Bouncing into Graceland

The Exact Moment I Fell for Sansa Stark

I’m just having all kinds of Sansa feels this morning. So, I thought I’d share them.

Sansa annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of me the first time I read A Game of Thrones. I could not stand her. For most of the book, I actually did hate her- I outright loathed her. “Worst. Character. Ever.” kind of loathing, “She Deserves Whatever Happens to Her” loathing, “What a Little Idiot” loathing.

Boy oh boy have I learned the error of my ways.

I read GOT twice before moving on to Clash of Kings, and by the end of that second reading, Sansa was my favorite, my darling bb, my precious princess. Was she still annoying? Yes. Was she still flawed? Yes, deeply so. Did I think everything she did was correct and undeserving of criticism? No, not at all. But I loved her all the same. And I remember exactly when I did a 180-degree turnaround on her character. It’s still my favorite line in the entire series.

He can make me look at the heads, she told herself, but he can’t make me see them.

Sansa had nothing in that moment. No one to protect her, no skills or experience useful to protecting herself in any way, no power, and no defenses. She was exactly what she was brought up to be, had done everything she’d been taught to do, been exactly who everyone she’d ever loved or trusted in her life had ever told her to be, and everything around her has been ruined.

She has no reason to be brave, or even to try. It would make perfect sense for her to give up, or to go mad, on the spot. I think it’s the moment when I not only started loving Sansa, but actually started to “get” her character. Why? Because the spoilt, obnoxious little thing I’d spent so many pages loathing would have done exactly that- gone mad, or given up.

But not Sansa.

Not Sansa. In that moment of bleakest despair, she did what I still think is one of the bravest things anyone in the entire series has ever done. She summoned more force of will than any child should ever need, and mustered the only defense she could possibly have in that situation. She decided- it was willful, a choice, not an action of blind instinct- that even if she had no control over her body, the court at King’s Landing would not have control of her mind. They couldn’t touch the parts of her that mattered- they could own her actions, but couldn’t own her self. They could tell her what to do, but never what to think or feel.

[He] can’t make me see them.

How could I not love her after that?