screamin

IIRC, Tyrion had the intuition Cersei was pregnant when she refused wine.

As a hardened D&D veteran, I can confirm that there IS leather armor. 🙂

Don't forget Robb throwing it in Jon's face that a bastard could NEVER be Lord of Winterfell, when Jon once dared to propose he take that role in one of their games of Let's Pretend. Jon was so wounded by that one that he was having a Freudian wish-fulfillment fantasy dream of killing Robb and being Lord of WF years later. That's basic psychology textbook proof that Jon was resentful and jealous of Robb - and did his best to repress that resentful jealousy from his conscious mind. Yes, Sansa was very conscious that Jon was a bastard and on a lower level socially than the legitimate family. But that didn't make her in any way uniquely bigoted among her siblings. Robb didn't have a problem calling Jon a bastard to his face - and even Arya knows calling someone a bastard is an insult, as you point out. For all anamika's straining herself to say that Jon's relative lack of fondness for Sansa meant she must've been more horrible to him than any of her other siblings, she can't point out a single time that Sansa ever deliberately insulted Jon the way Robb did. The fact is that ALL of Jon's siblings accepted uncritically their parents' verdict of Jon's lesser status. Arya totally didn't have a problem being rude to the royal family when she felt like it - blowing off the queen's invitation to the wheelhouse for no better reason than wanting to hunt for rubies in the ford with Mycah. However, Arya didn't make a fuss about behaving politely the first night the royals dined with them...even though Jon was being exiled from the table. She COULD have made a fuss about refusing to attend the dinner unless Jon does - she loves Jon more than anyone. But even that love gives her no sense that Jon is being treated unfairly by her parents. Her parents - especially her dad - is beloved and faultless in her eyes, so it never occurs to her that their treatment of Jon is hurtful to Jon. She's blind to her OWN privilege there, as well as blind to his resentment of it. To say that Sansa was meaner to Jon than all his other siblings (as anamika does) is a point of view. However, if you defend your point of view by saying things that aren't true as 'evidence', like this: ...then you probably don't have as strong a case for Jon's indifference than you think you do. That's his fondest memory of Sansa, not the one where he thought bitterly that she only ever called him half-brother - which is still better than the bitter memory where Robb called him a bastard to his face I really don't believe in the Jonsa theory, though it IS odd that Jon seems to have a marked preference for redheads. Dr. Freud would say that everyone marries someone who reminds them of dear old mum (if they're men) or dad (if they're women). The only maternal figure Jon had in his childhood - for better or worse - was Catelyn. And there's always some ambivalence in all but the purest relationships of love and hate. Maybe GRRM meant to imply that there was still some Oedipal attraction in Jon's preference for redheads. But I think it's more likely - and simpler - that GRRM himself prefers redheads and wrote those preferences into his books straightforwardly. I really think Jon and Sansa spent too many years regarding each other as siblings to suddenly get over it now.

And when you assume that "he'll make me bleed for this" ONLY means Sansa thinks she'll get a beating, even though he JUST threatened to kill her, you're adding on there and imposing thoughts on the character to suit a narrative that Sansa thinks she'll only get a beating. One can be made to bleed by a punishing flogging, OR by being cut - including beheading, as Sansa has reason to know. You're assuming that Sansa should have no fear of being killed (despite being threatened with it) because she only got a beating "last time", as you said. (And you still haven't explained what she did 'last time' for that beating, so we can see whether it was equivalent to contradicting his will in public AND then lying to him). So youre saying that Joffrey's bark of threatening to kill her is worse than his bite because you TRUST Joffrey to stay safely within previous boundaries of abuse. Which - really? This is JOFFREY we're talking about. Your condescension in explaining classism and racism to what you assume is my boundless ignorance is indeed marvelously generous. Thing is, classism is NOT the only thing operating here. There is indeed a class barrier between Jon and his sibs due to his bastardy, but it's more complicated than if Jon were just an exploited miner with no other ties to the Starks than that relationship of exploitation and class contempt. They are also his only family, and he loves various members to different degrees and vice versa. So, yes, he WILL have a problem expressing hostility and resentment towards the ones he loves, even in his thoughts, knowing that those he loves would be shocked and hurt by his anger. So he expresses it with lies to himself. Or do you REALLY believe him when he says he's happy being a bastard and sitting at the back of the dining hall? He doesn't express anger at his father even in his thoughts - but that anger comes out anyway when he screams that he'd NEVER father a bastard (never do to a child what Ned did to him). Why is it so hard to believe that Jon is thinking nasty untrue insults about Myrcella because he's jealous of Robb's privilege as the legitimate son and denigrates that privilege by insulting Myrcella instead of being angry at Robb, whom he loves? We KNOW he's angry at his father by his scream, even though his thoughts didn't show it, because he loves his father and doesn't want to freely express his resentment even in his thoughts - until the pressure and the wine broke that scream out of him, willy nilly? Why then take all his insults of the royal family at face value instead of lies to himself about how he really DOESN'T want his sibs' privilege? Why do YOU think Jon makes an inaccurate petty insult to Myrcella's appearance, if it ISN'T because he's jealous of Robb's privilege as the legitimate son to escort that princess to the table? No, dear. It's because he's just killled her father. If she had called him ugly BEFORE she'd ever seen him do anything wrong, just based on his appearance, that would be shallow and petty, regardless if it were true. Insulting people based on their appearance alone IS shallow and petty. Finding out later that the person whose looks you insulted is actually Caligula doesn't retroactively make your insult less of a cheap shot. Jon feels free to express resentment of Catelyn openly in his thoughts, because she never loved him (quite the opposite) and therefore he knows she wouldn't give a shit if he hated her or not. But Ned is just as responsible for Jon's painful situation...he begat him, he has the authority as the lord to tell Catelyn to treat him better, but he doesn't. Yet IIRC, Jon avoids thinking ill of Ned in his mental rant at the back of the dining room, even though we know the anger's there - we see it break out in his scream. So why is he mentally censoring his anger toward Ned? IMO, because he loves Ned and knows Ned would be hurt to know how angry Jon is at him. Why is it so absurd for you to think that Jon is mentally insulting Robb's dinner partner because he's jealous and angry at Robb's privilege as the legitimate eldest but loves Robb too much to express that anger at him in his thoughts, so he censors those thoughts the same way he censored the anger toward Ned? He displaces that anger onto a child he doesn't care about and therefore doesn't feel bad about thinking ill of. I mean, if this were a situation in the present day, and a child were being treated as 'less-than' by his stepmother because she considered his deceased mother 'trailer trash,' that would be classist, (though the father's adultery would also have affected her attitude). If the father totally acquiesces in the stepmother's treatment and lets her tell the kids that little Jon's inferior position in the family is proper because of who his mother was, without contradicting her, Jonnie may develop loving relationships with his sibs - and still resent their preferential treatment and feel jealous he isn't treated so. So when an occasion comes that underlines that treatment - like Christmas, when his sibs get Transformers and he doesn't - are you going to say that Jon's insult of Robb's Myrcella Transformer as a piece of crap is TOTALLY factual, objective and true, and has nothing to do with jealousy because CLASSISM!? That argument makes no flippin' sense in our world or in WF, which isn't THAT different.

