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Fandom Misogyny Victim Tournament

Round Five, Bracket 2

Sansa Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones) vs. Mel Medarda (Arcane)

Sansa Stark

Mel Medarda

Remaining time: 2 days 2 hours

Propaganda below the cut:

Sansa Stark:

Perpetually a victim of the plot, denied agency, hated for being whiny, PLUS the whole deal where they changed the plot of the book so they could show her being raped in the show…

Sansa is an incredible character for the exact reasons I hated her ass when I was 14. She's often passive, conforms to expectations, and lashes out at her younger sister for being the opposite. Her arc finds her struggling to navigate a dangerous, violent world that hates women using only the tools she was taught as a girl would keep her safe and make her successful (her passivity, her virginity, her femininity, etc.).

Bashed as the worst and most useless character of the whole series for not immediately killing all the Lannisters ig despite literally watching her father’s head get cut off at thirteen years old. Also catches flak for thinking mean things about the fandom’s chosen son Jon Snow and her sister Arya Stark, but like. This is a middle schooler.

The WHOLE POINT of her character is to illustrate how the game of thrones corrupts innocence, ERGO the character HAS to start from an innocent place. Obviously she’s naive at the start of the series, why would any child raised in a loving household far away from court politics develop any political acumen? But despite this, she does learn quickly, and her character development is among the most exciting in the show (and I’m sure it will eventually be in the series as well)

I could write a dissertation on this one but if you say Sansa is worse that Joffrey you’re a misogynist. In my opinion people hate her because her abuse arc is painfully grounded in reality.

The very first man to use her as a pawn was her father and yet the fandom blames her for this. Sansa’s arc was supposed to be a mirror of her sister’s to show that if they comply (Sansa) if they rebel (Arya) no girls win in a patriarchal society but so many people would rather hate a fictional little girl because she didn’t girl boss her way out of oppression.

According to Sophie Turner (the actress who played Sansa), people hated Sansa so much that they would actually go up to Turner in real life and go "i don't like you" (and Turner would have been in like... her teens/early twenties at this point)

I really need fans to not need her to marry a creepy old pervert to prove that she isn’t vain and put her in her place. She’s twelve. Also these creepy men like her because she’s pretty. It’s also not her job to fix their defective personalities.

George R.R. Martin wrote a really complex world with layers of story and metaphors. He has something to say about climate change and nuclear weapons, these metaphors are obvious. Then he challenges us to look at government, power structures, patriarchal systems, concepts of honor vs what’s actually right, gender roles, and how to meaningfully change all of these things. Then to have people take away nothing other than the book is about a feud between to little girls, Sansa is the villain, and the story will be about defeating her. Sansa and Arya love each other. One conforms, one rebels, neither can win in a patriarchal society. Their arc is why this society is bad for all girls but so many fans willfully miss it because of their own misogyny.

Everyone loved the idea of a free and independent North under Robb or even Jon but they seem really agitated that Sansa was the one who saw it through. They are angry at her when she’s meek and even angrier when she exercises her agency to give her homeland something they seem pretty unified in wanting.

Ned was the very first man to use Sansa. He used her as a cover while investigating the Lannister’s without any sort of regard for how dangerous that is. Yet fans blame Sansa, an eleven year old girl for killing Ned. Girl argued like a lawyer on his behalf, the milk of the poppy defense was great and Ned was ready to through it away because honor. What’s sad is I don’t think that Sansa herself is able to process how much her male family members fail her because it’s too much to handle. People also expect Sansa a kid to stand up to Joffrey at the Trident when Ned a grown adult won’t stand up to Robert. The saddest thing is that I believe if Joffrey wasn’t a bastard Ned would have married Sansa to him. He would have felt bad about it but he would have upheld the system. Fans would naturally see this as Sansa’s character flaw and proof that Ned is good because he feels bad.

