HBO: Game of Thrones

[Juliajms]

Sansa was never going to get the kind of story that Dany does because Dany is the co hero of this whole story.

 

I don't see that Cersei's story is better or that she's reinvented herself, but I will agree that they are the same level of character. If they are leads at all they are second tier to Jon and Dany. I remember who Sansa was before all this happened. Not a woman at all, but a naive little girl. If she had been born a hundred years earlier she would have grown up more gently with time instead of trauma being the catalyst.

 

Accepting Jon is part of Sansa growing up. Looking down on him because he wasn't her whole brother was petty and immature. It's not the same as if Jon and Arya had reunited, but I find it touching in it's own way. I don't agree at all that Sansa isn't attached to anyone or anything anymore, building Winterfell in the snow was proof of that. She's been longing for her home and family, including Jon this whole time.  She's risking falling back into Ramsey's hands to reclaim it.

[quartermainefan]

I think this entire thread is watching a different show.  Sansa not only is having a good year, but she has had a good year every year.    Since day one she has been hip deep in plot, so much so the show changed her story to keep her front and center all this time.   We know she drives story because the show insists on following her to see what the story is.   So, no matter who her co-stars are in any given year or what the location is if that is where Sansa is then that is what the the show will put on the air.    Just look at how dramatically Littlefinger's screentime has gone down since he and Sansa parted ways--and how much Ramsey's had gone up.   Is she a woman warrior with a sword?  No.   Does she have dragons?  No, but nowhere is it written you have to be those things to be the one who is the story.    Follow  Sansa and you get the story.   Follow Arya and you get a bunch of nothing.

 

It just seems this forum has since the beginning given Sansa special scrutiny on her story when she has always been a character the writers and producers clearly love to write for.    It isn't Sansa who has story problems, people should look at how far into the background Jaime has faded.    Now there is a character that does not drive story anymore.

 

 

[Vee]

Skin and I do not watch the same show. All I hear from people these days is how emotionally invested they are in Sansa's growth and story this year, and how much they love her relationships with Jon and Brienne.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Vee

[DRW50]

I'm not sure if shock value rape = love. Sansa is a complex character. D&D don't do complexity. 

[Juliajms]

How can Sansa be a complex character if D&D don't do complex? They are the ones writing her material. The Sansa of the books is a lot less complex I promise you. For starters, she's 11 years old.

[DRW50]

I'd say the book Sansa is fairly complex. Sansa is complex because she challenges the idea of what being a "strong woman" is about. She undergoes horror after horror, and she survives, but she never survives in the way that some need to see in order to feel validated (which is Arya and her "badass" scenes). 

 

The show generally did this right with Sansa for most of the first 3-4 seasons, but from the point of the dramatic reveal of her with the black dress and hair so that Baelish could look on in awe, she became more and more of the stereotypical idea of what she was supposed to be. The nadir of this was when they had her lose 50 IQ points and agree to a marriage with a man who was obviously a monster, and then they tried to pass off a season of her being raped, being imprisoned, and jumping off a building as "empowerment." It's an odious cliche to say that a woman like Sansa can't be strong unless she's raped. It was basically saying she was nothing before her rape. It also meant that someone who had spent years knowing how to not anger her abusers would suddenly forget all of that and hurl insults at a man she knew was a psychotic rapist, torturer and murderer, because someone on the show likely saw this as "strong" as well.

 

The complex Sansa pretty much died last season because D&D with that story said she was not and had never been good enough and that the only validation for her was through a brutal sexual assault.

[Vee]

According to that logic, though, either the people loving Sansa's story this season are all clueless or they just see it differently from you. I don't think that story said that about Sansa at all. Arya is an afterthought at present - of the two girls Sansa's story is the one in prime position, and it's not because she got raped. Nor are they now presenting Sansa as some sort of gothed-out bitch queen.

