Adaptation Analysis: Exploring The Seven Kingdoms

[nikma]

49 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Why did Lyanna like him more? She wasn't impressed by him (or Sansa) in 607. What happened in 609 to change her mind? Nothing we saw would seem to warrant it. That's my point -- whether the show thinks Jon deserves to be king more than Sansa, I don't know, but the plot does not remotely sell that anybody would want to make him king at that point. The Stark army would have been better off if he wasn't there at all.

 

In 607 she was impressed by Davos who was complimenting Jon. And since then she was in Jon's camp, as we see later in 607.  What happened in 609 to change her mind? Many things. Jon's compassion, honesty and bravery. 

The plot does not remotely sell that anybody would want to make him the king at that point? That's another of your own interpretations that you are trying to pass as fact. He was willing to fight to death for the cause, he was there on the ground with his soldiers, he was first in the line, he was risking his own life to save his brother, obviously for Lyanna that was enough. It's not like there is a clear criteria why someone should become a king. When it comes to Jon people were always impressed with his honor and bravery. He was able to unite people of different agendas, wildlings and Northerners fighting together for the first time.  Is there anyone in the North who was capable of such diplomatic achievement? That's very impressive. And he is a male. 

 

 

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Sansa was trying to be a player for multiple seasons at that point, going back to aligning with Littlefinger in Season 4. Season 6 is supposed to be when she comes into her own and plays the decisive role in defeating the Boltons (and there's no doubt that this is what the show is conveying; look at how her arrival at the battle is filmed, and the final scene between her and Ramsay).

Another of your interpretations. That's what is problematic for me in your approach. For example, I don't think that Sansa will come into her own while LF lives. I think his death is the moment she will come into her own, both in the books and the show, because this relationship with the Boltons in the books does not even exist. She will come into her own when she kills her (tor)mentor. 

And since you really like to quote D&D, then you should remember that the point of S6 plot for Sansa was to show that she was trying to become  independent from LF, but he still has some hold over her. Benioff himself said that.

So the story they wanted to tell is the story they've told. Sansa trying and failing to be completely independent from him. He still has some hold over her, not like before S5, but their connections are deep and strong. 

I really find your remarks about what they "wanted to say" and what the story "is supposed to be.".. not very true. 

Edited April 9, 2017 by nikma

[SeanC]

26 minutes ago, nikma said:

The plot does not remotely sell that anybody would want to make him the king at that point? That's another of your own interpretations that you are trying to pass as fact.

Er, yes, this is all inherently interpretation.  Your ideas are too.

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He was willing to fight to death for the cause, he was there on the ground with his soldiers, he was first in the line, he was risking his own life to save his brother, obviously for Lyanna that was enough. It's not like there is a clear criteria why someone should become a king.

You want somebody who is a good leader to be king.  Based on 609, Jon is not a good leader.  Indeed, the early part of the episode explicitly has Sansa tell him that Ramsay is going to try to get him to screw up, and yet he still ends up doing exactly what Ramsay wants, leading to his army's near-annihilation.

And yet, because the show keeps trying to have it both ways, nobody ever mentions this afterward.  Nothing Jon did should convince somebody like Lord Glover, who upbraided them for Robb's selfishly prioritizing his own desires over his people, that Jon is any better, because Jon did the same thing at horrendous cost to his men.  But there Glover is, praising Jon to the skies.

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For example, I don't think that Sansa will come into her own while LF lives. I think his death is the moment she will come into her own, both in the books and the show, because this relationship with the Boltons in the books does not even exist. She will come into her own when she kills her (tor)mentor. 

And since you really like to quote D&D, then you should remember that the point of S6 plot for Sansa was to show that she was trying to become  independent from LF, but he still has some hold over her. Benioff himself said that.

So the story they wanted to tell is the story they've told. Sansa trying and failing to be completely independent from him. He still has some hold over her, not like before S5, but their connections are deep and strong. 

I really find your remarks about what they "wanted to say" and what the story "is supposed to be.".. not very true. 

While the plot is meant to push Sansa to let him back in her good graces, the season still means for us to take away from Sansa is now formidably skilled.  That's why they have Jon straight-up tell her that the victory was hers, why she gets the triumphal climax in the earlier episode, etc.  The creators and actors (as well as how the show is made) are unambiguous on that point.  And it totally fails at selling this, because she never does anything remotely impressive.  Even if she's not wholly independent of Littlefinger, she's being marketed as a rising force, and that is not what we see.  She's no more successful in Season 6 than she was in Season 5 or Season 4 (indeed, episode 408 is the only even vaguely successful plan she's ever come up with on the show, and even that is based on highly illogical foundations), so the payoff is totally unearned.

And since you mention the defeat of Littlefinger, nothing in the spoilers for Season 7 suggests she's any more skilled there either.

Edited April 9, 2017 by SeanC

[OhOkayWhat]

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

Why did Lyanna like him more? She wasn't impressed by him (or Sansa) in 607. What happened in 609 to change her mind? Nothing we saw would seem to warrant it.

We do not know a lot about Lyanna personality to determine if it makes sense or not that she supports Jon post-battle.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

but the plot does not remotely sell that anybody would want to make him king at that point.

It is not about making him the king.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

Season 6 is supposed to be when she comes into her own

We are not sure about that.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

and there's no doubt that this is what the show is conveying; look at how her arrival at the battle is filmed

With Littlefinger close to her.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

The whole plot is structured around her failing and having to crawl back to Littlefinger,

I do not agree with that description of the plot. But the heavy influence of Littlefinger is still there. I think that is the plot.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

If the show wants us to think she has any doubts about it, it has to demonstrate them.

Remember I did not say that it proves she does not trust him. I only said it does not proves she trust him. Besides that, maybe the show wants us to keep wondering at that moment.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

Deeply implausible.  The Valemen are there, and have no reason to keep it a secret.

As far we know, the Valemen do not know all about Sansa's letter

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

Davos has no reason to think Jon is some vital cog in the war against the White Walkers.  He barely knows him, and had maybe one scene with him on the show.  

He talked with him. He lives in Castle Black for several weeks. He knows Jon believes in the Long Night problem. That differentiates Jon from most of the characters in Westeros.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

The show is not subtle about communicating how we're supposed to interpret events.

And yet, the people have so many different interpretations of so many events.

 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

as well as how the creators and actors describe it, 

The interviews only give us a partial (and sometimes only a personal) image of the total writers' vision about the show.

Edited April 9, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[SeanC]

Just now, OhOkayWhat said:

We do not know a lot about Lyanna personality to determine if it makes sense or not that she supports Jon post-battle.

Lyanna is portrayed in the show as skeptical of him beforehand, and enthusiastic afterward.  Without any special characteristics assigned to her by the show, we must evaluate whether this is good characterization based on whether the events depicted would (we believe) lead a reasonable person to want to make Jon king.

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With Littlefinger close to her.

The camera moves past Littlefinger quickly and focuses solely on her afterward.  The emphasis is her.

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I do not agree with that description of the plot.

Episode 605:  "I don't want or need you, I'm going to work with my brother and rally the North to fight the Boltons."

