You got Sansa Stark: her arc and the answers that point to her

A Sansa Stark result on the Game of Thrones character quiz means more of your answers pointed to Sansa than to any other character, or as many as to anyone she tied with. She is the older of the two Stark daughters, the one who starts the show hoping to marry a prince and ends it as Queen in the North. This page follows how she gets there, reads the answers that count for her, compares her with the characters whose answers read most like hers, and says what the result can and can't tell you. It contains spoilers for all eight seasons.

Who Sansa Stark is

Sansa is the eldest daughter and second child of Eddard (Ned) and Catelyn Stark, played in HBO's series by Sophie Turner. HBO's own character note sums up where she begins: "Demure and ladylike, her dream is to marry Prince Joffrey." The same note names her direwolf, Lady. By the last episode she rules an independent North. Most of her story happens to her before she gets to steer it, and the scenes below follow that shift.

How she changes, scene by scene

Seasons 1 and 2: the dream breaks

When the king's party stops at an inn on the road, Joffrey's cruelty to Arya's friend Mycah ends with Joffrey bitten by Arya's direwolf, Nymeria. Sansa, newly betrothed to Joffrey, claims to remember nothing. Robert gives in to Cersei's demand that the wolf be killed, Nymeria has fled, and so Lady dies instead, by Ned's hand ("The Kingsroad," season 1, episode 2). Staying out of it does not save her wolf.

By the end of the first season the engagement she wanted has turned on her. Joffrey forces her to look at the severed heads of her father and his household staff on spikes. When he says Robb's head will join them and she says she wishes to see Joffrey's head mounted there instead, he has Ser Meryn slap her, and the Hound advises her to obey Joffrey for her own safety ("Fire and Blood," season 1, episode 10).

During Stannis's attack on the city, the noblewomen shelter in Maegor's Holdfast, where a drunk Cersei mocks Sansa's innocence and warns her she will be raped if the city falls. Sansa rallies the panicked women. Later the Hound, hiding in her quarters, offers to take her north, and she appears to refuse ("Blackwater," season 2, episode 9).

Seasons 3 and 4: traded, then taken

Sansa is married to Tyrion. Joffrey walks her down the aisle, and at the feast, after threatening her, he calls for the bedding ceremony, which Tyrion stops by threatening him in turn. Alone with her afterward, Tyrion tells her he won't share her bed until she wants him to, and the marriage stays unconsummated ("Second Sons," season 3, episode 8).

When Joffrey chokes and dies at his own wedding feast, Dontos tells Sansa to flee with him in the commotion ("The Lion and the Rose," season 4, episode 2). She flees with him to a ship, where Littlefinger greets her, has Dontos killed and tells her the necklace Dontos gave her was fake and part of the plan ("Breaker of Chains," season 4, episode 3). She is out of King's Landing and in the hands of a man with plans of his own.

At the Eyrie, Lysa Arryn sees Littlefinger kiss Sansa and threatens to throw her out of the Moon Door. Littlefinger steps in, says Catelyn was the only one he ever loved, and pushes Lysa through the door instead ("Mockingbird," season 4, episode 7). In the next episode Sansa is asked to testify. She reveals who she is, backs Littlefinger's story and convinces the nobles of the Vale that he is innocent ("The Mountain and the Viper," season 4, episode 8). It is the clearest early sign of the later Sansa. She knows what happened, and she chooses which story to tell.

Seasons 5 and 6: back to Winterfell

Her next marriage is to Ramsay Bolton, at Winterfell. Ramsay rapes her on their wedding night and forces Theon to stay and watch ("Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken," season 5, episode 6). At the end of the season, confronted by Myranda during an escape attempt, she refuses to be intimidated; Theon throws Myranda from the catwalk, and the two of them jump from the castle walls into the snow ("Mother's Mercy," season 5, episode 10).

