Sansa is Super-Awesome-Fantastic!

[Tamyrlin Belgarion Targaryen Rahl]

Really... What reason could you possibly give to argue against my above thesis?
AND
In support of my thesis I give you ........... Sansa is SUPER-AWESOME-FANTASTIC! HA!

Resistance is futile! Fall in line boys! Sansa is primo! (lmao I never say primo... but for Sansa I do!)

[Joanna vander Poele]

I was going to say, "This should be in General Chatter", then I realised you weren't talking about Santa... :(

[UndergroundMan]

Personally, I always hated Sansa and Catelyn. That may seem sexist but my favorite character is Arya and I'm fan of Daenerys too. But honestly, did Sansa ever make one smart decision? The same could go for Catelyn. Sansa betrayed her family members, in particular Arya and Ned. What's worse, she did it for Joffrey, who is probably the most reviled character. Catelyn screwed her family by kidnapping Tyrion and then undermined her son's authority by freeing Jaime. And Catelyn hates Jon. I can't think of anything good to say about Catelyn....except that apparently she has nice hair and she defended Brienne. As a rule, Tullys are useless except for Blackfish. Sansa is still a innocent and naive girl so we can permit her some mistakes. And it looks like her story line might become very interesting in the near future. I just don't understand why people like Sansa or Catelyn. Feel free to explain because I just don't get it.

[Bolton Bastard]

I feel I may have been the one to start this. And for that I am sorry all fellow Sansa haters.

She's crap, she's trite, of all the POV's she is the most flat underdeveloped character that only bares some semblance of development through her interactions with Joff, Sandor, and Petyr. She starts off the novel being stupid, biased, vain, and star-struck. The only quality of her that is indeed good is her penchant for not talking, however even this is ruined by the fact we continually get inside her head and get to read her thoughts. Her spineless manner and complete inability to do anything to better her situation is rather pathetic. Even Catelyn tried to help Robb, Sansa on the other hand gets blown from plot to plot not actually helping with any of the plotting but moving with the flow in what she perceives will end in some dream like visage. The one thing I truly fear however is that this character, having survived Joff and Cersei has passed through the most traumatic time in the novels and will therefore be in it in the long run and most likely will find some semblance of a happy ending, completely ruining anything she may or may not have learned up to that point about the nature of life. Of all her negative, vain qualities the only one that she seems to be improving on is her penchant to judge character based on appearance. Starting with her love of Joffrey and her initial disgust of the Hound and Ser Ilyn Payne she has developed some small capability to understand that Joff really was a piece of shit and the Hound really was good... ish. However this does not affect the weakness of character (which I'm surprised more people don't point out some sort of female bias in the series each of them is either annoying and weak, cruel and stupid, or tomboys, well at least you have possibly crazy Dany). In fact the only time I can actively remember her standing up for herself was when she spoke against Tyrion, yes she spoke against and insulted the one person who was being kind to her bravo Sansa (I know I'm being biased here).
The character either needs to develop or get the axe. I'm hoping her being set up with Petyr will do the trick, but I have a feeling it wont. Petyr seems to have the near magical ability to come out near or slightly around the top so no axing of the Sansa, still hoping for the character growth though. And if anyone claims that her motherly instincts with sweetrobin is character growth, think, she's been set up since she could talk in how to be motherly. She didn't grow, she just started fulfilling her duty that was always around the edges of the character to begin with.

[Lady Blackfish]

Sansa is super-awesome fantastic!

[add-on]

[quote name='Bolton Bastard' post='1584455' date='Nov 10 2008, 22.35']snip[/quote]
You and I have not been reading the same series.

Sansa is super-awesome fantastic.

[Errant Bard]

[quote name='several contributors']Trite, stale usual Sansa and Catelyn bashing[/quote]You're wrong, Sansa is super-awesome fantastic, and Catelyn is even better.

[mormont]

Sansa is a terrific character. Cat is even better. You don't have to like them, but you do have to admire that they're well-written, original, and have real depth. (Though as it happens, I do like them both.)

[Ran]

What Mormont says. Sansa's development is quite clear if you look over the four books in the series. To say she's underdeveloped is, I think, saying that you've missed a fair bit. Sansa's character development is exactly as involved as Arya's. It's just not as flashy, what with her not stabbing people to death and all.

As to Catelyn, I won't get into it. We've gone this road many times before regarding her actions, decisions, and advice. Suffice it to say, Winterfell would not be a gutted ruin if Robb had listened to her.

