#poor sansa

But for a time, Robb also represented Sansa’s best hope, because had he not helped to bring about his own undoing (more on that later), he may have been able to storm King’s Landing to rescue Sansa from the Lannisters - and, aside from that, he certainly had the power to negotiate a prisoners’ exchange for her release.  Even after Joffrey had Ned killed and threatened to give Sansa Robb’s head on a platter, her faith in her brother remained steadfast:

But, of course, Robb refused to send Jaime Lannister home, and by the time Jaime did arrive in King’s Landing due to Catelyn Stark’s disobedience against her son’s orders, Robb had failed his sister for a second time: He renounced the marriage alliance that may just have given him the key to defeating Tywin Lannister and rescuing the little sister who awaited him, and chose to marry another woman (Jeyne Westerling in the books, Talisa Maegyr in the show; I’ll refer to Talisa for the rest of this post because I know much more about the show than I do about the books).  Instead of marrying the woman who would bring his Northern countrymen the power to cow Tywin Lannister and win Northern independence for good – all elements he sorely needed in light of the debacle with Lord Karstark – he married a foreign woman who offered him and his men no additional warriors, no old Westerosi family name to tie to his crown, and no means to end the war swiftly and send his men home to a secure, independent North where they could live in peace with their families again.

It was a decision that gave Robb the love of his life in the short term, but cost him both of their lives and the lives of Catelyn Stark and most of the Northern army, as well as plunging the North into further bloodshed at the hands of the Boltons, in the long run.  Walder Frey and Roose Bolton were not exactly the best of men, and Robb may well have had problems with them down the road, but they were problems he could have handled from a secured and powerful throne had he not provoked them so badly that they would rather work with Tywin Lannister than continue to serve a king whose actions indicated that he cared more for his own gratification than he did for the peace, security, and independence of the North.  Of course, we as viewers know that that viewpoint was not entirely accurate.  We know that Robb meant well.  He agonized later over the consequences of his actions, apologized personally to Walder Frey, and did all he could to make amends for breaking his promise.  But for his frustrated allies his remedies were too little and too late.  They saw only a king who had failed them.

And Sansa, who had by then spent years being beaten, humiliated, threatened, and forcibly married to a Lannister, didn’t know he meant well, either.  She didn’t understand the reasoning behind his actions any more than the Northern lords did.  All she knew was that Robb, her beloved big brother, had refused to help her when he could.  He had failed her completely.

By the time Sansa reunited with Jon, her other “big brother,” she’d learned the hard way to trust no one, especially men, to protect her.  If she wanted someone to advocate for her interests, to protect herself and the North (as she saw it) from the Boltons, she knew she would have to do it herself, as she informed Jon the day they got back together.

But Jon joined Sansa, albeit reluctantly.  He did what Robb and all the other Northern lords had failed to do, first when she was trapped in King’s Landing with the Lannisters and then when Ramsay Bolton held her captive: he protected her in every way he could.  He threw himself wholeheartedly into persuading the Wildlings and even a few of the Northern lords, who were understandably skeptical about House Stark’s ability to defeat Ramsay Bolton and to serve the North’s best interests before a foreigner’s, to join their cause.  When Sansa reminded him just how little he knew about Ramsay Bolton, he listened to her in his own dense way.  And when she told him she’d kill herself if Ramsay won the battle, he swore to protect her.

But by then, Sansa had seen far too many people, including Robb, fail to protect her.  Paradoxically, she did for Jon what Robb never did for her: she made an enormous sacrifice to save him by going back into the debt of one of her most dangerous abusers, and she used that abuser’s army to save her “brother.”  And he, in turn, showed her a level of respect to which she was entirely unaccustomed: he restrained himself from killing Ramsay Bolton so that Sansa could mete out the justice she (and Rickon) so richly deserved.

Fast-forward to season 7, which began with Jon keeping his promise to protect Sansa to the point where it appeared to annoy her, as she expressed during their argument on the battlements of Winterfell in the first episode.  Sansa’s mannerisms, though, speak to her happiness at finally having the other big brother in her life do what her first big brother had failed to do.  He stayed with her to co-rule the North, despite his reluctance at being named its king.  He gave her the Lord’s chambers and a seat at the high table with him.  He acknowledged her right to rule at his side, and he didn’t abuse her for expressing her opinions.  He was the first man to treat her with true gentleness since Joffrey Baratheon murdered her father.  She was safe with him, safe enough to express her opinions and disagreements and, yes, that annoyance at his overprotectiveness.

But then Jon left the North.  He left despite the Stark family’s history in the South, despite his people’s protests, and despite the Northern lords’ unease over yet another King in the North leaving his people behind and marching off to fight a great military campaign in the South.  This unease was particularly ominous because it was expressed through the mouth of Lord Glover, who in season 6 had refused to fight for Jon and Sansa because House Stark had proven itself untrustworthy: Robb Stark had wandered off to the South and allied himself through marriage to a foreign woman, which much of the North saw as a direct betrayal of their interests.

