antijonsa

[antijonsa]

Today I’m here to talk about why the UnKiss, the climactic SanSan moment, is actually about Jonsa, Because Sandor is wearing a white cloak and white=snow (there are no other white objects in Westeros). Even if we grant the stained by blood and fire cloak points to a Targaryen love interest for Sansa, I don’t see why Dany can’t get the girl??? Is Jon the only Targaryen available on two continents?? Does Aegon VI not exist?

Jesus lord but the cries of “POV trap” and “unreliable narrator” drive me up the w a l l, if you are only going to look at the evidence that points to pro-Jonsa and dismiss all other evidence, secure in your confirmation bias, then what’s the point?

Oh. OH. I see. All the other characters Jon and Sansa interact with are merely BLANK SLATES, placeholders awaiting the advent of their true romantic interest. This is probably the most inadvertently revealing meta I have ever read. It says the quiet part out loud--that no one else matters, that all the other characters in this fucking series are just instrumental to Jon and Sansa getting together.

[antijonsa]

[antijonsa]

As you guys know, when Sansa DOES NOT APPEAR in the entirety of adwd, this indicates that we should look for clues to her importance in (1) Jeyne Poole’s f!Arya arc (2) Alys Karstark’s “grey girl on a dying horse” arc, and (3) Arya fucking Stark’s arc. Next up, I will demonstrate how every single Dany chapter in adwd is actually about Arianne Martell.

I am going to walk around with this paragraph stapled to my forehead so the next time a “neutral” party asks me why we’re all up in arms over a stupid ship war I can fling the OUTLINE!ARYA WAS SPLIT INTO BOOK!SANSA AND BOOK!ARYA line at them, because this wholesale raiding of other character’s qualities really must be seen to be believed. Let me summarize: Changes to the Original Outline bolster Jonsa, and the “key to the North” is actually Sansa. Clearly, Sansa marrying Tyrion instead of Joffrey is the only change of any note that George made to the original outline, and Jaime is even now usurping the Iron Throne as I type this. All hail Jaime Lannister, the main antagonist of ASOIAF.

I do not believe in strawmanning my opponent’s arguments. I believe in steelmanning them. The thing that bothers me here is not the tortuousness of the logic but the inconsistency of it. This meta implies that Jon’s “sister-cousins” are interchangeable, that if he could be romantically involved with one of them then why not the other. That’s fine, but you cannot then go on to assert that Jon and Arya’s relationship is qualitatively different from Jon and Sansa’s, that Jon and Arya are too fraternal to develop romantic feelings. Pick. One. I don’t care which, but these are mutually contradictory assertions!!! The latter argument, the “Arya is his sister but Sansa is his wife” argument, is so widespread that I do not believe there’s a single Jonsa shipper who doesn’t subscribe to it. The first argument, the “original outline bolsters Jonsa because Arya and Sansa are interchangeable” argument, is less widespread but still pretty common. How the fuck do you hold both of them in your head at the same time?

[antijonsa]

I’m going to be banging this drum until they put me in the ground but for the love of god guys, stop arguing that Jon seldom thinks of Sansa. The Jonsas will interpret his not-thinking of her as deliberate lacunae designed by GRRM to mislead the reader rather than....idk she’s just not that important to him?

Ok you know who is also not on this list?? Rickon, that’s who. Rickon was a baby so it’s understandable his relationship with Jon was not as deep as Robb, Arya, and Bran’s. But following this meta’s logic I can only conclude that Jon was also harboring a pre-canon crush on Rickon as well. I’m sorry there is no other option.

Once we have eliminated the possibility that “Sansa’s welfare is not very high on Jon’s list of priorities,” we are left with ......this pretzel logic. A lot of us have pointed out the gulf between Jon’s reaction to “your sister Arya is married to Ramsay” and Jon’s reaction to “your sister Sansa is married to Tyrion.” One of these reactions is a hell of a lot more intense than the other! The Jonsas insist “bUt wE nEvEr sEe hIs fiRStHAnD rEaCtIoN to Sansa’s marriage”!!! All right, and why is that? Because grrm decided that Jon’s reaction to the news that Sansa married Tyrion is not important enough to depict on screen. I don’t understand how a group of people who produce reams of meta about GRRM’s crafty sleights-of-hand can fail to account for something like this. It boggles the mind. One counterargument I’ve seen is “Sansa’s in KL where Jon can’t do her much good, and f!Arya is in Winterfell, so it’s not about how much he loves his respective sisters, it’s about whether he’s in a position to do something about rescuing them.” Look, again with the authorial intent: If grrm wanted Sansa in Winterfell in order to tempt Jon to break his vows wouldn’t he have fucking put her there? HBO did!!!! Also, I realize King’s Landing is geographically farther removed from the Wall than Winterfell is, and there’s a war on which makes travel difficult, but surely the emotional heft of the story lies with Jon choosing to break his sacred vows for one of his sisters?

