Time to wrap this up, this is the pay-off. Brace yourselves...
The writer hat is on for this, because this is why I loved Sansa from day one - she's got the perfect set-up for a redemption arc. Most of House Stark does; all of the surviving family members do actually! But what makes Sansa different from Arya or Jon Snow is she isn't a brawling fighter. She's a well-spoken, studied individual with a family name to give her respect and loyal followers. Arya and Jon are smart, but Sansa's become a quick study of people. And she's KIND. To bring on her wrath, you know you've earned it.
And as Sansa sits by, in theory a captive in the capital of the country, she's watching and learning. She becomes a student of her enemies, who held her close. She plays up her unassuming stature, remaining quiet and demure, letting them believe her a fool. Once a clear way of escape is presented, with a secure place to run to and people she could predict and work with, she seizes the chance eagerly. She uses character's creepy adoration of her to her advantage. She learns manipulation and strategic lying. Slowly, she amasses power.
At no point does she hurtle ahead, or make brash decisions. She's methodical, she's calculating. Sansa Stark is a long burning vengeance. You wanna talk about dragons...
Now we're up to the prior season and most recent season of the show, which has deviated in some truly abysmal significant ways from the books. Sansa's still being visibly used as a pawn. Her obsessive caretaker gifts her to the family that currently controls the north, allowing the marriage of Sansa and this guy Ramsay Bolton, who is a grade-A trash person composed of bile and scum. Please note, the books don't do this to Sansa - she remains in the care of the guy who sees her as a prettier version of her deceased mother. It's not ideal, but at least it avoids her being raped by her now-husband, as the show permits.
I am of the opinion that rape is an unnecessary trauma for Sansa or any character for that matter to undergo as a means to spark her character development. Especially with the excess in which rape occurs within the series for ~gritty realism~ (again, it's a fictional story, in a fantasy world, loosely based on medieval Europe - it's hardly accurate to anything), it was made clear to be unnecessary for Sansa's arc in the books. The show does give satisfaction in that it has Sansa enable the brutal murder of Ramsay, but that whole scenario could have been easily avoided.
In either piece of media now, we have Sansa Stark, older, wiser, and ready to take back her home from the people who betrayed her and her family. She's kicking ass and taking names. And now the audience likes her! See, look at her, she's suddenly doing something! She's not useless, she's not just sitting there!
Ah, no... See you forgot, friend, Sansa's my child. You don't get to have her. I'm Bruce Wayne, and I adopted Sansa when she was still becoming who she is now. You didn't accept her at her worst, so now you don't get to have her at her best. And that's according to the rules. That I just made up.
So take this opportunity in the future, because I know you, this hypothetical embodiment of hatred for a little girl, you didn't do it out of malevolence. No! You simply preferred more action-based characters, or ones that were able to enact their wit early on thanks to their positions of power. I can't fault you for that, friend. The final point of this is to, maybe, encourage you to have a keener eye when looking at characters in the future. Maybe they look like not much now, but watch what they do and don't do. Take note of the situations they are in, and how they act towards the characters around them. You, too, may take notice of a character who will develop into so much more than they seem.
Then maybe I can cut back on the number of fictional characters I adopt as my children.
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