Not trying to argue against most of your points, but if you re-read book 1, you realize that people hate Sansa because (at the beginning of the story) she's a little brat who brazenly ignores what her father tells her to do and, in so doing, gets him killed and her entire families' lives (her own included) utterly destroyed (remember that while Ned idiotically warns Cersei that he's going to rat her out, it's Sansa who shows up and provides Cersei with all of the details of Ned's plans, in the process of whining about having to leave the city).
Obviously she grows a great deal as a character over the course of the series, but it's very easy to start hating her early on, and that kind of impression can be hard to let go of.
Sansa is a child who screws over her sister in a childish way in pursuit of a fairytale romance, and suffers rape, humiliation, violence, trauma and hourly threats for it.
She is an idealist who believes all t he conflict is a misunderstanding that could easily be fixed because she's like 12, and sees her family die for it.
Sansa is absolutely overhated as a character in a way that's obviously rooted in part by misogyny.
Yeah, I agree, and I don't think I even disagreed with anything you've said here when this conversation started anyway, but even moreso now after reconsidering the source material more carefully. When I wrote this I was offering the reasons why people might come to hate her early on, based on my own feelings during my first re-read ("dammit Sansa why would you go to Cersei, of all people? AAAAAA you're literally getting your father killed right now!"), and also then probably affording people too much benefit of the doubt for not recognizing her character's growth as the series continues.
I still view early Sansa as a very flawed character (terms like entitled and self-centered spring to mind), but I think my own issues led me to hold her more accountable than was fair (see elsewhere in the thread).
Edit: Actually, I think I do have to point out one flaw here:
CW:SA
In the book series, at least, I don't believe Sansa is ever raped; the girl who suffers at Bolton's hands is actually Jeyne Poole.
She is not raped by Joffrey. She's groomed by Petyr, and possibly assaulted by The Hound. She is also stripped naked in public which I would count as sexual assault.
Tyrion also leaves her alone, despite constant pressure from literally everyone around him to do otherwise. And then she's just in a series of unrealized bethrothals.
Anyway, this doesn't detract from your overall point: she suffers horribly for whatever relatively minor sins she's really guilty of, and yet people hate her far more than is justified, and well past the point at which she's genuinely not the same person she was at the start of the series.
Holding child charachters to adult standards will never sit well with me. The girl hadnt had her period yet.
Nah feminists have written in depth how the hatred for Sansa early on is completely unfair and mysoginist. People hate teen girls who act like teen girls. Not backing down on that one.
I literally work with children professionally lmao. This is just basic developmental science. Sansa had poor judgement there, thats all. Her judgement was clouded by a crush, something kids her age often do.
Completely agree with this take. Children can't be held to the same standard as adults. That's actually what makes her character interesting and realistic. She is taken in and manipulated in ways she's not capable of understanding. In fact she's so easily manipulated because she has in fact been indoctrinated to believe in handsome princes and beautiful queens being good, and that her only goal in life should be ro fall in love and marry the most highly socially ranking nobleman possible.
I've heard people complain about how she acts while she's trapped and being abused by the Lannisters too. Like, she's 11. She does lack agency, because she's a literal child being abused.
As someone who used to be bullied constantly as a kid, I see this very differently than you, it seems. I have zero sympathy for supporters of bullies.
I went and reviewed the passage myself, and I admit I hadn't remembered Sansa's part in it quite right. She mostly seems to be caught in a tide not of her own making during the scene itself. But she is given two very clear indicators that Joffrey is human garbage in that scene: he threatens (and indeed, assaults--he cuts the boy's face) an unarmed servant boy with a sword, knowing full well that any defense the boy offers will earn execution. And then when she goes to soothe him after everyone has left, he's awful to her ("his eyes snapped open...and there was nothing but loathing there, nothing but the vilest contempt. 'Then go,' he spit at her.") and storms off.
I will grant that she didn't have a good option when Ned wanted her to tell him what happened, in front of both Joffrey and Arya, and the king and queen to boot, but she later defends Joffrey to Arya when she brings up Mycah's death ("Your butcher's boy attacked the prince," Sansa says, knowing that isn't true, to justify Mycah's murder, in a private conversation with only her father, her sister, and a Septa; this is not just some lighthearted shit here, and politics isn't an excuse in this case either).
I happen to believe that children do deserve to be treated as moral creatures, and judged for their failures to maintain proper ethics. The difference between them and adults is the likelihood of growth, not the existence of moral faculties.
I was bullied too? Did you think someone with Autism in their name avoided bullying? I forgive my bullies though because they were children.
As for Sansa, look at what BurgerPunk said. Thats what was going on with her and how she viewed Joffrey.
I happen to believe that children do deserve to be treated as moral creatures, and judged for their failures to maintain proper ethics.
Their brains arent fully developed yet. They dont have a fully developed sense of morality. If by judged for their failures you mean adults teaching them proper ethics after they fail then agreed. If you mean hating children for their failures to meet adult standards, disagree.
