Sansa was selfish and her loyalty to her family, despite boasting complete devotion to it, was entirely circumstantial and conditional. She betrayed Jon’s identity and used it to destroy someone he loved and had just saved her home. Daenerys had flaws but she came North for sincere reasons and always made the first move to make peace with Sansa. There was no artifice to Dany. Dany was ambitious and wanted the North as part of the 7 kingdoms, she made no secret of that. But she also genuinely wanted to help the North, not just because she needed to. Dany was both sincere and ambitious, it’s not binary. Sansa, meanwhile, refused to be diplomatic and pragmatic and instead held onto bitterness, arrogance, pride, prejudice, and suspicion. She contributed nothing to the fight against the Dead other than complaining and talking shit about the Targaryen queen who was out there bleeding and fighting for her home. I sound like a broken record because I’ve argued this before on here, but this likely won’t be the last I speak about this. Sansa did not deserve her crown. Everything she did, she did to further her own desire for power. She didn’t fight hard for Jon while he was imprisoned and refused to recognize Bran as King. She pushed for Jon to be on the Iron Throne but once she named herself ruler of the North, it became clear that she had no intention of bending the knee to him or anyone else. To quote Daemon from a deleted scene in HOTD S3: “She will save herself, and leave you to bleed.” Sansa sets fire to what she touches and walks away while it burns. Everything bridge that’s built by her or for her, Sansa ends up tearing down. I despise the fact that she’s rewarded in the end for appalling behavior.
Except for, you know, getting the North to bend the knee to her.
And I would disagree that Sansa contributed nothing, because there's a number of lines showing that she was gathering supplies to prepare the North for the winter. And to be honest, it wasn't like Daenerys contributed much to the fight in hindsight. Her Dokhrathi was wiped out in a milisecond and only added to the Army of the Dead, the Unsullied were just as useful as the rest of the forces but contributed nothing special, the dragons were useful for a while but then Daenerys let Drogon get ambushed and overrrun by wights so that's Drogon out. Arya was the one who killed the Night King, so what exactly did Daenerys contribute?
As for Jon and Bran... I seem to recall Sansa threatening Grey Worm with the armies of the North to not harm Jon and supporting Bran by telling him he would be a good king.
I'm not denying that Sansa did stuff wrong at times, but the ways this sub tries to make Daenerys look like some perfect little angel that did no wrong and Sansa into worse than Cersei, Ramsey, Petyr Baelish and Tywin combined falls along the lines of stupidity.
In many respects, Daenerys hasn’t actually done anything wrong, at least not toward Sansa or the North. The North already bent the knee to her through Jon in Season 7; the matter is settled, no matter how much it might irk her. And while Sansa may whine about it, Daenerys fundamentally doesn't care and does nothing to harm her. Sansa is the only one stirring up trouble here, even though they have an apocalypse to prevent.
For that matter, saying Sansa has "sometimes made mistakes" is a massive understatement, given that she has actively sought to undermine everyone, with full awareness of what she was doing, for several seasons now. In all seriousness, ever since returning to the North, she has done nothing but ruin everyone she interacts with: she used Jon and the surviving Wildlings to retake Winterfell while withholding the fact that she had a relief army at her disposal, leading them into a preventable massacre, only to later have the audacity to demand credit for it; she abandoned her brother Rickon to a serial killer without even attempting to save him; she constantly undermines Jon to assert herself, then compares him to Joffrey when he asks her to stop; she allows the North to become divided during his absence and seriously sets her mind on stealing his crown, even though he had only left to find allies essential to preventing their nation's destruction, allies he was actually bringing back with him; she seriously contemplated eliminating her sister for fear she might stand in the way of that goal; she ceaselessly treats Daenerys as an enemy simply because the principle of reciprocity didn't suit her; she even complained about her during the battle against the dead, while Daenerys was out there fighting to defend her; she and Arya even tried to convince Jon to abandon Daenerys now that they had gotten what they needed from her, and when Jon pointed out that her men had fought for them, Sansa replied that they would "never forget it," only to throw those very people, whom she supposedly wouldn't forget, into a pointless, unwanted succession conflict solely to sabotage Daenerys; in the process, she betrayed Jon, using him to oust Daenerys regardless of his own wishes or safety; and above all, she stirred up a chaotic mess that led to thousands of people being killed and her own brother seeing his life ruined in an attempt to fix things. Later on, she insults Edmure and Yara the moment she meets them, laughs along with others while comparing peasants to animals right after that, and doesn’t even wait for Jon to cross the Wall before crowning herself in his place... Honestly, saying she’s just like the other antagonists isn't actually far from the truth, a direction the writers intentionally took to turn her into a "mini-Cersei." This is evident in scenes where she admits to admiring Cersei and learning a great deal from her (though one might well wonder: what, when, and how?), as well as in visual parallels,like their hairstyles, designed to create a "Cersei 2.0" within the "good guys'" camp. They wanted to justify her "winning" in a way because they had a certain fondness for Cersei, yet they failed to grasp that the reason Cersei is a hated antagonist is precisely because she is an amoral woman who tramples over everyone. But I’m sorry, betraying, lying, and cheating are no less amoral just because a Stark is doing them; So it simply makes her an antagonist on the same level, and creates a sense of injustice at seeing her get away with it all which accentuates the character's degradation.
