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[book spoilers] Is Sansa that stupid


Syrio Foral

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Yeah, if Sansa is not supposed to be a complete idiot, hard to see why they would include that question.

I have to believe that she is purposefully being potrayed as not just naive but somewhat on the dumb side as well.

My buddy, after watching this episode, said she is the Walking Dead's Andrea.

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I've never warmed to Sansa, either book or show. But I saw a funny bit at Tumblr--'How can you bash Sansa for liking knights and adventures when you're the one reading ASOIAF and watching Got? Credit where credit is due. :P

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Sansa may be the dumbest girl in Westeros. I am the person who likes deviations from the books but ''oh is my family coming to my wedding'' was a BIG no no.

No, it is called the writers for this scene were absolute idiots.

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Sansa is that stupid both in the show and the book. its a marvel she didnt warn cersei that she was going to escape with dontos to be honest.

She was to busy outwitting Tyrion and the rest of the Lannisters at the time. Seeing how they were to stupid to realize that she was up to something all while she is preparing an escape.

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Well, most of the show characters are very deficient in IQ. Between Varys needing Ros to point out two feather beds, Littlefinger's 'babbling is power' scene, etc, I think it is ok if Sansa is the dumb blonde. By the way, nearly every TV series in existence features a dumb blonde.

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Well, most of the show characters are very deficient in IQ. Between Varys needing Ros to point out two feather beds, Littlefinger's 'babbling is power' scene, etc, I think it is ok if Sansa is the dumb blonde. By the way, nearly every TV series in existence features a dumb blonde.

But in GOT, that would be Joffrey. :)

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But in GOT, that would be Joffrey. :)

Haha to true!

Yeah that line might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I don't understand how they could even include it. Between this and Theon not figuring out that the person flaying him is a Bolton, they seem to be making a lot of people dumber. Oh and lets not forget Loras telling the random guy his families strategic marrige plans. :dunno:

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Sansa is not dumb, and I don't know why the writers added that line, yes, Sansa is still a little naive in ASOS, but book Sansa would never ask if her family can come to her wedding, she knows perfectly well that is not possible. IMO it wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't aged up (a 12 year old asking that looks naive but I think viewers would have no problem with it) but a 15 year old that looks even older? she just looks stupid.

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Sansa is not dumb, and I don't know why the writers added that line, yes, Sansa is still a little naive in ASOS, but book Sansa would never ask if her family can come to her wedding, she knows perfectly well that is not possible. IMO it wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't aged up (a 12 year old asking that looks naive but I think viewers would have no problem with it) but a 15 year old that looks even older? she just looks stupid.

I wonder if the writers intended some kind of foreshadowing; since Sansa's mother and brother do go to the wedding of a family member later, the Red Wedding. Which could have been cool, if they had had Sansa say that she wished she could invite her family, that she wished her mother and brother could come to the wedding...

But even Sansa at 11 or 12 and her most naive would have known that no, she couldn't invite her family to her wedding to Loras, what with the Tyrells being Lannister allies and the Lannisters fighting the Starks. Sheesh.

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I don't think it is a case of stupidity at all (Says the guy who hasn't seen the episode yet. Don't worry, I don't mind spoilers in the slightest). Sansa is a young girl, someone who has led a very sheltered life, and suddenly is in a horrible situation, has witnessed her fathers murder, dealing with more than anyone should ever have to, my God, it's lucky she hasn't had a nervous breakdown! So, if when finding out sh4e is to be married, she has a breif lapse and wants to know if her family will be there, well, that is not stupidity, that is a poor abused girl, who hopes for something unrealistic. who can blame her?

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It's not dumbness.

I don't get why people come down so hard on characters like Sansa, or as someone upthread mentioned, Andrea from The Walking Dead. They are girls in horrific situations who maybe don't have the psychological capacity to deal with all the utter crap going on around them. But as human beings, we were designed to survive, both psychically and mentally, through every means necessary. When you get a cut, your body reacts so that a scab forms and you don't get an infection and die, or bleed out. How weird and random is that? The mind works in the same way. When your mind is hurt, it will do anything possible to repair itself, even if it has to remove you from the situation you are in to protect you from harm. This is also how Dissosiative Identity Disorder (aka, multiple personalities) develops. Your mind will do anything to protect you from mental harm. Including denial.

