead and even tried to convince Jon. But in the end, she did what she had to to clean up the mess their genius leader made, acting on an emotional impulse and walking straight into a trap.
Damn right, she has a right to be upset.
Not to mention the only reason she even had the Vale army at her disposal was because she was clever enough to start playing the game and cover for Littlefinger after Lysa’s murder.
Had she done the absolutely “right thing” as Jon likely would have, they’d all be dog food for Ramsay’s hounds by now.
Kosten,
I hate Sophie’s commments and her character’s trajectory and I’m a woman. And what about the prevalent ‘white female saviour’ trope permeating Daenerys’s storyline?
phantomcloud,
Agree
phantomcloud,
Oh, absolutely, equally as repulsive. You’ll find no argument here.
The whole fucking cast is white. Spare me the sjw garbage.
Dame of Mercia,
You’re putting extra spaces in the brackets. Remove all spaces from within the brackets, and the spoiler coding will work fine.
Kosten,
Seriously, if it was Robb or Bran in Sansa’s place, this wouldn’t even be an issue
No, of course it wouldn’t be an issue, because Robb or Bran would not be able to play the sexism card.
Kosten,
The semi-failed Northern tour was her idea. She moronically thought the Northmen would rally in an instant. She disregarded their mindset after WotFK, Robb’s fuck ups and the damage they caused on the North. She thought Karstarks would remain loyal after what Robb had done to them. Talk about naivety and stupidity. She spent so much time among politicians in King’s Landing and yet she didn’t apply any of what she might have learned during the Northern tour. She failed as a trueborn Stark and a budding diplomat/politician. She didn’t do any scheming, she only begged for help from someone who had already offered it to her. It’s jarring because Sophie and the showrunners keep denying all these facts by claiming Sansa’s such a good politician. She’s yet to prove that.
The only reasons The Vale army came was because Littlefinger could manipulate Sweetrobin and that Sansa just happens to be his cousin (family ties). Neither is her accomplishment.
She was whining about needing more men from the North, but she failed on getting a single one of them. And then when she should have revealed the truth about the Vale army (anytime during the tour), she instead inexplicably decided to keep it a secret. There’s no going around it or justifying, it was a nonsensical plot contrivance just to prop her up and have the ride of Rohirrim….again.
Anyway if she had been reasonable she would have reached out to Sweetrobin and the Vale commanders herself after she had turned down LF’s help the first time because she held a grudge. The she should have told Jon and co that there’s a huge army that could be available for them. Seriously that whole Winterfell campaign storyline was extremely contrived.
Alvaricomg,
Where is Sansa’s kindness lately, could you give example? Not being snarky. I truly can’t think of any instances but I know there must be some.
Elizabeth,
I copied and pasted the spoiler coding from the instructions about them on the site but I’ll try what you say next time.
Right only women can do so without having most people question them on it.
Elizabeth,
I actually copied the spoiler tags from this site and pasted them but I’ll try what you say when and if I next post a spoiler.
“So she was looking to Littlefinger like, oh, you’re right. Maybe that pretty picture you painted of me on the throne and you by my side isn’t such a bad one.”
Does she even have any idea what comes out of her mouth most of the time? She doesn’t have a filter but does she ever think before saying something? We know she knows little about her own show, she said so herself, but to make such a mistake about her own scene? Littlefinger ‘painted a picture of HIMSELF on the IT with her by his side’, not the other way around.
ygritte,
They were talking about her character in the books, mostly, in that post. You’re right that it’s not much in evidence in the show, and hasn’t been even from the beginning, with the omission of crucial scenes like her first interactions with the Hound. The show’s take on her pretty clearly thinks that kindness is something stupid that needs to be tortured out of her.
ygritte,
I said that kindness is a typical (book) Sansa trait, not in the show, sadly not anymore
Dame of Mercia,
The younger and more beautiful queen is clearly Dany. She is a queen regnant who is coming to take Cersei’ s power and cast her down. Sansa isn’t in the running since she is not a queen or likely to be one and has no power to act on her own. In the books, Petyr pulls her puppet strings from deciding what she wears, what she says, where she lives, what actions she takes, what color her hair is, what name she goes by, and who she attempts to seduce as as a 13-year-old child. In the show, it’s mostly the same except she has to rely on Jon’s power as well, even if the writer’s create a hollow illusion of her having non-existent power. In short, Sansa is no match for Cersei and can do nothing tho cast her down.
Dany on the other hand is a main character in her own right who wields power on her own and is heading straight for Cersei. If that YMBQ prophecy is true, it only makes sense that it will be her. There is also no evidence that Dany will go the way of Nissa Nissa or that a Nissa Nissa is needed. If the AA prophecy needed to be filled, it already was when Dany herself killed Drogo (Nissa Nissa) to make her dragons and was reborn from the flames. As one of the main five, she will fight against the White Walkers beside Jon, Arya, Bran, and Tyrion using her dragons and her guile. It doesn’t make sense to reduce her to just a sacrifice all so Sansa can take part of her story because her own is so insignificant.
Sansa in the show is a very weak character that has done little to no contribution to the story so far. Which sucks because she is a very interesting character in the books. Sophie tries to make the show Sansa interesting but she keeps on inventing things that didn’t / won’t happen. She tries to make Sansa look like a player but in fact she is far from it and everything she keeps on doing is one mistake after another while changing her point of view like every episode.
That was my reaction, too, when I saw this article. I like Sophie but I wish that she would find something else to talk about in interviews.
Agree. Maybe there are deleted scenes? Otherwise, a lot of what she talks about was not evident on screen, IMO. There has been a disconnect for me between what Sophie says (and what D&D say) about Sansa and what I understand about her character arc. And this has happened for the last two – maybe three – seasons.
Whatever show she is talking about sounds interesting, but it sure isnt game of thrones
It’s not “sexism” to point out that TV-Sansa, as written, didn’t do much in Season 6.
If anything it’s “sexism” that D&D kind of didn’t realize that they made Sansa a secondary character in her own revenge storyline – a storyline they invented. I specifically bring up the sexist trop of “Strong Female Character”: Sansa has a few scenes “strongly” yelling at Ramsay, therefore she was a “strong leader” — when in fact, we never really see her making significant political decisions.
And I don’t blame Sophie. Who wants to admit even to themselves that their character’s storyline since Season 5 got utterly derailed?
To reiterate: I never thought Sophie was “lying to us”. I think she’s lying to herself.
Lol I remember a couple of months ago when the only people calling out the bull that was her season 6 arc were me, ghost of winterfell and like 2 other people. How times have changed.
The show should just put this poorly written character out of her misery. Time to cut the cord and focus on the main characters in the War for the Dawn.
leak
Something which angers me a lot when I realize it:
In the ONE interview Benioff and Weiss gave about merging Sansa’s plotline with Jeyne Poole….which was after episode 6.3 so they didn’t even have to discuss her actual rape in episode 6.6….
…..they didn’t say “there wasn’t enough time to do the Vale storyline”. Some of us say that sometimes; in fact they openly said it was *too short*. It’s like 2 chapters.
So anytime anyone casually falls back on “well, condensed for screentime”:
1 – The writers themselves admitted that they did this because they felt the Vale storyline was too short and thus a waste of Sansa.
2 – …..dear god, the Dorne subplot lasted 40 minutes in Season 5. And they later admitted they put that in at the last minute on a whim because they wanted to see more of Ellaria after good response in Season 4. So all arguments about “well the Vale is a whole new region with new characters” go out the window (that, and….it isn’t new, and most characters were already present from Season 4).
So what gets me the most is that they said they didn’t do the Vale arc because it was a waste of Sansa – it was “too short” and Sansa doesn’t “do enough” in it.
So the *entire promise* of merging Sansa with Jeyne Poole, was that across Seasons 5 and 6….she would have “more to do”.
From the perspective of Sophie Turner crying on screen a lot as Sansa was reduced to a victim, then yes, she had “powerful scenes” and “more to do”.
In terms of “her role as a political player”, she was marginalized. She didn’t “do” anything to affect the political situation in Season 5, and as we’ve just been saying….she didn’t really do much in Season 6, which was her promised revenge arc.
She had a lot of screen time, but it mostly consisted of “heavy acting”; not narrative role.
They keep saying “she’s a big player now” — are they honestly talking about *screentime*?
But yeah it’s just…..the entire reason for all of this change to Sansa across Seasons 5 and 6 is because they felt she doesn’t do enough in the Vale subplot, that it was too short and a waste of the character.
But after their “improvement”….we’re here in a thread talking about how Sansa didn’t actually do that much to shape the plot in Seasons 5 and 6.
This was supposed to be “giving Sansa more to do” relative to her Vale arc.
EDIT:
Talk of secondary characters; Samwell and Gilly might be “secondary characters” overall, but by Season 6…..their storyline isn’t long, but they are “primary characters” within their own subplot. That’s why it’s called “a subplot”. The Vale subplot really wasn’t as big as say….Daenerys conquering Meereen, or Jon becoming Lord Commander….but *Sansa was the main character within it*.
But others in the thread have said this better: merging Sansa with Theon didn’t “let the sparks fly” as they played off each other, so much as take screentime and narrative focus away from both of them. Then putting Sansa with Jon (long before she’d come with the Vale army in he books)……just took focus away from both Sansa and Jon. Sansa didn’t “do anything” as the focus shifted to Jon (i.e. the Mormon scene the writers only discuss Jon)…..yet at the same time, I’m seeing people in the thread here who think Jon’s story was itself diminished to try to make Sansa seem important: things like “he’s despondent and Sansa has to snap him of out of it” (which wasn’t too bad) to “Jon acts like an idiot during the battle and Sansa has to bail him out” (what?)
It’s like…..Arya was a “main character” in her own subplot in Season 2, even if she wasn’t “affecting politics” yet – the focus was simply different. So remember when they started inventing scenes of her with the major players like Tywin or Littlefinger? Now memory fades, and some of you will say her Tywin scenes were good; admittedly some of them were, and I do love them. What I’m talking about is like…”let’s have a scene of Arya wandering around as Tywin talks to Littlefinger, to build up tension that maybe LF will spot her”…….this didn’t make Arya “a main character” or “a player”, it was just putting more screentime on her in a given episode but to little result.
So “main character”, “secondary character” – these terms are variable, but I consider someone “a main character in their own subplot” to be better than “we sort of just put them in the background of the main plot”.
How much screentime did Olenna Tyrell actually have per season? But nonetheless made it clear she’s the real leader of House Tyrell?
On the balance….I think that, in terms of “being a political player”, Sansa actually did LESS in the past two TV seasons than she did in the “short” 2 chapters’ worth of material from her Vale subplot.
Jesus Christ, what is all this hate on sansa? and worst, the hate on sophie…? Are you guys ok with your lifes ? like wtf?!! The plot doenst has to make sense to sansa, and her decisions dont be the smarts and rights ones is NOT a plothole, the character is not a master player, is just a girl with her 16 years who suffered so much and its cleary not smart and shes trying to do something. whats wrong with that?, may i tell you guys a secret? THERES PEOPLE LIKE THIS IN THE REAL WORLD, people who comitted mistakes, and dont learn with them, but keep trying to do something. Sansa evolution as character is not about do the right moves but dont be afraid to do the moves anymore,
NinaD,
The more I think about this the less I feel that the northern lords felt as if the Vale saved them. They restored the Starks to power and because of tradition, they were glad However their suffering under Robb and his bad decisions wasn’t forgotten and most of them seemed resigned to the new order in the north. So in the lords’ eyes, in that moment, the Vale saved the Starks and their few loyalists but not them, per se.
If Jon had declared that it was Sansa who brought the Knights to their aid publicly, all he would have have raised is questions as to what the Vale wanted? What this dandy southern lord, LittleFinger, expected in exhange? I’m not saying that is why Jon didn’t say anything about Sansa in the moment. He was simply amazed at the turn of events which was obvious to everyone but Sophie.
The Dragon Demands,
100% Agree, the producers actually said on an interview (I’m not making this up, I remember I saw it) that Sansa is a main character and she should have a more interesting plot, so basically they thought Sansa’s arc in the books was “boring” (and, of course, by boring I say that it didn’t have swords, boobs and blood, you know, the sort of things audience loves….) and then, after being abused, traumatised and humilliated (oh, and raped, yeah, let’s not forget about that either) she has to, out of the blue, become a smart, cunning and cold-minded player of the game of thrones, WTF? how is she even gonna do that if she hasn’t had time to learn the politics from LF, that “boring” storyline from the books is about Sansa/Alayne learning how to seduce, manipulate and lie from the very best (and all of that without getting raped, or losing her kindness, wich is a marvelous Sansa quality that the producers decided to delete because, of course, kindness is not badass, we prefer Sansa, the woman who liked to feed her former husbands to his own dogs and smiling while doing it).