At Castle Black she is reunited with Jon. She tries to persuade him to help her retake Winterfell and, when he stays reluctant, says she will take it with or without him. A threatening letter from Ramsay changes his mind, and Sansa points out that Jon, as a son of Eddard Stark, can unite the North against Ramsay ("Book of the Stranger," season 6, episode 4). When the recruiting adds only a few hundred soldiers and Jon insists on attacking Winterfell as soon as possible, she can't change his mind, and she begins writing a letter to an unnamed recipient ("The Broken Man," season 6, episode 7). The letter goes to Littlefinger, asking for his help.

At camp before the battle, she tells Jon their army is too small and warns him not to underestimate Ramsay. In the battle itself the Knights of the Vale arrive, led by Littlefinger and Sansa. Afterward she visits Ramsay, imprisoned in the kennels with his hounds. When he insists they will not turn on him, she reminds him that he has starved them, and the hounds devour him ("Battle of the Bastards," season 6, episode 9).

Seasons 7 and 8: the student and the teacher

In the season 7 finale, Littlefinger advises her to always assume others have the worst possible motive. She summons Arya before the lords of the North and the Vale, then stuns Littlefinger by accusing him of murdering Jon Arryn, betraying Ned, starting the war and murdering Lysa. She turns his advice about assuming the worst back on him and says, "I'm a slow learner, it's true. But I learn." He begs for mercy; she sentences him to death, and Arya carries it out ("The Dragon and the Wolf," season 7, episode 7). The dialogue is as transcribed on Wikiquote's season 7 page.

In the final season, when Daenerys plans to storm King's Landing at once, Sansa argues that the soldiers need rest. Afterward she and Arya tell Jon they distrust Daenerys. Jon swears them both to secrecy and has Bran tell them his true parentage, and Sansa tells Tyrion, who tells Varys ("The Last of the Starks," season 8, episode 4). In the series finale she asks for the North's independence, which Bran accepts, and she is crowned Queen in the North ("The Iron Throne," season 8, episode 6).

The answers that count for Sansa

Every answer that points to Sansa is listed under "How the quiz gets to this result," near the end of this page. Read side by side, they have a lot in common.

• Taking things in before moving. Put in charge of people who don't trust you yet, you "watch carefully to learn who has real influence and who is dangerous, then work the room quietly." In a negotiation you let the other side talk and "move once you understand the board." Unwelcome advice goes into "a complex model of competing intelligence you're already running." An insult gets absorbed, because "even insults contain information," and an enemy's offer prompts more questions, because "the offer itself tells you something important."
• Preparing rather than improvising. The last night before everything changes goes to "every variable, what could go wrong and what you haven't thought of yet," and what keeps you awake is the thing "sitting in your blind spot."
• Being underestimated, and using it. People think "the politeness means they have the upper hand," and the people who follow you have "seen what happens when you're underestimated and they don't want to be on that side."
• Lessons with a past behind them. These are the quiz's answers about lessons already learned: "past pain as a precise instrument," "the long lesson of learning to play the game you were born into," "the wisdom you earned the hard way," and a room full of performers handled "skillfully, having learned to speak both languages." Jaime's answers look back too, but at a worst moment he is trying to outgrow, not a skill he picked up.
• Careful attention to other people. Love shows in "small, specific things that show you were listening." The supernatural gift is anticipating "what people want before they ask for it." A vulnerable person gets protected "carefully, keeping yourself safe too," and a chance at legend that costs a moral compromise turns into a negotiation.

Two things are thin or missing, and they matter for how far to trust the match. The answers are specific about the watching and vague about the move: "work the room quietly" and "move once you understand the board" say how and when, not what. And they describe the later Sansa only. No answer sounds like the girl who wanted to marry Joffrey, and none mentions home, family or the North, even though retaking Winterfell is her goal in season 6 and the North's independence is what she asks for at the end. The quiz rewards her methods, not her loyalties.

The characters closest to Sansa

This comparison comes from the wording of the answers alone, not from data on how people answer. On that reading, the two characters nearest to Sansa are Tyrion and Arya, with Cersei close on a few questions.

