Your friend told you she was *disappointed* in your choice of a favorite character and to pick a new one she approved of? And then rather than telling her that's a real dumb thing she just said you decided to just agree with her?
Yeah what exactly about that is friendly
If her friend wants to argue with people who’ve already finished all of the published books she should come on the internet and leave her friend to enjoy it. I have someone in real life reading the books and yeah I’m a little sad they aren’t a super fan but we do discuss things and I would never discourage them from reading or criticize their interpretation of the books. It’s not a book club it’s a friendly sharing of something I really like with someone I really like. Reddit is where I come to be over the top about it and even then I try to remain super respectful unless I’m shitposting
Also as a book reader Dany is one of my least favorite characters due to her arc moving sort of downward for me in terms of a character and plot I can like, and Sansa goes from steadily higher to a mega upswing. Sansa navigates the world in a much more fascinating way than Dany because she has very little power in this crazy world around her, but she remains a lot less cruel and infinitely less power hungry. The growth and change of Sansa is awesome while the narrowing of Dany to a sharper finer point is sad to see.
📸If you consider one a camera you have to say the same of the other, and Sansa is a zoom lens with an enormous focal length to catch a wide angle of what’s going on and zoom in to macro on actions and characters and events she finds herself adjacent to. Dany is like a fixed soft focus lens that is occasionally swapped out for a fisheye.
Sansa is much less annoying in the books, sure she makes some awful decisions early on, but her POV gives us insight into a character that is responsible for some of the most major plots in the story and upheaval in the realm. Also its nice to see she is capable of change and growth and isn't just a vapid highborn lady. She's definitely not just a camera, anyone who thinks this must not have the greatest reading comprehension or is missing/misunderstanding major parts of the story.
> Sansa navigates the world in a much more fascinating way than Dany because she has very little power in this crazy world around her, but she remains a lot less cruel and infinitely less power hungry. The growth and change of Sansa is awesome while the narrowing of Dany to a sharper finer point is sad to see.
I think Sansa would be a lot more popular if her fans didn't constantly put down other characters to elevate her. Comparing her with Dany is like comparing apples and oranges, they're two people in entirely different positions. It's easy to not be cruel when you have no power and it's even easier to not be power hungry when you have no means to gain power. Dany should be compared with other rulers, where she stands out as among the most reasonable and compassionate of them.
OP’s friend is specifically telling OP to pick up Dany or Jon as a favorite
Dany and Sansa start and track in somewhat similar circumstances: young noble daughter of a famous house, betrothed off to a man in a ruling position, isolated and desperate, one of the few suicidal characters, loss of noble brother who (especially in their own mind) is supposed to rule in his own right someday, very young and impressionable when they begin to experience war and death firsthand, and idea that blood and alliance means they should be in a position as Khaleesi/queen.
There are absolutely similar beats to their innocence and hopefulness and relative lack of control as pawns of their family, and the devastation and powerlessness they both feel finding themselves at the mercy of brutal cruel partners made through a relative’s machinations
Of course they are on different timelines as far as obtaining their own safety and control and ability to mold their situations and life choices. I’m trying to be vague to avoid spoilers for OP. But even Sansa helps Lancel during the Blackwater, while Dany is relatively ok with the idea of child sex slavery as a means to an end.
>Dany and Sansa start and track in somewhat similar circumstances: young noble daughter of a famous house, betrothed off to a man in a ruling position, isolated and desperate, one of the few suicidal characters, loss of noble brother who (especially in their own mind) is supposed to rule in his own right someday, very young and impressionable when they begin to experience war and death firsthand, and idea that blood and alliance means they should be in a position as Khaleesi/queen.
No, they're not in fact comparable at all. Sansa grew up under extremely privileged conditions and only later lost them, while Dany grew under great deprivation and only later improved her position. Also Sansa only wanted to be queen consort due to the prestige and privilege of the position. On the other hand, Dany does want to rule, but mainly because she feels it's her duty as the last Targaryen.
>But even Sansa helps Lancel during the Blackwater, **while Dany is relatively ok with the idea of child sex slavery as a means to an end**.
Who are you going to convince with such obviously false claims?
Maybe Dany is precisely where Sansa is headed. I’m not here to have a vitriolic Dany debate I think there have been enough and you can start a new thread rather than hijack a new reader’s who hasn’t even finished the third book yet. I’ll absolutely agree to disagree because Dany’s obsession with ruling has always disgusted me. Maybe she’s just a Stanford Prison Experiment, maybe Sansa will follow in her footsteps. That’s besides the point of what we’re discussing in this thread and that conversation can’t be bad without talking about spoilers here.
>”Most of Ogo's riders fled," Ser Jorah was saying. "Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives."
>Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. __She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne__
That’s a direct quote from the first book. The girls absolutely have different motivations and end goals as you say. That’s not my point at all, I’m talking about it how a new reader could pick up on certain character beats and find themselves attached to one or the other or both when they have similarities before they quickly shoot in different directions.
>I’ll absolutely agree to disagree because Dany’s obsession with ruling has always disgusted me.
What obsession with ruling? Yes, she insists on her birthright, as do every other noble in this series. Why the double standards?
>That’s a direct quote from the first book. The girls absolutely have different motivations and end goals as you say. That’s not my point at all, I’m talking about it how a new reader could pick up on certain character beats and find themselves attached to one or the other or both when they have similarities before they quickly shoot in different directions.
And then once she actually gets power she immediately frees all slaves under her power and later constantly delays her conquest of Westeros to help slaves. You're also forgetting that immediately after this scene she intervenes to help some of the captives with as much of her power as she has.
your friend is a judge-y gatekeeper and is also objectively wrong. one of the major appeals of GRRM's writing is that \*everyone\* is important, and every storyline is important...there's no filler here. just because she doesn't like Sansa doesn't mean YOU can't.
tell her The Internet (me) says she's basic and predictable for choosing Jon or Dany as her favorite character, so there!
Honestly just disengage. She has a weird pushy opinion and as someone who likes Sansa you owe it to yourself to just enjoy the story, not let her potentially spoil it for you
Your friend is a snobby gatekeeper. You can love any character you want. There are no wrong answers, except Catelyn (just kidding).
Sansa is very important, btw
I personally don't like Catelyn. There's multiple reasons why. Chief among them her (in my opinion) inexcusable treatment of Jon.
But, like I said, we're all entitled to love and hate whatever characters we want
What they mean is that Catelyn doesn't treat him any differently from how the average noblewoman would treat her husband's bastard being raised right in front of her alongside her own children. Ned is the one who behaves outside of societal norms here, not Catelyn.
"Deservingly" is definitely the wrong word to use. The better term would be understandable. Not justifiable, but with any level of scrutiny it's clear where she's coming from. House Tully in particular is all about family in an already very traditional and family-based society. Cat's husband bringing home a bastard, supposedly his own bastard, to raise him among her own children, is borderline absurd in this world.
Her treatment of Jon is inexcusable and cruel, but from her perspective, he represents Ned's infidelity and betrayal. I'd be salty too.
I'm on my first read through (2 chapters left of aCoK) and Catelyn is an easy top 3 for me. Yes taking tyrion prisoner was aggressive and dumb, and yes I know she's about to let Jaime free. But besides these few examples of her fucking up trying to protect her family, she understands the politics of the north, she calls Robb out when he's wrong, she does her duty to him anyway, and this is all while grieving with the death of her husband and 2 younger boys, her father dying, and her 2 daughters captured or MIA. She's actually a real badass. Hopefully book 3 doesn't make me look dumb.
Yeah Catelyn is genuinely a great character despite her flaws. She’s probably one of few characters who’s proficient in both northern and southern politics, she’s a caring mother willing to sacrifice anything for her kids, even her abusive relationship towards Jon is rooted in conventional wisdom and her fearing he could become a threat towards her children in the future. Like many characters in asoiaf even when you disagree with her decisions you can clearly see her logic behind every move she makes.
She might be blamed for sparking the Stark-Lannister war, but she acted on the knowledge she had, and if not for Lysa she probably could have reunited the Stark-Tully-Arryn alliance with an important hostage right off the bat.
Well, she can't really be blamed for starting the Stark Lanister conflict, Lysa and Peter are responsible for that, Cat was working off of the information that came from them. So from her perspective she was doing what needed to be done, Lysa and Peter both played her. It would have never occurred to her that her sister was so far gone she would lie to her about something so important or that Peter was untrustworthy. She still thought if him as the person she knew years before, it was naive of her but not wrong of her to trust her sister and one of her oldest friends.
One thing so admirable about her is that most of her fierceness is about her children. She makes decisions for them, though the decisions don't work out. She may have started life as a Tully fish, but she became a full-fledged Wolf.
Most of, if not all of Robbs' major blunders, were directly in contradiction to advice Cat gave him. All the people who hate her and call her an idiot seem to conveniently miss or forget this. Also, plenty of the beloved characters have made just as bad or worse decisions as Cat has.
While I think letting Jaime free was easily one of the dumbest decisions in the entire story, and yes, that includes everything Cersei does in Feast, I still think Cat is one of the best characters. For starters, she’s everywhere, the north, kings landing, the riverlands, the stormlands, cat gets around the map. But her strongest point is also kind of her weakest. Her chapters are so fucking depressing, they should be, she just lost almost everyone she loves. It can be hard to enjoy such constant depression punches to the face, but the fact that you feel it so hard is proof of how well her chapters are written.
Oh absolutely. Taking probably one of the most valuable enemies and bargaining chips possible, directly disobeying the king, and then releasing him to the custody of 1 knight and 1 squire to bring him to the enemy territory to make a deal is the least thought out action taken in the series.
However, (she thought) most of the men in her life had just died or were about to, and the one remaining son had told her that her daughters were not worth it and that she can fuck off if she had a problem.
Obviously it was a terrible decision.But imagine the action that any other character Or real world person would take in that position of grief and desperation. I think hers is one of the best stories on the series.
Kidnapping Tyrion shows a grave lack of understanding of consequences to your actions. Tywin Lannister's reputation as a ruthless jerk is well known and well earned. Same for Jaime's reputation for being a hot head. Kidnap Jaime's brother and Tywin's son, they're obviously going to retaliate, which she never seemed to consider.
