In Defense of Sansa Stark
Sansa Stark must be one of the most hated characters in A Song of Ice and Fire. The vitriol levelled against her is often frightening in its intensity, surpassing that for actually horrific characters like Joffrey and Ramsey Bolton. Her crime? The unforgivable fact that she is a pre-teen girl.
As a massive fan of Sansa, even I must admit that she is difficult to like at first. She’s spoilt and a bit bratty. She fights with her fan-favorite sister and trusts characters who the reader knows are completely untrustworthy. She is hopelessly naive and lost in dreams of pretty princes and dashing knights. She acts, for all intents and purposes, like the eleven year old girl that she is. Most of us were pretty darn unbearable to older people at that age (and that’s fine, because they were also pretty unbearable to us). Robb and Jon, although older than Sansa, are similarly misguided and bratty, with Jon’s constant “poor me, I deserve so much more” attitude at the Wall, and Robb’s clumsy attempts at being the Lord of Winterfell. But these mistakes are only reprehensible to readers when they come from a girl, interested in girly things and making girly mistakes. Because viewers have been taught that “girly“ is automatically bad.
I love bad-ass, sword-wielding heroines as much as the next person (Arya and Brienne are two of my other favorite characters in anything ever), but the focus on this sort of female character — the oft-cited “strong female character” — seems to suggest that femininity is still bad, and that women can only be strong by adopting stereotypically male roles and attitudes. There’s nothing wrong with Arya declaring that being a Lady does not suit her and forging her own path, but saying that all female characters must take this attitude is as sexist and dismissive as saying that all female characters must be weak and take a backseat in events. Femininity is not bad, just as masculinity is not necessarily good.
Sansa plays an important role in the narrative, because she shows how societal expectations of women completely screw them over. She believes in everything that her parents and her septa have taught her. She believes in stories, and she believes that the greatest thing she can do is marry the prince (who will, of course, be chivalrous and honorable and handsome and kind) and have his children. She has spent her life in the cold castle of the North, dreaming of stories of tournaments and beauty in the south. Because people want her to be that way. That is how they think the ideal young woman should be. And it almost destroys her. Worse, it brings the reader’s hatred down on her, because even though women are told they are only “good” if they fit into this role, the role itself is seen as weak, manipulative, stupid and generally inferior. It is the Catch 22 of being a woman, both in Westeros and in our own world: no matter what you do, you are criticized, especially if you don’t act like Arya Stark and fight to become “one of the boys.” And so some “fans” of the series declare that they wish Sansa would get raped, a woman’s punishment for daring to act how she has been taught. For daring to act feminine, and making mistakes while doing so.
And all this hatred misses the fact that Sansa is one of the strongest individuals in the entire series. In a world where people drop like flies, in an abusive situation that would break so many people, Sansa survives. Sansa endures. She stays strong, and she never gives up. As Brienne says to Catelyn, she has a “woman’s courage.” She learns how to play the game. She wears her courtesy for her armor, and she listens, and she adapts, and she keeps her cards close to her chest. She learns how to smile and curtsey and use her words to keep going long after other, older, more experienced players, including her father, are destroyed. But she will not kneel. She will not weaken. She remains strong, and she remains determined, because the North remembers, and her day will come. Her “woman’s courage” keeps her alive and in the game where characters like Arya would not last five minutes.
Most impressive of all, Sansa maintains one key part of her personality that others might dismiss as “weak” or “feminine”: her kindness. She manages to be brave and gentle and caring, despite the trauma she goes through. She shows love and affection to little Robert and to Tommen. She puts herself at risk to save Ser Dontos, using her words and her courtesy to trick Joffrey into doing as she desires. She cares for and calms the people of King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater, despite the fact that she is so young and so inexperienced and few of them have ever done anything to help her. She knows that if she were Queen, she would make the people love her, because she cares about other people, even when her own life is torn apart.
Traditional femininity is not innately inferior. It has its own kind of strength and its own kind of power, and Sansa Stark demonstrates that better than any other character I’ve encountered. She is not fierce or rebellious. She is not ruthless or brutal. But she is strong. She is a survivor. And that should not be dismissed.

In Defense of Sansa Stark

Sansa Stark must be one of the most hated characters in A Song of Ice and Fire. The vitriol levelled against her is often frightening in its intensity, surpassing that for actually horrific characters like Joffrey and Ramsey Bolton. Her crime? The unforgivable fact that she is a pre-teen girl.