I'm going to preface it by saying I genuinely have no ill will towards, nor trying to argue nor shame nor start drama with the person who submitted it. I just have to say, gently and respectfully, that the part in the Sansa propaganda that talks about her being passive feels wrong (and maybe even be a result of unintentionally swallowing some of the character slander we are otherwise successfully fighting against!) for reasons the original submitter might consider below. Sansa Stark is not actually passive. I know it can seem that way because she dissociates a lot (for very understandable trauma related reasons) and cannot directly bring out a massive narrative change on her own because she is both effectively a prisoner as well as completely isolated, but she is actually a fairly active character, it's just that she is active in a more femininely acceptable way in the society of her world. She takes initiative in front of an entire court she doesn't understand the customs of to speak up in defense of her father, thinking on her feet and coming up with an extremely reasonable defense for him that some real world lawyers in modern day use in court (and that would have worked if the authority figure was ANY character in the entire narrative other than who it was at the time). She keeps choosing kindness. She tries to persuade her abusive captor to be kinder and gentler to his younger brother who wanted to honour him on his birthday and was unsuccessful at doing so, she shows courtesy and understanding to a cousin who is from the same family of her abusers (Lancel after the blackwater), she modifies her behavior to appear as acceptable to the people who hurt her and use any insubordination as an excuse to hurt her further, so she uses the facade of a completely nonthreatening helpless unremarkable individual to the point of falsely appearing stupid to actively conspire about her own escape in the godswood (a site of religious significance to her that almost nobody around her cares enough about to frequent and check up on). She operates within the socially acceptable role of a lady which she has been taught her entire short sheltered life, in order to make herself seem less threatening to avoid being targetted by the horrible people around her. She analyzes her situation and acts accordingly by choice. Sure, it can seem passive because that is how women need to appear in a world where the majority of power is held by Men, too many of whom desperately want to keep women powerless and subservient, but she actively tries to make the choice to be good and kind to the young, the innocent, and those who deserve compassion and mercy. She wakes up every day in a world that shows her endless cruelty, she analyzes the risks her behavior might incur, and she keeps choosing kindness despite it all and in the face of it all. And it's not an easy decision. Many people, even in our world, get slighted once and choose to burn every bridge they can find for the rest of eternity to get even. Sansa Stark is not actually passive. She just disguises herself as passive to survive. And people who think that is what she is are proof that her effort is paying off.

Submitting propaganda for my girl Sansa Stark in the form of an anecdote, I once watched the first couple episodes of GoT with a man and he immediately hated Sansa and started saying bad things about her and thats when I knew i didnt want to hang out with him anymore.

Mel Medarda:

Reduced to an obstacle to Jayvik. Her character background and nuances are ignored in favor of making her an evil Jezebel who seduced Jayce to turn him against Viktor/the undercity; she’s always getting put in the cuck chair, and even positive depictions of her in fic have her playing Jayvik therapist or yaoi fangirl instead of developing her as a character in her own right. Often excluded from group official art & fan art.

As a character, she has so much interesting canon material to work with that people just ignore. She was raised to inherit a war-loving empire but believed she was discarded as a child for being too soft. She overcame a cold and traumatic childhood to be a champion for peace. There are still traces of this upbringing in her - she’s a strategist who wants the best for the whole, which sometimes means making decisions that come across as ruthless for the individual, but she’s always been just as willing to sacrifice herself for the cause. She’s flawed and has her own blind spots but always tries to operate in good faith. Criminally underutilized in canon and in fan works lol

Because of her interactions with Jay, much of the fandom only saw her as a malignant and hostile obstacle to the Jay/Viktor pairing, using words like 'temptress' and implying a romantic relationship between Jay and Mel is automatically inferior to one between Jay and Viktor. Definitely misogynoir, because the fandom would not have been this hostile to her if she wasn't black.

Mel is a complicated, morally gray character. Initially characterized as a ruthless and cunning politician, but who is torn between being merciful and stopping at nothing to prevent more suffering. Her emotional arc involved getting out of her parent's constricting grasp and living according to her own desires.

