Sansa Stark actor Sophie Turner told EW that Game of Thrones Season 6 “is a really, really big one for Sansa.” Speaking at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Turner said, “It’s probably her best season yet. It’s her really coming into her own. She, this season, really commands the respect that she deserves and she grabs hold of it and she runs with it and it’s really good.”
Sansa’s narrative arc in Game of Thrones Season 5 proved a controversial one, as the character’s growing savvy and political awareness under the tutelage of Littlefinger was crushed under the unrelenting spectacle of Ramsay Bolton’s savagery.
As a character who had already spent four seasons being tormented by Joffrey Baratheon, Game of Thrones Season 5 opened on a Sansa more aware of Westeros’ political and familial dangers. As she refused Brienne of Tarth’s rescue and plotted with Petyr Baelish to avenge herself upon the Boltons, it seemed clear that we were no longer looking at the naïve teenage of Game of Thrones Season 1.
But all thoughts of Sansa taking revenge on Ramsay were soon drained from the narrative. Instead Sansa was tormented and raped, in a scene that proved pivotal not for Sansa’ character development, but for Theon Greyjoy’s. That it was Theon’s actions, not Sansa’s, that finally prompted an escape from Winterfell felt like a final twist of the knife. It seemed the writers of Game of Thrones didn’t know what to do with Sansa, so they abandoned all signs of growth and returned her to her former position as a vessel for the cruelty of others.
The backlash was severe.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill announced she would no longer watch the show, tweeting, “Ok, I’m done Game of Thrones. Water Garden, stupid. Gratuitous rape scene disgusting and unacceptable. It was a rocky ride that just ended.”
Other sites pledged to stop running recaps of Game of Thrones. Sansa’s rape became a talking point across the entertainment media, and even the political spectrum.
the guy in front of me in line has a game of thrones hat on and i can just tell that he has a disgusting opinion about sansa
— daria miller (@dardarbinks_) February 1, 2016But according to Turner, this is the year Game of Thrones makes it right, promising that fans are “finally getting that storyline that you’ve been craving for the past five seasons.”
“It was amazing because the past five seasons, it feels like it’s been building up and up to that,” Turner told EW. “You can only suffer so much before she finally gets her, the respect that she deserves.”
Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres on April 24.