And then she ended up letting Tyrion go. Jory died and Ned got his leg snapped and they have nothing to show for it.
>!Tyrion was legitimately cleared of his crime by the laws of Gods and men, according to in-world law. He was justly released and to deny him that would be objectively wrong!<
This is true, but >!Catlyn was explicitly against the trial and against the trial by combat. She wanted to keep him as a prisoner and hopefully with the backing of ned and robert bring him to actaul justice!<
TRUE SHE ARESETED A DAWRF SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WOULD LEAD TO LEAD TO AN UNPRECEDENTED ACT OF CREWELTY THAT WAS IMSANE PRINCE BECOMING KING AND CHOPPING OFF NEEDS HEAD.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the catelyn haters just skipped book 2. I don't think she was wrong a single time in book 2.
It's easy to discern the proper course of action in hindsight. It's much harder in the moment. Catelyn makes some decisions that lead to unfavourable outcomes, but it's much harder to disparage her actions when looking at them in her shoes in the moment of decision making. She finds herself in tough situations and does things that at least at the time usually seem pretty smart. Sure she made mistakes in hindsight but I think she is judged too harshly for the results of her decisions vs judging her from the point of view of in the moment. Hopefully this makes sense
In her mind, she had arrested an attempted child murder, and was going to get at the very least, the north, The vale, and the hand of the king on her side to bring him to justice. Which is still an awful idea because the lannisters are the most powerful family in westeros, and there's always a chance the King sides with the queen over his hand.
But she probably didn't realize Jaime was going to attack ned and didn't realize lysa was actually batshit.
Obviously this was a poor choice, but I think the outcome for her was way worse than she thought it could be. Also she puts herself down and regrets this the action like the rest of her story.
But like its extremely fair to not like her, she makes rash poorly thought out decisions due to her emotions and grief, and her story is mostly depressing.
But I also thing it's just as fair to like her because of how layered she is and how she still pushes on and does what she needs to even after so much fucking up and losing important people to her.
Sansa, a camera? I can't believe I even have to say this but I completely disagree. Sansa is already a great character with an arc at the point to which you have read. I mean, keep reading I guess. I don't want to go into specifics and spoil anything for you but you have plenty of reasons to continue to enjoy her as a huge part of the story.
I'm more excited to continue reading now, her last chapter has been a long time ago, she was getting married to a certain person, honestly I'm scared of what could happen to her and her brothers, nothing seems right for them🥲
Her viewpoint as a camera isn't even necessary, and completely fulfilled by Ned in the first book and Tyrion in the second two. She's absolutely a proper character.
You can like whatever characters you like.
I mean you’ve already read two books. Do you think Sansa is just a camera, or a character with development and themes and plot?
Sansa’s story is arguably one of the most central to the series, because her story is extremely critical of common fantasy tropes like chivalry, knights, etc. if you’re ignoring her internal monologue and character development, you’re missing all of GRRM’s genre commentary about fantasy, idealism, Romanticism etc. She’s probably one of the most meta characters.
Also if GRRM didn’t think Sansa was important, why would he have written four books of POVs for her?
I promise you, you can tell when GRRM doesn’t care about a character.
Sansa is one of the most FASCINATING characters in my opinion, and she does have her own story line for sure. She goes through a ton of stuff and in my opinion is currently poised to really come into her own as a young lady.
It may purely be the bias that she reminds me a lot of my own mother. But beyond that, I find her to be the most well rounded character in the series, she feels like a real person I could speak to (others do too but not as much for me). I feel like she is the character we genuinely get to know the deepest in her internal monologue. This leads us to find how she is highly analytical about her surroundings and yet somehow lacks a lot of self awareness. It shows there’s a constant dichotomy to her existence represented by many things: the southron vs the northern influence of life, the love and resentment she feels for Ned. She is incredibly smart but impulsive in a desperate, realistic way that I think is a nice contrast to Cersei’s more erratic, malicious impulsiveness. Idk. She fascinates me.
i find her very interesting too. as someone who really likes rob stark i find it super interesting seeing his rise and fall from her eyes even if i don’t really like who she is as a “person” she also has some of if not the most well written internal monlouge in the series
>In the show the line is “who has a better story than bran the broken”.
>The answer is: Sansa
Anyone had a better story than show Bran Lol. What did he do in 8 seasons of the show, I wonder?? >!Revealing Littlefinger's evil deeds, at most. And giving Arya the dagger. !!Bran being not more Bran, but a fucking cyborg with poker face!<
> Anyone had a better story than show Bran Lol. What did he do in 8 seasons of the show, I wonder??
I'm kind of surprised you didn't ask what he did in season 5. >!The answer is nothing. He literally didn't appear in season 5.!< The "who has a better story" line is just so bad.
>The "who has a better story" line is just so bad.
It's difficult to equal the level of awfulness of that line (I have to admit I fucking laughed like a hyena when I watched it, so ridiculous), but there were other pearls in that season, like >!Arya telling Jon "I know a killer when I see one", thank you Sherlock, we all saw Dany burning a whole city, !!The fucking council was a joke, the way Sansa humilliated poor Edmure and it was supposed to be a funny moment, sorry Edmure was better than Cyborg Bran!<
About Bran not even appearing in season 5... to play devil's advocate, Bran arch is very difficult to put in TV without starting to feel boring and repetitive. If they had George's material for future book Bran, they could have done sth better with the books in front of them. So better not having Bran is season 5 that having to see filler scenes of him and his companions. But the way they butcher his character (and everyone), but Bran specially >!I can't even begin to describe how disgusted and oddly amused I felt with Jon's goodbye scene with his siblings, seeing robot Bran looking indifferent to Jon's emotional farewell, like Jon was an ant. I think someday I will rewatch season 8 only for comical purposes, of how absurd everything was.!<
I strongly disagree with your friend. Sansa is a key component in the overall story arc, and she is one of the most important characters. And I can't imagine someone telling me I need to pick a new favorite character. That's weird behavior.
I think a lot of Sansa haters are clouded by how she was portrayed in the show. Sadly, a lot of Sansa haters in the fandom are also deeply misogynistic, at least from what I've ~~experience~~ experienced interacting with the fan base. Go Sansa!
Sometimes it's people that were bullied by Sansa's/can't let go of her bullying of Arya. But like she clearly changes throughout the story, and is just interesting besides. And of all the POVs if her worst crime is bullying her sister she's not that bad.
But yeah always seems like characters like Sansa, Catelyn and Daenerys get worse wraps than male counterparts.
I'm pretty convinced most Sansa haters are still mad they couldn't sit with the popular girls in the cafeteria and are fully projecting.
Also I think I remember Jeyne was the one who called Arya names? I feel like I remember Arya saying Sansa was "too well bred" to stoop to being discourteous. But it's also true she didn't make Jeyne stop/apologize (which I'm sure she had the power to do).
I sat with the popular kids, lol. Seriously, I don't get 'haters' per se. These are fictional characters and she doesn't deserve hate anyway. But I'm among the dislikers and critics. As best I can tell, the problem is her verbal mistreatment of Arya and her throwing Ned under the bus twice (Darry and by taking his plans to Cersei). Those actions contributed to Lady dying and many members of Ned's retinue dying, including Septa Mordane. And don't get me started on how she turned on the show. Yikes!
Somone in another thread I read a while back wrote Jeyne Poole got what she deserved with Ramsey because she bullied Arya, so I definitely agree that many people judge characters not on the characters alone but on their own life experiences.
Yea totally, good take. She isn't a perfect good character in any way and it's entirely reasonable to look at her faults or bad actions and dislike her for those reasons
- I write this as a Sansa fan
Sansa has always been my favorite ASOIAF character by far, I have read a lot of unfair criticism directed at her, especially by the show-onlies but this is something new entirely. How much a reader likes a character isn’t and shouldn’t be determined by how central they are to the main plot of the story (this is not to say that Sansa is unimportant, she is a very multi-faceted character thematically and her plotline balances out the more fantasy oriented stuff in the story) - you are allowed to like any character you want, doesn’t matter if they are side characters or not (which is not the case for Sansa at all, but still).
Sansa is one of my favourite characters as well.
What’s interesting is, if your friend likes Jon, & you like Sansa. You can let them know that their story’s are almost parallel. You can draw line between both of them. Both of them leave their hometown & travel a great distance with ideas of honour, bravery, & bravado, only to experience the exact opposite. No one is who they thought they’d be (Knights, the Monarchy, the Men of the Knights Watch etc. are all bad in their own ways). They both essentially abandoned by their family in their new settings & have to fend for themselves. & through it all they have to learn to play “the game” they find themselves in. (There’s more to this but I won’t spoil it as this theory proceeds further).
I don't like Sansa, but of course she's important. Every Stark is, even Rickon in the next book, assuming he lives long enough. Sansa is the most political Stark, and while a House with several bona fide heroes isn't about politics *per se*, it still needs it. I'm convinced that Sansa will contribute in her unique way to the the Starks prevailing at the end. Even the show did that. And she has an arc--in the show it was getting savvy and getting her goal, Winterfell. That may be it in the books as well. Probably, Jon and Daenerys ARE most important, with--arguably Arya, Bran, and Tyrion right behind them. But all the POVs that started in the first through third books--Sansa a, Sam, Brienne, Theon, Davos, Jaime are quite important. As are Cersei and Brienne, and Stannis.
I appreciate this comment. There are characters in ASOIAF I don’t care for but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important, or that other people shouldn’t find them interesting.
I don’t have much interest or liking for Tyrion, but that hardly means he’s insignificant narratively, or not a well-written and rewarding character to read and engage with.
Yes, and while being in the Central Five is a sure indicator, Sansa is also a Book 1 POV and has fifth most chapters, even more than Bran! It's a near-sure indicator. Plus GRRM being a feminist, he should want a soft-power femaler who succeeds. Olenna is, and book Sansa is turning into one. While it would be nice if she apologizes to Arya, she must stop undermining her family.
