#characters meta

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

In Sansa’s case, it wasn’t love at first sight. She was actually a pretty indifferent character to me at first, until I saw the enormous amount of hate she received simply for being, basically, a normal girl. And I think that’s something that is very often condemned within fictional narratives, because it seems that women only deserve to have agency and be protagonists of their own stories if we are special, useful, or valuable according to male perspectives and canons—if we are productive for the patriarchal gaze. But if we don’t fit into any of the tropes considered valid within those concepts, then it seems like that woman doesn’t deserve to have a voice.

Sansa is not a sexualizable character (even though many characters sexualize her), because she is a child, and for any remotely sane person it’s fucking disgusting to objectify her like that. She also isn’t someone who breaks established norms, nor does she have any special traits. Sansa is everything we are taught to hate from a patriarchal perspective: an innocent, dreamy girl with normal tastes for her age. But women aren’t allowed to be normal, we have to be exceptional, or we have no place in patriarchy.

And I like Sansa precisely because she is a normal girl (at least at the beginning), and because she behaves and has attitudes, tantrums, and silly moments that are completely age-appropriate. She makes mistakes because she’s too trusting, which seems unforgivable if you’re a woman, and she’s criticized for being compassionate, which for some reason people see as a weakness instead of a virtue. But despite all that, Sansa survives. She is a born survivor —pure mental resilience rather than physical— and that is incredibly valuable. Sansa learns how to move forward as best she can and to take advantage of the opportunities she’s given. I think she’s a very realistic character, and if people hate her, beyond misogyny and patriarchy, it’s because most of us would be her in that situation. It’s very cool to think we’d be Arya or Daenerys, but Arya or Daenerys are one in a thousand, and I’m sorry, Rick, but you’re not going to be them lmao.

In Jaime’s case, because he’s a fucking hilarious character. Honestly, I didn’t care much about him at first —kinda creepy with the whole sister thing, kinda an asshole for throwing a kid out of a tower— but I didn’t hate him. I don’t usually hate problematic or asshole characters; he just didn’t interest me. But once we start getting his POVs, it’s an absolute delight.

Jaime is a princess. Not a prince: a princess. And at the same time, he’s a fucking incestuous bastard who throws children out of towers. And he is both at once. Jaime is many contradictory things at the same time. He’s a cynic, but also a dreamer. He’s someone who has broken every oath and moral law, yet he falls from grace because of honor. He doesn’t give a shit about the vast majority of people, but he cares deeply about his little brother when no one else does. He’s the perfect heir, and yet wants nothing to do with inheriting his house or his father’s title. He’s been having sex since he was barely a kid, but he’s only ever slept with one woman and is completely faithful to her. He feels superior to many people, but deeply hates himself. He boasts about being one of the best swordsmen in Westeros, yet used to dress up as his sister when they were children.

I mean, Jaime is many things at once, and most of them contradict each other. And at the end of this whole game, it turns out he’s just a boy whose future was ruined for doing the right thing which, ironically, made him be seen as the most dishonorable traitor in the world. And in the end, he decided that if that was the image everyone had of him, he would use it as a shield (ironically, just like Tyrion does with his dwarfism), even though deep down, beneath all that cynicism, it hurts him a lot and he has an enormous amount of self-hatred and self-contempt.

And then one day, he meets Brienne of Tarth, who basically embodies everything he once wanted to be but couldn’t because cynicism got the better of him. And he realizes that if she—being a woman and facing all those difficulties—has been so stubborn and relentless about holding onto her honor at all costs, maybe not everything is lost. So he decides to try to be a little less of an asshole, even if being a Lannister makes that complicated. And all of this comes with a lot of sarcasm, self-denial, complete delusion, and zero self-awareness. Like, one day Jaime Lannister is delivering an existentialist monologue about morality, ethics, and the complexity of things, and the next day he’s literally living in a teenage romcom. How could you not love him?

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

For Sansa, that she spends her life dissociating.

For Jaime, I really like that he and Cersei swapped roles when they were children, for everything that implies.

8. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I hate it when they constantly compare Sansa to Arya or to Daenerys. Like, what is the need to compare FEMALE characters whose plots, paths, and narrative arcs have absolutely nothing to do with each other, just like their personal goals have nothing in common? It feels like they’re constantly trying to diminish her by using other female characters, and it pisses me the fuck off.

With Jaime, it really annoys me when people insist that he has to be with Cersei no matter what, because it completely destroys his character development. A huge part of his arc is precisely learning that Cersei has always been playing her own game, and that he can start living his own life too.

