#it is CRYSTAL CLEAR his arc is about arya

[malyen0retsev]

Gendry’s arc this season isn’t about being a Lord. It’s about Arya.

I fully realise this week has aged us all by about a hundred years, so sanity went out the window for a few days, BUT, now we’ve all calmed down somewhat I would just like to point something out. 

Gendry’s rejection has a lot of people saying the only reason he was brought back was to make him a Lord, and that’s his arc this season. But that’s just wilfully choosing to ignore the actual way Gendry has been presented to us this season and is another reason why Gendrya is far from over yet. 

Every single one of Gendry’s scenes thus far in S8 are either shared with Arya or about Arya - the exception to this is literally just the Battle for Winterfell, where, interestingly, he is placed side by side with Sandor, who consistently keeps showing up next to these two characters. I ELABORATE.

GENDRY’S SCENES THIS SEASON:

1) Gendry arriving alongside Jon and Dany and the royal parade. Who’s perspective are we seeing his arrival from? Arya’s. What does Arya do upon seeing him again? Smiles happily. 

2) Gendry in the forges, scene opens with him giving Sandor an axe he’s made for him. Sandor being presented as this interesting ‘Light vs Dark’ juxtaposition against Gendry for Arya that we keep seeing. Sandor leaves, and this leads into his reunion with Arya, where jokes are made referencing their previous dynamic as children, she requests a weapon, and a flirtation and attraction is established.

3) Arya seeking Gendry out in the forges. She is eyeing him up, and he is flirting back with her. Asks him about her weapon, “It’s strong enough” flirtation. But alongside the flirtation is Gendry being the first one to actually show genuine care for Arya, knowing she’s not afraid, but wanting her to be safe. She responds by throwing the knives at the wall, and Gendry at this point is clearly very very attracted to her, staring at her in awe. 

4) Gendry seeks out Arya to give her the weapon she asked him to make for her. Stands in the shadows somewhat in awe of her archery skills now (as obviously he knew her when she was still learning with Anguy) before revealing himself. They have a conversation where Gendry reveals he’s Robert’s bastard, says what happened with Melisandre (a site of trauma for him), and opens up about how many sexual partners he’s had. All personal stuff.

5) Arya and Gendry sleep together, and it’s very obvious from the way Gendry looks up at her that this physical attraction he now has for her, blended with the trust and care they had established as kids, has turned into him being very very much in love with her now.

6) Gendry appears at the front lines of the Battle, arriving late - ha - with Sandor. The juxtaposition of Sandor with these characters continues. We then have the rest of the Battle of Winterfell. 

7) Gendry is looking around the Dinner Hall trying to spot Arya. Is sat with Sandor, again (for someone who claims to dislike Gendry so much, Sandor doesn’t half enjoy turning up around him all the time) and Gendry awkwardly takes a drink and asks Sandor if he’s seen Arya. Sandor looks at him with borderline despair-judgement, sees through this facade immediately “That’s where your head’s at” “I just want to thank her -” “I’M SURE YOU DO.” implying he knows something’s going on with them; and he lowkey approves of it.

8) Gendry gets up to start to actively look for Arya - and en route is accidentally legitimised. Yes, that’s a sentence we can actually say. ‘Accidentally legitimised’. This legitimisation finally gives him a sense of place. But the legitimisation itself isn’t what is important, it’s what he immediately does after.

9) Gendry frantically charging around the courtyard, pushing people aside. He was already off to go and find Arya, and now he needs to find her.

10) Gendry finds Arya, tells her he has been legitimised and kisses her. He then tells her she’s beautiful, and he loves her, and proposes marriage to her. He hasn’t grown up in the higher classes. He doesn’t understand what the term ‘Lady’ means. He has never viewed Arya as anything lesser than him - if anything, he views his Lordship as finally making the two of them equal. And Arya knows this, but has unfinished business, the system still scares her, and so she rejects the proposal; but kisses him as gently as she can, as reassuringly as she can. She doesn’t reject him, she rejects the structure he’s asking her to marry into.

Every. Single. Scene. Has been about or with Arya.