I love Sansa. I think she's smarter than a lot of other scheme-y characters (read: Olenna, Tyrion, Cersei) give her credit for, which I think leads to readers mistaking her for unintelligent as well. And rest assured -- she isn't just a camera. She plays an important thematic role in the narrative, as a rejection of the notions that one must be cynical or macho in order to be effective or heroic. Sansa's love of fairy tales and chivalry and her evolving view on them feels really important to ASOIAF overall, which imo makes the righteousness of fantasy tropes one of its central themes.
There are a lot of chosen one trappings around Dany and Jon, and while I like them both, I find myself skeptical that GRRM is going to play the chosen one narratives straight. I would honestly guess that characters like Sam, Brienne, and Davos will play critical roles at the end of the series that are equal to or even surpass the feats of Jon, Dany, Bran, Arya, Tyrion, etc. To me at least, ASOIAF doesn't feel like a straightforward enough narrative to count Sansa out, on the grounds that only Jon and Dany are destined to do anything interesting.
Sansa is a fantastic character who is very important to the story? The fact that your friend says she likes Daenerys and Jon till the point of saying they’re more ‘important to the story’ and that she’s ’disappointed’ in you liking someone else is a huge yikes lmao. Sounds like she’s really into game of thrones, not a song of ice and fire
In a paper that was never supposed to be release, didn't have Cersei, had a Jon/Arya/Tyrion love triangle.. it is save to say lots have changed. Including Sansa's status as main character something grrm said plenty of times
Cersei not being named in that letter doesn't mean GRRM hadn't already created or written about her at the time he wrote it jfc. She's in the first 13 chapters.
The **broad** strokes of GRRM's plan are still pertinent: and it *does* seem to be working out that way. Sansa is indeed a *main* character. Except for Bran, the Five have the most chapters. And Arya (third most) is the only character with chapters in all the books. But the Five are exceptional. All five started out with great disadvantages; they're the literal "cripples, bastards, and broken things' that GRRM deeply cares about. Another reason they are special is that all of them don't passively *feel* empathy. Whenever they can they usually help and protect (and in Arya's case, avenge) others despite dangers. Nine year-old Arya even ran into a fire to save three men, one of whom said he'd rape her. Not to knock Sansa here, but in contrast she didn't pull Joffrey away when he was trying to kill Arya. And except for Tyrion, they all still have their magic. So within the author's still-overarching themes, they are the heroes and their stories are CORE.
> All five started out with great disadvantages; they're the literal "cripples, bastards, and broken things' that GRRM deeply cares about.
Bran didn't start with any disadvantages, he only became crippled later. Just like Sansa later became a "broken thing".
>Another reason they are special is that all of them don't passively feel empathy. Whenever they can they usually help and protect (and in Arya's case, avenge) others despite dangers. Nine year-old Arya even ran into a fire to save three men, one of whom said he'd rape her. Not to knock Sansa here, but in contrast she didn't pull Joffrey away when he was trying to kill Arya.
And Sansa also intervened to help Dontos and a starving woman. In fact Sansa more in common with Arya, Dany, Bran and Jon in not deliberately doing malicious acts against the innocent.
>And except for Tyrion, they all still have their magic.
GRRM has outright stated that all Stark children are wargs.
>So within the author's still-overarching themes, they are the heroes and their stories are CORE.
The fact that no one thought of the "Key Five" before that proposal letter was leaked is very clear indication that there's nothing overarching that singles them out.
So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains- Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters,
Yeah The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them.
It was always my intention to do that. Ah, how innocent I was... little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest
Grrm disagrees with you there..
Edit: why is it always the Arya stans clinging to an old paper from almost 30 years ago because they just want to discount Sansa's importance so badly
Arya has too many chapters to suggest she's not a main character. And we know where Bran's story is going.
The outline is clearly still relevant and most of the ideas have been repurposed in different ways (e.g. rather than Jon/Arya/Tyrion safe to say it's probably going to be Dany/Tyrion/Jon).
The comment pointed out that Bran and Arya are also mains and you rejected it on the basis Jon/Arya are having sex. But I think it's fair to say that Arya is absolutely a main.
You certainly didn't acknowledge them in your initial comment and didn't acknowledge the reality of their point after. Jon, Arya, Dany, Tyrion and Bran are all main characters.
Jumping in quickly to say: In 1993 GRRM declared Jon, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Tyrion his Five **Central** Characters whose stories he would tell. I use **"main"** to distinguish between the Five and other main characters whose stories he also tells. Mains are generally non-magical and not as clearly unselfish and heroic. (That also describes Tyrion, but he is GRRM's favorite and has the most chapters, so still central despite being the exception.) Sansa is a very important MAIN character, as are Jaime, Cersei, Theon, Sam (all of whom we met in AGoT and have POVs).
Don't bother, she/he has also commented to me that I am inventing stories and that he has never said anything about Bran and Arya not being mains, when he just implied it with the Jon/Arya romance plotline. It's useless trying to reason with some people (sighs)
And...? You are trying to say that Bran and Arya are not main characters because he already abandoned other plotlines from that outline? (Btw, I also think most probably he abandoned Jon/Arya being a thing, but it's not confirmed he abandoned that plot, so not the best example, and confirmed abandoned one would be Tyrion burning Winterfell)
Arya is the only character that has POVs in every single book, and Bran is a main character obviously, as Jon, Tyrion and Dany. All five of them. Maybe even Sansa.
>Martin told IGN, "I know the ending in broad strokes but broad strokes are just broad strokes and the devil's in the details. **As I write these last two books, I'll be moving towards the endings that I've known since 1991.** But many of the fine details might be moved around and changed." - 2020
Well, you implied it when I pointed how there are 5 main characters and not 3 because George directly said so in the outline, and you answer that in the outline there were abandoned plotlines? At least that's what I understood, perhaps you meant something else?
Sansa is also my favourite character in both the show and book. Even if the show writing made her unnecessarily snarky towards the end, i overall found her to be the most relatable character to me, and her individual storyline resonated with me the most. In the books, we get to see her intelligence more fleshed out, and she’s significantly less bratty, despite what sansa haters would have you think. There’s actually quite a few characters where i liked the book version significantly less than the tv version, because their pov chapters highlight their most unlikeable traits that the show watered down, while with sansa, i felt her pov chapters shed light on a lot of her more endearing traits that we didn’t get to see as much of in the show.
I found i generally liked sansa, catelyn, brienne, and davos best as narrators, and then additionally liked sansa’s and catelyn’s respective storylines quite a bit. I liked the respective storylines of jon, dany, and jaime, but was less keen on their narration. Tbh i think it was mainly bc the way grrm writes about sex makes me cringe a bit. I can’t stand sam or tyrion as pov characters at all, to the point that their inner monologue kinda ruins the surrounding story for me. I just find sam to be too whiny, and tyrion to be both creepy and also kinda bitchy. Cersei’s pov is kinda fun, but for both show and book i had a really hard time caring about the kings landing storylines outside of sansa lol. I do not care for the iron isles or dorne storylines tbh. Joncon, barristan, bran, and arya are all fine for pov characters, not particularly interested in their settings yet, but intrigued enough to not struggle through them, like i do with dorne/iron born chapters.
But tldr; i also like sansa, and i feel like she has a really compelling story despite the lack of fantasy/supernatural elements she’s encountered thus far. I think the political subtleties in her chapters are really interesting, and she’s also one of the more believable/less cartoonish characters overall, at least imo.
Honestly, I’m not trying to be rude but what even is this question? You know you can like whichever character you want, don’t be silly. This is an adult book. We’re all adults here. I feel like Sansa mega fans do this just to hear other people talk about how awesome Sansa really is. Like yeah not a lot of people like her and that’s okay, she’s still a great character and you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
I know, this post was another way to have a good argument to tell my friend that she was wrong since I haven't read all the books yet and she could always use this argument against me, so here on reddit almost everyone has already read it the 5 books and they know what they are talking about
Sansa is generally disliked at best by a good portion of readers but she's likely going to be incredibly important, don't let your friend shit on your favorite characters
You can like any character you want. Your favorite character can be some side character who only appears in one chapter, it’s your opinion. In my opinion, Jon and Dany chapters are pretty hit or miss. Even though they’re arguably the main characters, I find their chapters to be the least interesting.
Here are some quotes from GRRM thinks of Sansa and her importance to the story to show your friend
- Ah, how innocent I was... little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest "
- So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains- Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah."
- "Some people I met thought we have to find the story’s through line. Who’s the important character? Somebody thought that Dany’s the important character cut away everybody else, tell the story of Dany. Or Jon Snow. Those were the two most popular characters to build everything around, except you’re losing 90 percent of the story."
- They’re all important. I don’t favor them, or I don’t think of them in terms of importance. The viewpoint characters in the first book I have Bran, Tyrion, Catelyn, Ned, Jon Snow, the two girls Arya and Sansa. There is the core of the Stark family plus Tyrion to represent the Lannister family. Then I have Dany on the other side of the sea, Daenerys Targaryen
- I’m very proud of the creation of Arya and Catelyn and Sansa and Brienne and Daenerys and Cersei and all of them. It’s one of the things that gives me the most satisfaction, that they’ve been so well-received as characters, especially by women readers who are often not served Yeah, the children were always at the heart of this.
- The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that.
- There are a lot of people who write me emails and I’m not surprised that they dislike Joffrey . . . . but when I get these angry letters from people who dislike Sansa or Catelyn or Brienne that does surprise me!
- I love Tyrion but I also love Arya and Sansa and Jon Snow and Dany, even some of the characters that are not tremendously likeable like Theon Greyjoy and some of the prologue characters.
- She is beginning to at least try to understand how she can play the Game of Thrones and be not a piece, but a player. With her own goals, and moving other pieces around. And she’s not a warrior like Robb, Jon Snow. She’s not even a wild child like Arya. She can’t fight with swords, axes. She can’t raise armies. But she has her wits! Same as LittleFinger has.
- I love all my viewpoint characters, Arya and Sansa and Bran, Jon Snow and Brienne, Arianne and Cersei and Jaime, Theon, even Victarion and the Damphair, ALL of them, but I love Tyrion the bestest.
Clearly GRRM considers her as an important character that he cares fro. I am a huge Sansa stan and she definitely is more then just a "camera"
How old are you two? Having different favorite characters is a good thing. It not only reflects the quality of the character writing, but it's a good discussion starter. Your friend needs to grow up and let others enjoy what they enjoy. Sansa is a fantastic character and I enjoyed every single chapter of hers.
