Tangential discussion: Did Sansa 'betray' Ned?

[solidsnake]

And it was Ned who was marrying her to the Lannisters. And who was continuing to marry her to the Lannisters even after the Nymeria business.

He was marrying her to Prince Baratheon, not Prince Lannister, the son of his best friend and legitimate heir , at least thats until Ned found out the truth.

[Myrcella]

This is a complex thing. Sansa did betray Ned per se, but being more complex, Ned's also to blame for keeping her in the dark. He should have seen his daughter's then-stupidity and gave an explanation. You'd have thought Arya made it clear enough to Sansa that he was a douchebag.

[Lyanna Stark]

This is a complex thing. Sansa did betray Ned per se, but being more complex, Ned's also to blame for keeping her in the dark. He should have seen his daughter's then-stupidity and gave an explanation. You'd have thought Arya made it clear enough to Sansa that he was a douchebag.

And Sansa should listen to her sister why? Sansa and Arya were not on the best of terms and Arya had just jumped Sansa in front of a crowd trying to wrestle her to the ground.

[solidsnake]

And Sansa should listen to her sister why? Sansa and Arya were not on the best of terms and Arya had just jumped Sansa in front of a crowd trying to wrestle her to the ground.

Huh? Arya jumped on Sansa only AFTER she lied and said she didnt remember what happened.

Oh yeah the prince had my sister cornered and backed against a tree with a sword, but ... I dont remember that little detail.

I forget people threatening my family members all the time

Princess time yayyyy

[Lady Sansa Stark]

Huh? Arya jumped on Sansa only AFTER she lied and said she didnt remember what happened.

Oh yeah the prince had my sister cornered and backed against a tree with a sword, but ... I dont remember that little detail.

I forget people threatening my family members all the time

Princess time yayyyy

Ned Stark explained to Arya why Sansa lied to the King and Queen and in front of the whole court. He even said that 'we all lie'. Talked about how 'Winter is coming' and that they needed to stick together etc. And.. Threatening all the time? That was the first time if I recall correctly. Remember that Sansa is an eleven-year-old girl with her head full of songs and stories of princes and honourable knights who are always good in the songs; and not the all-knowing readers as we are.

She's my favourite character and I do not excuse her for going to the Queen, because it was just wrong to do. However, she's certainly not responsible for all the things that happened afterwards.

[Kosh Naranek]

I think Sansa just failed to see the bigger picture. That is not to demean her as a person. Some people have certain strengths, but Sansa's at the outset did not stretch to forethought in the sense of the grand scheme.

She was not trained to think about strategy and politics, and she does not seem to have a natural aptitude for it. (But, she might be learning now out of necessity.)

She entered a situation she had zero training for, but she did fly blindly ahead with no thought of the consequences. But, would she have even grasped the consequences? (Murder, death, betrayl would have been foreign to her in the cocoon of Winterfell.)

The incident of the road perhaps should have given her pause. However, Sansa never (at least to me) grasps the trickle down effect. If I do x then the current situation will be fine is all she seems to contemplate. She cannot get into other people's heads and see things from their perspective. (She is learning a bit of this via Littlefinger.)

The one thing that concerns me is that she never thinks - 1. Mycah died. 2. Fat Tom, Hullen ,etc are dead. 3. Arya? 4. Jon? 5. Where is Jeyne? She never seems to think about how the others are faring, and that disturbs me.

Both Arya and Sansa seem to lack the empathy that Bran and Ned clearly possess. OR It may be more accurate to say that they do not possess it to the same degree.

What happened in King's Landing is far more complex than just the utterings of one young lady.

[Beets]

Sansa was a stupid child who didn't understand the full extent of the evil that is KL. At the beginning of the series, she was judgmental, silly, and naive (though in the latter books she grows into my absolute favorite character, though Renly is pretty and sparkly and amusing). She did 'betray' Ned in the sense that she gave away his plans when it's clear he would have preferred not to die, but Sansa didn't realize that Joff and Cersei were all evil. If she had, then I don't think that she would have entertained the idea for a second, and if things had panned out as she'd expected them to, Ned would have been safe.