 

And it's not as though some other writers (let alone George R.R. Martin) have been sneaking in afterhours and writing the entire show of the first 3-4 seasons until now. It's the same people. It's just a story turn you (and I, and any number of other people) disagreed with Season 5. That does not invalidate their good works, it does not render null what they're doing with Sansa now and it doesn't mean they don't write complexity when they've done it countless times. Storytellers can make choices we disagree with without being inherently corrupt and exploitative, or without it rendering the whole of the work retroactively (or heretofore) [!@#$%^&*].

Edited May 25, 2016 by Vee

[DRW50]

I don't care if people love or hate Sansa's current story. That's up to them. I said that I don't think D&D write complex characters and used what was done to Sansa as an example. For me it destroyed Sansa and the previous material for her on the show. Others disagree, you disagree, and that's fine. 

[quartermainefan]

Exactly.   Sansa is what she is, not some fantasy figure from some utopian strong women on TV symposium.   She seems pretty strong to me, far stronger than Cersei is, and has been that way all the way back since the battle of blackwater. 

[YRBB]

Yep.

 

Yep.

 

Yep.

 

Sansa has been amazing throughout every single, painful moment of growth. I love how she's becoming smarter, more cunning and strategic, and the Catelyn vibes she's giving off. 

[Vee]

I think she's possibly more cunning than Catelyn, honestly. Catelyn (and Ned) were both bound by the old ways of doing things which had kept them and the North both safe and conveniently noble for years. People like Joffrey and the Boltons had no regard for these ways and destroyed all of that. Sansa's seen all of those people up close, she's lived it, she knows the difference between courtly theory and practice. That's not to say Ned and Cat's ways didn't work in their time, but the world of GOT is a different time - that's why they died.

 

Nor do I think Cat necessarily had a good solution to Robb's problems. People blame Catelyn for what happened to Robb and the Starks but I don't think that's right or fair; I think he was boxed in no matter what because of some of his own decisions, on the Karstarks and with Talisa. But I think ultimately they were doomed, whereas people who lived in the background, like Sansa, learned to play. Robb never bothered to learn because Ned and Cat didn't; they were heroic people for a heroic age, and he was a heroic son. The only kinds of heroes that succeed in GOT are the ones who are compromised, either physically (Sansa, Bran, Jon), morally (Jon and Sansa again, arguably Margaery and Jaime) or spiritually (Arya), or all of the above. Actually, Brienne's done all right so maybe I should worry about her.

 

And yes, I do think characters like Sansa, Cat, Cersei, Margaery, Jaime, Varys, etc. are all complex and always have been. It's not like the writing changed hands. If anything it's far more propulsive this season - it's a marked difference from the last year-plus of what seemed like limbo in a lot of storylines, and they appear to almost be on the verge of having Arya repudiate the tiresome Faceless Men.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Vee

[Vee]

 

[Vee]

Sophie Turner discusses Sansa's recent actions.

 

Isaac Hempstead Wright and Kristian Nairn discuss Bran and Hodor.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Vee

[Juliajms]

You've lost me. Passive survival is pretty much the traditional view of a strong woman not a challenge to it. Book Sansa is a passive little girl who doesn't come across as especially clever. I don't blame her, I'm not sure I was especially proactive and clever at 11 either. If you find that version of the character complex, I think we have different ideas of what that word means, but hey, I can agree to disagree as we usually do.

[Skin]

Sansa is not driving anything at this point. Sansa is a wholy reactive character. Joffery, Ramsey, Little Finger, etc. are the catalysts to her story, and are the reason for pretty much everything that has ever happened to her. Dany, Cersei and even Arya are catalyst, active characters in which the lead their own stories, and activate their own sagas by their own actions and choices for better or for worse. Sansa for pretty much the entire duration of her character has been a tool utilized by other people to get what they want and nothing more. The main criticism everyone talks about in regards to Sansa is her lack of agency in her own storylines, until that changes I don't see how one can say Sansa is having a "great year." When she is still being utilized as a tool for another male character, and is an accessory to another storyline she isn't controlling or in a dominate position in, in this case Jon's.