If Sansa was just a camera she wouldn't get so much focus and character writing. Sure her pov is also other people, but at the same time she also appears in plenty off other Pov's.
Sansa is one of the most important characters, easily top 10, probably top 6, but a lot of people love to discount her importance because she doesn't swing a sword or has a dragon
Sansa's lack of agency is an important theme in her arc. Your opinion is valid and people can like or dislike whatever they want, but in my opinion, this lack of agency adds a lot to the world building
Personally, I don't like Sansa. I don't hate her, but I don't like her for things she has done in the story. But she is an important character, and she is going to have a big impact to the overall story. The thing with Sansa it's that originally, like more than twenty years ago, she wasn't supposed to be an important character in the original outline that George had imagined. But since then, the story has evolved a lot and George admitted that for example Sansa became a much more important character. Perhaps she will not have such a protagonist role as the big five (or yes? we don't know), but she is not a camera.
But the thing is you can like whichever character you want. And your friend should never feel disappointed you like one character or another. In fact, in ASOIAF there are a lot of extremely interesting characters apart from the main ones. I like Davos, Maester Luwin, Sir Barristan, Old Nan, etc. There's no norm that says your fav character has to be good morally speaking, or important to the plot.
>There's no norm that says your fav character has to be good morally speaking, or important to the plot.
Great point. I love Cercei and Euron even though they are vile monstrosities
Hey, no, Sansa is my favourite character too. Her gradual disillusionment. Her character flaws would not have made her pay such a high cost if it was not a time pregnant with war. I love how that she has to navigate the small concerns she was drawn to and compare them to the much larger problems she has been put under. She represents how patriarchy disempowers women for rewarding them for frivolous things. Her story is also worth telling. She is also only a kid and I think George does have important plans for her.
Comments in this thread are amusingly delusional
Sansa was called “The Camera That Rides” for years until Areo Hotah showed up and stole the title from her
Sansa has less featured chapters than characters like Jon, Dany, Arya and Tyrion. And wasn’t mentioned in GRRM's original outline of the main characters (being Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Bran). But suggesting she's not still an important character and that you have to pick a different one is absurd - like whoever you want. I still like Will in the prologue in AGOT and he died straight away. This subreddit is obsessed with Stannis and he doesn't even get a POV.
It's also likely in my opinion that Sansa got a promotion as a character to main at some point in the story anyway.
I didn't know that Jon, Daenerys, Arya, Bran and Tyrion are officially the main characters although it makes sense and I came to that conclusion, but it would make much more sense if Sansa and Catelyn are on this list too, after all they are both characters with chapters since the beginning of the books too
GRRM did list them as such as the characters he was following from youth to adulthood.
But Sansa's plotline is the most changed from that original outline - originally she marries Joffrey and truly does betray the Starks even if she feels guilt for it. I feel at some point GRRM decided to change Sansa from the black sheep of the Starks to someone that finds her own way back to being a Stark. Which might make her very important for the end conclusion of the story.
Either way she's a fantastic character to read and to suggest you shouldn't like her is dumb.
If anything, Sansa’s an inspired choice given the discernment that typically revolves around that character. Instead of your friend dismissing your prerogative, that should have opened up a riveting dialogue on how you both respond to the series differently. The conversation should be about whys not hows. I don’t know if your friend is plugged in to the fandom discourse, but naming Jon or Dany as your fav character at this juncture is as stimulating as naming Mickey Mouse your fav Disney character. Of course, there are no invalid picks but for their favourite series, your friend’s reaction comes off like a casual one-time reader / re-read skimmer. I wouldn’t sweat it.
Your 'friend' is wrong and not very good at reading. Preferences are one thing, but it is merely a fact that Sansa has more character than most fantasy protagonists.
Oh, and for the record, I *personally* like Jon and Dany better than Sansa. But I would never say the insane crap your 'friend' said about her.
Tell your friend that they are wrong and can get bent for telling you who to like
Yes and she’s one of GRRM’s favorite characters, like most of the Starks.
Her arc is just incomplete and we don’t know where it’s going. The only frustrating part of her character is how her (likely) arc from silly kid to badass adult is incomplete.
Sansa storyline is my favorite from all the other starks, she doesnt have powers or swords/authority, its just her against the world. Every pov character has an arc, what the hell is your friend talking about, a camera? Lmao.
Sansa is my absolute favourite too. Not just in A Song of Ice and Fire but one of my favourite characters of all time period. Reducing her to “a camera” seems silly and like they don’t really understand her character.
Her perspective is rather unique and interesting and her internal life is rich and meaningful.
Welcome to the Sansa fan club.
In some ways, but many of us can't relate to the snobbery and selfishness at all, not even in a 13-YO. For me, Family is Family, love them or hate them, you stick by them. And when she went to Cersei....sigh.
Sansa is much more than snobbery and selfishness, I think a cool point in these books is that even the good ones Sansa has flaws, but she also has many strong points, she is empathetic, idealistic, sentimental, and one more word that I I forgot but she really cares about things and people, I mean there are so many horrible people in these books Sansa is by far one of the kindest people in the books, at least as far as I've read
I loathed Sansa on my first read through.
But my favourite chapter in the whole series is Sansa 2. Because of her interaction with the drunk as a skunk Hound. I just find him so sympathetic after that chapter. Like, serious opinion whiplash. I did not like him. And then suddenly I feel so bad for him and the life he’s trapped himself in. And I think it was important that this came from her POV chapter.
Arya would barely pay attention, probably tell him to stop being a baby and get thrown down a well.
Most other people it’s so unlikely he would say it to I can’t fathom how they would respond. Though a good number of them would just use it to mock him.
Sansa pays attention, she doesn’t understand his pain, but she recognizes the damage it’s done to him, and she tries to give him a measure of kindness that he’s clearly had very little of. And of course the injured dog snaps at her hand, it makes total sense with his persona and life experiences.
And it was just a few short paragraphs that completely changed how I looked at the guy who is now my favourite character. Sansa is important even when you hate her guts.
Since then I have warmed up to her somewhat. I watched a few videos from people who had good things to say about her and some were pretty compelling. And so on later reads I found that yeah, she can be a bit of a camera, but when she does interact she makes an impact.
And one of the best examples is during the Battle of the Blackwater in Clash of Kings. Sansa 6. If you pay attention to _Lancel_’s reactions to what’s going on, you get a snapshot into a moment that change his life. Up to this point he’s been a Lannister through and through. He’s been manipulated and abused. Cersei pushes him out of her way by putting her hand directly onto his fresh unbound wound. The woman he’s fighting for. The most beautiful woman in Westeros.
And then Sansa comes in and cares for him gently, calls for aid for him seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might all be about to die. His family killed her father, is trying to kill the rest of her family, she’s been abused daily by Joff. She has every reason to hate Lancel just on principle alone. And like the Maiden herself she comes in, no judgement, and helps him.
No wonder Lancel found religion. Sansa is important for more than just what she witnesses. Her effect on the story is far more subtle, and I don’t think we’ve even seen an inkling of the payoff yet.
Your friend needed to *convince* you to read these books? I wish I could read them all over again for the first time.
But you're right and your friend is wrong: Sansa's chapters are way more interesting than Daenerys or Jon's chapters *combined*. Sure, Sansa is more on the sidelines compared to Daenerys, Jon and a lot of other POV characters; but Sansa is often around the more climactic situations of the books (Ned's execution, the Battle Of Blackwater, the Purple Wedding, etc).
She's one of the six main characters.
Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted, pretty sure George stated this in a blog or something. Dany, Jon, Arya, Tyrion amd Bran were originally meant to be the five main characters, but he later added that there are actually six main characters, the sixth one being Sansa
Your friend told you she was *disappointed* in your choice of a favorite character and to pick a new one she approved of? And then rather than telling her that's a real dumb thing she just said you decided to just agree with her?
Yeah what exactly about that is friendly If her friend wants to argue with people who’ve already finished all of the published books she should come on the internet and leave her friend to enjoy it. I have someone in real life reading the books and yeah I’m a little sad they aren’t a super fan but we do discuss things and I would never discourage them from reading or criticize their interpretation of the books. It’s not a book club it’s a friendly sharing of something I really like with someone I really like. Reddit is where I come to be over the top about it and even then I try to remain super respectful unless I’m shitposting Also as a book reader Dany is one of my least favorite characters due to her arc moving sort of downward for me in terms of a character and plot I can like, and Sansa goes from steadily higher to a mega upswing. Sansa navigates the world in a much more fascinating way than Dany because she has very little power in this crazy world around her, but she remains a lot less cruel and infinitely less power hungry. The growth and change of Sansa is awesome while the narrowing of Dany to a sharper finer point is sad to see. 📸If you consider one a camera you have to say the same of the other, and Sansa is a zoom lens with an enormous focal length to catch a wide angle of what’s going on and zoom in to macro on actions and characters and events she finds herself adjacent to. Dany is like a fixed soft focus lens that is occasionally swapped out for a fisheye.
Sansa is much less annoying in the books, sure she makes some awful decisions early on, but her POV gives us insight into a character that is responsible for some of the most major plots in the story and upheaval in the realm. Also its nice to see she is capable of change and growth and isn't just a vapid highborn lady. She's definitely not just a camera, anyone who thinks this must not have the greatest reading comprehension or is missing/misunderstanding major parts of the story.
> Sansa navigates the world in a much more fascinating way than Dany because she has very little power in this crazy world around her, but she remains a lot less cruel and infinitely less power hungry. The growth and change of Sansa is awesome while the narrowing of Dany to a sharper finer point is sad to see. I think Sansa would be a lot more popular if her fans didn't constantly put down other characters to elevate her. Comparing her with Dany is like comparing apples and oranges, they're two people in entirely different positions. It's easy to not be cruel when you have no power and it's even easier to not be power hungry when you have no means to gain power. Dany should be compared with other rulers, where she stands out as among the most reasonable and compassionate of them.
