Sophie Turner was definitely robbed

[Emie]

It was really disappointing when the Emmy nominations first came out and Sophie was not among them. She was definitely one of the best actors this year and every year she improves. Although she's always been great. But this season especially was her season to shine, and for the first time in the show we got to see how badass Sansa really became. Her character development and evolving nature has always been fascinating and Sophie has done a great job capturing that. Especially since last season and this season there has been an obvious increase in her popularity. There were SO many people who were also upset that she was snubbed. 

I must also mention that it was really weird that pretty much all of the female leads were nominated, except Sophie. And especially weird that Peter Dinklage and Emilia Clarke (even though I love them too) were nominated instead. Even though they weren't particularly all that great this year and their storylines weren't that exciting. But hopefully next year or the year after she'll get a shot. Fingers crossed. 

[RhaenysBee]

I don't think Sophie Turner would have deserved an Emmy nomination. I also don't think any of the other actors who were nominated deserved it. Peter Dinklage had some amazing seasons on the show but he never really got to shin in season six. Maisie has definitely improved since season 3-4 (which were, imo, the worst seasons for her in terms of acting), but with that ridiculous Arya plot line it was difficult to deliver an Emmy worthy performance. Emilia's Daenerys was seriously overdone and that's majorly the fault of the directing. Not Emmy worthy performance. And Lena Headey's acting also fell victim to bad writing, that Cersei we saw was just ridiculous. And let's not even talk about Kit Harrington, who has admittedly improved his previously horrible acting, but was still quite bad. 

[Queen of Procrastination]

I don't think she deserved the nomination either. There where quite a few people who did not really understand Sansa this year. Quite a few people where wondering what she want's or what she's up to. This didn't just happen on this board where we joked about Sansa suffering from multiple personality disorder, but it was also quite common among casual watchers it was mentioned in some reviews and I saw it in Facebook comments an on some podcasts. This was partially due to the writing and directing, but partially also due Sophie Turner's acting. If you listen to her comments (and those of the writers) in the "Inside the episodes" or in interviews and compare this to what you see on screen than quite a few people did not see Sansa as the person she was described to be in these comments. To give you one example in the "inside the episode" of episode 10 Sophie Turner and the writers said that Sansa was jealous at Jon and that she might consider taking LF's  offer. However, the majority of viewers interpreted her behaviour completely differently: I saw it on different boards that the majority of viewers believed that Sansa was happy for Jon and that her smile dropped when she saw LF, because she was worried that LF would start to plot against Jon. Some viewers even wondered if Sansa had encouraged Lyanna Mormont to speak up for Jon. Most viewers were confused by the Inside the episode comments" and said that "they did not see Sansa's jealousy at all" or that they only caught it after having rewatched the scene several times and after they had paid very close attention to her. This is not the only scene very viewers interpret Sansa in a different way than the way in which Sansa is described by Sophie Turner and the showrunners. Yes, the writing is partially at fault here, but I think an actress worthy of an Emmy nomination would have played the character in such a way that the jealousy was obvious and that our views of the character would be more in line with what the showrunners and Sophie Turner said in interviews. 

Regarding the other actors: Peter Dinklage is a really good actor , but he did not deserve an Emmy nomination this year. The material they gave him was not strong enough. I don't think Emilia and Kit are as bad as some people make them out to be and Kit improved over the years, but none of them a good enough to deserve Emmy nominations. We can debate about Maise and Lena, but both of them also suffered from the bad writing. 

