This isn't because of some neat same-actors-playing-different-roles-each-season thing like American Horror Story or something like that for the three of you who don't watch Game of Thrones and might not know what the show is about. Each actor plays the same character across each season, aside from one or two recasting calls.
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| Don't let the recasting fool you, in my heart he will always be Faabio. |
No, the problem is that the writing of those characters is so inconsistent that a character who was completely submissive or stoic the previous episode will act assertive or emotional the next with little to no reason. Don't get me wrong, there are a handful of characters who remain relatively consistent throughout the story but they are becoming fewer and further between as the show progresses.
This isn't a the-more-they-divert-from-the books-the-worse-the-series-gets book snob thing, by the way. Just because of the way things turned out, I've only read two and a half of the books (the third one was split in two) and only come to the show for entertainment and a compelling story, not as an adaptation necessarily.
And I liked the show. I was enthralled by the first three seasons, which I thought were fantastic. The fourth season was still entertaining but the fifth was kinda so-so. However the sixth so far has been a bit underwhelming to say the least.
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| "Don't listen to them, son. Yelling 'That's my father!" in every flashback scene is not a lazy or boring way of delivering exposition. How would the audience ever know otherwise?" |
This Post is Dark and Full of Spoilers
Stepping into season 6 there is so much filler and wheel-spinning in certain arcs, it's becoming frustrating and I just want things to happen. For example, in five episodes we have seen Arya been beaten up by the smug Waif character who seems to hate her, for reasons undisclosed. Arya has done nothing in those five episodes aside from get beaten up.
She may have started off as blind like she ended season 5 and gets her eyesight back in episode 3 but has learnt nothing as far as I can tell. There was no growth to her character. The Waif shows up, taunts her, and proceeds to beat her up with a stick, rinse and repeat. Arya blocks a blow while blind at one point which apparently is enough to give her back her sight. Why?
There was no indication that this was intrinsic to her learning something without the use of her eyes, like relying on her other senses since your eyes can be deceived, becoming more zen-like or anything like that. Arya blocked a single attack (possibly by accident) so she gets to have her eyesight back but then still gets beat on and I'm not sure why.
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| I'm equally confused why everyone is just cool with this random beating up a blind beggar girl on a public street in broad daylight. |
Let's look at a counter example from Star Wars: Episode IV when Luke is lightsaber training with the floating zappy ball. In order to teach Luke to trust in the Force and open himself to a wider world of possibility, Obi-Wan tells him to try again but with a helmet on and the blast shield down so he can't see.
As Luke lets go of the limitations of his physical senses, he connects with the Force for the first time and blocks the zaps from the ball whilst blind. The lesson Obi-Wan is trying to impart is clearly illustrated and makes sense, there is more than just what we can see with our eyes. And this is only in one scene!
On the other hand, I have no idea what Arya is supposed to be learning. To be fair, she has finally been given something else to do in the fifth episode but only after scene after scene of getting beaten up with a stick because they had to fill the time somehow.
I'm not gonna delve into more examples of narrative stagnation in the show, although there are others *cough cough, King's Landing, cough cough*. No, rather I want to focus on a single character. Now Arya, along with Tyrion and Cersei Lannister, is one of the few characters in the show who remains consistent from week to week. I can give you a decent bead on who they are and what they want.
Unfortunately I can't say the same for Sansa Stark.
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| Well, hello stranger. |
Now I know that Sansa is not many people's favourite character and is often dismissed as too passive. I reckon this is because a lot of people don't appreciate the precarious nature of her situation for much of the series and that her resistance is largely internal. Sansa is a high born girl raised to be a lady. Her strength isn't physical or militaristic but comes from her empathy for others and will to survive.
She does what she needs to do with the tools she has at her disposal. For example, while his captive and betrothed to be his wife, Sansa acts as the perfect lady in response to King Joffrey's horrific mental and physical abuse. She often turns the other cheek while making it clear to him that he hasn't broken her. Courtesy is her armour as well as her weapon.
At least that was her character, more or less, over the course of the seasons 1-4. There were a number of sidesteps, she whined a bit early on and didn't seem to have a lot of real agency since her internal resistance didn't translate well on-screen but at least I knew who she was. Even during the second half of the season when she lies to the Lords of the Vale to protect Petyr Baelish for reasons.
But at the end of season 4, this happened:
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| Who are you and why are you dressed like a Sith Lord? |
Sansa ended the season as an apparently domineering and/or manipulative seductress who is meant to look badass in her Sith dress. And don't tell me you don't notice the dress. If you Google Image search 'sansa stark season 4 dress', this is the dress which comes up. It was an iconic visual but a complete 180 for the character.
Which makes what happens in the fifth season all the more illogical. I'm not gonna do full on recap because GoT Gifs & Musings did a fantastic retrospective of the Season 5 Winterfell plot-line I encourage everyone to read (there's one for each plot-line in Season 5). Essentially it boils down to this: every single decision made by the characters in this plot was to serve one purpose, to get Sansa to Winterfell so Ramsey Bolton could rape her on their wedding night.
