Jon, Sansa and the Battle Prep

[Lady Ren]

@Bearclaw Yeah. She did get an army to fight for her, didn't she?

I wonder what track the Riverland is going to take next season. Edmure is less of an ass than the Blackfish I think. 

[King Jon Snow Stark]

27 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Everything you just said did not contradict anything I said.

Again with this nonsense about Sansa's info changing Jon's planning. First of all, there was nothing wrong with Jon's original plan. Second of all, their backs were against the wall. They were pressed for time. They had to act as quickly as possible. Who the hell has time to negotiate anything with the Vale when they were days, if not hours away from starvation. It started snowing right after the battle, so they had that to fear as well.

No one is trying to make her out to be a genius, but in the end she was right, and she won the day. Stop reaching to make her look worse.

Don't speak for others. Many people like Sansa. She's the most relatable Stark. Everyone else is special in some form or another.

I don't relate to Sansa at all. I like Sansa but I don't relate to her. She's the least relatable to me. She's definitely in my top 4 of living Stark children though.

 

 

[Bear Claw]

I also find Sansa relatable.  It is nice to see a variety of characters. The show really has some female characters that people just love (Lyanna Mormont, Arya, Dany?) because they are so bold and tough. That is just fine, but everyone is different. She is not  tough, but she is smart.  Like LF told Sansa in a prior episode, "Know your strengths". I think Sansa is being portrayed as someone who can read people or situations. She can use suggestion or manipulation like LF. Remember when she was reminding Ramsay that he was still a bastard who was legitimized by another bastard?  She put some doubt about his claim in his mind that was suppose to put a wedge between him and Roose. It did later work with brutal results. That is exactly what LF did to her with Jon when he said he was her half brother. I think during that scene  he took her off guard, but this last scene with LF  showed me she was ready this time. She also has the strength of her connections. I think she is the most well connected person in Westeros. Does any other character (aside from her siblings) have such potentially powerful familial alliances? She put those into play this season also. Just because she isn't a tough talker or warrior doesn't mean she is ineffective.

[Kytheros]

... Knowing about the Vale would definitely have changed how Jon and company went about things. There's absolutely no way that it doesn't change things. Even knowing about the mere possibility of the Vale coming to join them/Sansa against the Boltons means that they don't go into battle right then, they buy time to find out whether or not the Vale is really coming, and the potential, much less actuality, of Vale forces is also something that can be used to get more Northern Houses to sign on with them.

 

It's entirely possible that if Jon knew the Vale was coming he wouldn't have Leroy Jenkinsed Ramsay's lines. Jon was in a position where he didn't believe he was going to win the battle - he'd just seen his (baby) brother killed in front of him, and he was going to loose the battle anyways, so he charged expecting, wanting even, to die, and maybe hoping that he'd be able to get to Ramsay before he died. Getting Ramsay would have been absolutely worth dying for in that moment - without Ramsay, the opposition to Sansa has no one they can coalesce around/be forced to follow instead.

[Lost Time]

2 hours ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Again with this nonsense about Sansa's info changing Jon's planning. First of all, there was nothing wrong with Jon's original plan. Second of all, their backs were against the wall. They were pressed for time. They had to act as quickly as possible. Who the hell has time to negotiate anything with the Vale when they were days, if not hours away from starvation. It started snowing right after the battle, so they had that to fear as well.

No one is trying to make her out to be a genius, but in the end she was right, and she won the day. Stop reaching to make her look worse.

Please. Not knowing of this massive foreign army immediately to their south doesn't change their plans? It changes literally everything. Even just the time of day of the battle makes a 1000 fold difference in tactics and mindset. Battle positioning changes completely as well knowing you might have a large bulwark of soldiers of coming from the southerly direction. And she had several weeks to tell Jon of this army that was already chilling in the North. Instead, she sends one of her great fighting assets, Brienne, on a foolish hunt to pry her besieged uncle from his just reconquered home.