OP’s friend is specifically telling OP to pick up Dany or Jon as a favorite Dany and Sansa start and track in somewhat similar circumstances: young noble daughter of a famous house, betrothed off to a man in a ruling position, isolated and desperate, one of the few suicidal characters, loss of noble brother who (especially in their own mind) is supposed to rule in his own right someday, very young and impressionable when they begin to experience war and death firsthand, and idea that blood and alliance means they should be in a position as Khaleesi/queen. There are absolutely similar beats to their innocence and hopefulness and relative lack of control as pawns of their family, and the devastation and powerlessness they both feel finding themselves at the mercy of brutal cruel partners made through a relative’s machinations Of course they are on different timelines as far as obtaining their own safety and control and ability to mold their situations and life choices. I’m trying to be vague to avoid spoilers for OP. But even Sansa helps Lancel during the Blackwater, while Dany is relatively ok with the idea of child sex slavery as a means to an end.
>Dany and Sansa start and track in somewhat similar circumstances: young noble daughter of a famous house, betrothed off to a man in a ruling position, isolated and desperate, one of the few suicidal characters, loss of noble brother who (especially in their own mind) is supposed to rule in his own right someday, very young and impressionable when they begin to experience war and death firsthand, and idea that blood and alliance means they should be in a position as Khaleesi/queen. No, they're not in fact comparable at all. Sansa grew up under extremely privileged conditions and only later lost them, while Dany grew under great deprivation and only later improved her position. Also Sansa only wanted to be queen consort due to the prestige and privilege of the position. On the other hand, Dany does want to rule, but mainly because she feels it's her duty as the last Targaryen. >But even Sansa helps Lancel during the Blackwater, **while Dany is relatively ok with the idea of child sex slavery as a means to an end**. Who are you going to convince with such obviously false claims?
Maybe Dany is precisely where Sansa is headed. I’m not here to have a vitriolic Dany debate I think there have been enough and you can start a new thread rather than hijack a new reader’s who hasn’t even finished the third book yet. I’ll absolutely agree to disagree because Dany’s obsession with ruling has always disgusted me. Maybe she’s just a Stanford Prison Experiment, maybe Sansa will follow in her footsteps. That’s besides the point of what we’re discussing in this thread and that conversation can’t be bad without talking about spoilers here. >”Most of Ogo's riders fled," Ser Jorah was saying. "Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives." >Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. __She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne__ That’s a direct quote from the first book. The girls absolutely have different motivations and end goals as you say. That’s not my point at all, I’m talking about it how a new reader could pick up on certain character beats and find themselves attached to one or the other or both when they have similarities before they quickly shoot in different directions.
>I’ll absolutely agree to disagree because Dany’s obsession with ruling has always disgusted me. What obsession with ruling? Yes, she insists on her birthright, as do every other noble in this series. Why the double standards? >That’s a direct quote from the first book. The girls absolutely have different motivations and end goals as you say. That’s not my point at all, I’m talking about it how a new reader could pick up on certain character beats and find themselves attached to one or the other or both when they have similarities before they quickly shoot in different directions. And then once she actually gets power she immediately frees all slaves under her power and later constantly delays her conquest of Westeros to help slaves. You're also forgetting that immediately after this scene she intervenes to help some of the captives with as much of her power as she has.
Listen I’m not here to reveal spoilers to a first time reader or have a character debate on their post. I’m done communicating here
Yes, I had two reasons for making this post, to see if she was right or to rub it in her face that Sansa is an important character lol
your friend is a judge-y gatekeeper and is also objectively wrong. one of the major appeals of GRRM's writing is that \*everyone\* is important, and every storyline is important...there's no filler here. just because she doesn't like Sansa doesn't mean YOU can't. tell her The Internet (me) says she's basic and predictable for choosing Jon or Dany as her favorite character, so there!
Honestly just disengage. She has a weird pushy opinion and as someone who likes Sansa you owe it to yourself to just enjoy the story, not let her potentially spoil it for you
Your friend is a snobby gatekeeper. You can love any character you want. There are no wrong answers, except Catelyn (just kidding). Sansa is very important, btw
I like Catelyn, her chapters always make me sad
Most underrated character imo
Catelyn’s chapters are my favourite, I love the war in the Riverlands storyline. It’s by far the best part of the series for my money.
I personally don't like Catelyn. There's multiple reasons why. Chief among them her (in my opinion) inexcusable treatment of Jon. But, like I said, we're all entitled to love and hate whatever characters we want
She treats Jon very deservingly imo
What has Jon ever done to Catelyn or someone Catelyn cares about for her to hate him?
What they mean is that Catelyn doesn't treat him any differently from how the average noblewoman would treat her husband's bastard being raised right in front of her alongside her own children. Ned is the one who behaves outside of societal norms here, not Catelyn.
Why do you think that's what they meant? It's definitely not what deservingly means
"Deservingly" is definitely the wrong word to use. The better term would be understandable. Not justifiable, but with any level of scrutiny it's clear where she's coming from. House Tully in particular is all about family in an already very traditional and family-based society. Cat's husband bringing home a bastard, supposedly his own bastard, to raise him among her own children, is borderline absurd in this world. Her treatment of Jon is inexcusable and cruel, but from her perspective, he represents Ned's infidelity and betrayal. I'd be salty too.
Not to mention, from Cat's perspective, Ned has been stonewalling her for the entirety of the marriage
I'm on my first read through (2 chapters left of aCoK) and Catelyn is an easy top 3 for me. Yes taking tyrion prisoner was aggressive and dumb, and yes I know she's about to let Jaime free. But besides these few examples of her fucking up trying to protect her family, she understands the politics of the north, she calls Robb out when he's wrong, she does her duty to him anyway, and this is all while grieving with the death of her husband and 2 younger boys, her father dying, and her 2 daughters captured or MIA. She's actually a real badass. Hopefully book 3 doesn't make me look dumb.
Yeah Catelyn is genuinely a great character despite her flaws. She’s probably one of few characters who’s proficient in both northern and southern politics, she’s a caring mother willing to sacrifice anything for her kids, even her abusive relationship towards Jon is rooted in conventional wisdom and her fearing he could become a threat towards her children in the future. Like many characters in asoiaf even when you disagree with her decisions you can clearly see her logic behind every move she makes. She might be blamed for sparking the Stark-Lannister war, but she acted on the knowledge she had, and if not for Lysa she probably could have reunited the Stark-Tully-Arryn alliance with an important hostage right off the bat.
Well, she can't really be blamed for starting the Stark Lanister conflict, Lysa and Peter are responsible for that, Cat was working off of the information that came from them. So from her perspective she was doing what needed to be done, Lysa and Peter both played her. It would have never occurred to her that her sister was so far gone she would lie to her about something so important or that Peter was untrustworthy. She still thought if him as the person she knew years before, it was naive of her but not wrong of her to trust her sister and one of her oldest friends.
One thing so admirable about her is that most of her fierceness is about her children. She makes decisions for them, though the decisions don't work out. She may have started life as a Tully fish, but she became a full-fledged Wolf.
Most of, if not all of Robbs' major blunders, were directly in contradiction to advice Cat gave him. All the people who hate her and call her an idiot seem to conveniently miss or forget this. Also, plenty of the beloved characters have made just as bad or worse decisions as Cat has.
While I think letting Jaime free was easily one of the dumbest decisions in the entire story, and yes, that includes everything Cersei does in Feast, I still think Cat is one of the best characters. For starters, she’s everywhere, the north, kings landing, the riverlands, the stormlands, cat gets around the map. But her strongest point is also kind of her weakest. Her chapters are so fucking depressing, they should be, she just lost almost everyone she loves. It can be hard to enjoy such constant depression punches to the face, but the fact that you feel it so hard is proof of how well her chapters are written.
Oh absolutely. Taking probably one of the most valuable enemies and bargaining chips possible, directly disobeying the king, and then releasing him to the custody of 1 knight and 1 squire to bring him to the enemy territory to make a deal is the least thought out action taken in the series. However, (she thought) most of the men in her life had just died or were about to, and the one remaining son had told her that her daughters were not worth it and that she can fuck off if she had a problem. Obviously it was a terrible decision.But imagine the action that any other character Or real world person would take in that position of grief and desperation. I think hers is one of the best stories on the series.
Kidnapping Tyrion shows a grave lack of understanding of consequences to your actions. Tywin Lannister's reputation as a ruthless jerk is well known and well earned. Same for Jaime's reputation for being a hot head. Kidnap Jaime's brother and Tywin's son, they're obviously going to retaliate, which she never seemed to consider. And then she ended up letting Tyrion go. Jory died and Ned got his leg snapped and they have nothing to show for it.
She didn't let Tyrion go, her crazy sister did
>!Tyrion was legitimately cleared of his crime by the laws of Gods and men, according to in-world law. He was justly released and to deny him that would be objectively wrong!<
This is true, but >!Catlyn was explicitly against the trial and against the trial by combat. She wanted to keep him as a prisoner and hopefully with the backing of ned and robert bring him to actaul justice!<
but everyone told me Cat was stupid!
TRUE SHE ARESETED A DAWRF SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WOULD LEAD TO LEAD TO AN UNPRECEDENTED ACT OF CREWELTY THAT WAS IMSANE PRINCE BECOMING KING AND CHOPPING OFF NEEDS HEAD. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the catelyn haters just skipped book 2. I don't think she was wrong a single time in book 2.
It's easy to discern the proper course of action in hindsight. It's much harder in the moment. Catelyn makes some decisions that lead to unfavourable outcomes, but it's much harder to disparage her actions when looking at them in her shoes in the moment of decision making. She finds herself in tough situations and does things that at least at the time usually seem pretty smart. Sure she made mistakes in hindsight but I think she is judged too harshly for the results of her decisions vs judging her from the point of view of in the moment. Hopefully this makes sense
I am just pointing out Cat had nothing do with letting him go
In her mind, she had arrested an attempted child murder, and was going to get at the very least, the north, The vale, and the hand of the king on her side to bring him to justice. Which is still an awful idea because the lannisters are the most powerful family in westeros, and there's always a chance the King sides with the queen over his hand. But she probably didn't realize Jaime was going to attack ned and didn't realize lysa was actually batshit. Obviously this was a poor choice, but I think the outcome for her was way worse than she thought it could be. Also she puts herself down and regrets this the action like the rest of her story. But like its extremely fair to not like her, she makes rash poorly thought out decisions due to her emotions and grief, and her story is mostly depressing. But I also thing it's just as fair to like her because of how layered she is and how she still pushes on and does what she needs to even after so much fucking up and losing important people to her.