[Maia]

[quote name='DrumRun217' post='1584437' date='Nov 10 2008, 23.03']I just don't understand why people like Sansa or Catelyn. Feel free to explain because I just don't get it.[/quote]

Well, I'll try. Sansa - I strongly feel that she comes off so badly because she and Arya are viewed with modern bias. Yet their circumstances aren't modern at all.
Also, she is 11-13 in the books so far and people seem to forget that even intelligent, wily characters like Tyrion and LF did massively stupid things when they were young. In fact, their huge dumb antics happened when they were a few years older than Sansa at her nadir of trusting Cersei. So, there must be some double standards at work here. I mean, LF at 15 thought that Cat was in love with him, that he could marry Cat and win her hand in a duel! How much more foolish and song-struck can one get? I repeat, he was _15_ and has known Cat and Hoster for 8 or so years. Sansa was _only_ 11 and knew Joff and Cersei for several months of infrequent interaction. I won't even start about Tyrion's Tysha debacle here. So, Sansa is in a really illustrious company.

Now to return to Sansa versus Arya - objectively speaking Arya's wild behavior hurt Ned's position a lot. Yes, her rebelliousness and tomboyishness looks attractive and Joff was a shit. But he was a royal shit and antagonizing him was a very stupid and dangerous thing to do in their society. Them's the breaks. People like to accuse Sansa, but the fact is that Mycah would have been alive and Joff may have been less inclined to chop off Ned's head in a hurry if Arya didn't impulsively attack and shame him. She was taken along to make useful friendships and to smooth over frictions between Lannisters and Starks. Instead, she did her level best to rip conflict wide open and to antagonize Cersei's children, thus endangering Ned's already precarious position even more. In her own way Arya was every bit as stupid as Sansa, if not more. Of course, she was also younger and due her own life lessons.

Re: Sansa refusing to testify (and let's remember here that it was already too late for Mycah), it was a _smart_ thing to do. Yes, smart. She was still going to marry Joff and show of disloyalty here could have spoiled her whole future life. Also, in Westerosi culture, a woman is supposed to cleave to her husband and his family. Ned himself was highly disapproving of Cersei for retaining strong loyalties to her birth family. _He_ was the stupid one to put Sansa in such an impossible position.

So, my personal view is that both Sansa and Arya contributed equally to Ned's demise. Arya's actions (not Sansa's) resulted in Mycah's death. Arya is much better liked, because people seem to like aggressive, warlike and impulsive characters "with the heart in right place" better, no matter how much havoc and destruction they cause. Sansa is reviled because she had a crush on an unworthy character, trusted unwisely and followed the percepts of her society, rather than our modern world view.

I like Sansa as a character because she is a very realistic and believable one.


Re: Cat, I also like her character. Again, she was very realistic and believable, rather than exceptional or over the top. I feel that there are 3 great sources of hate for Cat's character:

first, she was a woman and people seem to be much more critical of female characters, particularly older ones (the whole folklore aspect of older women usually being villainesses), - she couldn't win there, if she acted, she is seen as interfering with prerogatives of her men-folk, if she didn't, she was seen as a passive, useless wimp;

second, she was not a fighter and people really like bad-ass fighters, whether they have any other positive qualities or not, but again, she couldn't win there - if she was a fighter, people would decry that as unrealistic, whereas, since she didn't swing a sword herself, her opinions on military strategy were dismissed as ignorant interfering

third, she was very unlucky. She was basically locked in Cassandra role, coupled with one of those other Greek curses - i.e. her warnings were nearly always true and usually ignored, but nearly all her acts were doomed to end in failure, even though they may have been rather sensible gambles to begin with.

To elaborate on her 2 most controversial acts:

1. Kidnapping Tyrion. Yes, there was a very reasonable explanation for it, although it was based on faulty assumptions. _If_ the situation had been like LF described it, then Tyrion meeting Cat traveling incognito would have meant that the whole Lannister game was up and it was just the question of who would make the first move. Remember, she didn't want to be discovered and wouldn't have done anything if Tyrion didn't recognize her. Catelyn, traveling with just one loyal escort, would have been a very tempting target in such a situation and therefore she very reasonably decided that attack was the best defense.
One can argue that the stupid thing here was trusting LF - but his interpretation did sound plausible and Varys confirmed it. Also, could Cat afford to assume that it was _not_ true? Her getting captured by the Lannisters before the open conflict even began would have been a huge blow for the Starks.