Here's an example: I daydream all day. It's not a hobby and it's not something I do on purpose. But I have to deal with a lot of nasty stuff in my life (abusive family, depression, poverty, lack of a future and friends) and daydreaming is my mind's way of protecting me from all those nasty things.

Just like Arya is dealing with her situation by being completely angry at everyone, Sansa is dealing with hers by disappearing into a world where she can find comfort in the idea, or daydream, that she can still have a pretty life, where there are no monsters and there's no abuse and everything is perfect. She's away from her family, she's being abused by Joffrey, she's being manipulated by everyone, she's a hostage, she watched her father get beheaded, and then she was forced to look at her father's head on a pike, she could die any day, she has no idea if she'll ever even see another sunset. And she knows all these things. But if she stops and sits down and starts to think about them, she'll completely collapse. So it's healthier for her if she just falls in love with the idea of Highgarden, better days, a handsome husband like Loras, pretty dresses and flowers, and yes, the thought that maybe, just maybe, she'll see her family again and they'll all be happy.

That is NOT stupidity. Sansa is not stupid. Nor was Andrea. People like them are real and they're not stupid or weak. They just have different defense and coping mechanisms.

Personally, I find Sansa rather fascinating. If I was a therapist I'd rather have her as a patient than, say, Jon Snow. Most of the other characters are pretty straight forward or seem able to deal with their problems straight on. Sansa, on the other hand, I find utterly magnificent in the way she deals with trauma. She doesn't become a killer. She deals with her traumas by making herself believe that the world around her can still be a fairy tale. Andrea did the same thing on The Walking Dead. It's not stupid. It shows a survivalist personality, intelligence, and extreme creativity. It's also both fascinating and really sad.

I love Sansa. I just wanna give her a big hug. And people who call her stupid are maybe stupid themselves, because they are completely missing the depth of her character.

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It's not dumbness.

I don't get why people come down so hard on characters like Sansa, or as someone upthread mentioned, Andrea from The Walking Dead. They are girls in horrific situations who maybe don't have the psychological capacity to deal with all the utter crap going on around them. But as human beings, we were designed to survive, both psychically and mentally, through every means necessary. When you get a cut, your body reacts so that a scab forms and you don't get an infection and die, or bleed out. How weird and random is that? The mind works in the same way. When your mind is hurt, it will do anything possible to repair itself, even if it has to remove you from the situation you are in to protect you from harm. This is also how Dissosiative Identity Disorder (aka, multiple personalities) develops. Your mind will do anything to protect you from mental harm. Including denial.

Here's an example: I daydream all day. It's not a hobby and it's not something I do on purpose. But I have to deal with a lot of nasty stuff in my life (abusive family, depression, poverty, lack of a future and friends) and daydreaming is my mind's way of protecting me from all those nasty things.

Just like Arya is dealing with her situation by being completely angry at everyone, Sansa is dealing with hers by disappearing into a world where she can find comfort in the idea, or daydream, that she can still have a pretty life, where there are no monsters and there's no abuse and everything is perfect. She's away from her family, she's being abused by Joffrey, she's being manipulated by everyone, she's a hostage, she watched her father get beheaded, and then she was forced to look at her father's head on a pike, she could die any day, she has no idea if she'll ever even see another sunset. And she knows all these things. But if she stops and sits down and starts to think about them, she'll completely collapse. So it's healthier for her if she just falls in love with the idea of Highgarden, better days, a handsome husband like Loras, pretty dresses and flowers, and yes, the thought that maybe, just maybe, she'll see her family again and they'll all be happy.

That is NOT stupidity. Sansa is not stupid. Nor was Andrea. People like them are real and they're not stupid or weak. They just have different defense and coping mechanisms.

Personally, I find Sansa rather fascinating. If I was a therapist I'd rather have her as a patient than, say, Jon Snow. Most of the other characters are pretty straight forward or seem able to deal with their problems straight on. Sansa, on the other hand, I find utterly magnificent in the way she deals with trauma. She doesn't become a killer. She deals with her traumas by making herself believe that the world around her can still be a fairy tale. Andrea did the same thing on The Walking Dead. It's not stupid. It shows a survivalist personality, intelligence, and extreme creativity. It's also both fascinating and really sad.

I love Sansa. I just wanna give her a big hug. And people who call her stupid are maybe stupid themselves, because they are completely missing the depth of her character.

Ok, you said that much better than *I* did. LOL
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I'm going round in circles on this one, which to me indicates that it's a problem with the writing more than the character.

