I Got Your Back, Sansa

I’m all caught up on Season Five of Game of Thrones. I’m not sure where it’s headed yet, but for all its boobs and violence, the show still manages to put me in a contemplative mood.

I mostly tune in for dragons… and Daenerys Targaryen. Mostly Daenerys, but if she’s accompanied by dragons, it’s a plus. I just like fantasy worlds and creatures and stuff. I can’t help it. I think it stems from being exposed to Iron Maiden at a very early age.

It’s the “real-life” stuff, though, that makes the imaginary world George R.R. Martin created so compelling. It’s not just centaurs (seriously, the lack of centaurs is appalling) traipsing around. It’s real people with conflicting layers of good and evil that make this series (and the series of books on which the HBO program is based) enthralling to so many fans.

For instance, in Episode Four, there was a great scene between Sansa and Lord Baelish (or Petyr, or Little Finger, or whatever they call him). She was lighting candles for the dead (that’s a lot of candles) in the catacombs beneath Winterfell when Petyr showed up to tell her he was GTFO of Dodge and heading back to King’s Landing at Cersei’s request. He was all yadda yadda intrigue; be strong in my absence and all that, even though I’m leaving you alone here in your old home with all these people who murdered your brother and mother and stuff. Peace.

But when he turned to leave, she said, “I expect I’ll be a married woman by the time you return.” She wasn’t all too excited about the prospect, and who would blame her? She was previously married to the most evil little fucker ever, King Joffrey, and is now betrothed to a raving sociopath with a really weird Hobbit face, Ramsay Bolton.

Marriage, like the aforementioned real world stuff, plays a big part in Game of Thrones, but it’s not like marriage nowadays. Like, back in Game of Thrones time, marriage was more of a business proposal. A dude would be all, here’s my daughter, let’s not fight any more. And another dude would say, OK, so long as I can share in your lands and wealth and unicorns. And the daughter would be all, but mummy, I don’t love Prince Fuckface, and mummy would say, too bad, if you don’t, they’ll behead daddy. You don’t have to take my word for it. Read history. That’s how every marriage ever happened until 1960.

Now marriages are different. You go and eat prime rib and no one gets betrayed or murdered (usually). Also, the reasons for marriage have changed. People want to be in love; that way they’ll have someone to properly hate when they get divorced. I’m getting married next year because I’m in love and it’s fucking wonderful. I’m not trying to rub it in your face, but it is. I hope you’re in a god damn fucking wonderful relationship like I am and marry the shit out of that person.

My betrothed and I went to see a priest last week, because we’re taking the catholic route for the ceremony. He was an austere man with a deceptively sharp and sarcastic sense of humor. The first question he asked us was, “Why get married in this day and age?” (He also asked me if I ever had a vasectomy, but that’s another story.)

It’s a pretty difficult question to answer before you’ve had a cup of coffee. I mean, I don’t have a dowry to offer or a stable full of hippogriffs. She’s not the Duchess of Narnia. I mean, I wish she was, but who wouldn’t?

I wanted to jokingly answer the priest’s question with, “for the tax breaks,” because I heard they’re awesome. But I refrained because I thought he’d smite me with the Lord’s Lightning Bolt or something. I mean, why do anything, really? I suppose it’s better than not doing anything and listening to everyone go on and on about all the stuff they’re doing or reading posts about all of it on Facebook. Instead I stammered something along the lines of, “because she’s cool and we want to,” and he seemed more or less satisfied with that.

Poor Sansa is getting married because she has to, like so many young women who lived in this place and time that didn’t really exist. She’s just one sword-less, dragon-less teenage girl in a world full of murderous, power-hungry madmen. She can’t even say, “but mummy,” because her mummy’s dead. It sucks, bro.

So what I’m saying is, if I was able to go back to that meeting with the priest, and he asked me, “Why are you getting married,” I’d answer, “Because Sansa never had a choice,” and drop the fucking microphone. Winterfell is yours, girl. Know that.