Tyrion: the same curiosity, said out loud

Tyrion's answers share Sansa's appetite for information. Given unwelcome advice, he would "press back with questions until you understand exactly what they're seeing." His way of loving someone, "paying fierce attention, until you know them better than they know themselves," sits very close to her "small, specific things that show you were listening." Offered a legend at the price of a moral compromise, neither answers straight away. Tyrion wants to know exactly what the compromise is, and Sansa wants to negotiate it down.

The difference is tempo and voice. Tyrion's answers improvise, joke and talk. He is "nimble" in a negotiation, meets an insult with "something so specific and surgical they wonder where that came from," and spends his last night "drinking good wine with someone brilliant, possibly your enemy." Faced with an enemy's offer, he comes up with "a creative third option" on the spot, where Sansa asks more questions. Her answers prepare, stay quiet and let the other person do the talking. If your counts for the two were close, the questions about negotiating, insults and the last night are the ones to look at again, because that is where their answers read least alike. For the scenes where Tyrion's story crosses hers, including their wedding night, see Tyrion Lannister, scene by scene.

Arya: the same quiet, a different purpose

Arya's answers are the other quiet ones. Put in charge of strangers, she would "disappear into the ranks first and learn the real situation before showing your hand," the near twin of Sansa's answer. The note under that question on the quiz puts the difference as Arya watching to learn the ground and Sansa watching to learn who matters. Both file bad news away rather than argue with it.

Where they part is the room. Arya's answers step back from it. She would "observe from the margins," "say nothing," take nothing from an enemy, "not even the conversation," and she survives by being "too invisible to find." Sansa's answers stay in the room and work it, speaking both languages, offering a solution "each one can live with," negotiating. The song about Arya's life is about "the girl who refused to become what the story expected of her"; Sansa's is about "learning to play the game you were born into." One refuses the game and the other learns it. The show stages the split at Winterfell, before the lords of the North and the Vale, where Sansa makes the case against Littlefinger and passes the sentence, and Arya carries it out ("The Dragon and the Wolf," season 7, episode 7).

And Cersei, on a few questions

Cersei's last night is spent "in complete control, planning, preparing and leaving nothing to chance," close to Sansa's run through every variable. She likes being underestimated too. Told she has no idea how the real world works, she would "smile, because it's useful when people believe that about you." The gap is what the planning is for. Cersei's answers aim at control ("establish dominance early," "control the room completely," "intervene decisively"), while Sansa's aim at understanding first and a settlement after. The show puts them side by side in Maegor's Holdfast during the Blackwater battle, where Cersei mocks Sansa and Sansa rallies the panicked women ("Blackwater," season 2, episode 9).

What a Sansa result says, and what it doesn't

It says that more of your answers were Sansa's than any other character's, and hers are the answers that wait, listen and gather before they move. That is a pattern in the words you picked, on one page, on one day. It isn't a measure of patience, intelligence or how you behave under pressure, and the quiz has no way to check whether you act the way you answered.

The margin matters more than the name. The result shows the count for every character, so read it. Sansa just ahead of Tyrion or Arya is a different picture from Sansa taking most of your answers. If she tied with someone, the result names everyone tied at the top, and the other character's sketch is worth reading as closely as hers.

If the match feels off, the gaps above are one place to look. The quiz scores how Sansa works, not what she is loyal to, and only the later seasons' Sansa has answers on it. The short version asks some of the full version's questions, so taking the full one gives every character more chances to show up.

The show's Sansa is worth borrowing from lightly. Her patience pays off in the scenes where she acts on what she knows: the hearing in the Vale, the letter that brings the Knights of the Vale to the battle, the summons at Winterfell that ends with Littlefinger's sentence. And she does speak up when it counts, at Castle Black, where she tells Jon she will take Winterfell with or without him ("Book of the Stranger," season 6, episode 4). A result that says you watch first is half of her story. The other half is the move.

Related reading

Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion and Cersei: four leadership styles and where each one breaks follows Jon through seasons 6 and 8, including the decisions Sansa argues with.