I accept GRRM as supreme authority on ASOIAF, but not on psycholgy. Everything I've read as an amateur says you can't diagnose a child with sociopathy or as psychopaths until they're adults, because even children who show such initial traits CAN grow out of them. Though of course, if Book Arya continues on her course of calmly murdering people on the orders of a group she joined of her own free will - a group that tells her it's not her business or call to decide if the people she's called upon to kill deserve it or not, just to kill them...then there's a clear path to that diagnosis once she reaches adulthood. And I can't say that Show Arya has yet convinced me she's NOT on that path still. And in the interest of fairness, there's also a clear path for Book Sansa to the same diagnosis, if she gives in too whole-heartedly to LF's tutelage, once she gets the order from LF to do away with SR because with the capture of Harry the Heir SR is past his usefulness. She MAY take in too much of LF's moral twisting uncritically, and convince herself it would be a mercy to poor miserable SR, who's doomed to die of his fits anyway, just to have as much sweetmilk as he wants and let the death he's so terrified of come gently in his sleep without him ever knowing it. I think SR's murder will be a moral event horizon for Book Sansa, and while I think she'll pass the test and turn the tables on LF instead, there's the clear possibility she'd make herself unredeemable by failing it.

No, that's your interpretation of what her thought "He would make her bleed for this" means. Joffrey is threatening her outright to kill her. There is nothing in her POV stating she thinks that that won't happen, that she's safe from that and will only get beaten like last time - and if I'm wrong about this, please quote it. (BTW, I can't remember - was she beaten the last time for contradicting him in public before the court, and then compounding her offence by lying to him - an easily disprovable lie?) You assume he'll only beat her because that's what he did to her last time, and that therefore Joffrey can be trusted to stay within previously established boundaries of abuse. But Sansa's experience with Joffrey - seeing him order her father executed despite all previously established agreements, and despite the fact that he was doing his own kingdom incalculable damage by starting a war over doing it - shows her that Joffrey is too unpredictable to be trusted to stay within safe boundaries. You still don't seem to be getting that I'm NOT saying that Jon is jealous of Joffrey's looks and is attacking them because he secretly wants to look like Joffrey or be Joffrey, any more than I'm saying he's attacking Myrcella's looks as 'insipid' because he secretly wants to look like or be a cute eight year old princess. I'm saying that he's denigrating the royal family's appearances - in some cases accurately (Joffrey, Tommen, the king and queen and Tyrion are pretty much as he described, though saying Tyrion looked a 'brute' was perhaps a bit harsh) - and inaccurately in another ('insipid' Myrcella) - because he wants to devalue what his family has deemed he is not worthy of, so he can feel better about not having it. His family has decided that as a bastard he's not worthy to sit at the same table with the royals, and so he's been exiled from his place at the side of the people he loves to sit at a distance and watch Robb take Myrcella in to dinner - a duty that should be his, if he weren't a bastard. So he tells himself he totally doesn't want that onerous duty with that icky insipid princess, yuck, he's much happier getting drunk with the squires. We see through his pretense - which falls apart before the end of the chapter. He's miserably jealous of his siblings' privileges and angry his family has deprived him of them. So why doesn't he just be straightforward and attack Robb directly in his thoughts and words and deeds, you ask, as if he were Edmund the bastard brother in King Lear? (I think it was Edmund). Well, because unlike Edmund, Jon is a good boy both by the standards of his world and ours, and he loves his siblings and doesn't want to think badly of them. He also knows that by the standards of his world he's not being mistreated - he's being treated better than most bastards can expect, and he loves his father and doesn't want to think badly of his father or express anger at him even in his thoughts for treating him as 'less than.' So he displaces his anger toward a safer topic - the royal family, who's the cause of the unwelcome pointed reminder that he is a bastard. But when he screams that he would NEVER engender a bastard, his anger at his father breaks out of hiding too - just like the jealousy does. If there's a child in the family who's treated differently than the others, but usually gets on well with everyone, things may go smoothly most of the time. But come Christmas, most of the kids get cool expensive Transformer dolls but that one child gets a cheap package of Plasticine - because he's the only one without wealthy grandparents, or a stepchild, or his parents are just playing favorites. If you hear the child muttering that Robb's Myrcella Transformer action figure isn't posable and will break before February and doesn't look a thing like the one in the movies and his Plasticine is better because he can make a posable Transformer or anything else - you may judge that it's true that Robb's action figure really ISN'T posable and WILL probably break soon, and that one really CAN make a Transformer and other things out of Plasticine, though Robb's figure DOES in fact look the one in the movies. But despite the accuracy of MOST of what the child is saying, you'd be on pretty safe ground to conclude the kid with plasticine is jealous of his siblings, even if he isn't saying anything against THEM. Which is not to say it's fair or just for the child to be treated as 'less-than'. It's neither. But that doesn't make the jealousy less real. We don't. We see him question her about whether SR got a nosebleed and she answered in the negative. He concludes then that it's all right to give it to him now, though not to repeat the dose for six months. He does not describe at any time what would happen if SR gets it more often, except a nosebleed. It may simply be an annoying side effect, for all Sansa knows. But as I said earlier - we know he did not describe it as life-endangering to SR, because if he HAD, Sansa would not have wanted to endanger SR's life, even if she'd been as sociopathic as Eyes High says she is...because at that time, she knew LF hold on power depended entirely on SR being alive, and she knew nothing of LF's long term plans. Eyes High is saying outright that Sansa is 'wired wrong' - a sociopath void of empathy - because she watched the young knight die without tears, merely thinking his death was sad, while Eyes High ignores the Septa who praised her for socially appropriate behavior the Septa herself was engaging in, Sansa's little brother who watched a man die with the same calm, and the rest of his family who requested he watch and praised him for that calm. It sure LOOKS to me like s/he's calling her a sociopath through cherrypicked examples s/he refuses to apply to the rest of her family or her world. They can answer me directly about that. Speaking strictly for myself, I think both Arya and Sansa aren't sociopaths. To begin with, they are BOTH too young to make such a judgement - it can't be diagnosed the person is near adulthood, because the way a child is raised has so much to do with it. I will even concede that Sansa's low point of empathy was at the death of Mycah, and that if such behavior had been repeatedly praised and rewarded instead of pointed out as wrong by a parent, she would have been in danger of eventually growing up to become a sociopath. But Ned never - till his dying day - told Sansa she'd done anything wrong that day. In fact he told Arya she'd done the right thing. Why? Because Ned had made up his mind he was going to stick by King Bob and avenge the death of Jon Arryn, and if that meant marrying his daughter off to vipers as Joffrey and Cersei had proven themselves to be, she'd stay betrothed. He didn't tell her that her diplomatic approach of taking no sides in the Mycah incident had been wrong because Joffrey had acted vilely - but he was going to marry her to that vile boy anyway. That would be putting her in an untenable position while washing his hands of responsibility for her fate. He judged as a parent that it was better for her that she not regard the boy he was going to marry her to as an enemy. It was understandable of Ned, but it showed his priorities of fidelity to King Bob and the memory of Jon Arryn over both his kids was screwed up, and it was a failure on his part as a parent. Ever since Sansa's low point, fate has reproached and punished her for her uncaring attitude at that time - the way Ned shrank from doing. It is to her credit that she took some improving lessons from it, instead of just shrinking into a defensive bundle ONLY concerned with keeping herself safe. Arya has started out from a higher point of empathy than her sister - which meant she potentially has more to lose (and IMO has made some alarming steps in that direction). Neither Sansa nor Arya are sociopaths now - but IMO, Book Sansa and Book Arya are both in danger of becoming sociopaths - because they're both currently being 'raised' by murderers intent on teaching them to become sociopaths. It still remains to be seen how much each of them will choose to emulate about their current foster parents.

