jon and sansa – shipcestuous3

themiddleliddle:

Well, first I want to clarify that when I say Sansa did not hate Jon and that she was not generally mean to him, I’m not at all saying she shouldn’t have been warmer to him, or that she wasn’t classist in her attitude toward him, because it’s pretty obvious that she should have been warmer and she was classist. It’s very important not to ignore those things – and for the record, the vast majority of fics I’ve read which pair the two of them romantically do address that issue, or acknowledge it at the very least. As they should.

I’m also not trying to say they had a close, warm relationship and got on like a house afire, because again, it’s blatantly obvious they didn’t.

What I am saying is that it’s a big, erroneous leap to go from acknowledging they weren’t close and that Sansa had some woefully classist feelings, to saying they hated each other and that she was frequently mean and snobby to him, because the latter is not supported by the text at all. Here’s why I say that:

Throughout the entire series, we actually only see Sansa make one salty remark about Jon. Just one. Specifically, it’s this comment from chapter 7 of AGoT:

“What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He’s very gallant, don’t you think?”

“Jon says he looks like a girl,” Arya said.

Sansa sighed as she stitched. “Poor Jon,” she said. “He gets jealous because he’s a bastard.”

Ouch. That was condescending and classist, for sure. But as harsh as it is, I think it’s important to recognize the context of Sansa’s remark. Notice that she makes it in direct response to hearing about a salty comment Jon had made about her fiancé’s looks (and while Jon had made some very accurate and valid observations about Joffrey, this particular comment about Joff’s looks was unfortunately petty of him), a petty, salty comment about the boy Sansa believed she would marry, a boy who had so far been nothing but nice to her and whom she had no reason to believe deserved Jon’s scorn (remember, not even Ned and Catelyn had discerned Joffrey’s true nature by that point). Basically, Sansa was repaying one unkind remark with another unkind remark. Now, none of this excuses the unkindness and classism in Sansa’s comment. Of course not! But I do think the context puts a lot of commonly held beliefs about Jon and Sansa’s pre-series relationship in a different light, because this – the one unkind comment we ever hear Sansa make about Jon – was not random or unprovoked, which imo certainly takes a lot of credence away from the popular belief that she was frequently mean to him for no reason other than classism and meanness itself.

Apart from that one time, she never makes another unkind comment about him. Not ever. More than that, she doesn’t even have any unkind thoughts about him. She admittedly thinks of him only a scant handful of times after this (indeed, indifference was probably Sansa’s biggest disservice to Jon while they were growing up, much more so than outright unkindness), but every single one of those thoughts is either compassionate (feeling bad for him because he had to be around the more undesirable elements in the Night’s Watch), caring (praying for him during the Battle of the Blackwater), or warm (”Oh it would be so sweet, to see him once again”). And notably, at least one of those occurred before Sansa was left alone and her life had become unbearable, so it wasn’t just a case of her clinging desperately to the only family member she had left. She did genuinely care about Jon, even if he wasn’t her fave and she’d kept her distance from him while growing up.

One more reason I believe Sansa never hated Jon, and that she was not generally unkind to him – and it’s a big reason – is because of how Jon himself seems to feel about Sansa. I’ve often seen the assumption that Sansa’s treatment of and attitude toward Jon was identical to Catelyn’s, but I’ve never bought into that, if only because there’s a world of difference in how Jon thinks of Catelyn and how he thinks of Sansa. His thoughts about Catelyn are invariably cold and uncomfortable, while his thoughts about Sansa are almost exclusively warm and nostalgic. Yes, it’s obvious that her insistence on calling him her half-brother caused him some pain, and yet he comes right out and says that he still misses her in spite of it, and apart from that, he never expresses any resentment of her at all. Much like with Sansa’s supposedly constant snarky comments about him, Jon in reality makes only one semi-salty comment about her throughout the entire series (when he jokes with Arya about how they can never tell Sansa about Needle, presumably because she’d tattle, a comment which was so mild it barely even deserves to be called salty). Every other thought he has of her is warm and fond. Every single one. He even turns down the offer of Winterfell in favor of Sansa’s claim, and he does it without the slightest resentment toward her, without even a glimmer of uncharitable feeling or a wish that he was giving it up in favor of one of his other siblings instead of her. My point in all this is that, sister or not, I highly doubt Jon would feel that warmly toward Sansa if she truly had been unkind and hurtful to him while they were growing up. It’s a pretty safe assumption that she was cold to him sometimes, and Jon noticed it, but we know for a fact that she also tried to be friendly and helpful at least once (instructing him on how to talk to girls), so not even coldness was a constant with her.

Again, my argument is not that Sansa and Jon were close, or that Sansa was never classist or cool in her behavior towards him, because to say either of those things would be patently false. I know that their relationship was not the bestest and the speshulest among the various Stark siblings. I’m simply saying that it is just as patently false to characterize Jon and Sansa’s pre-series relationship as bitter and resentful, or even antagonistic. It’s never been a perfect relationship, but they have always loved and cared for each other and would be very happy to see each other again.

givemesweetwords:

Those years in the nursery seemed golden to him now. The three of them would filch lemon cakes and strawberry tarts from the kitchens and hide up in the trees of the Godswood, throwing crumbs at whatever poor servant was sent to retrieve them. Robb and Sansa would lay side by side in the meadow with identical grins, their chestnut hair flaming in the sunshine. Sometimes Sansa would tug him down too and there they’d stay until the sun set. It didn’t matter to her which brother held her hand or chased her around the hot springs. Her love for them depended on who could provide the better stories.

But then one day Sansa was moved out of the nursery and taught what the word bastard meant. Every time she ignored him or addressed his shoes it hurt like a cut. He could have easily hated Lady Catelyn for that.

shipcestuous3

Tag: jon and sansa

You can’t really blame people for thinking Sansa hated Jon, what with how she always called him her half brother for a start.