#sansa stark critical

[daenerys-apolog1st]

Alright, I’ve seen a bunch of videos on the topic lately floating around TikTok, so I’m just gonna add in my two cents. The topic in question:

Was Sansa justified in distrusting Danaerys when she came to Winterfell, and were the actions she took following that (plotting to betray her, not wanting to be part of the 7 kingdoms, challenging Dany in front of a crowd, etc.) also justified? Was this another case of character assassination by the writers or was this in-character?

The answer, in my mind, to both questions is...yes and no. It's nuanced, like everything in the show/books tends to be. Let's get into it.

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First of all, I'm going to say that it could have been completely reasonable for Sansa to dislike/not trust Danaerys...if the writers had put literally ANY kind of thought into why Sansa would distrust her, because the reasons we're given in-canon make no fucking sense whatsoever.

In the show the reason we're given for Sansa distrusting Dany is that 1. her father was the mad king and 2. Dany wants to be queen, and wants the North to bend the knee- (which Jon has already done and agreed to at this point in time).

The first point, frankly, makes absolutely no fucking sense for show!Sansa. I mean, she's making her judgement purely on who Dany is related to rather than her actual character/actions? Why? Why would Sansa do that when all she's been shown throughout this damn show is that PEOPLE ARE NOT THEIR FAMILIES!!!

Tyrion was a Lannister, part of the family that imprisoned her and had her father killed, yet he showed her nothing but kindness and we KNOW that she trusts and respects him and thinks of him kindly. The Hound, Sandor Clegane, is brother to one of the most heinous fucking people in the show and books who has done COUNTLESS terrible things and murdered and raped COUNTLESS people, yet Sandor himself was kind---rough, yes, but kind nevertheless---and protected her and we KNOW that she respects him and thinks of him kindly as well, he's the whole reason she got her sister back.

And on the other end of the stick: Lysa Arryn, who was her mother's sister and her aunt, was fucking insane and horrible to her and treated her like utter shit. Petyr Baelish, who wasn't related to her mother but who was her mother's childhood friend whom she trusted, took advantage of her and was a creep and put her in horrible situations. Theon Greyjoy was an example of BOTH---he was raised by Ned and grew up friends with the Starks but then betrayed them for his blood family, but then he changed his ways and HELPED the Starks instead later on!

Everything in the show has taught Sansa that people are not defined by their families or who raised them, that everyone is their own person and you can't judge them or guess how they're going to react based solely on who their related to! So the idea that Sansa---having seen all of the good and bad from people whom she's distrusted and trusted---would then take one look at Danaerys, who had literally just been born when the mad king died, and go- "Oh, she's the mad king's daughter? Yep, that tells me everything I need to know, fuck her and her army" -is fucking INSANE. Especially when there are so many people, who actually know Dany and have spent a substantial amount of time around her, vouching for her character---and also since Jaime Lannister, the man who literally tried to murder Sansa's brother, was given a fucking pass.

It would make more sense for Sansa to have an open mind towards Dany, not necessarily trusting her but not distrusting her, and then seeing Dany's actions and THEN having that mistrust based on what Dany has actually done---NOT basing her opinion based almost solely on who she shared blood with. Because that's literally fucking stupid.

And for the second point: yes, it makes sense for Sansa to not want the North to be ruled by anyone that's not a Stark, obviously---however, how they handled Sansa wanting Northern Independence was...just fucking stupid, and it made her look more petulant than anything.

First of all, she seemed more angry at Danaerys for like...listening to Jon, trusting what he said about the Others, and then making a deal with him to help destroy them in exchange for the North to bend the knee, than she was at Jon for actually making said deal in the first place.

Like, Jon was KitN, it was 100% his decision to make on whether or not the North would continue being independent or if they would once again be apart of the Seven Kingdoms---just like it was Torrhen Stark's decision to bend the knee to the Conquerors in the first place. Sansa, like it or not, was not the one in charge and therefore had no decision making power there---and she should understand that, if we're supposed to go along with the writers' insistence that Sansa is supposed to be a clever politician.

The show and the writer's constantly shove in our faces that Sansa is supposed to be so good at playing "the game of thrones" and she's such an amazing politician, after going through like...not even half of what her book counterpart is going through to, maybe, eventually get there---but the problem with that is that she doesn't act like it!

Frankly, show!Sansa acts like a fucking idiot!

First of all, she apparently doesn't understand how politics works---being angry at Dany for expecting the North to keep their word about bending the knee in exchange for helping them, which was the deal Jon struck as KitN. Secondly, she talks shit about Dany around her own people who, very obviously, are likely gonna tell Dany about it later---which is just gonna make tensions rise and not make Dany want to help the North in any way.

Third, she tells Tyrion Lannister---someone she trusts and respects yes, but also someone who has literally nothing stopping him from blabbing to his queen or anyone else---a very important secret about Jon's heritage, which Sansa promised to keep secret. And finally, instead of trying to negotiate with Dany at any point or even pretend to be welcoming/kind whatever to keep the peace (and then, if they wanted to go that route, eventually betray her so the North could be independent), they had Sansa be antagonistic at every fucking point and also try to humiliate Danaerys in a room full of people for...some fucking reason.

She does all of that and I'm supposed to believe she's so cunning and clever?

To expand on that last point, since a lot of S8 Sansa stans like to pretend what Sansa did was either genuine or some "badass" moment; It's obvious that Sansa's "concerns" about how to feed Dany's dragons + armies aren't actually genuine because of three things: 1. the tone, 2. the phrasing, and 3. where/when she brings it up.

Regarding 1. and 2., Sansa's tone in the show was very smug and know-it-all-ish---it sounds like what that one annoying kid in class would sound like when they'd argue with the teacher during class. And her phrasing? Even worse.

"May I ask how we're meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? While I ensured our stores would last through winter, I didn't account for Dothraki, Unsullied, and two full-grown dragons. What do dragons even eat anyway?"

Like, she wasn't even trying to sound genuine, she just sounded like a petulant child. This isn't how you voice genuine concerns to ANYONE, even someone you don't like and even when you're not trying to be nice---this is how you talk to someone you're intentionally trying to antagonize. And, again, I'm supposed to believe she's a political genius? Also, her comment was not "badass," be so fucking serious.

"What do dragon's even eat anyway?" - it's giving- "I know you are, but what am I?"

And regarding 3., if Sansa actually had concerns and wanted to have a conversation about it/get some answers, the LAST fucking place she should be doing it is in front of a crowd.

Firstly, again on the "playing the game of thrones" part, Sansa---if she was as smart as the writers kept trying to tell us she was---should know that it's pretty fucking stupid to try and publicly humiliate someone you want to fight the Others + the NK for you. If I were Dany, I would've packed up and left Sansa to deal with the Others on her own, North be damned, since she wanted to be so petty about it---but, luckily for Sansa, Dany is a lot nicer than I am.

It's literally basic politics that you sometimes gotta play nice with people you don't like in order to get what you want and/or survive, and Sansa would know this if she was really so politically smart...or, really, if the writers gave her any common sense. What would Sansa have done if Dany went- "oh, sorry, didn't realize it was such a problem---in that case, good luck with the Others! I'll go do my own thing" -and then packed up and left? Which, again, would have probably happened if Dany was literally any other monarch in the show.

Also, if Sansa was being genuine, it's---AGAIN---really fucking stupid to try and have this conversation in the middle of a crowded fucking room. If GoT has taught us anything, it's that people will betray other people---even their own families---for like...three silver coins or a prostitute or a stale chicken, people betraying each other is literally the most reoccurring plotline in the damn show. Sansa, if she were smart, would know that and choose to have a VERY IMPORTANT CONVERSATION about VERY IMPORTANT THINGS IN WAR in an enclosed room with like...her, Dany, Jon, and maybe Arya + Missandei and Jorah (for Dany).

You do not discuss things like your food stores and trade routes (+ possibly any weaknesses the dragons have, or what could be used to distract them), in a crowded room full of people that could betray you---doing that is basically just putting up a neon sign that says "betray me." What would Sansa have done if Dany had answered her questions and then some random person sold that information to the Lannisters? Or anyone else with an axe to grind with Dany/the North (since at that point they were allied)?**

Again it's just...it's like the writers just robbed Sansa of all common sense and critical thinking skills.

Going along with my idea of a better written GoT- (and going along with the idea that Dany would have a "Mad King" arc, even though I think that goes against Dany's entire characterization) -we would have Sansa be welcoming and nice to Dany---maybe a bit frosty at times, since her experiences with Cersei/Petyr have made her wary of anyone with power, but ultimately cordial with her.

Sansa would be a lot angrier with Jon and she, since we're going along with the idea that she's a political genius, would argue with him about all the other ways they could've secured an alliance with Dany in order to get her support without giving up Northern independence---a marriage alliance, a treaty, etc.---and argue with him more about not taking their people into account, which would allow some set-up for Sansa to be a good QitN later and give them both a chance to show off their characterization via how they think it's best to take care of their people.

Jon values life, because he's nearly lost his so many times---and he gave up so many things that he didn't even realize by joining the Night's Watch---and he's seen so many people die around him, that now he believes that life is the most important thing even if that life is under restrictions. He doesn't want to have to lose any more people to a cause, he doesn't want to fight anymore, and submitting to someone else's rule is the best way he knows how to protect everyone.