Episode 607:  Sansa is a complete failure at talking to the Northern lords we see, the few lords they do get are recruited by Jon and Davos, her attempts at strategic insight there and in the previous episode are wrong (about the Karstarks and Cerwyns, and Northerners generally), and the episode ends with her doing what she doesn't want to do and write to Littlefinger.  That's the sum total of her contributions to the plot.  And it's not like she couldn't have been shown contributing something of value in the recruitment scenes so that she was showing skill, even if they were still largely being rejected by the Northerners, but she doesn't even get that.  Jon, Davos and Tormund get the wildlings and the Mormonts, while Sansa fumbles with Lyanna and then pisses off Glover (who, incidentally, then totally reverses his position in his next appearance even though his first scene is played like everything he says is right).

And yet, at the same time, per the episode 609 script, this is played as if Sansa is rightfully frustrated at Jon and co. excluding her, even though we haven't seen them do that and she doesn't have anything terribly useful to say anyway.  Because the show is constantly trying to do about five different things with the same plotline, even when they contradict each other.

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As far we know, the Valemen do not know all about Sansa's letter

Why wouldn't they?  It would arrive by raven, like any other message.  Jon knows about it, so the letter isn't a secret.

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The interviews only give us a partial (and sometimes only a personal) image of the total writers' vision about the show.

The interviews are pretty straightforward, and are always used by the show to steer the conversation about events (something they're very successful at, incidentally).

[nikma]

2 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Er, yes, this is all inherently interpretation.  Your ideas are too.

They are, but I'm not acting like I can read D&D's minds. 

 

2 minutes ago, SeanC said:

You want somebody who is a good leader to be king.  Based on 609, Jon is not a good leader.  Indeed, the early part of the episode explicitly has Sansa tell him that Ramsay is going to try to get him to screw up, and yet he still ends up doing exactly what Ramsay wants, leading to his army's near-annihilation.

Based on 609 Jon is a great leader because he is maybe the first person in history of the North who was able to unite the Northerners and the wildlings. Yes, Sansa said that Ramsay will play  games with him and he did, but what for it? He should have just stand there and watch the death of his brother, just because Sansa said there will be traps? Yes, maybe she would do that, but Jon would never do something like that. He stayed true to his character. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, SeanC said:

And yet, because the show keeps trying to have it both ways, nobody ever mentions this afterward.  Nothing Jon did should convince somebody like Lord Glover, who upbraided them for Robb's selfishly prioritizing his own desires over his people, that Jon is any better, because Jon did the same thing at horrendous cost to his men.  But there Glover is, praising Jon to the skies.

 

Yeah,  trying to save your own brother in a battle is the same as marrying a girl for no other reason, but selfish desires, and breaking very important  marriage pact. 

2 minutes ago, SeanC said:

While the plot is meant to push Sansa to let him back in her good graces, the season still means for us to take away from Sansa is now formidably skilled.  That's why they have Jon straight-up tell her that the victory was hers, why she gets the triumphal climax in the earlier episode, etc.  The creators and actors (as well as how the show is made) are unambiguous on that point.  And it totally fails at selling this, because she never does anything remotely impressive.  Even if she's not wholly independent of Littlefinger, she's being marketed as a rising force, and that is not what we see.  

You  are again  trying to tell us what D&D wanted to tell. Jon was telling many things to many characters in the past, and she was in the focus when the Vale army arrived, because she is the protagonist and a Stark. You would put LF  there while the Stark theme is playing? 

And again I told you what Benioff said about Sansa's relationship with LF and that's what he saw in S6. She refused his kiss at the end of S6, so it is obvious that she is becoming more independent from him, but not enough.

Everything else is just your interpretation of shots and music, etc. Like those people who claimed that Sansa's rape was about Theon, because the shot was on him. 

You have a right to have your own interpretations, but it is wrong to claim what D&D wanted to say or what the show is supposed to be and then to criticize the show because they didn't fulfill your wishes. 

[SeanC]

10 minutes ago, nikma said:

They are, but I'm not acting like I can read D&D's minds. 

None of this requires mind-reading.  It's a combination of the show's own press materials and what is entirely obvious from the show itself.

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Yeah,  trying to save your own brother in a battle is the same as marrying a girl for no other reason, but selfish desires, and breaking very important  marriage pact. 

Jon was the leader of an army; his responsibility was to his men.  He failed, with ruinous consequences that were only partially averted by deus ex Vale.  Nobody wants a king who will throw away his men's lives impulsively, as Glover said, and that's what Jon did.

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And again I told you what Benioff said about Sansa's relationship with LF and that's what he saw in S6. She refused his kiss at the end of S6, so it is obvious that she is becoming more independent from him, but not enough.

What does that have to do with what I said?  I agreed that Sansa isn't outside his orbit; that's obvious.  That doesn't change that she doesn't demonstrate any skill growth even though everybody involved with the show, and the show itself, are saying she does.

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Everything else is just your interpretation of shots and music, etc.

Even if the writers and actors hadn't said all the things they said, how else would you interpret that stuff?  It's not subtle or ambiguous.  If we were supposed to see Sansa as a totally useless figure who is only capable of assenting to what Littlefinger wants to do, she wouldn't be given triumphant hero shots that blare to the audience that she is saving the day.  Which is how general audiences unanimously took that moment, because they were meant to.  Which is also why the show has Jon straight-up credit her for the victory.

Edited April 9, 2017 by SeanC

[nikma]

13 minutes ago, SeanC said:

And yet, at the same time, per the episode 609 script, this is played as if Sansa is rightfully frustrated at Jon and co. excluding her,

You didn't react well when I said that you seem like you have something personal against D&D but this is a perfect example. You are taking the lines from the script completely out of context just so you can push your narrative.

This is what was written in the script:

"Sansa listens in. She is not a part of the inner circle, and this should be clear from the blocking."

How can you interpret  this as  "Sansa is rightfully frustrated at Jon and Co. excluding her"?

[SeanC]

8 minutes ago, nikma said:

This is what was written in the script:

"Sansa listens in. She is not a part of the inner circle, and this should be clear from the blocking."

How can you interpret  this as  "Sansa is rightfully frustrated at Jon and Co. excluding her"?

Sansa wants to be part of the inner circle; if she isn't, it's not because of her choice, which is why she complains in that scene that Jon is ignoring her.

Which is backed up by the writers in the BTS videos, and by the actors and director in the DVD commentary.  Again, this is simply taking the writers and other people involved in the show at their word, not something pulled out of thin air.  They mean for Sansa's attitude in that scene to be justified; they said as much.

Edited April 9, 2017 by SeanC

[nikma]

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Jon was the leader of an army; his responsibility was to his men.  He failed, with ruinous consequences that were only partially averted by deus ex Vale.  Nobody wants a king who will throw away his men's lives impulsively, as Glover said, and that's what Jon did.

King is not only a warior, Ne is a diplomat, a politician. Jon is great fighter, and he is very capable od uniting people. That's what makes a great king and ruler in general. 

Jon Snow has so many qualities that the North should admire and if his greatest sin was that he abandoned his good strategy to risk his own life to save his brother, then I think the North will love him even more. 

