[BOOK SPOILERS] Discussing Sansa XIX - The season with no reason

[Lothar]

One thing I did notice in terms of the discussion of Season 5 Sansa being knocked back to Seasons 1-3 in terms of her development. In 2x04, Sansa was facing down sadistic psychopath Joffrey's crossbow when he was threatening her and was losing her shit: weeping, begging, the works. In 5x10, Sansa was facing down sadistic psychopath Myranda's bow and showed no fear or any interest in begging for mercy. I don't know if it was a deliberate callback or not, but it was an interesting change.

Could be that she was just wanting death now rather than being braver or stronger. That's probably the case judging by what she said.

[Newstar]

Didn't a similar fall paralyze Bran from the waist down? I'm sure something will happen to Theon and Sansa, most likely an injury at least.

It should happen, and judging from the way the scene was shot--no big piles of snow, an awfully high jump--that seems to be the way they're going. I don't buy this idea that "Theon and Sansa will walk away unscathed because plot." If that's what they were setting up, in my opinion, the jump wouldn't have been as high and the snow would have been a lot deeper. It doesn't mean that Theon and/or Sansa will necessarily die or suffer horrible injuries, the way that a jump from that height normally would cause, BUT it suggests that they won't just stroll away and won't be in any shape to make a run for it.

[jet199]

Actually it isn't an objectively good choice. Sansa's AFFC material is not objectively bad. Those are just your opinions. Maybe Sansa learning politics in the Vale wouldn't make great material for TV. But just about anything would have been better than what we got.

Sansa in Winterfell costs absolutely every character: Theon, Roose, Littlefinger, Sansa. Instead of tension between the Northern Lords, the mystery killer, Theon praying to the Heart Tree, Frey Pies etc. we got... 50 shades of Ramsey and Sansa being raped. It was televised excrement.

She isn't learning politics in the Vale. She is learning to organise social events and to do whatever LF says.

[Kobayashi Maru]

She isn't learning politics in the Vale. She is learning to organise social events and to do whatever LF says.

She is also the only insight,however small, in what LF has planned...ever. IMHO all stories in AFFCand ADWD are at the stand still and lacking...no one is moving much and there is little development in general. the only thing that makes one particular POV better than the other is individual preference. someone will say they like Sansa's chapters someone will say nothing happened....it is subjective...nothing big happened anywhere in those books it's just one's investment in a character that made that chapter interesting. So claiming one is good or better than another just speaks about one's affinities and not about the character or chapter's quality in general.

Me personally,I would take Sansa in Vale any day over Arya in Braavos or Dany in Mereen and if I had to choose between reading one of Cersei's chapters or reading all of Sansa's five times in the row I would choose Sansa.

[Alayne's Shadow.]

She is also the only insight,however small, in what LF has planned...ever. IMHO all stories in AFFCand ADWD are at the stand still and lacking...no one is moving much and there is little development in general. the only thing that makes one particular POV better than the other is individual preference. someone will say they like Sansa's chapters someone will say nothing happened....it is subjective...nothing big happened anywhere in those books it's just one's investment in a character that made that chapter interesting. So claiming one is good or better than another just speaks about one's affinities and not about the character or chapter's quality in general.

Me personally,I would take Sansa in Vale any day over Arya in Braavos or Dany in Mereen and if I had to choose between reading one of Cersei's chapters or reading all of Sansa's five times in the row I would choose Sansa.

I agree with you, and several others as well. I love Arya's, but there's not even a doubt that I'd choose Sansa/Alayne over her every chapter.

[Mladen]

She isn't learning politics in the Vale. She is learning to organise social events and to do whatever LF says.

And social events are not part of the politics? Learning how to control powerful persons isn't part of Game? I believe that sometimes people need dramatics just in order to get the point. Like, in the case of the show, we had that dramatic black dress moment and entire talk "Sansa made it, she is ready to play the Game". That scene was cartoonishly made, but it did have some sort of the message. GRRM's approach is rather more subtle. It is step by step. For example, differences between Sansa chapters are small that we can easily miss, but by the time you finish 25 chapters, you see that entire road. Naturally, you see that there is entire road ahead of her, but that she also walked a mile or two. Even when we have dramatic changes like Jon and Dany who became "fit to rule" very early, Martin literally throw a few setbacks for them, just to remind us that they are also not perfect.

