Sphere

Yeah and the broader point is an important one; it won't be too long before the impacts of this shift are very obvious in the marketplace. The US is under enormous pressure to get things back to normal, but the guy in charge is more pro-:isntrael: than Reagan, so I don't see any way that can happen.

lmao at the guys moving the ropes over so they have more room between them, amazing

Tyrion also leaves her alone, despite constant pressure from literally everyone around him to do otherwise. And then she's just in a series of unrealized bethrothals.

Anyway, this doesn't detract from your overall point: she suffers horribly for whatever relatively minor sins she's really guilty of, and yet people hate her far more than is justified, and well past the point at which she's genuinely not the same person she was at the start of the series.

Yeah, I agree, and I don't think I even disagreed with anything you've said here when this conversation started anyway, but even moreso now after reconsidering the source material more carefully. When I wrote this I was offering the reasons why people might come to hate her early on, based on my own feelings during my first re-read ("dammit Sansa why would you go to Cersei, of all people? AAAAAA you're literally getting your father killed right now!"), and also then probably affording people too much benefit of the doubt for not recognizing her character's growth as the series continues.

I still view early Sansa as a very flawed character (terms like entitled and self-centered spring to mind), but I think my own issues led me to hold her more accountable than was fair (see elsewhere in the thread).

Edit: Actually, I think I do have to point out one flaw here:

Also, please add a CW for the SA reference.

That's actually a very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing that!

(I admit I did also have to soften my own perspective on Sansa when I went back to the source material--Martin is careful to ensure that Sansa is written as just a kid who gets caught up in forces she doesn't understand and can't control, and is crushing on the worst possible dude. She really doesn't have all that much agency, and if I'm honest I think it was my inner child being unwilling to sympathize with someone who backed up a bully that kinda drove my perspective originally.)

I get that, and I think this conversation helped me appreciate at least one of the ways educators have to adjust their mode of thinking to do their jobs effectively. But I also don't think it's entirely wrong to have opinions about children as good or bad, and I think you implicitly acknowledged that when you didn't take issue with my characterization of Joffrey (also a child, after all) as "human garbage." (Sansa, ironically, isn't a stark enough example.)

Look, I wouldn't say I hate early Sansa, but she is an incredibly frustrating character. She gets better, but she's a little shit at the beginning. I don't think it's somehow wrong to view a kid as a little shit, knowing that they will likely become a better person as they mature. As an educator(?) I suppose it's more important to try to reserve judgment on kids, but I think that may have led you to have something of an overdeveloped view of what is and isn't acceptable vis a vis forming opinions about children as people. The key is to recognize that a child's personality and morality aren't set in stone, not to afford them total moral latitude.

As someone who used to be bullied constantly as a kid, I see this very differently than you, it seems. I have zero sympathy for supporters of bullies.

I went and reviewed the passage myself, and I admit I hadn't remembered Sansa's part in it quite right. She mostly seems to be caught in a tide not of her own making during the scene itself. But she is given two very clear indicators that Joffrey is human garbage in that scene: he threatens (and indeed, assaults--he cuts the boy's face) an unarmed servant boy with a sword, knowing full well that any defense the boy offers will earn execution. And then when she goes to soothe him after everyone has left, he's awful to her ("his eyes snapped open...and there was nothing but loathing there, nothing but the vilest contempt. 'Then go,' he spit at her.") and storms off.

I will grant that she didn't have a good option when Ned wanted her to tell him what happened, in front of both Joffrey and Arya, and the king and queen to boot, but she later defends Joffrey to Arya when she brings up Mycah's death ("Your butcher's boy attacked the prince," Sansa says, knowing that isn't true, to justify Mycah's murder, in a private conversation with only her father, her sister, and a Septa; this is not just some lighthearted shit here, and politics isn't an excuse in this case either).

I happen to believe that children do deserve to be treated as moral creatures, and judged for their failures to maintain proper ethics. The difference between them and adults is the likelihood of growth, not the existence of moral faculties.

~~If you think backing up a violent bully isn't a choice worthy of moral judgment, then I think you should reassess how you see children.~~

~~I would point you to the interaction between Sansa, Arya, Joffrey, and the butcher's boy. She is not just a teen girl, she's a shitty person.~~

This is a great line, I'm totally going to steal it