Sansa as 'Lady Iceheart'

[Papa Stark]

I don't think they're "bad" Starks, more like bad ass Starks!

[Silverin]

And acting is the definition of honorable? Arya is becoming a Faceless Man, who kill for not-so-justifiable reasons. She has a to-kill-list. Sansa on the other hand, holds no grudges against anyone, except for the Queen at the moment. By the way, Ned is all about thinking, then acting. He doesn't do rash things and doesn't just 'act' right away. Sansa is more like Ned than like Catelyn, and Arya is more like Catelyn than Ned. The Sansa-does-nothing-argument has been here for so many times that I don't even bother to explain that. But if you want Sansa to becoming a cold murderer as well, go ahead, I don't really care.

Back, I too think that Arya is like Cat and Sansa is like Ned. Isn'T Cat the one who is often hated because she acts too rashly, because she doesn'T go home to her kids (back to the kitchen :dunno: ), which is basically describes Arya. (The big difference betweent their personality is that Cat doesn't like Jon...)

She is the one who wants to destroy everyone who ever hurther family, and Arya is the one who keeps a list and holds a grudge.

On the other hand is Ned, whom I don't remember keeping grudges, he does not hate Barristan because he was present at the murderer of Brandon and Rickon, I don't ever remember him speaking hateful about Aerys either.

And he is the one who expects the good in people, in Robert (even after he sees what kind of king he is, he still have faith in him), or like in Cersei (Ned personaliy teld her about his intentions, and that time he thought she was the one who killed Jon Arryn. Which means he trusted her, even though he thought she already killed a previous Hand).

By the way I love all of them, and I don't think Sansa is all pure either.

But when people start to say that in Westeros filled with murderer, rapists and etc.. she is one of the worst people I can't help but defend her quite whemently.

And I think none of the Stark children are pure either. I don't condemn them, or feel they are lost, or they are inevitable heading towards a dark return. But if I had to say I think out of all of them Jon and Sansa are the less likely so far to go there. It can change of course. But I don'T really see the Icecold persona of Sansa yet.

Oh and I already wrote it down, but I think Arya using the allias Cat is also telling.

[Mladen]

Sansa has more compassion in her finger than all the other Starks combined...So, that Iceheart lady, I don`t think so.

As for the Queen in the North, I don`t believe she`ll ever be ruling Queen (maybe Queen regent in Rickon`s name, or wife of King of Westeros). And further more, who would oppose her if she divorces Tyrion?

[ARYa_Nym]

If Ned thought things through before he acted clearly he needed to think a little bit more.

Ned held grudges as well.

"I told Petyr our suspicions about Jon Arryn's death," Catelyn said. "He has promised to help you find the truth."

That was not news that Eddard Stark welcomed, but it was true enough that they needed help, and Littlefinger had been almost a brother to Cat once. It would not be the first time that Ned had been forced to make common cause with a man he despised.

"...father promised me to your brother Brandon." That brought a bitter twist to Ned's mouth. "Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything..."

"Eddard Stark had married her in Brandon's place, as custom decreed, but the shadow of his dead brother still lay between them..."

Against his brother and certain Lannisters (Tywin and Jamie).

ETA: I later remembered that it was Ned who told Arya to hate the Hound and Cersei. Hate those who do us harm.

His problem with Robert was blind loyalty instead of good faith I think. Robb had the same problem with Theon. Both had a part in their downfalls.

Catelyn was still being a mother figure but to Robb instead of Bran and Rickon. That's not enough for some because they want her to be with the young ones at WF.

On Jon I've heard that he's supposed to become more grey. That was a forum rumor but there hasn't been a source. The events of ADWD could certainly do it because the prologue said that the warg loses their humanity the longer they are inside the animal.

[Brienne Of Bombay]

Sansa seemed like the most gentle Stark to me. I somehow can't imagine her cold and cruel.

[Silverin]

If Ned thought things through before he acted clearly he needed to think a little bit more.

Ned held grudges as well.

Against his brother and certain Lannisters (Tywin and Jamie).

ETA: I later remembered that it was Ned who told Arya to hate the Hound and Cersei. Hate those who do us harm.

His problem with Robert was blind loyalty instead of good faith I think. Robb had the same problem with Theon. Both had a part in their downfalls.

Catelyn was still being a mother figure but to Robb instead of Bran and Rickon. That's not enough for some because they want her to be with the young ones at WF.

On Jon I've heard that he's supposed to become more grey. That was a forum rumor but there hasn't been a source. The events of ADWD could certainly do it because the prologue said that the warg loses their humanity the longer they are inside the animal.

You are right about Ned holding grudges as well, sorry. Though I don't think Ned held grudge against Brandon, it was more like envy.