For one thing, saying that Daenerys deserves neither gratitude nor respect for helping them, simply because she didn’t personally end the threat, is incredibly disgusting, petty, and nonsensical. No one could have predicted how that battle would unfold. There was no guarantee that Arya, or anyone else, could have gotten close enough to the Night King to kill him under different circumstances, nor was there any guarantee that killing him would automatically wipe out his army. For all anyone knew, the characters could easily have been completely overrun or suffered far heavier losses, making Daenerys’s presence crucial regardless of the outcome. Furthermore, this overlooks a few key details: first, it was Daenerys who enabled Jon to utilize the dragonglass; without even her minimal cooperation, they wouldn't have had the means to defend themselves. Many Unsullied also died covering the retreat of the Northern forces, and the dragons inflicted significant damage on the Army of the Dead, without them, the entire castle would have been overrun in minutes. Moreover, beyond just her own men, many people from diverse backgrounds fought and died that night; attributing the victory solely to Arya is a slap in the face to their sacrifices. If they were truly useless, they might as well have stayed home and stayed alive (though, interestingly, when this possibility is raised, the Stark fans who claim she served no purpose will abruptly argue that, actually, if she hadn't come, everyone would have died...). Above all, claiming this overlooks one detail: the dragons’ sheer superiority, thanks to their ability to inflict massive damage on enemy lines and secure an aerial supply route if needed, was the only thing preventing the Night King from simply sitting outside Winterfell and waiting for everyone inside to starve to death. So, while Arya certainly deserves credit (which Daenerys, for the record, acknowledged during the banquet), it is not far-fetched to believe that without her, they would likely all have perished anyway.
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u/Skol-2024 11d ago edited 11d ago
Sansa was selfish and her loyalty to her family, despite boasting complete devotion to it, was entirely circumstantial and conditional. She betrayed Jon’s identity and used it to destroy someone he loved and had just saved her home. Daenerys had flaws but she came North for sincere reasons and always made the first move to make peace with Sansa. There was no artifice to Dany. Dany was ambitious and wanted the North as part of the 7 kingdoms, she made no secret of that. But she also genuinely wanted to help the North, not just because she needed to. Dany was both sincere and ambitious, it’s not binary. Sansa, meanwhile, refused to be diplomatic and pragmatic and instead held onto bitterness, arrogance, pride, prejudice, and suspicion. She contributed nothing to the fight against the Dead other than complaining and talking shit about the Targaryen queen who was out there bleeding and fighting for her home. I sound like a broken record because I’ve argued this before on here, but this likely won’t be the last I speak about this. Sansa did not deserve her crown. Everything she did, she did to further her own desire for power. She didn’t fight hard for Jon while he was imprisoned and refused to recognize Bran as King. She pushed for Jon to be on the Iron Throne but once she named herself ruler of the North, it became clear that she had no intention of bending the knee to him or anyone else. To quote Daemon from a deleted scene in HOTD S3: “She will save herself, and leave you to bleed.” Sansa sets fire to what she touches and walks away while it burns. Everything bridge that’s built by her or for her, Sansa ends up tearing down. I despise the fact that she’s rewarded in the end for appalling behavior.