She screwed up. She was never in the right. We were meant to question her every step of the way because she was wrong to have withheld that information. What happened was that she got completely lucky in a way that actually left her in a completely vulnerable position because of the way in how LF singlehandedly saved them all.

[GhostNymeria]

6 hours ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Again with this nonsense about Sansa's info changing Jon's planning. First of all, there was nothing wrong with Jon's original plan. Second of all, their backs were against the wall. They were pressed for time. They had to act as quickly as possible. Who the hell has time to negotiate anything with the Vale when they were days, if not hours away from starvation. It started snowing right after the battle, so they had that to fear as well.

No one is trying to make her out to be a genius, but in the end she was right, and she won the day. Stop reaching to make her look worse.

If Jon knew the Vale army was on it's way, he would probably have waited like Sansa wanted him to. Also, you're complaining that other posters are speculating about Jon's planning and perceiving it as facts, yet here you're saying they where hours away from starvation. That's not a fact, it was never stated in the show, that's specualtion as you complained about.

6 hours ago, ThePukwudgie said:

No one is trying to make her out to be a genius, but in the end she was right, and she won the day. Stop reaching to make her look worse.

So when people disagree and dislike a character's decision, they're "reaching to make her look worse"? Or maybe it's just their opinion. Book-Sansa is one of my favorite characters, and I dislike the direction D&D took her this season. I don't like her lying to her family in this point of her story.

6 hours ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Don't speak for others. Many people like Sansa. She's the most relatable Stark. Everyone else is special in some form or another.

Expressing your opinion and perception about something isn't speaking for others. Many people like Sansa, many people dislike Sansa. But I'll ask you the same then; don't speak for others. I don't find her the most relatable at all. Jon, Arya, Bran and Robb are all more relatable for me.

[Future Null Infinity]

7 hours ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Don't speak for others. Many people like Sansa. She's the most relatable Stark. Everyone else is special in some form or another.

 I like the story of Sansa, I find it extermely well written and realistic, for me the best feature of her story is that it is extermely unpredictable (I can say that she entered a zone of the story that was made exclusively for LF and Varys), didn't have any plot armor or gifts, a storyline progression made in the shadow, a late player in the story

[Chib]

1 hour ago, GhostNymeria said:

So when people disagree and dislike a character's decision, they're "reaching to make her look worse"? Or maybe it's just their opinion. Book-Sansa is one of my favorite characters, and I dislike the direction D&D took her this season. I don't like her lying to her family in this point of her story.

Expressing your opinion and perception about something isn't speaking for others. Many people like Sansa, many people dislike Sansa. But I'll ask you the same then; don't speak for others. I don't find her the most relatable at all. Jon, Arya, Bran and Robb are all more relatable for me.

2

I am the same. Sansa in the book is more realistic at this point. Actually Sansa in the show was not bad until they messed up her story arc and threw her to Boltons (which also messed up LF and Jon's characters in turn). Lying to her family in this scenario just make her so bitchy, and her reaction (whiny and spiteful) just makes her look worse in my eyes.  If you ask me, Jon is stupid to trust her. He will be used as a tool or be thrown away soon so she can get more power. My advice to him is, left the stupid girl alone with Winterfell, go Braavos and enjoy the warmer weather. If he stays, he will be betrayed sooner or later as Sansa will only become LF version female. 

[Winter's Cold]

Wasn't it Littlefinger the one who intimated Lord Royce and manipulated Sweetrobin? Wasn't he the one who brought the Vale army to the North? Wasn't the one who got Sansa to distrust Jon and lie to him? Wasn't Littlefinger the one who Sansa had to write a letter to begging for help after Sansa's recruitment (both North and Riverlands) failed? 

How exactly is Sansa a player when she's still being moved like a piece on Littlefinger's chessboard?