She had no idea what she was doing.

[Lyanna Stark]

Huh? Arya jumped on Sansa only AFTER she lied and said she didnt remember what happened.

Oh yeah the prince had my sister cornered and backed against a tree with a sword, but ... I dont remember that little detail.

I forget people threatening my family members all the time

Princess time yayyyy

Yes, Sansa didn't want to testify against her future family.

You do realise that she was looking at spending her entire life with Joffrey and most likely also Cersei near? To anger and upset them before the marriage had even taken place would have been potentially disastrous to her future life. Not only that, but her betrothed was the Crown Prince and would eventually be the absolute monarch of the realm.

The repercussions for Sansa had she gone against Joffrey and Cersei here would be very real.

Besides, Lady was dead anyway as we see from Jaime's chapters in AFFC. Cersei had her mind set on getting at least a wolf killed, and even better having Arya lose a hand. She had argued with Robert until he drank himself to sleep and Jaime had been fully ready to kill Arya for Cersei had he found her first. In light of that, Sansa's testimony or lack thereof (because that was what she did: she abstained, she didn't support either side) mattered not at all.

[Miryana]

She had no idea what she was doing.

To me, this is key to it. She was eleven. I'd guess most of us here don't belong to the very highest elite of their country, so who knows how far children like that are expected to be able to handle intrigue and political etiquette as tweens. But many might be familiar with being denied by a parent and going to an uncle, or a teacher, or the nice lady next door to talk about how you really really want to go to that summer camp/concert/football match and maybe they can let the parent know how totally unfair it is to say no to that. And if the uncle is suing the parent for grandma's inheritance, or the teacher is using dirty gossip to get the presidency of the local gardening club, or the nice lady is having an affair with the other parent - well, I don't think it's a betrayal when the child has no idea of the undercurrents or potential seriousness of the situation.

[Gannicus]

The incident of the road perhaps should have given her pause. However, Sansa never (at least to me) grasps the trickle down effect. If I do x then the current situation will be fine is all she seems to contemplate. She cannot get into other people's heads and see things from their perspective. (She is learning a bit of this via Littlefinger.)

The one thing that concerns me is that she never thinks - 1. Mycah died. 2. Fat Tom, Hullen ,etc are dead. 3. Arya? 4. Jon? 5. Where is Jeyne? She never seems to think about how the others are faring, and that disturbs me.

Both Arya and Sansa seem to lack the empathy that Bran and Ned clearly possess. OR It may be more accurate to say that they do not possess it to the same degree.

Boom.. this.

You hit the nail on the head.

It's only a minor betrayal from a dumb and pampered princess who wants her way. How important was her roll in her families downfall, maybe minor. But does she ever reflect and say what have I done?

He betrayal of Arya during the Direwolf incident was worse for me. It showed she lacked some of the Stark honor. Instead she favored Lannister shrewdness.

[Florina Laufeyson]

I think Sansa just failed to see the bigger picture. That is not to demean her as a person. Some people have certain strengths, but Sansa's at the outset did not stretch to forethought in the sense of the grand scheme.

She was not trained to think about strategy and politics, and she does not seem to have a natural aptitude for it. (But, she might be learning now out of necessity.)

She entered a situation she had zero training for, but she did fly blindly ahead with no thought of the consequences. But, would she have even grasped the consequences? (Murder, death, betrayl would have been foreign to her in the cocoon of Winterfell.)

The incident of the road perhaps should have given her pause. However, Sansa never (at least to me) grasps the trickle down effect. If I do x then the current situation will be fine is all she seems to contemplate. She cannot get into other people's heads and see things from their perspective. (She is learning a bit of this via Littlefinger.)

The one thing that concerns me is that she never thinks - 1. Mycah died. 2. Fat Tom, Hullen ,etc are dead. 3. Arya? 4. Jon? 5. Where is Jeyne? She never seems to think about how the others are faring, and that disturbs me.