Because watching your brother and rightful heir die is not what makes a good king. And iit seems that Lyanna thinks the same. There were maybe people who  shared your opinion, but that's not some universal truth, like you try to present it. It's not like they declared Podrick as their king, so it doesn't make sense at all

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Even if the writers and actors hadn't said all the things they said, how else would you interpret that stuff?  It's not subtle or ambiguous.  If we were supposed to see Sansa as a totally useless figure who is only capable of assenting to what Littlefinger wants to do, she wouldn't be given triumphant hero shots that blare to the audience that she is saving the day.  Which is how general audiences unanimously took that moment, because they were meant to.  Which is also why the show has Jon straight-up credit her for the victory.

But Sansa wasn't  a totally useless figure as I said. It was her idea to take the WF, her idea to summon Northern lords, her idea to use the wildlings, her idea to summon LF at the end,.. But she was struggling with LF's influence over her. Both political and psychical. And she was struggling with horrors she faced in WF. 

Edited April 9, 2017 by nikma

[nikma]

6 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Sansa wants to be part of the inner circle; if she isn't, it's not because of her choice, which is why she complains in that scene that Jon is ignoring her.

Which is backed up by the writers in the BTS videos, and by the actors and director in the DVD commentary.  Again, this is simply taking the writers and other people involved in the show at their word, not something pulled out of thin air.  They mean for Sansa's attitude in that scene to be justified; they said as much.

Yes, but the context is not what you said. She is frustrated that they are talking about Ramsay and she knows him the best and no one is asking her any question about him. So she is not excluded from every decision making process, she is frustrated because they are not asking her about Ramsay.

Another qute from the script:

She knows Ramsay better than any of them, but they’re not asking her opinion.

 

 

I think this is quite clear. 

[SeanC]

Just now, nikma said:

But Sansa wasn't  a totally useless figure as I said. It was her idea to take the WF, her idea to summon Northern lords, her idea to use the wildlings, her idea to summon LF at the end,.. 

Yeah, she was.  Anyone can say "I want to take Winterfell".  It's the execution of an idea that separates that wheat from the chaff, and Sansa contributes nothing at all to that.  She fails every time she tries to offer political advice or recruit someone to their cause, and she fails in manners suggesting she has no idea how she might go about convincing somebody to join them or understanding of how people's minds work.

[nikma]

Just now, SeanC said:

Yeah, she was.  Anyone can say "I want to take Winterfell".  It's the execution of an idea that separates that wheat from the chaff, and Sansa contributes nothing at all to that.  She fails every time she tries to offer political advice or recruit someone to their cause, and she fails in manners suggesting she has no idea how she might go about convincing somebody to join them or understanding of how people's minds work.

That's not true. The entire strategy to use the wildlings ant the Northern lords was her idea and her construction. 

We didn't see who and how convinced lord Hornwood and lord Mazin to join them. It could be Sansa. As I said I think it would be better if we saw either of them in the show. From the context of the scene in 607 it is clear that person sho coinvinced them wasn't Davos, because Sansa said that he only brought Mormonts. 

[SeanC]

Just now, nikma said:

Yes, but the context is not what you said. She is frustrated that they are talking about Ramsay and she knows him the best and no one is asking her any question about him. So she is not excluded from every decision making process, she is frustrated because they are not asking her about Ramsay.

I never said they were excluding her from every decision-making process, they were excluding her from that meeting, which is about Ramsay.  

The whole scene is also premised on the idea that Sansa can only offer an opinion if Jon asks her, which is totally inconsistent with the previous council scene in 605 where she talked as much as she wanted unprompted.  The writers seem unaware of this.

[nikma]

Just now, SeanC said:

The whole scene is also premised on the idea that Sansa can only offer an opinion if Jon asks her, which is totally inconsistent with the previous council scene in 605 where she talked as much as she wanted unprompted.  The writers seem unaware of this.

 

I disagree, because he never gives her any permission to speak when she speaks in that scene later. I think that the whole scene is a premised on the idea that Sansa doesn't want to ruin Jon's authority by arguing before his advisors and allies., she is waiting for them to stay alone. 

There is nothing in the script that suggest that Sansa is not allowed to speak. 

[SeanC]

Just now, nikma said:

That's not true. The entire strategy to use the wildlings ant the Northern lords was her idea and her construction. 

Literally anybody would have had the same idea.  That's not a meaningful contribution.

It's played as a big moment for her in 604 when she says she'll do it without Jon if she has to; based on 605, the first thing Sansa would have done on her own is rode off to the Karstarks and gotten a one-way ticket back to being Ramsay's sex slave, and she never contributes anything to the execution of the plan, which is shown to be totally out of touch with how the North actually is.  What little support they get is the result of Jon, Davos and Tormund (and Ramsay's threat).

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We didn't see who and how convinced lord Hornwood and lord Mazin to join them. It could be Sansa.

If the show wanted us to think Sansa was winning over the other lords, it's incumbent on them to show us that.  All we're shown is Sansa failing every time she opens her mouth; there's no reason to think she's any different offscreen.

[SeanC]

Just now, nikma said:

I disagree, because he never gives her any permission to speak when she speaks in that scene later. I think that the whole scene is a premised on the idea that Sansa doesn't want to ruin Jon's authority by arguing before his advisors and allies., she is waiting for them to stay alone. 

There is nothing in the script that suggest that Sansa is not allowed to speak. 

Nowhere did I say it actually says Sansa isn't allowed to speak.  But the sudden overwhelming importance of her being asked makes no sense if you don't assume she can't talk of her own accord, which is to say, it doesn't make sense.

There are all of four people (that I can see) in that scene apart from Jon and Sansa:  Davos, Tormund, and two extras who may or may not be meant to be Hornwood and Mazin.  Sansa has never had a problem speaking up in a group before (as I said, she did in 605, which was substantially the same company), and there's no reason why warning about Ramsay playing psychological games would undermine anybody's authority.

[nikma]

Just now, SeanC said:

If the show wanted us to think Sansa was winning over the other lords, it's incumbent on them to show us that.  All we're shown is Sansa failing every time she opens her mouth; there's no reason to think she's any different offscreen.

 Sansa is failing "every time she opens her mouth". Even Cersei doen't fail every time  she opens her mouth. 

The show showed us one House refusing the help and one house giving the help. They didn't have time or money or whatever for anything else. And they also had to give Davos something to do. Bond with Lyanna and parallel with Shireen was a great opportunity for them. 

And we all know that they recruited more houses and that Davos didn't play any role in that, so I really don't see any problem, especially when the story for Sansa was her relationship with LF and how he still has some hold over her. 

[nikma]

2 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Nowhere did I say it actually says Sansa isn't allowed to speak.  But the sudden overwhelming importance of her being asked makes no sense if you don't assume she can't talk of her own accord, which is to say, it doesn't make sense.

 

Oh my ... (by Sam)

The point of that scene is that they are discussing battle strategy without taking into account Ramsay as a person. Sansa doesn't know anything about battle strategy, so that's the reason why she is excluded now and not in 605 where they didn't discuss battle strategy,  but she knows Ramsay and she is frustrated that Jon thinks that Ramsay's personality is not something too important at the moment and that he even thinks that he is the one who plays games with him. 

So for me when I read that scene and when I watched everything was perfectly clear and everything makes sense. 

