#Arya is going to have a romance and family as a non-conforming woman on her own terms and I think that's beautiful | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-king-andthe-lionheart · 2 years ago

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the whole “sansa is the most relatable woman” thing is so triggering for me because as an afab person with late diagnosed autism sansa reminds me so much of the girls who used to bully me. i relate so strongly with arya because we both struggle with having conservative femininity imposed on us by society and are demonized for not adhering to “traditional” femininity

Hello @daenerysthevampireslayerr !

Yes, I find Sansa to be an alienating character for me as well, and I know a lot of people who feel this way. Sansa is a rich hetero white girl who abides by the status quo and perfectly fits into the highborn feminine box in her world. She is extremely classist and misogynistic, as well as closed-minded, selfish and vain and disloyal to a family that has done nothing to earn that disloyalty from her. As a mixed race bisexual woman who was born illegitimate and raised by a single mother, we weren't exactly rich either. We lived paycheck to paycheck. I also wasn't conventional looking so I myself grew up being bullied.

And while I was a little girl who loved "feminine"-coded things (playing with dolls and barbies, wearing dresses and make-up and jewelry) and romances and dreaming about happily ever after, I still can't relate to her. And that's because I was raised by a gender non-conforming mother who despised "feminine"-coded things and made me feel lesser for liking those things and for being a creative. I literally was the outcast when it came to me, my older sister, and my mother. I also wasn't blind to the world at large and I relate to Arya's anger at society and the injustices of the world, and how trauma can up that anger and make you lash out. I was also open-minded like her.

I just can't relate to Sansa, and people in this fandom proclaiming that Sansa is "the most relatable" has a very narrow view of what's relatable and what isn't, but from what I can tell, a lot of toxic Stansa's seem to be more conservative and has more of a tradfem/tradwife/tradcath or puritanical mentality. So they think every woman should be able to relate to Sansa, and every man in the audience should be in love with her, or some such nonsense. Of course, this is extremely exclusionary, because of how misogynistic and transphobic these people tend to be. Suffice it to say, I will never relate to Sansa, and if other people don't relate to her that should be accepted as okay. We all have preferences and we didn't all grow up in the same way. Why should I like a character who treated her little sister like crap on her shoe, didn't care she was almost killed by her betrothed, continues to think lowly of her even when she thinks Arya is dead, is disloyal to a family that didn't treat her badly at all and loved and constantly praised her, and is completely unrepentant for any of her bad behavior. She never reflects on any of her past behavior because she never thinks anything she does is wrong. She refuses to acknowledge, feel shame/guilt, take responsibility, and try to be better. If she did this in her arc, I would probably feel different about her as a character (Even though I still wouldn't relate to her), but she's forever the most frustrating POV to read for me where her character and it's development is concerned.

A lot of people in fandom cry about how people can dislike/hate Sansa, but go on to love Jaime, and I'm going to reveal why Jaime is one of my favorite characters. It's because even though he's done horrible shit, he acknowledges it, takes responsibility for it, and wants to do better. Does he do better? I think he does, it's not a lot better, but he's making progress, and he'll make better progress when he stops trying to act like Tywin. But it's the fact that he acknowledges all this and wants to be better (whether he achieves it or not) that makes him more likeable to me than Sansa, who has never taken responsibility for anything in her life and who doesn't want to do better. Yes, Sansa hasn't done as much bad as Jaime, but I really don't care. :P

But also, I think character relatability is overblown. Some of my favorite characters aren't relatable to me, or I only share one or two qualities with. I don't need my favorite character to be my copy. I do tend to relate more with Arya than my average favorite characters, but there is still several things about Arya that isn't relatable for me personally, but that doesn't make me love her less. And Sansa doesn't need to be relatable to be liked or loved by fans. It all has to do with preference. But suffice it to say, if it weren't for the toxic Stansa's I would have been neutral about Sansa in the books post AGOT. However, their toxicity makes it impossible. :/

#arya stark #anti sansa stans

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