After a dramatic move at the end of Game of Thrones season 7, Sansa Stark has shown she’s ready to play in the biggest leagues of all.
If Arya Stark’s season 7 was effectively about her bringing her new skills to bear on her homeland, then Sansa Stark’s season 7 of Game of Thrones was about proving, once and for all, that she is not to be trifled with, joining a long line of women on this show that are unafraid to embrace primarily political power. She won’t ever be on the field of battle like Daenerys Targaryen, but she doesn’t have to be, and that’s kind of the point.
The question really then becomes this: how does that play in season 8? It’s a question I’ve been wrestling with as part of the massive season 7 finale fallout. Jon Snow is semi-officially Warden of the North (depending on whether or not you think Daenerys can confer titles like that), which presumably means that Sansa has been shunted off yet again. Prior to the season, Sophie Turner talked about how that idea had already had an impact on her character, and now it’s likely she’ll see that coming down the road again.
Sansa has, however, also proven resistant to outsiders trying to mess with her family. Killing Littlefinger has to bump her score for season 7 up at least an entire grade, because that public scene did not need to happen …
Actually, it did, and here’s why. Sansa staged that for a very specific reason. It was public knowledge that the knights of the Vale helped because of her connection to Littlefinger. With her living full siblings right at her side, assisting her in the takedown, it sends a very public message that she was not under Littlefinger’s thumb, pun intended. This is what Isaac Hempstead Wright picked up on in his discussion of the Starks.
However, at that time, we asked if that momentum is going to ride into season 8 when Jon comes home, and we identified Sansa as a possible issue. Much as she loves her family, another thing Turner mentioned in the pre-season 7 run-up, Sansa also wants to be heard and looked to for advice. It’s something we’ve harped on since we graded Jon Snow.
Next: GoT: Arya isn't home free just yet
We wish we could give Sansa an A, because she deserves a lot of credit for all she’s had to live through in the seven seasons of Game of Thrones, but she does get a B, just because she’s proven herself a capable ruler of a major castle and a more-than-capable planner to rid herself of threats like Petyr Baelish. Her position going into season 8 is less clear, but it’s better than some others’ in that she has two strong allies at her side in the forms of her siblings.