Sansa values freedom, because she's spent so many years of her life under the control of others and following their orders, she's also seen people die for fighting and die for submitting---so, in her mind, that shows her that there's no winning in a situation like that. So now she believes that freedom is the most important thing and that life is nothing without it, and that it's better to fight and die for it than lay down and possibly die anyway under a tyrant's thumb---which is why she refuses to let someone else rule her people.

But Sansa, knowing that there's little to change about it all now, would continue to play nice with Dany---trying to feel out the kind of person she is and make sure she's not another Cersei. They'd have their little council with the crowd and then, later that night, Sansa would ask for a private meeting to discuss their war plans/resources/etc..

At this meeting, Sansa would bring up the fact that there isn't enough food for them to support themselves AND Dany's people, and then you could have her discuss the North's trade routes, farming, all the resources it takes to support everyone, etc.---which would, again, set up Sansa as a good QitN because it shows she's knowledgeable about her people and the North as a whole.

Dany, since we're character assassinating her here, could brush Sansa off and insist that it's no problem without ever actually answering Sansa's questions---and, when Sansa tries to press the issue, Dany could snap and maybe threaten her and/or say that Sansa "shouldn't question her queen" or whatever. This would be the main catalyst for Sansa mistrusting her and starting to plot to betray her, since she'd believe that Dany would essentially be another Cersei just with dragons this time.

Sansa would continue to play nice, since that would be the smart thing to do, and keep her plans to herself---she would NOT be blabbing her hatred of Dany to Dany's literal council and she would NOT be blabbing about her plans to Tyrion Lannister, Dany's literal Hand. Sansa would tell Arya and, MAYBE, Jon + a couple other trusted people that she knows 100% would support them over Dany.

Then blah blah blah, story stuff, day long Long Night, Dany goes mad, everyone betrays her, she dies, QitN and Bran the Boring, The End.

...

Like...it's not that hard to imagine a world in which Sansa would have these opinions/emotions, but the writers just wrote it SO BADLY that the way it plays out in canon just doesn't make sense. All it does is make Sansa look stupid while trying to pretend that she's the smartest in the room.

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TDLR: it's character assassination solely because the writers put zero thought or effort into how Sansa would act around Dany/why she would act that way, but it's not totally impossible that Sansa would have those negative feelings...it was just horribly written and made no sense with what we got.

**Also, just an aside by me since this is more about the writers' decisions than Sansa, but it literally makes zero fucking sense that Dany wouldn't 100% have all the resources necessary to feed her people. She's not an idiot, in the books she's actually incredibly intelligent both politically and strategically, and in the show---given that she's been taking care of her people + her dragons for years now---she should know what they'll need and have plenty to spare, since she knows she's going to war and that the North likely won't have a lot of extra resources.

Again, just another case of the writers making everyone act like a fucking idiot.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Ok, I'm going to say this as a 19 y/o, but I think we as a society give wayyyyy to much grace to teenagers. I mean, yeah, our brains aren't fully developed, but we still understand the difference between right and wrong. Like, we understand how the world works to an extent. Excusing ignorance, selfishness, and cruelty because "they're literally a teenager" is very infantilizing and enabling.

Yes, our emotions get the best of us, we have bad coping skills, and we don't have the best critical thinking skills. However, the expectation shouldn't be that we're inept, naive, and frankly stupid things. I think there should be grace and understanding extended to teenagers and teenaged characters, but not the extent I see people give.

For instance, Sansa Stark is given wayyyyy to much grace for her wilfull ignorance regarding Littlefinger's plans. Yes, it's excusable to and extent in AGOT, she was a sheltered girl who saw the world in a very whitewashed way. However, by the point of AFFC, she knows the world is harsh, she knows Littlefinger has no issues killing to get his way. She chooses to ignore this truth.

Now, I'm not saying Sansa is evil and irredeemable. Her wilfull ignorance is a character flaw, one she will develop out of. She's a gray character, just like every other character in ASOIAF. (I also have a lot to say about her bullying of Arya, but I won't talk about that here).

Alicent also receives the same treatment a lot. I think some of her choices in the first few episodes of season 1 do fit with the excuse. However, her choices throughout the show, her very stupid and cruel decisions, are so often excused long after her teenage years. This is a whole ass 30 y/o and her stans are treating her like she's fucking 15.

With Dany, I see the opposite applied. I've seen people say that she's foolish and naive, is too young to understand how the world works. They say she throws temper tantrums and expects the world to fall in line for her. This isn't the case. Rather than excuse her actions and flaws because "she's just a teenager", people create stereotypical flaws of teenage girls in her story.

Dany is known to be extremely wise for her age and she displays amazing self control and emotional regulation that I don't have now, let alone when I was 13. Dany is compassionate, self-sacrificing, and displays great foresight. She's someone who was forced to learn the harsh realities of the world young. She's not a stupid child, she shouldn't be infantilized, especially since it's always done maliciously.

I think (show) Rhaenyra gets the same treatment, but to a lesser extent. Her rightful reactions (ie to Criston asking her to run away) are misconstrued as the choices of a spoiled teenager. And yeah, that does come through sometimes, I guess; however, not nearly to the extent her antis accuse her of.

Rhaenyra wanting to change the cultural misogyny isn't her being spoiled, it's a fair goal. She's going to be the most powerful person in the kingdom, it's more immature, I think, for her to not have any plans or ambitions. Rhaenyra not wanting to run away to a life of poverty isn't being spoiled; it'd be naive of her to do that with a dude she had a drunken one night stand with.

These are just some examples of this teenager excuse being misapplied. Each time this happens, as a teenager, I feel insulted. We are not simply naive idiots; we are not just overemotional or selfish. We have brains, treat us like we do. Expect teenagers to understand at least the basics of morality and the world. This enabling behavior encourages teenagers to act selfish and be unthoughtful.

[witchbeyondthewall]

Gods above, it's always a Sansa stan. It's not all Sansa stans, but it's always a fucking Sansa stan.

[stheresya]

i love the way sansa is so proud to be catelyn's daughter. in a world where women are expected to assimilate to their husbands' world once they get married, there's sansa adopting her mother's gods into her creed, taking pride in having her mother's looks, often choosing to wear the colors of her mother's house and, most importantly, drawing strength from her mother's memory. what's so great about this is that it's not an act of spite against her father. she's just proud of being both stark and tully. it's like arya said: the woman is important too.

[polysucks]

why you think starks are brown. No hate, I just want to know reason 💓

No hate taken!!! I'm more than happy to give a little context.

I also talked a little and at length and then some about why I think the Starks are ndn or indigenous coded, therefore anecdotally "brown" if you want some more!

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The Starks Are Indigenous and You Can’t Change My Mind

Look, I’m just gonna say it: the Starks are giving "we’ve been here for 10,000 years and you just got off the Mayflower.” Fandom loves to frame them as cold (literally), brooding white dudes who talk to trees and wolvves and die tragically—but if you zoom out just a bit, what you’ll see is a whole culture that’s basically been staring the apocalyptic Chekov’s gun in the face while mumbling “this is fine” for millennia.

Let’s start at the beginning: the First Men walked to Westeros on foot twelve thousand years ago (according to legend. it's giving oral storytelling), chopped some trees, made some mistakes, and then struck a sacred pact with the Children of the Forest. Instead of wiping the Children out like the colonizers down south (cough Andals cough), they basically said, “Yeah u right let’s chill,” and started building their whole culture around respecting nature, living weirwoods, and the gods that inhabit them. Now fast forward six thousand years and the Andals show up like, “Hey, we’ve got gods who look like us and wear robes, and also we’re here to murder your trees bc they're just trees they mean nothing.” (SOUND FAMILIAR?) And the North said: “uhhhhh doubt but alright try me bitch.” The Andals conquered everywhere else in Westeros, but the North? Untouched. Still praying to SpOokY tReEs, burying people under roots, giving a fuck about their ancestors, still naming their kids things like Brandon and Benjen and not, like, Luthor Tyrell III.

So when I say the Starks are Indigenous-coded, I mean it. They are the last major ruling house descended purely from the First Men, with customs, spirituality, and governance structures that date back over ten millennia. They didn’t import Andal feudalism or Southern chivalry—they rule by duty, community ties, and vibes. There’s no divine right here, just “I said I’d guard the North, so I’m gonna guard the North, even if I die horribly doing it.” Which... they usually do.

Physically, too, the Northerners are not your typical pale-and-pink Southron types. Descriptions from the books associate the First Men—and thus the Northmen—with brown hair, darker complexions, and gray eyes. They’re closer to earth tones than the golden-and-ivory palettes of the Reach and Crownlands.

Now, it’s all fun and games until Robb Stark starts stacking Lannister corpses like firewood and suddenly—boom—“savage skinchanger” propaganda. The second the North stops being cold and quiet and starts sending wolves downriver, the Southern rumor mill goes feral. The same lords who wear wolf pelts to look edgy start whispering, “Is he... using magic? Unnatural beasts? Isn’t that his direwolf out there eating men’s faces?”

We’re not even being subtle anymore. This is textbook colonizer panic: “Oh no, the brown people with strong spiritual ties to nature and weird customs have found a way to beat our superior steel and horses! They must be cheating!” And this is coming from a place where Melisandre literally births a shadow demon out of her woman's place and half the people involved just shrug and go, “Well, kings do be kinging and doin whatever it takes to be kinged.” But Robb winning battles with tactics and a big-ass dog? Witchcraft.