If there was stupidity involved in this whole debacle, it was in the fact of Cat coming to KL at all. There was no good reason for it, as far as I can see. It was clear that Ned would have to investigate some more before an accusation could be made, so "who would be believed?" was not a plausible justification, IMHO.

2. Attempt to exchange Jaime. Cat immediately saw, as others didn't, that she had to get Robb's only living heir(s) back ASAP and that the window of opportunity was very narrow, i.e. there was no time to try to contact Robb, wait for his answer, then spend some more days trying to convince him, etc. Cat understood Cersei enough to know that her daughter(s) wouldn't survive KL falling to Stannis and understood politics enough to know that if Lannisters were victorious, they'd never let Robb's only heir(s) go either. And she also understood that no matter who won in KL Robb's peril would increase manifold if he had no living heirs or his only living heir(s) were in enemy hands.

Basically, it was a risky gamble that could have payed off big. It was made necessary by Robb's mistake of moving out of communication range without leaving somebody competent in place to tend to the actual job of ruling and politics of his new kingdom. Edmure's stupid and futile attempts to close the barn door after the horse has bolted, rather than riding the events and backing up Cat on the exchange thing, as she had hoped, made the things more risky than they needed to be.

On the whole, I feel that both Ned and Robb have committed bigger and more fatal mistakes than Cat... but it is true that they also had some successes to balance the sheet, while Cat wasn't allowed any, through sheer bad luck. I mean, not only did all her gambles fail (when similarly risky stuff worked for other characters), but her very sensible embassy to Renly was brought to a disastrous end by supernatural intervention and her being in the wrong place at the wrong time!

[AryaSnow]

[quote name='Maia' post='1584652' date='Nov 11 2008, 14.06']. People like to accuse Sansa, but the fact is that Mycah would have been alive[/quote]
We don't know if Mycah would have been alive or not. Joffrey could have killed him just for fun. It wouldn't be strange. He's an [i]astoundingly[/i] psycho and sadistic boy. Yes, he said "I won't hurt him much", but I don't know what he meant with those words... he also said that he would have been "merciful" with Ned, but he said it ironically.
Yes, anyway Arya is too impulsive and her impetuosity makes her doing stupid things. I think it's her main flaw. But, as you said, her age makes it much more excusable. Moreover, when I was a child I was like her, so I really sympathize with her, much more than with Sansa.

[quote]and Joff may have been less inclined to chop off Ned's head in a hurry if Arya didn't impulsively attack and shame him.[/quote]
Nooooo, I don't think so at all. He surely would kill Ned in any case.
Let's see: Ned was officialy a [i]traitor[/i], he conspired against him and against his family. It was an [i]awful[/i] crime. Being forgiving would have been difficult for any king, especially if he's not particulary forgiving. Cersei wanted to send him to the wall, because it was more [i]convenient[/i]. But Joffrey is stupid, besides being very cruel and sadistic. He wouldn't bave listened to her in any case. I think he even doesn't realize than war is an undesirable thing. [i]Maybe[/i] only Tywin could persuade him with his charisma, maybe... but Tywin wasn't there.
I really don't think Arya's behaviour has been notably influential in that situation.

[quote]Instead, she did her level best to rip conflict wide open and to antagonize Cersei's children, thus endangering Ned's already precarious position even more.[/quote]
She antagonized only Joffrey and only in that situation. She didn't antagonized Tommen and Myrcella, she simply wasn't interested in spending her time with them. That's all. She had nothing againt them. And she usually even didn't care about Joffrey, excepting Mychal's episode...
Please, let's not exaggerate her faults.

[quote]Re: Sansa refusing to testify (and let's remember here that it was already too late for Mycah), it was a _smart_ thing to do. Yes, smart. She was still going to marry Joff and show of disloyalty here could have spoiled her whole future life. Also, in Westerosi culture, a woman is supposed to cleave to her husband and his family. Ned himself was highly disapproving of Cersei for retaining strong loyalties to her birth family. _He_ was the stupid one to put Sansa in such an impossible position.[/quote]
Refusing to testify may be smart. But let's see: [i]why[/i] did she refused to testify? Not because of prudence and wisdom, but because she was still in love with Joffrey. This was very silly, because she should already have understood that Joffrey was a shit, after his behaviour! The [i]action[/i] maybe was smart, but [i]Sansa[/i] was stupid, the reason of her refusal was very stupid.
Anyway, I don't think that not testifyng was really so smart. Yes, Joffrey would have hate her. But then she wouldn't run to say him goodbye and would not have betrayed Ned's plans. I think Ned would have been killed anyway, but at least Sansa and Arya would have been safe in Winterfall!
And she wouldn't have to marry Joffrey. Her parents wouldn't have force her to marry such a sadistic monster, who abused her. If she made Joffrey hate her, it would even be better! He would have shown clearlier his nature to her and to Ned!

