Nerd Rage: Sansa Stark Edition

Tuesday 19 May


OKAY KIDS SIT YOUR ASSES DOWN CAUSE THIS BLOG IS GOING TO BE A WILD RIDE FROM START TO FINISH. I AM CURRENTLY AN UNEMPLOYED, ANXIETY-FUELED BALL OF NERD RAGE AND SEXUAL FRUSTRATION, SO HERE COMES ALL THAT RAGE, THANK YOU GAME OF THRONES AND A PROBABLY TORN MENISCUS.

So, you guys know how much I love Game of Thrones. Like, I fucking love Game of Thrones. This show was integral to recovering my self-worth throughout my sophomore year, and watching and then reading this series was truly an epistemically transformative experience. I'm not the same person that I was in October 2013. It means a lot to me. I'm so happy that there exists a series that fuses magic AND politics and has problematic female leads (talk shit about Cersei Lannister to me and I will cut you) and also subverts fantasy tropes and has SO MANY FEMALE CHARACTERS (I'm looking at you, LOTR, like really Tolkien do you actually hate women?) and more generally so many damned good and flawed and deep characters that I care about a lot. I finished Harry Potter back in the day and thought that I probably could never get more invested in a series than I was in that.

I was wrong. Nowadays, I care mostly about politics, cheese, hiking, and Lannisters.

I Made a Margaery Tyrell Costume By Hand
I'm Not Fucking Around

I started Season Five with all my friends and I was SO EXCITED—despite the fact that my beloved Dorne storyline has been perverted (probably another subject for another post) and left a bad, bad taste in my mouth, I was at worst mildly peeved. The characterization of Loras Tyrell gets to me, as do the inconsistencies with Jaime Lannister, but this season was going SO WELL. All of the episodes have been really quite strong thematically, the lore and worldbuilding that's being done is super exciting (Volantis!!! The Tourney at Harrenhall!!! Greyscale!!! R+L=J!!!! Hell, we even got to see Valyria!!), LANNISTERS ARE EVERYWHERE, and all of the actors are performing spectacularly and are a genuine pleasure to watch (even with the same old monologues we've heard since season 3)—there are hints of Anne Boleyn in Natalie Dormer's performance of Marg and that pleases me especially.

I was pleasantly surprised—last season left me kind of bitter with the altar scene debacle with the Lannister twins, the continued deviations from the books, and I went fucking bananas after Lady Stoneheart failed to appear. It seemed like I could enjoy the show and not have to worry about the inconsistencies between show and book and I was having a damn good time with it.

And then Sunday happened. And this show I love broke my crooked heart.

Nothing with Ramsay Snow-Bolton is ever okay. I get that. Jeyne Poole's storyline in A Dance With Dragons is horrifying, and it's arguably the worst part of the book. It beats the cannibalism by a long shot. I didn't think that the show would portray that, given the Harrenhall changes to Arya in Season 2. I was hoping they'd cut it altogether and maybe have like Theon save Shireen to gain back his agency or something, and that Sansa's biggest threat would be Petyr Baelish in the Vale.

But by episode two, it became abundantly clear that they were going to put Sansa Stark in Jeyne Poole's place. At this point, I was more worried for Sansa Stark than I was for my five finals. With all the actors talking about some "traumatic scene," my hopes were not high, and with the final scene of this episode all the excitement I had was fucking crushed.

The rape of Sansa Stark is something that I am not willing to forgive. It strips her of all the agency she gained by the end of last season; hell, it strips her of the agency that she gained this episode when she told Myranda to fuck off because Winterfell is her home and she isn't afraid. Pursuing this storyline at all for Sansa Stark means that they cut out all of the growth and rich development that she undergoes in the Vale as Alayne Stone, and replaces it with this shit. Something awful was bound to happen to her, because she's in an enemy camp and she's just married another one of the sadists in the Game of Thrones universe. But the writers didn't have to write this of all things for her.

I didn't think they would rape Sansa Stark. Sansa Stark, who is fourteen at the oldest using a barely legal actress. What the everloving fuck. It's been argued that this rape is treated with the gravity it deserves, but that doesn't make it okay. At all. After last season, when they most unceremoniously shat upon the character development of both the Lannister twins (the ultimate blonde problematic faves) in that godawful sept scene and the fan backlash that resulted from that, I didn't think they would rape Sansa Stark and probably mishandle the aftermath just like they did last season.

I especially thought they wouldn't rape Sansa Stark just to more fully lead to the development of male character Theon Greyjoy. Granted, Theon's storyline isn't good either. But did Sansa Stark's rape have to be the impetus for him to develop? Is that the worst pain that they can inflict upon a man? Did they really have to rape Sansa Stark? OF COURSE NOT. I AM LIVID. LIVID.

I am tired of watching you abuse female characters, Game of Thrones. I am sick and tired of having female characters raped and abused just to develop storylines that can be handled in less sexualized ways. I am tired of having rape and violence against women used as a plot device. I am tired of seeing rape used as a shock factor to make an already gritty show so much worse. I am tired of seeing violence against and the rape of women that have so much more to offer (and should matter on its own) being used to further the development of male characters. I am tired of hearing "it could have been worse," "it was a choice," and "she'll have to get through it" when it comes to rape on TV and on film.