That to me is not an arc finished, and it’s also not an arc to me that shouts ‘THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS IS GENDRY BECOMING A LORD’. It’s an arc about two people who haven’t seen each other in years, have reconnected, and are in the process of falling in love with one another. Gendry is in the next two episodes. Arya’s with Sandor right now, who has been presented as somewhat of a contrast mediator in this dynamic. This arc is not over yet. Because if it was, it would render Gendry in the final two episodes entirely useless. This is a new arc which began this season. If it wasn’t important they wouldn’t have made his entire storyline be about it.

Oh and additionally - Joe literally said that Gendry’s storyline this season is very much about reconnecting with Arya, and that the only thing about the Lordship that matters is the place on hierarchy it finally gives him. Those comments are very in line with Gendry’s arc not being tied up with the Lordship, but being tied up with Arya.

[shieldofrohan]

I don't know how Brienne would escort Sansa to the Wall . I think Sansa has to go there on her own and Brienne's story now is intertwined with LSH. I think the irony will be that in ADWD Jon thought of rescuing Arya but will meet Sansa in TWOW. Similarly Brienne starts her quest in search for Sansa in AFFC but the sister that she might run first into would be Arya.

Hello @lazypizzagiantpalace ,

I do believe that Brienne will come to Vale. Why do I believe this?

One of the dangers that Sansa faces in the Vale is Shadrich. 

Shadrich of the Shady Glen aka The Mad Mouse [according to TWOW; Alayne sample] is in Vale... And he is one of the hunters who are after Sansa. And he seems to found her.

When did we meet him? 

AFFC; Brienne I chapter:

“Aye, love of gold. Unlike your good Ser Creighton, I did fight upon the Blackwater, but on the losing side. My ransom ruined me. You know who Varys is, I trust? The eunuch has offered a plump bag of gold for this girl you’ve never heard of. I am not a greedy man. If some oversized wench would help me find this naughty child, I would split the Spider’s coin with her.”

So for some reason GRRM chose Brienne chapter to introduce us to this man. Brienne is the one who knows Shadrich and his plans for Sansa.

Another reason that makes me believe that Brienne will be in Vale is that the parallels between Ashford Tourney and Vale Tourney.

Examples:

(source: xx ) 

Sansa and Dunk watching the respective tourneys being set up on the grounds:

Whitewashing the Barriers and Competitors' entryway:

Sansa's POV:

Lord Nestor’s men were painting the barriers with whitewash, draping the stands with bright banners, and hanging shields on the gate the competitors would pass through when they made their entrance.

Dunk's POV: 

Lord Ashford’s carpenters were whitewashing the waist- high wooden barriers that would separate the jousters. There were five lanes, arrayed north to south so none of the competitors would ride with the sun in his eyes.

Viewing stands for the audience:

Sansa's POV:

Viewing stands had raised for all those who had come to watch, with four long tilting barriers in between.

Dunk's POV:

A three- tiered viewing stand had been raised on the eastern side of the lists, with an orange canopy to shield the lords and ladies from rain and sun

Participants training with Quitains at the edge of the grounds and our POV characters recognize the competitors involved:

Sansa's POV:

At the north end of the yard, three quintains had been set up, and some of the competitors were riding at them. Alayne knew them by their shields.. Ser Mychel Redfort set one quintain spinning with a perfectly placed blow. He was one of those favored to win wings.

Dunk's POV:

On the eastern verge of the meadow, a quintain had been set up and a dozen knights were tilting at it, sending the pole arm spinning every time they struck the splintered shield suspended from one end. Dunk watched the Brute of Bracken take his turn, and then Lord Caron of the Marches.

Both POVs watch a lithe knight beat down a large knight who gets his head injured. Both POVs recocgnize the knights via their shields:

Sansa's POV:

A few feet away, two knights were fighting with blunted practice swords. Their blades crashed together twice, then slipped past each other only to be blocked by upraised shields, but the bigger man gave ground at the impact. Alayne could not see the front of his shield from where she stood, but his attacker bore three ravens in flight, each clutching a red heart in its claws.A few moments later and the big man sprawled dazed in the dust with his helm askew. When his squire undid the fastenings to bare his head, there was blood trickling down his scalp

  Dunk's POV:

Elsewhere, men were training afoot, going at each other with wooden swords while their squires stood shouting ribald advice. Dunk watched a stocky youth try to hold off a muscular knight who seemed lithe and quick as a mountain cat. Both had the red apple of the Fossoways painted on their shields, but the younger man’s was soon hacked and chipped to pieces. “Here’s an apple that’s not ripe yet,” the older said as he slammed the other’s helm.The younger Fossoway was bruised and bloody by the time he yielded, but his foe was hardly winded

And we can safely assume that Brienne is one of Dunk's descendants. So her being at that Tourney makes great sense. Almost every tourney in ASOIAF had a mystery knight and Brienne would fit into this one nicely.

Another reason for my Sansa-Brienne meeting in Vale is the Alysanne-Jonquil Darke parallels.

( For Alysanne//Sansa please read: xx )

[ Jonquil was from Duskendale btw. And that's where Brienne met Shadrich in AFFC; Brienne I - AND Sansa is literally called Jonquil so they are all connected somehow- ]

This was how we meet with Jonquil:

At the Golden Wedding in 49 AC, a test of arms that became known as the War for the White Cloaks was held with hundreds of knights competing for the honor of serving in the Kingsguard of Jaehaerys I Targaryen. Jonquil took part as a slender mystery knight known as the Serpent in Scarlet. She was eventually defeated and unmasked, and became a great favorite with the small folk. [AWOIAF] 

"Knight competing for the honor of serving in the Kingsguard" sounds really like this:

She closed the window, gathered up the fallen papers, and stacked them on the table. One was a list of the competitors. Four-and-sixty knights had been invited to vie for places amongst Lord Robert Arryn’s new Brotherhood of Winged Knights, and four­ and-sixty knights had come to tilt for the right to wear falcon’s wings upon their warhelms and guard their lord.

[...]

And they came, Alayne thought proudly. They all came.

[TWOW; Alayne I]

So these are my reasons for believing that Brienne is really linked with Vale tourney.

Also Brienne is close to Sansa:

In conclusion: I believe that Brienne will be with Sansa during her journey up North. I see no way for Sansa being alone in that kind of journey. And I think Brienne will be her companion at some point. 

I disagree with the part that you say: "Brienne's story now is intertwined with LSH"

Lady Stoneheart plot is just a test for Brienne. Just like Jaime had to do in the past, Brienne also has to choose between two oaths. Will she choose Jaime, Catelyn, Sansa or LSH? This will be an important point of her arc as an ideal knight. But the choice is quite clear if you ask me:

“I have made kings and unmade them. Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor.” Jaime smiled thinly. “Besides, kingslayers should band together. Are you ever going to go?”

Her big hand wrapped tight around Oathkeeper. “I will. And I will find the girl and keep her safe. For her lady mother’s sake. And for yours.” She bowed stiffly, whirled, and went.

[A Storm of Swords - Jaime IX]

Sansa, though... I will find her, my lady, Brienne swore to Lady Catelyn’s restless shade. I will never stop looking. I will give up my life if need be, give up my honor, give up all my dreams, but I will find her.

[A Feast for Crows - Brienne II]

Sansa is the way of her keeping her promise to Catelyn and Jaime AND herself. Even Jaime's honor is linked with Sansa.

So, Brienne's journey is still linked with her knighthood ideals and Sansa... 

Arya doesn't even need a knight. It is Sansa who needs a protector who won't abuse her. So it would be waste to bringing them together because they have nothing to give each other right now tbh.

(BTW: I think Arya's story is linked with LSH.. she needs to see that revenge is not good and she is linked with Riverlands and Red Wedding 2.0)

And Sansa is the character that was always praying for a "true knight".

By the time she reached the godswood, the noises had faded to a faint rattle of steel and a distant shouting. Sansa pulled her cloak tighter. The air was rich with the smells of earth and leaf. Lady would have liked this place, she thought. There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.

Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me . . .

[A Clash of Kings - Sansa II]

About looking for Arya/Sansa but finding Sansa/Arya thing:

Fake!Arya and Melisandre's Grey Girl prophecy were there to "distract" us from Sansa... 

What I mean is: Sansa was always the GG but Martin was trying to distract us by making Jon only thinking about Arya.

