Just a few friendly reminders to everyone:
— This is about the oldest Sansa is supposed to look in text.
- She is betrothed to Joffrey
- When the Trident Fight happens
- When her father literally kills the symbolic representation of her soul (and possible psychological/spiritual twin) because of a fight other people had
- When she gets drunk for the first time
- When her father first lets her outside the city limits with no one but another eleven year old girl and Septa Mordane for a guard
- Sandor Clegane first threatens her life (an incident that came about prompted by her paying him a compliment)
- She begs for her father’s life
- She watches him die
- She is made a prisoner of war
- She is beaten regularly
- She is nearly gangraped by a mob
- Sandor Clegane sneaks into her room drunk off of his ass, forces her onto a bed, holds a knife to her throat, threatens her life again, and nearly rapes her
- She feels the need to sneak out at night with a knife under her cloak to go meet with a drunk knight she isn’t sure she can trust
- People start commenting on/staring at her boobs A LOT. (Sandor, the seamstresses, Tyrion, every man at court, random stable boys, Myranda Royce)
- She is stripped and beaten in front of the court
- She is threatened and is practically dragged to the Sept to marry Tyrion, an event she doesn’t know about until she is in the damn wedding dress. She is told she’s going to be “wedded and bedded” regardless of what she wants.
- She is molested by Joffrey in front of a crowd
- She is threatened with rape by Joffrey
- Tyrion molests her
- She learns she’s basically lost her entire family to her husband’s family
- She is unwittingly implicated in a regicide plot
- She is taken into the custody of the most prolific pimp in Westeros, a man who sold her best friend into sexual slavery, first to a brothel, then to Ramsay Bolton
- She becomes a fugitive from the law, entirely reliant on said pimp, who is responsible for her fugitive status
- Marillion tries to rape her
- Petyr kisses her without her permission (sexual assault)
- Lysa tries to kill her for said sexual assault
- A sick little boy starts trying to suck on her boobs in the middle of the night
- Her captor/”father” starts prompting further kisses from her and has her sit in his lap while he promises her gifts
Just feel like people need to keep this all in mind. Because it seems like people are really into either a) shaming/judging Sansa for the way she copes or b) romanticizing and/or eroticizing certain relationships that are inflicted upon an underage girl by much older men. And I don’t even mean as shipping. I’m not talking about fanfiction or people thinking that Sansa and this person might make a good pair eventually or something.
I mean like, people who try to justify the textual stuff and pretend it’s not problematic, assault, or exploitative. Shipping is one thing, but trying to argue that there’s nothing wrong in text about what transpires between Sansa and person a, b, or c is a whole other matter entirely.
Furthermore, I’m really, REALLY getting sick of people seeing Sansa as “learning to manipulate men through her sexuality”. I’ve seen several people ACTUALLY CLAIM that “using her sexuality to influence men” is the “ONLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT” SHE GOES THROUGH.
She’s a little girl who has gone through a process of rapid sexual abuse and grooming. SHE IS NOT A TEMPTRESS OR SEX KITTEN. NONE OF THE SEXUAL CONTACT SHE’S HAD HAS BEEN CONSENSUAL. SHE IS SEXUALIZED FROM AGE ELEVEN.
These arguments are the same sort of thing I’ve seen from people who want to claim Lolita is sexy. Lolita is about a girl who gets coerced, imprisoned, and raped by her step-father.
Sansa’s story is not sexy (at least not thus far), it is the worst type of sexual. It is overwhelmingly traumatic for someone so young. It is purposely an inversion/deconstruction of romance and eroticism.
…. Also, stop expecting a highly sheltered 11-13 year old to process trauma and abuse like an adult.