Where in her POV does it say she's only going to get a beating? You quoted it yourself, but all I see in her thoughts about what punishment she could expect for publically contradicting the king and then lying about it is a panicky "He would make her bleed for this." Not one word about the blood being drawn only by flogging (which as I said, can itself be life-endangering) - and there is no reason given to suppose that he wouldn't make her bleed by some deadlier method...he IS threatening to kill her, in so many words, even before she lied to him (thus compounding her crime). And I told you that wasn't what Sansa said, or what I was saying. Sansa said poor Jon is jealous because he is a bastard. Who would he be naturally jealous of? His legitimate brothers and sisters, no? His legitimate brothers and sisters who have the privilege of sitting with the royal family, leaving him seething in the background telling himself he's happier there (when he clearly isn't) and taking cheap shots at the appearances of the royal family that his brothers and sisters are befriending as equals - which he isn't allowed to do. I think what most clearly shows his jealousy is him calling Myrcella 'insipid.' Myrcella is AFAIK universally described as beautiful, AND she's only eight. Jon thinking of a little girl insultingly as 'insipid' is both startlingly petty and inaccurate, which is unlike Jon as usual. So why is he doing it now? Well, he does it when he sees Robb accompany her in to dinner. As Ned's oldest son, that would be JON'S duty, if he were his father's legitimate son. It's pretty clearly a case of sour grapes - miserable jealousy. So when Sansa hears that Jon said the crown prince looks like a girl - a serious insult in that time and place (and sometimes even in our own) - she shrugs it off as Jon jealously denigrating a member of the royal family because as a bastard he isn't allowed to associate with them the way his legitimate siblings are. And I think, in this case, she's right...it's only afterwards that Jon sees Joffrey do anything overtly bad, and thus have more grounds for insulting him than his appearance. So, it's a sign of empathy for "servants" and "guardsmen" - that is, smallfolk - people I believe you earlier said she had no empathy for. She has enough empathy that LF is able to use that empathy to manipulate her with it into pretending to be his daughter even in her own mind (there's a reason why some of her chapters are called 'Alayne') though he is a creepy murderer who likes to fondle her breasts and give her tongue kisses while having her sit on his lap and call him "father." As for her endangering SR - as I said earlier, she has not been told that sweetmilk is dangerous. You say that like it's a bad thing, that she leapt impulsively to defend someone even though she has pretty much no power to help in that situation. She's a prisoner with no political power, no direwolf, no martial art skills - just her wit and her tongue and her powers of winning people over, such as they are (and I count the fact that the Hound has become her ally a credit to that skill). I think she did admirably to manage a rescue under those circumstances. I thought, with your use of Eyes High's trivializing word "kindness" for her acts of empathy when she risked herself to help others, that you agreed with his view that Sansa is a sociopath with no empathy. I misunderstood and apologize.

So Bran obviously is also a sociopath because as a six year old he watched a man get beheaded and watched the blood flow with the same calm fascination? Actually, no. He acted with composure because he was told it was socially appropriate and expected of him to do so. And so was Sansa. Her septa accompanied her to the tourney - a spectacle where it is likely that men will get seriously wounded or killed - because her very proper chaperone considered it a completely appropriate entertainment for young girls, and praised her for maintaining her calm as a lady should. If you're going to call Sansa a sociopath for not melting into tears and instead only thinking it was sad the dead young knight would have no song written about him, you should also call Septa Mordane a sociopath for praising her calm and maintaining the same calm. You have to call Bran the same for maintaining the same tearless calm and interest in the spectacle of a man dying at an even younger age, and asking questions afterwards as if it were just another learning experience. But then, you'd also have to call Jon a sociopath for demanding a six year old witness such a spectacle and behave with the same calm you call sociopathic in Sansa...and you have to call Ned sociopathic for having Bran witness it and judging Bran negatively if he'd looked away or otherwise lost his composure. Sociopaths are actually pretty rare - they make up 4% of a population, max. And you can't go to the population of a different culture and label them ALL as sociopaths because they engage in a behavior you find abhorrent by your cultural standards. The entire population of Rome were not all sociopaths for cheering at gladiator spectacles. Up through the 20th century bullfights were considered exciting spectacles in Spain and Latin America, and it's only lately that they're gradually fading out as cruelty to animals. But the people who've cheered bullfights for centuries (including Hemingway) weren't ALL budding serial killers. If you're going to judge Sansa as a sociopath for her appropriate behavior in her culture, then you have to explain why Bran isn't a sociopath for displaying exactly similar thoughts and behavior under similar circumstances, and why Jon and Ned aren't sociopaths for engaging in that same behavior and fostering it in Bran as desirable. I await your explanation with interest. You'll notice I cut your reference to sweetsleep, because I already addressed that above. You also brought up the word 'sociopath' I mentioned, without addressing any of the reasons I wrote why I thought the label didn't apply to Sansa. Could you explain why you think I'm wrong? People are responding to what you're saying. I did, when I pointed out that in condemning Sansa for her bad thoughts while discounting her good acts, you're applying a standard to her that no human being could measure up to. This board is set up for conversations - you may as well respond to what people say to you, instead of declaiming in splendid isolation.