Let me break down what is happening here step-by-step: Jon explicitly describes his ideal partner as someone who sounds like the opposite of Sansa We conclude he does this because he’s repressing his feelings, see--because how could ANYONE not want Sansa??? It must be because he feels inadequate and not good enough for Sansa. He’s valuing other models of femininity out of pique, I guess.

I need you guys to understand that every time you say “Jon compares Ygritte to [not-Sansa]” this is also an argument in Jonsa’s favor. Every argument against Jonsa is actually a Jonsa argument in disguise, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[antijonsa]

So do you guys remember when GRRM said he created Sansa specifically because he thought the Starks got along too well? And those of us who don’t care for Jonsa have been throwing it in the faces of Jonsas like it’ll shut them down--like it’s proof that Sansa’s not important? Here is why it doesn’t work: Because literally anything you say to a Jonsa will be taken as proof of the opposite. eg. “She’s not even his favorite sister.��� “I don’t want her to be his sister I want her to be his wife.” Or: “His path lies North, hers in the South.” “But wouldn’t it be ironic.”

What’s happening in the above meta is we have snuck in the assumption that because there is tension, it must be resolved. Sansa is the source of tension in the Stark family; therefore it must be resolved by way of Jonsa. This sounds good until you start reckoning with all the other unresolved tensions that abound. There’s five fucking books, do we really think “Sansa didn’t love Jon the way the other Starklings did” is the only thing that’s keeping ASOIAF from a satisfactory conclusion? Do we think Sansa’s relationships with, say, Arya or Sandor don’t also require resolution?

I also take issue with the contention that Cersei-Jaime-Brienne isn’t that interesting. I don’t even actively ship either of those ships and I read fic all the time. There’s nearly as much Braime fic as Jonsa fic. I mean, just because it’s not that interesting to you doesn’t mean it’s not interesting to the fandom at large. Plus, even if the fandom didn’t give a rat’s ass about Braime, it does not follow that Jonsa is the only alternative epic romance available. It’s possible to make that argument, sure, but it’s not an argument that’s pursued here; instead we just assume “if not-Braime, then-Jonsa.” Faultless logic.

Watch out for those sneaky assumptions.

If it’s the case that the only reason to have two Stark sisters is so “Jon’s relationship with them can be markedly different,” what pray tell is the rationale for having three Tyrell brothers? Which one of them is Margaery going to marry? I personally think the reason we have two Stark sisters is because they’re interesting and important characters in their own right, but it seems some people disagree. I also think that it’s possible for one person to have “markedly different relationships” with two others without assuming "ok, platonic vs romantic relationship” but maybe that’s just me.

I don’t actually hate all Jonsas or think they’re all delusional. This one for instance seems perfectly rational. I do think their reputation for slaying the whole fandom with their amazing metas is overblown, though; and I’m not talking about specific Jonsas here just the reputation of the shippers in general. I don’t think it holds up. I think logic is about reasoning from evidence to a conclusion, and the Jonsas go about it backwards.

[antijonsa]

I’ve always loved a ship where other characters are not ruined to prop up another ones.

—a Jonsa

[antijonsa]

I think for the Jonsas, the entire point is that Jon and Sansa were not close. It’s not like they deny it. They celebrate it. They’re allergic to the word “bully” and they scream “eleven years old” when you use it, but they do not deny that Jon and Sansa were distant. You are never going to get them with an "Aha! You admit Jon and Sansa hardly ever think about each other” because the whole appeal is watching two people who aren’t all that close get to know each other. Watch them falling in love. Now this only works if you strip away Jon’s canonical mistrust of feminine women, and Sansa’s classicism, but if you work backwards from the proposition that Jon and Sansa are definitely going to fall in love then no problem. For them it’s not a romance unless you have to overcome your first impressions. You can tell this is the case because they’re always on about how the oRiGinAL oUTliNe bolsters Jonsa but not Jonrya  because Jon and Arya are too close. Can’t have a proper romance when you think about someone 47 times in the course of five books, I guess--it only works if you think of them 12 times.

