Sophie Turner's Favorite 'Game of Thrones' Scene Highlights Showrunners' Unforgivable Mistake: It's Like Martin's Book Was Never Opened
But in A Song of Ice and Fire, Sansa's development was different.
Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, has named her favorite scene from Game of Thrones not the moment she becomes Queen in the North or even the epic execution of Ramsay. Instead, she chose a small, almost domestic scene: the family feast in Winterfell from the very first episode, when Sansa and Arya are still teasing each other, and the older sister indignantly screams: “Arya!” after Sansa throws a piece of pie at her.
This scene, as Turner told Entertainment Weekly, is dear to her - in it Sansa is still a child, a naive dreamer, sure that she will be queen, because it is written in her books. But it is this moment that highlights how much the show has missed the essence of the heroine.
In George R.R. Martin's books, Sansa goes from a “little bird” to an action-packed but reserved political player. Her naivety is not a weakness, but a shield, a mask that she learns to use. In the series, her arc is reduced to suffering: her rape, forced marriage, humiliation and violence do not reveal the heroine, but rather lock her development into survival and revenge.
The worst example was the sixth episode of the fifth season, when Sansa's tragedy served as a catalyst for the development of... Theon Greyjoy. The horror of the experience was shown through his eyes, not hers.
Perhaps this is the main mistake of the showrunners. Sansa in the series became a victim of script decisions that took away her subjectivity. In the eighth season, she is made Queen of the North, and this seems like a victory, but... it does not feel like one. Her strength is the result of trauma, and not the strategic maturity that she was distinguished by in the books.
The scene with the feast is full of childish liveliness, sisterly rivalry, hope, and even light humor. And this is especially bitter: it reminds us of what Sansa's story could have been if the creators of the series had not made her a symbol of suffering, but allowed her to be something more.
