#anti-jonsa

[janiedean]

@starrology101 Sansa’s going to end up with two grown men who assaulted and harassed her because they’re ugly?

I'm just

not counting this was in reply to a post I wrote in 2021 and like... it's been two years whatever but not counting that if you read it you missed like the entire point and I'm not gonna get into it again but like

nor tyrion nor sandor have ever assaulted or harassed her, like sandor lit saved her from a mob and didn't beat her when joffrey ordered it, tyrion actually tried to stop that and after he was also forced to marry her by his father (when he absolutely did not want to either but hey that wedding was apparently coercitive just on one side??) he made a point of not having sex with her when technically it was within his rights so like........ dunno where you got that notion but that shit didn't happen in either books nor show so idk what to tell you

blackwater being assault is like..................... if you see it like that you can but he absolutely didn't do anything to her, he was drunk, he left and she thinks he kissed her when that never happened so like again everyone is free to be as uncomfortable with blackwater as they wish and I absolutely will not be the person saying you have to find it romantic or suck it up or whatever but it was meant for it to be what makes sandor want to get better and she romanticized the shit out of it after make out of that what you will

'two grown men' tyrion in the books is 24 and sandor is like 27 and no way sansa gets with either of them before wow which means she'll be at least 16 which makes it an entirely reasonable age gap within westeros customs and norms like lit no one thinks sansa should have been with either of them in the actual canon so you do you

'because they're ugly' my pal idk how to explain it anymore when it's obvious in the text but grrm has a thing for beauty and beast narratives, the entire point of that trope is that one of the two isn't stereotypically good looking and certainly that ain't sansa out of whoever else it is and sansa in the beginning thinks marrying a pretty guy is the bee's knees and then the narrative goes like 'yeah all the pretty guys you thought were great are also horrid people inside' and in this kind of narrative the point is realizing that what you thought was a+ in the beginning isn't what you actually want/need so yeah two **ugly** guys that everyone treats like shit because they're not standard attractive and have trauma and so on will be more likely endgame options for sansa's bc her entire shtick is falling in love with someone who's **ugly** outside and not so much inside which neither sandor or tyrion are so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

idk if you read the books but all of sansa's asos chapters + affc ones are her basically thirsting after sandor and convincing herself he kissed her first so she can like tell herself a narrative where *she* picked the guy who was her first kiss and so on when everyone else is basically exploiting her and fucking littelfinger took that like............ that's basic romance novel 101 idk what to tell you take it up with grrm not me

tldr: sandor or tyrion (not both) are the only two characters that are viable for sansa as love interests looking objectively at the narrative, you don't like that go take it up with grrm but I can 100% assure you that either of them is way more likely than the guy she thinks is her brother and is the only one of her siblings she wasn't close to while she was the only one of his siblings she wasn't close to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[brydeswhale]

My Giant Anti-Jonsa Hate Post, AKA why a person might not ship Jonsa other than hating Sansa :P

I'm warning you ahead of time, this is mostly me rambling. I'm not smart. Lots of smart people you can read, go read them.

So, I've noticed this tendency amongst some Jonsa shippers to sort of dismiss any criticism as Sansa-hate. Sometimes they are actually correct, some people only read ASOIAF in order to see Jon as a typical hero and any female character as simply the reward Jon gets for being a hero, which is so weird. There is a similar feeling that the biggest reward a female character can get is Jon's dick, so, um, yeah.

Having said that, I have a lot of reasons not to ship Sansa with Jon outside of how my ego feeds into my reading. I have read pics with them as the pairing, tbh, if you're a Sansa fan you kind of get pulled into it just because it's so hard to find ANY fics where Sansa gets treated decently that I just treat Jon in those fics as an original character.

I will now list my non-jonsa feels, in no particular order.

I do not believe the text supports it.

A lot of smart people have dug through the text and pointed to what they believe are clues. I'm not going to go through all of these because some of them are, IMO, a reach so far that the proponents have hired a gibbon to do the reaching.

One of those that kind of makes me super perplexed is the whole Jonnel/Sansa thing. Shippers will point to that as some kind of sign that their ship will sail, but honestly, I do not think so. Or at least, I hope it's not a portent of Jonsa.