He does such things:

GRRM: There are some mysteries in these books. There are some things that I’m gonna reveal later on that I’m planting clues for. There are some later plot twists that I’m foreshadowing. There are things that are gonna happen in Book 5 and Book 6 and Book 7 where I’ve planted a seed for it in Book 1. But I don’t necessarily want to give away my hand. So, what do I do when I plant the seed? Well, I plant the seed, but I try to do a little literary sleight of hand, and while I’m planting the seed, my other hand is up there waving and is distracting you with some flashy bit of wordplay or something that’s going on in the foreground, while the seed is being planted in the background. So hopefully the seed is there, the foreshadowing is there, but maybe you won’t notice it, because it’s surrounded by so many other things.

Thanks for the ask; I hope it was helpful. 

[laboratorioautoral]

Since you are one of the most faithful jonrya that still active right now i would like to ask a question why the hell do you think dumb&dumber let arya sleep with gendry if they know she wasn't going to stay with him anyway because that cringy ass sex scene was so lame it remind me of boatsex it i hope none of that shit happen in the books

The show and the books are two different beasts and I guess this is the first thing we must keep in mind.

Martin has to please no one but himself while writing a book. At best, when he started, he had to convince editors that his work was economically viable and now, as long as the story is coherent, he can write whatever he wants.

The show, on the other hand, is affected by a number of factors, including HBO’s board interference, budget, and ultimately D&D’s creative choices. Both Jon*rys and Ge*drya are very popular ships. You just had to check tumblr/reddit or any other platform for this type of content to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if these choices were based on pools and researches from the marketing department to maximize the appeal of the show.

I’m not Jon*rys fan, but I know where the appeal of this ship comes from. It’s cliché. It’s what we - as costumers and consumers of pop culture -  were told to be the “right course of things”. It’s a narrative comfort zone of sorts. Can’t really say that it’s absurd to think of these characters as a thing, because this is what 99% of shows would do and GOT is no exception to it.

It’s better playing safe and secure that the maximum of viewers will keep coming for the next season. It was probably the poorest development of a relationship I’ve ever seen. It was cringy and weird most of the time, mostly because it didn’t sound organic in the narrative. They simply threw two characters that had never seen each other in the same place and had at least one side character at every episode saying how they seemed to be in love. There was no time to develop the couple in a way that felt satisfying, but they did it anyway and I think the main reason was to cause a huge commotion among the fans and leave everyone waiting for the final season to see their two favorites being the ultimate power couple (if only they knew what was coming in season 8...).

Arya is a completely different story. It’s crystal clear that D&D simply didn’t think of her as good enough to be at the center of anything, or simply didn’t know how to work with a female character described as “plain/ugly/not beautiful in a conventional way and that wasn’t the most feminine girl around. She went from one of the 5 key players to a side character. If it wasn’t for her killing the Night King, they could have cut her off the script and it would make no difference.

This is NOT BOOK CANON. Arya is a major player and one of Martin’s favorite characters. Her arc is meant to give her one of the most complete and versatile skills set in the books. She is the only character to have a pov chapter in every book. D&D made a deliberate decision to take Arya’s importance away and give it all to another character we all know. The only problem was that D&D simply didn’t manage to make Arya a boring character, despite their best efforts. Arya is still a very popular character all over the fandom and no matter how much they tried to prompt up Sandra, it still didn’t work in the way they wanted.

Since Arya still had a special place in the fandom’s heart, they needed to wave at these share of the fandom as well, so they did the obvious (again). They picked Arya’s most popular possible romantic interest and did a pointless fan service with that sex scene that ultimately led to nothing. Ultimately, the picked the most relevant relationship that Arya has in her arc, which is Jon, and made every interaction between them about Sandra.

The moral of this story is: let us wave and please the largest number of fans possible, then we will destroy what we built, or make this fan services void, for shock value and be edgy, but SANDRA MUST HAVE A HAPPY ENDING NO MATTER WHAT. 