I mean I can understand that you criticize that Jon is not angry enough because Sansa didn't tell him about the Vale army or that he does not ask for more explanations, but criticizing scenes like this is pure nitpicking. 

[SeanC]

16 minutes ago, nikma said:

The show showed us one House refusing the help and one house giving the help. They didn't have time or money or whatever for anything else. And they also had to give Davos something to do. Bond with Lyanna and parallel with Shireen was a great opportunity for them. 
And we all know that they recruited more houses and that Davos didn't play any role in that, so I really don't see any problem, especially when the story for Sansa was her relationship with LF and how he still has some hold over her. 

The oldest rule of storytelling is "show, don't tell".  What a show choose to show and omit is crucial to shaping a satisfying narrative.

Prior to Season 6, Sansa has no track record with this sort of thing, so there's no basis for people to assume that she's good at it.  It's incumbent on the show to give us a sense of her abilities.  In the two diplomatic forays we're shown, she is a total failure (in one of those, Jon isn't very impressive either, but he had his onscreen success earlier with the Wildlings, and we've seen him try this sort of thing before in earlier seasons anyway).  Concluding she's good at diplomacy offscreen is unsupported by the narrative.

And while the Davos scene with Lyanna was good, if the writers really had to choose between giving Davos a moment of success and giving Sansa a moment of success in that episode and there was no possible way they could include more (which, incidentally, I don't believe), then spotlighting Davos is the wrong choice, because Davos' skills are already established and Sansa is the more important character and more in need of a skills showcase at that point in the narrative.  But, as I said, it's not a case where they ran out of space; the three recruitment scenes each spotlight one member of the triad (with Tormund as kind of a fourth wheel in the first one).  Sansa's is the third, where she completely bombs and gets chewed out for being clueless, in contrast to the others', where they succeed and are praised for their abilities.

6 minutes ago, nikma said:

The point of that scene is that they are discussing battle strategy without taking into account Ramsay as a person. Sansa doesn't know anything about battle strategy, so that's the reason why she is excluded now and not in 605 where they didn't discuss battle strategy,  but she knows Ramsay and she is frustrated that Jon thinks that Ramsay's personality is not something too important at the moment and that he even thinks that he is the one who plays games with him. 

There is no reason why she can't speak and offer insight.  Nobody in that room has ever given any reason to think they would object to her input; all of them have interacted respectfully with her in prior conversations.  So the idea that she's being excluded just does not make any sense, but the writers believe it's a legitimate complaint.

Edited April 9, 2017 by SeanC

[nikma]

1 minute ago, SeanC said:

t's incumbent on the show to give us a sense of her abilities. 

 

I agree, but you are ignoring the fact that recruiting the Northern lords is not the only thing that makes Sansa's storyline in S6. They had a job to end her relationship with Theon, to establish her relationship with Brienne (that was easy), to establish her relationship and conflict with Jon, to show the consequences of sexual abuse she faced, to show that LF still have some hold over her, but that their relationship is very complicated and that she is conflicted over him and then to show her role in the war against the Boltons, creating the plans, failing, returning to LF, but not completely on his terms, which their last scene showed. 

I completely agree that a scene with lord Hornwood and Sansa, where we would see her emotional "the North remembers" speech or something like that would have been great and that would make that storyline better, but I really don't want to throw away the entire storyline because that scene wasn't part of it, especially when there was so much criticism that Sansa's rape would be ignored, that her struggles would be ignored and that everything was done only for the shock value. 

 

 

1 minute ago, SeanC said:

There is no reason why she can't speak and offer insight.  Nobody in that room has ever given any reason to think they would object to her input; all of them have interacted respectfully with her in prior conversations.  So the idea that she's being excluded just does not make any sense, but the writers believe it's a legitimate complaint.

Oh my again... Part where there was written that she was excluded was there for director to know how to stage a scene. 

They are discussing military strategy, She doesn't have any knowledge about that. She is not frustrated that they are not asking her about that, she is frustrated that they didn't seem to care about Ramsay's personality. And she waits for her and Jon to stay alone, because she doesn't like Davos, and we don't know her opinion about Tormund. 

I think that you are trying so hard to show that this scene for whatever reason doesn't make sense, that every other thing that you said on this forum, and there were legitimate criticism, now seems like nitpicking. 

[OhOkayWhat]

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

we must evaluate ...

Why we must to evaluate if maybe we have not enough info?

 

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

The camera moves past Littlefinger quickly and focuses solely on her afterward.  The emphasis is her.

And yet they show him. In my opinion, that is enough.

 

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

Because the show is constantly trying to do about five different things with the same plotline, even when they contradict each other.

In very few cases we can find contradictions in the show.

 

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

Why wouldn't they?  It would arrive by raven, like any other message.

Then, as far we know only two persons know about Sansa's letter among the Valemen. And one of them is Littlefinger.

 

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

The interviews are pretty straightforward

And yet, people have their own interprations about a lot of Behind of Scenes commentaries and Show interviews:

Tyrion meets Dany: open to interpretation

Arya and Neddle: open to interpretation

Return of the Hound: open to interpretation

Book-Show endgames: open to interpretation

Etc...

 

4 hours ago, SeanC said:

and are always used by the show to steer the conversation about events

That implies we know what the show wants with the commentaries and interviews in every case. I do not think we know that.

 

 

Now, talking about most of the scenes of the show, it is not the same to say:

If the purpose of that scene is to show us X idea, and the scene did not show us X idea, then that is maybe bad writing (because there are other causes of failure)

than to say:

The purpose of that scene is to show us X idea, and the scene did not show us X idea, then that is bad writing.

Because in the second case we forgot that the purpose of a scene is also usually open to interpretation. And we forgot also there are other causes of failure.

Edited April 10, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[nikma]

I don't think we can use every word D&D said in their interviews, because it is clear that they are sometimes influenced by their future writing, or they are just trying to trick the audience (Jon vs Sansa) or they are wrong (Benioff said that we first met Stannis and Mel while they were burning some people  alive, which isn't true). 

Or for example when Weiss gave that comment about the Needle in 503, where something was wrong, because there is no way from the way that scene was shown to us that the Needle was the symbol of revenge fro Arya. At that moment. 

We don't know how and when they were shooting those clips, we don't know what questions they wrer asked or did something was taken out of context. 

If they knew how every word they ever said is analyzed to death, they would never say anything in public LOL

And they are spaking less and less about the writing, so maybe they know. 

[SeanC]

10 minutes ago, nikma said:

I don't think we can use every word D&D said in their interviews, because it is clear that they are sometimes influenced by their future writing, or they are just trying to trick the audience (Jon vs Sansa) or they are wrong (Benioff said that we first met Stannis and Mel while they were burning some people  alive, which isn't true). 

In the latter case, while that's inaccurate as to the events of the show, it's an accurate insight into how they see Stannis and Melisandre.

3 hours ago, nikma said:

I agree, but you are ignoring the fact that recruiting the Northern lords is not the only thing that makes Sansa's storyline in S6.

