Back in season one of ‘Game of Thrones’, when most of our favorite characters were still alive, and we were pretty clueless to the complexities of the characters on the show, we saw an innocent Sansa Stark prepping herself to be a princess in all matter of respects.
But the show has this unique way of diving into a downward spiral, completely destroying a character’s core beliefs and strengths. This was evident with Sansa’s father, Ned Stark’s beheading, followed shortly by her pet Dire Wolf (which also represented her house’s sigil) getting killed, and her siblings getting separated and scattered across the land in order to avoid capture by rival houses.
Woe followed Sansa wherever she went, and it was her trusting nature that usually got her in trouble.
Her misery doesn’t end there, and we see Sansa getting married to the wretched Joffrey Baratheon for a short period of time; even though the wedding wasn’t consummated, Joffery tortures Sansa for fun. But some good came out of it, aand she learns a great deal about how to carry herself as royalty from Joffrey’s mother, Cersei, who also tortured her while teaching her.
Do you think her woes are over by then? That’s what we thought as well, but a fleeing Sansa Stark was forced to give her hand in marriage to Ramsay Bolton as a diplomatic gesture suggested by Lord Baelish. Ramsay was the most heinous of characters next to Cersei and Joffery, and he took continued pleasure in torturing and raping an oblivious Sansa.
Just think for a moment. A child being put through so much misery at an early age will definitely have a negative impact on her psyche, and we slowly see Sansa rise as an agent of revenge, even coming to admire her horrid captor, Cersei. While Sansa does say that Cersei’s character did rub off on her a bit, she didn’t become like her but did learn a great deal from her.
Source: IMDB
While most theories out there say that Sansa is a master tactician, I believe that while she did learn a bit about diplomacy from Baelish, and strategy from Cersei, her uncertainty about her decisions and strategies, along with repeating her mistakes makes Sansa in my opinion more scatterbrained than anything.
Being indecisive does not stop one from inheriting or conquering the Iron Throne, and Robert Baratheon (the Mad King) is proof of that. And while I’m not outrightly saying that she’s taking the same route as Robert, I do feel that she may have learned more from Cersei than she’s led her family to believe.
‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 will air on HBO on April 14, and you can view their teaser below to get a look at your new king/queen!
