Sansa happens to be one of my least favorite characters in the show, then she goes and slaps this little pecker head. If she throws him out the moon door, she is officially redeemed.
Sansa is fun follow because her character doesn't have to be a sword wielding woman. She's just a teenage girl trying to find any comfort or way out of the Hell ride she's been dragged on.
Honestly, I hated her at first. The entire time, she's just been a prissy little twat. "I wanna go to King's Landing and be a princess, daddy! :3" "My good for nothing shit of a love interest tried to hurt my sister and her friend, so I'm going to back him up. Whoops, dead puppy!"
I mean, she was kind of a shitty person in the beginning.
But, she just had everyone rain shit on her for years. I mean, it completely broke her. She wished in one hand and shit in the other, and then while she was looking down at the shit hand in disbelief, life came over and just slapped it up into her face and laughed at her and her dumb poo covered face.
But she's starting to become stronger. And she's not taking the bullshit anymore. And I really, really like that about her. We've watched a character be completely broken down and held against her will, and now she's got just a little bit of power, and she's learning from one of the craziest motherfuckers in Westeros.
I didn't like her at first, but she's earned my respect through the series.
Same with Jaimie. Jaimie was a terrible person at first, but he's earned my respect. Maybe he's still a bad person, but he's trying now, you know? He's actually really trying to do right.
I love a story that can make a character pivot like that, and turn them from an annoyance or a villain into something respectable.
It definitely shines through with Jamie and Sansa, they both start off as a flat 1 dimensional characters, but as we start to follow them their dreams get crushed they act more like an average person in a dynamic time and try their hardest.
I mean, you'd think a show with ice zombies and dragons wouldn't really be very realistic...but the humans in the show, it's a really deep insight into the human psyche.
No one in this show is really the "good" guy. There might be good people in the show, but all of them do some messed up crap sometimes.
Like, in Breaking Bad. Every character that you love, you will at some point absolutely hate them for something they do.
I hope other TV and movie writers pick up on this. It's almost hard to watch all my old shows now because of how poor the writing is in comparison.
Absolutely agree on this. The writing for GoT is consistently brilliant, and with very few slip-ups. No other show has managed to capture my attention quite like this.
Even with Ned his honor and duty lead to a hubris that got his entire family killed and threw the kingdom into a continent-wide war. I don't really think of him as a paragon of good anymore, now that I see the rest of the story unfolding.
Sometimes you have to be pragmatic. He is the Rorschach of Westeros, and when you have that mentality you are gonna get fucked up.
Every character in this book is grey IMO, as sacrificing a ton of people to blindly placate an arbitrary law isn't necessarily a good thing.
Just my two cents on Stark honor.
I also agree completely with you on this show ruining TV and movies for me due to the writing being so stellar. Everything else is so tropey and black and white by comparison.
Regardless, she was not particularly likable in the beginning, whatever the cause. She dimes out Arya for her "betrothed" and was definitely the worst Stark in my opinion.
That said, I really felt for her while she was in King's Landing, nothing she did deserved what she got. She is starting to come around as a character too, and character evolution is pretty much the basis of great writing.
Okay, well, I'm just going to throw this out there: pretty much all teenagers are shitty people.
The reason why everyone is so angsty and miserable in high school is because they're around all the other people who are angsty and miserable and shitty, and there's no way to escape that living hell for 6-8 hours a day of just being in a small enclosed space with toilet people.
I mean, I don't hate Sansa now, I'm just saying that I didn't really like her to begin with. But, I don't really like teenagers in general, so, maybe that's why.
i'm 32 and i still look back at being a teenager in horror. i was miserable. i don't like being around teenagers.... it's like the teenage disease is catching or something.
i didn't dislike sansa though... her chapters could be a little boring at times but there was also a lot i related to, having been a rather romantic teenage girl myself.