I never thought about the causation going the other way--that Jon mislikes feminine women because Cat disliked Jon--really good catch on that.

Here’s the thing Jonsas don’t seem to get. Jon and Sansa don’t even seem to like each other let alone love each other in the books. Jonsas keep writing about how they understand that Jon and Arya love each other as siblings but they ship Jon and Sansa because they don’t love each other like that – while completely ignoring the reason for why they don’t love each other like that!

Jon and Sansa are each other’s least favorite sibling. That is book canon fact.

This happened because Sansa bullied and mocked Jon’s beloved little sister for being ugly and non-conformist. So much so that Jon had to put aside his own pain and reassure Arya that she was not a bastard because of her looks.

The very idea that Jon is in love with Sansa because she’s beautiful and traditionally feminine is repulsive and paints Jon as shallow and inconsiderate of the real pain that Arya experienced. Given how much Jon loves Arya this is just not possible and if you think it is, then you don’t understand Jon Snow as a character.

Sansa is Jon’s least favorite sibling because of Sansa’s dehumanization of Jon Snow and making sure he knew his place as a bastard born to a common mother.

Jon’s sexist disregard for ladies conforming to patriarchal ideals did not arise in a vacuum. It’s not that Jon dislikes Cat and Sansa because he dislikes conformist ladies. It’s the other way around – he dislikes conformist ladies because of his dislike for Cat and Sansa.

There is an actual Jonsa meta about how Jon’s friends are Satin and Sam and therefore this shows he loves Sansa.

So, for a man who supposedly doesn’t like the “ladylike, princess/damsel in distress type” in a woman, Jon Snow has a very strong will to protect Samwell and Satin, two boys considered soft and weak with a lot of feminine inclinations whose descriptions match Sansa’s bit by bit

🤣

Like I said missing the complete point of Jon Snow as a character. He befriends Sam and Satin because they were punished and looked down on by society based on their looks and abilities. Jon identifies with them as someone punished by society because of his birth. He thinks Sam and Satin should be judged based on their merit and actions rather than on their birth, looks or physicality.

On the other hand, he sees Sansa as the oppressor not the oppressed. He saw her as a privileged classist who bullied his little sister and treated him as less than. That’s why comparisons between Jon’s relationships with Sam, Satin and Sansa make no sense.

Also, I like how Jonsas are trying to find ways to excuse Jon’s sexism. Jon shows utter contempt for girls like Sansa here:

A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her

And yet here they are shipping their fave with a sexist dude. These are the same people who cry all the time – like all the fucking time – about how everyone hates Sansa only because she’s a girly girl. But here’s an actual character in the books who does hate girls like Sansa because they are girly girls and Jonsa stans are shipping him with Sansa. This more than anything show what two faced hypocrites Jonsa stans are.

Jon and Arya were a team against the way Cat and Sansa treated them. Standing up for each other and defending each other. Arya stands up for Jon against Sansa and Jon is there for Arya when she goes to him for solace and comfort. That’s where their pure, unconditional love for each other comes from. That’s why Arya KNOWS that Jon will want her back even if no one else does. That’s why Jon thinks that Arya’s home is with him.

So, the reason people don’t ship Jon and Sansa that way is because they don’t even like each other in the books, Sansa was a bully who treated Jon and Arya badly and Jon dislikes her for it, they never got along, they are not going to get along, Jon looks down on girls like Sansa with contempt,  Jon thinks of Sansa like 5 times in his 42 POV chapters and does not give a damn about her or her situation, Sansa thinks of Jon like 3 times over 5 books and forgot about him, GRRM has invested everything in Jon and Arya’s relationship in the books and nothing, zero, zilch in Jon and Sansa’s.

You want to ship it as a crackship? Fine. But stop with the mind-numbingly idiotic metas to prove how much Jon loves Sansa because he loves Samwell Tarly and Satin and Sansa = Satin this means that Jon loves Sansa. The only thing this proves is that people on this hellsite have worms for brains.

