Reading your rants and realising I don't like Sansa, I just liked the potential of her becoming a blend of Cersei and Margary. But of course that didn't happen. Tragedy.

Precursor, this is not meant to shame anyone for liking late show Sansa nor am I trying to change anyone's opinions on her. This is just me explaining the main core concepts of my problems with her post season 4 characterization.

Late show Sansa always felt like they were experimenting with making her a more vindictive and manipulative character but never wanted to commit. I think they wanted Sansa to be both the developing Cersei, but also to let her become Queen in the North but had no idea how to make that happen, so it's why she never is committed to this new persona.

She switches between loving sister and horribly manipulative. Her cold, uncaring attitude does not come off as a jaded result of trauma it comes off as trying to make her a stone faced girl boss. Early show Sansa isn't my favorite character but she feels real and she feels like she grows as a person.

Her costumes show this. Season 1 she starts dressing more like Cersei to show her priorities lie in fitting in with what she thinks will be her new family. Season 2 when everything starts to weigh down on her she starts dressing like Catelyn showing her making unconcious ties with her family by dressing like the mother she is forced to publically denounce as a traitor. Season 3 and start of 4 she dresses more like Margaery because now shes finding comfort in what seems to be a kind friend. Then the 2nd half of season 4 and part of 5 she dresses darker suddenly and part of it is being in disguise but it's also showcasing her time with Petyr Baelish is turning her different. Season 6 onward she dressed exactly the same way they were also dressing Cersei but with none of the reasons why behind it.

Sansa in the late seasons is infuriating to me but lots of her stans misunderstand why. I fully enjoy characters like Cersei (especially book Cersei in affc) where she has genuine complexity but is ultimately manipulative and selfish and does bad things partially because she enjoys the power over people. I love Margaery because there is a good heart in her and Loras, but they are playing the game so well that even though we as the audience see it, not even some of the smartest characters can do anything about it. Margaery is the woman Sansa wanted to be, but Cersei and Petyr are the characters she turned out to be. And I wished they committed to it.

There's a big post I didn't reblog to try and avoid angering any followers of mine who love her, but it outlines exactly why her actions in the Battle of the Bastards plot were essentially evil and malicious and it's why I believe the intent originally was to have her saving the day be a not an act of heroism, but an attempt to coup Jon from any power. I feel like her showing up when she does and finding Jon alive as being not part of her plan to be so much more interesting. Because as SOON as Jon is crowned, she publically disagrees and argues with him in front of the court, complains to people about him in private, argues with him more in private, and when hes gone she starts to stir conflict that leads people to publically say they should've declared her Queen instead of Jon (which is fucking treason to say I will add). Sansa in the books doesnt respect Jon and always saw him as less then, and was the only sibling who still called him her bastard brother, when everyone else had grown to half brother and many eventually dropping that entierly and only thinking of him in terms of an full brother. Sansa inherited Catelyns bastard discriminatory views and she does not respect Jon. And I think she sees herself as Neds lawful heir and sees Jon as being King instead of her as an insult and wishes to find a way to get rid of him either by crippling him in battle, or attempting to coup him through the people he rules. Her actions with Jon is where her characterization is the absolute worst and its where I believe theres the strongest argument to be made that she has developed into someone whom she THINKS is like Margaery, but she actually is just like Cersei and Petyr Baelish.

Which is why Jon starts dressing like Ned, the character he internally is the most aligned in morals and values with. And she starts dressing at the exact same time, like Cersei and Petyr because its them she has become the most like, not Margaery who is always contrasted in light tones and alluring fabrics. (I could make a whole separate post about how Cersei's costumes contrasted with Margaery in season 3 and 4 are brilliant adaptive methods of portraying the internal conflicts between them that were lost in text to screen adaptation the early show costume design was so brilliant and people do not give credit enough for how much world building and thematic hinting the costumes are doing in seasons 1 through 5).