Well, given that one of Sansa’s biggest role models at this point is Cersei, that would not be too surprising. And it also would be a good way to put Sansa at odds with herself. However, this could be undercut by revelation of who Jon really is: if it becomes widely known that he’s Lyanna’s son, not Ned’s, and if Sam’s role is to provide proof that Jon’s parents were legally wed (which would make the most sense in the context of these stories), then Jon becomes a dilemma for Daeny, not Sansa.
But the other issue is going to be: how much did Sansa learn last year? She had assumed that “good” people would just blindly fulfill old oaths to the Starks. She has gotten a taste that the relationship between liege and liegemen actually is a two-way: if you fail to feed the dogs, then you will lose their loyalty. This is something that Cersei never has gleaned. It’s possible that she has begun to figure out that part of what made the Starks respected was that Ned (and quite probably Ned’s father before him) treated the other Northern lords with respect and dignity rather than just demanding things of them. That, in turn, could curb her “villainous” desires.
This stated, Turner seems something of a novice where it comes to character arcs and motivations. She often describes them in pretty simplistic terms. That’s not too surprising: given her relative youth (what is she, 21 now?), and given that all the time acting has probably messed up her education, she probably does not have a big background in how character development and character arcs can work. Indeed, her sole experience might be this show!
No, but it is nonsense! Sansa’s arc was the most pronounced one among the second tier protagonists. In a way, Sansa has been making up for four years of character stasis over the last two years. (Let’s hope that we begin to see some character evolution in the books, too: but, then, let’s hope we see another book!)
Except that none of this has happened yet in the books. We don’t know if Book!Sansa will wind up losing her kindness, or finding that her goals/needs come into conflict with her desire to be liked and loved.
The shame of it is that this would have been a great arc for the “kill the girl, let the woman be born” story of Crows/Dragons: Girl!Sansa’s desire to be loved coming into conflict with Woman!Sansa’s needs to be X. However, Martin basically did nothing with Sansa there: her three largely-pointless chapters end with a spark, but then nothing came afterwards. But that is one big difference between the show and the books: GRRM initially planned the stories around five main protagonists that did not include Sansa, and this no doubt contributed to her lack of development in the first three stories, and her essential absence from the last one. The show seems to have planned her to be a main protagonist from the start.
If Sophie is just parroting what D & D told her to say about Sansa fine but is that really accurate?
Either way when Jon prepares the lords chambers so you can take your spot atop House Stark and you refuse it then say the character is upset because patriarchy and sexism………. wut?
Wimsey,
yeah, I know that her evolution has been (very) slow, and I totally agree with you on the fact that, at first, GRR Martín didn’t include her in the 5 main characters (we’ve all seen the letternhe wrote), but (I think) he grew fond on the character and decided that she was important and that she had an important role to play in the future, and that role would involve politics and the game of thrones, she would become a player (otherwise, what’s the point of keeping her alive?) and D&D know that, but, as I said, the execution (in my humble opinion, I would never have achieved what D&D have done) could have been done better.
Cersei’s role in Sansa’s story in the books is as an anti-role model. She’s the living embodiment of what not to do, a person whose ideas Sansa rejects; that all comes to a head in the Blackwater chapters, where Sansa refuses to go along with her idea of ruling through fear and acts the role of a noble lady when Cersei runs away. Notably, the following book sees her immediately fall into the orbit of the Tyrells, who practise exactly that sort of rule-through-public-affection politic.
This is an extraordinarily silly notion. Sansa has a ton of development in the series. GRRM wrote her the fifth-most chapters of any character, and he didn’t do that because he didn’t know what he wanted to do with her.
Alvaricomg,
Sansa is so much of a main character that the show gave her the plot of some minor character in the books? She’s the only “main” character who doesn’t follow their own story from the books, and that’s because she’s NOT a main character overall. D&D have always said they’d keep the major points the same. Which is why Dany’s story, Jon, Tyrion, Arya, Bran, have all kept their book-plots mostly intact.
What they tried to do was hit the same basic ideas of her story (Sansa learns to play the game of thrones, which theoretically could be done in any number of ways, compared to Bran becoming a greenseer or Arya learning the ways of the Faceless Men), but do so while combining it with three other stories (Theon’s, Brienne’s, and Jon’s). The result was a complete hash.
I take everything Sophie says with a pinch of salt. She doesn’t seem to follow the narrative very well.
Nobody knew Jon was going to be made KITN, not even Littlefinger. He thought Jon was going to be declared Lord of Winterfell at most, which would come at Sansa’s expense.
Everything in the scene with Jon and Sansa on the battlements completely rebukes her claims.
Sansa initially refused the role of Lady of Winterfell, but Jon convinced her to take it. So, he did publicly acknowledge her role. Eventually that information would be disseminated by word of mouth and letters sent by raven. This is what’s known as a PUBLIC DECLARATION, Sophie.
What was he supposed to do? Run around saying, “Hear ye! Hear ye! I Jon Snow do publicly declare Sansa of house Stark, the Lady of Winterfell.”
Jon was perfectly fine with remaining a Snow and let Sansa get the credit.
It’s a time of war, the north elected a warrior.
Sean C.,
Sansa was a bit confusing, because the show, I think, wanted its Sansa dark, yet didn’t have the guts to carry it through. That meant the character’s emotional responses and what the character was actually doing worked at cross purposes, and it was a mess.
The Ockham version: This is Dark Sansa. She hides the Vale, as she wants Ramsay to kill Rickon and Jon and most of the wildlings. She can then send in the Vale and kill Ramsay.
…and that’s what happens. Sansa waits until Rickon is dead, until she thinks Jon is dead (Vale appears shortly after he climbs out of the pile of bodies, even though it’s clear from the beginning that Jon’s losing) and then sends in the Vale, which destroys Ramsay. The miscalculation is that Jon’s still alive. How annoying for her…and she IS annoyed.
This accounts for some weirdnesses in the story:
– Sansa sends Brienne away, supposedly because ravens are unreliable. That’s ridiculous, as she later ravens Littlefinger. However, Dark Sansa would send Brienne away, as Brienne wouldn’t put up with what Sansa is planning.
– Sansa doesn’t tell Jon that Bran is alive. She doesn’t want Jon to start looking for Bran; she needs him to face Ramsay, and from her pov, the fewer heirs to get rid of, the better.
– Sansa keeps saying “North Remembers,” which is ridiculous, as she saw how ineffective such things were while spending time with the Boltons. But her saying it makes her look like an idiot, which is what she wants.
– She gives Jon good advice before the Battle: Ramsay’s a better manipulator than you are. He’ll use Rickon against you. Rickon’s dead man walking. Ramsay won’t fall into your trap, but you’ll fall into his. She then undoes it by going into “helpless Sansa,” crying and saying “but I don’t know anything about battles!!!!”
So, honestly? Assume a Dark Sansa, and it falls into place.
Sansa haters up in the house yoooo
Interesting… she’s done filming already???? I mean I don’t follow filming spoilers. But it feels like she may have a small part next season? But what do I know..
Aguero,
Whenever there’s an article about Sansa on this site you will suddenly find a ton of random users who you’ve never seen commenting on any other articles appearing from the woodwork to write epic screeds about D&D, Sansa’s arc in the books, Sophie Turner’s misunderstanding of Sansa’s character, etc etc etc.
Much of the vitriol amounts to trolls, book w * * kers and probably the same person replying to themselves multiple times to make it seem like their points of view are accepted wisdom.
On any article about Sansa, if you can even bear to read through the comments at all, just read the comments from the familiar faces and ignore the rest.
That’s not to say that I agree with some of the nonsense Sophie comes out with, or that I see no flaws in Sansa’s arc on the show, but articles about this actress/character always bring out the worst on this site.
They randomly turned Sansa into a rape victim through contrived circumstances….
….then randomly declared her “a political player”, through contrived circumstances.
Or non-existent circumstances.
There was no “character arc”, no beginning middle end. What did she “learn”? What was her “arc”? How is grinning while Ramsay gets fed to dogs supposed to be making her a political player? Or a capable leader?
They just wanted to show off Sophie Turner’s acting ability.
And yes, I think it actually isn’t “sexist” on a general level; they’re doing this with ALL the actors. They had too many Theon torture porn scenes because they thought Alfie Allen was good at acting them. They had Jon Snow charging like an idiot into battle because they wanted a 60 second longshot showing off his face (in the behind the scenes video, Weiss openly boasts, “There’s minimal dialogue in it!”)
So is this out of come conscious, misogynistic desire to denigrate women? No.
But it hurts more when they marginalize female characters because Fantasy has a habit of not writing them well, so we’re surprised when they’re not sensitive to such concerns.
Brienne in Season 5, for example: half her season wasted *looking intently for a candle*. Even Christie described it as this. Was this “sexist”? Well it didn’t have rape in it, but it was still a waste of a female character who under normal circumstances was more active.
My point is that benign neglect is the most common form of “sexism” in writing. Superhero comics have few major female characters….not because they consciously set out to include few women, but because the male writers *just plain forgot*.
Many, indeed most, major critics who had been following the TV show for years, purely as a TV show and ignoring the books, thought Sansa’s story in the TV show from Season 5 onwards made no sense.
This isn’t just a matter of books vs TV show.
When you have droves of people who threatened to quit the TV show over it, universal critical condemnation…..it isn’t just angry book fans.
The mere existence of the books, though, provides fuel for criticism……not even reading them, TV viewers at least know “there was an original pre-established story in which Sansa doesn’t even meet the Boltons and doesn’t get raped, but they condensed it so she does get raped in this”
the point is that it isn’t just like Lost or Heroes deciding to have a rape subplot in a new storyline.
Even TV viewers know they *threw out* a pre-existing storyline for this.
Just as they know that TV-Dorne isn’t what was in the books, so you can’t really blame the books for it being bad either.
“Coming out of the woodwork”? You mean all the commentators in this thread who have been here for many years?
*Reads Sophie Turner’s interview*
*Enjoys Sophie Turner’s interview*
*Scrolls down to the comment section*
*Sees that the anti-Sansa and anti-Sophie sentiment is in full swing. Winces*
*Beholds no less than 20 lengthy screeds from a familiar suspect complaining yet again about both the Sansa storyline and Benioff and Weiss in general (and Dorne, for no relevant reason pertaining to this article at all)*
*Groans, and considers running for the hills*
*Forces self to read said screeds anyway in the interest of fairness*
*Quickly discovers that there is nothing here than the familiar suspect has not whined about countless times before*
*Learns absolutely nothing new, and remains completely unconvinced and unmoved by all of the arguments presented*
*Leaves comment section in disgust*
Sophie is lovely, but I think I may be done checking the comment section for any future interviews she gives. At this point, I feel like I can predict everything that’s going to be said and who will say it, down to the letter. The discussion can and will continue, but I’m opting out. There is no new ground to cover here.
So many fans are always butt-hurt over the things Sophie says. I don’t take what she says seriously, as it doesn’t affect the show in any capacity.
As for the Sansa arguments.
1. She is a main character in the show. Anyone that thinks otherwise must not be paying attention.
2. She was the one that wanted to retake Winterfell and kept insisting. If I recall correctly, Jon had no ambition to do so.
3. Both Sansa and Jon failed at recruiting fighters. Davos and red beard were the ones to do it.
4. Her accepting littlefingers and getting the vale was what made them won. We don’t know what her motives were for not telling Jon about the vale offer. The show didn’t elaborate.
5. She seemed happy in the finale except for the littlefinger bits.
This is all canon in the show, whether you like it or not.
Mayhaps the message is that some naive entitled spoiled brats never grow up and therefore continue to suffer the consequences of their immaturity.
The Dragon Demands,
Blah blah blah…
Kosten,
I think there are more fangirls in here that are sick of Sansa and resent her inclusion into other main protagonists story-lines. Not everything has to be about an agenda or social justice. Sansa is simply not a badass, but the showrunners are trying to make the character something she is not, which is pretty obvious to anybody with a brain cell.
The ironic thing is that it was supposedly done to make people care for the character, it has backfired and actually make people hate her more (many have even forgotten about the rape thing that she endured last season). I just feel the showrunners should have kept her storyline the way it was in the books. They tried to give the character a bigger role (mainly because they love Sophie Turner), but it was not constructed or written very well.