12. What’s a headcanon you have for this character?

For some reason, I’ve always thought that Sansa doesn’t like physical affection that much, but really appreciates gestures and thoughtful details, she values actions more than touch.

we all know that dancing rasta is the father figure of the team and how like @c28hunter mentioned in one of their posts, he could just blackmail the whole team if he only wanted to.

he's the father figure. when it comes to other players, he's more fun. when it comes to shakes who is around twelve years younger, he is more serious and toned.

jomo died when shakes was just a child. rasta was at the very beginning of his football career and jomo probably was his first coach. years later, he started to suspect that his life is in a danger. right before he died, he almost begged dancing rasta to take care of his son, shakes.

when jomo died in a car accident, rasta kept his promise and started seeing shakes regularly. it didn't mattered shakes was small. over time, he began to treat him like a second father.

in literally every season you can see dancing rasta get shakes out of trouble. brutal foul? rasta is always here to help. personal issues? just call rasta. in s04e41 (?) you can see the fear on shakes' face when rasta had amnesia due to hypothermia. you can see the fear on his face, when he didn't recognized him. shakes was frightened.

this episode shows the capitan - player relationship, yes, but also father - son relationship. rasta was always worried about shakes and this time shakes was scared because what if rasta die? what if he won't wake up? what If he won't remember shakes? who will guide him through life? who will have his back? who's gonna be there if he fall and there'll be no rasta?

I'm so tired of people shipping them. yeah, they definitely love each other but not in a romantic way. shakes loves him like a father because rasta was here longer than jomo and rasta loves shakes because he feels responsible for him. because he promised jomo to look after his son, forever and always.

anytime i hear in Sparks by Coldplay

but i promise you this,

I'll always look out for you

yeah, that's what I'll do

it makes me ugly cry.

dancing rasta & shakes are platonic soulmates.

I know that post was a while ago but it just popped back in my head

Remus is the kind of person I would never associate with, and I’d see him as a fucking loser and an unpleasant idiot with a constant need to please, which really gets on my nerves but he’s not someone I hate. I mean, the kind of people who need to be liked and have that aura of desperation to please and be liked irritate me, and I want them far away, but usually I just ignore them or avoid them, that’s all, they’re simply people I don’t want in my life. Then there’s the fact that he abandoned a pregnant woman, which I find despicable, buuuut Lupin has something that makes my annoyance with him smaller than with Molly: Lupin doesn’t meddle in other people’s lives. Like, if you don’t look at him or don’t pay attention to him, he won’t bother you, and you can basically ignore his existence but with Molly that’s not the case, because Molly is a woman with no life of her own and with the imperative need to believe she has the right to get into whatever the hell she wants, and I hate that kind of person more than you can imagine. That kind of people really drives me crazy.

Besides, Molly is everything I was raised to understand as terrible in a person: she’s useless, with no career or ambition beyond having children, and she’s also a questionable mother who constantly meddles in her children’s lives and decisions in an invasive and completely non-pedagogical way. On top of that, she clearly has favorites among her children, which she doesn’t bother to hide, and out of pure whim of having a girl she ends up with seven mouths to feed, constantly complaining about how hard it is to feed them —when there’s always food on the table— and absolutely no desire to work to bring another income home, which is what any reasonable person would do. She neglects the emotional needs of her children, gives opinions on matters that don’t concern her, judges people constantly and treats them badly without even bothering to understand what happened, and she’s capable of treating a 15-year-old like shit over gossip she read in a tabloid. She literally devotes herself to mistreating her future daughter-in-law just because she doesn’t fit her standards of what a “valid” woman is, which basically boil down to women her miserable self-esteem doesn’t consider a threat.

oh man that's so sad. I don't even know how to start. but I'm really, really disappointed, after all these years.

dancing rasta and big bo was very close since the very beginning. theirs relationship was really mature and based on deep emotional connection and trust. rasta trusted bo on and off the pitch. bo trusted him because he had known him the longest.

rasta believed that bo could made a great capitan while he wasn't able to play. bo trusted that rasta won't tell anyone his trauma related to spike dowson. they knew eachother for literally years and I'll never stop regretting that they've got so little screentime together. that's unfair because as I said before, I believe that their relationship was one of the maturest if not the maturest in the whole series.

we can see it. except shakes, bo was the one dancing rasta cared for the most. simple gestures or face expressions, yeah, we can see it.

and yet, the creators still would make big bo absolutely, painfully straight with whole ass family.