[EVERYTHING] Sansa's underrated ability

I've commented this before, but I still don't see Sansa's political training/skills. I do like that she is good at managing Winterfell at the moment, but I also feel they've dumbed down the other characters (the maester, Yohn Royce, Littlefinger to an extent) to make her look better. I also think that managing a castle is not nearly the same as being political or strategic.

The show never showed her 'learning the game' from Cersei, Margaery, Tyrion or even Littlefinger, though its mentioned all the time. We never saw her navigating the Southern court intrigue with charm. The great 'courtesy is a lady's armour' narrative from the book has been forgotten. With Littlefinger, he has continuously spouted all this scheming wisdom but we have never seen her use this (unlike the books). The only manipulation (and real kindness) I have ever seen from her is when she convinced Joffrey to make Ser Dontos a fool instead of killing him. Other than that, she's been passive in all the plots, both in KL and with Littlefinger. Just being in the same castle doesn't mean she automatically inherits or 'absorbs' all of their skills.

Cersei told her that a woman's sexuality can be her weapon, and Margaery clearly did this excellently. But Sansa's never used her beauty to gain favour, since Littlefinger was already obsessed with her because of Cat, and instead of getting into her young cousin the heir of the Vale's good books, she slapped him. If she had managed to get Robin to love her, or even the Knights of the Vale such as Yohn Royce (who wanted to join the war anyway), then she could have wrestled power away from Littlefinger and never needed him for the Battle of the Bastards. Also, I don't think she's been very charming so far at Winterfell. Doesn't a good ruler want their people to love them to a degree or want to inspire loyalty? Or at least be better with people - to me that is a really important aspect of a good leader/politician.

The only political decisions she's made are: to save Littlefinger, a dangerous schemer who murdered her aunt, which immediately led her to becoming a prisoner again marrying the Boltons, her family's murderers, fully aware of Roose's cruelty and even after she had seen how cruel Ramsay was to Theon/Reek, with no plan except to vaguely 'avenge them'. She didn't try to get Ramsay to 'fall for [her]' and 'make him [hers]' as Littlefinger told her to. and sending a letter to Littlefinger for his help, but refraining from telling Jon about the second Vale army which led to his almost-death and deaths of hundreds of northern soldiers.

I'd be really disappointed to see this Sansa as Warden of the North at the end of the series because to me it would be a cop-out. But hopefully we will see her demonstrate some of her lauded political genius this season and I guess then I'll eat my words.

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