I'm not ignoring that.  But "pawn to player" is, by the writers' own admission, Sansa's overarching arc in the show, and they don't actually show her making any advancement on that score in what they clearly think is a huge season for her.  By the end of the season, we're meant to think Sansa has shown tremendous skill at gameplaying and delivered the Starks their victory.  The early failures are, most likely, meant to be setup for her climactic success, which would work okay if the climactic success was actually what the show sees it as.  But it wasn't, because all Sansa did was something she could have done at any point in her development in the series.  So the arc fails, and related aspects like the Jon/Sansa tensions the show wants to build also don't work as a result.

This is a recurring problem in all of the Stark/Snow kids' development arcs, incidentally; the writers aren't good at depicting a logical progression of skills acquisition.  Arya's two seasons in Braavos somehow managed to be both repetitive and to skip over many of the most interesting parts, but unlike Sansa and Jon in season 6, her season-ending moment, killing Frey and his sons, actually was a solid payoff even if the buildup was lacking.  Bran literally just got his skills downloaded into his noggin.

Quote

They are discussing military strategy, She doesn't have any knowledge about that. She is not frustrated that they are not asking her about that, she is frustrated that they didn't seem to care about Ramsay's personality. And she waits for her and Jon to stay alone, because she doesn't like Davos, and we don't know her opinion about Tormund. 

Again, she has never had a problem talking in the presence of Davos and Tormund before, and if she really was waiting for them to leave, then she would not have any reason to be annoyed with Jon, but she is, and the show thinks she is justified.

Edited April 10, 2017 by SeanC

[anamika]

Sansa's dialogue is some of the worst written on the show.

In episode 5 she tells Brienne after she lies to Jon about LF's info:
“Jon isn’t Tormund. Jon isn’t Davos, or the Red Woman, or Stannis for that matter. Jon is Jon. He’s my brother, he’ll keep me safe. I trust him.”

Yo girl, why did you just lie to him if you trust him? Maybe she is lying to Brienne here? Who knows. If it's not a trust issue, she is deliberately lying to Jon to deceive him for her own selfish reasons. Is that the reason? Again who knows? The season never gave us a clear picture on why Sansa was doing the things she was doing.

Anyways in episode 2, she tells Theon:  "Once we are with Jon, Ramsay won’t be able to touch us"

Seven episodes later when Jon tells Sansa: " I won’t ever let him touch you again. I’ll protect you, I promise" , Sansa replies back with : "No one can protect me. No one can protect anyone."

That line of dialogue is already terrible considering that Sansa is only standing there because a whole slew of people protected her, beginning with the Hound in KL to Theon and Brienne getting her to the wall a few episodes earlier. But then, what happened over 5 episodes to show Sansa that her earlier words to Theon about Jon was wrong? Because he did not ask for her advice?  Because he was going to fight with less men? Then why the hell does she not just tell him about the Vale army and ask him to wait for them?

19 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

Because she really thinks that whatever Jon decides to do, Ramsay will be able to use mind-tricks to defeat Jon and Jon's troops. It does not matter if it is true or not. It is true in her mind.

So she does not inform Jon about a strategic asset like an army and let's him go to his possible death because she thinks that he is an emotional idiot and unfit to be the leader and is going to die anyway?

So your interpretation is that Sansa was being selfish and ruthless and did not care that Jon was going to die in battle. She let Jon go to his death and decided to use the Vale army to win back Winterfell for herself. No wonder she is pissed that the North chose Jon over her. The funniest thing about this argument is how Jon just shrugged off the whole thing with a kiss on the forehead, gently reproaching her for not telling him about it and crediting her with the victory. Show!Jon continues to be an idiot so maybe show!Sansa is justified in her views.

The way Sansa's arc was written in season 6, it looks like she manipulated Jon into fighting and then deliberately lied to him and deceived him on several occasions, even putting his life on the line and not caring if he lived or died, so that she could win back Winterfell for herself with her ally LF's help. She did not seem to care much about Rickon either, towards the end. Is that what the show was trying to tell us about Sansa in season 6? If that's what they were going for then the plot makes some sense. There was so many interviews  with Sophie Turner about how she deserved to be Queen and was better than Jon blah blah, maybe that's what her arc was about.

Edited April 10, 2017 by anamika

[ElizaD]

Whatever the showrunners say there's nothing in season 6 that shows Sansa being any good at anything except crawling back to Littlefinger, and that's the problem: the showrunners' Word of God is difficult to accept when it appears to be flat-out contradicted by what actually made it to the screen. Try to pick something in season 6 that shows Sansa being a benefit to her cause and you'll be reduced to the single scene of her writing an apology letter to a man who still wants to screw her even though he sent her to be raped in her family home. She doesn't convince a single Northern lord to join their cause and all the debate about her motivations (did she plan to get Jon and Rickon killed?) shows what a mess the writing was. You most certainly don't need to be a book purist to find plots like season 6 Sansa or Dorne to be poorly handled or to wish that basic character traits were respected instead of being flipped. For instance, some might be fine with the idea of sending Jaime to Dorne but not care for the decision to keep him as Cersei's obedient lapdog until season 7: they'd rather have his redemption arc than fidelity to its every plot point in the books but what they got was neither.

The basic idea was good (Jon and Sansa struggle to find support and win the battle, ultimately triumphing because of his battle skill and her diplomacy), but it was presented in a way that drove a ton of viewers to argue that he's irredeemably stupid and she's evil. If Robb's will makes Jon king in the books, the show failed to make him earn his kingship by making the loss of the battle his and Sansa's fault, due to his failures at generalship and hers at diplomacy, and they only won because of Littlefinger (which, again, required no skill, only groveling a couple of episodes after Sansa tried to look strong in front of him only for events to prove her wrong). As pointed out earlier, the showrunners even abandoned their own buildup by having no consequences to Ramsay's cruelties even though they themselves had chosen to devote screentime to warnings about that. And all the scenes about how the Boltons need a Stark bride to support their claim? Thrown in the trash after the Sansa rape storyline was over, because it existed only for the rape and first abusing and then losing her led to zero consequences for the Boltons: turns out their claim was always perfectly fine since the vast majority of the North chose them over Jon and Sansa.

So the showrunners say one thing, but what actually ended up on screen is that the North chooses the Boltons over the Starks, Jon has no kingly qualities apart from his swordsmanship in close combat, and Sansa is incapable of influencing any people apart from the one man who once wanted to screw her mother. Is this really a good adaptation and a better story than at least that one single lord choosing the Starks over the Boltons because of Ramsay's endless cruelties, Jon being outnumbered but doing his best to counter that with a good battle plan that keeps him fighting long enough for the Vale forces to arrive, and Sansa getting the Davos speech so that she's responsible for at least a single sassy little lady being persuaded to support the Starks? I sure as hell don't think so, and I've partied hard when the show has cut bloated new plots like Aegon and POV characters like Quentyn: they were fixing GRRM's bad tendencies in those cases, but here they made Jon and Sansa look as useless as they could be without actually losing the battle, which was won only due to Littlefinger.

[anamika]

Thinking further on it, maybe Sansa was being a master player and we missed it!

Her decisions look bad after she meets with LF. She first tells him that she would win back the North with her brother and their army. LF stresses how it will be Jon's army and makes a parting comment about Jon being her half brother.