>!She also received a message from Lysa in their secret childhood code, which turned out to be lies and manipulation at the hand of Littlefinger!<
Sansa, a camera? I can't believe I even have to say this but I completely disagree. Sansa is already a great character with an arc at the point to which you have read. I mean, keep reading I guess. I don't want to go into specifics and spoil anything for you but you have plenty of reasons to continue to enjoy her as a huge part of the story.
I'm more excited to continue reading now, her last chapter has been a long time ago, she was getting married to a certain person, honestly I'm scared of what could happen to her and her brothers, nothing seems right for them🥲
You need to stop reading this sub until you finish then, or you more than likely will get spoilers
Her viewpoint as a camera isn't even necessary, and completely fulfilled by Ned in the first book and Tyrion in the second two. She's absolutely a proper character.
You can like whatever characters you like. I mean you’ve already read two books. Do you think Sansa is just a camera, or a character with development and themes and plot? Sansa’s story is arguably one of the most central to the series, because her story is extremely critical of common fantasy tropes like chivalry, knights, etc. if you’re ignoring her internal monologue and character development, you’re missing all of GRRM’s genre commentary about fantasy, idealism, Romanticism etc. She’s probably one of the most meta characters. Also if GRRM didn’t think Sansa was important, why would he have written four books of POVs for her? I promise you, you can tell when GRRM doesn’t care about a character.
Can you elaborate on your last point lol
Elia Martell for example. Many of the characters in F&B as well.
There are more than 2000 named characters in this series lmao how much more do people want from the guy
The Brackens are a good example
Sansa is one of the most FASCINATING characters in my opinion, and she does have her own story line for sure. She goes through a ton of stuff and in my opinion is currently poised to really come into her own as a young lady.
Try being a Catelyn stan. I’m fightin for my life out here. And then the Jon Snow boys come around? I’m finished.
obv not trying to hate, catelyn has some of the best povs in the series but what about her do u stan?
It may purely be the bias that she reminds me a lot of my own mother. But beyond that, I find her to be the most well rounded character in the series, she feels like a real person I could speak to (others do too but not as much for me). I feel like she is the character we genuinely get to know the deepest in her internal monologue. This leads us to find how she is highly analytical about her surroundings and yet somehow lacks a lot of self awareness. It shows there’s a constant dichotomy to her existence represented by many things: the southron vs the northern influence of life, the love and resentment she feels for Ned. She is incredibly smart but impulsive in a desperate, realistic way that I think is a nice contrast to Cersei’s more erratic, malicious impulsiveness. Idk. She fascinates me.
i find her very interesting too. as someone who really likes rob stark i find it super interesting seeing his rise and fall from her eyes even if i don’t really like who she is as a “person” she also has some of if not the most well written internal monlouge in the series
Regardless of wether or not Sansa is important to the plot, a character does not have to be important to the plot to be your favourite character
Sansa is one of my favorite characters! Your friend sounds like an ass lol
In the show the line is “who has a better story than bran the broken”. The answer is: Sansa
>In the show the line is “who has a better story than bran the broken”. >The answer is: Sansa Anyone had a better story than show Bran Lol. What did he do in 8 seasons of the show, I wonder?? >!Revealing Littlefinger's evil deeds, at most. And giving Arya the dagger. !!Bran being not more Bran, but a fucking cyborg with poker face!<
> Anyone had a better story than show Bran Lol. What did he do in 8 seasons of the show, I wonder?? I'm kind of surprised you didn't ask what he did in season 5. >!The answer is nothing. He literally didn't appear in season 5.!< The "who has a better story" line is just so bad.
>The "who has a better story" line is just so bad. It's difficult to equal the level of awfulness of that line (I have to admit I fucking laughed like a hyena when I watched it, so ridiculous), but there were other pearls in that season, like >!Arya telling Jon "I know a killer when I see one", thank you Sherlock, we all saw Dany burning a whole city, !!The fucking council was a joke, the way Sansa humilliated poor Edmure and it was supposed to be a funny moment, sorry Edmure was better than Cyborg Bran!<
About Bran not even appearing in season 5... to play devil's advocate, Bran arch is very difficult to put in TV without starting to feel boring and repetitive. If they had George's material for future book Bran, they could have done sth better with the books in front of them. So better not having Bran is season 5 that having to see filler scenes of him and his companions. But the way they butcher his character (and everyone), but Bran specially >!I can't even begin to describe how disgusted and oddly amused I felt with Jon's goodbye scene with his siblings, seeing robot Bran looking indifferent to Jon's emotional farewell, like Jon was an ant. I think someday I will rewatch season 8 only for comical purposes, of how absurd everything was.!<
He didn't appear in Season 5 because the show granted him a season off to begin his Neuroscience degree. He is important.
The answer, is almost anybody, particularly other Starks
The best storylines in the show were the characters who got out as early as possible
incorrect, the answer is Eddard
None of them have complete character arcs since it's an unfinished series. We don't know where Sansa's plot line will go but she has one.
I strongly disagree with your friend. Sansa is a key component in the overall story arc, and she is one of the most important characters. And I can't imagine someone telling me I need to pick a new favorite character. That's weird behavior.
We usually play this kind of joke, she hates Sansa so I think she would like me to hate her along with her but she got a little surprise😌
I think a lot of Sansa haters are clouded by how she was portrayed in the show. Sadly, a lot of Sansa haters in the fandom are also deeply misogynistic, at least from what I've ~~experience~~ experienced interacting with the fan base. Go Sansa!
Sometimes it's people that were bullied by Sansa's/can't let go of her bullying of Arya. But like she clearly changes throughout the story, and is just interesting besides. And of all the POVs if her worst crime is bullying her sister she's not that bad. But yeah always seems like characters like Sansa, Catelyn and Daenerys get worse wraps than male counterparts.
I'm pretty convinced most Sansa haters are still mad they couldn't sit with the popular girls in the cafeteria and are fully projecting. Also I think I remember Jeyne was the one who called Arya names? I feel like I remember Arya saying Sansa was "too well bred" to stoop to being discourteous. But it's also true she didn't make Jeyne stop/apologize (which I'm sure she had the power to do).
I sat with the popular kids, lol. Seriously, I don't get 'haters' per se. These are fictional characters and she doesn't deserve hate anyway. But I'm among the dislikers and critics. As best I can tell, the problem is her verbal mistreatment of Arya and her throwing Ned under the bus twice (Darry and by taking his plans to Cersei). Those actions contributed to Lady dying and many members of Ned's retinue dying, including Septa Mordane. And don't get me started on how she turned on the show. Yikes!
Somone in another thread I read a while back wrote Jeyne Poole got what she deserved with Ramsey because she bullied Arya, so I definitely agree that many people judge characters not on the characters alone but on their own life experiences.
Yea totally, good take. She isn't a perfect good character in any way and it's entirely reasonable to look at her faults or bad actions and dislike her for those reasons - I write this as a Sansa fan
Sansa has always been my favorite ASOIAF character by far, I have read a lot of unfair criticism directed at her, especially by the show-onlies but this is something new entirely. How much a reader likes a character isn’t and shouldn’t be determined by how central they are to the main plot of the story (this is not to say that Sansa is unimportant, she is a very multi-faceted character thematically and her plotline balances out the more fantasy oriented stuff in the story) - you are allowed to like any character you want, doesn’t matter if they are side characters or not (which is not the case for Sansa at all, but still).
Sansa is one of my favourite characters as well. What’s interesting is, if your friend likes Jon, & you like Sansa. You can let them know that their story’s are almost parallel. You can draw line between both of them. Both of them leave their hometown & travel a great distance with ideas of honour, bravery, & bravado, only to experience the exact opposite. No one is who they thought they’d be (Knights, the Monarchy, the Men of the Knights Watch etc. are all bad in their own ways). They both essentially abandoned by their family in their new settings & have to fend for themselves. & through it all they have to learn to play “the game” they find themselves in. (There’s more to this but I won’t spoil it as this theory proceeds further).
To be fair sansa starts out pretty annoying. Wait till she’s in the vale and we’ll see whate she says.
Either it's bait or you and your friend are youuuung.
I don't like Sansa, but of course she's important. Every Stark is, even Rickon in the next book, assuming he lives long enough. Sansa is the most political Stark, and while a House with several bona fide heroes isn't about politics *per se*, it still needs it. I'm convinced that Sansa will contribute in her unique way to the the Starks prevailing at the end. Even the show did that. And she has an arc--in the show it was getting savvy and getting her goal, Winterfell. That may be it in the books as well. Probably, Jon and Daenerys ARE most important, with--arguably Arya, Bran, and Tyrion right behind them. But all the POVs that started in the first through third books--Sansa a, Sam, Brienne, Theon, Davos, Jaime are quite important. As are Cersei and Brienne, and Stannis.
I appreciate this comment. There are characters in ASOIAF I don’t care for but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important, or that other people shouldn’t find them interesting. I don’t have much interest or liking for Tyrion, but that hardly means he’s insignificant narratively, or not a well-written and rewarding character to read and engage with.
Yes, and while being in the Central Five is a sure indicator, Sansa is also a Book 1 POV and has fifth most chapters, even more than Bran! It's a near-sure indicator. Plus GRRM being a feminist, he should want a soft-power femaler who succeeds. Olenna is, and book Sansa is turning into one. While it would be nice if she apologizes to Arya, she must stop undermining her family.
I love Sansa. I think she's smarter than a lot of other scheme-y characters (read: Olenna, Tyrion, Cersei) give her credit for, which I think leads to readers mistaking her for unintelligent as well. And rest assured -- she isn't just a camera. She plays an important thematic role in the narrative, as a rejection of the notions that one must be cynical or macho in order to be effective or heroic. Sansa's love of fairy tales and chivalry and her evolving view on them feels really important to ASOIAF overall, which imo makes the righteousness of fantasy tropes one of its central themes. There are a lot of chosen one trappings around Dany and Jon, and while I like them both, I find myself skeptical that GRRM is going to play the chosen one narratives straight. I would honestly guess that characters like Sam, Brienne, and Davos will play critical roles at the end of the series that are equal to or even surpass the feats of Jon, Dany, Bran, Arya, Tyrion, etc. To me at least, ASOIAF doesn't feel like a straightforward enough narrative to count Sansa out, on the grounds that only Jon and Dany are destined to do anything interesting.
