Sansa's Empowerment Arc & The Future

[Newstar]

I'm increasingly convinced that Sansa is not going to survive the books, and that she's going to fail miserably as a player in the books. I'm not bothered by TV Sansa not showing herself to be much of a player in Season 5. That's not TV Sansa's story that has been shown, and all the talk of her being a player by the showrunners and GRRM appears to be a figleaf for her real storyline in the show: a helpless victim and a credulous pawn of Littlefinger's.

I think Book Sansa's storyline will be about her failure as a player, not her success. That seems wholly consistent with all the talk about TV Sansa being a player being nothing more than talk to date in Season 5, and with TV Sansa being just as helpless in Book Jeyne's situation as Book Jeyne, a non-player untutored in the game of thrones, was. Sansa was always being set up to fail in the show, and I suspect it's because she was always being set up to fail in the books as well, much like other doomed characters before her who made unwise choices under extraordinarily difficult circumstances and found themselves trapped by them. My expectation is that in the show and in the books, her failure will either directly or indirectly cost her her life.

[The Mighty Nutsaculus]

What are the chances of Sansa and Theon destroying Ramsay?

[starklover]

What are the chances of Sansa and Theon destroying Ramsay?

if they work together they maybe could

[Grail King]

When Sansa finds out her brothers are alive, what will she do with that information, if anything? Will that make her more likely to leave or stay at Winterfell?

I think it makes her stay, because she will know everything that the Boltons and LF planed is going up in smoke, but she needs to survive to keep WF for her brothers.

I think if she is given TEA before she finds out about her brothers she take it to abort, but if she hears from Theon that they are alive she will keep the child, help destroy the Boltons from inside and yes this includes Walda ( sorry it's Sansa's home not yours ), Sansa then gets the Dreadfort in her name starts a new house for the Starks .

One last note this is about Sansa, not Theon, she's the stronger of the two, her empathy will help Theon get his name and by doing that Sansa finds out about her brothers.

[Grail King]

It may be the case,but it still seems like a cheap way to justify a "shocking" scene.

With the way information travels in Show!Westeros, I'm surprised that she has no clue that LF is responsible of her father's death.

She wasn't in the throne room, Sandor left without saying anything to her, Janos got his head chopped off( per her own wish by the way ) do you think LF is going to tell her?

She has to put what Lysa screamed to her in book and show to figure it out, but she may have forgot those due to trauma?

[Valetudo]

She wasn't in the throne room, Sandor left without saying anything to her, Janos got his head chopped off( per her own wish by the way ) do you think LF is going to tell her?

She has to put what Lysa screamed to her in book and show to figure it out, but she may have forgot those due to trauma?

And nobody from the gold cloaks ever spoke? There are no rumors about it?

She wasn't present at the red wedding, but still she knows that Roose is her brother's killer.

They're just keeping it secret in order to add a "shocking" reveal later.

[TheCasualObserver]

With Stannis, the Boltons, Theon, Brienne and Sansa all converging in Winterfell, someone's character is going to get shafted along the way because there is simply too much to do in too little time now.

But even if Sansa becomes a hurricane of death against her enemies, it won't matter. Empowering a female character through rape is unforgivable.

[Yela]

Spot on. That was my first thought as well - the angle she's looking up at is the perfect angle to view somebody hanging or flayed on display, and the nameless woman ally is the perfect person to have in that role. Dramatically, it sets the stage for Brienne/Theon/Sansa heroics.

I kind of like this idea than Ramsay crushing Sansa's hope yet again. At first I was like. If Ramsay somehow crushed Sansa's hope about that candle in the tower and that he knows about it. If Sansa is as 'strong' as everybody(including Sophie) says she is now she shouldn't be crying that easily anymore. But the old woman hanging upside down like the Bolton sigil being flayed makes perfect sense for strong Dark Sansa to cry.

[Nefertari]

I'm increasingly convinced that Sansa is not going to survive the books, and that she's going to fail miserably as a player in the books. I'm not bothered by TV Sansa not showing herself to be much of a player in Season 5. That's not TV Sansa's story that has been shown, and all the talk of her being a player by the showrunners and GRRM appears to be a figleaf for her real storyline in the show: a helpless victim and a credulous pawn of Littlefinger's.

I think Book Sansa's storyline will be about her failure as a player, not her success. That seems wholly consistent with all the talk about TV Sansa being a player being nothing more than talk to date in Season 5, and with TV Sansa being just as helpless in Book Jeyne's situation as Book Jeyne, a non-player untutored in the game of thrones, was. Sansa was always being set up to fail in the show, and I suspect it's because she was always being set up to fail in the books as well, much like other doomed characters before her who made unwise choices under extraordinarily difficult circumstances and found themselves trapped by them. My expectation is that in the show and in the books, her failure will either directly or indirectly cost her her life.

That's my impression as well.

Since Lady died i had the impression Sansa destiny would be very tragic.

I'm sure she will survive this season.

[Yela]

:agree:

The problem I have is that, in both books and show, the only of the Stark children I see in a position to really extract revenge on their enemies is Sansa.

Bran and Jon are too busy fighting the White Walkers. Jon may end up fighting the Boltons, but that would be a detour for him.