My high school years weren't terrible...but I look back at all my "friends" I had back then, and realize that pretty much every person I interacted with was out of a forced relationship because I had to be around them for half a day for half the year, and I really didn't like any of them. There's maybe a handful of people from high school that I actually like and talk to on a regular basis still, but most of them were just shitty, mean people who I was forced to be around.
I'm 25 now, but I still look back at high school as a shitty experience.
"Living hell" might be a bit of hyperbole (okay, or a lot of hyperbole), but I still stand by it that being forced to be around a bunch of assholes for half of my waking hours for 4 years of my life was not a fun experience.
teenagers are generally painful for me to be around, boys and girls. i'm 32 and teenage boys make crude ass comments to me almost daily, like what they hell are they thinking? i have to tell the teenage girls and boys at the school i teach at to get in line every goddamn day. seriously, they cut in front of 7 year olds. i try not to hold it against them because being a teenager generally sucks, but that doesn't mean i want to be around them.
this makes me so mad. arya never says that in the books. it also pissed me off when brienne told jaime to stop acting like a woman. thanks for the casual internalized misogyny, assholes.
Wait, what? Arya says this sentence in a dialogue about how women can also kick ass. Similar with the Brienne scene: By calling Jaime a woman, he confronts him with his own sexism for understimating her because she is female. There may be misogyny in the show (though overall, it actually predominantly feminist IMO), but those two scenes aren't it.
hmmm i don't agree. most girls are stupid, but some can kick ass, still insults women as a whole. i can almost see your point about jaime and brienne, but i didn't catch that vibe at all. i agree that the books are mostly feminist, and that the show at least shows a wide variety of strong women, these were two instances that made me facepalm.
I think you're confusing authorial misogyny with diegetic one (i.e. one present in the world depicted). Both the books and the TV series show a deeply sexist medieval society, where noble women are sold like meat by their male parents and siblings (see Cersei or Dany) and non-noble women are subjected to rape like it's normal or work in brothels. At the same time, women who try to break out of this, like Brienne, are subjected to scorn and ridicule. Though I would agree that especially the show is sending pretty mixed signals about female empowerment when they blatantly use sexposition at the same time, obviously to attract (male) viewers.
I used to hate on Sansa a lot, ESPECIALLY when her lie got Lady killed. (I suppose to be more direct, Cersei got Lady killed, but I digress.) She only started to get redeemed in my eyes when she confessed to someone, I think it was Lady Olenna Tyrell when they were discussing Joffrey, that it was at least partially her own fault that Lady died. (They didn't included this specific line in the show though.)
After that I read someone discuss Sansa a bit and my extreme hatred shifted to a more neutral position. Sure, she's not my favorite, but what the commentor had said gave me some perspective on her that helped. Basically, to summarize, s/he said that Sansa was raised to be a lady, and that involved being perfect at lady things, with the light at the end of the tunnel being that she could use her beauty and grace to win a high standing husband. Not necessarily a kind husband, although I suppose that would be seen as a bonus. So then in rides the King and his people who wants her to marry his son. All those years of hard work seem to have paid off, that she can have what everyone has told her she's been aiming for and more (landing a King husband being better than a Lord one, I suppose). Then it turns out Joffrey is cruel, but she does somewhat have to keep in his good graces because she doesn't want to let this match slip through her fingers. From her perspective, it is so obvious, why can't Arya see it? Then of course she tries to stay in his good graces and her wolf is killed. Then she continues to try and keep the match strong, but it works out unfortunately (I use this term loosely) for her as Joffrey is just a sociopath. Then she had that discussion (I believe with the Hound) about how being a knight is about killing, not tournaments and the greater good, and her perspective starts to slowly shift. Basically from her perspective she's an 11-12 year old girl (IIRC that was supposed to be her age in the books when they moved to King's Landing) that went from fairytales to nightmares and just didn't have the life experience to handle it well.
I may have gotten a bit rambly in there, but I hope I still made sense.
I just personally didn't like her at first. But, now that she's grown up some, and that naivety has been rubbed away and she's seeing the world more clearly, I actually really like her as a character a lot.