Next we see, Sansa tells the gang that they should go to the Karstarks. This sounds stupid as Davos explains they would not be loyal. What if Sansa knows this and is only suggesting it so that if the Karstarks join, Jon's leadership would be undermined. She keeps the presence of the vale army to herself. She then sends Brienne off to get an uncle and another army loyal to herself and deliberately antagonizes Glover leading to his refusing to join them.  She makes sure that no Northern houses add their army to Jon's by deliberately bumbling up the diplomacy. She then tries to sow discord between Jon and his loyal advisors Davos and Tormund to isolate Jon and make him dependent on her. She deliberately picks a fight with Jon the night before the battle and  hurts his pride by telling him that Ramsay is smarter than him and that he cannot win - making Jon doubt himself before battle.

In the meantime she secretly writes a letter to LF asking him to get the Vale army at the right time. She knows that Rickon is already dead. She waits until most of the Jon's army is gone and then gets the Vale army to come in and defeat Ramsay and for her to get Winterfell.

Unfortunately for her, Jon survives and the idiot Northerners pick her idiot brother over her for some reason. Even the best laid plans and all that. But looking at Sansa's arc in this light, shows that she nearly managed to get her plan to work, if it had not been for Lyanna Mormont.

2 hours ago, ElizaD said:

 but here they made Jon and Sansa look as useless as they could be without actually losing the battle, which was won only due to Littlefinger.

The worst part was that the Starks failed miserably at winning back Winterfell. It was LF who won Winterfell for them. Just think on that - the worst sacrilege ever. Catelyn must be turning in her grave and headless Ned would be horrified.  Wonderful writing and adaption of the source material there.

Arya is pretty much the only Stark who is putting her skills to good use. I fear for the writing for her next season if she gets to Winterfell.

Edited April 10, 2017 by anamika

[OhOkayWhat]

5 hours ago, anamika said:

So your interpretation is that Sansa was being selfish and ruthless and did not care that Jon was going to die in battle.

My interpretation is that she feels fear. She feels despair thinking about what the next morning will bring to everyone. She is clinging desesperately to the hope that some of the troops (the Vale knights) will not die with everyone else. Because in her mind, does not matter how smart Jon is, Ramsay will find a way to trick him with his cruel mind games.

And that is just a part of her whole 6 storyline: she is struggling with her trauma. With her fears. Her desire of vengueance. Her very deep trust issues. With the feeling that even near of people that cares about her, she does not feel safe. But her plot also is about her hope to find a place where she finally feels safe again (and about her trying to do something about it even if she fails): it is about home. It is a very interesting arc. 

And Jon arc has great things too (of course, I do not like some elements of it). His whole resurrection-rebirth arc takes almost all the season. It is very subtle. We see him struggling with his desire to leave all behind him and the challenges in front of him that he will confront. Even if he fails. And finally we see him being elected for reasons beyond him. Because Westeros also has its own story and its own circunstances. 

Edited April 10, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[WearyTraveler]

16 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

She feels despair thinking about what the next morning will bring to everyone.

If that were true, she would have immediately told Jon and his council that the she had appealed to LF to bring the Vale army.  If she was so scared about everyone's fate, including her own, she would have acted as quickly as possible to bring as many troops as possible to her (and Jon's) aid, not keep that information to herself, risking that the troops would never arrive in time to save anyone, including her.

Then, she would have worked with Jon on a plan to delay the battle with Ramsey until the Vale army got there, or to try to trick Ramsay with some games of their own.  If she's the one that knows Ramsay so well, she could put that knowledge to work to their advantage.

Let's say this happened, let's say they devised a great plan together, let's say they are succeeding  at provoking Ramsay psychologically (because Sansa knows him so well, she knows exactly what buttons to push), but Ramsay, angry at the situation plays his own manipulation card.  Let's say he shows them Rickon about to be hanged from WF's very walls.  Jon rushes to help him, his men follow.  All hell breaks loose. Davos orders their main army to follow Jon into battle.  Sansa flees and is being chased by Ramsay's goons.  No one can help her but herself.  She can't fight so she will have to use her wits. It seems she's managing to lose her pursuers, but she falls from the horse and is surrounded by Ramsay's men.

Jon's main strength, meager as it is, attacks with fervor.  We get our pitched battle.  When it looks like everything is lost for Jon and his men, Ramsay orders the last of his troops to come out of WF for the final strike.  Jon and his men will surely die now.... and then, surprise! Sansa returns with the Vale army and with the men who were surrounding her when she fell off her horse.  The men Ramsay has just ordered out of WF attack him from behind as the Vale army rushes them from above.  Ramsay escapes and locks himself in Winterfell (after this, we can still get all the scenes of Jon and Ramsey and the giant, and so on).

We learn after the battle that the people surrounding Sansa when she fell off her horse were Glovers, or Manderleys, or Umbers; it turns out their leader was convinced by her speech when she and Jon first appealed to them, but they wanted to keep tabs on Ramsey's plans, so they decided to pretend they were still with him and find out everything they could from within.  Ramsay was suspicious, though, so he didn't share with them his plans for Rickon and ordered them to remain inside WF taking only a few of them with him to the battle, with his most trusted guys in charge of the doors, until he called them out when he thought the battle was won.  The guys he had originally taken to battle with him took the opportunity to chase Sansa to escape and actually protect her.

That would support all your points.  In addition, it would show us Jon's military prowess, Sansa's player status and diplomacy skills, and keep some of the Northern loyalty to the Starks from the books.

But that's not what happened. Reading the unsullied episode threads, there are plenty of people confused by Sansa's actions throughout the season (some of the dialog @anamika quoted is actually mentioned as a source of confusion) and baffled at Jon's lack of military strategy when he had actually shown more sense at The Wall fighting Wildlings.

Same result, different characterization, more consistency with what D&D say they want to convey and what they actually show on the episodes they put out.

Edited April 11, 2017 by WearyTraveler

[GreyBunny]

WearyTraveler I would have liked to have seen your version.  It makes more sense than the mess D&D came up with. The one tweak is that Sansa knew Ramsay would use Rickon for bait so Jon and Sansa would need to come up with a plan to deal with that contingency.

[OhOkayWhat]

8 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Then, she would have worked with Jon...

We should not forget about her trust issues. Her very deep trust issues. And how Littlefinger increased the trust issues of this traumatized girl when they both met in the ruins of Mole Town.

That is one of the antecedents of the night before the battle. And the writers did not hide it. They show us it, when Brienne asked Sansa about the lie she told Jon, and Sansa did not know what to say. That way, the writers are making us to notice those big deep trust issues. And those issues had an effect in the night before the battle.

Edited April 11, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[nikma]

On 4/10/2017 at 2:41 AM, SeanC said:

In the latter case, while that's inaccurate as to the events of the show, it's an accurate insight into how they see Stannis and Melisandre.

 

In Arya's case it was inaccurate insight about what hapened with Arya in that scene. 

 

 

Quote

I'm not ignoring that.  But "pawn to player" is, by the writers' own admission, Sansa's overarching arc in the show, and they don't actually show her making any advancement on that score in what they clearly think is a huge season for her.  

Yes. Sansa becoming independent from puppet masters that want to control her is her  overarching arc in the show and they showed her struggles in becoming independent from LF in S6. 

 

Quote

By the end of the season, we're meant to think Sansa has shown tremendous skill at gameplaying and delivered the Starks their victory.  

