Princess Sansa Stark
Princess Sansa Stark / Tinúviel Telcontar
Sansa Stark, the second child and eldest daughter of King Eddard Stark and his wife, Queen Catelyn, sister of Robb, Arya, Bran, and Rickon Stark, and half-sister of Jon Snow. Sansa was born to the elven name of Tinúviel, a name once belonging to the Elf-maiden Lúthien of Doriath, the wife of Beren Erchamion, and said to be the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar to ever live. Lúthien was also an ancestor of Sansa's through the blood of the Kings of Númenor, beginning with Erlos Tar-Minyatur, great grandson of the fair elf maiden. It has been said by many that Sansa, like her aunt Lyanna who was also named after Lúthien, shows the living embodiement of the fair elf maiden's beauty, though bearing the thick auburn hair of her mother.
Raised as a princess, Sansa possessed the traditional feminine graces of her milieu growing up, with a keen interest in music, poetry, singing, dancing, embroidery, and other traditional feminine activities, encourged by her mother along with other southern cultural characterisitcs which Sansa embodied, even following the seven Andal gods in addition to the Valar. From a young age Sansa was somewhat spoilt, pretentious and hated the cold northern life in Arnor and dreamed of escaping to the south where the Andals lived.
Sansa's demenour however changed when she was ten years old and went down with her mother to Tameria to visit her mother's family in Vizima. Sansa was intitially enamoured with the southern lifestyle with the warmer climate, the croweded city, the fine silks and dresses she was given, but soon the fantasy turned bitter when the other girls her age began to talk about Arnor, telling Sansa how awful it must be to live among creatures like dwarves, elves, halflings and dryads, calling them savages, monsters and animals which made Sansa uncomfortable as she had never wished ill on her Arnorean heritage or been biggoted against her countrymen on their various races. The girls then began to chastise the Arnorean culture further, calling the Valar made up gods and disrespecting the druids as moss eating wild men who pretend to be sorcerers, then going on to gloat about how their ancestors killed elves and took their ears as trophies. After this Sansa wanted nothing more than to return home to Arnor and never go south again, repulsed by Andals.
After returning home, Sansa truely matured and humbled herself, no longer feeling trapped in Arnor, but instead truely free and began to dive deeper into her heritage as one of the Dúnedain, connect more with her family, mending bridges with her sister Arya and brother Jon and within a year, she'd lost all interest in praying to the seven gods. Sansa became the people's angel, a beloved kind and respectful princess who thought only of others.
When Sansa was twelve, she showed a great aptitude for magic as it was sensed in her by Saruman the White and so she was sent by her father to the woods of Lothlorien to receive study from the fair Lady Galadriel in the ways of elven magic. Queen Catelyn highly protested this as Lady Galadriel was the grandmother of Arwen, Eddard’s lover by which he sired his bastard, Jon Snow. Catelyn grew jealous and bitter of the close relationship Galadriel formed with Sansa as her training grew over the years. Through Galadriel's training, Sansa was introduced to the magical practice of ósanwe, the ability to communicate with others through thoughts, but was warned by her mentor never to dive into other's minds without permission.
Relationships
History
Robb is Sansa's big brother and thus has always been the one to protect her from others and the one to pick on her himself. In their formative years, Robb would roll his eyes at what a spoilt and regal brat of a princess Sansa was, dreaming of living in the beautiful cities of the southern kingdoms among the Andal Kings, knights and princes whom she wished to marry. To try and humble his sister, Robb would enlist the help of their Half-Brother Jon and foster-brother Theon to pelt the young auburn haired princess with snowballs.
Robb was very dissaproving when his sister began her religious training with Septa Mordane and started worshiping the seven andal gods of the south, beliving it was not their way, but Sansa declared it was her way. However after Sansa returned from a trip to Tameria where she saw how cruel and bigoted Andals were against the people of Arnor, she began to mature and humble herself, forsaking her arrogant and pretencious characteristics and truly embracing the northern lifestyle.
When Sansa began to develop feelings for Theon and he developed the same feelings for her, it was Robb who first noticed and greatly admired the idea of the two falling in love, seeing it as a way for Theon to finally be a part of the family. Robb would constantly tease Sansa in private about her feelings for Theon and encourage her to show him how she felt.
History
Since she was a child, Queen Catelyn had always wished for a daughter and felt that all her prayers had been answered at the birth of her second child, beautiful princess Sansa with auburn hair just like Catelyn's.
Growing up, Sansa became everything Catelyn wanted her to be, she spoke and acted like a Tamerian princess and was infatuated with Andal culture pleading since she was a child to go south to Tameria and see where Catelyn grew up and when Catelyn invited Septa Mordane to be Sansa's nurse, the child began to learn about and worship the seven gods just as Catelyn did.
For the queen of Arnor, who'd felt she'd lived in a land of strangers all her life, Sansa was a growing reflection of the life that Catelyn had been seperated from. While Catelyn loved and adored all her other children, they were Dúnedain of Arnor, not only in blood but in customs, practices, lifestyles and beliefs, nothing like Catelyn in the way of culture, making Sansa the one that she could truely relate to.
Things however soured when Catelyn finally took Sansa south to Tameria to visit her father Hoster in her home of Vizima. Sansa was excited beyond compare and barely slept on their trip south. Throughout their journey through the south, Sansa was overjoyed at the color, warmth, fineries and elegance of Tameria and was adored and welcomed by all in the court of King Hoster. Later at night however, Sansa shared a room with some young ladies of Tameria but came into Catelyn's room with tears streaming down her face.