And let’s talk tone. The way Northerners are described when they show up in King’s Landing is... gross. Dirty. Sullen. Uncouth. They bring the smell of snow and smoke and old gods into the nice, civilized complacency of the South, and the court acts like they're watching a pack of feral dogs crash a garden party. Even the Dornish, who are also not white-coded in many ways and face plenty of racism, are still seen as exotic—dangerous, sure, but sexy-dangerous. The Northmen? They’re not fetishized. They're feared. Loathed. Dismissed as brutes and barbarians with ways that are so different that they should be feared.

And this is a classic move in imperialist narratives: you marginalize a people, rob them of power and culture, and the second they resist? You demonize them. Turn them into monsters. Say they commune with beasts and demons. (Sound familiar? Because it should.) Whether it’s North American Indigenous peoples being accused of “savagery” the moment they defend their land, or these colonized peoples being portrayed as superstitious and irrational for refusing assimilation and persisting with their culture—Westeros is playing that greatest hit on repeat.

So yes, when I say the Starks are Indigenous-coded, I also mean that the way Westeros treats the North is textbook colonial anxiety. They’re tolerated when they stay quiet and frozen. But when they rise? When they win? Suddenly, they’re not just a threat—they’re unnatural. Inhuman. Monstrous.

And if that ain’t some real-world racial politics wrapped in an easy to swallow fictional narrative, idk what is.

Now let’s talk Boltons vs. Manderlys, the perfect case study in Indigenous vs. Settler-coded houses when it comes to the cultural conversation. The Boltons? Chaotic evil First Men energy. They used to flay people alive, possibly made cloaks out of skin (ok im sorry that’s so baller), and ruled from the Dreadfort for thousands of years as a rival to House Stark. They’re the North turned inward and twisted—a cautionary tale about what happens when colonization doesn’t get you, but intergenerational trauma does. Still, they’re part of the land, part of the same heritage. The Manderlys, on the other hand? Total transplants. They got kicked out of the Reach, showed up in the North all teary-eyed and humble, and the Starks were like, “Fine, you can live in this swamp by the sea.” And they did! Respectfully! But they never converted to the Old Gods. They still pray to the Seven, build stone cities, and have the audacity to name their castle White Harbor. That's like moving into someone’s house and renaming it “Good Christian Suburb.” (like. Like americ--*gets dragged off stage*) But they're chill. Because they never pretended to be something they're not. And they never tried to change the ways of the lands and the peoples who welcomed them when no one else would.

Even within the North, there's a whole spectrum of resistance vs. assimilation. You’ve got the Free Folk beyond the Wall—who are basically the “burn it all down, no kings, no lords” crowd—then the Starks, who are like, “Fine, I’ll wear a crown if it helps keep the peace,” and then the Manderlys, who are “we love it here please don’t send us back south.” It’s not unlike real-world Indigenous communities: some stayed in the woods, some ran into the mountains, some took settler names and built schools—but the throughline is survival. Resistance is survival.

And that, my fellow losers, is what the Starks are all about. They are the final boss of stubborn cultural preservation. They’re the people who would rather freeze than bend the knee to "gods" they don’t believe in. When Ned Stark says “Winter is Coming,” he’s not just talking about weather—he’s quoting a generational mantra. This, too, shall pass. And we will still be here. He's got seasonal depression and ancestral memory and PTSD, and he's still out here doing what is best for his people (well. not anymore, i guess.)

The North Remembers—and So Should You

When we say the Starks and the North are Indigenous-coded, we’re not just slapping a label on because it sounds cool and we’re desperate for representation. We’re talking about a culture that predates colonizers, resists assimilation, honors its dead, and survives against impossible violence. Whether it’s through sacred trees, communal leadership, or refusing to compromise on your ancestral values, the Starks represent the heartbeat of a people who never left their land—because the land never left them.

So yes. The Starks are “brown,” in the way that means something. Not necessarily in skin tone (though there’s canon support for that too), but in soul. In story. In surviving. And if you disagree, I’ll meet you in the godswood under the bleeding tree, and we can discuss it like Northerners—with our fuckin fists.

(this is a joke ur allowed other opinions)

[agirlisnoonesdoppelganger]

Sansa, Arya, and the Issues of Choice Feminism and Conformity

There's a lot of discourse surrounding Sansa and Arya, and I'm aware I may being stepping on a hornet's nest with this one, but oh, well. I've seen many of the discussions/arguments, and I think a level of disconnect comes from how people practice feminism. In particular, the idea of choice feminism feels like it's permeating the discussions even if it isn't brought up directly. Funnily enough, Sansa and Arya actually present the perfect opportunity to examine the issues with choice feminism while also examining the attitudes behind both the characters and the people who defend them.

Some of you may be wondering, what is choice feminism? Simply put, it's the idea that the individual choices of women/girls are inherently feminist. Now this idea often gets a lot of criticism since it tends to ignore the very real systemic, societal problems that affect and influence women. That is to say, our choices don't exist in a vacuum. The choices that we make are always influenced by outside forces and pressures that may make us feel like we have to make certain choices. Many proponents of choice feminism will argue that they enjoy things like doing their makeup or being a a stay-at-home mom which is fine. However, they never seem to ask whether they would make the same choice had they felt completely free and able to. I'm not saying you can't have fun with makeup or feel fulfilled being a mom, but these are choices that society expects women to make. Even if you nominally have other options, you are still expected to conform to a certain ideal or risk being mocked or ostracized. And I think a lot of women are looking at these choices with hindsight. You enjoy the thing now, but would the younger you who hadn't made that choice yet really have made the same choice if they felt completely safe choosing something else? The unfortunate reality is that under a patriarchal society, many choices that women make are colored by systemic pressure.

So how does this relate to the Stark sisters? Let's start with Sansa. Sansa is a character that is well loved by many women who tend to enjoy more feminine/girly things, and it's easy to see why. Sansa herself enjoys very feminine activities and is quite good at being a lady of noble birth. This is, of course, where the real issue lies. In the Sansa/Arya discourse, there often seems to be some issue with Arya's dislike for typically ladylike things. Many people seem to think that Sansa should be allowed to enjoy whatever activities she wants. Who cares if they happen to be the ones that are expected of her? And that's the problem. Sansa may enjoy those activities, but not because she chose them herself. These are things that all highborn ladies are expected to do, and Sansa was made to do these activities as soon as she was old enough. Now, Sansa happens to be quite good at them and receives a lot of praise for her talents, so unsurprisingly, she enjoys these activities. Most children would probably feel the same way. However, she didn't choose to enjoy these activities, which is something I think many of her most ardent defenders are missing. They never ask the question "Would Sansa, free of all expectations, encouraged to pursue any activity of her choosing no matter how 'feminine' or 'masculine', still willingly choose to be the same Sansa we see in the books?" The truth is, we can't know because Sansa is a fictional character who is shaped by the world she exists in. Sansa is fortunate to fit quite easily into the box Westeros expects her to and so never questions it.

Arya, on the other hand, struggles to conform to the strict standards that Westeros has set for her. She's constantly told, not just by society, but by the people in her life, that she does not fit what a highborn lady is supposed to be. When she does engage in the activities expected of her, rather than receiving support to help her improve, she is met with derision and comparisons to her better, perfect sister. It's no wonder, then, that Arya finds little enjoyment in these activities and actively tries to push against the box she's being forced into. Like many young girls who realize they don't fit entirely with the standards of femininity that society expects of them, Arya fights back and asks "if not everyone can fit in the box, why are you trying to make them?" What's interesting is that Arya struggles with her femininity, not because she doesn't like being a girl or being feminine, but because she actually does like those things. She hates being referred to as a boy, she likes to pick flowers, she enjoys songs, she even seems to wish to be perceived as beautiful. Arya wants to be able to engage in femininity, but because she doesn't neatly fit the societal standards of Westeros, she struggles to do so. Arya also doesn't have a particularly strong desire to engage in a specific masculine activity, like being a knight, as some people claim. This is brought up in a conversation with Ned where she offers up several options, like being the lady of her own house (not married) or becoming maester. Ned refutes her questions by offering the only option available to her: marry a lord and have his children. Arya isn't expressing a specific desire; she's expressing her wish for options. Arya wants to have a choice, wants to be able to decide her own future, and she doesn't understand why she can't. Arya isn't necessarily opposed to the idea of marriage wholesale; she's opposed to the idea because she has to do it whether she wants to or not. Thus, we must ask sort of the opposite of the question we asked with Sansa. Would Arya, free of societal pressure and encouraged to pursue any thing of her choosing, still feel such dislike for the typical ladylike activities, or would she willingly choose to participate in some of them?