Now it’s getting to the point where her motivations are very inconsistent. Sansa has her own special qualities, she doesn’t have to be a badass. Sansa is kind, gentle, and a survivor (even with all the things she has seen and been through, she never becomes hateful or bitter). This is enough to build on for this character.
But because of all the social and political agendas in the world today, we have to make Sansa a badass wonder woman. We already have Cersei, Brienne, Dany, Arya, Lady Mormont (the little badass leader, lol), Yara Greyjoy. We don’t need more female empowerment in the show.
I don’t have a problem with Sansa as a character, I most enjoyed her between seasons 2 and 4 – but my problem comes when the sexism card is played. I feel it’s a misuse. And I’m not a “militant fanboy” – I’m a woman who has had four years in women’s studies courses in my post-secondary education.
Now, I loved Jon and Sansa’s reunion, love their brother-sister dynamic (it feels authentic to me), but what I don’t get is how there is this “Jon didn’t listen to her” argument. He did consult her, he included her in war councils, he listens to her in the first war council and he and Sansa went on that Northern tour together. In the second war council, he asks her advice and concedes that she is right in that she has insight on Ramsay. Yes, he initially wasn’t interested in battling the Boltons – until the pull of family brings him back into the fight (as specifically noted by the show runners in “Inside the Episode” for episode 4) – Jon fought for the sake of Sansa and saving their brother from the Boltons. Jon’s motivation is family. That’s why he went to war. For her and to save Rickon.
So, when Jon asks Sansa for her advice during the second war council, she says “I don’t know,” tells him she doesn’t know anything about battles and vaguely advises him to not do what Ramsay wants him to do. I mean, that is an obvious thing to say and does precious little to prepare somebody for the horrific situation of seeing their little brother desperately run toward them from a murdering sadist (nor should it, as Sansa’s not a mindreader). What Sansa could have offered was the info on the Knights of the Vale – but she didn’t offer this – for unknown reasons. When Jon says they can’t get more men, explaining how they both pleaded and got every man they can get, Sansa holds back. I don’t know why. I’ve read many explanations as to why but this isn’t actually answered by the show runners or Sophie Turner. That’s a big ????
And why on earth didn’t she speak up at the war council? She did in the first one – she had no issues whatsoever speaking up then. After the battle, Jon gave her credit on the battlements, gave her the lord’s chamber, acknowledged her as Lady of Winterfell. The lords elected Jon as the King in the North, he didn’t name himself, and even the show runners themselves explain, “The lords of the north named (Jon) King in the North because they realized he was their last, best chance to survive the wars to come,” so Sophie’s comments make no sense. I can’t see the sexism.
At this point, it’s not about inheritance rights and it’s not about gender, it’s about who can lead – who has the experience and knowledge of the oncoming threat that is right on the doorstep.
So this is my issue with Sophie’s comments, not necessarily with Sansa herself and how she was presented on screen (from my viewing, Sansa didn’t seem to want power at all in the finale) – it doesn’t mesh up with what’s presented on screen.
Jared:
I’m not “against” Sansa Stark….Sansa Stark as a coherent fictional character has ceased to exist. Benioff and Weiss wrote the character poorly. I don’t “hate” the character because it doesn’t exist; they intended for her to have a lot to do but failed to actually write it in; I don’t “hate Sansa for not telling Jon about the Vale army” because the cast & crew admitted there was no in-universe reason for it – I hate that the writers didn’t think this out.
…I don’t “hate” Sophie for continuing to…tow the line and agree with D&D that Sansa had a lot to do when she actually didn’t. They chatted her up about this before they actually filmed it. They’re in a bubble. She doesn’t realize how little Sansa actually did.
“Oh yet another screed by people complaining about Sansa”
People keep bringing it up for a reason; the entire character got destroyed from Season 5 onwards, and it’s one of the weakest parts of the TV show.
I can understand if you say we’re *rehashing* the same points, i.e. complaining about Dorne at this point is beating a dead horse.
But are you denying that these complaints about Sansa have validity? If so explain why they’re incorrect.
“Sansa accepting Littlefinger’s offer is what led them to win”.
….listen to yourself. No, *Littlefinger* offering to send the Vale army is what led them to win.
Sansa’s entire “big power play” was….accepting an *offer* Littlefinger made? How is this her manipulating him?
I consider Olenna Tyrell “a badass”. In the books, Sansa is turning into an Olenna Tyrell style politician badass.
Yeah, I think they’re falling into the trope of “Strong Female Character” who personally kills the bad guy and is therefore a badass.
This was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.
Noel:
…yeah, it seems they were…attempting to tell an “empowerment” story with Sansa, but even feminist critics of the TV series deride that it wasn’t even that “empowering” as they ultimately wrote it.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Agree 100% .
And where is the sexism where you are a STRONG leader, no matter the gender.
Lyanna Mormont would disagree, look, she stood againist all the northern Lords and made things her way. Another thing is to INSPIRE people, thus there is no need for a label like “gender” or “sexism”.
Sophie just shows up and reads her lines. She doesn’t need to know the character’s motivation.
I don’t buy the Dark Sansa narrative. She would have to be omniscient to such a level that would make Littlefinger’s scheming seem almost infantile in comparison. If she possessed the amount of foresight that would be required to manipulate both events and people in this manor, then she wouldn’t of had much trouble utilizing those skills on the Boltons. I find it impossible to believe she went from damsel to Machiavelli himself in the space of a half a season.
When she went to Castle Black she wasn’t certain that Jon would accept her. He did of course and this led to a new found optimism in her. She felt safe and at ease for the first time in a very long time.
That new found optimism tripped her up in the long run. It led her to believe the north would rally to her cause and she genuinely thought they’d get Rickon and Winterfell back because of this. It was a classic case of getting ahead of one’s self.
When the support didn’t materialize, her cynicism returned and she knew she’d have to rely on Littlefinger again. That’s why she gave up on Rickon and lost faith in the mission.
I don’t have anything to add with respect to the Season 6 AU Sophie’s still peddling, as most posters have already covered why Sansa got precisely the amount of credit she deserved. I’m just shocked that Winterfell filming wrapped already. I know that it involved pretty straightforward location filming and studio work, but that’s still very little time on set even if they did condense it. Leak:
jdtargstark,
I guess that’s the trade off for less Sansa in Season 7. Sophie’s got a lot of free time now that the writers have run out of ways to shoehorn her character into more prominent storylines.
If Sophie’s minimal time on set is any indication, it looks like they’re about to do just that. The contrast between her schedule and the A-tiers barely having more than two or three consecutive days off since filming began is pretty staggering.
1. She is a main character, but she not part of the top 3 main characters, in show even Cersei is more of a main character. Since she isn’t one of the top 3, it might be problematic to try and elevate her to that status when she is already alongside one of the top 3 characters.
2. People keep on forgetting that Jon is a bastard. Sansa is the trueborn Stark, one could almost say it is her duty to rally the bannermen and to try and retake the Stark home.
Bastards aren’t allowed to rally bannermen or take up arms, that is seen as a rebellious act. Bastards cant use their family name to gather support for themselves. Rickon was still alive. If Jon tried to gather the Stark bannermen on his own, the North might think he is trying to steal his brother’s birthright. This is simply something that bastard will not be able to do on his own.
For all of the complaints about a patriarchal society, bastards are lower or treated with less relevance than a trueborn daughter. The fact that Jon was chosen as the King in the North actually shows some progress on the part of the Northerners, they were able to look past the fact that Jon wasn’t born as a legitimate Stark.
3. Jon recruited the Wildlings.
4. Her letter to Littlefinger did help to save the day. I think people have a problem to give Sansa most of the credit for this letter, because the Vale army wasn’t her brainchild. Littlefinger went to Cersei and he organized a deal so that the Vale could march into the North without any problems from the crown.
Littlefinger manipulated Robin into calling the banners and marching for Winterfell. Littlefinger came to Sansa and offered her the support of the Vale. The problem is that Sansa did not have any hand in making the army of the Vale do anything. Once she wrote that letter to Littlefinger, it was once again Littlefinger who made sure the Knights of the Vale arrived at Winterfell.
It was never said or shown why Sansa would withhold the information of the Vale army, because it doesn’t make any sense. There were other things that also didn’t make sense, such as how the Vale would be able to get pass Moat Cailin, for example. The problem is that what the producers and writers are saying, and what is being showed on screen doesn’t add up.
5. I agree, I do think Sansa was fine and happy during the King in the North scenes, until she looks at Littlefinger and realizes that he will be a problem in the future. The producers and Sophie Turner are just trying to misdirect people, in my opinion.
Marwyn,
I agree that the leaks are very
The Dragon Demands,
I’m saying that gender had nothing to do with the showrunners’ decision to make Sansa a supporting character to Jon Snow. This has always been your problem. You posted earlier about how you felt you were alone in your arguments. It’s not that you didn’t have good points. It’s that you try to explain the showrunners’ reasoning without any evidence to back it up. They messed up Sansa’s arc, not because they’re misogynistic assholes, but simply because they’re are too many characters to do them all justice. I know they promised to expand Sansa’s role, but as soon as I heard she was going to be a part of Jon’s arc, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. He’s a much more important character than her. Like I said, gender had nothing to do with it.
When referring to just the character and ignoring what Sophie says and thinks about her actions, it’s not a new thing for there to be a lot of displeasure and venom being tossed at Sansa. I’ve seen her pop up on “hated” lists for years for book and show. For example, she’s #20 on TotH’s “loathed characters” list from earlier this year, ahead of Craster and Balon. I’ve seen several other lists in the past with her around that same 20 spot. Pretty much the only people that tend to be more hated are the clear ‘bad guys.’ I’ve NEVER seen Jon or Arya on a hated list. On the contrary, you’ll usually find them in the top 3 of the liked versions.
So here we have a character that already had a large pile of people that dislike her being plunged into contact with one of the most liked main characters and screwing things up. We shouldn’t be surprised to see all this vitriol thrown around whenever Sophie talks about how super Sansa is. Even if Jon and Sansa have few scenes together in season 7 you can bet your ass that we’ll be seeing the same sentiments if Sansa starts screwing things up for Arya. I’ll be one of them. You fuck things up for top echelon, majority fan favorites and that character isn’t going to get many smiley faces. Many fans do connect their feelings for a character to the person portraying it. It’s not fair to the actors but they seem to get used to it. I don’t know that Sophie realizes Sansa has such a large ‘hate base.’ It wouldn’t be tough for her to figure it out…
I actually thought this was the best line of the season because Arya became NO ONE. Like “no one” is actually a person. This goes together with Waif telling Arya -you can’t change that, I can’t change that, NO ONE can. And then Arya puts Waif’s face on the wall – sort of asking NO ONE to change things.
Exactly! When Jamie said, “Girls like her don’t live long,” he had it exactly right. Sansa at one time was one of my favorites because she didn’t have Dany’s magic nor could she fight like Arya, but yet she survived in her own way. Sadly, Sansa is no longer unique among the main female characters.
1 – The *writers themselves* said they left out the Vale arc because they felt it was too short and thus a waste of Sophie Turner’s talents, not because it was too long.
2 – if there wasn’t enough time to do them all justice…..why did they launch into a new, 40 minute long Dorne subplot in season 5, which was very poorly received, and took time away from other subplots?
“It’s not my fault, I tried to do too many subplots at once!” isn’t an excuse. It’s their fault for not outright cutting one or two subplots.
This was a basic failure of time management.
Boudica,
Sansa is a main character. I don’t get your point about top 3 main because they show hasn’t narrowed down to 3 main.
Go rewatch the recruiting scene. It was red beard that spoke up and convinced the wildlings.
I don’t care who prepared the Vale. No letter, no vale at battle. That’s the end of that.
This is what happened in the show.
Well there is. The conclusion I’ve drawn for the Sansa hate in season 6.
Every other complaint about Sansa character, I’ve observed in other characters as well, yet no complaint.
About the Winterfell plot, we don’t know the level of screen time it will get. They stared filming before the others and most scenes are indoors.
