For womenlovefest: Sansa Stark, Day 1

[slumber]

aka, Why Sansa Stark?



I just picked up Game of Thrones.

Well, that's a bit of a lie-- I just finished reading Game of Thrones, and that took me a few weeks to get through. I finished watching the series a few weeks ago as well, and now I can't wait to get through the rest of the series.

I'm not involved in the ASOIAF fandom as much as others may be, but I get the feeling that Sansa Stark probably gets the short end of the fandom love, at least for the first book, and especially when compared to Arya Stark.

I get it. Hell, I love Arya too. I liked her faster than I liked Sansa. Sansa, after all, is the perfect sister, the one who knows her manners and who wants to be the princess, whereas Arya is the adventurous one, the tomboy who never fit in, who bucks tradition because she wants to fight more than sew. Sansa is the delicate flower, and fandom rarely has good feelings towards damsels in distress.

But I can't help feeling drawn to Sansa Stark all the same.

It's hard to sympathize with her when from the beginning, it seems as though she's perfect. She does needlework well, she's gorgeous, she picks on poor Arya, and she can't help swooning over the cock prince when he comes to visit. She cares more about clothes and frivolous things, almost, than she does her own sister.

But she's also only eleven years old. It wasn't mentioned all that much in the TV series, but Sansa Stark is just like any young girl-- she refers to the songs all the time, in her head, tales of dashing princes and fair maidens and she's besotted with the idea of living her own tale. Who among us haven't once wished we could live out the stories we're told ourselves? Sansa doesn't want adventure. She wants romance, and she painfully tries to build her story around that ideal. It's clear to anyone else with a sensible head that Joffrey's nothing but a whiny brat, but of course Sansa's eleven years old-- she refuses to see that because she'd like for her prince to be as the songs sing about. It's hard to blame her when you know she's blinded by infatuation.

Sansa Stark is just a girl like any other. And like many girls, she's got a lot of growing up left to do. I think this is the part that I'm most interested in seeing. Without reading ahead I'm fairly certain of Arya's fate-- she will fight, she will be skilled, she'll make friends and have adventures (however hard the journey). It's great, and I look forward to reading about that too, because I love her spunk and personality as well, but Sansa's own journey isn't quite as clear to me. The Lannisters have her with them, basically have her as their prisoner. What ends up happening to her, I think, depends on how she develops as a person too, and not knowing the exact outcome for that makes her all that much more interesting.

Comments

[coffee-n-cocoa.livejournal.com]

One of the other characters (I think it was Septa Mordane), said that courtesy was a lady's armor, and it's through Sansa that we see how that's done. While she's not a favorite character of mine, I don't hate her either. I understand her motivations, and you detailed it well.

She's actually how I picture what young Catelyn Tully must have been like, before she married Ned.

[slumber.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that is a great line. I should write about that for one of the next entries :D But it's true, I think it's a lot harder for her because she's actually among enemies now, and she's scared and doesn't know what to do. Even Robb had his mother's wisdom to guide him through war, but how does she navigate the court? I WANT TO KNOW. :P

Ooh, yes.