Sansa Stark

[James Arryn]

Wait, so she starts to hate the queen during the hand's tourney and still went to her?

WTF.

The brother tries to kill your father and kills some of his guards, and the sister killed your pet wolf and you hate her and she still sides with them?

Seriously?

Sansa at this stage saw only 2 kinds of people: those giving her what she wanted, and those who did not give her what she wanted. What she wanted was Joff, and to make a dazzling impression at court.

The people who were (seemingly) the keys to her getting that were Cersei and Joff. The obstacles were Ned and Arya.

[Woman of War]

No, Sansa was neither an admirable nor an independently thinking child. And intellectually she was of deplorable conventionality.

Yes, she was a bully, not the garden variety brute but the refined posh species. She went against her father ok, that is not something unusual in puberty and in many different situations it is presented as positive coming of age in these stories. But in Sansa's case it happened for purely selfish reasons and, even worse, Sansa did not consider for a moment that there might be bigger things at stage than her personal little wishes. Puberty worldview of the ugliest kind.

And yet : if she were a real life person I would be determined not to hold her responsible for what she did - or did not - at that age forever. I myself have been a bully at times, I betrayed friends and by now I know that I acted out of age-typical emotional incompetence, the maturing brain not yet capable of a detached onlook on myself. Puberty afflicts everyone in a different manner and Sansa did not strike lucky. Her upbringing as someone who wants to fulfill expectations did not help.

She has grown after her father's death or better said she was forced to grow. No, I am not willing to hold the fourteen year old Sansa (I should not forget that she is fictional) responsible for what she did at eleven or twelve. Never again in life the human brain changes so much in a very short time.

Martin indeed gives us a character with a poor start and we are expected to evaluate her change. And some fans, less so in this forum, hate her for what she was. And many fans, especially in this forum, are willing to overlook the kind of child she has been since Sansa is apparently the only character here that invites romantic shipping. She is for for sure not the main character that invites feminist identification imo, there are so many great female characters in the books.

So when people evaluate the character Sansa they should give her the benefit of doubt and simply allow her to change and to get a restart in their emotional attachment to this character. Neither worshipping nor hating a child is appropriate.

We should have a look at the Sansa we met after AGOT.

Yes, Sansa is of some inner strength, commonly called resilience. She proves it when she deals with the beating and abuse she has to endure, when she knows when to keep her mouth shut and to answer with courtesies, the perfect little bird. This nickname from Sandor's side is as much kindness as it is insult. And Sansa can be strong and let others profit from her strength, as she has shown with Dontos and during Blackwater.

But learning to know people? If she indeed trusted Sandor this was a dangerous illusion since he was only so much away from hurting and raping her. Dontos worked for money and for Margaery and Olenna she was collateral damage. We will see if she will fall for Baelish as politician or as lover.

But Sansa is very much in danger of falling for him since one thing has not changed from little Sansa: she is not yet able or willing to take her fate into her own hands. Not that I expect her to run out into the snow. She is not yet that desperate. She still has options, many possibilities to spy on LF, try to read his mail, to listen behind walls, question servants, all that what an independent curious and reasonably suspicious person would do. And then she would find her options to act.

I think there is a reason why Martin doEs not allow her to grow clever: Lf 's plans have to stay mysterious and Sansa has to stay clueless, feeding us readers droplets of information, so we can draw our own conclusions. She cannot be Sherlock and spoonfeed us readers, unveiling what is supposed to stay hidden for many chapters yet. We had to leave her being kind of passive and uninformed after AFFC.

Why did Martin start out with an unpleasant Sansa? I mean, clueless would have done the job. I guess she had to be the other Stark, the odd one out and Martin thus has left open all kinds of story directions for her: She can do the big swing and become the Evil Queen, competent and cunning, she can be the butterfly that crushes LF's universe, the compassionate young girl who loves the loser in the end or the strong young woman who makes a difference in the world.

I am not willing be judgemental about Sansa's childhood sins but I see the character as it is here and now in the books. And I have to say that there should be more to get me really hooked.

[RedChick]

If Ned ever saw person-X hurting an innocent bystander (Butcher's boy) and then see that same person-X trying to murder his own sister for trying to stop the act, I'm pretty sure Ned would come to the conclusion that person-X is a scumbag, despite what previous opinions he had.