Clob,
I have to just say, I couldn’t care less about fan hate lists when I decide how I feel about a character. I also don’t elevate a single character on this show while trashing another. I dont care about lists, and i usually dont like to single out a character while ignoring any positive qualities they have,unless we are dealing with a sociopath. Sorry, they are all flawed. They are supposed to be. For the record, Sansa used to frustrate me to no end in book 1 season 1.i wanted to shake her, honestly. But from book 2 on, I can’t imagine not having compassion for her. Again, I don’t look at lists or who fan favorites are when I form opinions. I was never active on fandom until recently and not even that much, so i was unaware of all this hate. She annoyed me in season 6, but to single her out? I didnt realize how people are looking to knock her down at every turn. Also i always defended Dany even though my son and all his friends despise her. She has compassion, but i can understand their frustration. I try to find positives in these characters, since they are written that way. How you interpret what grrm gives you is up to you. But all this hate almost compels me to to jump other ships and start defending sansa more. I do find it frustrating that the show seems to be trying to make her a 21st century woman when she actualy represents a high born girl in a patriarchal society much more than Arya or Dany. We are entitled to our opinion, and i feel the show has changed sansa to make her more 21st century. That does make me frustrated. But none of these characters are God like, except maybe Bran. They are flawed and human.
Ramsay’s 20th Good Man,
This
Rygritte,
Sophie just shows up and reads her lines. She doesn’t need to know the character’s motivation.
Fair enough. But it shows and may be responsible for much of the confusion. There’s a reason actors always ask about motivation, even amateurs. As a rule, the dialogue words say one thing, but the actor has to convey something else, something additional, character traits, etc. AS GRRM often writes, “Words are wind.” Closely watch some of the more experienced or more acclaimed actors in the show, and you can realise the subtext behind the words. Cersei is steely and controlled, but watch her eyes and body language and you can almost read her mind: “But what about Jaime and me?” “He wouldn’t say this if I were a man.” “You smug bastard. You may be the High Sparrow but sparrows fall, and your fall is coming.” Lena is especially good at such nuance, but I get reverberations like this from most of the actors–Alfie, Peter, Liam, Maisie, Sean Bean, Charles Dance. But almost never from Sophie.
Asoiaf fan,
Yes, you and everyone else has the right to not care about those lists. I myself don’t really care. I was simply pointing out that they do exist and you’ll often find Sansa on them, which provides some reason why we end up having threads like this all the time.
I’ve admitted in the past that I don’t care for book Sansa. I won’t apologize for that. I don’t typically ‘use’ my dislike of the character to elevate any other. That would be difficult because other than Dorne characters I enjoy reading all the rest. I also think the purpose of the Sansa character has been more for the benefit of those around her than she herself. When GoT started none of that changed for me as they kept the character storyline right in line. I also thought Sophie was the weakest major cast member they had so that didn’t help at all. She has improved, a bit imo, but I still find myself cringing at times during her scenes when I don’t for anyone else. That’s just the way it is. I do my best to stay quiet about it, but ocassionally it comes out, like in this thread.
Stark RAven' Rad,
Agreed! The simplest way I can ever describe it is “wooden.” In the eyes, in the expression, inflection… wooden.
It undermines the strength of your responses that you keep referring to the wildling leader as “red beard” rather than his actual name.
Do you know his actual name?
>>>>>
I’m not annoyed that “Sansa took time away from the boys, she’s stupid!”
….by putting Sansa into Theon’s arc, they took away time from *BOTH* Sansa and Theon; by putting Sansa into Jon’s arc, they took time away from both Sansa and Jon. They’d alternatively have Sansa….fade into the background, in certain scenes, or, have Jon randomly act like an idiot so Sansa could “Save” him….though this wasn’t even Sansa saving him so much as Littlefinger.
The Dragon Demands,
None of this happened.
The Dragon Demands,
Lol Tormund. I like his beard but other than that, I don’t care for the character. Thus, Red/Ginger beard are my alias for him.
I’m just restating what the show has given. Take it however you please.
Stacy,
I guess we’ll know who the show version of who the younger more beautiful queen is in 2018. As for when we know from the books your guess is as good as mine – this year, next year, sometime, never…
Alvaricomg,Sean C.,
Ah I missed that crucial point. Haven’t read them yet but yeah from what I hear a few seemingly important traits of some characters from the book have been left out of the show’s portrayal.
Adrianacandle,
Nope. I got curious and looked at the script http://genius.com/Game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bastards-script-annotated
Here’s the convo between Jon and Sansa:
Please note that this is far more than “vague” advice. She is telling Jon that Ramsay is a better manipulator than he is, that he’s too smart to fall into his trap, that he’ll use Rickon to trick him, that he must not let that happen, as Rickon is as good as dead.
And Jon disagrees on all points, including, hilariously, the one about Ramsay being a better manipulator than he is.
And every single thing Sansa warned Jon about happens, beginning of the Battle, as Ramsay does EXACTLY what Sansa said he would do, and Jon falls for it all, leading his men to a massacre. I don’t believe that the audience is meant to see what Sansa is saying as “vague.” It’s specific, and she is completely correct.
…and then, of course, she does the “girly” thing: “I don’t know anything about battles.” I see that as the script flirting with Dark Sansa. She gives Jon the right advice, then hands him a reason to dismiss it. Anyway, she knows what she’s talking about. He does not.
maria,
I read that same script and get an entirely different take on it. The advice she gives him is obvious. “Don’t do what he wants you to do,” is one of the most ludicrous pieces of “advice” one can give to someone about to face up against another in battle. When Jon specifically asks what he should do differently her exact words are “I don’t know.” She doesn’t give him any actual advice on how to combat Ramsay. Looking back, after the fact, it’s very easy to say that Sansa knew what Ramsay would do. She knew he would try to mess with Jon, but killing Rickon with a bow and arrow, drawing Jon away from his troops and forcing him into a position where he could only advance, was not something Sanda knew would happen – if so, she would have told him as much when he asked her what he should do; she would have replied, “don’t ride towards Ramsay when he’s shooting at Rickon with a bow and arrow.”
That conversation in the tent after the we council was one of the most frustrating ones for me in the whole season. I have enjoyed Sansa’s arc and liked the character until the latter half of season 6. I don’t so much dislike her now as feel rather ambivilant towards her. I loved how she was becoming empowered, but to me, that conversation set her back hugely. Why didn’t she just speak up? She did before at the previous war council, why not this time? Why did she feel she needed Jon to invite her to say something? Presumably he had invited her to attend (or else why was she there?) so in that case, to remain quiet and then accuse him of ignoring her felt so utterly ridiculous and a huge step backwards from her becoming this intelligent, empowered character. I felt it was very contrived, that whole scene.
I’m puzzled by how easy it is for people to put the blame on Sophie’s shoulder for her seemingly lack of understanding about Sansa’s character when the writers can’t even keep her motivations straight.
It’s not Sansa’s or Sophie’s fault but the writers. I loved the spectacle that was Season 6, and there were plenty of awesome moments. But I also think it’s the weakest in terms of writing. Just too many inconsistencies. D&D are just basically moving the pieces right now for the end game. I still love the show and continue watching it but the writing has been wildly inconsistent for 2 seasons now, at least.
Rhaenys Stark,
Hahaha, exactly!
I don’t get why Sansa (or anyone in the North) really cares about power right now, the White Walkers are going to hit them first…. if they all get killed it doesn’t matter who was respected the most/or at all :/ Cersei’s dumbness I can understand because she’s so far away. But after all that’s happened North of the Wall and with Jon’s resurrection I’d be more worried about the WW then anything else. It really is a pity that we didn’t get to see Sansa’s reaction to Jon’s death and then revival
The North Remembers,
This is a topic I’ve been wondering about and responding to since season six ended. Not just character motivations but fan conversations. I’m talking about all the stuff about line of succession and comments of how “Jon needs to stay in the North and rule.” It isn’t the time to sit on a throne or worry about who is sitting on that throne.
I finally gave up on Sansa in Season 5 when she found that corkscrew-like tool and only thought to use it to unlock her room door. I thought of three or four more daring things to do with it. Sansa is irredeemably passive. She is good about some things, but her decision-making is awful and she never really and fully takes an initiative, perhaps because that’s not Ladylike. Which means someone always has to rescue her. Sansa embodies the punchline in Missandei’s translator joke: when their ship starts sinking, the first translator asks the other translator if she knows how to swim. “No…but I know how to call for help in 19 languages.”
In Sophie’s defense: She’s had four prominent interviews in one month and also a lot of time to talk publicly about Sansa last summer. She generally said the same thing each time–that Sansa’s important, she’s getting power and will use it, that she’ll disagree with Jon, and that she;s coming into her own, etc etc. I suspect some of the negativism is that many of us are sick of it. Truth to tell, I’d be frustrated if any GoT performer had so repeatedly been in the spotlight sharing their views. This goes for the ones I really do l like–Maisie, Kit, Peter, Lena, Rory, Conleth. I don’t think Sophie is deliberately hogging the spotlight. But I do fear that D&D think as Sophie does and that they’ll slight other characters, especially Arya, in Sansa’s favour. Tyrion and Arya were George’s truly original characters and have wonderful qualities. I so want to see such underdogs prevail, not the entitled. Sansa is a cliche Disney princess who should not survive much less succeed in GRRM’s brutal world. But that is not Sophie’s fault either.
For some reason I just had a vision of the Night’s King crashing through the Wall a la the Kool-aid Man, “Ohhhh yeahhhh!!!!”
Stupid migraine meds.
GRRM’s original draft had five main characters; Tyrion, Arya, Dany, Bran and Jon surviving until the end. I believe D&D have morphed Sansa’s part way beyond any resemblance to its book counterpart. Obviously, she has nothing to do with the real war that’s coming, and that’s what makes D&D’S insistence on inserting her into the main story so frustrating ( especially for book readers). They just churn out more and more nonsense to make her appear important to the end game. Well, winter is here, and we have so few episodes remaining. I hope not one minute of it is wasted on trying to prop up Sansa and her desire for power.
It’s nothing against Sophie, I just don’t think there is a minute to spare now on GoT. In the books there is still a long way to go. Maybe there, Sansa’s character will have a more complete and satisfying conclusion.
If, in your estimation, Sansa is a “cliche Disney princes who should not survive much less succeed in GRRM’s brutal world”, is she not then an underdog?
Sansa was certainly initially defined as a girl who was comfortable in the role her parents and society had assigned her, as compared to Arya. But that part of her life ended rather brutally midway through the first book/season. Her story ever since has been every bit an underdog narrative.
I think a person has to first believe that she is suppose to achieve great things to consider her an underdog though. I don’t think GRRM has made her as big of a perceived underdog as the show is forcing on her, starting with the stolen Jeyne story arc. George has basically just kept her alive and moved her around among the crown and Littlefinger. He has had her be a witness to various things and a pawn in things, but he hasn’t been overly brutal to her. He also hasn’t had her truly fighting to improve her situation. She’s just… kind of… there. She sulks about her situations, but waits to be helped by others rather than do things herself. That isn’t a definition of an underdog to readers/viewers. Underdogs usually beat circumstances by overcoming them on their own, doing great and difficult things. She’s not doing that. She’s Rocky fighting Ivan Drago and she only wins because John Cena sneaks in the ring and hits Drago over the head with a folding chair.
Clob,
Sansa has tried to improve her situation whatever way she can. There’s simply not much, in the early novels, that she can ultimately do. She can’t escape the Red Keep on her own, she needs help to do that (as anybody would); when the prospect of escape appears, she seizes it, at considerable risk to herself. As for “overly brutal”, well, if your measure is people like Jeyne Poole, perhaps not, but she’s had a pretty rough few years.
The fact that she’s constantly at the mercy of powerful people trying to make use of her for their own purposes is her underdog narrative. Ultimately, she’ll have to get the best of them to survive.
Dame of Mercia,
I think Sansa fits Elizabeth of York more.
I just don’t agree that she herself did everything she could to “improve her situation.” On the show she did even less, essentially nothing. Her escape was given to her without her inclusion in the idea or plan at all. She refused the Hound’s help, which is admittedly a scary prospect, but she also didn’t seek assistance from anyone that may have been on her side. She didn’t actively attempt to get herself out of KL in any fashion. She just allowed things to happen as they came.
My point is specifically regarding the ‘underdog’ term though. The show has forced her into more of a definition of that, but I don’t feel it at all so far in the books. In that medium she’s still just allowing herself to be moved around within other character’s machinations.
You won’t get any argument from me that the show shafted her KL plot.
Because there wasn’t anybody in KL who was on her side. That’s the whole point. The Lannisters killed her father’s supporters; there wasn’t anybody else at all inclined to help her escape.