As a massive fan of Sansa, even I must admit that she is difficult to like at first. She’s spoilt and a bit bratty. She fights with her fan-favorite sister and trusts characters who the reader knows are completely untrustworthy. She is hopelessly naive and lost in dreams of pretty princes and dashing knights. She acts, for all intents and purposes, like the eleven year old girl that she is. Most of us were pretty darn unbearable to older people at that age (and that’s fine, because they were also pretty unbearable to us). Robb and Jon, although older than Sansa, are similarly misguided and bratty, with Jon’s constant “poor me, I deserve so much more” attitude at the Wall, and Robb’s clumsy attempts at being the Lord of Winterfell. But these mistakes are only reprehensible to readers when they come from a girl, interested in girly things and making girly mistakes. Because viewers have been taught that “girly“ is automatically bad.

I love bad-ass, sword-wielding heroines as much as the next person (Arya and Brienne are two of my other favorite characters in anything ever), but the focus on this sort of female character — the oft-cited “strong female character” — seems to suggest that femininity is still bad, and that women can only be strong by adopting stereotypically male roles and attitudes. There’s nothing wrong with Arya declaring that being a Lady does not suit her and forging her own path, but saying that all female characters must take this attitude is as sexist and dismissive as saying that all female characters must be weak and take a backseat in events. Femininity is not bad, just as masculinity is not necessarily good.

Sansa plays an important role in the narrative, because she shows how societal expectations of women completely screw them over. She believes in everything that her parents and her septa have taught her. She believes in stories, and she believes that the greatest thing she can do is marry the prince (who will, of course, be chivalrous and honorable and handsome and kind) and have his children. She has spent her life in the cold castle of the North, dreaming of stories of tournaments and beauty in the south. Because people want her to be that way. That is how they think the ideal young woman should be. And it almost destroys her. Worse, it brings the reader’s hatred down on her, because even though women are told they are only “good” if they fit into this role, the role itself is seen as weak, manipulative, stupid and generally inferior. It is the Catch 22 of being a woman, both in Westeros and in our own world: no matter what you do, you are criticized, especially if you don’t act like Arya Stark and fight to become “one of the boys.” And so some “fans” of the series declare that they wish Sansa would get raped, a woman’s punishment for daring to act how she has been taught. For daring to act feminine, and making mistakes while doing so.

And all this hatred misses the fact that Sansa is one of the strongest individuals in the entire series. In a world where people drop like flies, in an abusive situation that would break so many people, Sansa survives. Sansa endures. She stays strong, and she never gives up. As Brienne says to Catelyn, she has a “woman’s courage.” She learns how to play the game. She wears her courtesy for her armor, and she listens, and she adapts, and she keeps her cards close to her chest. She learns how to smile and curtsey and use her words to keep going long after other, older, more experienced players, including her father, are destroyed. But she will not kneel. She will not weaken. She remains strong, and she remains determined, because the North remembers, and her day will come. Her “woman’s courage” keeps her alive and in the game where characters like Arya would not last five minutes.

Most impressive of all, Sansa maintains one key part of her personality that others might dismiss as “weak” or “feminine”: her kindness. She manages to be brave and gentle and caring, despite the trauma she goes through. She shows love and affection to little Robert and to Tommen. She puts herself at risk to save Ser Dontos, using her words and her courtesy to trick Joffrey into doing as she desires. She cares for and calms the people of King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater, despite the fact that she is so young and so inexperienced and few of them have ever done anything to help her. She knows that if she were Queen, she would make the people love her, because she cares about other people, even when her own life is torn apart.

Traditional femininity is not innately inferior. It has its own kind of strength and its own kind of power, and Sansa Stark demonstrates that better than any other character I’ve encountered. She is not fierce or rebellious. She is not ruthless or brutal. But she is strong. She is a survivor. And that should not be dismissed.

Thoughts on Korra

bankuei:

jhameia:

woh-battameez:

allthistamasha:

I finally realized why I am not enjoying this show as much as I wanted to

When I started watching A:TLA, especially season 2 and 3 with both Toph and Katara, I really enjoyed the way that they were allowed to have disagreements and become friends independent of being romantic rivals. Women in television shows are so often pitted against each other, not allowed to like each other, and most of the time it’s because they’re interested in the same man. A:TLA was really unique in that it didn’t feature only girls being friends, it features girls getting into fights and yelling at each other and not getting along and making up and supporting each other, and none of it was about a boy.