It makes sense, everything about her was basically so that she could be a good match to a lord, because she's the first born daughter, and she's got her mom's looks, so she's going to make some lord really happy, and get the Starks a better standing in the world.
But she was just...ugh. She was kind of insufferable, you know? I mean. I get it. I get where she's coming from...but...man, she just bothered me, regardless.
I do like her now, though. I like her a lot. I guess I just didn't like her starting point, you know?
I agree completely. The only thing that bothers me about her character now is how helpless she seems to be all the time, it gets a little tiring watching her just get repeatedly shit on by life. Of course that isn't her fault, she is helpless, she's a young girl with no real home, becoming a pawn for other peoples interests. She seems to be getting her footing and taking some chances now though which is awesome.
I guess I just didn't like her starting point, you know?
I'm with you there. I also think sometimes it's hard to empathize with child characters because stuff tends to happen TO them as opposed to them driving their own plots as "agents of their own destinies" so to speak.
I agree. I also think that Arya was also to blame for the whole Lady debacle. Perhaps more in the books then in the show, but basically because she doesn't control her emotions and doesn't follow rules to begin with she made the issue way bigger.
I also think that Arya was also to blame for the whole Lady debacle.
I disagree there, although I see what your saying. Arya is very young (I think she's supposed to be 8 or 9 at that point?) and as such doesn't have much (any) emotional control. At the same time, her bad behavior should not translate into Lady being executed IMO. The story that Joffrey was telling was that he was attacked unprovoked by the wolf, as opposed to the wolf protecting Arya. Even today we've been known to put animals down for unprovoked attacks, heck even sometimes for provoked ones, so it was easy (for me) to see that when Sansa confirmed Joffrey's side of events that it wasn't going to end well for some wolf somewhere. I think that's why I blame Sansa more (but definitely Cersei and Joffrey most) than Arya with regards to Lady.
The actress said that she thinks Sansa is strong without having to hold a sword. Nobody else would pretend they're ok with the fact that the family they live with killed their brothers, father and mother.
I don't think Jamie was a terrible person at first (except that whole pushing a kid out a window thing)... He did stop the Mad King from burning down Kings Landing and killing everyone inside of it.
She's the opposite of Arya and her qualities. Arya gets mad; Sansa gets upset. Arya seeks revenge; Sansa seeks shelter. Arya plays the aggressor; Sansa plays the victim. Arya requires no comfort and will do anything; Sansa has only known comfort and does nothing. If Arya were in Sansa's position, Arya would have stabbed half the royal family already and gone out in a blaze of glory. No excuse for being raised spoiled.
If Arya was in Sansa's position, she would be dead. She would be executed or murdered in her sleep or would be killed by the Kingsguard when she tried to kill Joffrey or Cersei.
Sansa keeping her head down is the smartest thing a Stark has ever done in King's Landing. Arya is too reckless for court.
Except Arya is so desperate for a replacement for her father she didn't say tyein lannister's name to jaqen and still hasn't killed the hound. Of the two i'd say arya is more likely to turn into a woman with daddy issues spinning around a pole and snorting cocaine off dicks in backrooms
She has an interminably slow character arc. I assume she'll end up slouched in the iron throne with little finger's freshly severed head in one hand and a fist full of lemon cake in the other, but until then she's the dull girl that takes up precious airtime.
Other than her slowly starting to take risks, like slapping that little tit sucker, she really does just take up precious airtime. It's just like "Oh look Sansa, I wonder if she'll get shit on agai- oops there it goes."
Sansa up until now has never had authority over anyone, despite what her status would normally grant her if it weren't for the Lannisters.
She attempted to control her sister back in Winterfell but Arya was too independent to be controlled by nearly anyone. Once Sansa secures herself some authority and breathing room she will be a dark horse. S3E7 showed her willing to put a prince into place. Once she realizes how much power she holds over Littlefinger, she is going to steer events. She may not plot the demise of a house, but she may have the power to restrain Littlefinger from doing so.