This entire discussion is about whether or not Sansa has empathy, with some taking the position she is uncommonly low in it, if not entirely void of it. Empathy is the ability to understand and sympathize with the feelings of another. You downgrade Sansa's impulse to help Dontos by calling it 'instinctive', as if it was the result of a mindless reflex that ALL humans have and that therefore Sansa shouldn't be given credit for it. But the fact is that human beings as a species do not all have an instinct to help others. Some people react that way; some don't. The difference in reaction is empathy. It's instinctive in Sansa in your own words, so thanks for that concession. As for your first point: I don't think "He would make her bleed for this" is an indication that Sansa knows for a fact that Joffrey won't kill her for publically contradicting and lying to him, and that therefore her rescue of Dontos is NBD. Firstly, a flogging hard enough to make someone bleed CAN kill a person. Secondly, you can't be sure Sansa's only thinking Joffrey will flog her - he's talking to her about killing her, as you kindly quoted for us: Remember the last person that Joffrey made bleed in front of her? Who bled, in fact, in torrents? Ned. Joffrey ordered him killed against his own best interests, and breaking all the careful agreements made to keep his kingdom from war, on his own sadistic impulse - and his order was obeyed. Why in the world should Sansa assume he wouldn't do the same thing to her, who is far less important in the scheme of things than her father was? As for saying that what Sansa did doesn't count because the Hound intervened - are you saying she KNEW the Hound would step in and back up her lie, and so she KNEW she was safe in trying to intervene to save Dontos and lie to the king, and therefore her doing so is nothing that shows anything like empathy? Nothing in the text shows she thought any such thing. And the fact that the Hound intervened and defused the situation does not rewind time and magically make the fear she felt and the risk she took things that didn't happen - and therefore a mere 'kindness" that is nothing particularly meritorious, and done for no reason - especially not empathy. No, dear. What Sansa said was this: And she didn't say it in response to Arya quoting any of the absolutely truthful things you quoted Jon saying about Joffrey's character (IIRC, he hadn't said them yet). She said it in response to an insult that Jon made about Joffrey's appearance, which reveals nothing about his character, but does reveal that Jon isn't above taking a shallow poke at someone now and then. Sansa responds with a general observation: Jon gets jealous because he's a bastard. And in Jon's POV, we see that she's right about this. He is seething with resentment at being reminded of his bastard status, at Catelyn putting him away from his accustomed place near his family - because the royal family is visiting. He tells himself he's glad he's a bastard because he doesn't like the looks of the royal family and it's so much more fun to sit at the table with the junior squires with his wolf drinking gallons of wine instead of at the dull royal table where no one's allowed to have their wolf with them and everyone has to be on their best behavior. We can see he's feeding himself a line of bull. He takes mental potshots at the royal family's looks (even little Myrcella gets called 'insipid'). Is it indeed SUCH a stretch to say that Jon insulted Joffrey's looks - BEFORE Joffrey had done anything particularly wrong - because he was angry at the royal family's visit reminding him of his own bastard status? I guess it's my turn to quote for you. From A Feast For Crows; LF has just called Sansa/Alayne his own daughter: At bottom, empathy means that you feel to one degree or another what another person feels - pleasure if they feel pleasure, sorrow if they feel pain. LF is a genuine sociopath who feels nothing in empathy with anyone else's feelings - and he's also the adept sociopath who's learned to understand other people's feelings intellectually, the better to manipulate them. When he decided to manipulate Sansa, he didn't choose to manipulate her with threats to her safety. He chose to manipulate her with threats to other people's safety - and it works. It wouldn't work if Sansa didn't have empathy for the people he's threatening - including the "servants" and "guardsmen" he is specifically saying he'd kill, here - that is, smallfolk. So, thanks for making me look up and transcribe this passage - it proves that Sansa's empathy does extend beyond the nobility, despite your earlier statements. It also proves that she's willing to become whatever the creepy murderer feeling up her tit wants her to be to protect those anonymous people - which, ew. Now I'm feeling empathy.