They decided that Ramsey had to rape Sansa for reasons unknown and contrived everything to fit that decision. Once Sansa realises that they're heading North to Winterfell, she tells Baelish she doesn't want to go but he convinces that she can marry Ramsey to avenge her family...
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| I had the same look on my face too, Sansa. |
That is easily one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. How the hell does one marry for revenge? What does that actually mean? Baelish knows that by marrying Ramsay, Sansa solidifies the Boltons' position and Roose Bolton's claim as Warden of the North, right? We're told not many Northerners like the Boltons and are still loyal to the Starks but a marriage between the two houses would bring an end to that. How does her marrying Ramsay help anyone but Ramsay?
Whatever, let's go along with this like Sansa does because the plot tells her to. She gets to Winterfell, shows she isn't intimidated by the Boltons but does nothing to win them over like Baelish said she should in order to avenge her family. Also she could have and should have left as soon as she realised what a monster Ramsay is, which is pretty early on but doesn't because reasons.
The rape happens like it was always going to on their wedding night since the whole arc was written with this destination in mind. Baelish is supposed to be smart, the show constantly tells us how conniving and knowledgeable he is but apparently he knew nothing about Ramsay somehow. And Sansa goes along with this plan purely because the plot says so, not because it makes any sense for her character to do so. Anyway, at the end of the season Sansa and Theon/Reek escape Winterfell.
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| Sansa: "You think jumping off this really high wall is really a good idea?" Theon/Reek: "My body is already broken, so I should be fine." Sansa: "..." |
Which brings us to Season 6 and the many faced Sansa. Sansa starts the season off running away from Ramsay's dogs and men with Theon (he's pretty much dropped being the broken Reek unless the plot demands it). They come across a river and Sansa says she can't cross it but Theon says they must to throw the dogs off their scent.
Two things to note here. First Sansa says "I can't" not "We can't". The Sansa I knew was empathetic to a fault. She would be just concerned about Theon as she is about herself, despite what he had done to her family, so that doesn't jibe with me.
Secondly, this show frames this hesitation as a weakness on Sansa's part and Theon needs to convince her to cross the river but there's very good reason for not crossing the river. It is freezing cold and snowing. They could get hypothermia and wouldn't be able run anymore.
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| "Weren't you mentally broken too? Should you be making the decisions here?" - Sansa probably. |
Whatever, they cross the river but the dogs still find them anyway so Theon's brilliant idea to cross the river in freezing conditions to throw off their scent came to nothing. Anywho, Brienne and Podrick ride in and save them, Podrick somehow having learnt to ride a horse well enough off-screen that he can swing a sword without falling off. Oh, Theon also kills a dude since apparently he got over his body being broken somehow and can hold a sword straight again.
And here we get to the scene that was utterly insulting to me because of how condescending and unconsciously misogynistic it was. Brienne pledges herself to Sansa who then looks to Theon for approval. WHY?! No, seriously can anyone tell me why she needs Theon to approve her actions, especially to approve Brienne?
Let's start at the most obvious, Theon doesn't even know who Brienne is. He's never met her before. For all he knows she could be just one more of Ramsay's mindfucks. He has no reason to trust her. Sansa on the other hand has met Brienne before and knows that she served her mother. Second, Brienne is pledging herself to Sansa, not to the both of them. Lest we forget, this is Sansa Stark of Winterfell, a lady highborn and true. She doesn't need permission from anyone to accept a knight, least of all from the man who had betrayed her family.
Okay, moving on to what might be an even more egregious act, Sansa forgets the oaths and needs to be prompted by Podrick of all people. Podrick, a squire who is so ill-trained he barely knows the basic protocols of knighthood and is repeatedly berated for his ignorance. This is supposed to be the same Sansa who didn't forget her courtesies when Joffrey showed her the head of her father on a spike, right?
Now I know people might say that she is in shock and traumatised following her rape and the following pursuit in the cold and wet but I call bullshit. While trauma effects people in vastly different ways and leaves a scar, there's no established reason why Sansa, who has suffered more abuse in her lifetime than most, would all of a sudden forget her courtesies when that had been the one thing which she had used as her defense.
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| "Hey, it's kinda cold out here in the snow. Can we hurry this along?" |
Alright fine, Sansa in this season is unsure of herself and fragile following the events of the previous season. Fair enough. I don't agree with this development since it makes little sense given what was established for her character but okay, let's roll with it. Sophie Turner is a fantastic actor and can sell it.
But then she behaves like regular Sansa in the very next episode, trauma forgotten as she converses normally with Brienne. She is also the voice of reason when Theon wants to put the fire out for fear of being caught but she points out that they'd freeze and they just need to make it to the Wall. Okay, fine.