It’s dubious to say she’s “allowing” it. Littlefinger (to cite the most recent example) is a genius manipulator who has very deliberately made certain she’s totally dependent on him. As we saw in AFFC, she wanted to get away from him, but could not see anywhere else to go. She had even less room in KL, as a Lannister prisoner. Her story is about learning about the game in the midst of the constant manipulation and abuse she’s subjected to, ultimately, one hopes, to find a way to make her own destiny.
You may be correct, but she also didn’t ‘fish’ very much. Olenna and Margaery might have provided her an opportunity. If she were wise she may have looked into that. Speaking of show only, it seemed even more obvious that they were not entirely pro-Lannister/Joffrey. How about Oberyn & Ellaria whom she should have known were completely against the crown? Or… how about being creative and cunning and finding a way to escape on her own. In a different story one could easily see that happening and people would view her as brave and smart. Instead we watch a girl just sit around and allow things to happen. We see her “kidnapping” of an escape on a ship and somehow end up sitting at an inn with Littlefinger surrounded by armed guards. Sneaky!
I also have a problem with people stating “how much she’s learned.” I just can’t view what’s happened around her as her learning HOW TO DO anything. She’s simply been a witness to results of manipulations and seen brutalities. Other than lying about who she is and keeping a secret or two she hasn’t personally been a part of The Game. She hasn’t planned anything herself. She doesn’t know how to be a leader…
I apologize… it’s an unwinnable debate with me when it comes to (my personal feelings of) Sansa. Anybody can keep trying and even have decent points, but I won’t be swayed. 😛
Clob,
Olenna and Margaery wanted her for their own purposes, i.e., they wanted to marry her to Loras. They weren’t interested in helping her escape to Winterfell, and she understood that much (in the books, anyway; in the show she apparently expected her family to come to her wedding). Oberyn took shots at the Lannisters, but he was in KL to take a seat on the small council at his brother’s behest; there was no indication that they were actually there to oppose the Lannisters until after Sansa left. Besides which, in the books, by the time the Martells show up Sansa already has a plan of escape with Dontos.
As for “finding a way to escape on her own”, she’s in the middle of a fortress that you can’t escape without knowledge of the tunnel system (that Varys mostly controls) that she has no way of learning about, in a city hundreds of miles from any friendly faces. She has no money or anything to offer anybody to help her (whereas anybody she approached could get an immediate reward by reporting her to the Lannisters). And she’s under constant observation everywhere she goes. GRRM designs her confinement to make escape impossible without outside help, and Sansa’s behaviour reflects that.
Once she gets word to come to the Godswood if she wants to escape, she takes a huge risk in doing so, knowing that it might be a trap.
Clob,
In the books, the stuff up to AFFC is mostly about her developing observational skills and greater political consciousness, rather than actively playing the game (the stuff to do with her escape is her being active, but it’s not game-playing). AFFC is where we see her, for instance, figure out Littlefinger’s plan about Corbray, something that all of the experienced Vale lords were apparently fooled by. It’s a modest beginning, but from the looks of it TWOW is where she starts to be a more active agent in the game.
maria,
I have to stand by my comments and I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I read the script prior to making my comments but I appreciate you posting that part of the script for me to reflect on again before I reply to your comments. I’ve watched the scene over and over, and I still think the advice Sansa gives is vague. Of course it is – she’s not a mindreader. Yes, she’s telling Jon that Ramsay is a better manipulator, not to fall into his trap, and she’s also telling him “don’t do what he wants you to do” and “he wants you to make a mistake” – all of which is pretty vague advice and can be applied to any number of battle opponents. It offers no specifics. While she does say that Rickon won’t live long as he is a greater threat to Ramsay’s claim, she doesn’t say that Ramsay will use Rickon to trick Jon and he mustn’t let this happen – she says they’ll never get Rickon back – and IMO, nothing will prepare Jon in any way for the situation of seeing his little brother run for his life right in front of him – the very same little brother Sansa invoked and the same little brother Jon went to war against the Boltons for.
When Sansa rubukes Jon for not seeking her counsil, he says in that quote you posted, “You’re right,” to which Sansa tells Jon that Ramsay won’t fall into his trap. No specifics. While Jon does think that he’s battled worse than Ramsay Bolton (the whole Night King/White Walkers at Hardhome/etc.) and Sansa tells Jon that he doesn’t know Ramsay, Jon does ask her “All right, tell me. What should we do? How do we get Rickon back?” – and that’s when she said Rickon is a lost cause and tells Jon that Ramsay wants Jon to make a mistake. Then Jon replies, “Of course he does,” and asks her, “What should I do differently?” to which Sansa says, “I don’t know, I don’t know anything about battles! Just don’t do what he wants you to do.”
The most specific thing Sansa offers Jon in this conversation is “I know how he likes to hurt people,” and how Ramsay won’t fall into his trap, he lays traps. Still (and I guess your mileage may vary here) this isn’t … specific. I’m trying to see it your way but if somebody told me this, I’d… I wouldn’t be able to get much from it.
As Che said, there are clearly different readings on the scene. Sansa didn’t (and couldn’t) warn Jon about anything specific. What she could have offered was the info on the Vale, but… yeah, that’s another discussion.
I’m not blaming Sansa at all for not being able to offer Jon specific advice – she can’t – but the advice she did give him was pretty vague and can apply to just about any battle opponent in any war.
And really, this isn’t my main point of contention here. It’s the use of the sexism card by Turner, which I just can’t see (for reasons mentioned in my original comment). Also, I’m bewildered why Sansa didn’t speak up in the second war council when she was included in it. In the argument we’re discussing, what I see is a disagreement between a brother and sister who love each other, want to ensure the safety of the other, and want the same thing but are coming at it from different angles and with vastly different experiences.
We’re kind of evolving this away from the underdog topic I think.
Anyway, I admit I have no idea where she’s headed, show or books. On the show there just doesn’t seem like enough time left for more than her to deal with her relationship with Littlefinger and then simply “stick her” somewhere. Be that ‘somewhere’ is dead or Lady of Winterfell or whatever. If we assume leaks are accurate, what role could she possibly fill in the limited episodes other than that? Perhaps her main purpose ends up being the ultimate end of one of the characters that’s been pulling the strings all along. It would be a bit of revenge served for her mother.
Clob,
[Leaks discussion]
That entire interview made me cringe. Bear in mind, Sophie’s words are based on her interpretation of Sansa. Thus, the criticism I post here isn’t a criticism directed at Sophie (bless her soul, she’s trying to work with what’s she got), but on the Sansa character we see on the show.
I don’t understand why she’s complaining about patriarchy when she could’ve spoken up AT ANY TIME during the meeting. The fact Jon invited her (and Melisandre!) to the war counsel meeting proved he welcomed their input, regardless of gender. But Sansa, being passive aggressive throughout that whole scene, waited UNTIL AFTER THE MEETING to speak her peace.
Sansa was free to speak up at any time. If she’s using the patriarchy excuse, then consider the people present in that meeting with her. There’s Davos, a humble Onion Knight/former smuggler who regarded Shireen (aka Princess) very highly. There’s Tormund, a Wilding who is used to seeing empowered women take charge (Ygriette, Karsi…) and even has a hilarious crush on one (Brienne). And then there’s Jon who, under an alleged patriarch system, shouldn’t have invited either Sansa or Melisandre in the first place but did anyway. And like Tormund, is accustomed to being around strong-willed ladies (Ygriette, Arya…). Hell, Jon has Sansa by his side and never forbids her from speaking up when they’re trying to recruit Houses for their battle.
Are these the type of men who would tell Sansa to fuck off or shut up if she tried to speak up during the war council meeting? Nope. This group is as progressive as you can get. o_o
Sean C.,
If there’s any redemption of Sansa for me I think her having a direct hand in ending Cersei could be one of the ways. That seems like an improbable scenario, but one never knows. Characters could end up coming together with an advancement of the Others and the wights. People are always talking about who “deserves” revenge on whom; Walder by Arya, Ramsay by Sansa, Alliser by Jon, etc. The first characters we always look at for Cersei’s demise are Tyrion and Jaime, backed by the prophesy of course. Right behind them you have to consider Sansa though, right?
Jess,
It doesn’t make much sense, but both Benioff (in one of the BTS videos) and Sapochnik (in the Blu-ray commentary) have indicated that Sansa was “left out” of the meeting, so we’re evidently supposed to believe this is a legitimate gripe, even though in the earlier meetings she spoke up whenever she felt like it.
Clob,
[Leaks discussion]
Sean C.,
Again speaking of the show only, I think you may be right that they’d take Sansa in that direction! Witnessing how they’ve been changing her storyline in an apparent attempt to make her more important/interesting, that arc does seem like something they’d do!
Clob,
The writers, by their own admission, prioritize main characters interacting above almost anything else, so that, combined with the fact that book!Sansa has a ton of supporting characters who are almost entirely absent from the show, and, well, the much smaller number of supporting characters and factions on the show generally, all suggests it’s a possibility to me.
[Leaks discussion]
ChellieW,
Agh! I meant “B&B”, not “D&D”……That’s something completely different?
Yes… Sansas motivation and storyline has suffered a lot in the past few seasons. Yes… her part is inconclusive and often does not make a lot of sense. Yes… that sucks for her character, her fans and the overall storyline.
But think about it. If the showrunners put in all the Subplots like:
1.) The long game Doran Martell is playing with his son Quentyn and daughter Arianne who are PoV characters in the Book
2.) The introduction of the “presumably” false Dragon Prince Aegon with his links to Magister Illyrio and Varis
and at last 3.) Sansas Plot after her rescue, staying in the Vale at the Eyrie for a year, learning how the political game is played as she experiences littlefinger pulling strings first hand and he explains every move to her in Detail AND THEN introducing Harry the Heir who is the Heir to a character that died in S1E1 and never said a single word. And she is supposed to marry him to get the Vale on her side.
What kind of casual GoT viewer would understand any of it or even care for her staying in one place for more than one season learning local politics from littlefinger?
Just like with the entire Dorne story that would have been way too exhausting and complicated for the casual viewers, which is why they cut Dorne off by killing all their potential players.
However that is kinda hard to do with Sansa cause she’s been around longer, got her own fanbase and maybe a few strings to pull in the main plot yet to come. So they had to come up with an alternative storyline for her not covering too much screentime but making the character seem to make progress while fitting into the other storyarcs and somewhat interacting with them.
So how long did GRRM take to develop his Sansa arc? Producers had much more on their table and came up with this. It certainly is not great and deserves criticism coming from those who know how perfectly smooth GRRM usually has his characters interact in the books, which is why he is taking 5+ years to write one. But it is a storyline that keeps the tension of her characterarc up and makes her move on to a position that leaves her off in a spot that GRRM might intend for her after her tutoring in the Vale. It isn’t smooth, it sometimes does not make sense, but I doubt anyone could have come up with a more decent solution given the time and the schedule the producers are on.
I don’t think leaving Sansa out of Jon’s war council was sexist/patriarchal. Admittedly ignorant about battle, she had nothing concrete to contribute. Warning Jon privately about Ramsay was fine. They might include a woman who could make suggestions or give useful intel, like Brienne or Arya (“…and after you killed them, did you release Lord Tully? Do you know a back way into the Twins?”). I doubt Sansa will figure in Cersei’s demise because Sansa’s unlikely to return to KL. Besides, Cersei knows her too well to be tricked by her. And the valonqar prophecy will surely apply, with likely candidates Jaime (my vote), Tyrion, other little brothers, and one little sister with Cersei on her List. So how do you solve a problem like Sansa–you marry her off to Robin Arryn. The minute Littlefinger is dead, they must quickly secure the Vale to fight against the Others. Sansa is comfortable there, knows the lords, can control Robin, etc. It would be a political match made in heaven and one that solves Sansa’s part in the Endgame…and avoids killing off a Stark.
The above discussion of Sansa’s escaping KL is interesting. Sansa would never pro-actively escape. But as Clob said, she had turned down the Hound’s offer. Many times he had protected her yet she still refused. Shae had said she’d stop Littlefinger if he acted inappropriately with Sansa (IMO a threat to kill him), but Sansa never used her. Sansa also refused LF the first time he offered to whisk her off to the Vale, which would have been much better than later fleeing with a price on her head and Ser Dontos dead in the water. Although a remote possibility, she might even have asked the QoT to arrange to secrete her out of there. Given the right reasoning, Olenna might had done it. So I think Sansa did have some options to get out of town but did not pursue them. More passivity and bad decisions.