Because Dontos was so comely and charming? He was an unattractive drunken sot from a disgraced house who was such a pathetic mess he came to Joffrey's tournament soused with no pants on. She still pitied him and risked her own life to intervene with Joffrey when the prudent course would have been to keep her mouth shut and let Joffrey kill him. Yes indeed we have discussed this, and more than once. But if you're going to state as fact that Sansa treated Jon markedly worse than his other siblings did and "Jon understands this difference," then I really think you should provide proof of Jon remembering Sansa mistreating him so at least once. I've already pointed out that Jon remembers Robb once throwing it in Jon's face that he's a bastard and thus "less than," in your own words. Jon resented this so much he's even dreaming a Freudian wish-fulfilment nightmare of killing Robb in revenge for it years later. He remembers no such insult from Sansa, and exhibits no such resentment for her. Do you then concede that Robb must be a sociopathic beast as well - even worse than Sansa is? Or maybe instead you agree with my point above that Kids Are Sometimes Little Shits, but can grow out of it? It's only a conversation if you actually respond to things I'm saying. I'll even concede that Sansa had some worse moments of being a little shit than the others at the beginning of the tale - but like children generally do, she's grown out of them, IMO. However, it is funny that you apportion this: ...as proof of Sansa's utter lack of empathy. Part of empathy is the understanding of another's feelings. And as we saw from our glimpses into Jon's POV - Sansa is abso-fucking-lutely right. Jon is seething at his low rung on the family totem pole as a bastard, which has been underlined by the king's visit; Catalyn has mandated he be pushed into the background because of it. He's miserable and furious - but IIRC, it's not because of any slight Sansa's paid him. Sansa understands Jon's feelings - one component of empathy. She even sympathizes with them ("poor Jon") which is the OTHER half of the definition of empathy. Granted, her sympathy is only pity, which is merely the small change of compassion, and therefore less than is a brother's due. So yes, in the midst of empathy she's having a Being A Bit of A Little Shit moment at the same time. But see Robb, who loves Jon and yet threw that insult in his face for no real provocation...it's only the beginning of Book 1 - she'll change. Later in the same book we see the same empathy for Jon, when she sees how ragged and poor-looking the man of the Night's Watch is, and she thinks how sorry she is for Jon to have joined such miserable ranks. Again, she shows understanding for Jon's feelings - his first reactions to the NW are pretty similar to hers. Again, she shows sympathy in the form of pity for Jon - and I may add that Jon shared this pity for himself to the fullest when he started out in the NW - which highlights HIS own snobbishness and moment of Being A Little Shit that he has to grow out of (and does). I'd say Sansa concentrating on the positive side of being a bastard ('bastard brave') while pretending to be one herself and befriending the servants as their equal shows her snobbishness has been broken down. Okay, so it doesn't count as empathy unless she risks her life for it? That's not what the dictionary says. Contradicting Joffrey can get her punished, but she did it anyway. She did it for that anonymous woman. in the crowd. She did it for Dontos, when it's clear she IS risking her life for it. She did it for Margaery. Disqualifying those acts of empathy as not counting because she only did it ONCE for a smallfolk woman, and Dontos is a knight (a pathetic drunken knight of a disgraced house) so empathy for HIM doesn't count, and Margaery is a noble AND pretty so risking your life to help her is no virtue, and staunching the bleeding from Lancel's severe wound doesn't count as empathy because, I guess, he's a nobleman AND pretty (though he couldn't have been THAT pretty gushing blood and screaming doom all over the floor). And Littlefinger using Sansa's own empathy to keep her pretending to be his dutiful daughter lest he kill some innocent (noble or servant is not specified) who she might accidentally reveal their secrets to, and blame the guilt of their murder on her doesn't count as empathy either, according to you. In fact, you think we should count her terrified acquiescence in Stockholm syndrome with LF's threats to other people as another point against her. You think that she should remember Lysa's babbling with stenographic clarity - at a moment when Lysa had hold of her hair and was trying to push her out the Moon Door. You expect her to remember it all as clearly as we do, who have the books to consult, and to deduce that the 'tears' Lysa was babbling about were the Tears of Lys - a poison she has never been told about. You also expect her to know that the letter LF told her to write to Cat constituted a betrayal of the entire family - even though she knows nothing about that letter or what it precipitated (her father coming to KL to begin with). You expect her to have accomplished all these miraculous feats of deduction just so you can accuse her of colluding with LF while KNOWING he betrayed her entire family. I told Eyes High that ignoring a person's good deeds in order to condemn her for her worst THOUGHTS was an impossible standard that no human being could live up to. But it seems you've gone him one better - you're condemning Sansa for thoughts you can't even prove she's ever HAD. Or can you show anywhere in the books that Sansa knows LF betrayed her father and her family?

IIRC, he never actually says that sweetsleep is harmful, just that he shouldn't have it so often. It is implied there may be side effects but these aren't described. He certainly doesn't explain that there is any danger of serious harm - if he did, Sansa would undoubtedly have not wanted to use it, even if she were an arrant sociopath, because LF would lose his power and likely his life (and probably hers by extension) if SR died under his care.

The sins you're putting to her account from the beginning of the show when she was a kid - well, kids learn empathy over time, they are not born with an unalterable amount of it that they can NEVER increase. So pointing out her sins as a child don't prove anything about how her character develops. Not to mention you omit all the times she DID show empathy, as if you're trying to stack the deck against her. If she REALLY is as sociopathic as you're trying to make her out to be, you wouldn't need to omit info to prove your point. Yes, she thought of Jon as her bastard brother. But do a search of the books for "bastard brother" and you'll find that Bran thinks of Jon as his 'bastard brother" more often. It was the way they all were raised. And Jon doesn't think of Sansa with any particular resentment - in fact, he thinks of her with less resentment than he did toward Robb, who'd thrown his bastard status in his face more forcefully than he ever remembered Sansa doing it - an occasion that he hurt him so deeply he was vengefully dreaming of killing Robb for it years later. Are we to assume from this that Robb was an even WORSE sociopathic monster than Sansa? Or maybe that most kids CAN act like monstrous brats at times, and it's a little more complicated than that? Jon, IIRC, never recalls in the books any negative insult or interaction with Sansa. If he only remembers her rarely as a vaguely pleasant element in the background of his memories or the source of one piece of useful advice about how to talk to girls, it seems to me more likely that he doesn't think of her often because they were never close enough or had enough in common for her to be important to him, rather than that she continuously tormented him in ways he doesn't remember. (He certainly has no problem remembering the slights he's received from others). You stack the deck against her here as well: You put in information she couldn't possibly know about Jeyne's fate to make her seem extra callous in ignoring it. (ETA: SeanC also points out above that you're wrong about her never thinking about Jeyne again). You also accuse her of being callous about Sweetrobin's safety in urging the use of sweetsleep, but omit the fact that the maester never told her sweetsleep was dangerous. Most importantly, you omit her saving the life of Ser Dontos - an act in which she risked her life for a person who could not benefit her in any way, simply because she pitied that person. You omit her telling Margaery the truth about Joffrey out of pity for her fate as his wife - this was despite her intense and realistic fear of punishment, AND not because she was expecting to benefit from Margaery and her family - they only offered her refuge in their family AFTER she told them the truth. Both these things were based on pure empathy. To brush off these actions that risked her own life as "occasionally doing the nice thing" (as if they were the same as tossing a quarter to a panhandler) without even MENTIONING them is distorting in the extreme. She also helped Lancel when he was wounded - a man who she had plenty of reason to resent, who could be no source of help in return - and when LF wanted to extort her into playing the part of his daughter to perfection, he used her empathy against her by telling her that she would bear the guilt of any person he murdered to cover for her mistakes. ("Do you want MORE blood on your pretty hands, sweetling?") To me actions - actions to help taken despite risk to oneself - speak louder than words, much less thoughts. If you brush aside the most important, helpful, courageous deeds of her life as unimportant and revealing nothing of her character, and condemn her because you cherrypicked the absolute worst of her thoughts to judge her by, you're setting up a standard for her that no human being could meet.