Furthermore, he would not try to shift the blame onto his sister for the loss of his direwolf (hypothetically assuming he had one).

Quote from Sansa AGoT (during the Hand's tourney):

Err... I was referring to her naivety. Hence my examples if you read the rest of my post. I.e. Ned seeing the good in Bobby B and bypassing the bad.

[Sansa_Stark]

Err... I was referring to her naivety. Hence my examples if you read the rest of my post. I.e. Ned seeing the good in Bobby B and bypassing the bad.

Did you read my post that argues against that?

[RedChick]

Sansa at this stage saw only 2 kinds of people: those giving her what she wanted, and those who did not give her what she wanted. What she wanted was Joff, and to make a dazzling impression at court.

The people who were (seemingly) the keys to her getting that were Cersei and Joff. The obstacles were Ned and Arya.

She was also an incredibly sheltered and spoiled 12 year old girl who truly believed in good knights and Kings/Queens and romance stories. I don't condone her actions in AGOT but I'm not surprised, given her background and upbringing, that she made the decisions the way she did.

[Asha Greyjoy:Feminist Icon]

She went against her father ok, that is not something unusual in puberty and in many different situations it is presented as positive coming of age in these stories. But in Sansa's case it happened for purely selfish reasons and, even worse, Sansa did not consider for a moment that there might be bigger things at stage than her personal little wishes. Puberty worldview of the ugliest kind.

Wait...who are these middle school-age kids you know who defy their parents for unselfish reasons? Who are cognizant of the implications of events within political structures and possess high instinctive awareness of social justice? With strong impulse control and low hormonal shifts that mean they somehow manage to think - as a preteen - in a way that keeps nuanced individual vs societal perspective and facilitates choices made through well-informed and clear-headed judgement?

Can you please contact me so we might set up some kind of student exchange program with your area? Cause I thought this was just a myth in our society and I am fucking tired of melodrama and sentences that end in "...only the biggest deal like ever!"

[ugashep]

Yeah, not so much. If she were an excellent judge of character, things would have turned out decidedly better for her. Sees Joffrey hurt Mycah and turn on Arya? She's immediately alerted to his true nature, vouches for Arya's version of events instead of staying neutral, end of story. Ned tells her that Joffrey's no good and that he'll find her someone else? Sansa's 100% on board with that assessment and never goes to Cersei in the first place, fully aware that Cersei is also bad news and can't be trusted. And so on.

I was inclined to say something more generous about how Sansa becomes a better judge of character in later books, but now that I think about it, she easily falls under Margaery's spell even though Margaery gives her no reason to trust her, blithely ignores Dontos' correct assessment that the Tyrells are Lannisters with flowers, and is shocked--shocked!--when they use her as a drug mule to poison Joffrey. She also seems to be warming up to "Petyr," whom she views as "warm, funny and gentle," despite having seen him murder someone before her very eyes.

Sansa is many things, but an excellent judge of character she is not. Anyone who can describe Sansa--who thinks that the Hound would never hurt her not too long before he presses a knife to her throat--as an excellent judge of character, or even a good judge of character, really needs to reread the books.

Harumph! Harumph! Well said.

[Annara Snow]

I've come to see Sansa as someone who has the right instincts, but often blinds herself to what they're telling her, because she has certain ideas how things should be - ideas that usually come from her upbringing. I think that the death of Lady may be symbolic of the disconnect/tension between those two parts of Sansa: her instinctive nature, and the learned conventional behavior. She's not only good at deception through her 'ladylike' behavior and quasi-submissiveness, she not so rarely practices a certain self-deception.

Her biggest mistakes have come from her adherence to the ideas she got from her conventional upbringing - her desire to believe in beautiful good queens and handsome gallant good princes she's been promised to, to have romance from the songs but within the confines of what is acceptable for a lady (Joffrey wasn't someone she randomly saw and spontaneously had a crush on, he was the prince she originally thought she was supposed to marry, and he seemed to fit the image of the handsome, gallant prince). Her ladylike courtesy is both a source of strength and a source of weakness - she tries to be a "good girl" and see something good in people, especially if they are behaving in the way that she was taught people in polite society were supposed to act, or if they seem to be trying to help her and act "knightly" (like Ser Dontos).

