Discussing Sansa XXIII: Lady Stork and her flock

[Pumpkin G. Snark]

These Sansa threads are my favourite ones. I’m totally not qualified to take part in such deep discussion but anyway there’re some very simple thoughts and suggestions, nothing subtle.

I think LF could easily predict that Sansa wouldn’t tell Jon and Co. too many details of their fateful meeting in Mole’s Town. (And again, what an appropriate place he chooses. He was talking with Olenna Tyrell in a defunct brothel too.) Yes, he sees Brienne and realizes that she’s a witness but maybe he (rightfully) believes that the Maid of Tarth now doesn’t see herself in such a position where she could publicly disapprove her new lady’s actions and “not-tellings”.  Maybe LF (as always) mentally constructs for himself some kind of a win-win situation. He carefully feeds Sansa two precious bits of strategic information: 1) that he has Vale troops in Moat Cailin (in the show, at least, it’s not terribly far from Winterfell) and 2) that Blackfish had retaken Riverrun and so the Tully forces can somehow join Sansa.  

Well, Catelyn Tully’s daughter and Jon Snow’s _half_-sister has a choice:

a) to tell Jon about both (1) and (2), so let him and Davos etc. decide what to do with this information (btw, had LF planned to wait for an answer from them?). Yes, there’s a chance that they already don’t trust LF. But who among them knows him better than Sansa? He’d have to believe that she wouldn’t tell them about his treachery concerning her marriage. Anyway, there’s a chance that his services (i.e. the Vale’s army) would be accepted. But there’s a chance that Jon and Co. wouldn’t like to get help from him (Sansa obviously doesn’t) and use the info about Riverrun instead;

b ) to tell Jon only about the Vale troops (unlikely), then see (a);

c) to tell Jon only about Riverrun. LF would reasonably suggest that in this case his niece could easily tell Jon that she knows it from some other source. Maybe Uncle Petyr even had intended it to be this way. Could the Lord Protector of the Vale (a region famously isolated) be a reliable source concerning the Riverlands? Sansa would want to help Jon, to give him this valuable information, but she wouldn’t want to include Baelish in it. (Better minds have already explained why.) Well, LF had guessed right. And maybe in some not-very-distant future he really will be able to seed discord between Sansa and Jon due to this one not-very-clever (but absolutely understandable) lie. “All of them are lying better than you”, is it really in the past now?

d) or tell Jon nothing at all (unlikely: LF knows that she wants to help Jon and that she even has her own agenda in the wars to come or, at least, she thinks so). 

In some aspects, LF knows Sansa better than anyone there-and-then (Jon haven’t seen her many years and they hadn’t been close in Winterfell of their childhood). This scene shows us a somewhat new(ish) Sansa but in the end LF seems to win or at least not to lose (anyway, not to lose his head, pun intended). It would not be a surprise if Riverrun, much like in the books, is under the Lannisters’ siege so Blackfish army has more pressing concerns than to help Sansa and Jon. Maybe, plot-wise this Riverlands’ twist is needed for a possible Brienne and Jaime meeting (well, the Kingslayer is in KL for now). So the armies of the Vale will play their crucial role, LF will prove (not only to Sansa) his unique qualities and… and wouldn’t it be too simplistic? Some big treachery looms over horizon. I agree with those who think that Sansa and Jon will drift apart from each other, mostly because of LF actions and schemes.

We can be sure of one thing. Sophie Turner told an interviewer that

Spoiler

Sansa lives through all the season.

But I guess none of us believe that it could be otherwise.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

2 hours ago, Asma Ben Hamouda said:

isn't the same thing with arya ditching her Stark name and becoming no-one? at least she with Jon are trying to retake Winterfell, Sansa is fighting a war and Arya is playing at one

How so? Arya tried to go to the Wall but the Braavosi captain refused. She had no money, no one to trust. She literally had nowhere else to go. Arya is not playing at war, she is training to actually fight so she'll actually be useful.

 

As for the parallel of Lady and Sansa meaning 'Character development doesn't exist'.  I'm all for it existing but she's lying to her family already. 1 episode after reuniting with one of them. Foreshadowing is a thing. Sometimes leopards don't change their spots. I don't know but its a possibility.