Obviously we have to consider that Sansa was only 11! So I think many insults against her are really exaggerated.

In any case: I don't hate sansa, but I neither particulary like her. I prefer many other characters. I like Catelyn more.

[Errant Bard]

Mildly related, but I wonder: Why is it that when discussing about a character's "worth" he has to only have made mistakes or always have done the right thing? Sansa can be a pre-teen and still not be the antechrist.

[AryaSnow]

Some other things...

[quote]On the whole, I feel that both Ned and Robb have committed bigger and more fatal mistakes than Cat... but it is true that they also had some successes to balance the sheet, while Cat wasn't allowed any, through sheer bad luck. I mean, not only did all her gambles fail (when similarly risky stuff worked for other characters), but her very sensible embassy to Renly was brought to a disastrous end by supernatural intervention and her being in the wrong place at the wrong time![/quote]
Yeah! I really agree with this! Ned and Robb have been more stupid, especially Robb!
And I support your Catelyn defense.
And... yes, there is a lot of sexism... :rolleyes:

[quote name='Errant Bard' post='1584770' date='Nov 11 2008, 15.44']Mildly related, but I wonder: Why is it that when discussing about a character's "worth" he has to only have made mistakes or always have done the right thing? Sansa can be a pre-teen and still not be the antechrist.[/quote]
Yes, you are right. All the characters have done right and wrong things. All the characters have merits and flaws.
No, Sansa isn't the antichrist at all :)

[Night Watchman]

Aren't we all forgetting that time Sansa hatched those three dragon eggs, or killed Tywin or fought to release Tyrion from the Vale?
Not to mention all the other awesome things she's dne.
Oh, not to mention when after the battle of the Blackwater she snuck up to her own room, left her own Kingsguard cloak there and made herself think that she had kissed herself.

[Lady Blackfish]

Great points!

[A wilding]

Hmm not sure we really want to turn this into a factual argument thread. But

[quote name='AryaSnow' post='1584720' date='Nov 11 2008, 14.03']Refusing to testyfy may be smart. But let's see: [i]why[/i] did she refused to testify? Not because of prudence and wisdom, but because she was still in love with Joffrey. This was very silly, because she should already have understood that Joffrey was a shit, after his behaviour! The [i]action[/i] maybe was smart, but [i]Sansa[/i] was stupid, the reason of her refusal was very stupid.[/quote]
The reason Sansa said nothing because she was terrified. That was what made her clam up.


[quote name='AryaSnow' post='1584720' date='Nov 11 2008, 14.03']Anyway, I don't think that not testifyng was really so smart. Yes, Joffrey would have hate her. But then she wouldn't run to say him goodbye and would not have betrayed Ned's plans. I think Ned would have been killed anyway, but at least Sansa and Arya would have been safe in Winterfall!
And she wouldn't have to marry Joffrey. Her parents wouldn't have force her to marry such a sadistic monster, who abused her. If she made Joffrey hate her, it would even be better! He would have shown clearlier his nature to her and to Ned![/quote]
Except that Ned, fully aware of the facts, still intended the betrothal to go ahead. If Sansa was supposed to see that Joff was a psycho, then why wasn’t Ned? Sansa would have known that Ned knew as much about Joff as she did, and was still intending to marry her off to him.

In any case, how confident would any Westeros daughter of Sansa’s age be that her father would call off a betrothal at her request? Getting her betrothed to abuse her in the hope that her father would then call it off feels like an [i]extremely [/i]high risk strategy.