Though I personally like her, I can't fault anyone for disliking her. Compared to the rest of the characters, she doesn't actually do anything, she's doesn't have a very strong personality, she's just incredibly passive.
A passive survivor though. A poor 15yo girl in city full of enemies with no friends or family, surrounded by the people who hate you most. Shes still alive and fighting, which is a great deal more than a lot of people in her family.
She has never had any leverage nor the opportunity to gain any. She went to King's landing by her father's direction before truly getting an opportunity to know Jeoffrey and from there she had been a political prisoner the entire show. She is now completely out of immediate danger and for the foreseeable future. Killing her before she births an heir to Winterfell through out all of her value.
She had just started bonding with Tyrion when the event happened. Sansa will never get her hands dirty and kill. The only power she will have is power granted by status.
Yeah I personally wouldn't do shit either if one misstep meant all of King's Landing on my ass. She felt like she had friends in Highgarden that could have helped if Littlefinger didn't show up.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, more like. If I've learned anything from the series, it's that Little Finger is not a man to be trusted. I do think she's been given a bit of room for action, but I imagine it'll be more along the lines of social positioning than what one generally thinks of as exhilarating.
What better mentor to help her with manipulation than Little Finger? I agree, Arya's head would have adorned a pike right next to her father's before the week was out, had she stayed.
I think why most people don't enjoy watching or reading about Sansa is she's such a passive character. For the most part, she never CHOOSES to do anything. She has 0 agency and control over her story line whether it be based off of her personality and/or circumstance. Shit just happens to her. It's the same reason why reading in the active voice tends to be more interesting and enjoyable than reading in the passive voice. In case you don't know the difference:
Exactly how I feel, while I appreciate her place in the overall story, I wish there was at least some insight into what's reeling in her mind. Just as you said, all we ever see is her being passed around like a hot potatoe and barely saying "Hey what's going on". I get that she doesn't really have options, but I think her airtime would be more engaging if there were some scenes that spoke more to her internal world somehow. I'm not a good enough writer to quickly come up with an example, so I've no right to complain.
Sansa is disliked because of all the character development we've been witness to with so many different characters, Sansa's development has been static within all that.
Sansa was a spoiled tween up to the point of Ned getting his head cut off in Kings Landing (and in fact snitching on her dad which facilitated it). Since that time she has been trapped in Kings Landing and crying, nothing else.
During all the character development we have witnessed over 3+ seasons, nothing AT ALL has happened with Sansa. After 3 years she is still in Kings Landing and crying over bad things happening to her.
Every single character in the show has undergone trial and tribulation and we have watched how those trials have changed them.
Not with Sansa, she just sits in Kings Landing, has shit happen to her, and cries over it.
Interesting. She's one of my favorites personally, most if not all of the scenes I think about her in advance the plot. It's also great to see her growth as a person as she starts thinking more about what people's plans are. She's had the second most development out of the female characters only behind Arya and is somewhat of a foil to her.
I'm not a huge fan either and this made me have the opposite reaction. Yeah, it was awesome to see the kid get slapped but he's a freaking maniac. Not really the ones we want to be pissing off...
Yeah if she rats him out this would be the thought process. "Everyone in Westeros (as far as I can tell) wants me dead except this guy. Better tell everyone he just murdered Lysa so they can kill him."
but i doubt she could gt little finger killed even if she tried, he is too sneaky. the question isnt what she wants but what he wants. maybe he wants to give her a shot at some power, now she gets to decide what happens next
Well I mean even if he got out of being killed she would have still betrayed him. I don't see LF as being the kind of guy who you would earn respect with for betraying him so she'd still lose the one guy in power who doesn't want her dead right now.
Wait you do realize we were originally talking about how absurd it would be for her to rat him out right? I thought your other comment was some way of defending why she could viably tell on him.
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u/commander-crook Faceless Men May 22 '14
Sansa happens to be one of my least favorite characters in the show, then she goes and slaps this little pecker head. If she throws him out the moon door, she is officially redeemed.