I’ll skip over other issues with this scene as they pertain to the books and just stick to the showrunners’ need to have another ice cold, female character on screen. I keep hitting on this in my criticism of the adaptation “Game of Thrones”, mainly only writing so far on Arya and Cersei, but that’s not the concern here. It’s that D&D threw the rules of the universe they’re writing in out the window (with Tommen?) and even contradict their own show writing.
Lyanna Mormont, in this scene:
dismisses Sansa Stark out of hand, despite her allegiance to House Stark. After consulting, she shoots back with, “You’re a Lannister, or a Bolton, I’ve heard conflicting reports.” Except that that’s not entirely how Westeros works, the women of Westeros still are deeply tied and those ties are valued, as children of their parents, in cases of nobility. Sansa takes this put down meekly, which is in direct contrast to her own mother. Catelyn had no issue calling upon her lord father’s bannermen to help take Tyrion hostage, nor did they dismiss her with some, “oh, you’re a Stark now….bugger off” nonsense. Her family and her relationship to her family was an intricate part of the entire plot, from leaving Winterfell to the Red Wedding (far more in the books.
But note how nobly the scene is handled in which Catelyn calls upon her father’s bannermen to arrest Tyrion Lannister in Season 2:
So, in the universe of the show, we already have the horrors that are breaking guest right broken again without much regard, kinslaying completely ignored (so far) in the case of Cersei blowing up at least two relatives in the Sept of Baelor, among other examples (show!Balon), but we also have Sansa’s newly acquired inability to invoke her ancestry as a Stark, as the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark (Lyanna Mormont is still loyal to him, as shown in even this scene, “the North remembers” has been woven in as well. So, why is no one horrified that Sansa was forced to marry these men, both of families that are enemies to Bear Island, for the sole purpose of using her name to gain control of Winterfell and the North with it? Why wouldn’t they rally to her cause?
Like so much else, that if just watching the show alone, you’d have to scratch your head over the constantly changing rules thrown at you. Catelyn was a Stark–but remained also the daughter of Lord Hoster Tully and was respected as such. Sansa, meh. The North knows no King but the King in the North whose name is Stark! But this one Stark standing in front of you (forget about Jon’s status for now) who should be lauded for trying to help unite the North, or at least by the standards of the show should be USED for her name in order to do so, is no Stark. Because it was more awesome to introduce a badass little girl to “steal the episode” and rip a hole right through the overall universe.
Ugh, sorry, it just has bothered me since the scene aired. Much like Dany being thought of as a witch somehow changed….when she set fire to all of the Khals yet walked out unscathed to be worshiped by a people notoriously fearful and with animosity towards anything that can be construed as magic. But hey, she looked like a badass (trademark), right?
Tsk, tsk, Benioff & Weiss.
They actually wrote the Northern Lords not giving a shit about the Starks.
Overdressed & Underappreciated 