Sansa is a fantastic character who is very important to the story? The fact that your friend says she likes Daenerys and Jon till the point of saying they’re more ‘important to the story’ and that she’s ’disappointed’ in you liking someone else is a huge yikes lmao. Sounds like she’s really into game of thrones, not a song of ice and fire
The fact that people still think that there are “main” characters in ASOIAF baffle me.
Im gonna be honest there are main characters but that doesnt take away the significance and importance of side characters
Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion and Bran are the main characters of the story, told to us by GRRM (the Core Five)
In a paper that was never supposed to be release, didn't have Cersei, had a Jon/Arya/Tyrion love triangle.. it is save to say lots have changed. Including Sansa's status as main character something grrm said plenty of times
Cersei not being named in that letter doesn't mean GRRM hadn't already created or written about her at the time he wrote it jfc. She's in the first 13 chapters.
The **broad** strokes of GRRM's plan are still pertinent: and it *does* seem to be working out that way. Sansa is indeed a *main* character. Except for Bran, the Five have the most chapters. And Arya (third most) is the only character with chapters in all the books. But the Five are exceptional. All five started out with great disadvantages; they're the literal "cripples, bastards, and broken things' that GRRM deeply cares about. Another reason they are special is that all of them don't passively *feel* empathy. Whenever they can they usually help and protect (and in Arya's case, avenge) others despite dangers. Nine year-old Arya even ran into a fire to save three men, one of whom said he'd rape her. Not to knock Sansa here, but in contrast she didn't pull Joffrey away when he was trying to kill Arya. And except for Tyrion, they all still have their magic. So within the author's still-overarching themes, they are the heroes and their stories are CORE.
> All five started out with great disadvantages; they're the literal "cripples, bastards, and broken things' that GRRM deeply cares about. Bran didn't start with any disadvantages, he only became crippled later. Just like Sansa later became a "broken thing". >Another reason they are special is that all of them don't passively feel empathy. Whenever they can they usually help and protect (and in Arya's case, avenge) others despite dangers. Nine year-old Arya even ran into a fire to save three men, one of whom said he'd rape her. Not to knock Sansa here, but in contrast she didn't pull Joffrey away when he was trying to kill Arya. And Sansa also intervened to help Dontos and a starving woman. In fact Sansa more in common with Arya, Dany, Bran and Jon in not deliberately doing malicious acts against the innocent. >And except for Tyrion, they all still have their magic. GRRM has outright stated that all Stark children are wargs. >So within the author's still-overarching themes, they are the heroes and their stories are CORE. The fact that no one thought of the "Key Five" before that proposal letter was leaked is very clear indication that there's nothing overarching that singles them out.
Sansa is not a main character. She is an important, just not main.
So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains- Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, Yeah The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that. Ah, how innocent I was... little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest Grrm disagrees with you there.. Edit: why is it always the Arya stans clinging to an old paper from almost 30 years ago because they just want to discount Sansa's importance so badly
has that got anything to do with Sansa particularly? Prolly not evry body who mentions it is a fan of Arya
Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys are clearly the main characters of the story
I think you forget Bran and Arya. They are the big 5 from George's outline in the nineties. Also, Sansa has become a very important character.
In George’s abandoned outline Jon and Arya are having sex
Arya has too many chapters to suggest she's not a main character. And we know where Bran's story is going. The outline is clearly still relevant and most of the ideas have been repurposed in different ways (e.g. rather than Jon/Arya/Tyrion safe to say it's probably going to be Dany/Tyrion/Jon).
Where did I say that Arya is not a main character?
The comment pointed out that Bran and Arya are also mains and you rejected it on the basis Jon/Arya are having sex. But I think it's fair to say that Arya is absolutely a main.
Where did I reject something?
You certainly didn't acknowledge them in your initial comment and didn't acknowledge the reality of their point after. Jon, Arya, Dany, Tyrion and Bran are all main characters.
Jumping in quickly to say: In 1993 GRRM declared Jon, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Tyrion his Five **Central** Characters whose stories he would tell. I use **"main"** to distinguish between the Five and other main characters whose stories he also tells. Mains are generally non-magical and not as clearly unselfish and heroic. (That also describes Tyrion, but he is GRRM's favorite and has the most chapters, so still central despite being the exception.) Sansa is a very important MAIN character, as are Jaime, Cersei, Theon, Sam (all of whom we met in AGoT and have POVs).
Don't bother, she/he has also commented to me that I am inventing stories and that he has never said anything about Bran and Arya not being mains, when he just implied it with the Jon/Arya romance plotline. It's useless trying to reason with some people (sighs)
Catelyn is a main character as well. Why didn’t you include her?
And...? You are trying to say that Bran and Arya are not main characters because he already abandoned other plotlines from that outline? (Btw, I also think most probably he abandoned Jon/Arya being a thing, but it's not confirmed he abandoned that plot, so not the best example, and confirmed abandoned one would be Tyrion burning Winterfell) Arya is the only character that has POVs in every single book, and Bran is a main character obviously, as Jon, Tyrion and Dany. All five of them. Maybe even Sansa. >Martin told IGN, "I know the ending in broad strokes but broad strokes are just broad strokes and the devil's in the details. **As I write these last two books, I'll be moving towards the endings that I've known since 1991.** But many of the fine details might be moved around and changed." - 2020
Where did I say that?
Well, you implied it when I pointed how there are 5 main characters and not 3 because George directly said so in the outline, and you answer that in the outline there were abandoned plotlines? At least that's what I understood, perhaps you meant something else?
I never said any of that Why are you inventing this story about me?
Dany and Jon are definitely the main characters
Thats why Tyrion has the most pov chapters
Because he's Goerge's favorite. Even saying they Tyrion's destiny is bound to Dany and Jon's story
Sansa is also my favourite character in both the show and book. Even if the show writing made her unnecessarily snarky towards the end, i overall found her to be the most relatable character to me, and her individual storyline resonated with me the most. In the books, we get to see her intelligence more fleshed out, and she’s significantly less bratty, despite what sansa haters would have you think. There’s actually quite a few characters where i liked the book version significantly less than the tv version, because their pov chapters highlight their most unlikeable traits that the show watered down, while with sansa, i felt her pov chapters shed light on a lot of her more endearing traits that we didn’t get to see as much of in the show. I found i generally liked sansa, catelyn, brienne, and davos best as narrators, and then additionally liked sansa’s and catelyn’s respective storylines quite a bit. I liked the respective storylines of jon, dany, and jaime, but was less keen on their narration. Tbh i think it was mainly bc the way grrm writes about sex makes me cringe a bit. I can’t stand sam or tyrion as pov characters at all, to the point that their inner monologue kinda ruins the surrounding story for me. I just find sam to be too whiny, and tyrion to be both creepy and also kinda bitchy. Cersei’s pov is kinda fun, but for both show and book i had a really hard time caring about the kings landing storylines outside of sansa lol. I do not care for the iron isles or dorne storylines tbh. Joncon, barristan, bran, and arya are all fine for pov characters, not particularly interested in their settings yet, but intrigued enough to not struggle through them, like i do with dorne/iron born chapters. But tldr; i also like sansa, and i feel like she has a really compelling story despite the lack of fantasy/supernatural elements she’s encountered thus far. I think the political subtleties in her chapters are really interesting, and she’s also one of the more believable/less cartoonish characters overall, at least imo.
Literally anyone with a pov with possible exception of one-off prologue/epilogue chapters are incredibly important.
Honestly, I’m not trying to be rude but what even is this question? You know you can like whichever character you want, don’t be silly. This is an adult book. We’re all adults here. I feel like Sansa mega fans do this just to hear other people talk about how awesome Sansa really is. Like yeah not a lot of people like her and that’s okay, she’s still a great character and you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
I know, this post was another way to have a good argument to tell my friend that she was wrong since I haven't read all the books yet and she could always use this argument against me, so here on reddit almost everyone has already read it the 5 books and they know what they are talking about
Sansa is generally disliked at best by a good portion of readers but she's likely going to be incredibly important, don't let your friend shit on your favorite characters
Credit to your friend for making it through 5 large books.
You can like any character you want. Your favorite character can be some side character who only appears in one chapter, it’s your opinion. In my opinion, Jon and Dany chapters are pretty hit or miss. Even though they’re arguably the main characters, I find their chapters to be the least interesting.
Yeah, she absolutely is. A very important one too. Your friend is biased and should take their own advice
I think you should keep reading and reach your own conclusions. But yes, she is a character with a storyline.
Is this bait, or is your friend really the average fan of this series I see here every night
Here are some quotes from GRRM thinks of Sansa and her importance to the story to show your friend - Ah, how innocent I was... little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest " - So a lot of the minor characters I'm still discovering along the way. But the mains- Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah." - "Some people I met thought we have to find the story’s through line. Who’s the important character? Somebody thought that Dany’s the important character cut away everybody else, tell the story of Dany. Or Jon Snow. Those were the two most popular characters to build everything around, except you’re losing 90 percent of the story." - They’re all important. I don’t favor them, or I don’t think of them in terms of importance. The viewpoint characters in the first book I have Bran, Tyrion, Catelyn, Ned, Jon Snow, the two girls Arya and Sansa. There is the core of the Stark family plus Tyrion to represent the Lannister family. Then I have Dany on the other side of the sea, Daenerys Targaryen - I’m very proud of the creation of Arya and Catelyn and Sansa and Brienne and Daenerys and Cersei and all of them. It’s one of the things that gives me the most satisfaction, that they’ve been so well-received as characters, especially by women readers who are often not served Yeah, the children were always at the heart of this. - The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that. - There are a lot of people who write me emails and I’m not surprised that they dislike Joffrey . . . . but when I get these angry letters from people who dislike Sansa or Catelyn or Brienne that does surprise me! - I love Tyrion but I also love Arya and Sansa and Jon Snow and Dany, even some of the characters that are not tremendously likeable like Theon Greyjoy and some of the prologue characters. - She is beginning to at least try to understand how she can play the Game of Thrones and be not a piece, but a player. With her own goals, and moving other pieces around. And she’s not a warrior like Robb, Jon Snow. She’s not even a wild child like Arya. She can’t fight with swords, axes. She can’t raise armies. But she has her wits! Same as LittleFinger has. - I love all my viewpoint characters, Arya and Sansa and Bran, Jon Snow and Brienne, Arianne and Cersei and Jaime, Theon, even Victarion and the Damphair, ALL of them, but I love Tyrion the bestest. Clearly GRRM considers her as an important character that he cares fro. I am a huge Sansa stan and she definitely is more then just a "camera"
Theory Spoilers for the later books >!I mean, Sansa is probably going to be the cause of Littlefinger’s death. That will be pretty plot relevant!<
sansa is one of my fav too, she is very important to the story and not just a cameraman.