I like Legend of Korra, but the interactions between Korra and Asami are almost exclusively centered around Mako. And when they’re not, there’s very little substance to them. I feel like we’re being told that Korra and Asami are friends (like in that episode where they go out racing) instead of being shown that. Contrast one of my favorite A:TLA episodes, The Runaway, where we actually see Katara and Toph disagree, and then work together and become even closer. We don’t have to be told that they’re friends. Katara didn’t need to say “I like Toph,” at the end of that, because we already knew she liked Toph.

I loved A:TLA because they completely bypassed that “girls must be romantic rivals ~~and hate each other~~”, and I was really excited for LoK because I thought it would do the same thing. Instead, it’s relying on that tired old trope more than ever, and I am….bored of it. Bored, and annoyed.

[Spoilers for the latest episode]

For so long I made excuses for LoK — but last two episodes I haven’t been able to defend them, even to myself. And yes, at the bolded — Pema and Lin’s arcs are around Tenzin, and in the last episode Jinora yelling at the Lieutenant ”Get away from my dad’s ex-girlfriend” kind of broke that spell for me. HER NAME IS LIN. She is a lot more than just Tenzin’s ex, but in the end that’s how we see her arc. Pema and Lin are adult and grown up around each other, and yet they’ve never had a single interaction that didn’t involve Tenzin.

Yes, to everything about Korra and Asami — like you said, there’s a lot of lip-service paid to the anti-sexism that is a huge part of A:TLA*, as if we should expect to see it, but then the show fails to deliver. Just marveling at how much work the staff writers made into making this world we grew to love so much. In a strange way, feel almost betrayed that LoK doesn’t hold up to those expectations.

——

*It’s not perfect when you look at the dead/absent mothers, Azula never getting a chance to redeem herself etc.

I found “get away from my dad’s ex-girlfriend” a REALLY interesting line, which is why I was so miffed about Pema’s attitude towards Lin. It’s not a necessary line, just there to signal the arrival of the kids on the scene in a dramatic fashion. But it’s interesting to me because it also signifies that the children understand the other connection between Lin and Tenzin besides “work colleagues”, which arguably is a much more personal (if tense) connection than “just old friends” (in the Western mindset anyway, because gosh, the running narratives in so many Western stories to privilege the person you’re “in love with”—and presumably fucking—over your actual long-time friends is so deep, it’s in legal systems).

But yeah, if these women had been given more depth, especially Pema, and if they had interactions beyond “wife vs. ex” (and in Korra/Asami, more interactions beyond “girlfriend vs. One Twu Wuv”), such lines wouldn’t have such effects of flattening the characters, and in Asami’s case, “I like Korra” sounds so defensive as a result, because we don’t see her actually liking Korra beyond being her nice self.

It’s also deeply problematic the ways in which the male characters’ lives get centered in episodes that, basically, should be about either the plot or Korra.

- Korra is kidnapped? Time to show Mako being a dick to everyone because HE cares.

- City is under attack? Time to show Tenzin’s responsibilities and issues as a family man and juggling between Lin and Pema, because… …I guess the Avatar, the most important character of the series, couldn’t have a more interesting story as the city falls?!?

And of course, what happens when Korra’s emotions get dealt with? Via men:

- Korra realizes she’s deeply afraid? Falls crying into Tenzin’s arms

- Korra has a positive emotion that isn’t bluster? Love triangle!

- Korra gets introspective? It’s because she’s forced into a metal box by Tarrlok and all about what Aang did.

There’s no point at which Korra’s emotions matter that isn’t resolved or addressed through men - no flashbacks to lessons from Katara, unlike Aang where we got to learn about Monk Gyazo, or have full conversations with Roku.

And the people who keep defending ATLOK, point to Toph or Katara (even Azula, as problematic as her story arc is, has more development) - we can’t keep giving passes on the past show - we’re 10 episodes in, that’s more than enough time to find your footing. (Compare to ATLA - by then Katara had already dealt with - trying to start a revolution, reclaiming her waterbending heritage through flexible morals, a romance with an abusive boyfriend, and met the Warriors of Kyoshi…)

People need to remember that tv, movies, etc. are not written literally by 1-2 people- they’re written by a team who get into the details of the scene to scene issues and the dialogue. And my guess is the that whoever were the advocates who knew how to write women? They’re not here for this go around. The writing is extremely disjointed, the characters are nowhere nearly as developed, and it shows.