simplyprologue:

DISCLAIMER: This is all in my opinion, and probably isn’t the opinion held at large by a majority of the SanSan shippers. Just simply my defense of a ship that I hold near and dear to my heart.

1. That we’re completely ignorant about the characters.

• We are aware that Sandor is a verbally abusive asshole. We know that he’s brash, and brutal. We know that his ability to interact with humans on an equal, healthy level is teetering around zero.
• We also know that Sansa is a (at the age of eleven) largely ignorant (but not unintelligent) girl. We know that she is and can be a little bird. We know that she (at the age of eleven) comfortably fits in her role in a constrictive patriarchy.
• That being said—woobifying Sandor in fanfiction or making Sansa a player in fanfiction is not a byproduct of ignorance. We do these things in fic because fic is a bandaid for the painful, painful OTP we have chosen.

2. That we only ship them because of Beauty and the Beast.

• SanSan is—like many other things in ASoIaF, a deconstruction of a fantasy archetype. Like the beauty and the beast. And we recognize that. So no, you’re not entirely wrong.
• But, (because I can’t help but apply some literary analysis here) Sandor is not necessarily even the beast in this deconstruction. Joffrey, the prince, is a beast. If anything, Sandor is the gallant knight who protects the fair Lady. 
• Do you really think we’re that stupid?

3. That we view Sansa as Sandor’s “prize.”

• First of all, I have no idea where this cropped up from, because I have never interacted with a SanSan shipper who believes that Sansa is his prize.
• Secondly: prize for what? 
• Thirdly: most SanSan shippers love both halves of this ship, which means we come into contact with an absurd amount of Sansa hate. This hate shapes the way we view Sansa as a character, and by reading responses to the hate (in my personal experience) come to view Sansa as a strong young woman who is well on her way to becoming a player in the game. Not as a dumb, fair young maiden, which is how a majority of the fandom views her.
• So it is outsider’s perceptions—rooted in ignorance, and perhaps misogyny—that would lead them to believe that Sansa is Sandor’s prize.

4. That we think they’ll get a happy ending.

• If you think that, you’ve been taking fic way too seriously. Fanfiction in this fandom serves as a band-aid, like I said earlier. 
• Ergo, we know that SanSan will either not meet again, or meet again and then suffer great tragedy, and subsequently write band-aid fic to keep all the feels from consuming us from the inside out.
• See also: we’re kind of masochists for shipping this. Pity us.

5. That we want eleven-year-old Sansa and twenty-seven-year-old Sandor gettin’ it on. 

• Short answer: NO.
• Long answer: FUCK NO.
• Articulated answer: This kind of builds back to who the characters are, in their heart of hearts. Sandor is an asshole and a brute. Sansa is trusting and politically unaware—IN THE FIRST BOOK. GRRM has sent these characters on a journey that has taken years. They have changed irrevocably and in massive ways since they met all those years ago on the road to King’s Landing. Partially because of each other. Sansa and Sandor have left massive marks on each other, and then left each other, not thinking that they would ever see the other again. And yet, they still think about the other all the time. Despite the separation, they are still huge influences on each other, for the better. They care about each other, not necessarily in a romantic way. We do not want an eleven year old and a twenty seven year old having sex. We want an older, mature woman Sansa and an older, gentler, Sandor to embark on a relationship based on mutual understanding and genuine positive feelings for each other. But if, and only if, they can grow as characters in healthy ways. 
• And because this is GRRM we’re talking about, it probably will never happen. Because no one here in gonna get a happy ending.