Yeah, I know that Cat was a mother figure to Robb, but she gets a lot of hate for not returning to WF. And she wasn't just a mother figure, but one of his advisers (one of his best ones actually), until she freed Jaime.(I love Cat by the way)

I heard those rumors about Jon. I do think that his "murder" however it plays out will darken him, but we still dind't see whee he goes from there. That is why I named him. I could see all the kids go down on a dark path honestly, but so far I have faith for all of them.

It might will be crushed in later books.

[JaegrM]

Sansa seemed like the most gentle Stark to me. I somehow can't imagine her cold and cruel.

“My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.”

Sounds to me that even Sansa think she's become more callous and cold

[ARYa_Nym]

You are right about Ned holding grudges as well, sorry. Though I don't think Ned held grudge against Brandon, it was more like envy.

Yeah, I know that Cat was a mother figure to Robb, but she gets a lot of hate for not returning to WF. And she wasn't just a mother figure, but one of his advisers (one of his best ones actually), until she freed Jaime.(I love Cat by the way)

I heard those rumors about Jon. I do think that his "murder" however it plays out will darken him, but we still dind't see whee he goes from there. That is why I named him. I could see all the kids go down on a dark path honestly, but so far I have faith for all of them.

It might will be crushed in later books.

In the second quote Catelyn said that Brandon cast a shadow over their marriage. I didn't add it but she mentioned Jon did too. So Jon was Catelyn's problem that she never got over and Brandon was Ned's problem that he never got over either. They both had their issues.

She does but I don't think it's exactly the same because she is still very much the mother figure there which seems to be the antithesis of Arya but there is a similarity in both situations in going against the accepted norm. She did wish that she could break herself up into parts to be with all of her kids IIRC. She couldn't do that so she gets criticized for not picking Bran and Rickon which seems to be the more acceptable choice to her critics.

[Grail King]

Arya acts, she follows through. Actions not words. Much like her father, the punishment should fit the crime, and she should be the one to deliver the sentence if she believes the person is guilty.

Sansa sulks and does nothing

Arya uses instinct to improve her cause, Sansa perpetually feels sorry for herself.

Arya doesn't think before she acts, and not all she does follows her father's thinking, the daughter most like Ned is Sansa, Sansa at the moment is between a rock and a hard place she has NO WHERE to go at the moment, and to say Sansa sulks and does nothing means you skipped a lot of her chapters I feel.

ETA: I see Lady Sansa and Bayard said the same before me.

[Grail King]

Sounds to me that even Sansa think she's become more callous and cold

or firm in her resolve.

[butterbumps!]

I read through this entire lovely thread. I'm going back to the OP because there were repeated assertions that those who disagreed with the OP were categorically dismissing "valid" evidence stated there, and subsequently doing a "disservice" to Sansa's character in doing so.

This is a theory I've been toying with that I think would be pretty cool.

We know Sansa is becoming disillusioned with her songs, and tales of true knights, and true love.

She knows LF is planning to kill SR, but has made no move to warn anyone.

She allowed LF to kill Lysa and lied to cover for him.

She knows that through subterfuge and manipulation she can regain Winterfell and raise her stock.

She never wants to marry again at least currently.

Am I the only one that thinks it would be pretty badass if comparable to Uncat/ Lady Stoneheart

She became Lady IceHeart.

Her heart is "freezing over" She seems to be getting colder and detached from her feelings.

A wicked, cold, Queen of the North.

Because I think it'd be cool if not ALL of the Starks were automatically the "good guys"

The issue here is that all of these "valid" evidences are completely out of context, and to use them as evidence to draw ANY conclusions from is extremely misleading. It's making a huge conclusion-- that Sansa will lose all of her empathy and sympathy-- based on completely out of context instances. Perhaps a revision of the OP will make this obvious.

This is a theory I've been toying with that I think would be pretty cool.

We know Tyrion is becoming disillusioned with the world.

He knows Jaime pushed Bran out of a window, but has made no move to warn anyone.

He killed a singer and put him into a pot of stew and lied to cover for him.

He knows that through subterfuge and manipulation and knocking Sansa up he can regain Winterfell and raise his stock.

He never wants to marry again at least currently.

Am I the only one that thinks it would be pretty badass if comparable to Uncat/ Lady Stoneheart he became Richard III?.

His heart is "freezing over" He seems to be getting colder and detached from his feelings.

A wicked, cold, Richard III of Casterly and Winterfell

[Lady_wolf]

Let's tally up all the nasty things Starks have done so far.

1. Bran invades a fellow human being's body for fun. He acquires great power, but I doubt that Bloodraven will manage to teach him great responsibility. Unless Bran somehow kills Uncle Ben(jen) with his machinations, it's unlikely he turns out... okay.