You can't keep perpetuating abuse and violence and rape in a show like this that's so near and dear to people, and then be shocked when they are desensitized to the very real and salient issues of rape and sexual assault. I know that it's probably not an epidemic, but it hardly shines a light into the dark void of a society that already has problems respecting the autonomy that each individual has over their body. It's not a matter to be taken lightly. I am sick and tired of having to watch shit like this over and over on a show that I love when it doesn't add a goddamn thing to the story except for man pain. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to explain why I'm tired of it and why I'm still so profoundly bothered and consistently negatively affected by it whenever it comes up in media. This matters. Especially to me.

I'm one angry fan, and I'm sure that most people will say that I'm overreacting and that it's not that big of a deal because it's a fucking TV show, but the more I thought about it the angrier I got and I had to say something. I don't get angry unless it's election season or the United States makes a monumentally stupid policy directive, so this is pretty exceptional. This is something that matters to me on a very personal level and I've been pretty quiet about it for awhile—but lately this thing that matters to me also has started to matter to a lot of other people and that's really encouraging.

I also probably tore my goddamn meniscus walking in the fucking rain and almost everyone I know is in Europe or working right now, so I don't have anything else to do since I can't hike or converse with people or do other assorted nerd things. Life is hard as an unemployed research nerd, believe me.

Thank you for reading. Really. Thank you. :)

PS: I'll do an April recap soon, I just don't know when. Things got ridiculous at the end of this year and I'm trying to get my shit together.

Sometimes I Know Exactly What I'm Doing

Friday 17 April

Surprisingly enough, Friday morning had me waking up without an alarm very early. I even got to watch an episode of 30 Rock before class. What a day.

Started off the day with some more about thermally populated states in Quantum, and then we moved on to something about partition functions, which merges quantum mechanics with thermodynamics so yaay synergy (is that how you use that word? whatever). It's interesting, albeit super confusing, but I'll take it. Water and soil chemistry had us talking some more about coordination complexes, which was a little dry but it's infinitely better than carbonate systems so I'm okay with that. After that, I hung out in the library and read about Mercosur, and the paper mentioned DSMs so I was stoked.

I need to get a life.

Anyway, Europe in the International System was grand because we were talking about Mercosur and also how European influence happens across regions. I totally nailed the quiz because I've got this regionalism shit on lockdown. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm doing.

I also woke up to a text on Friday morning that said, "pay christ 4 marg," which translated from drunk-me means, "Pay Crissie back for the margarita she bought you." So I went over to Norlin and had a lovely chat with my best friend, where we looked at shoes and cats and talked about boyfriends and life and the fact that she's graduating and how I can't fucking handle that, because even after all the crap we've put each other through, I still need her a lot. She's one of my favorite people to talk to even after eight (almost nine, holy shit) years of endless conversations and even though we're as different as the sun and moon when it comes to our constitutions, but I love that about us. She's always the Clark to my Lewis, and even though the Sacagaweas change through the years, we're still us, and we'll still have too many adventures that don't make any sense and we'll be there for each other when things are good and bad and downright ugly. I love that girl, suffice it to say.

Then I went home, ate the rest of my damn queso, and took a brief nap. Then, Evan asked me if I wanted to grab dinner with his mom and I said yes (?) (like honestly I've never really made it this far in a real relationship this was a big deal and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't panicking). I took a ridiculously fast shower, and then ended up getting ready in ten minutes. I looked like a real person and everything. Weird. That never happens, tbh.

We then had dinner with the lovely Nan Eller, whom I met in the capacity of being "Evan's girlfriend" and not "that slightly unbalanced looking girl that rambled about quantum mechanics at graduation," and that was a really good time. I was once described as "charming," and so I tried not to be awkward, which was easier than usual. Those two made it easy, for which I am eternally grateful.

I got my life sort of together, and then drove back over to UV, where we watched hockey (I think I'm kind of starting to enjoy it, which is troubling to say the least) and drank a beer. We then went to the store and bought soda because I am incapable of taking shots at all (getting too old for this shit tbh), and then I made a big girl drink (I'm kidding it was definitely a Red Bull Vodka), and then put on my Swedish clothes and headed out with the squad to Brett's Swedish Themed Party. Ja!

An Overstatement of my Mindset

Anyway. Somehow I ended up holding three beers at once and subsequently drinking said beers, which is where my life is apparently headed. College, kids. One second you're having an informed discussion about the Republican candidates for President, the next you're drinking three PBRs at once. Life gets weird, tbh. You still get that wondrous duality, though. Sometimes it gets old, but sometimes it's not awful.

Socializing. Ja!

We then caught an Uber home, which was pretty great even though we definitely had more people than was allowed. Don't drive or bike drunk, kids! Take an Uber! And do it late at night, the fares decrease exponentially! Stay hydrated! Make good choices! (says the living train wreck)

So yeah, that's all I have for April. I'll follow up soon, sorry, things got insane and I slacked off and watched too much 30 Rock and slept too much and socialized with too many people.

Having a life? Me? What?

Thanks for reading :)