With the army of the dead and their
in-need-of-moisturizer leader, the Night King, no longer a concern,
let’s get to the business at hand: Who will sit on the Iron Throne?
“Game
of Thrones” has been playing up the bona fides of Daenerys Targaryen,
Jon Snow and Cersei Lannister as potential rulers of the Seven Kingdoms.
But another, less obvious contender is worthy of consideration: Sansa
Stark.
Several things would need
to go down for this to happen: Jaime Lannister could kill his
sister/former lover, Cersei. Daenerys could die in battle. So could Jon
Snow, or if he survives, he could abdicate, hand the reins over to Sansa
and spend the rest of his life brooding over his terrible dating track
record. Maybe Tyrion will end up as Sansa’s Hand, or even her husband
(we did see some sparks fly in Sunday’s episode). Brienne of Tarth, the
most trustworthy person around, could be in charge of Sansa’s
Queensguard. Arya Stark could have a cool, secret solo assassin gig. And
just leave Bran Stark in Winterfell (“there must always be a Stark in
Winterfell” after all).
Taking
the throne would be a full-circle moment for Sansa. When we first met
her in Season 1, she was an innocent girl who wanted to hang out in
King’s Landing, marry Joffrey and become queen.
She
paid a very heavy price for her naivete. The Lady of Winterfell has
arguably suffered more than any other major character (certainly more
than any other living one) and has proved to be a resilient survivor.
We
wouldn’t have blamed Sansa if those horrors — which we won’t recap here
because they are plentiful and terrible — turned her into a vengeful
ruler. But they didn’t. Instead, she is a stable and more-than-capable
leader, one who doesn’t fly off the handle when faced with criticism and
cares more about her people and family than exacting revenge. As she
told Arya in Season 7, beheading and executing people may seem
satisfying but that’s not how you keep factions together when you’re
trying to fight a war.
That’s not exactly the attitude exhibited by, say, Daenerys, who has shown signs of Mad King-y tendencies.
Over
eight seasons, Sansa has become well-versed in the treachery, lying and
harm those with power are capable of rendering. Sure, she trusted the
wrong people in previous seasons (although you could argue she had
little choice but to accept Petyr Baelish’s help in escaping King’s
Landing). But she’s knows better now.
“I’m a slow learner, it’s true,” she tells Baelish in Season 7, before his execution. “But I learn.”
The
show’s writers have been dropping hints this season that Sansa is not
to be overlooked. “Many underestimated you,” Tyrion Lannister tells her
in the premiere. “Most of them are dead now.”
When
Jon Snow dismisses Sansa’s skepticism of Daenerys, saying that the Lady
of Winterfell thinks she’s smarter than everyone else, Arya responds:
“She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met,” of Sansa, which is a super
nice sisterly compliment, but also calls back to how Sansa described
Arya in the previous season. “You’re the strongest person I know,” Sansa
told Arya then, a statement that Arya demonstrated well when she killed
the Night King.
Sansa proved
her smarts as the only major character who immediately doubted Cersei’s
pledge of support in the fight against the dead — and that included the
Lannister brothers who should know Cersei better than anyone. In the
season premiere, Sansa tells Tyrion that she once considered him to be
the most clever man she knew, but he’s now basically a dummy for
believing the Lannister forces were en route.
Underestimating Cersei will be a huge liability in the upcoming fight for power. And Sansa knows not to do that.
While
Sunday’s episode had Sansa retreating — at Arya’s wise orders — to the
crypts, Sansa does have an eye for military strategy that relies on
evaluating the psychology of her opponent.
In the Battle of the Bastards,
she showed herself to be a better military tactician than Jon, knowing
that Ramsay Bolton wouldn’t fall into the trap that Jon intended to set.
It was her secret appeal to Littlefinger that saved the day.
Sunday’s
episode also demonstrated that prophecies and predictions we’ve seen in
previous seasons are finding their fulfillment now. So let’s not
dismiss a flashback scene from Season 5, in which a brash young Cersei
has her fortune read by a witch, Maggy the Frog.
In
that scene, Cersei declares she has been promised to prince Rhaegar
Targaryen. “You’ll never wed the prince,” Maggy says. “You’ll wed the
king.” True, and true — Cersei didn’t marry Rhaegar, but rather Robert
Baratheon, who became king.
“You’ll
be queen, for a time. And comes another, younger, more beautiful to
cast you down and take all you hold dear,” Maggy continues. “The king
will have 20 children. And you’ll have three . . . Gold will be their
crowns. Gold, their shrouds.”
While
Cersei was confused by that childbearing calculus, it added up: Robert
would have several dozen children out of wedlock, while Cersei and her
brother Jaime would have three children. They have all since died
(“gold, their shrouds”).
Cersei
did become queen through her marriage, and back in Season 5, viewers
likely interpreted the line about a younger and more beautiful “to cast
you down and take all you hold dear” as a reference to Margaery Tyrell.
We all know what happened to her (RIP), and a dethroned Cersei became
queen again. And while Maggy’s fortune could also refer to Daenerys,
that also feels too predictable for a show known for its curveballs.
The younger and more beautiful one to cast Cersei down could very well be Sansa.
But
perhaps Sansa’s best qualification for taking the Iron Throne is she’s
highly adept at the less glamorous aspects of ruling. Do you know how
many spreadsheets would be required to coordinate the housing, food and
fuel accommodations needed to keep an army of people alive and fed
through a long winter? Sansa seemed to be the only one concerned with
this!
Handling logistics is a
very underrated quality in a queen. But as we’ve seen in previous
seasons, overlooking the money and food parts of running a kingdom can
lead to your downfall.
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