[Guest Other-in-law]

[quote name='A wilding' post='1585097' date='Nov 11 2008, 13.21']Hmm not sure we really want to turn this into a factual argument thread.[/quote]
It already is a factual argument fact, but the only salient fact that any argument can be based on is that Sansa is Super-Awesome-Fantastic.
[quote]The reason Sansa said nothing because she was terrified. That was what made her clam up.[/quote]
To the contrary, what made her clam up was her very Super-Awesome-Fantasticity.
[quote]Sansa would have known that Ned knew as much about Joff as she did, and was still intending to marry her off to him.[/quote]
She would have known that, and much, much more, on account of her being so Super-Awesome-Fantastic.
[quote]In any case, how confident would any Westeros daughter of Sansa’s age be that her father would call off a betrothal at her request?[/quote]
Less Super-Awesome-Fantastic daughters would not be very confident; that is true. But Sansa is not one of those.
[quote]Getting her betrothed to abuse her in the hope that her father would then call it off feels like an [i]extremely [/i]high risk strategy.[/quote]
When you are as Super-Awesome-Fantastic as Sansa, nothing could ever truly be a risk. The inevitability is that all your plans will work flawlessly, in a manner that is simply Super. Not to mention Awesome.

[About Yea High]

I'm not sure I can quite go down the Super-Awesome-Fantastic road (call me [i]carefully reigned[/i] in my bubbling excitement, sure), but I'm going to fall on the side of the Sansa supporters on this.

Not every character has the mind or the ability to deal with things that threaten them by picking up a sword and stabbing. Sansa is realistically written as a young girl of her (approximate) times who really only has her wits and charisma with which to mediate survival.

Did she tragically err by trusting Cersei and betraying her father? Yes, and it is a hard lesson she's learned. She won't make that mistake again (she doesn't so much "trust" Littlefinger as she does tentatively follow him in his machinations). As other contributors to this thread have succinctly pointed out, many characters made hard mistakes in their youths ... Petyr Baelish most of all. And look at him now.

No, I think Sansa's early frailties were showcased by the author in order to better highlight the gains she will make in the future. She's starting to use her head, and is realizing the effect her charm can have on others. When Littlefinger revealed his plan to cement his alliances in the Vale, she picked up on most of it before the words left his mouth. She's getting a head for this business ... and she has youth on her side.

I still think Baelish has a few tricks up his sleeve ... but I predict he will fall under Sansa's spell just as he fell for her mother (his [i]fatal flaw[/i], if you will), and Sansa is not going to make the fatal errors Catelyn made in her life.

Future Sansa is going to make a very able ruler one day ... possibly (possibly) even a Super-Awesome-Fantastic one.

[Stratonice]

In the beginning Sansa annoyed me no end (even though I was a lot more like her than like Arya as a kid). Despite that, it really fascinates me that people are so willing to forget that it was [i]Ned himself who told Cersei about what he knew and what he intended to do about it[/i] and instead blame it all on Sansa. Sansa [i]couldn't[/i] possibly betray any other information than that Ned was sending her and Arya home because she [i]didn't know[/i] anything else. Ned never bothered to explain how dangerous the situation was to her or even that there was anything dangerous at all about it.

Another thing constantly held against her is that she doesn't take Tyrion's kindness at face value. This usually from the same people who blame her for taking Cersei's kindness to her at face value. If she was wrong to trust Cersei, then surely it must be a good thing that she learned from her mistake?

Sansa was raised in a safe and loving environment to become a good and gracious Lady. Her parents and her septa aparantly did nothing to prepare her for the fact that the rest of the world in general, and KL especially, is different than Winterfell. Watching her having to learn this lesson the hard way has been a heartbreaking experience, but she has used her weapons, her strengths, to maneuver through one bad situation after another every bit as effectively as Arya even if her weapons and strenghts are different. Neither sister would have survived very long if they had ended up in reverse places. I'm really looking forward to watching Sansa grow up and (hopefully) become every bit as super-awsome-fantastic as she has the potential for. :)

[SkyPirate]

Sansa is Super-Awesome-Fantastic and so is Cat!

Aww, I just really like Sansa. She was a bit silly in the start but most kids are and the moment Ned got decapitated and she started crying there was just no way I could dislike her. And even before that she made for a very colourful character with interesting interactions (I love reading her chapters, like the one with the tournament of the Hand). She's in a right mess but she tries to pull through, even though it's very hard for a kid in her position, with nobody to confide in. Her development is great and poignant. I just loved the bit with the snow castle and how she was brave enough to get through the whole descent from the Eyrie.

And she's such a sweetie, I read AGoT and ACoK back-to-back and her first chapter is Joff's nameday, right? Her empathy with Tommen and Dontos just made it clear that she's great.