Regarding the badass Sansa: I don't think that it was good that they portrayed her as a badass. It was actually really bad and one of the worst ways in which you could deal with the consequences of rape. I just copypaste some of the stuff I wrote in another thread in here in order to explain why: 

Some reviewers praised the portrail of Sansa this season and said that it was good to see her as empowered after the rape, but I consider it to be a really bad and unrealistic portrail of the subject matter. It's the rape = empowerment troope and this is one of the worst ways in which rape can be portrayed. Showing a rape survivor empowered shortly after the act is not a good way to portray rape and it's consequences. While each person deals differently with trauma I think that the way in which Sansa acted this season completely goes against the ways in which most rape survivors act. Most survivors have completely lost their self-confidence afterwards and it takes months or years to regain that. Having Sansa act so confident was rather unrealistic. Furthermore, Sansa didn't seem to be bothered at all that she was surrounded first by members of the NW (many of them got to the wall in the first place, because they raped someone) and later by wildlings (who are known for raping and pillaging). They should have shown her terrified or at least a bit uncomfortable around these people, because quite a few rape survivors feel really uncomfortable around men during the first few weeks or months after the rape. And yes her trauma should not go away by killing ramsay, but this season has been so focussed on revenge and it has portrayed revenge as something good, that will heal your trauma or make you satisfied. Which is the complete opposite of how revenge is portrayed in the books or how it is in reality. 

It's another example that shows that the showrunners do not know how to do with the subject matter of rape properly. 

IMO she showrunners should not be praised for portraying Sansa as a badass. They should be criticised for it.

[Larger than Average Finger]

I don't think you can look at what has happened to Sansa through a modern view of marriage/relationships/sex.  

She was manipulated into and agreement to be married off. Because of that she was put in a place to be badly mistreated.

Her becoming a badass, is not her reaction to how she was treated by her husband (which I would fully agree is not realistic) but a response to her allowing herself to be manipulated into the situation in the first place. Her change seems a legitimate response to take control of the situations she is in.

[Queen of Procrastination]

Well the show has a history of dealing with rape in a bad way and this fits right into the pattern. 

Apart from this all female character are now either badass or sassy. There is no diversity when it comes to female characters. The showrunners put them all into one of these groups and this includes characters who were not supposed to be part of one of these groups like Sansa or Ellaria Sand. 

Unfortunately she did not really take control of the situation. She allowed LF to manipulate her again by only using the words "half brother". She is now indepted to him, because LF helped her out. She did not take charge in Winterfell either Jon had to point out to her that she was the Lady of Winterfell and that she could rule over Winterfell. She did not take this power herself. She did not even try to take charge during the meeting with the Northern Lords like a Lady of Winterfell should have done, because she did not even attempt to speak up. 

[JonSnow4President]

If you had me list out all the actresses on the show, Turner would be at the bottom of my list (although it could be direction with her).  Clarke is worse, but I can't think of many more that have a significant role.

[Larger than Average Finger]

I wonder if the characterizations of most people in the show, male and female sometimes come off as 2 dimensional simply because the huge number of characters makes it hard to provide enough story to give them extra depth?

For Sansa, she was manipulated into inviting Littlefinger back, but in her mind it was a very different sort of decision than she made when she agreed to marry Ramsay.

[TheCasualObserver]

1 hour ago, Larger than Average Finger said:

I don't think you can look at what has happened to Sansa through a modern view of marriage/relationships/sex.  

She was manipulated into and agreement to be married off. Because of that she was put in a place to be badly mistreated.

Her becoming a badass, is not her reaction to how she was treated by her husband (which I would fully agree is not realistic) but a response to her allowing herself to be manipulated into the situation in the first place. Her change seems a legitimate response to take control of the situations she is in.

The problem with that argument is that her response barely counts as "taking control" at all. Having Ramsay violently put to death is something, but she already hated him and his father long before she married him. She briefly rails against LF, then goes straight back for his help after she fails to get any support herself and in the final episode it seems that she is once again considering another of his plans.

And I have to agree with LadyofWhispers. If I can't tell what a character is thinking and feeling without a "Behind the episode" to explain it to me, there has to be a problem somewhere between Actor, Director and script.

[TheCasualObserver]

36 minutes ago, Larger than Average Finger said:

I wonder if the characterizations of most people in the show, male and female sometimes come off as 2 dimensional simply because the huge number of characters makes it hard to provide enough story to give them extra depth?

For Sansa, she was manipulated into inviting Littlefinger back, but in her mind it was a very different sort of decision than she made when she agreed to marry Ramsay.