Jonnel Stark and his plot line with the original Sansa seem to have more in common with the modern story of Alys Karstark and her flight from her uncle and cousin, who attempted to usurp her claim to Karhold by forcibly marrying her.

That is to say, it's a dark, sad story, made all the worse by the fact that Sansa eventually died, and she and Jonnel never had issue. In fact, Jonnel didn't have kids with his second wife, either. Possibly divine punishment for usurping and marrying his niece, IMO.

Most of the other "Jonsa" foreshadowing, I'm sorry to say, seems similar to that, basically. Either it's a sort of retelling of a completely different event happening in the present, or it's a sort of a weird, long reach. Like the idea that the comet is meant to foreshadow Jonsa, which is, honestly, so weird it's laughable, or pointing to times that Jon has complimented Sansa's looks. Some people even try to fit the Bael the Bard story to Jonsa.

It doesn't seem to fit with the how the text treats incest, in my opinion.

Much is made of the show's revelation that Jon and Sansa, despite being raised as and considering each other siblings, are biologically cousins, what with the revelation that Rhaegar kidnapped a teenaged Lyanna Stark and murdered her through reproductive abuse. For a lot of people this makes the incestuous aspect of the text "not count"(which is annoying for other reasons I will discuss later).

I just don't think "they're actually cousins" really works here, either, though.

GRRM sort of seems to use incest as kind of a shorthand for corruption. The Targaryens are the main example, their inbreeding a symbol of their incapacity as humans, and Craster is a giant screaming red flag but there are other incestuous marriages that seem to operate as symbols for the people involved, most notably the elder Lannister and Stark marriages.

The marriage of Tywin Lannister is an interesting sort of backdrop for the Lannister family as a whole. Joanna is often regarded, in both fandom and the series itself, as a sort of softening influence, a better version of Cersei, the true queen of Casterly Rocks, whose relationship with Tywin was very normal and healthy.

However, when examining Tywin Lannister's serious case of narcissism, I find it very unlikely that he would be capable of anything resembling normal in a marriage. It seems likely to me that his love of Joanna was more likely based on the same thing Cersei and Jaime's relationship was based on, AKA a damaged, narcissistic monstrosity. The marriage, IMO, was based on the fact that Tywin was attempting to emulate the elitist principles of the Targaryens. Only a Lannister could match a Lannister, in other words.

Then we examine the children of this incestuous union. I don't think its a coincidence that Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion are as fucked up as they are. The example they have of a relationship is fucked up and incestuous, so it wasn't surprising that the twins emulated it. And Tyrion being Tyrion is also not shocking. Joanna may have demanded a place for him, but how much of that was motivated by love, and how much by a similar narcissism to Tywin and Cersei's, the idea of the child as the extension of the self.

But, @brydeswhale , I hear you say, because I have audio processing disorder, what about the Starks?

Well, tbh, I'm pretty sure the Lyarra/Rickard thing being incestuous was an afterthought, another way to mirror the Lannisters, but I do not think they're intended to be an example of incest done right. Rickard had some pretty weird obsessions of his own, if certain people are to be believed, and Lyarra is a near non-entity.

And while their kids seem to be, well, less fucked up than the Lannisters, it's still worth noting that two of the four are dead, of the two survivors, one dedicated himself to ensuring his family's full isolation from the rest of the country and the other joined a penal colony full of slave soldiers dedicated to what amounts to a border patrol that, whatever its origins, seems intent on enforcing an economic and cultural barrier to a random set of ethnic groups beyond the Wall, so good job there.

And even when Brandon and Lyanna were alive, well, no fault to Lyanna, she seems like a good kid, but Brandon was apparently an antagonistic dick and, well, he doesn't seem to have been very respectful of women.

Incest almost seems like a code in GRRM for "something is very wrong here and it won't end well, even for the innocents" and I just don't see him choosing to go against that.

As an incest survivor, the lightness with which the Jonsa fandom treats that aspect of it is messed up.

I don't tend to talk too much about my past as a CSA survivor, but yeah, there is it is. It kind of weirds me out, DOESN'T trigger me, just weirds me out, how casually the ASOIAF fandom treats incest bc, um, yeah, its not really casual. I feel like GRRM treats it with a great deal of gravitas, but fandom kind of skips over it, which is weird.

The "Real" siblings stance is obnoxious

There exists, within fandom, a tendency to devalue families outside the biological family.