2. Sansa does the things mentioned in this thread. She's terribly traumatized by the Joffrey years and Tyrion didn't help much. Littlefinger is actually making things worse.

3. Arya is turning into a merciless assassin. She's very angry, she's very capable of killing and she has just unlocked her conscious skinchanging powers.

4. If Shaggy's aggression is really representative of Rickon, who for the past 2 years has been around the savage folk on Skagos, raised by no-nonsense Osha... he might just be the nastiest of the remaining Starks.

Also of note is Jon Snow's rash decision to 'take part' in the affairs of the realm and answer Ramsay's challenge, thereby breaking his vows when previously he was obsessed with even being untruthfully perceived as a turncloak.

Is anyone surprised that the working title for tWoW was 'a time for wolves?' Baby wolves just saw mommy, daddy and Big Bro Robb butchered. They're coming and they're pissed.

Good point!

[Ice Turtle]

Oh and I already wrote it down, but I think Arya using the allias Cat is also telling.

Catelyn was the first alias that Sansa thought of when LF told her she has to pretend to be someone else, it was him who changed it to Alayne. Arya's own aliases were: Weasel, Nan and Cat was just third, it's also interesting that Arya choose a warmer nickname Cat compared to Catelyn. Not that it means much in either case.

Arya had some traits common with Cat, so does Sansa - namely her deep respect for (especially Southern) social norms and manipulative nature. They both also have significant differences.

I guess it's rather subjective but I always felt that Sansa's feeling didn't go much beyond skin deep. She is all poor, poor people and then they are out of her mind as soon as they are out of sight. She does random acts of kindness that don't benefit her but so do Cat, Arya, or Dany for that matter.

My biggest problem with Sansa is the rather strong tendency on this forum to pass the Sansa - centered reading of the books as the only right way to understand them. She is a character, not even one of the big three or four, not a big bright Sun around which everything else has to rotate. And yes, even as far as AFFC she has some serious character flaws.

[1234567]

Arya had some traits common with Cat, so does Sansa - namely her deep respect for (especially Southern) social norms and manipulative nature.

Can you explain what you mean by Cat and Sansa appreciating "manipulative nature". Being manipulative is not part of Southern Culture, but a nasty side effect of Court Politics, not representative of everything South of the Neck.

I guess it's rather subjective but I always felt that Sansa's feeling didn't go much beyond skin deep. She is all poor, poor people and then they are out of her mind as soon as they are out of sight.

Again I don't understand where this is coming from. She does think about others and we specifically have her thinking that she is trying not to think about her family because of her feelings of grief. She is in an abusive situation where she is punished for showing any sympathy or feeling towards her family. She is having to surpress her natural feelings to survive.

She is a character, not even one of the big three or four, not a big bright Sun around which everything else has to rotate. And yes, even as far as AFFC she has some serious character flaws.

So far she is No. 6 in terms of the amount of chapters and although not one of the big four of Dany, Jon, Arya and Tyrion, she is IMHO one of the next most important characters.

Also she will be discussed in threads, especially if they are about her as this one is. She is not discussed at length in Dany or Jon threads etc.

I have to disagree on the serious character flaws though.Edit: not saying she doesn't have any flaws, but serious a serious character flaw? Not one I can see. Although she does have minor ones. The major issue she has is to do with her memory and the Unkiss and what the hell that means.

[Silverin]

I guess it's rather subjective but I always felt that Sansa's feeling didn't go much beyond skin deep. She is all poor, poor people and then they are out of her mind as soon as they are out of sight. She does random acts of kindness that don't benefit her but so do Cat, Arya, or Dany for that matter.

As you say so is Dany, Arya and Cat. What I mean is concerning kind acts it is true to all of them. Majority of people are concerned about their own life before and there is nothing wrong with that.

Like Dany, I don't remember her being concerned about the women whom the Dothraki soldiers raped instead of the women she claimed as her own slaves. I think if we are talking about skin deep concern as you seem to think, none of them are kind then. Because only people who delegate their whole life for serving others, would come of as deep, probably Septon Meribald stands a chance.

My biggest problem with Sansa is the rather strong tendency on this forum to pass the Sansa - centered reading of the books as the only right way to understand them. She is a character, not even one of the big three or four, not a big bright Sun around which everything else has to rotate. And yes, even as far as AFFC she has some serious character flaws.

Oh, I think it was a defense mechanism responding to the she is the worst person ever accusations (and that she is the fault for everything that bad).

I don't think she is the sun, but she is one of the characters who get unfair amount of hate (Cat is an another), and because of that her fans had to endure a lot of disgusting posts (like posts that said she deserves to die or get raped, or she should have given pity sex to tyrion etc...), and thus maybe became overprotective, over defensive over the time.

