31 Things We Learned from the Game of Thrones Women

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2. Femininity is not weakness.

Sansa Stark

Like Margaery, Sansa knew how to play demure and dutiful. Unlike Margaery, though, Sansa doesn’t know how to use her sexuality to her advantage. Her modesty isn’t so much facade as it is fact. But there is no shame in that, just as there’s no shame in any sort of womanhood. Sansa isn’t an Arya, Brienne, or Daenerys, either, but that doesn’t make her any less tough. She has shown incredible mental and emotional strength throughout, and she hasn’t had to raise a blade to do it.

Sansa has kept herself afloat with her traditional femininity. She is quiet and obedient, because to be otherwise would have meant further punishment from the likes of Joffrey. At the start, Sansa didn’t have the measure of Ramsay, but he didn’t have the measure of her, either. He didn’t expect that she would sign away his life, and yet she was the last thing he saw before he was ripped to shreds. And while this is pure conjecture for now, Petyr probably doesn’t quite have her number, either. People constantly underestimate Sansa based on her gentle, feminine nature, but look where she is now because of it.

As they say in The Aristocats: “Ladies do not start fights. But they can finish them.”