Now we have to look at both of them together and how they interact. As previously mentioned, it seems to me that many people who strongly defend/identify with Sansa feel like Arya's distaste for certain activities is judgemental and pointed. I personally disagree with this, and I don't think Sansa's pov chapters support this idea. Sansa is generally displeased that Arya doesn't like those activities, but she never seems personally offended or acts like she feels that Arya is judging her. Rather, she is annoyed that Arya won't conform and even more annoyed that the adults around her aren't doing enough about it. Sansa is sometimes embarrassed by Arya, not because Arya has insulted her or made her feel judged, but because Sansa fears other people will judge her for her sister's lack of conformity. This is not Arya's fault; it is the fault of society for putting expectations on these young girls. Again, Sansa is lucky enough to meet the standards easily, so she never needs to put any work in to conform, whereas Arya has always struggled and would be forced to change to fit in. And Sansa wants Arya to change. She looks down on Arya for her "wild" behaviors, thinks Ned should be doing more to correct Arya, and fundamentally seems to dislike Arya the way she is. Sansa doesn't examine the restrictive standards of Westeros because she doesn't need to. When people defend Sansa even to the point of saying that Arya does need to change, they are continuing to uphold restrictive, patriarchal standards of what it means to be a woman. They, like Sansa, are blaming Arya for the poor treatment she receives instead of blaming a system that allows for only one type of woman to exist.

HOTD demonstrates this, too, with Alicent and Rhaenyra. The root of Alicent's anger and problems with Rhaenyra is not Rhaenyra's children or Alicent's fears for her own or even Alicent's feelings of abandonment. Alicent holds so much anger for Rhaenyra because Rhaenyra dares to defy the gender roles that have been forced upon them, that Alicent has spent so much of her life upholding. Rhaenyra dares to believe that she is worthy of power and respect just by virtue of existing, while Alicent goes along with her supposed duty with the expectation that she will be rewarded, only to realize that she keeps getting nothing. So she gets angry and hates Rhaenyra because she can't bring herself to hate the men who are really responsible. If she hates them, blames them, then she finally has to reckon with the fact that all her suffering, all her duty was pointless.

Sansa and Arya present a very interesting dichotomy and looking at their relationship allows us to examine how certain perspectives, while nominally helpful, can be harmful. The idea that women who conform are somehow more judged than women who go against standards is one that has persisted, from NLOGs to pick-mes, and one that I have a lot of problems with. At the end of the day, I find it hard to agree that doing what society expects of you is particularly revolutionary and ignoring the way society may have influenced those decisions hardly helps. Often, these ideas tend to hurt all women, even the ones who fit in. We can see this in Sansa and Arya and how conformity and supposed choice affect both of them. Arya cannot be who she wants to be, cannot engage in her femininity in way that feels authentic to her, and is blamed for her own ostracization by others. Sansa is built from the societal expectations around her, and though she benefits from conforming, her potential is lost because she was never given an opportunity to truly choose what she wanted to be. Both are trapped by the patriarchal expectations of Westeros, but while Sansa's conformity renders her blind to it, Arya's rebellion makes it all too visible to her.

[bstag]

Rape and female social status in Westeros

Something that I always found strange and straight up bad writing on GRRM's part was the constant threat of sexual assault noble and royal women find themselves in.

Princess Elia Martell was raped and murdered, a lady of House Bracken was assaulted when Lannister forces sacked Stone Hedge (which I always found disturbing not only for being unnecessary from a narrative perspective but also because George famously dislikes the Brackens, making me question what his intentions were), Queen Cersei cynically tells Sansa during Stannis' siege of the capital that if Stannis' prevails, all the noblewomen present (Sansa included) would be raped by Stannis' men. Cersei's comments betray the fact that in Westeros, in seems to be expected that aristocratic women of any rank are gonna be brutalized like peasant women.

And I have to wonder: how is that seen as normal during westerosi civil conflicts? In real life (yes I know Westeros in fictional) noblewomen captured during civil wars were not abused in any way and were simply ransomed back to their families. This makes sense from a monetary perspective but also a political one. If noblewomen were treated the same way peasant women were during this conflicts, that would make for a very dysfunctional aristocracy. Noble house A, that had their men abuse the women of House B during a sacking could be interacting with House B at court weeks later. How it's that a sensible and successful way of having the nobility relate and interact with one another? It's not. And the same it's true with Westeros, you just have to think about the whole Lannister-Martell conflict.

It also makes no sense from a social hierarchy perspective. How can such a socially rigid society like Westeros normalice the prospect of soldiers and lowly knights getting their hands on women of high birth? It sets a bad precedent for the whole elitist social order. This women's social status seizes to exist when they find themselves on the wrong side of the war?

This, from a worldbuilding lens, it's absurd. And I think betrays not only a very childish perspective on GRRM's view of the Middle Ages but also a perverse fixation on GRRM's part in regards to rape (and don't get me started on his barely disguised fetish for child-brides).

[rynnthefangirl]

The evil, power hungry Queen- agrees to set aside her political aims and give all her strength and focus to defeating the White Walkers while being promised nothing in return.

The good, selfless Queen- argues against getting the resources they desperately need to even stand a chance against the White Walkers because it threatens her political aims.

[mikasaerens]

House of the Dragon lacks fearlessness

The characters are all too safe and sanitized.

Meanwhile in ASOIAF/GOT we had actual female rivalries and ambitious female characters.

Cersei destroys her entire kingdom and rule just to get Margaery locked up on false charges. She tortures an innocent man, has the High Septon killed, secures her bastards on the throne not caring that it led to a war, murdered her best friend at age 11 just because her friend had a crush on Jaime etc..

Daenerys is not afraid to kill her abusive brother brutally, she secures her rule by brutally killing slave masters (as she should)

Olenna commits regicide

Sansa feeds Ramsay to the dogs and smiles. She goes behind her brother’s back to secure the Army of the Vale to claim victory for herself in the Battle of the Bastards.

And so on and so on!! Nobody regrets shit. They’re allowed to be fucking actual human beings!! Complex, flawed and brutal!

Meanwhile we have Alicent hesitating at defending her own family and getting mad at Aemond for suggesting Helaena get off her ass and fight.

We have Rhaenyra worrying about the small folk like any royal would ever give a fuck.

This show butchered its female characters. Completely and utterly.

[scarareg]

Can't believe this need to be said but, making your female characters being grateful to their rapist/for being raped is not feminist

[adwdragons]

to be honest if i was daenerys during season eight episode one & sansa bitterly snipped "and may i ask how are we meant to feed the greatest army the world has ever seen? while i ensured our stores lasted through winter, i did not account for dothraki, unsullied and two full grown dragons. what do dragons eat anyway?" i would have said "lol nothing i guess," given the order for my troops to turn around & march back to dragonstone & let the north deal with whatever they had coming.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

We can learn a lot about D&D from these two quotes. The fact that one is demonized and protrayed as a narcissist (falsely) while the other is adored and praised.

Daenerys, who D&D decided to portray as cruel and descending into insanity from season 5 on, is written as acknowledging her suffering. However, she says that she endured by finding strength in herself. This view of her past shows how she understands that, while without her circumstances she wouldn't be where she is today, she knows it was unnecessary and awful. Her motivation for most of the show is ensuring that what happened to her doesn't happen to anyone else.

Sansa, on the other hand, outright thanks her abusers. It's one thing to acknowledge how one's trauma shaped you, but it's another thing entirely to thank those who harmed you. By thanking Littlefinger, Ramsay, and others, Sansa is basically saying that her past self needed to suffer in order to become useful. It's D&D basically saying that femininity and women in general need to suffer in order to become "strong".

By choosing to contrast how Dany and Sansa view their pasts and deciding to make Sansa the one the audience is meant to root for, D&D are condemning Dany's idea. They are saying that women shouldn't credit themselves for enduring trauma, rather they should be thankful to their abusers.

This is just one example for how Dany is punished for being active in her life and actively rebelling against her "place" as a woman. Sansa is passive and only acts out when helped by men until the very end of the show, when she has "earned" her active role. Even in her final ending, she asks a man, her brother, to be given the North. Dany takes the lead in her life as soon as she is able, and, even when she's Drogo's bridal slave, she learns how to gain some semblance of power over her life.

Dany is punished by the GoT narrative for being a proactive woman and choosing to condemn rather than thank her abusers. Sansa is rewarded for her passivity and thankfulness to her abusers. This an just one example of the underlying sexism in the show.

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

Consequences of Driftmark for Alicent and Rhaenyra

*In F&B, the events at Driftmark take place during Laenor's funeral, not Laena's, and Harwin is still alive, and Lyonel Strong is still Hand.

In bold are the consequences that are depicted in House of the Dragon - the rest are cut.

Consequences of Driftmark for Alicent in F&B:

Aemond (10) accidentally loses an eye, scarring him for life

Viserys publicly forbids any questioning of Rhaenyra's sons' parentage

Consequences of Driftmark for Rhaenyra in F&B:

Jace (6) is 'savagely pummelled' by Aemond and Luke (5) has his nose broken

Viserys orders Rhaenyra to move to Dragonstone to put an end to the fighting, therefore distancing her from court

Viserys orders her lover Ser Harwin Strong away to Harrenhall to dispel the rumours (resulting in his and Lyonel's deaths by fire)

Viserys considers but passes over Rhaenyra as his new Hand and reinstates Otto instead.

Meanwhile in House of the Dragon:

Harwin is already dead after being sent away for beating up Ser Criston Cole defending the honor of the Crown Princess against the Kingsguard knight who is apparently allowed to publicly shit-talk her?

Rhaenyra has already chosen to exile herself to Dragonstone because something something wise sailor steers to avoid the storm??

Rhaenyra is never even considered in the running to serve as her own father's Hand despite being the Crown Princess. Viserys even mentions that his own father Baelon had served as Hand for his father King Jaehaerys... but nope he just gives that pin straight back to Otto.

And then there's Rhaenyra immediately marrying Daemon after faking Laenor's death...