Both Arya and Sansa seem to lack the empathy that Bran and Ned clearly possess. OR It may be more accurate to say that they do not possess it to the same degree.

What happened in King's Landing is far more complex than just the utterings of one young lady.

Yarr. Thanks for that, because yes. Hell, even Arya reflects on that nameless stable boy once or twice. Sansa never seems to think about what the hell happened to anyone and anything. I can name only two instances she does think back on junk. Sandor and the Lysa incident. She doesnt think about Lady much after the wolf dies. She also never thinks "Well that butcher's kid never really did anything. Sucks he had to die like that." She never goes "Wtf happened to Jeyne? You know, my only friend?" Or "What happened to my sister." She probably thinks Arya is dead like everyone else but still doesnt go "How the hell did she die? What happened?" Hell, she doesnt think about Ned much either.

While i agree that Sansa isnt solely responsible for the KL shenanigans, she still had a part to play in it.

[Newstar]

Hence Cersei is completely overplaying the role Sansa had, and Tyrion labelling it as "betrayal" is also wrong.

But Cersei said that Sansa spilled her father's plans, and Tyrion later reflects that "she had once spilled her own father's plans to Cersei." Cersei made it sound as if Sansa was solely responsible for what happened, but that's not why Tyrion believed Sansa was hardly innocent of betrayal. He believed it because Sansa "spilled her own father's plans to Cersei," which is absolutely 100.0% true.

Respectfully, the reasons the "kerfuffle" with Ned, as you put it, took place have nothing to do with Tyrion's conclusion that Sansa betrayed her father, and it seems to me a mistake on your part to link one to the other. He's not labeling her actions as betrayal because of what occurred as a result of what Sansa did; he drew his conclusion based on the mere fact that Sansa spilled her father's plans to Cersei, which is true! This is strongly indicative to me of GRRM's take on her actions.

Incidentally, Tyrion's judgment of women he finds attractive is actually rather poor.

You're actually digging yourself deeper here. If anyone is disposed to think of Sansa as a tragic, put-upon, innocent little lamb (or little bird, I guess, as the SanSan fans would put it), it's Tyrion. He wants to view her as innocent. He wants to view her as sweet and courteous and some tragic figure, who would never stoop to betrayal. However, he can't, because of what Cersei tells him about Sansa spilling her father's plans (which is, again, true). The fact that even Tyrion, who romanticizes Sansa and generally thinks of her as a sweet, tragic, precious little creature (at least pre-PW), cannot bring himself to view Sansa's actions as anything other than a betrayal, and is hesitant to trust her with sensitive information as a result, is very telling.

I think Sansa just failed to see the bigger picture.

The incident of the road perhaps should have given her pause. However, Sansa never (at least to me) grasps the trickle down effect. If I do x then the current situation will be fine is all she seems to contemplate.

a dumb (...) princess

Honestly, my takeaway from this thread isn't that Sansa showed herself to be a traitor in going to Cersei; she showed herself to be an idiot. Big difference.

The repercussions for Sansa had she gone against Joffrey and Cersei here would be very real.

What about the potentially horrible repercussions she could easily contemplate for Arya and Nymeria, her flesh and blood and her flesh and blood's beloved direwolf, if she failed to stand up for her sister? Don't those matter at all, or is Sansa's future marital happiness a more important consideration than her sister's safety? It's not just that she lied. In lying, Sansa implicitly valued her own interests over her sister's and her sister's direwolf's safety, which is why so many in this thread and elsewhere are so outraged by her refusal to tell the truth.

I don't think that Sansa's behaviour during the Nymeria business could possibly be described as "selfish amoral lying" by any stretch of the imagination.

Selfish? She valued her own happiness/wishes over her sister's welfare, so yes, I'd say so. Amoral? Well, she clearly knows that lying is wrong, and yet she lied, so in that moment, she showed herself to be amoral. Liar? She totally lied. I wouldn't call her a selfish, amoral liar, but her actions in that moment were those of a selfish, amoral liar: pure Lannister, in other words.

It was transparently obvious that she was terrified, and that she simply took the coward's way out.