[GhostNymeria]

1 hour ago, Chib said:

I am the same. Sansa in the book is more realistic at this point. Actually Sansa in the show was not bad until they messed up her story arc and threw her to Boltons (which also messed up LF and Jon's characters in turn). Lying to her family in this scenario just make her so bitchy, and her reaction (whiny and spiteful) just makes her look worse in my eyes.  If you ask me, Jon is stupid to trust her. He will be used as a tool or be thrown away soon so she can get more power. My advice to him is, left the stupid girl alone with Winterfell, go Braavos and enjoy the warmer weather. If he stays, he will be betrayed sooner or later as Sansa will only become LF version female. 

Yes I love book-Sansa. I agree that they messed up her arc by switching her with Jeyne Poole, which caused a domino effect on other character's arcs. I want her to become a master manipulator like Littlefinger (more compassionate tough, which she is in the books). I would have liked her to pull strings in her family's favor and lie to Littlefinger's face in the Vale, which she probably will in WOW, rather than the show version of her lying to Jon's face in the north instead. It makes it hard for me to like show-Sansa. After the criticism last season I think D&D wanted to have Sansa "take charge". But since they already had written them selfs into a corner, they messed up her character even more. Since Littlefinger is in charge of the Vale, they couldn't have him hang around with Jon and Sansa in the north. Which relevant character was left then for D&D to have Sansa using her political manipulation skills on? Jon.

[ThePukwudgie]

4 hours ago, GhostNymeria said:

If Jon knew the Vale army was on it's way, he would probably have waited like Sansa wanted him to. Also, you're complaining that other posters are speculating about Jon's planning and perceiving it as facts, yet here you're saying they where hours away from starvation. That's not a fact, it was never stated in the show, that's specualtion as you complained about.

So when people disagree and dislike a character's decision, they're "reaching to make her look worse"? Or maybe it's just their opinion. Book-Sansa is one of my favorite characters, and I dislike the direction D&D took her this season. I don't like her lying to her family in this point of her story.

Expressing your opinion and perception about something isn't speaking for others. Many people like Sansa, many people dislike Sansa. But I'll ask you the same then; don't speak for others. I don't find her the most relatable at all. Jon, Arya, Bran and Robb are all more relatable for me.

Jon couldn't wait. He already made that point clear to Sansa.

On top of that, Stannis already made it clear that his men would have starved or frozen to death in the very same camp.

In other words, I'm not speculating. I'm stating facts as confirmed by the characters.

9 hours ago, Lost Time said:

Please. Not knowing of this massive foreign army immediately to their south doesn't change their plans? It changes literally everything. Even just the time of day of the battle makes a 1000 fold difference in tactics and mindset. Battle positioning changes completely as well knowing you might have a large bulwark of soldiers of coming from the southerly direction. And she had several weeks to tell Jon of this army that was already chilling in the North. Instead, she sends one of her great fighting assets, Brienne, on a foolish hunt to pry her besieged uncle from his just reconquered home.

She screwed up. She was never in the right. We were meant to question her every step of the way because she was wrong to have withheld that information. What happened was that she got completely lucky in a way that actually left her in a completely vulnerable position because of the way in how LF singlehandedly saved them all.

The Knights of the Vale weren't "chilling in the North." Sansa's letter had to reach Littlefinger, then Littlefinger had to agree to it, and then mobilize his knights to reach Winterfell as quickly as possible. We've already established as fact that Jon could not have waited, and even if he did wait for the Knights of the Vale, he still would have charged in foolishly to save Rickon. In other words, nothing would have changed had Sansa told Jon about the Knights of the Vale.

Sansa had no idea about the Blackfish's predicament. Sending Brienne to seek help from the great Blackfish and his army was not foolish.

You need to watch the episode again. Watch the episodes from last season when Stannis was in the exact same position as well.

[GhostNymeria]

14 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Jon couldn't wait. He already made that point clear to Sansa.

On top of that, Stannis already made it clear that his men would have starved or frozen to death in the very same camp.