She also has a certain way of coping with reality by trying to bend it into fitting into a certain narrative, and tries to see "the glass half full", which makes her, for instance, try to see the positives about "Petyr" and block the memories and thoughts about his sexual harassment/molestation along with the thoughts about the murders he's committed. She was creeped out by his pervy behavior when she as just 11, she never trusted him or even seemed to like him, and she doesn't trust him in her first AFFC chapter, but it's like she wants to trust that he's a warm, friendly guy, because she's entirely under his power and has no one to turn to (there is not even a hope of escaping and going to her family now, the way there was when she was in KL), and thinking of him as her friend and helper keeps her from having to face the awfulness of her situation.

Sansa is many things, but an excellent judge of character she is not. Anyone who can describe Sansa--who thinks that the Hound would never hurt her not too long before he presses a knife to her throat--as an excellent judge of character, or even a good judge of character, really needs to reread the books.

But she was able to diffuse that situation and, without any outside interference, he did not physically harm her in the end, so can you say this was an example that she was wrong?

She went against her father ok, that is not something unusual in puberty and in many different situations it is presented as positive coming of age in these stories.

Puberty afflicts everyone in a different manner and Sansa did not strike lucky. Her upbringing as someone who wants to fulfill expectations did not help.

Pre-puberty, rather. Puberty only affected her in ACOK.

And many fans, especially in this forum, are willing to overlook the kind of child she has been since Sansa is apparently the only character here that invites romantic shipping.

Brienne/Jaime, Arya/Gendry, Rhaegar/Lyanna, non-canon ships like Dany/Jon...

She is for for sure not the main character that invites feminist identification imo, there are so many great female characters in the books.

How do you know that Sansa is not the main character that invites feminist identification for many people? And I don't see how the fact that there are so many great female characters in these books means that one of them is not a character for feminist identification? Since there are so many of them, does that mean that none of them is a "character for feminist identicfiation"? Or maybe they all are?

I'd say that Sansa is one of the several female characters in the series that's most interesting from the feminist POV and invites feminist identification very easily. One article even argued that Sansa is GRRM's most feminist creation - since her arc is all about the subversion of the idyllic picture of a life of a 'lady' and showing the limitations and lack of freedom for women in her society. That's IMO more feminist than the popular "oh look, women who kick ass!" approach.

[Le Cygne]

But learning to know people? If she indeed trusted Sandor this was a dangerous illusion since he was only so much away from hurting and raping her.

Amazing that you got that from the line where he's afraid Tyrion is raping her.

Making someone sing a song is not rape. The official app:

"During the Battle of the Blackwater, Clegane leads a force attempting to hold the King's Gate, but is unable to fulfill his duties due to his fear of the burning wildfire raging on the river and on the docks. Instead, he finds his way to Sansa Stark's chambers, where he forces her to sing him a song while trying to work up the courage to take her with him out of the city. Her fear of him -- as well as her song -- makes him leave without her...

"Arya considers killing him, and the Hound attempts to force her into it by telling her how he killed Mycah and how he made Sansa sing for him."

[Le Cygne]

Like... the scene he actually wrote:

"I am your husband. You can take off your armor now."

"And my clothing?"

"That too."

There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more...

When he finally realized that she had no answer for him, Tyrion Lannister drained the last of his wine. "I understand," he said bitterly. "Get in the bed, Sansa. We need to do our duty."

She had started to pull up a blanket to cover herself when she heard him say, "No."

The cold made her shiver, but she obeyed. Her eyes closed, and she waited. After a moment she heard the sound of her husband pulling off his boots, and the rustle of clothing as he undressed himself. When he hopped up on the bed and put his hand on her breast, Sansa could not help but shudder. She lay with her eyes closed, every muscle tense, dreading what might come next...

[Newstar]

But she was able to diffuse that situation and, without any outside interference, he did not physically harm her in the end, so can you say this was an example that she was wrong?

