WARNING: Spoilers for season 7 of Game Of Thrones ahead
Sansa Stark has gone through a lot of changes since returning to Winterfell. This includes getting some sweet revenge on Ramsay Bolton at the end of Game Of Thrones‘ sixth season. While Jon Snow if off on stupid missions beyond the wall and sleeping with members of his own family, Sansa, Bran, and Arya are holding down the homefront.
But this didn’t come without a little blood spilling. Namely the blood of Littlefinger after he tried to pit the sisters against each other and take power for himself. It didn’t work out like he thought and he met his end by Arya’s blade. This leaves Sansa without someone who has guided her since her time in King’s Landing, something that will come into play in season eight according to an interview with Sophie Turner in Variety:
It’s going to be tricky for her, because at the end of last season, she felt that she had everything set up. She had her family back together. They were in control of the North again. This season, there’s a new threat, and all of a sudden she finds herself somewhat back in the deep end. And without Littlefinger, it’s a test for her of whether she can get through it. It’s a big challenge for her, without this master manipulator having her back. This season is more a passionate fight for her than a political, manipulative kind of fight.
While Littlefinger might not have been too knowledgeable about the army of the dead moving south, he did help bring Sansa along and molded her into the woman we saw in season seven. The same can be said for Turner, who grew up on screen — Game Of Thrones is her first acting role — and learned a lot about acting from Aidan Gillen. She discussed saying goodbye to him on the show, calling him “the one who was consistent throughout”:
He has been my “Game of Thrones” experience. He’s been the backbone of it for me. So to say goodbye to him was pretty hard, especially because life imitated art in a way, because he was also my mentor. I learned so many lessons just by watching him act. It was this weird parallel, and an emotional thing for everyone.
Turner told Variety that production still has six or seven months left and we know the premiere isn’t until 2019. That means we have a while to speculate about what will happen to Sansa and the others in the final season. One thing that could be certain is that Winterfell is not going to be in Stark hands very long. There are a few dead folks who might want to pay a visit.
(Via Variety)