Season 7 Sansa with Arya is hard to describe because so much of it was an attempt at a rug pull to reveal her and Arya were working together. Now that entire sub plot makes NO SENSE and I do not have the time to elaborate on why it's insane, but it also does another thing I hate. It cripples Petyr Baelish as a character just to make Sansa come out on top.

Petyr Baelish is an absolute gift a character and he is the kind of smart that Sansa incorrectly thinks she is. She only comes out on top because they didn't know how to end Petyr's storyline and had Sansa do it to get him out of the way. That and there was just zero acknowledgment that she sat on her chair inside the main hall court and let her little sister slit a man's throat after an unfair and rigged trial. When the King she is sitting in for, would have done what their father would've done. Jon wouldve given him the exact charge of his crimes outright, and brought him outside to properly execute him by his own hand a la, the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.

Season 8 Sansa is the closest she was to bearable since season 4 Sansa, but not because she is well written. She is just slightly less poorly written then whatever the bonkers they were flip flopping Dany between (this is not an anti Sansa/pro Dany blog we hate Dany here too). But the finale shes back to full awful display. She does nothing to give proper defense of Jon, does not bring up the fact that there is literally no fucking proof of what Jon did, doesn't vogue for him doing the right thing (also theres just zero parallels that Jon ultimately realized that the right thing to do was the thing that ruined Jaime Lannisters entire reputation and that he has to simply hope somehow Ned understands the cost of what hes about to do but again my Jaime and Jon paralells rant is not for this post). She simply let's them send to to the Nights Watch and I fully believe she is letting him die alone without the pack because he is the one person who still stands in her way of ruling. She becomes Queen as soon as Jon is finally out of the way and doesn't just be like "hey new queens orders Jon you are pardoned in the north".

She also seems to just be sending the free folk north of the wall too, when in season 5 Jon literally brings them South of the Wall and starts the process of finding them lands in The Gift, a far Northern stretch of land partially controlled by the Nights Watch that is mostly abandoned anyways due to wildling raids. So she doesn't even let them stay in the North when Jon's entire reason for bringing them South was because he understood that the two sides of the North should be coexisting and not fighting so she undoes everything Jon as both Lord Commander and King does, because I think she is doing what she thinks Cersei would've done.

Gotten rid of people with more power then her, so that she can be the one on control.

But, it will never be seen as such because the show refused to commit to it. They made her do these actions but always framed it as her being smart and cool. Sansa wouldn't be insufferable if they just let her be a more malicious, badly intentioned student of Cersei but who wrongly thinks she is as clever as Margaery. Cersei isn't insufferable because we all understand the character complexity behind her worst traits and doesn't pretend she isnt a bad person. The late seasons pretend Sansa is a smart person but not a bad person. But she is. Late show Sansa is insufferable because she is a bad person who I am supposed to pretend is this smart, girlboss who knows better then her strong moraled older brother who is more of a leader then she's ever been.

I've always felt that Sansa's story was leading to her becoming someone far away from the Stark identity, and that the very early killing of Lady was both a symbol for it and a catalyst of it. I think it makes sense her story does not end happily with her finding harmony with her remaining siblings. I think Sansas story makes more sense to end with her standing in opposition to everything the remaining Starks stand for because she has allowed herself to learn the worst lessons from the worst people but doesn't have the self awareness to understand that.

The last time I enjoyed show Sansa was the episode of Jofferys death, because it was the last time I felt like I was watching a real character and not a prop for the writers to turn into a badass.

Also just saying, my own opinion, but late show Sansa should've had a kindling romance with Tyrion (they are still married by the way that was never annulled) and they have a few moments that I found myself desperately wishing they would lean into it. I think it would've made her a little bit more of a rounded character, and it would help lean into the idea of her standing oppose to her family. Finding romance in a Lannister, when her political marriage to Tyrion is literally what caused book Robb to write her out of his line of succession in the first place.

Anyways, uh, no ones reading this by this point but I just think late show Sansa wouldve been a better character had they acknowledged the bad person she had become instead of pretending it all just made her strong and cool.

Queen in the North Sansa makes me 🤢🤮