#and there's definitely a recurring theme of both jon and dany stans villinizing people who disagree with their fave

[stardyng]

Just watched a few episode reviews and some channels are legit pissed that Arya didn't immediately jump to Jon's side against Sansa. Like, they seriously expected it to be "Jon & Arya vs Sansa" just like the good old days. Some even went as far as to say that Arya calling Sansa smart was OOC. Yeah, cause god forbid if two women (two sisters no less) resolve their childhood disagreements and learn to respect and appreciate each other. That can never happen, amirite?

So far, what happened in the show and the different sects in the fandom’s reaction are all things I anticipated. Jon is presented as the protagonist of the series, and his fans definitely portray as being this golden hero  to the point where they often simplify every other character and their role in the story in ways that would serve Jon. As I mentioned before, the view the people who agree and validate Jon as the ‘’good guys’’ and the ones who have different point of views and disagree with him either as ‘’obstacles’’ or full-blown antagonists. Every character isn’t defined by their character arc but by their relationship with Jon. To a certain extent, the show does validate that belief since other characters are often reduced for Jon, but the show doesn’t relegate them to supporting characters as much as Jon stans hoped. To them, Daenerys is Jon’s glorified trophy wife, Arya and Lyanna are supposed to be his cheerleaders, and since Sansa disagrees too much with Jon, she has to be criticized and then punished by the narrative for it (the reason why Jon stans want the whole ‘’Sansa is going to betray Jon then die’’ plotline to happen is for Sansa to be explicitely written off as a bad person for the crimes of voicing her disagreement to Jon). Essentially, they assign roles to every character in Jon’s story arc and if that character doesn’t fill that role correctly, then they are acting “out of character”.

Moving on from that, when it comes to Arya, them wanting Arya to be on Jon’s side is understandable, however, at this point of the story, character-wise, Arya’s main priorities are her home and family, and she’s united with Sansa on that front. It’s normal that she isn’t going to agree with Jon making decisions that threaten these things, and that she is going to be critical of what she feels are possible threats to her home and family. Anyways, I’m not sure what people expected the Sansa and Arya dynamic to be like this season. The whole point of the conflit between them last season was to have them become an unit. The writers wanted them to reach a stage where they both recognize each other’s qualities ahd achievements and are united in their stance about what they have to do and what they want. It’s not an out of character thing to happen, it’s the natural progression of their plot line last season.