R+L=J was just a theory until last season. It was never stated in the books. There's a well-known story that GRRM tested D&D and asked them who Jon Snow's mother was before he agreed to sign on with them.

Yeah that was just the writers being so stupid they can't even vaguely mimic what a smart person might be like, but because the show used to be smart I thought that's where they were going with this. Like Tyrion was being sarcastic or something, because who the **** cares about getting loyalty from a blacksmith? But nope, played straight. Everything is always just played straight now.

The way they keep handing out lordships to speaking role characters like door prizes is also sort of undercutting whatever message the middle seasons/books had about how feudalism is terrible for the common people.

oh yeah that reminds me, he called himself "Gendry Rivers" in that ep

they were going for "Gendry Waters", but even that isn't correct, because he was never officially recognized as a royal bastard or whatever

seems like the writers haven't read the books either

This literally already happened to Jon. He was looking at the big picture and doing the human thing and trying to be the guy who could bring warring factions together peacefully and he got murdered by people he saved a dozen times. He can't comprehend the evil that petty minds will dream up. He was warned by Sansa that Ramsay will do something to bait him and he can't fall for it and he did it anyway.

That's not someone who can navigate the vipers' nest of Kings Landing.

Jon is basically ned(naive)
that's why varys said in season1 that Ned is a terrible hand but would make the perfect king
-> Jon king, Sansa hand would make perfect sense

Does that make a good king though?

It might be that Varys is simply more ego-driven than he leads on and he thinks Ned (and Jon) are would be good kings because he can manipulate them better and he knows what's best.

ned was king for like 5 seconds when robert went hunting and made an enemy of tywin lannister

Apropos of nothing, I have this weird feeling that if Arya had simply showed up to the celebration feast the whole conversation could have turned and been about her and Dany doesn't get upset and the butterfly effects from that are incredible.

This was pretty solid until bolded. Jon never gets killed for the reason Robb got killed. If he says he's gonna marry the Frey girl, then he's gonna marry her.

why would a nitwit like Sansa be part of any good ruling class?

I think the scene works. Brienne is well past marrying age, so the implication is clear: she's a virgin because no one wants her, not because she's virtuous.

Exactly. Sansa's influence stems from her name, not through anything she has said or done to manipulate situations to her favour. There is no evidence people want to follow her anymore than they wanted to follow Littlefinger.

That's why the narrative that she's suddenly smarter than the likes of Vary's and Littlefinger makes no sense. Dany has demonstrated far more intelligence through the show's run than Sansa has, ainec.

You're right. What I mean is Robb got killed because he let lofty notions get in the way of playing the game to win. In his case, love and not honor.

Have you guys watched this show past season 5? Sansa has proven to be smarter than every other character in the show in a big spot at least two dozen times. The show runners talk about it constantly and the other characters say it literally all the time. "You're not a little bird anymore" "Sansa is the smartest person I've ever met" etc.

What has she actually done that is smart?

I'm beginning to think you're right that she's a contender for the throne, not because it makes any story sense but because the showrunners are obviously building her up for something.

There haven't even been 24 big spots since Season 5, so this might be a slight exaggeration.

She also argued strongly against Jon meeting Dany at Dragonstone, which would probably have resulted in the current season lasting 3 episodes.

It's definitely right she is being built up by the showrunners, and not in a subtle way.

Whether this is a red herring to do something with her character, or as a genuine contender for the throne remains to be seen.

The argument is that the push is too big and not consistent with much before this current season. For example, these quotes are lifted from this season:

You will only find this type of dialogue fleetingly prior to season 8 (e.g., Tyrion S7E3 "she's smarter than she looks")

The notion of assessing characters’ relative intelligence with overall show writing this dumb is a pointless exercise.

It's possible we're seeing something that is going to be way more fleshed out in the books. In the books, Sansa is still hanging out with Littlefinger in the Vale. She'll probably learn cunning from him. There's some foreshadowing that she will kill him at Winterfell, but probably under different circumstances to the show.

In the books Dany is complicated and not anything as simple as a hero, but in the show she's been pretty much portrayed as a straight hero. It seems pretty clear they're backpedalling on that in advance of the denouement, whatever the ending turns out to be. Sansa might be the same. Like when you look at it, we had her killing Ramsay and Littlefinger, you could argue she's got a bit darker. I don't really buy her as a grey character and I certainly don't buy her as smart, but maybe this is all getting retconned in advance of following some book ending, or something. Or it could just all be D&D's idea.

just like how he sticks to his nights watch vows eh? Guy gave it up for some random wildling hostage looooool

Sansa’s character in Season one refused to back up Arya when she knew Arya was right, leading Arya to abandon Nymeria, to Micah being killed, and so on. She definitely was not heroic for the first couple of seasons.

But yes, I agree with your thinking on her more recent arc.

Sure, but yeah, that was Sansa's initial arc, from this delusional snotty-nosed brat into someone more mature and more cynical about how the world works. But like, if they want Sansa to be a player for the throne, she's going to have to evolve again into someone devious and power-hungry and smart. I guess they probably think they've shown us that transition? I don't think of Sansa as any of those things, personally.

Perhaps Jamie kills Cersei indirectly via childbirth, rather than directly as most people are assuming. Who knows, maybe I just like crazy twists and want unpredictable things.

Literally every scene Sansa has been in for about 20 episodes has been about showing her growing leadership skills and cunning. From mundane things like figuring out how to feed refugees/soldiers to correctly instructing her smiths on how they should be preparing their armor to stuff like totally outplaying Littlefinger.

Among the big things:
1. She talked Jon into fighting for Winterfell. She gave him great intel on Ramsay and he fell for his trap anyway, and she had to bail him out when he should have been killed and all of the Starks/wildlings/bannermen killed.
2. As mentioned, she turned the tables on Littlefinger and used him to help her house in a multitude of ways -- at great personal cost -- and she managed to stop his shenanigans and dispose of him at exactly the right time. It should be noted that the entire Sansa-Arya fake conflict was very awkwardly written. Her manipulations of the Littlefinger situation actually started at the Vale, in which she lied to protect LF and ended up winning over all of the Vale.
3. She held the North together while Jon was in Dragonstone/north of the Wall and expertly handled all of the lords/ladies' complaints.
4. Remember the scene where Jon got a raven from Cersei? That whole conversation is basically quintessential Jon and Sansa which has been reinforced in almost every scene they've been in ever since: Jon is brave and honorable and dumb and Sansa is smart. She actually tells Jon that in this scene, talking about how she loved her father and Robb but they were stupid and made stupid mistakes and Jon had to be smarter.
5. She's the only person on the show to state the obvious, that Tyrion (and Dany, and Jon and everyone else) were fools to trust Cersei. She was the only person to ask the right questions about Dany and to Dany: What about the North?
6. Sansa was the only character to make any intelligent decisions in "The Last of the Starks." The main story is about Dany losing everything but the episode is equally about Sansa playing the game. She knew exactly what would happen when she told Tyrion. She probably also knew exactly what would happen when she needled Jaime about Cersei.

Sansa is a direct parallel to Queen Elizabeth, in a lot of ways, and most interestingly, I think, is she doesn't appear to have any interest in love/romance at a time when everyone on the show is hooking up. She's never really had love and the signs hinting at a reconciliation with Tyrion suggests she knows she's never going to marry for love (she openly thinks this in the books) and of course QE1 never married.

She's set herself up to have the three greatest fighters/killers in Westeros on her side, Arya, Brienne and the Hound.

I agree. The show has concluded that she is smart by saying so, but never by actually showing her do smart things. But that’s hard to do when so many of the benioff/Weiss parts of the show (ie post book) are so dumb.