[cometsweepandleonidsfly]

“It's not a bad thing that Game of Thrones had to end; every show has a natural expiration point and shouldn't be stretched past it. But by compressing the final leg of the Westeros journey in weird, messy ways that warped the tale — and by turning the show, over the years, into a contraption designed to unleash "big twists" and expensive set pieces — Benioff and Weiss undercut their own assertion. Yes, stories do matter and can last centuries. They can change the world — if they're so well-made and affecting that they're undeniable. They have to hit people where they live, not just overwhelm them with shock and awe.

Game of Thrones has always had its share of powerful moments and scenes. But it has always been a wildly inconsistent beast, a problem that only intensified as it matured. All in all, late-stage Game of Thrones is not nearly as good as the cast members (and production designers, costume designers and CG artists, etc.) who did their damnedest to bring these people and their worlds to life.

Here and there, in its last few seasons, Game of Thrones reverted to being a more or less character-driven drama, as it did in "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms." And the one big Season 8 shocker that undeniably worked was Arya's execution of the Night King. But otherwise, it's hard not to wonder what the series finale could have been had the show not sprinted toward the finish line in such a slapdash, mechanical fashion.

If Game of Thrones had wanted me to care about Jon Snow's final scenes, it shouldn't have made him so dithering and ineffective for so long (although, at least he petted Ghost — small victories!). If it wanted me to be moved by the sight of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) weeping over his dead siblings, it shouldn't have blithely wrecked the storytelling for Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). It shouldn't have turned Cersei (Lena Headey) into a one-dimensional villain and then left her standing around in King's Landing as an afterthought.

But Daenerys' (Emilia Clark) major character turn in the last few episodes was the biggest disaster outside the state of the Red Keep's roofs. And yes, random person yelling at me on the Internet, I know she's always exhibited signs of cruelty and authoritarian tendencies. But for years and years she tried to use violence only on her political enemies, and the show spent a long time showing her at least considering the lives and the fates of the powerless. Until she didn't. And if you think the show led up to that massive switch adequately, we are never going to agree.

And I submit that one sign a pivot hasn't worked is the fact that the show's architects had to try to explain it in a "behind the episode" interview. Also reeking of flop sweat: An on-screen character (Tyrion) spending a chunk of the finale retroactively re-framing Dany's history and motivations. Monologue as retcon; that's fun. The fact is, Game of Thrones did a lot of tap-dancing to sell something that should have been crystal clear, dramatically earned, and fully supported in the moment, and for a lot of the audience, myself including, it didn't work. But hey, the dragonfire sequences in "The Bells" looked good, didn't they? Isn't that all that matters?

Before you yell at me about how "The Iron Throne" contains the ending George R.R. Martin apparently told Benioff and Weiss he wanted, well, I don't dispute that. What will be forever disappointing is the way the show has been prioritizing "shocks" and "huge moments" over the work it takes to earn those surprises and revelations. Give me a reason to care about the people experiencing these turning points and I won't need the writers' on-screen avatars to keep explaining them. A longer, better-paced season might have made the finale seem more like a fitting ending and less like a rushed set of defensive, reactive maneuvers, but... eh. Whatever.

...

By the time the series finale rolled around, Game of Thrones was a puzzle with some missing pieces, and that state of affairs existed because Benioff and Weiss had flattened the characters and their relationships so much that the show had largely become a series of bumpy contrivances. Honestly, I wasn't angered by the finale as much as I was overwhelmed by a feeling of anticlimactic lethargy. Yes, the shot of Dany with Drogon's wings stretched out behind her was cool. But for a while now, many of the drama's best visuals have been divorced from anything else that matters. Pretty pictures do not make for an involving story unless that story is meticulously and effectively told. 

...

t's a bummer that many themes, arcs, and storylines were compressed and depleted so that the drama could hastily arrive at pre-ordained plot turns. Just one example: In order to make it "reasonable" to kill Varys (Conleth Hill), they had to strip him of the intelligence that served him so well for decades. "Why did this thing happen? Because the plot required it it." There was a lot of that going around this season.

The final sequence involving Jon, Sansa and Arya was shot and put together well. But it was hard not to feel more exhausted than anything as the finale finally faded to black. And yet Game of Thrones will probably win a big pile of Emmys this fall. Not because it's the best TV, but because it's the most TV, and there's nothing Emmy voters love more than a huge expenditure of coin from a prestige network.