[Baroque]

My prediction: Ramsay catches Sansa and Theon. Ramsay punishes Reek and is about to punish Sansa, when Brienne shows up and kills Ramsay. Brienne and Sansa ride off, Theon is left behind crippled because he was a traitor to Catelyn Stark.

This would solve the problem of Ramsay being useless to the story at this point, and open up Littlefinger to be warden of the north, if he can take it from Roose. Theon is then eaten by wolves, poetically.

[Arya442]

And since they're already changing stuff, there's NO reason why the couldn't have made the Vale stuff more "interesting," to. Well except for the fact that they're writing abilities are suspect and, for some reason that I cannot fathom, of all the potentially interesting stuff in the North, the storyline that they loved/latched onto was the Jeyne Pool stuff. Which is, wow just wow.

[Hoppy Hour]

I can't even believe people think there is a chance that Sansa and Theon are dead. I suppose it's possible they might kill Theon, as I'm not sure what he will do with no Stannis, but the idea that they jumped into the only giant snowdrift any where in sight, with the ground visible everywhere else, but still will die is not happening. I doubt they are even injured, one of them will probably have a limp or broken arm.

I agree. Something like Theon with a broken leg, Sansa with a few bruises.

[Mehmet Eren]

if Sansa killed ramsay with that key locker thing ( I don't know what it called in English ) it might worth to endurance all failed things they done about sansa

[Arya442]

Yeah, all that's emphasis on her picking up the corkscrew and THAT'S what it leads to. She uses it to open a door (because apparently she's a master locksmith/escape artist now). WOW, "underwhelming" doesn't even begin to describe it.

[TheCasualObserver]

Let's backtrack to S4 Ep8.

Whether the showrunners realized or not, Sansa had placed herself in a much securer position that she is in the books by revealing herself to the Vale Lords. They respected her as Ned Stark's daughter and wanted to keep her safe from Cersei. More than that, she lied to save LF. f she tells the truth, LF's influence in the Vale will end as will his life in all probability.

To place Sansa in Winterfell in this Season was beyond stupid because the Sansa at the end of Season 4 would not have agreed to it and LF wouldn't have the pull to convince/force her.

Even if Sansa had castrated Ramsay with one hand, beheaded Roose with the other and blown down Winterfell with 3rd wave feminism rhetoric, it still wouldn't be justified because I haven't seen any compelling reason why Sansa would elect to follow LF's plan. And I could write about how stupid LF's plan is until I'm blue in the face...

[Grail King]

Yeah, all that's emphasis on her picking up the corkscrew and THAT'S what it leads to. She uses it to open a door (because apparently she's a master locksmith/escape artist now). WOW, "underwhelming" doesn't even begin to describe it.

You don't have to be a master of anything, the point is that she attempted to free her self, the corkscrew fit the hole so she tried it, guess what! if it was you or I we do the same thing ( I would of kept it on me though ) it's better to try and fail then not try at all.

As going back to the jump wall from the perspective they gave us there was a lot of snow there they could have blured out or kept the area they landed in out of view.

[OldGimletEye]

Actually it isn't an objectively good choice. Sansa's AFFC material is not objectively bad. Those are just your opinions. Maybe Sansa learning politics in the Vale wouldn't make great material for TV. But just about anything would have been better than what we got.

Sansa in Winterfell costs absolutely every character: Theon, Roose, Littlefinger, Sansa. Instead of tension between the Northern Lords, the mystery killer, Theon praying to the Heart Tree, Frey Pies etc. we got... 50 shades of Ramsey and Sansa being raped. It was televised excrement.

Agree.

Was the soap opera that was Winterhell better than the intrigue in the Vale? I don't think so. The Vale is going to enter the fray in a big way. And I am very much interested in what goes on there. As I've said before, Sansa was a bit like a Pug Henry with respect to the Vale. Not to mention I was interested in what Sansa was ultimately going to do there and how she was going to develop.

