The Sansa Problem
Sansa Stark has been something of a problem for Game of Thrones.
In both the television series and the books on which its based, Sansa is a necessary character that’s been hard to like. In part that was by design. Sansa was introduced as a vapid young noblewoman. She was vain, snobbish and self-involved. She was easily distracted by flattery and pretty things. She clung to the inane ideals of the romantic stories she’d been raised hearing. She was shallow and not especially clever. An annoying pain in the ass.
When compared to younger sister Arya, a fearless adventurer interested in learning skills like swordcraft and hand-to-hand combat that were actually relevant to surviving life in Westeros, Sansa didn’t compare favorably. She was a witless pawn who seemed to bring nothing more to the table than her hand in marriage.
But Sansa served a purpose. Her foolish choices early on may not have set the various tragedies that befell her family into motion, but it made them a lot easier for their enemies to perpetrate. For the structure that author George R.R. Martin uses in his books, Sansa was a key “point of view” character. Someone placed in the thick of the action in a particular location who could serve as the eyes and ears of the audience. Even if the typical reader concluded each of Sansa’s chapters wanting to slap her.
On television, Sansa developed much the same way as her written counterpart. But TV Sansa has undergone a transformation that was still in its earliest stages in the most recent entry in the book series. She’s become a stronger, more determined character. She’s inspired to rally troops and fight to reclaim her home.
It’s a long way to come for a character who was once so frivolous. The transformation hasn’t been without controversy. Viewers were appalled at a plot that saw Sansa married to, and repeatedly raped by, the sadistic Ramsay Bolton. Even the biggest Sansa detractor didn’t want that kind of horror for her. But from that period of brutality emerged a strong survivor with a hard-won clarity about what was important in her world.
Sansa is a much more interesting character now. The mark of how far she’s come was seen in the most recent episode, when she reunited with half-brother Jon Snow. In the earliest episodes, Sansa was fairly nasty to her father’s illegitimate son (we’ll just put aside all those fan theories about Jon’s true parentage for now). Seeing her throw her arms around him in relief was a powerful moment. One that demonstrated her evolution. Reclaiming part of her family, even one she’d previously disdained, was more important to her than jewels or dresses.
What route Martin will take Sansa in the next book remains to be seen. But after several seasons of serving as a dramatic necessity, TV Sansa has finally emerged as a character worth caring about.
Originally published at thunderalleybcpcom.ipage.com on May 18, 2016.
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