Look, I wouldn't say I hate early Sansa, but she is an incredibly frustrating character. She gets better, but she's a little shit at the beginning. I don't think it's somehow wrong to view a kid as a little shit, knowing that they will likely become a better person as they mature. As an educator(?) I suppose it's more important to try to reserve judgment on kids, but I think that may have led you to have something of an overdeveloped view of what is and isn't acceptable vis a vis forming opinions about children as people. The key is to recognize that a child's personality and morality aren't set in stone, not to afford them total moral latitude.
The key is to recognize that a child's personality and morality aren't set in stone, not to afford them total moral latitude.
Right no obviously i agree with this as an educator. Activly intervening and leading kids in the right moral direction is one of the most important things a person can do. But im not Sansa's teacher, so i cant intervene and help her grow better. So all i have left is the sympathy for her bad situation and unfair upbringing.
I get that, and I think this conversation helped me appreciate at least one of the ways educators have to adjust their mode of thinking to do their jobs effectively. But I also don't think it's entirely wrong to have opinions about children as good or bad, and I think you implicitly acknowledged that when you didn't take issue with my characterization of Joffrey (also a child, after all) as "human garbage." (Sansa, ironically, isn't a stark enough example.)
True, but he crosses more serious lines and, I think, has more agency in his choices.
I actually do have some sympathy for Joff though, Robert's reaction to seeing early sociopathic tendencies was to beat him, and being Cersei's kid is not an easy life lol. Joff is written as a bad seed who was always going to be bad though, which i think is a flaw in Martin's writing. I chose to kill the author there and interpert him as more of a 50/50 nature vs nurture situation, where better parents and a lack of power corrupting he could have turned out better. I realize, of course, that Tommen and Myrcella turned out decent kids under similar circumstances. But hey that happens irl too. Kids react to abuse differently. Me and my sister definitely did.
Another charachter thats similar to Joff for me in that he's a child who's awful and has agency, and who's written as a bad seed, but who I have some sympathy for because of life circumstances and being a child, is Viserys.
I do get your pov on judging kid charachters more now that youve explained it though. I appreciate that.
That's actually a very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing that!
(I admit I did also have to soften my own perspective on Sansa when I went back to the source material--Martin is careful to ensure that Sansa is written as just a kid who gets caught up in forces she doesn't understand and can't control, and is crushing on the worst possible dude. She really doesn't have all that much agency, and if I'm honest I think it was my inner child being unwilling to sympathize with someone who backed up a bully that kinda drove my perspective originally.)
Not trying to argue against most of your points, but if you re-read book 1, you realize that people hate Sansa because (at the beginning of the story) she's a little brat who brazenly ignores what her father tells her to do and, in so doing, gets him killed and her entire families' lives (her own included) utterly destroyed (remember that while Ned idiotically warns Cersei that he's going to rat her out, it's Sansa who shows up and provides Cersei with all of the details of Ned's plans, in the process of whining about having to leave the city).
Obviously she grows a great deal as a character over the course of the series, but it's very easy to start hating her early on, and that kind of impression can be hard to let go of.
CW:SA
Sansa is a child who screws over her sister in a childish way in pursuit of a fairytale romance, and suffers rape, humiliation, violence, trauma and hourly threats for it. She is an idealist who believes all t he conflict is a misunderstanding that could easily be fixed because she's like 12, and sees her family die for it. Sansa is absolutely overhated as a character in a way that's obviously rooted in part by misogyny.
Yeah, I agree, and I don't think I even disagreed with anything you've said here when this conversation started anyway, but even moreso now after reconsidering the source material more carefully. When I wrote this I was offering the reasons why people might come to hate her early on, based on my own feelings during my first re-read ("dammit Sansa why would you go to Cersei, of all people? AAAAAA you're literally getting your father killed right now!"), and also then probably affording people too much benefit of the doubt for not recognizing her character's growth as the series continues.
I still view early Sansa as a very flawed character (terms like entitled and self-centered spring to mind), but I think my own issues led me to hold her more accountable than was fair (see elsewhere in the thread).
Edit: Actually, I think I do have to point out one flaw here:
CW:SA
In the book series, at least, I don't believe Sansa is ever raped; the girl who suffers at Bolton's hands is actually Jeyne Poole.
Also, please add a CW for the SA reference.
spoiler
She is not raped by Joffrey. She's groomed by Petyr, and possibly assaulted by The Hound. She is also stripped naked in public which I would count as sexual assault.
.
Tyrion also leaves her alone, despite constant pressure from literally everyone around him to do otherwise. And then she's just in a series of unrealized bethrothals.
Anyway, this doesn't detract from your overall point: she suffers horribly for whatever relatively minor sins she's really guilty of, and yet people hate her far more than is justified, and well past the point at which she's genuinely not the same person she was at the start of the series.
Holding child charachters to adult standards will never sit well with me. The girl hadnt had her period yet.
Nah feminists have written in depth how the hatred for Sansa early on is completely unfair and mysoginist. People hate teen girls who act like teen girls. Not backing down on that one.
I would point you to the interaction between Sansa, Arya, Joffrey, and the butcher's boy. She is not just a teen girl, she's a shitty person.Not going to convince me to apply the term "shitty person" to a prepubescent child. Reassess how you analyze child characters.
