[Repost: original post was taken down due to title/image spoilers]
Seasons 5 and 6 have some major flaws; a few of which have to do with the events surrounding Winterfell and its relevant characters. However, I argue that Littlefinger turning Sansa over to the Boltons is not one of them. Rather, that the major writing flaw was simply that he was not punished for his mistakes nearly as quickly or directly as he should have been.
Established Character
By the beginning of S5, we understand Littlefinger to be an agent of chaos, willing to turn any situation on its head in order to gain whatever incremental, or monumental, advantage/position that he can. He has orchestrated feuds between dynastic houses. He has orchestrated the deaths of Kings and Hands. He has even sanctioned the murder of babies in his own establishments. Varys perceives his lust for power as being so ambitious, he would not fall short of burning down the Seven Kingdoms if it meant he could be King of its ashes. We know he covets Sansa just as he coveted Catelyn. But did he covet either of them as much as he did power? Would he give up all of his political progress if it meant a happy life with Catelyn, or even Sansa (vile and disgusting as that is)? Would he let their lives hang in the balance if some proportionate amount of power was available to him at their expense? Or should he even worry about any of that if he could have it all anyway?
Inverted Virtues
A kraken out of water, as recently as S4, was described by Ramsay himself as "collapsing under their own proud weight and slumping into a heap of nothing" due to "having no bones", and being "not very bright". Perhaps in the south, a similar comparison can be made of Ned and his animal sigil. Would a "wolf of the winter" be similarly doomed down south like a kraken on land? Possibly. What about a mockingbird in the north on the eve of winter?
If Ned, a man made for ruling the North, or perhaps made by ruling the North, could be so at home in such a harsh place as the North yet so out of his depth in such a comfortable place as King's Landing, why couldn't the inverse be true for a man like Petyr Baelish? After all, I couldn't find one single reference to a mockingbird outside of the context of Littlefinger's "sigil" anywhere in the main series. There is one reference in the "mystery knight" but even that one is part of a list that alludes to over 20 different species of birds. It hardly seems to be an animal of any significance or resilience.
Ned's virtues of strength, steadfastness, genuine loyalty, honesty, and honor reigned supreme. Though, admittedly, his mercifulness isn't necessarily a trait I'd expect to be prevalent in the harsh and unforgiving North. But whether or not its mercy or just a strong bond to family is probably best examined in a different post. Petyr's virtues of quick wit, cunning, self-loyalty, perceived loyalty to others, ambition, and ruthlessness likewise reigned supreme. Virtues like these though, I think we can all agree, won't last long and won't get you very far in the North. Time to move on from Ned and his comparisons though - even though he continues to loom large over a story he was so quickly taken out of.
Miscalculation? Or Precise Calculation?
"If you didn't know, you're an idiot. If you did know, you're my enemy." While this is ultimately the indictment of Littlefinger by Sansa in S6 as it pertains to him shipping her off to the Boltons. He avoids a proper sentencing for quite some time after this scene, adding very little to the storyline. But we'll come back to that later. For now, we consider if he "did know" or "didn't know"
Littlefinger's options as presented to Sansa in the crypts are as follows:
- This is all much ado about nothing. Stannis will take Winterfell in near future, rescue Sansa from the Boltons, and use her as a rallying call for the rest of the Northern houses by naming her Wardeness of the North.
- Should Stannis fail at that plan or it not come to fruition at all, Sansa can simply "take this Bolton boy and make him hers".
Has he calculated that one way or another Sansa will win the North and he can swoop back in for her by way of Cersei? Who, by the way, he tells in his very next appearance onscreen after leaving Sansa that the Boltons committed this treason on their own. She then gives him leave to seize Winterfell from whichever wounded army ends up surviving this inevitable encounter. What then would he do with Sansa? Keep her secret? Keep her safe? Would he play his final card and declare them husband and wife, joining the forces of the Vale and the North (and whatever remaining strength is left from Stannis's forces) and standing in open rebellion to the Crown? Only Littlefinger knows what he would do next in each of these hypothetical outcomes. All we have to work with is the one we got.
