Entertainment

These Comments About Jon Snow Are Intriguing

by Allie Gemmill
Helen Sloan/Courtesy of HBO

Has actor Sophie Turner just revealed Jon Snow's major blind spot in Game of Thrones? During Friday's Comic-Con events, Turner spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her character, Sansa, and in the process, opened up about Sansa's evolving relationship with Jon. Most intriguing of all were Turner's comments about Jon Snow's clash with Sansa over leadership of The North in Season 7. Those comments — which touched on Jon's unconscious sexism and how it would affect his treatment of Sansa — are not only surprising, but they open the floor to questions about whether Sansa is just as much a threat to Jon, and whether their relationship is as stable as fans would like to believe.

During her interview with EW, Turner shared how she — and by extension, Sansa — perceives Jon in the midst of the growing sibling rivalry between the Stark children. She said,

"I think the sibling rivalry stems from childhood. The reality is Jon is the military man, and the sexism exists where he believes that [a man should be in charge]. And in reality, Sansa is a really wonderful politician, and he doesn’t recognize it enough to appreciate it."

It might be radical, at first, to hear Turner say that there's a sexism that plays into Jon's thinking, but it's not entirely out of place, considering the world that he and Sansa live in. In truth, fans may not immediately peg Jon as a sexist, if only because he's been surrounded by men for quite a while; the opportunity to be a sexist hasn't presented itself. He certainly wasn't that bad a guy when he was with Ygritte, but that's because she was a love interest as well as a partner. Why would his sexist side come out with her? And of course, there's Melisandre, but their interactions were limited — even when he banished her, it was a pretty cut-and-dry event with no room for sexist remarks.

That said, Sansa is the first woman in a long time to be working alongside Jon, who's also testing Jon in a very real way. She questioned his decisions in the Season 7 premiere — in front of his men, no less — and it's becoming very clear that Sansa is a real tactician and politician now. That kind of authoritative challenge could bring out an ugly or ignorant side of Jon. Turner brought up this same idea to Entertainment Weekly. She explained,

"It’s difficult because military-wise, she doesn’t know anything. And she’s kind of butting in on that respect. And he, on the other end, is trying to be more of a politician, and he doesn’t know as much as she does. If they could just learn to collaborate."

It's good to see that Turner believes there's a chance to remedy the brewing conflict between Jon and Sansa at some point, but for now, her comments about Jon's blind spot imply he needs to watch out. Sansa has proven herself to be a formidable enemy, as well as a trustworthy ally. How Jon treats her from here on out could determine which version of Sansa he'll get, and it could ultimately affect the North's safety too.