...

The first rule of storytelling is show, don't tell. The finale told me, again and again, that the story worked. Tyrion, and to a lesser degree, Sam (John Bradley) and Bran, spent time of late not just explaining why stories matter but trying to make the case that they themselves were in a deserving and worthy tale. Sometimes they were. But if you have to work that hard to justify something...

Eh. Whatever.”

[kittykatknits]

Hi! So I came across (several) posts stating how Sansa is "removed" from everything Northern and how Lady's death means she's less of a Stark and that she doesn't fit in the North arc as her arc is completely different from her siblings (which is magical),the Northerners won't accept her,SR destroying snow castle means she'll never return to WF etc. My question: Do you think Sansa will return North? Do you think she'll ever reunite w/ her siblings and stay in WF? Thanks

Oh yes, to both questions. Easily. I’d also say Sansa will be the first Stark to cross the gates into Winterfell and it’s quite possible she’ll serve as a focal or rallying point for her siblings.

As for the rest, Sansa suffers from a negative POV bias in the first book, and honestly, I’m often left with the feeling that the old adage is true, first impressions matter. I’m not going to get into the narrative structure of Sansa’s chapters or character in this but we can tackle the rest of it.

I’ll go through those comments, point by point, below. This is long because I don’t know how to shut up.

(1)First, Sansa isn’t removed from everything Northern. She happens to be the only Starkling born in winter, and as we know, winter is a time for wolves. Not only that, much of her story line is about her ties to the north, it’s why she’s being used for her claim. It’s also important to note Sansa’s claim is not just over Winterfell, it’s about her name. Sansa is a Stark, she’s descended from a line going back several thousand years. That matters a lot in Westerosi politics, where name and status mean so much. The girl has power and her story is very much about her learning to wield it.

Her strongest desire is to go home, back to Winterfell, back to the north, to the place her family has lived in and ruled over since Bran the Builder. She also has the distinction of featuring snow and winter imagery in her chapters. In fact, the prominence of both only increases as the books go on. I’d say of the Starklings, she shares it with Jon the most. Here are a few lines from aFfC below:

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant’s Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder.

The small diamond-shaped panes of the window were obscured by frost. Alayne rubbed at one with the heel of her hand, enough to glimpse a brilliant blue sky and a blaze of white from the mountainside. The Eyrie was wrapped in an icy mantle, the Giant’s Lance above buried in waist-deep snows.

Old snow cloaked the courtyard, and icicles hung down like crystal spears from the terraces and towers. The Eyrie was built of fine white stone, and winter’s mantle made it whiter still.

Shards of ice and snow rained down on them, and the oak creaked and strained. Robert gave a gasp and clung to her, burying his face between her breasts.

There are lots more I could mention but let’s focus on that last one. Shards of ice and snow are raining down on them. Literally, winter is falling in that quote and Sansa is the one leading Sweetrobin down the mountain. Remember what she said in SoS? She’s stronger within the walls of Winterfell. She’s stronger when winter falls. If that isn’t Northern, I don’t know what is.

Beyond that, this girl is a wolf, or more accurately, she can sometimes be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. However, Sansa never forgets who she is and she lets her fangs show at times:

A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, “Maybe my brother will give me your head.”

She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters,

When Sansa had first beheld the Great Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she’d thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. “I want it burned.”

Let his sword break and his shield shatter, Sansa thought coldly as she shoved out through the doors, let his courage fail him and every man desert him.

We also get one of my favorite exchanges in the series:

“…Harrenhal has withered every hand to touch it.“

“Then give it to Lord Frey.”

-Alayne I, aFfC

None of the above are words or thoughts from a character that should be perceived as meek or passive. Sansa is one the most empathetic characters in the series and one of the kindest but she can be fierce too.

Now, as to Lady, the discourse tends to focus so much on whether Sansa got her wolf killed, even though the entire answer isn’t so simple. What happens after often gets overlooked:

When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.”

“All that way?” Jory said, astonished.