Stark RAven’ Rad,
If you’re talking about show examples, sure, but I already stated that the show’s version of Sansa’s KL plot reduces her to complete passivity. None of that applies to the book other than the Hound, and the Hound in the book is way different than the show Hound. I don’t know how anybody could read the book version of that scene and be surprised that she doesn’t go with him (including, most obviously, that his departure after putting a knife to her throat happens in an instant and she only then realizes that he’s left; not that the whole knife business would likely have inspired her to go, anyway).
Though on her refusing Littlefinger, even in the show, Littlefinger’s a creep. I’d say not particularly trusting him is a sign of better judgement, though in the next season’s premiere she seemed to have changed her mind on that point, for whatever reason.
Sean C.,
Sansa still trusts Littlefinger in the books.
Che,
I’m going to stick with she gives Jon excellent advice about the type of man he is, and the type of man Ramsay is. This is how she opens the conversation: She knows Ramsay, and he doesn’t, which gives her something valuable to contribute. Game of Thrones stresses that understanding people and manipulating them is how people win the “game.” What Sansa has to say is far from ludicrous.
Beginning of the battle proves Sansa was correct. Ramsay did not fall into Jon’s trap. He was not “overconfident”; that’s Jon misreading his opponent. Ramsay was exactly as confident as he should have been, as he understood Jon.
Jon’s “and what have I been doing all my life?” would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Jon can’t manipulate people; that was one reason for his assassination. Yet he doesn’t have enough self knowledge to realize it and rejects what Sansa’s telling him about himself. That is a mistake, as the opening moments of the battle show.
Specific advice from Sansa: Rickon is dead boy walking. Unspoken statement: Give up on him. Ramsay’s keeping him alive for a reason. Jon, again, disagrees, and again he is wrong. Rickon never had a chance; Ramsay kept him alive in order to manipulate Jon into charging. Again, Ramsay knew his opponent. Jon never “got” Ramsay.
Sansa’s frustrated. Jon isn’t listening. He doesn’t have a clue, not about Ramsay, not about himself. He wants actual strategy, when she’s telling him to think about the kind of man Ramsay is. “What should I do differently?” is obvious: Figure out your opponent, as that’s how you play the game. Assume you’re dealing with a monster, a manipulator who “likes to hurt people.” Prepare to be emotionally tortured.
Jon is being sarcastic as he hasn’t listened to a word she had to say. Sansa’s advice is not “obvious,” nor is it easy. He can’t figure out “what Ramsay wants him to do,” nor can he come up with his own strategy, if he doesn’t understand either himself, or Ramsay. And this is what we see in the opening moments of the battle.
maria,
At no point does Jon counter that she has something valuable to contribute. He even tells her that she is right. Why didn’t Sansa contribute then? After being invited to attend the war council in the first place (we can pressure, otherwise why would she be there?) why not then contribute? Jon has included her in every step of the proceedings since leaving Castle Black. She has always spoken her mind before, why not now?
Sansa’s manner of talking to Jon throughout this entire exchange was condescending and antagonising. First, she accuses him with a dry passive aggressiveness of ignoring her and standing around with this war council making plans without where when she was stood right there. Secondly, when she says that line “he’s far better at it than you…” it’s peculiarly antagonising (in the delivery, but also the line itself).
Also, Jon not being able to see Ramsay manipulating him is not what leads to the opening scenes. It’s very easy to look at Jon as this brave, honerable yet naive character, but in that moment, we can’t know what he was thinking. I take the view that he knew what Ramsay was doing, but leaving Rickon to die was never something Jon would be able to do without trying to help him. I don’t think he fell for a trap, I think this was a conscious choice that in that moment, he didn’t care about any of it and though he knew it was a trap, there was no way he wasn’t going to save his brother.
I would like to think about what Sansa would have done differently. Would she just have watched Rickon be shot? When it came down to it and she was in that moment, could she have done it?
Her point to Jon about Rickon does show that Jon doesn’t “get” Ramsay as you say, but it also, overwhelmingly, shows that she doesn’t “get” Jon. The whole reason he agreed to build an army and march on Winterfell was to save Rickon. For Sansa to just rip that away, after using it to convince Jon into action in the first place, showed a surprising lack of understanding for who Jon is. I also disagree that Jon didn’t get Ramsay; I think he was well aware of what Ramsay was doing, but because of who he is, there was no way he could stop himself at least trying to save Rickon.
At what point is Jon not listening? I know she says the line “listen to me please”, but I don’t see why. It’s not as though Jon is obstinately refuting everything she says. He has one line about how his life has prepared him to face maniacs (which in truth, it has) and she turns around and tells him he isn’t listening to her. The manner in which she enters this conversation and talks ought to make Jon feel frustrated (as it does) as as I have already mentioned, her tone this whole conversation was accusatory though I don’t see how that was earned.
Her telling him – “I don’t know what to do” is the most relevant part of this whole conversation, but you’re just glossing over it. Do you think Jon is stupid? Do you think that in Sansa telling him about Ramsay over the months they have been together that he wouldn’t have built up any idea whatsoever about what his opponent is like? You keep pushing this idea that Jon has no clue about Ramsay (and I’m confused when you say he has no clue about himself either, I don’t understand that part), but I would disagree that that was the case. You say is obvious, but does Sansa actually say those words? When he says “what should I do differently?” does Sansa actually say: “Be aware that Ramsay is going to do something that is going to mke you break your plans. He is going to do something to manipulate and hurt you, possibly using Rickon. Don’t fall for it. Stick to your plans.” No. she doesn’t. She says “I don’t know.” Hence, many people’s assertions that she doesn’t give him any advice. She gives him information on Ramsay (which we can presume he already had an idea about – as they’be spent the last few months together and it would be highly unusual if they hadn’t discussed Ramsay), but not what he should do differently.
Sarcasm doesn’t negate the fact that what Sansa tells him is obvious. She says the words “don’t do what he wants you to do” about Jon’s opponent in battle. Can you please explain why that is not an obvious statement?
I also simply can’t see where Jon hasn’t listened to her. There is no evidence of that at all. Refusing to give up on Rickon does not equate to “not listening”.
In the end, Sansa contributed information about Ramsay, but had no advice to give Jon on what to do when he was stood on that battlefield other than “don’t do what he wants you to do”, which, after the facts, makes Sansa seem prescient about the exact events that were going to unfold on the battlefield, but at that moment, was not helpful in the slightest.
On an aside: I do find it truly fascinating how we can all read/watch this he same scene and experience it so very diffidently.
maria,
Ramsay is overconfident. Jon was right.
Ramsay was so overconfident he sent his entire cavalry to take out one person, he shot arrows into his own men and reduced his own army. He sent and wasted his entire army to try and slaughter an army twice as small without leaving anything in reserve. And he did all that while sitting on his horse with a smug smile. All these things happened on the show.
Che has covered the rest, so I won’t bother.
Sean C: You’re right: it was quite different in the books, but since this thread is about Sophie’s take on Sansa which seems to reflect D&D’s take, that’s what I concentrate on.
Maria: You also made many good points, some of which I agree with. Sansa’s knowledge of Ramsay is unmatched. In general, she’s also somewhat more perceptive than she used to be. But as the others said, she communicated it poorly and worse, ineffectively. You wrote, “Game of Thrones stresses that understanding people and manipulating them is how people win the “game.” She does not successfully manipulate. She almost never takes action . Words are wind. In my profession I learned that communication is a two-way street–to achieve an end you communicate to your particular audience in a way that makes them do what you want. What Sansa did say serves as a CYA, but she must have known she was gambling that the 7th Cavalry from the Vale would arrive in the nick of time and make her a hero. Who knows–subconciously, she may not have wanted Jon to succeed on his own. But Sansa defenders and unfortunately D&D continue to ignore the elephant in the room: despite all her communicating, she did not tell Jon about the Vale army. IMO, that is unforgivable. If I were Lyanna Mormont and had lost half of my 62 good men in the melee, I would spit at Sansa as she passed. How many of Tormund’s 2000 Wildlings are left? How are any commanders of decimated Stark-allied armies able to stand being in the same room with Sansa? Jon is far too magnanimous–not only did he not castigate her, we know he’s going to put her in charge of Winterfell while he’s gone. Seven hells!
Young Dragon,
Yeah, because he’s kind of Stockholming her.
phantomcloud,
I don’t know about you guys but Sansa has played the game better than any other Stark. She has been in the enemies grips for 5 seasons! Never once having power, never once make decisions about power then all of sudden she gets free and you expect her to be this perfect leader and heroin? What did Jon do that was so fantastically smart? Bran for that reason – he hasn’t done anything smart. Arya running around Braavos in the open asking to be stabbed. Look my point is she is naïve. Every character in the show has made mistakes, a lot of that is apart of them growing. But Sansa had to be a flip flopper to make it out of Kings Landing. Out of all the Starks still alive Sansa has every right to question who she trusts.
Jon didn’t ask her for advice. He condenscendingly asked her for military advice and of course she isn’t going to help in that manner. She meant in understanding ramsay and had Jon sat there and thought about what Sansa had to offer maybe not so many Freefolk had to die. Only one question was ever asked to her, how many men does he have?
I am not giving the writers a pass on Sansa but damn your hate for this character seems a bit much.
She loses power of Winterfell to Jon and now your upset that a simple little smile at the end of season 6 has pushed her to now want to be queen again? Pretty big assumption based on 10 seconds of a scene and honestly it makes sense to me. You brownnose your way home saying and doing whatever to lose power of your home to your bastard brother. Of course it may cross your mind to join up with the guy who has an army who loves you to try and make you queen. It is enticing.
But seeing as how there are now no women on the show besides sansa that play the Lady figure I think it is acceptable to see her struggle with decisions and power.
That has always been the point of the show – the transfer of leadership from one generation to the next and how they grow and learn with the Long Night happening as well.
Sansa… I have seen so many aggressive posts towards her…. She SHOULD have escaped KL, she should be BRAVER, she should be an all out bad-ass like Brienne or her sister… She ‘could’ve’ done this or blah blah blah… That she’s ungrateful & even whiney…. The hate list continues…. Good old misogeny it its BEST. Alot of this bile is directed by the fanboy massive that adores Jon & Dany & wants their golden ending… I hope they don’t get it.
As Sean C has patiently pointed out, Sansa has been a political prisoner throughout much of the series, surrounded by people that have taunted her psychologically, ripped the clothes off her back in The Sept infront of hundreds of people, witnessed her fathers execution right beside her, witnessed his rotting head along with her Septa on pikes, had her dire wolf executed, married her to the family that betrayed her through a humiliating ceremony where she’s expected to quickly pro-create offspring with a man she rightly doesn’t trust. Used by the Tyrells. Manipulated by LF. Had her aunt try to push her thru the moon door, essentially forced into a marriage to an absolute nutjob (whom in the books gets off on bestiality), Lord knows WHAT he DID do to her in the bedroom – because that is only insinuated in the TV series…
When you are routinely humiliated psychologically/physically at a young age it can have a profound affect.Why cant she be ‘badass’ like say, Brienne or Arya? She can’t help she’s not a tomboy! She was being groomed for marriage & ‘ladylike’ pursuits, there’s no sin in that. Hey, i love badass women like Brienne & Arya too! But I understand that not all of us are built the same. Also, our south-of-the-wall side of the story would possibly be over a lot quicker if she was adept at combat….
Also – everytime she has been given some sense of reprieve/freedom/sense of power – it has quickly been snatched away: Cersie ordered her direwolf to be executed via Robert when it appeared that ‘the case was solved’, she was about to push Joffers over the parapet – but The Hound pulled her back – robbing her of a deserved victory (!), she was freed the shackles of marriage to Joffers – only then to be married to his brother & then be told by the new king that he could visit her bedchambers anyway… Bigged up by LF to then be brokered into a marriage to an nutjob in her family home no less, locked in a room to be beaten & raped many times over. Given a hint of freedom only to see that ‘hope’ flayed infront of her… Pursued by man eating hounds thru a freezing river…
So, she didn’t take The Hounds offer to run during S2, so what? He was Joffers head protector – she really didn’t know who to trust. See above.
She saved Jon via The Vale yet many men got slaughtered due to her not revealing them – why shes hated so much really – again, see above – get into her head why! And also, after her meeting at Molestown with Brienne & LF, it was unclear that he would indeed come to her aid after she rebuffed him – hes not used to people he controls rebuffing him & he IS the most dangerous man in Westeros – or did we suddenly forget that? THE WHOLE SET UP FOR GoT is due to him in the first place! She was also mature enough to realise that Rickon was a lost cause. Small but significant point.