[Orphalesion]

2 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

How so? Arya tried to go to the Wall but the Braavosi captain refused. She had no money, no one to trust. She literally had nowhere else to go. Arya is not playing at war, she is training to actually fight so she'll actually be useful.

 

As for the parallel of Lady and Sansa meaning 'Character development doesn't exist'.  I'm all for it existing but she's lying to her family already. 1 episode after reuniting with one of them. Foreshadowing is a thing. Sometimes leopards don't change their spots. I don't know but its a possibility.

Arya is currently training to be a murderer who lives for the sake of murdering and has no own input in the choice of their victims. That's what a Faceless Man is.

Now I do not think she will complete that training, but in theory that is what she is training to be.

My perfect ending for these two still has them finding each other and rekindling a loving, sisterly relationship, just to site the haters on both sides of the Sansa/Arya divide.

[Colonel Green]

One thought I had about potential Jon/Sansa tension going forward:  how will Bran fit into all this?  I mean, he has to come back, right?  They just killed off pretty much his entire supporting cast, so unless the next 2 seasons are going to be poor Meera dragging him around on that sled, seems like there's only one place he can go.

[LadyAlisande]

7 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

One thought I had about potential Jon/Sansa tension going forward:  how will Bran fit into all this?  I mean, he has to come back, right?  They just killed off pretty much his entire supporting cast, so unless the next 2 seasons are going to be poor Meera dragging him around on that sled, seems like there's only one place he can go.

Agree, plus he has to reveal R+L=J to Jon. Would be nice to have all four of them (including Rickon) back at Winterfell!

[Ingelheim]

8 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

One thought I had about potential Jon/Sansa tension going forward:  how will Bran fit into all this?  I mean, he has to come back, right?  They just killed off pretty much his entire supporting cast, so unless the next 2 seasons are going to be poor Meera dragging him around on that sled, seems like there's only one place he can go.

Bran, Jon, Sansa and Arya will be together in Season 7. That's what it looks like. We know

 

Arya will be back at the Riverlands by the end of this Season, and it seems Benjen/Coldhands (although I'm sure they will not do Coldhands, it'll be just Benjen) will save both Meera and Bran

 

[Mladen]

First, we had dozens and dozens of topics about Sansa and Trident incident on ASOIAF book subforums and it all stems down whether some people have read "The Hedge Knight". After reading that one, you will see that incrimination part cuts both ways and while Arya did something morally commendable, she also did something legally wrong. That said, Sansa did lie, but it was the lie Ned Stark was OK with. And if we talk about this in terms of TV, he wasn't just not reprimanding her, he actually understood why she did it. And given that Lady was killed by the man who could have said NO, on the orders of the man who knew the truth, manipulated by the woman who declared that those direwolves won't get to KL, it is quite myopic to blame it on Sansa.

27 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

How so? Arya tried to go to the Wall but the Braavosi captain refused. She had no money, no one to trust. She literally had nowhere else to go. Arya is not playing at war, she is training to actually fight so she'll actually be useful.

IF this show made a point of LF being able to creep under Sansa's skin, are we THAT naive to think that Arya will be spared? That all the time she spends with FM is just for fun and that she will just one day return to Westeros happy as she ever was. Arya is not training to be useful to anything regarding Stark cause. The FM path is her own path, the one she chose when she thought she had no one. And honestly, it won't be the path she will abandon so easily. They are literally deconstruct her entire personality. 

16 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

One thought I had about potential Jon/Sansa tension going forward:  how will Bran fit into all this?  I mean, he has to come back, right?  They just killed off pretty much his entire supporting cast, so unless the next 2 seasons are going to be poor Meera dragging him around on that sled, seems like there's only one place he can go.

He will be Gandalf to Sansa's Thranduil and Jon's Dain

37 minutes ago, Pumpkin G. Snark said:

These Sansa threads are my favourite ones. I’m totally not qualified to take part in such deep discussion but anyway there’re some very simple thoughts and suggestions, nothing subtle.

...

We can be sure of one thing. Sophie Turner told an interviewer that

  Hide contents

Sansa lives through all the season.

But I guess none of us believe that it could be otherwise.

