#sisters stark

[she-wolf-of-highgarden]

I don’t get people who love the “you may be as different as the sun and the moon, but you need her as she needs you” line but also like the idea of Arya just sailing off. Like ignoring the fact that foreshadowing for Arya leaving stops once she...you know...leaves and goes to braavos (seriously, someone point me to the foreshadowing in Braavos other than she hang out by ships), how does that work with the idea of the Starks working together? 

I could see how Arya leaving benefits Sansa. Arya can send back her findings. She learned languages at the House of Black and White and is good with numbers so she could negotiate trades. She can send back things the North may need to rebuild. She can find new trade routes. But how does Sansa factor in to that? Beyond the possibility of Arya needing a ship, so I guess Sansa could finance it. 

That just seems so...weak of a message. Why not have them actually team up. The HoBaW is basically training Arya to be a spy. Arya is the one with the languages and the poisons and the information gathering skills (not that Sansa doesn’t have the information skills, the way they go about getting information is just different). Sansa would be great at helping to figure out what to do with the information once they have it. 

Arya isn’t dumb, she can figure things out, but she tends to be more emotional than Sansa (they got a real heart and head thing going on). Sansa would be good at analyzing the information without brining personal feelings into it as well providing context. The girl basically has an encyclopedic knowledge of heraldry and history. I think they skills they are learning right now are really complementary. It feels like a waste just to basically separate them again when one of their big lessons is working with each other. 

[starksinthenorth]

And her lady mother, what would she say? Would she still want her back, after all the things she'd done? Arya chewed her lip and wondered.

- ASOS, ARYA IV

A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same. - ASOS, SANSA VII

These two lines have same-different vibes. They’re both so traumatized by the abuse and horror they’ve suffered (child soldier, child bride) and think that they things done to them have soiled them. And yet they keep marching on.

I think GRRM lingered more with Sansa on the stepping out for two reasons: first, as the most Othered Stark, she has to work to embrace winter more than the wolfier children. So stepping out into the winter and discovering this pure form is thematic in that sense. But even moreso is the second reason: that she is thematically reflecting on the changes one can undergo on the way home. 

While that’s a big theme of all the Starks, including Arya, Arya’s scene wasn’t the right place for such a reflection about stepping out anyway. He was mid-book, lingering on the horrors of war and the Ghost of High Heart. But Sansa embracing her winter-warm side in the Vale helps to bookend the first arc of the series and end the book on a relevant note.

[unfuckablebogtroll]

Spoilers

The newer more detailed spoilers say that Arya “leaves” in episode 5. As far as I know, 6 is still mostly a mystery. She leaves King’s Landing after almost being killed by collapsing rubble. Gods willing, a girl says “fuck this shit, I’m out,” and decides to go be happy with her remaining family and with Gendry, because he does make her happy and she does love him. And she and Sansa live out the rest of their days just stunting on hoes and recovering from their trauma and living good lives.

Everything else sounds like an absolute shitshow, but y’know, fingers crossed

[sansuhhhsnark]

Stick them with the pointy end 😭😭😭😭😂 brb while I cryyyyy. My girlsssssss

[trisonianfandoms]

You know what I would like to see? Sansa ruling as Queen of the North with Arya serving as her General and assassin. The Stark sisters working together by playing to their own strengths; Sansa in politics and Arya in the military.

[starksinthenorth]

Two Wolves of Grey

Rating: G Pairing: None

Read it on AO3.

Summary:

After GOT 704 (Arya’s arrival). Sansa has a welcome home gift for Arya and the two share words about how their lives have gone

Excerpt:

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Sansa worries. Arya shakes her head.

“I don’t sleep, much.”

“Neither do I.” An awkwardness, almost worse than what loomed between her and Jon - Jon, who she never spoke with, and didn’t spend all her hours as a child with - is there between the sisters. Finally, Arya breaks the silence.

“I’m guessing you want to come in, and don’t go around knocking on doors for fun?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

Arya steps into her room without another word, and Sansa follows after. This chamber is smaller than the one she occupies now, but just as large as Arya ever needed as a child. She’s made her mark on the room, with little things - a helm, swiped from the armory, sits in the crook of a window; blue winter roses line the mantel, and a collection of knives, swords, and bows are piled messily in a corner.

Arya watches her sister take it all in, and narrows her eyes. “I know it’s messy but - ”

“I like it.” Sansa looks away from the flowers. “It’s very characteristic of you.”

[starksinthenorth]

Loyal to the Starks: Valiant Ned’s Precious Little Girls Part I of ???

Something the Starks are incredibly good at is getting people to commit loyalty to them. We see this time and time again throughout the series, most clearly when Robb rallies the banners to march on King’s Landing and rescue Ned.

Generally, this loyalty comes in two flavors: close, personal loyalty and broad, house/group loyalty. Today, I’d like to talk about how these two types of loyalty come out differently in my faves, the Stark sisters.

Arya is a natural at accruing close, personal loyalty. We know this from Sansa’s first chapter when Arya would “make friends with anybody.” However, she does not have as strong of skills to attract courtly loyalty, which Sansa is incredibly good at, such as knowing houses and behaving in a pleasing, courtly manner. Meanwhile Sansa doesn’t connect as closely with people’s loyalty (Dontos in theory, but that was for money) but does have the skills that would have made her a good, courtly queen.

These types of loyalty protect the girls at different points: Sansa’s ability to survive in King’s Landing is tied to her ability to be able to act like she’s supposed to, even when her internal thoughts are telling her to push Joffrey off the battlements. They help, in some parts, to ingratiate her to the Tyrells. Similarly, Arya is able to build new relationships that help her survive through Harrenhal and on the road.

Yet both types of loyalty also have their failings and limitations. Arya’s personal relationships only go so far to protect her when the Brotherhood without Banners decides to take her to her parents and when friends choose to leave her. Similarly, Sansa’s ability to attract courtly loyalty does not save her from Joffrey’s beatings or marrying Tyrion.

When both girls end up being other people – Alayne and insert-Arya’s-Dozen-Identities-Here – that they both begin to combine the two types of loyalty and learn the strength of their sister’s type of loyalty. Alayne’s scene running through the courtyard with Myranda and running the household in WOW is reminiscent of Arya “making friends with anybody.” Arya, in her various roles from the House of Black and White, begins to maintain the loyalty of multiple classes and understanding how to read the skills to garner that loyalty.

The two girls are learning how the other thinks and acts without noticing it. These skills will evidently help them both save their family in the end when they can further weaponize types of loyalty, from the smallfolk to the lords, and save the North and Westeros.

[starksinthenorth]

Weird Question

can you reblog this if you write book sansa and arya and other stark meta, or if you have suggestions of people who do? I feel like most of the sansa meta in my feed these days  is either jonsa or show stuff, which is fine. I ship jonsa pretty hard, but I miss seeing meta about how the politics of the Vale are going to go down and  and complex breakdowns of her relationship with her family and what her role in the WftD is going to be and less “who will she marry” or stuff based on the trash show ending