resident weather enjoyer

Sansa Stark:

Perpetually a victim of the plot, denied agency, hated for being whiny, PLUS the whole deal where they changed the plot of the book so they could show her being raped in the show…

Sansa is an incredible character for the exact reasons I hated her ass when I was 14. She's often passive, conforms to expectations, and lashes out at her younger sister for being the opposite. Her arc finds her struggling to navigate a dangerous, violent world that hates women using only the tools she was taught as a girl would keep her safe and make her successful (her passivity, her virginity, her femininity, etc.).

Bashed as the worst and most useless character of the whole series for not immediately killing all the Lannisters ig despite literally watching her father’s head get cut off at thirteen years old. Also catches flak for thinking mean things about the fandom’s chosen son Jon Snow and her sister Arya Stark, but like. This is a middle schooler.

The WHOLE POINT of her character is to illustrate how the game of thrones corrupts innocence, ERGO the character HAS to start from an innocent place. Obviously she’s naive at the start of the series, why would any child raised in a loving household far away from court politics develop any political acumen? But despite this, she does learn quickly, and her character development is among the most exciting in the show (and I’m sure it will eventually be in the series as well)

I could write a dissertation on this one but if you say Sansa is worse that Joffrey you’re a misogynist. In my opinion people hate her because her abuse arc is painfully grounded in reality.

The very first man to use her as a pawn was her father and yet the fandom blames her for this. Sansa’s arc was supposed to be a mirror of her sister’s to show that if they comply (Sansa) if they rebel (Arya) no girls win in a patriarchal society but so many people would rather hate a fictional little girl because she didn’t girl boss her way out of oppression.

According to Sophie Turner (the actress who played Sansa), people hated Sansa so much that they would actually go up to Turner in real life and go "i don't like you" (and Turner would have been in like... her teens/early twenties at this point)

I really need fans to not need her to marry a creepy old pervert to prove that she isn’t vain and put her in her place. She’s twelve. Also these creepy men like her because she’s pretty. It’s also not her job to fix their defective personalities.

George R.R. Martin wrote a really complex world with layers of story and metaphors. He has something to say about climate change and nuclear weapons, these metaphors are obvious. Then he challenges us to look at government, power structures, patriarchal systems, concepts of honor vs what’s actually right, gender roles, and how to meaningfully change all of these things. Then to have people take away nothing other than the book is about a feud between to little girls, Sansa is the villain, and the story will be about defeating her. Sansa and Arya love each other. One conforms, one rebels, neither can win in a patriarchal society. Their arc is why this society is bad for all girls but so many fans willfully miss it because of their own misogyny.

Everyone loved the idea of a free and independent North under Robb or even Jon but they seem really agitated that Sansa was the one who saw it through. They are angry at her when she’s meek and even angrier when she exercises her agency to give her homeland something they seem pretty unified in wanting.

Ned was the very first man to use Sansa. He used her as a cover while investigating the Lannister’s without any sort of regard for how dangerous that is. Yet fans blame Sansa, an eleven year old girl for killing Ned. Girl argued like a lawyer on his behalf, the milk of the poppy defense was great and Ned was ready to through it away because honor. What’s sad is I don’t think that Sansa herself is able to process how much her male family members fail her because it’s too much to handle. People also expect Sansa a kid to stand up to Joffrey at the Trident when Ned a grown adult won’t stand up to Robert. The saddest thing is that I believe if Joffrey wasn’t a bastard Ned would have married Sansa to him. He would have felt bad about it but he would have upheld the system. Fans would naturally see this as Sansa’s character flaw and proof that Ned is good because he feels bad.

I'm going to preface it by saying I genuinely have no ill will towards, nor trying to argue nor shame nor start drama with the person who submitted it. I just have to say, gently and respectfully, that the part in the Sansa propaganda that talks about her being passive feels wrong (and maybe even be a result of unintentionally swallowing some of the character slander we are otherwise successfully fighting against!) for reasons the original submitter might consider below. Sansa Stark is not actually passive. I know it can seem that way because she dissociates a lot (for very understandable trauma related reasons) and cannot directly bring out a massive narrative change on her own because she is both effectively a prisoner as well as completely isolated, but she is actually a fairly active character, it's just that she is active in a more femininely acceptable way in the society of her world. She takes initiative in front of an entire court she doesn't understand the customs of to speak up in defense of her father, thinking on her feet and coming up with an extremely reasonable defense for him that some real world lawyers in modern day use in court (and that would have worked if the authority figure was ANY character in the entire narrative other than who it was at the time). She keeps choosing kindness. She tries to persuade her abusive captor to be kinder and gentler to his younger brother who wanted to honour him on his birthday and was unsuccessful at doing so, she shows courtesy and understanding to a cousin who is from the same family of her abusers (Lancel after the blackwater), she modifies her behavior to appear as acceptable to the people who hurt her and use any insubordination as an excuse to hurt her further, so she uses the facade of a completely nonthreatening helpless unremarkable individual to the point of falsely appearing stupid to actively conspire about her own escape in the godswood (a site of religious significance to her that almost nobody around her cares enough about to frequent and check up on). She operates within the socially acceptable role of a lady which she has been taught her entire short sheltered life, in order to make herself seem less threatening to avoid being targetted by the horrible people around her. She analyzes her situation and acts accordingly by choice. Sure, it can seem passive because that is how women need to appear in a world where the majority of power is held by Men, too many of whom desperately want to keep women powerless and subservient, but she actively tries to make the choice to be good and kind to the young, the innocent, and those who deserve compassion and mercy. She wakes up every day in a world that shows her endless cruelty, she analyzes the risks her behavior might incur, and she keeps choosing kindness despite it all and in the face of it all. And it's not an easy decision. Many people, even in our world, get slighted once and choose to burn every bridge they can find for the rest of eternity to get even. Sansa Stark is not actually passive. She just disguises herself as passive to survive. And people who think that is what she is are proof that her effort is paying off.

Submitting propaganda for my girl Sansa Stark in the form of an anecdote, I once watched the first couple episodes of GoT with a man and he immediately hated Sansa and started saying bad things about her and thats when I knew i didnt want to hang out with him anymore.

Rose Tico:

They harassed the actress off of social media and made burning action figures of her a spectator sport, an incredibly popular YouTuber turned calling fat and ugly into a running gag.

She’s a nice girl who just wants to help and has a lot of anger in her heart because poor people like her are treated like crap!

I mean… we were all there, right? People threw such a big fit about her mere existence that it actually genuinely changed the American political landscape for the worse (and got her basically written out of the next movie)

She literally didn't do anything wrong. Not in an "my favorite character can do no wrong" kind of way, I just mean it's been almost ten years and I still don't know what those dudes were actually mad about. And she's cute and nice and I liked her!

The shit that happened with rose pisses me off beyond belief to this day actually and I don't even gaf about star wars anymore. The fact that not only did she get such a misogynistic and racist backlash to the point of people harassing her actress but that the films themselves capitulated to this and she was completely absent in the next film. Makes me see red fr

Seen as a threat to the finnpoe slash shippers so ofc they lashed out