Pumping In Their Veins

 Even though two girls can be connected by blood, that means nothing when it comes to character, personality traits, and mindsets. In the series, Game of Thrones, we see the Stark family that includes two sisters, Sansa and Arya. Sansa makes the decisions she makes because she is under certain expectations of the throne. In the beginning of the series, Robert Boratheon and Ned Stark arrange the union of their houses between Sansa, and Robert's Son Geoffrey. Because she is to be future married, Sansa has to be a queen to Geoffrey and support him even if he is wrong. These decisions result in consequences to the Starks and their house. If Sansa makes decisions in regards to her house, she would be seen as a traitor, regardless of what Arya or any of her family thinks. Arya’s character is seen as the mischievous type and ultimately is a child at heart. Her decisions throughout the series contradict Sansa because they have two different loyalties, Sansa to Geoffrey, and Arya to her family. Arya despises Sansa for her decisions and ultimately captivates the audience to feed their allegiance to the Starks. She is a strong character at heart but does not know the horrors of the Lannisters and the power they possess. At the beginning of the series she displays resilience which supports the Strong characteristic. However, people may perceive Arya with male characteristics. Although Arya may display male characteristics, she is still a child and will only perceive decisions as right and wrong regardless of the consequences that may follow. She also does not bear the pressure that Sansa does. From the Brooklyn Magazine they added, “Sansa, meanwhile, is seen as being achingly passive, or even, at times, as someone who naively (or perhaps stupidly) acquiesces to the wishes of the evil people around her (like Cersei and Joffrey) at the expense of her loved ones. Sansa is despised for having no agency, and she is condemned for prioritizing the needs of her future family over that of her birth family. But most of all, Sansa is hated for being a woman. Oh, not just any kind of woman, but a specific kind of woman. There are, of course, some women in Game of Thrones who are admired and even revered, though many of them do possess characteristics more frequently associated with men.” 

The audience has had a negative light towards Sansa in my opinion, due to her making decisions as a future queen differing from her sister, Arya, staying family-minded. With the countless chaos that surrounds Sansa she is stuck fighting her true self, so she can live up to her arranged to be husband, Joffrey. Arya is the youngest so she has created a masculine face while Stansa will become the next Lady. On the CNN website they discussed, “Right from the start of "Game of Thrones," Sansa and Arya are in competition with each other. Arya looks on with defeat in her eyes as Sansa is praised for her needlework. "Fine work as always. Well done," Septa Mordane tells Sansa. "I love the detail that you've managed to get in these corners." Arya, on the other hand, struggles to excel at this. Being the youngest daughter, Arya knows she won't be the next Lady of Winterfell, which is why she challenges her family's expectation for her to do "ladylike" tasks. This leaves Arya to create her own destiny and embrace her tomboy personality.” While there is a clear difference between the two sisters they both have certain things to completely make a power combo. Trammell in his argument states, “It's the perfect moment for both of the Stark women to show their strengths. Sansa is unfazed in a room filled with men wondering what she'll do next. Sansa, exuding the confidence of a knight, carries out the execution. "You're the strongest person I know," Sansa later tells Arya. But Arya reassures her that admiration goes both ways. "I never could've survived what you survived," she admits to her big sister. Arya and Sansa remember what their father used to say: "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives." This scene in Game of Thrones shows that even through both of their differences and the struggles they individually have, Sansa and Arya have a sisterly bond that will never be broken. I know personally for me, my two older sisters could be across the country, have not talked to me in years, or even hurt me. I would always be there for them and vice versa. There is something between sisters that is inseparable and so special no matter the circumstance. Reading through Book Riot, Leah Rachel von Essen goes into detail on the sisterhood between Sansa and Arya. She says, “I was in love with Arya and Sansa Stark from the early seasons, when I still mostly watched it with my family. Sansa struggled and persisted in a world where her dreams floundered into nightmares; Arya was cast out into the world to learn how to fight. Both were largely independent and alone: Arya often literally, while Sansa was alone in a sea of scheming; both had many mentors but few friends. Sansa grows into a strong leader capable of single handedly running Winterfell, easily handling other political schemers, and inspiring others. Arya grows into a strong, immensely skilled fighter who makes difficult choices, lashes out at those who threaten her family, and can live, explore, and stand on her own. And in Season 7, Arya returned home and they were reunited.” This is such a great piece of writing to show how both of them had their own “battles” but they both grew into strong independent women. Von Essen adds, “That’s why I see us so much in the Stark sisters, the sun and moon of the Game of Thrones series, the hero and the queen of the epic saga. From my point of view, we’re reflected in their story. We never had a tearful reunion out of a film, a resolution of battles, big apologies. Instead, we just drifted back into each other’s orbit, reflecting each other’s light, and respecting and supporting the women we’ve both become.” I wish I could type in all caps, because I could not agree more. This quote is adding to the factor that the audience and everyone else in this series makes it hard for us to like this sister combo because we see the negatives and automatically put them against each other. Like I mentioned before, Sansa is put into a negative light, because of how she makes her decisions and how she has placed priority on her role as a queen rather than family based like her younger sister. She is just being the big sister and is making her own journey. In a blog post questionnaire byu/aps131997, they said, “Clearly, she and Arya had a tumultuous relationship, which was further amplified by the events of AGOT. Sansa was more of an aggressor in this relationship, as Arya tries to extend an olive branch a couple of times in AGOT, only to be rejected and condemned by Sansa, who called her cruel names and considered her an unsatisfactory sister. Sansa learns an extremely harsh lesson after Ned's execution, which finally allows her to see Joffrey and Cersei for who they really are and realize Arya was right about them all along. While the sisters will still have issues to resolve if/when they meet again, I do think Sansa would value her family more after everything she has gone through.” I love this, because it is true in the sense, maybe Sansa will value her family more after certain events happen?