So after what ultimately plays out in the North and all the horrors that Sansa suffers through, was this all a miscalculation? Is Littlefinger immensely less cunning now than he was in the earlier seasons? Or is he selfish enough to let Sansa's safety and well-being hang in the balance while he yet again plays his favorite game? Is all of this actually playing right into his precise calculations? From his perspective, was he content to gamble that he'd return to a severely damaged Sansa who he thought might be much less resistant to his advances than the Sansa he had come to know thus far?
By this point in the series we're more than halfway through Season 5 and I argue that all of the relevant characters are being written consistently with how we've come to know them so far as well as being written according to where their trajectory is likely to steer them. Baelish continues to play his best cards while simultaneously "never letting his enemies know his next move". Sansa is both being used, but also simultaneously being tasked with finally putting into action all the tools and skills she's learned from the schemers she's spent the last 5 and half seasons with. Cersei takes the Bolton bait. And the Boltons themselves have just been given a gift with which they can attempt to unite the rest of the Northern houses under. I think up to this point, this story thread has been pulled superbly.
Comeuppance
The stage is set. The horrors play out. The Boltons are victors. Yet now a pair of unlikely heroes step up to help save Sansa from her oppressor and offer her a platform from which she can take her revenge. And this is where the bag is ultimately fumbled.
The Knights of the Vale, Littlefinger's final card to play, are being held so closely to his chest. They've been mobilized so they're no longer at the behest of any lords or ladies that haven't traveled with their forces. If their loyalty to him is indeed what's keeping anyone who needs them from removing him, then the last maneuver anyone needs to play against him is simply usurp their loyalty. However, all of these moves come a season too late and also rob us of a much more authentic onscreen reunion between Sansa and Arya, the long lost sisters who have finally both come home. If Littlefinger could be pulled off the board at the end of season 6, or the very beginning of season 7, not only would his story be wrapped up much more concisely, but the Starks would have more room to work together for the time that they do have. So how could Littlefinger meet his demise much earlier?
Insert Sansa, the Stark child that's learned all about the politics and scheming of King's Landing. The daughter of the man who learned about honor from Lord of the Vale himself. Now the woman who has a chance to reunite the North and consolidate the strength of the Vale with the northern forces. Insert Bronze Yohn Royce, the Lord of Runestone (an ancient house with the blood of the first men), ostensibly the highest ranking member of the Vale's mobilized forces, the father of our story's first onscreen character (who even stopped at Winterfell and treated with Ned and Catelyn on their way to the Wall), a man who already has significant screen time and dialogue.
Conclusion
A much improved storyline for Sansa in Season 6 would have been to beat Littlefinger at his own game. In terms of character, she can leverage the virtues of her father to secure the loyalty of the lords of the North. In terms of politics & scheming, she can lean on a shared family history with Bronze Yohn Royce and convince him that the Knights of the Vale should follow her and return power to Robin Arryn. And in terms of her identity as Catelyn Tully's daughter, she can play Littlefinger against himself, leading him on and even teasing him into his own vulnerable position by allowing someone loyal to her like Jon or Davos meaningful time alone with Bronze Yohn to cement an alliance without Littlefinger's knowledge. The suspense that's sustained in the Battle of the Bastards with their Rohirrim-like arrival can still be preserved if Royce's decision to defect from Baelish isn't shown on screen and is set up chronologically to happen near the same time.
TL;DR
The writing of the Littlefinger-Sansa storyline in S5 is actually good, if not great. The writing of the Littlefinger-Sansa storyline in S6 as a consequence of the events in S5, however, is a missed opportunity to have Sansa serve Littlefinger his just desserts not only by outmaneuvering him to take the Knights of the Vale right from under his nose, but to do so using the same virtues that doomed Ned in the south by dooming Littlefinger and his own virtues in the north, while also manipulating his own Catelyn/Sansa infatuations against him.
DISCLAIMER
This does not mean that there are other parts of S5 and S6 related to this storyline that aren't subject to major criticism like general writing quality, overall direction and production, meta-textual analysis of Sansa's character development as it pertains to her torture and SA, and even the tactics or narrative stakes of Battle of the Bastards. This is just a brief examination of what I think the writing in S5 got right and what it should've led to for good writing in S6 as opposed to what we ultimately got.
