Poor Quentyn.

Fire & Blood, Volume I: The Year of the Three Brides

You know things are about to slow down and get a good deal more complex when you have an entire chapter devoted to one out of the three hundred years of the Targaryen dynasty…

(more…)

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.

And what does Sansa do? To invoke Cinderella here: ’have courage and be kind’. She indeed reaches out to Sandor even when he’s threatening her and dares to tell “Tyrion she might never want him to touch her”; speaks out for Ser Dontos; persuades Joffrey to not kill the woman before the riot; shows incredible courage during the BOTB through dealing with Cersei, calming the women when Cersei flees, and helping Lancel Lannister despite him mocking her before all the court; risks death by telling the truth about Joffrey because she cares about Margaery; courageously doesn’t kneel during her wedding but then feels sorry for her captor and tries to make it up; showing kindness to Kevan, Lancel, Lord Gyles, Jalabhar Xo, etc. during Joffrey’s wedding; continues to feel sorry for Margaery even when the Tyrells drop her like a hot potato; feels sorry for Joffrey when he dies; and shows bravery when fleeing that scene. 

People look at that and somehow conclude that she was ‘passive’. That she didn’t stand up to her abusers. That she should’ve killed them and escape (like, how?). To all of those people I’d like to very nicely say to 1. read the books again and 2. just go screw yourselves. What Sansa did in King’s Landing was survive. To paraphrase Melissa Grey on Cinderella here (again): Sansa is in the process of surviving abuse, and the whole narrative of ‘she should’ve stood up to them’ is incredibly damaging and hurtful because it puts the blame on the victim herself. That’s not how abuse works. It’s never on the victim to somehow stop the abuser. 

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.

Without reaching out to Sandor, his escape out of King’s Landing is gone, leaving Arya with the Brotherhood without Banners, meaning it’s possible she reunites with Catelyn and Robb… just in time for the Red Wedding. 

Without confessing the truth to the Tyrells, it’s possible Mace and Olenna don’t have as solid a foundation of evidence with Joffrey’s character to back up committing to the Purple Wedding plan, thus changing up House Tyrell’s and Tyrion’s plotlines.

Without telling Tyrion she might never want him to touch her, he might do something he ends up regretting for the rest of his life and take Sansa’s virginity, having huge ramifications on the later Harry plotline.

Without getting Sweetrobin down the mountain now, it’s possible the Eyrie becomes inaccessible, cutting everyone off from Sweetrobin and Sansa, or possibly getting into an accident from the hazardous environment in their descent, changing up the Harry and Littlefinger plotlines.

A affects B so C happens,

whereas the other characters go like this:

A makes B happen.

Jon decides to return to the Night’s Watch. Tyrion decides to murder Tywin. Arya takes the initiative on how to escape from Harrenhal. Catelyn alone decides to release Jaime.

She isn’t the one coming up with an escape plan. She doesn’t come up with a way to assassinate Joffrey.

Sick burns are not enough to be an active character. And Sansa is indeed the Queen of Sick Burns (I think it’s fair to say Dany is a close 2nd though).

But if a character just has stuff happening to her, that makes her pretty damn passive in most people’s book.

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.

Without reaching out to Sandor, his escape out of King’s Landing is gone, leaving Arya with the Brotherhood without Banners, meaning it’s possible she reunites with Catelyn and Robb… just in time for the Red Wedding. 

Without confessing the truth to the Tyrells, it’s possible Mace and Olenna don’t have as solid a foundation of evidence with Joffrey’s character to back up committing to the Purple Wedding plan, thus changing up House Tyrell’s and Tyrion’s plotlines.

Without telling Tyrion she might never want him to touch her, he might do something he ends up regretting for the rest of his life and take Sansa’s virginity, having huge ramifications on the later Harry plotline.

Without getting Sweetrobin down the mountain now, it’s possible the Eyrie becomes inaccessible, cutting everyone off from Sweetrobin and Sansa, or possibly getting into an accident from the hazardous environment in their descent, changing up the Harry and Littlefinger plotlines.

A affects B so C happens,

whereas the other characters go like this:

A makes B happen.