I wouldn't say Sansa is devoid of the desire for revenge. If revenge is gusto in someone's deserved punishment beyond simple dispassionate satisfaction in justice done, then her smile at the death of Ramsey showed that she does feel it to some extent. IMO, very few humans are entirely free of it. She didn't feel it enough to watch him die and savor every moment of agony, nor to order the far more prolonged and painful death by flaying that SOME Northerners (say, the relatives of the old woman Ramsey tortured to death by that method) would say was the just and fitting way for Ramsey to meet his end. But gusto? Yes, she did feel that. What she wouldn't do, IMO, is make revenge her principle motivation for acting - prolong it beyond the raw anger of recent pain to make it her long term principal goal, sacrificing the safety of herself and others to achieve it. I don't think her pushing Jon to try to raise the banners of war against Ramsey was principally about revenge. It was about safety. Jon may have thought he could just pack a duffle bag and walk away from the Wall and the North with Sansa as partner on a road trip wherever if she wanted to come, but Sansa knew Ramsey would not let her leave the North. Nor would Ramsey abide Jon leaving the NW to go south with his wildlings, considering Jon free of his NW vows a threat to his claim to WF and wildlings vermin to exterminate. It was fight or die in that situation. Revenge was merely a fringe benefit of winning - the goal was survival.

I don't really see it, either in the books or on the show. We see Book Sansa think mostly with horror of Lysa's end even though she tried to kill Sansa, also with horror of Marillion's tortures even though he was a full and willing accomplice of Lysa's attempt to murder Sansa...I saw no righteous feeling of satisfaction that they'd got what they deserved in her thoughts afterwards, such as what you'd expect to find in someone deeply invested in holding onto a grudge until satisfying it - however long savoring that satisfaction takes. Acting out on impulse - yes, she's capable of that when pushed, as when she almost jumped with Joffrey from the wall save for the intervention of the Hound. She also laughed when Joffrey died. But cold-bloodedly planning out a long-term revenge purely for the sake of it? We didn't see that in the books. When LF told her about how he had various schemes cooking but was annoyed that Cersei was bringing ruin on herself too fast and messing up his timetables, Sansa did not ask how Cersei was ruining herself to savor the details, much less urge LF to help ruin her faster. One gets the impression that while she'd be happy to get justice, her top priority is peace and safety for herself and those around her (remember, LF's motivation for her to pretend to be his daughter at all times in her heart was to threaten to kill anyone she accidentally revealed her secret to and lay the guilt on her for it, not a promise to revenge her wrongs). In the shows? She's really not much different, IMO. We don't see her urging some plot against Cersei (If she were, she'd be cheerleading an alliance with the Dragon Queen who wants to burn the Iron Throne out from under Cersei right from the start, under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle.) Yes, she chooses Ramsey's terrible death. But given that he'd raped her repeatedly in the recent past and that he'd just killed Rickon, I think that belongs in the hot blooded reactive revenge. I don't see her engaging in careful long term planning to attain vengeance, especially not by sacrificing safety to furthur such plotting. Which is why her going along with LF's nonsensical idea to marry her off to Ramsey, son of Roose the betrayer of her father for 'revenge' (revenge HOW? What's the compensation for my risking my safety in the castle of the flayer betrayer that's about to become a war zone when Stannis attacks? What's the freakin' PLAN?) was one of the show's worst writing failures.

Maybe it just means he'll die as a young man in a tree.

I was reacting to what you wrote here: ...where it seemed to me you were saying that in ANY storyline where Sansa learns the game of thrones (which includes the one we are currently following on HBO), it would be absurd for her to be captured by a military raid, which didn't seem necessarily so to me. If I misunderstood, sorry. Re the statues: I don't think they were meant to look older, they just read differently from their originals because the likeness isn't strong.

Good God, is Sophie tall.

I don't see why a character who knows the game of thrones must therefore necessarily be immune to a surprise military strike, which isn't the same field of expertise. Sansa has outright said she doesn't understand military strategy, and so would not be in charge of the military defense of WF with whatever personnel are left to that task after Jon and Dany go north to meet the NK. Nor will Sansa's influence into any decision be the same, since the return of Jon, with Dany in tow as the new queen, has given Sansa not one but two demotions. If WF falls to a surprise military attack that grabs Sansa and the grain, or just sets it on fire (the GC would totally double-cross any confederate who opened the door to them if convenient to them) I don't see how Sansa could have stopped that by playing the game of thrones. And I think it's been well foreshadowed - in Sansa's warnings not to count Cersei out, in Cersei's own words that she plans to use the GC to 'take back what is ours.' (What do you think she means by that, if not to take back a valuable Lannister hostage who had the cheek to run away?) I keep seeing the word 'omniscient' used about Bran. It means 'all-knowing.' But Bran isn't. Yes, he can see into the past, and at long distances, a very useful gift. But we've seen how he does it. And what he does is look in one direction, follow one scene in the past or present, sometimes for hours, till he finds what he's looking for. This happens in real time, so other things of importance may happen in other directions that he may not be aware of while he's looking. By staring at what he thinks is the most important scene he can miss things that are happening close by. This is how Bran's teacher died - he was distracted by what he thought as the the big picture, and missed the fact that right in his home Bran was happily engaged in doing wrong and dangerous stuff he shouldn't do, like put on poor Hodor's body like an old pair of pants, and then use the weirless internet while Bloodraven's asleep. The greenseers can also see the future, but only in prophetic glimpses that are rare and not controllable. Bloodraven could not foresee his own doom. This is not omniscience. So I can totally see Bran watching Jon and Dany as they go north to meet the NK, considering this the most important thing happening, while totally missing the fact that one of the weathervanes has had a quiet conversation with a stranger who's come to town with an offer to make. Just as Bloodraven could see all over the world and still miss the cause of the doom of his own home, so could Bran.

I said "a bit of a grudge." Admittedly, if Cersei acknowledges that the Queen of Thorns was the one responsible for Joffrey's death and not Sansa and Tyrion, all she really has against Sansa (besides her being in open rebellion against the crown) is that she escaped Lannister custody, making them look like fools. That may not seem like much of a grudge, but Cersei's been enjoying indulging her petty grudges to a surprising extent (recall her personal supervision of the punishment of the "shame, shame, shame!" nun, and the Mountain splattering the smallfolk singer all over the alley wall just for singing a rude song about Cersei). Besides, Sansa's important enough to the King in the North (being his only known living relative, at least at the time Cersei sent the Golden Company) to make him hesitate to have Dany incinerate the Red Keep if Sansa's in it. That in itself makes her valuable enough of a hostage to be desirable to Cersei.

True. Also Cersei is operating on old news; likely when she sent the Golden Company she didn't know about Arya and Bran being alive. When Dany and Jon go off to war, they'd take the bulk of their forces, and Sansa at home in WF would be a natural target for Cersei to designate for hostage-taking. Not to mention that Cersei still has a bit of grudge against Sansa, and currently indulging her grudges are one of the few things she still lives for. She used to get occasional sadistic jollies from tormenting Sansa back in the good old days when Joffrey was alive; no doubt she still has some nostalgia for the experience.