In other words, I'm not speculating. I'm stating facts as confirmed by the characters.

When Sansa insisted they should wait and search for more support, Jon said there is no other support. And we have no way of knowing how much food Jon and company took with them, as opposed to Stannis. 

38 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

The Knights of the Vale weren't "chilling in the North." Sansa's letter had to reach Littlefinger, then Littlefinger had to agree to it, and then mobilize his knights to reach Winterfell as quickly as possible. We've already established as fact that Jon could not have waited, and even if he did wait for the Knights of the Vale, he still would have charged in foolishly to save Rickon. In other words, nothing would have changed had Sansa told Jon about the Knights of the Vale.

"We" have already established it as a fact? You and who? Again, doing the exact same thing you called other posters out for.

[Bear Claw]

3 hours ago, Winter's Cold said:

Wasn't it Littlefinger the one who intimated Lord Royce and manipulated Sweetrobin? Wasn't he the one who brought the Vale army to the North? Wasn't the one who got Sansa to distrust Jon and lie to him? Wasn't Littlefinger the one who Sansa had to write a letter to begging for help after Sansa's recruitment (both North and Riverlands) failed? 

How exactly is Sansa a player when she's still being moved like a piece on Littlefinger's chessboard?

Maybe this is giving the character too much credit, but perhaps she is manipulating everyone. I was just thinking about how LF likes to  manipulate Robin with falcon gifts.  Sansa made an awesome wolf cloak for Jon  this season. I think that piece of potential evidence goes with what that article posted earlier in this thread says. She has a plan.  Perhaps she had an intention to hold back the Vale because she knew he would mess it up. She did write to LF, and he came, so I think that was a plus on her side.  Even if she is manipulating Jon a bit, I do think, as the producers said, she loves him. I think she is just trying to push him in the right direction by talking, by manipulating, or by  working around him when necessary. Anyway, I really want to see Sansa make logical decisions that have a real reason behind them. 

[ThePukwudgie]

9 minutes ago, GhostNymeria said:

When Sansa insisted they should wait and search for more support, Jon said there is no other support. And we have no way of knowing how much food Jon and company took with them, as opposed to Stannis. 

"We" have already established it as a fact? You and who? Again, doing the exact same thing you called other posters out for.

Nope, watch the scene again where Jon and Sansa argue(not the tent scene). Jon mentions several times that they've run out of time.

Jon: We're not staying here long. Another storm could hit any day.

Davos: The snow defeated Stannis, just as much as the Boltons did.

Jon: Aye, we need to march on Winterfell, while we still can.

 

A couple lines later:

Sansa: It's not enough. We need more men.

Jon: There's no time.

 

[GhostNymeria]

31 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Nope, watch the scene again where Jon and Sansa argue(not the tent scene). Jon mentions several times that they've run out of time.

Jon: We're not staying here long. Another storm could hit any day.

Davos: The snow defeated Stannis, just as much as the Boltons did.

Jon: Aye, we need to march on Winterfell, while we still can.

 

A couple lines later:

Sansa: It's not enough. We need more men.

Jon: There's no time.

 

I'll give you this one. You're right, it's a fact then. But you can't claim that Jon's battle plans and the scenario with Rickon would have played out the same way if Jon knew about the Vale army early on as a fact, like you did before. That is speculation, just like those claiming it would have played out differently. We have no way of knowing how it would have played out.

[ThePukwudgie]

9 minutes ago, GhostNymeria said:

I'll give you this one. You're right, it's a fact then. But you can't claim that Jon's battle plans and the scenario with Rickon would have played out the same way if Jon knew about the Vale army early on as a fact, like you did before. That is speculation, just like those claiming it would have played out differently. We have no way of knowing how it would have played out.

Yes we do. Jon's personality doesn't change just because he has more men at his disposal. Jon was mostly only interested in saving Rickon. Ramsey would have tried to manipulate Jon in the exact same fashion, and given who Jon is, it would have worked EVERY TIME.