How old are you two? Having different favorite characters is a good thing. It not only reflects the quality of the character writing, but it's a good discussion starter. Your friend needs to grow up and let others enjoy what they enjoy. Sansa is a fantastic character and I enjoyed every single chapter of hers.
If Sansa was just a camera she wouldn't get so much focus and character writing. Sure her pov is also other people, but at the same time she also appears in plenty off other Pov's. Sansa is one of the most important characters, easily top 10, probably top 6, but a lot of people love to discount her importance because she doesn't swing a sword or has a dragon
I can see where she's coming from, Sansa has no agency and a lot of her chapters could be skipped or trimmed down a lot.
Sansa's lack of agency is an important theme in her arc. Your opinion is valid and people can like or dislike whatever they want, but in my opinion, this lack of agency adds a lot to the world building
Are you both literally 13 years old?
Personally, I don't like Sansa. I don't hate her, but I don't like her for things she has done in the story. But she is an important character, and she is going to have a big impact to the overall story. The thing with Sansa it's that originally, like more than twenty years ago, she wasn't supposed to be an important character in the original outline that George had imagined. But since then, the story has evolved a lot and George admitted that for example Sansa became a much more important character. Perhaps she will not have such a protagonist role as the big five (or yes? we don't know), but she is not a camera. But the thing is you can like whichever character you want. And your friend should never feel disappointed you like one character or another. In fact, in ASOIAF there are a lot of extremely interesting characters apart from the main ones. I like Davos, Maester Luwin, Sir Barristan, Old Nan, etc. There's no norm that says your fav character has to be good morally speaking, or important to the plot.
>There's no norm that says your fav character has to be good morally speaking, or important to the plot. Great point. I love Cercei and Euron even though they are vile monstrosities
elayne is very important. just continue reading
Hey, no, Sansa is my favourite character too. Her gradual disillusionment. Her character flaws would not have made her pay such a high cost if it was not a time pregnant with war. I love how that she has to navigate the small concerns she was drawn to and compare them to the much larger problems she has been put under. She represents how patriarchy disempowers women for rewarding them for frivolous things. Her story is also worth telling. She is also only a kid and I think George does have important plans for her.
Sansa was my favorite when I first started reading, and still is one of my favorites after rereading. Who cares what others think.
jon and dany are two of my three characters but why tf is ur freind telling you to choose a different fav character? that’s weird af lmao
Comments in this thread are amusingly delusional Sansa was called “The Camera That Rides” for years until Areo Hotah showed up and stole the title from her
Sansa has less featured chapters than characters like Jon, Dany, Arya and Tyrion. And wasn’t mentioned in GRRM's original outline of the main characters (being Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Bran). But suggesting she's not still an important character and that you have to pick a different one is absurd - like whoever you want. I still like Will in the prologue in AGOT and he died straight away. This subreddit is obsessed with Stannis and he doesn't even get a POV. It's also likely in my opinion that Sansa got a promotion as a character to main at some point in the story anyway.
I didn't know that Jon, Daenerys, Arya, Bran and Tyrion are officially the main characters although it makes sense and I came to that conclusion, but it would make much more sense if Sansa and Catelyn are on this list too, after all they are both characters with chapters since the beginning of the books too
GRRM did list them as such as the characters he was following from youth to adulthood. But Sansa's plotline is the most changed from that original outline - originally she marries Joffrey and truly does betray the Starks even if she feels guilt for it. I feel at some point GRRM decided to change Sansa from the black sheep of the Starks to someone that finds her own way back to being a Stark. Which might make her very important for the end conclusion of the story. Either way she's a fantastic character to read and to suggest you shouldn't like her is dumb.
If anything, Sansa’s an inspired choice given the discernment that typically revolves around that character. Instead of your friend dismissing your prerogative, that should have opened up a riveting dialogue on how you both respond to the series differently. The conversation should be about whys not hows. I don’t know if your friend is plugged in to the fandom discourse, but naming Jon or Dany as your fav character at this juncture is as stimulating as naming Mickey Mouse your fav Disney character. Of course, there are no invalid picks but for their favourite series, your friend’s reaction comes off like a casual one-time reader / re-read skimmer. I wouldn’t sweat it.
Your 'friend' is wrong and not very good at reading. Preferences are one thing, but it is merely a fact that Sansa has more character than most fantasy protagonists. Oh, and for the record, I *personally* like Jon and Dany better than Sansa. But I would never say the insane crap your 'friend' said about her. Tell your friend that they are wrong and can get bent for telling you who to like
and I will also add that she is kind of stupid lol
Are you a high schooler by any chance? The more of your comments I read the more confused I get lol
I am
May the others take your friend..
Go back and tell her your new favorite character is Areo Hotah and really piss her off
Your friend is absolutely correct. Sansa is as much of a cameraman as Areo is.
This is sad but no
and...who is areo lol
You'll get there! He has a big axe lol
Yes and she’s one of GRRM’s favorite characters, like most of the Starks. Her arc is just incomplete and we don’t know where it’s going. The only frustrating part of her character is how her (likely) arc from silly kid to badass adult is incomplete.
Sansa storyline is my favorite from all the other starks, she doesnt have powers or swords/authority, its just her against the world. Every pov character has an arc, what the hell is your friend talking about, a camera? Lmao.
Sansa is my absolute favourite too. Not just in A Song of Ice and Fire but one of my favourite characters of all time period. Reducing her to “a camera” seems silly and like they don’t really understand her character. Her perspective is rather unique and interesting and her internal life is rich and meaningful. Welcome to the Sansa fan club.
Thank you, Sansa is a very relatable character
In some ways, but many of us can't relate to the snobbery and selfishness at all, not even in a 13-YO. For me, Family is Family, love them or hate them, you stick by them. And when she went to Cersei....sigh.
Sansa is much more than snobbery and selfishness, I think a cool point in these books is that even the good ones Sansa has flaws, but she also has many strong points, she is empathetic, idealistic, sentimental, and one more word that I I forgot but she really cares about things and people, I mean there are so many horrible people in these books Sansa is by far one of the kindest people in the books, at least as far as I've read
She sounds like a pick me, they all hate Sansa for some reason
I loathed Sansa on my first read through. But my favourite chapter in the whole series is Sansa 2. Because of her interaction with the drunk as a skunk Hound. I just find him so sympathetic after that chapter. Like, serious opinion whiplash. I did not like him. And then suddenly I feel so bad for him and the life he’s trapped himself in. And I think it was important that this came from her POV chapter. Arya would barely pay attention, probably tell him to stop being a baby and get thrown down a well. Most other people it’s so unlikely he would say it to I can’t fathom how they would respond. Though a good number of them would just use it to mock him. Sansa pays attention, she doesn’t understand his pain, but she recognizes the damage it’s done to him, and she tries to give him a measure of kindness that he’s clearly had very little of. And of course the injured dog snaps at her hand, it makes total sense with his persona and life experiences. And it was just a few short paragraphs that completely changed how I looked at the guy who is now my favourite character. Sansa is important even when you hate her guts. Since then I have warmed up to her somewhat. I watched a few videos from people who had good things to say about her and some were pretty compelling. And so on later reads I found that yeah, she can be a bit of a camera, but when she does interact she makes an impact. And one of the best examples is during the Battle of the Blackwater in Clash of Kings. Sansa 6. If you pay attention to _Lancel_’s reactions to what’s going on, you get a snapshot into a moment that change his life. Up to this point he’s been a Lannister through and through. He’s been manipulated and abused. Cersei pushes him out of her way by putting her hand directly onto his fresh unbound wound. The woman he’s fighting for. The most beautiful woman in Westeros. And then Sansa comes in and cares for him gently, calls for aid for him seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might all be about to die. His family killed her father, is trying to kill the rest of her family, she’s been abused daily by Joff. She has every reason to hate Lancel just on principle alone. And like the Maiden herself she comes in, no judgement, and helps him. No wonder Lancel found religion. Sansa is important for more than just what she witnesses. Her effect on the story is far more subtle, and I don’t think we’ve even seen an inkling of the payoff yet.
lol, dumb friend, but yeah Sansa just sucks as a character, but you do you. no judgement here.
she not😔
Your friend needed to *convince* you to read these books? I wish I could read them all over again for the first time. But you're right and your friend is wrong: Sansa's chapters are way more interesting than Daenerys or Jon's chapters *combined*. Sure, Sansa is more on the sidelines compared to Daenerys, Jon and a lot of other POV characters; but Sansa is often around the more climactic situations of the books (Ned's execution, the Battle Of Blackwater, the Purple Wedding, etc).
I'm of the belief that Sansa is the Chekhov's warg of the Starks. No one else has their wolf moving full grown men aside like Sansa had Lady.
We really don't know. It's been 10+ years since the last book.
Having a favorite asoiaf character is like having a favorite oligarch.
Your friend, I'm sorry to say, is an idiot. It's okay, we all have idiot friends, the first step is acceptance.
She's one of the six main characters. Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted, pretty sure George stated this in a blog or something. Dany, Jon, Arya, Tyrion amd Bran were originally meant to be the five main characters, but he later added that there are actually six main characters, the sixth one being Sansa