Again, Laenor is already dead at this point in the book. It is his funeral, and that is why we're having the first public confrontation over the boys parentage now, when Laenor is no longer around to refute it. Yes, Laenor is an unfortunate example of an LGBT character getting killed off, but the attempts by the show to avoid burying their gays creates a new host of problems. Laenor is now ok with murdering an innocent bystander, and then traumatising his parents and children with a body burnt beyond recognition. Rhaenyra is now also ok with this. This is now a part of their characterisation, but not one the show actually addresses or acknowledges - because it was only ever a temporary characterisation for the purposes of finding a way to get rid of Laenor without repeating a harmful trope. Similar to how it is now apparently a part of Rhaenys' characterisation that she will slaughter hundreds of smallfolk (and keeps a nifty change of armour in her purse for emergencies). This was purely for the Doylist purpose of having a big shocking Game of Thrones Episode 9 Moment, as evidenced by the weak Watsonian reason for why Rhaenys didn't end the war there and then ("she wouldn't do that to another mother" "it wasn't my war to start"). Not to mention that by episode 10 both Rhaenyra and Rhaenys seem to espouse the ideals of the Geneva Convention.

The change makes Laenor a suddenly very shitty person - particularly considering he left his kids with a burnt corpse so soon after their biological father actually died in a fire (it's not as though the show even makes the most of this trauma to actually develop Jace as a character). If Laenor is to exit the show anyway, at least have him exit with integrity. Then instead of spending his final episodes setting up Laenor faking his own death we could have explored his relationship with his children. What if instead of Harwin defending the boys in the training yard we had Laenor facing off against Criston Cole? The man who murdered his lover and now bullies his children? This would also establish Laenor as a father figure whose presence would actually be missed - as it is he is treated as a political nuisance to be bumped off so Rhaenyra can finally marry Daemon.

Which is also a consequence of changing the order of deaths around - Harwin is still alive during Laenor's funeral in the book. If Harwin were still alive in the show, Rhaenyra would not be looking to marry Daemon - as GRRM said in an interview, he could write at least a novella about Rhaenyra's romance with Harwin. Rhaenyra certainly would not have been plotting to get rid of Laenor. Again, it is as soon as Laenor dies that there is a public confrontation over about their sons' parentage; losing Laenor only hurts Rhaenyra.

On that note, while Daemon is rumoured to have paid Qarl Correy to get rid of Laenor, he is not the only one who stood to benefit from Laenor's death. It is much easier for the Greens or for Vaemond to challenge the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's children with Laenor no longer alive to claim them as his own. Especially if you kill him off before the now-betrothed Luke and Rhaena can grow old enough to marry and seal the alliance (in the book, it is Laena who arranges to betroth the children - perhaps she knew her cousin Vaemond would have no qualms usurping her daughters). And especially if Harwin is still alive and looking very suspicious as Rhaenyra's sworn shield. Imagine Harwin at Laenor's funeral, unable to comfort his grieving children without raising suspicion now that Laenor's absence leaves them exposed.

Providing an alternative suspect for Laenor's death would allow Daemon to be a more mysterious and grey character. I think one of the best moments of the show was when it cut away from Daemon's 'Heir for a day' toast to Otto reporting it to Viserys. Matt Smith apparently delivered the line with more sincerity than Otto makes out - a creative choice which is very in keeping with the spirit of F&B, filled as it is with biased narrators. I think it's a shame the show dropped this approach - imagine if the audience only ever heard rumours of Daemon murdering Rhea Royce, or murdering Laenor? Imagine if we had to balance for ourselves the light and dark in the character, analysing for ourselves how much truth was in the rumours. Imagine if Rhaenyra knew as much as we did, and had to decide what story she believed (what story could she live with?). This is the approach Game of Thrones should have taken with Ned Stark and Littlefinger - instead of Littlefinger monologing his evil plans like a pantomime villain it could have placed the audience in Ned's point of view (like in the book), forced to make decisions on who to trust based on limited information.

It would also make it more believable for Rhaenys to back Rhaenyra. True, Show Rhaenys doesn't leap to ally with Rhaenyra because she suspects she had a hand in her son's supposed death. But she also gets over that a little too easily. There is the Watsonian explanation that Rhaenys decides she can live with backing her son's potential murderer out of political pragmatism. But since by the finale she is fiercely defending Rhaenyra and singing her praises I'm going to assume that she's just in tune with the Doylist explanation that Laenor isn't actually dead. They could have at least have Rhaenys only suspect Daemon, and have the source of the rift be that Rhaenyra does not share her suspicions. That way Rhaenys can reconcile backing Rhaenyra without insulting her son's memory.

In addition to insulting Laenor, these changes remove sympathy and context for Rhaenyra's character.

Now Rhaenyra does marry Daemon within half a year of Laenor and Laena's death, and this is considered scandalous in the book. But the show makes it out to be immediately after his death, and it removes everything that happens within those 6 months. And a lot happens. Again, Rhaenyra is exiled away from court to Dragonstone.

To prevent further conflict, and put an end to these “vile rumors and base calumnies,” King Viserys further decreed that Queen Alicent and her sons would return with him to court, whilst Princess Rhaenyra confined herself to Dragonstone with her sons.

Yes, Rhaenyra 'took possession of Dragonstone' as her seat when she was 16, and she spent a lot of time there. We know she visited Laena at Driftmark from Dragonstone, and we know she gave birth to Joffrey on Dragonstone. But Dragonstone is close enough that Rhaenyra at 14 was racing Syrax between Dragonstone and King's Landing daily. And we know that until the events at Driftmark her sons were being raised and educated alongside Alicent's:

Though all six boys attended the same feasts, balls, and revels, and sometimes trained together in the yard under the same master-at-arms and studied under the same maesters, this enforced closeness only served to feed their mutual mislike, rather than binding them together as brothers.

Aemond losing his eye at Driftmark was what caused the final split of the royal family - not Rhaenyra getting embarrassed by her breastmilk leaking during a council meeting. Rhaenyra did not willingly leave King's Landing, because that would be a bad move, and the show knows it's a bad move, which is why they had to come up with that dumb line about the wise sailor steering to avoid the storm.

Next, Harwin is sent away, resulting in his and Lyonel's deaths.

Henceforth Ser Erryk Cargyll of the Kingsguard would serve as her sworn shield, whilst Breakbones returned to Harrenhal.

Lyonel Strong, Lord of Harrenhal and Hand of the King, accompanied his son and heir Ser Harwin on his return to the great, half-ruined castle on the lakeshore. Shortly after their arrival, a fire broke out in the tower where they were sleeping, and both father and son were killed, along with three of their retainers and a dozen servants.

So after being effectively exiled by her father and being forcibly separated from her lover, Rhaenyra suffers another huge personal loss. And so soon after losing her best friend Laena, and her husband and friend Laenor. Most importantly, by placing the fire at Harrenhal before Driftmark, rather than in the aftermath of Driftmark, the show erases another huge blow to Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra is passed over as Hand.

Lord Strong had been the King’s Hand, and Viserys had come to rely upon his strength and counsel. His Grace had reached the age of three-and-forty, and had grown quite stout. He no longer had a young man’s vigor, and was afflicted by gout, aching joints, back pain, and a tightness in the chest that came and went and oft left him red-faced and short of breath. The governance of the realm was a daunting task; the king needed a strong, capable Hand to shoulder some of his burdens. Briefly he considered sending for Princess Rhaenyra. Who better to rule with him than the daughter he meant to succeed him on the Iron Throne? But that would have meant bringing the princess and her sons back to King’s Landing, where more conflict with the queen and her own brood would have been inevitable.

Viserys needed a new Hand after Lyonel's death, and he almost called Rhaenyra home. Her exile to Dragonstone was almost temporary, and serving as her father's Hand would have done wonders to smooth her transition to power. But Viserys prioritised avoiding conflict between Rhaenyra and Alicent and clearly decided 'happy wife, happy life' - and gave Otto the pin instead. Which positioned Otto perfectly to arrange a coup.

For all TG complain that Rhaenyra faced zero consequences for Aemond's eye - she sure got royally fucked over in the aftermath of Driftmark. For all TG complain that Viserys played favourites and let Rhaenyra get away with everything, his desire to avoid conflict and placate his wife seriously sabotaged Rhaenyra. He may have backed the legitimacy of her sons, but overall Driftmark was a political win for the Greens... and for Daemon.

These rulings pleased no one, Septon Eustace writes. Mushroom demurs: one man at least was thrilled by the decrees, for Dragonstone and Driftmark lay quite close to one another, and this proximity would allow Daemon Targaryen ample opportunity to comfort his niece, Princess Rhaenyra, unbeknownst to the king.

However you feel about Daemon, the timing and context of Rhaenyra's marriage to him is important.

Yet hardly had Ser Otto arrived at the Red Keep to take up the Handship than word reached court that Princess Rhaenyra had remarried, taking to husband her uncle, Daemon Targaryen. The princess was twenty-three, Prince Daemon thirty-nine.

Otto arrives in King's Landing to take the position that is rightfully Rhaenyra's, and Rhaenyra marries Daemon (upstaging Otto in the process). That's the context of their marriage. Daemon (however you interpret him and his motives) comforts Rhaenyra at a time in her life when she is losing everything, one after the other - her best friend, her husband, her lover, her influence at court, her position, the security of her succession. Rhaenyra marries Daemon to feel stronger again, at a time where much of her strength is being stripped away. Daemon was there at an extremely vulnerable time for her - he may even have related to her how he was also exiled by Viserys, how he was also passed over as Hand.