Where do I start. Constantly villainized for actions that fully make sense for her character. Ignored in her main relationship in order to ship her boyfriend with a skinny white guy. Sooooo much unchecked fandom misogynoir. The WRITERS don't even know what to do with her, they like never fully nailed down her motivations and just let her Happen. Like. It's YOUR show!! WRITE your characters!!

Smartest woman in the room. Powerful mage. INCREDIBLY tragic figure forced to continue the cycle of conquering and bloodshed. Knows what she wants and how she's going to get it, and sees that plan through. Figures out how to deal with an entire mage cult on her own, outsmarting the leader. I love her. She didn't do half the shit the fandom is mad at her for doing but she would have been fully within her right to do so.

Mel is hated by racist fujoshis for daring to "get in the way" of a non canon gay ship. One of the animators mentioned something about how he pictured the sex scene between Mel and her boyfriend being unimportant compared to Mel's boyfriend's concern for his white bestie. Fujoshis rejoiced, only going to show that they view her as a disposable Black girlfriend character/thats what they want for her. They write fanfiction where she's been killed, too.

Mel is the most interesting character in the show by far. She has a nuanced and complicated relationship with her mother, and its already rare to see this with a mother/daughter relationship let alone between 2 Black women, and its the most heartfelt relationship in the whole show. Mel was abandoned by her mother for being "too soft" and made her own way in the world of politics. She is manipulative, to a degree, but she always means well and its easy to see that she has so much heartfelt emotion in her that she holds back. She stands up for her lame ass boyfriend despite him not deserving her, and she gets cool magic powers in the second season that she uses to save everyone. She is also always dressed impeccably and is inarguably the most beautiful character in the whole show.

Oh, boy. Hoo. There's a lot of fandom misogyny but it is mostly from JayVik fans. I am a fan of the ship myself, but to insinuate that Mel is in the way, and is no good, and that she should leave Jayce alone, or that she manipulated him? Sigh… I am Viktor himself (an IRL/DA. That's not important, I just have to mention incase I get some weird looks). She wasn't in the way at all. You can ship what you wish without constantly finding ways to hate on Mel and insist that she was being a user and a manipulator.

She is a goddess of the Arcane. She's made of pure magic and she looks it. She's golden, glowing and gorgeous. She is politically strong, and got away from her mother's bad influence to make a name and a life for herself. She commands the attention of a room and makes sure not only to be powerful but to be nurturing. She's kind, and whilst she might have been raised as a wolf, she knows when a good leader must be soft, too.

Many people have this idea in their head that she was manipulating Jayce & Viktor and just using them for her own selfish gain. She wasn't. I don't think so in the slightest. She was genuinely intrigued by the research Jayce had done and was nurturing that. Sure, a few of her words may have come across as manipulative, but perhaps it's because she is a flawed character. She isn't perfect, and that's okay!

Someone who genuinely wants the best for everyone and is trying so hard to be a good person, hampered by the fact that she doesn't entirely "get" people and didn't exactly grow up in the best environment for that. While she tries to be different from the rest of her family - being a Pacifist and more of a thinker than a fighter - throughout the series it kind of feels like she's "doomed" to become one of them. She literally gets tortured into awakening her powers and becoming a fighter (and playable character in League of Legends) like the rest of the cast, like she was being forced into a role she didn't want. Despite this, she still tries to use her powers mostly defensively. Her relationship with her mother (Ambessa) is also really interesting - her mother loves her despite treating her poorly, but they just have incompatible worldviews and never really come to an understanding. This is only one interpretation of this scene, but I love Ambessa's line after Mel kills her, "you are the wolf." From Ambessa's perspective, it was probably praise and reassurance to her daughter that she still loved her. From Mel's perspective it was probably one of the cruelest things seh could say. I love her sm and there are so many parts of her character that are under-discussed.

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