Rickon is simply too young.

Arya is too much of an outcast. Unless she becomes a dragon rider, she won't be able to do more than to kill a few character. Important ones, but a few nonetheless.

Sansa looked like the one who would be able to get an army at her direction.

But after this... she can't. She became Ramsay's toy and she isn't coming back from that. There doesn't seem to be any loyalist Northern Lords (and no, a pair of old servants don't count) with an army. If she didn't act before, I don't see her doing anything other than running away now.

So, are the Starks going to extract vengeance and reclaim their position? As things stand, I simply don't think so. Robb is death, Jon has other concerns, Sansa is useless, Arya is a single hitwoman in training, Bran has other concerns and Rickon doesn't count.

Why do you think that? I don't think Sansa was broken at all during the rape scene. She was crying yes, but I don't think that was the "I'm broken, I now bow down to you." cry like Theon. I think it was more just "After all these years of keeping my virginity, I'm giving it to this guy?, but I must do this to get my revenge later." sort of cry. Meaning she hasn't becom Ramsay's toy.

[MordredDayne]

Those points are valid, but as that person stated it is not the intention of the showrunners or Martin to create a full-blown allegory. You can draw obvious parallels to our world with certain themes and scenes but others not so much I.e the last Sansa scene IMO.

I think the problem with this is that there's no criteria you could fairly choose to decide what scenes and themes are meant as parallels and which aren't. There is no clear demarcation in the show to say, "Hey, audience, accept this uncritically as an example of what the world was like in the past." and "OK, now you should see the parallels we are making with modern day situations." It's all going to come down to personal politics and preferences. Either it's all fair game for analysis or none of it is. Now, certain analyses may seem off base or unwarranted, but they should be judged on the strength and weaknesses of the individual arguments, not simply dismissed out of hand because of their nature. A lot of people don't get down with metatextual analysis. That's fine, to each their own. Personally, I find it useful for exploring not just the content of the plot, but why the plot was constructed the way it was. I find this particularly useful because Game of Thrones is an adaptation. There are reasons behind all the changes the show runners make in translating the books to the screen. Some of them are budgetary, logistical, practical, economical, stylistic, and some are influenced by the way they want the audience to react to and relate to the show as a modern work of fiction. And the writers and show runners are all influenced by the modern society in which they grew up, just as GRRM was. This is what I think a lot of people are doing when they question things like why the Sansa story was changed and why it is playing out like it is. Nobody has concrete answers, but I think asking these kinds of questions is valid and important, even if it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

tl;dr I am a nerd.

[Crixus]

I have been reading the forums for a long time [though not posting much].

There was no world wide internet meltdown outrage for Theon's torture.

There is a simple reason for this. Rape is a bigger deal to feminists than anything else. Bigger than torture, murder, or [especially?] male castration.

By the way I completely agree that Sansa's story makes no sense at all in the show. LF is being made into a fool on the show, and his plan makes no sense logically.

Maybe because rape occurs far more frequently in real life, (mostly of women), compared to cocks getting chopped off? Just a thought. Makes sense 'feminists' would consider it a graver issue.

[Arya442]

Hello everyone. It's my first time here and I wish that it could be under less, angry circumstances. But my God do I hate this. The idea that you need to have a female character be raped in order to "empower" them frankly makes me want to puke.

And I'm not at all confident that this show can even pull it off, their track record thus far has been pretty abysmal in this regard.

[Annara Snow]

Hello everyone. It's my first time here and I wish that it could be under less, angry circumstances. But my God do I hate this. The idea that you need to have a female character be raped in order to "empower" them frankly makes me want to puke.

And I'm not at all confident that this show can even pull it off, their track record thus far has been pretty abysmal in this regard.

Like I said earlier... funny how the Batman franchise has been going on for decades but nobody ever thought Bruce Wayne needed to be raped to be empowered and decide to fight for justice, people think that the murder of his family was enough of a motivation, surprise, surprise...

[JonisHenryTudor]

I think this is the second time you have suggested that I have missed your point over a disagreement we've had concerning the show. Has it occurred to you that I grasped your point just fine and simply disagree with it? Maybe you're just trying to be polite, but honestly it feels kind of patronizing. I'll fully admit that I may just be overreacting to this.

As far as setting aside real world issues and keeping this story in the context setting it belongs in, how are we supposed to do that when it's obvious that D&D are commenting on very real and modern cultural phenomena in other storylines? Case in point: the whole Loras trial/Faith Militant angle. This is a change from the books, where homosexuality is not a concern at all of the FM to something that will resonate with modern viewers who have seen The Islamic States' brand of religious fascism all over the TV. Do you really think that the writers aren't wanting the audience to draw these kinds of parallels? If not, then why change it? If it's to make it more dramatic, it's only more dramatic because of the investment our modern audience has with this type of story. I don't think GRRM or the showrunners are intending to create a full blown allegory, but they're not making this show in a vacuum. They are modern people making a television show for a modern audience. They're not making a documentary about what life was like in the dark or middle ages. I think it's perfectly valid to view this show, and any other type of show, be it fantasy, sci-fi, horror, whatever, through the lens of the world in which we actually live. That's a fairly standard aspect of criticism, so I'm not sure why you feel it's inappropriate in this case. It may not be your thing, you may disagree with some of the conclusions that people derive from it, but it's not an invalid way of looking at the show that hinders people's ability to understand it.