So please, show her some effing respect. Cos, guess what – SHES STILL ALIVE! HAH! And she’s done it without x3 dragons & an army of Dothraki, without years of handfighting/swordfighting techniques, being protected by The Hound & studying to pull masks off her face!
On a more sombre note: The future:
Stargaryen,
Uh no, Jon did not condescendingly ask her for military advice. He straight asked her what should I do, twice, when she tells him that he doesn’t know Ramsay like she does. He plain asks her “what should I do”. Yeah, he was pretty riled up when at that time but that was because she began the conversation by straight off attacking him.
He was going to risk his life on the battlefield the next day. Sansa had already given up on Rickon. Jon was the only family she had. Instead of showing any concern about the fact that he was risking his life for her the next day, she was more worried about why he was not asking her opinion. When she had absolutely no problem in giving her opinions prior to this. There is a reason why that conversation in the tent rubbed a lot of people a wrong way. It was unnecessarily antagonistic.
Yeah all Starks have made mistakes. But Kit, Maisie, Isaac don’t keep putting down other characters while analysing their own. And Sophie does this in literally every interview. Contrast this with Kit who has so far not felt the need to put down Sansa to defend the actions of his character. He has been willing to analyze the mistakes Jon does, something which Sophie never does. It’s always how Jon has wronged Sansa, never about how she has wronged him. When in reality it’s a two way street, both characters share responsibility for their lack of communication. So people are just reacting to her statements that’s all and not because they expect her character to be perfect and not make mistakes.
No, I don’t expect her to be a good/perfect leader or heroine and that’s part of the reason for a lot of the discussion and guffaws when Sophie starts babbling. She has no idea how to be a leader and I personally don’t think she’s learned much either that would assist her in doing so. People always throw out examples of things they think she’s learned, but nearly all of the time she had no idea there even was a plan or manipulation and just saw the results of ‘something.’ She remained alive by keeping her head down timidly and allowing people to move her around as they desired. The writers can make up anything they want but they haven’t shown a reason why she would have any clue what to do when sitting in the big chair.
There’s no reason to compare the situations of the other Stark children. For starters, the actors playing them aren’t continually spouting nonsense. Besides that, the others have all had to make multiple difficult choices and acted on them. Some put them in danger, some got them out of danger, but they themselves made the decisions rather than having them made for them.
I’m not sure which game you’re talking about, but the bar seems to be pretty low when she’s the only Stark trying to play. If you can call getting moved across the board by others playing at all.
Off the top of my head…Internalized advice from every mentor figure he’s come into contact with, starting with changing his tune at Castle Black after speaking with Tyrion. Was able to kill a wight despite being caught by surprise and having never encountered one before, survived numerous expeditions north of the Wall, successfully infiltrated his enemy’s army with literally no warning on the show that he would be tasked with doing so and convinced them to trust him enough to feed him valuable intel. Learned enough about their culture and values to eventually integrate them into the north and convince leaders like Stannis to pardon them. He used the info he gathered during his undercover mission to fortify the Wall’s defenses despite facing opposition from almost every authority figure there, was pragmatic enough not to send crows to avenge Olly’s village even if that meant siding with Thorne, led a mission to kill the mutineers before they could reveal Castle Black’s weaknesses, wisely framed it as an avenging mission when he was searching for volunteers, and then led the defense of Castle Black after Thorne was taken out. He recognized that the wildlings were more dangerous north of the Wall than south of it, earned the respect of numerous men whom he’d royally fucked over, allied with the very same enemies he’d spied on and rescued 5000 of them from a white walker ambush, and then recruited them to fight to take his home back. Finally, he’s the only main character, Stark or otherwise, who’s playing the long game, the only one that actually matters as has been stated in this series repeatedly.
That’s just Jon. We’ll be here awhile if I need to get into Bran and Arya, but the point is that trying to erase the strengths and successes of the other Starks in order to bolster Sansa doesn’t work, nor does the need to resort to that sort of grasping do her any favors. No one’s denying that Sansa has strengths. She survived her captivity because she used her courtesies as a shield and didn’t rock the boat. That was observant on her part. However, political cunning and northern diplomacy have at no point been demonstrated on this show. She lied to a few lords and wrote to Littlefinger asking for help. Jon and Arya have lied plenty in order to survive and asking dangerous people for help is nothing new for Jon.
Sansa, for all she’s allegedly learned, continues to completely miss the big picture if these interviews are anything to go by. She’s welcome to try politically outmaneuvering a wight if she likes, but seeing as how this “player” couldn’t even convince her own uncle to fight for her, I think she’d benefit from parking her attitude until she produces an actual result on her own rather than coasting on her name and the fact that she resembles Catelyn.
Yes, he did ask her. Repeatedly. And the only person who was condescending in any of their interactions was Sansa. Che already covered pretty clearly why Sansa’s “advice” was fairly useless and would have in no way helped Jon on that field, so I won’t bother. Although it is pretty rich that the catastrophic impact of withholding the Vale is continuously swept under the rug or hid behind the BS argument that Jon wouldn’t have known how to incorporate them into his strategy. Read the books again if you think Jon isn’t capable of devising a winning strategy with minimal resources, manpower, or time to plan. The Wildling attack from south of the Wall demonstrates that he’s perfectly adept at setting traps, too.
If you disagree with people’s viewpoints on Sansa, argue them. This trend among Sansa fans of trying to shame and silence those who are critical of her character just smacks of an inability to tolerate any differing opinions on a fictional character. People can dislike or even hate her all they want, and her fans are free to construct arguments to the contrary. Using this space to label anyone who doesn’t worship her as a hater and bemoaning the fact that people keep voicing less than flattering opinions of her character defeats the purpose of an open forum. For instance, I may completely disagree with your take on the other Starks, but I have no problem whatsoever with you voicing it.
Its funny because this is the same thing I gleamed from her expression at the end of the season, not to say she’s right but thats what it seemed like it feels. It follows well an comment made earlier while Jon and her were still at the wall when she puts forth quite adamantly the Jon does not have the Stark name, but she did, so the north would rally behind her.
Honestly I still feel that Jon was more instrumental to rallying the north, after all Davos was following Jon, and the houses seemed quite skeptical of Sansa (Bolton/Lannister?) true allegiance. Any way I’m much more interested in a Sansa who insights some infighting in the north as she has not been an effective/important character up until this point in the series IMO (she’s a focal point yes, but shes not a character that moves the story along…disregarding her part in Ned’s capture and death… instead she’s mostly a character that is swept up by the story’s events)
Sansa was never a moral character, she lied very wekl if it pleased her since her childhood, perhaps this is why she’s still alive in a cut-throat world what you can survive only if you play the game! Every character did things if it looked right according to their perspective! But lot of fans forgive them like everyone of characters have redeeming qualities except Baelish! For real?! Everybody has betrayed everyone if they needed it to survive the game! Judge righteously! Now please tell me what was The Hound doing? What? Repeat it, please! Ah yes, he PROTECTED Cersei and her sociopath son, Joffrey all the time! It suited his intentions because he got money for this. He had several opportunities to kill them, but he didn’t.
So here you can see when Ned wanted to attack Cersei and Joffrey, Sandor immediately reached for his sword and killed Ned’s soliders. He did not help Ned. He obeyed the Lannisters. So actually Sandor also helped arrest Ned! As an ‘outsider’ he only saw Ned was a traitor and the council member Baelish kept him from escape! It was no secret in front of anyone LF loved Cat, how do you know he did not think LF was holding Ned to not let him to do anything crazy? Or LF was only acting in front of the Lannisters just like the others did? Or he did not give a shit..
THE HOUND HELPED ARREST NED STARK, deal with the fact please!
Just imagine his future talk with Sansa: Hey ! When you were in love with Joffrey and hated your family, your father refused Joffrey as a king and I protected the kid and Cersei and killed Ned’s men…btw I saw LF kept him from escape, so, you should kill lord Baelish! Forget he saved you several times, risked his life for you, gave you useful lessons, encouraged you to be strong, to play the game and avenge your family, forget he saved Arya when he recognized her and kept her secret, forget he saved Jon and helped you take back your home. How rational would it be, right?! 😀 Sansa knows LF was a kind of a double agent. Everyone of them has dark things from their pasts!
But because he looked after Arya in his own rough way for money in the begining ( but people can change during their journey in their life) he became the best, he is the most awesome angel character in the serie in many people’s eyes! BUT BAELISH is the Satan himself, right?
What. Are. You. Talking. About. Seriously?!
As for Baelish:
Do you even know what sociopath means?!! I do not think so..
The main features of sociopath people is impatient and they cannot control their agression. They behave peacfully and a few seconds after they behave agressive. Ramsay, Joffery for example. Poor behavioral controls/impulsive nature, sexual abuse, rape, public hummiliation of the others..ect. When a sociopath does something wrong, he or she is likely to accept none of the blame and to blame others instead.Sociopaths love to lie about their pasts, too. They cannot hold eye contact because he or she is completely uncomfortable gazing into others eyes.
He is obsessed but not a sociopath, only want revenge because in this liar world the nobels humiliated him when he was a tender-hearted, naive dreamer. He knows he can only survive if he covers himself and lies just like the others do to survive and win the game.
To be honest, she is a divisive character. I wouldn’t be sorry to see her killed off as both the character and the actress seem to repeatedly irritate a lot of fans.
I think Sophie does a great job of playing the role but demonstrates often that she only has a superficial understanding of who Sansa is and what she’s thinking, considering her published views are at odds with what’s portrayed on screen. However, she may see things from a different perspective which is understandable.
At the end of the day, I don’t really see Sansa as a major player. From the reports up to now, the main action in Season 7 concentrates on the south and the build up to the war against the WW. Sansa doesn’t seem to have much of a role to play in that. Apart from the LF friction I’m not sure where her character has to go.
Correct me if I’m wrong but once Bran shows up at Winterfell, he’s the head of the family. The fact that his legs don’t work is irrelevant. He’s male so in GOT society, he is head of House Stark. It will be very interesting to see how the show deals with the Sansa/Bran/Jon scenario. Who is actually the Lord/Lady of Winterfell because right now, it seems to be all three of them? ?
Halfman,
Jon is King in the North, not Lord of Winterfell, so it’s between Bran and Sansa to duke it out over that title if they so choose. HBO made a distinction between the two designations in their online guide. Jon does have the power to legitimize himself and take over as Lord of Winterfell if he wants to, but this is the same guy who wouldn’t even take the master bedroom for himself. In all honesty, though, I suspect that the remaining Starks will have more pressing problems to deal with after this season than who’s head of the household. Maybe the survivors of the Long Night can just flip a coin.
Rosemarry5,
I don’t know if you’re trolling or not, but I’ll bite. The Hound was Joffrey’s sworn shield and bodyguard. He is sworn to protect him and House Clegane is a house of landed knights that is sworn to House Lannister. So of course he helped arrest Ned Stark because those are his orders and that’s how their feudal system works. The alternative would be imprisonment and execution. When The Hound finally leaves King’s Landing during Blackwater, Joffrey and the Lannisters issue a reward to bring him to face justice for treason. There’s even a small council scene in season 4 where Varys reports that The Hound was seen in the Riverlands and Tywin has the reward to capture him increased.
Last time I checked The Hound didn’t sell Sansa to the family who betrayed the Starks. If Sansa continues to trust LF even after he sold her to the Boltons, then she’s a fool. Like she said last season: “only a fool would trust Littlefinger”.
elybe,
I wish I could frame this comment. Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Clob,
Yes that is for sure. If God Himself told you that Sansa has positive qualities and she has been through hell (others have made excellent arguments btw) it won’t make a dam bit of difference.but hey, we ar e all entitled to our views . It is just frustrating when I usually look at all of them as human beings with imperfections. I dont elevate a single one of them while slaughtering others, but that is just me. So i just have to stay away from certain posters.
Alvaricomg,
Arya does not enjoy killing anymore than Sansa herself does. TV Arya is equal to TV Sansa in that regard but the book Arya who keenly feels the smallfolk’s lack of injustice and experiences it along with them is not someone who enjoys killing. She is different from someone who said that if she was queen she would make the smallfolk love her as, you know, worship is what rulers are for rather than people who should be serving the smallfolk and giving them justice. That was a passive aggressive shot, I know, but I’m so tired of this false characterization of Arya while this idea of Sansa as kindness and hope and goodness exists. Isn’t she passively closing her eyes to LF poisoning Sweetrobin? So please.