And Jon left despite the frantic pleas of his sister Sansa, who, despite the reasons he sprang on her at the last minute shared, must have been terrified at the prospect of another big brother leaving her and heading off to form an alliance with a completely unknown foreigner.  He’d protected her, treated her gently, given her safety, given her plenty of opportunities to smack the concept of politics and negotiations through his thick head – and now he was about to leave her.  Granted, she was in Winterfell with Brienne and her allies, not in King’s Landing with the Lannisters and their cronies, but when a sharp reminder brings a past trauma rushing to the forefront of one’s brain, that brain often reverts to panic mode, and that’s what Sansa’s mind clearly did here:

Watch it again.  Listen to her voice shoot up by an octave.  Look at that flinch, that widening of her eyes, those darting glances off to the side, that vulnerable stare she couldn’t quite contain.

You’re abandoning your people.  You’re abandoning your home, she accused him aloud, trying to mask her sheer terror.  You’re abandoning me, she was silently begging Jon to hear, but he didn’t.  By his own admission, he was “consumed” with their enemies beyond the Wall – in fact, in his mind he was probably protecting Sansa better in the long run by going South and getting allies to defeat an enemy who would otherwise destroy her and all of Westeros to boot than he could by staying in Winterfell.

In other words, Jon meant well.  But all Sansa saw was another “brother” leaving her.  The only man who had consistently protected her, loved her, given her kindness and safety, and never left her side since her father’s death had decided to march South and risk throwing the North back into chaos and violence.  That doesn’t mean she didn’t understand his reasons; she knew Jon was only doing what he felt was best for her and the North.  But he’d still chosen to leave, reviving all of Sansa’s old demons of fear, loneliness, and abandonment.

But Sansa, with her skin of steel, waved Jon off dutifully and went about strengthening the North’s armies and food supplies.  She ruled it brilliantly and, even when he’d been gone for months and the Northern lords grew impatient, she refused to take Jon’s crown for herself, despite the fact that she probably shared their worries over the possibility that he might not return.  

Then Jon did return – only for Sansa to find that he’d done exactly, to all appearances, what Robb had.  He’d made an alliance with a foreign woman – not yet a marriage alliance, but after her fateful conversation with Littlefinger in season 7, Sansa had every reason to believe Jon would arrange to marry Daenerys.  Worse yet, this foreign woman was not an altruistic Volantene healer, as Robb’s wife had been, but, as Sansa probably suspected from her first conversation with Daenerys and certainly knew after their meeting in the great hall, a capricious, unpredictable war leader with a violent streak, two fully-grown dragons, and an utter disregard for the havoc they might wreak upon the North.

Jon may have meant well by bringing home the only ally who could give him a chance of saving Westeros, and, more importantly, his family from annihilation.  His laser focus on serving his temperamental queen, which initially had me distraught and angry, shows just how committed he is to defeating the dead no matter the cost, and his increasing discomfort around Daenerys shows his awareness of just how high that cost is becoming.  

But Sansa, like the Northern lords, didn’t see any of that.  She only saw was Jon’s willingness to placate a potentially nuclear time bomb to the detriment of his family and his people.  The little girl inside her who had waited and waited in vain for one big brother to show up and protect her, only to see him abandon her for his foreign interests, was now watching the other brother – her confidant, her protector, her co-ruler, her partner in crime, the only man with whom she could let her guard down and be Sansa rather than just the Lady of Winterfell – do the same.  We, as the viewers, got to see a more complete picture (albeit still a murky one) of Jon’s motives, but Sansa did not.

All she could see what that her brother and best friend had betrayed her.  

No wonder she snapped out the news about Lord Glover to Jon.  No wonder she stalked across the room to get as far as she could from him when he finally sought her out.  No wonder she didn’t bother concealing her disdain for Jon’s actions.  His apparent betrayal brought all the old insecurities roaring back tenfold - the old fear and panic and hurt from before, when Robb had left Sansa to the not-so-tender mercies of the Lannisters, and Sansa, already bearing the heavy burdens of leadership and of worrying over what Daenerys or her dragons might do next, couldn’t quite mask her feelings as well as she had when Jon had first left Winterfell.  She got snappy and sarcastic and cutting – and hurt.  Jon had promised to protect her and keep her safe – he even had, for a time.  She had been his beloved sister, the most important and cherished person in his world, someone with whom he could share all of his vulnerabilities and reassure her about hers, and now she had been abandoned in favor of a volatile tyrant who couldn’t feed her own army, much less refrain from threatening Sansa’s.  Completely apart from any romantic feelings that may or may not be involved (I can see where others think Jon and even Sansa have those feelings, although I personally don’t believe either of them acknowledges those tendencies at this point, especially given the way they were raised), Sansa had just been betrayed by her best friend, one who until recently was the only family member she had left in the world.  And despite her repeated warnings, he’d failed to be smarter than Robb.  He’d been even less smart, if possible, and Sansa found herself once again holding the bag and paying the price.  And if in the next few episodes Jon doesn’t get over himself and confide in her once again, the price could have deadly consequences – for Sansa, for the Starks, and for all the people Jon loves the most.