It's not specific to ASOIAF, don't get me wrong. It's the same thing that had people giggling over Thor's defensive "he's adopted" or talking about which Robin is "the real son". It also lends itself to pairing in those fandoms based on those same ideas. It's not incest, after all, if they're not really related?

This might seem like small potatoes to some people, but the problem with this is that it's also a problem outside fandom, and it's something I've dealt with my entire life.

See, my family also isn't "real" according to this rule.

I have foster siblings, step siblings, half siblings, so on and so forth. I have siblings I'm almost completely alienated from, siblings I love more than life itself, and siblings who are ex-siblings, pining for the fjords, kicked the bucket, bought the farm, blah, blah, blah.

So to hear people talk about how Jon and Sansa aren't real siblings because of the complexity of how their relationship came to be, how close they are, whether or not the moon was full when they met, is actually kind of hurtful.

It tells me something about the people using this trope and what they subconsciously think of my family. How "real" we are to them, and how much we matter. It kind of makes me think we don't really matter, that because we don't share DNA, we don't count.

Also:

Jon is one of my least favourite characters and Sansa can do better.

To Be VERY VERY clear:

I'm not saying don't ship them, don't read it, etc, etc. If you want to, it's up to you. Like I said, I read it sometimes, just because it's so ubiquitous. I have plenty of pairings that other people might hate, or think are immoral, etc. These are just my feelings, tbh.

I just think dismissing all criticism or even plain distaste for this ship down to not liking one character or another, or whatever, is kind of messed up. There are lots of valid reasons not to like a ship, and it's worth considering all of them.

[silverflameataraxia]

Sansa and Jeyne are the only people to call Arya ugly.

Meanwhile Ned, Jon, Gendry, Lady Smallwood, and the kindly man have all commented on her beauty, but this fandom ignores it in favor of two middle-school-aged mean girls who have to put Arya down to feel good about themselves.

[akarena]

[Chorus:] When I wake up, I'm afraid Somebody else might take my place When I wake up, I'm afraid Somebody else might take my place

GOT S06E10 - GOT S08E04

[amaltheas-garden]

What killed any chance of book Jonerys for me was just how connected Jon is to the North (ffs his soul-bonded spirit animal looks like a weirwood tree!), which means if he survives this series, there is no way he is ever leaving. Dany's goal is to rule the 7K, and to do that, she'll have to be in KL (or Dragonstone at the very least). There's just no possible way to rule the 7K from the North, which is constantly presented as a more foreign, less connected part of Westeros compared to the rest (except Dorne), and I also don't think Dany would ever settle to be Queen in the North, seeing as all the power would reside with her husband, the Stark. The only way Jonerys works is for Dany to either successfully conquer the 7K and convince Jon to move to KL (lol could you imagine... Jon's happy ending hanging out in hands down the worst city in Westeros) or return to Essos to be queen there and drag Jon across the narrow sea (which is even funnier to imagine). Either way Dany would have to sacrifice everything she's worked for and settle to be someone's wife with no real political power, or Jon would have to leave his beloved homeland and remaining family to govern over vast swaths of territory that mean nothing to him. Anyhow, if Jon is going to have a romance, this reduces the options to any lady who is from/would be happy in the North (so unless grrm throws in yet another character this leaves Val, Arya, and Sansa). Now it just so happens that his radiant cousin/heiress of House Stark/Blood of Winterfell has all the exact same dreams for her future as he does and might be making her way to him very shortly. I'm sure this means nothing🙃

[ai-manre]

Wha-what now??? WHAT???! This is extremely stupid, why would Lyanna ask for that when her joining with Rhaegar has already fulfilled that pact? And why only first born daughter and not any daughter (hint Jon would always choose Arya). And why would such a stupid premise even exist.

Sorry but Jon*Sansa shippers have the absolute worst theories and takes.

[naetaesarya]

So, who wants to go first?

What ISN'T appealing about victimizing Dany (again) and turning her into a manipulated, used, exploited, betrayed, vilified, and dead pawn for Jonsa?

[agentrouka-blog]

Yeah, Jon's plain looks and overall countenance (bless him, I do love it) is why they're so desperate that Jon comes back a completely changed, violent, possessive man with white hair and red eyes, because it's the only way Dany will be interested in him. This came up in the new Jon video by Alt Shift X btw. I find it so incredibly silly.