And then we are introduced to badass Sansa two episodes later. They say this is the same character and she is still played by Sophie Turner but this isn't the Sansa we saw so far this season or the previous season. If anything this character seems to have picked off where season 4 Sith Lord Dress Sansa left off, confident, assertive and in charge.
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| Hi there, do I know you? |
After she has a touching reunion with Jon Snow at Castle Black, during which she apologises for being awful to him when they were kids although that was never shown onscreen but okay, Jon gets a letter from Ramsay demanding Sansa be sent back or rape and pillaging will ensue. And it is Sansa who steers the conversation and convinces Jon that they need to take back Winterfell, Wasn't this the girl who was too afraid to cross a river a couple of episodes ago?
Don't get me wrong, I really like confident assertive Sansa, I just have no idea where she came from. Did she get over her trauma just like that? Because that's just terrible writing. I'm sorry, there's no other way to get round it, that's poor writing with no concept of how trauma works or manifests.
I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure trauma isn't a means for people to act in completely random ways. Usually trauma manifests in a specific ways like shutting down emotional reaction or conversely feeling intense reaction to things, not "I'm a badass now after being completely incapable a couple days ago".
But then we get to the kicker with the arrival of Baelish (by teleportation?) at Mole's Town, just south of Castle Black. Sansa goes to confront Baelish, with only Brienne as guard for reasons that make no sense, and gives him quite the talking down.
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| You may be badass now but this still makes no sense. |
So she's left the security of Castle Black to face Baelish with Brienne and gives this line of dialogue which is probably the most meta piece of writing in the entire show,
“Did you know about Ramsay? If you didn’t, you’re an idiot. If you did, you’re my enemy.”YES! How could Baelish not know about Ramsay? The series shows again and again how he knows things that he shouldn't about everyone, even things he couldn't possibly know but the plot says he has to. There is no way he couldn't have heard of Ramsay's atrocities. He's the son of the Warden of the North, it's not like he's some random unknown.
I would say it's almost like the writers are acknowledging the criticisms of Sansa' arc last season if the rest of the episode and Sansa's erratic characterisation post-rape didn't seem like a perfect example of "She needed to be raped in order to learn a lesson".
Because that is what it is. For the writers of the show, in order for Sansa to learn that the world is cruel and become badass, something they set up at the end of Season 4 but reigned back in Season 5, she needed to get raped.
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| "No, please. Do go on." |
Execution of her father. Nope. Mental and physical abuse at the hands of a tyrant king. Nope. Deaths of her 'brothers' (she didn't know it wasn't them who were burnt). Nope. Loss of her brother and mother. Nope. Being married off to a member of the family which orchestrated the fall of her own house. Nope. Being nearly thrown out of the Moon Door in the Ayrie by her deranged aunt who suspected her of sleeping with Baelish. Nope.
She totally needed to get raped in order to learn from that tragedy. A rape which was completely and utterly contrived, where all the events leading up to that moment made no sense but had to happen, Since Ramsay needed to rape his wife on their wedding night and his wife needed to be Sansa because it wouldn't mean anything if it hadn't been another character, right?
But let's get back to 'rape as motivation'. I've written before about rape in pop culture on this blog and that the depiction of rape is a sensitive topic but an important one. However, using the same quote from Rachel Eddin I used in that post:
Take a good look at your story. Why do you think a rape is what you need for it to progress? Is there something else that could fill the same function? Unless you have a damn good reason to include rape in a story, you probably shouldn't. Using sexual assault as a motivation-in-a-box or an equivalent trope will do nothing but steal credibility and respect from a really serious, really important subject. Plus, you'll look like a twit.
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| "Sounds about right." |
What we are seeing in the current season of Game of Thrones is exactly how rape shouldn't be used in storytelling, sexual assault as a motivation-in-a-box. It's a disservice to the audience who is invested in the character, it is a disservice to the story being told, it is a disservice to real victims of sexual assault, and it is a disservice to the character.
Sansa didn't need to be raped in order to want revenge on the Boltons. She already hated them since they are traitors who killed her brother and mother. And it's obvious they only used the effects of her trauma (timid unsure Sansa) when it was convenient to have other characters shine by protecting her, not for any dramatic or thematic reason.
I had always felt a bit defensive for Sansa. She was always put in impossible situations with little resources and survived but still got a lot of flack from the fandom for her apparent lack of agency and 'girly' ways. But this badass woman who suddenly appeared out of nowhere isn't Sansa.
Or rather she is who we wanted Sansa to become but how she got there makes no sense and isn't the same character Sophie Turner had been playing earlier in the season or the season before that.
And that, I'm sorry, is just bad writing.
References:
Sansa Stark Game of Thrones Wiki
Winterhell Perspective - GoT Gifs & Musings
Game of Thrones 5x3 - Sansa and Littlefinger - You loved your family. Avenge them.
Game of Nonsense Week One - Fandom Following
Game of Nonsense Week Five Point One: The Ballad of Sansa Stark - Fandom Following
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