#sansa endures #it’s what she does #she’s tortured day after day and all she can do is smile and thank the people who torture her #all she can do is look straight ahead and will herself not to cry as the horrifying death of her family #of the people she loved #is shoved in her face in more and more grotesque ways #and the fact that after all of that #after all she is made to go through #she can still find it within herself to be kind #that’s the truest sort of strength #that’s a strength few people could barely dream of #it’s sansa’s kindness that defines her #the fact that she can live through what she’s lived through and still look for goodness in people #it’s remarkable (via whoistorule)
game of thrones
Sansa and Arya + thinking of each other
Sansa remembered a summer’s snow in Winterfell when Arya
and Bran had ambushed her as she emerged from the keep one morning. They’d each
had a dozen snowballs to hand, and she’d had none. Bran had been perched on the
roof of the covered bridge, out of reach, but Sansa had chased Arya through the
stables and around the kitchen until both of them were breathless. She might
even have caught her, but she’d slipped on some ice. Her sister came back to
see if she was hurt. When she said she wasn’t, Arya hit her in the face with
another snowball, but Sansa grabbed her leg and pulled her down and was rubbing
snow in her hair when Jory came along and pulled them apart, laughing.
UGH SANSA MY OWN MY LOVE MY BESTIE. Seriously, the thing that so much of fandom doesn’t seem to fucking get about Sansa is that all the brains in the Stark family went to Sansa (and possibly a little bit to Bran). Ned was an honorable man, Robb was a good military commander, Jon is shaping up to be a good leader, Arya’s a ruthless badass, Bran thinks that wandering around the woods for two years is a good plan, and Rickon is four so who knows about him, and Cat, marrying into the family, got infected with the dreaded Stark Good Intention Bad Execution Fever. All of them are lovely, wonderful, noble, beautiful dumbasses.
Except Sansa.
After their father’s murder, Sansa and Arya are in more day-to-day danger than anyone else in their family; what’s fascinating is how they deal with the differing dangers in their own way. Arya finds friends, forges ties, fights – and she’s lucky. Freeing Jaqen works out, fortunately; Tywin Lannister takes a liking to her, fortunately; Sandor doesn’t kill her after the Red Wedding puts an end to his plan of getting lots of money for her, fortunately. There’s a lot of crowing about how Sansa wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in Arya’s shoes – but Arya’s survival up to this point is about half skill and half luck.
But Sansa’s survival has hinged entirely on her own skill, on her own ability to seem harmless and biddable and stupid – because she’s had absolutely no luck whatsoever for the past two and a half seasons. She’s already learned the brutal lesson by now that no true knight is going to come and take her away from this – the scene with her and Sandor during the Battle of the Blackwater showed that characterization brilliantly – and that it’s up to her to survive without friends and without hope. And so she has, beautifully. She’s kept her mouth shut and played her part and done as she’s been told – and better yet, she’s fooled those in power into thinking that she does it because she doesn’t know any better, when in reality she’s only pretending to be the girl who still believes in chivalry and romance.
Which is one reason I find Littlefinger’s tactics here so hilarious – he remembers her as the impressionable little girl at the tournament, and so he has carefully styled himself as her true knight, whisking her away from King’s Landing. But this scene shows not just Sansa’s ability to understand how the game is played, but how she sees right through him. She’s flattering him here, calling him smart and outlining his conspiracy so that he’ll think she’s awed by him. She knows exactly what’s happened – that she’s exchanged one cage for another, and that her position is no less dangerous now than it was. Everything hinges on making him happy while giving as little as possible away, and she’s absolutely up for the challenge.
Because that’s par for the course for this girl. This is the girl who, after having been beaten by her own fiance’s guards for his amusement, crawled to her feet and announced that her loyalty lay with her fiance, her true love. And Tyrion – one of the most brilliant political operatives in Westeros – replied, “Lady Stark, you may yet outlive us all.” This is the girl who understood that by helping her husband retrieve a goblet from under a table, she was defying a king – and who was willing to do that for her husband. This is the girl who has found the only place in King’s Landing where she can be alone and still knows that it’s unsafe. This is a smart, smart girl, whose mistakes thus far have been due entirely to ignorance and inexperience. She’s learning fast, though, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
“I would name them all for those the gods have taken. The green one shall be Rhaegal, for my valiant brother who died on the green banks of the Trident. The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.” “And the black beast?” asked Ser Jorah Mormont. “The black,” she said, “is Drogon.”
[via rubyredwisp]
“You know nothing, tumblr user enterprising-gentleman.”
Based on this original post from a while back; I wanted to do a full version for the new season.
So how’d I do?
I LOL’ed. Out loud.
“Ask the Pacific Rim and Attack on Titan fandoms how that’s going to turn out”