Cersei's aim would be to weaken Jon and Dany's alliance so that if they DO come back alive and victorious from their fight with the NK, they'll be enfeebled enough to leave Cersei in a much better position to fight or bargain. To that end, depriving WF of its winter stores and taking some important hostages to protect herself from dragonfire and as bargaining chips would accomplish a lot. She probably gave that assignment to the Golden Company. I'm speculating that in covertly scouting the territory in preparation for their attack, the GC decided the best way to accomplish their assignment would be to make a secret agreement with some of the North's more untrustworthy subjects. ETA: Casterly Rock is valueless now without its winter stores; I can't see Cersei expending her limited resources to take it back, when she's made up her mind to live and die on the Iron Throne. Taking down WF while its larders are full and its owners are away would be a valuable military victory that might help her keep that throne. As for "Taking back what is ours" I think she might be talking about Sansa, who was a valuable Lannister hostage and had the insolence to abscond without their permission.

Two thoughts have occurred to me, both about food. Since food is probably going to turn out to be more precious than gold in the dead of winter, it will probably be a prime mover of the plot. So I started wondering whether the Tarlys were killed close enough to Horn Hill for Dany's forces to confiscate their winter stores. They must have food in abundance; their homestead was never invaded and sacked, and their army were fairly late participants in the war, meaning their peasants had more time to plant and harvest before being drafted into the army. Not to mention that though we were shown Tarly reporting the food of Highgarden was mostly shipped to KL, Tarly could well have taken a share for Horn Hill. He doesn't want his family seat to have to deal with a rebellion of starving Reach peasants in midwinter, who are now HIS responsibility as new Warden of the Reach. So then Randyl and Dickon are put to death by Dany's forces as unrepentant rebels against her rule. An executed traitor's property is generally forfeit to the crown. We don't know exactly where the Tarlys met their death. But even if it were several days' travel from Horn Hill, an army marches on its stomach, and we'd seen Dany burn a hundred wagonloads of badly needed food recently. It would be worth her while to send a force to Horn Hill to get the food - maybe confiscated outright if they decide that as a traitor Randyll lost his right to leave his property to his heirs. Or, if Dany decides to be less draconian (heh) and allow Tarlly's daughter to keep the manor if she vows fealty, she could still order the food commandeered for the army in exchange for an IOU, as armies do even from property owners on their own side when they're in desperate straits. If Sam finds out that not only did his mother and sister have to deal with the bereavement of getting their husband/son/brother back in a very small urn, they also have to worry about starving in the winter, it might influence his view of Dany further toward the negative. The other thought about food that occurred to me was about the food in WF. Sansa collected the Northern lords' winter food stores in WF. The publicly stated reason was to keep it safe, with the lords' assurance that they would be fed and sheltered at WF even if their own homes fell to whatever enemy. There was also an unspoken reason; to tie the Northern lords fealty tighter to WF; they can't rebel against WF without being cut off from their own food supply. So I was wondering - why DOES WF fall so quickly, with the entire food supply of the North in their larder for a siege, and 2 dragons to defend it from the NK's one? Cersei's mercenaries have to enter into the matter. I thought at first that they might use the same tactic that Theon did to capture WF; wait until it was mostly unmanned, with most of its soldiers away at a war, and take it in a swift covert operation. But then I realized that both Jon and Bran are aware of this tactic (Bran was actually in charge of WF when Theon took it). They'd look like idiots if they let WF fall a second time to the same trick. So WF will be better defended this time. How will it fall to Cersei's mercs? Maybe some of the Northern weathervanes have become convinced that Dany will keep their winter stores for her armies and let them starve through the winter. Why? Maybe they insulted her with the implication she should resign the throne in favor of Jon, and they're afraid she'll retaliate against them; maybe some other reason. But they can't rebel against her till they get their food back. So the weathervanes make a deal with Cersei. They'll signal the Golden Company when Jon and Dany march out to meet the NK. They'll leave some of their men among those manning WF against invasion in Jon and Dany's absence. Those men will open the gates to the Golden Company and bring their food back home while the Golden Company sacks WF. Yes, doing so will stupidly leave them open to the NK's attack. But likely even if they do believe in the NK, they underestimate his danger. There's a Wall to keep him back. And with any luck Dany will beat him but be weakened enough by the victory to be negotiated with or even outright defeated. And if she loses - well, they're all doomed anyway, so what does it matter if they backstab her before they all die? They probably don't believe in an actual Apocalypse as a possibilty anyway. It's basically the same calculation Cersei made - so Cersei's a natural ally to such traitors.

John Bradley may say that Sam won't react badly to his father and brother's deaths. He may say it because it's true, or he may say it because his reaction may be linked to a vital plot point he isn't supposed to be hinting at. Imagining Sam getting the news about his father and brother while he's in WF with the woman responsible, being totally uncaring about the impact on his mother and sister, and shrugging with bovine indifference, "Good job. They had it coming..." and nothing more? That seems to me far more OOC for Sam, so it seems to me Bradley's misdirecting. But that's just my opinion. It's sloppy writing when writers set up a plot point with potential repercussions (Dany kills the brother and father of her future lover's best friend), take valuable time to go back to that plot point and underline it (the maesters of Oldtown deciding they will not tell Sam the news, so he won't learn it till he's at WF, probably with the woman responsible)...and then do nothing with that plot point. It makes all the above wasted time in the narrative. As for it being "sloppy writing" for the Northern lords to "act dumb" and obstructively to their rulers - do you think the Northern lords have acted smartly until now? As far as I can tell, they've been obstinately dumb and obstructive throughout, causing significant plot complications along the way. To me it would seem both OOC and sloppy writing if the weathervanes suddenly decided to be wisely docile to their leader and cause no further problems. It would also leave us wondering why WF falls to the NK, when it has Dany's oh-so-superior army and two dragons to the NK's one to defend it. Disunity at HQ seems like a good explanation to me. And no, I'm not at all upset, though it's sweet of you to worry. Feel free to continue debating if you want to.