[antijonsa]

curlspen replied to your post “You can’t say “as children Jon and Sansa were super distant” and in...”

Except they aren’t incompatible. You can’t have a crush on someone unless you’re close to them? The argument is that they didn’t have a very close sibling relationship (which is canon) but it’s speculated that Jon may have had a childish crush on her as kids partially because of the radiant comment. I’ll note tho that not all Jonsas believe that tho in fact some really hate that theory.

I think it’s entirely possible to have a crush on someone you’re not close to. harry potter spends more time thinking about draco malfoy than about any of his canonical love interests, possibly more than he thinks about ron or hermione. but the fact is that jon and sansa just aren’t that important to each other. the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. That was the word I should have used, not closeness or distantness, so I do take your point as far as that goes.

I ... don’t think I said Jon and Sansa were incompatible? I reread my post and no I didn’t say that. Someone could argue they’re incompatible, but it wasn’t my argument.

Then again, I just noticed your url…oof yeah nevermind, anyone with so little of a life and/or personality out of hating a ship isn’t worth engaging with. If Jonsa is such a crackship, it’s weird you’re putting so much energy into hating it tho LMAO                            

Mate I don’t think I’m hurting any actual people by posting anti Jonsa content in the anti Jonsa tag, so my lack of life/personality doesn’t bother me

[antijonsa]

Jon’s first POV chapter sheds zero light on Jon and Sansa’s relationship because he spends more time thinking about Joffrey (who is escorting her) than Sansa. We learn more about Jon’s relationship with Rickon than with Sansa. We don’t know if she ignored him, or smiled conspirationally, there’s just a “black hole where their relationship should be. It’s one of the things that I think make them so shippable to people: they don’t ever think of each other as siblings so the incest vibe can be as high or low as you want, and that blank space can be filled with whatever headcanon you find interesting or appealing.”

Wowzers.

Y’all out here screaming "Jon & Sansa never think about each other!!1!!!” Hahaha bitch that is the ENTIRE POINT. The appeal of Jonsa is...there is no canon to interfere with your headcanon.

[antijonsa]

Ok apparently the fact that Jon does not compare Ygritte to Sansa (despite the red hair, despite the singing) is proof that he’s thinking about Sansa on a subconscious level. It’s a “blindspot” of his. Now before you all laugh me out of the room I wanna point out the most salient aspect of this argument is not that it’s absurd–it’s that it’s unfalsifiable. There is literally no way to disprove that Jon was suppressing his sexual desire for Sansa short of holding GRRM at gunpoint for the ADOS endgame??? My dudes, you cannot argue against that. It can’t be done.

[antijonsa]

Ok soooooo “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa” is evidence that Jon is the ONLY ONE who would ever want Sansa for herself and not for her claim. This line is all about Jon’s very pure feelings for Sansa, and not at all about Stannis trying to corner Jon into a legitimization/lordship he is hellbent on denying.

ON THE OTHER HAND when Jon and Arya exclaim “Don’t ... tell ... Sansa!” together this is not evidence that Jon is “taking sides” between Sansa and Arya, oh no. It is not evidence that Jon harbors any negative feelings whatsoever towards Sansa, in fact, quite the contrary: he is just trying to make Arya feel better. You see he knows what Sansa represents to Arya (she makes Arya feel incompetent/inferior) so he’s not saying the words out of antagonism to Sansa, but out of solidarity with Arya. Jon and Sansa’s relationship might actually be fantastic, we don’t have enough information to say for sure!!!1!

You guys heard of fundamental attribution error? That’s the fancy psych word for, if a guy cuts you off in traffic it must be because he’s an asshole. If you cut a guy off in traffic it’s because you had a bad day. Well, there you are.

[antijonsa]

You can’t say “as children Jon and Sansa were super distant” and in the same breath argue “well he called her rAdIAnt” when he saw her at the feast. Pick one or the other. It’s not that either of these points are invalid on their own, they’re just inconsistent with each other. Either Jon was harboring a sekrit crush on Sansa back in Winterfell, or Jon and Sansa were never close and this is fucking Pride&Prejudice where they learn to see past their first impressions. Idc which one you pick but PICK. ONE.