I think this post suggests you are more than qualified to post...  Welcome to the thread.

As for Sansa surviving all of this, I always like to quote Tyrion on the subject.

[Pumpkin G. Snark]

17 minutes ago, Risto said:

 Welcome to the thread.

As for Sansa surviving all of this, I always like to quote Tyrion on the subject.

Thank you! I’m absolutely basking in the warm, friendly atmosphere of these threads. Nobody here calls others ignorant apple-eaters, lemoncake-haters, subplot-twisters or something like that.  

This scene from ep2-04 (“Garden of Bones”) reminds me that Sansa (in the books and in the show) probably has to meet her (first) husband at least one more time. (Some revengeful souls would add: “And order Brienne to cut his head off”. Though if we compare him with her other marriage partners…)  Bookwise, she still could get an annulment and then marry someone totally unexpected. In the show they’ll have to remove her second husband. (Not Tyrion. He lives.)

[Masha]

1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

One thought I had about potential Jon/Sansa tension going forward:  how will Bran fit into all this?  I mean, he has to come back, right?  They just killed off pretty much his entire supporting cast, so unless the next 2 seasons are going to be poor Meera dragging him around on that sled, seems like there's only one place he can go.

First I started to think that perhaps Bran ends up the remaining Lord Stark, but upon further consideration, I can see Bran's fate as closed loop where he goes too far to return and ends up influencing things like creation of the Wall, Bloodraven fate and so on in the past, but in coma at the present.

 

 

[Asma Ben Hamouda]

43 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

How so? Arya tried to go to the Wall but the Braavosi captain refused. She had no money, no one to trust. She literally had nowhere else to go. Arya is not playing at war, she is training to actually fight so she'll actually be useful.

I know what will happen with Arya :

• I'm sure that many of Arya's fans didn't even know what is the meaning of Arya gone blind : it's the GRRM representation of the very famous quote 'vengeance is blind'
• now, she insists that she can become no-one but the theater scene is the beginning of her understanding that her family is more precious than her vengeance, 'no-one' is not worthy of her efforts

I swear to god, I can't even start to understand the extreme fanboyism of arya's fans, every time I want to discuss Arya story progression I'll go to an arya thread, and every time I find the same thing, threads like ghost towns and some people discussing the same thing : Nymeria and the superpack, man, GRRM did wrote 5 books full of stories and it's just that you got from them? direwolfs and the superpack?  so why her threads are ghost towns and where her fans gone, but of course they are lurking in sansa threads, 'uh I hate sansa, uh I love arya, uh sansa is a traitor, uh sansa is dumb', did the people look like they care about what you love and what you hate? most people know that they are fictional characters and most poeple want to make an intelligent discussion. 

[~DarkHorse~]

19 hours ago, Newstar said:

Wow. It didn't take long for Sansa to start lying to Jon. Littlefinger is good. All he had to do was point out that Sansa didn't have an army that was purely loyal to her and not Jon and that Jon was her "half-brother" and bam! Lies and deceit aplenty.

Not loving the "manipulative bitch Sansa misleading poor gullible cinnamon roll Jon" vibes from the writing in this episode. The camera made a point of his pained faces when Sansa gracelessly pointed out he lacked the Stark name and compared him to Ramsay.

...I guess once Ramsay out of the way, it will be Sansa vs. Jon? That's probably why Jon and Sansa had such a warm and fuzzy reunion, so that when they wind up at odds, it will be that much more heartbreaking. As I said, LIttlefinger is good.

I don't think Sansa is being malicious, or intending any harm on Jon, but I do think there is a degree of manipulation going on. I am not sure how I feel about that. I like seeing Sansa gaining agency and becoming a cunning player, but not at the expense of taking advantage of Jon (aka naive Ned 2.0) and making him the pawn. 

Sansa gifting Jon with a cloak that looks exactly like Ned's is not just a sweet act that proves her love and acceptance for him. No, it is a politically cunning move. She wants Jon to look like Ned, to encourage the Northerners to follow him into battle. It is to her benefit as much as it is to make Jon happy. 

It is as Littlefinger says: 

"And when you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden’s cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back… why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright." - AFFC

Except, it is Sansa doing this with Jon, rather than Littlefinger with Sansa. She is making him look like a Stark because he is the one who needs to fight her the battles. 