And yet as so many Sansa fans would point out, Sansa has shown herself capable of great courage in terribly dangerous, difficult situations on many occasions, even as early as AGOT: speaking up to save her father, taking charge at Maegor's Holdfast during Blackwater, getting Sweetrobin down from the Eyrie in one piece, etc. So it's clear that she is capable of bravery and stepping up when she must, but she didn't do that with Arya. It's not that she was incapable of coming to Arya's defence, since she came to Ned's defence at great (perceived) personal risk in an even more perilous situation: she was capable of marshalling her courage and doing the right thing to help her sister and she chose not to. Thus the charges of selfishness and betrayal with respect to Sansa's lie that she didn't remember.

With respect to the situation with Arya and Nymeria, I keep seeing in this thread the argument that Sansa telling the truth wouldn't have changed anything. Who cares? You do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because it will achieve X good result. Even if a bad outcome was guaranteed, that doesn't absolve Sansa for her actions. She shouldn't have lied not because it would have necessarily changed anything--although we'll never know, will we?--but because it was wrong to lie and in particular it was wrong to lie when the stakes involved Arya and Nymeria's safety and decisions made by people with the power of life and death. You just don't do stuff like that when a loved one on the line...at least not if you want to avoid being labeled as a selfish, traitorous liar.

[David Selig]

I still don't get how "My father is sending me and Arya to Winterfell" means "Sansa spilling Ned's plans" (note the plural)? Makes no sense to me. This hardly qualifies even as a plan, and in no way, shape or form could be taken to mean plans.

[brashcandy]

Yarr. Thanks for that, because yes. Hell, even Arya reflects on that nameless stable boy once or twice. Sansa never seems to think about what the hell happened to anyone and anything. I can name only two instances she does think back on junk. Sandor and the Lysa incident. She doesnt think about Lady much after the wolf dies. She also never thinks "Well that butcher's kid never really did anything. Sucks he had to die like that." She never goes "Wtf happened to Jeyne? You know, my only friend?" Or "What happened to my sister." She probably thinks Arya is dead like everyone else but still doesnt go "How the hell did she die? What happened?" Hell, she doesnt think about Ned much either.

While i agree that Sansa isnt solely responsible for the KL shenanigans, she still had a part to play in it.

Just because Martin doesn't detail all of Sansa's thoughts doesn't mean she isn't thinking about those close to her. It would stand to reason that a girl as isolated as she was would tend to dwell on her family and friends. However, we know that Sansa tries not to think about those she's lost since it causes her pain and she's concentrating on surviving and avoiding abuse from Joffrey. And just what can she think about them? IIRC she believes that Arya escaped the city and she has no way of knowing what happened to Jeyne, but it doesn't mean she isn't bothered. She also thinks about Lady quite a bit. I've listed a few examples of Sansa remembering her family, loved ones and her wolf below, but honestly, the text is filled with them:

Sansa sat up. "Lady," she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and ... and ... trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded and Lady was dead again.

Sometimes her dreams were leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes. Yet those were the best times, for when she dreamed, she dreamed of Father. Waking or sleeping, she saw him ...

Is it true she wondered. Would the gods be so cruel? Her mother was one of Joffrey's enemies now, her brother Robb another. Her father had died by the king's command. Must Robb and her lady mother die next?

I pray for Robb's victory and Joffrey's death ... and for home. For Winterfell... Robb will beat him, Sansa thought. He beat your uncle and your brother Jaime, he'll beat your father too.

Sansa backed away from the window, retreating toward the safety of her bed. I'll go to sleep, she told herself... "Lady," she whimpered softly, wondering if she would meet her wolf again when she was dead.

She sang with those inside the castle walls and those without, sang with all the city. She sang for mercy, for the living and the dead alike, for Bran and Rickon and Robb, for her sister Arya and her bastard brother Jon Snow, away off at the wall. She sang for her mother and her father, for her grandfather Lord Hoster and her uncle Edmure Tully, for her friend Jeyne Poole, for old drunken King Robert, for Septa Mordane and Ser Dontos and Jory Cassel and Maester Luwin and for all the brave knights and soldiers who would die today, and for the children and the wives who would mourn them, and finally towards the end, she even sang for Tyrion the Imp and for the Hound. He is no true knight but he saved me all the same.