Book 1 Sansa consistently made bad choices, but she was also caught in awful situations. Kids make bad choices. Their brains arent developed.
If you think backing up a violent bully isn't a choice worthy of moral judgment, then I think you should reassess how you see children.I literally work with children professionally lmao. This is just basic developmental science. Sansa had poor judgement there, thats all. Her judgement was clouded by a crush, something kids her age often do.
Completely agree with this take. Children can't be held to the same standard as adults. That's actually what makes her character interesting and realistic. She is taken in and manipulated in ways she's not capable of understanding. In fact she's so easily manipulated because she has in fact been indoctrinated to believe in handsome princes and beautiful queens being good, and that her only goal in life should be ro fall in love and marry the most highly socially ranking nobleman possible.
Exactly thank you.
I've heard people complain about how she acts while she's trapped and being abused by the Lannisters too. Like, she's 11. She does lack agency, because she's a literal child being abused.
As someone who used to be bullied constantly as a kid, I see this very differently than you, it seems. I have zero sympathy for supporters of bullies.
I went and reviewed the passage myself, and I admit I hadn't remembered Sansa's part in it quite right. She mostly seems to be caught in a tide not of her own making during the scene itself. But she is given two very clear indicators that Joffrey is human garbage in that scene: he threatens (and indeed, assaults--he cuts the boy's face) an unarmed servant boy with a sword, knowing full well that any defense the boy offers will earn execution. And then when she goes to soothe him after everyone has left, he's awful to her ("his eyes snapped open...and there was nothing but loathing there, nothing but the vilest contempt. 'Then go,' he spit at her.") and storms off.
I will grant that she didn't have a good option when Ned wanted her to tell him what happened, in front of both Joffrey and Arya, and the king and queen to boot, but she later defends Joffrey to Arya when she brings up Mycah's death ("Your butcher's boy attacked the prince," Sansa says, knowing that isn't true, to justify Mycah's murder, in a private conversation with only her father, her sister, and a Septa; this is not just some lighthearted shit here, and politics isn't an excuse in this case either).
I happen to believe that children do deserve to be treated as moral creatures, and judged for their failures to maintain proper ethics. The difference between them and adults is the likelihood of growth, not the existence of moral faculties.
I was bullied too? Did you think someone with Autism in their name avoided bullying? I forgive my bullies though because they were children.
As for Sansa, look at what BurgerPunk said. Thats what was going on with her and how she viewed Joffrey.
Their brains arent fully developed yet. They dont have a fully developed sense of morality. If by judged for their failures you mean adults teaching them proper ethics after they fail then agreed. If you mean hating children for their failures to meet adult standards, disagree.
Look, I wouldn't say I hate early Sansa, but she is an incredibly frustrating character. She gets better, but she's a little shit at the beginning. I don't think it's somehow wrong to view a kid as a little shit, knowing that they will likely become a better person as they mature. As an educator(?) I suppose it's more important to try to reserve judgment on kids, but I think that may have led you to have something of an overdeveloped view of what is and isn't acceptable vis a vis forming opinions about children as people. The key is to recognize that a child's personality and morality aren't set in stone, not to afford them total moral latitude.
Frusterating is fine. I even somewhat agree.
Right no obviously i agree with this as an educator. Activly intervening and leading kids in the right moral direction is one of the most important things a person can do. But im not Sansa's teacher, so i cant intervene and help her grow better. So all i have left is the sympathy for her bad situation and unfair upbringing.
I get that, and I think this conversation helped me appreciate at least one of the ways educators have to adjust their mode of thinking to do their jobs effectively. But I also don't think it's entirely wrong to have opinions about children as good or bad, and I think you implicitly acknowledged that when you didn't take issue with my characterization of Joffrey (also a child, after all) as "human garbage." (Sansa, ironically, isn't a stark enough example.)
True, but he crosses more serious lines and, I think, has more agency in his choices.
I actually do have some sympathy for Joff though, Robert's reaction to seeing early sociopathic tendencies was to beat him, and being Cersei's kid is not an easy life lol. Joff is written as a bad seed who was always going to be bad though, which i think is a flaw in Martin's writing. I chose to kill the author there and interpert him as more of a 50/50 nature vs nurture situation, where better parents and a lack of power corrupting he could have turned out better. I realize, of course, that Tommen and Myrcella turned out decent kids under similar circumstances. But hey that happens irl too. Kids react to abuse differently. Me and my sister definitely did.
Another charachter thats similar to Joff for me in that he's a child who's awful and has agency, and who's written as a bad seed, but who I have some sympathy for because of life circumstances and being a child, is Viserys.
I do get your pov on judging kid charachters more now that youve explained it though. I appreciate that.
That's actually a very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing that!
(I admit I did also have to soften my own perspective on Sansa when I went back to the source material--Martin is careful to ensure that Sansa is written as just a kid who gets caught up in forces she doesn't understand and can't control, and is crushing on the worst possible dude. She really doesn't have all that much agency, and if I'm honest I think it was my inner child being unwilling to sympathize with someone who backed up a bully that kinda drove my perspective originally.)