If you don’t love Sansa Stark, you are
wrong, and I’m about to tell you why.
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If you don’t watch or read Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, the depths of your wrongness know no
bounds, and you should probably stop reading this and start reading/watching
that. But even if you don’t know who the hell she is, you should love Sansa
Stark anyway, and like I said, I’ma tell you why.
People don’t like Sansa because she’s
whiney, apparently, and because she is naïve. And I admit, Sansa does spend a
lot of time waiting for someone to rescue her, and gets pretty damn weepy every
time something goes wrong. But let’s look at the facts for a second.
·
Sansa is the first born female
Stark, she was raised to be a princess, and raised for marriage and babies.
·
Sansa is beautiful.
·
She has spent her whole
childhood in Winterfell, which is about as isolated and removed from reality as
you can get this side of the wall.
·
The adults in Sansa’s life
wanted her to be innocent and uneducated, whether they knew that’s what they were
doing or not.
·
Sansa has always defined
herself in opposition to her tomboy sister, Arya.
·
She *likes* sweet things likes
songs and cakes and flowers… is that so surprising or bad?
·
They killed her dad in front of
her, and then made her stay in King’s Landing with his murderers.
·
Joffrey is a massive dick.
·
They beat her, publicly
stripped her and psychologically messed with her.
·
She had no one.
·
And no one came to rescue her.
·
People who promised to rescue
her didn’t.
·
They killed her brother, her
mother, and basically the entire court/guard of Winterfell.
·
And still no one came for her.
·
They married her into the
family of people who ruined her life.
·
She is 13 years old.
So um… your argument is invalid. Basically,
of all the main POV characters, I think Sansa has it the hardest for the
longest. She’s not allowed to whinge about it?
Also, she survives. If Arya were in Sansa’s
situation, I feel like she’d be dead. There is no way Arya would have held her
tongue, played the “little dove” and survived. She would have tried to do
something valiant and badass, and they would have killed her for it. But
sometime after Ned’s death, something in Sansa flips, and she suddenly knows
what it is she has to do. Uneducated and silly, foolish little Sansa realises
that they need her alive, and that they need her to play along. So she does.
She says what they want her to say, goes through the motions, acts heartbroken
when they void her engagement to King Dickface and survives.
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| “Lady Stark you may survive us yet” – the cleverest person in the room. |
Sansa plays the game of thrones like a
girl, and by that I mean she doesn’t rely on traditionally masculine traits to
survive. Characters like Brienne, Arya and (to an extent) Daenerys have to
eschew femininity to get through life. Now don’t get me wrong, I just listed
three of my favourite characters, and there’s nothing I love more than a badass
Arya moment, or a Brienne-is-the-best- at-everything swordfight, but there are
other ways to be strong: in A Song of Ice and Fire... Sansa is a lipstick feminist.
Sansa does everything with grace and poise;
she is elegant, beautiful and dainty. She is clever, and wary, and learns how
to start guarding herself and reserving her trust. The Tyrells have to work
very hard to win her over, and even then Sansa understands that they need her
too, and that she is just a piece in other people’s games. Moreover, when they
decide to marry her off, not to pretty, valiant Loras, but to the unknown,
crippled Willas*, she decides that she’ll be a good wife, name her kids after
her siblings, and notes that people will probably stop trying to beat and kill
her all the time. In short, she has learnt how to play the game in order to
survive.
*non-book readers, in the books it’s not
explicitly mentioned that Loras is gay, really, and while Sansa has a bit of a
moment thinking she’ll get to marry him, this storyline is significantly
different.
***** Spoilers follow for those who haven’t
read the books, scroll to the stars if you don’t want them****
I have a theory that Sansa is going to
become a major player very soon, and if you want evidence for it, all you have
to do is look at how much she changes once she leaves King’s Landing. As she
plays the part of Petyr’s bastard daughter, she becomes more and more savvy.
She picks up on who is in his pay and who isn’t, understands that all is not
always as it seems, and recognises that Petyr’s conniving wisdom is probably
what she needs now to survive. All the while, she continues to play it like a
lady. She hides how she truly feels about irritating little Robert and her Aunt
Lysa, and knows she must continue to play a certain part.
I think she is going to learn a lot under Petyr’s
tutelage, but that she will be strong enough in her own convictions to become her
own kind of player, no longer simply a pawn. I can’t ever see her wanting to go
back to King’s Landing, but we may well see a Queen in the North sometime soon,
and I tell you what, I’ll be bending the knee.
***********Spoilers are over now,
it’s ok*************
Basically, Sansa is no badass, she’s not a
hero, and she isn’t ever going to stop loving lemon cakes, but that doesn’t
make her a bad character and it doesn’t make her unlovable. She’s the best,
basically, and she does everything like a girl. A clever, awesome, wonderful
girl. If you don’t like Sansa, you’re wrong, and if I haven’t yet convinced
you, I’ll leave you with a few more things…
“All you need to
know about Sansa in this book is that she has a direwolf – a giant, monstrous
wolf, a half-mythological monster, a killing machine – and she names it Lady.”
– Schmoop
“My skin has
turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.” – Sansa Stark
Sansa’s hair is amazing. And has really
interesting meanings. You can track Sansa’s loyalty and emotions by how she
does her hair, and I just think that is amazing.
Finally, you should know that Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa in the show,
adopted the dog that played Lady, because like Sansa, Sophie is amazing.
August is Potentially Problematic Opinions Month. Led by Alex from Adventures in TV-Land, a bunch of bloggers will tell you about opinions they hold that might piss you off, or make you think, or be so obvious you can’t believe anyone would think them problematic, opening your eyes to a whole world of people who don’t agree with you. This is my description, by the way, and it’s possible that Alex has a completely different one. Ooooooh Potentially Problematic!
What else is happening in PPOM? (will be updated with links as they happen)
Noni has joined us! With an absolutely amazing post entitled "I'm fat. That's ok".
Alex tells us she is actually thinking about voting for Clive Palmer, and what that says about political discourse in Australia right now.