She might feel that way, but doesn't that prove she's just a stooge again? Has she changed at all?

[Facebookless Man]

Sophie Turner is a terrible actress.

Granted, those who did get nominated didn't deserve it either.

[Lockjaw of House Boltagon]

I don't think anyone from GoT deserved a nomination, with the exception of Lena, maybe. 

To be honest, the likes of Dinklage, Harington and Clarke getting a nomination was borderline offensive, especially in a year where people like Billie Piper and B.D.Wong gave simply spectacular performances. 

[Wyman Manderly's Meat Pies]

Alfie Allen and Stephen Dillane and honestly, even Kristian Nairn for this year specifically were robbed. 

But the biggest robbery is Peter winning for Season 5 when Ben Mendelsohn, Jonathan Banks, and Michael Kelly all gave what may be the best performances of their careers.

[Grail King]

On 10/20/2016 at 0:17 PM, Lady of Whisperers said:

I don't think she deserved the nomination either. There where quite a few people who did not really understand Sansa this year. Quite a few people where wondering what she want's or what she's up to. This didn't just happen on this board where we joked about Sansa suffering from multiple personality disorder, but it was also quite common among casual watchers it was mentioned in some reviews and I saw it in Facebook comments an on some podcasts. This was partially due to the writing and directing, but partially also due Sophie Turner's acting. If you listen to her comments (and those of the writers) in the "Inside the episodes" or in interviews and compare this to what you see on screen than quite a few people did not see Sansa as the person she was described to be in these comments. To give you one example in the "inside the episode" of episode 10 Sophie Turner and the writers said that Sansa was jealous at Jon and that she might consider taking LF's  offer. However, the majority of viewers interpreted her behaviour completely differently: I saw it on different boards that the majority of viewers believed that Sansa was happy for Jon and that her smile dropped when she saw LF, because she was worried that LF would start to plot against Jon. Some viewers even wondered if Sansa had encouraged Lyanna Mormont to speak up for Jon. Most viewers were confused by the Inside the episode comments" and said that "they did not see Sansa's jealousy at all" or that they only caught it after having rewatched the scene several times and after they had paid very close attention to her. This is not the only scene very viewers interpret Sansa in a different way than the way in which Sansa is described by Sophie Turner and the showrunners. Yes, the writing is partially at fault here, but I think an actress worthy of an Emmy nomination would have played the character in such a way that the jealousy was obvious and that our views of the character would be more in line with what the showrunners and Sophie Turner said in interviews. 

Regarding the other actors: Peter Dinklage is a really good actor , but he did not deserve an Emmy nomination this year. The material they gave him was not strong enough. I don't think Emilia and Kit are as bad as some people make them out to be and Kit improved over the years, but none of them a good enough to deserve Emmy nominations. We can debate about Maise and Lena, but both of them also suffered from the bad writing. 

Regarding the badass Sansa: I don't think that it was good that they portrayed her as a badass. It was actually really bad and one of the worst ways in which you could deal with the consequences of rape. I just copypaste some of the stuff I wrote in another thread in here in order to explain why: 

Some reviewers praised the portrail of Sansa this season and said that it was good to see her as empowered after the rape, but I consider it to be a really bad and unrealistic portrail of the subject matter. It's the rape = empowerment troope and this is one of the worst ways in which rape can be portrayed. Showing a rape survivor empowered shortly after the act is not a good way to portray rape and it's consequences. While each person deals differently with trauma I think that the way in which Sansa acted this season completely goes against the ways in which most rape survivors act. Most survivors have completely lost their self-confidence afterwards and it takes months or years to regain that. Having Sansa act so confident was rather unrealistic. Furthermore, Sansa didn't seem to be bothered at all that she was surrounded first by members of the NW (many of them got to the wall in the first place, because they raped someone) and later by wildlings (who are known for raping and pillaging). They should have shown her terrified or at least a bit uncomfortable around these people, because quite a few rape survivors feel really uncomfortable around men during the first few weeks or months after the rape. And yes her trauma should not go away by killing ramsay, but this season has been so focussed on revenge and it has portrayed revenge as something good, that will heal your trauma or make you satisfied. Which is the complete opposite of how revenge is portrayed in the books or how it is in reality. 

