This video will focus on Sansa's A Game of Thrones (book 1) development.

Calling Sansa stupid, is really misdiagnosing the intention behind her role in the story.

Sansa Stark is unlike every character in ASOIAF. And in most stories this would be considered one of the best things about a character to make them more compelling or fascinating. Sadly, in this story, Sansa Stark is uniquely unremarkable and some fans hate her character.

Lets start by elaborating on that a little bit:

1 Sansa has what you could call a princess complex, she’s almost the embodiment of a stereotypical perfect girl. She does mostly as she is told. She follows her manners and courtesies almost professionally. It is clear early in the first book or in the show that Sansa has put an emphasis on becoming the very best Lady as in a Lady in regards to a high born daughter of a noble lord.

Sansa makes her dresses, speaks appropriately, performs her curtsys and is always shown to do what is expected of her. Whenever she is scolded, it can be characterized as no more than typical teenage girl antics. Sansa is the epitome of expectations. And while this serves the character well enough, there’s a disconnect from the reader or the audience. People find Sansa boring. She simply meets the expectation, and nothing more. And well, that’s kind of the point. While Sansa would never be able to carry a story on her own with her origin story, the benefit of her character being attached to a much larger story allows the audience to tolerate the Sansa chapters until their favorite character’s POV comes along in the pages that follow.

Here’s the thing, as the rest of this fascinating story takes place around Sansa, something begins to shift as you near the end of the first book. Sansa becomes more interesting, more self aware, at times she does begin to question if she’s simply just reciting the fancy words that her Septa has instructed her to recite. Sansa has no agency. But there are flickers of something more independent occurring within Sansa.

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