On the surface it seems daft of Sansa to ask if her family is coming to the wedding. But then I think about the other weddings of the big houses in Westeros, and what Sansa must know about them. Yes, she has a naively romantic outlook on them, but she also knows that when people from two houses get married then it means alliance - her marriage to Joffrey was supposed to bring Stark and Baratheon closer. Perhaps she's been led to believe (or is leading herself to believe) that her wedding to Loras is the same.

But then I'm fairly sure that she didn't tell herself that her family would be coming to her wedding with Joffrey after her father was branded a traitor and the war started. So what's so different about her getting married to a Tyrell? Margaery has given her the impression that once she's queen she'll let Sansa leave Kings Landing. Then Sansa marries Loras in Highgarden, in this lovely idealised place that's removed from all the political things that go over Sansa's head. She's away from King's Landing, there's no war in Highgarden, so maybe her family would be able to take time out from the war to attend...

As I said, circles...

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I'm not a fan of Book Sansa and I don't think Show Sansa is generally much dumber than she is depicted in the books, but it is beyond idiotic that she would think her family would be coming to her wedding...that's just lazy/bad attention to detail on the part of the writers. Joff has been telling her he's going to put her brother's head on a spike since he killed her father, she's been apologizing for her 'traitor brother' who is still AT WAR agains the Lannisters so neither Book Sansa or Show Sansa should realistically be so stupid as to think for a second that her remaining family would be invited to the wedding or even want them there because she would know that if they set foot in LK Joff and Cersei would have them clapped in irons and executed.

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It's not dumbness.

I don't get why people come down so hard on characters like Sansa, or as someone upthread mentioned, Andrea from The Walking Dead. They are girls in horrific situations who maybe don't have the psychological capacity to deal with all the utter crap going on around them. But as human beings, we were designed to survive, both psychically and mentally, through every means necessary. When you get a cut, your body reacts so that a scab forms and you don't get an infection and die, or bleed out. How weird and random is that? The mind works in the same way. When your mind is hurt, it will do anything possible to repair itself, even if it has to remove you from the situation you are in to protect you from harm. This is also how Dissosiative Identity Disorder (aka, multiple personalities) develops. Your mind will do anything to protect you from mental harm. Including denial.

Here's an example: I daydream all day. It's not a hobby and it's not something I do on purpose. But I have to deal with a lot of nasty stuff in my life (abusive family, depression, poverty, lack of a future and friends) and daydreaming is my mind's way of protecting me from all those nasty things.

Just like Arya is dealing with her situation by being completely angry at everyone, Sansa is dealing with hers by disappearing into a world where she can find comfort in the idea, or daydream, that she can still have a pretty life, where there are no monsters and there's no abuse and everything is perfect. She's away from her family, she's being abused by Joffrey, she's being manipulated by everyone, she's a hostage, she watched her father get beheaded, and then she was forced to look at her father's head on a pike, she could die any day, she has no idea if she'll ever even see another sunset. And she knows all these things. But if she stops and sits down and starts to think about them, she'll completely collapse. So it's healthier for her if she just falls in love with the idea of Highgarden, better days, a handsome husband like Loras, pretty dresses and flowers, and yes, the thought that maybe, just maybe, she'll see her family again and they'll all be happy.

That is NOT stupidity. Sansa is not stupid. Nor was Andrea. People like them are real and they're not stupid or weak. They just have different defense and coping mechanisms.

Personally, I find Sansa rather fascinating. If I was a therapist I'd rather have her as a patient than, say, Jon Snow. Most of the other characters are pretty straight forward or seem able to deal with their problems straight on. Sansa, on the other hand, I find utterly magnificent in the way she deals with trauma. She doesn't become a killer. She deals with her traumas by making herself believe that the world around her can still be a fairy tale. Andrea did the same thing on The Walking Dead. It's not stupid. It shows a survivalist personality, intelligence, and extreme creativity. It's also both fascinating and really sad.

I love Sansa. I just wanna give her a big hug. And people who call her stupid are maybe stupid themselves, because they are completely missing the depth of her character.

I like this take on it. Well said.

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Guys you're overanalyzing it.

Sansa is the 'dumb blonde'. That's basically it, end of story. She's been that way since day one.

Interestingly I think season 2 Sansa was a little smarter. It's like they were trying to make Danaerys into the new dumb blonde ( she had some very cliche lines ) but it didn't work and they went back to Sansa.

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