It's another example that shows that the showrunners do not know how to do with the subject matter of rape properly. 

IMO she showrunners should not be praised for portraying Sansa as a badass. They should be criticised for it.

If this is the reason people think she should not have been nominated I would say they missed; she is playing Sansa as GRRM created her, a person of dubious intent, ambiguous, cryptic so your reasoning about other people thinking like you shows that she has done her job.

As far as after the episode and interviews I think most of it is deception on their part we only have ~ 10 months to find out.

As for me I felt Sophie should had gotten a nod over PD, but Lena Heady should had won.

[Queen of Procrastination]

6 hours ago, Grail King said:

If this is the reason people think she should not have been nominated I would say they missed; she is playing Sansa as GRRM created her, a person of dubious intent, ambiguous, cryptic so your reasoning about other people thinking like you shows that she has done her job.

As far as after the episode and interviews I think most of it is deception on their part we only have ~ 10 months to find out.

As for me I felt Sophie should had gotten a nod over PD, but Lena Heady should had won.

Well judging by how many fans of her book character complained about the way in which she was portrayed this season, I would say that many of her fans disagree with the ways in which you have described Sansa's book character and come to different conclusions about her. Quite many fans of her book character have expressed their believe that Book!Sansa and Show!Sansa have absolutely nothing in common and that Book!Sansa would never behave in the way in which Show!Sansa did. 

 

Furthermore, it does not matter whether or not the portrayal of her character was in line with the books what matters is whether or not was whether or not her acting was good enough for an Emmy nomination. A nomination which should only be given to the best actresses. 

Judging by the statements of D&D and Sophie Turner I would say that they did not want for us to see Sansa as a complete mysterium. In the past the showrunners wanted us to view Varys and LF in that way. They did not give us too much information about the motivations of these characters, because they wanted to portray these characters as cryptic. However, they gave us clear information about Sansa's motivations for behaving in a certain way. They actually talked more about her motivations than about the motivations of some other important characters like Davos. They talked more about her views on Jon than about Jon's views on her and they gave us detailed descriptions of Sansa's opinions. However, I've read comments on this board anf on reddit, I"ve read reviews written by televion critics and I have listened to several podcasts (some of them made by professionel reviewers others made by people who do this as a hobby). I can tell you that on all these places the majority of viewers judged Sansa's behaviour in way that was very different from the ways in which Sansa's behaviour was described by the writers of the show and Sophie Turner. 

Now I agree that the comments about the King in the North scene might have been made in order to give us something  to speculate, but this is not the only time where the viewers assesment of Sansa differs completely from the way in which D&D and Sophie Turner describe her. Here are some additional examples

Sansa lied to Jon when she told him how she learned about the Blackfish. 

Here are the reasons that most viewers  gave for her behaviour: 

- She fears that Jon and the others are mad at her for refusing the army. 

- She wants to keep Jon away from LF, because she knows that LF is dangerous and she wants to protect Jon. 

D&D and Sophie Turner explained her behaviour in the following way. 

- She does not trust Jon and she wants to keep a few cards in her sleeve. 

When the viewers tried to figure out why she did not tell Jon about the KoTV many saw the following motivation behind her behaviour: 

- She wasn't sure if the Vale army was coming. 

- To a lesser extent also this: She feared that Jon and Davos were mad at her for having refused the KotV initially. 

- She did not want Jon to be personally indebted with LF. She hoped that she would be the one who is indepted to LF and she wanted to protect Jon. 

Here are the reasons that D&D and Sophie Turner gave for Sansa's behaviour: 

- She doesn't fully trust Jon and she's mad at him, because he does not take her seriously. 

- She wanted to take all the credit for retaking Winterfell and beating Ramsay. 