Her assessment that he would not hurt her was patently wrong, since he did in fact hurt her (pressing a knife to her throat, and twisting the point if I recall) and threatened her life, a threat she believed (with good reason, might I add). It's a good example of her poor judgment, since she didn't believe the Hound would hurt her, only to have him threaten her life and hold a knife to her throat that same night. That she was able to defuse the situation doesn't negate that he assaulted her and threatened her life, and she believed at that point that he might kill her, showing her earlier belief--that he would not harm her--to be wrong, since she was terrified (again, with good reason) that he would kill her. Again, more evidence that she's not the greatest judge of character, since she didn't believe the Hound would hurt her, and he did just that.

And I love that in your universe what the Hound did isn't "physically harming her" since he left no mark on her. Nice. Honestly, the lengths some people will go to make excuses for the Hound's actions towards Sansa are sickening. I guess it's not assault if you ship the perpetrator with the victim? :D

To get back to the topic, the Hound is only one example of how Sansa's poor assessments have to be corrected by a third party or by something so obvious that she can't possibly overlook it:

1. Her assessments of Joffrey and Cersei have to be disproven by Joffrey ordering Ned's execution.

2. Her assessment of Margaery has to be disproven by Littlefinger explaining the Tyrell plot against Joffrey.

3. Her assessment of Dontos ("He said he was my Florian") has to be disproven by Littlefinger explaining the truth about Dontos to her.

4. Her assessment of the Hound has to be disproven by the Hound assaulting her.

If she were a decent judge of character, she wouldn't need to see Joffrey order Ned's execution to know he's a bad guy. She wouldn't need to have the Hound press a knife into her throat to know that he's dangerous. She wouldn't need to have Littlefinger patiently spell out for her that Dontos is not her "Florian" She wouldn't need to have Littlefinger explain to her that Margaery is not as sweet and innocent as she appears. She would know. She doesn't know, of course, because whatever her virtues, being an excellent judge of character is not one of them.

[David Selig]

Ummm...do you know ANYONE who doesn't grasp that there's something a bit off...all the way past ''completely untrustworthy'...and on up to 'he would burn all the world if it made him king of ashes'...about LF?

Let's see...how about everyone in the series except Varys? Even Tyrion after the dagger lie kept LF at his job and gave him important tasks. Nobody thinks LF is completely untrustworthy.

[Annara Snow]

And I love that in your universe what the Hound did isn't "physically harming her" since he left no mark on her. Nice. Honestly, the lengths some people will go to make excuses for the Hound's actions towards Sansa are sickening. I guess it's not assault if you ship the perpetrator with the victim? :D

And I love your condescending and insulting attitude, and I love that in your universe, it constitutes discussion. It doesn't in mine, so I don't feel compelled to participate further.

ETA: And yes, in my universe "physically harming" means harming someone's body....since that happens to be the definition of "physically harming". I'd love to know what it means in other, alternate universes

[PureGold]

I don't think Sansa is quite there yet but I definitely think Sansa at present is leaps and bounds ahead of the other Starks in terms of social intelligence.

Sansa, when she chooses too, can recognize currents in the political waters, she knows the Lannisters and The Tyrells alliance is destined to end in blood-shed and death, something we are led to believe Mace Tyrell himself doesn't realize.

When she looked at the hairnet in the hallway when she was fleeing The Purple Wedding she knew that the poison being on her spelled her doom. Nobody had to spell that out for her, I think any other Stark would have felt it could be explained or that because they didn't commit the crime, it could somehow be proven and accepted amidst the nobility.

Even when the Tyrells have won her over, I notice she still didn't tell them about her own more personal plans. She told them things that were known throughout Court. That Joffrey was a monster and that he abused her. She didn't tell them about her own private intrigue of escaping Kings Landing, even when she threw in with them by jumping on the chance to marry Willas. At this point in time I think Sansa only considered other Nobles potential threats as opposed to who she is at her last appearance in AFFc, where she considers EVERYONE a potential threat.

AFFC shows that she has picked up a few tricks while in Kings Landing. When Littlefinger prompts her for her observations she admits that he had the Lord of the Gates of The Moon bind himself to Littlefingers cause by LF himself authorizing the forged decree. She knows and just has LF confirm that Lyn Cobray was in fact his puppet and that the whole meeting with the Lords Declarant was rigged from the start, something the Lords Declarant themselve's still don't realize.