Asoiaf fan,
Spot on!!!!! The comments about both Sansa & Sophie on youtube GoT commentaries are VILE. If the ‘keyboard warriors’ had have to endure what Sansa’s character has had to endure throughout the series, they’d be dead by now. Its alpha-male fanboy talk by a bunch of ‘beta-men’. No more- no less. Its embarrassing.
I love sjw tbh but as a WOC myself it drives me nuts when people act as if straight white female is revolutionary. PLEASE. The white girl challenged the supremacy of the white boy truly truly progressive y’all.
Excellent comment! Season 5. for Sansa was a joke. It was a ruin for Sansa. All she learned was a new level of pain and humiliation. It made Sansa a long suffering idiot and Baelish a fool. They could have been a great team, but the writers tossed it aside for a pointless horror show.
Hardly. GRRM developed Sansa quite well initially was developed, and even a casual reader should have a very good idea of who Sansa is. However, Sansa had almost no evolution (= dynamic development). Oh, she has lost some of her illusions, but she has not replaced them with anything: instead of going from a fish with fins and gills to a salamander with limbs and lungs, Book!Sansa is now just some sort of reduced worm breathing through osmosis. This stands in major contrast to Jon, Daeny, Tyrion, Arya and Bran, where you could make a vector describing the states of his/her character at the outset and another vector describing the states of his/her character at the end of dragons and need another set of prominent vectors (= character arcs) to describe where they’ve gone.
Not knowing about Ramsay hardly makes Littlefinger a fool. 1) Nobody knew about Ramsay, including the Northeners. Remember, Robb Stark had no problems with Ramsay “liberating” Winterfell. Nobody said: “Dude, that bastard is a psychopath” (= “Sire! The bastard has no honour even for a bastard”). They almost certainly assumed (as we have heard elsewhere) that bastards often will do anything to make themselves look good and achieve a real name (figuratively and sometimes literally) for themselves. I.e., they would have expected an obsequious, eager-to-please lad. 2) What happens in the North stays in the North. The north is largely a mystery to the south in general. If anyone knew about Ramsay, then they were hardly apt to be spending time in Littlefinger’s brothels blathering about it. Like others, LF would assume that the acknowledged bastard of a Lord would be extremely eager to show that he was as honorable and noble as a real noble.
As for what it did to Sansa, it did the same thing as Jon’s assassination, Daeny’s near assassination, Arya’s blinding and Tyrion’s enslavement: reduced the character to an ash from which a phoenix could arise. This is what stories do: create parallels in how the protagonists evolve so that something emerges that transcends the sum of the individual events.
“So people are just reacting to her statements that’s all and not because they expect her character to be perfect and not make mistakes.” I agree. The problem in these discussions is that a flurry of so many Sophie interviews peddling the same information (rather skewed IMO) is not necessary and in a way detrimental to other characters and actors. It’s logical that some people would be riled up.
Rosemarry5 wrote about Littlefinger: “he saved Arya when he recognized her and kept her secret.” Almost certainly wrong. Presumably, you mean the time he visited Tywin at Harrenhal. From the way he looked at Tywin’s cupbearer he found her vaguely familiar, but thanks to her dodging him and Tywin’s questions diverting him, he never had time to realise who she was. 1) If he had, he would have outed her to Tywin, currying immense favour and countering Tywin’s impatient scorn towards him. No way would LF miss that opportunity. 2) He also would have not missed an opportunity to tell Sansa later to win favour and perhaps gain him some affection. We never see that. 3) when Brienne rescues Sansa and tells her Arya;s still alive, Sansa is surprised. So she didn’t know. Personally, I think LF wanted Arya dead in KL, but identifying her to Tywin would have been much more valuable to them both.
Finally, I agree with Lisse’s comment about Arya not enjoying killing. It’s probably good that Sansa will never become comfortable with doing it, but Arya has. But only if it’s justified in terms of justice, self-defense, or clear retribution. She is a vigilante-warrior. And, unlike Sansa, she does not distinguish between smallfolk and highborn, semi-strangers or her own family. Considering her List, she would have exacted revenge for the butcher’s boy, her ‘dancing’ teacher, her father, mother and brother, her friend Gendry, etc. That doesn’t mean she enjoys it. If she did, she wouldn’t have removed the Hound, and maybe Beric, Thoros and the Red Woman. If she enjoyed it and was indifferent to justice, she would not have spared Lady Crane andput herself in danger from the FM. Arya always weighs justice. And in dispatching Listees who’s eluded her justice for a very long time and would probably go unpunished otherwise (Ser Meryn, Walder & sons), she finally got some satisfaction in meeting her goal and doing the right thing. But not enjoyment. Jon did not enjoy killing Janos Slynt or Olly, but at least knew he did the right thing.
Wimsey, your last paragraph is quite astute. I still think Littlefinger knew something about Ramsay’s reputation, but there’s just no way to prove whether he did or how much.
That’s simply wrong. Sansa’s always evolving. To look at just one book, the second, her arc there is a sharpening and testing of her commitment to trying to be a good person versus the nihilism that Cersei and the Hound are both trying to make her believe in. She rejects both of their philosophies, whilst absorbing some of the Hound’s pragmatism and at the same time shattering his own childish nihilism, which drives his own subsequent development in book three. The moment at the end of ACOK where she decides that making people love you is better than making them fear you, in spite of what she’s seen, is a significant moment for her (and paves the way for her to meet the Tyrells in the following book, the next thematic step, in that they practise that sort of politics and she starts to observe how they work). And she then steps up to act the role of a lady in a way that Cersei, her anti-role model, is just never capable of doing.
Even if that was what they were going for, that doesn’t mean it was well-written, either on a character or narrative level (not to mention, Sansa was already “reduced to an ash” on the show; that was the whole point of her KL arc, or it should have been, anyway).
Tyrion’s enslavement didn’t “reduce the character to an ash”, as an aside. It was played entirely for laughs on the show.
Mark Milburn,
You’re not going to change our minds lol. We so-called “Sansa haters” see things from a different pov. And respectfully to you, no, we do not have to give her any effin respect. She’s not a real person so it does not matter and should not upset anyone that we find fault to any rational degree.
D&D butchered Jon & Sansa’s relationship last season, and have amped up the hatred for Sansa’s character. It could have been handled so much better and made both Jon & Sansa look like heroes. Instead they chose to lift up Sansa at the expense of Jon which the majority of GoT fans will never believe.
For example, at the last war council, Sansa could have told Jon about the Vale army and Jon, expecting their arrival, could have implemented it into his plans. As he, Davos, & Tormund stated their only chance was to get Ramsey to attack them full on, which is exactly what Jon’s mad charge to save Rickon did. It got Ramsey to waste his most important asset; his cavalry.
From there, you have things play out the same. Except, you add a scene of Sansa & Littlefinger arriving and watching the proceedings from a distant hill. Sansa is pleading with Littlefinger to go help but he waits. He’s waiting to see Jon fall before sending in the Vale to remove a potential obstacle from him installing Sansa as Queen of the North or whatever. Just as Jon sinks below the pile of bodies, Baelish sends in the troops thinking Jon is dead. But miraculously, Jon rises from the mosh pit. You see the look of disappointment on Littlefinger’s face and joy on Sansa’s. The rest plays out as it did.
A situation like that would have gained Sansa more fans than just her loyalists and she would finally be recognized as a true Stark by the majority. And the scene of Littlefinger and Sansa watching Jon nearly die would have created even more tension and suspense.
I think the poor acting plays a big part in why the character is so unpleasant to watch. I don’t know what she was trying to do last season – she says that she now models Sansa on Cersei and Margaery because Sansa grew up around them but Headey and Dormer play their characters so well that even when they do idiotic things, we sympathize with them. Sophie’s way of being bad-ass was to look constipated all the bloody time (Like seriously, she had that one expression ALL the time after she becomes bad-ass suddenly in episode 4) and have a petulant, ‘I know better than everyone’ way of talking. I doubt that’s how Sansa is supposed to look and sound.
Look at how Kit talks as Jon Snow and how he talks in real life. There is a difference there. Sansa was talking to Jon Snow like Sophie talks to Kit and it was terrible. It baffles me that the moderators and denizens of WoTW consider her a good actress and wanted her to be nominated for an emmy! LOL!
Unless she improves next season, her scenes with Arya is going to be painful to watch when they argue. Maisie Williams will have to bring all the good acting to make their scenes work.
Sophie offscreen doesn’t sound much at all like Sansa (she pitches up her voice noticeably in the latter capacity, among other things), and she tend to play her as very stoic unless things get really heated.
The genuineness of Sansa’s love and concern for for Rickon and Jon as well as her gratitude toward people just wanting to help her (the Wildings, Davos) was all a little questionable as events played out in season 6. So then, Sophie opens her mouth and what she says make it sound as if Sansa really is the self-important, ungrateful and delusional character we were hoping against hope she wasn’t. So yeah, it’s going to generate some viewer hostility which wouldn’t be directed at Sophie AT ALL if she didn’t put across (without any wink-wink) that Sansa is just awesome sauce and deserves to HAVE IT ALL.
SerNoName,
Unless she improves next season, her scenes with Arya is going to be painful to watch when they argue. Maisie Williams will have to bring all the good acting to make their scenes work.
Agreed. But I expect that due to their personal closeness IRL, Maisie and she will spark each other. They’ve both regretted not having scenes together since S1, so they should make the most of the opportunity, especially if they know their characters will survive the season. (If not–God forbid–they’ll have to suppress their sadness.) However, I hope D&D won’t let Sansa lord it over Arya and try to put her in her place. Rank and age don’t matter to me or most modern audiences as much as courage, ingenuity, competence, truthfulness, loyalty, and focus on what’s right, just, and important. In terms of those and most other personal qualities, Arya is Ned- and Jon-formed and superior to Sansa in every way. Sophie repeatedly stresses one (poisonous) trait that neither Arya nor any other Stark has: Sansa’s vaunting ambition and desire for power. In a way, it’s the antithesis of Starkness. So if Sansa pulls that “I’m your Lady” schtick on her sister, I will be furious and hopefully Arya will be too.
The money shot when the Vale rode in was the three smirks. You guys like statistics?
Three people were able to smile at that pile of dead bodies at the Battle of the Bastards; two were known villains. The third was the unknown villain, Sansa.
Mark Milburn,
You do make some good points about all the shite Sansa’s been through, but I do believe you’ve fundamentally misunderstood the Hound’s actions on the wall. He didn’t deny Sansa the sweet victory of killing Joffrey; he denied her the tragedy of killing herself, either by flinging herself off the wall with Joff (the scenario in her own mind in the book), or by execution shortly thereafter. (In the book it is explicitly clear that he did what he did to protect her.) Several other commenters have noted that book Hound and show Hound are quite different, but as rough as he is in the former—and yes,
—it should be quite clear to both book and show fans that a) he would never hurt her and b) he has several motives for protecting both her and Arya.
In that scene, she said to the Hound: “You won’t hurt me!” So, Sansa realized she was safe with Sandor, yet, still replied No to his question, Do you want to go home?, and his offer to take her.
That’s it right there, isn’t it. Sansa would rather stay in KL than go back to the rural backwood that is Winterfell… that is, once she thought Stannis was winning.
So, she’s calculating, but in a foolish way, and always gets burned.
Anon,
Good point. There was zero chance that Sansa saw Jon in the mass of bodies from that far away before she spotted him when he cleared himself from the mob and took off after Ramsay. So she’s smiling when there was a good chance Jon was dead, among all the other dead. I suppose the viewer isn’t suppose to think about that though, just that she’s smiling only because Ramsay is about to go down.
Sure, whatever you say.
My God! The usual Sansa hate. Really? Even a 12yo viewer can understand what advice Sansa gave to Jon. And Sansa didn’t go with Hound because Stannis was winning. She said it herself!!
The fans are always talking how GOT is a different story from the usual fantasy, yet they want “the prince that was promised” to be the classical fantasy hero that everyone around him will follow even if they disagree. If they have wrong, right or both, or something in between, shouldn’t matter to the plot but only to the drama and eventually they must do whatever the classical fantasy hero decides. Otherwise they are the villains! – No perspective at all!
If GOT is the different story you claim to be, keep in mind that there are no heroes. Jon and Sansa have their own strengths, weeknesses, traumas and dillemas to deal with, in a brutal coming of age story.
The show is very manipulative to the point that it hurts the characters sometimes until the aftermath. You are easy target.
I SAY you’re a Sansa wanker. 🙂
Appealing on behalf of two fictional beings in a single sentence, Maria?
🙂
THIS
Lady Mormont spoke and Jon is crowned King of he North. Hope these 2 get together