Sansa's Arc Could Have Been Brilliant
…if raping her hadn’t been the priority.
In the books, Sansa parallels her sister by dropping (and in some ways failing to drop) her Stark identity, becoming Alayne Stone, and beginning to learn how the game is played through the lens of Littlefinger in the Vale. Creepiness ensues but so does a lot of learning on Sansa’s end. However, many fans have deemed her time in AFFC as boring, and while I disagree, I can see why that thought is so popular.
I am on board with Sansa prematurely heading to WF in the show, because that is no doubt the most exciting and interesting progression, from a show-only standpoint.
But it didn’t have to be fucking awful.
If they insisted on sticking her in WF, Littlefinger could have still kept her in the Alayne persona–still mentored her–and they could have plotted together to reclaim the castle from the Boltons without any mention of marriage to them (because that seriously makes ZERO SENSE in the first place).
By having Sansa forging secret alliances with the nobles and common people of WF, while Littlefinger schmoozes with the Boltons, they could plan an uprising from within even as Stannis invades from without.
This would effectively replace the role of the Book!Spearwives while maintaining the political tension in WF. It would also retain the folly of the Boltons not taking common women seriously enough to consider them a threat.
As a bonus, you could leave Fake!Arya out altogether, since they deemed it necessary to show Ramsay’s sadism already in Season 3.
Secretly revealing Sansa’s true identity (only to those deemed trustworthy of course) would be the perfect way to spark the Northmen into action where Jeyne’s lowborn identity could not in the books. The tension would have been delicious and much more in tune with all characterizations involved (not just Ramsay’s, of all people).
Even if Theon recognized Sansa and tattled to Ramsay (which would be in character and expected, as he would recognize her), this could be saved to build MORE tension right before Stannis shows up and would make the event much more interesting and complex.
But instead, what we got was rape, flaying, OOC threats and snark to Theon/Ramsay, and senselessness and futility for all (except Ramsay); basically a more brutal, less coherent, and more sloppy re-hashing of her entire KL arc.
Can anyone tell me how this made compelling television? Can anyone explain how “The North Remembers”, because from where I’m standing, only one little old lady remembers (who is dead now, because Ramsay is a wizard who can sniff out schemers without any information)? The words are cool, but words are wind. The North doesn’t remember. In the show, there doesn’t seem to be any “North” to speak of.
Instead of allowing Sansa to play a real role in her own escape from the Boltons, she’s reduced to either a revenge killing or being a damsel who must be saved (or both!). This is exactly what they did to her story when she was whisked away from KL as well, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Sansa isn’t allowed to have agency, and she never has, not on the show. It’s why she knelt for Tyrion, it’s why she didn’t get to assist in her own escape from KL, and it’s why we had to watch her be raped in a plot that makes no sense in the first place.
D&D didn’t love this plot from WF for any other reason besides its involving a shocking rape scene, and to me, that’s deeply troubling. It’s kind of like they missed the entire point of the plot in the first place.
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