“All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

- Eddard III, GoT

So, if the wolves are representations of the Stark children, then Sansa is currently the only Stark to have a piece of her soul within the grounds of Winterfell, none of the rest can make that claim. More than that, let’s look at what Ned is saying here, it’s foreshadowing. The Lannisters tried to lay claim to Lady but, ultimately, they failed. It’s the same with Sansa, they had her as a prisoner but they never got her skin. Ned also says that Lady will be taken north, all that way, with four men to act as an honor guard. Sansa is going to go north, with an army of men, and she will be able to do it, in part, because of the relationships her father built so long ago. Lady connects Sansa to the north.

(2)I’m really not sure what to make of her arc as being different from her siblings because of the lack of magic. For starters it’s horribly reductive, for all of them, not just Sansa. Jon’s arc is just as much about politics, negotiation, diplomacy, and leadership. Heck, part of his story in Dance is to count hams. Where’s the magic in that? It’s the same with Arya. Her arc also includes themes of leadership, identity, and justice v. vengeance. All of that matters as much as the magic.

Sansa is also a warg, just like her siblings. She’s mentioned by the Ghost of HH which connects her to magic. She has magical stories being told of her. And you’ll rip my Sansa is an empath theory out of my cold, undead, wightified hands. I’ll grant that magic is not as prevalent in her story line but completely devoid? Nope.

She also happens to have very similar story lines to both Bran and Arya. They start the series secure, are held prisoner, forced to hide behind false identities, have taken up with mentors that all have…well…dubious motives. All three are moving towards a point where they will somehow outsmart their teachers, reclaim their identity, and make their way home.

(3) I’m not going to break down the entire snow castle scene, its been done many times before and I don’t have much new to add at this point. However, as it relates to her, it’s the symbolism that matters.The giant managed to knock over a couple of tower roofs and part of a wall. The giant didn’t destroy WF, Sansa stopped him. Even more, the snow castle scene gives us this line:

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

Not only that, we get this gem later:”You were bold enough in the snow.“

Lysa says that to Sansa just before trying to shove her out the moon door but it’s a heck of a line. Snow makes Sansa bold, she’s stronger where winter falls.

(4) The northerners are fighting to save The Ned’s little girl, so not sure why this would not also apply to Sansa? The challenge with her is that no one knows where she is or how to get to her. The whereabouts and “identity” of Jeyne Poole are well known.

Sansa was forced to marry, just as Jeyne was. If Sansa and Tyrion returned north, under similar circumstances, it would only be a matter of time until Sansa was made a widow. Not only that, it’s made explicitly clear why northerners are fighting:

"Ned’s girl,” said Morgan Liddle. He was the second of three sons, so the other wolves called him Middle Liddle, though not often in his hearing. It was Morgan who had almost slain Asha in the fight by Deepwood Motte. He had come to her later, on the march, to beg her pardon … for calling her cunt in his battle lust, not for trying to split her head open with an axe.“Ned’s girl,” echoed Big Bucket Wull. “And we should have had her and the castle both if you prancing southron jackanapes didn’t piss your satin breeches at a little snow.”

..and later (in one of my favorite passages in the entire series)…

That seemed to amuse the northman. “I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter."Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.”“Aye!” shouted Morgan Liddle. “Blood and battle!” Then all the hillmen were shouting, banging their cups and drinking horns on the table, filling the king’s tent with the clangor.

-The King’s Prize, aDwD (bold emphasis mine)

What about the above would lead the reader to believe they would not care about Sansa? They are fighting for Ned’s girl and House Stark, they don’t care about a crown or the Iron Throne.

Let’s switch gears to Manderly now:

“The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”  

-Davos IV, aDwD

Manderly got his son back and now he’s honoring his promise, because he remembers. He wants his liege lord back and he’s at Winterfell, making it pretty clear to us, the readers, that his mission is a suicide mission.

Also, let’s not forget the Umbers, they remember as well. Whoresbane is repeatedly described as old. Not only that, the Umber forces are divided so the green boys are with his brother while he has the old men. Whoresbane is planning to turn his cloak and go down fighting, exactly as described earlier.

With all of the above, I’d sooner think Sansa, the girl who is believed to have killed Joffrey, will be welcomed home.

Sansa is a Stark and a Wolf. She’s going home and she’s going home soon. If I’m wrong (and I’m not), I’ll eat my hat.