Again, bunch of your interpretations. We should judge to show based on what was in the show, not based on what we think D&D wanted to say. 

 

 

Quote

Again, she has never had a problem talking in the presence of Davos and Tormund before, and if she really was waiting for them to leave, then she would not have any reason to be annoyed with Jon, but she is, and the show thinks she is justified.

 

She was offended that they didn't ask her about him and she was frustrated that they didn't care about Ramsay's personality, that's all. I'm still saying you are trying way too hard to show one perfectly clear scene as something controversial. 

Edited April 11, 2017 by nikma

[OhOkayWhat]

1 hour ago, nikma said:

they showed her struggles...

Reading your commentary, when you mentioned the struggles of Sansa, it made me think again about some of the problems we can find within the review-texts about the show and without talking specifically about any character, I think it is easy sometimes, to confuse the complexity of a character with bad writing. Something like this:

Character X made a mistake = narrative mistake.

But both things are not the same thing. Maybe the writers are trying to show the struggles of a character and because of that, they included a scene with the character making a mistake. 

Edited April 11, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[anamika]

3 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

We should not forget about her trust issues. Her very deep trust issues.

She has such deep trust issues that she trusts and acts on the information that LF - the man who sold her to Ramsay Bolton - gives her and yet lies to and holds back vital information from Jon? Come on now...

Sansa and LF were acting as a team. There were no secrets between them. Sansa and Jon were acting at cross-purpose and always at odds with each other. This would, I think, leave any viewer questioning both her intelligence and her motives.

[whateverdgaf]

1 hour ago, anamika said:

She has such deep trust issues that she trusts and acts on the information that LF - the man who sold her to Ramsay Bolton - gives her and yet lies to and holds back vital information from Jon? Come on now...

Sansa and LF were acting as a team. There were no secrets between them. Sansa and Jon were acting at cross-purpose and always at odds with each other. This would, I think, leave any viewer questioning both her intelligence and her motives.

I don't quite see how your point suggests that Sansa doesn't have trust issues. It's important to remember Sansa has no armies of her own, no wealth and cannot fight. Her one true weapon is knowledge. Whether she is logical in doing so, Sansa will keep secrets to herself until she has a reason to reveal them. She may have no particular reason for doing so, that is just her default course of action to take. She has grown up surrounded by liars and schemers and people who look out for themselves and believes that is the way to survive and is what everyone else does, so she lies instinctively until she has an actual reason to tell the truth.

Sansa didn't have a particular reason to lie to Jon, she didn't need to. So we can't immediately conclude that she did so because of any under-hand motives. As for Lf, Sansa didn't lie to LF, not because Sansa tells everything to LF and trusts him more, but because she  just doesn't have any secrets to tell LF. And she only acts on LF's information and calls for the armies of the Vale as a last resort, when she is desperate. At that point she felt she had nothing to lose by asking for help. It didn't matter if she trusted him or not.

[SeanC]

5 hours ago, nikma said:

Again, bunch of your interpretations.

No, again, that is what D&D, the actors, and other people associated with the show have all said about it (in addition to it being pretty obvious from how the show itself is filmed).

[WearyTraveler]

7 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

We should not forget about her trust issues. Her very deep trust issues. And how Littlefinger increased the trust issues of this traumatized girl when they both met in the ruins of Mole Town.

That is one of the antecedents of the night before the battle. And the writers did not hide it. They show us it, when Brienne asked Sansa about the lie she told Jon, and Sansa did not know what to say. That way, the writers are making us to notice those big deep trust issues. And those issues had an effect in the night before the battle.

ShowSansa, unlike BookSansa (as of the last book), has many reasons to distrust LF, and many reasons to trust Jon.  Heck! she even says in one episode that he's the only one she could trust.  She has known Brienne for a lot less time than either LF or Jon, but she seems to trust her just fine.  I'm sorry but ShowSansa is not a very logically constructed character.

There is absolutely no reason why she wouldn't tell Jon in the eve of battle, SPECIALLY, that there's an army at the ready.  What exactly is happening around them to make her think that Jon will betray her? How exactly does it benefit her to hide this army from Jon?  On the show, there was no compelling reason for Sansa to hold back this information, except to have a surprise save at the end of the battle.  That's lazy writing, IMO.

[OhOkayWhat]

5 hours ago, anamika said:

She has such deep trust issues that she trusts and acts on the information that LF ...

 

1 hour ago, WearyTraveler said:

has many reasons to distrust LF,...

We only know she uses the information, we do not know if she trusts Littlefinger. In other words: using the information does not imply necessarily she trusts Littlefinger. 

 

1 hour ago, WearyTraveler said:

There is absolutely no reason why she wouldn't tell Jon in the eve of battle....

That is exactly one of the points, the scene is telling us something about Sansa's deep issues, is telling us that, the night before the battle, the trauma is clouding her reasoning.

Edited April 11, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[OhOkayWhat]

I think the interviews, behind the scenes commentaries, etc. are important, they give us a point (or various points) of reference to analize. They allow us to think our own interpretations around that point of reference.
We also need to remember those interviews, etc. exist within a context. 

[SeanC]

4 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

We only know she uses the information, we do not know if she trusts Littlefinger. In other words: using the information does not imply necessarily she trusts Littlefinger. 

Littlefinger is the source of the information.  For her to act on it without any reservations as to its validity indicates trust that he has told her the truth.

Quote

That is exactly one of the points, the scene is telling us something about Sansa's deep issues, is telling us that, the night before the battle, the trauma is clouding her reasoning.

These "deep issues" only apply to Jon for some reason, whereas Brienne, who she just met, she trusts just fine, and she continues to trust Littlefinger (whatever she says) despite have ample reason not to trust him.  So her "deep issues" don't make much sense, and transparently exist only to manufacture drama.

And that's setting aside the writers' lack of understanding of the consequences of this behaviour, where logically Sansa is responsible for all the Stark casualties at the battle and nearly getting Jon killed, but we're not supposed to think that's the case.  Again, because this was all in service of having the battle play out like the writers wanted with their last-second save.

[whateverdgaf]

8 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Littlefinger is the source of the information.  For her to act on it without any reservations as to its validity indicates trust that he has told her the truth.

These "deep issues" only apply to Jon for some reason, whereas Brienne, who she just met, she trusts just fine, and she continues to trust Littlefinger (whatever she says) despite have ample reason not to trust him.  So her "deep issues" don't make much sense, and transparently exist only to manufacture drama.

And that's setting aside the writers' lack of understanding of the consequences of this behaviour, where logically Sansa is responsible for all the Stark casualties at the battle and nearly getting Jon killed, but we're not supposed to think that's the case.  Again, because this was all in service of having the battle play out like the writers wanted with their last-second save.

Sansa only acted on LF's information regarding the Vale soldiers when she had nothing else left to lose. So I don't think this shows any level of trust towards him. It was an act of desperation. Brienne had to literally save Sansa's life to prove her loyalty to her, so it's not like Sansa just trusted Brienne instantaneously. And can you specify what ample reasons that are apparent to Sansa that she has to trust Jon. Him being her brother isn't going to be enough, considering the types of families she had been exposed to.