I do think Jon will be changed in personality, and that's where Sansa figures in as significant-- it would be ironic if the sister he was the least close to is what makes him human again!-- but... losing Lyanna in his face? Isn't there the perfect set-up for him realising that his mother has been staring back at him in the mirror this whole time?

They really think his Stark side is just a sort of parking space where GRRM put him until he could (finally) upgrade to Targaryen, don't they?

The idea that Lyanna, who parallels Jon not just in her suffering (sexually coerced by a captor, freed by a wolf and bleeding out, dying at 16) but also in her heroics (facing off against three opponents to defend a weaker person, going 'undercover') is the less important parent compared to the prophecy-obsessed deadbeat? Ridiculous.

GRRM isn't playing "spot the hint!" with their shared looks in order to take them away before they were ever relevant. He didn't create Lyanna in order to make her a passively enthusiastic vessel for Rhaegar's prophecy boy. Lyanna is the point.

Jon is who he is because of Lyanna. The girl who begged for the life of a child she had no choice in having. He looks like her, acts like her, lives because she was a wolf and her brother loved her and the pack survives. His Targaryen side is not a fulfillment of purpose. I still predict GRRM will not make Jon a magical key to anything, specifically to defy Rhaegar's egocentric logic. Jon is no destined hero. He's a human person muddling through and making hard choices with personal integrity. Negotiating. Planning. And counting the damn beets so people can eat.

His Targaryen father is a(nother) challenge to Jon's sense of identity, a dark and painful one, that can only be overcome through love - for Lyanna the person, for his pack and by his pack for him. (And a special treat enabled only by not being Ned's son...)

It's like you said, she (and in consequence his own self-worth) has been staring at him in the mirror all this time. No shame, but love in spite of it all.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

I really hate that Jon//sa shippers have equate Sansa's Alayne Stone arc to Jon Snow believing he's a bastard. Because those two characters experience totally different situations.

Even if Jon is at some point revealed to be a Targaryen prince ( which isn't confirmed for all we know he could still be a Targaryen bastard) it won't change the fact that for the first 17 years of his life he lived with the bastard stigma. Nor it would magically erase the feeling of not belonging he felt on his own home due to his status and the way his father's wife was treating him.

Meanwhile, Sansa has lived her whole life knowing she's a noble lady and even now she's posing as Alayne she still knows that she's a Stark of Winterfell. It's different to pretend to be a bastard than to actually believe your whole life to be one.

And since I usually focus my meta on Jon, let's focus this one on Sansa and describe how, in my humble opinion, I believe this comparison is unfair for her, too.

Sansa's biggest problem right now isn't that she pretends to be a bastard. Actually, that's hardly an issue for her considering that Petyr, who poses as her father, treat her like the lady of the house and allows her to have all the comforts ladies of noble heritage have. Her biggest problem is that she has to live with that predator, who half fantasises she's the daughter he could have with his beloved Cat and half views her as the idealised younger version of his beloved Cat. And honestly, living with a creepy pedo is one of the worst things a teenage kid could have to deal with.

Returning to her Alayne Stone persona, I do believe that Martin choose her to pretend to be a bastard for a reason. But that has nothing to do with Jon Snow or any other character fans ship her with. Shocking I know, but asoiaf female characters exist outside of your preferred pairings and some-most!- of their plotlines exist to cater themselves alone.

Sansa grew up with an narrow view of the world most Westerosi noble girls usually have. When Joffrey and Cersei showed their true colors and her father died, her fantasies were shattered but she continued to have a narrow view of the world as she was still a noble who right then was also a hostage. By making her pretend to be a bastard while she's in Eyrie, Martin has given her the opportunity to associate and talk with a larger variety of people than she could have as a noble lady. Also, by temporarily changing her status, she's given the opportunity to witness how things work for those who are less fortunate than those who are born nobles - even if this happens only on a theoretical level bc as I said above practically she's still enjoying the benefits of nobility. I do believe this experience of hers will enrich her view of the world and add even more layers to the already complex personality Martin has crafted for her. And I do believe it's a shame to diminish that for the sake of a crack ship.