Based on the timing, Rhaenyra was also probably already pregnant.

Septon Eustace claims that Rhaenyra knew her father would never approve of the match, so she wed in haste to make certain he could not prevent the marriage. Mushroom puts forward a different reason: the princess was once again with child and did not wish to birth a bastard. And thus that dreadful year 120 AC ended as it begun, with a woman laboring in childbirth. Princess Rhaenyra’s pregnancy had a happier outcome than Lady Laena’s had. As the year waned, she brought forth a small but robust son, a pale princeling with dark purple eyes and pale silvery hair. She named him Aegon.

Even accounting for the possibility that Aegon was born early - which is likely since he is noted as being small - it is possible Rhaenyra conceived him before her marriage to Daemon. The year after all began with Laena's death and ended with Aegon's birth, and as I've detailed Rhaenyra goes through a lot between Driftmark and her wedding to Daemon. So while he is comforting Rhaenyra for her many losses, Daemon gets her pregnant.

The show does at least keep the context of a grieving Rhaenyra having recently lost Harwin when she finally sleeps with Daemon. But by changing the order of events they remove much of the context that made this such a low and vulnerable time in Rhaenyra's life. She doesn't lose a best friend. Her children don't lose a protector in Laenor. She leaves King's Landing voluntarily. She was never in the running to be Hand. Her exile is erased from the show.

In the show, it's "hee hee we'll get rid of Laenor and then we'll be an unstoppable power couple and RULE THE WORLD - from Dragonstone though, 100% voluntarily, because something something wise sailor avoids the storm..." And this is apparently the more interesting and complex improvement on F&B?

At this point the show had already changed Rhaenyra's childhood so she is no longer bullied by her stepmother and groomed by her sworn shield. These instances of adversity in Rhaenyra's life are exchanged for a version of Alicent and Criston that are more sympathetic and that many find more interesting. I may personally disagree, but I can understand it, and I can understand why some fans like these changes. However I do not understand why it was necessary to keep taking away even more instances of adversity faced by Rhaenyra - why erase her exile, why erase her being passed over as Hand? it does not make the story more interesting, and it makes Rhaenyra's story less compelling.

How much more heart-breaking would it have been to see Rhaenyra begging her dying father to wake up and defend her, if the show had stuck closer to the book version of events? After forcing his daughter into an unwanted marriage with a homosexual man, after exiling her while she was grieving, after passing over her as Hand, after hurting her transition to power, after failing to to bring her home... how much more emotionally satisfying would it then have been to finally see Viserys drag his corpse out of bed to defend Rhaenyra and her sons?

The book version of events would also open up a more interesting relationship dynamic between Rhaenyra and Daemon than "lets fake my husband's death so we can be an unstoppable power couple and rule the world!" If I were adapting it, I would have kept Daemon's possible involvement in Laenor's death ambiguous - uncertain to both the audience and to Rhaenyra. Again, suggest the possibility that it could have been the Greens. Have Rhaenyra, at her lowest and most vulnerable moment, convince herself that she can live with the doubt. Because at this point, with Laena dead, Laenor dead, Harwin dead, and with her father exiling her, Daemon is one of the few allies she has left. A Rhaenyra who chooses to kill an innocent bystander to fake her husband's death is cartoonishly evil. A Rhaenyra who chooses to live with the possibility that her new husband murdered her old husband is interesting.

Meanwhile Alicent goes from victor to victim at Driftmark...

Yes, of course in both book and show her child is the most seriously injured and, again, scarred for life (though in the book it is the result of violently bullying little kids half his age so 🤷‍♀️). But politically, Alicent comes out on top after Driftmark.

See Book Viserys doesn't give Rhaenyra an honour without also giving Alicent one, and vice versa.

King Viserys loved both his wife and daughter, and hated conflict and contention. He strove all his days to keep the peace between his women, and to please both with gifts and gold and honors.

And because Alicent champions the patriarchal status quo (and in the book is an adult battling a child) this 'neutrality' is to Rhaenyra's detriment. So yes, Driftmark sees Viserys publicly forbid anyone from discussing Rhaenyra's sons' parentage - that is a loss for Alicent and a win for Rhaenyra. But Alicent's victories at Driftmark are much more significant - Rhaenys is effectively exiled from court, her rival's influence at court is severely diminished, Otto is brought back as Hand and gets to stack the council with Green supporters. Viserys' weak efforts to stop the fighting and placate everyone ends up favouring Alicent significantly.

In the show, its all 'poor Alicent can't even get her mean husband to cut a 6-year-old's eye out for her and its making her big beautiful brown eyes sad'. The show removes all the consequences Rhaenyra faces at Driftmark, and replaces it with Alicent snapping because 'that spoilt Rhaenyra gets away with everything'. All of Alicent's victories from Driftmark have already happened before Driftmark, and they don't even count because Alicent's big beautiful brown eyes are sad. Rhaenyra has already committed political suicide by voluntarily leaving King's Landing, and Otto is already Hand because Rhaenyra was never in the running.

This is worsened by the fact that the show feels very inconsistent in how it depicts Alicent's position as queen consort. In the book, as stated, Viserys strives to please his wife with gifts and gold and honors, and Alicent is surrounded by a 'Queen's party' of 'lickspittles, fawning over Queen Alicent and her children'. Alicent's worth is apparent in the fact that Viserys throws a huge tourney to celebrate their 5-year-anniversary - Alicent is the centre of attention and celebration. Because this is the 'benevolent' form of misogyny Westeros takes in the books - one that celebrates and reveres wives and mothers like Alicent (while of course not permitting them bodily autonomy) and demonises non-conforming women like Rhaenyra.

In the absence of Alicent's special tourney in the show, we don't get Rhaenyra's iconic dress entrance - instead it is given to Alicent during Rhaenyra's wedding to Laenor. Because this is such an iconic moment for Rhaenyra, the show tries to compensate in episode 3 by having a bloodied Rhaenyra upstage Aegon during his birthday celebrations. Since this is no longer the culmination of years of being bullied by her stepmother, the moment loses quite a bit of its impact (at least the soundtrack is gorgeous). This version also replaces Alicent's special day with Aegon's special day - which depicts a very different world of misogyny. The more complicated benevolent misogyny of the book is replaced with a more basic misogyny in which Alicent is simply ignored and unappreciated.

Which feels like overkill. I don't think this change was necessary to understand Show Alicent as a victim. Personally, if I was pimped out to my friend's dad and suffered through marital rape and unwanted pregnancies with zero bodily autonomy, I wouldn't consider a tourney to be adequate compensation. Alicent can be appreciated and celebrated and still suffer. If anything it could further feed into her self-identification as a martyr.

So the show depicts an underappreciated victim Alicent with her big beautiful sad brown eyes. But episode 6 depicts Alicent as having accumulated a significant amount of power as Queen. The episode establishes that Alicent is powerful enough that she can demand that the Crown Princesses' newborn be taken away from his mother and brought straight to her (in a world of high newborn mortality rates) - and the Crown Princess has to comply. It's implied that this kind of behaviour isn't new, and either Viserys isn't intervening or Rhaenyra is just not telling him for some reason. Meanwhile Alicent can shut down a proposal by the Crown Princess that the King is in favour of, overturn the Crown Princess at council meetings, and seems to be the final voice at the council meeting. Not to mention she has made Criston Cole so untouchable that he can murder vassals of House Velaryon, publicly bully Prince Jacaerys, and openly speculate on the sex life of the Crown Princess (and it is Harwin who gets punished???).

But one episode later and Alicent is snapping in despair because Viserys won't cut out a 6-year-old's eye for her. And the subtext of the scene is that it isn't really about the eye, it's about a marriage where she has gone underappreciated and unrecognised, and Viserys always chooses Rhaenyra over her and his other children, and big brown eyes are sad... All ignoring of course everything that she gets away with in the previous episode. Really, it feels like Driftmark is a last straw for Viserys - he's been essentially letting her run things so far but he draws the line at cutting his grandson's eye out.

And I would be willing to accept this inconsistency as purposeful - people are inconsistent and hypocritical, and Alicent self-righteously views herself as a martyr. And there is a tendency for critics to mistake in-character inconsistency for inconsistent characterisation and bad writing, and I do see this tendency a fair bit in discussions of Alicent (some instances being more valid than others). However I get the impression that this is not a purposeful in-character inconsistency, or at the very least there were competing visions behind the scenes. And this is because of the victimised way Alicent and her big beautiful sad brown eyes are framed - and because of the way the events at Driftmark are also shifted around.

Firstly the dynamics are changed between the children to make Aemond more sympathetic. The age gap between him and Jace is narrowed and Baela and Rhaena are added to the fight - making it a fight of 1 against 4 kids who are close in age. Meanwhile in the book, Aemond is 10 and starts the fight by hitting a 3-year-old Joffrey for making noise. A 6 and 5-year-old Jace and Luke then come running to defend their little brother against a much older and bigger bully - who easily beats them up.