As far as where they're going with Sansa, I have no idea. I think your interpretation is as valid as a lot of the others I've heard. What I was addressing with my (admittedly snarky) comment was that it seemed odd for them to give Sansa all of these new dark character cues at the end of the last season, then have them revert somewhat over the course of the season, only to come back again after her rape. It just seems like inconsistent characterization to me.

You're right it is a modern phenomena, but it is not isolated to the modern world. And yes I do try to be polite.

My point about the context is that this is a fantasy series, and it is not real. Rape, unfortunately is, but I do not see D&D glorifying Ramsay in the scene. If they did, that would certainly be atrocious. There is room to debate whether or not it happened for the purpose of changing Theon or any other sort of ideas people come up with. Some posters, like myself, have tried to make sense of it, but since it does not tie perfectly into the books all rational debate and argumentation goes out the window and labels (sexist, etc) start flying--that irritates me. So the idea of keeping it in context is just keep in in the fantasy world, and let's have a debate/discussion about why this scene happened and what it will do for the story, instead of the opposite.

I would agree that it {bold} is inconsistent. Although I can't say that Sansa went full blown "witch-Queen of Angmar" in S4. Sansa has witnessed some heinous acts since GoT, and Joff treated her like a dog until his death in SoS, but this act directly hit her at home. After everything that she has endured, she was violated and hit harder than anything that she experienced to this point (IMO). This incident took from her something that was hers to give. Everything that happened to her in the past was at a distance (sort of), but this actually invaded and violated her person. For this reason, I suggested that the event would function as a catalyst that would turn Sansa into something ruthless, perhaps darker.

Having said that, I certainly agree with others that if they don't have a purpose for the scene in the upcoming episodes, then it was a terrible waste of screen time and a disgusting incident with no real purpose.

[possible spoiler...]

Although I do see one purpose....since Mance is gone....

I think that either Ramsay or Sansa gets a letter to Jon, and this incident brings Jon to Winterfell.

[rayarts]

Hello everyone. It's my first time here and I wish that it could be under less, angry circumstances. But my God do I hate this. The idea that you need to have a female character be raped in order to "empower" them frankly makes me want to puke.

And I'm not at all confident that this show can even pull it off, their track record thus far has been pretty abysmal in this regard.

:agree:

[rayarts]

Which means we are bound for some empowerment through rape. Needless to say, it is absolutely despicable sexist trope. Apparently someone forgot that women don't need to suffer rape to be empowered.

Yeah. I'd like to give Ding & Dong my personal version of "empowerment arch", so they can become "hardened men" (--> interview Entertainment weekly), and then lets see how empowered and mighty they'd feel. Its just total BS

[Equilibrium]

When we are talking about this I just want to say one more thing and address one more part of the problem. Problem is not Sansa got raped, but way show got to it and handled it. Sansa's scene has been uncalled for, handled and done badly in myriad of different ways, but most people involved in the backlash are wrong, including newspaper and blog writers. Now it's justified to be angry if

- You have been telling for the long time about butchering of the narrative, plot points and underlaying themes of the ASOIAF

- You have been telling for the long time about bad and inconsistent way story progresses with bad writing and directing

- You have been telling for the long time about unrealistic and bad way female characters are treated on the show

Because those things are true and were problem from the day one

But if you are one of those people that were saying show is stellar and perfect and better then books, and now when Sansa got raped, now the show is bad and sexist and all of the above. It was because of your short-sightedness that we came in this position, by not criticizing their previous mistakes, you enabled D&D to make this out of the show and are every bit at fault as they are.

[Glad Komrad]

I don't know if this has been suggested, but I'm wondering if they might not kill Sansa off and have her resurrected by Thoros to become Lady Stoneheart, literally. In the books, I believe Brienne will reenter Catalyn's service this way, after her potential death scene where they left off. Of course, Brienne does say a word that we never learn what was which may stop the hangings. In any case, it may be why Brienne is still doggedly following Sansa around in the show. In this scenario, without Lady Stoneheart, Brienne has no future. It would make sense to do a Sansa/Catalyn switch, if Michelle Fairley was uninterested in the part, the Lady Stoneheart character proves essential to the overall story, and Sansa has no greater importance in the upcoming books. I see it as unlikely, but the thought has occurred to me.

[Mithras]

Rape didnot empower Sansa because she was already empowered long before it happened. She "chose" to lie to the Vale Lords and save LF's ass. She "chose" to not abandon LF and go with Brienne. She "chose" to go along with the marriage to the Boltons. She "knew" that the marriage will involve consummation. She "saw" that Ramsay enjoys torture. She was "told" that Ramsay is a psycho. From her reactions, I take that she anticipated that nasty shit will happen to her but still, she got along with the plan. That can only be because she is willing to pay the price to have a chance to avenge her family and do finally do something by her own, instead of being carried in a pocket of LF like a doll.