If I give him sons, he may come to love me. She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon ... In Sansa's dreams her children looked just like the brothers she had lost. Sometimes there was even a girl who looked like Arya.

Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

[Rhaegar Snow]

Sansa was a stupid child who didn't understand the full extent of the evil that is KL. At the beginning of the series, she was judgmental, silly, and naive (though in the latter books she grows into my absolute favorite character, though Renly is pretty and sparkly and amusing). She did 'betray' Ned in the sense that she gave away his plans when it's clear he would have preferred not to die, but Sansa didn't realize that Joff and Cersei were all evil. If she had, then I don't think that she would have entertained the idea for a second, and if things had panned out as she'd expected them to, Ned would have been safe.

She had no idea what she was doing.

You're absolutely right by all means. She did betray Ned whether she meant to or not. I just think it is partly Neds fault for not teaching her the game of thrones. Although if it was Arya in that situation I believe she would've handled it more towards the Starks favor.

[tze]

But Cersei said that Sansa spilled her father's plans, and Tyrion later reflects that "she had once spilled her own father's plans to Cersei." Cersei made it sound as if Sansa was solely responsible for what happened, but that's not why Tyrion believed Sansa was hardly innocent of betrayal. He believed it because Sansa "spilled her own father's plans to Cersei," which is absolutely 100.0% true.

Except it isn't true, actually. Cersei tells Tyrion that Sansa revealed to her that Ned Stark was committing explicit treason:

"Littlefinger made the arrangements. We needed Slynt's gold cloaks. Eddard Stark was plotting with Renly and he'd written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne. We might have lost all. Even so, it was a close thing. If Sansa hadn't come to me and told me all her father's plans . . ."

Tyrion was surprised. "Truly? His own daughter?" Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and courteous.

"The girl was wet with love."

Look at that: Cersei outlines Ned's plans to "offer the throne" to Stannis and claims Ned was plotting with Renly, then claims she came to know about all of this via Sansa. (Which readers know to be a lie.) Tyrion claims shock at the idea that Sansa told the queen, not some amorphous plans, and not about Ned sending his daughters back to Winterfell, but about Sansa specifically telling about her father plotting some pretty explicit treason. When Tyrion later thinks to himself that Sansa "spilled her own father's plans to Cersei", he's thinking about the treasonous "plans" that Cersei attributes to Sansa, and he's wrong, because Sansa didn't know any of those treasonous plans. Sansa had no idea Ned was planning on revealing the Lannister incest because she didn't know about the Lannister incest. She had no idea Ned was planning on allying with Stannis and making war against the Lannisters. She didn't know about any secret talks with Renly. Literally the only thing she knew was that she and Arya were being sent back to Winterfell, something which, let's be honest, could not have actually been a secret in the Red Keep (as Ned hired a ship and people's possessions were being publicly packed---there are too many eyes and ears in the Red Keep for that to have realistically been a secret), and something which we certainly can't say Tyrion (or anyone, really) would obviously have "condemned" her for revealing.

I don't see how you can realistically argue that Tyrion "condemns" Sansa for revealing Ned's plans while simultaneously arguing that it doesn't matter that Tyrion doesn't know what Sansa actually "revealed". The plans that Cersei outlines to Tyrion as having been related by Sansa are 100% political in nature and are of the sort that even an 11-year-old girl would obviously have to have realized were clearly treasonous (there's really no other logical way to interpret Ned writing to Stannis and offering him the throne, and that's the information Cersei claims Sansa told her); revealing those plans would inherently have been a betrayal because revealing someone else's treason is always betraying that person. The "plans" Tyrion believes Sansa revealed are of the sort that Sansa would have to have realized that tattling to Cersei was the same thing as publicly accusing her father of treason. The same cannot be said of the "plans" Sansa actually revealed.