[adreamf-spring]

I was thinking about GOT season 8 and how crazy blatant clearrrr they were with showing that Jon doesn't love Daenerys, like, they didn't even bother trying at least. Like, the comparison with Jorah is crazy. Jorah literally died to protect her, because he loved her, meanwhile not only Jon couldn't bother to do that he didn't think twice to sacrifice her for Sansa's sake. They were crazy for that

[brydeswhale]

Okay, just a warning to any Jonsa shipper mutuals/followers I have, I’m about to write a huge essay on why I don’t ship Jonsa in specifics, so, not my generalist stance of “I don’t ship it, but I see why it’s so popular” and I’m just putting out this warning ahead of time.

If anyone has a specific tag they want me to put on besides “anti-jonsa” please let me know.

[silverflameataraxia]

I don't care if people ship Jonsa, but stop stealing content from Jonrya and somehow making it about Sansa when it's actually about Arya. And stop lying about Jon and Sansa's importance to each other.

Jon and Sansa rarely think about one another. Sansa thinks about Jon one time while pretending to be a bastard, and that was only after someone else brought him up. And that was the first time she thought about him since AGoT.

Jon, on the other hand, hardly thinks about Sansa either. It's Arya that he misses even more than Robb, and Arya who misses Jon the most out of all her siblings.

Jon compares Ygritte to Arya, not Sansa.

Jon wants to kill Ramsay for being betrothed to Arya, not Sansa.

Jon sends Mance to find the grey girl on a dying horse which was supposed to be Arya, not Sansa.

Jon was willing to forsake his vows to the Night's Watch for Arya, not Sansa.

Jon's favorite person in the world is Arya, and Arya's favorite person is Jon.

[montyluvsjasper]

Jonsa fans write 1000+ post of all the foreshadowing of Jonsa.

Jon and Sansa are structured in the story as the romantic leads respectively. Even Sansa antis have admitted the extreme parallels between Jon and “Alayne”. Jon Snow literally has dreams about burning people and thinks it's the most vile thing possible. Sansa wished/prayed for a strong knight to kill Janos Slynt, and Jon’s the one to do it. Jon dies trying to save who he thinks is Arya Stark.

No I don't care about your wolf howl, your blue rose or your Targaryen restoration.

[amaltheas-garden]

Jon and Sansa will bring the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna full circle:

We have very few details on the relationship between Rhaegar and Lyanna, but what we do know is Lyanna was in an unwanted betrothal to Robert at the time she disappeared with Rhaegar. Whether she went willingly or not is up to speculation. Aside from Robert, most accounts agree that Rhaegar embodied the fairy tale prince-like character (prior to the war). Lyanna wept at the beauty of his music, and was crowned his queen of love and beauty before leaving her family forever. Her story ends alone in Dorne, dying in her bed of blood, abandoned by the man she thought would save her, begging to go home.

It's easy to see then, the parallels between Lyanna's ill-fated romance and the romantic dreams of her niece, Sansa Stark. Although the two share few similarities in personality and hobbies, both became enamored by princes who hide their darker nature, and lured them away from the safety of their homeland, before going to war with their families. However, Lyanna's story ended far from the North, dying in childbirth, whereas Sansa has escaped that fate (even more interesting considering Lyanna's book storyline is a near one to one of Sansa's in the original outline). And, if we recall the very beginning of A Game of Thrones, Robert proposes to Ned that they wed Joffrey to Sansa, joining their houses as he and Lyanna might have. There is a conscious effort on Robert's part to set the past right through the relationships of their children. So right from the jump Sansa is cast as the Lyanna stand in, though she too escapes her "Baratheon" betrothal, and is on course to run straight into Rhaegar's son (as per the girl in grey theory).