This isn't speculation. It's knowing and understanding the character of Jon Snow.

[GhostNymeria]

1 minute ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Yes we do. Jon's personality doesn't change just because he has more men at his disposal. Jon was mostly only interested in saving Rickon. Ramsey would have tried to manipulate Jon in the exact same fashion, and given who Jon is, it would have worked EVERY TIME.

This isn't speculation. It's knowing and understanding the character of Jon Snow.

No it's not a fact, that's your interpertation of his character. My interpertation of what Jon would have done in that scenario is different. Are you claiming you know Jon's character better than all the other posters here, thus making you speculation more factual than others? Really?

[Frejac]

1 hour ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Jon couldn't wait. He already made that point clear to Sansa.

On top of that, Stannis already made it clear that his men would have starved or frozen to death in the very same camp.

In other words, I'm not speculating. I'm stating facts as confirmed by the characters.

 

You need to watch the episode again. Watch the episodes from last season when Stannis was in the exact same position as well.

 

51 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Nope, watch the scene again where Jon and Sansa argue(not the tent scene). Jon mentions several times that they've run out of time.

Jon: We're not staying here long. Another storm could hit any day.

Davos: The snow defeated Stannis, just as much as the Boltons did.

Jon: Aye, we need to march on Winterfell, while we still can.

 

A couple lines later:

Sansa: It's not enough. We need more men.

Jon: There's no time.

 

I think that you are completely misreading this.

First of all, Jon's army is not Stannis's army, and Jon's situation is not Stannis's situation.  They are similar, but they are not the same.

Nowhere does anyone this entire season mention that they are running low on food or supplies.

As the quote you provided shows, they are worried about getting into a situation where they run out of food and supplies because of the weather, but they are not currently in that situation.

The reason that Jon does not want to wait is not because he cannot wait.  It is because he deems the risk of waiting for the few hundred more men he could possibly get from the North not worth the risk of being snowed in.

Waiting for word from the Vale or actually searching to confirm their presence is an entirely different risk/reward calculation, one that would most likely have caused Jon to wait a little bit longer.

He would not have waited forever, obviously, but he would have given it a few more days.  And based on the timing of the Vale arriving at Winterfell, a few more days would have been more than enough.

Again, Jon pushes to attack immediately not because he is unable to wait, but because he does not feel the risk of waiting is worth the reward.  The knowledge that Sansa withholds about the Vale changes this.

[Bear Claw]

28 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Yes we do. Jon's personality doesn't change just because he has more men at his disposal. Jon was mostly only interested in saving Rickon. Ramsey would have tried to manipulate Jon in the exact same fashion, and given who Jon is, it would have worked EVERY TIME.

This isn't speculation. It's knowing and understanding the character of Jon Snow.

I think you are right because even LF in season one said Starks have quick tempers and slow minds. 

[King Jon Snow Stark]

21 minutes ago, ThePukwudgie said:

Yes we do. Jon's personality doesn't change just because he has more men at his disposal. Jon was mostly only interested in saving Rickon. Ramsey would have tried to manipulate Jon in the exact same fashion, and given who Jon is, it would have worked EVERY TIME.

This isn't speculation. It's knowing and understanding the character of Jon Snow.

 

15 minutes ago, GhostNymeria said:

No it's not a fact, that's your interpertation of his character. My interpertation of what Jon would have done in that scenario is different. Are you claiming you know Jon's character better than all the other posters here, thus making you speculation more factual than others? Really?

I agree with Pukwudgie. The main reason Jon agree to go fight was because he received the letter stating Ramsay had Rickon. He would have let Ramsey keep Winderfell. He would have take Sansa south with him if that letter didn't come. Jon was there to get Rickon. Even after Sansa said Rickon was most likely going to die. Jon wanted to save Rickon. I think he would have gotten played every single time as well. He would have ran in for Rickon every single time.