Everytime those viewers who had watched the Inside the Episode videos explained what the showrunners and actors had said about Sansa's behaviour, many viewers who had not seen the Inside the Episode videos were confused by those comments. There were many viewers who said that they felt that Sansa had not been portrayed in this way. 

Of course some of these differences are due to the way in which Sansa was written this season, but pretty much all characters were terribly written. Sansa is probably the character in which the viewers assesment of her behaviour differs the most from the ways in which her character is described by the showrunners and the actress who plays her. I don't consider Sophir Turner a bad actress per se, but when a character comes off completely differently than the way in which the showrunners want us to view the character, something is wrong with the acting and the actress should have done a few things differently.When the way in which a character is seen by the viewers differs so fundamentally from the ways in which the showrunners and the actress wanted us to see her, than the acting was not good enough for an Emmy nomination. 

 

[Grail King]

I was just referring to your reasoning as far as fans, I don't GARA about critics it's their job.

I never liked her deviation from the books either, but I understood why they did it.

[Fox Mulder]

Completely agree with Lady of Whispers third post. Furthermore to expand on what she said Sansa's book character is completely different. Sansa in the books is not a "boss ass bitch" as Sophie Turner said. She is a Lady. She uses her courtesy as a shield. She is well aware of the fact she is a woman who has been a pawn most of her life and is living in a man's world. So she uses her beauty, manners and wit in order to survive and get what she wants. Book Sansa would have never behaved like show Sansa in season 6 she wouldn't be so blunt and bull headed. Instead if she disagreed with Jon's plans and some of his advisors she would have used her charm in order to win them to her side. In many ways she is like show Margary, when Margary doesn't get what she wants in the show she doesn't throw a fit she charms the pants off of the High Sparrow and attempts to beat him at his own game. She even tries this with Cersei but Cersei is like a bull in a china shop and has not subtlety. Show Sansa is a lot like show Cersei unfortunately.

And don't even get me started when it comes to Sophie Turner's complete misread of the plot. This is an actress that thinks Littlefinger is awesome and wants her character to get together with him. Out of all the actors and actresses I think she misunderstands her character the most.

In conclusion book Sansa is an excellent character that is intelligent and has an inner strength that makes her interesting. She is not a warrior woman or boss ass bitch trope like the sandsnakes she is quite realistic for the time period she's like her mother Lady Catelyn who didn't need to weild a sword to command respect although she is more subtle then her mother which makes sense regarding her situation and age.

[chrisdaw]

Good actors don't require their scenes be explained for people to be able to follow what's going on.

[Ashes Of Westeros]

8 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

- She wants to keep Jon away from LF, because she knows that LF is dangerous and she wants to protect Jon. 

 

8 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

- She wasn't sure if the Vale army was coming. 

 

8 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

She did not want Jon to be personally indebted with LF. She hoped that she would be the one who is indepted to LF and she wanted to protect Jon. 

That's is what I thought too. I didn't watch Inside the Episode and D&D's and Sophie's reasons are absolutely confusing. I'd rather take it with a pitch of salt, because it's part of their job to stir speculations. I assume Sophie wants some kind of bright moment for her character, but the only option to shine seems the "badass bitch" scenario.

[Ashes Of Westeros]

6 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Good actors don't require their scenes be explained for people to be able to follow what's going on.

Good film material doesn't need another explaination film afterwards.

[Alayne's Shadow.]

1 hour ago, Ashes Of Westeros said:

Good film material doesn't need another explaination film afterwards.

Pretty much this. The quality of this season is questionable at best... But to be fair, I'm still waiting on the reasons as to why Sansa agreed to marry Ramsay in the first place.

 

Anyway, I don't find Sophie Turner to be such a bad actress. Some of her scenes are quite good, at least for me, and esp in earlier seasons. The plot is confusing, though, and that detracts from Sansa's storyline and the performance. In season six, the only scene I particularly liked was the one that brought up one of my favorite elements from the books, when Sansa tells Jon: "No one can protect me. In life, no one can protect anyone." which really sounds as "There are no heroes. In life, the monsters win."