And it's much easier to condemn an 11-year-old for telling the Queen "My father is plotting to take the throne from your son and give it to someone else" than it is to condemn her for telling the Queen "My father is sending me and my sister back to Winterfell", because the latter action (sending the girls to Winterfell) has about a dozen perfectly plausible and non-treasonous implications, while the former action (giving the throne to someone else) really only has negative implications. Cersei is, by the nature of the information attritbuted to Sansa, assigning an inescapable element of moral culpability to her that simply wasn't present in the nature of what Sansa actually revealed. It is that moral culpability that Tyrion is reacting to, that idea that Sansa intentionally backstabbed her father in the worst conceivable way---not the mere idea that Sansa told Cersei something.

You're actually digging yourself deeper here. If anyone is disposed to think of Sansa as a tragic, put-upon, innocent little lamb (or little bird, I guess, as the SanSan fans would put it), it's Tyrion. He wants to view her as innocent. He wants to view her as sweet and courteous and some tragic figure, who would never stoop to betrayal.

Does he, now? :) Sometimes he thinks this way about Sansa, but certainly not always. Let's look at Tyrion's train of thought when he gave this particular quote:

The Others can take my guilt, he thought as he slipped his tunic over his head. Why should I be guilty? My wife wants no part of me, and most especially not the part that seems to want her. Perhaps he ought to tell her about Shae. It was not as though he was the first man ever to keep a concubine. Sansa's own oh-so-honorable father had given her a bastard brother. For all he knew, his wife might be thrilled to learn that he was fucking Shae, so long as it spared her his unwelcome touch. No, I dare not. Vows or no, his wife could not be trusted. She might be maiden between the legs, but she was hardly innocent of betrayal; she had once spilled her own father's plans to Cersei. And girls her age were not known for keeping secrets.

His "she was hardly innocent of betrayal" claim comes at the end of a litany of attempts to assuage his own guilt at forcing her to marry him by trying to denigrate her (and those associated with her, like Ned), to drag her down to his own level. He's considering telling his wife about his mistress, and then going on and on about how he can't do that . . . because his wife is untrustworthy! Come on, it's pretty clear that Tyrion has a selfish motive for why his thoughts take the form they do.

First he acknowledges that he feels guilty, then he tries to get rid of that guilt by telling himself all the reasons that he doesn't really need to feel guilty (as I'm sure all of us have done at some point). He bitterly thinks about how Sansa won't let him touch her, that it's common for men to have concubines, then thinks about telling her about Shae because he thinks that might hurt Sansa, the way Sansa has "hurt" him by spurning his advances, (then decides against it because of the excellent chance that the Shae reveal wouldn't hurt Sansa (or make her jealous) at all). He starts off telling himself all the reasons it really is okay for him to be screwing Shae, then those thoughts give way to how untrustworthy Sansa is---a train of thought designed to convince himself that it's okay for him to screw a prostitute because his wife isn't "worthy" of him feeling guilty for "betraying" his marriage vows. If Sansa is inherently a "sweet, courteous, and tragic figure", then he has no right to sleep around on her. But he brings up this "betrayal" at a time when he does NOT want to see her as "sweet and courteous and some tragic figure", but as someone "wicked" enough that he can "betray" her without having to feel guilty about it.

[Lord Rahvin]

YES she betrayed her house/father, why so suprised from an 11 year ago dreaming about price charming. She got the crash course in the game of thrones, give her a few years she'll be a pro, look who gave her the first lesson.

[LordStark11]

She betrayed Ned on the Kings Road. If she had told the truth of it when brought before the King when Nymeria bit Joffrey, all the events to follow would probably have never happened. Ned expected to her to tell the truth and she didnt. Of course she didnt know what would happen and she was just a young girl blinded by love. The events in Kings Landing were definitely betrayal, but we brought about because she didnt tell the truth on the trip south.