She is definitely more astute that the average Stark. I don't think Ned, Catelyn, Robb, or Arya would have realized half of the things that went on in the Vale during AFFC. The Stark's by nature do not seem to be subtle people. They don't practice it or recognize it in others, Sansa after staying in Kings Landing so long has gotten much better at this.

I also don't think Sansa is some kind of emotionless monster, she just now realizes that the world is by and large an unjust place and she wants to survive it somehow. She feels for others but she won't let that stop her from moving forward for her own benefit.

[jon stark I]

Actually I totally blame Cat for Sansa.As far as I understand Cat let Arya do whatever she wanted after sometime trying to make her like Sansa.And it seems like Ned was the one who encouraged his children to be free.Sansa is just like Sandor says, she is a bird who sings whatever you tell her.Sansa is one of my least favourite characters.Her chapters are boring as hell, she is constantly doing something stupid and she has no loyalty to her family she casts aside her family like they are nothing.

[Arya kiddin']

Actually I totally blame Cat for Sansa.As far as I understand Cat let Arya do whatever she wanted after sometime trying to make her like Sansa.And it seems like Ned was the one who encouraged his children to be free.Sansa is just like Sandor says, she is a bird who sings whatever you tell her.Sansa is one of my least favourite characters.Her chapters are boring as hell, she is constantly doing something stupid and she has no loyalty to her family she casts aside her family like they are nothing.

Hello Jon. This is the first impression of many posters here about Sansa. Not saying my opinion is in any way greater/better than you, but do have a look at this thread. It is on it's 21st version right now. :)

[brAnthelAstgreenseer]

You are re-thinking Sansa for 21st time, why does this require a different thread ? Couldn't you just take it over there .

[Minsc]

Actually I totally blame Cat for Sansa.As far as I understand Cat let Arya do whatever she wanted after sometime trying to make her like Sansa.And it seems like Ned was the one who encouraged his children to be free.

Why does it seem that Catelyn is always blamed for everything? Hell, in this post you seem to be criticizing Catelyn for allowing Arya to have some freedom to express herself only to turn around and praise Ned for allowing his children to express themselves freely.

[David Selig]

Actually I totally blame Cat for Sansa.As far as I understand Cat let Arya do whatever she wanted after sometime trying to make her like Sansa. And it seems like Ned was the one who encouraged his children to be free.

Your understanding is wrong. And it was Ned who got angry that Sansa was at the hearing about Gregor's raid in the Riverlands because "girls shouldn't hear that stuff"

[bloodofwinterfell]

After rereading her chapters in AGOT, I've come to the conclusion is that Sansa is perceptive and can pick things up about people, especially in the scene when she figured out who Barristan Selmy and Renly are. That said, she has one huge flaw that's preventing her from utilizing her instincts and observation skills to her full potential: she purposely chooses to see what she wants to see.

You can tell in AGOT that she's convincing herself to believe Joffrey is the perfect prince she thought he was and that Cersei is the noble queen. I love Sansa, but it's so frustrating to read her early chapters because she is clearly refusing to accept the truth that maybe the Lannisters aren't as good as she dreamt them to be. I was one of the people who disliked her in the beginning, but it wasn't because she was stupid, it was because she was closing her eyes and ears to reality and holding onto her naive dreams of her life being like a song. She was willfully ignorant, not stupid.

Littlefinger is the best example of this. When she met him, she was immediately uncomfortable and could sense he was not someone to trust. She was able to see through him for what he was better than majority of people in Westeros who just see him as this amiable character (Jaime's description of him comes to mind here). And Sansa continues to feel uncomfortable and distrusting of him ... up until the end of AFFC. In the beginning of AFFC she noted the difference between Petyr and Littlefinger and saw him as someone who lies and didn't truly have her interests at heart. But by the end of the book, she she's seem to put her suspicions of him at the back of her mind and goes along with him blindly. I don't blame Sansa - she's been isolated in the Eyrie and feels like she has no one in the world to trust anymore. Hopefully things will change in the next book now that she's heard his plans and is in a location that makes her less dependent on Littlefinger.

I'm a firm believer Sansa's arc and future is tied to the political side of the story, but in order for her to become a player she needs to rely on her observation and instincts more and less on how she wishes people to be. If she stops trying to convince herself everything is okay, then I think she can be a powerful player in the game. :)