Sansa explained that she heard the girls tell Sansa the most awful stories about their home of Arnor, calling elves cursed child eaters and saying dwarves were mutant molemen and gloated about how their ancestors cleansed such "Vermin" from their lands, calling the Andal invasion a righteous crusade. One of the girls even said that her family had a necklace hanging on their castle wall with the pickled ears of elves that her ancestors killed and all the other girls laughed. Catelyn held her daughter close and told her people of the south don't understand the north and what life is really like in Arnor.
Sansa was quiet and sullen throughout the rest of their trip to Tameria and was most happy when they returned home. From then, Catelyn knew that the part of her daughter that wished to escape to the south and live like an Andal was gone.
Sansa began to change when they returned home, mostly for the better, being less spoilt and needy but was also less interested in her studies with Septa Mordane and began to take more interests in learning the Arnorean tongues and the history of their kingdom and within a year, Sansa forsook the worship of the seven all together, which broke Catelyn's heart a small bit.
Sansa was still the loving daughter to Queen Catelyn and connected with her in a way the other children couldn't, but Sansa was a northerner and both she and Catelyn were beginning to accept it.
Catelyn was very disaproving when the court druid Mousesack stated that Sansa had a storng aptitude for magic and Eddard had Sansa sent to Lothlórien to begin training in elven magic under Lady Galadriel. Catelyn begged Ned not to send Sansa away, but Eddard refused telling Catelyn it was Sansa's choice and that Sansa would only be away for a few months a year at the most. Catelyn then made every effort to visit Lothlórien at every occasion whenever Sansa was away for her studies which always warmed Sansa's heart.
History
Sansa and Arya's relationship began as a heavily strained one as the two had been opposites since childhood. In every aspect of life the sisters seemed to clash growing up, where Sansa embraced the rule abiding femanine virtues attributed to a lady, Arya strived to be more of a tomboyish rouge and while Sansa worshiped the the Andal's seven gods along with the Valar gods of the north, Arya only ever worshiped the Valar.
Arya always argued with and pranked her older sister in their younger years, feeling Sansa was too spolit, pretencious and selflish, always dismissive of northern culture and wishing to be a proper Andal princess and escape to the south. Arya also hated how dismissive and cold Sansa was to their half-brother Jon and foster brother Theon.
Once when the two sisters were arguing, in a fit of rage Arya called Sansa an avaethron, an elven curse word for Andals, translating roughly to "conquerer, pillager or thief", a word that came into existance after the Andal invasion to enunciate the barbarity and savage nature of the Andals when they stole the lands of the free peoples in the south and killed all who stood in their way. This cut deeper for Sansa than Arya realised, finding it abhorrent to be called such a vile name.
It wasn't until Sansa went south to Tameria with Queen Catelyn and learned out cold and unfeeling the Andals were towards the Arnorean races, even calling elves and dwarves savages, disilusioning Sansa with Andal culture and humbling her a great deal.
When Sansa returned home, she began to slowly loose her selfish and snide personality, which Arya did not understand or trust at first but as she saw the sincerity in Sansa's evolved personality, she grew closer with her sister.
While Sansa and Arya would always be opposites, one being a maiden and the other being a warrior, the two grew to understand one another and respect their differences and their relationship becoming healed as the grew.
Sansa and Arya began spending lots of time together when the pair were sent to Lothlórien where Sansa studied sorcery under Lady Galadriel and Arya trained with the Galadhrim rangers.
History
Since Theon was a small boy growing up in Kaer Invaerne, he had a complicated relationship with Sansa. When they were younger, Theon, Robb and Jon would pelt her with snowballs as she loved to act like she was better than them and hated when people said Theon and Jon were her brothers, as she insisted Jon was her half brother and Theon wasn't family.
However after Sansa went south to Tameria when she was ten and saw the bigotry the Andals had against the people of Arnor, she no longer acted like a spoilt brat who wanted to escape to the south and was kinder to Jon and Theon, but still never felt comfortable calling Theon her brother, which annoyed Theon more than he thought it should, feeling a need for Sansa to accept him.
Years later when Theon was injured protecting Robb during their first battle, fighting against a small orc warband alongside King Eddard, he was severely injured with orcish black poison being introduced into his wounds, beyond the druid Mousesack's ability's to heal.
All of Sansa's siblings cried for Theon and prayed to the Valar to save him. Sansa had been studying to use magic under the elf maiden Galadriel for some time by then and had learned some encantations to heal someone from dying of injuries and to stop poison, but had never been able to master it.
That night, Sansa went into Theon's room with some Athalas she picked from the palace gardens, rubbed it into his wounds and spoke the encantations she had been taught all night to try and heal Theon and by the morning, Theon was healed, left only with scars.
It was after that night that Theon finally realised why it was so important to him that Sansa accepted him and why Sansa refused to think of Theon as a brother, it was love.
Sansa denied these feelings to herself and to Theon for a long time, while he never persuemed that Sansa could love him back for she was high above his station.
It wasn't until Galadriel taught Sansa ósanwe, the ability to communicate through thought that Sansa peered into Theon's mind and saw the same love she felt for him and accepted her feelings towards him.
