And then I realized that it’s because she was so realistically rendered than her other female counterparts. A lot of girls in her age are like Sansa BUT that doesn’t make her less capable of strength or greatness. She believed in the goodness of people and happy endings and it was a harrowing journey for her to see that the world is not as kind. Life is not a song. And yet she remains pure and innocent despite all the bloodshed and death around her. She chose to see the good things in life and with the kind of shit Westeros politics and society is, that was quite brave of her. Just because the world around you is corrupt doesn’t mean you have to be just as ruthless. Sansa is a living testimony to that :)
Here are the six things I love about Sansa.
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(6) SHE IS THE EPITOME OF A ‘PROPER LADY’
I honestly didn’t like Sansa’s type of character because she is the polar opposite of what I am as a young woman. If anything, I am more of Arya who shuns people’s expectations of her and creates who she is in the process. However, I find myself longing for female characters who I don’t relate to personally but whose self-discoveries make my heart bleed. Sansa is exactly that for me. I was first introduced to Sansa through Arya’s POV. Her sister claims that Sansa is prim and proper and is so well-behaved and lady-like in every conceivable way. And then I get to Sansa’s own POV and she is everything her little sister describes and for a while she bored me :p Interestingly enough, by the time I get to her narrations during the Hand’s tourney—I was taken aback with the reality that Sansa is just twelve years old and a very well-read and sweet kid at that. She looks at the world like some sort of paradise with noble knights and gallant men. Sansa is so sheltered by her family that while growing up, all she did is learn music and the arts, good manners and every requirement consisted of the ‘lady’ mold as she stays hidden in the safe walls of Winterfell. And so nothing could ever prepare her once these beautiful childhood ideals were shattered into pieces.
(5) AND THAT EPITOME IS DECONSTRUCTED
Winter has truly come for the Stark family with a vengeance and Sansa is the most tragic of them all. In AGoT, Sansa came off as a fairy-tale princess living in a blinded world of silly ideals—until she was forced to stare at the abyss where she found out that in real life, the monsters win. Captured in the lion’s den, Sansa is reduced to a flightless bird coached to sing lies to keep herself alive. This is when I started to care for her well-being more than anyone else in the series. I am more than aware that a great number of fans are quick to dismiss her as spoiled and even deserving of all the suffering that followed after her arguable ‘betrayal’ to her family. However, I believe that there are still readers/viewers who remain steadfast to Sansa and everything she represented in the cruel world of Westeros politics. Martin wouldn’t have used her as a primary POV all throughout the four books if she wasn’t essential to the plot. Sansa is so intricately-woven that when I read her POVs, I forget myself because they are so intimate; and you can feel the words conveying how intrinsically devastated she is. By the middle of the A Clash of Kings, she turns thirteen, imprisoned by the people who continue to destroy the rest of her family—and she can’t do a single thing about it. To be that innocent and powerless and maltreated and abused, yet all the while intact, is something so overwhelming to behold for me as a reader. I have a renewed sense of respect for Martin every time he writes a character like Sansa as if readers are truly living her life within the pages.
(4) SHE IS CAPABLE OF STRENGTH SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW YET
This girl may not be running around to fight and escape her enemies like her younger sister Arya but that doesn’t make Sansa any less tough. The best thing about this strength is that it is unknown to her yet it is there and the surprising force of it often renders me speechless. She doesn’t need to outwardly proclaim her bravery like Daenerys, but to be able to hold out for hope and faith in such a demeaning, crushing place is something Sansa has done with utter grace and skill. Her POVs in A Storm of Swords are of rare quality because I am not at all expecting that she will make it so far and not lose the best part of what makes her a Stark: that insurmountable amount of integrity despite the harsh realities; that noble inclination that is so damning to her the rest of her family suddenly became her biggest weapon.
(3) SHE IS A DREAMER WITH A FAITH THAT IS TESTED
One thing that on a couple of occasions leaves me teary-eyed is her willful ignorance. The girl is still a child and has a long journey to go to become a woman and the struggle to reach that transition makes me even weak in the knees. Sometimes I just want to shake Sansa from her disillusions and show her that she needs to be tougher if she ever hopes to live. And I think that to most of her haters, this is why they do not appreciate her because she insists on believing on fairy tales when it’s time to fucking grow up. I agree that I also feel like this lots of times during her POVs but then it’s only because I have so many expectations of her which always keeps me caring with whatever happens to her. Sansa is still that same girl from book one who knew that somewhere out there is a better world with better people and perhaps in a way we could learn a thing or two about this perpetual faith that Sansa carries around with her when there’s nothing left.
(2) SHE HAS EVERY POTENTIAL FOR GREATNESS
The series is long from over and there are two more books to go. I for one have the most emotional investment on Sansa and I knew that with every year she grows older, she gets wiser and stronger, and is still just as sweet and pure as she has always been as a lady of the House Stark. I knew that Martin will continue to redeem her like he has done with so many other complex characters in the past. The story is not over for Sansa and life may not be a song but I will listen to her own music eagerly because she has taught me to be strong but not to the point that I will lose my faith on the best of people. Sansa has suffered mightily but her heart is not hardened. Her heart is fierce as it is loving.
(1) SHE HAS THE MAKINGS OF A QUEEN: From porcelain to ivory to steel
Now my money is on Daenerys Targaryen for the Iron Throne. I care little about her character, true, but I knew that she is the perfect queen to rule over Westeros if you compare her with the other men who are only concerned with power. As Ser Mormont claimed, Daenerys is the kind of ruler that will not only be feared and respected—she will also be loved. It’s time for a woman to rule over the seven kingdoms. It is rightfully known.
That said, I think Sansa will also make a splendid queen. She did not posses the same privilege as Daenerys to journey through the deserts with a loyal hoarde and a right-hand man at her side (not to mention, dragons), but Sansa has came a long way since leaving Winterfell all the same and all by herself she journeys on, relentlessly unbroken with a song in her heart and a summer kind of hope that prevails. This is why I love her the most ♥