Jon decides to return to the Night’s Watch. Tyrion decides to murder Tywin. Arya takes the initiative on how to escape from Harrenhal. Catelyn alone decides to release Jaime.

She isn’t the one coming up with an escape plan. She doesn’t come up with a way to assassinate Joffrey.

Sick burns are not enough to be an active character. And Sansa is indeed the Queen of Sick Burns (I think it’s fair to say Dany is a close 2nd though).

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.

Without reaching out to Sandor, his escape out of King’s Landing is gone, leaving Arya with the Brotherhood without Banners, meaning it’s possible she reunites with Catelyn and Robb… just in time for the Red Wedding. 

Without confessing the truth to the Tyrells, it’s possible Mace and Olenna don’t have as solid a foundation of evidence with Joffrey’s character to back up committing to the Purple Wedding plan, thus changing up House Tyrell’s and Tyrion’s plotlines.

Without telling Tyrion she might never want him to touch her, he might do something he ends up regretting for the rest of his life and take Sansa’s virginity, having huge ramifications on the later Harry plotline.

Without getting Sweetrobin down the mountain now, it’s possible the Eyrie becomes inaccessible, cutting everyone off from Sweetrobin and Sansa, or possibly getting into an accident from the hazardous environment in their descent, changing up the Harry and Littlefinger plotlines.

A affects B so C happens,

whereas the other characters go like this:

A makes B happen.

Jon decides to return to the Night’s Watch. Tyrion decides to murder Tywin. Arya takes the initiative on how to escape from Harrenhal. Catelyn alone decides to release Jaime.

She isn’t the one coming up with an escape plan. She doesn’t come up with a way to assassinate Joffrey.

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.

Without reaching out to Sandor, his escape out of King’s Landing is gone, leaving Arya with the Brotherhood without Banners, meaning it’s possible she reunites with Catelyn and Robb… just in time for the Red Wedding. 

Without confessing the truth to the Tyrells, it’s possible Mace and Olenna don’t have as solid a foundation of evidence with Joffrey’s character to back up committing to the Purple Wedding plan, thus changing up House Tyrell’s and Tyrion’s plotlines.

Without telling Tyrion she might never want him to touch her, he might do something he ends up regretting for the rest of his life and take Sansa’s virginity, having huge ramifications on the later Harry plotline.

Without getting Sweetrobin down the mountain now, it’s possible the Eyrie becomes inaccessible, cutting everyone off from Sweetrobin and Sansa, or possibly getting into an accident from the hazardous environment in their descent, changing up the Harry and Littlefinger plotlines.

A affects B so C happens,

whereas the other characters go like this:

A makes B happen.

Jon decides to return to the Night’s Watch. Tyrion decides to murder Tywin. Arya takes the initiative on how to escape from Harrenhal. Catelyn alone decides to release Jaime.

Well, thanks! I understand gravitating initially more towards POVs like Arya and Tyrion, who at least partially see through the lies of the chivalric tropes undergirding the feudal power structures. (Partially, I emphasize.) But for me, Sansa is the best POV in AGOT because her early chapters provide such a ravishing image of the world through the eyes of someone who takes the songs 100% seriously. That’s what makes the fall from grace that is that first book’s primary subject (from Bran’s very literal fall forward) work so well. You need the Hand’s Tourney to start out “better than the songs,” or it doesn’t mean anything when Ser Hugh dies and Sansa reflects that no songs will be sung of him. By the time you get to her final chapter in AGOT, it’s so damn clear what GRRM is going for with her character:

Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered.   

She has learned the truth: a padded crimson doublet and a cloth-of-gold cape don’t make you a hero, which has implications for both the social structure (in that all this wealth and power is orbiting around a sadistic child who just cut off Dad’s head) and the chivalric worldview (in that the imagery falling apart here bolstered that worldview earlier in the book). Sansa is literally seeing the world anew, and she has to start off in a bubble for that to qualify as an arc.

She still after so many books has not have moments of plot agency apart form saving Dontos and the ones with the wolves and the informing Cersei that resulted in many fans hating her, and had been just observing and used by other people. And while she is young she is still older than Arya and Bran who have more immedeatelly harder time with starving and prison camp and a handicap and a pretty much slowly loosing everything of old life.