[LadyPounce]

She absolutely did betray her family both in the Nymeria incident and going to Cersei to rat out Ned. I always disliked Sansa because of that but I am finding it even harder to stomach on the re-read. Her age isn't an excuse for the behavior. 11 isn't too young to know that lying and being a snitch are bad. It's not too young even for school age kids in our world, let alone in the GoT world where children are fending for their lives at 7-8 or getting married at 13.

Like PP's mentioned though, what bothers me most is the denial, lack of remorse and projection of blame. People keep talking about her character's growth arc but after five books I'm still waiting for some self-realization and admittance of guilt from Sansa on these events. How she manages to absolve Cersei, Joff and herself of guilt in her little head and put the entire blame on Arya is unbelievable. It's almost comparable to how Cersei is delusional in thinking that it's always others that are stupid or vile or to blame for things. You see after Arya crying to her father about Mycah's death saying "it was my fault" (even though it wasn't), but nothing of the sort from Sansa. Does she even feel bad for the kid that died? Probably not. It's just inconvenience to her that gets in the way of her princess dreams. The only admittance we get from her after her father's death is that 'she was naive before but she learned her lesson'. She still doesn't realize or can't admit to herself that it's more than that. It's like when people get asked in interviews what their biggest weakness is and they respond with some faux-weakness like "I work too hard." No honey, you weren't just 'naive'. You lied or chose not to tell the truth when you knew better. You betrayed your father. You were in such denial that you considered the woman who killed your wolf was your friend. You chose to close your eyes to what a monster Joff is because you wanted so badly to be a princess. You didn't give two shits about what happened to your sister.

Even if Sansa "learns to play the game" from Littlefinger and becomes a master manipulator, that's not growth IMO, in fact it's a step in the wrong direction. It's stepping even further away from the Stark identity with their fierce loyalty and integrity.

If I was able to come to care for Jamie and Theon after what they did to Bran and Winterfell respectively, I can definitely forgive Sansa for things that happened in GoT, but I am still waiting for SOMETHING from her, some remorse, some lightbulb to turn on in her head. I am hoping that will happen soon because I don't want to dislike Ned's little girl!

[Lyanna Stark]

His "she was hardly innocent of betrayal" claim comes at the end of a litany of attempts to assuage his own guilt at forcing her to marry him by trying to denigrate her (and those associated with her, like Ned), to drag her down to his own level. He's considering telling his wife about his mistress, and then going on and on about how he can't do that . . . because his wife is untrustworthy! Come on, it's pretty clear that Tyrion has a selfish motive for why his thoughts take the form they do.

First he acknowledges that he feels guilty, then he tries to get rid of that guilt by telling himself all the reasons that he doesn't really need to feel guilty (as I'm sure all of us have done at some point). He bitterly thinks about how Sansa won't let him touch her, that it's common for men to have concubines, then thinks about telling her about Shae because he thinks that might hurt Sansa, the way Sansa has "hurt" him by spurning his advances, (then decides against it because of the excellent chance that the Shae reveal wouldn't hurt Sansa (or make her jealous) at all). He starts off telling himself all the reasons it really is okay for him to be screwing Shae, then those thoughts give way to how untrustworthy Sansa is---a train of thought designed to convince himself that it's okay for him to screw a prostitute because his wife isn't "worthy" of him feeling guilty for "betraying" his marriage vows. If Sansa is inherently a "sweet, courteous, and tragic figure", then he has no right to sleep around on her. But he brings up this "betrayal" at a time when he does NOT want to see her as "sweet and courteous and some tragic figure", but as someone "wicked" enough that he can "betray" her without having to feel guilty about it.

Honestly, I think I want to signature this. It neatly summarises Tyrion's feelings about Sansa and how he justifies his behaviour to himself.

She absolutely did betray her family both in the Nymeria incident and going to Cersei to rat out Ned. I always disliked Sansa because of that but I am finding it even harder to stomach on the re-read. Her age isn't an excuse for the behavior. 11 isn't too young to know that lying and being a snitch are bad. It's not too young even for school age kids in our world, let alone in the GoT world where children are fending for their lives at 7-8 or getting married at 13.

Amusing, considering Tze already refuted this argument in the post above yours.