The other reason is why I think there are so many threads about her, is because I think she is very interesting to discuss, it is hard to see where she is going.

EDIT: concerning character flaws, well firstly every character has some. I don't think hers are that serious though. So I disagree.

EDIT2: disliking a charcter because of its fans is kinda not about the charcater. It already means you are not objective, since you decided not to like her because you don't like her fans.

Those disgusting posts came from all kind of, Arya fans, Jon fans, Ned fans etc etc, I won't dislike those characters because of them. Since they are among my favourites as well.

[Ice Turtle]

Can you explain what you mean by Cat and Sansa appreciating "manipulative nature". Being manipulative is not part of Southern Culture, but a nasty side effect of Court Politics, not representative of everything South of the Neck.

It wasn't meant as appreciating manipulation, but as a tendency to use manipulation in general.

Again I don't understand where this is coming from. She does think about others and we specifically have her thinking that she is trying not to think about her family because of her feelings of grief. She is in an abusive situation where she is punished for showing any sympathy or feeling towards her family. She is having to surpress her natural feelings to survive.

She was forced not to show them, not not to feel them. There is difference. But as I said I acknowledge that it's from a large part my own subjective view.

Also she will be discussed in threads, especially if they are about her as this one is. She is not discussed at length in Dany or Jon threads etc.

I have no problem when she is the center of Sansa threads, but I think that namely in Arya and Tyrion rereads she is given way too much of attention.

I have to disagree on the serious character flaws though.

I don't think we are ever going to agree on this.

[1234567]

It wasn't meant as appreciating manipulation, but as a tendency to use manipulation in general.

I'm not so sure this is a Southern thing though. There are plenty of non-manipulative and honourable Southern Houses, but Court is different. There we see two of the biggest scheming families there are, namely the Lannisters and the Tyrells. Neither I think represent a Southern ideal.

Equally when we first see Winterfell and the North, everyone appears to be upright and noble, but as of ADWD, that is clearly shown to be not the case and that manipulation is used in the North too.

She was forced not to show them, not not to feel them. There is difference. But as I said I acknowledge that it's from a large part my own subjective view.

Interestingly we never get to see her feelings directly when her brothers (all three) and her mother's death are reported. Through Tyrion we get to see her non-reaction to her Mother and Brother's death and but later he realises she is crying in private.

When her father died, she cried for five days straight and then was hit and told to look pretty. She can't let herself dwell on her grief. We do see however that she prays for her family and dreams of them. Oddly we never see Jon express much grief either and also don't see his reaction to The deaths of his Brothers.

I have no problem when she is the center of Sansa threads, but I think that namely in Arya and Tyrion rereads she is given way too much of attention.

To be fair to both those threads, the Arya one is just in book two, and the mentions of Sansa will decrease now that their storylines are seperate. Similarly, Tyrion has just married Sansa in the Tyrion re-read, so there is likely to be more mentions at present.

I don't think we are ever going to agree on this.

Agreed. :)

[ARYa_Nym]

I have no problem when she is the center of Sansa threads, but I think that namely in Arya and Tyrion rereads she is given way too much of attention.

Agreed. That was one of my many problems. Too many comparisons and too many replies that either don't bring her up or barely mention her at all but I'm not surprised.

As for what was said upthread about not thinking before she acts she would have been dead if that were entirely true and some of her kills don't reflect that line of thinking.

As for Ned's thinking she does reflect on the things he told her to do many times.

[butterbumps!]

I have no problem when she is the center of Sansa threads, but I think that namely in Arya and Tyrion rereads she is given way too much of attention.

In speaking for the Tyrion reread, it makes sense to discuss Sansa because during the middle portion of aSoS she's his wife, as well as a set of eyes beyond his own that puts Tyrion's actions into adjacent contexts. Tyrion's interactions with Sansa do say a lot about his character development and mindset. Sansa is on his mind, and part of his ongoing internal conflict. Sansa doesn't come up in the reread except where she's actually part of the scene, which she's been for these past few chapters of aSoS.

[Ice Turtle]

In speaking for the Tyrion reread, it makes sense to discuss Sansa because during the middle portion of aSoS she's his wife, as well as a set of eyes beyond his own that puts Tyrion's actions into adjacent contexts. Tyrion's interactions with Sansa do say a lot about his character development and mindset. Sansa is on his mind, and part of his ongoing internal conflict. Sansa doesn't come up in the reread except where she's actually part of the scene, which she's been for these past few chapters of aSoS.

Maybe, but I have often feeling that things are discussed more from Sansa's perspective and how they influence her storyline instead of really focusing on Tyrion, it's probably not a problem of posts with analysis' but too big amount of answering posts are often rather focused on Sansa.