#but this is something arya has always known and understood bc of her gnc-ness.

[atopvisenyashill]

listening to an analysis of sansa - by a CHILD THERAPIST i think this is a great angle, recced by @transdimensional-void - and he said something about Sansa seeming a bit lonely, which made me think about how like, for both Theon and Sansa, there’s an enddate to what they feel is a sort of misery (tho wildly different sorts of miseries) - one day she’ll be married and a proper lady surrounded by other proper ladies and not in the drab, dull north, and one day Balon will die and Theon will be Lord of Pyke and not under constant threat of death meant to be loyal to a family who cannot conceive of the stress he’s under. Contrast to Arya & Jon, who don’t have that “end date” to look forward to - Arya will never be free to live the way she wants, at some point her tomboyishness will stop being cute to the men around her and start being a sign that she’s too wild, and Jon will never be free from the taint of bastardry so long as he lives, this confusing underclass of man where he is noble by birth and yet also lowborn and unworthy is a fate he can never truly escape.

I think it explains both why Theon & Sansa romanticize the terrible things around them, with the repeated focus on beauty, on songs and stories, because they want to live up to the expectations by being the Perfect Lady and Perfect Wife, by being the Perfect Hostage and Perfect Lord, because this freedom they’ve built up in their minds has to be worth it. Theon was taken away from home for this, Lady died for this, it HAS to be worth the cost. BUT ALSO, whereas, because Jon and Arya feel there’s no reprieve coming, there’s nothing good in their future, there’s an emphasis for them on the idea that who they are now isn’t wrong, or dirty but instead a strength. They don’t deserve the bad that happens to them, but their identity as outsiders makes them suited to survive it, and their suffering has ~meaning.

But for all four of them, what ultimately matters is identity - whether they are hoping for the day when they’ll stop being who they are or dreading it, or outrunning it, all four have to grapple with a changing identity and come to terms with the idea that there is nothing wrong with who they are, but there IS something wrong in how they were all raised to believe they must change to accepted.