Sansa's Argumentative Essay

In terms of her gender, Sansa is a feminine female (Williamson 8) and thus contrasting Arya who has a more complex relation to her gender. Because Sansa did everything that was asked of her, she never really faced any troubles of the world, especially as a daughter of a high lord, she believed that she would live the fairytale life by getting married to a prince or a knight who would love her and she him and they would live happily ever after: “All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs” (Martin 143). Her grip on this fairytale belief is so strong that it almost makes her blind to reality. Sansa does not realize that “beauty and gallantry are at an end, and it is time for death, both of the land and,
However, in Martin’s harsh world that has standards for women closer to the 21st century, such a character cannot exist, and for that reason, Sansa is punished. Her idealistic hopes of life ending up just like the songs she liked are crushed when she falls into the hands of prince Joffrey and his henchman Sandor Clegane. It is also interesting to note the irony contained in the fact that Sansa’s brutal punishment is carried out by the saviors of maidens in the old fantasy genre, namely a prince (Joffrey) and a knight (Clegane). Although Sansa’s awakening from her illusions to the ways of the world seems harsh and cruel, through it she learns to use her wits more: “But a voice inside her whispered, There are no heroes, and she remembered what Petyr Baelish had said to her, here in this very hall. ‘Life is not a song, sweetling,’ he’d told her. ‘You may learn that one day to your sorrow.’ In life, the monsters win” (Martin
In short, with the progression of the story, Sansa transforms from her initial representation of a classical fantasy archetype of Maiden to that of a girl who starts to understand the art of deception and court intrigue while struggling to keep her head still firmly attached to her shoulders. Nonetheless, Sansa starts using her femininity in such a way that it might provide some protection (Williamson 7). Arya, the younger sister to Sansa, is the youngest daughter of Catelyn and Eddard Stark and can be characterized as an atypical character in Westeros society because she is the complete opposite of her older sister Sansa. Even the way she is introduced in the book shows her to