She is playing the game and arguably, Jon is being played. 

 

 

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

12 minutes ago, Asma Ben Hamouda said:

I know what will happen with Arya :

• I'm sure that many of Arya's fans didn't even know what is the meaning of Arya gone blind : it's the GRRM representation of the very famous quote 'vengeance is blind'
• now, she insists that she can become no-one but the theater scene is the beginning of her understanding that her family is more precious than her vengeance, 'no-one' is not worthy of her efforts

I swear to god, I can't even start to understand the extreme fanboyism of arya's fans, every time I want to discuss Arya story progression I'll go to an arya thread, and every time I find the same thing, threads like ghost towns and some people discussing the same thing : Nymeria and the superpack, man, GRRM did wrote 5 books full of stories and it's just that you got from them? direwolfs and the superpack?  so why her threads are ghost towns and where her fans gone, but of course they are lurking in sansa threads, 'uh I hate sansa, uh I love arya, uh sansa is a traitor, uh sansa is dumb', did the people look like they care about what you love and what you hate? most people know that they are fictional characters and most poeple want to make an intelligent discussion. 

Asma, you brought up this entire topic. No one was talking about Arya or her journey. Merely mentioning that Sansa sided against her family once, in that instance it was Arya. You tried to insinuate Arya was doing the same and that Sansa was better because she was going to war with the Boltons. You can't start something in a completely unrelated thread and then expect it not to be in depth enough for you. I don't think Sansa fans would appreciate if this became 'What is Arya doing?'

 

[Asma Ben Hamouda]

6 minutes ago, ~DarkHorse~ said:

I don't think Sansa is being malicious, or intending any harm on Jon, but I do think there is a degree of manipulation going on. I am not sure how I feel about that. I like seeing Sansa gaining agency and becoming a cunning player, but not at the expense of taking advantage of Jon (aka naive Ned 2.0) and being shady with him. 

Sansa gifting Jon with a cloak that looks exactly like Ned's is not just a sweet act that proves her love and acceptance for him. No, it is a politically cunning move. She wants Jon to look like Ned, to encourage the Northerners to follow him into battle. It is to her benefit as much as it is to make Jon happy. 

^ good observation, I like it, she wants to see Ned in him

[Zorral]

Gonna be really rough for some people when Jon becomes King in the North and Sansa sits on the Iron Throne . . . .

But first she's gonna have to duke it out with Dany to get the throne.  But that's seasons away doubtless so the haters have lots of time to keep hatin'.  

 

[Newstar]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Gonna be really rough for some people when Jon becomes King in the North and Sansa sits on the Iron Throne . . . .

But first she's gonna have to duke it out with Dany to get the throne.  But that's seasons away doubtless so the haters have lots of time to keep hatin'.  

 

Something about this episode and the Inside the Episode comments by D&D (in general, but also in particular the comment that Sansa wouldn't have lied to Jon if she were a "clean, pure Stark") left me with a bad feeling about Sansa's prospects. If she aligns against the hero Jon, whether it's thanks to LF's meddling or due to her own paranoia, she's going down in a big way. She isn't there yet, and the lies could be dealt with in pretty straightfoward fashion, but she seems to be on her way. Sending away Brienne, the closest thing she could have to a walking, talking moral compass, also leaves Sansa vulnerable to being influenced by Littlefinger and giving in to paranoia.

I'm thinking that the Jon/Sansa scene in 6x04 was the equivalent of Stannis' beautiful little speech to Shireen about how hard he tried to save her life in Season 5: something to lure the viewer into a false sense of security so as to better twist the knife later on when it all ends in tears.

[Juggzy]

To me, it seemed as if Sansa was herself puzzled as to why she lied to Jon.  I get this from the shot of her just before we leave that scene.  

It also seemed fairly clear that she wasn't intending to insult Jon with the bastard comment; she was pointing out that if Ramsay could rule the North, so could Jon.  She clearly cares for Jon - I do think that the cape was an attempt to position him as a Stark, but that doesn't mean that the manipulation is an attempt to undermine him; rather the opposite.  