Joffrey had run to get his brothers when Aemond took to the sky, and both Jace and Luke had come to his call. The Velaryon princelings were younger than Aemond—Jace was six, Luke five, Joff only three—but there were three of them, and they had armed themselves with wooden swords from the training yard. Now they fell on him with a fury. Aemond fought back, breaking Luke’s nose with a punch, then wrenching the sword from Joff’s hands and cracking it across the back of Jace’s head, driving him to his knees. As the younger boys scrambled back away from him, bloody and bruised, the prince began to mock them, laughing and calling them “the Strongs.” Jace at least was old enough to grasp the insult. He flew at Aemond once again, but the older boy began pummeling him savagely…until Luke, coming to the rescue of his brother, drew his dagger and slashed Aemond across the face, taking out his right eye.

Jace's injuries are much much worse in the book, and he is much much younger and braver. I mean, it takes balls for a 6-year-old to go up against a 10-year-old - and a 10-year-old with a giant fucking dragon at that.

And then there is 'questioned sharply':

Afterward, King Viserys tried to make a peace, requiring each of the boys to tender an apology to his rivals on the other side, but these courtesies did not appease their vengeful mothers. Queen Alicent demanded that one of Lucerys Velaryon’s eyes should be put out, for the eye he had cost Aemond. Princess Rhaenyra would have none of that, but insisted that Prince Aemond should be questioned “sharply” until he revealed where he had heard her sons called “Strongs.” To so name them was tantamount to saying they were bastards, with no rights of succession…and that she herself was guilty of high treason. When pressed by the king, Prince Aemond said it was his brother Aegon who had told him they were Strongs, and Prince Aegon said only, “Everyone knows. Just look at them.”

The order is reversed. In the book Alicent is the first to demand violence against a child - in the show it is Rhaenyra. Now I argue that Rhaenyra's demand was more toothless - in both book and show it was more about backing Alicent into a corner to get her to admit to plotting a coup. But In the book, both mothers at least had an understandable context behind their shitty demands - Alicent's son had just lost an eye, and Rhaenyra was responding to a violent threat to her son (plus, Aemond had just savagely pummelled Jace). Since Alicent is publicly demanding violence against a 5-year-old, now is a good time for Rhaenyra to ask 'hey, I wonder who taught Aemond my sons are bastards, hmm Alicent?'

But in the show, Rhaenyra is the one made into the aggressor, and Alicent is now the victim reacting defensively. Rhaenyra just opens with wanting to question Aemond sharply, right while Aemond is in the middle of getting his eye stitched up. In the book, the argument between the mothers comes after the boys have been made to apologise to each other, which implies that at this point Aemond has at least already received medical attention. But in the show, Viserys immediately goes along with Rhaenyra making her sons' parentage the more pressing priority - all so the scene can escalate towards Alicent losing it and demanding Luke's eye. The scene is more dramatic and nonsensical as a result - it is bewildering that this is the order of priority and this primes the audience to sympathise with Alicent here. Viserys is shouting at his injured son and Alicent's big brown eyes are sad. And Rhaenyra is temporarily characterised as the sort of person to demand her brother be tortured - as the aggressor rather than in a reaction to a threat - for the Doylist purpose of a more dramatic escalation towards Alicent picking up the knife.

Now Viserys making the question of his grandson's legitimacy a priority could make sense in the show's version of events - if there is a potential coup it does have to be shut down immediately. The consequences for his children and grandchildren are after all life-threatening. And to be fair to him, his first impulse (while Aemond is receiving medical attention) is to ask the children how the fight started, which is reasonable enough, and the episode has already established that he's not in complete control of his mental faculties.

But emotionally, we the viewer are watching an injured kid get yelled at by his dad while Alicent's big beautiful brown eyes are sad. And not only are the events around Driftmark changed to remove the adversity Rhaenyra faces, but the events at Driftmark are changed to add to Alicent's victimhood. She is no longer the aggressor, she is depicted as undervalued, and her victories at Driftmark are erased.

And by episode 9 it seems Alicent is so powerless as Queen Consort that she has to let Larys masturbate over her feet. And episode 8 makes out that she's been acting as nurse maid to Viserys, instead of Viserys having servants to look after him (though we did see Alicent voluntarily sending these servants away back in episode 3 - did she send them away permanently? Were there spending cutbacks on staff to make way for the redecorating?)

But in episode 8 Alicent also appears to be running the kingdom, and has the power to decide on the succession of Driftmark. Alicent even tells Rhaenyra that she will be the one sitting in judgement while Viserys is ill - not Otto, the King's Hand, but Alicent. How is this consistent with Alicent being undervalued and underappreciated, if she is given this power and responsibility? How is she so powerless that Larys gets to masturbate over her feet?

From these inconsistencies, TG draws the following picture: underappreciated Alicent is busy running the kingdom, while spoiled Rhaenyra is off 'playing house' with Daemon and avoiding her responsibilities. Poor Alicent is depicted as doing all the work while Rhaenyra is off having fun, instead of Rhaenyra being effectively exiled against her wishes to placate Alicent. It's almost as insulting as the change to Rhaenyra and Criston - instead of Criston (who is exactly the same age as Rhaenyra's mother, by the way) grooming Rhaenyra from the age of 7, he is the one presented as Rhaenyra's victim by TG (like poor friendzoned Jorah).

Alicent's victories are presented as unappreciated sacrifices and burdens, and Rhaenyra's losses and adversities are presented as her idiotically skiving to live in domestic bliss.

And the problem to me isn't simply that there were changes made, or that I wish Alicent was a more one-note antagonist etc. Though I would have preferred a more book-accurate adaption, I was initially cautiously on board for the changes in the first half of the season. They at least seemed interesting, and I was intrigued to see where this high-budget fanfiction would go. But the show goes too far in taking sympathy and depth away from Rhaenyra to shower it on Alicent - the accumulation of changes tips it over the edge. There had to be a better balance than what the show gave us, one where we could root for Rhaenyra as she struggles in the face of adversity (making the eventual dark path she goes down all the more tragic). The sympathetic version of Alicent that the show gives us simply does not demand taking so much away from Rhaenyra.

The one scene in the second half of the show where we get to see how adult Rhaenyra deals with adversity is her introductory scene. She responds to Alicent's demands by walking bleeding up a flight of stairs rather than let go of her newborn. And this is where my frustration lies with the show, because it has so much potential and yet it is so inconsistent. On the one hand, it's ridiculous that Rhaenyra doesn't just ignore Alicent. But on the other, it's a decent way to compensate for the change to Rhaenyra's childhood. Since we no longer have young Rhaenyra getting bullied by her stepmother, we needed this big moment of cruelty. And it shows just how much Rhaenyra will fight for her children.

And yet the same episode will have her voluntarily abandon King's Landing (and far far too early - there is a point in F&B where a considerably more broken Rhaenyra faces a similar choice, and we are nowhere near that point yet). Rhaenyra ditches because she's been, in her words, humiliated. This would be salvageable if this was simply a case of Rhaenyra deciding not to put up with Alicent's shit and establishing herself from a seat of strength at Dragonstone. But staying away? Being absent from court for years? Episode 8 even establishes that Dragonstone is so close that they don't even need to stay the night when they visit King's Landing! This woman walked bleeding up a flight of stairs rather than let go of her newborn baby, and now she's just relinquishing all influence at court to the greens? This isn't consistent or accurate characterisation.

Rhaenyra already has plenty of canon flaws, without adding that she voluntarily leaves and stays away from King's Landing and her dying father. Even when ordered to move her family to Dragonstone, Rhaenyra in the book always tried to come home. She brought Maester Gerardys to save her father's life. She at least tried to influence the council by nominating her choice of Archmaester. She doesn't just roll over and let the Greens tilt the council in their favour without a fight.

Though Grand Maester Mellos washed the cut out with boiled wine and bound up the hand with strips of linen soaked in healing ointments, fever soon followed, and many feared the king might die. Only the arrival of Princess Rhaenyra from Dragonstone turned the tide, for with her came her own healer, Maester Gerardys, who acted swiftly to remove two fingers from His Grace’s hand to save his life.

Princess Rhaenyra wanted Maester Gerardys, who had long served her on Dragonstone, elevated to replace Mellos; it was only his healing skills that had saved the king’s life when Viserys cut his hand on the throne, she claimed. Queen Alicent, however, insisted that the princess and her maester had mutilated His Grace unnecessarily. Had they not “meddled,” she claimed, Grand Maester Mellos would surely have saved the king’s fingers as well as his life. She urged the appointment of one Maester Alfador, presently in service at the Hightower. Viserys, beset from both sides, chose neither, reminding both the princess and the queen that the choice was not his to make. The Citadel of Oldtown* chose the Grand Maester, not the Crown. In due time, the Conclave bestowed the chain of office upon Archmaester Orwyle, one of their own.

*the seat of the Hightowers - great attempt at neutrality there Vizzy

With King's Landing so close to Dragonstone, there is no way Rhaenyra didn't do what she could to mitigate the damage of her absence. The fact that she is noted as being in the confinement stages of her pregnancy during the coup, and that this is considered serendipitous, suggests to me that Rhaenyra otherwise would have tried to attend court as much as possible:

With the princess in confinement on Dragonstone, about to give birth, Queen Alicent’s greens enjoyed an advantage; the longer Rhaenyra remained ignorant of the king’s death, the slower she would be to move. “Mayhaps the whore will die in childbirth,” Queen Alicent is reported to have said (according to Mushroom).