Okay, what do you see Sam doing when he's suddenly faced with the news that his mother and sister are bereaved because his father and brother were burned to death by Jon's girlfriend, who's justifying their death on the grounds that as their queen she had the right to slay prisoners of war who would not vow fealty right where they stood? If, in the middle of that shock and upset he had one bit of information that would knock her pretensions and justifications out from under her and cause her a miniscule part of the emotional pain she'd caused his family - do you think that in the middle of his horror he'd decide to just do nothing with that info and limit himself to silently pouting at her when he sees her? I really don't think we can say lashing out verbally under an extreme loss is something OOC for Sam when we've never actually seen him suffer that kind of loss before. Regardless, I think the showrunners' deliberate choice to have Sam get the news of his dad and brother's death at around the same time Dany comes back - while giving Sam a weapon to strike at Dany with - is deliberately setting up a Chekov's gun. It would be sloppy writing to just forget about it. (Though I could also see Bran being the one to drop the turd in the punch bowl based on weird Recondite Raven Reasons, and Sam playing the spiteful secondary role of providing the material evidence to back him up.) I'm aware of that spoiler, too. And since I really doubt the NK's going to arrive on WF the same day Dany does, what she and her armies and the Northern lords and probably the Vale forces do in the meantime to prepare to fight him is of vital importance. Jon himself says they need every man, so they must be united. If Dany's army with dragons is so VERY superior, one wonders WHY WF collapses under the NK's onslaught so easily. Might it have been disunity at the HQ? You think? I'm sure Dany felt perfectly secure when she first conquered the slaver cities with a brand spanking new army of Dothraki and superior Unsullied soldiers still unworn by prolonged battle, their ranks swelled further by freed slaves. And for that matter, I'm sure Napoleon felt secure in Moscow after he conquered that capital city with the most sophisticated army in the world at the time. Napoleon and Dany, as well as other leaders have learned that large armies and sophisticated weapons (whether WMD or dragons) have serious limits when confronted by decentralized covert resistance and a fatal lack of familiarity with the ambient they're trying to fight in. Dany's numbers may look big compared to the Northern lords' men - but she isn't trying to fight THEM to get the Iron Throne. She has to kill the NK before she can even THINK about the Iron Throne. Sure, in a pitched battle she could flatten the Northmen - but that would likely doom her quest for the Iron Throne. The spoilers seem to indicate the Vale forces are leaving the North - whether before or after Dany arrives isn't clear, but Lord Royce has the legitimate excuse that he cannot make alliances for Sweetrobin without consulting him. Dany might try to threaten him into leaving his forces behind under her command, but Jon would be likely reluctant to threaten an ally who saved his ass in the Battle of the Bastards, and Dany would likely follow his lead, before things really start going to hell. So the Vale goes. How are Dany's numbers looking then? Still, she can afford to disregard the Northmen, can't she, even after her battle losses suffered since arrival in Westeros? Well...there's that whole "unfamiliarity with the ambient" thing. However much the Northern forces may be disdained, they do know how to survive and fight in the extreme cold. Dothraki and the Unsullied seem to only know warm weather - not to mention the Dothraki have strings of horses who are ALSO not used to the cold AND will require large amounts of grain that will have to come from the Northmen's winter storage - grain they will likely worry may not be enough to feed their children. If the Northmen have enough resolve and trust in their leaders to keep them safe from threats and get more food before everyone starves, they CAN teach Dany's armies how to manage the cold and keep bringing them food. But if they lose faith and decide, for whatever reason, NOT to remain united? As I said, they probably won't start guerrilla tactics against Dany - but they CAN quietly desert in the snowy night, stop supplying food and taking what they have to their most withdrawn manors in hopes of waiting out the winter with their families. Even if Dany tried to chase them down with her dragons and burn every holdfast, she can't get them all, and won't get her food back that way. Send her frostbitten armies to find them on a hundred different unfamiliar snowed-over Northern roads? While waiting for the NK to arrive? Really? And yes, it WOULD be a stupid, ultimately self-defeating move on the Northmen's parts. But most of them have never seen the walking dead and probably don't believe in their extreme danger even now - there's a Wall, isn't there? And Jon didn't think to show THEM the walking dead - he considered their fealty to him enough. But then he replaced himself with Dany. He and she can blame the Northmen for the fall of WF all they like - but it's still the leaders' ultimate responsibility to keep the faith of the fearful and the stupid as well as the brave. The buck stops with them. And I think the failure in leadership will probably start with issues over Dany's rule - including the revelation of Jon's kingship.

It's not Jon that would ask Sam to lie about his parentage for Dany, as I said. It would be Dany who would want Sam to publically recant his declaration that Jon was the rightful heir to the throne before Dany. She would want this because she would believe quite sincerely that Sam was lying about it to undermine her before the court in revenge for killing his father and brother. And she would feel it would be quite reasonable and merciful of her to forgive Sam and forget he ever tried to undermine her if only he'd publically state he told a lie about her not being queen. And she would feel Jon should be her go-between to get Sam to do this, because Sam is HIS friend. And as I said, Jon would refuse to strong-arm Sam into saying that publically, especially if Sam told him privately that he was telling the truth. He would reply to Dany instead, "Look, I said I was giving up my throne to you, and I stand by that, regardless of whether that throne is the Winterfell throne or the Iron Throne. If it doesn't matter to me, why should it matter to you that a bunch of weathervane subjects say that I should be the one on the throne instead of you? Just ignore the dissing. I'm not going to get nasty with my best friend to get him to say something he thinks is a lie." Dany is not likely to be entirely content with that situation. We're talking about the Northern lords, aren't we? Dany's dominion over the rest of the country is currently strictly theoretical. Her rule over the North - a place she's never been before, a place that she will be living in and ruling over when she comes home with Jon - is INTENSELY practical and concrete. And yes, Jon IS familiar with that land and its people. The lords questioned him because he was the kind of ruler who let them do it. That in itself is a point in his favor for them. And given the choice between a familiar ruler with Stark blood who lets them argue with them, and has a dick and happens to be half-Targaryen - and a total stranger full-blooded Targaryen who is a female, an unknown quantity, and has no Stark blood and no connection to the North or affinity for them...why SHOULD they prefer Dany over Jon? It is in the nature of all political maneuvering to push for power, wherever pushing looks possible. If she comes in and gives every sign of bending over backwards to appear reasonable and not the 'burn them all' type, they WILL push. Why? Any number of reasons. An ambitious lord might think Jon will be eventually grateful if he can argue Dany into stepping aside for him. A lord whose ancestor got burned by Aerys might be less forgiving of the Targaryens than the Starks are, or wary that a full-blooded Targaryen might be more prone to becoming like Aerys eventually than half-blooded Jon. A traditionalist lord might feel he'll only accept a Stark. A chauvinistic lord might prefer having a ruler with a dick. A lot of these reasons are dumb, but if you think that politics doesn't happen for dumb reasons, have one look at the current political situation in OUR world.