[SeanC]

7 minutes ago, whateverdgaf said:

Sansa only acted on LF's information regarding the Vale soldiers when she had nothing else left to lose.

I was referring to the stuff about the Tullys, which she acts on immediately and without reservation.

Quote

And can you specify what ample reasons that are apparent to Sansa that she has to trust Jon. Him being her brother isn't going to be enough, considering the types of families she had been exposed to.

I didn't say she had ample reason to trust him in that post (I said she had ample reason not to trust Littlefinger), but in any event:  because he literally never does anything to suggest she shouldn't trust him, and helps her at every turn.

[whateverdgaf]

Just now, SeanC said:

I was referring to the stuff about the Tullys, which she acts on immediately and without reservation.

I didn't say she had ample reason to trust him in that post (I said she had ample reason not to trust Littlefinger), but in any event:  because he literally never does anything to suggest she shouldn't trust him, and helps her at every turn.

She only acts on the Tully news by sending Brienne though. She's not really risking anything to do so, except for Brienne and Pod who can look after themselves. And Sansa's need for men outweighed her distrust of LF.

[SeanC]

2 minutes ago, whateverdgaf said:

She only acts on the Tully news by sending Brienne though. She's not really risking anything to do so, except for Brienne and Pod who can look after themselves. And Sansa's need for men outweighed her distrust of LF.

But there's nothing suggesting she considers the information dubious; she takes him at his word.

[whateverdgaf]

4 minutes ago, SeanC said:

But there's nothing suggesting she considers the information dubious; she takes him at his word.

This still doesn't show that she trusts LF. She accepts this info at face value because she has nothing to lose by doing so. If acting on the information LF provided her would have somehow costed her dearly, she may have been more skeptical when acting on it. As it was, all she had to do was send Brienne. If she trusted LF, she would have accepted help from the Vale immediately.

[nikma]

9 hours ago, SeanC said:

No, again, that is what D&D, the actors, and other people associated with the show have all said about it (in addition to it being pretty obvious from how the show itself is filmed).

That's just not true, you should provide some quotes, because you already tendentiously interpreted their script and made controversy from perfectly clear scene. 

Edited April 11, 2017 by nikma

[OhOkayWhat]

2 hours ago, SeanC said:

Littlefinger is the source of the information.  For her to act on it without any reservations...

 

2 hours ago, SeanC said:

These "deep issues" only apply to Jon for some reason, whereas Brienne...

 

It is not the same to say:

Character W believes Character X will do Y within circunstances Z

than say:

Character W trusts Character X.

 

2 hours ago, SeanC said:

but we're not supposed to think that's the case....

I have not definitive proof about that.

Edited April 11, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[SeanC]

5 hours ago, nikma said:

That's just not true, you should provide some quotes

As you wish.

Sophie, of course, has talked about this many times.  One of the more recent being this one:

Quote

“I kind of feel like the past five seasons has been leading up to that point for her,” the actress told TheWrap’s Steve Pond. “I’d always seen the potential in her and it just never felt like she quite reached her full potential. It was almost like a release when I was doing it, and I could finally show everyone her capabilities.”

So, in the eyes of the actress playing her, this was the seasons where Sansa got to realize her potential and demonstrate her full capabilities.  See also, e.g., this preseason interview where she says this is the season where Sansa becomes a leader and proves wrong the people who thought she was useless.

Isaac Hempstead Wright, meanwhile, had this to say when discussing Sansa's evolution over the season and preceding seasons:

Quote

For sure. How do you think he is going to react to Sansa? She is a very different woman – she wasn't a woman when he last saw her, she was just a girl, and she's now quite different.
Isaac: Yeah, I think he'll be quite impressed because she's really turned into quite the diplomat and quite the cunning individual. Having been [around] so many different sort of tyrants -- from Ramsay, to Littlefinger, to Joffrey, to Cersei -- she's seen the inner machinations of government and of politics and she's learnt how to play the game, so I think what Bran would see, will be like, 'Well, we've got this fantastic leader and warrior in Jon, we've got this superb diplomat in Sansa, and we got my magic thing going on. We can rule the world.' And of course Arya with her ninja stuff and face-changing kind of assassin stuff, we're the dream team, like Captain America.

Other castmember comments on this subject are probably not precisely worded enough to suit you, but when Liam Cunningham says things like saying Sansa's going to have a hell of an arc in Season 6, the meaning is fairly obvious, I'd say.  Or the general pre-season blitz of how Season 6 would be about women taking the initiative, where Sansa was very prominently talked about.  It's deeply illogical to argue that all of this is actually meant to mean that Sansa will not actually achieve anything notable; the show thinks it delivered on the "Sansa is a player" promise.

Which is also why all the media around the show has interpreted it that way, replete with discussions about how Sansa has become a great player of the game of thrones by the season's end.

In the show itself, Jon credits Sansa with the victory in 610, and the implication of it is that this is a real accomplishment, not something anyone could have done, which is what it actually was.

Moreover, again with an eye to the wording being as explicit as possible, in the Behind the Scenes video for 605, David Benioff opens with the simple statement "Sansa's gotten pretty good at playing the game" -- and this is before the main Northern arc has happened.  So he believes "Sansa's gotten pretty good at playing the game" is justified on the basis of Seasons 1 through 5.  I struggle to see how, personally; after declaring herself a player in 408, occasioning a million ecstatic thinkpieces and bursts of enthusiasm from people eager to say the show had improved the character, Sansa not only accomplished nothing in Season 5, she didn't even try to play the game (beyond agreeing to marry Ramsay, a catastrophically stupid idea that the show seems to retroactively be acting as if it wasn't something she chose in the first place), everything she did try failed, and she ended up being rescued yet again.  But the show thinks that that warrants her being a pretty good game player, which also showcases the mentality where sending Littlefinger a letter to accept his offer of help is a brilliant feat.

4 hours ago, OhOkayWhat said:

I have not definitive proof about that.

Jon's reaction to this in 610 makes precisely no sense if Sansa is responsible for thousands of deaths.  He treats her lying to him as hurtful to him, but nothing more, which establishes the relative stakes we're meant to assign the decision.

Edited April 12, 2017 by SeanC

[OhOkayWhat]

15 minutes ago, SeanC said:

which establishes the relative stakes we're meant to assign the decision.

It only establishes that Jon is saying those words to Sansa and the way he is saying those words. The rest, including the reasons of his behavior, are open to interpretation.

Edited April 12, 2017 by OhOkayWhat

[SeanC]

1 minute ago, OhOkayWhat said:

It only establishes that Jon is saying those words to Sansa and the way he is saying those words. The rest, including the reasons of his behaviour, are open to interpretation.

You are free to interpret this scene as indicating that Jon is a moron who has for some reason decided to ignore that his sister almost got him killed and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds/thousands of Jon's men, if that's your pleasure, but that is not how the scene is intended, I will guarantee you.

Edited April 12, 2017 by SeanC

[OhOkayWhat]

40 minutes ago, SeanC said:

You are free to interpret this scene as indicating that Jon...

We can interpret it in many ways.

 

40 minutes ago, SeanC said:

but that is not how the scene is meant to be read.

In my opinion, those elements of the narrative are open to interpretation.

Edited April 12, 2017 by OhOkayWhat