The Vale plotline compared to Winterhell was just fine, thank you very much.

[Grail King]

I always like the political intrigued stuff that's why out of the Starks I take Sansa's ( and Jon's )story over Arya's .

There are so many plots that come from them, and to see how far Sansa moved you have to follow her arc carefully.

[DarkAndFullOfTurnips]

Agree.

Was the soap opera that was Winterhell better than the intrigue in the Vale? I don't think so. The Vale is going to enter the fray in a big way. And I am very much interested in what goes on there. As I've said before, Sansa was a bit like a Pug Henry with respect to the Vale. Not to mention I was interested in what Sansa was ultimately going to do there and how she was going to develop.

The Vale plotline compared to Winterhell was just fine, thank you very much.

The Vale plot line was boring and uninteresting to many readers compared to the rest of the series' plots. It would've been considered pretty lackluster TV by most of the viewership. The problem is they fucked up the Winterfell plot...Sansa really doesn't do anything, Reek does one thing in Episode 10, Miranda is a horrible character, Ramsay is too comical to really take seriously, Roose does basically nothing, the Northerners do nothing despite claiming "You have friends here, the North remembers" while apparently only one person seemingly remebers and they die halfway through. There is no tension shown between other Northern houses and the Boltons, the Freys have apparently disappeared, nobody knows what happened to Karstark, Umber, Manderly, or any other Northern house. Brienne spends 9 episodes waiting for a candle to be lit for some reason which is such a preposterous plot that I can't believe they thought it would work.

It was potentially great to have Sansa in WF as long as they did more than have her get raped and have Theon be weak by actually showing the interesting parts of the Boltons' tenuous occupation of Winterfell. There was plenty of opportunity to make a more compelling story than the books provided but they rushed through it cheaply.

[WSmith84]

They couldn't even find an excuse for Theon to say he should have died at the RW with Robb. That was a brilliant line, laid at the writers' feet, that would have amazing emotional resonance with very little effort and they didn't include it. What a baffling decision.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

They couldn't even find an excuse for Theon to say he should have died at the RW with Robb. That was a brilliant line, laid at the writers' feet, that would have amazing emotional resonance with very little effort and they didn't include it. What a baffling decision.

They had hundreds of good lines they simply decided to throw aside because somehow "bad pussy" is better than "Jared of House Frey I name you a liar".

[KarlVyt]

I don't understand why they had to move her to Winterfell . Considering how utterly pointless her ark was this season, by comparison they had a ton of material to work with. Her interaction with Seetrobin, Mia, and the Lords Declarant would have given material for at least 3- 4 episodes, and would have showcased just how much she has learned from Littlefigner.

Littlefinger would also have seemed like actually having a brain, also removing his pointless trip to KL to do ..what exactly? check up on his brother?, versus making sure he marries Sansa to Hardyng, uniting the vale under his rule.

????,

Mashing her story with Jayne Poole is the dumbest decision made by the writers, who essentially have once and for all demonstrated that they are incompetent and couldn't write anything good on their own ,even if their life depended on it.

[Newstar]

Let's backtrack to S4 Ep8.

Whether the showrunners realized or not, Sansa had placed herself in a much securer position that she is in the books by revealing herself to the Vale Lords. They respected her as Ned Stark's daughter and wanted to keep her safe from Cersei. More than that, she lied to save LF. f she tells the truth, LF's influence in the Vale will end as will his life in all probability.

To place Sansa in Winterfell in this Season was beyond stupid because the Sansa at the end of Season 4 would not have agreed to it and LF wouldn't have the pull to convince/force her.

Even if Sansa had castrated Ramsay with one hand, beheaded Roose with the other and blown down Winterfell with 3rd wave feminism rhetoric, it still wouldn't be justified because I haven't seen any compelling reason why Sansa would elect to follow LF's plan. And I could write about how stupid LF's plan is until I'm blue in the face...

TV Sansa uncritically doing something incredibly stupid because Littlefinger tells her to is the truest Sansa has been to the books in quite some time.