Every single man that has had 'care' of Sansa has betrayed her since she left Winterfell; yes, even her father who took her into a dangerous situation.  You could argue that Tyrion didn't, but he still carried on with Shae.  I think she's trying to make sure that she has something for herself so that she doesn't have to depend on anyone else. She lies, because she's had to lie to survive; it's a habit. 

[Fox of House McCloud]

6 minutes ago, Newstar said:

I'm thinking that the Jon/Sansa scene in 6x04 was the equivalent of Stannis' beautiful little speech to Shireen about how hard he tried to save her life in Season 5: something to lure the viewer into a false sense of security so as to better twist the knife later on when it all ends in tears.

Definitely agree with this; I just can't see Jon and Sansa happily coexisting for the rest of time. Whether this means one betrays the other, or one of them dies in battle/disappears I can't say, but I don't see a happy ending in the works.

I haven't been following these topics too closely, so sorry I'd this has been asked before, but when does Sansa really become a player? Obviously it's after her marriage to Ramsay, but when/what really triggers it? I can't seem to nail it down (although, granted, I only watched Season 5 once...)

[Juggzy]

3 minutes ago, Fox of House McCloud said:

I haven't been following these topics too closely, so sorry I'd this has been asked before, but when does Sansa really become a player? Obviously it's after her marriage to Ramsay, but when/what really triggers it? I can't seem to nail it down (although, granted, I only watched Season 5 once...)

It's when she walks down the stairs in Winterfell and then supports Littlefinger's story about Lyssa's death. 

[Queen of Winter]

11 minutes ago, Newstar said:

Something about this episode and the Inside the Episode comments by D&D (in general, but also in particular the comment that Sansa wouldn't have lied to Jon if she were a "clean, pure Stark") left me with a bad feeling about Sansa's prospects. If she aligns against the hero Jon, whether it's thanks to LF's meddling or due to her own paranoia, she's going down in a big way. She isn't there yet, and the lies could be dealt with in pretty straightfoward fashion, but she seems to be on her way. Sending away Brienne, the closest thing she could have to a walking, talking moral compass, also leaves Sansa vulnerable to being influenced by Littlefinger and giving in to paranoia.

Yeah, I saw that Inside The Episode piece too. Sansa lying to Jon really took me by surprise and definitely filled me with an uneasy feeling. But I'm thinking she did it because she was probably feeling it was "her time" to step up to the plate and deliver (or something like that). That she needed to do something on her own in order to help win back her home. That she has something to prove,etc.

[Ingelheim]

42 minutes ago, Newstar said:

Something about this episode and the Inside the Episode comments by D&D (in general, but also in particular the comment that Sansa wouldn't have lied to Jon if she were a "clean, pure Stark") left me with a bad feeling about Sansa's prospects. If she aligns against the hero Jon, whether it's thanks to LF's meddling or due to her own paranoia, she's going down in a big way. She isn't there yet, and the lies could be dealt with in pretty straightfoward fashion, but she seems to be on her way. Sending away Brienne, the closest thing she could have to a walking, talking moral compass, also leaves Sansa vulnerable to being influenced by Littlefinger and giving in to paranoia.

I'm thinking that the Jon/Sansa scene in 6x04 was the equivalent of Stannis' beautiful little speech to Shireen about how hard he tried to save her life in Season 5: something to lure the viewer into a false sense of security so as to better twist the knife later on when it all ends in tears.

I don't really think Sansa is meeting LF again untill 6x09. I mean, how could she? They are going to Bear Island. LF will be back at Moat Cailin. 

I don't believe she's going to betray Jon either. The lies will cause some drift between them, tension, but....betrayal? Hell no. I don't think she has any reasonable reason for it. It's not like Sansa wants Winterfell and the North for herself. 

I think some of you are seeing too much into the "clean and pure Stark" bit. What I take from this is that Sansa has become a player of the Game. Something Starks are clearly not. At least, neither Ned nor Jon were any good at it. Sansa is, because she's learnt from the very best. It's not like she's suddenly a manipulative bitch who will make her brother her own pawn. 

As I said, she's just got used to lies and lying. It's what made her survive. It's clear she feels bad about it. You can see it on her face.