If the draft script leak is true, the show initially had Rhaenyra explicitly say that she abandoned King's Landing to strengthen her claim, which is both nonsensical and adds to my belief that the show didn't fully understand that they were taking the fight out of Rhaenyra by having her voluntarily leave and stay away. Or maybe they did understand it, seeing as they replaced this statement with the more vague 'wise sailor' line, with Rhaenyra's theme music playing triumphantly to trick us into thinking they weren't assassinating her character.

I've seen essays by fans of the show that have tried to argue that Rhaenyra leaving and staying away is actually a compelling character flaw, spinning it as either the inadvertent self-sabotaging actions of an overprotective mother, or an entitled antagonist who wants the throne without working for it. The latter is character assassination and inconsistent with the rest of her characterisation. The former is also inconsistent, and for it to work it would necessitate that the show spend more time actually fleshing out her children and her relationships with them. These inconsistencies, and the half-hearted way the show tries to rationalise her decision, leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that the show is simply less clever and more inconsistent in quality than it had the potential to be. Which is all the more infuriating in a show that has potential - it can be very capable of writing compelling characters when it wants to, it just rarely does when it comes to Rhaenyra and her children.

Ultimately, a character who fights as much as they can is always going to be more compelling than one who rolls over. Is anyone honestly looking at, say, Sansa in the early seasons of Game of Thrones and thinking "hmm yes I'm glad they got rid of Sansa sneaking out to the Godswood to plot her escape, tricking Tyrion into thinking she was just praying, refusing to kneel during her forced marriage and learning valuable lessons from being used as a political pawn by the Tyrells. It's so much more compelling watching Sansa spend her time getting petted by Shae, Margaery and Tyrion, not knowing what sheep shit is, and getting passively whisked off by Dontos in a surprise rescue".

Rhaenyra has had to fight ever since she was named heir aged 8, ever since her stepmother started bullying her as a child. That fight is an indispensable part of her character - whatever other changes you may make, taking away her fight is not on the table. And above all, taking away the adversity she faces removes opportunities for her to be interesting.

[agentrouka-blog]

The fact that people still think Harry and Sansa going to marry and rally the Vale army to WF is hilarious. They put so much stake on Harry character that they forget he is giving importance by some Vale lords only because they feel Robin is going to die because of his weak health. What would Sansa going to gain with marrying Harry?

GRRM: This kid is really ill. Underdeveloped, a brat, immature. SICKLY!!!!

GRRM: He is getting DANGEROUS MEDICINE THAT COULD KILL HIM!!!!!!! Watch him take it on the page and the maester talk about how it's dangerous and Arya learn about how it's DEADLY!!!

GRRM: This is the step-by-step plan of what is going to happen WHEN he dies! Which is super probable!!!!!

Fandom: Yeah, that kid is going to die and GRRM is going to follow the step-by-step plan he laid out for this eventuality. This is a reasonable thing to expect.

GRRM: Pay no attention to the other disabled young boy surviving against the odds and currently on a plot-relevant magical adventure north of the Wall. Or the main character with dwarfism. Disabled children that are expected to die will definitely die.

Fandom: Yes, Sweetrobin will die. So excited about how Sansa will be betrothed to Harry and then word-by-word act out the plan that Littlefinger made for her not first, not second, not third, FOURTH arranged engagement to a person not of her own choosing - this time it's going to be for real. Yes, this is good speculation.

GRRM: "No one will ever marry me for love."

Fandom: See? He told us. He always spells out exactly what's going to happen.

[polysucks]

In all fairness the text doesn’t actually say that the Tully-looking Stark kids have fairer skin than Jon and Arya and I kind of do side-eye artists who draw Jon and Arya looking like an entirely different race than their siblings. Arya’s chapters have a few lines that make me think she’s supposed to be rather pale but it’s kind of neither here nor there bc I like to see them all being visibly brown. Although I would imagine Arya might spend more time outside and just get more sun exposure. A lot of Arya fans really rally against this and will call it racism and admittedly I’ve seen art of her and Sansa where the contrast in the way they’re drawn makes me raise an eyebrow, but I don’t think most people have racist intentions. In AGOT, Jon is described as dark where Robb is fair. These fans will say that fair is supposed to refer to his hair and eyes, but in the US at least, when we say fair in relation to human coloration, we’re almost always talking about skin, and auburn isn’t strictly a fair hair color either! Idk, complex topic and I think the way some fans fight about it is silly

I agree! To a degree.

Nuance is alive and well!

I personally think that, no, there are no inherent racist or colorist intentions when artists depict the starklings as light skinned or dark skinned. I think it’s unintentional, not malicious. As Americans, racism is literally baked into the very infrastructure of our social system, and even the most educated, radical, and anti-racist of us all have prejudice—me included. It took generations to learn, it will take generations to unlearn.

Of course, this is fiction, and fiction is malleable and subjective beyond the artist’s intent.

Now, as far as colorism goes: I think it’s somewhat okay and kinda fair to assume, and depict, that Arya and Jon have a darker skin tone/hair/features than the children who dominantly take after the Tully side. It just depends on the intent behind the depiction. Is the depiction rooted in racism? Where, as Americans, (and I am speaking from a specifically American POV as colorism and racism and class and etc are literally bred into our social infrastructure) when it comes to indigenous women specifically (but holy fuck every black and brown woman for fuckin real) we judge them based on their body types and skin tone and their ability to adhere and assimilate into westernized/colonized beauty standards. The darker the skin, the more savage she is. The less traditionally feminine the less approachable and breedable she is. And I think that’s something that The Gegrgege might have been playing with when presenting the dichotomy of Arya and Sansa specifically.

I hate to give a cis white man credit, but the man do be writing nuanced women without objectively putting them in the zone of abjection and I fucks with it.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Arya is described as taking primarily after her father while Sansa is put on this unofficial pedestal because she’s seen as more conventionally attractive (as far as westerosi standards go)

Now, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how attractive Sansa and Arya are (why is the “is Arya pretty?” Discourse constant?) THEY ARE CHILDREN WHO FUCKING CARES. I know you’re not saying anything about the objective hotness of children, but it’s hard to talk about how the starks look without IT BEING BROUGHT UP OH MY GOD

But okay like.

I’m gonna say something controversial.

Different skin tones and features occur in direct family members.

Dude I’m 1/2 Siksika. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family are dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Very traditionally native looking. My dad came out ginger with extremely fair skin. But body-type, facial structure, physique, that’s a native man. His sister, same parents, both dark-skinned and dark-haired, was also dark-skinned and dark-haired. But other than color, they look exactly alike.

I came out with red hair, fair skin, green eyes. My mom’s side is extremely Italian—also dark skinned, dark haired, dark eyed. Well, as dark as Italians can get. No one EVER on my mom’s side had red hair—and oh my god they be breeding. They’re still white. How did I come out with all the recessive traits? How did my dad come out with all the recessive traits? How did my sister, who is half white, but shares my dad, come out of the womb platinum blonde, but looking exactly like our full-blooded Siksika auntie by blood? Why did her kids come out platinum blonde, too?

These things occur. They occur naturally, too. No one hopped a broom in my family.

And besides, the gegrgegegre likes to play with genetics. The man truly understands that genetics aren’t an exact science but they can be a general rule of thumb.

I guess over all, what I want to say—I have yapping disease and it’s fatal— is it depends on the tone that artists are depicting the starklings. Are they depicting Arya as dark skinned and boyish because that’s how her character is written, or because there is a baked-in prejudice that belies every American that the less a woman (or girl) meets arbitrary westernized beauty standards the more savage brown woman she is? She is abject in the eyes of modern, colonized, white society. While women like me, like Sansa, who present as a more socially acceptable savage, a pliant, subservient, easy to fetishize girl who will help pass on the mǎster race colonizer traits due to the white-adjacency of her ethnic beauty, are depicted in a brighter light.

I think it’s fine to depict Arya and Jon as objectively darker than the other stark children (though they are all visibly brown as far as I’m concerned)

But in what way are you doing it?

Are you demonizing Arya for being considered the western (or in this case, Southron) antithesis of colonial beauty standards? Is your depiction rooted in racism?

Or are you doing her justice by allowing her to not meet those arbitrary beauty and femininity standards because that’s who she is culturally, physically, emotionally, and canonically?

Nuance. Is alive and well.

Thank you for your input :3 I think these are important discussions to be having in fandom!

[alicentcole]

i know this has been said up and down already, but thinking of jeyne poole’s got me thinking once again of how martin failed to give catelyn and sansa ladies. maybe arya was too young to have a companion, but sansa is clearly not, and she only has jeyne and beth and both of them are already part of the starks’ own household; no lord or lady of any northern house is benefiting from that. how come there weren’t young ladies from the north and the riverlands flocking to join sansa in king’s landing after she got betrothed to joffrey?

then there’s catelyn’s absolute dearth of ladies, like, no river lord sent his daughters and sisters north to wait on the lady of winterfell? no northern lord wanted to take advantage of the southron girl recently come to winterfell with the women of their own households? couldn’t even one of rodrik cassel’s late wives not have been even mentioned in passing to have waited on catelyn? maybe jeyne’s own mother? given castle cerwyn’s proximity to winterfell, you’d think lady cerwyn would make the most of it but apparently not lol

i guess giving sansa more ladies in king’s landing would be a mess of highborn hostages for the north in lannister hands so george got out of handling that?