So where does Jon lie in all this? If we take the girl in grey prophecy to be about Sansa, we know the two will meet sometime in the near future. Sansa has already become disillusioned of her chivalric ideals of love and knighthood (that's not to say she doesn't believe in heroes and honorable knights, just that she's far more skeptical of surface appearance), and yet, it will be her bastard brother who will embody the traits of the hero Sansa has been searching for. Rhaegar appeared as the perfect prince, yet was the one to kill Jon's mother, and Sansa, in a similar situation, is seduced by the charm and beauty of Prince Joffrey, only to be exposed to his vicious cruelty, narrowly escaping his family (even more interesting to consider Lyanna, had she survived, would not have been Queen, as Elia was still his lawful wife, and would be considered a mistress to the King as there was no chance of her escaping Rhaegar now that she carried his child, similar to Joffrey marrying Margaery, while threatening to make Sansa his mistress). Jon on the other hand is the brooding, solemn, plain-featured bastard, sharing no traditional qualities with that of the typical hero. That is to say, he's about as far from Rhaegar as you could get. And yet, it is Jon who commits himself to defending and protecting those who cannot (Sam, the wildlings, Alys Karstark) because that's who he is. No songs are sung for the men of the Nights Watch, he doesn't gain anything by protecting those others might deem weak, unworthy, or exploitable, but he does it anyway. Jon does not look nor act the part, but the strength of his moral character is what distinguishes him as the unconventional hero of the story.

I would also draw a comparison between the legend of Azor Ahai sacrificing his wife Nissa Nissa and Rhaegar's "sacrifice" of Lyanna, to bring about the third head of the dragon he thought necessary to save the world. After reading @/stormcloudrising's phenomenal metas on Sansa's connection to Nissa Nissa/the Amethyst Empress, I believe the idea of sacrifice will appear again in relation to Jon's character arc. Many in the fandom have speculated that AA/NN and the Bloodstone Emperor/Amethyst Empress are one and the same, the former featuring the sacrifice of a wife, the latter a usurpation of a sister. Sansa already occupies the (false) position as Jon's sister, while Jon has refused to usurp her rights as heir to Winterfell. However, with Jon's parentage reveal, the opportunity of a Jon/Sansa romance becomes possible, potentially elevating her to the status of love interest. And, if we're going with the NN/AE are the same theory, it would mean she occupied the role of both sister and wife. As for Rhaegar, his prophecy obsession is what led to him endangering Lyanna, placing his need for the third dragon above her own safety, ultimately killing her. Jon spends a good chunk of ADwD with Stannis, a claimant to the title of AA/the Prince that was Promised, who similarly struggles with the question of sacrificing one life to save the world, "What is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?” (ASoS) To which we already know the answer, Everything. Stannis, like Rhaegar, will fail the moment he sacrifices Shireen to fulfill his "greater purpose". Daenerys is also a claimant to the title, and we will likely see a contrast between how she and Jon approach being Rhaegar's heirs and inheritors of the prophecy. Stannis will lose everything after Shireen's death, the same as Rhaegar when he left Lyanna to die, condemning House Targaryen to death in the ensuing war. Jon will likely face a similar decision of sacrifice upon discovering he could be the subject of prophecy that consumed his father and once honorable king. And just as he refused to usurp Sansa's claim, he will reject the sacrifice of a loved one (lover perhaps?) as prerequisite to fulfilling his role as AA/TPtwP.

Jon's character always comes back to his identity as a Stark. Discovering his true parentage will undoubtedly be a source of inner conflict, culminating in his decision between Stark and Targaryen (spoiler: its Stark). It's a classic case of sins of the father, and how Jon asserts himself as an individual outside of his father's tainted legacy. Jon being the hero to Sansa and helping her return home would effectively resolve the generational conflict caused by Rhaegar's "kidnapping" of Lyanna away from the North. Rhaegar caused immense amounts of pain to the Stark family through his one act of selfish cruelty, which Jon will rectify through one of loyalty and selflessness. And narratively, Lyanna's son being the one to save her niece and return her to Winterfell would just be so chef's kiss.

[saltywinteradult]

jonsa antis claiming jon and sansa hate each other and that’s why jonsa won’t happen is so funny to me. they absolutely do not hate each other and you need to reread the books if you think they do. but even if they did, literally when has two characters hating each other ever disqualified them from having a romance? have none of you heard of enemies to lovers? did you somehow forget about pride and prejudice? why are we even having this discussion??

[naetaesarya]

So very tempted to send an ask inquiring what qualifies Dany as "a villain of [her] calibre" to deserve the following:

Is ruthless wight Jon going to champion slavers or something?

What, pray tell, has Dany or Rhaenyra done that a Stark/Hightower/other Westerosi... hasn't... And can you imagine if we had such speculations about Sansa? They're still upset about that post from literal years ago suggesting Jon burn Sansa to keep Arya warm💀